Rant #4,014: Wrong

As I spoke about in yesterday's Rant, I called the cemetery office about my mother's plot not being taken care of, and the woman I spoke to said this to me:

"A mistake may have been made," relating to my mom's gravesite being totally devoid of care and full of weeds.

She said that the greenery which had been earmarked for my mother's grave might have been, instead, placed on someone else's nearby grave by mistake.

She said they would send a caretaker out to see the state of the site.

Again, this is not the world I was born into.

This is a world of complete ineptitude, one where this type of behavior seems to be accepted.

And when my sister called the cemetery, she received a com0letely different story.

Again, this is partly my family's fault, as we hadn't visited the grave to pay our respects in some time.

Again, I can make the excuse that we have been busy with so many other things, which we have, but that is not a good excuse.

We dropped the ball as much as the cemetery dropped the ball.

The only thing that is different is that the cemetery told us two different stories, neither which made much sense.

Now, we have been told that the site will be cleaned up, and bushes put where the weeds are.

So I have to say, I learned another life lesson, and I learned it the hard way:

You can't trust anyone or anything--not even a cemetery--to do the right thing.

In this bizarro world that we live in today, you have to be on top of everything, or nothing will get done.

Even to keep a gravesite in presentable fashion.

I don't even know how I feel right now.

Sure, I am upset with myself for not visiting the site and not making sure that our original wishes for greenery there were carried out.

But I am also upset with the cemetery, which should have done whatever they could to to make sure that my mother's gravesite was not a site of weeds.

So there is fault on both sides, making me kind of dizzy from the whole thing ...

Maybe even a bit numb about this episode.

Again, my father's site is fine, with nice greenery standing proudly right in front of his gravestone.

My mother's site ...

The gravestone stands out proudly, looks brand new--

But the actual grave site is nothing but a gaggle of weeds.

That is not what we intended it to look like, and whatever mistake that was made must be rectified ASAP.

The Jewish High Holy Days, beginning with Rosh Hashanah and ending with Yom Kippur, begin later this week, ironically on September 11, the evening of the 25th anniversary of one of the worst days in our nation's history.

I am not likening what happened that day to what happened to my mother's gravesite, but it all seems to be rolled into one, in sort of a strange way.

I believe that my mother deserves way better than this, and yes, I do blame myself for not going to the grave and seeing what was there, and not there, sooner.

My fault. My fault entirely.

I hope my mother, in heaven, forgives me for this obvious oversight--

And I hope that in the coming days, her gravesite will be something that looks presentable, is full of greenery, and something that she deserves for a long life well spent caring for her children and grandchildren.

She simply does not deserve this, and no matter whose fault it is--individually and/or collectively--my mother deserves much, much better.

Period.

Rant #4,013: Don't You Care

Labor Day was a "labor," what can I tell you.

Things are supposed to slow down that day, but for me, they revved up.

I decided to visit the cemetery where my parents are buried.

I, personally, had not been there in quite a while, but I decided to go on Labor Day because my father died on Labor Day, the same exact September 7 in 2020, when he passed, that Labor Day was on this year.

So I figured that I would visit both of their graves--they are not buried together, as this is an Orthodox Jewish cemetery, and men and women are buried separately--one, and then the other, just a few steps away from each other.

Admittedly, although I had a map of the place, it was still difficult for me to find the graves, but through trial and error, I finally found them, to my relief.

I found my father's grave first, and I have to tell you, it looked pretty spiffy.

It was taken care of with perpetual care, and everything was neat and tidy.

I said what I had to say, put a rock on top of the gravestone to signify that I had visited, and moved on to my mom's grave.

During her burial service, I am about 99.9 percent sure that we asked the cemetery for perpetual care for her site, but since we never received a bill from them for this service, I had a sneaking suspicion that our wishes were never applied--

And to my dismay, they weren't.

The site was full of weeds, and while the stone was immaculate--she passed away on Sept. 5, 2023, so it is only a few years back--the plot where it sits was awful.

I said what I had to say, put a stone on top of the gravestone to signify that I was there, and I left, to go to the cemetery office--

Which I found out was closed, at least when I was there, as again, it was Labor Day, a national holiday.

So I vowed to call them today--which I will do when the office opens at 9 a.m.--and get this thing figured out.

Look, when we buried my mother, the day was obviously an emotional one, and the unveiling of the stone some time later was also very emotional.

Perhaps things didn't get done that should have been done, but I am pretty sure that we did ask for perpetual care for my mom's site.

I believe my mother, when she still was cognizant before her mind went, might have paid for "forever" perpetual care for my father's grave, as we have never received a bill for that either, and his site looked very well kept.

But for my mother ...

I even remember talking to my brother in law about this, and we said we would alternate the payments, he paying one bill, me paying the next bill, and on and on into perpetuity.

But we never received a bill, so we were each at fault for not following up on this until now.

I could make every excuse in the world, but I won't--

We dropped the ball on this, and the results were disturbing.

There is no moral to this story ...

Just that when a loved one like a parent passes, the survivors have to keep up on things like this, and quite frankly, we simply didn't.

But at least now, we will start to take care of it, giving my mother the proper burial site that she deserves.

As the song goes, "Sorry seems to be the hardest word," but all I can say to my mom and dad after visiting them yesterday is--

"SORRY."

Rant #4,012: Reflections

Labor Day is coming up on Monday, and as I explained yesterday, I have a lot of mixed feelings about the holiday--

Nothing to do with the holiday itself, but with the fact that my father died on the holiday a few years back--yes, on September 7, 2020--and my mother passed away a few years later around the same time. 

Much less in my mind in 2026 is that for many years when I was working full-time, I worked on Labor Day, and honestly, it was just so unnecessary.

Those feelings have dissipated over time, as I am almost at the seven-year mark for when I lost my job on October 10 when the company I worked for went out of business right before the pandemic.

Things have been very difficult for myself and my family since then, and it isn't getting better anytime soon, but that really has nothing to do with Labor Day.

Compound all of this with the Jewish High Holy Days, which are right around the bend.

Ironically, Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown on September 11, and this year, that day takes on added significance, as it is the 25th anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

So, at least for me, this is a pretty somber period, and again, it has absolutely nothing to do with Labor Day per se.

Labor Day honors the American labor movement and is a federal holiday in the United States.

It is really a joyous occasion, and since it is a federal holiday, most people, ironically, have the day off from their normal work labors.

People go to ballgames, have fireworks, there are barbecues and family get togethers.

And Labor Day is also the unofficial end of summer, although it actually ends about two weeks later.

For me, I will hand in some work that day, although the federal government--and the association I work for--will be closed to honor the holiday.

I will probably write up and edit some work for them, so I have it handy when everything gets back to normal the next day.

There won't be any family gatherings or anything like that, at least with my family.

Both my son and wife have to work that day, so if I have a barbecue, it will be mainly for myself, although I could heat up some things for them as they arrive home from work.

But otherwise, it will be just another day for me, really nothing more or less than that.

However, I am going to take the day off from writing here at the Blog, so it feels like the holiday it really is.

But more importantly, it will give me time to think about my parents, and think about my future good health.

I will rev it up again on Tuesday.

So enjoy yourself on the holiday, have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Tuesday.

Rant #4,011: All Those Years Ago

As you are reading this, I am getting my latest medical test done--

And I hope that it puts me in the clear, at least in that part of my body.

I really and truly wish that I didn't have to go through all of this stuff, but that is not my reality at this point in my life.

How about in the past?

Let's do something I haven't done in quite a while, which is to look back at what I wrote about on this date years ago.

I certainly could not possibly foresee the sorry state that I am in now, but it might give some insight into what I was into some years down the line.

And with so many significant dates coming up--Labor Day, the Jewish High Holidays and the anniversary of the passing of both of my parents--it might be nice to look back on what was on my mind on September 3 during the past several years.

Let's go--

Phil Spector's Pleasant Valley Jail Day (Rant #80, September 3, 2009): Phil Spector, the prolific music producer and music legend, had fallen on very hard times at this point, incarcerated in jail for murder. The guy simply had lost it, but the crux of this entry was the name of the facility that he was living out his life in: Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, California. And since the name reminded me of the Monkees' hit "Pleasant Valley Sunday," I took that and ran with it, with new lyrics to that song related to where Spector's digs were. Heck, you have to have fun with such things, because they are so absurd.

Country Rock Legend Passes Away (Rant #1,505, September 3, 2015): I bemoaned the loss of someone who was not in the same pantheon as Dolly Parton, but still had his little iota of importance in the world of country music: Boomer Castlemen first came to some notoriety as a member of the Lewis and Clarke Expedition, an act which shared the same Colgems label as the Monkees did, and featured Michael Martin Murphy as a band member. They had a few charted singles, never hit it that big as sort of a country/rock version of the Monkees, and Castleman's fame was that he was the inventor of the "palm pedal," a device allowing guitar players to execute pedal-style string bends, which became integral to the sound of country music.

Work Work Work Work (Idle Hands Are the Devil's Playground) (Rant #2,215, September 3, 2018): It was Labor Day on September 3 of that year, and I lamented the fact that I was laboring on that day, not having the day off from work like most people did. I acknowledged that the company I worked for was going down the tubes--it did a little more than a year later--but even though we were going into the abyss, I still had to labor on Labor Day, Well, it ended up being just one more Labor Day of work, and then, that was that.

Simply the Best (Rant #2,485, September 3, 2020): Again, I looked at the career of another legend who had just passed away. I was never a Mets fan, but even as a dyed-in-the-wool Yankees fan, I had to hand it to Tom Seaver, probably one of the greatest pitchers of all time and certainly one of the best I had ever seen; I think Bob Gibson was probably a slight notch better, but Seaver was certainly a strong 1A on my list. Rubbing salt on the wound, he won his 300th game as a member of the White Sox on Phil Rizzuto Day at the old Yankee Stadium, but whatever the case, "Tom Terrific" was just that.

A Time of Remembrance (Rant #2,726, September 3, 2021): I was lamenting the upcoming Labor Day of that year, not so much for what Labor Day means, but for the new significance it had taken on for myself and my family. My father passed away on Labor Day 2020, which was on September 7, so I link the holiday with his death; but since Labor Day takes place on a different date each year, it kind of makes the holiday an odd one for myself and my family, because while he died on Labor Day, that day is not the same each year.

"Julia" (Rant #3,775, September 3, 2025: In this Rant, I wrote about actor Mark Copage, who you might remember was one of the stars of the groundbreaking program "Julia," which starred Diahann Carroll, one of the first TV programs with a black female lead. Copage played her son, but when the show ended after a few seasons, Copage kind of fell into obscurity. the reason I wrote about him was that I found one of the couple of records he had made, a bubblegummy 45 "Will It Be Me," and I found it with a picture sleeve. When I found it, I decided to dig into his life and career, and that was the direction of the Rant.

So there you have it.

Fun, sadness, reverence ... September 3 encompassed all of those categories here over the years.

I can say it was fun to look back, but it actually forced me to take a step back ...

And really look into what I wrote about all those years ago.

Sort of like a scrapbook of my thinking during different periods of my life.

I am happy that I have the resource to do that, and the Blog stands as my testament to my life and/or where I was at a particular time in my existence.

All those years ago ... .

Rant #4,010: When I Was Young

Yes, I did go to the skin doctor to get rid of that pre-cancer on my head.

Supposedly, I don't have to worry about it anymore.

But I did ask the doctor why I keep getting these things, and he told me the same thing I already knew.

It might have come from the sun against my scalp from 50 years ago or even more than that, or it could be hereditary.

It could also be because of age, and that is what we are leaning to.

I was never a sun worshiper, and if you knew me way back when in Rochdale Village, you know that I always had a baseball cap on my head, and that baseball cap stayed on my head when we moved to Long Island.

Did I go to the beach and/or to the swimming pool during those years?

Sure I did!

We went all the time, especially when I was in Rochdale Village Day Camp, but I always wore a cap on my head ...

But you never know.

Maybe one day I didn't, and more than 50 years later, these lesions are the result.

When you get older, things get you that you would have never dreamed of when you were younger, and I think that is what is happening to my body now.

All of these things that my body was able to fight off when I was younger are coming out now, and again, you never know what is going on in your body, even when you feel fine, like I do.

Tomorrow, I have to go for an ultrasound test to see if I have any further kidney stones to take care of, and I sure hope that I don't.

I have to drink 24 ounces of water about two hours before I get the test--I am getting the test at 7:30 a.m., so I have to do this at 5 a.m. or thereabouts--and I cannot pee during the period when I do the drinking and I have the test.

That should be so much fun!

I also have to get allergy shots that day, and at least with those, I have known I have bad allergies my entire life, so there are really no surprises with that type of health care ...

Or at least I don't think there are, but again, who really knows?

At this point, I am prepared for just about anything ...

Just about.

And again, I don't want any surprises.

Surprises are supposed to be fun, but as I get older, my surprises are just the opposite.

And all of these things are hitting me all at once, which makes the whole thing even worse.

Those carefree days of youth are definitely done.

But why do my later years have to be so difficult?

Rant #4,009: The Time It Is Today

Look, in the grand scheme of things, what I am going to relate to you is pretty inconsequential, but even with all the other major problems I have that I have described to you over the previous weeks and months, what I am going to tell you now is annoying at least, and frustrating beyond all understanding.

As you know, my son is into professional wrestling. It is his thing--we all have our own things--and he just loves to watch these shows on TV and in person.

AEW is the new kid on the block in pro wrestling, but they have made great leaps and bounds during their few years of existence. They are not WWE, but they are as close as you probably can get.

Anyway, as we customarily do, when a new pay-per-view (PPV) event comes up, my son and I order the event through our television.

It usually takes less than a minute to do, and when it is done, we get ourselves ready to watch that show.

No muss, no fuss.

Two weeks ago, AEW All In from England was the next PPV event on the list, so as we always do, we went into the PPV section of our service and tried to order it.

For the very first time, we had a problem.

Each time we tried to order it--for $49.99, for a six or seven hour show--we came up with a screen saying that there "was not enough credit" on our account to make the purchase.

First of all, I had no idea what they were referring to by "credit," and secondly, there should not have been a problem with "credit" or anything else, because we pay our monthly bill the day that we receive it, and have been doing that with our service since day one during the past 19 years we have used this particular service as our TV/phone/Internet provider.

The service is Verizon.

So after repeated tries to purchase the PPV, I called Verizon's customer service, which at one time was excellent, but now has fallen into the garbage pail of customer service, as I have had a lot of problems with them since moving to our current digs.

Anyway, I was passed back and forth from one department to another, and was told that they would have to call me back during business hours, because this was a billing department malfunction.

So last Monday, they did call me back, and the operator told me that not only would the problem be fixed, but that he was manually going to add the PPV into our account, so we wouldn't have to try to order it again.

Everything was supposedly hunky dory.

On Sunday morning, my son and I turned on the living room TV and were preparing to watch the show.

Just so you know, AEW's "All In" is what "Wrestlemania" is to WWE. It is AEW's biggest show of the year, an international event that takes place at England's famed Wembley Stadium.

So we maneuvered to the channel it was supposed to be on, and lo and behold, it wasn't on.

I tried to order it again, but the same thing came up, about our credit.

I called Verizon again, and I might as well have been speaking to Moe, Larry and Curly when trying to get this thing fixed, as once again, those I spoke to--including a supervisor--had absolutely no clue what the problem was, and once again, they told me that I would have to wait until the next business day to get this thing resolved.

So with it not being resolved, we could not watch the PPV through Verizon.

On Monday morning, for some reason, I slept through until 8 a.m., when I was awakened by a call from Verizon's customer service.

Trying to address this problem, I was put on hold several times while the operator tried to process my request, but then she told me that the office she was trying to contact was not open yet, and that she would have to call me back--

Which elevated my blood pressure even further, as I was on the phone for about 20 minutes to hear that once, again, my request had been passed onto another department.

I do not appreciate lip service, and I let them know very clearly that I was perturbed, and that their customer service was terrible.

They told me that they would call me back at 9 a.m.--

Which they did, but at 9:05 a.m., and for the next hour, I was on the phone, trying to get this thing resolved.

I was passed on to another operator, who had absolutely no idea what she was doing, once again trying to contact yet another department without resolving the problem, and then she told me that a work ticket was going to be put out, and this would be dealt with in a few days--

When I heard this, my boiling point had reached its limit, and I asked to speak to a supervisor.

I finally spoke to the supervisor, who basically reiterated what the operator said, and I told her that that was not good enough.

I wanted action now, right now, but she explained to me that it would take longer to fix the problem, and I had no choice but to wait a few days for the problem to be resolved.

I again told her that that was not good enough.

She explained to me that the "credit" situation has to do with clients generally with younger children who don't want their kids constantly ordering PPV events without their knowledge, so they put a credit cap on their system so the kids cannot order anything without the parents knowing about it until they get their bill.

However, they admitted that I had no such credit cap on my account, and that the credit cap can be as high as $1,000, so even with a $49.99 PPV, it should not have impacted my ability to get the PPV--

So once again, they had absolutely no idea why I was getting this message about "credit," and that I would have to wait a few days for it to get fixed.

As you can imagine, my blood was boiling at this point.

I told the supervisor that I have been a Verizon customer for 19 years, and that unless this thing was resolved, I would not make 20 years with them, as I will find another provider for these services.

"I have been working here longer than you have been with us," was her very cavalier reply.

She told me that I would have to wait, but that she would call me back on Monday to tell me how they were progressing with the problem.

Since she copped an attitude with me, I told her that if this thing was not resolved, I would go to the next level, with her the target, which I don't think I have to spell out to you--

She said she understood, and that I would get a call from her later that day.

And that was that.

After spending about 90 minutes of my two hours up after sleep on the phone with Verizon, nothing--

And I mean nothing--

Had been resolved.

What a complete and total waste of time.

It made the very busy week that I described to you yesterday even more frustrating.

I do not like being lip-serviced to death, and that is what has been happening to me for the past two weeks about this problem.

I have been around the block ...

I know incompetency when I see it.

And here it is on grand display.

Then late in the afternoon, I got the first of two calls from Verizon, one trying to assure me that they situation had been resolved--

But not being able to see it put into action, and I had/have my doubts.

The person on the phone told me to order any PPV event, and when it went through, he would immediately wipe it out.

The problem was that there were no PPV events to order, so that was for naught.

I told him that I will click on a sporting event, and see if it worked, and after clicking on it, it took me right to the channel, so I did not have to go through any payment levels, which makes me even more suspicious about whether this thing was fixed or not.

The person told me he would wipe out that event and the AEW event on the bill--I had been told previously that the AEW event has already been removed--and that was that with him.

I received another phone call an hour later, and to make a long story short, I reiterated the entire thing to this woman on the other end, and she said that she would actually call me on September 23, or right before the next AEW PPV event, to make sure everything was copacetic.

And then I got a message from my dermatologist for today's procedure I have to have done early this morning, and I don't want to get into that, because their artificial Intelligence-generated phone system is equally as incompetent as Verizon's customer service system is ...

And yes, never getting the information I needed from them because there was a glitch in their system, I let them have it too ...

In my usual polite, but very ticked-off, manner.

And yes, I spoke to the business manager in the office, and she agreed with everything I said about their phone system.

Big deal

And here I sit, with nothing to show for my efforts.

What a waste of time.

If I have said it once, I will say it a thousand times--

This is NOT the world I was born into.

No way, no how.

Rant #4,008: Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

To quote Gomer Pyle again ...

"Surprise, Surprise, Surprise."

My dermatologist found another lesion that is pre-cancerous, so I have to have that removed--and hopefully taken care of for good--on Tuesday morning.

If it is not one thing, it is another.

But unlike Gomer's other famous saying--

"He gonna kill me, he gonna kill me, he gonna kill me dead"--

This thing isn't going to do that to me, as I am sure it will be removed and over and done with.

I hope I don't have to go through what I did a few months ago, where my scalp had to be opened up, staples put into it, and I had to go to a plastic surgeon to fully heal the wound.

No, this time, it has to be removed in full on Tuesday, and that will be that ...

I certainly hope so.

Thus far this year, I have had three major operations, and it is actually four if you count the cancerous lesion I had removed earlier.

And I face another one when my eye gets operated on in September--

On September 21 ...

On Yom Kippur yet!

I just can't win this year, and that is why I simply can't wait for this year to end.

I need to put 2026 in the rear view mirror, and simply put it behind me.

By the way, I have another test this week related to my kidney stone surgeries, and then next month, I have to have another procedure done to ensure that I am OK somewhere else.

Makes we want to screech and scream with joy at all of these medical things.

But I guess I am not alone.

We have since heard that Dolly Parton had numerous health ills leading up to her passing, including kidney stones.

So these things can hit anyone and everyone, regardless of who you are, how much money you have, have much fame you have, etc.

If it teaches me--and all of us--one thing, it is that we are all human beings.

No one is better than anyone else, and we are all in the same boat.

I guess I should take comfort in that, but I have to tell you that I really don't.

Why is all of this happening to me, seemingly at the same time, one on top of the other?

Don't I get a break?

Doesn't my family get a break?

I guess the "breaks" I am talking about are the fact that these things are getting taken care of before they get worse, or even worse, untreatable.

So I have to take solace in that.

But it is still perplexing, and bewildering, that 2026--a year that I really thought would be a good one--has turned out to be the worst year of my life and my family's lives.

That is why I want it to end so, so much.

But today is only the last day of August.

We have September, October, November and December to get through.

Will any more negativity happen to me during this four-month span?

Only the Shadow knows.

And as for Gomer ...

I don't need "Surprise, Surprise, Surprise" ...

I need peace of mind, which is much more important at this stage of the game.