Exhaustion

So, my mother-in-law passed away on Monday, so it's been kinda bizarre. I did my semi-hibernation, but figure it's time to come back up for air, so here I am. Although Jimmy and I have been married over a decade now, I only met his mother a handful of times due to her living in Florida. It's a bit strange to mourn someone you mainly knew long distance. Overall, not the best of weeks...

It also brings up all sorts of unwanted memories of my own father's death, so I really wasn't prepared for that. I guess it's kind of selfish of me to feel that way, but I'm dealing with it. It's just tiring and I'm sick of being surrounded by death.

Anyway, it's time for me to de-stress by killing stuff on World of Warcraft. Ironic, isn't it? (well... that and kind of geeky, but I'm sure that's not a surprise to anyone...)

One year later...

So, today it has officially been one year since my dad died. The past two years have been the most difficult years of my life, first with Dad's cancer and his slow decline, then with the year after going through so many milestones... The first post-dad Christmas, birthday, Father's Day, etc... And it sucked. It really, really sucked. Words cannot express it.

Which is why I was so surprised to find myself waking up this morning actually feeling pretty good. I'm not sure why I feel good, but it was a pleasant surprise. Maybe it's because I made it through all those first milestones already and this was the last one. Either way, I'll just take the gift for what it is. I still miss my dad and still often feel angry that he's gone, but I guess that's just how it is. Either way, I'll toast to his memory.

An open letter to the guy who keeps sending me right wing spam

First of all, if you're going to send me a chain letter, at least check it out on Snopes.com to make sure it's true. I know it's really hard to do and those ten seconds could be better spent sending another e-mail, but try it. Just so you know...

• President Obama is not a muslim. Nor is he the antichrist. Though if he was muslim, why is that such a big deal? Seriously...


• He does however, wear mom jeans.

So if you want to mock him for this, have at it. He does look pretty silly. Maybe he can hire Sara Palin's fashion consultant for all those clothes she had to return after the election.

By the way, he really is an American citizen. There was no grand conspiracy. Please don't send me an April Fools joke that you weren't sharp enough to pick up on...

• The ACLU is not trying to take away the military's right to prayer and they aren't planning to. Believe me, I know. I was in the Army and remember all too well reading the entire New Testament in basic training because the only things we were allowed to read were our handbooks and religious material. Of course, the minute we were allowed to read civilian material again, I was all over that...
• Gay marriage is not going to destroy your marriage. I certainly haven't started contemplating divorce just because two guys want to get married. And if you truly think that gay marriage is a real threat, maybe the real problem is that your marriage isn't that strong enough to begin with...
• Iraq wasn't involved in 9/11. In fact, most of the people involved were from Saudi Arabia. In case you weren't aware, Iraq and Saudi Arabia are completely different countries.
• George Carlin did not write the Bad American piece you keep attributing to him. Please stop. I'm sure he would've appreciated that.
• The President is also not a socialist... or a marxist. In the words of Inigo Montoya, "I do not think that word means what you think it means."
• If you actually think a mass e-mail is going to change my political stance, it's not going to work. If anything, it's probably just going to annoy me.

Bargain Bookshelf Time

I just can't decide which cover is more awesome...

Weekend travelogue

So, this weekend Jaime and I took our trip to Coney Island. I'd been promising her I'd take her all summer, so considering Labor Day is almost here I thought it was time to follow through. We stopped at Nathan's for our requisite (and tasty) hotdogs, then headed out to the boardwalk. Jaime was disappointed that the Cyclone was closed that day because of the predicted hurricane, but she was still excited to put her feet in the ocean.


Despite the gray skies in the pictures, it actually turned out to be a really nice day in the end. Unfortuntately, the Wonder Wheel was also closed due to the hurricane fears, so I guess it gives us a good reason to return.

Overall, it was still a good time. We visited the aquarium and saw the sights. Jaime bought her knick-knacks and was pleased overall. We also had time to see Times Square again at Jaime's request. I suspect her main motivation was visiting the Buildabear Workshop, however...

We also had dinner with my friend Brian at an awesome restaurant in Manhattan before leaving, so that was a good end to the day.

My original plan was to drive back home that night, but some nasty fog got in the way and after some white-knuckle driving, I decided it would be easier to just get a hotel and finish driving the next day. This also gave us the opportunity to visit Bushkill falls, a.k.a. The Niagara of Pennsylvania. And it was amazing...


The trails are absolutely gorgeous and brutal to walk at the same time. I had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into, but it was well worth the countless stairs we climbed to get to the bottom (then back up again).

Then for yet an extra bonus, Jaime and I made another stop in Scranton to eat at Alfredo's Pizza Cafe. And yes, my motivation for this was because it was featured in an episode of The Office...

The pizza was good, too. It's Old Forge style pizza, which originated in Old Forge, PA. It may look kind of like sicilian pizza, but it's a completely different beast altogether. Its also very tasty... Anyway, it was worth the stop. (Though I'll admit, I still like Pizza Perfect in Trucksville, PA better...)

Overall, a good weekend.

Phoebe still lets me do anything to her...

Good dog...

We don't need no education

Just when I thought the P&C was back on track...

Still here...

I have been neglecting the blog again. I really wanted to get myself back in the habit and the best way to do so is, of course, more P&C signs! Enjoy...

Mmm... Camel covered apples.

Willard State Hospital Part 3: I see dead people...

Yeah, I know it's obvious... I couldn't help myself.
Anyway, it's time to wrap up the Willard tour with the coolest part. The morgue...

Just two little rooms straight out of Jacob's Ladder... (you know there's some freaky person staring down at you from above...)

I mean, wow... just wow... They didn't even try to clean this place up. Which makes it even more awesome...

They even left some of the equipment out.

I don't even think I need to write anything. The pictures speak for themselves.

Willard State Hospital Part 2: Once More Into the Breach

So, now it's time to get into some of the creepier Willard pics. We got to wander through the Grand View building, which was very cool. It was originally built as the 1st agricultural college in the state, but when the college moved to Cornell, the hospital came in. This building was where "women of a calmer nature" were housed. Mainly post-partum depression and such...

This building was also featured in an episode of Paranormal State. You can watch the episode online here if you are interested... http://www.scaryghostvideos.org/98.html
I'll warn you ahead of time, though that Paranormal State is a terrible, terrible show. I mean it's really cheesy and bad. There are a lot better ghost hunting shows out there. Unfortunately, this is the only one that's been to Willard...

Though I did enjoy their chalkboard they left behind...

And their whiteboard...

Most of the building was old, but pretty normal. Maybe slightly One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but nothing that bad.

Then we got into the basement and things began to change. This probably was nothing but an old storage area, but it makes you wonder...


I can't imagine walking around these tunnels at 2am.

I would love to know what this graffiti says...


This is what's left of the fireplace in the kitchen. Of the creepy basement of doom...

Jaime wouldn't get more than five feet away from me the entire time. Sadly, no ghost sightings, though. And I doubt the folks from Paranormal State did either...

Stay tuned for Part 3, where we visit... The Morgue...

Willard State Hospital Part 1: And what did you do this weekend?

I'll tell you what I did. I toured the Willard State Hospital. And it was awesome... For a little background information, Willard was a mental hospital that was open from 1869-1995 for people with chronic mental illnesses. Nowadays Willard houses a drug treatment center, a shock camp for people who committed minor crimes and a day care center. Though a lot of the buildings were put to use, many more have been left to decay.



Yesterday, some of the buildings were opened to the public for tours to raise money for the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Daycare, which is on campus. Former employees were at all the buildings to talk about the history, which was nice. The tours themselves were pretty disorganized because the campus is so huge you have to drive to many of the buildings. Jaime and I lost our tour after the first building and decided to just look around at our own pace and that worked out better.

Some buildings were in better shape than others. Hadley Hall is still used by the Department of Corrections for training, so it was probably in the best shape.



Inside was a very nice auditorium and gym. The woman who we talked to there said that they actually had a lot of colleges come to give performances for the patients and the staff. But the coolest thing here had to be the bowling alley in the basement.


Yup, a real bowling alley. Jaime was really excited to see this. They used to have staff and patient leagues. Patients worked at the bowling alley setting pins and maintaining it. Sadly, the picture doesn't show the Brady-esque yellow carpeting. The scorecards and old ashtrays were still there. It was like they closed up in the middle of someone's game...
Anyway, that's just some of the tour. I'll start getting into the creepier stuff in part two...

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Hey all... At least I have an excuse this time for not writing, as I was in Disneyworld all last week! Woot!

This being both my first real vacation in years not spent at home and also my first time at Disneyworld, I was pretty excited. I also got my picture taken with Stitch! We spent the week onsite at the Pop Century Resort and I can honestly say I still didn't get to see everything. Words cannot express how massive Disneyworld is...

I could probably go into great detail on the daily activities of my trip, but I will be nice and not do this. I will however note the highlights...

-The Disney Dining Plan is essential. If you take the time to research where you want to eat and make dining reservations well in advance, it is more than worth it. Not only does it save a ton on money, but there are some excellent restaurants at Disney. The Yak and Yeti at the Animal Kingdom was my personal favorite. Least favorite was the Biergarten at Epcot. However, Jimmy really wanted to go there and at least the beer was good and the show was entertaining. Still didn't block out the taste of the terrible food...

-I got my picture taken with Stitch!!!



On our last morning, Jaime and I went to the Ohana! character breakfast. So, we got to meet Lilo and Stitch, as well as Mickey and Pluto. Sadly, I think I was more excited about meeting Stitch than Jaime... I'm such a child.

-Jaime rode Expedition Everest nine times. This was thanks to the Magic Hours, which allowed her to continually loop around back in line in the space of two hours. I don't know how she managed to do it and not get sick...

-The entire atmosphere of Disneyworld is amazing. Everything is perfect. Sometimes too perfect. I was slightly disturbed to wake up at 7am and find workers already painting walls that did not appear to need any painting. Jimmy actually left a tiny piece of trash out just to see how quickly someone would come along to pick it up. It took less than an hour. Although it sometimes was reminiscent of David Foster Wallace's cruise ship experience in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, it truly was a sight to behold. Everything... was... perfect... No matter where you went, there was something fascinating.

-And people were happy. Everyone was friendly. I can't tell you how many conversations I had with total strangers that would not have happened in the normal world. It really is "The Happiest Place on Earth."

-For those that are interested, I uploaded most of the vacation pictures on my Flickr site.

Anyways, I can completely see now why there are people who return to Disney year after year. It's an overwhelming experience. And I'm think I'll probably be returning in the future, as well...

Sunday morning reading

So, this morning I had to take Jaime to church an hour early because she was singing in the Easter service. (She did great, by the way...) So I killed some time in the church library. Now, the books in the church library are a bit more eclectic than you'd normally expect. Along with the typical religious centered and inspirational books you also find history, literature and then some really unexpected choices such as Metalcraft for Amateurs and Psychiatric Aspects of the Prevention of Nuclear War. Seriously. I'm not making this up.

However, my new favorite would be Recreation for the Aging by Arthur Williams. The best part is where it gives suggestions for names for a club for the elderly such as:
-Adult Social
-Borrowed Time
-Forget Me Not
-Pleasant Hour

Again, I am not making this up...

Anyway, I'm glad I had this entertainment early on because honestly, church sucked. One of the hymns played was what I last heard during my father's funeral and it brought back all sorts of unwanted emotions. I ended up leaving the church for a few minutes because I didn't want to be seen weeping in the pew. Not the most pleasant of times...

You know, I really thought this year was going to be better, but it's not. I'd mentioned this earlier to someone that it isn't better. It's just different. I don't know how else to explain it. It's hard though, in ways I really didn't expect. I really do hope things get better.

Ok, I don't even understand this one.

Maybe Gnome--> Knome--> Knob?

I'm not dead yet...

I haven't been really good about updating and must be disappointing all ten of my regular readers... But I would like to mention that I am still alive...

Trivia at Horigans this week was probably the worst I've done yet. Damn those two sports categories. Sports is a black hole of knowledge for me. Either way, by the end I really didn't care because the bartender came up with a new drink for us. The only caveat was that it had midori in it and not be syrupy sweet. And behold the Strong and Tasty was born. It was bright green, just like something you'd get served on Ten Forward on Star Trek. I really wish I'd taken a picture of it now...

On the Jaime front, she recently discovered that Oxygen on Demand has karaoke songs. At first she was a little shy, believe it or not, but towards the end it was pretty awesome to watch her jumping around the living room to "ABC" and "I Will Survive." So, a new tradition of Happy Funtime Karaoke Night was also born... Good times.

IT'S ABOUT TIME...

Somebody noticed.



It's a shame they didn't notice the others...

Food festival time!

So, there was a flyer in the church bulletin this Sunday for the First Annual Jewish Food Festival that day at the Temple B'nai Israel. And as anyone who knows me can attest, I love food. And Jaime read there'd be latkes. So there was no question we'd be going.



Let me tell you, it was MASS INSANITY. It was crazy how crowded it was. One of the people there told me that they expected to presell 200 tickets and ended up preselling over 360. Not too shabby for a first year festival. And it was definitely worth braving the crowds. The food was excellent and cheap. For $15, Jaime and I got the price of admission plus latkes, falafel, kosher hotdog with sauerkraut, matzo ball soup, cream soda AND an egg cream. Tasty goodness...



In the end, a good time was had by all...

Dangerous Vegetables

In honor of Daylight Savings Time...

Big Brother is watching you...

So, I always like to see how people come to my blog through search engines and I got a slightly disturbing hit yesterday... searching for "is there a meaning to die on your birthday." Hopefully seeing Jaime's last birthday party (which had not mention of death in it, by the way...) was one of the more cheerful returns.

Most strangers seem to find the blog because I use a lot of song lyrics and movie quotes in my titles. So I feel bad for whoever was searching for "self realization" and got stuck with someone borrowing a quote from Real Genius...

But my favorite search of all time will be "anti smoking sock monkeys."

I want a coo-oo-oo-ool rider...

So, tonight Jaime and I watched Grease on TV for some family bonding time. She loves the film and has been talking about it all day. She also was looking forward to seeing Grease 2 for the first time because there was a double feature on cable tonight with both.

So she asks me whether Grease 2 is as good as the original and I explain to her, "It's terrible. You'll love it. Just wait till the bowling song." Because it is terrible and for some reason I can't help myself from watching it... It's just so awful, it's almost... mesmerizing...

Anyway, I think she made it about ten minutes into the movie before she decided to go to bed. I'll bet money that she still watches it tomorrow on DVR, though...

Walking the line upside down

So, my mom called me earlier this evening because she just found her cat Neville dead. She was beyond upset, so I went over to take care of him for her. The little cat was lying in my dad's old recliner, poor guy. He was really Dad's cat (we used to joke that he was Dad's familiar) and he never really has been the same since Dad died...

Even stranger, today is the exact date last year that my father was hospitalized and the whole journey with cancer began. I find it disturbing that Neville picked this day to go... Maybe it's just a coincidence, but I don't know.

This pizza is a work of art.

You think that's art? You should see the meatballs...

You say it's your birthday...

So, yesterday was Jaime's birthday party. We had it quite late because she wanted to have it at the movie theater and both her movie choices, Pink Panther 2 and Coraline, didn't open until this weekend. Sadly, Coraline's movie time didn't mesh with the party time, so we ended up seeing the Pink Panther. (Why? Why, lord why do you torture me so?) Of course the kids loved it, so in the end I guess that's what matters... That and she got a nice pink party theme...



I'm a big fan of stress free parties. I would much rather pay more to have a party outside of my home and has built in entertainment. So, Regal Cinemas was the way to go. We got "VIP treatment" from the manager , led to our own section and then they brought all the snacks out to the kids in the theater instead of having to wait in any lines. Not having to worry about these things was quite nice. But the extra bonus was the tour of the theater.



The kids really enjoyed he tour, as did I. As an added bonus, Jaime got to start one of the movies, which was a very exciting thing for a ten year old. They also gave her a free movie poster and film strips for all the kids. Overall, another successful birthday party. And Jaime is already planning next year's party... Oh boy.

Just not a meanderer...

So, on the walkway into work this morning I was stuck behind two women who were chatting and strolling alone as slooooowly as possible. And in my mind I was silently cursing them and willing them to move FASTER so I don't end up clocking late in to work. The person next to me commented that she was also frustrated with how slowly these two were moving, then made the pithy observation that maybe she should try meandering along some time instead of constantly rushing around.

I have to say, it made me think. Maybe these women know something I don't. Maybe I should try meandering a little bit more, too. So, I tried it and I don't think I even made it a full minute. I guess I'm just not a meanderer...

Hell is Chrome

So, showing proof of my undying love for my child I fulfilled her birthday wish by taking her to the Seventh Circle of Hell... I mean Chuck E. Cheese. After undercooked, possibly salmonella ridden pizza, screaming crying children, screaming crying parents, etc... I remembered why it had been so many years since I chose to venture forth into the abyss. I also watched an animatronic mouse singing "Everybody Wants to Rule the World", which did add a nice surreal touch to the experience.

Anyway, I think it'll be a while until I return. I hit my Chuck E. Cheese limit pretty quickly. But at least I wasn't as bad off as this guy:

The gourmet offerings at the P&C

Despite that there was nothing misspelled, this is now on my list of Top 5 P&C Signs.

Strictly for the laddies

It's a brand new year...

I realize I am a bit behind with my 2008 roundup, but a combination of illness, a new puppy and overall vacation laziness contributed to it... Speaking of new puppies, here's our newest member of the family, Striker (a.k.a. Surely You Can't Be Serious)!

We picked him up from the breeder's on New Years Day, so I'm hoping that will be a sign of a good start to 2009... Cute, isn't he? He's also very smart and he and Phoebe are getting along very well so far...

(Man, we really need to do something about getting rid of that ugly couch...)

Anyway, so far 2009 seems to be starting out well. And it's a good thing because frankly, 2008 sucked. I can honestly say that 2008 really was the worst year of my life and I'm glad that it's over.

After my dad was diagnosed with cancer last February, it was pretty clear from the start that his time was limited. And I can look back now and realize that I basically went into mourning way back then. At times it felt like I was trapped in a horrible nightmare that I still haven't completely woken up from. I don't know how I made it through this last year. I had so much going on with taking care of my dad, supporting my mom, taking care of Jaime, working, etc... With as hard as it was to hold it all together, I don't know if I could handle another year like this again.

At the same time, I still appreciate the time I got to spend with my dad. I know a lot of people aren't that lucky. Though there were times when it was so painful to watch what he was going through and I just wanted it to be over... It's like either way there's pain involved and I always felt selfish no matter how I felt.

I also appreciate the people that were there for me, my father and the rest of my family during this last horrible year. You all know who you are. I often felt like I was all alone and I hated to ask for help, so even the smallest kindness meant more than I could ever put into words. I've tried to sit down and thank people individually, but it's still too hard right now. I hope this is sufficient for now...

Anyway, new year and new start. I want it to be a better one. I really think it will be...