beautiful weather.........................
rainy mind.....................
why is it when it doesnt storm outside, it has to storm inside?

Well, we made it out of the nyack area to come down to the island for some relaxation.
I took Friday off and we left Thursday night. We stayed over to pat and Anthonie's. We went to dinner at a cool little restaurant
(I think) the 52nd division. It was on an air step, but it was an old building from WWW. There were old army cars in the front yard,
airplanes in the back, and shot out holes in the side of the facade. Dinner was ok and then we went to see Star Wars 3.....Now that was
great-awesome special effects. We were in stadium seating with surround sound. On our way out we saw a movie poster for Rob Zombies
new flick- looks great.
we stayed the night one more night there and drove out to East Hampton. Star's place is in the woods, so there is a lot of grounds
in the forest and a hot tub and swimming pool also. We managed to get to the beach-very late at night and it was so cold.
the weather has been very kind- 80 degrees. And thunderstorms at night, which makes it perfectly
beautiful-
I fell like I did when we were in Mexico, getting up early to walk around the grounds barefoot
and collect the dew between my toes and inhale the intoxicating pungent smell of jasmin and honeysuckle.
we go out during the day and window shop in east Antonie and sag harbor. The shoppes are too expensive,
the girls stuff, even for a skirt, is $1,500.00. but, last year when my brother was visiting me from Sicily,
we found a gourmay cheese shop, filled with cheeses from around the world. We went there
yesterday and picked up Sicilian Peckerino, english sharp cheddar, and two soft cheeses, quite like Bree
but they were also a pungent cheddar with a bit of a kick....We had them with wine and pears.
the dinners have been great also. Pat is a superb chief and she can make a great dinner
out of anything. We had steaks and steamed samone with capers.
today for the holiday dinner, I am preparing blackened catfish, talapia with dill and capers,
chilled artichokes with yogurt garlic dill sauce, steamed asparagus and fiddle head saladewith garlic and olive oil.
freash salad and homade chocolate anglefood cake with raspberry compote.
then after dinner we are driving home to get ready for work the next day- boo hoo=
I am having a great time here and an extra day sounds tempting-

Well, we made it out of the nyack area to come down to the island for some relaxation.
I took Friday off and we left Thursday night. We stayed over to pat and Anthonie's. We went to dinner at a cool little restaurant
(I think) the 52nd division. It was on an air step, but it was an old building from WWW. There were old army cars in the front yard,
airplanes in the back, and shot out holes in the side of the facade. Dinner was ok and then we went to see Star Wars 3.....Now that was
great-awesome special effects. We were in stadium seating with surround sound. On our way out we saw a movie poster for Rob Zombies
new flick- looks great.
we stayed the night one more night there and drove out to East Hampton. Star's place is in the woods, so there is a lot of grounds
in the forest and a hot tub and swimming pool also. We managed to get to the beach-very late at night and it was so cold.
the weather has been very kind- 80 degrees. And thunderstorms at night, which makes it perfectly
beautiful-
I fell like I did when we were in Mexico, getting up early to walk around the grounds barefoot
and collect the dew between my toes and inhale the intoxicating pungent smell of jasmin and honeysuckle.
we go out during the day and window shop in east Antonie and sag harbor. The shoppes are too expensive,
the girls stuff, even for a skirt, is $1,500.00. but, last year when my brother was visiting me from Sicily,
we found a gourmay cheese shop, filled with cheeses from around the world. We went there
yesterday and picked up Sicilian Peckerino, english sharp cheddar, and two soft cheeses, quite like Bree
but they were also a pungent cheddar with a bit of a kick....We had them with wine and pears.
the dinners have been great also. Pat is a superb chief and she can make a great dinner
out of anything. We had steaks and steamed samone with capers.
today for the holiday dinner, I am preparing blackened catfish, talapia with dill and capers,
chilled artichokes with yogurt garlic dill sauce, steamed asparagus and fiddle head saladewith garlic and olive oil.
freash salad and homade chocolate anglefood cake with raspberry compote.
then after dinner we are driving home to get ready for work the next day- boo hoo=
I am having a great time here and an extra day sounds tempting-

Letter from Dad:

Today, I met with the Hospice people with Grandma in Cooperstown. They are a great organization, which I'm sure you may have heard a few times from Mom. I had talked to Grandma's doctor earlier about her health and how much time we had with her. Of course they generalized it and more or less said they couldn't tell but when referred to Hospice, it would mean 3-6 months. The Hospice folks said bunk! It could be as long as God wills. No more kemo therepy has Mom feeling much better, for now. She will have some good days to come, but after it will go down hill quickly. We want to make these times the best for her while she can enjoy it. Hospice will have a nurse in every week so she won't have to travel to the hospital. She has "meals on wheels" which delivers her a noon time dinner every week day. Hospice will have an aide in starting once a week for house cleaning, etc. These will probably will increase as time goes on.

I'm so thankful to God, that you all have such love in your hearts to share for your Grandmother.

Note from Me to all: *please note we send E-mail to Tommy who is in the Persan Gulf, and Luchia in Sicily, and my Parents Upstate.

dear all, after getting the letter in regards to Gandma- know this, we will always have a very special place in our hearts for her and i say this not in a past tence context. i think what i am trying to say is, even after the news you just told us, i cannot look at her as if she is already gone. she is not and i cant treat her in that manner. i think a lot of us do this as part of the greeving process. lets treat her as though it is 1985 and she is well and happy in our lives, for she is just that. she might pick up on it- if we treat her any differently. know we love her and we are sad, but for now she is, our loving grandmother and mother- absolutly beautiful and full of light-love you dad- hang in there and if you need to talk - i am here always.
love you all -melanie

With spring here, time for change. So many things needed to be done, one of which consumes all of me and its time to distance myself from it. This is going to be very hard, but it needs to be dealt with once and for all. I only wish it was different but it will never be. I can only accept it and move on and stop dwelling on it. Its madness really, unhealthy madness.

I love interacting here at work. The great thing is when ever I get company from clients who visit; I love the look on their faces when I greet them in Japanese. They stop in mid-sentence (in English) and their faces light up and they get really excited to know that I can speak Japanese. I love it! it makes me feel so good. And also, I get so excited knowing I am going to Japan soon. – I am really glad I did what I did in college. Know if only Earlham gets back to me shortly…..

Our company is getting ready to move, but every time the PR guy sets a date – it gets cancelled. You see half of the company moved two months ago to the other side of the building here; we were to move shortly after…this was back in March. Now, every time we get an E-mail saying that the move will be next week, it gets cancelled. Now, we were going to move on Monday this week. We know better not to get excited and pack everything up by now, and sure enough, we get word that there is a strike and it is postponed until June sometime. – Always happens. I won’t hold my breath.

So, for the upcoming Movies, these are showing at IMAX
Willey Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Batman
Harry Potter
-Too bad that the new star wars movie was not showing there.
We watched the 2nd movie on our LCD last night in high definition and it looked better that in the movies when we originally saw it….it was great.

LIVID….
Well on Friday I finally got a call from the eye doctor to come in and pick up my new glasses, they were ready. My eye doctor is very good at the exam, almost to good. But her office is too unorganized and there are glasses and paper work all over the place. She talks too much and has way too many appointments. So when you call to ask her if your glasses are in, it takes her a really long time to get any info or answer. Her assistant that she use to have, quite and it took her 6 months to find another. She just started working there and she looks as confused as the doctor about anything…
*Please note that I have been awaiting these for 3 weeks*.
Anyway, after a grueling drive home in rush hour traffic I was beat. I arrived and they gave me the glasses. The frames were bent and not straight, so she gave them to her assistant and he began to straighten them. Then I hear a “oh no! Shit”, the jerk cracked the lenses to my glasses. She started saying, Oh, its because you didn’t order the Polycarbonate Lenses. See if you had spent the extra $25.00 they would not have cracked.” (I admit it was also my fault for not ordering them because they were rimless on the bottom of the glasses, but she really sounded like a car salesman trying to sell me too much stuff to protect the glass, for a pair of glasses. I was so mad I almost killed her for that stupid remark. She boxed them up and sent them back out to be repaired/ w Polycarbonate lenses. She had no idea how long it would take to get them repaired. Now I have to wait another 2 weeks until I can get them. I never even tried them on- I am still pissed off and I think when I pick them up next time, I am going to have to be either drunk or on a lot of pills to control my temper. I don’t think I will ever go back to her again.

Tomoko and I had a great time on Saturday. I drove up to Peekskill in the early afternoon. Peekskill is a great little town along the Hudson on a hill. Anyway, the town had a local artist weekend, where all the Studio’s were open to the public. We got coffee and walked around. There were a lot of crappy studios selling what they considered art. For example, there was a woman who sold bowels and scarf’s made out of what looked like Dryer Lint. There was a gentleman who bought an old church and turned it into an Art studio and his home- he had great light in that building, he art was nice also.
The one Studio that caught my eye was next. The pictures were very dark. Many of them were of a black haired woman who had her eyes blackened in and also her lips. Her hair was styled in a Japanese Sumo look- very avant-garde. I snapped a few pictures and took the guys business card. Later that night I was looking at it and on the back it said
“Richard Butler, better known for his music. He studied as a painter before forming the Psychedelic Furs”. I freaked out! This was one of my favorite bands in the 80’s and I never got to meet him while we were in his studio. I thought it was a bit strange to have a Piano in there amongst the great pictures…..i am going back sometime.
Later on we went to the Theater and saw “Big Bad Love”. Great flick and Debra Winger and her husband were there for Q&A after the show-
We had a great time-

I am going to ring her little neck-
Claiming she has allergies, there is someone in the office who has been having a none stop cough-fest. Give anyone some fucking credit please- go see a doctor because its not allergies that make you cough and sound like you actually have a major cold! -

Well, I made a new friend last night.
-all my life I have had no patience with kids, that’s why I am not having them ever. They are smelly, ugly, and too loud to be near. Anyway, we were invited to a dinner party last night at a strangers house (the hostess’s friends house). On our way there we called for directions. The owner of the house answered and told us the correct route. Right before we hung up, she said “It’s the house with all the kids in the front yard”. Great, we thought. Just what we needed – a bunch of screaming insane kids to ruin the night.
We showed up and sure enough there were a billion kids and all the crazy thoughts popped in my head. There is nothing worse than showing up to a complete strangers house and not knowing anyone there except the hostess. Then you have to sit around a table full of happy glowing couples and listen to their stupid conversations about the joy of changing diapers, my kid is teething, to my breasts hurt a lot when I started breast feeding also”.
We met the woman and her (god I have no idea how many she had) kids and the other people that showed up. We did get to see someone we did know who brought her female lover. That was a bonus to know more than one person.
Anyway, I went up stairs to go to the bathroom and the kids (all 100 of them ) were in an adjourning room playing, screaming, ect. When I came out, one of the little girls was crying. I asked her if she was OK and she said she fell and hit her tooth. So I looked at it and it was fine. Just to get her to stop her crying, I told her “if it falls out, place it in water until it grows roots and then put it back in the hole in your mouth”. Her eyes grew wide and she ran out of the room in a hurry. Good, she stopped crying and I scared her- I thought.
That night she was at my side, wanting to play with me, and no one else….
In the end it was a good night with a little girl who was not tainted by grown-up thoughts.

Who can Boast the Most-
this was in the BBC
http://www.newturfers.com/mwf/attach/38/355838/BBCNEWSWorldLionMutilates42MidgetsinCambodianRing-Fight.htm

In Lou of the recent crime that has been effecting our neighborhood in Nyack and the arrest of our crack head neighbor, we went to the town board meeting to see what was being done.
- just to recap. A month ago there was a mugging outside our house late one night. Our neighbors also have been selling drugs out of their home. Last weekend there was a huge drug bust and 30 people were arrested and one of the top three was the woman next door.
- The Rockland Journal News Paper, a small town bias piece of trash, ran an article in regards to the recent crime in the city and concerns from the residents. They also blamed this on the high school students who hang out regularly in front of Starbucks and deal drugs openly.
- When we were at the meeting two high school girls showed up and made there argument that the news paper were bias and never allowed them to comment on the situation.
- I have to commend these girls for showing up and voicing their outrage (as scared as they were). That takes balls and the News Paper should be ashamed of its’ staff for allowing that to print.

Just goes to show that the Press is still a one sided fact of fiction-

My work has given us 1 day off extra for the summer. that means i can take 1 day off for 3 months....now thats great news.

I finally saw the trailer to the New Willy Wonka Movie coming out in July:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/charliechocolatefactory/large.html

So looking forward to it

So, upstate was warm and sunny. It was nice to drive up- just for a minute though. Frustration comes to quickly when you live in the city and everyone up there is moving at such a slow speed they might as well be moving backwards. Not to mention getting stuck behind Farmer Ted and his Big stinky tractor…
Happy to be home though. I spent some time with my father and my aunt. My mother drove me insane very quickly. That’s a given. She has a habit of saying everything that comes into her mind, weather it is “Oh, there is a car driving by the house to her ignorant backstabbing jargon about so in so. I feel so sorry for her. She has no idea what she looks and sounds like when she can be so jaded and mean. Then she will talk to the people she talks behind their backs to as if they were best friends. Why? Enough!
My father and I picked some Fiddle Heads (fern tops) from along the river bed. We brought them home and I made a salad out of them. They were great. I boiled them for 15 minutes, then sautéed them in Olive oil, Garlic, and a splash of Vinegar. They tasted like Asparagus. Perfect. My father made his Beer can chicken. He put two chickens on the BBQ so they looked like they were standing up. He used the theme American Gothic. He had a fork being held by the one on the left and a flower in the hand of the other chicken. After we carved them up we printed out a picture of Homer and Marge Simpson and put them on toothpicks and put them on the chickens- they were Yummy also.
Yesterday we went back to the river and I picked two huge bags of Fiddle heads to bring home, and freeze for another time. I have to blanch them this evening. Really happy to be home from there. I hate the quiet.
My aunt has a new boyfriend, she moved in to his place this weekend. He is nice. Seems premature, she has only dated him for 3 weeks. I hope it works out though…
I forgot the potatoes-

Well, I am off to Upstate this afternoon....
what I hate the most about the place-
The weather is always 10 degree's cooler.
My mothers consistant whinning.
The Rednecks who have to put their teeth in and tuck their tails in before leaving the house. Yet bathing is optional for them.
The intoxicating smell of Cow Shit.
My mothers consistant whinning.
Getting woken up at 5:30 in the morning with my mothers favorite friend "The vacume cleaner"...and when i scream at her and tell her I am trying to sleep, her stupid reply "Well, it has to be done and if you dont like it you can leave " speach-
what I am looking forward to is this:
MY FATHER.

it appears that my father almost shot my mother the other day- just in time for Mothers Day.
the bullet rickashade off a rock and landed a few feet from my mother who was washing a car...hummmm talk about scary. could you imagine if she was hit? She would have never got my 100lbs. bag of Potatoes-
just kidding..

here is a movie that is a must see for anyone who loves The Clash and hates Courtney Love. Its a spagetti western full of laughs-
http://www.lovefilm.com/view_dvd.php?dt_id=737

Well, Thank you for helping me with the Flicker link-
Now there are pictures of me and life around me. I will try to keep it current.

I have just added some photo's to my Flicker page.
there are some of Mexico, Italy, and Graduation.