Rescue, that is.

As you all know, I’m just a bit involved in NYC Shiba Rescue. You may or may not know that my sister, Debbie, had the rescue bug long before I did. She fosters and transports for Above and Beyond English Setter Rescue and she is also a moderator for the online transport community, Drive for Life. If it weren’t for Debbie, I never would have survived my first foray into rescue - saving Kaos from Miami Dade Animal Services and bringing her home to the northeast.

Even Miss ~T~ (jaqi now for those of you not in the know) has done her part in the past by donating a few drawings to raise money for Animal Haven Shelter.

Well, this weekend, T went on her first rescue transport. In Florida. Who was driving? None other than her father, my ex-hubby. They picked up three Shibas from a surrendering owner and drove them over 150 miles north to meet the next driver in the transport.

Rescue. It’s a family affair. Let’s spread it around.

I gave someone a card years ago that said “You Are Not a Poopy-Head.” I think maybe I treated him like one sometimes though. Which sucks, cz I loved him.

I don’t have a lot of patience for people. Not like I do for dogs anyway.

Speaking of dogs and poop… I have a new foster dog and she pooped in my den last night. GGRRRR.

I’ll write about her when I get a chance to take a photo.

Snick and I Got to Meet Janet Yesterday

Janet is in NYC for the weekend and stopped by our Shiba Meetup yesterday for her Shiba fix. I didn’t know she was coming, so when she introduced herself I was like "oh, hi" and then "wait! oh, hi!" I’ve known Janet online for a few years now, so it was cool to meet her in person.

Even My Dog is a Fire Sign

I’ve always thought it was interesting that almost all the significant people in my life are fire signs (as am I). My parents and my daughter are all Sagittarius. All three of the men I’ve been "serious" about in my life are Aries. I’m a Leo. I just happened to realize that Snickers is a Sagittarius too! That’s a little weird, eh?

My sister lost her heart dog, Chase, last night. He was a good boy and will be sorely missed by everyone who knew him, but most of all by my sister. We’ve both had a lot of pets through the years, but Chase was the dog for my sister and even though she knew his time was short, she wasn’t ready for him to leave just yet.

He and Miss T were pups together. (Well, he was a puppy - she was a baby - but you know what I mean.)

April 1994

December 2006

Therefore, I must promote her newest online presence. She’s moving beyond MySpace and Facebook and she’s BLOGGING. Of course, if you’re over, oh, I dunno, 16, you may not find it very interesting, but I’m promoting it anyway!

For those of you who don’t know, She’s actually a pro at this online stuff already. When she was four or five, a friend of mine helped us start a website (on her own domain name, with custom graphics, etc.) which included ratings and reviews of child-friendly attractions around the city. She had me shut that down in 2001 cz she’d outgrown it. Then around 2004 or so, she blogged for awhile on a subsite of my site.

And, now, we give you… Jaqi’s World.

I ran across these two photos completely randomly last night. This was the first time I had seen them within a short enough time frame to realize the similarity. I put them side by side and couldn’t believe it. I guess the more things change, the more they really DO stay the same!!!

A friend of mine just sent me this photo, taken before Miss ~T~ and Secret went to live with T’s Dad.

Today is the 19th anniversary of the day I met The Divine Miss ~T~’s father.

He and I have been through a lot in those 19 years (and have both grown up a LOT), including 12 years of marriage, a wonderful daughter, a lot of laughter and tears, some badly hurt feelings, a relatively friendly divorce, and learning to co-parent as divorced parents. We’re lucky enough to be able to say we are friends. There were certainly times that we couldn’t say that and a couple times we didn’t know if we ever would again, but when you’re willing to admit you still care for each other and you’re willing to forgive (and we’ve both had to do our share of that), there is a lot of value to be had in a long term friendship built on a shared history.

We don’t celebrate the day we got married any more (or the day we got divorced), but I’m happy to say we still celebrate the day we met and the difference it made in both our lives.

Happy Anniversary M.

So… I’ve had a couple people email and IM me asking about Secret in the past few days and it made me realize just how little I blog lately. An aside to Janet in NC, owned by Teddy: I didn’t respond to your IMs because I was offline and didn’t receive them until several hours after you left them.

The Divine Miss ~T~ has gone to live with her father for a year and she took little Seeky with her. They spent the summer with my folks, as usual, and then went “home” to T’s dad’s place instead of coming home. It’s been a weird transition, since the longest T & I had ever been apart before this was a little over 4 weeks. The worst part of the transition was for poor Snick though. He MOURNED. He’s used to T going away for the summer, but this time all her stuff and her furniture went with her. He mourned her and Seeky for a few weeks. He kept looking for them and crying. It was really awful, but he finally adjusted to our new routine. T came home to visit, sans Secret, for Labor Day weekend and he was SO happy to see her.

So, anyway, that’s the reason I haven’t written about Secret for awhile. The good news is, that my concerns about her adjusting to being an only dog were unfounded. She seems to have really taken to it and a playful side of her personality has emerged. She’s also apparently taken QUITE a liking to T’s father.

And now you know… the rest of the story.

I ran across this tonight when I was looking for something else. This is one of my very most FAVORITE pictures of Miss ~T~.

Help Snick and me Make a Difference

On May 6, 2007, we are participating in The American Cancer Society’s Dogswalk Against Cancer. As participants in this event we can help make a difference in the lives of our friends, families, co-workers, neighbors, and of course… dogs!

Funds raised support the lifesaving work of the American Cancer Society and ten percent of the net proceeds will go to the Donaldson-Atwood Cancer Clinic of the Animal Medical Center.

Snickers and I are dedicating our walk to two individuals - one human and one canine:

1. to my daughter’s second cousin Gina, who is currently undergoing chemotherapy for cancer of the jaw, and,
2. to Snickers’ canine buddy Tyra who is currently undergoing chemo for lymphoma.

Please join us in our contribution to eradicating human and animal cancers by making a donation. Simply click here to sponsor us!

Thanks!

Go T! Go T! It’s your birthday! It’s your birthday!

For anyone who doesn’t know already… this is a big one. Miss ~T~ is a TEENAGER today!

Miss ~T~ and I went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for the first time last month. A friend that lives in Brooklyn invited us out to visit the Garden and have dinner w/her in Park Slope. We almost never venture into the boros unless we’re headed to the airport, but we make exceptions for friends. Boy, were we glad we did! Everything was just gorgeous, dinner was delicious and the company was wonderful.

I uploaded my favorites of all the photos ~T~ took. Click the pretty picture to visit the gallery.

Thanks for the great day in Brooklyn Pam. We owe you one!

I have a lot to be thankful for, but this is not a long, sappy post listing all those things. This is just to say that I really love my friends and I’m so happy to finally be living in the version of New York City that I was headed for when I left the South and moved up here in the 80s. (Yes, the 80s. I am that old.) I didn’t find it then, although I found a lot of great clubs, fun times <grin>, one life-long friend and my first ex-husband (not that there’s been a second one yet, but…).

Anyway, my point was that I love that New York City is the biggest small town on earth. I have made a lot of good friends here and a number of them are within walking distance of my apartment. Yesterday afternoon, I received a last minute dinner invitation for myself, Miss ~T~, Snickers and Secret to all go over to a friend’s place for homemade chicken stew. YUM! Today, we spent the afternoon and evening with friends (old and new) eating a traditional t(of)urkey dinner with all the trimmings and then singing karaoke for a few hours. And, the funnest part? There were FOUR Shiba Inus at this gathering. hee hee!

Anyway, it’s great here. I love it. And I love my friends. Thanks guys!

subtitled Bye Bye (for now) to Benedict and Kaos

Benedict and Kaos have a 3pm flight out of LGA to Miami. TODAY. They’re getting out of here before it gets cold again!!! I’m so happy for them. They were sleeping in various places (like ATM vestibules) that couple weeks when it was so cold. The cops mostly left him alone. (He’s a nice guy.) He can’t go in any of the shelters with Kaos. He’d been getting some day work here and there too, but only when he had someone to leave Kaos with. (It’s hard to go to work when you have no home to leave your dog in!) He’s been talking about trying to get to Florida (he has family there) before the cold set in, but (1) he didn’t have his ID and (2) traveling with the dog is next to impossible - it makes hitchhiking way harder; Amtrak won’t take dogs; Greyhound doesn’t take dogs - dogs can fly but only when it’s above 45 degrees, plus flying is expensive. We’d talked about trying to find a place to keep Kaos while Benedict hitched down to Florida (besides being cheaper, he hates to fly) and then fly her down to meet him, but he didn’t want to leave her behind.

Well, then, "How did this happen?" you may ask. Apparently, Benedict and Kaos have angels watching out for them. About two weeks ago, he and I were talking and he asked me if I knew Bettina. "Bettina, with the little Chihuahua? Sure, I know her." (All us dog-folk know each other, after all.) He proceeded to tell me that Bettina had offered to buy him a plane ticket as soon as he had his ID in order, which he had just accomplished. Wow! I ran into Bettina a few days later and told her what he’d said. That night, she bought him a ticket and arranged for Pet Chauffeur to pick the two of them up at 11:30 this morning. Then, another neighborhood friend, Mary, who I’ve blogged about before, donated Rafter’s kennel for Kaos to fly in. Benedict took Kaos back to the vet to get her health certificate and Bettina picked up the kennel from Mary. This morning, Benedict and Kaos met up with Bettina, got the kennel and the e-ticket info, and hopped into the pet taxi to LGA!

He promised he’d call me after they get settled, to let me know they’re doing alright. I sure hope he does. I’m going to miss having them around the neighborhood, but I’m SO GLAD they’re headed somewhere warm now.

Last, but not least, Bettina took on a big expense (Benedict’s ticket, Kaos’s ticket, Pet Chauffeur, etc.), so if anyone wants to make a donation to help cover her costs, let me know.

I never get any work done when she’s home sick from school. Yesterday, ~T~ (who’s now known as "Miss ~T~" btw) stayed home from school with some sort of stomach thing. She was miserable all day, which meant I pretty much didn’t hear anything from her. Today is a different story. She’s on the mend and she’s IM’ing me CONSTANTLY. A certain blog friend is home from work today and IM’ing me also. My productivity is at an all time low at the moment. On the other hand, I had these gems to LOL at so far this morning:

[12:51] Miss ~T~: I’m so hungery
[12:51] me: so go eat
[12:51] me: hungry not hungery
[12:52] Miss ~T~: ~T~ is cooking
[12:53] Miss ~T~: Should I leave water in instead of pouring out??
[12:53] me: ?
[12:53] me: you should do it however you usually do it
[12:53] Miss ~T~: These are the questions that haunt me
[12:53] me: LOLOLOL

AND

[12:57] Miss ~T~: Seek is licking Snick again
[12:57] Miss ~T~: She stopped
[12:57] me: I love being able to see when there is someone on my blog. it is very cool.
[12:58] Miss ~T~: I see blog people
[12:58] Miss ~T~: Ahhhhh
[12:58] me: LOL
[12:59] Miss ~T~: He he
[12:59] me: when did you grow up and get so funny?

When your girlfriend gives you a compliment… she’s possibly biased (and may have ulterior motives).

When your straight male friend gives you a compliment… he almost certainly has an ulterior motive.

But… when your GAY MALE FRIEND gives you a compliment, you can bank on it.

Actual conversation, earlier today:

him: What wonderfully kinky outfit!
me: Why thank you!
him: It’s a shame that doesn’t turn me on.
me: Well, at least I know that’s no fault of mine.

Yes, I walked home with a little extra spring in my step today.

This is ridiculous. Black Jack, Missouri has a city ordinance that prohibits more than three people from living together in the same house if they are unrelated by blood, marriage or adoption. Wait… did I read that right? I did. WTF??? From Reuters:

Olivia Shelltrack and Fondray Loving and their children moved from Minnesota to Missouri earlier this year, buying a five-bedroom home in the tiny community outside St. Louis.

Shelltrack and Loving have lived together about 13 years and have two children together, along with a 15-year-old daughter of Shelltrack’s from a previous relationship.

Black Jack, a town of about 7,000 that prides itself on a city Web site for its "character and stability," refused to grant the couple and their children an occupancy permit for their home because they do not meet the definition of "family" as set forth by the city, the complaint alleges.

The full story is here and here.

Putting aside for the moment the complete obnoxiousness of legislating who can live together, I have a couple questions…

1. Don’t they meet the criteria anyway? The dad is related to two of the kids. The mom is related to three of the kids. All of the kids are related to each other. There’s no way you can pull three people out of the group and not have at least two of them be related to each other by blood.
2. If that isn’t enough, my next question is… why is this couple not considered to be related? I don’t know about elsewhere, but the family court in New York State considers you to be family if you are "related by blood, marriage, or child in common." They have two kids together! That makes them family.

It just makes me crazy that this family that has been together for THIRTEEN YEARS is being told they aren’t "family" when I’m sure there are plenty people in that town that fit their narrow definition of family but aren’t nearly as stable!!!

(PS Don’t miss out on the blog birthday party going on in the previous post. Everyone is invited!)

Uh, yeah. Six weeks. By myself.

After commenting over at Janet’s a few days ago that I’d fallen way behind on my blog reading lately, she wrote me back and just said “it’s called life :-)”

Well, she’s right.

Perusing my own blog tonight, I realized that I haven’t had much to say lately and when I have, it hasn’t been as interesting (to me at least) as posts of the past. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was doing some thinking. The result of that time spent thinking is that I have a couple projects going on in my life that are about (1) ME and (2) ME!

Seriously, this introspection was mostly prompted by a conversation with someone incredibly important to me. I found myself apologizing to him for not making time for him and it really hit home when I thought about what I was saying. Here was someone I truly love and when I had the opportunity to show him how important he was to me, I mostly took him for granted and pushed him away. So, I’ve realized that I spend WAY too much time working and doing things for other people and not enough time for myself and the people closest to me. I am changing that by undertaking a couple of self-improvement-type things for myself, resigning from a volunteer position, limiting the number of freelance projects that I work on consecutively, and making time and space in my life for my loved ones.

You would think blogging falls into the “for me” category and it MOSTLY does, because I started the blog for my own enjoyment and I mostly write for my own enjoyment. BUT sometimes I write because I feel like now that I have this great group of readers, I have to write or I’ll lose them. So, knowing that, and realizing that I need to spend less time at the computer if I’m going to actually obey my new rule to cut down on my work time, I’ve decided to become more of a weekend blogger. Maybe I should say “officially become” as I’ve sort of been weekends only for the past few weeks anyway. I think _saying_ that’s what I’m doing, and why, is important though.

So, that’s the scoop. I know those of you that have me in your feed readers will wander by when I post. I hope the rest of you will check by periodically and comment. I’ll still be reading and commenting on my favorite reads, but probably only once or twice a week. When I’m not in the blogosphere, I’ll be working on me, making room for the new, and spending time with the people I love. Because, you know, it’s called life.

…that she’s finally posting in her blog again.

Started this entry on January 1 and then forgot about it… It seemed fitting to complete and post it now. Now that I’m thinking of leaving.

I had New Years Day brunch with my friend Mary earlier today. Both of us spent time outside the city during the holidays. We have also both lived in other urban, and rural, areas, so our conversation turned a few times to the pros and cons of life in NYC and the things that make us consider leaving and then ultimately decide yet again to stay.

The day I returned to the city, I thought I was going to lose my mind. Traffic coming through New Jersey was awful (of course). Getting through the tunnel and into the neighborhood was fine, but then finding a place to park was horrendous (of course). I finally parked a block from home, got T and Snick and one load of luggage into the apartment, went downstairs and found a PARKING TICKET on the car! And not just ANY parking ticket, but a $115 parking ticket. <sigh> AND I had fed the meter and had the receipt and an ex-boyfriend’s police patch on the dash. I was so frustrated and upset that I didn’t think “oh, let me leave the car here now that it already has a ticket on it anyway,” and I moved it into a lot about a 1/2 block from the apartment. I finished unloading everything (including carrying Snick’s wire crate up to the 5th floor), dropped off laundry at the laundromat and then headed uptown to drop off the car. I was so fed up and so ready to leave the city forever. I dropped off the car (mercifully close to home) and started walking back. About 6 blocks into my walk, something clicked in my head. “I’m home. New York. I LOVE it here!” I was walking, dodging tourists, smelling pretzels and hotdogs and loving my town. THEN Snick’s friend Rafter called (via his owner of course) and said WOOF WOOF which translates to “meet me at the dog run in 20.”Life’s good.
I *HEART* NYSome interesting facts:

• New York City has had proponents of its independent statehood (and even nationhood) as far back as 1787. It has long been commonly recognized that the upstate state government at Albany is of a different world than ultra-urban NYC, which is about as devolved as a U.S. city can legally be (NYC itself contains multiple counties and collects its own income tax).
• New York City - officially named the City of New York - is the largest financial center in the world.
• The city is at the center of international finance, politics, entertainment, and culture.
• The city is home to all of the missions to the United Nations, which has its headquarters in New York City.
• New York City has an area of 309 square miles. Estimated in 2004 to have 8,168,388 residents, it is the heart of the New York Metropolitan Area, which is one of the largest urban conglomerations in the world with a population of over 22 million.
• The city includes large populations of immigrants from over 180 countries who help make it one of the most cosmopolitan places on earth.
• The city serves as an enormous engine for the global economy, and is home to more Fortune 500 companies than any other place in the United States.
• The city is estimated to have a Gross Metropolitan Product of nearly $500 billion.
• If it were a nation, the city would have the 17th highest gross domestic product in the world, far exceeding that of Switzerland ($377 billion) and nearly equaling that of Russia ($586 billion).

NYC facts courtesy of Wikipedia

T and I got back from Indy last night. I put her on a plane to England tonight to see her dad. I am SSOOOO tired. I have lots of really fun plans for the upcoming long weekend! Stuff like (1) clean the apartment, (2) figure out how I’m going to pay my holiday bills, and (3) catch up on client-related email and to-do items.

Tonight I’m going to take a page from Jack’s Shack and flashback to a few past posts.

• Recent favorite -> "Small Dog" 12/19/2005
• Favorite Title -> Like A Slug On Heroin 07/01/2005
• Favorite Title Runner Up -> Sort of Like Herding Cats 10/06/2005

otherwise titled not a good daughter

I forgot my mom’s birthday yesterday.

So, I’m off tomorrow (Wednesday) on a roadtrip with ~T~ and Snick to visit my sister and her two dogs in Indianapolis. My parents will be there from down south and I’m sure a merry time will be had by all. Of course, I’ll have both my laptop AND my Palm with me, but I will probably be too busy to blog. Before I go, I leave you with the following:

PS This apparently isn’t working right in IE, so if you’re using Bill Gates’ crap, I’m sorry, but I’m just too tired to figure out why you can’t see the inside of my card!

Do memories ever just wander through your consciousness unexpected?

Tonight my mind unexpectedly replayed a memory from February 2005. I went to Washington D.C. with my best friend. We visited a number of meaningful memorials, among them the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. We found the names of his 37 comrades that died on one day. They were grouped together. Some of those names represented close friends that he still misses very much. I respect his privacy too much to detail the moments that linger in my memory. I just wanted to say that the visit touched me and I’m glad I was there.

I realized something today… and btw, my ex-husband will say “I told you so,” if he reads this. He always complained that I wanted every little thing to be “perfect” and to be “my way.”

Uh, Mr. Ex, you don’t need to comment on this post, thank you.
Well, I really screwed something up because of my perfectionist (controlling) nature. There was this guy. (No, not the ex! Sheesh.) He proposed. I said no. He proposed THREE TIMES over the course of a couple years. I said no. He kept seeing me. I eventually broke up with him, because (1) I knew I was making him unhappy (which he confirmed the night we broke up) and (2) I was finally ready for some sort of exclusive commitment and he was shying away from it.

• First proposal? I wasn’t ready and my mini-me would have been freaked out. (That’s a good reason.)
• Second proposal? I thought he was KIDDING! (Turned out he wasn’t.)
• Third proposal? I was convinced he was only asking because I was sick. (The fact that he would be able to help take care of T if anything happened to me was one of his selling points.) I was afraid he didn’t know what he was getting himself into, so I said no.

The thing is… I LOVED the idea of being married to him. Love him very much, I do. Good lord what is wrong with me?

Not long before or after we broke up, I asked him what he was thinking when he proposed. His answer was so sweet. I thought I’d cry. He’d clearly thought about it a lot… turned out he wasn’t being rash at all.

So, today, walking home from work, I thought… he’s a grown man; he was probably pretty sure what he was doing/saying/asking. I said no, because I had some idea of the perfect conditions for a proposal. That was stupid. <sigh>

Note: Before anyone well-meaningly (that’s not a word, I know) says “call him and tell him how you feel,” he knows I was finally ready for more when we split up. We’ve had a few talks about “us” since we broke up. We’re still friends. Or at least we’re working on being friends again. (We were friends for years before we dated.) He’s dating. He seems happy with the situation. I think my only solution is to emotionally move on.

It won’t be released in the states till March, but Things As They Are: Photojournalism in Context Since 1955 can be pre-ordered on Amazon.com or depending on where you are… it came out in Europe a couple months back (for a big World Press Photo shindig) and it’s available on Amazon UK right now.

How do I know and why do I care? The author - Mary Panzer - is a friend of mine. I think Mary is wonderful and she’s so knowledgable about all manner of history, especially photojournalism. She was the curator of photographs at the Smithsonian for awhile and she’s also a professor at NYU. Oh, and her dog, Rafter, is one of Snick’s bestest friends!
Anyway, if you’re into history, photos, or photojournalism, check out this book. And let me know what you think. (Don’t worry; there will be a timely reminder in March for those of you in the US.)

Meanwhile, here’s a picture of Mary and Rafter.

I’m not blogging today, BUT… I just had to say Happy Birthday to my mini me.

I wonder what my grandmother (rest her soul) would think if she knew the only thing - well almost the only thing - that I cook in her Revereware is dog food for Snick the Dog.

My mini me is in Europe for the long weekend (with her dad) and she feels a LOT further away than when she just went uptown to spend time with him.

This isn’t QUITE the furthest we’ve ever been from each other though. According to Google Earth (which totally rocks, btw), she is 3,317.72 miles from home right now. The furthest apart we have ever been was 3,849.12 miles in March of 2000.

I am so sad for my sister right now that I don’t know how to express myself. Last night, her 18 year old cat, Phantom, passed away from old age and today her 4 year old rescued English Setter, Quincy, unexpectedly passed too!

Mad props to my friend Beth Benzaquin who created two nifty neato new logos for me… the one you see above this post and also the new one on my business site.

Beth and I have worked - and are currently working - on several web development projects together. She also happens to be the “mom” of Bean, one of Snick’s best buddies!

<start promo>PS If you’d like to hire her, or me, or both of us, drop me a line.</end promo>

This whole fake firefighter halloween rape thing has me going crazy. I usually tell my mini me about these sort of things, because I want her to be aware and be careful. With this one, I’m not sure how to approach it. I want her to be careful, but I’ve always told her she can trust the good guys. The white hats. The guys with badges. Her dad was a firefighter when she was born and a FDNY EMT for most of her life (until recently). We have close friends that are police officers. I’ve always felt comfortable telling her she can trust those guys. But now I have to worry about whether she can tell the white hats from the black hats!!! AUGH!!!

A friend just called me and told me about this story. Sometimes, I want to lock my daughter in her room and never let her out. There seems to be more evil in the world than I can ever warn her about.

Hoax Caller Fools Fast Food Asst. Managers into Strip Searching Employees

My friend Pam just handed me something amazing - my favorite taste (DARK CHOCOLATE) wrapped in my favorite color (PURPLE). Wow. Gosh.

It was such a shame to unwrap them to eat them that I decided to take a picture of them first.

I meant to write about this over a week ago. Time seems to race away in front of me. I can never catch up.

T had a sleepover. I’m sure that is not an extraordinary thing for the mom of a preteen girl to write, BUT:

• Our apartment is REALLY small.
• I’m not great with kids in general.
• There were six of them.
• Did I mention that our apartment is REALLY small???

It’s amazing that I didn’t have a nervous breakdown from having six pre-teen girls running madly around our teeny, tiny apartment. Not only did I not freak out, but everyone seemed to have a good time!

I think maybe it was all the sugar.

We had greasy fried chicken for dinner and that was the last semi-real food we ate for the next 24 hours. For some insane reason I decided to bake chocolate brownies (from a mix, trust me, I can’t cook to save my life). A couple of them went to the deli with me and we bought ice cream to slather on our brownies. We all pigged out. It was great. They stayed up ridiculously late and in the morning they had cinnamon pop-tarts for breakfast. Then - and this part seems pretty brave (or stupid) in retrospect - I herded the whole pack of ‘em (by myself) to the AMC in Times Square to see a movie. (The Corpse Bride, which did not live up to expectations re: Tim Burton films.) They had popcorn and sodas during the movie. THEN (you didn’t think there could be more sugar, right?), as we were leaving the theater one of them spotted the COLD STONE CREAMERY across the street. We got amazing (not small) ice cream and took it home. After we finished eating, I collapsed into a sugar-induced semi-comatose state. A couple hours later their parents started showing up to take them home.

Not bad, eh?

Wishing my Jewish friends - online and offline, around the world - a sweet year of health and prosperity.

aka The Story of How Gadget Girl Came To Be

I get some seriously weird looks when I tell people my email address. And, inevitably, if I am giving it to someone over the phone, I spell it out for them and then they ask “Gadget Girl?” My response is almost always “Yeah, it’s a long story.”

Well, for the record, here’s the story (not that it is really that interesting, but what the heck).

In late 1998, I made my move into IT. I was working in the Publishing department of an investment bank downtown and was transferred into the Internet Services department of IT. At that time, a gig in IT came with all the free toys - a smaller laptop than the one I’d had upstairs, a Palm, a two-way pager, and a cell phone.

After a year or so of accumulating these toys, I happened to meet the person who eventually became my BEST-BESTEST friend in the whole world (and still is). He lived in Battery Park City at the time and every Friday after work, I would walk across the tip of the island to his place and we would go out to dinner, a movie, drinks or something, just to catch up on our week.

Somewhere along the way, he took to calling me Gadget Girl, because I always had so many gadgets on me. I thought it was cute and registered a variation of gadgetgirl as a chat name to make him laugh.

Shortly thereafter, my daughter - T - went through her Super Hero phase. Every game she wanted to play was about super heros and super spies. Every weekend we would run around the apartment saving imaginary people and animals from insane perils and jumping from one alternate reality to another. We started to develop a storyline and she realized we needed SUPER HERO NAMES! Well, what better to call myself than Gadget Girl!

She named herself Rainbow Fly and we became super hero crime fighting spies in our imaginations. She registered a rainbowfly chat name and that, as they say, was that. My "secret identity" soon became my every day online self. T has since dropped the Rainbow Fly name, of course, but I think I could be stuck with nycgadgetgirl for a long time to come.

And now you know the rest of the story.

I recently initiated my daughter into an age old female tradition.

Ask any woman in the modern world what you do when you are (1) starting your period AND (2) angry at and/or missing a significant other. 99% of them will tell you to do what T and I did a few days ago.

(Yes, I know T is young to be "missing a man" but we did this a day or two after her dad moved to Europe. That counts!)

I bought two pints of chocolate ice cream. (Yes, TWO. One for her, one for me.)

We sat down with our ice cream and two spoons.

We ate till we couldn’t eat anymore.

Shhh… I’ve decided what to get T for her birthday. Now, if I can
just. contain. myself.
for 3 more months, I’ll be good!

T is home! T is home! My daughter just got back from a six week vacation. I got a text from a friend as we were leaving the airport last night. It said “U r mommyrific again! Say hi for me.”

(And yes, Snickers went insane when he saw her. I think he thought she was gone forever.)

It’s not like I have nothing else to say or talk about. I have a fairly interesting life… at least I think maybe I do. The dog has a way of getting me involved with people I wouldn’t otherwise know or spend time with it. It has turned out to be an GREAT side effect of having him.

A few weeks ago, a group of friends took 7 of our dogs to Echo Lake Park in NJ and spent the afternoon hanging out and letting the dogs play. We took a potluck picnic lunch, which was amazing and generally just had a good time.

These pics were taken by my friend lulu, with her Palm.

This isn’t such an amazing photo that is has to be shared, but when your ex-husband is still such a good friend that he gives you flowers when it matters… that deserves to be told somewhere, somehow.

Of course, the fact that he and his partner came screaming up the avenue in the ambulance, lights and sirens, handed the flowers to me out the window and then screamed off to their 911 call sort of had an impact also. People on the sidewalk all stopped and stared. I glanced around and realized people in Starbucks were pointing out the window at me and my flowers that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Even the dog was like “Uh, Mom? What just happened?” All-in-all it had a huge positive impact on my birthday!