Rant #3,211: Pain In My Heart

I am back … but I am writing this at about 3 a.m. in the morning, so I guess I am not sleeping very well.

The past two days have been among the busiest and most frustrating days that I can ever remember, and that is saying a lot with all my family and I have been going through the past few weeks, months, and quite frankly, since at least the fall of 2019.

I took off from the Blog on Wednesday and Thursday because I had plenty to do with my work, which was having its annual convention in Virginia Beach, Va., during those past two days.

I would be covering the convention virtually, and I was prepared for almost non-stop work from about 7:30 a.m. in the morning to well into the evening, as not only would I have to sit through the convention days, but when that was over, I had to summarize what took place and what was said … 3,000 word pieces, but difficult to put together and write from audio recordings I made of the proceedings each day.

I have done this in the past, and while it is often tedious and boring, the voice recordings are immaculate, and provide me with plenty of fodder for good stories.

Ii proceeded to do the same thing on Wednesday. Everything was set up by 7 a.m. for my task with the convention. I got onto the convention seamlessly through my computer, had my yellow pad and pen ready to go, and things went along swimmingly though about 11:30 a.m., when convention members took a scheduled lunch break.

I had already eaten something, so I left one computer to go to another, where I found a story separate from the convention that I had to write up, so I set about doing that, while my recording continued to roll on the other, convention-linked computer.

The story that I had to edit was a little involved, and it took me a while to finish it. When I was finally done with that story, I heard some talking coming out of the other computer, so I went to my convention-linked computer, everything was going well with the recording, and I took my own break to pick up my son at work (my wife had taken him to work in my stead in the morning).

I did my job, came home, and walked over to the convention-linked computer—and promptly found that the recording had completely crashed, wiping out the first six hours or so of the convention.

I had taken some notes, but honestly, I have learned to lean on the recordings more in recent years for content, so while I did not panic, I was pretty distraught about the whole thing.

I started up my recording device again—it worked this time—and I once again covered the convention as I normally would, but with the thought in the back of my mind of, “How am I going to get content that I lost for the first six hours of this thing?”

Note: I actually was able to get the sound file that conked out on me, but it could not be opened no matter what I did.

I was sunk but not totally out, and I figured that I would get whatever I could during the afternoon session, and I did just that.

All the while—during both the morning and the afternoon—I was getting text messages from the realtor that people would be coming to look over the house during Thursday, Friday and into and through the weekend … with the stake in the ground saying that the house was for sale, the reality really sunk into me that my family’s world would be changing one way or the other, and we simply had to deal with it the best way we could—

And the best way we could deal with it right now was for me to continue to cover the convention and figure out what I was going to do about the missing first six hours of this meeting.

Although I was getting these texts and even phone calls during my time trying to cover this convention, my cellphone had been giving me problems for the past few weeks or so. It was an older Samsung Galaxy phone from at least five or six years ago, and after providing me stellar service on a number of levels during those years, it was quite obvious that its lifespan was coming to an end … but I decided that I would go with it as far as I could, as now was not the time for me go get a new cellphone.

In the middle or covering the afternoon portion of the convention, my phone needed charging, so I hooked it up and it charged up while I was firmly ensconced in what I was doing.

The phone charged, but when I disengaged it form the charger, I could not get it to boot up, no matter what I did to get it going.

So in the middle of covering this convention—and already with one electronic device failing me in the morning—I now had to deal with the fact that my phone was dead as a doornail, so to speak, and that I needed a new one.

After the convention ended for the day well after 4:30 p.m., I went right to the local Verizon store to get a replacement, and after more than two hours, I had a new phone, another Samsung phone that was much like my original phone and hopefully, do what I needed it to do, for both business and pleasure purposes.

I came home, ate a quick dinner, and at about 7:30 p.m., I went to work putting together something for the story I was writing on the convention, just using what I was able to cover in the afternoon.

It wasn’t an easy piece to write, even in this truncated form, but I completed what I was writing at about 10:30 p.m. … and then went to work on trying to set up my new phone, which was not helped by the fact that my old phone was unusable, so I could not transfer over any data form the old phone to the new one--I basically had to start from scratch with the new phone, gathering up some major apps I use—like email and Facebook—and trying to remember all the usernames and passwords.

I did pretty well with that—one or two of the apps I had some trouble with, but when I have some time, I will work on those—and I went to sleep well after midnight, with still another day to go with my coverage of this convention.

On Thursday, I woke up at about 6 a.m., looked at my phone as I always do while getting ready for the day, and I found a text message from my bank saying that there were some questionable charges on my checking account and debit card—emanating from California and Delaware—and that my debit card had been locked.

I was obviously hacked, and I tried to call the bank as the text message said that I should do, but the call would not go through, as evidently, the bank’s Fraud Department was not open 24/7 as it used to be, so I was sunk even before I got started yesterday. I would have to go to the bank myself, but just when, what with this convention just about ready to go.

So on Thursday, once again I set everything up for my coverage, and I was ready to go at 7:30 a.m. for the coverage to begin at 8 a.m.

The appointed time came, I put on my recording device, got my yellow pad and pen ready, AND THEN—

I could not connect to the convention.

I tried everything I could do to do this—I even tried to hook up on other devices—but no matter what I did, I couldn’t connect.

After about an hour of further panic—including phone calls and email messages to my employer in Washington, D.C.—I figured that I would let the recording device do its job if the hookup to the convention ever happened, and I left the house to go to the bank and fix this further mess.

It took about an hour to do so, but just about everything was straightened out with my account. I had, in fact, been hacked, and while it took quite a while to unravel this mess, those charges accrued by the hacker are not my responsibility, and everything appears to be copacetic with my account and the new debit card I was given.

I rushed home, only to see that things were status quo—I still could not get hooked up to the convention, but the recording device—which had failed me so badly the previous day—was still recording, but recording nothing.

I let it go for pretty much the rest of the afternoon, and went about my workday as I normally would—

And happily, I was able to get a ton of information that I needed to fill out my story from the services themselves—the Army & Air Force Exchange Service and the Navy Exchange Service Command—so I had enough fodder to fill out my story—which eventually took me several hours to do, ending at about 8 p.m.

In the middle of all that, the big story in Washington is the possible government shutdown, so I edited a story on that problem in the afternoon … which had to be re-edited later in the evening, as some facts had changed.

In the middle of all of this, the realtor brought over the first groups of potential buyers—and potential landlords—to look over the house.

The realtor knew my family and I were going to be there when this happened, and I take it that he told the potential suitors that we would be there when they came look.

On my end, even though I was smack dab in the middle of all of this work I had to do, I have to say that it was quite an awkward situation having people look at your house when you are still in it and still living in it.

We were all cordial about everything, and about five groups looked at the house in rapid succession, even one with another broker in tow.

The groups of potential buyers ran from very young to a couple who appeared to be around my age, and my wife later told me that one couple actually came up from Florida to look at the house, and another came from Queens.

The stake in the ground—and in my heart—is pretty fierce right now, and we have more potential buyers coming in today too …on Saturday is the open house—where we have to not be there for about four hours or so in late morning/early afternoon—and we might even have some potential buyers coming in on Sunday during the late morning, but we can be there for that.

I spoke to the realtor, and the game plan remains the same, with my family’s endgame completely intact.

With such activity, I don’t think we will have too many problems selling the house for at least our desired sum, but, of course, the linchpin is my family being a ready-made tenant as part of the deal, which is our desire beyond the selling price of the house.

And yes, it is very awkward having people look at your house while you are still living in it—during one instance yesterday, my wife and I both heard bangs on the walls downstairs in my mother’s part of the house--but so be it; if this is the way to punctuate our endgame, then it will all be very much worth it.

As for my work, I have no idea what is going to happen about the coverage of the second day, so I have no idea if I an going to have a working Friday/weekend or not … but right now, I am so bummed out at everything that has come our way this week that I truly need a bit of a break, and you can figure out as easy as I can that all of this tumult is impacting my sleeping pattern, and that is why I am up now at past 4 a.m. writing this Rant up for you at this ungodly hour.

And all of this is forcing me to look over my shoulder at the next hurdle I am going to have to get over … which could be on Monday, early in the morning, when I have to bring in my new used car for its 5,000 mile checkup.

Based on what has been going on here lately, I am looking forward to all of this as much as I am looking forward to getting a lobotomy, but maybe it will go well—

My family and I did have one bit of good news this week, and that was that my wife won her Workman’s Compensation case against her former employer.

She had to leave her latest job because she continues to suffer from the after effects of her brain injury from May, and these after effects inhibit her ability to do certain jobs, in particular when she has to move around up and down.

Her old place of work—where her injury occurred—caved in, and while they did not take any responsibility for their actions, they simply decided that it was not worth their while to pursue this action, certainly not with store video in hand showing exactly what happened on that fateful day.

So my wife left her job and won her case all in the span of about 72 hours or so.

I guess there is a God in heaven after all …

But I ask that God to shine down on my family and I a little more brightly when it comes to the house and all of these other things that have been going on here lately.

As I said, I have a very early appointment on Monday, so I am going to have to take that day off from the Blog.

Have a good weekend, and I will speak to you again on Tuesday.

And please, continue to keep us in your prayers.

I still think divine intervention is the only way out of this mess we were thrown into, and the more prayers, the better.

“It is approaching 5 a.m. … do you know where your mind is?”

Rant #3,210: Bad Time

Well, here I am after Yom Kippur and all the problems I have related to the house, and I am still in one piece.

The Yom Kippur fast went pretty well.

For the first time though, I had a little bit of problems early in the fast rather than later on.

Early in the fast, I almost felt like I could not continue with it, but it was just a few hours into it, and I simply forced myself to get through those early stages.

I persevered, and the later portion of the fast was much better, so after about 24 hours of not eating, I got through it pretty well.

But this time, I have to say that I did not fell “cleansed” as I normally do … I guess that there are too many problems that I have to deal with that really do not allow me to feel that way this time around.

I would have hoped the Jewish New Year would have brought my family and I a new beginning, but at least early on, it really hasn’t, and let me tell you why.

And then we have the house …

The house was going to go officially on sale yesterday, but the broker decided to hold off on it due to the Yom Kippur holiday.

So today, the house goes on sale, and I guess maybe that is why the fast did not make me feel good afterwards this time around; I guess I feel a bit sad.

And let me tell you about the open house later this week …

It, too, has been pushed back, from this Thursday until Saturday morning/afternoon.

We—meaning my family—cannot be at the house during the open house, so the realtor has told us that we can’t be in the house for about three and a half hours while it goes on this Saturday.

About the only good thing about that is that for a few hours, we will be at bowling with my son, so that will kill some time.

But the open house can extend to Sunday if necessary ... and if anyone wants to actually walk through the house on Sunday, we can be here, but we have to basically sit on the couch in the living room; we have to be inconspicuous while people are looking through the house, almost like being human furniture while people go through the house.

It kind of takes the taste out of your mouth, doesn’t it?

And then we have my wife’s job …

She continues to suffer from the after-effects of her brain injury that she suffered in May, and thus, the job became a bit undoable for her.

So she worked yesterday--the evening shift after working the morning shift on Sunday--and she bid the job farewell.

She lasted a month at this position, but now she knows that the brain injury’s lingering effects are not going away anytime soon, and that she is going to have to watch herself now, and maybe for the rest of her life.

So that job is history, and what job she actually can do right now or into the future is anyone’s guess.

Her workman’s comp case continues—she has a hearing coming up—so we will see how that goes.

And then we have this convention I have to cover …

This is a three-day, all encompassing affair that begins today … but I still have not been given the coordinates of how I virtually attend the conference—which is very unusual, as it never happened to me before—so I am pretty much bound to where I am until I find out what is going on.

Not only does the conference last pretty much all day—8 a.m. to 4 p.m. or thereabouts—but I then have to provide some type of write-up for this thing, so I will be working into the evening today to get something out.

I have to tell you … with everything going on now with my family and myself, this is probably the absolute worst time for me to be covering something like this, as I am really not into it at all.

But being a professional, I will persevere, and get through the conference and hand in some decent stories to my work about it all.

This will pretty much preclude me from writing Rants for the next two days, so I am going to take the next two days off from here, and will speak to you again on Friday.


This is just a bad time for myself and my family all around, but we are just going to have to suck it up and do our best to get through it all.

There are no other options; there is nothing else that we can do.

Rant #3,209: Years May Come, Years May Go

Yesterday came up goose eggs for me in another day of cleaning out the house in preparation for its sale.

I threw out some more things yesterday morning, and then later in the day, I finally got into the attic to see what was up there.

It was a very difficult enterprise trying to get up there, but using a ladder and a lot of what I would call intestinal fortitude, I finally got the slat open and got up there—

To find nothing.

Well, not exactly nothing … there were no boxes up there as I had thought, but I did find insulation—wads and wads of it—and that was about it.

So I have absolutely no idea where my school yearbooks are, but at least I didn’t find anything negative up there.

Years ago, we had a squirrel or gopher or some living creature in there. My wife and I used to hear it scurrying across the basement every night, and we thought that one day, it would come down on us through the ceiling.

But that noise disappeared over time, and I do remember that when the insulation people were done with their job, they told us that there were absolutely no creatures up there, so whatever was there evidently extricated itself, and that was the end of that.

So the attic yielded nothing, nor did the remainder of my comic book collection.

The person who I called about the collection never called me back, so I have to think that what I told him over the phone about the collection didn’t thrill him very much.

So I still have the few hundred comic books remaining in my collection, and I still aim to sell them over the next few weeks and months.

So yesterday registered nothing but goose eggs for me, but maybe that was an omen.

The Jewish New Year is here, and Yom Kippur will be here on Sunday at sundown to culminate the High Holy Days observances.

Yom Kippur is the most important holiday on the Jewish calendar, and ushers in year 5784.

Here is what I wrote about the holiday, in edited form, in Rant #811, September 25, 2012:

"Yom Kippur begins Sunday evening at sundown.

For Jews around the world, this is the holiest time of the year, the time where we pause to reflect on what we did the past year and how we can begin anew in the new year.

Even many non-observant Jews follow this holiday, and this is the only time that many of them venture into a synagogue during the entire calendar year.

Prayer and reflection are paramount here, as is refraining from drinking or eating anything for the duration of the holiday.

Some Jews don't even bathe, watch television, drive cars or do anything but pray and fast during this period, which ends Monday night at sundown, or when the shofar is blown at Yom Kippur services.

I, personally, don't go to that extreme. I do not go to synagogue, and this year, while I will be fasting, I will do it entirely at home.

However, from my personal experience, fasting is not hard to do. Sure, it takes you out of your routine, but it really isn't that difficult to do for a day.

What is difficult is doing it while you are in synagogue. The constant getting up and sitting down--when the Torah is displayed--makes it very difficult.

I remember in the old days, you would hear women crying in the back of the synagogue. Not eating can do that to you.

As far as my family, my wife has tried and can't do it, my son the same, my daughter, I know she has tried but she can't do it, either.

I have to tell you, after I fast, I feel very, very good. It is almost as if everything bad in my body has been cleansed out of it by fasting. I might have a little buzz headache, but this is something I have been doing continually since I was 12 or 13, so I was pretty much used to it.

So to all my Jewish friends, and to all of those people I know who aren't, Happy New Year to everyone."

I came up with nothing yesterday, and I have a week of absolute torture coming up next week.

It all starts with my fast for Yom Kippur, which continues through Monday’s early evening. That will probably be the easiest thing I do all week.

Beginning on Tuesday and through Thursday, I have to cover the annual conference held by my workplace. It will be held in Virginia, and I will cover it virtually, but it is eight hours a day during the three days—and then I have to write up the day’s events, which pretty much entirely wipes out those days for me.

And conveniently on Monday, the house officially goes up for sale, and extra conveneniently, on Thursday, we have an open house—right as I am covering this convention.

Yom Kippur might be “The Day of Atonement,” but my suffering continues way beyond that solemn day, all next week.

I will be taking off from the Blog on Monday, so I will speak to you again on Thursday, no more assured of my family’s future than I have been for the past few weeks.

Have a great weekend, have an easy fast for all my Jewish friends, and please, whether Jewish or not, please keep my family in your prayers.

The New Year can signify a new start, a new set of challenges, a new aim or goal.

Quite frankly, my family and I need a lot of help right now.

“God, tell me what I can do to have this all work out, and I will do it, Please help my family and I out during this new year."

Rant #3,208: Broke Down Piece of Man

Yes, I am still exiled to Facebook jail, and will be there for the next few days into early next week.

That is not going to stop me from saying what I want to say, as I consider this an abridgement of my free speech.

I do not see how talking about my deceased mother, and the aftermath of her passing, is upsetting Facebook’s “cybersecurity” rules, but I have been banned from posting in the sites I run because they feel that it does.

I feel that with highly political, racist and anti-Semitic posts abounding on Facebook—and without any stops to those posts imposed by Facebook—that they are going after the wrong person, but I guess if it makes them feel good, like they are proving to the world that they are doing something in the way of policing themselves by putting me in Facebook jail for what I have written, then so be it.

It is laughable, to be honest with you.

But onto more pressing matters …

Yesterday, I threw out more garbage from the house, and later in the day, I contacted someone who buys comic books.

It is something that is so painful for me to do, but I have to sell the remaining couple of hundred comic books that I have.

I really don’t have much of a choice.

As regular readers of this Blog know, I sold the most expensive comics that I had over two sales several years ago, so what is left is a collection of mainly 1960s and 1970s issues, maybe not the most pricey in the world of comic books, but certainly a really good collection, one that defined my growing up years from about 1962 to 1976 or so.

(And yes, it does still include that infamous issue that I have included at the top of this column, which today, is about as laughable for its misguidedness way back when as me being in Facebook jail today.)

It pains me to get rid of them, because it is as if I am selling away a major part of my childhood, but I guess the time has come to do just that, as my childhood has been over for decades, and my family and I might be moving into a new phase of our adult lives in the coning months.

I got a lot of pleasure out of my comic book collection—I taught myself how to read through them—and I will never forget my collection, but it is time to move on from it, so now is the time to sell them, lock, stock and barrel.

It really upsets me to do this, but as I said, the time has come.

The next order of business is to get into the attic and see what is in there.

This is problematic, to say the least.

We do not have an attic that you can just walk into—I found that out a number of years ago when I just about put my foot through the ceiling of our house when I tried to walk around in it—and its proximity is a major negative point of even getting into this part of the house.

For whatever reason, the only entrance to the attic is in my son’s room, through an opening in the ceiling of his closet.

There is no dropdown stairs, no way to get into the attic other than using a ladder to move away the slat and putting yourself through that closure.

Yesterday, I tried to do this by piling plastic chairs one on top of the other, but it still did not put me in any position to move that slat and get into that part of the house.

So today, I will use a ladder to prop myself up and get in there.

There isn’t much in there, based on its impossible placement in the house, but I seem to remember that a number of years ago, I did place two or three boxes in the attic, and I am simply wondering what is in those boxes.

I seem to feel that my school yearbooks—junior high school, high school, and college—are in one of those boxes, so without going crazy about it, I hope to get those boxes down, even if I am wrong about what might be in them and they contain nothing but junk.

So that is where we stand with the house right now.

Funny, you can live in a house for decades, but there are still mysteries about it waiting to be discovered, and I believe that the attic is the biggest misery … err … mystery in the house right now, maybe the only one left.

And then next week, all of this becomes real, not a mystery, and the house officially goes up tor sale.

That will be even a sadder day than the day I sell my comic book collection, I can tell you that for sure.

Rant #3,207: All Things Must Pass

Facebook has proclaimed that my posts related to the passing of my mother and how we are handling the house that she lived in for more than 50 years—and that my family currently occupies, perhaps for our final months of such a residency—break their “cybersecurity” rules, and I have been banned from posting in my own groups through September 25.

Ironically, this is the very day that the house officially goes up for sale, and I am not going to stop speaking about the situation my family and I am in simply because Facebook deems that it breaks their rules.

That is why I have a blog, and you can visit the blog site to view my content if you need to do so.

I have seen much worse content up on Facebook—much of it of a sexual or political nature, racial, anti-Semitic and the like—that somehow passes their “community standards,” but I want someone to explain to tell me how my posts violate those standards.

Facebook’s own measures are completely ridiculous, and in actuality, do not apply to my posts, but somehow, due to their lack of any logic whatsoever, evidently they do.

I do not get it, but it’s just another brick in the wall of what my family and I are going through, and we will get through it, just like everything else, in one piece.

Yesterday, I brought out some more garbage to the curb of things still in my mother’s part of the house that I decided we can part with.

I also purchased three big crates, because after consulting with a few stores that handle such sales, I found out that all of the furniture and other knick knacks in my mother’s house have little-to-no worth in the current market, so we are going to have to do an estate sale to sell off as much of these things as possible,

Back to the crates … they are for the only things that are worth some money—my comic book collection, much of which I sold off years ago but which still has some value in today’s market.

Oh, and did mention that we had the pool closed—maybe for good—yesterday?

And if you were wondering, my clash with food poisoning appears to be over. I had a trouble-free day and night with that, so I guess it just—literally—passed through me.

But today—after another restless night—I have some major allergy problems, as my left eye is really bad today, as I can barely see out of it and it is all teary and kind of itchy.

Knowing my pattern, this should last about two hours, if even that long, and then, it will get back to as close to normal as possible, but right now, I am suffering.

There really is nothing else to say right now about anything I have spoken about in today’s Rant.

All things must pass, and all of these things must pass, too.

And just like my bout with food poisoning, these things will be but a memory one day, but a rancid one at that.

I have to believe that everything will all work out, but everything happening right now is straining my personal believability factor, and I simply don’t know where all of this is going to lead.

I am not looking for a rainbow leading to a pot of gold … I am just looking for a good outcome for my family and I, one that we all can hold our heads high about and can live with into the future.

That is all that I really can ask for.

Rant #3,206: Trouble

Everything that is happening is starting to get to me.

I had a miserable night last night, not sleeping well again, but this time, it had to do with me not feeling well.

I think I know what it was, but I can’t be sure.

After having the photographers take pictures of the house--it ended up being top and bottom, which I didn’t know about, as well as in the basement and outside—I had lunch, and I had some deli roast beef that I bought at a local supermarket about two weeks ago.

I had been avoiding eating this deli meat because right at the get go, the first time I ate it, it had absolutely no taste, and the second time was much like the first time … so could the third time be any better?

So I made a sandwich with it, and for the first time, it actually had some taste, which should have been a warning sign right there that something was the matter with this deli meat—

And lo and behold, I felt it about two hours after eating lunch.

I was fine afterwards and into the night and into going to sleep, but at about 2 a.m. in the morning, my side was bothering me, my stomach felt funny, and I was miserable.

I tried everything to get comfortable, but the pain simply would not go away no matter what I did.

And I felt all bound up, like my middle portion was in a tightening vice.

Then, I had something of a brainstorm … I tried to get myself to throw up.

This was not successful—nothing but dry heaves—but for some reason, several minutes later, I felt much better, the pain had subsided to just here and there—not constant—and I was comfortable.

I woke up my wife—I think she may have been somewhat up anyway, what with my constant trips out of the bedroom and walking around the house as I was—and I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital, but I did feel better, and we talked about not only how I felt, but we also talked about our dire situation, a situation that was not created by us but where we find ourselves in.

As the pain subsided, we both fell asleep again, and I had a few pangs during the rest of the evening, but I do feel better now.

Today, I will eat blandly, and unless my body tells me otherwise, I think I had some type of food poisoning … mix that with my current mental duress over our situation, and you get one messed-up guy.

I feel OK now, and maybe what I had has passed.

Maybe it was all psychosomatic … I just don’t know.

But I can tell you that with the situation my family is in, and with not just the cleaning up of the house but the numerous phone calls I have had to make to basically tell whatever providers my mother had that she was gone—has turned into a nightmare of epic proportions.

Just to get her phone bill—and number—taken care of has been nothing short of a nightmare.

I have had to call the local provider three times—count ‘em, three times—to square everything away with her phone account:

1) I spoke to someone in India who was not only difficult to understand, but while she gave me a cancellation number, it was never applied by her, as literally a minute after I got off the phone with her, my mother’s phone rang, asking me to complete a survey—about the phone call I had just had to close out my mother’s phone account.

2) I immediately called the phone provider back, and the fellow—someone who spoke good English and seemed to understand me, I thought—assured me that my mother’s phone account was canceled, and her phone number retired, and that I would get a confirmation letter attesting to these actions.

3) The very next day, I received notification of a bill that my mother had, through my email, but I could not pay it because my mother never used any electronic payments to pay the bill—and neither have I since I took over paying her bills—and what’s more, I discovered that I had already paid the bill, snail-mail-wise, several weeks ago.

This led me to speak to another associate who, when I said that I had already paid the bill seeks ago through the USPS, literally read off his list of accomplishments to me and told me flat out that he was a senior billing clerk for the company and that the company had never received my check in the mail—something I have heard from other providers that my mother used when I paid her bill through the mail.

Finally, I simply decided to pay the bill over the phone, and for the glory of finally getting her account closed—no, it still had not been closed up to that point—I had to pay a $3.50 service charge for paying the bill over the phone.

But since my mother’s account was also charged for September, too, I had an additional amount of money I could pay, but the fellow told me not to pay it … will I get another bill from this provider in the near future looking for payment?

Again, this is a period where I should be mourning the passing of my mother, but here I am, trying to tie up loose ends with her different providers—which as you can imagine, takes hours to do—questioning my mother’s sanity when she made her deal with the devil, and cleaning out her house of more than 50 years of memories …

And you wonder why I was sick last night?

Maybe it had nothing to do with the roast beef after all … . 

Rant #3,205: Hope

Now, it is real crazy time at this place that I hope to continue to call home.

We are moving out much of the contents of my mother’s portion of the home to the curb—including what is in the basement—for garbage pickup.

We have been doing this for about two weeks now, and it is incredible the mass of stuff than can accumulate in a home over more than 50 years.

Some of it is family-related—meaning pictures, photo albums and the like—and that type of stuff we are keeping.

But there is a lot of other stuff—you name it, my mother had it—that is going on the curb and will continue to be trashed until the house is pretty much cleaned out.

My mother’s house was never dirty or cluttered—everything had its place—and anyone that knew her knew that she cleaned the house each and every day.

But still, the stuff that accumulated is incredible, and most of it has to go.

And what is good about the clutter accumulating on the curb is that the town we live in picks all of it up as a normal trash pickup, meaning that we don’t have to schedule a special pickup to get rid of this stuff.

Everything in the house is not junk--

There are pieces in the house that could be valuable—I won’t go into the specifics here, but they all date from the early 20th century into the 1950s—and we are going to have to have someone to come in and look at this stuff.

And eventually, we will have an estate sale, and if you are interested in buying a nice sofa for $50, we have one that might meet your needs.

And the going through things continues unabated, as we have much more stuff—including clothes—to dispose of.

Also this week, the realtor handing the house is going to come in and start taking photos of the place.

Between my family and my sister and her husband, we have thrown out lots of stuff, and my mother’s portion of the house is pretty bare from what it once was just a week or so ago.

The basement still needs work—lots of potential garbage there—but the realtor will be able to get some really good photos, as there is pretty much only furniture left in my mom’s house.

The plan is for the home to go on the market later this month, and we will also have an open house this month a few days later.

The aim and goal, at least for my family, is for the house to be sold with us remaining as a paying tenant.

If that cannot be accomplished, the house needs to be sold and we need to find a new place to live, and we will once again have to go through the remnants of what we had in the house—our portion--after more than 30 years of living there as the tenant … so more big garbage days might be in order.

Someone asked me the other day what the chances are of us staying on as a paying tenant, and I really believe that they are no better than 25 percent, if even that high.

Newsday had a very opportune story in its pages the other day, where it discussed that housing prices on Long island continue to rise—that is good for us no matter what my famly’ssituation is—but that the number of interested parties has dripped considerably because of interest rates rising.

So where six months ago you had a virtual Battle Royale for homes, with at least 20 and 30 prospective buyers lining up to buy any available home on Long Island, today, you might have maybe two or three, because with interest rates high, people have just backed off right now, waiting for things to simmer down a bit.

That is a negative for us—we need to sell this house within six months, although we would probably get a year to do so.

If not, the house goes into foreclosure, and it becomes anyone’s guess what happens with it—and what happens to us.

Whatever the case, what we are doing now is as dreary an exercise as can be, and I am hoping that the house situation can be resolved ASAP, although I know that will probably not be the case here.

We can only hope at this point in time.

Rant #3,204: New Year's Day

With our world seemingly coming down hard on myself and my family at this time, we now have to deal with the Jewish New Year, a period which begins at sundown tonight with Rosh Hashanah.

I am going to tell you right from the get go that I am absolutely, positively and completely not into it this year, for the very reasons I have stated since my mother left us last week.

Circumstances are not good in my neck of the woods, and while I believe in the holiday and the sacredness of this period, which culminates with Yom Kippur next week, I just cannot enwrap myself with these holidays as I once did.

Here, in edited form. is what I said in Rant #1,985 on September 20, 2017. It pretty much still applies, no matter what situation my family and I are in:

"Tonight is the start of the holiest period during the year for Jews around the world. Rosh Hashanah commences this period, starting at sundown. This holiday continues for the next two days.

Next week, Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, commences, and lasts a single day.

Although I am not a religious Jew by any stretch of the imagination, I do participate in these holidays. They are holidays that ask Jews to examine their strengths, and weaknesses, during the past year and to reflect on how they can improve themselves during the upcoming year. They are holidays of both introspection and group prayer. During Yom Kippur, observant Jews fast, to show their forgiveness to God, and also to show their strength.

It is with this understanding of what the holiday means that I have always had this conundrum with how the rest of the world should look at these holidays. Should the “outside” world recognize this holy time of year or simply ignore it?

Living in New York, where there are a large amount of Jews, has made these holidays pretty well known by the non-Jewish population. In fact, schools are generally closed during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

I once found out years ago that the reason New York City schools close on these holidays is that since such a large portion of their teachers are Jewish, it was not prudent to open when three-quarters of the teachers would be out.

This year, there are the usual myriad controversies revolving around whether certain events should be held on these holidays or not.

Professional sports leagues will go about their business during these holidays,
When my son was in Little League, the league would, every year, schedule games on the first two nights of Passover. Although Passover is not one of the holiest occasions on the Jewish calendar, it is a holiday which revolves around the family, and the traditional seder, and garners wide participation even among non-observant Jews.

The league, of course, never had a game on Easter Sunday.

His current bowling league also pretty much ignores the Jewish holidays, and will hold its bowling schedule tomorrow.

My workplace never gave me off for the Jewish holidays, even though the owner, who is since deceased, was Jewish himself. I had to take the day(s) off as personal days.

Is this right? Shouldn’t everyone be given days off to celebrate their most holiest of holidays, whether it be Yom Kippur or Good Friday?

However, should business stop because a major religious holiday is being celebrated?

I don’t have an answer, and it is something that has puzzled me for years. These are religious holidays, and thus, they are more personal than, say, July 4 or Labor Day are.

The bottom line is this: do we suspend our usual day's activities because a major religion has one of its holiest days to celebrate?

Yes, that is the question to ponder today.

Whatever the case, to those who observe the holiday, have a wonderful Rosh Hashanah, and have a great New Year.”

But again, this New Year is different for me than it was in 2017, or for that matter, in 2022.

My parents are not here anymore, and my family is dealing with the loss of our living quarters.

Where I should still be mourning for the loss of my mother—the actual eight-day Shiva period is still on, even though my family chose just one Shiva day--I am actually more focused on my family’s future and where we are going to live than on anything else.

I don’t think that is the way it should be, but the reality of the situation is that that is the way it is.

So, L’Shana Tovah to my fellow Jews, but you are going to have to excuse me this year, as I am simply not into this sacred period in the least.

Have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.

Rant #3,203: Memories

Now that I got all of that off my chest in yesterday’s Rant, I had my first dream-sighting of my mother last night.

As I have so often experienced since my father died three years ago, I had a visitation by the deceased—this time and for the first time, my mother--in a dream I had last night.

It was another restless night of sleeping, with me waking up several times and not having a very good sleep at all.

I remember few specifics of the dream, but my mother was in it.

I think I remember saying to her, like I said to my father countless times in dreams that I have had with him in it, “What are you doing here?”—

But I don’t remember the reply, if there even was any.

I just remember saying after my question, “You actually look pretty good,” as my mother’s face was rounder and fuller that it had been, in particular during her final months of life.

That is all I remember; no context at all and nothing else at all.

When my father died, right after his passing, there were some strange occurrences at the house.

Pictures that had been on the wall for decades either nudged to the side or fell off the wall entirely, and I remember that a wall calendar not only fell off the wall, but popped off as if it had just exploded from its place on the wall.

Were these messages from my father that he was still around?

Who knows, but I have not experienced the same thing with my mother since she passed away last week.

Nothing falling off the walls … just my family’s world falling apart, literally piece by piece.

The realtor will be here next week to take pictures of the house, and the house will go into Multiple Listings on September 25.

On September 28, we will have an open house, right in the middle of me covering a convention for work, which should be a fun day for all.

Luckily, I will be recording the convention, so hopefully the muss and the fuss of an open house won’t interrupt me in any way … but I know it will, mentally if nothing else.

And when I finally see the sign on the lawn, the “For Sale” sign, that will be the kicker of this entire episode.

The realization that this house that was my parents’ house for the past 52 years will be erased forever; it will be just another house on the market once that sign gets planted in the front lawn, a dagger to my heart related to this entire business.

And again, whether my family and I continue living there might take a bit of divine intervention.

As my family and I continue to clean out the house, a lot of memories go by us, and much of it lands directly in the garbage bags we are using, being placed at the curb for pickup.

Yesterday, my wife found her long-lost high school yearbook in the rubble—dating from 1974, or years before she even knew I existed.

She went through it page by page, and actually hooked up right here on Facebook with a long-lost friend from those years.

I have no idea where my high school yearbook is, but if it is in the rubble, I am sure we will find it; if not, then I can live without it, as I have for decades.

It is probably in the house … but where?

I have no idea, but I am happy that she found her yearbook in all the garbage we carted out.

There is so much garbage in front of our house now that we could actually reconstruct it all and make a nice sleeping area for ourselves if we really wanted to do such a thing—

But come Friday, during the garbage pickup, it will be gone, out of sight and out of mind—

And we have plenty to go, so it should be several more weeks of getting rid of many memories, from the house to the curb.

That is just the way it is, and right now, I can live with it—

Do I have any other choice?

Rant #3,201: With a Little Luck

Now, the fun really begins for my family and I.

We have to sell the house, because we cannot possibly cover the mortgage.

And the quicker it sells, the better we will all be—mentally, physically and emotionally.

The house is a hollow shell without my mother in it to begin with, and now is the time for my family to disengage ourselves from calling this “our home.”

The problem is a major one: we really don’t want to leave.

If somehow the house can be sold to someone who wants a ready-made tenant in the upper portion of the house—paying them rent and thus, helping them to pay their mortgage—then this is the perfect solution for us.

But if not, we have to sell the house and move on to another dwelling, a very dicey situation given our financial status, which is really bad right now and probably has no way of getting better in the foreseeable future.

And look, we have a major emotional attachment to this house.

I have lived in this house for the better part of 50 years or so.

My wife has called this home for more than 30 years.

Our son knows no other home in his 28 years of life.

And we have more than 50 years of memories—and things—in this house, and it would be very hard to give it all up—

But unless we get a miracle, we are going to have no choice but to look for another place to live.

We are restricted in where we can live.

We would like to stay in the same area, and we have to stay in New York State, on Long Island, and in Nassau County because of the benefits my son gets by living here.

Anyone in our relative situation knows exactly what I am talking about.

The disabled get more benefits in New York State, and in Nassau County, than probably anywhere in the country, if not the world, and with our son also having a steady job—about three quarters of his peers are not so lucky—there is no way that we can leave the county and the state.

So we are hoping for a miracle, a miracle that will keep us here and in the same home we have called home for decades.

If not, we are going to be looking for accessory housing in the county, which is going to be very difficult, especially with our financial status, which stinks, in plain English.

The three of us each gets Social Security, which is OK until you total up exactly what we get, and it isn’t much.

I had to take early retirement, my wife chose to, and our son could not live on what he gets if he really had to.

My wife and I are working, but we are making a mere fraction of what we should be making at our freelance (me) and her newly started part-time (her) jobs.

My wife and I both had 401K plans at our last full-time jobs, but mine was stopped a few years before the place I worked for went out of business, and it was the only 401K plan I had in my decades of work, so what I have does not amount to that much.

My wife’s plan also did not afford her too much, and we have placed this money is in the stock market, so who knows where that will take what we have?

My son just received his own 401K plan, so we can’t touch that at all.

So we are in a pickle, and it isn’t just sour, it is literally a rancid situation.

We have a broker who is going to handle the sale of our house, and will help place us in a new living situation if we need it.

Maybe we need that proverbial four-leaf clover to help us out …

I had a long talk with my son yesterday, and I told him that prayers are in order for us, praying to God for a break, something good after the horrors of at least the past four years since I lost my job, then lost my parents, and then, possibly, in the process of losing this house.

I told him that when I was a kid, I used to pray to God to get me something, like a toy I wanted, or something along those lines.

I said that now, the prayers would be for something more important, and it is not anything bad to step up the prayer process after all these years.

Heck, I prayed last night, and will do so until this situation is resolved.

We might just need that divine intervention to help us out of a situation that seems to be an impossible one, one that was not of our own creation but one that we have been saddled with.

I have started to spread the word about the house, and maybe, with a little luck, we can reach a resolution that is good for everyone.

Looking for a house?

I have just the house you are looking for … . 

Rant #3,200: A Man Without a Dream

Normally, reaching a milestone like we did today at Rant #3,200 would be a topic of conversation for the blog, but circumstances have made that point almost moot.

And I know today is a solemn date in our nation’s history, but right now, I cannot personally concentrate on that.

This past weekend, I tried to get back to some normalcy in my life and in my family’s lives, but let me tell you, it wasn’t an easy thing to do.

Coincidently, a day after burying my mother, my son’s sports activities revved up again for the fall.

On Friday, his basketball season began and on Saturday, his bowling season commenced.

These were good things for both my son and I, almost forcing us to shift our focus from my mother’s passing and the rigors of the funeral to something else.

Personally, I often used these activities as my “step away from what was happening,” if you will, respites from my mother’s deteriorating health and all the other problems that I have.

And on Friday, after receiving condolences from numerous people at the basketball activity, I was able to “step away” just like I had previously done, and I assume that my son was able to do the same thing.

Even though lasting just an hour or so, it was fun, and served as a tonic for us to help us get back to some type of normalcy.

Saturday was another step in that long road, as bowling began for my son, with my son and his team as defending league champions.

There is a bit more pressure in the bowling league than there is in the basketball league, as it is ultra-competitive, and with my son’s team as champion, there is a target on their backs.

But again, that leads to the fun of it all, and in week one, my son’s team won the two games that they played, and my son bowled OK after a three-month layoff.

And it really took me away from everything.

Every “high-five” that I made with the bowlers was like a bit of angst was being let out of me … and there were plenty of “high-fives” to go around.

It was lots of fun, I have to say, and I think that my son also used it as a platform to get back to normal.

And then we had the “piece de resistance” to normalcy—

My son and I went to a wrestling show at the local Nassau Coliseum on Saturday night.

It was nothing more than a house show, but the old, venerable “Barn” demonstrated that it can still hold its own with such an event, even if the place is most probably on its last legs with the possible coming of gambling and a casino to what is known as the “Nassau Hub” area.

We had purchased the tickets months ago, obviously not knowing then that the event would be just two days after my mom’s funeral, but again, it served as a tonic for what ailed us, and we had a great time.

In the Jewish religion, the period of mourning after a funeral is called “Shiva,” which is supposed to last up to eight days and where being somber is the law of this ritual.

Those mourning sit on boxes, all mirrors are covered, and food is plentiful for those who come to commiserate with you.

My sister and I decided that we would have none of that; we would have one day of mourning right after the funeral, and one day only.

We agreed that it becomes almost like a party atmosphere if you do it longer, and we simply wanted to end it after one day.

Whoever was there was there; we won’t hold it over the heads of those who were not there. You do what you need to do, and that is that.

So while I will always mourn the loss of my mother—and my parents—we decided to keep the mourning period as short as possible, because we didn’t feel that it was necessary to elongate it.

Look, even with these fun events in tow, my family cannot reach normalcy right now, and won’t be able to reach it for the foreseeable future.

With my mother gone, our time in this house is very limited, so our living status is completely up in the air.

The house will be listed, either for sale with us as tenants or for sale without us as tenants, and if the latter occurs—the most likely scenario—we are going to have to look for a new place to call home.

We have little money, little income to cover current rental levels, and quite frankly, the entire thing is a mess, a mess of messes that I had the foresight to see so many years ago when my parents entered into this deal with the devil against my wishes.

But right now, that is all water under the bridge.

Over the weekend, as I tried to get back to normal, I took all the photos off the wall of my mother’s portion of the house, and let me tell you, it was a very difficult thing to do.

These family-related photos had been on the wall for decades, and to take them down really hit me hard, right in my heart.

I also moved my father’s part of the bedroom set out to the curb, with my mother’s soon to follow.

This portion of the house needs further cleaning, and we will make it perfect for viewing to whoever might be interested in buying the place.

It is just so sad, but I guess life moves on.

Anyone interested in buying a beautiful house in world-famous Massapequa Park and having us as a LEGAL tenant?

If you know of anybody who might be interested, please let me know==

Because my world cannot possibly reach any level of real normalcy until I find out where my family and I stand, literally, with our housing needs.

I feel like a man without a dream now, and I don’t like that feeling one bit.

Rant #3,199: Goodbye

"When I was very young, probably around two years old or so, my mother and I were in a department store or supermarket, where my mom was shopping, and I was creating whatever havoc I was doing while she was trying to shop.

I was a little terror as a young child, curious about everything, into everything, and under foot like a piece of used gum stuck to the sidewalk that you invariably step on with your shoes.

Anyway, my mother was waiting on line to check out, and I was doing my thing, causing havoc while all she wanted to do was to check out and come home.

My mother was visibly pregnant with my sister, Gail, and while I was doing what I was doing, an elderly woman on the line with my mother looked at me, turned to my mother and said as she pointed to me:

“After that”—now pointing to my mother’s stomach—“you actually want another one?”

My mother ran home crying.

That story became one of my mother’s favorite stories to tell everyone about me, as I went through my “Larry the Menace” phase, and as we remember my mother on this very solemn day, it only seemed fitting to bring it up.

And yes, I did actually calm down a bit when my sister was born, and I became her “big brother.”

There are so many other funny, and poignant stories about my mother that I could tell you today, but I want to dispel a false rumor, and urban legend that is simply not true:

My mother did not vacuum the house at 4 a.m. in the morning. I just don’t know how that untruth started, but it simply is not true—

She vacuumed at 4:30 a.m. in the morning, so let’s set the record straight once and for all!

My mother was the family’s rock of Gibraltar for as long as I can remember, the person my sister and I could go to with all of our triumphs, our problems, and everything in between.

We could tell her just about everything, and she would tell us that everything would work out, everything would be fine, and to take just one day at a time.

But she had her rules and regulations, and while they were not hard to follow, sometimes things kind of got in the way …

I must have been about four years old or so, and we lived by then in Kew Gardens Hills, Queens, a very notorious neighborhood in the early to mid-1960s, home to the Kitty Genovese and Alice Crimmins incidents that made worldwide headlines.

Anyway, I was outside with my friends playing—probably digging up the backyard of the building that we lived in—and among my “friends” was an older kid, a 10-year old also named Larry.

Larry was an interesting guy. He was already known by the police as a troublemaker, and was a charter member of the Kew Gardens Hills Juvenile Delinquent Club. My mother made sure, personally, that he got his card to this club, as she knew that this kid was a problem.

For some unknown reason, he took a liking to me, and he even, during his quieter moments, built me a scooter from discarded fruit crates and roller skates.

Anyway, on this particular day, he called me over, and told me to tell my mother something. I had never heard these words before, but he told me to go right upstairs and tell my mother these words, and that she would be happy when I told her this.

I dutifully ran upstairs, told my mother what he told me to say to her, and she turned red as a beet!

What Larry told me to tell my mother was actually a slew of filthy four-letter words directed at her, and when my mother heard me say these words to her, whether they came from the older Larry or not, those words were never to be spoken again in our house.

She took me by my head into the sink, put on the water full force, and took the bar of soap we had there to wash our hands and washed out my mouth with it.

I learned my lesson right there and then.

Through the years, my mother and father were in the perfect 1950s marriage—my father made the money and my mother ran the house—and they never changed, even in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and beyond, and you can’t argue with it, as they were married for nearly 65 years.

My mother was an incredible influence on my sister and I. My father refused to let my mother work when we were growing up, and during the Rochdale Village days, she was probably the only mom I can remember who was a full-time homemaker.

Just about all my friends had their moms working at east part-time—some full-time—and my mother became something of a surrogate mother to all the friends my sister and I had. They knew as well as we did that if we did anything stupid, and she caught wind of it, we would get into trouble, because my mother would tell my friends’ parents if any of us got out of line.

Happily, she didn’t know about a lot of the stupid things we did, but believe me, she knew about plenty!

Once we moved to Long Island, the world was changing in the 1970s, and women’s rights became a big topic of conversation.

My sister had a friend whose mother was very much into the women’s right movement, organizing rallies and attending meetings related to Women’s Liberation.

This woman saw a likely recruit in my mother, who she simply regarded as a lowly housewife, and she tried to recruit my mom to the movement.

After several attempts, my mother flatly told her the following: “I am the most liberated woman I can be, because I am doing exactly what I want to do with my life,” and no truer words were ever said, and that was the end of the recruitment process.

My mother eventually did go to work, working numerous fitting rooms in a variety of department stores in the Sunrise Mall in Massapequa. My father didn’t like it, but he like the extra money she was bringing into the house.

She expanded her world there, met some very interesting people—one of her regular customers was Christine Jorgensen, one of the most famous people in the world in the 1950s as the first transgender person who settled back in Massapequa in her last decades of life—and really enjoyed the camaraderie with fellow workers.

And through it all—and through the succeeding decades—she was doing exactly what she wanted to do, and she was about the best mother my sister and I could have ever had.

Even towards the end, even with the dementia and the other ailments that eventually destroyed her, we could chat with her, we could laugh with her, we could cry with her, and she always had impactful things to say to us, even with her mind being eaten away.

Now that she is gone, we have some problems that need to be solved, but we are going to have to do it on our own, without the advice of our mother.

I don’t know how we are going to do this, but we will manage—

And I do think that my mother will be looking over our shoulders during the entire process, making sure that we are doing the right thing.

I love you mom.

One crack, two bam—MAH JONGG!

Amen."

Rant #3,198: More Love

Today is kind of a day of “rest” for me before my mother’s funeral tomorrow morning—

But I still have plenty to do today in preparation for the day my mom will be eulogized and buried.

This almost seems absurd, but the first thing I have to do to prepare for all of this is to get a nice, new, clean white shirt to wear with my suit.

I never wear a suit—did I wear one at my father’s funeral three years ago?—I have no idea—but I looked through my closet, and I have no idea where my white shirts are.

I wore them for work once or twice a week, but the last two or three years at that job we were told that we didn’t need to wear ties, so the white shirts went the way of the Nehru jacket as far as my wardrobe was concerned.

I have no idea where those white shirts are—I found one that might have been my father’s short, because it is for a larger man than me—but I could not find any of my white shirts, so I have to go today and buy one.

Yesterday, I made so many phone calls that once again, my phone was operating on little power by the middle to the end of the day.

I know I have some more phone calls to make, and after the funeral, probably on Friday and into next week, I will have many other phone calls to make related to my mother and her life and passing.

I also have to take my son to work and pick him up to bring him home, which is really the easiest thing for me to do.

I have always found that doing this is a bit of a respite for me based on what I am doing the rest of the day.

Yesterday, even though it was 95 degrees out and I sat in the car waiting for his work day to end, waiting for my son really cooled me down from the rigors of the funeral.

I was able to do some work in the car—after doing some at home before I left to go get him—and I was able to listen to the car radio and read the newspaper while I waited for him.

It really helped to clear my mind,, even though the weather was so darn hot—and might even be warmer today.

Yesterday after work, I had ot meet my wife at a Workman’s Compensation medical checkup that she was required to take in a doctor’s office in western Nassau County.

With my son in tow, the GPS on my phone gave me a really crazy way to get there, but it did get us there, and my wife was examined by an Orthodox Jewish doctor—with all the trappings, if you know what I mean--which I found to be interesting.

One of the stipulations of this visit was that my wife had to be driven back and forth to the examination by a Lyft driver of the other side’s choosing, something we did not like but adhered to, so my son and I were there not for transportation, but for emotional support.

After the examination and with my wife in the Lyft car, I spoke to a friend on the phone the entire way home, and we arrived back home about five minutes after my wife did, what with all the rush hour traffic that we encountered.

Anyway, we finally got home, and we had a pile of mail that had to be dissected, which I did as quickly as I could.

After dinner, I finally had some time to really relax.

I watched TV with my son as I always do with my wife conking out early as she normally does, and at 10 p.m., I had had enough and wanted to jump right into the bed and fall asleep—

But checking the phone, I found that I had many, many messages to answer, so I don’t think I actually got into the bed until some time after 10:30 p.m.—and I found that I was so wired, that I could not fall asleep.

If I fell asleep at midnight it would have been a miracle, so who knows when I actually conked out—but it all started again this morning, when I woke up at about 6:20 a.m., ready to face another brutal day.

But maybe today is the first light at the end of the very dark tunnel that my family has seen for a while.

My wife begins a new job today at a local retailer. She is not fully recovered from that terrible accident she had a few ninths back, but she has become well enough that she feels that she can do some non-impact type of work, so today is her first day of her part-time job.

Let’s wish her a lot of luck with this endeavor, as if it is successful, it will make her mind, body and soul feel a whole lot better—and make her wallet a little fuller too.

So let me push on to tomorrow, a day I am dreading but a day that needs to be done.

So tomorrow, I will have to take another day off from the blog, as I must concentrate fully on the funeral.

I will be back on Friday, so speak to you then.

Rant #3,197: The Beginning of the End

I am finally back after my self-imposed time off from the blog.

While taking time off from the blog was something that I felt was necessary, it did not turn out too well, certainly wasn’t as therapeutic as I thought it would be, and specifically, it was a mess from beginning to end.

I want to tell you what happened during my time off in as chronological a fashion as possible, so just bear with me as you read what I have to say.

The reason I took the time off—the real reason I took the time off—was that my family and I were going on vacation, on a cruise to the Caribbean, accompanied by my wife’s brothers and their wives.

We had planned for this vacation for many months, and with my mother in various stages of health, we did waiver about taking the cruise or not taking the cruise many, many times.

It has nothing to do with who would take care of her while we were away—she would be well taken care of—but it had to do with just going away with her in the condition she was in.

And when we found out much later that my wife’s brothers and their wives would be going on the same cruise, we kind of felt out hands were tied—and we would make the best of it, since my mother was going to be so well taken care of while we were gone.

Let me go back to about two days prior to the first day of the cruise, where my allergies were affecting me so badly that I actually went to one of those walk-in medical places to take a COVID test.

Although I did not have COVID, I was diagnosed with a mix of a cold and bad allergies, and I subsequently wore a mask for just about the length of the cruise.

Bad omen, very bad omen.

So, on Wednesday, August 23—my son’s birthday—we went on our cruise, and I figured that the sea air would clear my mind and my soul.

Because of Hurricane Idalia, our cruise was almost immediately rerouted away from the thrust of the storm, so we never got to Puerto Rico nor to somewhere else I cannot remember, basically settling on Grand Turk and the Bahamas.

Another very bad omen.

Two days into the cruise, I was contacted by my sister—my phone worked the entire cruise, believe it or not—and she told me that my mother was in the hospital again. She was completely unresponsive, and from what it sinded like based on my sister’s description, my mother had had a major stroke.

I was going to come home in the middle of the cruise—I would have to wait to the later portion of the cruise to do it, from the Bahamas—but my sister and I decided that it was better if I stayed the length of the cruise, so I did just that.

(As an aside, the cruise line did not like the fact at I was thinking about leaving the cruise right I the middle of it, was very condescending to me when I asked for help, and their behavior towards me is something I won’t soon forget.)

So I went about the length of the cruise getting regular updates from my sister, but it was not anything good.

My mother was comatose, under very heavy sedation, and could go at any second.

I tried to get through the cruise, but frankly, I was out of it most of the time.

One moment, I was fine, the next moment, I wished that we were home.

I actually fell asleep during a few of the shows, and each day passed by very slowly.

Finally, we arrived home on Thursday, August 31, and about the first thing that I did was to go to the hospice my mother was living out her days in.

It was a beautiful hospice, featuring all the cares of home, and when I arrived at Room 211, I saw my mother lying there, seemingly in a deep sleep.

But she wasn’t really sleeping.

Here eyes were sunken into her head, her lips were parched, and while she was breathing, she really was not with us here.

Her life was gone, and only her corpse remained.

It is hard to descr4ibe it any other way.

My sister had been there through the worst of it, and since the day I came home, I went to the hospice each and every day to be with my mom.

I spoke to her like I would if she were still with us; I told her about what was happening at the house, I read her the comics, I told her about the state of the Yankees … but I also told her time and time again that it was time to go, time to visit my father in heaven …

And that she had had a wonderful life, was a great mom and grandmother, and that we all loved her so.

My mother, as petite and frail as she was, was a very strong woman, and the doctors were amazed that she lasted in this state for as long as she did.

I woke up today at about 6:30 a.m., showered, got dressed and was ready to get myself breakfast when my sister called me.

My mother had died at around the time that I got up, maybe a little earlier.

Funeral arrangements are pending, but Jewish tradition states that the funeral must be quick, and we will abide by that edict as much as we possibly can.

R.I.P. Phyllis Lapka, March 11, 1931 to September 5, 2023 … quite frankly, she was the best mother anybody could have, and my sister and I were blessed by being her children.

What the future holds is another matter, and that will be discussed at a later time.

But my mom is with my dad now, and right now, that is all that counts.