My entire family is insane.

December 23, 2020 – Share and share alike.

If you want to lose a finger or possibly a hand, just try and reach across my plate and help yourself to one of my french fries. I don’t care if you’re my best girlfriend, my husband, my mother or the pope, if you want some french fries, you’d better order your own damn fries and keep your paws off of mine. Can you tell I don’t like to share? What do you expect? I grew up with 8 siblings. Every meal was like a feeding frenzy. Picture a goldfish getting dropped into a tank full of piranhas. It was each ‘man’ for ‘himself’. And there were no appetizers or side dishes to speak of. Leftovers? Ha! Leftovers were unheard of! If ‘spaghetti’ was dinner, you got pasta with meat sauce. There was no side salad (with your choice of dressing) or garlic bread to supplement the meal. You got your entrée and that was that! Was I still hungry once I ‘cleaned my plate’? You’d better believe I was still hungry! Even after guzzling down a tall glass of cold, whole milk.

December 22, 2020 – Redemption comes in many forms.

When I was eight years old, a new man entered my life. He came with the title of ‘stepdad’. I’ve shared a bit about our relationship in past posts, primarily in ‘One person can make all of the difference, Parts I and II’. His name was ‘Larry’ and he died at the age of 79, after succumbing to cancer. I’ve thought a great deal about what I’ve written thus far and how I’ve only shared half the story, to be completely honest. I only told you about the ‘Larry’ I knew up until I became an adult and left home, the one that threw adult temper tantrums when things didn’t go his way and then wouldn’t speak for days. The one that lectured me for the slightest infractions and made me feel so small and insignificant that I came to believe that I was essentially worthless. The one that was never satisfied, no matter how hard I tried to please him. But there’s another ‘Larry’ I want to talk about. He’s the guy that showed up after I left home. He’s who I would like to discuss today.

December 21, 2020 – Doppelganger

Has anyone ever confused you with somebody else? Let me explain. That was a tad vague. Has someone ever looked at you (that was not experiencing psychosis or hallucinations) and was so convinced that you were someone else, that they were willing to bet money on it? When you think about it, with a world that has 7.8 billion people, it’s not surprising at all. That’s a whole lot of humans! And how many variations of people can there possibly be? Most of us come equipped with eyes and a nose and lips and arms and legs and feet and hands and a whole bunch of different parts. In addition to that, you have to factor in the variations in eye color and skin color and hair color as well as height and body type. All things considered, it’s pretty easy to distinguish one human from another. But if you do the math, some people are just going to end up looking alike. It’s a matter of numbers and it’s inevitable.

December 20, 2020 – The mystery of J. Denaro.

Have you ever come across a piece of art with an unknown signature? I am sure you have. You can walk into practically any thrift store and there are usually countless paintings available for purchase, signed by countless ‘unknowns’. When my oldest sister passed away over three decades ago, she had in her possession nearly two dozen beautiful illustrations by an artist that signed his/her name ‘J. Denaro’. Several years ago, my mom asked if I wanted any of them and I selected two that I was particularly drawn to. I had every intention of framing them and hanging them up in my own art studio but have yet to get around to it. In recent months, I acquired the remaining pieces. And there are a lot! Definitely many more than I remember. “This is some incredible work!” I thought to myself. “How did these pieces end up with my sister? Did this ‘J. Denaro’ know her somehow back in the day, through work or school or some other means?”

December 19, 2020 – Anything to save a buck.

I’m exhausted. Saving money takes hard work and today I had my work cut out for me. As promised, I put my grocery list together last night before I went to bed and I also went online and scheduled my grocery pickup(s). Sounds simple enough. But I think I can make anything complicated and I sure made getting my groceries a rather complicated affair today. If it were a matter of just going to two stores, pulling into the parking lot, popping the trunk, and waiting for a store associate to load the groceries into the trunk, it’d be a piece of cake. But when I shop, it’s never that simple. Ever.

December 18, 2020 – Getting Things Done

Today began as it usually does. I got out of bed, used the ‘facilities’, washed my face, brushed my teeth, combed my hair, threw on a robe, and headed downstairs. Breakfast was the first item on the agenda. After I prepared it and placed it on the kitchen table, I took a seat and began to eat. It is while I’m eating breakfast that my brain starts to shift out of neutral and into first gear. It’s the time when the house is relatively quiet and I can begin to think about all of the things I need to accomplish during the remainder of the day. Inevitably, dinner is one of the first things that comes to mind because if I wait until it’s dinnertime, it is usually too late to have anything prepared. Anything I might have on the menu generally involves some type of meat, and if I haven’t pulled it out of the freezer by early afternoon, I have to think of a Plan B. Plan B is take-out 90% of the time. And I’m trying to save money and eat better, so fortunately I had the wherewithal to pull some corned beef out of the freezer and have it defrosted in time for supper.

December 17, 2020 – Why don’t they like me?

When I awoke this morning, I immediately started to think about one of my neighbors. Instead of how I wanted to spend my day or what to cook for breakfast or if I needed to run to the store for last minute Christmas shopping, my thoughts immediately honed in on the crusty guy who lives on the adjoining property. Think that’s a bit strange? I do, too. Why would I think about that guy? He’s really the last person on earth that I’d like to spend any time thinking about. Who is he, anyway? He’s a guy that shares a fence with us. What’s his name? No idea. Why am I wasting precious brain cells thinking about him first thing in the morning? He doesn’t like me. How do I know this? Every single time I walk my dog past his home and he’s standing outside, he stares at me and scowls. That’s his response if I walk by and wave or walk by and say ‘hello’ or walk by and smile. He looks at me with utter disgust. I just don’t understand it. What did I do? I must have done something to elicit that kind of response. People you don’t even know cannot simply dislike you for no reason whatsoever, can they?

December 16, 2020 – Things People Recommend

Need to get a solid night’s sleep for once? Would you like my recommendation? Two capsules of Melatonin, my friends. Two capsules and you’ll sleep like a spanked baby! Yes! I finally slept for a decent amount of time, 9 hours to be precise. It was w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l!! I’ve got a little more pep in my step and definitely feel much better emotionally than I did yesterday. Thank goodness! And speaking of recommendations, I’ve been thinking about all of the things people have ‘recommended’ to me over the years. It’s amazing how much information you can get just by asking. And before the internet was the place to research ‘how to do this’ and ‘how to do that’, the general sources to acquire that information were your family, friends, neighbors, clergy, shopkeepers, craftsmen or even from the glossy pages of a magazine. The funny thing about ‘recommendations’ is that sometimes they are fantastic! “Hey, Joe! Thanks for telling me about Dr. Such-n-Such. He’s been a lifesaver. We love him!” And then there are others, countless others, that don’t necessarily work out so well. I’ve had the opportunity to experience both. One had near disastrous results.

December 15, 2020 – Bah Humbug to Binge Eating

I am going to apologize in advance because on top of being sleep deprived, I’m feeling tense, agitated, frustrated and a little angry. And I don’t intend to take it out on you, but just in case I do unintentionally, I’m sorry. It’s nothing personal. It’s just something that happens to me every year. My entire emotional state shifts just prior to Thanksgiving and it stays in a pretty tender, raw place until the day after Christmas. After Christmas? I’m on top of the world! But leading up to it, I’m like a hungry dog guarding the few kibble left in its food dish. Get too close and I might growl! I actually thought I was doing fine but then I started to notice the ‘signs’. For me, that’s getting triggered by people, even when they’re not necessarily doing anything wrong. And when I start getting triggered, I just want to go home and stay home and shut out the world. But that’s tough to do when you are trying to get your Christmas shopping done on time. As much as I try to do online orders and curbside pickups, sometimes I have to actually enter a store and interact with other humans.

December 14, 2020 – Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails.

When my youngest son was in middle school, one of his teachers took him (and his fellow classmates) on a field trip to see a nearby exhibit of native species to the region. It had lizards and snakes and all kinds of ‘critters’ that could be found in that part of the world. When my son came home from school that day, he was beyond excited! He shared all about the experience and how interesting it was and then he made a request. “Can I have a snake?” he asked. Woah! That definitely came from left field! A snake? It was something none of the kids had ever asked for before. I’d had requests for puppies and kittens and bunnies and turtles, but a snake? Never! “Dad and I will think it over,” I responded. We then went about our day. And yes, I thought about it. Some of you are probably thinking I was just humoring him. There’s no way I’d ever welcome a living, breathing, slithering snake into my home, is there? Well, if you’ve ever had a child, at least for me, when they get excited about something and make a request, it’s hard to not at least entertain the notion. When you see their eyes light up and that big smile on their face, it’s tough to just say, “No!”