X-New York Gal

posted by Evi on Dec 17

I’ve been somewhat remiss in writing lately. Life has been pretty hectic lately and I feel like I’ve been on a merry-go-round, but a fun one nevertheless.

First, my brother Bob drove down from New York for two weeks staying at both my mother’s house and our house. Of course we all went out a lot; Sanibel, flea markets, antique shops including all those in Arcadia, and whatever. I mean, who am I to not join in?

After Bob left, my other brother, Steve, came came down for four days so we took him around. He’d never been to Sanibel, so back we went. Hey, I love sightseeing and going into all the little shops. Somewhere in between all this, I managed to make time for my job.

Now Christmas is looming around the corner and it’s looming pretty damn fast. I haven’t sent out cards (haven’t even made them out yet), nor have I done any Christmas shopping. Last minute Evi, that’s me.

So please forgive me. But I will be posting a new entry this week titled “Prankin’ Mom 2”. Yup, we did it again.

posted by Evi on Dec 1

Every morning on the days I ’m not working, The Smooch and I enjoy quiet time. I bring my coffee and the morning paper out to the lanai and Smoochie Cat springs onto my lap for a petting and hair removal session where I pet him and pull out loose fur by the handful. Then he snuggles down for a catnap while I fold and re-fold the newspaper in a futile attempt to read around him.

Well, all that ended on the advent of the dog, Pistol. First I have to walk him so he can get his bodily functions out of the way. My husband walks him before going to work early in the morning but Pistol doesn’t always use the outdoor facilities at that time. The stubborn little prick has to be slid out the door (we have laminate flooring) then carried down the steps. When outside he stands there like a statue. If I’m lucky I get him to follow me on the leash otherwise it’s pick him up and drop, pick him up and drop. Most of the time he ends up doing nothing and we go back inside.

Then he follows on my heels, literally, into the lanai and plops himself down at the side of my chair. Smooch isn’t having any of this and keeps his distance.

Finally, this morning (Sunday), I got up and Bill wasn’t home. I figured he went out to pick up something for breakfast. Not knowing if he walked the dog, I decided to leave him in his cage so I could have a few minutes peace. I brought my coffee and the paper out to the lanai with The Smooch following behind. I then shut the lanai door so I wouldn’t have to hear any whining and whimpering from the kitchen. Smooch leapt on my lap and we were back to quiet time.

Didn’t last long. Bill came home and let the dog loose. Pistol headed right for my chair in the lanai and the cat jumped off my lap and under the chaise. A few minutes later I hear this Godawful hacking noise. Turns out it’s Pistol puking all over the floor. Usually Smooch is the one who pukes; hairballs, strings, you name it.

Bill got the floor cleaned up (his dog), then made breakfast. Quiet time was over.

posted by Evi on Nov 27

posted by Evi on Nov 22

Like the time about 10 years ago my stepfather picked me up at the airport and smuggled me into the house then called her into the kitchen. The poor woman just stood there, stunned. She said that for a moment she couldn’t remember where she was.

Or the time my brother, Bob, came to visit for Thanksgiving two years ago. My poor Mom had no clue. I stopped at her house one day for a visit. A few minutes later there was a knock on her door and a “maintenance man” told her my car was in the way and had to be removed. After giving her a hard time, he finally took off his hat and sunglasses and revealed himself to be . . . my brother. Boy, was she surprised!

They tried to get me the following year, but every time they passed my house I was outside so that kind of fell flat.

This year my mother knew Bob was coming for Thanksgiving but didn’t realize he’d be here two weeks before so he and I planned another surprise. I called her and told her I was stopping by and asked if she’d go to the clubhouse with me because my friend, Dee, who lives in my Mom’s community dropped off one of my books there by mistake. I didn’t know the title but would know it when I saw it.

My brother followed me over to their clubhouse and parked around the corner. By the time Mom and I got there he was already seated, bare feet up on a table, wearing dark sunglasses and a hat and reading a book which hid his face. She and I started to walk over to the book section when she saw the feet and commented rather loudly, “look at that man with the dirty feet up on the table.”

“Shhh. He’ll hear you.” Me.

“I want him to hear me.” Mom.

“Why, do you want to lick my feet?” asked the Strange man.

She didn’t hear that remark, so I repeated it for her.

“Pervert!” Mom.

I walked over to the books with Mom nervously following me. Suddenly the man slammed the books on the table and made a loud, rude comment. At this point my mother didn’t know what to make of this. I’m looking at the books trying to find “my” book with Mom standing near me. The strange man strides over and puts his arm around me.

“My, you’re a pretty one, aren‘t you?” Strange man.

My mother just stood there. Finally the Strange Man turned around, took off his glasses and hat and revealed himself as . . . my brother. It took Mom a second to get her bearings, then they were in each others arms. Gotcha! The three of us then began laughing hysterically. The other people in the clubhouse probably thought we were nuts.

“Ma, why didn’t you try to protect me? You could have hit him with a cue stick.” (The books are right by the pool table.)

“I was waiting to see what he’d do next.” Mom.

“Like when he has me on the floor naked trying to rape me?” Me.

She didn’t have an answer and she probably won’t hear the end of that one for a while.

In the meantime, we’re all having a nice visit and seeing the sights.

posted by Evi on Nov 10

The other day Bill and I were taking things out of our camper which is parked in the RV lot in the community in which we live. He was going through stuff both inside and outside of the RV while I made trips back and forth to the car with armloads of camping junk. On one such trip I returned to the camper and when I tried to open the door found it either stuck or locked.

“Bill, open the door.” Me.

“Where are you?” Him.

“I’m outside. Open the door.” Me, while knocking on the door.

“Where are you?” Him.

“I’m right outside. Open the damn door!” Me, knocking harder on the door.

“Outside where?” Him.

“Right here!” Me, screaming and banging on the door, wondering what the hell’s the matter with him. Has he gone deaf?

“What?” Him

“Open the friggin’ door!” Me, again, while banging away.

“What door?” Him.

“There’s only one door!” Me, totally frustrated now, pounding on the door. Has this man gone daft or something?

A few seconds later he showed up around the side of the RV, shaking his head.

“You dopey broad, you’re at the wrong RV.”

I looked around. Oh. Right.

He just walked away, still shaking his head.

The following evening we met our friends, Al and Dee, for dinner and, of course, he had to go and recount the whole embarrassing saga for them. Well, at least someone got a good laugh out of it.

Kind of reminds me of that old Abbott and Costello routine – ‘Who’s on First’.

posted by Evi on Nov 6

Well, Bill finally got his way and this past Sunday morning the bedroom fun began.  No – not what you’re thinking. I’m talking about moving the furniture around.

“It’ll only take 15 minutes,” he said. Sure, tell me another one, I thought.

“We’ll move the bookcases across the room to the other wall, move the bed to this wall. . .”

Bookcases?!? Did he have any idea what moving the bookcases entailed? I mean, I arranged everything on those shelves by category not too long ago. Did he think I was going to start all over again?

I guess so, because there I was pulling books and piling them on the floor in stacks trying to keep them together in some semblance of order. Smoochie Cat was running around the room exploring books and all the other stuff now laying about on the floor, just getting under foot in general. I finally shut him in the closet so he wouldn’t get crushed by falling furniture.

About three hours later -15 minutes, my ass – after pushing, pulling and lifting, everything was in its new place. Actually, it didn’t look half bad. The room appeared twice its size and I even had a little office area next to a window which was really kind of neat.

But now another problem arose. Next to my side of the bed sat Bill’s armoire, which meant he’d be waking me at 4:00 every morning scrounging around in there getting ready for work. And even worse than that, I would lose the window near my side which came in handy for an afternoon of reading in bed. What to do, what to do?

“Why can’t we just change sides,” he suggested.

“But I always sleep on this side.” Me.

“So try it out. It can’t hurt.” Him.

“Oh, alright, if it means keeping the window.” Me.

We turned the mattress around and that night I slept on – what to me – is the wrong side of the bed. Well, turned out Bill tossed and turned all night while I slept like a baby.

I’m getting used to the room now and actually love it – especially my little office corner. I have to hand it to Bill though; he’s a better interior designer and decorator than I’ll ever be. Actually, I kind of suck at it.

My only problem now is, when looking for clothes to wear, I end up turning around and around in circles trying to remember where my dresser is.

posted by Evi on Oct 27

My poor husband has had a bad toothache for the last couple of days. He’s been waking up every hour on the hour because of the pain. I made a dental appointment for him and he’s now on antibiotics and painkillers. So, I figured it would be a relatively quiet weekend.

He spent most of Saturday sleeping, either on the sofa in front of the TV or on top of the bed in the bedroom with Smoochie Cat next to him. Okay, so it was quiet to the point of boredom. I ran out of things to occupy myself with, one of which was trying to figure out how to fix this blog’s theme. As you can probably tell, I haven’t succeeded yet.

Sunday dawned bright, breezy and sunny and we opened up the windows and doors to let the cool air in. Not too much of that down here so you take advantage of it when you can. Bill cooked breakfast. So far, so good. Then he started pacing around the house peering in all the rooms.

“What are you doing,” I asked.

“Oh, nothing,” he said with a demonic grin.

“Okay what are you up to?”

“I think I’ll put some of my teapots in storage,” he said while pulling them off the tops of the cabinets. “Grab some newspaper and start wrapping them up.” (For the record, he collects all sorts of ceramic teapots and we have become inundated with them.  I collect cats – not the live ones.)

I started wrapping teapots then realized he disappeared into the laundry room and started tearing everything out of there.

“What’s all this shit in here? Do you really need all this?” He called out.

“Oh God, what are you doing now?” I asked.

“Making more room in the laundry room. What‘s all this stuff?”

Now I’m running back and forth between the laundry room, wrapping teapots and stuffing junk from the laundry room into bags. Obviously his tooth was no longer bothering him that much.  When he was done with that (and I have to admit it did look a lot better), he headed to the bedroom.

“Oh no, don’t start moving stuff around in there.” Me

“ I could move the bed against that wall, the dresser over there.” Him.

“No, I like the bed where it is.” Then I followed his eyes to my bookcases. “Oh no you don’t. You leave those books right where they are. I’m not taking them all off the shelves again. They’re all arranged in subject order.

“We could get rid of one of the cases. You’d still have enough room for all your books.”  Him.

“No I don‘t and they’re all in order. Leave them where they are.” Me.

“You have plenty of room for them in your closet.” Him.

“And where am I supposed to put my clothes, under the bed? Get out of my closet!” Me, while pushing him out.

Next stop, the computer room a/k/a the guest bedroom. “What’s all that in the bottom of the computer armoire? Can’t you get rid of some of those boxes the CDs came in?” Him.

“Some of that stuff is so old it probably wouldn’t even run on the computer. You’re the one who wouldn’t let me throw them out.” Me.

“Then get rid of them.” Him. So I started pulling out CDs and throwing them in a garbage bag. Then, he found an old Pac Man CD. “Hmm, let’s see if this’ll run on my computer.” Him.

And next thing I knew, he was sitting there playing the game. Lucky for me. Now I can get back to my normal Sunday of puttering around and doing nothing in general.

posted by Evi on Oct 23

Have you ever watched the television program “What Not To Wear”? Well, I could be their poster child. My personal style could be summed up as ‘bag lady chic’.

Many years ago when I was a hottie and in my 20’s I always dressed well. Since I worked in New York City, I did most of my clothes shopping at Saks, Bonwits and Lord & Taylor. No, I wasn’t rich. Prices just weren’t what they are today. An expensive pair of shoes (to me, anyway) was anything over $3.00. It’s true I spent almost my entire paycheck on clothes. I lived at home so I didn’t have to fuss with things like rent and bills.

Today, the key word is comfort. Loose dresses, loose pants and shirts. If we had winter down here in Florida I’d probably live in sweats.

Let’s face it. Since everything’s so casual these days there’s no need to get dressed for dinner and an evening out. Shorts and flip flops will do nicely. Gone are the days when people actually took pride in how they presented themselves.

I remember my school years when girls wore dresses and skirts. No slacks and certainly no jeans or belly button baring tops. Boys were always neatly dressed in a pair of slacks not 20 sizes too large and a freshly ironed shirt. Man, is that ever a far cry from today.

When I worked in NYC women never wore pants to the job. Always dresses or skirts. So call me an old fart; I am.

Lately I’ve been making minimal attempts at dressing up for dinner. We usually dine out Friday nights with friends of ours, then later on play cards. (Yes, this is what people in a certain age bracket do for kicks.) I’ve been known to actually wear outfits that match and fit my body and, don’t faint, even wear jewelry and makeup. On a good day, I fix my hair.

For the most part, down here in Southwest Florida it’s summer almost all year round and we don’t have much use for an extensive wardrobe. But I kinda miss dressing up and feeling good about myself. Didn’t you ever notice that when you look and feel good people treat you differently?

So I say, shape up America and learn what not to wear!

posted by Evi on Oct 12

Before you go wrinkling your nose in disgust, I do vacuum and dust – sporadically. And contrary to what you may think, my house is not a breeding ground for bacteria. When company comes, my house is always freshly vacuumed and the bathrooms cleaned.

When I was growing up my Mom did all the cleaning and always cleaned our bedrooms. My brothers and I were not the neatest kids on the block and as soon as we heard the whine of the vacuum cleaner we ran like hell, not to be found until dinner was on the table.

On occasion, I would enter my bedroom and find the jumbled contents of my dresser drawers strewn all over the bed. Sometimes, to emphasize the obvious, my Mom would grab me by my hair and pull me over to the bed to point this out. Of course, if I wanted to go to bed that night I would have to put everything away – and it had better be put away neatly! One night I lay my head on the pillow then immediately sprang out of bed. What the hell??? I picked up the pillow and there I found a forgotten pair of shoes. (Ma, if you’re reading this, please don’t get too pissed off. I forgive you.)

After moving to Florida and getting married, my husband and I were hired as co-managers of the community we lived in (that’s another story altogether.) Since we were pretty much on call all the time, I decided I didn’t have time to clean and hired a woman to come in twice a month. Aah, heaven – coming home to a freshly scrubbed home, the scent of Pine-Sol wafting through the air. Unfortunately, that only lasted until we moved away and I had to settle for a part-time job. No longer could I afford a housekeeper.

So here I am, back to doing my own vacuuming, dusting and supervision of scrubbing. As a matter of fact, I just turned the vacuum cleaner off for a few minutes to write this. I know there are many of you out there who don’t sympathize with me, but just imagine for a moment how wonderful it would be to come home to a clean house without having done all the dirty work.

posted by Evi on Oct 9

A couple of weeks ago my husband, Bill, and I decided to take a drive up to Mount Dora in our adopted state of Florida.  My brother had stopped there on one of his trips down and told us that Mount Dora was a real town with streets where you could actually walk from shop to shop, to restaurants, and a scenic lake, unlike our strip mall-littered neck of the woods.  So, I made reservations at the Hampton Inn near there (very clean, by the way) and off we went.

Anyway, Bill is a firm believer in GPS systems whereas I love maps.  I like to see how far we’ve come and how much more of the trip is left.  I follow our route town by town, county by county.  I feel naked without a map on my lap.  Not only that but our last experience with GPS (the one on my cell phone) turned a straightforward 10 minute drive using back roads into a 45 minute ordeal on I-95 and a variety of local heavily trafficked roads.

I already had our excursion to Mount Dora more or less planned out on the map while Bill fiddled around with the GPS mounted on his dashboard.  After a couple of swerves off the road I finally said, “Alright, you wanna use the GPS, then use the damn GPS.   Just get your hands off of it and let me do it.”   

The first GPS inspired turn headed us off in a direction totally opposite of where we wanted to go.  After   several miles driving along an endless and deserted country road , I finally snapped.

 “Turn around, already, and get back on the road we were on!” So he did and once again we were merrily headed toward our destination.

Not having learned a lesson from this, Bill decided to try the GPS again and turned off course, this time onto a road that my map showed as having ended at this spot.  Okay, okay, so my map was a few years old and the new portion of the road hadn’t been built yet.  So the GPS picked up the continuation of the road .  But that’s not the point, since I hadn’t planned on going this route anyway.  So here we were on a nice new highway sailing along until. . . toll booth number one.  A dollar later, we were back on our way until. . . toll booth number two.  A dollar later, we were back on our way again until. . . toll booth number three.  A dollar later, we were back on our way again, me now bitching about how we should have just gone as I had originally planned.  Fortunately for my husband, the road ended and there were no more toll booths.  We exited and used the map the rest of the way.  Our trip back from Mount Dora went a bit more smoothly as we put the GPS to rest and did it my way.

Just recently we traded in my car for a new car and guess what freebie came with the car. . . why a GPS system, of course.