Update

He's doing well, they took him off of the respirator after 24 hours and he's breathing on his own and out of ICU.

Thanks for all your prayers.

It truly is a miracle how someone can receive another's lungs and just start breathing.

Right now, at this very moment, my brother-in-law is receiving a double lung transplant.

Please keep him and the family in prayer.

Thank you.

I Heart Teenagers

It’s no secret that I have a heart for teenagers.

The teenage years are the greatest in life.

Whenever I see a group of them I have to smile. The angst, the emotions, the sneakiness, the struggles to figuring out the future....it’s all exciting to watch.

Yesterday, my daughter brought over her new boyfriend, Jay, for dinner.

He’s someone I met before and like, but the story he told me about when he was a teenager made me love him all the more.

He had three buddies he palled around with, one had his sights on horror film making and one was interested in creating the type of make up where it looks like you’ve been stabbed or disfigured and such.

Jay’s parents went away one weekend, leaving him, a teenager at the time, home alone.

Jay and his friends having a house all to themselves decided to create a short film in the kitchen. A horror film, of course.

They set up bloody foot prints on the kitchen tile, a bloody noose hanging from the ceiling, and took Polaroid shots of one of the boys lying in a pool of blood looking as if he was beaten to death by the other two.

They left the photos on the kitchen counter and the rest of the mess for that matter, and left the house to go about doing whatever it is teenage boys do.

Jay thought his parents were coming home tomorrow and that he would have a whole day to clean up the mess.

But his parents came home early to an empty house. And were horrified and rightfully shaken up. From the evidence left behind, they thought that Jay and his friend committed murder and fled.

When his dad finally located Jay, it took him a half an hour of pleading and explaining to convince his father that it was all staged and innocent, especially since the ‘victim’ jokingly refused to show his face in order to prove Jay’s innocence.

Teenagers. They really do crack me the heck up.

What's With That?

I'd like to know why after all year of exercising, dieting, staying fit and in shape,
now that it all counts, I'm out of shape, eating poorly and flabby now that it's summer?

And it's not just me.

All my friends seemed to have done the same thing.

Too bad we can't walk around wearing bathingsuits in the winter.

Oh well, I think I'll eat another piece of chocolate.

My View On Gambling

My sister and I were watching morning television yesterday when a commercial came on for a drug to stop Restless Leg Syndrome.

I happen to have RLS, but in a minor way.

When I get tired at night, usually around 8pm, my legs start a jumpin’. It looks as if I’m having a seizure. If I keep my legs confined during this time, my upper torso jerks instead.

It’s really quite a fetching sight.

(Just add that to the list of probable reasons why I haven’t found a husband yet.)

I usually am asleep by 8:30pm on any given night, so the festivities don’t last very long.

At the end of the commercial it claims that one of the side effects of the drug they are marketing may cause an increase urge to gamble.

WHAT?

Did I hear that right? GAMBLING?

You can take a drug that makes you want to gamble?

I’ve never been much of a gambler. In fact, the whole concept of gambling escapes me.

I’ve watched people gamble at casinos. To me, it doesn’t even look like they are having fun.
Once I put $20 into a slot machine and lost it all.

That was over 10 years ago and I still feel like I wasted my hard earned $20.00!

The way I see it is: I work too hard for my money and to throw it away on a slight chance of getting more isn’t worth all of that hard work.

Getting back to the drug - I’m just wondering if I take it will I feel differently about gambling?

It amazes me that a drug can cause an increased urge to gamble.

I WANT TO KNOW HOW!!!!

Is gambling really a disease that can be affected by a drug?

It’s just one of those things rolling around in my head right now and I thought I’d share it with you all.

Dave Stopped By My Office Today.....

"Mom, some days I feel like I've been handed a poo sandwich, except without the bread.....and extra poo."

"Dave, I'm so honored that you come to me when you need encouragement or advice, it makes me feel like you value my opinion"

"Yeah, that and my drug dealer didn't pick up his phone".

This morning, my 2 year old foster nephew sneaks into my purse and takes out my cell phone.

He starts rapidly pressing the buttons so I ask, "Hey, you’re not calling China are you?"

"No", he softly says.

Then he shoots a devilish look at me and loudly exclaims into the phone, "HELLO, CHINA?"

(Me thinks he has mastered the art of teasing his aunt.)

Hey, I Wanted Those Hamburgers!!!!

About once a year I get asked to assist a well-known Hampton area chef with a fundraising event. It’s usually a big affair.

One year it was the Gilda Radner Cancer fundraiser where Alec Baldwin wanted to leave Kim for me. I think it was the 100 or so pan seared scallops he was downing as fast as I was searing them. That man can eat! He never told me he would leave her, but I could see it in his eyes....and in my mind. My mind is a fun place.

One year it was a Paris Hilton fundraiser. She was as sweet as pie, really.

Another year it was a Barbara Walter’s 20/20 thingy where all the celebs lounged around the pool as I made hotdogs.

HOTDOGS! Barbara Walters eats hotdogs.

At least they were Kosher. They have to answer to a higher power and all.

This year it was the Hillary Clinton fundraiser.

I declined.

I don’t live on Long Island on the weekends anymore and I’d rather not do all that work for free anymore. Which, by the way, is the only reason they ask me to help. It makes sense since they are donating their food and services, they’d rather not pay someone to assist the chef.

That and I follow orders well.

If nothing, I follow orders well.

Or I’d like to think so.

So I missed out on the big Clinton fundraiser which was $1,000 a plate, or $250 a plate if you sat further away than the Clintons and didn’t hob-knob with them.

But I got to eat the food because today I got a package delivered to my office directly from the caterer. It was the leftover gazpacho, duck confort and duck liver pate.

I’m pretty sure they sent it in a effort to bribe me into doing the next event.

"Yum, was this what was served ?", I asked.

"No, Bill Clinton asked to take home all the mini gourmet buffalo hamburgers. He couldn’t stop eating them", she answered.

Well, that figures....wasn't he always being spotted at fast food places eating hamburgers when he was president?

How to Ignite Your Pastor Up in Flames

I've decided to start getting more grounded in my new neighborhood.

In addition to being appointed a hearing citation officer here, which goes into effect next year, I've been making it a point of getting to know my pastor and his family.

Sorry to say, but it's been about 4 years since I've had to be accountable to anyone. I'm the type of person that needs accountability....it keeps me on the straight and narrow. And I tend to wander off now and then.

So I decided to invite my pastor, his wife and son over for dinner on Saturday night to get to know them better and to have them get to know me.

There were some difficult food restrictions duly noted and adhered to, not much of a problem. I made BooMama's famous Chicken 'n' Spinach Pasta Bake, sans onions.

As for dessert, I made some rugelach. A delicious Jewish cookie. Hey, I had to get my ethnicity known to them somehow.


Their teenage son ate spinach for the first time and actually liked it. Or was being polite about it. Being a PK (Pastor's Kid) is never easy, one of my good friends growing up was one and she would complain all the time about being a PK.

After dessert I asked if they would like to sit by the campfire and make smores. Yes they did. I love campfires.

Now, I know that it is most likely against the town ordinance to have a campfire in my 'preserved wetlands' backyard, but I just can't help it, I love the novelty of living in a rural town, far away from neighbors, on two acres of land...and I love sitting by a campfire in the cool summer nights roasting marshmallows.

So I started a fire out back. And we sat around it making smores. And we chatted some more. And we ate lots of smores.

What happened next I can only imagine happened because the pastor wanted to make a very important statement to me.

He turned his flimsy resin chair around, his back facing the fire, he looked directly at me with conviction in his eyes and raised his hands as if to make a dramatic point of what was about to come out of his anointed mouth. But he lost his balance as he sat there and fell backwards in slow motion.

Even though it felt like I had time to get out of my seat, stretch a bit, stroll over to him, stop and tie my shoes, check my manicure, catch a passing firefly and reach over and grab him from falling, all I could do is watch him and hope that he wasn't going to land directly behind him into the pit of fire.

Hey, his wife, the love of his life, his lifelong partner, sat next to me and she didn't move either.

After what seemed like a hour, he managed to twist his body into what can only be described as a pretzel shape on its side and landed on the outside rocks of the campfire and rolled to safety.

It was a close call though.

And having my pastor go up in flames wouldn't bode well with me in the community. I'm already convinced that my neighbors aren't going to like me very much once I start listening to their appeals regarding any zoning tickets they may get.

But still, I'm glad I wasn't the cause of my pastor falling into a pit of fire. That really would have not looked good for me.