Highway to hell....

or should i say "parkway" to hell....the belt parkway....an appropriate name, because if you travel enough times on this road you may want to take your belt and wrap it around your neck...and it seems to be the road i can never leave...from my early childhood in canarsie, youth through early-twenties in staten island...and now so many years later from long island to new jersey to see my mom....it is the road that comes to a grinding stop for no apparent reason, compounded by drivers with skills rivaling annie hall, and further frustrated by a construction project between exits 13 and 11 that has no ending in sight....i do sometimes smile at the dimming childhood memories i have...of being the first car waiting as the drawbridge went up and down for boats, or counting menorahs in the apartment building windows as we crept from the verrazano to knapp street to visit my grandparents..but that is dwarfed by the ultimate joyous recollection of visiting my parents for dinner on a sunday one november..our beautiful trip from forest hills...the glory of the van wyck...the majesty of the merge to the belt...and then nothing...oh, yes, did i mention it was marathon sunday...thinking how i could have walked faster and pondering what would be the degree of difficulty to climb into the backseat to change lauren, only six months old...would there ever be another staten island family dinner on that sunday...fuggedaboutit!

the cat's meow

4am....our 10-year-old tabby, donut, is meowing....no...he is bellowing....it is 2-weeks since we moved from our home of almost 20 years, a large colonial, to this 2-bedroom rental...temporary digs until our new condo is ready...for 2 weeks donut has voiced his opinion...sometimes starting at the lovely hour of 2:30am...the time when you're in a relative coma, and the dream is getting interesting...other times he starts at 4am..quiets after i feed or pet him...or stops and starts at 5am, 6am...each time when I go to see what the problem is he gives me your basic cat response...regal pose, corners of his mouth arched in a smile and silent...till i return to the covers, my fading dream, only to hear a loud "meow"...he is pushing me over the edge...for the past few nights, well maybe it is the sleep deprivation, but i seemed to hear, "meow, meow, meow, fuck you, why did we move, where are my stairs, meow, haha, hi neighbors"...i am sure there is an animal behaviorist out there shaking his or her head, affirming i am a bad owner, doing everything wrong, to which i would reply, "meow"...

in the beginning

if the poet in me speaks to the serious side of life, then the blogger in me speaks to the rest...all the rest...all the "wtf" moments...the ones that you have to write down otherwise who would believe you?....like the guy who tried to buy an open bag of oreos at my moving sale two weeks ago...or the people who bought the couch and loveseat who proceeded to arrive 17 hours late to pick them up...picture this: two women, one nine months pregnant, and a man with a wrist wrapped in post-surgical tape...the three of them looking at me as if I would morph into the Seven Santini Brothers...collapsing in bed the night after the sale only to find someone sold our alarm clock...and emergency flashlight kept at the side of the bed...I guess they needed it to find the oreos....