Why Title a Blog

I saw a writing contest featured on someone’s Blog that offered a $100 first prize award to the winner. You can only enter if you are a member of this site and also contribute a $25 entrance fee…..hmmmmm…..let’s see….after subtracting the member’s and entrance fee’s that should leave me with about a $50 profit.There’s another glitch in this Cloud Computing arena, albeit, they provide the topic. The topic is Courage. They also supply you with some hints and directional blurbs to get you started on your merry writing way.

I always hated it when  I was in school and the teacher would hand out writing assignments and she would always provide the topic.   AND then, when the task was completed we had to sit through class listening to thirty-five variations on the same theme. They all sounded the same: Courage and the Firefighter, Courage and the war, Courage to master a two wheeler….. My essay? Courage in a Bottle.  I wrote about how a lawyer found true grit in his Glenlivet.

That was the third time that I  spent the afternoon in the principal’s office.  Sister Carmalita confiscated my paperwork and grabbed me by my over-sized navy hand-me-down- button -down and marched me to Father O’ Banion’s office. He told me to “be seated” ( no not on his lap…) and then questioned me about my research and knowledge backround for this essay.  I expressed my views directly to him about my parent’s basement bar and the allotment of figureheads that were entertained there. My essay included a highlight of my mother throwing a Supreme Court Justice and a head Prosecutor off her front steps after showing up at 2:00 a.m.  Personally I thought that took a lot of courage,  considering the person involved was wearing a pink frilly nightgown. ( you take a guess). There were many times I snuck out of my bed and wandered to the top of the stairs to witness flagrant behaviors of forty-something adults wallowing in the divine Spirits…….of scotch. I watched all the great courage being mustered by most couples as they attempted to climb the stairs to find a bathroom.

Father O’Banion read my essay silently to himself as he held his finger against his chin and making “tsk” noises every other minute.  I sat there sweating in my knee length-make sure it touches the floor when you genuflect, plaid skirt. I sat on my hands until there were pleat marks pressed into my palms spelling out “you’re going to hell”. I sat there in “tsk” silence trying not to stare at him for fear he would look up from his Bifocals and his magnified eyeballs would glare at me causing me to start laughing. Which would result in a phone call to the parents. So I mastered the art of Silence by conjuring up all my courage and focus my gaze on the shelf behind his desk.  I scanned the leather bound books as they were neatly arranged in a Pious-like order and titled appropriately for the venue. I studied the shelves up and down and left and right; making a sign of the cross with my brown peepers. Everything appeared copasetic-ally Catholic including the decanted red vino on a silver serving tray that looked half empty.

  Father O put the essay down and saw my eyes staring off behind him at the latest discovery on his book shelf. He stared into my face with his broken capillary cheeks flapping a lecture about proper behavior for a girl my age. And then it hit me. I recognized those redden cheeks. Those cheeks belong to a be-spectacled face, that wore a priests collar, that held a Johnny Walker straight ,that was poured in the Bar that DAD built.

I love courage, it comes in all forms, shapes, sizes, and denominations. Oh and it also comes in Blackmail……………..Folks we have our winner!

Seeing Eye Blog

I received a new subscription to day for my blog and now I have a grand total of three fans.  This is exciting I feel like Sally Field when she received her Oscar:  You like me , you really really like me….well three of you do. And I thank you.  I went blog surfing for the first time in my life and the only other surfing I have ever tried was on an over sized board shaped like a flattened shark in Hawaii. I was fifteen then and on a family vacation to an island that was once invaded by the Japanese.  My father was a Navy gun boat captain during WWII and spent days in Honolulu, but thank God, was shipped out to the Philippines before that  horrible day happened. I love fate. Not as much as I love God, but I think Fate is Gods little sister. Er…wait …that would be Faith.  Anyway, my father thought it was a great idea if I tried surfing  and he pre booked a lesson with out my approval. Albeit now that I am a parent I understand that some teens lose their inalienable rights and the only approval needed is mine.

My lesson included three hours with a tanned twenty-something shirtless Kahuna instructing me on a 6’x 18″ two inch thick slab of polyurethane and epoxy resin. This all seemed wonderfully adventuresome and thrilling except for one valid point: I am not a strong swimmer and the only deep sea extravaganza I attempted was resting  my tushie on a giant floatie in a pool: with a life guard on standby…..This local Kane-boy had me paddling out in a direction that included no land in sight and what seem to take forever to reach our destination. Mano-a-mano. My arms hurt and tired because back then I was the size of a tree branch and my peers nicknamed me Twiggy; well at least it was after a famous model….a very anorexic model but a model nun the least. A model a shark would ignore….

The surfer Brah stopped mid ocean and sat upright on his board and stared intently out to the ocean as if he were waiting for his ship to come in; maybe filled with scantily clad Wahini’s wearing co-co nut bras, hoping he might get a lei.. He told me to sit up on my board and dangle my feet into the water. I told him that I didn’t mind if we just sat out here for three hours soaking up some rays and that my dad will never know the difference because he and my mother are visiting the Royal Hawaiian bar and Grill with friends enjoying too many umbrella drinks.  He didn’t buy it, he also said that my father told him I would say that. So I managed to rise on all fours shaking like my puppy when he’s out in  sub zero temperatures trying to take a dump, and straddle my skinny legs over the sides of the board.  Only I was not facing the same direction he was; I  was facing  the shoreline filled with  Haole’s and Malahini’s spreading Hawaiian Tropic over their Mainland pale bodies. I saw Hotel’s lined up with the Lanai’s staring at me with Mauna tops peaking out from behind shouting ” Get Out!”.  

My Kapuna pointed to the massive wave starting to arise on the horizon and waved at me to follow him. My mind immediately went into panic mode and I tried reaching under my board for a life jacket or a flare gun, but the instructor kept calling out to me louder than the shore. I did what any normal person would do when confronted with fear: I closed my eyes and paddled like a fish out of water. My eyes were shut so tight that all the vast array of Blue turned into a sea of blackness. There I was paddling my board like an out of control jet ski driven by Helen Keller and holding my breath until I met my maker. Which I ultimately ran into. I found myself laying atop the front half of my instructors board. I opened my eyes and said “Aloha? “.

We didn’t have time for casual conversation because he whipped me about face and grabbed my hand and started to paddle with the oncoming wave.  Then he yelled at me to  “stand up NOW“!   My twig legs took root and I rose like  a new seedling in a Spring garden.  There I was, actually surfing. I was  standing on top of water. I was as close as you could get to Jesus’ same scenario  at Galilee except I had a prop.

I don’t recall what transpired next except I think I was sleeping with the Mahi-Mahi. I toppled into the ocean and was caught in a curl of rip tide tumbling like a load of  wet jeans in a dryer. Some kind Wave decided to toss me out on the shore line where I landed next to an elderly couple sleeping in their deck chairs . They watched me with one eye opened as I spat out sea salt and emptied the Sahara Desert from my bikini bottoms.  My Surfing Teacher ran up to me laughing and telling me next time will be Mo’ Betta.

I stood there Shaka like a Taro leaf and told him I needed to find a bathroom WikiWiki where I can pupus.  Mahalo nui loa! surfs up?

Blog up the Wrong Tree

I think what this world needs now is more Humor. I don’t care what form it comes in albeit sarcasm or just plain bad jokes, but humor is needed now more than ever. I am not seeing people laugh anymore.  I am seeing them smirk, criticize, over opinion-ate, and completely turn an innocent generic non judgemental conversation and make it about THEM. They seem to be void of the humor gene.  My puppy has more of a sense of humor than most people now days. At least Charly-dog gets my jokes and actually barks out a laugh or two. My dog can decipher between a true belly-jiggler and a sarcastic wit blaster.

I think where some of the problem lies is in the translation or should I state the MODE of translation.  Trying to text some dry wit doesn’t get the result you intended; it gets you a reply that has you defending your response in the first place. It has you apologizing for making light of a nonsense issue. It has you going to St. James Cathedral and confessing to Father Mike about the sarcastic joke you made via text to a friend and finding that the Padre lacks a sense of Godly humor and sends you to the alter with ten Hail Mary’s and four Our Fathers…Oh lord, I was not laughing and texting in church. “Oh Bless me father for I have sinned it has been…………..INFINITY since my last confession.

Today I text a response to a friend about an ecumenical topic concerning snow and I was met with a bellicose back-talk instead of some gut-giggling.“.. How does one incorporate an intonation into their text? Did I neglect to add a smiley icon? Should LOL be included at the end of the sentence? Should we all start off our techno-conversations with a disclosure to be E-signed and returned? Ergo the receiving party has been for warned that thus text may contain joking that could cause one to possibly lighten up…LOL..:)…oh God help me.

I don’t know what sets someone off on the wrong foot in the morning ( or evening, depending on their job shift), but I feel that people are very tightly wound….no matter what their age is. I understand the emphatic determined youth who are out to take over the world with gusto, and I get the pre-middle age conglomerate who have been controlling the world, and I am nearing the the Gen-O ( octogenarian) generation so I get them too. But what I don’t get is where the humor went. I know everyone needs a good laugh in life and I know everyone has had to have at least one in their life, but I am seeing less and less of this and more stress and strife. I see folks getting more pithy-offed than Paradisiacal. Even if it’s over a phone line. Via text. Not very nice Text-etiquette.. textiquette…

Hmmm gives me an idea. I’ll text Father Mike my confession’s…. maybe he’ll go easy on the penance…I’ll become the Penitent-etiquette Woman.

That Blog won’t Hunt

I have a friend that is angry. Her mind is upset with her body.  Her body wants to exacerbate her hybernating hormones and bring them out to the surface to face an all out war with her libido. She is so bewildered by this ipso facto that she is writing in quasi legal Latin jargon that her attorney father would utter when he was upset.  Every time she heard him shout In Loc0 Parentis, she figured he was trying to locate some local parents and trade her brother in for a golden retriever because he used his mothers fine crystal in a neighborhood water fight…again. Mea Culpa! My friend had her female reproductive organs removed exactly two years ago in February and her Doctor did not place her on replacements; ad infinitum,….. until a month ago when she happen to mention that; ” while she enjoyed having sex; her vagina is in absentia followed by rigor mortis..“. In other words lacking a little of the moisture it had in her youth. I will for warn all of you pre, post, or anytime in between, menopausal women: your Vee-Jay will quit on you. Your walls of Jericho will collapse and dry up and crack like the Great Lakes did 7000 years ago.  Your brain and hormones will still present themselves in an orderly fashion and aid you along in the passion and fever while starting to copulate, but come half time and LeBron James is about to do his slam dunk into that lovely basket everything comes to a rip roaring halt. The pain replaces the pleasure. The dry spell took over and all the K Y from Jelly-stone park can not help Yogi fall into his Pic-A-Nic basket without creating a Boo-Boo…modus operandi.  She thought this was just her. She thought this was a situation that only she had to keep In camera, until she had drinks with a colleague the other night who managed to have a slip of the labia and exclaimed she too, had the same situation. Maybe if we ran this situation across the Jersey Shore cast they’d get answers. I’m sure Snookie has no problems with  her nookie. Wait til she’s over fifty, I bet her shoreline will recede and her tide won’t ebb and flow like it use to. I’d like to see her habeas corpus reach terra firma after two kids…..et tu, Snookie??  My friend went into a twenty minute dissertation about her private parts during intercourse with a closing argument of “how and why is that fair to women:  just as we women are reaching the age of acquiescence and enjoying the act now doesn’t mean the damn thing has to dry up and quit on us”. God I love  a person who tells it like it is, even if it’s Martini induced. Aqua vitae. I educated my dear pre menopausal friend about the miracle drug of Estrogen. I explained how it comes in various forms; from oral to anal, and how replenishing this hormone that is starting to fade from our anterior pituitary, will recapture that rapture that has escaped through our vaginal portal. Opus Dei. This is no Davinci code; this is a miracle drug from your local Pharmacy that can ignite the heavens, prima facie, so your husband can provide pro bono ad infinitum…..quid pro quo…until you veni vedi veci….So you can Carpe Diem…until your hearts content; pain free.  Just remember this is a temporary fix and needs a refill………

Caveat  Emptor….…..

A Blog in Sheep’s Clothing

I have been in Italy for nearly nine days now and I depart tomorrow on an early morning flight back to the states.  I am having mixed feelings about returning to my home in Pennsylvania, not because of what awaits me when I land but what has been left behind. My husband.

  I just realized after 21 years of marriage I actually love my husband. Over the last nine days I witnessed a man whose heart is larger than the moon that rules him and  he carries the world’s woes atop his stooping  shoulders. Shoulders  that lean more than the Tower of Pisa. Atlas cowers in comparison to my husband and he’s not even standing upright…I can’t decide if the amore rekindled because of the visit to Italy or if this is a part of what happens when a marriage continues past 20 years and the love  drought is over.

I will say that Geography plays a large part in where intimacy raises it’s protuberant head; well with me it does.  For example, having sex while married over a long period of time has it’s ups and downs and the outside meddling affairs that intervene during  a marriage can put a damper on your sex life:  The onset of children; A troublesome mother-in-law; A job or lack there of; and even a dog can cause rippin’ the sheets up to cease and desist.

  I always found that my PGAD was on high alert at the most inopportune times: Like the airplane toilet, or a cab, or the front steps of the Brooklyn Museum in February….. A bit frosty but fun. Or if you need to come in from the cold; your car parked outside Tavern on the Green under the lighted trees.. I’m sure there is a psychological term for folks that take advantage of our countries beautiful monuments and tourist attractions for their own nookie gratification, but I don’t care. You get off wherever you get off. You indulge when the urge strikes, because sooner or later you will be met with many interruptus bouts of screaming babies, or an everlasting phone calls from the boss, or the ferocious knock on the front door from your mother-in-law who schlepped all the way from west 6th street to find out if everyone is O.K. because no one answered her phone call… for the seventh time…..

Or maybe your dog jumps in to assist with what has been desist and causes mayhem on the mattress.  I don’t know if recapturing a spark that ignited over twenty years ago happened  again because of a romantic location or if I actually found my husband appealing.  My vote is the location.. location.. location… Italy brings the best out in me, there are no distractions except the  lovely country side, fantastic food, and an abundance of not over priced Chianti, all accompanied by the rapture of the language that captures your heart.

  There were no arguments breeding in our emotions or outside stimuli of  vagrant responsibilities that caused us to go asunder. We just had each other and the waft of Italian ambiance embracing our beings. All of this stayed intact until I entered the U.S. and headed home.

I left the garden of Eden to enter the gates of Hell.  As I crossed the threshold of my front door, I was immediately trounced on by Charly-dog who saturated my new Euro coat with pee stains ;  after receiving a giant hug from my 16 year old son  he followed up with complaints of “how he did all the work around the house and his sister did nothing”, then topped  the evening off by my invisible daughter who hasn’t seen me in weeks and opted to stay at her boyfriends parents house instead of asking me “how my trip went”.

I shuffled into the house after a nine hour flight and noted the dishes piled in the sink stained from yesterdays meals, pizza boxes left open laying on the garage floor two inches away from the recycle bin, soda cans left atop my car, laundry piled higher than Mt. Everest, and my husband calling to have me check his phone messages because he doesn’t want to be charged for roaming.  Business as usual.

I grabbed my over priced American Imported Chianti Classico and my box of chocolate covered Pocket Coffees and retreated  my jet-lagged ass to my bedroom.  I plugged my used airline earphones into my IPOD and blasted Pavaroti into my deaf ears as I downloaded my Flip videos of  Italy onto my Macbook Pro and sipped a lovely Vino Rosso all the while watching a recap of virtual food being served to me on a lovely terrace in Florence.   I feel the love…..Is it love or is it the idea of love?…….

OR is it the Location of love……………….Ciao Italia until we meet again…