X-New York Gal

posted by Evi on Mar 26

I know, I know, I’ve been very remiss in posting to my blog. As I’ve said before, I get lazy. My brothers have mentioned to our Mom that I haven’t written anything lately so I guess it’s about time I do.

So . . . Last weekend Bill and I, along with our menagerie of one cat and one dog, took our RV over to the east coast of Florida. I have a girlfriend (dating back to the 1970s when we worked together) who lives over in Boca Raton and she invited us over for a barbecue. Also at the barbecue was another gal we worked with at the time and who I haven’t seen in about 20 years. (It’s amazing how we never seem to age!)

We left the west coast on a beautiful sunny morning. Pistol, our Shi Tzu, was a very good traveler. He lay down in one spot and hardly moved. Smoochie Cat, on the other hand, is not the best of travelers. We can’t put him in a pet carrier because his yowling would be enough for Bill to either dump him alongside the road or run the RV into a tree. Therefore the only way to get him to shut up is to put him on my lap where he’ll stay for awhile, at least until my circulation stops and my legs get numb. After that he lay on the floor near the dog for awhile or slept on the couch. So the trip east wasn’t as eventful as it could have been.

By the time we got to the other side the sun was gone and in its place were heavy gray rain clouds. We picked up the rental car (we don’t have a tow bar yet) and headed over to the campground. We pulled in and I looked around.

This is it? I thought. Kinda small and all the RVs seemed pretty close together. One of them had a cage outside of it with two very big dogs. Oh no, don’t put us next to that one.

No one was in the office and a sign on the door stated they’d be back at 1:00. Great. That gave us a half hour in which to wait around. We walked the dog and explored the club house which had sort of an indoor pool, a laundry room and even a kitchen. Okay, it looked clean enough. Eventually the manager returned and placed us on a site that was actually pretty decent. We could look out the windows without anyone staring back at us and had nothing behind us except a fence. However, behind that fence was a daycare center. Nothing like the sound of laughter and shrieking of little kids.

During the night it poured and the wind kicked up. Of course, the barbecue was scheduled for later that afternoon. We hung out in the RV until it was time to leave because Bill wasn’t feeling all that well. This meant tripping over or stepping on the dog all day. At least the cat slept on the bed most of the time so he wasn’t underfoot. Before we left, I asked Bill to take down the awning because of the high wind gusts.

Naturally, it rained on the trip to my girlfriend’s condo and also after we got there (and when we left). Actually, this was reminiscent of the Fourth of July BBQ she had the year before last. It poured then, too.

But in spite of the weather we had a great time talking about old times, the people we knew and catching up with each others‘ lives. And, no, we haven’t aged a bit.

posted by Evi on Mar 11

Getting old’s a bitch especially when senility sets in. Recently after one of our Friday night out-to-dinners with friends Al and Dee, we stopped at Goodwill to see what kind of interesting stuff we could find. I always head straight to the books and Bill heads straight toward useless knick-knacks. Al and Dee head off in opposite directions to ‘wherever’.

I usually look for novels or cookbooks to either add to my already extensive collection or to try to (one of these days) resell on E-Bay. Mind you, I don’t cook much, if at all. My collection started when I was a little kid. My Mom, grandmother and I would go shopping at the local Bohacks in Huntington and I would ask them to buy me one of the cookbooks the store sold or I would collect the little flyers and cards with recipes on them. I loved looking at the pictures of food when I was hungry. This would really start my stomach growling.

Anyway, getting back to the subject, I bought an old book that had pictures of what meals containing various amounts of calories should look like. It was kind of picture book for dieters. I had never seen a book like this before and thought it looked interesting. I brought it home, threw it in a pile with my other recent acquisitions and figured I’d get around to looking at it one of these days.

The other day I decided to look through the book. I searched through the pile of books I hadn’t put away yet and it wasn’t there. I looked again, then again. No book. I knew I had bought the book so I began looking through all my cookbooks. Couldn’t find the damned thing. I called my Mom thinking maybe for some reason it landed over there. Why? I have no idea. Then I called Dee. Did I leave it in their car by any chance? Nope. I searched my car – several times – and had Bill dig through every compartment in his vehicle. No book.

Now finding this book was getting to be a matter of principle. I looked all over the place again for a dark gray hardcover book with black and white photos. Nothing, nada. Now I’m thinking – did I actually buy it? God, maybe I dreamt it and there really was no book. But no, I remember holding it in my hands in the store, looking at the old black and white photos. Maybe I decided not to buy it and put it back on the shelf. Nah, this was the type of book I would probably buy. But then again, maybe I didn’t.

This was now starting to drive me crazy and one day after work I drove over to the Goodwill where I thought I had bought the book. I searched the shelves but found nothing resembling this book. I finally gave up and went home. This was really starting to bother the crap out of me.

One of the projects on my to-do list was to organize my bookshelves so on my day off I began pulling books out of my book cases. I found a thin spiral bound book with a colorful cover. What was this one? I opened it to find color photos of different meals with different calorie counts. My book! It was here all the time, only it wasn’t a dark gray hard covered book with black and white photos. So much for memory. As I said, getting old’s a bitch.

posted by Evi on Mar 6

One of my braver moments (or maybe stupider, however you may look at it) occurred during my working days in NYC. I was heading back to my office after lunch and stepped into an almost empty elevator. The only other passenger was a little old man.

Just as the doors were about to close, another man got in. He wasn’t the usual businessman; in fact, he looked like someone who just walked in off the street. He turned around and faced the elevator doors. I was standing in a corner in the rear of the elevator.

Then I noticed the man start taking slow backward steps. I remember thinking that if he took one more step back he would be standing on top of me. Well, he made the mistake of taking that one more step. Without even thinking, I hauled off and punched him in the back! Scared the shit out of him; he couldn’t get out of the elevator soon enough.

As soon as he was out and the doors closed again, the little old man turned to me and said, “I think you scared him more than he scared you.”

By the time I got to my office, I was shaking. I told my co-workers what happened and they told me I was lucky he didn’t hit me back. At the time, I hadn’t even thought of that.

Nowadays if you pulled something like that, the other person would probably turn around and stomp you to death.

There have been other times when I’ve reacted without thinking it through first. When I was a kid, there was this neighborhood bully named Leroy who was a few years older than I. One of his favorite means of self-entertainment was trying to run me down with his bicycle.

Now you have to understand, I was very shy and totally unable to open my mouth and stand up for myself. But one day I had had enough. Here came good ole’ Leroy on his bicycle heading straight for me. This time I stood my ground and when he got up to me, I raised my little hand and slapped him square in the face.

I’m sure this surprised him as much as it did me. But from that day forward, he never bothered me again. So the moral of this story is – stand up to bullies and don’t take any crap.

posted by Evi on Mar 1

I know I haven’t written in well over a week but things have been just way too hectic. Every time I planned to do anything, something else would come along and my whole day would change course and be shot to hell. You see, I work two days a week and then plan what I’ll do with the rest of the week. But lately all sorts of wrenches have been thrown into my plans.

In addition to that, I’m also one of the laziest persons I know of. I have to be in the mood to do something. Don’t ask me to clean house or straighten after I get home from work. In fact, don’t ask me to do anything. If I’m lucky my husband won’t like what I’ve decided to make for dinner and he’ll cook (this takes well-thought-out menu planning on my part) . I don’t mind the cleanup after dinner; it’s just wipe the table and countertop, rinse the dishes and dump them in the dishwasher. Voila! Done. Crumbs on the floor? Never mind; I’ll get them the next time I vacuum – whenever that is.

So here it is Sunday and I haven’t done much of anything except go out shopping or sit in front of the computer playing games. It’s hard to concentrate when Bill’s home and the TV is on; I’m used to my quiet time during the week. I finally had to force myself to sit still and write something for my blog. So here goes:

Thursday was my birthday and I was _2 years old (no, that’s not a typo. I’m not giving out the first number!) It’s amazing how one doesn’t feel her or his age. Mentally, I feel like I’m barely out of my 20’s.

But when I think about it, when I was in my 20’s I thought people my age were really old. I guess years ago women let their hair go gray then permed and dyed it blue, plumped up and wore old lady dresses and glasses with the chains hanging down so they could wear them around their necks when not reading. They also used to wear those clunky-heeled black shoes that laced up and were worn by everyone’s grandmothers. (Sad to say, I’ve actually seen the style coming back.)

I remember back in my schooldays, all my teachers seemed really old when in reality they were probably only in their 20’s and 30’s. I’d hate to think what children would think my age is.

My Mom looks pretty damn good compared to other people her age (which I’m not giving out either). She’s slim, her face isn’t wrinkly and she doesn’t wear old lady clothes. She also reads, does puzzles, walks or rides her bike daily and doesn‘t overeat or sit munching junk food all day. Which is something I should take to heart if I want to be fit and still look good 20 years from now.

So there you have it, the basics of staying young and healthy long past your prime. Maybe I’ll make that my New Years Resolution (next year, that is).