Christmas Countdown #3- Am I Crazy?

I think I’m getting nostalgic in my old age. I crave the memories of my childhood- the toys I used to play with, the foods I used to eat, the kids I used to hang around with. I think what plays a big part in this wistfulness is the fact that all my childhood playmates, including my brother are gone. I’ve lost touch with almost everyone except David, my one-armed friend. I know where to find him but I can’t talk to him. He’s still wrapped up with my ex and besides, his wife hates me. Meh.

I have no one to rekindle my memories with. And this scares the crap out of me.

So, over the years, I’ve spent a few bucks on eBay buying toys from my past…

My Crissy Doll

My Fisher Price Circus
My Gumby and Pokey My Velvet Doll- Crissy’s friend.
My most recent purchase for Christmas this year is not a toy. I went online to find pieces of my past Christmases. I found, at the Vermont Country Store, my grandfather’s favorite candy- French Creams. I remember Christmas at my parent’s house helping Mom put out all the cakes and pies and brownies and candy. One of her crystal dishes held Grandpa (formerly-known-as-Pop-pop)’s favorite Christmas candy. French Creams were really pretty, and of course, pure sugar. They had a crunchy exterior that tasted of mint and the inside was slightly gooey and sugary. They came in the prettiest pastel colors and the flavor was so sublime- not overpowering at all. Am I crazy to spend $24.95 for a little taste of my past?

Wait- I’m not done. Mom sometimes put out the sweetest mints- so subtle in flavor that I’ve tried to make these mints several times only to have a glob of bright pink goo stuck to the bottom of my double-boiler. Pastel mints (VERY similar to French Creams, without the hard exterior) showed up often on the dessert table at Christmas. Again, the Vermont Country Store pulled through and I was able to order a sleeve of these melt-in-your-mouth goodies.

One more candy brings it all home for me. Ribbon candy. Mom would put out the whole box and my brother and cousins and I would break pieces off and yell out what flavors we had. Ribbon candy was so much better than regular hard candies. There was just something about the shape- that folded over shape that made this candy so much fun to eat. . I didn’t order this from the Vermont Country Store- it was more readily available on the Internet, so I ordered it from Old time Candy. Browsing through their website I also found a few more of my favorites…Flying Saucers, Nik-A-Lips and Wax Lips. I’m not ready to shell out a my hard earned cash for them just yet… maybe for Z-girl’s birthday party…

Okay, so you tell me. Am I crazy for spending money on candy that brings back good memories? I know the candy won’t keep, and NO ONE will think twice about why I have French Creams on the table. But it’s special to me. I think this year I need it, though, you know? I lost my main memory keeper- Mom. This blog is becoming my memory keeper in a way, kind of like a diary I’m throwing out there. Keeping the memories alive for as long as Google deems it so, I guess.

Okay, anyhow. Tell me your favorite memories of Christmases past, please? Let me know I’m not alone in wanting to recreate the good times.? Thanks.

A Few Things Before My Life Gets Back on Track

I start work on Monday. I had three nice weeks of unemployment. No, I really only had six days of unemployment. The rest of the three weeks I was off courtesy of UBS. They escorted me out of the building on April 23rd, but my last day of employment was May 7th.

I start my new/old job with Cushman & Wakefield. Doing what I was doing and where I was doing it when UBS fired me. My boss called me the other day (after I was home for two weeks- whatever!) and asked me if I was going to be coming back bitter. Why would I be bitter? I recieved 33 weeks severence, four weeks paid vacation, got three weeks off and still got a job after all that. Not bitter- bittersweet. I'm going to miss putting Zombiegirl on the bus in the morning, being there for her when she gets home and doing homework with her in the afternoons. But I have to bring home the bacon.

Mmmmm. Bacon. Only had it once while I was home.

I wanted to blog alot while I was off, but I was too damn busy. Here's a recap and some updates:

• Killer the Fish seems to have made a complete recovery. He's no longer swimming upside down, or hanging out on the bottom of the bowl. It was like he had a mini stroke for awhile. He's active now, swimming around like normal. Thank God. We almost flushed him twice.
• My hallway upstairs, which is the size of a room since we raised the ceiling after it collapsed on the kids and Lola, is almost finished. I can taste it. Pictures will go up on the blog next week. It makes me happy to go up there.
• Zombiegirl's room is being painted. It's a most awesome blue. I should be finished with it next week also.
• My man Parker's Dad and Zombiegirl's soccer coach, Jason, hurt his leg showing the girls a follow-through at soccer practice yesterday. And ended up in the ER. This put a damper on our night-the girls were supposed to go out drinking. Oh well, as long as he's not seriously hurt. He seems to get hurt alot. He screwed up his hand last Memorial Day weekend at our house in Riverhead cheating at tug-of-war! Get well soon, Jason!
• I've planted my vegetables, herbs and flowers I got at Z-girl's school and the St. Andrew's Youth Group plant sale. I'm now growing Mint, Basil, Parsley, Rosemary, Lemon Thyme, Eggplant, Peppers, Peas and Tomatoes. We've planted Chamomille and Cilantro from seed and they're just starting to come up! If you know where I live, you'll know I have very little sun on our property. I was out there every hour on the hour evaluating my sun situation. We get about 5-6 hours of full spring sun in the morning, and dappled sun after that. Hopefully that will be enough for our little plants to grow. I'm planting more herbs from seed today.
• I'm the new webmaster for St. Andrew's church! I'm learning as I'm going. Rob got me a copy of Microsoft's Sharepoint (ha!) Designer and I've successfully copied from the already established webiste onto Designer by .ftp. I'm fiddling around with some layouts and changes- all advice is welcome! I'll link when we're up and running. Go me!
• Mother's Day was hard. I suffered two losses recently which made celebrating this holiday tough. Thankfully, my wonderful sister-in-law Paula had us over to her house to celebrate my niece Lily's 2nd birthday. My other SIL Laura, my MIL Johanna and Paula's MIL Gerry all celebrated being mothers/grandmothers/godmothers/aunts. My other niece Samantha and nephew Raymond made me forget my woes for a little while. (I really have to blog about these kids- they are adorable!) So a really nice party and really great gifts from my family made this Mother's Day bearable. Thanks guys!
• I got my bike fixed. And got one of those holders added to the back. MR then put saddlebags on the back for me to tote stuff back and forth- to the library, Stop N Shop or church. I'm going to try to either walk or ride whenever going anywhere in the neighborhood.

I enjoyed being a SAHM for awhile, but it's back to the real world. The daily grind. The treadmill. I've downloaded a lot of songs onto my iPod so that the commute will be bearable. Now if I can figure out something to make WORK bearable.

It's been a week...

After a grueling weekend of soccer and hiking (which I'll post about sometime in the next few days,) the week of April 20th started off really great! I had a decent day at work on Monday. It was pretty quiet in the office, and I was able to get alot of work done. At home that night, it was quiet too. Tuesday, April 21st was great- because it was my birthday! My 46 year old self had a surprise waiting for me when I got into the office- cookies from Soulspeak23! White chocolate macadamia chili chunk chewy goodness. Vegan, too! No eggs! They were too awesome to keep to myself, so I put them out for everyone to enjoy. And they did. The vultures in my office had them gone by lunchtime. I was able to get a report that was due out that day, and I finished up some stuff that I had hanging around my desk. Will, our mail guy, gave me an Estee Lauder bag with makeup, which was a really nice surprise. And I got tons of birthday emails and phone calls. Except for Rick, who forgot. We didn't celebrate my birthday on Tuesday because I had Girl Scout Camp training at night, which was pretty interesting. I'll post on that next weekend, when I get home from the overnight.

So we postponed the celebrating until Wednesday, which turned out to be an awesome day. Soulspeak23 and Ruddyna surprised me with lunch with an extra special guest- SS23's hot Hungarian wife, Ildi ,drove in to meet us and take us to Havana, a Cuban restaurant in the Village. A pitcher of Sangria (yum!) and a pork (yes, but it WAS my birthday) sandwich later- I was feeling happy and psyched for the rest of the day. When I got home, the whole house was decorated with balloons, and MR got Chinese. Dad and Rob came over, and the six of us pigged out. MR and Beena lit the "37" candles on my cake (they didn't have a 4 and a 6- it could've have been worse- they could've made it a 73!) Rob gave me my own bottle of Maker's Mark, which I opened and shared (yum again!) and MR gave me an iPod touch! Awesomeness! Beena and Zombiegirl bought the covers, plugs and screen protectors for the iPod. This was great- it's my first iPod!

On Thursday, the wind turns. The tide goes out. I roll a snake eyes.

I walk to the bus stop using my new iPod, listening to Meatloaf. I miss my bus. I forgot my ID, so I need to get a temporary. I get to work late. Certain co-workers get snarky with me. I started a big project and deleted a good portion of one of my floors. My Executive Director comes into my office, closes the door, and fires me. Yes, I was terminated. After 11 years with the company, I got laid off. I knew they were doing a massive layoff, but you never think it's going to be you. I'm escorted up to HR (after shooting a quick IM to SS23 to let her know what's going on.) The very sweet HR rep went over my severance and medical, then got me a car to take me home. And so starts my new life as an unemployed, stay at home mom.

Friday, after emailing and speaking to ALMOST everyone at work, I met some of my coworkers at the Port Authority Bowl and celebrated my birthday and layoff! Thanks Rick and his sister Diane, Troy, Ryan, Ruddyna, Kamila, George, Jackie and her hubby Patrick, Cassandra, Teri, my new veggie friend Rich and Vivian. I had fun! No bus incidents on the way home, but I did sleep past my train station (where MR and Z-girl were waiting) and got off two stations past (and about 3 miles away.) Thank goodness I had the iPod and Optimum WiFi. I was able to get MR to where I was -sheepishly- waiting.

So this week could've been worse. I could have been laid off ON my birthday! It's all good.

Insomnia is good for the Blog

I can’t sleep. I’ve been lying awake for hours. I have so many thoughts running through my head to lie there gives me a headache. There is so much stress in my life right now to lie there gives me heart palpitations. So I got up around 4 am to do something constructive. Either laundry or blog. Guess which one I chose.

I figure I’ll post something innocuous and not ranting or raving. So I’ll write about the newest addition to my kitchen. MR made me a cow shelf for Christmas. Before we put it up, I had to paint the kitchen. It was gray because I wanted a neutral background for the white cabinets and the colorful Fiesta dishes that can be seen through the glass cabinet doors. We went to Home Depot and picked out a softer gray- I thought the first gray was too harsh. After about a half hour of painting, I looked back at what I had already painted and couldn’t tell where I had started. I had picked out the EXACT same color. It is a little softer, however, in the finish- it’s satin. So we hang the cow shelf, and I’m finally able to unwrap my cows!

My collection started with this baby given to me by my Great-Grandmother, Ida Arfmann , about 25 years ago. I used to go over to her house once or twice a week when I worked at the tile store. I’d go over for lunch, and she’d always served me bologna sandwiches. I always ate them, even though I hate bologna. This cow creamer was always on the table filled with milk for our tea. I commented each time I used it that it was throwing up in my tea. It always made her laugh. She’d tell me stories for that hour, and as I’d leave to go back to work she would thrust into my hands some trinket that she had lying around the house. One day it was this cow creamer. So started my collection.

“I never saw a purple cow, I never hope to see one. But I can tell you this right now, I’d rather see than be one!” Original poem by Gelett Burgess, adapted to this version by Ogden Nash. Sung to me by my Grandmother Francis Arfmann. I quote this here because these two cows are two of my favorites. I sang this to two of my under-30 friends after seeing a purple cowhide pocketbook for sale on the streets on NYC. They looked at me like I was crazy. Not because I was singing, but because they had never heard it before.

These two creamers are not like the conventional standing creamers. They’re resting. The black

one was bought on Ebay (like most of them) and has pretty gold accents. The blue and white cow should be with his cousins on the Delft shelf, but I like how they sit together.

The Delft cows. Only two of these cows are creamers. The two little ones on the plate are actually salt and pepper shakers. The small one behind them is a toothpick holder, and the one behind that is a sugar bowl. I bought these as a set on Ebay. The sugar bowl is missing her lid, but other than that they’re in great shape.

These three were found on Ebay under the Vintage Fiesta listing. I guess it was fate that two of my collections came together in one listing. Red is a creamer, yellow is a salt shaker and blue is the pepper shaker. These cows have never been packed away since they go so well with all my Fiesta.

I collect only realistic cow creamers but I couldn’t resist this square boy. He looks like he’s looking out of a box. I don’t know why a square cow creamer would be made, but he does fit perfectly on the shelf. His brother next to him was purchased in Vermont in a huge antique center.

This little girl is probably my oldest cow. She was listed as being about 60 years old when I bought her a few years ago. There aren’t any markings on her, so who knows? She has a sweet face!

This little one is my tiniest cow. She only holds one serving of milk, and has pretty violet decals. Zombiegirl likes this one the best.

This cow was one of my earliest purchases. I can’t remember if it was my second cow or my

third. Anyway, I bought this one to match the one my Great-Grandma gave me. It’s a sugar bowl, and is almost a twin of my first cow creamer. Bought in an antique center in New Jersey.

These two cows aren’t functional at all. They’re replicas of two cows that appeared in Cow Parade NYC back in 2000. The girls and I went on a scavenger hunt armed with all the cows that were placed all over NY, and took pictures of about 200 of them! We saw MOOMA, by Karen Nelson and Nicole Gaenzler, but we didn’t see the Fiesta cow, which was created using pieces of Fiestaware. I think that art cow was in another city. Anyway, I have replicas of each of them, given to me by my family at various holidays.



This is my newest acquistion. I bought this one on Ebay right after Christmas. She's tired, but pretty! She's Royal Crownsford Ironstone, made in England.

So my cows are out of the closet and into the light, residing on a beautifully crafted custom shelf made by my talented husband. Thanks, MR! I love it! And I love my cows! And if you look at the first picture carefully, you’ll see my favorite mug, Cowoline!

Enough. I’ve already typed this twice after my PC died, and I have to get ready for work. I’ll sleep on the train…