Danielle’s memories of Nana

Here is an e-mail that the 23 year-old girl sent to me today… (with a few notes from the editor).

I like reading the stories about Nana and Grandpa. I remember their apartment. Nana would sit against one side of the couch with her legs up and she would beg Jay (THE 25 YEAR-OLD) and I to play with her hair… she would even bribe us with a dollar to do it. And I remember her old lady arms, the flab hung down and Jay and I would push it back and forth… we called it “basketball” (WE CALLED THEM NANA ARMS). And the drawer… we were allowed to choose something out of the “junk drawer” when we were good. I don’t remember much of what was in there, except for the toothbrushes that had a naked man on one and a naked lady on the other (NANA AND GRANDPA WERE CLOSET PORN ADDICTS). We weren’t allowed to have those. And I remember sitting on her living room floor, and under the television was a cabinet where she had a bucket of monkeys game that Jay and I would play. That’s really all I remember of her.

I’m also learning from your blog… I can’t figure out who Grandma Madeline is? Is that Grandpa’s (my father’s) mom? (DUH… IT’S NOT LIKE I NEVER MENTIONED HER BEFORE… WHO DID YOU THINK THE OTHER OLD LADY IS IN YOUR MOM’S AND MY WEDDING PICTURES?) She must have died before I was born because I don’t remember her at all. But I will say that Madeline is Matt’s (HER FIANCE) favorite girl’s name, that’s what he wants to name our daughter. (NO SHE IS NOT PREGNANT.)

 

And other coincidences…

I also had a meeting at Panera in Bristol on Friday with a photographer at 6:30pm… (I HOPE HE PAID FOR YOUR DIET PEPSI… OH AND WHEN YOU MEET WITH THE DJ I NEED TO BE THERE TOO… I HAVE A FEW ITEMS I NEED TO ADDRESS) and I ran into my mom and Nellie while I was there! And I saw Kristi, Lori, and Aunt Lorraine at the Mum Parade… Kristi said she found out I was engaged from reading the blog.

THE BLAH BLAH BLOG, BRINGING DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES TOGETHER.

Posting from the great outdoors

I’m at Lake Garda with the ten year-old and his weird little friend. So this is my first outdoor post ever. It sucks down here. The mosquitoes are sucking the Deet from my skin to get to the blood. I’m sitting on a bumpy rock bench and my ass is killing me. My iPod is blaring in my ears at a high volume so I don’t have to listen to these idiot kids screaming their heads off whenever they mistaken a twig for a fish bite.

I’m sitting on this rock bench instead of my comfy picnic table bench because it seems to be a little closer to whatever house I’m pulling free Internet service from right now. The more I think about it, I wonder if I should leave one ear naked so that I can hear if one of these kids gets a hook in the face or something. I’d rather hear the initial scream instead of them sneaking up on me with blood squirting from a forehead or cheek.

Oh man that would suck spending the Jewish New Year in the ER. At least I’d have my iPod to block out the sounds of the other screaming kids. Oye Vay (Jewish term that Nana always used).

Well maybe I’ll go and toss a hook into the water. Freaking mosquitoes!

Exercise tip of the day…

DB preacher curls on ball

1. Kneel on one knee and place one arm over the stability ball. 2 Your tricep should be resting against the ball.
2. Curl the dumbell up and then extend until your arm is almost completely extended. Stop just short of locking out your elbow.
3. Repeat for the prescribed reps and then repeat with the other arm.

Gone Fishing…

I worked a little this morning but now have to take the ten year-old fishing. Yippee.

To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters, I’d like to wish all of you a Happy New Year.

  

I’ll probably have a great fishing story later this evening.

Networking… networking… networking…

I’m networking. As we’ve discussed in prior posts, I have a cold-calling phobia. I also have trouble walking into a business unannounced and asking to set up an appointment.

At our Monday Morning Meeting (or MMM for short), one of my peers shared some statistics that he had learned last week. He said that cold-calls produce about a 20% success rate for booking appointments, while referrals from friends and business owners were closer to 80%.

That’s what I need my friends. I need referrals. I need to sit with business owners of companies from 3 to 3000 (or more) people. And the message is simple: Aflac is the cement that holds the bricks of a traditional insurance plan together. We don’t change anything that is already in place. It costs the company nothing to offer to its employees. And if we are a fit, we can save the company money on their taxes.

A person’s insurance plan is built to pay the doctors and hospitals. Aflac pays the policyholders cash so that they can do whatever they need to do with the money.

Please take a few minutes to think about the people that you know and the people that they may know. I’ve been to companies where the employer did not offer Short Term Disability but allowed me to come in and sell each person their own policy. Everybody needs to protect their paycheck.

Thanks for your time!

Weekend

We’ll take a little break from my dead grandparents for a while.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON

I had a lunch meeting at 2p at Panara in Bristol on Friday. It was with the membership guy for the networking group that I’d like to join if only I had $430. On my way in I ran into my cousin Kristi. I only had two seconds to say HI but she made my day by saying that she read my blog and liked it.

So I found the guy and sat down for what I thought was going to be an interview to see if I was worthy of their fine group. I was looking forward to a free meal too. I wasn’t hungry but I was going to order something really big and then take the leftovers home to eat later.

The next hour turned out to be a freaking infomercial for his company. Halfway through, he asked if I had eaten yet. Well yeah I did, so I followed up by asking if HE had eaten yet. No, he had not had lunch yet and just to be polite and not sound too eager or greedy I said that I could go either way.

Well… he shrugged his shoulders and I’m thinking, what the freak does that mean? Then he asked if I wanted a coffee. A coffee? Did I want a coffee? Not only wasn’t I getting interviewed but now I wasn’t even going to be fed? I ended up with a diet Pepsi and a handful of chopped-up bread from the samples section on the way back from the soda machine.

I sipped my diet freaking Pepsi and listened some more and even liked the product. Well finally he asks me which payment level or option would work for me the best. And I’m thinking, are you kidding me? If I had $500 I’d be paying the dues for the networking group and not worrying about burning our freaking furniture in the fireplace for heat this winter.

So I look at him and say, “If I had $500 I’d be paying to join the group. If I had $500 I’d buy some oil and not have to decide for a few weeks if the couch or love-seat was going to be the first item to burn.”

I think he understood. But I guess I felt bad about being that blunt so I gave him every friend, relative, and enemy name that I could think of (you’ll probably hear from him this week).

SATURDAY

I was at the office at 7:45am because I needed to be there at 8:15am.  We were merging with some of the people from the Portland office and we needed to move some stuff from Portland to Bristol. It was against my better judgement to put my ankle through the rigors of carrying heavy items, but I never duck (Aflaaaaaaaaac!) out on helping someone move.

OMG! I should have said NO. It’s just not strong enough for squatting and lifting yet but I acted like it was fine. OK, well I mentioned a couple of times that it was bothering me. By the time we carried a monster conference table up three flights of concrete stairs several hours later, it was SHOT.

I had to be the guy to say that we needed to put the table down with only half a flight to go. But I did get a free meal out of it and felt good that I could help out the person that has helped me so much from the first day that I walked into her office.

SUNDAY

After the workout that my ankle got on Saturday, I needed a day to take it easy and not stay on it all day. Instead I spent 8:30am until 5pm at the football fields picking up trash, sorting cheerleader jackets, walking back and forth between fields, carrying trash bags, and everything else a volunteer for a large youth sports organization does (well there are actually some of our volunteers that don’t do much volunteering, but I’ll stop there). None of those activities kept me off my feet for very long but I believe that when you commit to doing something (and I committed knowing about my ankle), you follow through unless you can’t get out of bed.

The two hours I did get to sit were spent yelling words of encouragement to the ten year-old during his game. “Hey 77! BLOCK SOMEBODY!” His mother and I were getting freaking pissed off at the kid because he’s built like a truck but was playing like a freaking Moped! “Hey 77! If you’re not going to block the kid in front of you, you might as well hug him and give him a tongue kiss!”

His team got killed and both his mother and I ignored him for the next couple of hours. We decided on a few incentives for next week’s game: for every missed block he will spend an hour in his bedroom all alone; for every missed tackle he will run up and down the basement stairs 20 times; and for every missed opportunity that we feel as though he could have put a kid on his ass, he will spend a half hour cutting logs for firewood with his fishing knife.

Needless to say that once I got home and emptied the car, I collapsed on the couch and put my throbbing ankle up. The day wasn’t over because I still had to make some fliers for work, play some games with the ten year-old, and watch Desperate Housewives with the wife.

And then I just couldn’t go to sleep without documenting everything so that someday my kids will read it all and maybe figure out why they turned out as they did.

Hal and Adele, Part 3

Nana always said that I was so good as a little boy that she’d make me cry on purpose just because I hardly ever did. She always said I was the most gorgeous little boy anywhere and that nothing would ever bother me (wow has a lot changed). She’d say that I made her and Grandpa so happy and that nobody could ever take THAT away from them.

My favorite thing that Nana would do happened whenever she asked me for my hand. Nana and I would take the bus to downtown Hartford on Saturdays and walk from Constitution Plaza to G. Fox. Nana would say, “Ronnie, give me your hand.” And I would try and hold it. And her fingers would reach for the inside of my palm and wiggle so that I could not grab on to it. And she would repeat, “Ronnie, give me your hand.” I’d always say, “Nana!” And I would try to hold her hand again, only to have her wiggling fingers gently push my hand away. Again she would say, “Ron-nie, give me your hand!” And I’d giggle even louder, “Nana!” This would continue until she’d finally let my hand rest inside of her soft old lady hand.

My other Grandma worked in the G. Fox building. I will never ever forget the days that we’d take the elevator up to the fifth (or was it the ninth) floor. There would be a door leading into a room where rows of women sat in front of typewriters. Nana would have me sneak over to where Grandma sat and surprise her by giving her a big hug. Sometimes, just before my arms would wrap around her, I’d hear her coworkers yell, “Madeline, it’s Ronnie!” I will never forget the huge smile on both of my grandmother’s faces.

There was a restaurant on one of the floors in G. Fox that was kind of on a balcony. It was enclosed by glass (as I remember) so that you could see into it from the floor of the store. There were no chairs, just counters and high tables that you would stand at as you ate. The hot dog (or as Nana called it, a frankfurter) was the only thing that I ever ate in the clear restaurant.

G. Fox is where I discovered escalators and rotating doors. It’s where I ate ice cream while Nana had her hair done. Somewhere in that building, in its reconstructed halls, there is still the joy, the wonder, and a hundred splendid memories of a little boy.

Hal and Adele, Part 2

So Nana and Grandpa decided to take my sister (who was under 10 at the time) to see a cute Disney movie called Animal House. They spent most of the movie covering her eyes and laughing their heads off.

Grandpa was a bowler. Nana was a knitter. Much of our weekends were spent at the bowling ally watching Nana create afghans. I hated bowling. I still do. Grandpa tried to turn me into Earl Anthony but it didn’t interest me in the least. Bowling isn’t a sport, it’s a big video game.

Grandpa played pool at the bowling ally when he wasn’t bowling. He tried to teach me that too. He had no patience at all. I also ended up hating pool.

I’m not sure what I did at the bowling ally for all of those hours. Nana knew every single person there. If she didn’t know you already, she was your best friend by the end of the tenth frame. Everybody loved Nana. I’ve never met a greater conversationalist and I know I never will. So I spent a lot of time meeting people and being told how cute I was and that I was being a good boy.

Grandpa was a salesman and Nana went everywhere with him. I spent many Mondays and Fridays on the road with them. I remember the games that we’d play in the car. We’d name a geographical location, like Connecticut, and the next person would have to come up with one that began with the letter that the previous name ended with.

We’d always finish the day by eating out at Mr. Steak or some other fancy place. When the waitress brought the bill to Grandpa, he’d point to Nana and say, “Give the bill to my mother.”

Nana would collect things from restaurants, especially the little plastic jelly containers. She’d dump them and whatever else she could, including packets of artificial sweetener into her pocketbook. She’d have little containers and take whatever else she could… even at buffets. We would leave their house with plastic bags full of jellies.

She also did something that, when I look back at it, was really unique and clever. She collected the place-mats from every single place that they ate at. If she couldn’t keep hers clean during dinner, she’d ask for a clean one. She would give them to me every single time I saw her. It was a fantastic idea especially back then when each restaurant had their name and other information on them. I regret that I didn’t keep them. I can remember the day I got rid of them as a teen.

COMING UP NEXT: GRANDPA ORDERS A MEDIUM-RARE HAMBURGER FROM McDONALD’S AND CAUSES A SCENE WHEN IT COMES BACK WELL-DONE.

The Laptop

I’m using it right now. Thank you… thank you everybody. Thank you. Thank you. OK you can stop applauding. Thank you again.

A couple of issues concerning the return of the laptop: it wasn’t sent back in the original box. I sent it to them in the original box. I have an original box for everything I own. And it just doesn’t sound the same as it did before. Maybe it was the trip back to Unionville in a foreign box. When you’ve been with someone (or something) for an extended period of time, you get used to those noises… the way that they breathe… the whir of their fan.

I should just be happy to have it back home and on my lap again. The new sound is something I’ll have to put up with until it becomes background noise like the ten year-old and the freaking dog right now.

Life is returning back to normal here in Unionville.

Hal and Adele, Part 1

I spent more than half of my weekends at Nana and Grandpa’s house as a child. I was the first grandchild on both sides of the family and of course the favorite even after the rest of them came along.

They were Jewish which meant that my mom was Jewish which means that according to the Jewish faith, I am also Jewish. I was raised a Catholic. As a kid I was in a Synagogue twice: once to play bingo and the other time for my cousin’s Bar and Bat Mitzvahs (held together). The only thing I remember is reading backwards for three and half hours and being able to eat as much lox as I wanted to. I also remember my cousins leaving with enough money to afford a couple of small homes.

So I was raised on cream cheese, bagels, and lox, matzos with butter, and kugel or koogle (as I’ve seen it spelled). Grandpa also ate gefilte fish which came in a jar. I can remember Nana (in her NY/Jewish accent) saying, “Ronnie, can you get Grandpa the gafelta fish?”

Grandpa was a nervous type of guy. He especially could not stand it when a person made noise while eating. He’d say, “What’s all that music you’re making over there? Stop the racket!”

Matzo is crunchy. You can’t eat it quietly. Nana used to take me outside to eat mine. My sister once told me that she would suck hers while it was in her mouth until it was soft. Soft matzos don’t make noise but she was risking the chance that some sort of sucking sound would reach Grandpa’s ears.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’D LOVE TO STAY AND WRITE MORE BUT I HAVE A BENEFIT’S FAIR AT ONE OF MY BUSINESSES. STAY TUNED FOR PART 2 TONIGHT. DON’T MISS HOW NANA AND GRANDPA THOUGHT THAT ANIMAL HOUSE WAS A CUTE DISNEY MOVIE… UNTIL IT STARTED.