"My God, there's more of us!!"

my sister exclaimed when I forwarded to her an email from a third cousin we had never heard of. It has been a very eventful week. For years we have been trying to figure out our family tree only to get almost nowhere. Out of the blue, I get an email from distant cousin Irene. It immediately started a flurry of emails back and forth between Irene, my sister and me. Irene has done a phenominal job. My great grandmother's maiden name was Kiley. Irene is descended from my great grandmother's mother's sister.....What a mouthful.

Our exhanges have been cordial and helpful. She sent us 14 pages of our lineage. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of things in writing, but we do have a lot of family lore handed down orally. Some of it a bit off color. :-) Wonder what Cousin Irene will think of us when we tell her some of the stories?? We hope to meet up in the spring after the snows recede from upstate New York.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks was in the spelling of our last name. Fore some unknown reason, my Grandfather changed the spelling of his last name, which is what completely threw me off when I tried researching anyone prior to his generation. I'll be busy again on the weekends updating my tree on Ancestry.com for sure.

Black Friday

Avoided it like the plague. Just did two things, one successful, one not. I went to the local Big and Tall shop and bought two polo shirts for the price of one. No crowds, must not be too many fat people in Rockland. Tried to find a copy of Deathly Hallows 2 for Regina. Now They're all sold out. Will go to my favorite standby in times like these and order it from Amazon. I have become an internet shopping junkie in order to avoid the crowds

Must admit though that things were made a bit easier because I finally gave in and applied for and received a handicapped tag for my car. I have resisted it for years, hobbling around on a cane sometimes hiking what seemed like miles to get to a store. Now its a short hobble and a quick trip. Just need to remember to keep removing then putting the permit back from my mirror. Having severe bouts of gouty arthritis has lessened my willingness and ability to go out and about. This makes it so much more easier.

Shopping used to kind of fun for Christmas. Now its practically suicidal. Don't need it, don't want it. Just pick it up at the door when it arrives in the mail.

Pleasant Columbus Day Getaway

ROADSIDE Waterfall on the way to Tannersville

We took advantage of a beautiful stretch of weather and went back to the Bavarian Manor Inn in Purling, NY for Columbus Day weekend, slightly extended. Weather was gorgeous only this time we didn't hang out on the porch as much as we did in the past. Wanderlust hit and we roamed the junk shops and antique shops of the area as well as an Iroquois museum near Howe's Caverns.

Also went to Tannersville to have lunch at our favorite quirky restaurant called the Last Chance Cheese and Antiques Café. You really have to love a place with a name like that. They have the best iced tea and a great Bison Burger. That whole area had been hit hard by the overflowing rivers and rains caused by Hurricane Irene. The Inn food was great as usual. Funny thing was I got a little tired of the really good stuff day after day. I finally asked for a plain Cheeseburger and fries. I couldn't take any more snazzy food. The fresh air wiped out my poor wife. She slept late every morning. Between the naps and the antique jaunts she didn't get much needle point done which she usually loves to do while on vacation.

We had hoped to see the forests in a full array of fall colors but the timing was off. The leaves have started to turn and there was the occasional splash of red and yellow, but not what we were hoping for.

Between meals and the antique jaunts we caught a few shows of Law and Order and NCIS which were running marathons this past weekend. All in all a nice get away.

Grandkids Are Funny!!!!

The last time my Son and Daughter in law were visiting from the west coast, we baby-sat for them, Liam and Piper were quite a pair. Cars was a Disney movie I had never seen before; but, apparently the kids loved it, so we put it on the DVD player. I was surprised to see that one of the cars was named "The King" and it was modeled after a NASCAR driver I had followed in the past, Richard Petty.

I got a kick out of it so I bought the King version from Cars for my desk at work. But I took it a step further as well. I sent an email to Liam attaching a photo of the real Super Bird that Richard Petty drove.

Sean replied that Liam really liked it except that he kept asking where were the eyes?That struck me as pretty funny, I guess reality hasn't sunk in on him yet. Above are two photos one of the "King" and one of the real Super Bird actually driven by "King" Richard, my favorite NASCAR driver of all time.

What Seems like Crazy is an Ordinary FRIDAY

This was me around 2:30 PM today!

is a spin off the title of a blog run by a friend of my wife's. I'm stealing it and changing it from day to FRIDAY. I don't know what it is about this place; but I dread Fridays. It’s the end of the week and more often than not, all heck breaks loose.

There is an old adage about battle plans. Basically once the first shot is fired, the plan goes up in smoke and you have to start anew. Every morning I lay out what I want to do for the day. Often, the first phone call, completely rearranges my priorities. Today was that kind of day. It started off with another hair raising commute to the city because of the UN General assembly in session and creating havoc. So I get to work already hot, exhausted and sweating like crazy because I had to hoof it through 93% humidity for several blocks since traffic was detoured. I sat down, dried out and had to go to an owner's meeting at 9 AM, followed by an ISO audit prep meeting.

Walking out of that meeting, I am handed two messages; one that the FDNY is waiting downstairs to inspect the 24th floor and that there is an elevator entrapment. I toss the coin and give my assistant the FDNY and I take the elevator entrapment. So now I'm a prisoner trapped at my desk waiting for return phone calls about the entrapment, who were they, were they upset, how long was the entrapment? What was the cause, etc. etc.

Not much later, I feel pains in my stomach and realize that its past lunch time. How time flies when your having fun. :-) I sent out my admin to get me lunch cause I'm stuck on the phone. No matter how many times I've said it the last few days, people still don't listen. My building is in the zone that always gets shut down when the UN General Assembly is in session. In order to facilitate use of the loading dock (cause the authorities are always shutting down our street,) deliveries must be cleared at a check point down the block. Once approved they can come to the dock. I finally got a call from one furniture delivery guy that he was there. "See", I told him, "It's not so bad when you listen!!"

Now maybe I can get back to signing invoices to get vendors paid……………….. Except as I picked up my trusty Roadster fountain pen to sign away many dollars, I just got another call that somebody was smoking on a floor and the smoke drifted up to the floor above. I Called Security, now its their problem. Back to signing invoices. Finally just before quitting time, I got to spend a few minutes of sanity before going home talking to my friend Joe about the Redskins-Giants rivalry.

In between all this I was attempting to get a ton of paperwork done prepping for the audit.

What a day! Usually, I am not the kind of person who lets the door hit them in the butt at 5 PM, But today, well lets just say I think I broke the land speed record for launching from my desk chair to the bus stop way over on 5th Avenue. I was very happy to have gotten home and relaxing in my favorite rocker by 8:30 PM.

Memory Jogging...........

A couple of weeks ago while going through an old Junk box, I ran across a piece of jewelry I haven't seen for years. It was an old sterling silver Indian ring, I purchased at an Indian Pow-wow near here, had to be at least 22 years ago. It was once a beautiful ring with the sun over a valley on one side and on the obverse was the moon. The top has an eagle flanked by two pieces of onyx.

It was really dirty and the shank had somehow cracked. But I remembered having a good time then, the whole family went. The Pow-wow stood out because My wife objected, not til we got there of course, to the jackets Sean and I were wearing. We were Washington Redskins's fans you see, so it was fall and as second nature we wore our Redskin jackets. As we get out of the car walking to the Pow Wow, she mentions off hand how demeaning it would be to the Indians present.

Well if it was, we received no evil eye or sideways glances of which I was aware. Our cash was as good as anyone else's. We watched them perform dances, ate Buffalo Burgers with sweet potato fries, just generally had a good time. I saw the ring in a booth and immediately liked it so I purchased it on the spot. When the ring popped up from oblivion, I took it to the jewelers and had them repair and resize it. They polished it up real nice. I picked it up yesterday. Looks nice on the hand again, not just for the ring but for the memories as well.

Dejunking The House and Going Down Memory Lane

In our continuing effort to improve our home, we have spent the last few weekends cleaning out two junk rooms, formerly the kid's bedrooms. There is 30 years worth of debris in these rooms and the trash bags placed out on Monday seem to be a never ending stream.

Clearing up unwanted or unneeded debris does have its benefits, however. So far I've discovered 5 pens that I thought I'd lost. Its also a trip down memory lane. I've found so many things that I hadn't even realized I still owned. One item really brought home how much I've aged. I found a Confederate Flag money clip that I recall purchasing in 1961 when we were down in Virginia witnessing the re-enactment of the First Battle of Manassas kicking off the Civil War Centennial. Now 50 years later we are celebrating the Sesquicentennial. It feels Like it was yesterday when we were there.

But I have to steel myself to dump unnecessary things, sentimental or not. This weekend we'll probably concentrate on old cassette tapes and VCR tapes. I'm not even going to look at them in order to avoid second thoughts. The kids were put on notice so anything left behind by them will also end up in the trash.

Eventually, the plan is to turn one room into a sewing room for the wife and the other a study for me. It looks like Sean will finally get those Redskin football cards too..............