Mia's Mama

Mia's Mama is a friend I met while working at a law firm downtown Manhattan. We didn't work together too long, maybe about a year and half but we shared a large cubicle with another girl and from the first day we met we were friends. She is a funny loving person, a great mom, her girls mean the world to her and since I've known her everything was always about her family, good and bad, family comes first. As much as her parents help her out now since she and her husband work full time, she helps them too, does so much for them and she's a wonderful example for her own children. Maybe more than being funny we connected on that level, family comes first for me.

Theresa, Mia's Mama, and I have talked pretty much every Saturday morning since we met. We both are early risers and at about 7:30 or so in the a.m., one of us is answering the phone imitating her mother's Italian accent. Her mom would call the office when we worked together and I loved the way she would ask for Theresa when I answered her phone, I've called her Theresa the way her mother said it since and now Theresa says my name with that beautiful accent, it sounds like a different name!

We talk about everything, what's going on in our lives, job problems, men problems, we talk about her kids, our families. We're so lucky that we have this time, by 8:15 or so she's got to get into her day with her children and I'm off and doing my thing. I don't even get to talk to my sisters on such a regular basis. We just don't have the same schedule.

There are many times when one of us is in crisis mode and we reach out during the week. we both know it's something important when those calls come in. From just a short time working together on a daily basis a beautiful friendship emerged. I saw her 2 years ago because I made the chocolate bar wrappers for her daughter's christening, but even that was a quick cup of coffee and we both had to go back to our busy lives. And before that I hadn't seen her in six years as she lives upstate and stopped working in Manhattan shortly after her first child, Sophia, was born.

There are many people I've met during my life that I wish I could talk to every once in a while, but we all have such busy lives, especially parents, always running here and there taking their kids to their practice or clubs, whatever. It's not easy.

For me Facebook has been a wonderful way for me to say hello and share time with friends I love and have missed. Life changes so much, you move out of the neighborhood, you change schools, you marry, have a family, work, spend your precious time with your family, time goes by way too fast! So me and my friends may not talk to each other every day on Facebook, sometimes nothing after the initial contact of "hey! hi! I remember you", but we're friends all the same, we've acknowledged to each other that we shared a part of our journey through life together.

I know Facebook can also cause problems for some people, maybe for kids more. What they write will be there forever, will define them as they get older and may be a big impact on their relationships, their careers. What a different world! Good and bad, huh?

The chocolate bar wrapper pictured below another design made with love. I copied Anne Geddes work. Anne Geddes is an amazing artist. I think most people have seen her work and know her name, but if you don't, she is known for her pictures of babies or young toddlers dressed as pea pods, or butterflies, flowers, fairies, the most beautiful pictures. Check her work out on line if you by some strange change have not seen her pictures and even if you have, you just smile in your heart when you look at her work. A tremendous talent.

Again, I copied this wonderful women's idea. Though unlike Anne, I didn't take pictures of Mia in a flower pot, just cropped her beautiful little face and built everything else around her. Mia's Mama loved them and it gave us a chance to actually sit and chat face to face for a short time, but we have our Saturday mornings, a highlight of my weekends!

What Will I Be When I Grow Up!?

I didn't get to my blog yesterday as I went into the city to see the Nate Berkus Show. Left super early in the morning and ended up missing the Staten Island Ferry coming home and then being late for work. A long day.

The Nate Berkus Show is talk show about entertainment and lifestyle, home decorating, clothes, craft ideas, lots of different topics.

I have never seen the show, it's on when I'm working and it's probably a great show, but seeing it from the audience is nothing like seeing a show on TV. We sat in the last row of one section and it was very difficult to see him or hear for most of the show. There are sets all over the room and it looks like he's sitting in a living room or a kitchen, but they're all just very small sets and the way it's filmed comes across way different when we watch it at home. We were instructed when to clap, when to stop, and I understand that, they want the audience to sound enthusiastic for the people at home watching, but every moment is set up, planned. And all I wanted to do was watch the back stage goings on, which we were instructed not to do, they told us to always keep your eyes on Nate. I wanted to watch the cameramen, the guys moving the sets around. It's amazing! They work as a team from every second you're there. The backstage people can be talking or moving sets and all of a sudden it's silent and the countdown begins to action!

I went on a tour of Paramount Studios in California years ago. A friend of mine worked in the New York Office and set up a private tour for us. It was absolutely one the best times for me. We were on the set of "Cheers", not while they were filming, and the size of the bar is so small, watching it on TV it seemed like a large room and the actual bar very long, it's really small, one you could have set up in your basement for entertaining. Again, it's the magic, all about the angle they film from and the guy behind the camera knowing how to get that perfect shot. All artists!

We were shown where they filmed the parting of the Red Sea in the film "The Ten Commandments" with Charlton Heston, a parking lot, with a big movie screen on one side, kind of like a drive-in movie. It was a wonderful tour that day, we even ran into Mary Hart and John Tesh walking off a set. Even actors and actresses, when you see them off screen, without their make up and the lights shining a certain way on them, they look different. John asked us to to move out of the way of a door, very polite, said excuse me, but it took us a few seconds to realize who just walked by us. When I worked in Manhattan I've passed by many movie stars and it takes you a second to realize, hey wait a minute, that was Alex Baldwin, Dick Clark, Bette Midler! And no one bothers them, really. I've never seen anyone run up to get their autographs, they just let them pass by. Yes, even me! Though I have to admit I couldn't help myself when I ran into Bruce Willis. I just had to greet him and it was captured by a photographer who was taking pictures of Times Square that day, walked right up to him and put my hand out to shake his hand and said I love you Bruce Willis!

Matthew Perry is also right behind me and after going gaga over Bruce I did turn and say oh Matthew Perry I love you too, but it wasn't the same, it was obvious what a fan of Bruce I was

There are so many jobs out there that may not be glamorous, you may not be on camera, but for me I felt the excitement from everyone that worked at the Nate Berkus Show, they were part of the industry, just like I felt all those years ago working at RKO, working as a secretary. I was part of a team and a team I loved being on.

My dreams changed over the years, yes I could join a local theatre group, but I'm not so sure that's what I want anymore. There's been lots of surprises in my life, good and bad, but somehow I think they are leading me to where I should be.

I grew up dreaming of be an actress, being a star! But I've developed new passions and somehow I believe I'm on the road to something good, better, meant for me.

I wonder what I'll be when I grow up!

Read!

I've worked with computers for many years now and am amazed at how much kids know. Way more than I do. I have watched them work the mouse on a laptop, their cute little fingers moving over it, and I still can't do it. I had a laptop and had to get a regular mouse to use it, I was so spastic. They know how to work with programs I'm still struggling to learn, they have grown up in a different world.

They have video games that I don't even know the names of, they have discussions talking about xbox or wii or mp something, I don't know, it's a foreign language to me. I had an obsession years ago with my younger brother's Mario Brothers game. I couldn't stop playing until I reached the top level, it took over me. Then Facebook got me when I first joined with a farm game. I was actually making a list of the times I had to go back and check the farm. Too much! Both times it was like a drug and I had to quit.

My friend Tara knows absolutely zilch about computers. Her cell phone too, don't leave her a message because she has no idea how retrieve messages. She has two kids that again have grown up in a different world, they know it all. She's called me many times to check their Facebook pages to see what's going on. They're good kids, she just needs to check which is good thing. I've tried to teach her but she just doesn't get. Her parents too, she and her kids live with them and they are so lost. Tara got stuck late at work and called her father to tell him to make sure her daughter didn't have her laptop and cell phone in her room, she wanted her doing her homework and going to bed early. When she got home she asked her father if he got the computer and phone and he said yes, the computer was hidden and he pulled the phone out of his pocket, so happy he had it safe. Tara said good job dad but that's a camera. I loved that one. Tara's daughter just shrugged it away like oh well, you can't blame me for trying.

When I was younger TV was too much as far as my parents were concerned. Of course then we had the option to go out and play but even then I was always told to read and I did. I read comic books, Nancy Drew mysterious. Books are a wonderful escape, way better than TV or video games. I can't see a movie until I read the book. I don't want to imagine the movie characters when I read, I want to use my imagination, I get lost in a good book and when I finish I feel like I've lost something special.

This past weekend I went upstate with my brother Joey and his kids to visit our sister Linda and her family. It's about an hour and half ride and the whole time the kids were playing with their video games. When we took long trips in the car we would sing, with the radio and without the radio, we would play games counting the colors of cars driving by, read, and one thing that hasn't changed, we would ask "are we there yet". Even with their video games going the whole ride this weekend, my niece and nephews would pop out of the zone and ask "are we there yet".

My sister Linda works at the library in her town and her daughter Emily works there part time now too. The library had a fair that day, along with Barnes and Noble they invited authors of children's books ranging from toddler to teens. It was a great event. The kids walked around and got to speak with the authors and ask questions. Jojo was especially interested and was asking how do you write a book, why did you write the book. One author was awesome, he was raised knowing how great reading was by his parents and knew if you could just get that one book that would get you hooked, you wouldn't be able to stop. One author I was disappointed with. She wrote a book about the environment and when Jojo asked she assumed he wouldn't be interested, she gave a a boring description of her book with no excitement at all. I think she just wrote the book to make money, not to capture the reader.

Our Emily is an artist, she's a reader, a writer, just amazing. She started an anime club at the library, joining her love of art and reading and bringing other teens out of their homes, away from their video games, she created a wonderful social environment for them. At the fair they had an author of an anime books teaching a class, and Emily and her club had painted the big windows of the library with the author's work. Emily got to meet someone she admires and the author loved her painting.

Reading is a magical. JK Rowling's Harry Potter books so captured a generation and they loved to read, they couldn't wait for the next book to come out. I think now that the movies are all out so many kids wont read the book. They wont have that hunger to read the next one. They'll watch the movie, I see with my nephews now when I suggest they read the books. The movies are great, but nothing can compare to your own imagination when you're reading, nothing.

I don't know what book got me hooked, but it's a wonderful obsession. My mom loved to read and always suggested great books for us. We're a family of readers, sharing books, talking about great books and love when we suggest a good book to each other, it's a wonderful gift! I'll never forget the first time I cried reading a book. "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith. I was sobbing out loud. I couldn't believe how much a book could move me. I read all her books after that and I liked them but not like "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn". Many authors over the years have caught me with a great book, I could never pick a favorite, there's too many.

I've learned so much from reading. I became better at spelling. Even while reading fiction, I've learned so much about history and when I read something I don't understand I look it up on line and learn more.

Reading is a good obsession, an adventure, and you can escape to another world, it's a learning experience.

One of my favorite authors these days is Harlan Coben. The first book I read was "Tell No One" and it was an awesome read! Not his first book so I went searching for his earlier books. He had written a series of books about a character named Myron Bolitar. I'm in love with Myron!!! He is an awesome character and Harlan hasn't disappointed me yet with any of his books.

Read!

Have It Your Way

My first job as a teenager was in Burger King and so many of the friends in my life now are from there or I met them through someone I worked with at Burger King.

My family had moved to Staten Island from Brooklyn when I was a sophomore in high school and I was already attending school in Staten Island, my commute to school was only ten minutes since we lived on the Brooklyn side of the Verrazano Bridge and my school was on the Staten Island side of the bridge. But when they first took us out to the boonies of Staten Island to show us where we were moving I was so upset. It was so far out on the island and there were no stores, woods everywhere and worse still the area we moved to was filled with really young kids and the few my age all attended the local high school and were not welcoming me into their click. I remember that first ride out, asking so many times, where are you taking us!!! This is crazy, it's so far away! You're ruining our lives!!! So dramatic, but again it's hard during your teen years to make big changes like that, and for my sister Linda, it was even more difficult, she started 8th grade in Brooklyn, finished it in Staten Island and then moved on to high school a year later, a lot of changes.

I still attended the same school but now had an hour or more commute, on a good day. If I missed the bus I had to wait an hour for the next one. And coming home was even worse, there seemed to be no schedule. I would have to wait more than an hour for my bus home and that ride was at least an hour long, driving through all the local streets and down deserted roads, surrounded by woods to get to my home in the boonies.

For me working at Burger King was like a dream come true. We didn't have McDonalds or Burger King in Brooklyn at that time and going to either of those fast food places was a rare treat. Now I was surrounded by junk food that I could eat all day. I was always grabbing a fry or two, making a milk shake, drinking soda (which I was not allowed to have at home). I loved it. And better still I met so many fun people, I was part of a crowd again and they all lived closer to me than anyone at school. Still not within walking distance but close enough. Some of my friends were starting to drive, or we took car service and there many times when we couldn't drive or get a ride and we would walk miles to meet and just hang out.

This morning I had coffee with my friend Tara, one of my first friends at Burger King who I connected with right away. We both are a little nuts and love to laugh. A great thing about Tara is she remembers so much. She tells me stories and sometimes I have a vague memory of it or sometimes she can make me remember all of it, she's amazing. Even stories about my mom, who she also loved dearly, it's nice to hear those stories.

And what a small world! Tara's father's best man at his wedding was my father's best friend. Tara overhead my dad talking about his friend Whitie one day and she asked his last name, Whitie not being a name she heard too often. When my father told her she said that was her father's best man. My father didn't believe her, he told her there is no way his best friend was in a wedding party and he didn't know the guy or about the wedding. The next day Tara came to our house with her parents wedding album and there was Whitie, Bo's childhood friend. He called Whitie up and asked how he didn't know Tara's dad. Bo, Whitie and Tara's dad were all New York City firefighters, was that where they met? Whitie told my dad that he met Tara's father during the Korean War, a time when my dad and Whitie were not together. It's funny too because Tara used to tell me before we learned about the Whitie connection, that her dad had told her he knew the story of a single firefighter who had married a woman with six kids, I just assumed he heard the story in the firehouse, and maybe he did, but it also could just be that he heard it from Whitie.

Tara is still a funny and silly person and like me, maybe a little more nuts!! She is entertaining and her laugh is infectious. I think she even talks faster than me! When she calls me up, days or even weeks from the last time I've seen or talked to her, after I say hello, she goes right into a conversation like we just got cut off, or like we are in the middle of a conversation. Makes me dizzy! I have to listen closely to catch up with what we're talking about!

Working at Burger King, we wore our corny polyester uniforms, bright orange and gold with big poofy hats. And no matter how much I washed my uniform my closet smelled like Burger King. To this day I can't eat there. Nothing against Burger King, it's good fast food, and clean, we had to keep the kitchen spotless, I remember that. It's just that I ate so much of it while working there and lived with the smell of the uniform permeating my closet, I've had enough Burger King.

This commercial video shows what our "cool" uniforms looked like.



Tara said the first time she met me we were getting a ride home from a fellow worker, Michael, who introduced us. I was getting into the back seat and there were pickle buckets on the floor, Michael told me to move them, I told him no problem, he had bucket seats, that was a luxury. Tara laughed, she got my humor.

The first year I rented a house "down the Jersey Shore" was with my Burger King friends. That house was crazy, too many people and we pushed things to the limit a few times. But for the most part we just loved to have fun, play practical jokes on our friends and laugh. That first year I don't think we went to the beach more than once or twice, most of the time we hung on our front porch drinking beer, having BBQs and laughing.

At this time there were cassette tape recorders. For years I had sang in my bedroom to one of my favorite songs and taped it on my recorder thinking I sounded great, then you play it back and hear you don't sound as good as you thought. Also during this time people would make mixed tapes and bring them along on car rides or to play at parties and one day while hanging out in our Shore house listening to someone's mixed tape, we hear a horrible voice singing along to one of the songs. It was our friend Pat. We were cracking up and knew not to tell Pat of our find, we would save it for the right moment which came when Pat was going out on her first date with a guy she met at the Shore. He comes to pick her up and while he's waiting for her to come downstairs, we pop the tape in and put the volume up loud. I can just imagine Pat upstairs primping, getting ready for her date, all excited and then hearing the music. I think it took her a minute or so to realize what we were playing but she eventually came running down those stairs, boom, boom, boom, boom!!! I never saw her move so fast! She ripped the tape out of the recorder and pulled all the tape out of the cassette, knowing we would play that tape every chance we got. We were laughing hysterically with her date not realizing what was going on, not one of brightest guys.

Busting on Pat was one of our favorite pastimes. She could take a joke and though she was flipping out when we played it for her date, the next day she was able to laugh along with us. Pat also had an infectious laugh. She could make you laugh more when she was laughing at herself, sometimes over something funny she said, or most times just when she thought she said something funny, she would laugh and you couldn't help but laugh too.

Again reminded by Tara this morning, one Sunday afternoon during our Shore days, Pat had a little too much to drink at a happy hour and came home and fell asleep. Tara and I used a pen and drew naked men all over the back of her legs. We figured she'd see it and that was funny enough but it worked out even a little better than we planned. When we drove home that night she was still tired and maybe even still a little drunk but we dropped her off at home, laughing while watching her walk up her front steps with the drawings all over the back of her legs. The next morning she got up, took a quick shower and I'm sure she didn't think she needed to scrub the back of her legs! Probably even overslept that morning and was rushing to get ready for work. Now this part of the story was too bad. She was just about to walk out the door when her mother asked her what was all over her legs and she finally noticed our artwork. Seconds away from her commuting and going to work with those pictures all over her legs. That would have been the icing on the cake for that one.

Tara has tons of stories and she laughs while telling them and you have to laugh along with her. Even now, as the mother of two teenagers, she always makes me laugh. Even discussing a serious matter, that funny girl inside can't help but make a comment that makes me laugh, that can lighten the moment.

They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away. I think a laugh a day is even better. That's my medicine. That's my way!

They Dribble Like Their Dad

I created this baby shower invitation when my brother Joey was awaiting the birth of his first child, Robert. The dribble refers to Joey's passion for basketball, not being a drooler! And I knew one of the things he was looking forward to were the days that are here now, playing basketball with his kids.

Joey grew up playing sports and basketball was and still is his favorite. He had a Nerf basketball and hoop set up in our kitchen with masking tape on the floor marking his court. He played constantly and if he did something wrong my father knew the best way to teach him a lesson was to take the hoop down. That hoop went up and down so many times the wall it was pasted to was pealing off. And the masking tape never came off the floor, we had to put a new floor down to cover it. Sound effects were always part of his game while playing alone, he was player, commentator and the crowd cheering.

Yesterday was one of those days Joey looked forward to when he thought about being a dad. Now the father of 3, Robert, Jojo and Bella, Joey keeps them busy with baseball, basketball and soccer leagues, coaching some of those teams as well. And though Jojo of the three of them had no interest in sports for years always going back inside to play video games, he's finally enjoying soccer and more has caught his father's basketball fever and is moving up the ranks in basketball at an amazing pace.

Joey's kids are so lucky that they live in a nice neighborhood on a great street. There's a bunch of kids the same age as Joey's kids. All boys, but our Bella has no problem being a girly girl one minute and quickly switching gears to her tomboy persona, which seem to be the dominant side these days. She can stand up with the best of them.

The kids on the block love playing outside. They leave the video games and TV. They make up games. They have learned to settle their differences without an adult working it out for them. They play basketball, whiffle ball, football, hide and seek, all without adults leading them, telling them what to do or what the rules are. They discuss it, they come to agreements. Kids have fights, it's normal. These kids are learning to work it out and getting better all the time with it. They're learning lessons most kids don't get to learn today.

Joey had a game of basketball yesterday afternoon with Robert and Bella and their neighbor Nick. Joey and Bella against Robert and Nick and Joey said Bella was so into the game. Yelling "that was my fault" when she missed the ball or "sorry I should have caught that", putting her hand up, like "my bad" as she's seen her father do, her brothers and the gang on the block. Better still Robert was enjoying watching Bella, old enough to appreciate these little moments in his baby sister that will be gone before you know it. He enjoyed that as much as the game and it makes me love him more.

Bella used to say "aminal" for "animal" and Robert used to correct her until Joey suggested to him that he shouldn't. That before long she would be saying it the right way, let it be. And whenever Bella said aminal, Robert would look at her with so much love and smile.

Today, as Joey was playing ball with the kids, at one point he told Bella to check the ball. She looked at the ball and examined it, spinning it round and round, she was checking the ball. Joey got a kick out of her and better still Robert was adoring his baby sister once again, her innocence, not laughing at her, just enjoying her being funny without even realizing it. Again I love that he appreciates these beautiful special moments in his life.

They explained to Bella what it meant to check the ball, and yes I had to look it up!

It's the start of a play. Instead of throwing the ball inbounds to your teammate, you set up at the top of the court, the shaded rectangle, throwing it to your opponent to make sure their team is ready before throwing it back, used mostly when playing half-court ball.

Bella understood, she's a smart little girl, but continued to check the ball her own way, getting adoring laughs from her dad and big brother.

They all have their Daddy's Dribble!!

My Mad Hatter Tea Parties

My friends and I had our first hat party during one of our summers renting a house "down the Jersey Shore". Just a small little twist to a party and it was a lot of fun. Easier than figuring out of a costume to wear and though there were some people who showed up in a baseball cap, everyone was wearing a hat at the party and there began my idea for my own hat parties, my "Mad Hatter Tea Parties".

The first year I think there were lots of baseball caps as well, especially the guys, but by the next year even they were way more into the theme party and trying to outdo each other. I made a up my own medal and started having a contest for the Mad Hatter of the Year. I wish I had more pictures from the parties but I was always having too much fun!

As the host and the official "Mad Hatter", I wore the same hat each year, copied from the original "Mad Hatter" from the Disney movie "Alice In Wonderland". I did serve beer but the main drink was ice tea and vodka with my cooler designed as a tea pot, and a hat as did my life-sized cut out of Bruce Springsteen and my brother's life-size cut out of Michael Jordan.

And extra special, at one of my Mad Hatter parties, my friends Kathy and Dave were brought together by mutual friends and fell in love and have been married over 20 years. Dave became a dad to her beautiful children and made a big difference in their lives. A wonderful couple and family, they belong together.

Even if you're having a summer family BBQ, add the hat idea in your invitation, I think kids would love designing their own funny hats for a party and you can serve ice tea minus the vodka! I also suggest decaf ice tea for them as well!!!

Alice in Wonderland - I'm Late

This is me today! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!!

Fridays are my early day and I'm off to work. I hope to finish today's blog about my Madhatter Tea Parties. A little different than Alice in Wonderful's party but a blast!!

Have a great Friday all my dear readers. Thank you so much for checking in to see my blog