Commemoration

One hundred years ago, on August 22, 1910, Tomaso, who had already been to America several times, arrived at last to stay. This time, he brought with him from Italy his wife, Antonetta, and their three children, Concetta, Antonio, and Raffaele. Two more daughters were born later, in the United States, one of them only months after the family had arrived. Tomaso had waited until he had a good position in the United States and could provide for his family here; he had already become a citizen. He was an artisan, a craftsman who created the decorative stone pieces that adorned the outsides of great buildings.

Today, I attended a lunch gathering that included Constance's two remaining children, Tommy and Bobby, Tony's two children, Tom and Marie, and the two of Ralph's children who still live in New Jersey, Tommy and Ralphie. Five more cousins are scattered around the country, and couldn't attend. A variety of spouses and children and grandchildren were there as well. (Only three Toms were present, although I think there are more here and there, and only one Tony.)

This was so much fun. These are all such happy, friendly people; they love to laugh and they love each other. The cousins all grew up within a block of each other, from the oldest Tommy (who is known in the family as "Big" since he's the biggest Tommy) to the youngest, who wasn't there today. They were telling funny stories about their grandparents, and all their parents. Ralphie brought a marble figurine that his father had made years ago, to show everyone. Tony worked in silver; one of his grandsons carries a ring he made with his initials on it to this day. All of them were artists and craftsmen, good with their hands, and everyone is educated.

As my father-in-law once commented about his father, it's a good thing he didn't miss the boat. What wonderful lives they have made for themselves here, following their parents' and grandparents' examples.

No political motive here. It was just a really nice day, and I was lucky to be a part of it.

Wednesday, Yes?

One retirement cliche that is certainly proving true for me is that I never know what day of the week it is. I only know that I do certain things on certain days, like I get a massage on Thursdays, but I'm doing that today, since I have other plans tomorrow, so I'm all screwed up.

Tomorrow, the Hubs and I are venturing south to have lunch with his folks and a variety of other family members, a mini-reunion. Nice people, everybody likes to laugh, so that should be fun. And as it turns out, we don't have to drive, which is astonishing. I thought we might be picking up the Hubs' just-widowed aunt, but it turns out her son is picking her up, and invited us to fill out his car, so yay! Looking forward to that.

K has gone to two of the four days of her workshop -- the third day is today -- and comes home each night excited, raring to go. She talks about her lesson plans with me, and god, she's good. She not only knows her content, which is a given, she just knows how things need to be presented to kids, what methods work, what standards she wants to maintain. It's so in her blood. I'm so proud of her.

My house is so, so tidy, although I have things to put away upstairs, as it seems I'm gradually finding places up there for stuff that has always been clogging up corners and bags down here. I had planned to move all my clothes up there, but I'm re-thinking that, although I'll move some stuff. It's so nice to use the closet there for craft supplies, at least for now. It's a long-term thing, I guess. I did do one thing that I've always wanted to, a silly little thing. I have many scarves and such, some hand-made, others that I just like, and they've always spent all winter sitting in a pile on the rocking chair. The rocking chair's upstairs now, so I made an arrangement:



I guess it doesn't look like much, but it's a big step for me. I wanted to use them decoratively somehow, but the opportunities are limited, since the house is so small. (The plaid one on the right, btw, was bought for me by my grandmother when I was about six. Somewhere in the house is another scarf that she made for me when I was about 4 and was taught to knit or crochet; it was her first project, and is perfect. I'll look for that, and hang that up, too.)

I need to eat some kind of breakfast here, but I'm lazy today. My default lazy breakfast is an Egg McMuffin with no meat, and I only eat one side of the bread. Meh. I wonder if there's something better at the Barnes and Noble cafe -- B&N is my first stop today; the FIL wants a history of Bizarro Town that's part of a series of New Jersey towns and he must have lost the copy I gave him a few years ago that was signed by the author. I could hit Whole Foods next, since it's near Target and the massage place, my next stops. Actually, at the moment, I think I should go wherever I can get food the fastest. McDonalds is looking better and better.

I'm off.

I Think I'll Rant Today

I want to talk about this whole issue of the mosque that some people want to build near the site of the destroyed World trade Center. I understand that some of you will not agree with me, and that's fine. It's more than fine. It's what I'm talking about, in fact.

First, the issue. Some Muslim group wants to build a mosque, a Muslim house of worship, in Lower Manhattan, near the site now known as "Ground Zero," the place the World Trade Center stood before it was destroyed by Muslim terrorists.

Is this a good idea? I don't think so. If the Muslim group who wants to build has ties to radical Islam, well, then it's just mean, and intended as a slap in the face to Americans. If this is not a group tied to radical Islam, and it's a moderate, normal American group of Muslims who want to worship there to show solidarity with non-Muslim Americans, and to show that they only want peace, well then, it wasn't well thought out because it's clearly not working, and they should withdraw. In fact, I think the city of New York should zone that entire area as non-suitable for religious institutions, and solve the whole problem for all time.

Does the Muslim group currently have the right to build a mosque anywhere not forbidden by zoning laws? Of course they do. The group that is planning to go to Ground Zero and burn copies of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, in protest? I suppose they have the right to do that as well, but it is disgusting and as anti-American thing as I can imagine anyone doing. It looks like the pictures of Nazis burning synagogues on Kristallnacht, the night of the anti-Jewish pogroms that led to the end of Jews in Germany and other parts of Europe.

And you know what else it looks like? It looks like the wars between the French monarchy in defense of Catholicism and the Huguenots, the French protestants who only wanted to practice their religion in peace, although most of them were eventually forced to leave France in the 1600's. It looks like the English monarchy's persecution of Catholics after Henry VIII declared that England was a Protestant country. It looks like any and every other religious persecution we have seen in the world and in this country. It looks bad, and it looks un-Constitutional.

From Wikipedia (but it's a no-brainer, anyone could say this): The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. The first amendment to the Constitution, also from Wikipedia, is

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This means that the government sees no one religion as paramount over any other; all religions must be treated equally under our Constitution. If current laws allow a church to be built near Ground Zero, then a mosque must be allowed to be built as well, no matter how badly thought out a plan it is. Not only will the government not support one religion over another, it can't do anything to stop anyone from worshiping as s/he pleases. As for the protest, if their protest is peaceful, the first amendment protects them, too; it even protects their right to say any stupid thing they want to. (And your right to disagree with me, and vice-versa.) It does not protect their right to commit violence at that assembly, which I presume the burning of a holy book would be, or at least, would provoke.

I wonder how these same protesters would react if Muslim groups in another country burned copies of the Bible? Not well, I think. How do we feel we hear about American Christian missionaries in other countries being persecuted? But it's the same thing. If you want to see if something is morally right, imagine turning the tables, and see how it makes you feel.

Muslim terrorists are terrorists, just as Catholic and Protestant terrorists in Northern Island a generation ago were terrorists. What distinguishes these people is their politics, not their religion. Most Muslim people, like most people who self-identify as Catholic or Protestant or Jewish or Hindu or Sikh, are pretty much just people. Most of them do not follow the more radicalized, violence-supporting aspects of the faith, just as most followers of other religions do not. If you read the Old Testament, the ancient Hebrews could be pretty vicious at times. If you look at the history of the world for the last 2000 years, there's been an awful lot of violence and mayhem done in the name of Christianity. Do any of us really think that this is what Christianity stands for? Read the New Testament; it certainly isn't remotely what Jesus stood for. And yet it's been done, many times. The Spanish Inquisition leaps immediately to mind. (You weren't expecting that, were you? No one expects the Spanish Inquisition. heh heh.)

Perhaps I will rant another day on the absurdity that is now taking place in Arizona. It appalls and disgusts me as well. A former colleague of mine has got me on his email list -- he is a dear, sweet, gentle man; I don't know where he gets this crap or why he supports it -- about welfare queens who are illegal immigrants while disabled veterans get shat upon. If it's true, well you know what? The illegal immigration isn't the problem, the welfare and V.A. systems are. *sigh* Another day for immigration, perhaps.

Friday Afternoon

It's 1:30. The cleaning people arrived a little after 9:30. They're still here.

We must be pigs.

In fact, they are doing a lot of deep cleaning, like scrubbing one of the heating vents that's always been dusted, but never really washed. The bathroom ceiling is clean. They're not just wiping down the woodwork, they're washing it.

Even so, I'm ashamed to look them in the eye.

But I do want them to come back every other week, from now on until forever, and keep everything clean. It's nice, really nice. It's something that I never, ever really had the time to do myself. Would I have done it if I had the time? It's a mystery.

I look back to my childhood and remember helping with the cleaning under my mother's direction. She had someone come in to clean from time to time, but mostly not. I dusted and I vacuumed, because I had no choice. My most hated task of all was brushing and combing the steps. Yes. The carpet on the steps to upstairs had grown thinner over the years, and vacuuming there, while difficult, was mostly ineffective. So she sat me down at the top of the steps and gave me a stiff plastic brush and my job was to brush the dirt and lint out of the carpet on each step -- there were six -- and then vacuum the steps and of course the floor at the bottom. Gaaaagh. I hated this above all. Combing the steps. I was pretty sure that none of my little friends got stuck with that one.

I wonder how much longer they're going to be here? One woman was in the kitchen alone for three hours! And they haven't even gotten started on the family room yet.

Oh, she just came in with all her dusters and spray bottles. This is an ecologically friendly cleaning service, btw, so there's none of the typical cleaners and the house doesn't smell bad, just clean. And now, in addition to thinking I'm a filthy pig, she knows that I watch Yes, Dear in the afternoon, and this woman has no respect for me whatsoever, I'm sure.

Pre-Cleaning

So my big task for today was pre-cleaning, that is, making sure the house is clean before the cleaning service comes tomorrow. I hope you all know that this definitely does not mean that I dusted and vacuumed, heaven forfend. I tidied up to the nth degree so that the cleaning people can get to whatever they need to get to. One of the reasons I stopped having cleaning people come in years ago was that they couldn't do either of the girls' rooms because you couldn't wade in through the foot tall pile of stuff and even find the floor, let alone vacuum it. And what was there to dust? The crap on the floor? Because the dresser and any other surfaces were piled high with make-up, scraps of this and that, and homework that was never turned in.

This was really one of the things I wanted most in retirement: someone to come in and clean. Yes, I do have the time now, and I even have the inclination. I just don't have the energy. I can't bend over for more than a minute or two, and even that leaves me breathless, so things like scrubbing a tub are out. And I don't even have the arm strength anymore to scrub a tub. If I have to get a part-time job (after the wedding) to continue to pay for a cleaning service, I will do just that.

Speaking of a part-time job, I know exactly what I want to do, if it should come to that. I want to work in an Apple Store. (You'd think I would have seen that coming, eh?) I could work as a concierge, or just a general person who gets people started and then leads them to the right person to help them, or I could, in fact, teach people how to use programs and stuff. I would have to learn much more about the programs to be able to teach them, but I certainly now how to teach people to use computers; I've been doing that for 25 years. And I could wear whatever I want and throw a blue Apple t-shirt over it, and probably do it part-time. And even if I work the occasional Saturday, or even a couple Saturdays a month, I know that as long as I work here in Bergen County, I'll always have Sundays off.

My videos have been a little goofy, yes? I don't know if the second one posted yesterday or not, but I think not. I shall limit myself to one a day then. It's so much easier to use the phone and the blogger app; everything happens automatically. I got a cute little app that makes the videos look like old home movies, so perhaps I shall treat you to one of those soon.

The wedding approacheth, invitations will be going out next week. Over 150 people are being invited, about 40 of them from our side. That's all we've got. We could expand to include the Hubs' cousins, I suppose, but that would actually be ... ten more people, most of whom we are not close with. We've been invited to some of their events, but none of their children's events -- okay, a couple of Bar Mitzvahs for one cousin -- and neither of our children have been invited to anything of theirs. Whereas my cousins, and I don't have many, include my children in all things. Plus, the Hubs has aunts and uncles who are coming, and I have no one left in that generation in my family, so my cousins are all the family I've got. And I only have ... nine of them to invite, and that includes four children. (I'm inviting another cousin, as well as my OldFriend, but I know that neither of them is coming.) I have about one table's worth of my close friends, and eight alone of our side consists of my sister's children and their significant others. Not to mention two to four guests who probably won't be coming for medical reasons. Oy. I'm so happy R is getting married, and to such a wonderful man, but the wedding business I could do without. *sigh* As long as she's happy, though, right?

I'm reading the first Artemis Fowl book (a middle school book) and not liking it at all. Why is this series so popular? And why isn't Mockingjay here yet?

Project Runway in ten minutes. Will they finally get rid of Casanova tonight? What an idiot!

Let's See If This Works

Could it be ..?

Ok, then!

Rainy Days and Mondays

Today is both a rainy day and a Monday, but it's far from getting me down. I imagine this will be the last entry I post from my dearly beloved computer, Maxx the Mac, as Maxx will be going into retirement (just like me!) later today. The Apple Store opens at 10:00, and I'm going there this morning to buy my MacBook Pro, courtesy of those last 25 sick days I didn't take. (Imagine what I could get if I had had hundreds of sick days left, like most other people!) I was going to get the biggest hard drive I could -- 320g -- remembering the old advice that you get the most memory you can afford. And then I thought and thought and thought, and I also need iPhone memory. Hmmm. So I thought about the 250g hard drive, which saves $300, and a 16g iPhone, which is $199. And that's what I'm going to do. With any luck, the new iPhone will be ready to go when I leave the store, with all my stuff on it, since I could be without Maxx or Pro Maxx for a day or two, while they copy over my docs and settings. I'm not trading in either of my older devices, since I won't get that much for them. I'll reformat Maxx and reinstall the operating system, and have s spare upstairs for quick Internet lookups. As for the old phone, I'm thinking, I'm thinking.

Pro Maxx has a webcam. Heh heh.

What a Nice Day This Was

Well, I recorded something for y'all but it didn't upload. I must resort to typing words. With my fingers. How quaint.

So I am just loving this whole doing-what-I-feel-like-doing-or-not thing they call retirement. Today, I did the food shopping early, then went to A.C. Moore to get some frames and like that, and then ...

I went to the Apple Store and priced out my new toy, which I will go back and buy on Monday, after getting all the files on my current computer ready to go. [rubs hands together in glee, like Snidely Whiplash]

And then I went for a short bike ride, just to see if I could do it. And I could, and did. And lived to tell the tale. Haven't been on a bike in 20 years.

The New Baby

Here are some pictures of the new grandcat, Otto.

He's a very sweet little boy, very cuddly and smart.

-- Post From My iPhone

And Now For Something Completely Different

It's an experiment. It doesn't work properly on my computer, which is one of the reasons I'm getting a new computer, but it might work on yours.