Nastia on vacation and saying good bye to Uncle Tonny.

Maybe it’s me, or maybe it’s an age, her’s or mine, I don’t know. Nastia seems to not be able to stand still. She is either working or looking to do something when she is not. It’s almost like she is afraid she’ll miss something if she doesn’t keep moving. Sean took a week off. They went camping up past the Roscoe Diner, I think in Mongap? It was 100 degrees during the day here and no lower than 75-80 at night. Up there, I’m sure it was cooler, but you’re upstate and it's cooler. I texted her, asking how she slept the first night. It took a couple of days for her to reply, “It was fine, why?” I didn’t hear much about their camping trip, and there were no pictures. They then went to the shore and there were also no pictures. I assume they had a good time. As June turns to July I looked forward to our annual fishing trip to Moriches Bay on Long Island. For the past two years I’ve cancelled the trip because of the weather. This year we were going come hell or high water. Elena’s new job gives her off Tuesdays and Sean has had Tuesdays of forever, so instead of Thursdays, we were going on a Tuesday. I figured it would be slow, and because of the weather I didn’t reserve a boat until that Monday night. Actually I forgot about it until everyone had gone to bed. I went on their website and to my horror, they had no boats for rent. I thought a Tuesday before the 4th of July must be a big rental day. I was flogging myself for not renting a boat earlier when I realized they are closed on Tuesday. IT’S THEIR SEASON TO MAKE MONEY!! WHY THE HELL ARE THEY CLOSED!! The guy who ran it before them, Gary, never closed in season. I was heartbroken when I told the girls and Sean. Nastia immediately said, “Okay, we’ll go to the beach, want to come?” I couldn’t go and leave Teri, who was watching KJ, that day, and Elena, skipped to sleep in. My biggest fear happened on Tuesday and hopefully will inspire me to keep working for a while. I experienced babysitting JK. It got to the point around Noon or so after I’d had a fight with Teri and KJ and I exchanged throwing toys at each other that I felt it was time to go to ‘Home Depot’ to get something, anything. I came back around 5-6 o’clock. I got a heart cut, walked up five flight of stairs to donate blood to find out they closed the location. Next I went to see my mom. I did something else and figured about 5-6 pm was a safe time to return.

We went to Pearl River to see the fireworks. There was a Four Seasons tribute band that I had to be reminded we were seeing for free. The fireworks started around 9:20. The band was nearing the end of their second set when they played that awful song by Lee Greenwood. In these overly divisive political days one side has sort of adopted that song. There was a story going around that the US government was paying him when they used it when they swear in new citizens, but that was not true as far as I can tell. The song has all of the words to make a MAGA man cry, but it is truly a very poor song. The band wanted to end with ‘God Bless America’, but they were told they’d run out of time.

The night had started to get cold and the quicker it ended, the happier I was. My mom and Bruce went with us. Nancy and KJ were there too. KJ being a handful, but with four people to watch him and no toys to launch, it went off without a hit. The nation is 249, I remember when it turned 200, it seems like just yesterday.

On June 16th, my mom turned 91. We took her out to Sangria's for dinner. She had a good time. I'm not really sure she enjoyed the food. She took most of it home. A few days late we got word that my Uncle Tonny, aged 94 had died. They had a wake for him in Bedford Massachusetts where he spent the better part of 40 years. He’d only recently moved to the panhandle of Florida to be near his kids, grandkids, and I think great grandkids. I met several people I didn’t know when Karl and I went up there to represent our side of the family. My mom said she didn’t want to go, because she didn’t want to see him in a coffin.I can’t blame her. He was buried on Thursday, which would have been his 95th birthday. At the wake they told the story of how his family lied about his age so he could enlist. According to the Air Force he was 16 when he enlisted,not 15, like he was.

One of my favorite stories about him is when he was stationed in New Mexico during all of the UFO hoopla. There was this building that if you got too close to it, crossed a certain line, you’d get shot. Was there a UFO in that building? I guess we’ll never know

That F&*kin pool does it again.

I did everything right last year when I closed the pool. I bought a new cover, pool balloons, everything needed to have a happy Spring/Summer when I opened the pool next year. Sometime around December, the water level starts to drop. I think maybe it’s my imagination, and maybe it will freeze before it goes any lower, neither happens. The weather stays warm and wet. The cover grommets holding the cover from falling into the pool come loose and eventually the cover falls into the pool, dirty water, leaves and all. I know it’s going to be a mess in the

Spring, but I’ll get a head start on it and fix the pool liner, and get a new filter, it’s gotten worn out. Late April, early May I get to work on the pool. I clean the dirty water out of the pool, leaves, whatever else has fallen into the pool that doesn’t belong there. I dream of days past where I’d have both daughters working with me or at least hanging around with me waiting for the pool to be ready to get into. These days, like last year, it is barely used. I had great hopes for this year. I leave several inches of water in the pool so the liner doesn’t shrink. Holes in the pool in the past have been around where the ladder is. I excommunicate the ladder when I find a hole from last year has opened up again and it’s the problem. I give Teri carte blanche to find another ladder. I patch the hole. While doing that the left side of the liner comes loose and with Elena’s help we smooth out the bumps in the floor of the pool near there.

When I patch the hole, it is up against the wall. As it begins to fill, it moves several inches toward the center of the pool. I hope for the best. As the level of the water increases over a week it seems to be fine. No water is leaking out. So on Saturday or Sunday, near the end of May, I go all out and fill the pool to the top. Sunday night it looks wonderful. It’s clean, it’s blue and it’s too cold to swim in. Tuesday coming home from work, I see it has gone down, and there is no question about it.

So it has sat for the last two weeks. Nastia and I got in and walked the pool looking for possible leaks and found nothing obvious. I called a couple of pool companies, one doesn’t do above ground, the other wants $195.00 to patch and there are no guarantees. They said they’d send me a contract, then make an appointment to come patch the pool. We’ll see where this goes.

Memorial Day parade, Boston and going out to dinner with her sister and others.

The Memorial day parade was, as always , forgotten until I heard the music. That is exactly the way it happened. I’m up about 9:30, doing some yard work, because as always I’m behind and Teri thinks the yard looks horrendous. To tell you the truth, I can’t do as much as I’d like to do any more and if I physically can, a lot of times I just don’t want to. Anyway I’m doing something outside and I hear band music and police sirens. I realize it is not just a regular Saturday, it’s Memorial Day Weekend, but not the three day one, just the two day one where there is a parade. I go inside, making sure my feet are clean, knowing Teri is not anywhere near ready to go see the parade. I ask her, and she says,no. I wake up Nastia, and she says, yes. She quickly changes and we get down to the

parade just as it is coming down the street. It’s the usual old cars, old fire fighting equipment and people marching. We see a couple of people we know from bowling marching in the parade, they both wave. We even see Ann, our next door neighbor. She is busy trying to stay in step and doesn’t see us. People next to us comment about how funny it would be if a train came. I remind Nastia that happened a few years ago. She doesn’t remember. I guess she’ll be surprised at how much she did in her life if she ever reads thai blog. She might even be surprised she came from Russia. The parade is quick, and fun.

Now on the real Memorial day weekend, where most everyone has off on Monday, Sean and Nastia have planned to go to Boston. My immediate question is why on a holiday weekend? Sean, through his landlord at the shop, has gotten a deal on a room at a nice hotel. They leave early Saturday afternoon and avoid traffic, arriving around six, I think. They have dinner, and the next day do all of the things tourists do. Nastia sends pictures to Teri, I guess KJ is tired of drawing his impression of places he’s never been. They arrive back home, safe and sound, Sunday night around six or so. Saying they had fun. Nastia buys me a T-shirt and Teri gets a container of Clam Chowder. She eats it the next day, saying it is really good. Nastia, Sean and Elena go out to dinner, but I don’t remember much about it.

That song from 1957 by the Silhouettes- Get a Job or in her case GOT A JOB

It’s surprising how quickly Elena got a job. No, wait, I have to be honest, Teri got Elena a job. Teri got Elena, or at least made Elena aware of the job available at Caliper Tires, and the two jobs I just mentioned. She got Nastia both of her jobs and She got me two out of the three last jobs I have worked. The two job offers are from Lea Toyota and the second at the Jeep dealership in Nanuet. At the Jeep place, she would have been doing the same stuff she was doing at Caliper Tire, brakes, tires, oil changes, that type of stuff. The job at Lea seemed to call to her, my words, not her’s. She said she preferred to work at lea, but her couldn’t say why. The job she would do is very bottom rung, clean cars, put tags in the car and on the keys, set up cars for technicians to bring them into the shop easily. You know, back them into the parking spot, something Teri and I both do and have tried to encourage both girls to do. Well Elena could have learned an important work skill if she had continued to work at backing up into her parking spot.

Elena asked Teri how to tell the jeep place she was not going to take the job. This time she learned a valuable life lesson, how to turn down a job without cutting off a possible job position. Teri even wrote out what she should say. Tomorrow, Saturday, Elena will finish her first week. It’s not an exciting job, she says, but it’s cool or words to that effect. She stopped by Caliper Tire and talked to Sean sr telling him she misses the place, which was sweet of her. As long as the two who do like her are there, Elena is best working somewhere else. It’s funny, I asked Elen what days she works, when she first got the job, she didn’t know, I could but I didn’t ask what she would be making, but I’m sure she won’t know until her first check and even then she might not check it out. She really doesn’t care.

Everybody hurts, sometime*

* R.E.M 1982- I'm impressed with myself. I've used a song from the 1980's. Usually I'm doing songs from the 60's and 70's. Everybody hurts sometime, especially when someone tells you they don’t want you to work at their company any more. It’s easier when you're younger, even though the pain of rejection is worse. I was fired at 16 from my first job, at a typewriter repair store (think about it and you’ll figure out what the business did. I guess it’s like book binding, once it was very important.) because I didn’t know how to work. Nastia was fired from the movie theatres at the mall for cursing at an employee that was bothering her. She also lost her job at Helen Hayes because she picked a child up by the arm and that is against the rules, could have dislocated their arm.

Now Elena got her first job at Stop and Shop. She did an amazing job and was promoted to assistant to a manager. She began to hate the job, took some classes, at BOCES, in automotive repair and got a job at a local tire shop. Most everybody there loved her. The two who were not nice to her gave her grief, so she mouthed off to them. And yes after several years of this, the boss who didn’t like her fired her.

I remember coming home from getting fired at sixteen and going to sleep, I was so upset. I don’t remember what Nastia did. Elena is acting a little quiet, and nicer to the dogs. When we talk about the two people who are responsible for her not having a job, she is less nice, and I can’t blame her. I've been fired three times in my life. The first one hurt, the second one was a shock that came out of left field. The third and hopefully last one I should have known was coming. I was just drifting, looking for accounts in my territory, a territory I wasn’t sure what the boundaries were and a boss too busy with what he wanted to do than to manage his sales staff. After the last firing, I drifted and didn’t try to get a job in the industry I knew because it was dying and I knew it. I don’t want Elena to drift. She is young and does have some time. Her bills are minimal and she does have some money saved. They have both been good at saving lately. I asked Sean one day or night once recently, was he happy. When Nastia mentioned it to me a few days later she made it sound weird, it wasn’t I was trying to point out that most people don’t realize when they are happy, until it has passed and they compare it to where they are now. I, being older, occasionally stop to ask myself if I am happy, and I have realized I’m pretty happy now. Teri and I have financially gotten back on top of things.We’re making plans to fix up the house and maybe retire in it or whatever the future brings. Sean said he is happy, Nastia is almost always happy, I hope, haven’t asked. Elena is always hard to read, she is so much like me when I was her age. She keeps to herself, seems mad a lot of the time. She doesn’t have too many friends. Is not outgoing. Maybe I’m channeling me and she is nothing like me, but I see that person who when she smiles at you can melt your heart. I don’t know how I managed to get here from where I was, and I didn’t have nine years in Russian on my back. She is strong and I hope she knows how much she is loved. And we know how big of a heart she hides. She’ll come out the other side better off, I believe. When KJ goes looking for her he will yell, "Yell-na. The girl who doesn't like kids, likes him and he loves her. Everybody hurts, sometime lyrics When your day is long And the night, the night is yours alone When you're sure you've had enough Of this life, well hang on Don't let yourself go 'Cause everybody cries Everybody hurts sometimes Sometimes everything is wrong Now it's time to sing along When your day is night alone (hold on, hold on) If you feel like letting go (hold on) If you think you've had too much Of this life, well hang on 'Cause everybody hurts Take comfort in your friends Everybody hurts Don't throw your hand, oh no Don't throw your hand If you feel like you're alone No, no, no, you are not alone If you're on your own in this life The days and nights are long When you think you've had too much Of this life to hang on Well, everybody hurts sometimes Everybody cries Everybody hurts, sometimes And everybody hurts sometimes So hold on, hold on Hold on, hold on, hold on Hold on, hold on, hold on Everybody hurts

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.