Forget an Amen, Can We Just Get a Break??

Where do I begin? Since the passing of my sister Jennifer, neither Maggie nor Meself has been sleeping. And I don't mean that in the way whiny people mean it. Like "booo-hoo I only had nine hours of sleep last night and I have that big meeting at the Cheese Club in twelve hours..wwaaa" No I'm talking neither of us has gotten more than five hours of continuous sleep since like June 4. We toss, we turn, we lay awake staring at the ceiling. I think I had five on Thursday night, but only because my wife slipped me a mickey-thing and knocked my little ass out. Lucky me. My poor wife though, was downstairs loading and running the dishwasher, cleaning the lint from all the furnace filters, straightening all the threads on the ends of the living room carpet and attempting to replicate the Mona Lisa in the litter box by pushing around all the..oh never mind. No wait, that was me on Tuesday night..sorry hun.
Mr Sandman has not visited us in quite some time and if he ever finally shows up, I'm tying the little bastard to a chair and give him a beating to rival that of the famous 'cop scene' in resevoir Dogs.
Weboth are filled with worry about my neice Cassie. We both have bad dreams, nightmares at times and on top of all that, we live in one of the noisiest neighborhoods in the entire Western Hemisphere. I mean it's not Carnival..but still. A little respect from our neighbors would be nice. But I digress..I was looking for a break right?
Yesterday we got a call from my sis-in-law, (who will be referred to from here on in as Steph), about my father-in-law. They have a home up in upstate New York. Out in God's country. This house is so far out of the way squirrels don't go there for fear of being lost to the wilderness forever. Arnold Ziffle is still a big deal there as is cable t.v. If'n ya'll can get it, that is...
Anyways my father-in-law (who from here on out will be referred to as 'J.W.') apparently had a 'mini-stroke'. Now you've got to understand, the man is in congestive heart failure. He is nearing 90. He is an ornery ol' guy. Tough as nails. He had open-heart surgery just about two years ago. Had an artificial heart valve put in and was home riding his John Deere two weeks later. Seriously. We rushed over to see him and he seemed terribly tired. Almost weak. But, he seemed with it and talked with us for a couple hours. Today he seemed a little better, but still tired. He refuses to go to the doctor. We will be keeping a close eye on him.
Today Mims called my wife's cell. As a matter o' fact we realised this as we were leaving J.W.'s house. She left no message. This means bad news. We worry ourselves sick about my niece Cassie. We, being Irish, naturally assume the worse. I grab the phone once home and call Mims. Our conversation went kinda like this.
Me: Ma, what's goin' on?
Mims: Connor, I tried calling your wife earlier.
She is talking very quietly. My mom doesn't have a big mouth but she is speaking quieter than usual. another bad sign.
Mims: I need surgery.
Me: What? What's wrong??
Mims: ( Matter of factly, like she's relaying the weather.) My pacemaker ( for her heart) isn't working. They'll do it tomorrow. I should've checked in at noon, but had no one to bring me...
Me: (about to experience a very good heart-attack) What is wrong with it? Didn't you have that one done only 3 years ago?
Mims: Ahh, I'll be home Sunday.
I gather what's left of my nerves and make sure she doesn't need us to come. It is a five hour drive but I could do it in 4. I am now worried about Cassie. She just lost her mom and if anything happened to Mims I think she'd have a little meltdown.
CassieKid is with her Dad and my mother has a wonderful set of sisters. They came through for the fam big time when Jen died. My Aunt Chris even gave Mims a cemetery plot for Jen. So I know she'll be in good hands. I was debating going and told Mims this
Mims: You don't need to be here..I'll be fine...really Connor.
Me: But Ma, who's gonna be taking care of ya?
Mims: I'll be fine don't worry. You do not need to be here.
I tell her I will not come but have debated going anyways. But really, there's be nothing I could do. So I think I'm staying here with Mags in case J.W., God forbid, has any problems.
So you see. We are both fried. Toast. Creamcrackered. We are both in need of like 15 hours of sleep. We need the phone to not ring for like 4 days and we need everyone in our neighborhood to fall into a 24 hour coma so we can get some sleep. Is that too much to ask?

Yikes! This is Why I Hate Insects

Look Into My Eyes.....

Here is our kitty. His name is Smoke but we call him many other things..Moke, MokeMan, Dooood, BigHead, Chainsaw, FuzzButt...

We adopted him from my brother-in-law. Moke was a 'barn cat' at my Father-in-law's farm and we got him there. He took to living indoors like an Irishman takes to a free pint o' Guinness. He is a mix. Part mutt, part Russian Blue. He is very vocal, he is always 'talking' to us. He even can tell time! True story! He tells us when it is time for his feedings. He starts to carry on near 7am, 5pm and he needs his nightime snack at 10pm. At about 950 he'll park his fat butt right in front of us and just stare. Trying to use his kitty mind-powers no doubt, to make us feed him. He'd actually eat non-stop if we let him. He'd eat until he exploded I'm sure of it.

He can also open doors in the house. He's very long and gets on his hind legs, wraps his arms around the doorknob and wiggles it until it pops...pretty amusing...well unless it's 230 am and he is looking to be fed. Then it's not cute.

He is, for the most part, a fine lad. Until, of course, he tries to tackle me and take me down like a lion on a pygmy. That's not too funny. Well, it tickles my wife when he tackles me. So at least two of them are having fun.

There is an entertaining story about Moke, but that's for another time...

"SockMop".....Come on...You've Done It....

McGreenthumb Presents.....

Just a couple of pics from our gardens. We have one on the side of our house and a newer one in the back by the patio. The pic on the top is Day Lilies. The one on the bottom is the Princess Diana Hybrid Rose. It really is beautiful. You cannot get the full beauty of it in this picture. Maggie certainly has the green thumb eh?

Saturday

Today was a spectacular day here in Jersey. The temp never got out of the 70's and there was a nice strong breeze blowing all day. A nice big blue sky with nice fat fluffy white clouds cruising by. (I think ballplayers call this a 'high-sky... don't ask me why).
We were both awake early, courtesy of our psychotic dog. We were experiencing a perfect 'sleeping-night', you know nice and cool..low 60's nice breeze.. But here's the problem. Boyo hears a noise, any noise at all...could be a cricket farting a fucking block away, and the dog goes ballistic. And he barks and barks and barks. And when he barks like that I want to remove my ears with a cheese-grater. And he'll pace in tight little circles..and the panting..sweet Jaysus....and he'll go for like ten minutes straight.....Finally, the cricket died and there was piece in our home...until about 545 am...when Delta flight 576 from Bombay to Newark passed over his yard. This shit has got to stop. Neither of us sleeps through the night. It's starting to get to me...but I digress
Early this morning, Maggie decides to have herself a little yard sale. She sets up at the end of her mom's driveway, which is on a very busy road but has no luck. Except for 2 people looking for directions to a nearby racetrack.
I ventured to Lowes for some stuff for the yard and furnace filters. Exciting right? No. Not exciting. But that's okay. I've had enough excitement already this year to last me 'til the New Year.
I worked on the Zen Garden and will post pics soon. I swore I would do nothing this weekend but that went out the window. Our very cool neighbors popped in for a bit and we all had a drink before they headed out for a party. Keith was kind enough to give us some really nice Belgium blocks and I lugged them out back to use in our ever growing Zen Garden.
Now, dinner has been eaten and we are both relaxing. The cutie is working tomorrow so I might just try and catch some soccer on the tube or maybe try and call the Redman.

Sisters and Brothers

Some time ago, when Jen was a young lass I thought it would be funny to play a little prank on her. At the time of said prank, my father, who was a pretty handy guy, was adding a second floor to our house. It had been enclosed and really everything was about done. The floors, however, were not. They were just the 'subfloor', waiting for tile or rug. I heard my mother downstairs ask Jen if she wanted to go for a ride to the store. jen screamed in delight and said she would have to get her shoes. By this time, I had already nailed them to the floor.
She was sitting on the floor yanking and pulling, wondering why they wouldn't come up. I was laughing in my room and at this point, the jig was up. My Dad came up looked at the shoe, looked at me and just shook his head. He removed the nail and sent Jen on her way.
Now if you're thinking "what a little prick", Jen did have her revenge. See we always had a cat or two in our house and at the time we had a litter box. Well, come winter and the snow was a flyin', she dug into the litter box and took a few pieces of crap and slid them into the fingers of my gloves. It's okay, you can laugh.....

9 Years of My Life for This??

I spent the last nine years watching the Sopranos Faithfully. My Sunday night religion, if you will...And when the final episode was done and the screen went black, what did we really learn?? That Meadow Soprano can't fucking parallel park...Thanks Dave..