Just in case you thought Florida had all the larger-than-life characters. This area does okay for itself: Lakewood is just a few minutes up the road from here. The nicer neighborhood.

I start off by saying it troubles me to no end that my brother is calling my beautiful niece Ellexa the name "Manzo". The name only has two associations: 1. the late monsignor of our Brooklyn parish or 2. the world's leading Dumpster company....BazzukaJoe, neither of these choices equal a rational thought.
So now let me weigh in on the Connecticut Malaise: if anyone is having trouble picturing it, I want you to close your eyes and hear Senator Joe Lieberman's voice...this is the morbid sound of a lifelong resident. John is right, we were able to envision that Connecticut woman's entire day, although I also felt that while her husband is away she sometimes takes out a secretly stashed pack of cigarettes and smokes alone in the backyard...after all Mr. Perfect Husband would never approve of that. I also believe that just prior to her evening valium binge, she reviewed her credit card statement and discovered that her daughter, who is currently a freshman at UMass., is averaging about $200 a week in bar tabs....that ungrateful spoiled brat.
So this morning I discovered that my parents cable company offers Karaoke as part of their premium package, so from the wee hours one could hear blasting throught the halls of Spumoni
Gardens my voice:
"Sharif dont like it....ROCK THE CASBAH, ROCK THE CASBAH!!!" and
"Oooh weeeee. Ooooo weee Baby, wont you let me take you on a sea cruise"
or the one that cracked Ree up (and woke her up)
"Life is a highway, Iwant to ride it all night long..."
By the way, right now I can not only smell the sauce but the aroma of roasting red peppers, BazzukaJoe you should invite over the execs from Estee Lauder for a new direction and possible fortune in the cologne business. Also Vin is blasting "You Dont Have To Be A Star" by Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis".....VH1 has no comprehension of what an actual "Surreal Life" is.

Hey, I realized after I made that last post: the Encyclopedia Mastandrea does not yet contain an entry for "Connecticut Malaise." I will take a stab at it here (but Steve may have additional commentary which he may add as follow-up).

We first identified the "Connecticut Malaise" in the year 2000, pretty much by accident, as we waited at the Stamford rail station so Steve and his pals could catch Amtrak back to Boston.

It was early in the morning (I'd woken everyone before daylight, using that reveille-playing alarm-clock from way-back-when). The train was to arrive soon, so people were driving up and popping their trunks to grab their luggage.

I had pulled up right next to the staircase to the platform so we were able to wait in the car, comfortably, with our music playing. Another car pulled up directly in front of us. That's when we saw her.

Groggy, and with nothing else to do, we watched.

"See that woman at her trunk?" I said, and we all did. "Does she look sad that her husband is making a trip? No. After the train takes him away she's going to sit alone in her big house, worried about her looks, comparing her finances to the people next door, wondering why she doesn't have fun anymore. She'll go to work tomorrow, but not because she has to make money. She never has anything interesting to talk about, but always wants to say something. Later today, she'll take some pills, sip some wine, and when the landscaper comes to clear the thatch in her backyard, she'll invite him in."

Everyone in the car observed her carefully. They saw it too.

"She's got the Connecticut Malaise."

I bet Simms saw that a lot at Harvard Law. Now he had a name for it.

Steve, what am I missing here?

Heard from Marlena yesterday and she and Jenia were just pulling up to their local farmers market. She described the people in their brand new and perfectly fitting exercise clothes. They were crisp. They were proud. They had bodies sculpted by personal trainers. Marlena narrated the scene and it struck me that she was experiencing the Florida equivalent of the Connecticut Malaise.

We should write our own DSM.

But then of course there's the rest of Florida... Here's a story of a Cape Coral woman who burned herself up in a bathtub full of gasoline. Who can afford to fill a bathtub with gasoline?

Mortimer is a great name. I have never met one but my dad had an attorney named Mort. And wasn't there a show on public access in brooklyn named "Ask Mort Horowitz?" Reminds me of Mortimer and Randolph.
How about Leonidus or i have guy at corporate named sashi.
i keep saying malapogi. but just inmy head over and over.
I am intriqued by the name Melvin and Stanley.
I do not know why.

I find it funny you call Alane Congoleum. I once called the baby Manzo.

I have been thinking about the music thing brought up Shteef.
I got my mind set on you by George Harrison-----driving to florida in the blue wagon. smelly ears.
oh what a night by franki valli--------joe vadala's party with Cousin Jimmy
young folks ---------moving last week

Just got back from the barbershop where Da Chimpz got nice buzz-cuts. They're a gouda luke. Nice place, that barbershop, with nice people. But it's just not the same as having Tommy in Bronxville give you the business.

I wonder how that guy is doing?

All morning, the name "Mortimer" has been in my head. Do we know a Mortimer?

Got all excited when I found this clip of the Toasters performing at a NJ venue in 1989 -- it was late in the summer of 1989 that I first caught the Toasters when I went with Gene and Tommy to a club near the Ocean City beach house they'd rented. Since then, Guido and I tried to catch them whenever we could, at places all over NYC. Often with the N.Y. Citizens and/or Bop Harvey.

It seems like so many years ago -- and it was. But I thought, "could this be a video of that first show I saw?" Not likely -- this place seems to be in or around Trenton, not the shore. So close, but no cigar.

Their music still kicks. Here's an even better video. And another of my favorite tunes.

Hey Frylock: was moving Bazzukajoe's stuff anything like emptying the Haynie Lane house back in 2004? Or was that just the space between the refrigerator and the wall? (Who knew a potato could grow real eyes!)

Does Broadway Joe perform his show live? Has a contestant's singing ever been so bad that it caused him to hurl? What's the Swedish word for hwolp? Yeah, it's disgusting. But is it any more disgusting than the kraut juice visual from the other day?

Hey, maybe she guzzled a can of kraut juice before the show. That and a few morsels of lute fiske and I think I too would be blowing chunks.

This other video made me think of Bazzukajoe's experience moving -- it's the kind of thing that would have happened to him if he'd decided to use heavy equipment. I especially like the guy running away. That would've been Little Vito.

This morning on the radio I heard a snippet of a song we all know and love:

I wanna put on...
My my my my my boogie shoes...

Yeah, that's a good idea.

I had a dream last night that I was going to fry some eggs, but when I took the egg carton out of the refrigerator, all the eggs were old and smashed. I tried to use them anyway. It didn't go well.

Finally got around to listening to some of those Infected Mushroom tracks I got last time I was in the office. Good stuff. Maybe gotta blast some while I work today.

Enough with the Walt Whitman. I always remember Joe Shtrimps quoting whitman and telling our american literature professor "What i think walt meant by blow bugle blow was that he likes music" She simply turned her head and went on to the next student. Convincing herself such utter ridiculousness had never occured.

How about Kenny Um , we called him flat face because he was. He cried a lot. I remember Steve Capone rubbing Kenny Ums face and singing smoooooth. How about Trans Am Paul, Gay J.J. or Jay Douche. They never seemed the least bit odd at the time but looking back now there was probably something not right with most people on Marisa Circle. The burdges? or how about the rabbit people? I never understood why we called them rabbit people? OR Clint Eastwood? Wow marisa was a strange place. Ask Uncle Vee he'll tell you all about Chima.

So i moved into a much bigger apartment this weekend. I took off from thursday and by sunday i still had shit in that apartment. Where did it all come from? Evey time we thought we were done there was osmething else. I thank all those that sweat and toiled to move my huge furniture. I wonder if someone captured on video the spectacle of us maneuvering this oak behemoth down the stairs and be oh so gentle and not scratching a wall or staining the carpet. There was actually quite a crew at my house and there was still room to move. I would like to thank all that lent a strong arm in moving my stuff. Ree that vacuumed and moved every small detail in every room and was always trying to figure out what the discussion was about downstairs, lack of productivity and no sense of urgency. I thank the Orlando Sev's for making the trip. As well as Steve and his hand cart. Patty and Heidi Ho made the trip as well with the new addition Angelina. All we were missing was the Caravella's, for some reason you can never having a moving party without them.

And the toilets in my new apartment are amazing. I a convinced that with teh proper motion i could possibly flush a small animal or a sweater down the toilet. And tpo my dismay and disgust i was not the first person to drop a deuce inmy new apt. I wasn't even the second. Bahhhh. Just wait. I WILL WAIT FOR THE RIGHT MOMENT TO AVENGE MY PRIDE.

So Jessica's mom came by tonight to help clean the old apartment. She was mopping away when we noticed she was wearing 2 different shoes. Very different. A Brown one and a Black one. If you know Diane you know this is a beautiful thing and this will be the what we make fun of for a long time. She actually went to her new job and had 2 meetings with the unmatched pair. Almost as funny as Steve putting Vin sneakers on the wrong feet.

As they say on the internets: WTF?

I spotted this on the shelves of the local Giant Beagle supermarket and there was really no way I could continue shopping without putting it into my cart. I cannot imagine ever opening the can, much less ingesting its contents. In any recipe. Or even in the tiniest of trace amounts.

Yes, the label does indeed say "Kraut Juice." And the ingredients section indicates pretty much one ingredient: cabbage juice.

Cabbage juice? I don't even want to know how to juice a cabbage -- I want to know who's the genius who decided to collect and keep the remnants of such activity. And then can and sell the stuff. Cabbage juice is wrong. It sounds like something a Chekhov character would step in while sneaking down the hallway of an abysmal Russian tenement building, causing him to slip, then fall loudly down the poorly lit staircase, alerting the landlady and exposing him as the loutish adulterer he'd always been...

Hey Frylock, did Walt Whitman ever mention kraut juice in his poetry? He listed just about every-friggin'-thing else in his poems.

Now I feel more like I live in middle America, especially after watching Cookie and his little Cub Scout buddies do the flag-raising ceremony at school this morning.

Not exactly a Mount Suribachi moment, but not everything can be a Ken Burns documentary.

The head of the school's grounds crew came out to show them the right way to handle the flag. He got it hooked on, then ran it smartly up the flagpole. Some remembered to do the Cub Scout salute; of those, some even did it with the right hand.

Hey, they're learning!

Gonna be a hot one at Berea-Rose today -- should get close to 90 degrees, not unwelcome given the cool spell we had late this summer. But I should try to water the grass -- it finally came back nice and lush after those big rains, but now with warm dry days it might revert to the brown crunchiness we had for most of July.

These days, I buy my macaroni eight pounds at a time. I went to BJs this evening to stock up: got a giant box of Barilla penne. Mega-block of juice-boxes for Da Chimpz. And a case of bottled water, because Berea's tap water tastes like sweat.

Frylock assures us all that he will post a detailed accounting of his weekend adventure of moving Bazzukajoe's worldly belongings into his the place. What I want to know is how many precious items were accidentally dropped and/or smashed. Because there are always casualties in an operation of this magnitude.

Goodbye, electric meatballs; hello gas-turbine meatballs!

Today, I blast-furnaced the meatballs in the new convection oven -- gave 'em a nice crunchy outer shell and hot steamy inside -- wow. Topside we had sausage and a couple cuts of osso buco -- I don't usually go over the top like that on the veal, but hey, new stove and everything...

Got a late start this Sunday thanks to the Cub Scout pack meeting that followed the 9 o'clock Mass. Went long, but lots of good stuff. An active-duty Army captain came to kick off the fund-raiser popcorn sale. Great presentation -- Mojo got to hold some of his gear as he delivered his demo.

All you people who think you live far enough away: forget it. You're buying popcorn.

I really had nothing of any great import to report. I was just making sure I hadnt locked myself out of the blog again. Today I coached my second volleyball match. We went down two straight games in a row and lost the practice game to boot. The girls actually managed to pass it and return a few serves so I think we are doing better. It's been an interesting experience so far and I am glad that I gave it a shot. Not having girls its kinda fun working with them.

Nothing else new here...

But Steve, some words are ridiculous even without a historical antecedent. Alane (informally known as "congoleum," this a prime example) and I were busy doing something recently, I don't recall what but it was fairly serious. And in the middle I just felt the need to say out loud:

"Garafolo."

Because it sounds so ridiculous. You should've seen the look on Congoleum's face: it confirmed the essence of Steve's theory as her eyes surveyed me for tics and other outward signs of dementia also consistent with the brain damage she once again strongly suspected.

The new stove kicks ass.

We just ate chicken roasted on the convection oven. Nice. And when Alane tied to cook the potatoes in the microwave I went berserk: "Get those out of there, we got a burner with a POWER BOIL setting!"

And power boil we did. To the potatoes, and then to the peas.

Plenty of leftovers. Leftovers are good. Even when no one's around, they make me say:

"Riscaldata."

Because it sounds so ridiculous.

John sometimes says that BazzukaJoe and I have a rare form of word association ADD...that any given word can transport us to a completely random story, or song or movie quote...that is somehow logical in our mind. A few minutes ago, I had a customer say to her friend "girl, you're my best friend" and it made me think of a late 80s New Kids On The Block song "Please Dont Go Girl", where the then baby-voiced Joey McIntyre sings to the heavens "Girrrrrrrrrrrl!...You're my best friend!".....which in turn made me think of when I was in the 7th Grade and that song was a big hit on the radio. During that time a new kid by the name of Chee Hyun Sung moved to Marisa Circle from Korea...he knew not a single word of English. Now being that Chee Hyun was the same age as me, Chris, and Joe Colorio, we had taken on the responsibility of teaching him English....or at least our distorted and disturbing version of it. We took great pride in making him an expert in every curse word ever devised (and a few new ones we made up), and absolutely nothing else. Despite being amazingly behaved, he was constantly getting in trouble at school for foul language....however hands down our greatest achievement was teaching him how to properly insert curse words into American pop songs for comic effect. So he frequently could be found walking the halls of school or home from the bus stop singing aloud to the tune of "Show Me" by the Cover Girls, "Show me dickie, show me you asshole....". So this brings me back to our original story line, whenever Chee Hyun would see me in school or on the street he would immediatally start singing to "Please Dont Go Girl" by New Kids "Steeeeeeve, you my best friend! Steve...You have hairy ass!" So there you go, prescribe me some aderol.

Does Frylock contradict himself?

Very well then, he contradicts himself.

Frylock is large.

He contains multitudes.

Of midgets.

I whiny-faced to Sfingi last night, that the blog hasn't seen any poetry in long while, so I elected to channel some Whitman this morning, I hope you enjoy.

As I ponder'd in silence,
Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering on our voyage,
A midget arose before me, with distrustful aspect,
Terrible in beauty, hygiene, and knowledge of seductive dance

Seated nearby
The genius of of old lands and consumer of scotch,
Being hand fed sweet morsels of exotic meats

With finger pointing to trapped mysteries of white and brown,
Scantily clad voice
Where ist thou digital camera? it said;
T'is not feminine linen, but stained refuse.
Horror.

But that is the theme of war,
the famed TV host feared not
and welcomed its presence
encouraged me to not flee the wicked scene.

2
Be it so, then I answer'd,
I too, haughty Shade, also sing war—and shall photograph myself with this midget.

3.
True horror, dear friends,
is the long painful wait for Georgi's pictures.

The new stove just arrived. My life already feels different. I may need to take the rest of the day off. There may be a "lost weekend" in my near future.

"Get the honey, junior!"

As some of you may know, throughout my academic years I took a total of twelve years of Italian language study and have always loved both its structure and its beauty. So for the first time on the Macaroni Dish I will be giving an actual lesson on reading and translating in the wonderful language of our ancestry. We're going to start by examining the name of an everyday item of your dinner table: Formaggio Pecorino Romano. Now as we all know, this is the cheese commonly grated and sprinkled atop your Sunday macaroni. Now by employing the laws of Italian grammar, we will dissect the individual words and truly understand it.
First word: Formaggio which translates simply to "cheese". This is our noun, which in coming first will be described by the words which follow it.
Second word: Pecorino. Now in Italian the suffix "ino" always implies small or tiny in size. So we have or second word meaning a small or tiny pecor'. Now our third word describes our second word.

Third word: Romano. This is simply translated as Roman, or originating from the city of Roma.

Now analyze the three individual words in conjunction: Formaggio Pecorino Romano is:

THE CHEESE OF A SMALL ROMAN PECKER.

Class is dismissed.

Yarrrr!

Tis now "Talk Like a Pirate Day. Don't ye forget it, me lads.

Still trying to picture Vito biking.

Finding it easier to picture Uncle Lenny hang-gliding.

Vito has a bicycle? Will he attempt to perform the fantastic stunts that his grandchildren regularly attempt? They were out there this evening -- across the street again, jumping that yellow plastic thing that has them so fascinated. I half-watched as I watered the flowers and then chatted with the mayoral candidate who was making the rounds -- she seems like a stand-up, honest citizen... She wants to be mayor of Berea? I'll vote for her.

This time, at least... You see, it got me to thinking... maybe I could run for mayor next election. Imagine Berea-Rose as the seat of power; picture the chaos city governance would be thrown into... The shattering of the status quo... The locals with pitchforks and torches... Think of the food we'd cook on that new stove (the stove gets related to pretty much everything these days).

What a slog that would be. I guess I'd have to go door to door asking for votes. Sheesh. Maybe Vito could fly in and distribute campaign literature as he speeds down the sidestreets on his tricked-out BMX! Frylock, I need some ideas for a campaign theme.

Eh, on second thought I got enough on my plate these days just staying atop the schedules of two Cub Scouts. The weather got a little warmer today than it has been, making it nice to be outside this evening. Until the mosquitoes arrived. I think I'm down a few pints of blood by now.

I do hope the blog will soon have bicycle photos.

This is the place Cookie goes to; he's still on the beginner tracks but fully intends to get to the big stuff sooner rather than later:

Vito has a bicycle.

I have a migraine.

Just wishing Joseph, aka "Airport Guy" a happy birthday while he is teaching in Jefferson City, MO. . . .He has evolved another year.

I have all but lost the battle for the thrift shop TVs. We go tomorrow for Vito to pick one up for the screen porch. I am sure all the little stray radios will follow us home like lost puppies, too.

As I set Old Glory in place outside the door of Berea-Rose this morning, I gazed into to the chilly sun-drenched sky and thought: what a great day.

But then again, every day in America is a great day that starts out with O.J. Simpson in jail.

As you can see, I am back from the dead to give this Blog a good enema. Indeed I will add to the stories of Vegas, as well as provide the details of Spumoni South including Vin-Man's new bionic legs.

Here they are: the last of the electric meatballs.

The POS electric stove that came with the otherwise luxurious Berea-Rose is scheduled to be replaced with an honest-to-goodness gas range later this week. That means next week's issue of meatball bounty will be prepared on some real equipment.

I can't wait. Placed the order yesterday at the local Home Despot, scheduled my delivery for Thursday. Which means Thursday night we dine like mobsters!

But I gotta give the old unit its due: it turned out week after week of damn-good meatballs and kept pace with the unreasonable demands we placed on it to celebrate several holidays in Mastandrea-food-proportions (especially last Thanksgiving, where we red-lined the old bitch to crank out a more-than-adequate turkey feast).

Still, I haven't been able to use my cast-iron pans to their full potential, and even something simple like making Turkish coffee or warming a pita is unnecessarily challenging.

So maybe I'll keep a few meatballs aside from this week's series as a collector's item. WWVS? He'd say "Someday it'll be worth money." Maybe he'll lend me one of his baseball trophy mounts! Anyone have a pen that'll write an autograph on a meatball?

Mooligas is one of the most excellent and under-used words in the Italo-Brooklyno lexicon -- I healf-expected to hear it in a Sopranos Chrissy-Paulie dialogue, but the series ended without my noticing its inclusion.

It's anglo cousin, dingle-berry has to compound two words and waste a whole extra syllable to get its point across -- not very economical, and a great disadvantage to someone trying to tell his story in a room full of people who are all talking loudly trying to tell their story.

Alane and I especially enjoyed hearing Bazzukajoe's tale of wretched debauchery the other night -- we sat on the front steps of Berea-Rose with the cordless phone on speaker so we could both hear the grisly details. Both meaning Alane and myself, but probably also meaning us and the neighbors. Which would explain why people have been averting their gaze whenever we pass lately.

As we listened to the sordid tale, Da Chimpz were across the street riding their bikes with one of their little pals. The kids brought out what looked like a slide that had been detached from a playhouse -- a yellow plastic mold that they laid onto the sidewalk to use as a ramp. Cookie was beside himself with joy, racing his bike across that thing, trying to get air. The three of them were having a great time. Then the little geniuses got the idea that the ramp needed more incline. They (fortunately) had nothing to prop under its end, but that did not stop our fearless dare-devils -- Mojo decided he would hold the end while their friend came barreling down the sidewalk to make his jump.

Alane and I gritted our teeth as the slide, the bike, and the kids all collapsed into each other upon impact. We waited for screams of pain or tell-tale gushers of blood but sensing neither we turned our attention back to Bazzukajoe's narration of events that happened in Vegas and should have stayed in Vegas.

Well i make my return to the blog-o-sphere.
I was thinking could i really be considered the tallest of my siblings? Could i ever be considedred the tallest anything? Ah but Ellie's theory is correct. I am the tallest sibling. Will Ellexa be? Can anyone at Spumoni South be considered tall? How about this? Can you see the peanut's hand and feet flippies?

So i spoke to John today. I gave him a little something to ponder regarding our excursion to Las Vegas. From the moment we got there we knew there would be an endless string of things to discuss. It was 112 degrees the day we got there. It was 98 at night. It was hot, a dry heat. One day it was breezy but it was a hot breeze. It was like opening the oven 10 minutes before the lasagna is done.

Well the bachelor party was really well done. Hats of to Broadway. Not that i ever doubted it, he has always known how to throw a party. Soooooo. We walk into this room and there is a 2 lane Bowling Alley. There is a bar and a pool table. There is a 120" Flat screen on the wall flanked by three 40" screens on each side. The music was insanely loud and there were trays of every chocolate you can imagine devil dogs-ho hos-ding dongs-yodels-twinkies-doughnuts-brownies and dirty cupcakes. There were blow up dolls and animals placed all around. We were served drinks and our dinner by a group of models joe hired. The night was made when the little lady showed up. The man of the hour got a full on lap dance from a midget stripper. And i will be honest----- at first it is intriguing and hard to look away. It was funny and i almost felt guilty laughing. Not too guilty. she took off her top and we cheered. She tried to be all sexy and hot but she had little arms and no hips. She kinda looked like she was trying to hula hoop. We are all watching and she takes her bottoms off. The entire audience got quiet. All in attendance were noticeably a little disturbed, as she looked like a little child grinding on my cousin. All but 2. Broadway and the Giorgione. Broadway was plotting how he would be next in the chair, we know not what hid behind the pensive penetrating stare from the Georgione through his spectacles. We assume it was both disturbing and interesting but i pushed the thought away. Maybe ill ask next time i see him. So the midge hops on my cousin and dances standing on his knees and as she turns to face us, ass in his face, he grabs her legs and parts her all the way to puck nuck gorge. At this time it became obvious that she had some kind of cliff hanger toilet paper scrap stuck all up in her creases. Mulligas, as they have come to be known. Well that was all this harsh crowd needed to see. And then----Broadway got his lap dance.

The funniest moment though came the next day at the rehearsal. Broadway's wife was dressed for the ceremony and wearing some bright red lipstick. Broadway went to kiss her and she said "stop doing that
your gonna suck all the lipstickoff" to which he responded "I know i know but im all horny from that midget" This was spoken as we were preparing to enter the chapel for the rehearsal.
I will try to make another installment tomorrow as there was so much in 4 days you wouldn't believe it.

My family is statistically odd.

"If you are the oldest child, having younger siblings will not affect your development significantly but if you are one of the younger ones, then you can expect to be shorter than your older siblings." link

I am the youngest and tallest of the siblings in my family. . .and my youngest daughter is the tallest as well.

How do you all stack up?

I can say: I was there. I was there on the day that American Airlines did the right thing. I busted my ass to get to LaGuardia yesterday, the weather being bad and the limo service running late and the traffic always being impossible on a weekday. I got through the moron-gauntlet strangely called "security" and got to my gate to see that my flight was still listed on the board as "on time."

But even as I read the words "on" and "time" I heard the PA announcement saying that the plane for our flight still hadn't arrived (hadn't even taken off from its prior departure), and the estimated delay had an opening bid of two hours.

Figures, I thought. I wired up my headphones and silently seethed.

But after about 15 minutes they made another announcement: they'd gotten another aircraft for our flight -- our 4:10 flight would board at about 4:20. We took off around 5:00 -- practically on time, by LGA standards.

I took Da Chimpz to school this morning, each with a black and white cookie tucked in his lunch (or at least I hope they're in their lunches -- otherwise it means Alane ate them before she left for work this morning).

Recently I decided to volunteer to coach a CYO fourth grade girl's volleyball team. I kept seeing this message in our bulletin about how a volleyball coach was still needed. I was afraid that if they didnt get a coach, the girls wouldnt be able to play. So I mentioned this to one of Cookie's friend's mom's one day. She called me after she had been to practice for her daughter and said a coach was still needed and that she had mentioned me to the person heading up the volleyball. So I figured I better put my money where my mouth was and called. I immediately got sucked in. I later learned that all the girls would have gotten to play, if I hadn't volunteered, but hardly for anytime due to CYO participation rules.

The most intriguing part about this is I was never a volleyball player. So I take on this team and I am frantically reading books to learn the proper skills and scoring and bizarre CYO participation rules. Luckily it is the first year the girls can play so we're all kinda learning together. Today was our first game and we lost the match in straight games, but it was much closer than I thought it would be and I was proud of the girls. However, I have already run into a jerk of an opposing coach. He purposily called a time out to break the concentration of one my team's servers that was on a tear. It stunk of bad sportmanship. So far the experience has been pretty good. I'm sure soon I will be getting complaints from parents-but I will just kindly say they had the chance to coach and didnt want to.

The boys are adjusting to school and seem to like it. Last week we did another bike adventure and this time we were joined by John. This was a shorter ride about six miles and we got to put our bikes on a train and ride the train to get dropped off. The boys are also doing gymnastics and seem to enjoy it. Mojo especially has taken to it and it is good to see him find something that he likes.

After getting some serious help from a stranger in loading the smoker out of the storage bin into the pickup, we celebrated Labor Day with Que. (We returned the Karma by helping a man at the Home Depot today.)

We smoked turkey legs, Italian sausage, a pork loin, hot dogs, eggplant, & poblano peppers and bbq beans. . .served with coleslaw, potato salad and macaroni salad. . .beer, wine and soda. . . The smoke ring was especially fine on the pork loin but I couldn't get Joe to photograph it for the blog. . .this one or the Table. We toasted you all and dug in with forks held high.

I am working on my computer based 'business'. . .since it's all volunteer, it's been put off until it absolutely has to be done this week. . .but Vito insisted we go shop this morning. . .and that put me hours behind. . .

I forgave him for dragging me away from the housework (never-ending) and my computer work when he said we needed to get a new cover for Joe's smoker and a new grill brush. . .so hopefully that will make Joe feel better about not having a place to store it.

Vito lives for shopping. 'Nuff said about that, but it is a wonder that I get anything done around here because he wants to run around a lot. We got the MLB channel on Bright House cable and that is keeping him home more and his $$ in his pocket. (I am pretty tight-fisted when it comes to needs vs wants and consumption --and yes, I am a tree-hugging, organic food growing/eating, recycling kind of gal.)

I also bought pillows since my eyes are swollen and my head stopped up. . .they say that new pillows help with morning allergies. . .spent 40 bucks and got the hypo-allergenic ones. . .giving up my feather and down is hard to do, but breathing comes first as an essential thing. . .ha ha ha. . .getting further and further away from the Ozark farm girl that moved here.

Tonight I am going to go play Mexican Train Dominoes for the first time in my life. I had never even heard of the game before moving here. . .but if I can't garden (the grounds crew sprayed my organic herb garden with weed killer and bug spray). . .I will turn my attention to playing games with the neighborhood girls. Susan is sending me a Mah Jongg game from Japan for my birthday and I will learn to play that, too, but I draw the line at golf. I think. I found a bocce ball set that I might pick up next month. . .but the courts aren't finished, so there is no hurry.

Still counting the days until the pool opens late in 2008. Will I still be able to walk then without the water therapy I enjoy (don't let my PT hear me say I love it.)

Twister is my spine, not a game. Sounds like fun, though, and I cheer your audacity on from the sidelines. I also am delighted to find others who like the Chemical Bros. . .their videos are too cool although the Salmon Dance reminded me of the fish tanks I had to leave behind along with my other critters.