Happy New Year

2019!  Can it be 19 years – 20, if you count prep time – since we were getting ready for the much-hyped Y2K to ruin every system?  I’m glad I won’t be around for the next big waste of time.

And speaking of 2019, here we are on the 15th day of the new year, and I am still sticking to my New Year’s Resolutions.  This may be a record for me.  I am going to bed earlier, spending more time reading, mostly wasting less time on social media (hence the extra time for reading) and remembering to slather lotion on my dried hands by stashing tubes and pump bottles of creamy stuff in every room of the house.  Hopefully, I can keep up with this new regime.

Even though I am going to bed earlier, I’m not sure I am actually sleeping more.  Like almost everyone else I know, sleep doesn’t come easy.  I can commiserate with friends who say, “I’ve been up since 4 a.m.  I got up to go to the bathroom and I couldn’t fall back to sleep.”  Yup, I get it.  And that’s another reason I am reading more, since I’m up anyway.

I’m pretty sure that one of these days I will mix up the Icy Hot roll-on medication I use for my sore shoulder with my deodorant and find myself with that tingling feeling in my armpit.  And it is just a matter of time until I accidentally brush my teeth with the Aspercreme that I use when I am not using the Icy Hot.  Then I will be tingling all over.

Don’t get jealous, but I think I am going to reorganize my Tupperware cabinet today.  Where are you, Debbie Lynch, when I need you?

Somehow I doubt that Ruth Bader Ginsburg ever thought she would be the subject of not one but two movies.  In 2018 there was the engrossing RBG documentary that traced her life story, and now Felicity Jones portrays the notorious RBG in an account of the case that made her famous.  All young people should aspire to achieve the heights of the diminutive Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Bread should NEVER come in a package with blue or green writing on it.  It always makes the bread look moldy.

What is it about those damn infomercials that makes them so compelling?  I record TV shows on the off-channels during the night, and they are selling everything from “military-grade” flashlights to those sun blockers you attach to your visor to a special nail clipper for your pets.  With an attached light.   I want to buy them all, despite the fact that I need none of them.

Don’t you hate it when you peel a hard-boiled egg and you missed the tiniest piece of shell and you bite into the egg and now have that tiny little piece in your mouth?  Yuck.

It is true that whatever you are looking for is in the last place you look.  Of course it is, because once you find it, you stop looking.  But sometimes I swear what I am looking for is just not going to be found, so I buy a new one – and then the first one mysteriously shows up.  Recently, I was looking for wine that I use in cooking and could not find it.  The day I brought the new bottle home, the original one managed to relocate itself into its original spot in the pantry.  I KNOW I looked there!  That has happened with clothes, too, where they seem to go out partying and eventually wind up back in the closet.  Strange.

I just finished reading the Good Housekeeping Thanksgiving issue – from 2016.  I may have too many magazines here.  Up next is the AAA summer issue from 2017.  Well, it’s not like the shore changes that much, right?

You know what scares me?  That awful sound the washing machine makes when the load is unbalanced.  There is a huge banging noise and what appears to be a jet engine landing in the laundry room.  You have to open the machine and rearrange the load to get it to stop from taking flight.

We signed up for alerts on traffic and weather in my area, and while I appreciate the warnings, I wonder about how the authorities determine when they are over.  Why do they tell us the warning will last until 4:34 AM.  4:34?  Not 4:30 or 4:35?  Curious.

My friends and I are at the age where we get a sudden pain in our knees or shoulders and we are sure the next step is surgery.  My BFF said one day her knee suddenly hurt and she couldn’t walk.  She immediately assumed she would need a knee replacement – one twinge, and she was ready to schedule surgery!  Ironically, once when she was at my house, the same thing happened to me and she had to get me the cane I keep stashed in my closet.  We were both fully recovered from whatever caused the issues the next day.  Recently I had a papercut. The next day it looked red, which I figured surely was an infection, which meant I probably would have to have the finger amputated.  I’m not downplaying serious health issues, but maybe – just maybe – we are overreacting?

Two recent experiences with telemarketers have not gone well – for them.  First, someone called about solar panels.  When I reminded the caller that I had not requested information on solar panels and would report his company for violating the Do Not Call list, he unleashed a stream of obscenities.  I stayed on the phone, asking him if he had to get special training for that unique sales approach that would be ever-so appealing to customers, asking if his family was proud of him for his career accomplishments and goading him with the reminder that every minute he spent on the phone with me meant he was not racking up any sales.  I never raised my voice, and he finally hung up.  The next call was from a place called “Shiny Home Services.”  I asked the guy what they do – are they a cleaning service?  I asked him where he got my name; his answer was “from the marketing department.”  I also wanted to know where the marketing department got my name, but he had no idea.  Then I told him that I would be recording the call for future reference.  He said the company does heating and air conditioning.  I asked if he was going to sell me their services and his response was, “Only if you want them.” Oh, I replied, “so you won’t force me to buy your services?”  He assured me he wouldn’t try to force me to buy anything.  I told him I was so relieved, because I was sure he was going to force me to buy something.  He asked if I had a heating and cooling system and repeated that he couldn’t force me, and I finally told him that yes, I do have heat and air conditioning (who doesn’t have heat?), and that he had violated the Do Not Call ban, and I was going to report him, too.  I would hate to have a job as a telemarketer and have to waste time on people like me.

English IS a strange language.  We renovate, but we don’t novate.  We recruit, but we don’t cruit.  We renew, but we don’t new.  Of course, we DO reorganize, reinvent and reimagine.  Just to name a few…

I live in constant fear that I will lose my ShopRite card or my Douglass ring.  One is easily replaced, but the ring?  That is my prized possession.  I would be devastated.  I already know who I am leaving it to in my will!

On a more somber note, I was crushed to learn that my FAVORITE restaurant, Espos in Raritan, announced its closing at the end of December.  Just two days later, I learned that the owner, Bobby Esposito, passed away after battling leukemia.  The place was a tavern that served the BEST Italian food – nothing fancy or trendy, just the classics in a hearty red sauce.  I just don’t know where I will ever find eggplant parm that I love as much (except for my friend Janie Paluzzi’s eggplant, which is homegrown) in a restaurant.  The place was there for about 45 years and never changed.  The menus were on a blackboard, the tables were so close together that it always amazed me how the substantially-sized waiters could get through them to deliver food without spilling it, and there always used to be a line out the door.  You would come in, never have to leave your name, and the guys behind the bar always knew who was next for a table.  I used to order take-out and pick it up for my mother, who would eat her meal for days – and she’s been gone for nearly 30 years!  I never once finished my meal; I preferred eating half, knowing I could enjoy the leftovers the next day.  All of the places my family and I frequented around the Somerville, NJ, area are gone now – The Newsroom, Howard Johnson’s, The Minuteman, Buxtons, Johnny’s Diner and Bucky’s (which has to be the only Chinese-Italian-American restaurant ever), and even the late and lamented Gaston Avenue Bakery (not a restaurant, but you get my drift) – and they will all remain implanted in my memory of fun times and good food.  But Espos was from my young adulthood until now.  Luckily, I stopped in just a few weeks ago to pick up spaghetti and one large meatball while I was in town for a haircut.  I enjoyed that meal immensely, never knowing it would be my last one from Espos.  If I were on my deathbed and someone asked me what I wanted for my last meal, I would have picked the Espos eggplant parm (with the 7-layer cake from Gaston Avenue Bakery for dessert).  Thanks for the memories – and the eggplant – Espos.