October 5, 2009 · 9:37 pm

Time to Cry Tuesday – Bloggers for More Birthdays

For this Time to Cry Tuesday I am joining some of my blog friends in the American Cancer Society Bloggers for More Birthdays blog chain. As part of a continuing effort to create a world with less cancer and more birthdays, the American Cancer Society Blogger Advisory Council is harnessing the power of women in the blogosphere to build awareness and activism around this movement. We have been tasked with adding our voices and sharing a story of how cancer has touched our lives. So consider me harnessed.

There are moments in your life that change you forever. Some are joyful and others are devastating. You remember where you were sitting, what the moments right before felt like and how that turn of events changed the way you view the world from then on.

It started like any other ordinary day.

And then the phone rang.

It was my dad. He asked if I was busy or could I talk. He seemed distracted. And then he just said it. “Listen, your mom has breast cancer.”

So, how do you react to that one!? I will tell you how we reacted. The way we always do, as a family.

Taking my mom’s lead we all sprung into action and dealt with it. Head on.

My mom? She showed us a brand of strength that we would stood in awe of. She kept her wits and most importantly her sense of humor through surgery, treatments and the misery of hair loss. My dad? He showed up one day at my son’s basketball game with my mom’s wig on to keep us all amused. My brother? He kept us all going with his undying ability to keep it cool and point out the absurdities that kept us laughing. Me? I did the research and made the binders. Hey, what can I say? I am a Virgo, it is how I cope.

Throughout her treatments she was always concerned about the other patients. One particular day comes to mind. A women was there for her first chemo treatment. She was a young mom and was so very frightened. My mom sat with her, held her hand, looked into her eyes and helped her cope with what she had to face. She acted like… well, like a mom. The quintessential mom. Even through this, her most difficult time, she kept reaching out to others.

I am happy to let you know that mom has been cancer free for 7 years. She has walked in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, proudly wearing her pink shirt hoping to inspire others to find the bravery to keep going. Her philosophy has always been one of reaching out to help others. When I told her about Bloggers for More Birthdays she embraced the idea of the movement. “Anything that will help build awareness and early detection is something I want to be a part of.”

Thank you mom, for showing me what bravery looks like, and for keeping the glass half full. I love you.

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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October 4, 2009 · 8:57 pm

Satellite radio and the simulated voice in my car

Lux_Audio_prem_audio_sys

I recently got a new car with a fancy tech package. This crazy automaton woman is constantly announcing stuff all the time. Frankly, sometimes I could choke the bitch.

But lately she has been the subject of some entertainment.

When the audio system is on (I don’t know, we used to just call this the damn radio) she feels compelled to announce the name of each station as if the big bold letters on the dashboard screen are not enough. The car has XM Sirius or Sirius XM or whatever the name is these days. I was spinning around the dial showing Gary how she says all sorts of station names because some of them sound really funny in her mechanical voice. Like Soul Town, that one is hysterical, so I made her say it a few times in a row until he almost smacked me in the head for kicks. Then I tuned into Underground Garage, but on the screen it is abbreviated as Undergrnd Garage. She pronounced it without the ‘ou’ and I realized that she was doing a character recognition voice simulation kind of thing.

That is when we heard the funniest one of all: Jam_On. Or as she called it Jam Underscore On.

Wait, are we the only ones who find this sort of thing amusing?

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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October 3, 2009 · 11:44 pm

Spy Mix

spy-mix

Ah, the Spy Mix; every mother’s dream vending machine. I love the safety warning in the corner. It is the traditional choking hazard. “The small toys, balls or marbles in this machine are not meant for children under the age of three.” The fact that these are weapons and handcuffs is not a problem, we just don’t want your toddler choking on them.

I saw this in a vending machine at the movie theatre. Anyone else find this an odd thing to have in a suburban movie theater? I can picture the little boys pumping quarters into this sucker trying with all their might to get those handcuffs, only to find out they will are too small to restrain anything bigger than maybe the cat.

Or how about walking into the local emergency room with your kid having one of those little guns wedged hopelessly up their nose.

What ever happened to the machines with those really big pieces of gum? Wasn’t that enough?

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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October 2, 2009 · 7:01 pm

Store for Problem Feet?

problem-feet

Stopped at a red light on the way home from a soccer game, I spotted this store. Thankfully the camera was not too far from reach.

Hmmm, problem feet? A whole store that caters to them? I would think maybe an aisle or a small department, but a whole store? And what kind of problems are we talking? Bunions, flat feet, too wide, too narrow, club foot? Maybe some freakishly large middle toe that throws you into a size or two bigger than you would normally wear?

“Can I help you ma’am?”

“Oh yes, I have problem feet.”

“No, problem here!”

It amazes me that a place like this would be able to thrive. Granted it is centrally located and easily accessible from parkways and soccer fields. But seriously, how do they make their rent every month?

Show of hands, how many of you actually suffer from problem feet out there?

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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October 1, 2009 · 6:05 pm

Another Reason to Love NYC

Pak-Bangla-Indian-Italian-seafood

Thanks to my friend Sue, of the ‘why don’t you just start a blog already’ fame, I bring you this photo of one of NYC’s more versatile eateries.

Pak-Bangla-Indian/Italian/Seafood – slash a little bit for everyone. I love the use of hyphens and slashes on this signage. And I particularly love the Psychic sign above it from the establishment next door. It is easy to read your mind about what you are in the mood to eat when we serve just about EVERYTHING.

I wonder if the other side says Chinese-Japanese-Korean/Kosher/Vegetarian.

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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September 30, 2009 · 9:32 pm

Technical flu

help-key

Forget about swine, I am suffering from something way worse. I’ve got me a bad case of the technical flu.

Now, I bet you are thinking that I am going to blame this on Mercury being in Retrograde, but oddly enough, I believe that ended yesterday at 9AM. That would be a few short hours before my garage door opener decided to stop working. As abruptly as it stopped, it started again. The 5 hour flu? Maybe.

Then my back up drive decided to freak out and time machine kept giving me error messages. After 2 hours and 3 levels of Apple tech, they deemed the time capsule ‘all messed up’ (I believe that is the tech terminology) and told me to erase the back up disk and start over. Yeh, well, I could have done that myself and saved 2 hours. But they were lovely people (all 3 levels of them) and I always feel a little better when it takes so long for them to figure things out because it validates why I could not do it out myself.

So Cosmic Charlie, or whoever else is messing with my crap, could you leave me be already and go pick on someone who has not been so battered by circumstance in the past few days?

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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September 29, 2009 · 8:17 pm

My true love of AAA

501px-AAA_logo.svg

I have been a AAA member on and off for many years. There is something comforting about knowing that you can have roadside assistance wherever you may be.

Hmmm, define ‘assistance’.

I have never called them before yesterday, and honestly I use the membership more for hotel discounts than anything else. I first called to rescue the keys from the trunk of the car. That went quite well, less than an hour and I was good to go.

Then, as if Mercury in Retrograde had not wreaked enough havoc with my family in the last however much time it has been wreaking, we were faced with an unfortunate blow out.

In the rain.

In the dark.

Again, I pulled out my trusty AAA card and gave them a ring, telling them it is hard to believe but I need their assistance for a second time that evening. A very polite women gets all my info, gives me a code # and sympathizes with my bad day. She was lovely. Everything is fine until…

Husband decides to change the tire.

In the rain(ish).

In the dark.

In a SUIT!

Screaming. Yelling. Name calling. Yadayadayada, I called back AAA and canceled the request. I will spare you the details of the need for a second round of calling and canceling, but you can imagine how angry I was by then. Telling the woman the story she says, “Now Amy, if you run him over with your car you will go to jail for a long time. Just withhold dinner for a few weeks.” I surely thought she would tell me to withhold something else.

After all this I decided  what I think the true definition of ‘assistance’ is:

When you are so angry you are considering spousal homicide, they talk you down.

All kidding aside, I cannot say enough good things about AAA, their service and their helpful and rather funny employees. You guys rock. I also want to thank you for not suspending my membership for too many calls in one day.

I would imagine you must have some kind of cry wolf clause in your contract, no?

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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September 29, 2009 · 12:27 am

Time to (laugh till you) Cry Tuesday

Smoked Salmon Bagel

Jews were not meant to go without food.

It is a simple fact that without caloric intake, and surely caffeine, things can go haywire.

Big time.

Antics. That is the only way to explain the absurdity of the end of my day. Amy antics. To the nth degree.

Keep in mind that the patriarchs in the family are hearing about this for the first time with this blog post, so to my dad and father-in-law, sorry the bagels were not warmed up and really, it was all my fault.

Here goes. And understand that there is no way you could make this stuff up.

I, in my control freak fashion infinite kindness, tried to help my mother-in-law out by picking up the food for break fast and keeping it in my garage fridge so it would not spoil. On cooler days she can keep it on her terrace, but in the name of not wanting rancid smoked fish and egg salad, we offered to keep it here and bring it over to her house at 5 when my husband and the dads went back to closing services for Yom Kippur.

For reasons of logistics I was taking my dad’s car. I loaded the trunk, closed it and realized I had just…

locked the keys in the trunk!

Yeh, well that did not suck much. I was going to run to my parents house (35 minutes away) to get another set of keys when my mother-in-law, in her infinite wisdom suggested AAA. The fact that she was not ready to kill me at this point is truly amazing.

I begged the guy on the phone to get here ASAP telling him how my dad was going to kill me. Then promptly told him how old I was when he replied, “hey, I am 62 and I am still afraid of my mother! She used to chase me with a wooden spoon.” Alrighty, then.

Sure enough they sent a locksmith within in the hour.

My man Andre! Oh, how I loved him. Especially when we found out that the trunk release button did not work unless the key was in the ignition. If you are still with me here, THE KEYS WERE IN THE DAMN TRUNK. He used the little entry to the trunk through the armrest in the back seat and somehow navigated around platters and bagels and kugels to find those keys. And during it all gave some sage-like advice about some higher reason why we should not be where we were supposed to be at that moment and that is why this happened.

Zen locksmith.

And then it started to rain.

Luckily we got there about 15 minutes before the starving temple guys and made a quick effort of getting it all together.

Sorry dad, but don’t worry, the car is fine. Thanks to my mother-in-law for being such a good sport and my mom for staying calm and sharing a good (nervous) laugh through it all.

Moral of the story:

Stay out of it and risk the rancid fish on the terrace.

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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September 27, 2009 · 9:52 pm

I’d Rather Starve

Actual conversation:

Me: Just wanted to touch base with you because I will be out of the office on Monday for the Jewish Holiday.

Client: I am so jealous.

Me: Yeh, well, we have to starve.

Client: I would rather starve than go to work.

I am pretty sure this person was kidding as I know she loves her job, but it was funny anyway.

For those who are, have an easy fast. For those who aren’t, have a cheeseburger.

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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September 26, 2009 · 9:55 pm

Outrageous Emails

We all get them from time to time. Those outrageous emails that either inform you of the millions you can claim from some Nigerian bank or the those that are complete nonsense and sound like a foreigner randomly picked words to string together.

This morning I woke up to one of the best ones I have ever received. I have decided since I am truly the Magnet For the Absurd (MFTA) I am going to brand this sucker. So for now on when you see this logo you will know what to expect.

mfta moment

Here is today’s email:

Subject: Equal had awakened them and his.

Copied to: A2disco@optonline.net (I LOVE this email address)

Message: a black in plain clothes and yellow slippers who was gliding to recognise his style immediately. go ashore; and looked upon the spires, and roofs and smoke, of

That was it, typos and grammatical errors and all. Left me hanging with ‘of’. Of what, for crap sake?! How could this Sonja Bryan (wilsonqupafa47@finessraeder.de) have left me hanging at such a crucial point in the story?

Oh how I long to know what happens to this ‘black in plain clothes and yellow slippers’. Perhaps I will start a new series where we fill in the story where it leaves off.

Any takers? Feel free to continue writing this story in the comments.

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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