Our Grandparents- Part 1

Grandma-Next-Door

 

Mike definitely takes after our Grandma-Next-Door. She seemed to complain a lot but not as much as Mike does now. Dad tended to do that sometimes too.  They would be watching “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” together and be bitching about the stars on there. Mike and I wondered why they even bothered watching this if it got on their nerves so much.

   Once I heard her complain about her own friend Ellie “Why is she always calling me?” as if she was pestering her. She should just be happy to have her as her friend. She seemed nice.  Mike said that she’d even be this way about her own sister Rachel.  Mike and I still laugh about a card that grandma got from Ellie. It had cartoon depictions of various types of butts such as B.B. – big butt.

   We were talking to a couple of people after mass one time and grandma had wandered off. Tony drove around looking for her. I think that she was waiting at a bus stop for the bus to NYC or maybe she was in downtown Linden. She told us that she was getting tired of waiting for us to leave the church.

   Grandma and I took a bus trip down the shore in the early 1980s- Long Branch. She bought me a souvenir, a figure made out of shells.

   Dad always went to her house before even coming home after work. He was mad if we didn’t visit her often enough. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my grandma but I didn’t want to see her every day. We hardly ever got to see our other grandma.

   Mike and I liked watching “The Price is Right” and “Wheel of Fortune” with her. She enjoyed watching “The Lawrence Welk Show” (so dull!) which Dad still watches, “Merv Griffin” and “60 Minutes”. She liked Liberace and Engelbert Humperdinck too. There was a televangelist that she also watched. I think that it was Jimmy Swaggart. I asked Mike if he remembered this for sure and he said that this might be the one.

    Mike wants her waffle iron so badly. He said that Dad told him that he can’t find it. We know it’s still there so obviously he isn’t looking. He moved into her place during and after our parents’ divorce. Mike loved going over to her house for waffles and other good foods that she made like stuffed cabbage, potato pancakes, and rice and bread puddings.

   She loved playing bingo and even had little lucky charms. She also had a Lottery Dreambook. I wonder if she ever won anything using that. It gave you a lottery number to correspond with the type of dream that you had. She liked clipping coupons which I got into doing because of her.

   Grandma visited her nephew Frankie in California 2 times in the late 70s. We took her to Newark Airport and would stand by the gate to see her off and welcome her back home.  When was the last time that anyone was actually allowed to do this? We took a tour of that airport and a TWA plane there in the mid-1970s; I still have my TWA pin from that.

   She went to Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm and I think Fisherman’s Wharf also. One time her sisters Rachel and Harriet, Frankie’s mom, went with her. I’m pretty sure that Dad told us that Frankie and his partner whose job was fixing up and reselling houses sold one to Stevie Wonder. That’s so cool!

   Grandma was on a ladder cleaning windows when she fell and broke her leg. We were outside playing and saw this happen which was really upsetting.

 Her favorite perfume was Wind Song which Mike and I would get her as gifts. I got her 2 pairs of pewter earrings that came in such a box – mushrooms and owls. She loved owls and now I do too. She never seemed to like the presents that mom got her and sometimes would even say “I don’t really care for that” which is pretty rude. There was one Christmas gift that mom got her that she liked a lot – a Faye Swafford purse with her initial on it.

   She made stuffed animals – Mickey and Minnie Mouse-for Mike and me. She did a latch hook leopard pillow for me. I wish that I still had these 3 things and also some of the necklaces that she got me – Raggedy Ann, Statue of Liberty and a blue heart with a gold cross.

    She had a stroke in 1986 that affected her speech. If she had put more of an effort into therapy maybe it would have improved a bit more. I’m picturing her taking care of my Ginger up in heaven and going to Bingo also. There goes my weird imagination again.

 

                                          
                                                  

 

               
                                           
                                             
                                                                        Merv

 

                  
                                                 
                                                                  Lawrence Welk
                                             
                                             
                                                                      Liberace

 

                                    

 

                                                  
                                                  
                                                
                                                        

   

 

   Bread Pudding

                                      
                                                                      Rice Pudding

                                                                    Potato Pancakes

  Waffles

 

Note- the first 5 photos are mine and the rest are images from the internet

 

Crumbs Cupcakes

Thoughts about the times that my brother and I would go to Crumbs bake shop when we were in the city and buy a cupcake for us to share have been on my mind today. I can't recall how many times that we did so or even exactly when. It has been a while though, at least 6 years. They were so yummy!

October 27- Chiller Theatre-October 26, 2019

There was another bomb threat scare at this event; that makes 2 Octobers in a row. We were outside for an hour and 25 minutes. We wouldn’t have even still been there if Tony hadn’t had to go back in to buy something from one of the vendors. We didn’t leave until about 6:15.

     I was so exhausted by the time we got home. We stopped at Wawa where Mike and I got subs and soda for supper. We had split a sub for lunch at the event. We also had brought some snacks and water with us.

   Mike and I went into the room with the Revenge of the Nerds cast reunion to get Curtis Armstrong’s autograph shortly after we first got there. We got the same photo of his “Supernatural” character. I mentioned that I got my brother into the show and he said something like I am responsible for corrupting him.

    We then went into the room with the “Barney Miller” and “Three’s Company” stars. Neither of the latter 2-Joyce DeWitt and Priscilla Barnes, were there yet, however. From the former, only Max Gail was so we had to go back later to see Hal Linden.

   The room was so crowded then that we couldn’t get into it but he was standing outside of it before heading the other way so we got to see him. We returned for a third time and managed to get in there to see him and also Joyce and Priscilla. I didn’t really get a good look at Joyce though because my view was blocked most of the time.

   We saw Priscilla again when we were waiting outside during the evacuation. I hadn’t even seen her standing near us at first; Tony had pointed this out to me. He said that he had seen Shirley Jones standing between 2 cars when we were walking around out there.

    I waited on the Elvira autograph line for an hour and 20 minutes with my brother. He also got a table photo op with her. We saw Shirley Jones who was in the same room. Tony got her autograph and table photo op. I never really watched her show, The Partridge Family. I might have seen a few episodes. I saw her in Oklahoma and The Music Man. I might have seen Carousel too.

    Richard Dean Anderson, Richard Kline, Tori Spelling; Haley and Juliet Mills; Melissa Gilbert, and Barbie Benton were among the stars in the lobby area or whatever that space is called. We didn’t get to see Lisa Loring; she wasn’t at her table all 3 times that we went into that room.

    The 3 actors that were in that kids show “The Banana Splits” were also there. I never really watched it. Tony said that he did and that he even was a member of the fan club. We went into The Warriors room where 11 of its stars were. Two of them had to cancel out. I never really saw that movie but know who Michael Beck is. I must have seen him as a guest star in some television shows.

   A “Fame” reunion was in another room. I never watched that show. I did see the movie at the library with my cousin Missy in the early 80s. My brother was going a little gaga over Nia Peeples.

   We didn’t get to see Tatum O’Neal and Kristi McNichol because you had to wait on the line for their autographs for that “privilege”, just like with Tony Danza a couple of years ago. He was there this past April too; I wonder if he was out in the open for all to see this time.

    I wish that I had been able to talk Mike into taking the train and a cab to that show. I would have even paid for the latter. He didn’t want to spend the money on transportation for it. We missed out on a lot of stars that I would have liked to have seen like Danza, Cheryl Ladd, Joan Van Ark, Pamela Sue Martin, Parker Stevenson, John O’Hurley, Jason Priestly, William Kaat, Karen Allen, Morgan Fairchild; Carole and Paula (The Magic Garden) and 2 from Happy Days- Donnie Most and Anson Williams.

  My brother got excited when he saw a poster advertising the guest list for the Winter Con show in November. They had added a “Battlestar Galactica” star, Herb Jefferson Jr., since he last checked it online. Tony was teasing him about this because he mentioned it numerous times.

   Mike bought an Evil Spock (from the “Mirror, Mirror” episode) Pops for only $8.00. He was hoping to find the Kirk one too but not that many vendors had Pops this time. I didn’t buy anything. I thought about getting a “Supernatural” magnet but passed on it.

   He was wearing the “Supernatural” shirt. He had wanted me to wear mine too but I didn’t feel like it. A couple of fellow fans started talking to him. The one lady mentioned that she has been going to the Creation conventions with the Gold Package ticket for the past 9 years and will be at next year’s too. She also stays at the hotel and gets photo ops and other autographs. She must have lots of money.

The guy said that the first year that he went that this package was about $325.00. It is crazy that the price has gone up to nearly $1,000.00 more since then. I don’t know if he was with that lady or not. Maybe he went a year or 2 before her. What year did they even start having these conventions in New Jersey?

   I probably will wear my shirt at the convention in Pittsburgh. I am just praying that nothing happens to prevent us from going to that. I might even be tempted to pay for a table photo op with Mark Sheppard if the price is right. Part of me is saying that I shouldn’t bother though since I didn’t do so for James Marsters. I don’t know which side of me to listen to.

 

  

Happy Halloween

Here are some of our decorations. I used to love decorating for the holidays when I was a kid and even in my 20s but after that, not so much. I only have a pumpkin in our dining room window this year.

The bottom 4 are the originals from the 1970s and early 1980s; the rest are like ones that we used to have then. I guess that we got them in the early 1990s.

I wish that we had kept them all; they were made much nicer then. The cardboard and materials were more sturdy, now they are flimsier.

                       

 

 

Note- I wanted to post the pumpkin photo but this site is giving me lots of problems today; hopefully I will be able to do so sometime soon.

September 11- Ginger and Buffy

 I don’t have that many pictures of my Ginger – maybe 12. No puppy ones.  She was adorable and looked a little like Benji.  The other puppy in the cage at the shelter was picking on her.  Grandma next door named her and spoiled her so much.  She liked playing with plastic soda bottles and when I took her on walks.  She definitely was my girl and my best friend.

   One time she got really sick when somehow she got the bottle of cough syrup open and drank nearly the whole bottle; poor doggie.  My dad kicked her out in the yard one day which was so mean.  Our neighbor Mrs. K saw this and yelled at him which we were glad about.

  She was such a good girl but Dad was so mean to her sometimes, probably because he was jealous of the attention that we gave her and the fact that he was kind of a miserable person.

  Mike squirted Milk Mate chocolate syrup onto Ginger once which wasn’t nice.  Jessica called her the Milk Mate dog which we did laugh about.

   I wish that I could remember more about her.  She was only 7 years old when Dad had her put to sleep.  We should’ve had her for 5 or 6 more years.  I wish that we had never taken that trip to Virginia – she might’ve gotten her sickness from the boarding place.  She might’ve just needed an antibiotic and would’ve recovered. 

  Buffy was definitely like a gift from God.  Mom and I were supposed to go to Columbus Flea Market but it was raining so we went to the pet store instead.  Mom asked if there was a girl spaniel in the cage and the salesperson said no but another one overheard us and said that there was one in the back.

   It was love at first sight. I had already picked out a name for her- Buffy Willow, after the 2 characters in the show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. My brother is actually paid for her. We had talked about getting a cocker spaniel for months before this. She quickly became a grandma’s girl. She loved playing with her pet rocks and also getting tummy rubs from us.

   I had lots of nicknames for her like Sunshine spaniel. It’s so corny that sometimes I’d sing “You Are My Sunshine” to her. Some of the others were Twinkie,   pork chop, sugar cookie, little lamb, cream puff, sweet potato, dumpling, turtle, Miss Piggy, lamb chop and Pillsbury Dough Dog. I’d call her that after rubbing her belly and making that laughing noise like the Pillsbury Dough Boy does.

   Sometimes I’d sing “My Little Buffy” to her using that song from the My Little Pony toy commercials -so cheesy. She was like our little cream colored Pony. She had a super short stub which made her even more special to us.

  We should have taken many more pictures of Buffy when she was a puppy.  She was very cute. I only have about 12 of them. One time she had something in her mouth and we thought it was a rock but when I took it out and saw that it was a big beetle I was so creeped out by this.

  She used to steal moms and my hankies sometimes and chew holes in them. We called her a hankie thief. She chewed and messed up part of the rug that Aunt Ann made for under the rocking chair.   Luckily she outgrew this stage quickly and didn’t ruin much else. She did chew the plastic nose off of my stuffed bunny too.

   Our sweet spaniel did have many health problems – arthritis, allergies, ear infections, a sprained back leg, pancreatitis, weak heart and liver and kidney troubles.  I feel so guilty about some of this. If we had taken better care of her teeth and given her the non – steroid allergy meds she wouldn’t have gotten so bad that we had to have her put to sleep at 12 years old. The vet assured us that we were good owners.

   I miss our little pumpkin muffin so darn much as does mom and Mike. Mom was spoiling her with too much food at one point and we had to put her on a diet for a while. We hardly ever took her for walks. We should have brushed her more. I can’t help beating myself for not doing much more for her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comic Con NYC 2019

This is the first time that my brother and I ever attended this event. It was fun but very crowded. We only saw about half of the vendors; my brother didn't feel like going back to that area after I got an autograph. Now he is wishing that we had, of course.

I didn't take that many photos because I was feeling overwhelmed by the huge crowd. You aren't supposed to take any of the stars, but I am sure that some people did anyway. You can pay for table photo ops or professional ones with them.

 Five cast members of Angel was there; it's the 20th anniversary of that show. I can't believe that it has been that long. I originally was just going to get James Marsters autograph but then later decided to also get Charisma Carpenter's. I felt less nervous talking to her and said more too.

My brother also got her autograph. At first, he hadn't planned on it but I convinced him to do so which he seems glad about. We both got Nichelle Nichols autograph. I used to like "Star Trek" when I was a kid. My brother still enjoys it.

We saw Felicia Day at the book signing area. We had missed out on her panel because Nichelle was running late. Maybe the line was long and we wouldn't have been able to get into it anyhow.

I had wanted to buy her book earlier but my brother talked me out of it, saying that he wants her autograph on a photo from "Supernatural" and not a book. I wish that I hadn't listened to him. Now he is regretting this decision and said "You shouldn't have listened to me".

We saw Christopher Eccleston from "Doctor Who". The price of his autograph wasn't in our budget. Mike has autographs of Doctors 5, 6, and 7- Peter Davison, Colin Baker, and Sylvester McCoy. He also saw the 12th, Peter Capaldi. He has been to 4 or 5 "Doctor Who" conventions.

Mike would have gotten a photo op with Charisma if it was $20.00 and not $40.00. The former was the price of Marsters' when purchasing his autograph at $40.00. I had thought about doing so but talked myself out of it which I am sort of regretting.

I don't normally like being in photos but should have made an exception this time. My brother is more into getting such photo ops and some professional ones too. I only have one table op that I paid $15.00 for and 4 from before the stars were even charging for them.

We didn't get to see Billy Dee Williams. He wasn't at his table for the 6:00 p.m. signing when we went back to the area. We couldn't see him at his other time because we were on line for autographs.

Tom Hiddleston was there too but there was no way that we could even see him with the way that they had his table and line set up. They also had a metal detector in that area- no other star had this. The price of his autograph was way, way beyond what I could afford- $250.00.

Mike and I bought the same style Supernatural t-shirt. The vendor had a lot of cool shirts to choose from. He would have gotten a Star Trek one too but he didn't have his size.

I was going to scan my autographs like I have done with others in the past but felt too nervous to take them out of the binder.

October 30, 2015- Halloween/Earliest Memories

 I don’t really like Halloween that much anymore but I do have some good memories of this holiday. The best one was in 1976 when I was an angel, my costume of choice 3 times, and he was a fireman with the” Emergency!”  helmet and megaphone thing. That was our favorite show then.

   I can’t believe that he remembered that I had a little crush on Gage. Wait, yes I can- his memory is perfect when it comes to my crushes, unfortunately. Yikes, I’m so ashamed about this. He had mentioned that fact a few weeks ago after he watched an episode of it.

   I did watch one with him about 6 weeks ago but it just doesn’t interest me anymore which is how I feel about a lot of the shows that I liked when I was a kid, esp. many of the comedies which seem so lame to me now.

   I’m thinking about one that used to scare us a little – “In Search of”, hosted by Leonard Nimoy- esp. the episodes with Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster and UFOs. I ‘m sure if we watched this now we’d think it was so cheesy. “Day of Disaster” was another- the Hindenburg and a bridge that was shaking a lot because of high winds in the northwest somewhere were on this. Joel Siegel was the host.

    I am pretty sure that my brother won the second place ribbon for his cowboy costume in a town contest.  Mine was lame; I was in pajamas, a robe and had curlers in my hair. The last time that we went trick or treating was 1982- I was a gypsy/fortune teller.

    We had some great decorations and still have a few of them, like the haunted house which is actually a greeting card. I like the ceramic one of these and Dracula stuffed bear that we got in the late 80s.

   I have a hazy memory of a couple of Girl Scout parties- at one we were bobbing for apples and the other was at camp and I had a ghost costume which didn’t seem very original compared my troop mates.

  Mom and Dad carved a pumpkin only once; it was too messy and not worth the time and effort to do so again. We would just draw faces on them with markers. I always worried that someone would smash the ones that we’d put on the porch.

  I remember the spooky house with the coffin that Dracula came out of one year when we went trick-or-treating. That really scared Mike and me.

   I did a Halloween post at Blogger last year and used a few pictures from the 1970s. I was Raggedy Ann and Mike was a devil, but I really don’t remember this. I think that I was 4 years old.  I don’t know if people can actually remember much of anything from before this age. Mike agrees with me.

   My two earliest memories are traumatic ones, naturally. Dad accidentally burned me with his cigarette when he was carrying me through the cemetery, probably in 1973 or 1974. Mike and I saw our parent’s Chevy Malibu being totaled out in front of Aunt Rachel’s house in 1975.

   A lady was trying to avoid a drunken guy crossing the road and she slammed her car into ours which also got pushed into a telephone pole. We had been having such a good time in our aunt’s yard before this. I was crying.  I have the newspaper article about this in my scrapbook.

 

                                                                           1974
                                                                       

                                                                            1975

 

                                                                             1976

 

 

                                                                    Our Wrecked Car