Because There is No Half Awesome

vs.

After a very long and busy week (my brain is still overloaded with work thoughts, plans and uncompleted tasks) my dad asked if I wanted to join him on a voyage to Long Beach Island, New Jersey. My folks are renovating their home there and wanted to check up on the construction. So after getting to sleep quite late on Friday, I hopped out of bed at 7:30 am and high tailed it down the Garden State Parkway, coffee in tow for one of the most beautiful winter beach days ever.

After we checked on the house, we went for a walk by the Barnegat Light Lighthouse. Amazingly it was open, so we were able to climb all 217 steps to the top. Not only was the sea air warm, but also I was able to see over the whole island toward Atlantic City. On the voyage down the stairs and toward the jetty, I started noticing that there was a bunch of people with rather large telescopes, wearing camouflage gear. In fact the telescopes where camouflage as well and at this point in the story I am refraining from making any large telescope jokes but I might add, this is very difficult.

My dad struck up a conversation with one couple asking about a wacky bird we spotted in the water. According to the camouflaged man, we had happened to see a Bufflehead Duck but apparently all the other camouflage folks where in town to spot a Harlequin Duck from Nova Scotia. The dude described the bird and told us where to spot it. So, without the matching gear and an overly large telescope, my dad and I were off down the jetty on a Harlequin hunt. Our hunt took us past many matching camouflage geared folks towards the end of the jetty, where we spotted several Harlequin Ducks and their pals. They were gorgeous birds and easy to spot without a gigantic telescope. Our mission was accomplished but I still think the Buffleheads where more fun to watch.

We walked down the rest of the beach and it was so warm, I went barefoot. In the off-season the beach is just about empty except in this case for the random Audubon society camouflage folk, Buffleheads and Harlequins. Walking on seashells and chilly sand is just about the most fabulous thing to do in January.

Apparently, during the month of January there is supposed to be the saddest day of the year. I think that who ever came up with that calculation probably needs to run out and buy themselves a camouflage telescope, hit the beach, and spot some Buffleheads or Harlequins.

“the most ironic thing ever was giving head to a priest on a cruise ship”

at least he has the meaning of ironic down instead of that rain on your wedding day BS…..

In case you don’t always read the comments…

can’t say Says:
December 24th, 2005 at 10:28 pm

That woman John was with…she was his wife. Actress Jodi Lyn O’Keefe.

They were secretly married last spring in the Caribbean. He doesn’t want the information public for fear that it will hurt his career among his fan base which is overwhelmingly female.

Page Six of the post sort of reported this a few weeks ago but John’s publicist denied it. She lied…they are married.

Amy Says:
January 17th, 2006 at 10:00 pm

Umm, you seem to know a lot about Mr. and Mrs. Cusack. Are you and ex? Is his package as big as his head? I know what they say about shoe sizes but really, what about head sizes?

Steve sold a painting, bought The Band box set, and now I am in love with a nice Jewish boy from Canada, Robbie Robertson (circa 1969-1978).

I need a button that says that.

In an email forward I received tonight it said “Every sixty seconds you spent upset, is a minute of happiness wasted.” (Insert puking sounds).

Why must we forward emails? If you don’t send me or those eight other fools that email about “true love” or good luck, nothing is going to happen to you folks. Be kind just delete those emails. They suck and they make me want to barf.

Thank you.

Here are ok reasons to want to barf-

My fortune from tonight’s dinner with my parents-

“When you are squeezed, what comes out is what is inside”

I couldn’t make this up even if I wanted to.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I leave you and 2005 with David Hasseloff biting a salmon . Those crazy Europeans ROCK!

Happy Holidays!

Every year Steve designs our holiday card and this year-thanks to my uncle Eli for scanning it-I am sharing it with you! We have been designing our cards for years because where else can a Jew and a Catholic find a card with a menorah and a X-mas tree as well as Smokey, Simone and Ashley?

I am purposefully not writing about the strike last week. I know everyone probably has a great story but for me, after missing work on Tuesday during my second week of a new job, I got a ride into Manhattan and slept on a pals couch on 21st Street. I haven’t been home or able to write a blog entry since then and my god have they been building up.

Lets start with the story of my new black coat.

On my first day of the new gig after wearing a snazzy first day outfit, I realized that all my second hand or shabby Old Navy winter coats would just not do for a job where many meeting at Lehman Brothers and Citigroup will be involved. Next door to the old gig, at A Better Chance (ABC), there was this great sample sale coat store. The kind where the coats change every week and they come off unmarked vans that pull up and pull out with suck great speed, you wonder if the coats were beamed there. I saw this one coat the week before that I loved but I wasn’t ready to make the fancy coat commitment. Well at lunch that first day I called a pal at ABC and told her I was finally ready and asked if she wouldn’t mind picking the coat up for me if it was still there. We had planned to meet up for a drink later so I was just going to pay her back and get the coat that night but she ended up having to cancel plans. She told me to stop by and just grab the coat from her cubicle (it was the last one left!).

I thought I could just run in, grab the coat and head out. I wasn’t treated very nicely by the President and VP for Operations my last week. Let’s just say my last day they were in the office and didn’t come to the good-bye party that they planned for me and then ate my cake afterwards. Jerks. Anyway I had no desire to say hello to anyone. As I was writing a thank you note on a pos-it to my pal for picking up the coat, my old supervisor marched down the aisle toward my old cubicle on the other side of the wall I was standing behind. I start hearing “now I am starting to panic”, then sighing and “oh Amy!” I was debating saying something at that point when she turned and it sounded like she was heading right toward me! I did what anyone in my situation would do. I ducked under the desk with my coat. Sure I was completely visible but luckily she didn’t pass by the desk I was able to bust out without being seen. I came home to an email about missing laminated bid sheets from an event in June.

Amy and her new black coat lived happily ever after.

Lately, like early this week on the Metro North coming back to NYC, I have found myself running into and then running from people I haven’t seen in years (like that really sweet boy from high school). Maybe this is literal, figurative or metaphorical and maybe all of the above…either way this is something I will not be able to do at my new job.

My first two days have been really great. I have been getting to know my staff and the background, present and future of the programs of our non-profit. Things have been calm as I am slowly absorbing all the details. I am not “hitting the ground running”. Which is a dumb phrase to begin with. Tomorrow I am off to a Nets game, something I have never before experienced (I am a baseball lady).

As a manager and someone responsible for a whole Development Department (all 3 of us), there is no running and hiding here. I am facing this new gig even though the tasks at hand seem so large and impossible right now, I want to run screaming. I am saying goodbye to those old habits. And the next time I run into that high school boy on the Metro North, I will stop him and say hello. I just hope he doesn’t remember that whole Goth phase I went through in 10th grade.