Writers, and stuff I love!

I'm one of those people that gets super excited when I discover a new writer. Like you know when you find $10 in your jeans pocket from last week excited? Or when you realize the SEPTA train conductor didn't come and get your fare ticket excited? Or when you find a $300 handbag for $75 at TJ Maxx excited? Or when you come home from work and your husband has made dinner for you excited? (well, no that rarely happens), but, no, my writer excitement is better than any of that. My writer excitement is like getting a big refund from the IRS excitement (which by the way hasn't happened to me EVER - I'm a horrible money manager!)

Anywho, I'm mid-way through my latest writer discovery book of "The Middle Place" by Kelly Corrigan. Kelly hails from Radnor, PA - even better - a local! Ironically I was turned on to Kelly by my 18 year old niece Katie who sent me a snippet of Kelly from YouTube where she had read her piece Transcending Words on Women and Strength - circa Dec 2008. I started crying when I listened to her share the story she wrote. She stared out speaking about her Mom and her Mom's group of friends called "The Pigeons" and how they'd summer in Avalon, drink their Chardonnay, play bridge and tennis and vowed they were friends for life. It reminded me of my Mom and her "Golden Girls" group of friends. Thats what we (my brother, sister and me) called my Mom's friends. A bunch of divorced women who were as tight knit as a Fair Isle sweater. It made me cry so much I had to stop listening to it. Its taken me a week to go back and google Kelly's YouTube snippet again and I finally listened to it from start to finish. I still cried. It made me want to call Kelly, light a cigarette and gab with her about my Mom's group of friends and how amazing they are, and how they too had a shore house every summer in Avalon for 20 years, and how they too played Bridge every other Tuesday evening and tennis on the weekends .... and I wanted to tell her how much I miss my Mom and how much I wish I could have 10 more minutes with her - as I remember her. I'd tell her what an amazing Mom she was to us and how I'm forever in her debt for all she taught me and tell her how I think of her every day and how when I look at pictures of her I realize how beautiful she is.

The past couple of weeks have been challenging with Mom's sharp decline. It happened so quickly and so suddenly that there was no time to tell her, not that she would have understood, but at least she knew who I was 3 weeks ago. Today she is living in slow motion and barely surviving. She needs assitance with all everyday functions; eating, walking, speaking..and yes even smiling. I read an article today on Yahoo that said Dementia is going to triple by 2050, I can only hope that God spares me from the disease, as living through it now with Mom is hard enough, I can't imagine having a repeat performance in the years to come. All I know is I miss my Mom and nothing can take that pain away...not even finding a new and amazing writer, but it sure eases the pain. Thank You Kelly.

Old friends....

I had dinner last week with two old friends of mine. Friends that make me feel old. I've known them for 20 years. I'm 45, one of them is 56 and the other one is 62. These two women were my colleagues circa 1992 when we all worked for one of the early corporate paper company's that hung a shingle in the then newly minted area of the region; Chesterbrook. Is it me or do you still drive through Chesterbrook and remember when it was the fresh cookie cutter neighborhood just a stone's throw from the Main Line? I definitely should know Chesterbrook as it was my home for a very long time. I lived in 3 different villages spanning over 25 years.

As I was having dinner with Bettie and Colleen, I couldn't help but remember our early years together. Bettie was the company Receptionist, Colleen was the Executive Secretary to the CEO and I - back then - was a Secretary to the Finance division. We forged a strong bond over happy hours and lunch room gathering yak fests. Bettie and Colleen were more than friends -- they were my big sister, my pseudo Mother (when needed) and my early career mentors. I was farily young then, 25ish, and I hadn't had a lot of exposure to corporate America. I was also in my hey dey of my partying. However, they weren't privy to my after work life. Of course, now they know all the dirty and sordid tales, and they are ever so supportive of my current clean lifestyle.

But having dinner with them and reminiscing about our lives through the years between marriages, divorces, kids off to college, family members dying, and marriages again. I was struck by how lucky I am to have such great friends and for so long. Its hard to make new friends when you are older. I know that since I've moved back home I can count my "new" friends on one hand, and that's not counting my thumb. I then started thinking how many "old" friendships I do have and how the older I get, the more they mean to me. I have one friend I met when I was 5. 40 years of friendship and going strong. She and her husband flew to Vegas for my nupitals last October! True blue friend. I have another friend whom I've shared more ups and downs with than a see-saw since 9th grade! That's 32 years! (I'm very amazed I'm not using my iPhone to calculate through the years!). And these women knew me at my worst, and they are still my friends! Shocking! Then I have my nuevo SoCal friends, 7 women who saw me go through the grueling process of getting sober and staying sober! That is definitely worth another blog in itself.

All in all, I am TRULY blessed with all of my amazing friends...not to mention the ones I've made through the years and have re-connected with. You know, the 562 via Facebook!(Gina, that's your plug!)

Back to Blog

Yes, its official I realized that me having writers block for the past 20 months or so is not serving me well. I was very well entrenched into blogging each and every morsel of my life for quite some time, and loved sharing about what was happening ...then.... Then life happened and blogging became such a time suck for me. However, I'm in transition mode right now and blogging seems to be very much needed. Besides the fact that I'm sitting at my desk in the City working, and now clearly blogging, I think I've lost all sense of "Whats important right now". Work has been more of a filler for me the past couple months with aggravating clients, a demanding boss and very social co-workers - I'm barely able to really get my real work done. It leaves no time for blogging and facebooking! Let alone Words with Friends!


In other areas, life is full. Friends, family, Mom, 12 step stuff, Lucy, Liam and the BRAVO network all has me quite busy. The picture is from two summers ago with Mom in Avalon and my sister, nieces, cousins and Aunt were all in tow. Good times...it reminds me of the more precious memories! Mom is quite sick, and getting sicker, but having such great family and friends makes it all the more bearable.

More later as I realize I DO have to get back to work and earn a true wage!

...and now let me introduce Mrs....

YES, its official.  October 7, 2011 I was married!  I just happened to find an amazing man whom I adore and love being with.  I couldn't ask for anyone better! We started planning on a "hometown" main line wedding, but very soon after that planning was underway we instead decided to get married in Las Vegas! It was becoming too much about everyone else and the $$ that would be spent that we both decided we wanted what we wanted for our special day.  We got hitched at the Luxor Wedding Chapel (highly recommend it-as it was PERFECT!) and had a backyard evening reception at Liam's mothers home - and she happened to live 10 min from the Strip! It worked out quite well.  With my sister as my maid of honor, and "my girls" (both Calif and PA) in tow, it was again, PERFECT! I loved my Wedding and my gown, my makeup, the ceremony, reception, dancing and becoming Mr & Mrs. Enuf said on that for now.....

And then there was 3....

It's with a heavy heart that I type this out as tomorrow afternoon we are surrendering our beloved pitbull mix Wilson back to the SPCA where we got him over eight months ago.

I'll back up to 4 days ago when Liam and I were skipping around about our new Carriage home that we had moved into a mere 2 days prior. By chance we had found this amazing old carriage house on a 8 acre estate that was nestled into a crevice of the old main line along picturesque Sugartown Road. (Go to my Facebook pix to view our new digs)!

Our new landlords (the Estate owners) seemed like the perfect couple to have as new neighbors, she an artist and he a writer, an older couple who's children were grown and in college, they had Ponies on the property, in addition to egg producing chickens, a flowing stream along their back property which was flanked by a pool and a fun and bouncy trampoline. Our own Club Med Countryside! Additionally, they also have a very cute and sweet Shebu-Enu pooch named Kobe; who is known to drag home dead foxes in his mouth; which he gladly disposes of on the front stoop!(which I have to surmise he's caught). Needless to say we loved Kobe and his tail wagged happily at us when we drove up the long driveway to our new house. We knew we'd have to introduce Lucy and Wilson to Kobe soon after we moved in and Liam was successful in doing that two days later. Mind you, we had our dogs electric fenced, as is Kobe. However, Kobe has closer access to our area than we do to his - needless to say the electric fences were not a deterrent or a factor in the upcoming quarrel that would ensue.

On Monday afternoon, our dogwalker came over to walk our pups, and all went well. She walked them both through our yard to the other side of the neighborhood - an area we dubbed "The McMansions" I am sure I don't need to further explain what kind of folk live over there? OK, here goes - for the two couples that we met, they are nouveau riche Main Line housewives who carry around their yappy little dogs in their Louis Vuitton handbags and shop and lunch during the day while their husbands are out making the real coin. There I said it. Those are also our new neighbors - oh joy!

Anyways..Susan, a/k/a dogwalker, came back with both dogs and decided that since it was such a nice day out and our dogs really love to run free that she'd let them run around a bit in of the horse corralls - that we were told by our new landlords our pups could run around in - hence, Lucy and Wilson started frollicking around..... when out of the blue, Kobe came strolling over to join them....all was good ... for about 2 minutes..... Kobe and Lucy started scrapping and then Wilson pounced in (to protect his sister Lucy!) and fought and fought with Kobe like there was no tomorrow, and sadly, there almost wasn't for Kobe. Apparently Wilson had his grip around Kobe's neck so tight a few of the McMansion neighbors came running over to help and one of them had to smash Wilson with a large fence post stick to get him to let loose of Kobe. Of course this all happened so fast, that no one really knows exactly who started what, who's bark was louder, and which dog should really be in the dog house. Of course having a pitbull mix doesn't help our case, esp with the recent pitbull dog fighting ring that was busted in the City earlier this week!

End result; Kobe is lucky to be alive. The Vet said if Kobe didn't have such a thick coat of fur or wasn't wearing collar, he'd be dead for sure. Needless to say I received the frantic call at my office downtown only to have to call Liam to rush home and assess the damage. Major damage. Kobe needed to be rushed to his Vet, while Wilson had to be cleaned up and bathed to wash off all the blood and assess any damage on him. Wilson has a few minor cuts and scrapes on his head; nothing as bad as Kobe's damage. Kobe had to stay overight at the Vet hospital and was released 16 hours later with a bag full of medication, tubes sticking out of his neck and a freshly shaved look.

Liam and I (and our dogwalker Susan) are paralyzed by this. We have spent the past couple days discussing, speaking, thinking and praying on what the right thing to do here is. Clearly, we can't have anything like this happen again. We contemplated putting Wilson down, but that thought didn't last too long; and in the end, for the sake of our new landlords and the McMansion neighbors, as well as Liam's young girls and our own piece of mind, we decided its best that we take Wilson back to the SPCA we rescued him from. Only to realize that he needs to be rescued -- again.

I personally wish we could keep him; but we feel our hands are tied. What if what if what if...keeps playing in our heads. If this freak attack had occurred at a dog park or elsewhere with strangers that were involved, then our decision may not have come to this. However, if we feel that we have to worry anytime Wilson is out of our sight and to maintain the respect of our new neighbors and landlord, then we feel we have to do the right thing and find Wilson a new home. We have been nerve wracked since this happened and even Lucy seems a little askew. I can't even think of sweet tail wagging Wilson without getting emotional. He just wants to be loved and saved! Don't we all?

Its back to the 3 of us....for now. Godspeed Wilson. xoxoxo