Thursday, July 30, 2009

This Sweet Old World

See what you lost when you left this world,

this sweet old world

See what you lost when you left this world,

this sweet old world


The breath from your own lips,

the touch of fingertips

A sweet and tender kiss

The sound of a midnight train,

wearing someone's ring

Someone calling your name

Somebody so warm cradled in your arm

Didn't you think you were worth anything


See what you lost when you left this world,

this sweet old world

See what you lost when you left this world,

this sweet old world


Millions of us in love,

promises made good

Your own flesh and blood

Looking for some truth,

dancing with no shoes

The beat, the rhythm, the blues

The pounding of your heart's drum together with another one

Didn't you think anyone loved you


See what you lost when you left this world,

this sweet old world

See what you lost when you left this world,

this sweet old world


I heard this song today. It's one of my favorites. It always gets me. Especially the part about missing your own flesh and blood.

I miss Dan today. I really, really miss him.So do my kids. It's not a birthday, or an anniversary. Just a plain old ordinary Thursday. The 317th Thursday without my husband.
Sometimes the worlds just not so sweet.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light.....


Hopefully you don't fall in the dawn's early light and have to go to the emergency room.

Yesterday as I was trying to recover from drinking too many frozen cosmopolitans at Harris Grill. (Oye.........) I was lying (dying) on my living room sofa switching channels on tv when I came upon Bill Mayer's Politically Incorrect. Love it. Why can't someone like him be president. Can it be that he has too much common sense.? I guess Obama's the closest we'll get.

He asked a question that really hit home with me.

Why is it that when Republicans talk about patriotism, it's only applied to wars?

Does any one else but Bill and I think it's un-American that 50 million Americans are without health care? (80% of which are WORKING Americans)

How about every time someone says every American does not need health care, we call them un-American?

It sure makes sense to me. Let's all put on our patriotic hats. And wear them for more than one reason.

Ohhh say can you see..............

Saturday, July 18, 2009

I Think I Died And Gone To Heaven

This is how I have been spending the last few days folks.
In this house.
Sitting on this porch...............



Enjoying this view............


Angry. Who's angry?

*Pictures taken from my phone this morning. I know, I know.

Monday, July 13, 2009

One RingyDingy


I got a new phone. I love, love, love it. It's a Blackberry. I've been confused by that name and insist on calling it a Burberry. When I showed it to Ginny Ann, she thought it would be brown plaid. That's when I figured out I was calling it by the wrong name.
It is the coolest phone. It's the same one Jack Bauer uses in 24. Same ring tone too. Every time it rings I want to answer "Bauer here, send an ambulance. Now dammit!"

I can now read blogs on my phone. How cool is that? Now I'll never have a life. I'll be reading blogs 24/7.

And yes, I've turned into the people I hate. Right in the middle of a conversation, I just start reading my phone!

D'Amico here, do an intervention. Now dammit!

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Never Cared To Say Good-Bye


ENOUGH ALREADY.

No wonder MJ was a loon. The Jackson family is even crazier that he was. Yeah, and give them three more kids to fuck up. Please, someone rescue those kids from that bunch of freaks.

Televised world wide? Pleeeaaasssee.

There was a private burial at some cemetery this morning. Then they announce that his casket will be at Staple Center(not crazy enough for them around Staples Center, let's see, bring the casket, that'll get them coming). I guess they want to get as much publicity as they can out of this. Whore the guy out even in his death Jackson Family.

Can we bury the guy and get on with our lives already????????

Yeah, I liked some of his music. Mostly the Jackson 5 stuff. But really, did he cure cancer? Compared to Mother Theresa, what exactly did he accomplish?
So he could dance. He was a fuckin' nut people!

I watched some old interview with him last night. He actually said with a straight face that his plastic surgery rumors were just lies. Michael, Michael, Michael, I have a big nose. I have my mom's nose. It's didn't get smaller with age. Even as I got quite larger, my nose still stayed the same.

Just like his life, his death is being so mismanaged.

I guess P.T. Barnum was right, there is a sucker born every minute.

Get a life people!

Better close for now, I have to get back to watching that damn memorial service!

*Side note: One time Ski and I were staying at the Waldorf and this older black man who looked really familiar got into the elevator with us. We knew we knew him we just didn't know from where. We thought he was Sala Udin the councilman from Pgh. Llaine, Ski's daughter just rolled her eyes at us and told us how stupid we were. It was Joe Jackson she informed us!

OK, Late Edition here. Watched on line while at work. (Before you all go "what the hell were you doing at work, my boss told me where to find it online, he was watching from his office.) I felt like I was watching In Living Color or Saturday Night Live. It was probably the tackiest thing I've ever seen. Until Brook Shields. She and Michael's daughter Paris brought the only bit of class to an event that was the goofiest thing I've ever seen. And when that poor girl was talking, they were all grabbing her and fixing her and stuff. LEAVE THE KIDS ALONE!!!You've done enough.

I say give the kids to Brooke. What a class act. And look how she was raised, with her kooky mother and all.

Late, Late edition: Watched the memorial on TV tonight. Wasn't as bad as I originally thought. I overreacted. OK? The Jackson family were the only really crazy ones, the rest wasn't THAT bad.

Sunday, July 05, 2009

There's A Summer Place......


As I've mentioned here many times, I grew up in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh. Growing up in a place like that has given me a lifetime of stories, enough to fill this here blog for the next hundred years.
Yeah, at least a hundred years. I have so many book ideas in my head about Lawrenceville, I can hardly keep track.
One could do a book just about the characters we grew up with. Henny Nicols, Kemosabe, Russian John, Kashu, Six Pack Sally, Chucky Boom-Boom, Jimmy Hanlon aka "Fighting Solders from da sky", Gootchie Joe and Indian Mary, just to name a few. God rest most of their souls.
I think just about all of them are dead except Six pack Sal and Goochie Joe.
Those of you new to Lawrenceville don't know what you missed. What a place!

Anyway, one of the greatest things about growing up in Lawrenceville was spending the summers at Leslie Park Swimming Pool.

THAT was living. I remember counting down the days to summer while sitting in Sister Edith, Aka Sr. Jane's 6th grade class at St. Mary's. I could hardly sit still.

You knew summer was close when you rode past and saw the water in the pool. I would run home and try on my bathing suit to make sure it fit. It was usually a hand-me-down from Ginny Ann or The Madonna. Come to think of it. I don't think I ever had a "new" bathing suit until I grew taller than both of them in the 7th grade.

I remember meeting Mary Alice or in later years Ski and heading to the pool an hour before "Girl's Session" started.

Yes, that's right, GIRL'S SESSION. Can you believe it?
Here was the schedule.
12-1:30 - Girls
2-3:30 - Boys
4- 5:30 Mixed (Over 14 only)
6-7:30 Adult (Over 16 or accompanied by a parent)

Could you imagine today's teen-agers, swimming with no boys?
Too funny.

So there we were, we would sit in a line along the wall waiting endlessly for Annie to open the locker rooms.

Annie was the locker room nazi. Oh my God. She seemed like she was 100 years old, but she was probably 40. When she would turn off Butler St to walk up the steps. Hundreds of girls would scream in delight. It was probably more like 40 of us. But it seemed like we were there for hours.... and there were hundreds of us..... and Annie was 110..... plus it was 110 degrees out!

We would race through the locker room. Through the shower room and out to the pool.
But wait. We still weren't allowed to swim. We had to wait until the lifeguard blew the whistle. So all us girls would surround the pool, and wait anxouslly until Walt the head lifeguard blew the whistle.You were hot shit if you were the first one in!!
Esp. if you were first in line for the diving board.

One thing strikes me. I don't ever remember seeing a parent. Can you imagine. Sending your 8, 9, 10 year old down the park to swim WITHOUT SUPERVISION. Yeah kid, have fun, see ya later. But we all lived to tell the tale.

When 1:30 came around we would see who could get farthest away from the ladder. Being the last one out. Yeah, we were so cool.

Time for the boys. We would go back into locker room and God forbid if you forgot your "Basket Number" You had the wrath of Annie. 110 year old Locker Nazi. And if you gave her an attitude. She had the authority to ban you from swimming for a week or more. Can you believe it?

When we were old enough, we stuck around for boy's session. We would walk down Virgie's for a frozen coke and wait FOREVER for mixed session.There, the boys would show their stuff on the diving board and with that came the summer crushes. I remember thinking "Oh, if only so and so would look my way". Funny after thought, thank God they didn't, most of them are dead from drugs!

After mixed session. And some flirting with the life guards. We would run home for a fast dinner and then my dad would bring us to Adult session. He would bring in half the kids at the park too.

That was our summer. Except for one week in Conneaut, that was it. And we thought we were the luckiest kids on earth.

The last day at the pool was bittersweet. There were diving contests and races. And both boys and girls were allowed to swim together. (thank God no one got pregnant from the water!)The best part, they filled the bottom of the pool with coins and you got to keep all the money you collected. We were rich! Oh yes, we sure were. We were so rich to have grown up in a place so special and ummmm colorful.

As we got older and bolder, we jumped the fence to swim after hours. I have a scar on my left palm from climbing the fence while running from police. Until the day she died, my mother thought I got it when I tripped in my own back ally. (Her Eileen would never jump a fence and swim after hours!)

Leslie Pool wasn't without tragedy. Dan's cousin Jackie drown swimming after hours. Dennie Golardo broke his neck diving off the top of the locker building.
In the early 70's the park and Lawrenceville changed. Vietnam came to an end and when the boys came home, they brought heroin and drug habits with them. Leslie Park became known as "needle park". Sometime in the 80s they redid the pool into something that became tough to actually swim in. The pool eventually was closed as a casualty of an almost bankrupt city.

It's taken a while but Lawrenceville and Leslie Park are on the upswing thanks to the hard work of lots of people.

What got me thinking about all this? An email I got from Lawrenceville Stakeholders
about an event IN Leslie Park Pool. The Accordion Pool Party. Does that sound like fun or what? I am so in!


OMG, wonder if any cute lifeguard's will be there. Ya know I'm single again!

*I spent half of the night searching for a picture of Leslie Pool. I can't believe I don't have a picture of something that was such a big part of my growing up. I looked on the Internet also. Nothing. Weird. Oh well, every inch of it is etched forever in my mind down to the very smell of the locker room, the red life guard chairs and the chain separating the shallow and deep ends of the pool. (it was an actual chain!)

Friday, July 03, 2009

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY


Sigh.......another year I will be watching "A Capital Fourth" from my TV. And saying, "Next year I'm going!" Sigh......and next year I'll be sitting on my couch watching "A Capitol Fourth...................and on and on.


Jimmy Smitts is right. It is so hard to explain the rush you get from seeing those fireworks set off above all the monuments. Real cannons blasting. The symphony playing the 1812 Overture. I get goose bumps just writing about it.
If you have never spent a 4th of July in "Our Nation's Capitol" you should add it to your bucket list. It is one the most spectular thing's I've done in my life. (And believe me, I've been around!)
Makes you proud to be an American.

If you can't get to DC, there's always good ol' Arsenal Park!!!! Same thing.... only different.
My cousin Jeff and I will be there playing our annual "Dead or Alive?"

Hope your 4th is just as fun!

Wednesday, July 01, 2009


Just as Thursday is the new Friday and 50 is the new 30. Shur-Save is becoming my new Bruggers.
Why do I put myself through it? Why? Why do I bother going there. For those of you who don't know it, Shur Save is the old Bloomfield Foodland. It's purely white ghetto. Just like me!

But hey, it's cheap. Just like me!

So tonight I stop in just to pick up a few things. I go to the check out and my bill totals $10.20.
I go to hand the girl my twenty. She takes my $20 (or chwenty as Erin says!)bill and a split second later I say: Oh, here I have the twenty cents.
White trash cashier: No, I cannot take that once I put in the amount.
White trash customer (aka: ME): What? Just take the twenty cents and give me a ten back.
WTC: No, I have to give you back change for a $20.
WTC-Me: Well, you have the same amount in the register. Do you know how to count?
WTC: (Never looking at me) No, can't be done.
WTC-Me: OK here, give me the 80 cents. Thank you. Now here are three quarters, two dimes and one nickle. And here are 9 ones. May I have a $10.00 bill for this?
WTC: Sure, here.(Handing me a ten and still never looking at me.)

AGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTC-Me: I sure hope you like working here. I think you will be here for a long time.

WHY. DO. I. PUT. MYSELF. THROUGH. THIS.
Just to save a buck!