Category: Family N Friends
A line I often hear is “Prepare for the worst but expect the best”. I have my own version, “I prepare for the worst because I expect the worst”. It does no good for people, even people I trust, to say, “Don’t worry” or “Don’t be a pessimist”, this is how I am. A pessimist is what I am and worry is what I do. Here’s some examples.
This Thursday, tomorrow actually, I am going to a hockey game. Not my first professional hockey game, but my first NHL hockey game. I’m excited, I’m nervous, I’M GOING TO DIE. When I ordered the tickets, my first worry was “Will I get them in time?”, the website promised me I would. Then the ticket was being shipped FedEx, I worried that FedEx would lose them, then when I got the sticker on my door I worried that I would get to the FedEx place and the envelope would be on the truck. All of those worries were groundless and I got my ticket. Interestingly, I didn’t worry about getting murdered while walking through the Bronx in the dark. I guess once I do something and don’t die, I’m invincible.
However, that is not the end of my worries. I have to go by train to Penn Station in Newark, then walk to the Prudential Center. Neither of which I have done before. Besides that, they are now forecasting a storm for tonight leading into tomorrow. So I am either going to get lost going there, get stuck on a snowed in train or die in Newark. I haven’t decided which of those things is the worst. Also, since I’m a Sabres fan and I’m going to the game in New Jesey, I worry that I’ll get pummeled by Devils fans. Paul assured me that won’t happen. I’m still worried.
The reality is, everything will most likely be fine. I’ve been thinking that the worst is going to happen and I’m not going to survive for most of my life. Usually the worst doesn’t happen, sometimes it has, but I’m still here. In fact I am now living my dream. Of course that may end at any moment. **Did I leave the stove on?**
On to the next subject, my friend is coming to visit tonight. She was planning on coming down tomorrow but because of said storm. In her text she says, “Don’t drive yourself crazy cleaning.” Because every time she says she’s coming I say: “I have to clean!” She says, “I don’t care, it doesn’t have to be spotless.” And I think, it’s far from spotless it’s a freakin’ filthy mess! See?
Maybe not. However I remember her telling me how important it would be for me to keep my apartment clean. As in, “You’ll get bugs if you don’t” and “If I come to your apartment and find it’s not clean ….”, I don’t remember what she said she would do. In fact she may have never even said that it may just be a figment of my overactive pessimistic imagination. Since she has been here before and is coming again I probably shouldn’t worry, of course there is the worry that she doesn’t really like my apartment, although why that should be important to me I have no idea. P.S. I don’t have bugs.
Now that I have laid bare my faults to you, I’m going to get off the computer and go clean. Later. Did I mention I’m really good at procrastinating?
The old man, he wants my ice cream! I was trying to fend him off with my iPhone.
My hockey jersey, now covered with cat hair. But I washed it so it is clean cat hair.
When I was 17 my grandmother had major surgery. She had an aneurysm in one of the arteries leading to her brain, or away from the brain, I can’t remember is veins go to the brain or arteries, but it was a major blood vessel and the surgery was a big deal. As the doctors explained it, an aneurysm is like a balloon, and what the doctors planned to do was clamp the aneurysm at the neck, then since blood is no longer feeding it, it shrivels up and is no longer a threat to burst and bleed and kill her. The surgery was not a success, when the doctors got in there it was too big, the aneurysm was sitting on the artery and the doctors couldn’t get to the neck to clamp it off. So instead they closed off the artery and ‘redirected’ the blood. So she lived, sort of, she was paralyzed on one side of her body and spent the rest of her life not able to care for her basic needs. I remember so many details of that trip to see her when I was 17, I remember one of my tops was lavender and gauzy, I remember after she got out of intensive care she was on the 6th floor, I was knitting a baby blanket for a friend. I vividly remember my grandfather crying in the waiting room and my aunt telling someone (not me specifically) that her husband (who had been sitting next to my grandfather) told her, “I hope I die before you.” She told him that was selfish, he said: “I know.” He also got his wish.
For the past week, ever since I started thinking about writing this post I have tried to remember when she died, I am ashamed to say I can’t. I remember I was sitting at home watching T.V. and a friend of my brother’s was over, we were watching some comedy when the phone rang. But I don’t remember when that happened. I didn’t go to her funeral, I made some excuse about not being able to get time off from work, the truth was I didn’t even ask for the time because I didn’t want to go. That’s the truth, maybe I should add “World’s Worst Granddaughter” to my list of titles. The real truth was, I lost her when I was 17, not when she died.
My grannie was a strong woman who bore 6 children and raised 4 of them to adulthood and buried 2. She was a woman who didn’t let an ice storm keep her from doing her laundry, she hammered nails through pieces of plywood and tied them to her feet so she could make it to the laundry room. When her husband (my grandfather) complained she wasn’t putting enough starch in the wash she proceeded to starch his undershorts (he meant his shirts needed more starch, as far as I know he never complained about the laundry again). When the nasty old rooster spurred her and knocked her glasses off, she grabbed his head and twisted it clean off his body, into the stew pot he went! My father reports that she cooked him for three days and that old bird was still too tough to eat. She hiked to the top of a mountain, part of the hike involved climbing up rock, with her grandchildren, and was not impressed by the Grand Canyon, just a big hole in the ground. That was my grannie, not this frail woman lying in a hospital bed not able to eat, or dress herself or even talk.
Last Saturday my best friend’s mother died. She was a great lady, her daughter is my best friend in the whole wide world and I called her mother Mom. She considered me her fourth daughter. She had Alzheimer’s which is a terrible disease that before it kills you steals your personality. My friend told me that after her last visit home. Now I wonder if she started to mourn her mother during that visit, and now feels guilty thinking that she gave up on her mom too soon. I have no answers for her, she loved her mom, her mom knew that, even if she forgot it in the end it certainly wasn’t my friend’s fault. My heart hurts for her.
![IMG_1544[1]](https://bellafoxx.me/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/img_15441.jpg)
This is Jack with his sweater I knitted for him. I never knit for other people. I don’t like animals. **whistles**
Isn’t he the cutest thing!
Yes I got an iPhone5, I actually got it two days before I thought I could, so I took it on my vacation. A vacation that I ended up coming home early from because of, well, lets just say craziness. I’m not sure what set off the craziness, it might have been me ……
After Sandy was the nor’easter, then I got asked to help with mapping the houses that needed rebuilding, which lead to overtime, which I haven’t been paid for which means I am now screwed, its complicated and since I came through this storm rather well off I am not going into the details. Lot less heartache for me to deal with that many.
Speaking of heartache, Sandy Hook Elementary School in everyone’s thoughts these days, then I just read about firefighters being shot when responding to a house fire, in a world where a person can shoot 20 5 and 6 year olds should we be surprised that another person would shoot firefighters? The police responded but before the firefighter could get back to fighting the fire it spread to 3 houses and a car. No deaths reported except for the firefighters that got SHOT.
No subway stories today, I haven’t been on it much since I was on vacation where there are no subways, just roads and cars and idiot drivers. Now I am back and have things to do here.
Signing off, back to the subways Thursday.
The next day I went out and took some pictures and video. The pictures are on Flickr and the videos are on my YouTube Channel.
Then the Wednesday after the storm a noreaster blew through with nasty biting wind and snow. I know because I was out in it shopping. I am a tough New Yorker (Translation: Stupid). First I went to the yarn store to get yarn for the shawl I’m making for one of the bridesmaids in my best friend’s daughter’s wedding. I was wearing my gray down coat and it got soaked, it is not exactly waterproof. Besides the coat getting soaked, my jeans and every other part that was exposed got soaked too. I came home to change, but I didn’t want to put on my other winter coat, since I would need a coat the next day. The e-mail we got about cold stress, which I at first by cold they meant virus but they were talking working outside in cold temperatures, said dress in layers. I put on my long underwear, a sweatshirt and over that my coaches jacket, which has a fleece lining and is waterproof. It’s not designed for really cold weather, but with the layers it worked out fine. So I then ventured out again, this time for ….. a new coat to replace my gray coat.
The next Sunday (4 days later) when I went to church I wore a summer dress with a cotton sweater, tights and dress shoes. Last night I was back to wearing a coat. Winter in New York. No wonder I now have sniffles and a sore throat.
My friends and family have all been calling, actually they’ve all been calling my mother, who is expected to contact me and report back to them. Since I can’t STAND to talk to some members of my family (who shall remain unnamed) that is fine with me.
If you have been following my other blogs, you know I have am still alive. I actually came through the storm relatively unscathed. I didn’t lose power, wifi, or water. It shows you the extent of the damage that there are areas of Manhattan that still don’t have power and the subways are not fully functional. Even my office has been closed all week. I have a sneaking suspicion there was flooding or some other damage to the building.
In case you didn’t know, the city is divided into Zones. The only Zone that was evacuated was Zone A, I am in Zone C, however, if I lived across the street I would be in Zone B. Think on that. Two blocks from apartment is the East River, and right next to that is the FDR.
The subways were shut down at 7:00 pm on Sunday and 9:00 pm the buses were shut down. This didn’t stop me from going out to watch game 4 of the World Series. One woman asked for food, but the kitchen had been closed at 6:00 to let the staff get home. I didn’t ask the bartender how he was getting home. But anyway, on Monday the storm really started to hit. My experience was chronicled more or less by text messages to and from me. The first one was to me:
“Hi there!!! How are you? I got a new phone.”
Me: “Nice I’m drinking coffee and eating berry burst Oreas.”
Him: “good! Stay in your building. Nothing is safe.”
Me: “What if I run out of pizza?” (This was a joke, I don’t keep pizza in my apartment. I avoid having things in my apartment that I am allergic to, the exceptions are rye bread and stuff my friend buys when she visits.)
Him: “Then stay home and survive rather than go out and get killed in the storm.” (The storm wasn’t really that bad, but he’s protective.)
By this time parts of the city had lost power, mainly from ConEd shutting down some stations to avoid problems from flooding. Unfortunately, there was flooding and they did have problems, which is why people are still without power today. There was also flooding at various MetroNorth stations.
I did go out after this series of text messages, but I almost got blown over by the wind. I was coming down one street and I saw a man run across the sidewalk, behind him was a tree branch, it looked like the branch was chasing him, I turned and another man was hanging onto a tree, I turned back and walked down a more protected street. I got home about 3:30 PM, and decided not go back out, besides being windswept I was wet and cold.
Me: “Wind is scary loud now. Going to put a blanket over my head.”
Him: “I’m sorry, I’m sure it won’t be too bad”
Me: “There is no one outside. That has never happened.” This is the truth, every time I have ever looked out my window, even when it’s been pouring, people have been walking around. I looked at my window right before I sent that text and didn’t see anyone.
Later:
Me: “I take it back. There are people outside”
Me: “I hear them screaming”Him: “Stupid people. Hahahahaha”
Me: “I’m not going out to save them. Fools r on their own.” Seriously what could I do for anyone? The wind was blowing be down hours earlier and it was worse now.
The reason for the blanket was I got an alert from NotifyNYC to go indoors and stay away from windows. Since I live in a studio apartment, I don’t have another room where I can go to get away from the windows, except the bathroom. So I put my laptop under a pillow and took my phone, iPod and flash drives with me to the far end of the apartment, where I sat on the floor with a blanket over my head. Sometime around 7:30 pm I heard talking outside my apartment. Not the screaming like I heard before, so I went to the window (still with the blanket over my head) and peeked out.
Me: “Omg nick! There are police & fd in front of my bldg!”
Him: “What for?”
Me: “No idea. They are yelling at people to get out of street.”
“Ok my neighbor just went out and said there is scaffolding loose on the building in next block and is swinging around”Him: “Oh, that’s really scary.”
That was the extent of the excitement. Other then every so often from outside, “GET OUT OF THE STREET!” The rain stopped and the wind died down. I stayed up until about 2:00 A.M. and went to bed. My lights never even flickered. I had even boiled 6 eggs in case I lost power and couldn’t cook them. Today I had to throw 2 of them out, I didn’t know the yolks would get hard while still in the egg. The next day I went out and took pictures and video of the storm damage. There wasn’t a lot in my neighborhood, but it makes you realize how bad it COULD have been.
That’s my thrilling account of Hurricane Sandy. Hope you enjoyed reading it.
This October has quite frankly, been awful. What with a friend’s cancer coming back (after 10+ years cancer-free), another friend going to visit her mother who has Alzheimer’s (and sending me text messages “My mom’s really not doing well.”), the episode on the Evil Green Train that I wrote about before, and another one that I didn’t write about but resulted in me missing a day from work, to my allergies and asthma flaring up (that resulted in $100 pharmacy bill) and my rosacea and eczema coming back (another $90), I want a do-over please. Oh did I mention, the Yankees got swept by the Tigers in the ALCS and THERE WAS A MOUSE UNDER MY STOVE!
I spent Saturday night at my old place. I used to rage against people who said I lived upstate, “I don’t live upstate, I live in the Hudson Valley.” Saturday when Em was in the city and the Greenpeace guy was asking us for money, the first question they always ask is “Where are you from?” Em answers, “Upstate.” So ….
I slept in my old bedroom, except it wasn’t my old bedroom. The bed was where my sewing machine used to be, they actually turned the two rooms into one, so there is a sleeping area and a sitting area, so Sarah can have a friend over. Em got corn and roasted it on the grill. It was so good, but I was sick, I am still sick. Blech.
Yankees lost on Sunday, CC went on the DL, I told Alex, “The Yankees are doomed, that means no more half-price Papa John’s.” His reply was they better start winning again because he wants his pizza!
So my head is going to explode anytime now. I should post the rest of my pictures before that happens.
Belleza
just a (transplanted) city girl 