In my apartment, allegedly...

Well, actually, more like buffalo meat.
Chico made some buffalo burgers and made them in the grill pan on the stove and smoked up the whole freakin' apartment.

We opened the windows and turned on the fans - but to no avail.

Now we both smell like MEAT - grreeeeaaaaattttt.....

On a lighter note - today was the first day of the rest of my life - or at least at this new job at Roswell. hehe

It will be a LOT of learning and a LOT of politicking (my first vibes), but I hope it will work out. I'm a science geek by nature (and training) so I want to do what I can to make their research side work well and be profitable for the institute.

Also, it means I need to dress up a bit more than I'm used to - shopping spree!!
It could be fantastically fun except I haven't had a paycheck in a month, so....mix and match is the name of the game, baby! Hopefully no one will notice I'm wearing the same dress shirts and shoes week after week... ha ha!

Also, many happy returns of the day to all the birthday peeps! I know chico and I haven't been around that long yet, but we wish yuz the very best!!

Cheers!

Ok, so I just spent the last half of my afternoon trying to figure out what the HELL I'm supposed to do with this COBRA coverage issue.
And let me tell you - NO one makes it easy...

I worked in NJ and had NJPLUS, which is essentially BlueCrossBlueShield. Now I'm in WNY, where NJPLUS has no doctors. AH! you say, there are doctors in WNY that are in BCBS though. YES! You are right!

However, BCBS of WNY told me that I had to have a "guest membership" in order to choose a physician here. Otherwise if I use a doctor here and I don't have a guest membership, it's considered "out of network."

NJ told me three, count 'em, THREE different stories.
1. It's all out of network once I move out of the state.
2. The NJPLUS plan automatically converts to Empire PPO (which is not even the same type of plan - NJPLUS is an HMO)
3. NJPLUS is still the plan, but it will be administered through Empire Direct HMO, so I should choose a doctor from their HMO list. This one seems to make the most sense, but when I called Empire, they were like, "We won't cover that - you have to call WNY BCBS"

So I spent 2 hours on and off the phone and I still have empty COBRA paperwork that HAS to be filled out or I get NOTHING (like the Seinfeld Soup Nazi but for health insurance).

You know, I would just say "fuck it" and not do any of it, but there's that "you never know" thing in the back of my head, plus I don't want to have a break in my coverage lest it cause an "issue" with preexisting condition nonsense for my new insurance...aaaarrrrggh!!!

I can't even tell you guys how INSANE this is. Though you can guess. All for 2 months of coverage before the bennies kick in at Roswell.

So tomorrow I'm calling NJ Division of Benefits to find out about the COBRA stuff, hopefully once and for all.

On a happier note, here's a photo of me and my niece (Camille, aka, "Munchkin") at her 1st birthday party (right before we moved).
She is the sweetest thing going...I miss her a lot!

So I'm sitting here in the living room of our new place playing on the computer while chico is (what are you doing?) - oh yes, collapsing boxes. My estimate is it's about 5 million boxes or so. And only 2.5 million left to unpack - hooray!!

A song just came on the TV/music channel - angel of the morning. You know this one - "just call me angel of the morning, angel..."

God, that reminds me of the 4th grade when we used to have roller skating parties. I had the hugest crush on some 6th grader with freckles and a guy in my own class - Gary Gentilucci (nice name, I know-talk about piasan). I just loved those parties because I could roller skate REAL good - backwards skate? No problemo!

To date, I have not tried roller blading, but I HAVE noticed that roller skating is kind of back in style!! YES! I gotta get me some wheels, baby!

So, if you wait around long enough and stuff comes back in style, does that mean in about 6 years those fluorescent "RELAX" and "WORLD PEACE" T shirts with big, fat hip belts are going to come back? I mean, geez, freakin' leg warmers are coming back - at least if you're a Victoria's Secret catalog model...ugh.

I better go dust off my Duran Duran tapes....

Hola estrippers!

I would like to formally report from the Sleep Inn in Amherst that chico and I have landed!!

After much nail biting (our stuff didn't fit on the truck in NJ [we wanted the bigger size and got the smaller one] so we were forced to get a second truck..), we arrived in town around midnight Monday.

Yesterday was "move all your crap into the new apartment" day. Me, chico and two friends of ours who were SO KIND to make the trip from NJ and Long Island to help us. (kudos, dudes)

We realized quickly that (1) our office desk will not fit up the stairway. OK, no prob. Picked up by a donation place - we could use a different desk anyway.

OK, but the bed - it's a queen, but doesn't have a split boxspring. In our old place, which was also an old house, we got the thing up over the balcony. In this place, no such luck....

Chico and JS tried to get it up the back stairs, and after (1) lodging it in the stairwell, (2) breaking a window trying to dislodge it, (3) making a HOLE in the wall trying to dislodge it the OTHER way and (4) sawing the f'ing thing in HALF to get it back out of the house, I SERIOUSLY needed a Valium and a moment of silence for the boxspring (jesus, the set cost a LOT of money and it's only 2 years old!). *sigh*

Always with the best laid plans - *raspberries*

the good news, tho, is that our neighbor in the house is real nice, landlord and his wife are super nice and the apartment is big and airy and light.

With apologies to Master Card...

Jettisoned Ikea desk set - $200
Sawed-in-half Fancy schmancy boxspring - $900
Meeting nice people in a new place - priceless

Lastly, I think I speak for me and chico when I say MANY THANKS! to the (e:peeps) for your advice and help about all things Buffalo.

Hope to post again soon, but it's almost time for check out!!
see ya around!

...you got time to clean!

And clean we did! Me, sistah and moms - sweating it out in the apartment. It turned out pretty great - though I think I'll have to buy a LOT more swiffers to cover all that floor space - woo hoo!

My mom got this industrial strength fan to blow around the apartment. And what's really funny is that it is REALLY strong - on low it's like an airplane...I mean look at what happened when we turned it on "medium"...



Almost blew me out the window!

By the way - we went to Romeo&Juliet's for lunch - YUM. My sister and I ate a quattro formaggio pizza with spinach and tomato and my mom had some panini with olive focaccia. It was yum-ified. Thanks for the great recommendations.

Here is another photo of me with the clock my father gave to me. It's circa 1920-30s - belonged to my great uncle. It's completely mechanical and I love it. It reminds me of my dad...



Here's a pic of my sister demonstrating how you can crap AND vomit at the same time in our little half-bathroom...


Thanks for that!

And thanks to mom and sister N. for travelling up and working hard and hanging out....
the crew, glistening with sweat, but satisfied with a half day's work:

You know it peeps!
Mom, sister and I are going to be skulking around tomorrow he he he. We're going to clean up our new apt (which is fantastically clean already, but you know, gotta put "the touch" on it and make everything smell like Simple Green..)

The drive was great - 6.25 hours with 2 stops. Probably averaged close to 70 mph - not (e:chico)'s record, but I still have time. ;-)

Our apt is HUGE. Methinks if anyone has some info about a place to get some bedroom furniture, area rugs and perhaps a nice LR chair (or 2), that would be fantastic. I'm not shopping on this trip, but it would be good info to have for when we "officially" move up next week!

Another Q for you (e:peeps) -
Where can we three go tomorrow for some lunch that would be sort of inexpensive but yummy? Doesn't have to be sit down - we were even thinking of a pizza joint if there's a good one around. We're around the park/cemetary area, so it's easy to jump on the 198 and get down to Elmwood or Delaware or wherever (I say that like I know where I'm going..HA!).

Come on (e:peeps) - gimme the food!

ps - chico is correct to say I'm 5 foot -- tho I'm the oldest sister, I am *sigh* the shortest. The 29-ish thing was pretty nice though...he he....

Well, this is my last week at work, the place where I have spent my time for the last 12 years.

I was just a green 23 year old, new graduate student and in the time I've been here, so much has happened to shape me as a person.

Dealing with my boss has never been easy, but somehow working with the people I work with has made the insanity bearable.

I love my lab not just because I'm surrounded with smart, funny people, but because we're such a mish-mash of people from different countries, races and backgrounds. The times we've spent together chatting at work, outside of work, over yummy food and drinks have been a total blast.

I've learned most of what I know about far away places not from going there (though I'd like to do that someday), but by listening to stories and philosophies of my labmates.

As a matter of fact, I kind of feel less like they're colleagues that I'm friendly with than friends I just happen to spend the day working with. =)

Sorry for the sap, but I'm really gonna miss these guys.

It's not often you find a group of people who really like you and are willing to put up with your shit (and vice versa). That rocks.

..you know you're gonna take it, but that doesn't make it any easier to swallow...

Well -
here's the update since yesterday.

Apparently, my sister made a bet with my mom that if she called my grandmother, my mom has to buy her drinks at the tiki bar down the shore.

How did I not get in on that??

I spoke with my sister - she said that the only reason she was going to call was for my dad bcz it would have made him happy.

• sigh*

How to argue with that?

And goddammit, I don't want to be the ONLY asshole who didn't call - so after talking with my sister (who said it wasn't all that bad talking to my grandmother) and thanking her a lot for calling grandma (F-you is actually what I said - we laughed really hard), I called.

It was a short chat - she was already in bed at 8:15 it seems. But it was pleasant enough - she thanked me for calling and told me to be good and to be nice.

So I did the deed - hopefully my dad is happy.
I know my mother is - she won't catch heat because we didn't call.

In the words of John Hyatt - "Thank God the tiki bar is open."

Methinks somebody done owes me some drinks......

Hey again -
Been a while since I blogged. Been busy with job and moving issues, shared, of course, with (e:chico). (xoxo)

The major reason i'm here today is because i need to vent/tell a story. Reading (e:ladycroft)'s journal about her grandmother's passing kind of prompted me to tell you guys about this: FAIR WARNING!! It's long - total vent-age posting....

Today is my paternal grandmother's 98th birthday.

Normally, a cause for celebration. Not so much for me.

Here is some of the story:

When I was a child, my paternal grandmother and grandfather (straight off the boat from Italy) took care of me because my parents both worked (we never had a lot of money - even in the 70's my mom and dad both worked and they did until my second sister was born).

When I was 10, my father, the dutiful son, took his elderly parents as his responsibility and moved us all into a 2 family house (duplex to you WNY'ers *wink*).

My grandfather was a tough guy, but he was gentle with us as kids - always in the garden or in the garage, working with his hands, or playing mandolin and singing. He died in 2001 at the ripe old age of 95. In many ways, I still miss him.

My grandmother is fatalistic, old fashioned (which isn't always a bad thing, but in her case...), guilt trip laying and sometimes, flat out mean. She lectured my mother for HOURS about what a horrible mother she was -she made my parents feel GUILTY for going on vacation and "leaving me here in this house by myself like a dog". Oh - good stuff, good stuff....

After 24 years of taking care of my grandparents and dealing with their BS (and I mean SERIOUS BS), in 2003, my grandmother and my aunt (father's sister) more or less gave my parents a Hobson's choice - sell the house and split with grandmother or buy out her half. My parents could never afford to buy her out, so they were forced to sell - I'm sure auntie knew this, btw. (g-ma went to live with auntie in her big cold house. How fitting.)

My parents move into a townhouse which, any of you who follow real estate in this area know, was WAY overpriced because of the market. So -there they are - age 57 and 63 with a >$150K mortgage and hardly any savings. Nice.
________________________________
In June 2005, one year to the day, my father was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

To make a very long story short(er), my dad had surgery to de-bulk the tumor and had some radiation, but the tumor was very aggressive. He died 3 days before Christmas 2005.

Dad's family's behavior throughout the trauma has been abhorrent. They are all control freaks, first of all, and they did not like the fact that my father and mother and my sisters and I made decisions "as a family". To this day, they blame US for "killing him" by "letting him" have the surgery. My grandmother leads the charge, by the way, fed by propaganda from my aunts.

During the time that my father was sick and dying, they abused my mother - called her to yell at her, tell her they disagreed with what she was doing, spit some shit about me and my sisters and then hang up. They would do this on a regular basis. No one from that side of the family brought my mother food or invited her over for lunch or dinner (save for my aunt once or twice). No one bothered to call to ask how SHE was doing.

Is THIS what they call support? Sticking together as a family? What family? Self-serving assholes, every last one of them. How DARE they call and harass a woman who is watching her husband of 36 years die before her very eyes?!

Of course, none of those bitches called ME. 'Cause I would have told them JUST what I thought. And they KNOW it. 'nuff said.

_______________________
So, now it's 6 months since my father died. I struggle with this every...single....day. I am still dealing with my grief and all of the life changes I have to adjust to. That I am not bowing down to the queens of Sheba after they treated us with SUCH repulsive behavior (of which I'm SURE I only know a fraction) should not be a suprise. I need to take care of myself, my mother and my sisters. THEY are my family.

I have not spoken to my grandmother or my aunt since the funeral. Why should I have to deal with their guilt trips and their holier than thou attitutdes when I have my OWN grieving process to muck through.

(though my mom still calls them even today - and still gets abused because "no one TALKED to us at the funeral" or because "you killed my son" or because "no one calls me - i used to take care of them when they were kids.") Seems to me that, with everything that has transpired with the house, with my mom, with my dad, I'd say I have no other cheek to turn to them for them to SMACK.

If I was unrelated to these people and met them on the street, knowing how they've treated my mom and my family, would I want to be associated with them?

Am I the only one whose family unit seems to get smaller and smaller as they get older? What is WRONG with people?

________________________
So my mom is trying to guilt me into calling my grandmother on her birthday and/or calling my aunt, "just to say hello". Last time I called her, she hung up on me pretending she didn't know who I was (she is NOT senile, btw). That was even before my dad was sick...


Call grandmother on her birthday -Hmmm.....let me think about it.....


Maybe not this year.



Here is a photo of my dad playing his clarinet. He taught himself to play by ear since his family never had money for lessons:


Play on, daddy-o....

Talk about "make like a tree and LEAF"....

So last night when I got home from work/gym, I pulled my chariot into the garage like I always do and on the way down the driveway to go inside, I found this GIANT maple leaf. I mean, we're talking bigger than my FACE here, people.

It was sitting on the ground, so randomly and I thought, "how cool!". So I picked it up and brought it inside to show chico. I made him close his eyes first, 'cause , you know, it IS a leaf, so I had to try to build the suspense a little. When he opened them, he was like, "Holy shit! It's bigger than your face!" (see? told ya.)

Here is a pic of Monsieur Maple Leaf...


The leaf is very green and very maple-y. It had a white fuzzy bug on it, which I thought was fuzz or a spider web or something, until it started walking. yikes! It also had a little red bug on it - those little red bugs you find crawling all over concrete (what the heck ARE those things?!). Also, there was some bird poop on it, but I think that gives it character, so I left it. =)

I can't tell you why I'm totally amazed by this little piece of nature in suburban NJ (or with the funny squirrels that skitter across our roof and hang out in the tree outside our bedroom eating nuts). With everything that has been going on lately in my life, maybe I am trying to find something enjoyable in the simplest things. Or maybe I'm just simply losing my mind - THIS (!) is a distinct possibility.

I work in a high pressure, high stress job with a high stress boss who controls and manipulates us through fear and demoralization. Whoop-dee-fuckin-do!!

Now you see why I picked up the leaf?