The Mustang, cars and a reluctant owner

Elena is a foot loose and fancy free girl officially these days. I do not know what happened between them. One day when she is drunk maybe she’ll tell me. You know loose lips and all. She works part time at Caliper Tire because business is slow there. She has convinced me to let her work on the Mustang that has sat in the garage for the last five or so years.

Back in 2017 or so I was driving home from Elmsford when the transmission O/D overdrive light went on, the car slowed down. I managed to get it home. I parked it in the garage because we didn’t have the money to fix it at the time. Now all these years later we still don’t have the money, but it is also a 24 year old car, so I get classic car insurance, it’s really cheap. We got the car towed to Caliper. We tried to use triple A, you know that membership I told Teri was a waste of money several months before I called them to tow my car, the Pontiac Grand Am when I blew a hose on the Thruway. I managed to get it off the Thruway onto the Palisades onto Route 59 before I decided I’d pressed my luck far enough.

The Mustang wouldn’t start so I tried to push it out of the garage. Teri finds out and yells at me,”Your old you stupid old fool!” She didn’t say that, but that was what I heard and ignored. After that she did say, “Get Sean and Elena to help you!!” I didn’t, I don't ask for help ask Nastia about that time in Home Depot. I tried to push it out a second time. I have to admit my heart wasn’t into it. I was scared to let Elena work on the car. When I tried to push it out on a Sunday Sean and Elena magically appeared. I feel the brakes have rusted and the car won’t move. After a few attempts I’m about to give up when I remember I used to do things like this all the time when I was younger. We needed to rock the car to get it going. We rock it, it moves a foot, then we do it again and it moves a little further. I move to the driver's door to straighten the wheel. The last thing I want is to take the mirror off the car. We get the car moving and I realize the driveway is pitched down a hill and the car is moving slowly, but at a good pace and I need to stop it before it rolls down the hill across the street into the guardrail. God is watching all of this and between giggles and out right belly laughs he decides I don't deserve that fate and I manage to stop the car before it got going too fast. The roof has holes in it (a later project) and we put a tarp over it. Use pool clips I got last fall for the pool cover. Opened the door and put the tarp between the door and the frame. Yes, that night is one of the windiest nights in several weeks. The next morning the tarp was held on only by the doors of the car.

Triple A wouldn’t tow an unregistered car, but he’d do it for $150.00. The first unanticipated expense. At Caliper Tire, Elena replaces the fuel pump, you know that thing above the gas tank, when you remove the gas tank it’s easy to see. Who the hell thought to put it there! She takes it for a test drive confirming the car has some problems,it backfires, sputtersand the O/D light comes on. She can’t road test it until I get it registered and insured. Did someone say triple A? Yes again that Triple A membership I didn’t want comes through again. I scheduled an appointment for Saturday. The place is empty, on a Saturday! I’m helped and I receive my plates in around 10 minutes. I drop them off at Caliper Tire and Elena puts them on the car. I think it got an inspection. She does work on it iver the next week or so. Everyone at the shop says the transmission is shot. I can’t believe it. Eric, my brother said it was a group of sensors that one of them had gone bad. I ask him about it, but it has been five or more years, so he doesn’t remember. He doesn’t have a machine to test the transmission and no one knows what happened all those years ago.

I make an appointment to bring it to a transmission shop. I’m almost confident that they’ll tell me it is a sensor that is blocked or is bad or it is an electrical something or other, easy to fix. I don’t expect them to say that the transmission is from a time when Ford made bad transmissions and even though it only has 58,000 miles on it it needs to be replaced. In for a penny, in for a pound, I love saying, but not this one at this time. I love this car, when did it suddenly become a classic? I guess when I went on Medicare, it should have been a hint. When I went through my first midlife crisis and I called it my midlife crisis, like the first World War was originally The Great War, Classic Rock was originally Rock and Roll and was cool! My car and I stood still and suddenly it’s a cool classic and I’m just old, not fair. The real fun thing is Elena has driven the Mustang more in the last five, seven years than I have. She road tested it, she drove it up to the transmission place in Stony Point. They will have it done in about another week. I asked them if they could store it inside because of the top. They could only at night. And yes it poured the past two days like a mother…Thank God Elena went up and put a tarp over the top and rear window. I don’t need a soft top car with a pool. Fun Times!!

April 4th, Jobs and the future happiness of my daughters

It’s been a little while since the last time I wrote here. Life for Teri and I is a lot of the same. I go to work where I have developed a routine that varies very little. I’m in before 8AM, I wait for an owner, usually Chris, to open the door. I go to my desk, I read emails, and answer whatever needs to be and then I read until I feel it’s late enough to start calling customers. Around 11 AM or so I get sleepy and sometimes around well, I think you get it, it’s not a difficult job. I seem to be OK at it and everyone seems to like me.

Now Teri has reached the end point of frustration. She has put off applying for Social Security with the hope of going back to work. She has faced age discrimination, which is very difficult to prove. Just like at her last job she faced sex discrimination. The guy who took over her job down in Georgia, supposedly a cheaper place to work, was paid $10,000.00 more than she made and he didn’t last a year. She continues to sit at the dining room table applying for jobs, getting a phone interview, maybe a second interview in person, asked to sit in for an interview for another position, is willing to drive all the way to Poughkeepsie about an hour and a half away to interview for a job and nothing. I don’t know what it could be except for age discrimination. When I first got my current job and I was bored, Teri said I should look for another one. I felt lucky to have this one paying almost a decent salary. Since my move to another position, it’s a good salary. It’s still a third less than I made twenty years ago.

All of the above brings me to Sean and Nastia. Nastia works with kids, she gets a lot of time off and doesn’t make much money. Sean works with his father and his Uncle at Caliper Tire along with Elena. Caliper Tire does work on internal combustion engines as well as replace tires and all related items. The current state of the industry reminds me of what the milk business was in the early 1960’s in Rockland where there were around 60 milk companies chasing all of the new customers who built the new houses delivering milk to the milk boxes at almost everyone's front door. It also reminds me of the village black smith at the turn of the 20th century. Like the black smith and the milkman dropping milk at your door in the morning, repair shops may go the way of the dodo bird to add another extinct creature to the conversation. And the way I see it Sean will be at the same age as Teri and I were when we first started seeing career disturbing storms on the horizon. And like me he might just say,”ah, they won’t upset my business, I have lots of loyal customers and they won’t go anywhere. That is a statement that is so funny to me because that is what I felt when I owned a video store in West Nyack and Blockbuster opened in Nanuet. Overnight I lost 30% of my loyal business. Sean won’t lose his business, they will just be less of it from each customer. An electric car has less moving parts. (The UAW, United Auto Workers in Detroit understands this too, less parts, less jobs) An electric car has a motor like a motor in a fan, a battery to run it, something called regressive brakes which make the brakes last longer and tires, that’s it. Replacing batteries might be a niche. They won’t need the7-8 bays or however many they have, much less all the workers, my daughter, Elena that they currently have. Not a good future to look at for the three of them.

The rain, the dogs and other things.

Today's title reminded me of The Crowsill's song The Rain,The Park and other things. If no one remembers them, it's OK because when I was growing up they were part of the family band era and I really hated the idea of family bands. It all started with the TV show 'The Partridge Family'. I really dismissed The Cowsills until I watched a documentary about their rise to semi fame and their abusive father slash manager. It was a lot like what The Beach Boys went through.

The dogs are almost getting along. Misha will remind Cassie every so often she just rents her space in this house, while Misha owns it. It will stay that way until they come to a better understanding. Misha is still the insecure bully she has always been and I don’t see that changing anytime. She’ll go up to Cassie and start sniffing her. Cassie will lay on her back and be completely submissive. There will be a tense few seconds until Misha decides she is through and she’ll walk away.

Then there are times she’ll just come up and attack her for no reason at all. She won’t hurt Cassie, just shake her up. If Misha is on the couch in the family room and Cassie is in the kitchen heading toward the hallway and the stairs to go upstairs. Misha will run through the parlor as Cassie runs through the dining room into the hallway and does a 180 to get up the stairs and safety. Most times Misha is too slow, plus I’m trying to keep the doors between the parlor and the hallway cutting off Misha’s line of attack. These attacks are Misha teasing Cassie, reminding her who the boss is and like all bully’s these attacks come from a place of insecurity. We adopted Misha at eight weeks and we’ve been told that was too young and she needed to spend more time with her mother. Either way, we are working to manage it. From Teri telling Misha, “Misha, that’s not being a good girl.” That’s only a slight exaggeration of her form of dog training. She’ll alway ask, “If my way is so wrong, why are they always so much more than dogs.” and she is right, but a bully needs different handling, like closing off her attack route. Last night, Saturday night, in a bit of a surprise I was asked if we could play cards again. I enjoyed last week playing Texas Hold Em and Black Jack, but at the end of the night I bought the chips back up into the attic. Partly because I didn’t want Teri to yell at the mess that was left and partly because I thought they’d do something more like people in their twenties would like to do, like spend more time without their parents.

Last night the predicted rain storms finally came in and I was glad the three of them were here. We played five card draw poker to start. You ante, then are delt five cards, you bet, then can ask to exchange some of your hand for other cards, you bet again and everyone who’s left shows there cards. It is the card game you see all the cowboys playing in all those westerns that no one watches any more. We don’t play for money, so when someone ran short of money a bank loan was quickly arranged. After a couple of hours we switched to Black Jack, Vegas rules and I ran the table as the dealer. I introduced them to splitting a hand (Two of the same card dealt to you, like two sixes) , how to split the pair and gamble on each card. Nastia did an all in bet near the end of the evening, it amounted to something like thirty dollars. I told her it wasn’t a good idea. She didn’t care because it was close to the end of the evening. I dealt her a black jack hand and she received a pay off of one and a half times her bet. She won like $63.00 make believe dollars. The night ended early, it is the end of eastern standard time (spring ahead, fall back) and everyone who is female is going to a bridal shower for Allysa tomorrow at noon.

Poker on a Saturday night (Texas Hold em)

Sean and Nastia were only eating dinner out, then going to the 'Last Chance Salon'. Sean didn't want to go, so they ended up home. Elena, now the officially single girl in town, had plans of drinking and playing XBox. Teri and I weren't going to the movies. Her sister, Nancy has an abscess in her finger and went to the emergency room. She was supposed to take care of KJ, while the recently moved in Amanda went to work. With Nancy out of the picture,Teri stepped in.

Around 7-8 PM I’m doing nothing and start thinking about the poker night I’ve wanted to hold at work and talked about through the last few years. I thought a dry run with the girls and Sean might be fun. I’d invite ATeri, but she’s not into that much. To my surprise Nastia, Sean and Elena were all up for the idea. None of them had ever played Texas hold 'em so we started with several open hands. I’d explain as we went along. During the game Nastia and Elena drank,while Sean less so did. It took several rounds for them to get an idea of how it went and the more they drank and the more they knew ow to play the more fun they had. We played for several hours and I ended it around 10:30 or so. I then asked if they wanted to try Black Jack, Vegas style. It’s very simple, everyone plays against the house and I was the house. A few minute demonstration game went for almost another hour. The whole night was loud and fun. In Texas Hold em Sean won the first several rounds and I had to steal from the bank to keep going. After a while I added in Nastia and Elena. It wasn’t real money, so some of our bets were really dumb. I tried to bluff a couple of time and everytime Nastia got a good card she’d make a sound. Elena asked me several times how her hand is and I’d tell her and Nastia and Sean would tell her they heard me. I don’t have a church whisper, I guess. It was a really fun night and they want to do it again sometime. My next step is to take the game to work and run a tournament. Oh, boy!

Anatomically confused snow people, dinner at Sangria's and a new dog

It’s Winter and it’s February and we got our first measurable amount of snow about a week , ten days ago. It is the first measurable snow in over a year. Pre-global warming we’d get our first snow in December. I’d watch it as a young kid hoping we’d get a white Christmas. Most of the time it’d melt before Christmas. Then usually in January the weather would turn a little more serious and we’d get snow that would stay on the ground until mid winter when we’d get a break in the temperatures and most of the snow would melt.

When we’d get major snow storms we’d get a period of really cold temperatures so everyone would be sure it’s really winter. And come March as you’d watch preseason baseball on TV, sure that Spring was on its way, it would be sure to snow again, just to remind you, it is still winter. It’s not like that any more.

With this last snow storm Elena had time to build a snowm …person and a sexually confused one at that.All I can say is a picture is worth a thousand words. And I’d just get in trouble if I tried to describe it. Last week, Teri and I went to Sangria’s Restaurant in Congers. Elena was free so we invited her along. We went early so Elena could play XBox after dinner and then sleep until 4 in the afternoon the next day.

Elena wanted an appetizer before we had our meals. Teri and I usually don’t order one, but Elena wanted one and we let her order one. She ordered squid. What arrived were three of the tentacles from a decent sized squid. I cut off a small section and added a little of the peppers and onions. When I bought it to my face to eat and saw the round suction cup side of it’s leg,I had a flashback to a movie I watched about two-three years ago about this diver who went every day into the ocean off South Africa and filmed the life of a squid. It was an amazing film. The relationship between this guy and the squid. The movie showed the squid's daily life. How it worked to survive and how it ate. Suddenly I felt I was eating a creature that I felt I almost knew. I forced myself to finish what I’d taken and didn’t eat more. It was good though. The three of us enjoyed a good meal otherwise. Now the new dog. We lost Athena very recently. Misha, the German Shepherd seemed depressed. She had a love-hate relationship with Athena and they had seemed to find comfort in their relationship since we’d lost Bandi back last year. After Athena, Misha was different, I couldn’t put my finger on it. Teri said she was depressed and lonely. Teri searched the places she searches and every so often she’d come up with a dog that needed to be adopted. I’d look at the dog and say,”yes, it’s a nice dog.” One day this skinny mixed breed shepherd appears on facebook. She is being fostered by a local family and for some reason Teri thinks it’s time to adopt another dog. I’m worried. Misha has never gotten along with other dogs. She’s either scared (my mom’s last dogs) or wants to kill them (Nancy’s dog Nevil). I’ve alway thought of her as a people's dog and not a member of a pack of dogs.

The people fostering Casper (her name has been changed to Cassie) said to meet on a Saturday outside the house. We would walk the street together with Misha in the lead so she would not view Cassie as a threat. After walking and some of the nervous energy had burned off we went into the yard, with Misha leading. We were supposed to walk around to keep the dogs moving. I walked around the yard through untrampled snow while it seemed everyone else stood around. Misha occasionally followed me. Cassie decided to try out the ice on the pool. You know the ice that had formed over the last 24 hours. This dog from Puerto Rico most likely thought it was just cold funny looking ground, well until she fell through it. I was back near the trampoline and all I could think about was the scene from one of the Lethal Weapon movies where there is a fight and they fall into a covered pool and they get all tangled in it and one of them drowns. Cassie jumped out before I could take two steps. She shook herself dry and went on with her business.After a while we all went inside and sat around to let the dogs get comfortable inside. They leave after a while and Everyone wants the dog, except Elena, she refuses to like the dog. She is feeling bad about stuff in her life and is angry at the world (more later on her)

We arrange another circus, you know we walk the street together, then go in the backyard. This time I have boots on and yes everyone else stands around. And yes Cassie is a smart dog and doesn’t try to walk on the pool.We go inside and after a while we tell them yes. They gather up Cassie’s toys and bring them in and leave. Suddenly it, OK, what do we do now? Life over the next few weeks get a sense of normal to it. Misha intimidates Cassie, nips at her occasionally goes after her in a non life threatening way with no blood letting. Cassie rolls over on command and is submissive. One day at work Teri sends me a video of Misha trying to play with Cassie. Misha is old and fat. Cassie is a young skinny bitch and everyone knows if you're not one of them, you hate them. Misha has mostly come to terms with her new sister and maybe one day they’ll both sit together on the coach like Athena and Misha used to.

My Birthday et sic porro*

* I wanted to show how smart I am and use et al, but I couldn't spell it. When I did figure out the spelling, I found out what it means is and yes I am using it wrong. So I looked up alternatives and found et sic porro which means 'and so on' I liked that, but I continued to search for something else (which in latin is 'cetera') I came across et cetera, but everyone uses that so I decided et sic porro made me sound the smartest. Now on second thought (there is no phrase in latin for 'on second thought' so I guess they never did have a second thought. You know like in some of those wars where the brave 300 went up against the massive Persian army of thousands and no one thought this is a bad idea, but just couldn't put it into the right words, so I sure there is a latin phrase for dead greek army.and I guess I'm rambling)

Speaking of things people are sick of hearing about, well at least I am, it was my birthday about two weeks ago. As you can tell from the amount of time it's taken me to write about it, I'm not overly thrilled about it. My daughter, Nastia asked me a day or so before my birthday, if I am excited about my birthday coming up. I said something like, ah, hell I’m just gonna make it up so I will sound funnier and more witty than I am. I said, wait a minute, I need to think it up first…ah, yes,... no, nothings coming…I'll just going to leave a blank here and fill it in later, or you can supply your own. If you want to mail it to me, and you want it back, you must supply a self addressed stamped envelope, yeah, I know I’ve told that joke before but when you're grasping for straws to stay afloat, sometimes you grab an anchor.

I think I told Nastia that after 65 previous birthdays, I’ve had more than I’ve ever wanted and it would be fine with me (Yes, this is the mostly made up answer) if I stopped getting older for a few years and if you ask nicely I’d consider getting older sometime later, when I feel a little like I’m this old. I was going to tell some dirty jokes that came to my fifteen year old mind (yes, I have the mind of a fifteen year old, dirty jokes and all.) We went to the Outback in Monroe for dinner. I’ve talked about the place many times and had some excellent steaks there. I’ve also gone there and dreamed of drinking some excellent beer. On the two times I was there and the taps were broken, I still hyperventilate when I think of that time and I have to ask for a beer on tap.

I told everyone not to go crazy for my birthday, no one has any money so close to after Christmas and all I wanted were gift cards to the Outback. Some listened, some didn’t, some did both. They were all too generous. Our party consisted of Teri, her sister, Nancy, my mom, Sean, Nastia, Elena and myself. We did call ahead seating and being it was a Sunday,in January, it was not necessary. It did give them the opportunity to set up the table before we got there, so it wasn’t totally a waste. We ordered drinks, I got a tall Sam Adams like usual. We did appetizers and like the usual one was the bloomin Onion. The other was cheese fries. I like the concept of cheese fries, but when it gets cold, it’s not really good.

Salads came next then the steaks. I ordered the usual, but it was not as good as I'd imagined it would be over the about year since I was there. I think it’s like the blockbuster movie you dream about coming out, like oh, let’s say Deadpool 3. Now all you future people don’t ruin it for me, I haven’t seen it yet. The anticipation for it can never measure up to the hype. It’s like the movie Babylon with Brad Pitt made in 2022 or 2023. It got savaged by the critics. I saw it with very low expectations and I liked it, you may never have heard of it, or maybe you future people have elevated it to a classic.

Either way I had a good night. All around us the wait staff would come walking by singing happy birthday to someone who’d rather not have it sung to them. Each time I wondered if they were going to stop at our table.I don’t like the attention. Everytime they started singing and walking by, it felt a little like Russian Roulette. Well finally near the end of the evening I lost and the wait staff stopped at our table. I gave a sideways glance to my wife and I hope I conveyed my feeling, which were,REALLY?? I played the good sport and thanked everybody. I eat a spoonful of ice cream and had to give it away because I was full. To my surprise Elena took it and not Nastia. It was a fun night.

We lost Athena on Tuesday.

On a May day in 2010, Teri says, “We have to get the girls a puppy.” What she meant was there was a white dog is western New Jersey she wanted. So we drove at least an hour to a pet adoption event Teri’d seen, in the paper or online, somewhere, I don’t remember where.

We’d had the girls about seven months by then and we had just Kodi as a pet. I don’t remember what town it was, only that it was in western New Jersey. Teri wanted the white dog and her name was Athena. Someone had decided to adopt her before we arrived. Teri was disappointed. We began looking at another dog. I think it was an all black version of Athena. The dog was beautiful, but Teri had her heart set on the ‘white one’. I took a picture of the black dog because we were going to adopt her. Just before we went forward with it the people looking at Athena backed out. Somehow we found out and we adopted her. I don’t often wonder what happened to that other dog. Not like Annya and Leonid, the two kids from Russia, who didn’t want to be adopted by us.

I have pictures of Athena walking in the grass outside the adoption center and in the car, in Teri’s arms. At that point it should have been obvious the dog was Teri;s and no one else's.

There was an incident, well to be truthful there were several incidents when Athena was young when she chewed on the expensive sofa Teri and I purchased in the early 2000’s when we thought we had money. I went ape-shit and yelled at her. I scared her pretty badly. She didn’t trust me for many years after that. I went out of my way in the last years of her life to make it up to her. She’d been cowed to staying on the couch by Mesha’s bullying and I realized how wrong I’d been to her and how now she was a prisoner in her own house because of Mesha.

Athena’s sins toward me were unintended. She is the reason my ah … well lets just say. I slept on one side of the bed, Teri on the other and Athena was between us for the last almost fourteen years. Bandi was June’s dog before she died. We got Bandi when Teri’s father decided he didn’t have the strength to take care of him. A few years later in 2014 Misha came along. In the beginning Misha and Athena were friendly. They play tug-a–war with a pull toy. I remember the day Athena stopped playing. All I saw was Athena dropping the pull toy. I didn’t know Athena and Misha had become rivals. Several fights happen over the year. Two bad ones come to mind. One of the early ones happened in the dining room and I wasn’t present for it. There seemed to be blood everywhere after it was over. The blood came from Misha having bitten her tongue in the fight. The second one, We’d put a shock collar on Misha. When they got into a fight, again I wasn’t home. I told Nastia to shock Misha to stop the fight. Misha associated the shock with Athena and bit her up worse than usual. Bandi died this past February of 2023. Misha and Athena seemed to get along better. Athena gained the courage to attempt to get off the couch to get water and to hang around Teri.

In the fall of 2023. Athena and the stairs to the second floor had quit being friends. Athena would battle going up the stairs. As the weather cooled, she became more reluctant. By the New Year, I was carrying her up the stairs. She was heavy. Her back was boney, her legs were sticks, but her belly was large and oddly solid. She had energy and often acted like a happy puppy, dancing in to the kitchen from outside or coming into the kitchen from the couch for her evening treat. On Tuesday around 4AM, Athena woke me up. She moved from facing the foot of the bed to the head of the bed. I don’t like her near the top of the bed because of the hair. She’s done this several times the last few months, so I pushed her away. Teri wakes up and says we should just let them out and she’ll stay down stairs because once she is awake, she can’t go back to bed. I bring Misha downstairs so there will not be any possibility of a fight between the two. This is the way it’s been done for years. I let Misha out. I hear Teri cry and run back to the stairs and ask her what is wrong. She says Athena can’t walk. If I’d had a chance to think I’d have thought, she’s just slipped and can’t get up. She’s old and it’s happened before. This time was different. I get up stairs and pick her up and stand her on her feet, but her legs can’t support her weight. I brought her downstairs, maybe outside then or a little later, I don’t remember. When she is outside she can almost stand. She pees and takes a crap. I carry her inside and put her on the couch. I want her to be in her safe spot. It’s 4 AM, we talk about what happened. I think she had a stroke. Her brow keeps moving and her eyes move like she is suspecting an attack and is on guard for it. Teri decides we can’t put her down in an emergency animal hospital. She wants Athena to be in the vets office we've gone to for 30+ years, so we wait.

The website says they open at 8 AM. I called at 8, again at 8:01 and 8:03, no answer. I leave a message during one of the calls. I say it looks like our dog has had a stroke and we will most likely have to put ehr down. Can I have the earliest appointment possible? The vet opens at 9 AM. I get a call shortly after 9 and the tech says we can have 2:15. I ask, can’t they do better? No, the vet says 2:15 is the best they can do. Around 2 in the afternoon my resolve has completely evaporated and I have to force myself to get going again. I carry Athena and put her in the back seat of the car while Teri distracts Misha, who never acts well when left alone. Teri sits with Athena in the back of the car as we take a slow ride down the street. At the vet's office I carry Athena in and I'm led to an examination room immediately, Teri parks the car. The vet says the eyes should be able to be cured. I wonder if that is a good idea. The vet says x-rays and blood work are needed first. The results are not good. Athena had a solid belly every night when I picked her up. I knew she had stick thin legs. The solid stomach was part of a tumor she had that has spread to her liver and brain. It would be best to put her down. The vet gives us some time with Athena. After that she is given a sedative and a few minutes later she goes to sleep. It’s never pleasant when you lose a pet this one is extra hard on Teri because she has lost her heart. There are many days before when she would call Athena, her heart, and what am I gonna do when I lose you. Everyone knows days like this are coming and we still adopt dogs. They kill us and we always come back for more. When Kodi died, I swore I never wanted to go through that again. Athena came alone several months after her death before I was ready and was still angry about Kodi dying. I took my anger out on her and then spent the last few years of her life trying to make it up to her. I’m not proud of that. She forgave me after a while as most dogs will do and eventually even began to almost trust me. How we treat dogs shows the world a window into our soul I believe. They will always forgive and believe in you and it’s up to us to earn that.

Middle of January and it's a lot of nothing going on.

It’s January 13th, almost the middle of the month and very little is going on. It is so common, so average, so we did this yesterday that I’ll end up talking about the weather and people's jobs.

The weather: We got our fist snow storm this past week. Ten or more years ago, that wouldn’t be an event, it’s, oh, that was expected, but with global warming snow storms are becoming rarer and rarer. Back when I was a kid you’d get the occasional snow storm just before Christmas. If you didn’t you’d definitely get snow by now, and it would stay. This storm we got maybe 3-4 inches. Port Jervis, in the upper left hand corner of Orange County, in the mountains, they got 13 inches. Within the week we got another storm, this one swept across the states from the Seattle, Washington area and washed all the snow away. We got temperatures in the 50’s, not supposed to happen. It was accompanied by wind. I was in bed hoping the tree on the western end of the north lot didn’t come crashing down into a house. A week later, the same type of storm with a little less rain. I guess that’s the usual now.

Elena is still working at Caliper Tire. She is really enjoying herself there. It’s just a job without a future, even with her sister sleeping with the future boss, Sean. She wakes up at around 7:35 most days and rolls out of the house shortly after that. She has Thursdays off and can sleep as late as she wants. She works Saturday, but on Sunday she seems to want to break records for the longest time asleep in bed. I let her sleep this past Sunday and she got up after 4 PM. What a waste of a day. She’d insist it was the best use she could put to a day. We haven’t seen Matt around much lately. Sometimes Elena seems in a mood. It could be her normally being herself or she could have problems with Matt. She runs errands for him and then there are times she seems to act as if he doesn’t exist. This all may be nothing. I heard Teri ask Sean if he knew if he knew anything, He didn’t. She likes to go out drinking on Saturday nights. Matt is so … about his chosen career, law enforcement, he doesn’t go out and drink, or maybe I have it wrong and he just doesn’t drink. Either way he doesn’t go out with her when she drinks. He also doesn’t like it when she drinks Mountain Dew because of the caffeine level. She’s been drinking a lot of Mountain Dew lately. One day she'll either bring him home or she'll bring someone else home. Either way we (I) won't know until it happens.

Christmas is here, wasn't it just Halloween yesterday?

I know it's old hat by now, but as you get older time seems to move quicker.I work a job for the last year and a half where at the end of Monday I say, “one down four to go.” and on Tuesday, I say and let's all say it together, “two down, three to go.” This goes on until Friday afternoon where at five PM I’ll declare, “Well that’s a wrap! Have a nice weekend.” At this job, I live for the weekends. It’s not a hard job, so I really hope it is the last job I’ll ever need to have. Way back in August when the nights had started to get cool and the days were still warm, I remember thinking, “Well Christmas will be here soon enough.” I didn’t think it would get here in the length of what seemed just over a week.

It’s Christmas morning at quarter to ten. I’ve been awake and out of bed since around eight. Teri and I were woken up twice, once at 6:40 when I forgot to turn off my alarm and again at 7 AM when I forgot to turn off my back up alarm for work.

This is the part of the blog where I lament how the girls would wake up all excited that Santa has left them presents and they run down stairs to see what he’s bought them. I’m sure if I woke Elena up now (remember it’s 10 AM) she’d tell me in her best Christmas leave me the f… alone voice, I have my alarm set for 4 PM!! Nastia would moan and groan about it being too early to open gifts up and to go away. And this is the part of the blog where I reminisce about the first time I didn’t get up early for Christmas and Eric comes to my room telling me it’s Christmas and to come on. I think I moaned and groaned the same way Nastia did. I guess God listened to my mom when she said I hope you have children who are just like you. Around 10 AM or so everyone starts to wander downstairs. Sean first, Nastia second and finally Elena. Elena is cheery for herself and for it being before noon on a day she doesn’t have to get up. And yes it’s mostly just a facade with her to hide the part of her away from people who can hurt her.Then there is the seriously annoying part of her that causes you to think, because you don’t want to say it out loud, well, based on what I just said I can’t tell you what it is…

Everyone gathers in the front living room. I sat on the couch toward the street with Misha, who claimed that place unknown years ago. Teri removes the Santa my mom made from the rocker and takes what is becoming her usual seat. Nastia and Sean on the other couch, I think Elena joins them Nancy pulls a rocker in from the family room. Presents are distributed. Teri is very touched when Elena buys her a new Apple watch. I am greatly surprised when a big 55” box in the middle of the room turns out to be a 55” TV for me. Teri and I set it up in the family room and it is too big for the TV stand. A little Rube Goldberg and it fits the stand until we can get a mount for the wall. While helping Teri make dinner , Teri facetimed Ruth and we wished her a merry Christmas and afterwards I called Karl to wish him a Merry Christmas. Dinner is a Beef rib roast, it came out medium rare and was excellent. I made roasted potatoes but couldn't find Russett’s which brown up better, so I used Eastern. They crusted over pretty well, but because of the lower starch level, they didn’t brown. I mixed them in olive oil with salt, pepper, garlic, onion and white pepper. I overdid it a bit, but they were still good. Roasted potatoes are almost alway good Around 3:30 Sean and Nastia headed for Orange County again to share Christmas with his mom and sister. Around 5PM Eric calls and the remains of our party head over to Eric and Lynns for dessert. A few last gifts were exchanged and we all sat around watching movies and talking. It was nice to get together like we used to pre-Covid, and pre having dinner at our house.

Christmas Cookies, putting up the tree and making raviolis

I grew up cooking and making home made things. Sure, my mom served us boxed Kraft macaroni and cheese. I ate it and loved it. Some of my earliest memories are making roll out cookies with first my brother, Karl and I then later Ruth and Eric joining in.

For those who don’t know, roll out cookies are a sugar cookie batter that is simple to make. The tough part is getting the dough easy to handle. As a young kid we’d add flour and reroll the dough oblivious to the effect the extra flour had on the cookie.

After you roll it out, you use cookie cutters of different shapes and sizes, pressing them into the dough. With a clean spatula, you’d slide it under the future cookies careful not to ruin the shape of the cookie. Once on the cookie sheet, a little egg wash, then the sprinkles. When the sheet is full, into the oven it goes. About eight minutes later, cookies heaven.

Over the years my cookie making ability has broadened and somewhere along the line a particular cookie, the Pinwheel cookie has come to symbolize Christmas for me. It's annoying to make, not really that tasty, but full of Christmas memories. A cookie Teri has repeatedly said, “Why do you make that?” For some reason Nastia loves it too. I only make the Pinwheel cookies in December.

The Pinwheel cookie recipe is found in a Betty Crocker cookie book from the 60’s my mom had. One November several years ago I found a copy of the book in a cooking store closing and I picked it up. It is filled with cookies chocked full of sugar and butter. It’s a wonder we’re all still alive. To make the dough, the usual sugar, butter, vanilla, flour and eggs. Then the dough needs to rest. It’s really sticky and impossible to roll out. Half the dough is flavored with melted chocolate. Since I double the dough I make two separate batches and flavor one batch with chocolate. After the dough has rested it rolled out flat between waxed paper sheets. If you are lucky or adventurous you peel the waxed paper off one side and lay one on the other, if not you put it in the refrigerator until it cools. Later you roll it up, cut it a little thick is better, cook it and again it’s cookie heaven.

I baked all Sunday afternoon by myself until Elena got up around 3PM (yes 3 PM!) I asked if she wanted to help me with the roll out cookies. Not being an eight year old any more I’d lost touch with how to make them. Everytime I’d try to remove the cookie from the surrounding dough, I’d change Santa from a jolly elf into some sort of howling ghoul, more suited to Halloween than Christmas. Elena took over and She grew frustrated rather quickly with rolling out the dough as it would stick to the roller, rolling back on itself. I took over doing that and left her with the dough rolled out. She was able to get some almost normal looking Christmas cookies onto the baking sheet. She is also the one who made the Christmas dinosaurs. Elena stays for as long as the dough lasts and leaves as I put the last tray in the oven. Last year Nastia helped me. This year she went with Sean to help his family make raviolis. She made it sound like she would rather not go. I told her she should take the trip as a learning experience. Take notes and pictures, then come back and tell me all about it. She gave me a look like I’d just told her to do something crazy that would draw attention to her. When she came home later that night I asked her how it was, she said “it was fun.” Some much for pictures and learning to make raviolis.

I guess the girls are only cookie eaters, Nastia more than Elena and not much for cookie bakers. I’ve tried to instill in them memories like I have that they can look back on in the future when life has changed and doesn’t resemble anything like it is today. I get a little sad and quiet when I think back to times and people that are gone. The memories of them keep them alive a little longer. Now putting up the Christmas tree was its usual adventure. Teri wanted to put it up easy, for once. when people weren’t appropriately enthusiastic enough, the grinch in her appeared and she said, why even bother putting it up then!

I bring the tree down from the attic and I believe it is a Saturday. I put it up.I’ve talked about purchasing this tree several years ago and every time I put it up I remember LInus and Charlie Brown going to the Christmas tree lot and knocking on the fake trees. I can’t find what Linus says, it’s not that famous a line, maybe it’s just me and fake Christmas trees. Well, I piece the tree together, connect the strings of prehung lights (Oh, yes, I’m getting all warm and fuzzy inside aren’t you!) I’m sure you're asking why I don’t just go out and buy a real tree. After all Teri and I made a deal every other year we’d do a real tree. It’s a fact a real tree smells of pine and the memories of Christmas past, but when you go to the tree lot looking for a Grizwald sized Christmas tree (Christmas Vacation reference) and all you can afford and justify is a Charlie Brown size Christmas tree, you know that voice in the back of your head is saying, “The tree is only going to be up a few weeks, how can you justify spending that amount of money. Wouldn’t you rather buy someone another gift or pay for some of the gifts you’ve already bought. So you leave the lot empty handed, sure the eyes of the lot owner are boring into the back of your brain with thoughts very un-christmas. The assembled tree stands for a week sans (without) ornaments. Some time during that Saturday Teri and I have a loud discussion about the tree and decorating it. Nastia is in Orange County with Sean and his relatives, Elena is still in bed at two in the afternoon. She will set a new record of remaining in bed of 4:11 in the afternoon, obliterating her previous record of 3:37. She will still get up a cranky bitch that no one will want to talk to much less decorate a Christmas tree with. So quietly I will bring down a box of ornaments and lightly decorate the tree with ornaments that have a meaning to me. I will make the mistake of telling Teri this and she’ll ask, “What about everyone else?” Being a bit of a snarky bitch myself, I will reply, “Well they should have been here.” Merry Christmas CHARLIE BROWN!” Hark the herald angels song comes up, credits roll and it’s a wrap. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night! Hoo, hoo, hoo!

Nastia's birthday and cake

Nasti’s birthday was this past Sunday, she turned 25. I could go on over several pages about how this just blows my mind. She and her sister have been here 14 years. To me it seems like just a couple of weeks. They have been out of high school, what, if Elena just turned 23 in August, then it’s five years for her, six for Nastia.

Sean and Nastia had big plans for her birthday. He had a surprise for her to get her nails done and they were going to go off to a casino Saturday night into Sunday the third, her birthday, with us being regulated to celebrating it on Friday night. I was a little put out and disappointed, but it’s her birthday and she should celebrate it how she wants. All the plans came crashing down when the week before her birthday Sean came down with something that looked vaguely like the flu. He

said he had pains in his belly about where his pancreas is. Teri thought it might be pancreatitis. I thought it was just the flu. After a few days he goes to the doctor and he has mononucleosis, which is spread by saliva. I thought Nastia should have it too, but she never did. For the next several days she slept with her sister. During this time Nastia is fretting that he will be sick on her birthday and they won’t be able to do anything. I tell her to take it day by day. They cancel everything around Wednesday. By Friday, Sean is well enough to go back to work and Nastia’s birthday dinner is rescheduled for Sunday late afternoon.

Teri calls for a reservation at five, Sunday. On Saturday, we go to the movies and she asks me to check the reservation. It is a good thing I did because they didn’t have it. Sunday at five the eight of us, Teri, me, Nastia, Sean, Elena, Nancy, my mom and her friend Bruce are ready to be seated. Nancy brings her grandson KJ because Amanda is working. I think I see a big disaster heading towards Nastia’s birthday party. It turns out KJ is the perfect guest. He is a little loud and is moved from right next to my mom to the next seat over. He doesn’t cry or act bad. He is amazed by the Onion volcano and by his reaction is very surprised by his first taste of ice cream. He eagerly comes back for more so I think he liked it.

I take more videos of him than Nastia. He is more entertaining. The food is as usual, very good and Nastia asked to have Peter chef our meal, both she and Sean know him. My only complaint is whenever there was extra rice or noodles or steak it went to Sean who was not 100% over his disease. Peter should have shared the wealth. We wrap things up and I believe we are home around eight. It is a nice night. Nastia asked me to make a tres leches cake on Saturday. When someone wants this cake I usually go to Restaurant Depot and purchase a cake that is too large for the occasion and sometimes it doesn’t get eaten. I also like to try new things when I cook. Sometimes they go off the rails, other times I amaze myself. So the idea of making a Tres leche cake interested me. I found a recipe online and it turns out it is a very simple recipe to make. The hardest part is to separate the egg whites and yokes without polluting one or the other. The yokes go in first and after the whites are whipped into their foamy glory you combine them gently into the mix avoiding over mixing preventing losing all the air you incorporated into the whites. Basically you are making a sponge cake. You poke a lot of holes in it after it cooks and cools. You then mix three kinds of milk, condensed, sweet and regular, I used ½-½. It was only supposed to sit in the refrigerator from Saturday to Sunday, but no one was hungry after dinner. It sat until Tuesday. A quick whipping of heavy cream and vanilla, a splash of cinnamon on top of it and it is cake time. It was really good. We ate it after dinner on Tuesday. Well worth the wait.

Girls start cooking again and Nastia' reads

When Teri’s job moved to Georgia last spring and she didn’t, she started cooking dinner every night. After about six or so months of it, I could tell she was getting tired of it. I’d hear things like, I didn’t take anything out, I haven’t started cooking, thought about what to have for dinner, and I’m tired of cooking. I eventually took the hint. The funny thing is I like to cook. There is something in me that likes to create something delicious most of the time from a diverse group of odds and ends. If Teri didn’t have to eat, I’m sure she would never cook.

I told both girls I wanted them to start cooking again. Nastia, who is trying to grow up, took to it immediately, finding a recipe on Tick Tock. It is related to a recipe that uses several cans of soup in a pan with rice and chicken. Her’s had only chicken soup with cheese in addition to the chicken. I walked in last Tuesday from work as she put the pan in the oven. Teri helped little in preparation and I took the dish out of the oven. It looked cooked and really good. I checked one chicken breast to see if it was cooked and it looked cooked. It was juicy and I served myself. About half way through the breast it became obvious it wasn’t completely cooked.

One of the cardinal sins you can commit is to serve Teri undercooked food, especially if it is chicken. She’s gotten better over the years. At one point when I would serve her chicken she considered not cooked ( her version of cooked chicken is really not a juicy chicken) there would be a clatter of silverware onto the table, indignation would fill the air and she would head for the microwave. You know the place where tasty food goes to die. She is better now. It is quieter, but the room still fills with indignation and you can tell she is not happy with her meal. Before the meal is over all of us would head to the microwave killing a tasty meal. Elena gave attitude and acted like a bitch, mouthed off giving the impression she would rather starve to death than cook, She even complained the day she decided to cook Chicken Piccata. She mouthed off to her mother who helped her cook dinner. Elena Muller, what an actress! She cooked Thursday evening. Why she chose Chicken Piccata, I don’t know. It’s not a complex dish, but it has several steps and if you really don’t want to cook, you can find something easier to cook. She used a recipe off the internet and it came out very well. My only complaint is there was not enough gravy. I like to cover the rice in gravy along with the meat. Teri’s the same way and between us tha gravy didn’t go far. THe girls don’t like gravy, so there’s more for us, just not enough. I went back for seconds, it was so good. The gravy was a cream sauce, where I use a recipe that doesn’t add cream.

Sean received some smoked kielbasa and he has talked about cooking it up for a meal. I got no problem with that. Cooking is something I grew up with. I remember one Christmas, my mother gave me Dunkin Hines cake mixes for Christmas. I didn’t know at the time that I liked cooking. I guess she did. It’s grown from there. I hope a love of cooking will grow with the three of them and they will relate to their kids, or Elena will tell kids passing by on the street (because she insists she won’t have kids, see pictures of her holding KJ all the time. She just won’t be able to deal with diapers and vomit.) how they discovered the joy of cooking. I bribe the girls, if not a lot, often. I buy Elena Mountain Dew with the understanding she would not drink energy drinks. I know it’s potato, po-tat-to, the lesser of two evils. I also bought Elena a game console if she didn’t get a motorcycle until she was 26 or 27. I don’t remember the exact age she promised, but I’ll hold out for 27. Teri paid her money to make her hold off getting tattoos that Teri felt were childish, until Elena turned 26 or 27. My deal has the same time frame as Teri’s does, so she may get on her motorcycle after getting a tattoo of Stitch on her arm, from Lilo and Stitch.

I tried other times to pay Nastia to do things. I offered to pay her to go back to college, but she declined. I finally hit on what looks like a winner, for at least the day she did it. I told her I’d pay her to read a book. I said I’d pay her to read “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”. I just looked it up and it is banned in some narrow minded communities that think if you stop children from thinking they will be better humans for it. People like that should be banned or sent back to childhood to be reminded how difficult it is. That it’s not ideas that are the problem, it’s not being there to guide them and support them. I’ll get off my soap box. Sometimes I stretch toward the sun and before I know it I’m on my soapbox preaching to the masses the words of freedom and enlightenment, oops, I’m slipping back on to it. The whole idea, just like my life choices, came out of left field with little to no thought. Nuggets like this can’t be examined because you’d never do them. I tell her I’d pay her and this is where the no thought comes in, $50.00 to read a book. It must have been a true inspiration because this past Spring I’d purchased the aforementioned book after reading something about it somewhere, like I said divine intervention. It turns out it is a slightly subversive book about this handicapped, can I call him an Indian in this thin skinned era of ‘who can be offended the quickest by the least offensive remark’. You know those people, they killed comedy and for some reason I want to blame them for killing romantic comedies too. On a reservation and the life he has. It’s considered a book to be read by middle schooler and, yes I can see how it might be a little troublesome having listened to Nastia read the first 40 odd pages, but again hiding these ideas won’t make them go away. Like I said she read the first 40 odd pages and after she closed the book I told her now comes the hard part. You enjoyed what you read. The trick is to pick it up again and again until it becomes a habit. She read on Saturday while I made her birthday cake. Today is Tuesday and the book sadly remains where she left it.

Thanksgiving 2023 with and a shadow from 1966

The plan for Thanksgiving 2023 was the same plan we had for Thanksgiving 2022. It would be the core five of us, like usual. Teri, Me, Nastia, Elena and Nancy. There was talk about if Amanda is off, and I’d extended my unusually early invitation to my mother to join us. The usual invitation goes something like a couple of days before the event, I’ll ask, “If no one has invited you to dinner for (inset holiday) and you feel like coming over we’d like you to join us, Teri’s cooking.” In all honesty, who can turn down an invitation like that?

Before Covid and Billy's purchase of his house, Eric and Lynn would put on a large dinner. Over the years the dinner has gotten small. Teri and I wanted to make our own dinner, so we left sometime after the girls came over from Russia. So maybe it was in the late 2010’s. Several people have passed on and after Billy moved into his house,Thanksgiving moved there. Billy’s future in-laws joined and from what I hear it is very noisy and alive. Since we went solo, our group has not varied much. We were looking at a near record turnout this year with Sean and his dad, Sean Sr. joining us for at least part of the day.

It all changed about 10 days before Thanksgiving. My mom calls one evening an unusual event. I’m at the age where if you are calling in the evening, someone has died or you need to go to the hospital. Thank God it has been 99% imagination and only 1% reality, but that’s still the first thought when the phone rings. My mom is 89, her brother is, what, 94? They are both showing their age, but when I get to their age, my bet is I'll be dead twenty years. So, my mom calls up and says she is hosting Thanksgiving and so far Eric and Lynn are coming. Ruth is in Florida and Karl has his own gathering to attend most likely at his house with all his relatives, Kristen, her two kids, Madeline’s sister and her family et al.

It’s a total surprise, My mom hasn’t hosted a Thanksgiving meal in over twenty years. I tell her I have to talk to Teri, but if we do come she’ll have to let Teri make her mom’s stuffing and we could be as many as eight. I count off for her, there is myself, Teri, Nancy, Elena, Sean, the father and Sean the son and my daughter the holy ghost, or at least that is the way Sean, the son treats her. Who am I to complain, when he finally wises up it’ll be too late. It reminds me of an old Abbott and Costello joke. Abbot asks Costello if he knows what a husband is. Costello replies, “yes, it’s what’s left of a boyfriend after the spirits been killed.” Sorry, I still think that is funny even in the ‘Me too’ era. I looked up the quote and I’m a little off, but either version is still funny.

Sean, the son is taking the holy ghost, Nastia to his mom’s after we eat dinner, so we have to have dinner at one in the afternoon. I’m talking to my mom a few days before Thanksgiving. She checks the weight of the turkey. We both do a quick calculation and realize she will be stuffing the turkey about 5 in the morning to get it in the oven at 6 to take it out at 1 in the afternoon. I ask her several times if she wants me to come over.She is fine about it. I joke Thanksgiving evening that I woke up at 2:30 in the morning wondering if I should call her and ask her if she’d want me to come over at 5 AM. She didn’t think that was funny. Teri makes the stuffing the day before and delivers it. It’s a great stuffing. I’ve talked about it before and won’t go into detail again. I can recycle old jokes, but talking about how to make a stuffing recipe every Thanksgiving might be a bit much. The one secret I’ve told no one and instructed my mother what to lie, I mean tell is how the turkey was basted. Now Teri, my dear loving wife. Show her a baby, show her a deer, or better yet a baby deer, she’ll be crying over it. Try to get her to use the giblets to make a broth to baste the turkey and she’d stomp over, no not over, around a baby deer to stop you from doing it. Since I’ve known her, nah, the truth is I gave up over twenty years ago trying to get her to use the giblets, with a sliced onion, maybe a few other odds and ends, bring to a boil and let it simmer for a while and baste the turkey. NAH, she’d cook it up and feed it to the dogs at one point, maybe her dad might have eaten it At one point. All I know is for many years she has used chicken broth and the gibbles, as she calls them, are nowhere to be found. Dinner on Thanksgiving was not at Muller one PM, very surprising. And yes, if you are wondering I still haven’t gotten around to patenting Muller time, though, Miller Beer came close in the 70’s and 80’s with Miller Time. And being a holiday, Teri and I have a discussion. So instead of going in one car, I drive on ahead. Our ‘discussion’ was so important I’ve forgotten what we discussed, so I can’t go into detail. Part of my bribe to come to dinner is my request to use the dinner ware that I remember from my childhood. The white plates with little pink flowers on them. They came out at every family gathering back in the 60’s. I think I remember dropping and breaking one. It’s funny how memories are not reliable. My mom and I count the dishes and there are six. So I say, “I guess someone else broke one too.” She counts the cup and there are only six cups and she says there are only six cups so it must be a set of six place servings. I drop it thinking six is an odd number of settings, usually it’s eight or twelve. She tells me when I ask that the dishes were purchased when her and my father were on their honeymoon in Montreal, Canada. I later joke with Bruce, her friend and companion, to be careful with the dishes because they are older than he is. My mom didn’t think that was funny. Boy, I was hitting on all cylinders that day. Because I wasn’t there at 5 AM to stuff the turkey, I tried to help out. Teri bought a salad and while we ate the salad, I tried to keep the food warm. Over the last few years my mother, as I said, hasn't hosted a major dinner, so all of her utensils that I remember her having have been given away,yes, some to me, or put away and she doesn’t off the top of her head remember where. I’m sorry to say at one or two, maybe three points I did use my hands, but rest assured I’d washed them several times between the start and the end. Sorry, everyone. We sat down to dinner about fifteen minutes late. We eat a salad that used to be part of every large gathering in Teri’s family and for a long while in hers and mine. We are a good sized gathering of around a dozen or so and despite Teri suffering from claustrophobia a little everyone enjoyed themselves. Lynn, just getting over a surgery, sat at one end of two tables. Eric next to her, Sean, the father sat across from him and I hope enjoyed talking about cars and such with Eric. Sean the son and the holy ghost, Nastia sit next to Sean, the father. I got to eat off one of the white plates, just like all those years ago. It wasn’t the same, but it didn't matter. Elena sat across from her sister and Sean, the son. KJ attended his first thanksgiving and was very unimpressed with it, I think he slept through it. I don’t think he even got to eat his turkey baby food. I’m sorry, it sounds awful. It broke up around three. Sean, the son and the holy spirit left for his mom’s house. Sean, the father left for his friend's house and I think he got stuck in traffic heading home to Orange county. I didn’t hear the whole story. Since I’d made a good portion of the mess in the kitchen, I started cleaning. I kept telling my mom to go sit down and relax,but that would be like telling Teri to do the same. Teri kept asking me if I wanted her to finish up. I asked her why, she replied because I’m feeling useless. I had to leave the sink for a moment about 70% of the way towards clean and there she goes taking over cleaning. She now felt useful and not lazy, yeah, go figure, her lazy? She finishes the dish, I’m drying and trying to figure where everything goes. Reminded me of the first time I hosted a dinner party at the house when I was in my early twenties and used every dish, plate, bowl and spoon for a party of six. And yes my mother made sure I cleaned up. About forty years later I sometimes clean while I cook. I’m getting better.

I think Elena heads over with Matt to his mom’s house to spend some time with her. She comes home not too late, happy. She and Sean, the son and also the father have to work on Friday, so early to bed. It is nice to get all together like that. Since Covid gatherings are rarer than they should be. Everyone has gotten out of the habit or maybe feels it’s more of a hassle than it's worth. I miss all the hustle and bustle of everyone together. Maybe one day all four kids and our families and our mom can all gather together, if we can find a place large enough and have a meal. I’ve included a picture of I think Thanksgiving, maybe Easter from some time in the 60’s. I’m not five or six, I’m maybe six, seven, That would make Ruth four or five and Eric about three, maybe. I'm sitting on Wally's lap and Karl is behind me next to mom. Wally’s oldest is the other baby in my mom’s arms. Joanne, Wally’s wife, I think is taking the picture. My Aunt Emilie is on the left holding Ruth. My dad is most likely delivering milk. So either Thanksgiving or Easter. The clock on the right I have. The tapestry in the background was brought upstate, hung in the living room, over the fireplace and stolen when there was a break in sometime in the early 70’s. My Uncle Tonny bought that for my mom from Germany in the early 60's.I always liked it and was sorry it was stolen.