A New York Reunion...

Went to New York last weekend for the TMLA Class of ‘68’s Second Annual Luncheon, a long title of my invention for a small gathering of women. I’ve never made it to previous high school reunions before, distance, money or family obligations usually being the obstacles. Money was an obstacle this year, but with the help of my old friend, Jayne, who put me up and chauffeured me around – thus saving me the cost of both a hotel and a rental car – I finally made it!

Most of us looked pretty good for our sixtieth year - a few would have been recognizable anywhere – as for the rest of us, thank goodness for name tags with our H.S. pics on them!  It was fun seeing old faces and catching up with old friends' news.  We're widowed, divorced, remarried, long-time married and single....we have grown children, teens still at home, grandchildren and no children...we're retired, still working and involuntarily unemployed.  We laughed, hugged, talked, reminisced and made plans to do it again!

I hadn't seen Jayne in twenty-five or thirty years but it didn't take long at all to fall into comfortable conversation and catch up on years of happenings.  The friends you can pick up with after years, as though you'd last visited only days or weeks ago, are the best kind!  I'm resolving to keep our friendship current this time around...can't afford to wait another twenty-five or thirty years to see each other again!

Thanks in part to Facebook, I am also forging a new friendship.  Randy and I knew each other in high school, but not well.  Reconnecting on FB before the reunion, we found we had much in common, so we made a point to spend some time together.  Jayne, and I had a leisurely lunch with Randy on Sunday and had such fun.  I wish Randy and I had taken time to get to know each other better forty-two years ago...but it's never too late!

The reunion lunch took me back to Long Island for the first time in over twenty years and it was a real trip down memory lane.  I don't know what was more fun...seeing what's changed or seeing what hasn't.  My old elementary school has taken on the look of a reform school...run down, bars on the windows and neglected lawns.  The house where I grew up looked great, but the house we lived in when I was born had a decidedly unkempt feel to it.  The old drugstore on the corner where I met my first husband is now a nail salon and his favorite bowling alley is a mini-mall with a Staples.  Nancy's Fireside lounge, scene of many of our dates is still there, only it is just called Nancy's.  Our luncheon was held at Stella's, also scene of many dates, but I wouldn't have recognized it - it had been completely renovated from pizza place to lovely Italian Ristorante - but the food hadn't changed a bit...it was delicious!

It was truly a fun weekend.  I'm glad I went...and hope to go again!

Sunflowers...and Broken Toes...

Just bouncing around the house yesterday trying to get ready for my weekend trip to NY when I thought I noticed a new sunflower in the yard.  Darted over to the window for a better look and BAM!  Rammed my foot into a heavy wooden chest.  The first word out of my mouth was not for family viewing...nor were the second or third!  By now Ed is standing in the doorway asking, "Are you all right?"  Looked down at my throbbing foot, saw the last little piggy sitting at a decidedly unnatural angle and cried, "NO!"

Once we had me settled on the couch - still throbbing, but no longer crying - I called my friend, Tricia, described my foot and asked for some free medical advice.  She and her husband Mitch own and operate Masonboro Urgent Care.  The consensus was that I could try moving my toe into place and buddy-taping it or see a doc and get it x-rayed.  I considered the first option but the lightest touch caused me to see stars...so told them I'd be along shortly.

The first x-ray showed it was broken in two separate places and totally out of alignment.  After three attempts to realign and set the fracture...involving two men pulling and twisting my toe, some excited utterances (that was me - on the last attempt, I shouted, "I'll tell you anything you want to know!"), local anesthetic (which dulled the pain, but did not mask it), and two more x-rays...it was declared "almost perfect" and taped up.  I left armed with a fracture shoe for protection and pain pills for relief...

On the way home Ed took me for seafood on the Intercoastal :)  As for my weekend in NY...I'll be the one hobbling.

Childhood Memories...

I have very few warm,fuzzy memories of my early childhood...but lots of "snapshots" of people, places and events.  My childhood was neither particularly happy nor particularly unhappy...it just was.

Born in New York, I was the first child of a white collar Dad and a stay-at-home Mom in a blue collar, predominantly Catholic neighborhood.  Dad was a good deal older than Mom and provided me with an eight-year-old half-sister from a previous marriage.  Following quickly on my heels, my brother Glen arrived before my second birthday.

I remember our house on 85th Ave, the gravel driveway, the white picket fence in the back, the climbing roses on the side of the garage, the flagstone patio, the umbrella tree and the flocks, and getting stung by a yellow-jacket as I climbed in to my blow-up Howdy Doody pool.  I remember the names of our neighbors, and of my friends...and the candy store on the corner that was forbidden territory.

I recall the day Mom and Dad brought Glen home from the hospital; dancing in the kitchen with my sister while she did the dinner dishes; the Christmas tree in the corner of the living room by the picture window...and the time I tried to get my new trike from behind it and sent the tree flying across the room.  I remember Nanny and Poppy babysitting one evening...and Poppy taking me for a late-night walk around the neighbor hood in my PJ's to calm my cries because I wanted to find mom.  I can still see my newly-finished pink room in what had been the attic and the odd sideways rock wallpaper they put up in the downstairs bedroom that became home to Dad's old wood desk and two new, ugly green studio couches.

I have a vague picture of the downstairs apartment on Little Neck Parkway where Nanny and Poppy lived for a brief time...until Dad made them move back to Brooklyn. Although I don't know any details, I know they moved there to be close to us, but he didn't like it...and they didn't stay there long. I remember Toy, the Mexican Chihuahua we acquired...a casualty of my Uncle Vince's divorce. A dog too high-strung to be relegated to the basement much of the time because Dad didn't want her running around the house. Dad was not a person who should have pets.

I remember walking with Mom to Kollner's grocery store on Hillside Ave and bringing the groceries home in an old-lady push-cart; the corner where the bus picked me up for kindergarten...and my teacher, Mrs. Kiernan.  I remember starting first grade at St. Gregory's...and Mom walking me to school every day as she pushed Glen in his stroller.

Glen was diagnosed around age two with Rheumatic Fever and St. Vitus' Dance and the doctor said too much activity was dangerous for his heart, so Mom and Dad acquired a very old, over-sized stroller for him and covered the seat with turquoise blue contact paper with a diamond pattern.  Glen rode in that stroller until he was nearly six years old.  For some reason, related to Glen's illness, the family had to have chest x-rays and I recall being embarrassed at having to remove my blouse in front of strangers...I was four years old!

I remember birthday parties, my green bike with the training wheels, learning to jump rope on the sidewalk with the other neighborhood kids, hanging on to Mom for dear life as I tried to roller skate and having a crush on Drew who lived across the street.

The five of us lived in the house on 85th Ave until I turned seven...then my parents decided to move. 

The Unexamined Life...

One of the perks of being older is being more comfortable with myself.

A common phrase heard in the sixties (the decade, not my age group!) had to do with "going to find myself."  It was supposed to be a journey of self-discovery and the vehicle for that journey was often drugs.  I didn't embark on the trip back then...naively thought I had it all together...and (fortunately) steered clear of the drugs.  It wasn't until much later that I realized not only did I not have it all together, but I wasn't sure just who was the real me or if I even liked her!

So, I now find myself traveling the road of self-discovery (minus drugs) and - to use a cliche (Mom was fond of them, so it is an inherited flaw) - I am a work in progress.  A product of past experiences, genetics, environment, poor choices, good decisions, personal encounters and more to come.  I've filled a variety of roles over the years ~ girl, woman, daughter, mother, sister, wife, nurse, girlfriend, caregiver, employee, mother-in-law, friend, stepmother, grandmother, aunt, co-worker, student, teacher, sister-in-law, divorcee ~ and how I've performed in each role is part of who I have and will become.

I realize this is not new territory; Socrates said, at his trial for heresy in 399 B.C., "The unexamined life is not worth living."  Six decades is a lot to look at, but it might aid in the process of "finding myself" and who I've come to be.

Stay tuned...

Old Friends, New Friends and The Blue Virgin...

My brother Glen is here again.  A friend of his from high school just published her first novel and was in town this weekend for a book signing.  He has the coolest friends.

Marni's a retired nurse and has always loved writing - poetry as a young girl, articles for nursing journals during her nursing career and fiction...mysteries to be precise.

The Blue Virgin

Her new novel is a mystery, set in Oxford, England, and Marni's first hand experience in Oxford is evident in her book, as is her grasp of the intricacies of the mystery genre.

I read The Blue Virgin several months ago and thoroughly enjoyed it...but have to confess...I was just a teeny bit jealous.   I too am a nurse (currently being forced to contemplate retirement), an avid reader (partial to mysteries) and a wishful writer...I have some skills but lack the creativity and imagination required for success.  Needless to say, I was excited at the prospect of meeting someone who succeeded in bringing this particular dream to reality.  Our plan was to attend the book signing and then all have dinner together.

Marni felt like a friend the first minute we met...warm and outgoing with a contagious smile...and just too nice to be the least bit jealous of!  Turns out we went to the same nursing school and trained in the same hospitals...at almost the same time...and likely crossed paths at some point!  Her husband, Arthur - a retired plastic surgeon - although on the quieter side, was just as down-to-earth as Marni.  They are people I would enjoy getting to know better.

The book signing, which resulted in the sale of ten books, was a success.  Dinner at The Pilot House was an even bigger success.  Another HS friend of Glen's and Marni's...Simone and her husband, Tom...joined us.  The good food, the camraderie and the peaceful atmosphere that accompanies dining on the riverfront added up to a really great time and by the end of the evening I felt like I had new friends.

P.S. ~ If you'd like to read The Blue Virgin, you can either request that your Barnes and Noble store order it for you or you can order directly from this website:  The Blue Virgin.  Meanwhile, Marni is hard at work on the next novel in this series.