VeraBlue
Executive Chef
That opening statement, from a soap opera, ended with 'these are the days of our lives....' How prolific, eh? Like they could possibly be something else? Who writes that stuff, anyway?
I realized it's been ages since I've taken you for a ride, and baby, that's what I've been doing lately. There's a Souxie and the Banshees song "I am the passenger" ...and I ride and I ride. You all see what's going on at the Stock Exchange. Back in July they had another shift and the client wanted changes. Not enough business any longer to support my salary..(and it's not like it's some macro salary, either. Micro is more like it) they decided to proceed without an executive chef. Watching the news lately, you gotta wonder what the atmosphere is like in a joint where financial institutions are bailing faster than toilet water.. First week in August I was in Rochester NY for the Buffalo Bills training camp. Since then I've been driving back and forth to Garden City, Long Island to help close an account my company lost when the building was sold. In these grand financial times, my commute went from nine extremely green (all public transportation) dollars a day to thirty horribly wasteful dollars a day. $45 a week to $150 a week and people wonder why I look forward to cocktail hour with such gusto each week. I did manage to whine my way to getting one gas receipt expensed a week, so it's not a total loss. This gig officially ends on 26 September.
My divorce was finalized 2 weeks ago. I don't feel very different. We'd been married 25 years, but seperated 5 years ago. He lived around the corner all that time, and still had dinner at the house twice a week.
. Long story short, we married very young, and started to want to follow different paths after a while. He's a wonderful man who is with a wonderful woman who makes him very happy. Problem is, I've tasted her food often enough.....he's gonna get hungry soon for my meatballs. He always does.
Now, about this divorce procedure....we did it ourselves, no lawyers. HA! Our relationship is still based on trust and respect and there was no reason to pay someone to split what we already agreed to split. After all the paperwork was filed, (and I had to be the defendent, don't think I cared for that part) it took all of 7 minutes for the official signature to legaly sever the relationship. Verizon Wireless could take lessons from the court system. It took about 4 hours on the phone today with that agregation of numbnuts. My ex had to talk to them, I had to talk to them, countless minutes of mind altering hold music. All this to have our triple play (fios, phone and internet) changed from his name to mine. It's not like we're moving the house down the street or anything. I'm still here. So, in order for them to backspace over his first name and insert mine in it's place, get this: Everything has to be turned off and then turned back on. Now how many guesses will it take for you to guess how long this will take??? Who said two days?? Give that person a kewpie doll. Yes folks, it takes two days of interupted service (now there's an oxymoron if ever there was one) to change the name on the bill. That they actually have to walk down some ailse and flip a switch and turn it all off boggles the mind. No phone, no television and no computer for two days. Yeah, I know Rome wasn't built in a day, but we're not actually talking aquaducts and colliseums here, are we? It's a wire. Now it's on...and now it's still on, you know? You realize of course that I'm going to be hit with a service charge to turn the things back on, don't you? That whole story is true, filed beneath a banner headline "you cannot make this stuff up". As it turns out, I'm going to Florida to see my parents on Thursday, so it's as good a time as any to shut it down. Poor Coco though..I suggested she stay with her father during that time. He moved into his girlfriends home a couple of weeks ago. No one is turning her stuff off; well, at least until she gets her divorce from her husband (who wants alimony, by the way
) But that bit of Peyton Place is for a whole different thread. I've never paid bills before. This should be interesting. Maybe I'll write a book about it.
Lou and I are going off to see Marianne and Jim on Thursday. I could write for hours on the perils of my parents. My mother had knee surgery recently. She mentions going to PT, and I expect the word 'barnum' to follow. I don't know why she doesn't just say 'physical therapy' like a normal person, but then again, we're talking about Marianne. Still, she's doing very well. Both parents are early 70s and very very active and it was sad to see her in so much pain and unable to do the things she likes doing. I suggest she stick to things that require little movement, like nagging my dad and hovering over my adult sister's life like a black shroud and all... She was hopped up on a half a pain pill at the time, so she just laughed when I said the word 'hover'. Marianne has a fear of pills and becoming addicted so we had to literally cajole and coax her into taking half a pill just to get some relief. What a riot it was..poor thing
The really scary thing was that my Dad was lost when she was in such pain. Talk about getting together young..those two have been a couple since they were 14, and got married when they were 20, back in 1956. I don't want to wax morbid here, but when one goes, the other better hop on the same bus, too. I don't think they know how to live without the other, and don't know how they'd manage alone.
We all know there is no good food in Florida, so I have to bring stuff for them. Lou's carry on luggage will have all the politically correct 3 oz liquid bottles in clear baggies, etc. My carry on luggage will be chock full of ravioli, cured olives, italian bread, bagels, salami, mortadella and fresh mozzarella. Does anyone know if there is any reason security will stop me, other than to make them lunch?? You know, a really dedicated terrorist could stuff a ravioli with plastique, yes? Do you think they'll force me to eat one, just to prove it's really ravioli? "take my shoes off? Sure, just don't confiscate the ravioli and canoli..my family is starving to death in jacksonville"
My parents are members of an italian club. There's a bocce tournament while we're down there and Jim is participating. $300 prize to the winning team. You'd think I could play bocce, but I really don't. Neither does Lou, but he's going to anyway,. We'll cheer for them both, and I imagine my mother and I will make off with the winnings should we be so lucky to actually be associated with killer bocce players. Everyone is always talking about how cheaper the cost of living is down there. I imagine a booty of three hundred bucks will buy us a nice caddilac or perhaps a mini mansion, right?
So, that's where my broomstick has been taking me lately...
you may say I'm a dreamer...but I'm not the only one. I hope some day you'll join us, and the world will live as one.
I realized it's been ages since I've taken you for a ride, and baby, that's what I've been doing lately. There's a Souxie and the Banshees song "I am the passenger" ...and I ride and I ride. You all see what's going on at the Stock Exchange. Back in July they had another shift and the client wanted changes. Not enough business any longer to support my salary..(and it's not like it's some macro salary, either. Micro is more like it) they decided to proceed without an executive chef. Watching the news lately, you gotta wonder what the atmosphere is like in a joint where financial institutions are bailing faster than toilet water.. First week in August I was in Rochester NY for the Buffalo Bills training camp. Since then I've been driving back and forth to Garden City, Long Island to help close an account my company lost when the building was sold. In these grand financial times, my commute went from nine extremely green (all public transportation) dollars a day to thirty horribly wasteful dollars a day. $45 a week to $150 a week and people wonder why I look forward to cocktail hour with such gusto each week. I did manage to whine my way to getting one gas receipt expensed a week, so it's not a total loss. This gig officially ends on 26 September.
My divorce was finalized 2 weeks ago. I don't feel very different. We'd been married 25 years, but seperated 5 years ago. He lived around the corner all that time, and still had dinner at the house twice a week.
. Long story short, we married very young, and started to want to follow different paths after a while. He's a wonderful man who is with a wonderful woman who makes him very happy. Problem is, I've tasted her food often enough.....he's gonna get hungry soon for my meatballs. He always does. Now, about this divorce procedure....we did it ourselves, no lawyers. HA! Our relationship is still based on trust and respect and there was no reason to pay someone to split what we already agreed to split. After all the paperwork was filed, (and I had to be the defendent, don't think I cared for that part) it took all of 7 minutes for the official signature to legaly sever the relationship. Verizon Wireless could take lessons from the court system. It took about 4 hours on the phone today with that agregation of numbnuts. My ex had to talk to them, I had to talk to them, countless minutes of mind altering hold music. All this to have our triple play (fios, phone and internet) changed from his name to mine. It's not like we're moving the house down the street or anything. I'm still here. So, in order for them to backspace over his first name and insert mine in it's place, get this: Everything has to be turned off and then turned back on. Now how many guesses will it take for you to guess how long this will take??? Who said two days?? Give that person a kewpie doll. Yes folks, it takes two days of interupted service (now there's an oxymoron if ever there was one) to change the name on the bill. That they actually have to walk down some ailse and flip a switch and turn it all off boggles the mind. No phone, no television and no computer for two days. Yeah, I know Rome wasn't built in a day, but we're not actually talking aquaducts and colliseums here, are we? It's a wire. Now it's on...and now it's still on, you know? You realize of course that I'm going to be hit with a service charge to turn the
things back on, don't you? That whole story is true, filed beneath a banner headline "you cannot make this stuff up". As it turns out, I'm going to Florida to see my parents on Thursday, so it's as good a time as any to shut it down. Poor Coco though..I suggested she stay with her father during that time. He moved into his girlfriends home a couple of weeks ago. No one is turning her stuff off; well, at least until she gets her divorce from her husband (who wants alimony, by the way) But that bit of Peyton Place is for a whole different thread. I've never paid bills before. This should be interesting. Maybe I'll write a book about it.Lou and I are going off to see Marianne and Jim on Thursday. I could write for hours on the perils of my parents. My mother had knee surgery recently. She mentions going to PT, and I expect the word 'barnum' to follow. I don't know why she doesn't just say 'physical therapy' like a normal person, but then again, we're talking about Marianne. Still, she's doing very well. Both parents are early 70s and very very active and it was sad to see her in so much pain and unable to do the things she likes doing. I suggest she stick to things that require little movement, like nagging my dad and hovering over my adult sister's life like a black shroud and all... She was hopped up on a half a pain pill at the time, so she just laughed when I said the word 'hover'. Marianne has a fear of pills and becoming addicted so we had to literally cajole and coax her into taking half a pill just to get some relief. What a riot it was..poor thing
The really scary thing was that my Dad was lost when she was in such pain. Talk about getting together young..those two have been a couple since they were 14, and got married when they were 20, back in 1956. I don't want to wax morbid here, but when one goes, the other better hop on the same bus, too. I don't think they know how to live without the other, and don't know how they'd manage alone. We all know there is no good food in Florida, so I have to bring stuff for them. Lou's carry on luggage will have all the politically correct 3 oz liquid bottles in clear baggies, etc. My carry on luggage will be chock full of ravioli, cured olives, italian bread, bagels, salami, mortadella and fresh mozzarella. Does anyone know if there is any reason security will stop me, other than to make them lunch?? You know, a really dedicated terrorist could stuff a ravioli with plastique, yes? Do you think they'll force me to eat one, just to prove it's really ravioli? "take my shoes off? Sure, just don't confiscate the ravioli and canoli..my family is starving to death in jacksonville"
My parents are members of an italian club. There's a bocce tournament while we're down there and Jim is participating. $300 prize to the winning team. You'd think I could play bocce, but I really don't. Neither does Lou, but he's going to anyway,
. We'll cheer for them both, and I imagine my mother and I will make off with the winnings should we be so lucky to actually be associated with killer bocce players. Everyone is always talking about how cheaper the cost of living is down there. I imagine a booty of three hundred bucks will buy us a nice caddilac or perhaps a mini mansion, right?So, that's where my broomstick has been taking me lately...
you may say I'm a dreamer...but I'm not the only one. I hope some day you'll join us, and the world will live as one.
