I must be freakin’ old or something. Today I met with a financial adviser, my second one so far. I am trying to be a responsible adult by investing my money wisely for my future. 

 My divorce settlement seemed adequate until I actually signed the papers and then my heart started beating too fast. I started waking up with a feeling of dread, that I would end up penniless in my old age.  I began to think I was foolish for not fighting harder for more of our marital assets. But I’m not really much of a fighter that way. Oh, I can fight if I have to, like for my kids, or my friends, but for me, not so much.

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( The ex’s girlfriend does NOT look like this. I refer to her (affectionately) as Fiona. )

 The new guy I met with today sounded young on the phone but I was not prepared for the reality.  

Calculating the numbers!

  He was young. Baby young. So young that I felt like I should ask him if he’d had a good breakfast. He was so young I was ready to ask him if his daddy was home. WTF? I was considering letting this whelp advise me on how to care for my future? What does he know of future? He probably only shaves every other week!

  He asked a few questions and told me he had already met my ex and “He sure is a nice guy!” (We live in a very small town.) That did it. I am definitely NOT putting my money in the hands of someone so stupid as to say such a thing to a soon-to-be divorcée ! The last thing we want to hear is that our ex is “such a nice man”. NO. He. Is. Not.    He’s a lot of things, but “nice” is not really one of them.

  I think I have two options: ask to speak with his superior and tell him the truth, that I am not comfortable with the ‘Child” or simply walk away and go to the first financial adviser I met with even though I wasn’t completely enamoured of him either. I am not totally ignorant of money matters so I can oversee my funds adequately either way.

  Meanwhile, anyone have any suggestions on how I can make a little money become a LOT of money? Hmmm?

Let’s see, since last I blogged much has happened. D. and I have spent all but a few days together, either at his place or mine. Last week he came down here and after spending some quality time on the mower proceeded to get violently sick and spent most of the next 48 hours in bed and/or near a toilet puking. My daughter had it two days before that and missed her first day of work in three years it was so bad!

I thought I’d managed to miss this one but the day after D. left I was sitting on my best friend’s porch enjoying a nice glass of Bogle zinfandel when all of a sudden I didn’t feel so good. I pleaded sick and left just in time! By the time I drove the few miles home I was sweating bullets and barely made it to the bathroom before I lost my stomach. The next few hours were horrendous. I didn’t know which end to turn which way! Luckily, as awful as it was, it didn’t last long and less than 24 hours later I was headed to Rochester.

 This weekend was our first anniversary of our first meeting. We celebrated quietly, just spending lots of quality time together, cuddling and making sweet love, drinking some good wines, eating some good food, chatting with friends, and enjoying the summer.

 On Saturday night we attended the Barbecue & Blues Concert and for only $3 saw some unbelievably great Blues bands and sat under the stars on a blanket rockin’ with a host of other blues lovers for several hours, just enjoying the music and the night and a cold beer. Perfect.

 On Monday we went to Letchworth State Park near Rochester and OMG, was it beautiful! Three waterfalls, views over the river ravines that made you want to cry they were so amazing, and the peaceful trails that took us all through the park which was enhanced by the stonework done by the CCC during the Great Depression.

Back to reality here when I returned to my home in PA today. The financial part of my divorce is final so I spent the better part of the afternoon arranging my finances, insurance, changing accounts into my name, etc. 

Later  I got to spend some time with my sweet grandson Cole. We rode the tractor out to the south field where we picked handfuls of ripe wild raspberries and he shoveled them into his mouth like a ravenous little monkey! I roasted a chicken with herbs and garlic, baked a couple of potatoes, steamed some broccoli and my daughter, Cole , and I had a good dinner together.It felt great just quietly enjoying my family.

Daniel remains in Rochester to get some work done there. We tend to focus so much on each other and neglect some much-needed chores at our homes when we are together so this will be time well spent even if it’s lonely. Hopefully we’ll be able to see each other in a week or so.

Please forgive me for having neglected you all. I missed reading about all your adventures this past week but I needed the time away from my computer. I’m sure you all know what I mean! I will be catching up a little at a time and responding to your (brilliant) posts as soon as possible.

Love to all of you!

I’m headed to Rochester tomorrow to see my honey. It’s been over ten days since I’ve seen him and I need my Bear! The three and a half hour drive is so easy now. I know where the State Police lurk, where the best rest stops are and if I get a craving for a milkshake I know the exit that I need to get me one!

It’s funny. He used to make fun of me for saying how much I missed him but I know he misses me, too. He always gets a little hyper, doing things he knows I’ll appreciate, right before I come up, like putting fresh sheets on the bed (we’re gonna make ‘em nasty again quick!), stocking the fridge with my favorite beer, Amstel Light, mowing the lawn so it looks good. Those sorts of things. He’ll have a bottle of Champagne chilled and he’ll have some strawberries or cherries and chocolates to go with it. He’ll have fresh candles in the living room and on the porch where we love to sit at night if the weather’s warm. He’ll get my favorite soaps out and put them in the shower where I can reach them. He’ll hang a pretty pink towel and washcloth on the towel bar for me. He’ll even clean the toilets!!! What a man!!! Can you see why I love him?

I spent thirty years with a man I cared about but never did he make me feel so cherished as I do now with D. Thirty years of wishing for attention, a little time, a sign that I was the most important thing in his life. It never happened. He wasn’t capable of that. It makes me appreciate the wonderful relationship I have now even more. I will never live the way I did before, in a cold and dead marriage with someone for whom I have nothing in common. Life is too short and I am too old to live that way even one more day.

Damn! I can’t wait for tomorrow……..

 In which Trisha uses the word “ASS” too many times in one post!

 Yes, hate me if you must but at 54 and having worked my ass off since I am 15-years-old I feel entitled once in a while to just take a fucking day off! This week was rough. Today was MY day !

Oh, sure, I mowed 3 acres of grass, vacuumed the house , first and second floors, did a load of laundry, ran to the bank and the gas station, and started two batches of yeast dough for 1. Herbed Breadsticks and 2. Italian Sweet Bread.  I’ll have them in the oven before dark.  But Baby, that , to me, IS a day off!

I put on my shortest shorts and a tank top and grabbed the cushion for the chaise lounge , a bottle of Zinfandel Rose, my book and a pair of sunglasses and went out to laze in the sun for  a while. I like to get more tanned than D. It makes him crazy to try and be browner than me. Ha! I will win!!

  I live out in the country where I have no real neighbors. The closest one is 1/8 of a mile away and though our fields border one another we really can’t see each other without binoculars. I know this because occasionally I use my binoculars to see who’s riding the four-wheelers around the property line.

 I got cozy on my chaise, opened my book and decided to pull my straps down off my shoulders to avoid those nasty tan lines. Then I realized I could just take the danged top off. Who’s gonna see me? If the UPS man stops I will hear him before he comes scooting around the back of the house. It’s the country. We know one another, OK? He’ll come looking for me when he sees my car out front!

 I pulled my shorts up into my crack to expose as much flesh as possible. It IS a competition, after all, and I will win! I layed back on my chaise and my hand went to my belly. I hate my stomach….

I am very self-conscious  about my belly. Any woman who’s had four huge babies can say the same thing unless she’s an alien whose skin does not stretch because she doesn’t give birth to live young. I am flabby and loose in the belly and I HATE IT! It is my worst feature, no question, and I wish I could afford a tummy tuck. I do know someone who had one, however, and she said it was awful! She said she couldn’t straighten up for six months and her scar made her look like she had a happy face drawn on her abdomen! I still want one. And lipo to go with it!

 I’ve read where men say that a taut belly is one of their biggest turn-ons and a loose one is a huge turn-off.     Well, crap! I guess I’m screwed! (Metaphorically speaking!)

 My first son weighed 10 lbs. 2 oz. and I had just  turned  sixteen when I had him.  My second son was born three years later and weighed 8 lbs. 11 oz. Then came my oldest daughter at 9 lbs. 12 oz. and then the baby girl at 10 lbs. 14 oz.!!!! I am 5′ 2″ tall. Can you imagine? Sheesh!!! I gained very little weight with most of them, as little as 11 lbs. with the oldest girl! But I have BIG babies!!!

 So there you have it. I want to be fit and firm at 54 and I am very fit! I am just not so firm in some places and that bothers me. I know it shouldn’t, but it does.  I can hike the highest mountain in the Adirondacks or ride my bike for 24 miles at a time or go white-water rafting on the Kennebeck  River and none of that will make a difference in how I look. I am a short, muscular woman in her 50’s.

 I hope D. can live with that. I have no choice short of surgery. And that’s not an option for me.

  My old friend George Carlin died yesterday at the age of 71 of  heart failure.

I never met him but I feel as though I’ve lost a friend. This foul-mouthed, irascible, brilliant funny-man made me laugh for more years than I care to count. My favorite character was the Hippy-Dippy Weatherman on Saturday Night Live waaaaay back when.

 Keep ‘em laughing whereever you are, George. I hope to meet up with you someday.

Since I was too busy on Hot Hunk Thursday to post some beautious men for us I thought I’d give us something to smile about on a funky cloudy Monday.

I Googled “sexy men” , “hot hunks”, even “funny sexy men” and you know what image kept popping up? Are you ready? If you are holding hot coffee now, put it down. I wouldn’t want the shock to cause you to hurt yourself.

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(Sorry the image is f*cking not centered but looks like WordPress has taken away my “edit image” icon and I’m pissed!)

So, girls, whaddaya think?

He doesn’t do it for me!

So I decided to head for the gold and give you Monday’s real man-of-the-day:

Justin Chambers from Grey’s Anatomy!

Ooooooo, Baby!!  Have a great Monday. my friends!

I don’t want to go. I really don’t want to go!

 I am getting ready to go to a baby shower for a girl I hardly know because I am friends with her mother. To NOT go would be tantamount to a slap in the face to her. So I am putting on my cutesy little skirt and my (somewhat) demure blouse, wrapping a gift for the baby-to-come, and driving an hour and a half to New Jersey to watch the little Mommy open oodles of unnecessary gifts for hours on end, play childish games and eat crap food.  Fuck.

  Yesterday I worked at the Antiques Shop for the third day in a row for the owners who are good friends of mine. They had to go out of town so I cover for them when they need time off. It happened to be Roots and Rythm weekend in our little town so we were visited by mass quantities of tourists from mostly New Jersey, New York and surprisingly a fair number of Canadians!  I love the Canadians. They are usually polite and complimentary in the shop. The folks from New Jersey and New York….not so much. The are often demanding and say unpleasant or rude things as though I can’t hear them in that little 800 square-feet shop!

 I did well. I smiled. I wrapped items for shipping. I negotiated pricing in a pleasant manner. I never once broke down and said “Will you please take your nasty little undisciplined child and leave this store NOW!!” I thought it but I never said it. I am very proud of myself.

The day before I had five people in the shop who ran my ass ragged. “Can you do better on this price?”, “Can you take that down for me so I can see it better?”, Can you call the owners and ask if they’ll ship this to California?” while their 9-year-old son manhandled delicate Chinese fans and tried to open the pocket knife display. They pretended they had no child. I got the task of saying” I don’t think that’s a good idea to open that, OK?” so the brat didn’t cut himself forcing his litigious parents to sue the pants off my friends for his self-inflicted injury.

They finally left and they went across the street to the coffee shop. I saw them enjoying drinks at a table outside there.

 I started bringing in the stuff from outside getting ready to close up at five minutes to 5:00. As I was bringing in a large bench I saw them rushing across the street and here they came again! They pulled the same shit for another 20 minutes, buying a few small items. What the fuck?  I left forty minutes after closing time.  

 This happens all the time. It’s why I am no longer a retail store owner.

 Now I get to go to New Friggin’ Jersey.

Thanks for letting me vent. I am tired and I don’t want to go…

 Darn! I thought I was going to bed but I just found out that my darling son, over at Postulates and Pasttimes has tagged me for a meme.  It would seem that I must follow some rules for this one. You all know how much I just LOVE rules!

• Write a six-word memoir.
• Post it to your blog including a visual illustration if you would like.
• Link to the person who tagged you in your post and to this original postif possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogsphere .
• Tag 5 more blogs with links .
• Don’t forget to leave a comment in the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

This is harder than I thought and my poor brain is sooo tired.

Six words for all 54 years of this crazy life, huh?

“She refused to follow the recipe”.

There. I almost wrote “She failed to follow the recipe” but that would imply that I actually tried. I never wanted to. Teaching cooking classes all those years made me realize there are two kinds of people: the ones who follow ALL the rules. These are the people who dutifully measure ingredients and never, ever substitute! And then there are people for whom recipes are simply guideposts. We like to find a path slightly different from all the rest while still arriving at our destinations.

OK, and now I tag:

2lazydogs

anja

disismyplace

javaqueen

mentalfloss

Have fun, children!

I was hungry tonight. Not just in a  ”oh, that sounds good” kinda way. I’m  talkin’ an  ” I need FOOD” sorta way.

 I used to think I could easily become a vegetarian. I didn’t care if I had animal flesh or not. Oh, sure, I liked a burger as much as the next person but did I need it ? Nah… Soy burgers with lettuce, tomato, pickles, and mayo were so goooood!!!

  Then I started working weights at the gym. I loved that shit. I was doing 300 lbs. on the leg presses and bench pressing 150 lbs. ! I may be a girl but I could kick your ass!!! I would come home after an hour and a half of cardio and a full ab workout and oh, shit, did I need meat!! I tried Egg Beaters for a while and that was OK, but then I started defrosting fillet mignons and pork cutlets for lunch! I needed the protein!!!  I was doing three one-hour spinning classes a week after  working on arms or abs for the day!! Crazy! But I loved it! I was the local “gym rat”!

 Since then I am a complete and utter carnivore. I crave beef especially.  Burger, you say? Hell, yeah!

 Tonight I was really hungry and I recognized that kind of hunger from my gym days. I had been working outside all day , real physical work, from 8:30 a.m. till 6 p.m. and I was starved! I had leftover Chinese food from the other night so I warmed that up in the microwave. Kung Pao Chicken, leftover rice. I ate it all and was craving more! I found some ice cream in the freezer and there was a brownie leftover from the weekend so  I had a nice brownie a la mode for dessert.

 Now I want to puke. I found a picture that kinda says it all.

 I mean I really wish I could go stick a finger down my throat and regurg this mess I just ate!

 Do you ever get like this: so hungry  you eat  like a crazy person them feel guilty because you ate so much?

 I wish I could have a healthier relationship  with my body and food and my size. I am not fat. I have BEEN fat but I am not fat now.

 I don’t fit a “healthy” BMI  (Body Mass Index) because I seriously carry too much muscle and the BMI doesn’t take that into consideration. I do not fit the profile of ultra-thin model-like waifness. I never have and I know I never will and that’s just fine with me.  The same way I know when my clothes get tight I need to drop a few pounds NOW!

 Tonight I  just feel bloated from all the food I ate. I don’t like that feeling. Do you feel tempted to “get rid of it” when you overindulge?  I won’t purge. I just understand the people who may feel the need to do so now.

 Yuck. I don’t like this feeling of over-fullness! I’m going to go to bed and hope that  when I wake up           I’ll feel normal!

                                                                                                                                                                           I just crack up at the things my grandson Cole says. He talks up a storm but you have to pay attention because as a 2-year-old he has a few “peach inspediments”!

 When he was a tiny baby I would take him out on the porch at my house and we’d watch the big semi trucks go by hauling bottled water from the water company next door. He loved those big trucks. Every time we’d hear one coming I’d say “Here comes a BIG truck !”  He’d get so excited.

Then last month when a storm blew down a huge branch onto my driveway Cole came over with his mom and he was amazed at the “big stick !”  Nana had lying in front of her garage. I called it a big stick because he likes to pick up the sticks that fall down around the tree line in his yard and throw them over the fence. I don’t think he knows the word “branch” so I used “stick” to help him define the thing.

 A few days ago my daughter came over with Cole while D. was here and she said ” Have you heard Cole’s new words ?” I shook my head and she said ” Cole, say “big truck !” and he said “big fuck !” Then she said “Cole, say big stick !” and he said “big dick !”

 She is so sorry she did that. Everytime we see her now D. points to me and says “Big Truck !” and I point to him and say “Big Stick !”

Then we grin.

  She hates that.