moving forward
This is the last post I will make from this house, except for a Memorial Day post I have set to go.
I've been here 14 years and one month. When I first moved here, Natalie was an infant. In between then and now, I had another child, got divorced and got remarried. There's a whole lot of history - good and bad - in this place.
The thing I will miss the most is having my parents across the street. Oh, we're only moving about six or seven blocks away but the convenience factor of having one's parents across the street can't be beat.
On second thought, the irritation factor can't be beat, either. At least now, we'll be close enough to still bum a meal off of my parents, but not close enough so that they are all up in my face all the time.
This house - the one I'm leaving - is situated in what we call the compound. It's a corner house and on either side of the home is a relative. Or two or three. So all the yards - from two houses down to the west and the house to the north, all conjoin in some way to form a really big complex of yards and homes. At any given time, there are about ten kids outside, plus various aunts, uncles, cousins and other assorted relatives. It's great when you want to have a family gathering, but other than that, it pretty much sucks. Especially when your family is as nosy as mine.
So this flight from "the compoud" rings like freedom. No more aunt and uncle upstairs; that would be the batty uncle who does nothing but scream and curse all day and the aunt who has sneezing fits that last up to an hour. This is the same uncle whose hobby is feeding birds, thus turning our yard into a wildlife sanctuary filled with birds and squirrels who never, ever shut up.
No more aunt next door who constantly wants to know what we are doing and why we are doing it. No more little cousins running back and forth by the doorway. No more mental self-torture of comparing myself on a daily basis to the fitter, happier, more productive cousins next door.
Now, my yard is mine. No sharing, no dibs on whose friends were playing out on the lawn first.
Oh, and no more idiot across the street who revs his truck engine for at least a half hour every morning before he leaves for work.
The block we are moving to is not without its share of horrors. For instance, last night one of our new neighbors had a party. A pre-teen girl party. Twenty of them, screaming (and you know that the decibel level of a female pre-teen girl can shatter ear drums), running up and down the street. And there's the guy next door who has a tendency to suck face with his girlfriend for hours at a time in front of his house. Minor things.
The best things about the new house? One of DJ's best friends from school lives next door, and about half the boys in his class live on our street. Constant baseball and basketball games outside. Natalie's best friend lives around the corner. The people next door (the one with the kissy face son) are huge Yankee fans. Hey, that's what I like in a neighbor!
I've known a lot of the families on this block forever. One couple, I've known for about fifteen years. Another couple - I was close friends with the husband in junior high; we grew up just three houses from each other. This street is famous for its block parties and barbecues. They're the kind of people who will see you doing work on your house and before you know it, they will all be standing in your yard with tools and cold beer, offering help or advice.
So today we start taking our belongings out of this home and driving them over to the new home, leaving behind the invasion of privacy issues, the sticky bedroom door, the uneven floor in the kitchen, the noisy uncle, and - most important - the baggage that went with this place. After all, this is where I lived with my ex, where I divorced my ex, where I built a lot of miserable memories. For the first time, Justin will not feel like he is living in an ex-husband zone. This is a grand step forward for us, it's almost like we are starting over. Fresh. No layers of bad marriage dust lurking around the corners and under the beds.
We bought paint yesterday. Beautiful bright colors, not a stitch of boring old white. It's our house. We can do whatever we want. If that means golden walls in the living room and a red hallway, so be it. We made plans to gut the bathroom and start over. We ordered new windows for the room where the office will be. Natalie has plans to paint flames all over her walls. DJ wants Justin to paint a mural on his bedroom wall so it looks like he's sleeping in Yankee Stadium.
Our fridge makes crushed ice (I know, I'm obsessing over this, but I have a compulsion with eating ice), we have a garbage disposal, I finally have the flat top stove I always wanted, the garage is going to be fantastic rec room and we are determined to make this horrible lawn look decent.
We are going to be poor, there is no doubt about that. But we are going to be happy. Sure, I nitpicked and bitched about everything the other day, but I'm feeling better as the days go by. Every crack, every little blemish, they are all mine to fix and I love the way that feels.
Now comes the hard part. The actual moving. I'm really not that fond of hard labor.
Anyhow, thanks for putting up with my endless posts about home buying and moving the past few weeks. Look for my Memorial Day post tomorrow (or late tonight) and I'll catch up with you on Tuesday.
Everyone enjoy your holiday weekend. You know the drill - don't drink and drive, eat lots of burgers and try to visit a local war memorial if there is one near you. You can see photos of my last trip to the Nassau County Memorial here]
Thank you both for the lovely Photoshops.
I noticed something strange at Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond yesterday. The latest in kitchen decor seems to be dressing the room up in 
So Nat got her braces today. And yes, they are pink. She thought the color would go nice with her predominantly black wardrobe. She's got a real 80's new wave thing going on. She just doesn't know it.
We didn't have colors when I was young. Nope, just plain old metal. Hence the lovely moniker metal mouth.
[Update: I've gone back to MT - more on that later]
We're off to see Shrek 2.
Maybe it is partly the sunburn. You know, I do this at least once a year - go to a game and sit there on a hazy day as if that haze was going to keep me from burning. I deserve this agony.
Hey, 
You are American Gods! You are mysterious,
I am boycotting Yankee Stadium. Granted, I don't go to too many games because the Major Deegan Expressway is something I try to avoid at all costs. Still, 
Either my Photoshop skills are in serious decline or I'm really tired. No matter what, I'm going to have nightmares.
By the way, 
Hide your pride. The American slogan of the 2004 Olympics.
Syd was one of my favorite authors when I was a child. His books were simple to read, those early primer readers with short sentences in big type and not too many words that broached two syllables. But the imagination, laughter and improbability packed into those books made those simple words magical.
I was introduced to Mr. Hoff by way of Danny the Dinosaur. My teachers would let me take home as many of the I Can Read series of books home with me; I'd read one every night which certainly impressed the teachers. I remember trying to explain to them that reading Hoff's books weren't really like reading at all, they were like playing with words and pictures. I don't think they understood.
Hoff also wrote a slew of joke books filled with the kind of humor that only a child or an adult who never forgot how to be a child will laugh at. His book Animal Jokes (I'm nearly positive it was that one) was my first introduction to the wacky world of puns.
In addition to writing and illustrating wonderful children's books, Syd Hoff was a regular contributor of cartoons to The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post, Esquire and many other magazines. He also had two comic strips - Tuffy, which appeared in hundreds of papers daily and the one panel strip Laugh it Off, which was syndicated by King Features.
Rest well, Mr. Hoff. And thanks for all those hours of enjoyment.
Go 
A good portion of my Google hits from people searching for "A small victory" have other search words added on that lead me to believe they are searching for 
Your generosity has been overwhelming, to say the least. From the people who donated $500, to the people who donated one dollar, to the people who couldn't donate but linked and spread the word, you have all done so much to spread good in a week that has otherwise been so bad.
And that is the point. All the things that have been going on in the past week are things we can do little about except rant and scream and cry. Alan, who is one of my heroes regardless, came up with a beautiful way to make us feel like we can do some good, we can make a difference.
The beauty of this is that, by donating money to send Susan Tom's kids to college, you are not making a political statement. You do not have to examine your feelings about war or politics or the upcoming election - all the things that divide us - to drop a few dollars in the jar or to call on your readers/friends/families to rally 'round and suppor the cause. It is a human cause. A good cause that nobody can find fault with or find a reason to not support.
It is our hope that some of the bigger left side bloggers pick this up as well, proving that there are some things we can agree on an the divide between Americans that is so deep right now is one that can be crossed given the right circumstances. So how about it? 
This is a 
Is it me or is my site ridiculously slow today? It's taking forver to load up. I tried taking down the squirrel banner, but apparently that wasn't it.
Or maybe it's just me?
I want this. Badly.
Oh, you think I wouldn't wear it? You are sadly mistaken, then. I would wear it with pride. And I'd wear it with 
Anyhow. I went for the salad at BK last night even though, in my heightened state of starvation, those Angus burgers looked tasty (turns out, according to my husband, that they - surprise! - taste like rubber). 
Yea, I got bored making the dots in between the letters. Sue me.
Update:
This is not a dis on those who like the show. While I was never a fan of it, that's mostly because I never watched it. We've started watching the early evening reruns and I enjoy the show.
However, when I was standing in 7-11 today and I overheard one girl nearly break down in hysterical sobs talking about never seeing her "Friends" again, and when they were talking about the show on every radio station and every news show and when they were on the cover of the freaking Daily News today, well...I just had to step in.
[You can see the full size versions of these photos at 
[see 
It's just one panel, not even the whole strip. In just one, tiny sentence, Ted Rall changes from just another bitter anti-America screech owl into a hatemongerer. Sure, you can say that some of Rall's past works have been hateful. But not like this. He paints Pat Tillman and, in essence, every soldier who enlisted after 9/11, as racist thugs who want nothing more than to murder Arabs.
That's disdainful. It's arrogant, it's obnoxious, it's vile and it's contemptible. No newspaper or syndicate in their right mind should be letting this hateful attempt at humor grace their pages.
Rall is a disgrace to America. Here is a man who, as a New York City resident, saw the charred rubble of the World Trade Center up close. He saw first hand the devastation of 9/11. And yet he thinks going into Afghanistan is evil and wrong. I don't understand his mind set.
After we began the war on terror in Afghanistan, Rall took a trip over there (
I had a lot of "What's your favorite...." questions in the leftover questions pile (granted, a lot of them are from one person, but I'm trying to get to 100 in the most expedient, yet entertaining manner), so I'll hit those right now. The first was 
