Posts Tagged ‘Delaware’

Really nice weekend…

Monday, March 4th, 2013

Being 4 hours away from everything I’ve ever known has started to take it’s toll on me.  I miss my family, I miss my friends, and I’m always reminded of the friends I’ve lost over the years, especially in March being as this is when I lost two of the most important ones.  I’ll mope around quite a bit and it’s just a funk that I can’t seem to get myself out of.  But then, there’s that ray of light when you realize that you have one of the best of friends that anyone could ever ask for.

Colin and I met in middle school and maintained a friendship for 15 years, there were times when we didn’t speak to each other for years at a time but that bond has always been there.  That bond grew much stronger after Lucy passed away a few years ago, and since that point we’ve been a regular part of each others lives.  To make things even better, he and Sean are pretty much BFFs.  It’s to the point with them that I consider it more of a bromance than good friends, but either way the three of us are always happy spending time together and you can imagine my surprise when Colin says “I’m coming to DE for a few days”.  He did that this past weekend and I have to say, it’s gotten me out of my funk.

See, Colin is one of those guys that can be counted on no matter what the situation.  He’s always just a phone call away and will do just about any and everything for you.  Him coming down here for us proves that no only is he missing the crap out of us the way we miss him, but that he’s ideally one of the best friends you could ask for.

He got here on Friday night, we had a nice meal/trivia night over at Buffalo Wild Wings. He and Sean were on their XBOXs the rest of the night because it was pushing after Midnight by the time we got back to the house so of course it was a little too late to really venture out into the town being as we knew there was a pending tattoo appointment the following day for him.  Saturday was spent at Applebee’s, two tattoo shops, the arcade (with a super hyper cashier that was all over Colin) and Dover Downs because it was time to teach the guy how to use a slot machine lol.  He was enjoying himself until the Casino had taken the money he walked in there with but it’s the luck of the draw.  Sean did well, he managed to leave with the same amount of money he walked in with and that’s good enough for him.  I lost $100, but I can’t argue because I enjoyed my time there and that’s what counts.  We also hadn’t been up to a Casino in almost a year so the itch was there and all it took was telling Sean he could walk around Best Buy as the stipulation to even stepping foot in the Casino.

Sunday afternoon was spent with a quick lunch at home (He’s a sucker for my Mac & Cheese) and some video game play for the two guys.  I, for some reason, completely passed out after he left around 3:30 and then saw that it was after Midnight on the clock – my system has pretty much been messed up since.  I did get another couple of hours between 4am and 8am (tossing and turning, but I’m sure there was a substantial sleep in there somewhere), so at least I’m back on the normal schedule.  I’ve managed to completely flip mine, I’m no longer waking up at 5pm and completely wasting the day by only working at night. It also helps to be up early considering Bella’s going in for a grooming tomorrow morning and she needs to be dropped off by 9am.

So yea, while we didn’t really do a lot while he was down here we still all got to spend some quality time together that’s given me a boost of energy to get me out of my funk.

You really can’t ask for a better friend, and I honestly think this is the first time I’ve ever referred to him as a “Friend”, to us he’s more “Family” than anything.

New Year…Same Shit…

Saturday, January 12th, 2013

I’ve wanted to be able to jump on here for a while, but as usual – life gets in the way.  I’m experiencing downtime, which isn’t normal this time of year.  Usually January is when things pick up to the point that I’m about to rip my hair out.  That’s not the case this month.  I’m hoping this low doesn’t last for too long – I do still have bills to pay.  I’m finishing up a small site, and working on some domain transfers but that’s really all that’s going on right now.  It’s driving me crazy. I’m looking at six different email accounts where the inbox is completely blank… scares me.

Usually I’d take the time to finally get the chance to work on my own things.  That’s really not the case this time and I’m not sure why.  The lack of inspiration to build something for myself concerns me a little, being as I always did better in Delaware than I did in New York on creativity coming out of my ears…. hope that funk goes away before someone comes at me with “Just run with it” template/logo request. I’ve wanted to come up with a new template for krissy.nu, agndesigns.net, acidgloss.net and even agn-solutions.net but I’ve got no inspiration at all.

The perk to today is our new bluetooth case for the tablet came in, it’s nice having a keyboard to type on, and kind of irks me that this tablet is more powerful than my actual laptop right now.  It’s the goal for this year to pick up a Macbook, and typically we like to get at least one big electronic purchase in during the year to help out on taxes. Of course it’s still upsetting to know that I’ll no longer be able to pick up the 17″ MacBook Pro, and everyone keeps telling me that the screen resolutions on the 17″ are close to the 15″ but to me it’s just not the same. I’m so used to having a 17″ that anything smaller is just not going to work out for me.  I don’t like the Retina displays, I think that’s a complete and total waste of money considering they’re supposed to be some type of super HD bull shit, but you couldn’t even load in a DVD to watch on the thing because they’re done with super drives.  I don’t know what the hell Apple is trying to do, but there’s some unhappy consumers out there right now, that’s for damn sure.

Anyhoo….

New Year’s was spent in NY with my family and a few old friends that I’ve been missing. We saw Colin almost immediately, but I’m sure that’s because he was the most vocal about missing us, I hung out with Muir for a little bit (didn’t see the munchkin ’cause he was pretty sick), I got to have dinner with Franny and see a few of the old crew of my last job, I spent some time with my sister doing some shopping, hung out at my moms a little and while I was home I floated around the kitchen to do some restocking of a very bare fridge for my dad.  They’d been eating a lot of take out for the last 6 months apparently, all I saw was a few TV dinners and a bottle of Vodka in the freezer and almost immediately began writing up my shopping list. I’ve gotten so used to regular ‘big meal’ type of cooking over the years that it’s second nature to me.  It was hard only being able to stay up there for a week though.  I really wanted to stay longer.. I feel there wasn’t enough time spent with people and when you’re away for so long it’s hard to catch up knowing that you’re on some type of a schedule.

So we went up a few days after Christmas, and returned a few days after New Years – thankfully we left late enough where there was really no one on the road and were able to get down here in pretty good time.  Bella did really well during the drives up and down.  Unfortunately we weren’t that lucky when we actually got to the house early Saturday morning (in DE).  She ran up the stairs so quick that I think she got one of her nails stuck in between the slats on the wood stairs and was then limping around barely putting any weight on her paw at all.  Since it was 4am there was really nothing I could do for her at the time, I checked her paw she had full mobility and I felt nothing in between the pads in reference to swelling or some type of a splinter.  We wound up bringing her to the vet the following afternoon to have her checked out. I was given some anti-inflammatory meds (that gave her diarrhea  but the next few days she did pretty well so thankfully I was able to stop her at the 2 pills instead of the full 6.

Since then, we’ve all just kind of been hanging out.  Sean’s got quite a bit going on and since it’s all programming based there’s really nothing I can do to help him other than handle the side-job emails, quick template updates, and even moving domains around.  There’s nothing substantial for me to work on right now and while it’s driving me nuts – it’s also telling me that I’m going to have a very easy weekend to get all of the Christmas decorations taken down and the bedroom cleaned up because things are completely out of place ever since we came back from NY and the lack of organization is another irk of mine. I’m even considering having Sean hang a few shelves up for me, but I’ll wait until I’ve fully decided upon that one since he’ll jump at the chance to hang shelves any day of the week – he’s weird like that.

Hot damn!

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

Sean and I just got back from the Mechanic.  We brought our car in because of a pretty funky issue we were having, unfortunately I was the only one to ever seem to experience this issue.  Whenever I would turn on the car the battery light would come on, knowing it’s a good battery I assumed it could be the alternator not properly sending charge to the battery.  This wasn’t the case at all.

I asked my neighbor of 20 years if he could take a look at it for me, because it’s an issue where I just didn’t feel safe driving the car, so of course I’ll talk to an off-the-clock mechanic before I actually bring it in to one.  He turned on the car and saw the battery light almost instantly go on, he then noticed that the air conditioner was shooting out hot air and that’s not normal.  A few moments later the hood started smoking – we’re leaking anti-freeze.  He told us that we’d need a serpentine belt, possibly a water pump and maybe a hose or two fixed but he couldn’t tell where other leaks were coming from, being as they were covered in anti-freeze.

So we call up the garage up the block, talk to the ball-busting mechanic and was told to bring the car in on Tuesday (mind you – this was Friday).  For the past few days we’ve been bored out of our minds, it’s not that there’s nothing going on here it’s that we’re used to just being able to get up and go and being kind of stuck for a few days doesn’t help our moods.  I know I was bored out of my mind on Saturday, to the point that I was about to pop a gasket.

We’ve used my sister’s car for the quick errands, I really hate driving her car.  While it handles well, she needs rear-brakes and it would help if she had rear break lights as well.  There’s a big hole on her bumper that is causing the wiring underneath to corrode and when it rains she just has no back-end lights at all.  No blinker, no rear breaks – nothing.  So of course making the attempt to drive this thing at night was absolutely stupid of us.  She can deal with the tickets, we certainly don’t want to.

So since it was so bright out and close to impossible to actually see the back-end lights thanks to the way the sun is sitting in the sky – we were able to safely make it to the mechanic.  It only cost us $300 for a water pump, serpentine belt and a refill on the anti-freeze.  A very good price considering the estimate was $380 (originally).  I’m not sure if the name-dropping helped the price (considering my grandfather knows the guy) but either way, someone’s on our side.

So he drove my sisters car home and I drove ours.  And the reason for “Hot damn!” – it drives better than it ever has before, we very obviously have needed a water pump for a while now but I think since we only ever seem to do short-term in-town driving, it really didn’t matter too much.  The 5 hour drive from Delaware to New York is basically what did it for us.  Thankfully it happened after we had made it to town, it’s not like we were stranded on the Southern State Parkway or anything.  We managed to make it to the North Shore with absolutely no issues at all – and I have to say I’m pleased about that.

So everything is perfect now, we’ll figure out when we’re going to head back down to Delaware but at the advice of the mechanic, we’re going to stay up here for a day or two to drive the car on short distances and then go from there.  I’m not sure if we’re going anywhere tonight, but he’s talking about picking up dinner so maybe we’ll wind up going out and doing something.  If not tonight, we may take a quick trip to New Hyde Park tomorrow and poke around at a few different places – I know there’s a comic book store there that he wanted to see, and I know I want to see if PETS is still there so I can stand outside and warn people of the horrible condition they leave their animals in.  Thank god for veterinarians, or I wouldn’t have her.

Never buy a dog, cat, small mammal, fish, or reptile at PETS of New Hyde Park, they’re sleazy assholes.

A book recommendation, followed by randomage.

Sunday, January 20th, 2008

Since there isn’t much going on these days, other than sending out resumes and hoping for the best, I’ve been doing a lot of reading to keep myself entertained. A few months ago I picked up a book at the grocery store. It caught my eye because the author, Erica Spindler, has been a favorite of mine for quite some time now. It’s one of her newer books, Copy Cat, and I have to say I highly recommend it to just about everyone in the mood for not only a romantic story, but a suspense thriller as well. Paperback cost me about $7 but you can find it on Amazon for as little as $1.

Erica Spindler - Copycat The Sleeping Angel Killer provides the chilling focus to Spindler’s 12th bloodcurdling romantic thriller (after Killer Takes All). Kitt Lundgren and Mary Catherine “M.C.” Riggio of the Rockford, Ill., VCB (Violent Crimes Bureau) vow to catch a serial killer who sets the suffocated bodies of 10-year-old girls in their own beds, dressed like angels in frilly white nightgowns, hair spread out on their pillows and pink lip gloss applied postmortem to their mouths. Spindler’s setting of a “meat-and-potatoes” Midwest town provides a fresh background for two believable and very cool investigators. Kitt, a recovering middle-aged alcoholic, tried and failed to catch the murderer five years earlier, during a 2001 killing spree, while her own child was dying of leukemia and her marriage was falling apart under the strain. Now, when eerily similar crimes recur, someone calls Kitt, identifying himself as the original killer and the new perp as just a copycat. M.C., an ambitious, distrustful newbie, is assigned to help Kitt with the investigation. The detectives must overcome their personal problems in order to catch the monsters, a task culminating in a breathless finale.

I’m not done with the book yet, I only started reading it before I went to sleep last night. After about an hour I was 150 pages in and found it damn near impossible to put it down. The only reason I did was based on the lack of ability to keep my eyes open. While I was enjoying the book, my head was still telling me to go to sleep and no amount of fighting it was going to keep me awake for much longer anyway.

The book has a day-to-day theme going on with it and oddly enough the story was set in the February/March time frame of 2006. A few things caught my eye, mainly because March 2006 was such a difficult month for me. I noticed that chapter 7 is the only notice of the ex-husband (thus far) and this fell on the date of March 7, 2006. The reason this caught my eye was based on the fact that the very first line of the chapter read “Hello Joe”. I found it pretty freaky, this character is talking to her ex-husband the same day I lost Joe. I know that it’s purely a coincidence but it stood out for me, and probably had a lot to do with why I sat here for so long reading as much as I could before I dozed off.

I had some pretty strange dreams last night, not sure why but all family members that have passed on came to me and started yapping about something important, what the message was – I have no idea. I just think it’s strange that I haven’t dreamt of my Grandmother since I was 8 years old and there she was standing in front of my desk with some kind of a message that I just didn’t understand. I didn’t hear her, I knew she was talking to me, you can always see someone talking to you in your dreams. I’m just unsure of what was actually being said, I just remember screaming “Speak English” because it sounded like “Womp, Womp, Womp” whenever she opened her mouth.

Another interesting dream happened just as I’d dozed off to sleep. I’m unsure of whether or not it was based on the book or not but I was walking up my stairs (the one’s in NY, not DE) and at the top of the stairs was Tony Soprano’s mother (now deceased). I could literally see right through her, she looked at me with this evil grin on her face and then her eyes rolled up in the back of her head. I went to run inside but I couldn’t get my keys out of my pocket and I stood there screaming “Wake me up!”. When I finally did wake up it had only been about 20 minutes since I’d gone to bed. It was just one of those freaky dreams that chills you to the bone and sticks with you all freaking day.

And speaking of bone chilling, according to my weather monitor it’s supposed to get down to about 3¬?F tonight. A quick snow shower came through this evening but I haven’t been outside since about 1am to see what kind of “damage” was done. Down here you don’t get much, we’re too close to the ocean and everything tends to melt within an hour because of the salt in the air. I hear NY is getting some pretty decent snow, I kind of wish I could be up there right now to enjoy it but I have to accept the fact that Delaware will never be New York and I need to move on. It sucks, but nothing I can do about it.