Tag: Carol

Friend Carol is 60

Carol and I hung out together, doing exciting stuff such as watching, of all things, The Waltons every Thursday night.

I’m referring to my friend since kindergarten, not my wife.

In second grade, the class got to dance a minuet waltz. Bill danced with Karen, Bernie with Lois, and Carol with me; why I remember this so many years later is beyond me. I think I developed a bit of a crush on Carol, because the next year, I hit her with a snowball, unintentionally in the head; I felt terrible.

The whole class got to spend time at her family cottage on a lake in northern Pennsylvania, which was always a treat.

At some point, someone came across a list of IQ scores of our class. No names were associated with the numbers, but it was generally conceded by her classmates that she was the one with the highest ranking.

I used to walk Bill, then Lois, Karen, and Carol home most days, especially when we were in junior high, so Carol and I got to talk with her one-on-one more than most of my friends.

In high school, Carol and I were both involved with student government, and in our junior year, I became president, and Carol, vice-president, a remarkable feat, given the disdain our left-of-center politics had generated when we first got to the high school.

During the summer of 1972, she and her boyfriend at the time, and the Okie and I all went to Syracuse to see The Godfather. At the end of the summer, she, her beau, and my sister Leslie were the three witnesses to my wedding to the Okie. After the Okie and I split, and Carol and her beau broke up, Carol and I hung out together, doing exciting stuff such as watching, of all things, The Waltons every Thursday night.

A few years later, I went to her wedding in Binghamton, after which she moved to the Poughkeepsie area.

One time, some of my FantaCo colleagues and I were coming back from a New York City comic book convention when the car broke down on the Taconic Parkway. Having neither AAA car service or credit cards, we didn’t know what to do. In desperation, I called Carol, and she put our towing charge on her credit card – we DID pay her back – and got us on our way.

She was the only one of my Binghamton friends to make it to a MidWinter’s gathering, in 1991, if memory serves; very good wax magic that season. Soon thereafter, she moved to Texas. So I don’t see her often anymore, though we did get together a few times, not just the 32nd reunion, but a couple of times when she and I both happened to be in Binghamton, and in July 2011, when she, Karen, and I ALL were in Binghamton the same weekend.

I should note that her family’s also great. Her mom was the coolest mom of all my friends’ mothers. Carol asked her mother and sister to represent her at Karen’s mother’s funeral this past summer. Carol’s daughter, who I had never met until fairly recently, sent my daughter a huge unicorn, which continues to be Lydia’s favorite stuffed creature.

Happy birthday, my dear friend Carol.

The Rules: Christmas Gifts

thought we had an implied contract. I hint about gifts, she buys, and if there’s something that I want – that I really, really want – that I didn’t get, I’ll buy it myself.

We’ve been married for over 13 years. You’d think The Wife would have figured out the rules about Christmas gifts by now. Maybe I’m too subtle.

Back in September, she made a passing remark about some of the things she might want for Christmas. One of them was a health book; she actually has an earlier iteration, from the 1970s, but it’s now up to the ninth edition.

In October, she comes home from the bookstore with that very book! She says, “Look at what I got!” I harrumphed; I had just ordered it on Amazon that week, and it was too late to cancel. She didn’t see this as a big deal; I did, because she’s not always the easiest person to shop for, and I don’t have an infinite amount of inspiration.

It was especially tricky because we weren’t going to the Medieval Faire this year, that event, where I often buy her a nice wool sweater that she has coveted, fell on the same day I had an extra choir rehearsal, a family birthday party, the daughter’s soccer game, and her first ballet rehearsal for the Nutcracker. Not to mention picking up our repaired vacuum cleaner and taking stuff to the shredding events – we have several bags, and it only takes place periodically.

Moreover, I thought we had an implied contract. I hint about gifts, she buys, and if there’s something that I want – that I really, really want – that I didn’t get, I’ll buy it myself. So when she broadly gives hints before Christmas, I don’t expect her to come home with the item a month later. She claims that she didn’t think I heard her; I almost ALWAYS hear her, though I may have REACTED as though I didn’t, which I attribute to my fine thespian skills.

She said, “Well, it’s no big deal; I’ll return it and get something else.” Well, no, then she’d know precisely what I got her, and there’d be less fun in that. Ultimately, I gave the book I bought to someone else, as a VERY early Christmas present, and bought The Wife ANOTHER book, which, I hope, she doesn’t go out and purchase herself. Because I’m starting to run out of ideas…

Living on Anbesol and Advil

The music group called Big Daddy (loved by many, including me) is staging a Kickstarter campaign to raise $35,000 to produce their new album.

As mentioned, I had a root canal a couple of weeks ago, and the pain was far less than the last one I had some 15 years ago. But then I had to have some work done on another tooth, and the mouth discomfort after that one was mighty steady; not a sharp pain, but a constant ache, for which I was surviving on certain medicines.

And it was not great timing. Last weekend, the daughter didn’t have soccer, but the Wife and I did have a wedding to go to, a co-worker of hers who I didn’t know to a guy I knew just as well. The service was at 2 pm in Niskayuna, in neighboring Schenectady County, and it was lovely. The reception wasn’t until 5 pm, in Altamont, in Albany County, a 30-minute drive, so we did what we needed to do; we went grocery shopping. Talk about being overdressed for an activity.

The reception was at a place called the Appel Inn; our friends Marc and Janna had their reception there in November of 1999. We sat with one of the bride’s and my wife’s teaching colleagues, and her husband, neither of which I knew, but they were a delightful couple. But somewhere during this, the throbbing returned and having no over-the-counter solutions, I tried Southern Comfort and 7-Up; singularly unhelpful.

After church on Sunday, we drove to Schenectady to meet my sister Leslie’s bus. She had flown from San Diego, CA to Charlotte, NC back in late September to go to a conference, and visit our sister and niece; then flew to New York City, and visited relatives and a friend; then took a bus to Binghamton, NY to do genealogical research and to attend her high school reunion; and finally to Schenectady.

We are at some downtown restaurant called Bombers, and I saw that the New York Giants football team (my team) was already down 14-0, after only five minutes in the game; sigh. They ended up winning 41-27. But I didn’t see it.

We went to see the 2 pm stage performance of Mary Poppins at the Proctors Theatre, and it was quite good. Perhaps a little long, with too much of the exposition done to the tune of “Chim Chim Cher-ee,” but there were so many WOW moments – the transformation of the park, Bert walking on the ceiling – that we were all impressed. By the time we got back to Albany, though, I was exhausted from pain and went to bed before anyone.

The Sister returned to San Diego on Tuesday, the pain has subsided somewhat, and we’re back to a busy schedule, mostly driven by the Daughter’s activities. Especially on the weekend.
*
Jaquandor saw Mary Poppins in Buffalo two years ago.

Says Mark Evanier (and I fully agree): The music group called Big Daddy (loved by many, including me) is staging a Kickstarter campaign to raise $35,000 to produce their new album. I would like to see them do this and have already backed…but it doesn’t look good. With only two days to go, they are a little over halfway there.

The (belated) Christmas present

I have this huge box in the living room which has become a constant reminder of my frustrations, technological and otherwise.

The major thing I wanted for Christmas was a stationary bicycle, something I can use for exercise at home when:
* the weather is lousy
* I have a finite amount of time, so I can’t go all the way to Siena College to play racquetball
* I have to stay home to watch the child while my wife is having a work or church meeting, or is going to work out at the YMCA

So, in January, the Wife bought me one. Before she purchased it, she said she would assemble it, because it would save money. This made me quite uncomfortable, actually, because we have a few half-done home projects. Yet one must not be too ungracious when receiving a present. But after the school winter break was over, I got frustrated, and I opened the box to find OVER 90 PARTS. I carefully laid them all out, and then read the instructions.

If you go to, say, this site, you’ll read testimonials such as: “Put together in minutes, instructions were great, not many parts to assemble” (not many parts?) or “Assembly was pretty straightforward and took about 45 minutes (I suggest doing a bit at a time to avoid getting overwhelmed like I do when faced with assembly).”

I could NOT figure out, in instruction item #1, what item was the first piece to go into the base of the bike. I was highly motivated, yet could not crack this nut. Arrgh.

Now it’s July, and I STILL don’t have a stationary bike. Or more correctly, I have this huge box in the living room that has become a constant reminder of my frustrations, technological and otherwise. So when the Wife started making the five-year plans for the house – they are extensive – I balked and said no renovation until the bike was assembled. She could assemble it, she could pay someone to assemble it – I did not care.

Ultimately, she hired two guys who showed up and finished it in about 30 minutes. I was SO happy.

Now, let me rant about GPS. These guys came from Saratoga, about a half-hour from Albany. The Wife confirmed that we live near Hudson Street, but the GPS got them downtown, to South Pearl and Hudson, and you can’t to my house from there. Then they called from Madison Place when my wife told them to go up on Madison Avenue. All told, it took them about an hour of driving around the city of Albany to get to my house, when it should have taken 15 minutes if they hit all the red lights, had they accepted the directions my wife offered to give them. “No, thanks, we have GPS.” Meh.

A day or two later, we hear on our answering machine one of those automated surveys to see how the guys did. Apparently, the system is not smart enough to recognize that it’s reached an answering machine, and kept asking the first question over and over again, interrupted only by “Sorry, I didn’t hear your answer.” Meh.

But the bike assembly was great, the bike itself is great. And even though it’s summer, I can imagine using it on those too hot days, as well as the stormy ones.

The Wife turns…another year older

Lots of people ask if my wife speaks another language besides English. She does – Spanish – but it isn’t used much since almost everything in ESL is taught in English.

It’s always interesting, talking about other people while endeavoring to respect their boundaries. The Wife has never said, “Don’t put my age in your blog.” But I’ve been reluctant to anyway. I have noted that she is younger than I (which is far less revealing than if I were to say that someone was older than I.) One CAN assume she’s over 31 since we’ve been married for over 13 years.

Every year on this date, I write something about her, but I have no idea whether she ever reads it. And I used to TELL her I was writing something.

One of the things I have alluded to is the fact that she is a teacher of English as a Second Language. She works for an entity called BOCES which provides all sorts of training to several school districts in a given area. For five years, she was teaching entirely in two schools in one school district. This year, however, that district decided to hire its own ESL teacher, which means that the Wife had a new assignment, which ended up being three schools in two school districts in two different counties. Suffice to say, taking public transportation for her job has become impossible, unlike mine, which is at one place almost every day.

ESL seems to be misunderstood. Lots of people ask if my wife speaks another language besides English. She does – Spanish – but it isn’t used much since almost everything is taught in English, the lingua franca. It is often assumed that the first language for most of her students is Spanish, when in fact she’s had a lot of kids who speak Urdu (pictured, via Wikipedia) or Chinese.

The Wife went back to school in 1999 and graduated in 2002. Going back to school was scary, I imagine (it was for me!), but she excelled at it.

I suspect that one day she’ll be an administrator – she’s taken subsequent courses to that end – though I suspect she’d miss the day-to-day activity of the classroom.

Well, that’s enough for this year. Happy birthday, dear.

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