I'm back! + I Love My Fingers

It has been ridiculously long since the last time that I wrote on my blog! I apologize profusely to all of you! My life has taken quite a turn and the tempo has quickened rapidly- with me barely able to keep up! I am ambitious and also a Gemini! No, I am not two faced! I am multifaceted and passionate. I have a love for many things in life: a passionate love. I love my family, acting, my sorority, design, art, my production company, my blog, event planning, to name a few. It is hard sometimes to be so passionate about so many things. I am often torn and indecisive because of it: another trait of Geminis.

However, I have recently decided to funnel as much as I possibly can into fewer things. It has been bitter sweet. Rewards have been granted for my drive and focus, but my heart breaks for those things that have had to be pushed aside.

After all, nothing worth having is easily attainable. Even though I must continue to keep my focus and drive, I am going to MAKE time when there is none to keep up with my blog. It is very cathartic for me, and I have much to share. 

With that being said, let’s share a story, shall we?

When I was near the end of my 8^th grade year, I moved into my mom and Greg’s house from Trisha and Dad’s. Greg was my mom’s long time boyfriend from when I was in 7^th grade to junior year of high school. We had to do some major cleaning and rearranging to accommodate me. As we were cleaning out the spare room we got hot! So my mom, Greg, and I decided to setup the stand fan. It was about shoulder height to me. At some point the front guard fell off, but we were too hot and tired to care. We were moving crap from one room to another room that was next door. My mom would hand stuff off to me from room 1 as I stood in the hallway. I would then hand it to Greg in room 2. 

 DIAGRAM 1: THE MOVING MACHINE

As we slaved away in the heat and sweat and dust I really began to get in the zone. I was feeling like a moving MACHINE! Awesome.

 DIAGRAM 2: I AM AWESOME

OH YEAH! I was fantasizing about my future room and the awesomeness of our moving technique when I reached for a box from my mom. At that moment the awesomeness came to a dramatic halt…

… as I stuck my hand into the fan.

Not awesome.

  DIAGRAM 3: NOT FEELING AWESOME (PAIN DOES THAT)

******FLASH BACK******

I was a kid and telling my stepmom Trisha about this "cool" guy who stuck his hand in a moving ceiling fan and stopped it as a trick. She went berserk and told me that if I ever put my hand in a fan, my fingers would be chopped off. She had even seen it happen since she worked as a nurse in shock trauma. The horrific-ness of this possibility haunted me for the rest of the childhood anytime I was too near a fan.

******BACK TO EVENT******

“OOOHHH MY GOSH! Trisha knew this would happen!” This is what I thought while I collapsed to the ground in a scream of pain and horror. I clutched my fingers with my unmangled hand, convinced this was the only thing keeping my fingers from toppling to the ground. As I laid in the fetal position breathing deeply, trying to coach myself through it all, my mom and Greg were trying to figure out what was wrong with me. They hadn't seen anything, just me dramatically flailing to the ground clutching my hand.

“I cut my fingers off in the fan!”

My mom all but rolled her eyes. I was infuriated! “Let me see your fingers Sarah.” I refused. MOM did not want to take this tragedy serious, obviously! My mom and Greg spent about 20 minutes convincing me to let go of my fingers. But I just was not ready to let go. I wanted to keep them forever. I loved my fingers. I had never truly appreciated them until that moment. MY POOR FINGERS!!!!!! I was imaging my future as a nub hand, explaining to everyone the ridiculous way I lost my fingers. Hoping that ice could possibly save them. 

  DIAGRAM 4: MY SAD FUTURE

But finally my mom convinced me to open my hand after yelling at me for being dramatic. (it was a loving yell in her defense) Finally convinced it was inevitably the time to investigate, I took a deep breath and unfolded my unmangled hand. 

I burst into a fit of tears…

... tears of relief. I started laughing at myself too.

Phew! Those flimsy little plastic fan blades didn’t even break my skin! NO blood, NO bruise, and ALL of my beloved digits! There was minimal “damage.” Just a little bit of skin pushed around in an odd way. Well, shoot, I’ll take that over lost fingers! It was all back to normal in like a day.

Perhaps, I overreacted.

(it did hurt though)

  DIAGRAM 5: THE "I HAVE 10 FINGERS" DANCE!

If you love your 10 fingers, please do the dance. Wiggle all your fingers while hoping from foot to foot and yell "I have 10 fingers!" If you do not have 10 fingers, there is no need to discriminate, please use the correct number and it promises just as much fun!!!

Fortesque

Once upon a time there was a quaint fishing island located in the great state of New Jersey. Two little girls were often taken there for getaways with their grandmother for fun in the sun on a private beach at their great-great uncle and aunt’s beach house.

Deep sigh!

Sounds so nice, doesn’t it?

REALITY CHECK!!! While we did have a lot of fun, it was through our ability to imagine and use our resources. The island was separated from the mainland by a marsh that bred mosquitoes, and evil biting flies. The house had no A/C, cable, nor water. There were very few kids, and they were the locals who thought we were nuts for coming there. Our private beach was usually filled with horse shoe crabs due to mating season schedules. When it wasn’t, there were pretty hard core fisherman gutting fish on the beach and discarding the remains right there.

Let’s break it down for ya!

THE BUGS!

The mosquitoes were bad. We always had citronella candles out the wazoo. Despite the plague of mosquitoes, NOTHING compared to the flies. NOTHING. Regular flies are pesky, but we had mean, green, biting machine flies. They bit us through our clothes. They bit us in the house, outside, in the car, at the store/diner/bait and tackle shop (it was only store on island), they bit us in any location, on any part of our bodies. By the time we left we would be terrified at the site of a fly. Literally, any flying creature and we would run screaming like an ax murderer was after us. God forbid we were in the car (which did happen- and was almost tragic)

DIAGRAM 1: THE GREEN FLIES!

Literally, running for our lives from the flies.

A/C, CABLE, WATER

There was one window unit, but it barely kept us cool. We were hot a lot. It was an old house, and my great-great aunt and uncle were old school. So cable was not coming along with the deal. I am sure because they also did not want to pay for cable at a house they aren’t always at. We did have rabbit ears though. (Fancy, I know) The water is a bit more complicated. Apparently, at some point in time the whole island protested the water company. I have no ideas when this happened. The 70s maybe? Well, once everything was settled my uncle was not having it so he kept his off. He was all about sticking it to “the man.” And there was some super secret Macgver way to manually turn it on. However, “the man” eventually caught on so we could only do it sometimes. When we had no water we went to the dock and filled jugs and jugs of water up and took them back to use for flushing the toilet, cooking, brushing our teeth, and really cold “showers.” Essentially, we were camping out in a house. Oh, and there was ALWAYS sand in the bed. Always. Drove us all nuts.

DIAGRAM 2: LACK OF AMENITIES

The TV only showed static, it was hot, and we always had jugs of water galore! There is nothing worse than an ice cold shower from a water jug.

ENTERTAINMENT

Finding other kids to play with was like finding buried treasure. For the first few years I remember going, I don’t even remember seeing other kids. We fought over other kids, like they were the last morsel of food on earth. The beach, as I mentioned, was often COVERED in mating horse shoe crabs. Which, if you have ever seen one you know, are scary looking. Very Jurassic indeed. They look like giant beetle helmet monsters. When they weren’t mating there were usually dead ones left scattered on the beach. If they get caught on their back they are stuck, and the seagulls eat them alive, or they dry out. We would sometimes see one flipped over, but legs still moving, and grab it by it’s tail and throw it back in the sea. And of course there were the fisherman. The beach often had piles of fish guts and smelly stuff. There were hooks all over the place, and random trash sprinkled here and there. When it was high tide, the water came up to the wall in front of the house, so our play space was even smaller: a 10x10 square of sand in front of the driveway.

DIAGRAM 3: WHAT DO WE DO?

Where for art thou fellow children to play with?

Not fun.

Oh pooh

In summary, it was an interesting place for kids. My sister, my two cousins (Jen and Tiffany), I and sometimes Katie K had many interesting adventures there. I do, however, have a lot of good memories from there, and we really had to push the limits of our imagination. We painted tables, repainted the front porch like 3 times, made up games, went seashell hunting, horseshoe crab rescuing, pretended to be stranded mermaids, and told/heard a lot of stories. My cousin Tiffany always told me and missy scary ones that would freak me out for years. And my uncle Ben told his stories to all of us in a booming voice that I will never forget. One time, my grandmom Tony almost had us make smores over citronella candles. Luckily, my mom caught us putting our marshmallows on sticks an intervened before we poisoned ourselves. We did a lot of walking aimlessly, but having good child-theological convos. I had some interesting theories as a kid. There were times we almost all killed each other (a week there was a horrible idea-never did that again), and other times that I never felt closer to them. Most importantly we bonded, without the distraction of boardwalks, carnival rides, and other kids, we only had each other. And truth be told, sitting on the deck at night as the waves crashed was a type of peace that one rarely finds in everyday life. It was an ugly little fishing town, but it was also beautiful - and we had a front row seat.

My great great aunt and uncle have passed, and the beach house has been sold. But those funny, ridiculous, and touching memories will last my entire lifetime.

ps. Please look at this pic of a flipped horseshoe crab: he needs rescuing!

pps: The enemy: GREEN FLIES!!!!!!!! run you fool!

Gifts from Grandmom T

So... I have many a grandma's. A few have passed away, but during my lifetime I have personally known the following grandmas:

White-haired grandmom/Grandmom B/Grandmom Bernero (Dad's mom)
Grandmom Tony/Grandmom T (Mom's Mom)
Grandmania (Stepmom's Mom)
Nana (Mom's Stepmom)
Great Grandmom/Grandmom Calise (Mother's grandmother)
Great Great Grandmom/ Ya-ya (Mother's great-grandmother-whom I don't really remember but apparently I knew when I was a toddler-knew enough to make a scene at her funeral, but that's another blog entry)
Miss Connie (This one is complicated: My mom's boyfriend's mom- even though my mom and him are no longer together I still consider them my fam)
+numerous other adopted grandmoms, like my HS friend Alicia-whose grandmom I call Granny

SIDE NOTE:
I have decided now, before even having children, that I will be called either Mimi or Nonna when I am a granny.

And there were more, I just don't remember them. I have met most of my great grandparents. Despite the fact that I have many grandmas, they are all really unique and different-they all even had different "grandma" names. They range from Italian, Polish, Black (I am not even polish or black), Irish, southern, northern, immigrants, etc. Without a doubt, the most unique of all around would be my G-mom Tony (full name Antoinette). She has many triats that make her unique, but one of the funniest/most entertaining is her gift giving. She is notorious for her presents.

Let's break it down:

REASON 1: re-gifting

My g-mom T has given me, my sister and my cousins our own stuff, and each other's stuff. Coloring books that have been colored in, books that already had our names in them from three Christmases ago, movies we watched a million times, old clothes we barely even fit anymore and accidentally left at her house, a doll I played with so many times that its hair is matted and clothes are faded, you name it! The most scandalous, of course, was when she would give us each other's stuff. When we opened a gift and it was an apparently-used-but-new-to-us item we were really excited and just assumed she got them from a second hand store. We would play with them merrily and happily. Then, one fateful day, me and Missy, and Jenn and Tiffany (my two cousins) would all be at g-mom T's on the same day.

Sarah, "Tiffany, wanna play Barbies?"
Tiff, "Yeah sure"
Sarah, "Ok, here is my Barbie! Isnt she soooo pretty?!"
Tiff, "Wait a minute! THAT'S MY BARBIE!"
Sarah, "not-uh! Grandmom gave me this barbie for my birthday!!!!"
Tiff, "She CAN'T give you MY Barbie, I don't care if it was your birthday!"

This is just a sample. Insert any of our names in the spaces and it could work. As we got older replace Barbie with shirt, necklace, dresser, etc. It all works.

DIAGRAM I: RE-GIFTING

This diagram represent a typical birthday gift from g-mom Tony to me. Contains: my cousin's much used and old doll accidentally left at grandmom's last time she was there. She will never know what happened to this doll. Coloring books I not only already wrote my name all over, but colored in most of the pictures.

REASON 2: "But I got it for 25cents at Goodwill!"
My g-mom T equates a sale with necessity. She will go to Goodwill and buy 15 shirts for $3 and is thus convinced that we would all just DIE to have it. These gifts are not really connected with a holiday or normal gift giving reason. It does include those type of events, but is not limited to.

The scene goes something like this: We show up at g-mom T's house. Within the first few minutes she says, "And before you leave, I have some things for you girls!" We spend the rest of the visit trying out best avoid the topic because we do not want to remind her. Invariably, it is a large Christmas gift bag (no matter the time of year) filled with "goodies" from Goodwill and some old VHS tapes she had around the house. We know what awaits us. Right when we leave, at the last possible moment, she always remembers. "Girls! wait! Don't forget your gifts!!"

In the olden days we always went a long with it. But after years of piled up garments that didn't fit (she is ALWAYS shocked she didn't get the right size), that were ugly (but this IS the latest fashion girls, I see it in all the magazines!), or for a grown business woman (from the 90s) even though I was only 10, old nicknacks, stained books, and other such items we started to get REAL with her. But, it was pointless. All the NOs in the world will not stop her. As we try to discretely unload our christmas bag, she comes along and adds more stuff in. I have "accidentally" forgotten my stuff many times. This leads to her running out of the house as we are pulling off. But all the ugly 25 cent clothes in the world are not enough to make you coldly drive away from your running grandmom lugging giant christmas bags! The more aggressive we are, the more she is: "JUST TAKE THE DAMN THINGS! I won't buy you anything else then!" Then we feel guilty, even though we ALL know she will have more stuff for us when we come back.

DIAGRAM 2: 25cents @ GOODWILL

This diagram represent a random gift. G-mom was out doing her rounds at goodwill and found this little number and thought that at 10 years old this was just the business suit I needed. Please note the 1982 shoulder pads. When I was 10 it was 1995. "Where would I wear this grandmom?" She then shrugs and says, "I don't know, something will come up, JUST TAKE IT!!" Please know this garment is preceded by 20 other garments that are just as fabulous- by now she is pissed that I am turning stuff down.

REASON 3: Family Heirlooms
Somehow, my G-mom T finds herself in possession of furniture and items that once belonged to my great and great great grandmoms (they were both born in Italy and brought some stuff from there), my great Uncle Ben and Aunt Dee (He traveled the world as a marine in like the 50s or something and had all kinds of cool crazy stuff), and other elderly family that was born somewhere else or traveled, or was wealthy, whatever the case. So we all (my cousins, mom, sister, myself) all often go on treasure hunts around her house. She has three bedrooms in her current abode we all do a general sweep every time we go there. Most of the time g-mom T will gladly pre-gift you a piece of furniture you cannot currently take. There are risks to this of course. She will most likely tell someone else they can have it at a later date. One time I wanted this desk that was my great great grandmothers and once it was pre-given to me, I had to call her often to remind her NOT to give it to anyone else. She was baffled that I would even assume she would do such a thing, but promised. One time when I was visiting her and mentioned the desk my cousin Jennifer was there and broke out in anger! "Grandmom! You told me I could have that!" Luckily, that time, g-mom stuck by giving it to me. It's always a coin toss. In the end I actually got the desk, in my possession- out of her house. woop woop!

DIAGRAM 3: FAMILY HEIRLOOMS

This diagram represent little treasure discovered by one of us. G-mom either wont give it up yet or told us we can have it when she dies. So we have all decided, asked, and been told that it can be ours. Hence our imaginary name tags. We all have many items currently at my g-mom T's house that we "own" and will fight about.

REASON 4: The Rare Gem
Despite it all, every once in a while my g-mom T stumbles across something really cool, unique or awesome. See, it isn't that Goodwill, the Salvation Army, the sales rack at Kmart, and various yard sales don't have cool things. It is just that not EVERYTHING there is a treasure, despite the low price. It is rare indeed that she finds something we want, but an awesome win for whoever gets it. All else are jealous beyond measure. You NEVER know when it will happen either. It is purely luck. Even though we are jealous, we are also happy for that person to a degree, because it was a triumph. lol.

Much congratulations are offered to the lucky winner and my g-mom as well. We are pretty honest with her about the stuff she gives us- so it is important we let her know when she was victorious. This may fuel her more, I don't know, but you can only be so negative to ur granny until your just WAITING for a reason to be positive. Afterall, she means well.

DIAGRAM 4: THE RARE GEM

This diagram represents the extremely rare diamond in the ruff. It is just something she found, she doesn't know where or when, and she thought you might like. It was almost missed because it was in a random small box thing that hidden under some shirt you do NOT like. This has lead all of us to actually become pretty thorough with our searches through our stuff. Sometimes we don't even find the treasure until we are home and have had a chance to sort through what we intend on dropping at a Goodwill.

I abosultely LOVE my grandmom Tony. Over the years the gift giving has been a nuisance, annoying, has caused many follow up trips by us to drop stuff back off at a Goodwill, and led to many many fights. But it has also been the source of great stories, a lot of laughter, some treasures, and discovering history of our family story. Her gift giving is shockingly notorious (no exaggeration), and from her heart.

I also think that the cycle of items in and out of Goodwill through our family probably helps keep them in business.

A COUPLE of GEMS

Detail of portion of lid of box that belonged to great grandmother. I use it as my "treasure chest" to keep small mementos and stuff in.


A cool watch with Native American/"western" theme- even has turquoise beads. I love this watch! She recently gave me a pair of turquoise and silver (not real sliver) earrings that I like to wear with this watch. I got the two pieces like 10 years a part- but this is the magic of g-mom T gifts!

Moral: appreciate all aspects of family, and cherish the elder ones. SHOUTOUT TO ALL THE GRANNIES OUT THERE!


NOTE: later this week I will be adding a pic of me, Missy and grandmom Tony

Dancing Black Chuckie

When I was in college, me and a small group of friends would sometimes go to the waffle house in the middle of the night. The waffle house was like 30 mins away, but every once in a while we couldn’t stand it anymore and would make the trip.

One night our friend Ryan told us some stories of his days working at Chuck e Cheese. Needless to say, they were all pretty funny. But one story was the greatest of them all! Even though his job was to make the pizzas, he sometimes had to fill in for whoever was supposed to be playing Chuckie. Unfortunately, he did not know the chuckie dances, so would make up other dances. He would do the harlem shake, crypt walk, etc. He hated doing it, but the kids loved it. The regular Chuckie was white, and Ryan is black. Some of the regular kids knew who was wearing the suit by the dance moves. It got to the point that they would request him as “the black chuckie”. Or complain to their moms that this chuckie wasn’t as good as “the black chuckie.” Please note that they never saw his skin, they just intrinsically knew.

Everyone was dying laughing at this story. This friend of mine actually knew my mom pretty well, and she thought he was hilarious. So after we made fun of him for a while I threatened to call my mom and tell her the embarrassing story if he didn’t show us some of his famous Chuckie dance movies. He refused to comply. After joking around a bit about the threat, it kinda became intense and I was NOT going to back down. While waving my phone in the air with my thumb hovering over the call button I commanded him to dance right there in the waffle house!

He adamantly refused. So I called my mom. At 2 am. On a weeknight. To tell her the ”black dancing chuckie” story. I did wake her up, but she loved the story. We were all laughing all over again. Then I let my mom go back to sleep.

About 15 mins later my phone rang, and it was my mom. She was upset and it took me a minute to get the story out of her. Apparently, once she got off the phone, she realized she smelled something. The whole house was filled with carbon monoxide. So she called 911 and they were on their way, but she was kinda freaked out. So we paid our bill and went over to her house. She was (quit comically despite the situation) sitting out in the car with two dogs, a cat and a giant bird cage holding a parrot.

After the fire trucks and everything cleared we got the full scoop. The leak had not been happening very long when I called, but it was long enough for her to smell it. Another hour or so and all the animals would have died. She would have without a doubt not made it until morning. If I had not called her that night she would have died. His hilarious story and my jerky decision to wake my mom up in the middle of the night saved her life!!!

Scary!

God sure works in mysterious ways! Shout out to all those ppl out there dressed as Chuck e Cheese, dancing for kids nationwide. Your stories may save someone’s life one day! HAHAHAHAAHAHA!

ps. everyone needs a carbon monoxide detector and smoke detector! Pets and children are especially vulnerable.