A New York Tail…

September 6, 2011 by 6 Comments

He’s here!!  Landed on my doorstep just as Hurricane Irene hit the New York area a few days ago.

Who, you ask?

Leo, that’s who!  Leo the Sock Monkey who is traveling across America, here, direct from Dweej in Michigan!  Leo will be my house guest for, well, as long as I decide to keep him or until such time as he misbehaves.  Whichever comes first.

This little Monkey-dude has been doing his fair share of road trips around the U.S. and I’ve been waiting for weeks to welcome him here to Kent Cliffs, New York, in the heart of the Hudson Valley.

As the rains from Irene started pouring down on New York, I came home from work to find a fairly soggy box waiting on our front porch.  Peeking out was one damp little Monkey with a baggie over his head, obviously pissed-off from waiting all day.

I rushed to bring him inside and give him a Banana Hot Toddy.   He was complaining so much that I sent him directly to his room, hoping a little nap would help him calm down.

                                                             

My home….

                            

Leo just loved the wooden sign over our front door and climbed up to get a better look…..

               

There will be plenty of work to keep him busy, like the bushes in need of some major Leo Scissorhands and some major yard clean-up of all the fallen branches from our recent storm.  He needs to keep his mind on other things right now.

You see, this poor little guy came to me feeling depressed, something he didn’t share with Dweej while visiting;  I’m sure she would have been very supportive had he reached out.  Seems that, while on his journey across America, during a stay with Shannon in Indiana,  Leo went and got himself…married, to someone named “Baby” who wasn’t quite all she seemed.  The sweet girl he first met turned into someone else entirely!

It was one of those spur-of-the-moment things that can either blossom into a wonderful relationship or quickly fade away.  This faded faster than a politician’s promise!  Soon after leaving Indiana, Leo found his new wife monkeying-around and, well, I’d rather not go into great detail but, from all he related, his ex was a bit on the loose side.  If you get my drift. 

He showed me her photo and wiped tears from his eyes as he agonized over the real “Baby”. 

I  promptly called our attorney on Leo’s behalf and had him file for an annulment.  It will be over and done in 30 days.

My hubs and I decided that the best thing to do was to get Leo involved in everything we do; keep him on the move to help get his mind off that little hoochie monkey.  So…he came to work at our business where he quickly learned to become a technician.  In no time, Leo was taking care of customers….

He worked  read some blogs on the computer in my office….

 

 

He also helped himself to my iced coffee!

 Learning a new trade in this economy isn’t a bad thing and Leo thinks he might continue as an Automotive Accessory Installer…

He was very proud of his first install on a Jeep of an HID light bar….

Leo managed to take several breaks during the work day….

 

Our new daughter-in-law, Kristy came by and Leo did some flirting while he sat in her new Fiat…

Later in the week, Leo came to the salon for a quick trim but kept spinning around in the stylist chair as I tried taking his picture…

                                          

He is not a good tipper!

Oh…Leo took a big liking to a Log Cabin Dollhouse that I recently finished building…

 

The little monkey-butt managed to get his big head stuck in the window and I had to pry him out!

After that, he cuddled up with a few dolls in my kitchen who all gave him lots of sympathy while I whipped him up some Banana Lasagna.  Leo loves Italian food but I had to hide the Chianti.  A drunk Monkey trying to sing like Dean Martin ain’t purty.  Just sayin’

Leo had the greatest visit with us and we will all be sorry to see him leave but, he’s a travelin’ little dude with places to go and more people to see.  He will be staying long enough to have some of my birthday cake and we’ll bid him a very fond farewell.

As Leo was packing for the next leg of his journey to visit with one very special lady, Cherie from the fabulous Lots of Jewels, I learned that Cherie’s home suffered devastating  flood damage.   It will be some time before this family recovers and gets back to normal.  Please keep them in your prayers and stop by Cherie’s blog to share some support and love.

In the interim, Debbie, from Northern North America Bears, will be waiting for Leo to arrive at her home.

Thanks so very much to Deb for sharing Leo and giving us all so much fun!   

If you would like to be a foster parent and help Leo see even more of the world, visit lovely Deb at… mccormickmadness.com and let her know. 

You won’t regret it except for the fact that… Leo snores….a lot!

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Do I know you?

September 4, 2011 by 20 Comments

“Hey, I know you!”

“Are you speaking to me?”

“Well, I don’t see anyone else around so, I guess I am. It’s Patty, right?”

“Ummm, yes but I’m afraid that I don’t know who you are and if you didn’t notice, Trader Joe’s is jammed today with people everywhere.  Sorry, I really have to get back to work..”

“Oh, come on, wait a minute, what’s the rush?”

“What part of I don’t know you do you fail to understand?”

“Wow!  And after we spent so much quality time together!”

“Excuse me?”

“High school, we used to sit next to each other in Mrs. Klein’s English Lit class.”

“7th Period?    Oh my God, Steve… Steve Altman?”

“That would be me!  Wow, have I changed all that much?”

“Well, let’s be honest here, it’s been 47 years, we aren’t those kids anymore!”

“I had no problem recognizing you, except for the blonde hair and eyeglasses and…you aren’t wearing that sweater that you had on at our reunion.”

“Please, stop there, quit while you’re ahead, Steve.   I’m sorry if I was rude.  Gosh, I forgot about our 25th reunion.”

“Hey, no problem, it happens to me, a lot.  And to think I almost asked you to our senior prom, but…”

“Oh please, that I do not recall.  You only spoke to me in class and outside of that room we passed in the hall when we changed periods where you barely acknowledged me.  You were going to ask me to the prom…but?”

“You were seeing that guy Ronnie, weren’t you, the one who dumped that girl Joanie so he could take you to the prom?  That was quite the scandal in our corner of the lunchroom. Boy, she hated you, probably still does.”

“I’m sure she’s gotten over it by now, Steve unless, of course, she runs into you and it gets thrown up to her once again.”

“I heard you and Ronnie broke up a couple of years after graduation.”

“Yes, we did.  Ancient history, hardly something I ever think about.  Still practicing law, still married, kids?”

“Talk about a fast change of subject.  Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable with that question.”

“Ahhh yes, still an Attorney, I see.  Well, I’m not on the stand but I do take the fifth.  And, the answers to my questions on your marriage situation, kids?”

“Yes to both, you?”

“Almost 41 years now, three kids, four Grandkids.”

“Happy?”

“Ecstatic…you?”

“It’s all relative, people go through so many changes over the years, you know?  Do I detect a hint of sarcasm, Patty?”

“Sarcasm?  No, more like honesty.  Growing older sucks, especially when there’s still so much you want to do while time just clicks away, faster and faster.  Speaking of time, I really have to get going, Steve.”

“That’s too bad.  I was hoping we could catch up on more of that ancient history but just have to mention that I’ll always remember that one afternoon in class.”

“And what afternoon was that?”

“That Friday, in November of 1963, you came to class late and interrupted Mrs. Klein while she was teaching, you were all upset and she wouldn’t listen to you.  She yelled at you to take your seat just as the announcement came over the loudspeaker.”

“I remember as if it were yesterday.  Mrs. Klein was furious with me and when I tried to tell her what I heard, she told me not to spread rumors. As I kept trying, she demanded that I get into my seat at once and Sydney started laughing. Remember him? Boy, that was so out of character for her to lose her temper in class, especially with me, I was one of her favorite students.”

“Her anger turned to tears when we all heard what the principal had to say and Sydney was the first one to run out of the classroom. He was the class clown, a jerk who had no idea of that tragedy. All he cared about was getting out of school.”

“Yes, that was a horrible scene and I’ll never forget those words…President Kennedy has been assassinated, school is dismissed.  Most of us just sat there, in shock. Mrs. Klein put her head down on the desk and sat there, crying. Sad, sad memory.  Well, on that note, I have to run.   It was good seeing you again, Steve.”

“Good seeing you too Patty, just remember that you can’t run forever.  Memories have a way of bringing people together again if only in their dreams.”

 

Flicker of Inspiration Prompt #14: Talk It Out

For this week’s prompt, we’d like you to tell us a story using only dialogue. That’s right. There can be no “he said/she said,” no modifiers at all in fact. Just conversation, plain and simple, between quotes. Not that you necessarily have to use quotation marks…just look at Cormac McCarthy, he uses no quotations marks at all.  Tell a tale through conversation and dialogue between your “characters.” This can be fiction or non-fiction…and can even be poetry.

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Goodnight…Irene!

August 30, 2011 by 5 Comments

Well, it’s over.  Irene has left the building.

Sadly, this unwelcome visitor left behind too many tragedies and horrible devastation to the towns she spun through.  Where I live, in upstate New York, well, we were fairly lucky.  It could have been so much worse.

At home, we are currently functioning on generator-power with no restoration of electric service promised in the near future.  Through the pounding storm early Sunday morning and most of that day, we plugged along with the hum of our gas-driven power plant.  And…we had cable television and internet, a rare occurence during any storm.

                             

Irene was soon downgraded to a Tropical Storm but warnings for tornadoes and flooding were broadcast into Sunday night as the once massive hurricane headed away.  Just as we relaxed a bit, the winds started to increase and, much like in the early morning hours, trees started to bend, creak and lean dangerously in the direction of our home.  Sometime after that, we finally lost our cable connection which remains down for the count at this moment.  
                                  

For now, the only internet access I have is here at work, which wasn’t up until this morning and I’m trying to catch-up on blog reading while trying to look busy.  Of course, one of the first things I noticed was a news item about another hurricane threat coming off Cape Verde…Tropical Storm Katia.

I hate her already….

Now, as always after a major event, the debate about local New York, and other, governmental hysteria in demanding evacuations and closing down mass transit being necessary is all over the news. 

Stupid, stupid media analysts, once again! 

If the lack of decision and prompt action during Hurricane Katrina didn’t prove to teach us all something, what would it take?   Any storm is unpredictable and there should never be any hesitation to safeguard human lives…at any time.  Homes can be re-built, some possessions can be replaced but people cannot. 

So, for today, this is my sneaky blog post, written while the husband head honcho wasn’t looking over my shoulder in my office.  I’ll close with heartfelt prayers for everyone adversely impacted by Hurricane Irene.

 

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