Thanks Thom for the 3WW words!

Summer seemed both too long and too short.  It was suddenly over with a drop or many drops of rain.  Four and a half inches so far.

She couldn’t focus.  Though her house had no mold–she had it checked constantly, and her eagle nose didn’t detect that horrid distinctive smell, her brain felt moldy.

She couldn’t focus so she attacked the kitchen.  She should have been happy when she looked at the almost bare counters, sink and scrubbed almost to perfection appliances.  But as she was finishing she could hear her father: “you missed a spot.  Do it over.”

Not fair she thought, not fair at all though she knew that if she had been young when diagnosed her father would have searched the world for answers.  He would have engulfed her in love; not pointed out all her weaknesses.  “So close to perfect. Try a bit more.”

I tried, I tried, she thought.

It was so much easier in her late teens, 20′s and 30′s.  First she drowned his words out. She claimed to have the longest adolescence in America. Though she worked and had an apartment somehow she managed to drag it out into sometime in her 40′s.

Somewhere in those years, she made herself indispensable to his life. Or she always had been and hadn’t noticed.  Members of her family were constantly in imminent danger.  It was her job to sort out the messes; to comfort them; to let them know that they saw too many mountains.  Her mother comforted her.  But then she became old, blind and frail.  It wasn’t fair.  No it wasn’t fair, but nobody says life’s supposed to be fair or easy.

She wondered what life would be like if she tampered with her memories?  Edited them just a bit so only the good ones stood out.  Or day dreamed a more perfect life?  That should be a book.  But she’s actually making progress on the one she began so long ago.  First she needed sun.  Copious amounts of sun.

My wisdom has grown damp like the rivers.

Incredible line by Doug Pascover I wish i wrote!  His poem was inspired by one by Langston Hughes

About five years ago or more, that is a century or two ago, in blogging years, I met Shayna, former blogger of My Music Highway, who is now  at Ordinary Miracle

Blogging was different then.  It was more fun, at least for me.  We were making it up as we went along.  No rules meant no structure that had to be followed. There were a large group of us, each different in style and subject, who commented and encouraged one another.  There were times it felt revolutionary.  Other times like college or first jobs right after.

I don’t remember exactly how I met Shayna but I remember she introduced me to worlds I hadn’t known before–soldiers who were actually in Iraq, for one.

What it was like to grow up musical in Nashville.  I always did love the worlds of the South.

You could call Shayna a mommy blogger as she had one baby son then and later had another. You can’t help but love Shayna’s boys.  Her son Will turned six the same day my niece turned sixteen, 9/19. and both have grown up a bit too fast.  Shayna involves you in her family but in the sweetest and most protective of ways.

But to call Shayna a mommy blogger would be to do a disservice to an incredible person who can’t be categorized.

She’s compassionate, bright, beautiful, a musical talent and a wonderful writer who puts you in the moment of her stories.

I had a blogging accident today and contacted Shayna and ended up with the template of my dreams.

Welcome to the new and way improved, Courting Destiny.

We thank you Shayna and hope you’re coming back to the blogging world but so understand if life keeps you too busy.

And we love you

There’s a “real” 3WW post beneath this

As always thanks Thom for the 3WW words

These words awaken something in me I would rather keep asleep right now.  I don’t usually read entries in 3WW before writing my own but I’ve always liked Linda Jacob’s poems and her submission this week brought back the sad season.  It’s OK; I can’t expect people to not talk about aging because it drives me crazy until 10/14 when magically it goes away.

≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠

The old man walks out of his house and screams at me.  “You’re walking in my grass.  I keep telling you to stop.  I’m trying to grow grass and you’re ruining everything.  You, you walk too much.  Everyday I come out and tell you to leave.”

I would laugh as I walk this route once a week at the most. I’m walking in the middle of the gutter, and three cars are parked in his so called grass but my gait is off.  I’m almost limping and very self-conscious.

My gait is usually good but I’m tired and no shoes seem to fit properly. I was going to nudge them into a cute pair that seems to be a size too small–funny they fit yesterday.  Oh how my body ripens over night.

This town is all about appearances. Somehow I have passed the appearance test.  Probably because I have the most expensive teeth in America and smile at every opportunity. (Not the best teeth but the priciest.)

Sometimes when I pass people I know I nudge my mouth into the largest and most stupid of smiles, stand there with one hand up, and feel like a traffic monitor or live billboard.  In New York I can get away with a half smile, but not here.  The smile must ripen to take over my face.

I try the smile at the old man and he stops yelling but stands there with a bewildered look on his face.  I look at him more closely.

Then I think the old man might in actuality be younger than me and once again everything’s right with the world.

––––––––––

Take back America.  Go to DC on 10/30 for Jon Stewart’s rally for sanity!!!!!  Just remember that Christine O’Donnell is a serious candidate, and that could get you there!!!!!

I took off that stupid “followers” thing because I would rather not be published then resort to such things.  I hope my writing speaks for itself.

I’m not the begging type.  So I’m leaving the “follow this blog” up for a week if I can stand it.  Please do if you like Courting

OK I can’t stand this.  I feel that I paid my blogging dues and paid and paid and paid!  I have always felt that personal blogs should come with an expiration date.  But when you have a product to push, you need to show that you’re part of a social network–like the two thousand blog posts, articles and even text books that mentioned Courting don’t count–in the frigging past

If you appreciate Courting because it might be a better written than the usual blog; because I don’t try to entertain you with cloying cute cleverness; because I only post when I have something to say; (OK that last one is a lie in the Christine O’Donnell school of truth);  because damn it! I’m a good person who spent too much time blogging about politics and blogging without asking for money, donations, whatever.  Because I don’t usually ask you to follow me on Facebook or Twitter, because___fill in the reason.

My future might depend on it!   Apparently it’s not about the writing but the number of followers.  And yes I hate that!!!!!

I wrote this post years ago.  Daniel Patrick Columbia picked it up, and I like the pictures so here….My sister claims I’m still a go to person about New York though I no longer live there and she’s a self-professed nit-picker so…. I will make this into a page and scan in my cover story in The Long Island Press Courting Destiny lives!  But the book comes first

Illustration: Bob Schulenberg. By Pia Savage I can’t remember when but my mom told me that Tiffany’s second floor was a secret passed on from mother to daughter. I believed her because I believed everything that my mother said. While her mother was a not-poor but not affluent immigrant she had incredible taste and always knew what to do, so she might have told my mother. Tiffany’s second floor was where you could pick up less expensive wedding and hostess gifts. They were always in good taste, and welcomed because of the blue Tiffany box. The gifts weren’t original, but I have a huge multi-faceted crystal paperweight that had been given to my parents, and they gave to me as I collect glass and crystal. I stopped going to Tiffany’s in the early ’80’s when many unique gift stores opened on Lexington Avenue that were funky and more to my taste. Then there was Alexander’s, oh how do I get from Tiffany’s to Alexander’s? Well the Manhattan Alexander’s – across 59th Street from Bloomingdale’s where the Bloomberg building is today. It was just a three block walk from Tiffany but a world apart. When my sister and I were young, every year the night before school began our family would drive to the Alexander’s in Rego Park. There would be a five mile back-up on both sides of the Long Island Expressway. I never understood this ritual, nor liked it, but our parents seemed to love it. Clothes were of great importance to my parents. So was the physical act of being in a store Alexander’s had everything: from school supplies to winter coats. I thought that everybody bought their clothes there. When we moved to “real” Long Island, as opposed to the edge of Northeast Queens, I quickly found out that my sister and I dressed all wrong. The girls in our new school had worn clothes from Best & Company in elementary school, and now, in Seventh Grade, wore Villager clothes and Papagallo shoes from The Miracle Mile in Manhasset. We begged and begged for our mom to buy us clothes from some store other than Alexander’s but she refused. Alexander’s in the 1950s. Lehman College Library, CUNY. I was allowed to buy my own clothes the next year so it wasn’t as much of an issue as I made it into, and my decades of black and purple began. My mother loved black but my father thought that it looked all wrong on a thirteen year old. There were rules then about age appropriate clothes. Fortunately they were beginning to be broken.He would moan about his daughter in perpetual mourning. I thought that was such a Catholic thing to say, and he was so culturally Jewish. Later, in the 1970’s when I moved to the East 60s just off Fifth, and my parents had seen much of the world she said, I found that there was no place like Alexander’s for pocketbooks, pantyhose, underwear, and even some clothes. It was worth the half hour wait on line. No matter how many salespeople there were, and how few customers, the wait was always half hour. I did form many friendships while waiting on line at Alexander’s. The lines were so slow; I could know a woman’s life story and she could know half of mine before even reaching the register. When I wasn’t in a good mood, and was crazed over the lines, I could scream like a crazy woman at the sales people and the assistant to the assistant manager. This was considered normative behavior at Alexander’s. At any one time half the line would be screaming: “What’s going on?” “That girl’s so stupid…” “I could be halfway to Europe by now…” “Do they only hire retarded people here?” “Why am I standing here with 20 pairs of pantyhose, 30 pieces of underpants, a pocketbook…” The voices would all be on top of each other. In a world before designer bags became the norm, Alexander’s had exceptional pocketbooks that looked like they cost a fortune, were unusual, and so great that rich women would stop me on the street and ask where I bought my bag. Other girls would lie, not me: “Uh, Alexander’s?” “That can’t be from Alexander’s. Look at the detail on the leather and the velvet. So intricate.” “Really. Alexander’s.” “But I want that pocketbook, and, well you know, Alexander’s…” “I know but it’s worth it.” “Oh dear, I’ll have to send Laverne.” (Or whoever the housekeeper was.) While I was in many ways a recovering hippie, I had a look that could fit in anywhere. <a href=’http://commerce.newyorksocialdiary.com/live/adclick.php?n=a7f60ccf’ target=’_blank’><img src=’http://commerce.newyorksocialdiary.com/live/adview.php?what=zone:12&amp;n=a7f60ccf’ border=’0′ alt=”></a> When I was 26, in 1977, Fred the Furrier at Alexander’s had been opened for a year. This was before PETA, and the animal rights movement. My then best friend Shelby had a raccoon coat from Fred’s. Because Shelby had bought a raccoon coat most of our other girlfriends bought one also. I wanted something more luxe, something signifying that I had arrived and was no longer a hippie — though at night I was a post- glam-rock-punk girl which did entail much black, lurex, and makeup. I had a watch made out of huge sterling safety pins, and wore it everywhere. One day my dad and I met at Fred’s so that he could buy me my birthday present. I was 26 and half way to 27. This was not only expected but accepted in our family that after 25 we would get much more lavish presents such as a trip to Europe, or in this case, a fur coat. I wanted Sable but would accept Mink. We began looking at coats. It took us less than two minutes to realize that neither of us knew anything about fur. “So, do you like that one?” (Any conversation with my parents involved many “so’s.” For a long time I thought that it was really a Yiddish word and the only one my parents would use in conversation with us.) “Yick, it’s too fluffy, and I don’t know, there’s something…let’s look at the minks.” We began looking at the minks. My father started asking the sales people questions. He had an amazing shtick that always worked: (this was pre PC days, too.) My dad did what he always did when he was confused: he would run to me or my mom. Since I was confused also, he went to the nearest pay phone and called my mom. “So she wants a mink…” “So is it full skin?” “Uh, what’s full skin…” “Wait right there. I’m coming in,” she told him. She was on Long Island. Of course we couldn’t wait there while she drove to the train station, took the next train, then a cab because it was a special occasion, and went up the slowest escalator in the world to Fred the Furriers at Alexander’s. Yes even the elevators and escalators were slow at Alexander’s. So we went to a restaurant next door in Bloomingdale’s to wait. My father had an unnatural love for department store food. He insisted that the food was better, fresher and that there were less calories.I was always meeting him for lunch in one department store or another. Orbach’s on 34th Street was his personal favorite. It was even less classy than Alexander’s, didn’t have as good stuff, but did have better lines. All the waitresses knew him by name: Actually a walk through many department stores with my dad was an incredible experience. Wherever we went, the sales people knew him by name and would rush from their customers to greet him. My dad was a successful CPA with an office at home, and one in the city. I could never figure out where he had the time to meet so many sales people, in every store from the old Barney’s to Bergdorf’s. “Well, Pia, in life you should always take the time to meet as many people as possible.” Then he would make a facial expression that was somewhere in between a grimace and a grin. “Look, most of them don’t make much money, and people treat them so rudely….” “Oh, Max, you just love the attention they give you.” I never called him “dad” or “daddy” in public, as he insisted that my sister and I call him Max. By the time we finished lunch at Bloomingdale’s, my mom was waiting for us at Fred’s. We spotted her deep in conversation with Fred himself! “So where did you eat lunch?” she asked  (translation: “I told you to wait for me here.”) My mom was nothing if not sweet and blunt. She held the patent on sweet and blunt; I have somewhat mastered it but could never be like Marian. Supposedly Jewish girls are taught about full skinned furs in the cradle. This was another part of my education that my mom had overlooked. She had been too busy teaching us values, and why people like my parents should be called “progressive,” and never “Communist” or the dreaded “Socialist.” My mom’s family had been Communists; my dad’s had been Socialists, which is why it was the dreaded word, though she did love most of my dad’s family. By now my dad was a neo-con while my mom was becoming progressively more progressive. I thought that the mink would be an easy sell as my mom’s had cost $10,000 and had been especially made for her at a furriers. Fred’s minks averaged around $2,500. She looked at me bluntly and said: “You can’t buy a mink coat.’ “Why not?” “You have to be 35. If you’re under 35 you have to be married with children.” “But I’ve been married. I never want to be married again.’ “Don’t say that.” We weren’t religious but knew every superstition. I could hear a silent Kinehora. (A Yiddish term like “knock on wood”) “Minks are classy. They always look good.” “You’re only 26. People will think the wrong things if you wear one.” “What things?” “You know, things.” “Ma, uh Marian, I live off Fifth. People already think the wrong things. Do you know how many doormen at the hotels ask if I’d like to earn some money?” She shot me a look filled with both disdain and pride. My mom was short and cute. I wasn’t tall, but everybody thought that I was. In the dressing room at Loehman’s she was always making people admire my breasts, waist and hips. I wanted her legs. She still wore mini skirts, and looked darn good in them. “So, you see?” I knew when to accept defeat. My always talkative father remained silent throughout this exchange. Fred kept on smiling. We fit his target market: successful parents; young daughter on her way up. He told me that a pretty girl like me would be back with my next husband within a few years to buy the most expensive Mink or even a Sable. I finally settled on a dyed Nutria with a huge Opossum collar. Nutria’s are swamp rats found in some Southern States and in South America. It was a beautiful coat. I wore it with everything for the next fifteen years. It looked especially good with straight legged jeans. Though I hated winter, I loved being able to throw the coat on over my jeans and sweater, put on some lipstick, sunglasses, and walk around looking all high cotton. People who didn’t know fur thought that it was a Mink. My Nutria was, of course, full skinned. When I moved out of Manhattan for awhile in 1991, I gave the coat to a neighborhood homeless woman. If it didn’t make her as happy as it made me, I hope it kept her warm. 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I have no right to be sad when I live at the beach, have some resources, and a life some people would look at with disdain–too self centered; and others with envy–self centered, beach, people to laugh with, a Manhattan Upper West Side apartment that if not mine is there for me when I want or need it.

Yet every year this time of year comes and kicks me in the tuchus with stunning strength and an alacrity I’m always shocked to feel.

I’m lonely; I miss my mommy, and my daddy too–though he will be gone 20 years this coming 3/31.  Actually I miss him more than ever–and never know what to call death though that’s what it is to me.  I can’t believe in passing to another life in another side but it sounds so inviting I would love to.  I can’t believe in the big sleep and one day the Messiah will come though I will always identify myself as Jewish for reasons I have discussed too frequently.

My Mom–well Courting readers know too well how she fell 33 days after 9/11, lived for fifteen minutes while she cried into her Companion button that didn’t save her, she wanted to live.

I’m not John Gunther.

I can’t think of expressions like Death be not proud.  hell I studied that book at least twice: once  in elementary school or junior high,  and then again high school, and really have no idea what the expression means. For death, something I was too familiar with at too young an age, has never lent itself to the grandeur in that statement.

I’m jealous.  Of all of you who have lost loved ones in the blogging/facebook era.  People, often strangers or semi-strangers, reach out to you with plaudits and condolences.  I’m jealous but don’t begrudge you it.  I love that mourning has become something people can do so openly and with so much companionship (tune “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” prepare to puke.)

I can’t help it.  I belong to the sardonic life school.  Because I’m so frigging nice which apparently is fashionable, I embrace irony to keep me from being the sucker I truly am—but I really don’t want to go there now.  I don’t miss having kids or having a partner but either or both would have made life so much easier during both my parents deaths

You’ll never know what it’s like to take the LIRR alone (train from Great Neck to Manhattan) after planning your mother’s services with your sister and brother in law, not knowing what to do, and literally running into a crazy woman in what was Gristede’s that year.  A large basement super market that never had people in it.  I would go when I couldn’t deal with Fairway, Zabar’s, or even Citerella.  Invariably it would change names every year.

It was famous for being in the Ansonia which is not only a famous apartment building, former home of Plato’s Retreat, now classy,pre-war, too ornate for my tastes but….and mostly famous in many circles for being the supermarket closest to the Ansonia Weight Watchers. The supermarket had all the right foods.

What do I do when I’m waiting for a funeral, and all my friends are mourning buildings?  Rhetorical question.  I become embittered and then try everything to lose the bitterness for I have always been called a “lady” when not being called other names.

Empathy flew out the city when my mother died.  I don’t fixate on that; I have forgiven and moved on.

But damn last night in a rare sleepless night I realized exactly why I reacted so badly to a house fire, in another person’s home, that awaited me when I arrived home this past Monday 9/13.

The smell.  It was the same once wonderful smell of smoke that wafted uptown into my apartment that week.

Obviously it’s something I will never forget. Scents are visceral; remembered long after memories are gone or the mind might be robbed of intellect.  I wouldn’t want to forget.  I only want to remember when I want to remember.  Tomorrow (Friday night through Saturday evening–Yom Kippur, the traditional day of mourning.)  I don’t believe in God, dislike organized religion yet view my Jewishness as a culture that has survived too many years of people trying to wipe it out.

I think I was a bitch when my mother died.  Demanding.  Scared,  Unhappy.  Trying to hang onto my youth though I was no longer young.  Yet doesn’t a person have a right to be all that once or twice in a lifetime?

OK many other times.  To be brutally honest menopause changed me into a much better person.

But I always gave 200% of myself and would have done anything for people that I loved and they knew that.  I was too accepting of faults; would put up with things until I could no longer stand to be around the person and then end the friendship.  Sometimes a friendship of many years.

I believed, and believe, in Karma.  I was just going to say something and realized how critical the statement was of me and couldn’t say it.  One thing I have learned in the past nine years is that it’s up to us to be kind to ourselves; that in this journey called life in educated America, we call the shots.  I, and I alone, am responsible for me and my happiness.  For you who have known me a half decade or a lifetime–that’s obviously much progress.

I try tricking the sad season into not coming each year, and each year I’m a bit more successful.  I’m already not looking forward to 9/11/11 for I can imagine what Christine O’Donnell will do with it–she’ll probably make it into a tragedy that happened to her and people who don’t believe in masturbation alone.

I believe when people talk about wanting to forget they want to forget the polarization and politicizing.  The event itself, it’s American history we all lived through.  I would no sooner forget it than I would my mother’s death (bad example, I mean her life) or President Kennedy’s assassination though I will always see it through the eyes of a thirteen year old who thought herself much smarter than she was.  Or maybe I was smart then and each year since have declined a bit–I waver on that.  I blamed the assassination on me.  It’s the first major event I remember taking responsibility for.  It was President Kennedy’s first trip that I hadn’t been following.  As I was involved in Unpopular Girl Eighth Grade Things. Oh how I wallowed in unpopularity.  Wore it like a badge….Who knew that I would grow into an eighteen year old people (boys) would love to be with?

My mother did.  She never lost faith.  And my father thought I was the smartest kid who just had to try a bit harder–in every area of life. He thought me beautiful and managed to make me feel proud, embarrassed and sad all at once.  For my beauty was always marred by my talking with my hands or being sloppy.  Or something truly minor in the larger scheme of life but to him it was the world.  So I have no perspective.

When I turned 25 we did have that rapprochement that allowed me to become the person he told his problems to.   Though really those days began when I was 20.  Things happened that made my father lose faith in life for a short while and my mother asked me to come home and be with him.  I did because by coincidence I had been to a rally that put down middle aged white professional men.  And I thought, “but I’m demonstrating against my father,” and I couldn’t be radical anymore though I could be anti-war and wanted equality for women etc.

Oh daddy, how you would have loved Mad Men. Peyton Place for another century.  Actually they refer to Peyton Place. It’s almost too clever yet just right.  Reminds me of the time we were visiting one of the Bob’s in London.  They were two years behind and we gave plot summaries.  That night was the first time you didn’t let me meet Mick Jagger   I do understand now, of course.

The character’s are like your friend/clients.  The ones mommy disdained but entertained.  Served them chopped liver and they kvelled over what they called pate.  She smiled sweetly.  Nobody knew how cutting she could be.  How she could force me to re-examine my like or dislike of people, my ethics, my beliefs with just a few words chosen wisely

She wasn’t one to endure foolishness but some of these people actually paid daddy in a good year.  Sometimes big time; sometimes–well I have an original oil painting and the romance book cover it graced.  Sometimes daddy would insist the pot in his big time poker game go to whoever was starving or destitute  or sick.  How could you not love a man like that?  A man of valor and  great compassion.  I miss his friendship as I miss hers.  I was so blessed.  Honestly few people ever have that opportunity.

My cousins Gena and Tina did.  This past Saturday celebrating the life of their father was a wonderful experience.  I do get a warm and fuzzy feeling when I think about it but know how hard it is for them to lose such a wonderful father.  Our mothers, sisters in so many ways besides biological, did pick great men.  Though their father won the sanity award hands down!  And yes he knew how to make them feel good about themselves without lecturing on what they were doing wrong.  (Please understand I forgave my father years before he apologized to me unbidden about two months before he died., suddenly of a stroke so it wasn’t a death bed apology.  Or maybe it was.  But the important part is that I had understood he couldn’t help himself and appreciated him for himself for a long long time.)

This post, meandering and woeful as it is, is dedicated to the memory of my Uncle Jack who read everything I wrote that was published or I blogged.  It’s a bit harder to write knowing he won’t be reading. Though I should feel less censored, I don’t come from a family where people had to censor themselves and I thank ya’ll for that.

Someday I will have the sad season down to a science.  Probably in another 20 years though I always next year! Or whatever is remaining of this season–less than a month to go!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••Oh right, New York was never the same after 9/11.  More beautiful than ever with incredible parks and the High Line–I have to download pictures–it’s the priciest most artificial place and I love it when I don’t hate it.  But I blame Karl Rove for everything.  So the shit I should eat–agreeing with him about O’Donnell is unbearable.  Vote Democrat in November even if your candidate is Alvin Greene.

My brother in law’s father died at the end of June.  Between Irving and Jack I have no older men left, in my life,  and feel so strange

This post is raw and needs much editing.  Yet I want it out as it epitomizes blogging as I knew it in the beginning.  And makes me feel like Yes I Really Am A Blogger!

I  am so exhausted from a ten day trip to New York–which I love but god I have to get to Europe   It’s a bit tiring.  This always going to NY thing.  It really is rinse, spit, repeat–even if you love that it gets tiring.  Especially when the beginning of the trip is waiting for the hurricane that never happened and the ending, well, the ending was in a class by itself.

First, I’m obsessive and have a tendency to imagine the worst but thought that was in the past; that I worked through the reasons I did that.   I wasn’t crazed about my house on this trip but did call Eldon twice.  As always he was watching the house.  I’ve never called him before from a trip.  I called three times including once from the airport on the way home because I just had a feeling….

When I came home we were driving down my street.  I saw a few blocks blocked off with fire trucks and police cars.   It looked like the house on fire was in my court.  I managed to get to a close street that was blocked off, and a safety agent was directing traffic away to Main Street.

I gave her my address and asked if it were my house.  She said: “I don’t know.  it might be.”

Frigging bitch.  I freaked as we drove down Main Street.  I finally was able to get out and walk to my court–thank god for suitcases with wheels.

The fire was in the court just above mine.  A very nice elderly couple was coming home from the beach to find out that their house was “gone” in the interior.

I’m exhausted,  beyond happy that it wasn’t my house, guilty that I feel that way, and a little angry that the safety officer didn’t call on her cell to find out what house it was.  I spoke to the fire and police in charge and they defended her saying that she had just been called in.  But isn’t it their responsibility to make sure that people coming home know if it’s their home that’s been lost to fire or not?

I found out why I love Facebook.  I wasn’t up to communicating directly with people.  Facebook gave me a place to vent, to be comforted, to explain why I wasn’t contacting some people directly though I had promised to call when I arrived home.

This was my worst nightmare–coming home from vacation to a burnt house.  Fortunately it was somebody else’s home, unfortunately for them.  And I will bring this up to city officials.  Damn, just saw the Mayor’s husband and didn’t even think…..