The Great Bear Lodge trip in March

Nastia, Sean, Elena and Arriana went to the Great Wolf Lodge in Scotrun PA. for the weekend.God to think your rich and spend money like that again, I’d love to do it.

The four of them left Friday, about 5:30, after everyone got out of work. Teri texted them about 10 that night and, yes they had arrived safely. This is the last we will hear from them until they get back home, unless we reach out to them. I guess I don’t have to worry about them being overly attached to us and not want to leave home. They will just not be able to afford to leave. A room for two at the Great Wolf is about $200.00. There are cheaper options for rooms and houses near Great Wolf for less, but that would take some of the fun out of it I think. When they get home, we’ll ask how it was and get a lot of, “oh, it was great.”

Since Friday, Teri and I have experienced an empty house. It’s weird. We lived together without the girls for fourteen years and the girls came into our lives and it changed everything. Now I don’t know how to live without them. When they go upstairs after dinner it’s like we live alone again because we don’t see them again until morning, but there is a safety net, they are upstairs. It’s like when I was sick the other night with a stomach virus and Teri slept downstairs. I told her I don’t like sleeping in an empty bed. But like with all change, I fell asleep to the radio, something I used to do when I was single, Teri and I had bacon for breakfast on Saturday, went out to breakfast at a diner in Central Nyack on Sunday, then we did a little shopping for stuff we needed around the house. It was different, but familiar. We’ve done things like this before with the girls at home, but this is a glimpse of the future. We haven’t spent this much time together since we were dating. Except for her grocery shopping on Saturday morning we spent the whole time together. And yes when the girls got home about six Sunday night they both said they had a good time. Nastia sent pictures to Teri, I guess she doesn’t like KJ imagining what the places looked like and how things were done. Sean was the only one to tell a story. He said he tried to run to get under a huge bucket of water that splashes down on you. In his haste, he wiped out and came home with a nice souvenir of a bruise just above his hip, around toward his back. I would have chosen something simpler, like a nice beer cozy.

My Birhday and exploding ovens

When we purchased the house about twenty years ago, we gutted the kitchen to the studs and even pulled up the floor. Water had rotted sections of the oak floor and there was a hump in the middle of the floor where the room had originally ended. With the help of a friend, a guy named Fred, we tore it apart and put it back together again. We had a company come in and build kitchen cabinets. We purchased some nice, if a little low end appliances. One of those was the stove. The brand was called a DCS. It was a silver thirty six inch wide four burner, with a griddle in the middle.It was nice when it was new, It started breaking maybe after ten years. The light socks in the oven came loose and the bulbs broke when you tried to change them. The broiler broke twice, each time a new and expensive part was required. After the third time we gave up. Over the last five-six years we used a lighter to light the burners, as the automatic lighter would click away as you cooked. Several years ago it had reached its life's end, but we kept using it, not quite ready to replace it. One evening I was at my mom's and Teri called me about dinner. I tell her I’ll make it and she offers to heat the oven up. She calls me a few minutes later and says the oven blew up. The words for a moment don’t register. Oven blew up, that doesn’t happen. She goes into what happened. She said, “I turned on the stove and I was at the sink, I turned around and a bigbang,, the door to the oven flies open and a huge flame shots out. Everyone’s alright.” I guess dinner is going to be late tonight. We talk it over and decide the stove top is safe. I say, knowing she doesn’t really care, that the igniter in the oven didn’t light on time and the gas built up causing the explosion. We both agree, it’s time for a new stove. One night we head to PC Richard’s in Nanuet. We go there because last time we made a large purchase, they gave us free financing for two years.

When we originally purchased the DCS stove there was a lot of back and forth about what we should buy. Six burners vs four with a griddle, Double stove vs a single, Wolf vs Thermador, vs Viking, or something less expensive. It ended with a four burner, griddle in the middle DCS stove. A quick search of the internet and DCS came up for outdoor kitchens, and that it was sold around the time we purchased our stove. They were not in PC Richards. I wanted something nice that we’d have for the next twenty years and not worry about it breaking. Teri was on the same page. The girls didn’t care, they were doing stuff twenty somethings do and their only concern was what’s for dinner and would they have to eat something they didn’t like or have to warm up something they’d rather have. We remember it as the best time of our lives.

I believe Teri and I had agreed on a Wolf six burner stove before we agreed to meet at PC Richards. I found the griddle in the middle was a place for crumbs to collect and in the winter mice get into the house and love to crap on the griddle, so I quit using it years ago. Teri arrived at PC Richards first and showed me the stove. We dealt with someone, sorry I forgot his name, who she’d known since elementary school at St Ann’s.

On the way to check out I see their mattress department, and out of curiosity I ask about them. Teri immediately says no, we are not getting a mattress. I agree, we just spent a fortune on a Wolf stove. We walk over lay down on a memory foam mattress that reminds me of the foam mattress topper we just took off our bed. Next is a high end Stearns and Foster, it’s nice, then a second tier Stearns and Foster. I comment that you can feel the difference. We get up and sit down to finish the purchase of the stove. Before we go much further, she looks over at me and says, “Do you really want it?” I know she is talking about the mattress. THe mattress was purchased around the same time as the DCS stove, about twenty years ago and it too is long over due to be replaced. I am willing to walk out of the store with just the stove, but if she wants the mattress, I will not pass it up. Long story short, we purchase a stove and a mattress. The mattress is delivered on a Friday, and left in the front living room. The two guys say they can not get it up the stairs.They don’t get a tip. Over the weekend three guys come back and after watching them move the mattress up the narrow stairs with the turn at the top, I feel so bad, my cheap tip becomes $25.00 each for the three of them.. The new mattress is higher than the old one to the point that Teri’s feet don’t touch the ground. The new stove The stove arrives when I’m at work, the way I like it. Teri said they bought the stove in the front door, turned left into the front living room, through the family room, a right into the dinning room and finally a left into the kitchen. KJ drew a picture of them delivering the stove since I wasn't there.

The old stove leaves the opposite way. I love this stove so much that I am willing to cook dinner every night. Some of the meals have been really great and I credit that to the amazing Wolf stove.

For my birthday, we stay home because I’ve been disappointed in The Outback lately, last birthday and maybe Father’s day, so Teri buys steaks, I cook them on the grill outside and I make homemade french fries, it’s really great. Nastia and Sean buy me a tres leches cake from Restaurant Depot.

New Years Eve into New Years day.

New Years eve and day has become a nothing event at our house, sorry girls. When I was younger I went to parties, as I got older I went with Teri and towards the end, the girls. Covid ended the parties at Uncle Eric’s and sorry about that girls. The last few years since Covid, New Year's Eve has consisted of staying home, watching TV, falling asleep and waking up in time to wish Teri a Happy New Year, yes boring. I have no idea what the girls were doing each New Year’s Eve.

KJ did a picture expressing his joy for the up coming year. It is an impressionist work again. Each may interpret this work of art as they wish, but I see a pink New Years Eve mask on top of a black New Years Eve mask thrown away after all of the celebrating has ceased.. It is a very deep and insightful work. It tugs at the longing for connection with another soul and the joy of a life lived together. It is a work many years beyond expectation. Wow, can you smell all that crap I just layed out, I should own an art studio. I could sell the scribblings of a year and a half old. My apologies to KJ, who might be older and stronger and have a sharp temper when he reads this. If I’m still alive when you read this, I’m just having fun with no thought about how my wise ass jokes might stunt your artistic growth. Oops, another joke just slipped out. Yeah, I know to be a joke, it’s got to be funny first.

This New Years Eve, Nastia asked if we could play cards. I have this lovely set of chips in a silver aluminum case, it looks just so cool. I have played cards with the girls and Sean for no money, but this time I wanted to teach them a little about gambling. How the house always wins. We played Black Jack. Black Jack for all of you novices is the game of twenty-one, with a few twists. First if you have a King and an ace, you win one and a half times your bet. You bet a dollar, black jack makes your winnings two dollars and fifty cents, plus your bet back, nice. If the dealer gets it, everyone loses immediately except if you also have black jack and I think that is a push where you get your bet back. You can split your cards, if you get two of the same card, or you can double down. You double your bet, and get one card.

We started playing around nine, I think. We kept going for a while and the house was killing them. I slipped Elena about fifteen dollars to get her to stop drinking. The house was doing so good, I felt bad and really shuffled the cards extra well. It changed everyone’s luck and they started to win and have more fun. I collected fifty dollars for the chips and intended to keep it at least overnight, but with the shuffle of the cards, the house, me began to lose and lose big time, but to only one person, Nastia. At one point she alone had over fifty dollars. The bank could not pay her and the other two. When we finally quit playing, I nonchalantly gave back their money, saying I couldn’t keep it.

A little while later it rang midnight and somehow I didn’t get to bed until almost two. Everyone else twelve-thirty, maybe one at the latest. Both my daughters drank that night and I guess Russians have a special immunity to hang=overs. They were drinking a chocolate liquor, stuff that would turn the stomach of most Americans after a few making them refund their drink at the porcelain god or on some poor sidewalk out front of Annie’s in Nyack. It was a fun night and I hope the new year will be a good one for our family. New Years day. New Years day was quiet. Nastia went off with Sean. Teri,Nancy, Elena and I went to a movie, Mufasa: The Lion King. I fell asleep. Happy New Year!

Christmas 2024

I’ve fallen out of love with Christmas. When I was a kid it was a magical time. I’d put the lights up around my mom’s house. I’d put out the nativity (Three white plastic figures) that my mom and Dad purchased from Grants or some other now long out of business chain store. She painted them up one year. Joseph had a blue jacket or maybe it was Mary who had a blue dress By my teens they were well past their prime. I’d put up lights in my room, looking forward to the first Christmas special, usually ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ on channel 2, CBS. Then the search for ‘A Christmas Carol’ with Alester Sims would begin. In the 1980’s I got a VHS copy of the movie and thought I had a copy of the movie and could see it any time I wanted to. RIP all the VHS movies I collected.

When we adopted the girls, I tried to start traditions. I told them a story about how I met Santa Claus one Christmas Eve. They were very impressed with the story the first year I told them. They were so impressed with the story, when I asked them about the story years later they didn’t remember it.

Those early years helped to keep Christmas fresh and new with the excitement of the girls those first few years, but like everything and everyone one, they grew up and one year I’m sitting next to the tree at the very late hour of 9AM, with my camera (remember them?) and they are still in bed. They know it’s Christmas, they know Santa (yeah, Dad, we don’t really believe any more.) has been there the night before (yeah,he did eat the pinwheel cookies you baked.) but sleep is more important. This past Christmas we waited for Nancy at eleven. One of the great stories KJ and Amanda will come over later.Teri tells the story about every time KJ sees our Christmas tree, this year, he stands in front of it and goes “Wow!”. Teri said it melted her heart. She always says she just loves him to death.

There were no big announcements this year, like two years ago. Presents are opened and Prime Rib is served for a two o'clock dinner, that is served at three-thirty. Sean’s family is serving their dinner at two also, so he isn’t there. We find out later they ate some time south of four o’clock. I guess more than just us are running on Muller time.Right now I’m running on Muller time. To tell the truth, since my name is Muller, I am forced to run on Muller time all the time. Teri doesn’t understand.

Back in August or September I suggested we should go to Disney, not during Christmas, but give the gift on Christmas of going to Disney in the Spring, so we didn’t have to buy gifts for people who don’t need anything, that rampant consumerism that forces you to spend money you don’t have on gift that most people don’t need. Teri thought it was not what she wanted to do. After cooking Christmas dinner she was talking about going on a cruise next year instead of doing Christmas. I guess timing is everything. I made a Vanilla cheesecake with raspberry swirl and a tres leches cake. If you want the recipe for either email me, they are both great. My boss at work, Paul, had a piece of it a few years ago and loved it. After that the day was over. Sean arrived back at home not too late. Like everyone else he had to be at work on Thursday, the 26th. Below is a recipe sort of for hot chocolate chip cookies

The Great Corvette Restoration end of season 1

The Great Corvette Restoration has ended season one, with a little push into the sunset. Yes the car sat to the east of the garage and it was pushed into the garage (toward the west) where it will sit until a warm day sometime next year.

I will admit two things to my dear readers, yes it is still readers, I saw four people check out Nastia’s birthday and got a hardy laugh at my jokes and are amazed about KJ’s abstract self portrait that I’ve dubbed KJ reflects on the world. The two truths I’ll admit to since my wife is not one of the four readers. The first truth about the Corvette is I’ve greatly underestimated the cost of repairing it. I thought a couple of new parts and we’d start the engine. No, I’m replacing or will replace just about everything from bumper to bumper and everything under the hood.The second, and more damaging, believe it or not is the engine is so far beyond my ability as well as Elena’s abilities, I don’t know where to go with it. I guess a third truth would be I should have gone with the white 1979 C3 Corvette. The engine was made before all of the advanced crap on the 1986 C4 we have, but it’s a convertible! How could a rag top guy like myself pass up a classic convertible. The 86 is the first year they made a convertible in years and they only made a little over 7,000! Plus it’s a stick and I’m sure you’re tired of me talking about my love for this ancient and severely outdated technology.

I knew it was getting time to move the Corvette. Teri was giving me subtle little hints like, “If you're not going to work on that thing, get rid of it!” or the equally tender, “I’m calling the junk man, if you don’t do something with that car!” I’m very sure my wife doesn’t read my blog because she still talks to me after I reveal things like that. For the last several weeks I’d been cleaning out the garage anticipating the move of the car into the garage. Silly me thought in April or May of this year, when I got the car and fall came we’d just start the engine and back it into the garage. We’re not there yet. The slope of the driveway is not too steep, but it is steep enough that several years ago when it was icy, I backed into the driveway and I had to do it several times because everytime I’d go to put the car in park it slid back down the driveway.

I opened the garage doors and called Elena to help. After a few minutes and an attempt, I called Sean and Nastia. Nastia was too scared to steer the car, so Elena was volunteered. Nastia, Sean and I put our backs into it and gave it the old college try. To my amazement we managed to move the car in the right direction, toward the garage. The car cooperated by not rolling down the driveway toward the road and the barrier across the street. After a couple of steering adjustments to straighten out the car. It had gotten crooked from falling off the jacks several times. It turns out when you jack up a car on a gravel driveway, it will eventually sink and fall over. It did that about four times, thank God no one was hurt. After the steering adjustment Nastia starts to complain that she’s pushed so hard, her ovaries are hurting. SHe

agrees that maybe steering isn’t so bad. Elena and her exchange place and after a couple more miracles, like not hitting the drives mirror we get the car into the garage. It sits about where the Mustang has sat for the last eight years and it awaits the first warm Spring day of 2025.

Nastia's twenty-sixth birthday

Nastia’s birthday, this year, is on a Tuesday. It’s a tough day of the week to do anything so we waited for Saturday. We told Nastia we didn’t want to go to the restaurant where you cook your own food. I don’t remember its name, only that it is in the Palisades Mall, fourth floor. She picked Gilligan’s in Mt Ivy. We’ve been there before and it is nice. I try to make a reservation for six. They don’t take reservations, only call ahead seating. So as we head toward the restaurant, I call and tell them we will be there in about a half an hour. We are a party of eight. Originally we were a party of nine, but Jesse, Nastia’s friend, the one with the son, said she couldn’t make it.

The weather for late November, early December has been unusually warm, fifties most of the time, so everyone has a lighter than normal jacket. We are seated in the glass enclosed part of the restaurant and it is always cooler there, than the other part of the restaurant. It was cool, not really cold. If it had been a normal December we would have been cold. I took some pictures of Sean and Nastia so I have them for the blog. In all of the pictures I see Sean looking up toward heaven. I’m wondering if he is praying to God for something or is he telling God he really has been good and doesn’t deserve coal for Christmas, I really don’t know. So I actually ask him why he is always looking up. He points to a rather large TV to the right and behind me that I had to walk by to get to my seat. There is a football game on it. I’m not the football fan I used to be, so I didn’t even notice it.

The food is good, Nastia gets a bucket of mussels, like usual. Elena asks to get some calamari and of course the bread is really tasty. Teri begins to warn everyone there is a lot of food coming. I gave up on that years ago when Elena would eat bread, an appetizer and salad. When the main course came she wouldn’t touch it and she’d take it home. I’d ruin the fun of eating out, so I stopped.

Elena did channel her past self this night. She ate bread, the appetizer and salad. At the end of the night she took most of her main dish home, but not one yell and made someone else unhappy. I’m still shocked at the price of going out these days. There was a whole lobster on the menu with something else, I hope and the price for it was sixty-two dollars. We bought a whole bunch of cash, but no alcohol was ordered, so it was a little less than we figured. My mom had leftovers. She said she warmed up for her and Bruce a day or two later. I think the leftovers we took home ended up getting thrown out the following Sunday night. I’m not sure. I do remember Teri showing me three shiny metal containers saying she is just going to throw it all out without opening them. After thirty-two years together, thirty married, I’ve learned to not ask too many questions.

Thanksgiving 2024

Life for me these days seems busy, and very repetitive. It’s like that Kink’s song, that no one except people my age or older might remember, ‘Well Respected Man’ Cause He gets up every morning, And he goes to work at nine (really eight) Takes the same train every time (drives the same car every time) And comes home at five-thirty. And so on, that’s my life. Very much the same thing every day.

Now Teri has been given a job, she doesn’t get anything for, except a thank you and the love of that one and a half year old KJ. I’ve inserted one of his drawings here, he’s gone into his abstract phase. If you look closely you can see it’s him looking over his left shoulder with a very contemplative look on his face. I wouldn't have expected this level of depth from him until at least six or so. Elena helped him sign his work. Thanksgiving, I should have asked KJ to draw me a picture of that event, but he went with his mother to have dinner somewhere else. So he would have drawn an impressionist drawing, I guess. You know, he’d have to draw what his impression of the day might have looked like. Come on, if I have to explain the jokes, they're not funny. We had dinner at two in the afternoon. Sean and Nastia left our house about three-thirty to go to his mom’s house to share dinner with his mom, sister and other assorted relatives. Teri got up early, as usual to make Thanksgiving dinner in the way she remembers it. She’d make the stuffing, just as her mother made it. She used chicken broth, maybe as her mother did because she didn’t want the gizzard and other leftover parts anywhere near the gravy to baste the bird. My mom would use the innards, an onion and some other items to make a gravy to baste the turkey. Teri let me make the sweet potato casserole. I enjoyed making it and put my all into it and, yes, it came out good. I ate it at three different meals. Teri also made white potatoes with dry onion soup mix. They were great. The turkey, like usual, was made in a roaster we keep down stairs. It’s sort of like how her family use to make holiday food in an old oven from maybe the 1920’s? Tony said it didn’t have a way to set the temperature, but it cooked some really good food. I wanted a dual oven stove, but I was out voted back when we rebuilt the kitchen, one to one. She will insist to this day she never voted against a dual stove oven. I wanted one because it was just the two of us and why warm up a big oven for a small dish, plus I thought it was cool. The guest list was the usual,Teri, myself, Nastia, Elena, Sean and Nancy. My mom was invited, but said it was easier to walk to Eric’s for supper. We've lost the Muller dinner time in these last few years. Teri said dinner was going to be two in the afternoon, so Sean and Nastia could go to his mother’s. We served about two-fifteen, not the Muller three, three-thirty. Some traditions die quietly, I guess.

I made a cheesecake in a sixteen inch wide spring form pan. Alexa doesn’t like me, so when it was time for the time to go off, she didn’t and I remembered the cheesecake before it got burned, So it was over cooked, a little rubbery and dry. I threw most of it away about a week later. It was a nice holiday. Shame Kj and Amanda couldn’t make it.

Too much about the election and not enough about the girls.

It seems I spend a few moments every time I open up the computer these days finding the little white arrow that will guide me to where I want to go. I know it’s a sign of getting older, though I still feel like the fifteen year old I was Fifty one, almost fifty two years ago. I’ve got the brain of a fifteen year old, I know. I like to sit around all day, these days and watch TV, yeah, fifteen year old stuff.

My daughters are trying to grow up and in some ways they are successful. Last week I asked Nastia if she wanted to cook dinner with me. We both had worked that day and were tired. She hesitated in her answer, so I knew she didn’t want to, but she helped me with dinner, doing most of it. I enjoy making dinner with her and I’m happy when she joins me. We make some interesting dishes too. They range from basic comfort food like MeaMaw’s chicken casserole to Indian dishes and Cajun food.I’ve gone out, gotten Indian spices, and mixed creole seasoning. One of the best feelings is when the people you cook for, say the recipe is a keeper, meaning it gets put in the binder to make again. I hope that all these different foods helps Nastia broaden what she will serve at her table. After that night, over the weekend, Nastia made, nodollar pancakes, but half dollar to quarter size pancakes.

Elena is still Elena, as she always will be. I don’t yell at her and if I know she is in a bad mood and I have to call her because she is late for a fabulous diner or maybe she is staying away because the last dinner was Paula Dean’s Chicken Florentine and I didn’t have the spice Curry and Google said to substitute with Red Pepper and Cumin, if I remember correctly and it was awful both time we tried to eat it. So I’ll call her and just talk to her about whatever comes into my head. I get her talking, I’m talking very calmly and there is no urgency and when I get around to it, I remind her we are sitting down to dinner or already have and she is missing out on a really great meal, at least most times. We can’t always do a MeaMaw’s chicken casserole.

It was election day recently and I will say I’m a Republican who can never vote for a clown and never have. The line to vote at six in the morning was long, but moved. Nastia and Teri voted when Nastia came home from work at three-thirty. The line wasn’t too long. Lots and lots of people voted early and by all definitions the American Experiment had a banner day, and like the election in 2020 was fair and the voice of the people was heard. I hope in four years, first to be alive, and second to look back and say I was wrong about him and the world and the US are better for it. We are just not starting out very well with his cabinet picks. I was supposed to not say all of that. I was going to do a short lead in to Elena not voting, she said because neither candidate was very good. I was very disappointed because her old country is run by a dictator with visions of rebuilding the Russian Empire, and you only have to be fearful if you say anything he disagrees with. I think it was the weekend before election day, Elena said she had talked to Sean Sr. and he was going to come by and lend a hand with some of the issues we are having on the Corvette. I was very glad he showed up and Elena and him straightened out the rear right of the car where it had been hit. He showed her where everything fit back in and how sometimes you have to use a little force. The two of them did more in a short afternoon, then Elena and I in weeks. Yes, I didn’t turn a wrench. I stood by to get tools and jack and whatever else they needed. I felt Sean’s pain when he tried to get up off the ground after working on the car. Needless to say, very little has been done since. I asked Sean Sr., and I warned him I was going to put him on the spot. I asked if the body work was finished, can we return the car to the shop to work on the engine? His reply was,”If it was up to me, …” I knew he would say, yes, but I stopped him and said I understand. He loves working on cars and I bet he loves the old stuff more.

Teri has baby sat KJ whenever Amanda has been at work and no one else is available. Usually it’s four days, this past week she watched him all five days. She loves that kid to death and I hope KJ remembers his time with her and it makes a huge impact on the man he grows up to be. Hopefully he will be someone who loves too much, is respectful, kind, and very giving of himself. Teri puts a lot of energy into the time he is here in the house. She is exhausted at the end of the day when she drops him off. I bet you she wouldn’t trade the time she spends with him for that job she chased over the last several years. Maybe this is God’s plan. She was meant to care for him and make him a better person. Better than he could be without her.KJ drew a picture of his day with his Great Aunt Teri

Teri has made her Christmas list for 2024. It seems she has just recycled her 2023 list, boy how lazy can you be!

Halloween et al, no we know better et sic porro *

*It's latin baby! et sic porro-and other things! Halloween is now the second biggest holiday, sort of on the calendar. As a kid,I remember you’d come home after school and at least in my house put on your homemade costume, find your friend or friends and go trick or treating, with no parents.Only little kids went with parents and it was rare. It'll be dark and maybe you'll come home because you’re tired. The streets would be full of kids going out and trick or treating. The worst thing you had to remember was not to eat the apples, because there might be razor blades in them. How’d, what kid would ever eat an apple over a candy bar? And what about ‘Gate Night’? This year I didn’t even think about it until it was Halloween. One year I went out with all of the older kids, I was maybe ten, they were all like fourteen. I don’t remember much about the night except we all laid down flat in the road or on someone's grass because the person house some of us might have just hit came out. I didn’t see the person anymore so I got up and said it’s okay, he’s gone inside. One of the bigger kids shuss’d me and told me to get down. The next morning when I was older I drive to work or to school or wherever and see toilet paper strung from trees car windows soaped up, you know real harmless stuff unless it happened to you and your family was a continual target of it.The point is I forgot Gate Night, and next to no one came out for Halloween again this year. My mom and Eric’s house had good crowds at least until 6 PM when I left. Conger’s, I handed out candy to two real little kids. Nastia and Elena have quit going out for Halloween. Sometimes I miss the nights we’d take them down to Nyack and they’d go door to door with the hundreds of other kids, like Halloween used to be when I was a kid. A guess at 24 and 25, almost 26 they have an excuse not to go. Last year Sean and Nastia went to Sleepy Hollow, you know the site written about in the book by Washington Irving call the ‘Legend of Sleepy Hollow’. I need to read that book. They were back early. I thought about going to the ‘Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze” in Croton on Hudson. In past years it seemed like such a luxury, but this year it’d less so until I checked the prices. On Saturday after Halloween it is $52.00 to $68.00. I think I blocked out how much it is on Halloween because I couldn’t rationalize spending that kind of money to walk around for 45 minutes looking at carved pumpkins. I’m sure it’s amazing. I asked KJ, Amanda’s son, to draw a picture of it tonight because no one went.

Nastia, Sean, Elena and Jessica, the one without the son went to fright night at six flags in jackson. I didn’t capitalize any of it because the very poor man's Disney doesn’t deserve it. The last time I was there scarred me for life, and not in a fright night way. Everything was, sooo, sooo, I don’t know. Well, yes I really do know it was awful. It was busy, all the food even though some of it had different names, like Johnny Rocket’s was awful assembly line food well over priced. I don’t remember the grounds as well kept. And all of the new really frightening rides were extra and still are, I imagine. With Disney when they rake you over the coals price wise at least you feel they made a great effort to make you think you're getting your money's worth, and it’s fun. No one gave me any pictures of Fright fest or of Disney World, so I again asked KJ, you know, one year old KJ, Amanda’s son, to give me a rendering of what their night was like. He said it wouldn’t frighten him to do it because he went to the Nyack Halloween Parade.

I was very much against it, I thought he’d be cranky, tired and fuss about because he couldn’t wander around. We parked over on Ash Street, I think, just off North Broadway. We walked and set up our chairs at the corner of Broadway and Main Street. I remember the first year I bought a chair to sit in to watch the parade. Everyone laughed at me, no more. I ended up standing and giving the chair to an old women who needed it more than I did. All of us bring a chair. We got there around 5 PM and the parade didn’t get going until almost 6. It was longer than usual and better than usual. We had a couple behind us…how do it put this without insulting all of the people who moved from Manhattan into the new condos in Nyack causing me not to be able directly or indirectly to build on Tony and Junes property on Catherine Street. The guy who bought it is, I imagine still trying to get it rezoned to knock down the house and build something besides one maybe two, if your lucky two family houses, which I calculated wouldn’t pay if one of them went rightfully to Nancy to live in rent free being she is/ was a part owner of the property.

The people were "oh, look at this, oh waw, that's great. Theywere first timers it sounded like. I asked KJ to draw a picture of the Nyack Halloween Parade, but he was tired so I put a picture of him at the parade because I take pictures and give them to me. Plus the one below, the bonus picture because it is a really great costume.

Drinkin, Drinkin, whats you drinkin?

It was Sean’s birthday yesterday, Friday and also happened to be the day Amanda’s boyfriend broke up with her. Everyone went to work and when Nastia got home, she started to make tacos, one of Sean’s favorite meals. She asked her sister to pick up Uncle Ben’s rice in packets because the three of them like to add rice to their flour shell and make them more like burritos. Sometime after dinner Amanda calls up and asks if the girls could go out with her for drinks. Amanda came by in a taxi. Sean said it was okay for her to go out drinking with Amanda. They walked down the street to wait for the taxi. Amanda picks up a pint of Smirnoff’s Vodka. They each take several shots from the bottle. Elena and vodka, or at least Smirnoff’s vodka didn’t agree with each other and she refunded a large portion of it into the street.

Now Elena has work the next day, so I guess it was a good idea she returned the vodka to the wild. For those who don’t get sudility, she threw up in the street. Down in Nyack, they head to Olive’s Bar. Back in another lifetime the original Olive took me to court because she said I did something or other to her when I lost my temper when she didn’t pay her bill or something like that. The Police and court got involved and the one thing I do remember is I didn’t touch her. I just got mad and stormed out. Long story short I promised to stay away from her and I also agreed I wouldn’t try to collect the money she owed me. A big guy like me against a woman in 1980’s Nyack. I knew when to leave well enough alone. I hope she got the life she deserved. Take that any way you want. So they exit the taxis at Olive’s. There is very loud music in the bar. Amanda is buying shots of vodka, calling the girls pussies if they don’t drink the vodka. They talk, Amanda tells them her trials and tribulations about her now ex-boyfriend and what type of guy she likes.

Around 1AM, I’m sitting in the family room watching ‘The Lord of the Rings, The Power of the Rings’ season 2, episode 7. I want them home, but I won’t call them. I told them no matter what time it is they can call me and I will come get them. Sean told them the same. I go to bed after I fall asleep, about 1:15. The dogs hear them come in about 1:30 or so. Nastia goes straight to her room, Elena says ‘hi’ as she passes by. Everything quiets down. A few moments later Teri and I hear a groaning growling, Ahh, ahhhh. It’s a low down, not quite a moan. It is very low in the register, like a singer warming up his deep bass or maybe trying to clear his throat. I sit up to listen, it’s stopped. Teri asks me if there is something wrong with the dog. I lean down and tell her they are fine. It starts again. It’s not in our room, it’s next door. It’s Nastia. She has decided to refund some of her fun this night, but she has neglected to worship at the altar of the porcelain god, you might know it better as the toilet. Teri, the high priestess does not approve. She starts to sermonize about not having anyone show this lack of class and disrespect. I smile having been there and done that and tell her Nastia might be learning a lesson tonight. If not, maybe next time she will learn it. If one is going to drink, and to paraphrase Dirty Harry Callahan from Magnum Force, a film he did in the 70’s, “A man (or in this respect a woman) has got to know his (her) limitations.” Hopefully, she will learn her limit soon. Elena, after spraying the pavement with cheap vodka earlier in the evening, came home fine, woke up at 7:30 and went to work.

It turns out Nastia also decided not to take all of her alcohol home, deposited it in the street out front of Olive’s, A special gift to Olive, forty years late, thanks Nastia. So when she got home at 1:30 she was dry heaving, and yes, been there, done that. So all I could do as I listened to her and told Teri to leave it alone was to smile, glad some wisdom has come with age. Though if you ask Teri about Vegas and ruining the last day there she might have another opinion.

How about a Doors title, Summer's almost gone, Summer's almost gone...*

I’ve been busy these last few months, or at least it seems so. I haven’t had the time to really write in the blog. I used to take some time during the first few hours of my work day and write. Lately I’ve been busier and it also seems like I’m taking greater advantage of my boss, so I don’t anymore. The company has started a new product line and I get to sell forklifts to people who then retail them to businesses. It can be fun. I’ve talked to people who have retired over the last few months asking them what they do to keep busy. I’ve watched my mom closer now than before and notice she does less, but she still does. She’s 90, so I guess whatever she’s doing I should copy. Most other people I talk to say things like everyday is Friday or if you want Saturday. They don’t have to even keep track of the days. Some people mentor younger people. I get all icky feeling when I say younger people. I don’t feel that old. I feel like a tired fifteen year old. I know I’ll probably retire, maybe sooner than I think, I just don’t know what I’ll do with all of that time.

Nastia is a girl who is acting like she is a girl with very little time left or someone who wants to experience it all as soon as possible. She’s kept her and her boyfriend Sean busy this summer. They were to the shore several times, she got hurt by a wave at Robert Moses State park on Long Island on the exact same day as she did last year when she rode a bike into , I think a tree and hurt herself. Both times she is out of work for two weeks. It’s becoming a tradition with her. She went to Maine with Sean to visit his friend. They’ve gone to see just about every movie they could possibly see this summer and have eaten out at least once every week, most of the time twice. Now they are camping up just a little east of Roscoe New York at a campground just off of Route 17. They are very unprepared and Sean thought they might not go. He hadn’t checked his tent out and it was supposed to rain, so Nastia pushed through and Sean bought a new tent. They borrowed a battery operated lamp from Teri and I that has been dying to be used for over four years now. So off they went Friday night up the Thruway into Friday evening traffic in September with all the others who are trying to get one last weekend in upstate before the weather changes and it becomes too cold to do it. They set up camp, I’m assuming in the dark, but they had that battery operated lamp we lent them and one they or Sean purchased and oh, yes to get a little dig in, yes they are still saving to move out one day. I’ll have to change the lock the day before they do and put all their stuff on the front lawn before they do that. Well at least they are cooking for themselves, well or at least finding places to eat. They possibly have the privacy that Sean say they don’t get in our big old house with its thick old walls that an atomic blast in the next room wouldn’t be heard. I’m really not implying anything really I’m not. Wait, I can’t type while I snicker and laugh at the same time. We do really leave them alone. And yes every night they are tired and go to bed just after dinner. Those tired, tired children. They’ll be home tomorrow Sunday some time. While they are away I am replacing, hopefully finishing replacing the light/fan switch in their room. It was running slowly. Hopefully it is the switch, not the fan. Now Elena is still single. She still works part time at Caliper Tire and according to her mother still needs benefits. At the age of twenty-four who thinks about having benefits. She works Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, mostly. On her off days she sleeps in until her mother thinks it’s time for her to get up. Her and I are still working on the 1986 Corvette and yes I’ll admit it we are in over our heads. I didn’t think a 1986 car would be so complex. A list of the problems on this car would make a grown man cry as he parted out the car on Ebay. I could most likely make a profit on it if I did, but it’s a convertible. The first year a Corvette convertible had been made in years and there were only a little over 7,000 made and the way people drive and are parting out cars there can’t be too many left. We’ll both keep at it until, who knows when. I hope one day one of the hints I’ve dropped to people will take root and they will come over and solve one, just one problem to set Elena and I on the right track.

Teri over the last year and change became one of the growing group of people forced into retirement. I’ve talked about how she’d get interviews over the phone or by Zoom and never that final would you like to come work for us phone call. She went as far north as Poughkeepsie to interview in person. She went to Long Island. Finally after a year she gave up. During the Summer, she finally decided to retire. We’d figured out how to live without her salary and her retirement money would now be just a bonus. A funny thing happened on her way to a nice relaxing retirement, she broke out in a rash. I don’t remember where it started but it would be on her hands, and feet, her back. She got a steroid shot and it mostly went away until it didn’t go all the way go away. Now coming up on October it is mostly gone away. She still itches, it comes and goes. We are hoping the severity of it was only because of the emotional issues she faced this Spring with coming to the realization no one wants to hire a 60+ year old. Even one that would make your company hum. I feel lucky when I think about what she’s gone through. I’m at a job making what I made twenty years ago, ooops, twenty-four years ago and I feel it could be worse. *I know, I've used it at least three times. Summer’s Almost Gone Song by The Doors Summer's almost gone Summer's almost gone Almost gone Yeah, it's almost gone Where will we be When the summer's gone? Morning found us calmly unaware Noon burn gold into our hair At night, we swim the laughin' sea When summer's gone Where will we be? Where will we be? Where will we be? Morning found us calmly unaware Noon burn gold into our hair At night, we swim the laughin' sea When summer's gone Where will we be? Summer's almost gone Summer's almost gone We had some good times But they're gone The winter's comin' on Summer's almost gone

The Great car restoration oops , the beach, another oops! and Maine

The great car restoration has had its ups and downs. A down day was when we had to bring it home because of the landlord at Caliper tire. An up day was finally finishing the brake on the front tire or having the short shaft and the knuckle in place and the rear right tire almost finished. One of the big lower points is when I knocked the Corvette off the jack stands, the car sliding towards the house coming up just short of hitting the new siding. It would have been the lowest of low points if I’d hit the siding. Another low point I was working on the fuel gauge, everything was going really well. Elena broke two of the screws holding the pump in place. No problem, I thought, I can drill them out. I purchased a brand new fuel pump, the old one was so rusted, it fell into two parts when I took it out. I managed to get all the rust out and I went to drill out the broken screw and I ruined the other holes by drilling the holes through to the interior of the tank. It can be fixed, but oops. The holes with the broken screw I managed to widen them. After talking with my brother, Eric, I purchased a new tank, fuel lines and straps. He said with brand new there will be no problem cropping up like the interior of ta 40 year old tank coming apart and fowling everything, Elena seems to only work on the car when I’m there, so this past Sunday we put all of the wheels back on the car and decided to get the engine going, which if we knew the car was going to end up at home we would have started with. During the last two weeks every time I turn around Nastia is going away. She went with Sean, Jessica and Elena to the Jersey shore one day, then she went to the beach with JJ and Nancy and maybe someone who drove better than Nancy or Nastia. After that she went to Robert Moses State park on Long Island where she got hit by a hurricane inspired wave and fractured her scapula in her shoulder. That was on August 21st, I believe. If that date sounds familiar, she broke or fractured her foot a year ago at a party in Orange County. And if memory serves back in 2009 when we went to Russia to pick up the girls Nastia had a cast on her arm. That was around September 10th when we arrived, she could have broken it on August 21st. So maybe she should wrap herself in bubble wrap and stay home on that day. After braking her arm at Robert Moses State park, and spending most of the night there, she and Sean came home and promptly headed for the great state of Maine. About an hour into the trip the car overheats. Sean says it has never done that and his father said he checked the radiator and he must have not secured the cap causing it to overheat. When Sean told me this, he paused. I think waiting for me to tell him to come home. I’d said they should come home earlier and that they should make a fresh start the next day, but I didn’t. I told him if he says the car has never overheated and he feels safe it can make it, it’s their decision. They made it there and tonight they make it back long enough to maybe use the bathroom and say hello before they left again to sleep over JJ’s house and go to the beach tomorrow.

Yankee Stadium,and the latest family taco dinner

Every year since sometime in the 1990’s I go to Yankee Stadium with my friend Mike. I think one of the early times we went with his brother Steve and it was the only game I ever went to that was rained out. I bought a hat that day and I think I still have it.

When Covid hit our yearly trips to Yankee Stadium stopped. It’s been about five years since we’ve gone. On the last few trips it seems Rob has had to deal with some issues his daughter has had. Most years he figures it out. This wasn’t most years. His daughter is in California working to be an actress. He and his wife flew out there to help her out. I don’t know the problem, but having two daughters I’d be on the flight to California, if they’d called and had a hangnail. So I really can’t blame Rob, it was just disappointing. It's been five years and it hit the three of us Friday night at Nanuet Restaurant, we’re not getting any younger and how many more years are we going to be able to do this?

All of the previous leads up to now, we have an extra ticket. Louie asks his sons, I ask Karl, Eric is a Met fan. After all of that I think, I’ll have to ask Nastia. I love her, but I thought she’d be a problem. She’d want food and not eat it, then about the fifth inning she’d get bored and want to leave, you know. I ask her and she agrees. She and Sean are going to the beach Saturday night, it’s a day game, so we’ll be back in time for them to leave.

I wanted to take the Mustang, but the three of us are old and fat and even Nastia would have problems fitting in the back seat. We choose confort, Nastia’s car over a stylish Mustang Convertible.Doesn’t matter, Mike and I will use it on Sunday when we go to Somerset NJ to see the Yankees double A farm team with what we hope will be a future Yankee star Spencer Jones. Nastia and I go pick up Mike at his hotel, we swing over to Louie’s just 90 mother’s house, pick him up and take a comfortable ride down to the Bronx. The whole summer has been scorching. We have the air running and everything is good. We park on the first floor of the Jacob Ruppert parking garage, a first and walk into from the garage to the park, across the street and onto one of several long lines. Nastia is uncomfortable in the crowds and wants to hold my hand. Her mother doesn’t like crowds too, I guess she inherited it from her. Yeah, I know, adopted and all, it must have been through osmosis or something.

We enter the Stadium and it is a give away day, a metal coffee cup. Mike will use it the next morning in a drip coffee maker. It will get hot and he will throw it away. Nastia is amazed they are giving something away for free. I don’t tell her the price of the tickets. She continues to hold my hand until we hit the bathrooms. She heads toward the ladies, I tell her where I’ll be waiting. She takes a while and I thinkI can sneak into the men’s. When I’m done, I get a little nervous, I've missed her coming out of the ladies and she will panic, I did miss her , but she doesn’t panic. We get online for some food. I bought two Nathan’s hot dogs, helmut fries and two sodas for only $55.00. At the Palisades Center it would cost around $20.00 minus the hat the fries come in.

It’s time for me to finally buy the Yankee hat I’ve been waiting for. Nastia comes with me. As we search for a Yankee store, she asks if I can buy her a Jersey. Forgetting we’re in Yankee Stadium, I say yes. She finds out Sean's favorite Yankee is number 99 Aaron Judge. I won’t say they hide the prices of things in the Yankee store, but they definitely don’t advertise them either. I pick up a hat,and we wander over to the jerseys in the women’s section. She tries on a small, it fits her great and I’m thinking, okay, two items, but I really want a hat that has pin stripes on it. Nastia, as she does, asks someone for help. I don’t like doing it mostly because when I’m done looking the person helping is still trying to help. She asks a passing girl who asks her boss, who radios down to the warehouse, I guess looking for the hat. I want to go, but we wait. Twice I want to go, but they are still looking. Finally it’s time to leave. I thank the people who tried to help me, we get on line and at the cashier, they couldn't scan the jersey. They ask me if I want a bag for my purchase. Two items, a bag will make it easier, I say, yes. The jersey won't scan. Finally they read the number off the tag and the price of the jersey is $218.00. I stammer for a second or two before saying, I’m sorry I can’t afford that. They take the jersey off, I ask what the dollar charge is. It’s for the bag, I let it go. At home later that night I try on the hat and for some reason there is a gap between my skull and the top of the hat. I look in the mirror and I look like a special needs person. Guess who wasted $50.00 on a hat.

Back near our seat, we hang out in the concession area until it is closer to the game. It is sunny and hot . Our seats are in the sun and will stay that way until the game is almost over. I sit next to Mike on my left, and Nastia on my right. I try to take a picture of all four of us, like I do every year. This year, Louie seems to hide in each picture and my arm is too short. Nastia, as Nastia does, takes the camera and asks the people next to us to take our picture. I never do that because I alway imagine the person running away with my phone as I stand there with a dumb smile on my face. The person takes the picture and doesn’t steal my phone.I guess the cracked screen protector is a deterrent. I’ve always worried Nastia would get bored at a game. This day she doesn’t, even though the Yankees get trounced 8-1. We wait for a while before we leave. No beer can hockey at our age in the parking garage any more. It’s a nice day. I enjoyed having Nastia there. I hope my friend’s did too. I don’t need a Yoko Ono situation here. Family dinner has alway been a special time for me with my family. I treasure it like the rare precious stone it is. I grew up with a father who did what he knew best, and that was to provide for his family, but not be at home for dinner. It is something he quietly did for the majority of his life. I only recently understood he abandoned us unnecessarily to provide for his family. I know it wasn’t malicious, it was what he learned and did as a child in an alcoholic family to survive. I sometimes find myself secreting from my family doing the same thing. Family dinners when I was young were regular, most every night, but were missing my dad. So when we gather around the table for dinner and a taco dinner, and on top of that provided by Nastia and Sean, well mostly by Sean, it’s a home run all around. I went out to buy some beer, the second beer in six weeks. Nastia came with me and we talked like we used to always talk before she got so involved with Sean. I know these visits will be fewer and farther between as time passes, so I treasure them and try to not sweat the details. We talk about things she wants to or just joke about nothing. Again I don’t sweat the details and I don’t get upset about whatever she says. Back home we sit down to tacos. Nastia and Elena talk over Teri and I talking about something. I talk louder and louder trying to out talk the girls. I ask Teri if it reminds her of growing up. She looks at Sean and asks him if it does. Both agree we were not loud enough. Usually conversations like this get a little raunchy. This one did not. I did throw some cheese at Nastia to stop her from talking, it worked. I stood up to get some cheese and used a back hand flip to land a small gob of nice yellow cheese on her glasses. She didn’t find it funny, but everyone laughed. Dinner clean up went quickly and everyone went their seperate way. Nastia, Sean and Elena went upstairs to play Zombies on Xbox, I think. Teri sat at the table while I wrote this every so often yelling in pain over her disease that has her hands and feet all dried out and the skin cracking, not fun at all.

Fishing in Moriches, the great car restoration update and the last fireworks for the fourth.

Life’s been busy these last few weeks. We were scheduled to take a fishing trip to Moriches on the 12 of July. In the past I’ve alway scheduled these trips for a Thursday. I used to have Thursdays off when I had my milk business. I’d go out to Moriches with my boat on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays during July. Of course, I didn’t have a girlfriend or wife at the time.

The tides were perfect for Friday, the weather looked iffy as early as the week before. I hoped it would clear up by Friday. On Wednesday, it said there was a 50% chance of rain. Slacking off late in the day. Twenty years ago, without a second thought I’d have gone, stayed out late and enjoyed the peaceful waters. Without a boat of my own, we’d have to have the 16 foot skiff back in by 4PM. Plus, I hate to admit it, but I’m getting stuck in my ways and if I haven’t done something in a while, I’m reluctant to do it. It’s been two years since we’ve gone fishing in Moriches.

I wake up at about six in the morning and check the weather. It’s still the same, 50% slacking off in the late afternoon. I let Nastia, Elena and Sean know about the canceled trip. Elena and Sean go to work of all things. I sit around the house trying to avoid a testy wife who is babysitting a rambunctious one year old KJ.

It was not the promised start of a rare three day weekend for me. Oh, yes, the day cleared up and was beautiful in Congers and in Moriches according to the weather service. The great car restoration is making slow progress. Elena seems to want me to be more involved in the car than providing money for parts. The Sunday after the failed Moriches trip I spent helping her put together the rear right knuckle and brake drum where the car was hit eight years ago. I noticed the rear strut, it might be called, I’m not sure was bent. When Elena noticed it I knew it was bent. So as soon as I know what it is called, I purchase the

replacement. She and I shared trying to figure out how to put the knuckle back on, even going as far as removing the tire from the opposite side to compare. So the right rear is 90% done.

THe last fourth of July fireworks were down the street held on the 14th of July, a Sunday. Teri and Elena didn’t want to come see them, so it was just Nastia, Sean and I. We sat near the VFW building, east of the FD and across the street from near the park entrance path. Bugs seemed to be out in force that night even with the citronella bug repellent I bought with me. It’s the circles that go in the clay burner. There seemed to be enough of a breeze that wherever I put it it blew under and away from us. One firework was shot off and we thought it would start. After it went off, the New City FD, not Congers, for some reason sprayed water on a couple lake facing rear roofs of buildings to prevent any possibility of a fire starting on them. They also sprayed people sitting on the opposite side of the building with water. I’m sure they didn’t do it on purpose. The fireworks started about 9:30 and were okay, the grand finale was not grand. They were done before 10. It was just nice to have them back. They hadn’t had them since before Covid.