It was the second hottest day of the year — temperatures in the high nineties. It was a record-setting day, only to be shown up by the 100+ heat the very next day. And with the DC area humidity, the heat index was much, much higher.

We pulled into the driveway. I was already sweating through my black t-shirt, my shorts that I had thrown on quickly, and the baseball cap that was keeping the hair out of my face. My contacts were already blurred by tears, sweat and adrenaline. Everything looked like a painting.

The police car was waiting outside at our mailbox. The officer stepped out of the car as soon as we stepped out of ours. We shook hands after speaking on the phone an hour earlier.

I shook his hand.  His and mine were both sweaty and hot.

I walked up the front steps and looked at the damage. the upper lock was smashed in, and the side of the doorway was splintered with wood fragments. It was due to the paramedics knocking through the locked door to gain entry.

socKs offered the officer something to drink – a glass of water. He smiled and politely refused.

He led me upstairs. I could hear the air conditioning through the house, but was it really working? Things were still very hot.  I climbed the steps with the officer, my legs shaking as I went. He talked about the 911 call. The immediate response. The way they went to the neighbors to see if anyone had a key. The way they busted through the door. And how she was already gone when they had gotten upstairs to find her. He mentioned calling my Dad and making him pull over the car on the side of the road near the Tappan Zee Bridge to tell him what happened.

The fan was running on high. The officer had thought to put it on.

You couldn’t see from the hallway. The bed was in the way. She was on the other side of the bed.

It had only been about two hours since the 911 call.  And her skin was already looking purple. Her eyes were glazed over, wide open. A blanket was over her which I removed, covering her head and her open shirt with her chest exposed.  I instinctively covered her body back up. Her mouth was open slightly.

She looked so very frightened.

In the next two hours I would come up there several times. Once with the rabbi. Once with the guys from the funeral home. I was left alone to remove her jewelry.  I went downstairs and made funeral arrangements, on the phone with my Dad (who was still driving alone on what could possibly have been the worst road trip of his life) and my brother and my Mom’s sister. I bought a burial site. I just went into total overdrive mode, sweating up a storm, notes flying on socKs’s PDA which I was using, sweating through my clothes. I wanted to forget that look on my Mom’s face. That look of fear captured even in death.

Things have changed quite a bit in two years. We’ve all grown. My Dad and his girlfriend just purchased and are living in their own new place. The house with that room in it is on the market. Carpets have been cleaned, rooms have been repainted, and furniture has been moved out. I know that the number of times I’ll enter that room again is finite. And I retain many, many wonderful memories of my Mom. Memories that I hope to hold on to for a very long time.

But no matter how hard I try, I just can’t shake the image in my head of my Mom’s face in fright.

In lieu of any mind-stimulating content on my blog this evening, I provide you with an audio recording. It’s from 1974, and it consists of me singing the theme to Sesame Street and the alphabet song (introduced by my Mom).

This comes from a cassette tape my sister-in-law converted to digital audio and which my brother, Captain Awesome, emailed me a week ago. To quote the Captain: I just thought the internet was incomplete as an archive of world information as long as it lacked this classic recording.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Direct audio link

… and I included a bit of a post-performance interview conducted by my Mom..

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Direct audio link

Enjoy!

I apologize for not keeping up with my posts — it doesn’t mean I appreciate you all any less. I’ll make it up to you during the weekend — promise!

So — here’s my video-blog post. And yes — it’s the one where I show you my balls.

Direct YouTube Link

Look – some of you wanted to see ‘em, some of you didn’t.  For those who want them, here you go!

My birthday in a nutshell:

12:00am – A hotel room somewhere in New Jersey — relatively close to my brother’s place. We had just returned from Passover Seder #2. Exhausted after a full day. Kid is already asleep in the rollaway bed next to ours. I get a “Happy birthday, honey!” from socKs. And a kiss.  I, however, am obsessed with Facebook — wondering why the hell they have birthday reminders about everyone else’s birthdays on my page — but not mine. I eventually head to bed as it’s hard to keep my eyes open.

7:30am – I wake up. I get a happy birthday hug from the kid — very excited about the whole birthday thing. We pack up after enjoying a wonderful birthday brunch of matzah and fruit.  I sneak in a bit more time on the computer to see what random birthday messages I had received. I used to get a yearly unsolicited message from the Klingon Language Institute wishing me a Gnrok K’atlanta do’Fuk’urm Om! Or whatever “Happy birthday” is in Klingon. Nowadays it’s just lots of Facebook folks.

9:00am – I am greeted by my Dad and his girlfriend. Another round of happy birthday wishes. We’re driving them to my brother’s place — they’ll be spending more time there and then heading back home. We drive. In New York area rush-hour traffic. But it’s not too bad.

9:30am – We hit the New Jersey Turnpike and head back to Virginia.  And we fill up with a tank of $3.17 gas. I’m sure we won’t see that price again in a long time…

1:30pm – Home! A little bit of unpacking. Av and I log time on the computer playing the Cars “Mater-National” video game for a bit.

2:45pm – Av and socKs head to the store;  I head to a special appointment to get a birthday present for myself.

6:30pm – I’m presented with a kosher-for-passover brownie ice cream cake made by socKs. Amazing. And friggin huge. This will be dessert for the entire week.

7:30pm – Rack my brain to find an excuse to morph a picture of Iggy Pop into a picture of Tony Danza and actually blog it.

8:30pm- Watched an incredibly funny episode of “How I Met Your Mother.”

11:30pm – open my birthday present which I got earlier in the day.

I spent the whole day with my immediate family.  Didn’t go to work. Got to wear shorts for most of the day. Spent a good amount of time driving through a relatively traffic-free I-95.  Oh — and an obscene amount of ice cream cake.

I suppose it was a good day…

(Birthday cake pictures coming soon…)

(If you’re an avid reader of the blog of my wife, socKs, you may have seen her most recent blog post about our experiences  this evening at a specific restaurant.  Here’s a letter I’m writing to them, although, due to my fear of a litigious online world, I’m going to mask their real name and go with an alias instead.

Dear “TGI Expensive, Uncreative and Bland’s”:

We used to be such good friends. What happened?  Where did our love go?

You used to be a wild fling in college. An upscale establishment in the early ’90s — at least upscale enough for us poor college students. Yet you were somewhat affordable. And you were only a five minute drive away from campus — any campus we would happen to be at at the time. Your fettucine alfredo was beyond satisfactory. Your spinach dip was great when shared with a round of beers and funky neon-blue alcohol.

That was you fifteen years ago. I know we’ve all aged. But you’ve changed.

Well, you still look pretty much the same. The trademark red and white stripes are still there. Some of the fonts have changed.  yet you still manage to fill your walls with replicas of road signs from the 1950s, giving the restaurant that “down in the unfinished basement” feel to it. But your personality is different. Perhaps it’s due to living a cold life through tough economic times that hurt you so greatly. That will harden anyone’s heart.  How I yearn for your younger days…

Remember when you had frequent diners’ points? When my girlfriend (now wife) were dating beginning in 1996, we would enjoy our experiences with you. And when it was time to pay the check, we would present our card to get “points.” Hell – our entire wedding party went to your establishment in Boca Raton — and we seriously cleaned up on points then as well! Eventually the points fell into disuse, but we were proud of the fact that we got up to about 65,000 of them – which was about 74% of one round-trip airline ticket to anywhere in the Continental USA.

Even in our honeymoon years we would make you part of our lives — although we didn’t eat out nearly as often, you would still be a special treat for us. Hell — we even visited your establishment when we were in Berlin in 2000 for the points! And we knew it was well-established fare that we could enjoy.

But somewhere along the way, you changed.  I think the font went first.  And, perhaps, a management style.

TGI Expensive, Uncreative and Bland’s, you started changing your menu around quite a bit. Gone were the basic (and less costly) menu items like fettucine alfredo. You decided that your answer to everything was adding steak marinated in Jack Daniels. Which may be appetizing for many, but isn’t quite the cup of tea for this vegetarian. But the menus were spectacular looking! The “Jack and Brownie Fudge Steak Sundae” may not have sold as much, but the pictures were beautiful.

And now? Well — let me tell you how you jilted my family and me today:

We decided that this would be a wonderful day to go out to dinner as a treat for our five year old son. He’s a relatively picky eater, but the past several times he was greeted at your doors he could enjoy something he loved: a plain cheese quesadilla. No sour cream, no chives, no bacon, no steak.  Just a cheese quesadilla. We, his parents, would choose other menu items.  It was a simple plan that worked at least the past seven times we’ve been there over the past 18 months or so.

This wasn’t on the menu, unfortunately. If our son wanted a “double-stuffed quesadilla” which included.. well, stuff most likely soaked in Jack Daniels, they could accommodate. But a regular quesadilla? Apparently not.

We were thrown for a curve here. We knew that the restaurant changes around its menu a lot. But changing it around so much that melted cheese in a tortilla was too great a feat?

Our server explained: the way they do it now at TGI EUB’s is a smidge different: The quesadillas come pre-made from the TGI Kitchen Headquarters. Frozen. All the cook needs to do is warm it up, and — presto! pre-fab double stuffed quesadillas!  You know those TGI EUB’s branded frozen appetizers at the supermarket? Same general idea. It’s like having an American family restaurant meal with food made out of Ikea furniture.  It probably saves them a lot of money not having to hire chefs. All they really need are people who can operate a microwave oven at a middle school level.

Oh — and the items remain quite expensive.

So — we were told (after she confronted the cook and her manager) that no, a plain cheese quesadilla couldn’t be done.  Apparently these hadn’t been pre-fabbed in a freezer truck for TGI consumption. What is this, the former Soviet Union? Is TGI EUB’s simply the next punchline of a fairly lukewarm Yaakov Smirnoff joke?

You’ve changed, TGI Expensive, Uncreative and Bland. You’ve really changed. You put that picture of the ugly-ass platinum blonde guy from the Food Network on all of your menus to demonstrate how sophisticated your food is. He’s a TV Personality. It’s the rational equivalent of putting a picture of Dr. House in the waiting room of a hospital.  You’ve sacrificed good food for image, and that’s simply not cool.  We decided to leave your establishment without eating, and we don’t think we’ll be back.

But you don’t care. You’ll have plenty of suckers as your clientèle. And that’s something likely won’t change. And it makes my blood boil.

TGI Expensive, Uncreative and Bland, I’d really like you to suck my balls.  Go ahead. I insist.

You can even slather them with Jack Daniels first.

Your former lover and customer,

– Shiny

I did something physically and emotionally exhausting today — and I’m not even finished with the project.

Long story short: My mom died suddenly in August 2006 at the age of 60. It was very hard on her sons (my brother and me), as well as on her husband (my dad) who had been married to her for the previous 39 years and had dated her for several years previous to that. Since then he’s met an absolutely wonderful woman whom we all love, and we feel it’s great that the both of them have had an opportunity to find each other and discover a second chance at love after losing their respective spouses.

Both she and my dad have lived in their homes since the early 1970s. And they’re putting both homes on the market and moving in together to a condo. I have no problem with this whatsoever — my dad’s happiness is the most important thing in this equation, but, as mentioned before, the woman he found is truly a great match.

What it does mean, however, is that the accumulation of stuff from my childhood, my teen years, and even my twenties which has been growing in the closet of what used to be my room needs to be cleaned out. And I started on that task today. It was quite an emotional feat for me. The types of things that came out of my closet really had me revisiting parts of my life I hadn’t been to for quite a while. Keep in mind that this house has been a constant for me since 1974.

Here are a few notable items I found:

* A poster promoting “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”

* A bunch of really lame cheesy lyrics that I wrote during my “I’m going to write songs so girls think it’s cool” era in high school. Titles included “Further and Further Away” and “Birds Fly Away.” You can kind of get the tone I was going for…

* A confirmation notice for my participation in “Hands Across America.” I was one of them! It was a great day in history since we ended world hunger just by having people touching each other from coast to coast.

* A map of Montgomery County, MD which, at one time, covered one of my walls and much of the ceiling of my room. You know those map books? I had bought two of them and taped the pages together to become one big honkin’ map. Took a long tme to do. I was proud.

* A “scrapbook” I made for a seventh grade assignment: to follow one specific relevant issue durng the 1984 presidential election. I chose the nuclear arms race. There were lots of articles cut out from the Washington Post stapled onto notebook paper.

* An envelope full of carbon paper. This was a memory which surprised me. We used carbon paper in our college chem lab notebooks for our lab reports. What surprises me is that this was commonplace when I went to college — and I frickin’ started college in the 90s! At this point I simply don’t see a relevant use for carbon paper. If anyone can think of one, please let me know.

* Labels inside clear plastic which look like this:

Extra points if you’re the first person to figure out what the hell this is and what I potentially would have used it for in my past…

* A booklet from the Bar Mitzvah of a guy named James with whom I attended a summer theater program back in junior high and high school. James has since become that guy who has been responsible, on an international level, to get MTV content onto cel phones in Europe.

* A basketball signed by the 1986 Washington Bullets. I won it in a raffle in eighth grade. Manute Bol is one of those who signed it. Gotta be worth something…

* Assorted Metro and Ride-On bus timetables from the mid-80s. I was a collector. And when DC’s metrorail came to our city in 1985, all of the bus routes changed. Me nerd.

* A gift certificate for fifteen dollars to Waxie Maxie’s, a local record store, dated November 15, 1991. Waxie Maxie’s went out of business sometime in the ’90s. I wish I could remember who gave this to me and why…

* A comic book called “The Might Atom: Starring Reddy Kilowatt” published by Western Mass. Electric Company in 1966 to teach kids about electrical energy. I think I’ll have to scan this in. It’s really … 60s.

* a poster from the center of “Penny Power” magazine pitting “sodas with caffeine” against “sodas without caffeine.” Penny Power was the kids’ magazine associated with Consumer Reports. This was before the days of caffeine-free Coke and Pepsi; the sodas without caffeine were 7-Up, Sprite, diet 7-Up, Sugar Free RC 100 (!), Diet Sunkist, Patio Orange Soda, Fresca, Hires Root Beer, and Fanta Orange. The soda machine motif at the top valued each soda at 50 cents.

* A 1984 Poster Calendar featuring Hall and Oates album covers. I think this was included in their “Rock and Soul Part 1″ LP. Jealous?

* Another comic book: “Quincy Looks into his Future: Careers in Engineering” published by General Electric in 1973. This one seriously needs to be scanned and posted. It’s the story of a bunch of minority kids in the slums who go to a fortune teller at a street fair and learn about the world of engineering. It was part of a diversity initiative for the field. Some of it is classic 70s, but some is also way ahead of its time.

* Journal entries for my Freshman Year Seminar course at the University. These were (hand) written in the Fall of 1990 and come close to my blog writing style. I’m still somewhat in touch with the person who taught that class almost 18 years ago; maybe I’ll mail these to her…

* Letters from my friends. I went on a teen tour across the United States in the summer of ’89. Furthermore, I had some youth group friends whom I had met at different conventions across the continent. Since phone calls were prohibitively expensive compared to today’s standards, we wrote letters. And I have a buttload of mail to prove it! So the next time my youth group kids are whining about not being able to see their friends from across the country and how they have to resort to texting each other instead, I’ll show them a big stack of letters and slap them silly with it.

* One of these:

Ladies and gentlemen — the 8-Track of cameras!

* Longboxes. Two bags full of ‘em. Remember these? When CDs started to hit the market, the music industry didn’t trust potential consumers who could possibly shoplift a CD easily because of its compact size compared to an LP. Hence, they decided to sell CDs in long boxes called “longboxes” in order to make the product more bulky and less prone to be stolen. Nowadays, the music industry has found far more creative ways to be less trusting of the consumer, so they’ve abandoned this extraneous packaging. But I still have ‘em — including albums from Sting, Huey Lewis and the News, Depeche Mode and *shudder* The New Monkees. So embarrassing…

* The entire printed email exchange over several months between the first chick I ever met over the internet and myself. Her name was Jocelyn and she was a freshman at the University of Illinois. She was, literally, the first girl I met on IRC in the Fall of 1990. We developed a relationship because — well, we were desperate and needy, I guess. I eventually flew out to see her and all, and she let me down as easily as she could. Reading through these emails I realized what a self-absorbed ass I was at the time. I really cringed at the load of shit I was writing her every night. Remind me to invent time-travel so I can go back to the early 90s and beat myself senseless with that disc camera…

* A bunch of birthday cards from years past. These were the cards from when I was seven years old and on up — mostly from relatives who are no longer alive. My grandparents were always high up on that list. We’re talking about those cards with frogs and smiling caricatures of baseball players on them. It was nice to see the names of those who would remember, year after year, to send something nice to me. But it was also time to clean out the closet — and let go of some of these items.

However, there was a post-it note on the bag in my mom’s flawless handwriting:

“Do NOT throw out — Give to Mom.”

This stopped me dead in my tracks. I was paralyzed for the next ten minutes, just staring at that post-it. My mom had the best handwriting out of anyone I’ve known in my life — sadly both of her sons’ writing is nearly illegible. You could always tell what was written by her — the capital E for her first name was so perfect. Every letter was precise and well-formed. The words formed were always comforting, in a way. I could read them from such an early age.

Mom — if I could, I’d give you the whole bag of cards.

But I can’t.

Painful as it was, I threw out those cards. Life needs to move on. I’ll still cling to the memories of those people as much as I can. Perhaps the image of that post-it will haunt me for a while to come. But if I hang on, I’m just postponing the inevitable.

There’s still more in my closet to clean. I know I have to do it. I just need a break from it right now…

It’s days like today that make me happy we live so close to Washington, DC.

It’s days like today which make me thankful that we can obtain secure, free private parking a block away from the National Mall.

It’s days like today that I actually appreciate the Cherry Blossoms in the Tidal Basin.

It’s days like today when I don’t mind the tourists much — except for the jackasses who walk cluelessly in the middle of the street when I have the right of way.

The Smithsonian Kite Festival was great. We were a bit concerned about downtown traffic: There was a marathon being run this morning, coupled by the Kite Festival and the Cherry Blossom Festival which were happening concurrently. And tonight is a Washington Nationals exhibition game — the first ever in the new Nationals Park. It’s the last weekend of Spring Break for many schools. Oh — and it’s beautiful out. But we were able to navigate through and find our secret parking spot. We had a nice picnic lunch upon arrival and then went to the Washington Monument grounds to do some flying. Av had his Buzz Lightyear kite — which is a hybrid inflatable kite to give it support and lift. It had deflated a bit by the time we got there, but it still had its moments. I had our happy fun rainbow kite which took a few trips up before being caught in a tangle of about five other kites. The seam on one side tore a bit, but we’re hoping to repair it and get back to flying.

I’m not usually one for overly patriotic pictures, but this was an amazing, big-ass kite that was flying close to the Washington Monument. Fun stuff!

socKs took some video — perhaps I’ll post some of it later…

Please don’t laugh — I’m very sensitive about these things…

The direct link to the video.

I suppose this is good a time as any to remind you that my BlogTalkRadio show, Shiny Talks Too Much, is on this evening at 9:00pm EDT / 6:00pm PDT. It’s the “All-British” show — where we’ll be talking in outrageous British accents and enjoying crumpets and stuff. More information can be found two posts below or at the show itself — at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/shiny.

She did it! And I’m pleasantly shocked and surprised that she was so accurate about so many of them. Take a look at her blog to see what I wrote about her. If anything, I would say that her list about me is far more precise than the one I wrote about her. Kudos to you, Ms. Narf…

ALL THAT IS SHINY

1. My jeans are much stiffer than my cargo pants

Well, yeah. As a general rule. I live in cargo pants. Lots of pockets. I carry a cel phone and a Blackberry pretty much everywhere I go…

2. I had the baby first, then the marriage

I got married in 1998 and had the kid in 2002. But let’s not assume that time flows in one direction only.

3. Yes, my car really has a take out license plate

Cute. It is a cool personalized license plate. But it’s not “TAKEOUT.”

4. “Minnesota” makes my son belly laugh

Dude — I so have to record my son laughing at something incredibly intesely. It’s infectious. And at times it’s just certain words. And Lands of 10,000 Lakes.

5. I don’t participate in HNT. Yet.

Only time will tell…

6. The best part of my job is training / teaching

Yes. I work in the technical world for a large telecommunications company. The simplified version of what I do: I fix the Internet. But I love teaching people the skills and tools used in order to do so from the devices on the backbone of the Information Superhighw… Okay. I’ve said too much already…

7. Potato latkes are popular in my home (mmmmmm, now I am hungry)

They are. Especially with the kid. Who is a fussy eater but enjoys certain holiday specific (Hanukkah) foods.

8. I have looked at, and commented on, naked man butts on the internet

Who hasn’t?

9. My wife has an art degree…she can sew and is incredibly creative

Absolutely. You can see some of her handiwork at her “Spool Of Fred” blog.

10. I miss my mom

Yeah. She died very suddenly in 2006 a few days short of her 61st birthday. Really turned my family’s life upside down at the time. She was a wonderful woman.

11. There are more phones in my home than there are in some offices

If you include non-working cel phones and cordless phones? Yup.

12. I vote

Well duh! They give out free hookers and beer to people who vote.

13. There are frogs in my backyard

Actually, never seen a frog in my backyard. Or front yard. We did have some rat sightings a few years back (ew!), but now it’s mostly squirrels and birds.

EDIT: I forgot about “Zoot,” the funky metal frog statue which lives next to our front steps…

14. I own, and wear, red Crocs

Yup! With the University of Maryland insignia. Got them for my birthday.

15. I have no problem stealing from others (blog fodder of course!)

Haven’t lost any sleep yet.

16. Balls Crossing is a neighborhood near my home

I so have to post a picture of that sign…

17. Gum is a must have for me… MUST. HAVE.

Yes! Gum is my crack cocaine. Trident Pina Colada, to be more specific.

18. I watched the new Knight Rider movie because I love talking wise-ass cars

Again, who doesn’t?

19. My brother is a rabbi

20. I am not a rabbi

Both true. Although I’ve played the rabbi part on many occasions and have been mistaken for one in places as varied as Charlottesville, VA and Giessen, Germany. It’s also important to mention that my brother is one of the coolest rabbis I know.

21. My son calls me Abba

Yup. His name is Avi. (Although we didn’t name him after Avitable, we actually do have a piece of furniture in our home which could be considered an “Avi Table.”) We’re raising him semi-bilingually; Abba is Hebrew for “Dad.”

22. Before blogging was cool, I was a blogger

Since February 1985! I’ll explain further if people are interested…

23. I honestly try to remember that everyone is entitled to their opinion even if sometimes it ain’t easy

… and occasionally I succeed at this.

24. Sometimes my wife dyes tiger stripes in her hair

… rawrrr…

25. I have downloaded Weird Al songs

Guilty. My first downloaded song was by Weird Al. Sometime in the late 90s.

26. Shamrock shakes make me happy

Yup! Good detective work — in that I posted twice about them last week…

27. I call my wife’s annual check ups “ladytowns”

It makes her crack up — what can I say?

28. I love, really love, music

No argument here.

29. My cat is not a very good mouser

She prefers the trackball and trackpad.

30. Vegetarian only meals in my house

Yes. I’m sure I’ll post more about this at a future time. I am a vegetarian. My wife is not. My kid pretty much is most of the time. We usually don’t have meat in the house except for those rare times when we do.

31. I volunteered in New Orleans in 2007

In June 2007 I helped lead a group of about 80 high school youth group kids to New Orleans to build homes for Habitat for Humanity for a week. Incredible experience. I have pictures to prove that I actually picked up a hammer.

32. On many occasions I use the phrase “that’s how I roll”

Verbal crutch. Sorry…

33. Being on blog talk radio is fun

Hells yeah it is!

34. I need a haircut

At this writing this is true. My last haircut was in September. I’m growing it out for “Locks of Love” in order to donate it to be made into wigs for kids.  This does not include facial or body hair.

35. My brother’s email sometimes thinks that mine are spam

… and luckily he looks through his SPAM folder every so often.   I guess it’s my fault for disguising a regular email to him as a Nigerian 419 Scam…

36. You have to see my American Idol video to believe it

Ah, yes. I had a feeling this would come up.  It wasn’t one of my brighter moments. I guess, with enough encouragement and coaxing, I’ll post it here.

37. I have stalked people simply because of their license plate

In my defense — it wasn’t just me stalking her. My family members were accomplices.

38. Starbucks is a frequent stop

Actually? Moreso for my wife than for me. I do enjoy a nice, overpriced beverage like the rest of the world. But I’m more of a Caribou Coffee man myself…

39. Bet I could fix your site or computer

Sometimes… Mostly I’ll just advise you to turn it off and then turn it on again.

40. Books have a special place in my life…they can’t be beat

No kidding! Where else would I hide my stash?

41. I am a Taurus as my birthday is April 21st

I am apparently on the proverbial “cusp” between Aries and Taurus. And I feel that the astrological Horoscope system is flawed. More about that in an upcoming post closer to my birthday…

42. Birthdays in my house are eat what you want days

… the exception being for me every few years or so when my birthday falls on Passover. In that case, the food choices are quite limited. But for the rest of the family? Sure.

43. I wrote a script for a movie when I was in the 7th grade

Yup. It was based on the “Sports” album by Huey Lewis and the News. Stop laughing.

44. This year for Thanksgiving I brought a table (and chairs!)

Thanksgiving in my family could be a whole separate blog.  In fact, it has become the beginnings of a cookbook/anthology penned by my Uncle Bill.  Suffice to say that 2007 was the first Thanksgiving for our family where turkey was served since the early 1980s.  I’ll post more about this as well…  The table and chairs had to do with the 30+ people in attendance.

45. I use lactose free milk

The stuff has an expiration date of, like, fifteen weeks from now!

46. Large family gatherings are good for my soul

I suppose so. Since my dad started dating his girlfriend (also widowed around the same time), the family doubled in size. More siblings, more kids, more grandchildren. The fun part about this was finding out that the woman your dad is dating is the mother of the girl you dated in college a decade earlier. Weirdness…

47. My son is musically gifted and I am grateful

He could carry a tune a bit better, but he loves music. And his guitar. And drums. And harmonica. What really impresses me is that he has grown quite fond of the Beatles, the Beastie Boys and the Foo Fighters.  Right now he’s going through and Elton John phase, but hopefully he’ll get over that.

48. I ate Ringo

… and he was tasty!

49. Alison Stewart makes my palms sweat

Honey — those aren’t my palms….

And finally, # 50…having someone else do my list of 50 was not one of my brightest ideas.

Au Contraire!  Any time I can get someone to do my work for me I consider it a bright idea.

Thanks again, Ms. Narf.  You rock.