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Route 53 – Enjoying Life's Joy Ride

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Friday Afternoons with Mom

17 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by route53 in Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway, San Francisco - Leaving your heart

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aging, birthday, Burma, cancer, grandmothers, life, survivor, travel

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Last Friday I was driving home early from a downtown meeting when I decided to take a slight detour to visit my mom.  It was her birthday after all and I had yet to wish her a Happy Birthday.  There was a risk though.  She might not be home.  My mother is not your ordinary mid-70s grandmother widow who sits at home in front of the television knitting sweaters for her grandchildren or even baking cookies for her neighbors.  Catching my mother at home is like finding a gambler in his room in Vegas.

I was lucky. And she let me know it.  I caught her on her iPad (I don’t even own one) checking out movie times and booking dinner reservations.  “I’m going to dinner with Pat and Ford, then we’re going to see Oz, the Great Wizard, and then play cards.  Want to come along?”  Oh no I couldn’t burden my mother and drag down all her fun!  The idea of dropping in on my “elderly mother” so she wouldn’t be lonely was preposterous.  I was the lonely one looking for the comfort of knowing that she is perfectly fine.

“Thanks for the birthday wishes.  What are you doing here?” she asked.  I guess it was not obvious.  My mom is so hip she would rather get a Facebook birthday post on her wall.  She wouldn’t want me to waste paper or spend money on stamps.

We finally settled down as she showed me some of her new projects and she handed me some old papers that belonged to my dad.  She became a little somber at the thought of my dad who has been gone for over 7 years now. “I miss James”, she said unprompted.  I do too, but somehow I feel she’s moved on a little better than me and my siblings.  My dad was the ultimate provider.  I remember him visiting his 90-year-old mother in Chinatown after leaving his dental office downtown every day.  He’d check in with her and she’d give him some strange Chinese medicine or dish to give to his family. A mother of 8 children who basically raised them herself in a small 1-bedroom apartment, she still looked after her own despite her son trying to take care of her.  My dad married a similar woman.

My mom, after her brief, moment of reflection pulled out a map.  “So when am I taking you guys to China?”  My mom wants to introduce my wife and kids to their (kids, not wife) Asian ancestry.  There is no other one better to do this.  My parents used to leave us kids home and venture off to China where my dad would lead tours for a month at a time and come back with the very first Walkman ( you remember the one that you clipped to your belt and pull down your pants because it was so heavy?).  I would have loved to have traveled with my grandfather to China, so giving my children the opportunity to do this with their only living Asian grandparent would be a real treat.  Then she said continued, “Don’t worry your dad and I will pay.” Darn, there she goes trying to take care of me again when I am supposed to take care of her.  Of course she had to bring in my departed dad into the picture.  Yes, the great provider is still taking care of us from the heavens and she invoked his spirit knowing I would protest otherwise.

I told her we’d discuss money later, but she continued, “Your dad left me a nice pension, it’s okay, he worked 6 days a week for you kids, not for me. I’ll go to Disney with your sister and her family.  Stop worrying about me.”

Worry?  This is a 70-year-old lady world traveler who readily tells people her zodiac sign before she tells you her name.  She’s a 10 year survivor of breast cancer, a widow, a grandmother of four, a sister to seven brothers, and avid sports fan.  She then hands me a slip of paper. It is a list of chores (pick up the paper and water the flowers) “Don’t forget my itinerary.  I leave for Burma on Friday.”

“What?”  Okay, how many have people have a mom like my mom at her age saying that she is off to Burma?

“Remember Shelley?  I’m going with her mom.  She lost her husband last year and wants to go.  It will be good for her.  Did you know that Burma is one of the last countries to adopt the internet?  In fact the Chairman of Google is going there as well to help explain to them.”  There goes my mother telling me more about the internet than I already know.  Needless to day, she will be the person I call when I have wireless router issues in my own home.

I remind her that Burma is a 3rd World country despite all the pictures of the great food that she will be eating.  She shoves photo after photo in front of me as I tell her to watch herself.  She’s not listening.  I tell her that she doesn’t need her iPhone, but she tells me how she is going to load up the new Justin Timberlake album so she can listen to it on her trip.  Suddenly I am 10 years old again and I’m getting a lecture from my father.  Only this time it is my mom.  She has taken over his role.  She is the great provider.

“Erik, you have to stop worrying about me.  I’ve survived cancer.  I have a second chance.  I’m not going to die without taking care of those around me.  I have a second chance to give everyone my attention.  I’m paying for your trip because I don’t want you and your wife to worry about the money. You have wonderful kids. You can’t be so thrifty that you don’t give your kids a great experience.  I’m helping your uncle because he needs my help (her 60-year-old younger brother needs support and my mother checks on him weekly and gives him a small weekly allowance).  Your dad (there she goes again invoking the spirit of the great provider) and I wanted you to have more than we had and now we want to help you give your kids more than you had.”

Damn, my mother is so right.  I laugh at her strength.  Her willpower and zest for life is amazing.  She is the patron saint of positive attitude.  Sometimes I think she is so naive.  I think she thinks her eldest son is too jaded.  She knows I’m going to worry about her on her trip, but reads my mind, “Don’t worry, will you stop? The worst thing that will happen to your mother on this trip is that I will burn my mouth on all those spicy foods.”

She gives me a big hug and we go on to talk about me, my kids, my family, her family, my friends, her friends, and what seems like her expected travel itinerary for the next decade.  Maybe she should join Dennis Rodman on his next trip to North Korea.  Two hours go by and I’m now late for dinner with my family, but I suddenly feel like my dad and his mother as she gives me a bag full of cookies and teas, and other assorted refrigerated products to bring home, “I don’t want these to be sitting around while I’m gone.”

The next evening we go out to dinner to celebrate her birthday and my daughter’s birthday.  Like the way she will suddenly disappear and travel to the other side of the world, my brother-in-law notices she is trying to pay for her own birthday dinner.  She is frustrated when her intercepts and stops her.  When she gets back to the table, she’s not happy.  I smile at her and she tells me that we are all like our father.  I smile back and tell her that she is like him too.  The great provider.

Hurricane Irene brings Reality TV to a Long Day

28 Sunday Aug 2011

Posted by route53 in Route 53 - Celebrity Sightings, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

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Albie Manzo, Bravo, BravoTV, Caroline Manzo, greg real housewives of new jersey, Hurricane, Hurricane Irene, Joe Giudice, Joe Gorga, Kathy Wakile, Melissa Gorga, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Real housewives of New Jersey, reality TV, RHONJ, Rich Wakile, roadtrip, spoiler alert, spoilers, Teresa Giudice, travel

How do you take a crazy day and make it somewhat amusing?  You take the worst storm to hit the Northern East Coast in years, you add 20+ hours of travel, you visit the site of where you met your spouse, and then you bring the hit Reality TV Show, “Desperate Housewives of New Jersey” to the mix.

For all those caught in the panic in the NY tri-state area over Hurricane Irene I do apologize for my making light of this storm as I do realize there was some damage.  Anyone trying to legitimately escape from New Jersey today (actually yesterday) found their flights cancelled with no other options (my customer service agent from India suggested I drive to Harrisburg in the middle of the night to catch a flight backwards to Dulles).  What?  Note to United and Continental Airlines, give your foreign customer service agents a lesson in American geography!

Fortunately we got the brave idea to rent a car and drive 6 hours to Pittsburgh, fly to Houston and then on San Francisco.  Well, it turns out a lot of people had that idea.  We lined up at 8am at the Hertz counter and found people driving to all parts of the country.  Then, on the Pennsylvania Turnpike we saw cars stacked with supplies getting out of town (sure some were heading off to college).  We took a quick pit stop to Pittsburgh and visited Carnegie Mellon where my wife and I met as undergrads and hadn’t been back since.

When we arrived in Pittsburgh we found people who had even gone to catch 6am flights in Newark, NJ and were turned away and headed straight to Western Pennsylvania.  Incidentally I ran into a business colleague who appears on the Reality TV show, ” Real Housewives of New Jersey”.  I guess even reality TV was escaping Hurricane Irene.

Real Housewives of NJ cast running from Hurricane Irene

As it turns out, the whole cast (sans kids) was on the same flights with me and my family.  For you Real Housewives fans on the trip were Joe and Teresa, Rich & Kathy, Joe & Melissa, Caroline & Albert & Family ( Albie, Chris & Lauren) along with Lauren’s boyfriend and Chris and Albie’s roommate, & Chris and Jacqueline.  There were a couple young women along who I think were the travel secretaries for the show.  Additionally a couple of the brothers ( I think they are Joe Giudice’s brothers) were along.

Now those who follow know I’m a big fan of reality TV, but it was fun to see what people in general thought.  Young girls from California were going nuts.  One girl who sat next to me asked who I knew on the show as she was talking to them (I actually wouldn’t have if I hadn’t needed to exchange seats with Caroline’s children so that I could sit with my own kids).  Otherwise this group wasn’t really bothered at all.  I saw maybe one or two people bother them for a photo and as a group they all seemed cordial.  What I did find interesting was that a couple of “Jersey Shore” type guys said they didn’t watch the show because it made them look bad although they admitted that they were representative of a pretty funny stereotype, but just perpetuated things.  So basically more people outside New Jersey found it more interesting than those within New Jersey.  I knew I’m probably part of the male minority that watches the show anyway although I would say that for the most part the women looked thinner, the Joes looked shorter, and the cast seemed more subdued than you see on television.  Of course that could all be part of the fact that they had been traveling for 24 hours as well.

It looks like Northern California will be a featured road trip in Season 4 as they will be spending a week here.  Definitely some wine tasting is my guess given that no kids were along.  Perhaps Jacqueline and Chris might be visiting Ashley (if she did move out to California).

Some observations:

  1. Everyone seemed to get along nicely
  2. They all tried to stay very low key
  3. People were most interested in saying hi to Joe & Teresa
  4. Joe Gorga.. yeah he’s short, but man can that guy strut….my 11 year old now can copy him saying “how ya doin'”
  5. Joe Giudice pulling around Teresa’s leopard spotted rollie!  Too funny!  and then taking a couple tries to get it in the overhead!
  6. Vito and the chatting up these two girls from Price Waterhouse fresh out of college…everyone was in stitches listening to the convo for 4 hours!
  7. When offered Albie my exit row seats, Albie picked his sister to sit with him and not his brother.
  8. Al & Caroline and Chris & Jacqueline sat in 1st class on the second leg of the trip.

Let’s hope no tables get flipped or wine racks thrown while they are here in San Francisco this week!  In the end, it turns out a hurricane which created rough travel conditions for all turned into a somewhat amusing and entertaining day!

A Warm San Francisco Holiday To All

22 Tuesday Dec 2009

Posted by route53 in Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Breast, cancer, family, holidays, running, san Francisco, travel

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays Everyone,

Before everyone takes off on their vacations from their virtual world, I just thought I’d wish you all a very Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwaanza, etc.  Please be safe if you are traveling this season!

As I pushed through the chilling temperatures and blustery winds of San Francisco during my run last night I kept reminding myself of those cold December nights I’ve spent in New York City, Chicago, and Pittsburgh.  Nothing will ever compare to those cold bitter nights when I wore long underwear under my wool suits and wondered why I left my “City by the Bay”. I do remember telling myself that I would remember those days so I would appreciate San Francisco that much more when I would eventually return.   Although cold, my run was dry and I ran down the festively lit shopping areas of Sacramento St, Fillmore St., California, and Clement St. distracting myself with the observations of the decorations people had in their windows.

While the glittery lights were dazzling and the quietness of the air still reminded me of how our economy is not quite back up to speed, the most warming images of my run were of the people. 

First, there was the elderly couple walking together with their arms around each other as they left their party at Spruce Restaurant (http://www.sprucesf.com). They stopped and kissed saying “I love you” and touching their foreheads together in the middle of the sidewalk as I dodged them.  It was a split second of our paths crossing but it was a beautiful image.

Second, there were the two inebriated young ladies in their short cocktail dresses stumbling out of the Elite Cafe (http://www.theelitecafe.com/) before crashing to the ground.  I say crashing because they fell backwards into me as I ran behind them.  Fortunately I caught one before she hit her head on one of the tables outside. They were inebriated because as the cabbie and I helped them to their feet, neither of them could pronounce their destination.  I laughed when she said they were going to New York.  A great guy, the cabbie, a little Frenchman in his beret and scruffy clothes had me and one of the waiters watch him as he helped one girl open her purse to find her address. She kissed his scruffy face as he pushed her back into the cab.  “Welcome to Christmas on the Barbary Coast”, he said as he tipped his cap to us while mentioning one of the many long-gone nicknames of San Francisco.  I think I ran a whole another mile before the whole incident washed behind me, turning towards home.  The cab driver reminded me of the kindness of people at this time of year.

As I passed by San Francisco’s only 24 hour Starbucks in Laurel Village (yes I love running by it at night just so that I can get a whiff of the caffeine aroma) a bunch of Fire Engine’s raced by me.  Looking for an alternate route, I followed their sirens.  A Portable Potty had been set ablaze nearby.  This has been the work of arsons as dozens have been set on fire over the last year.

Not wanting to end my run on a negative note, I continued on and started  to notice a pattern that is so familiar this time of year.  I had been seeing it over the a past week as cars and taxis pull up in front of homes and the dwellers come out to greet and hug a family member returning home.  The tears of joy and happiness really signify what this season is about and while the images weren’t exactly Norman Rockwell-esque, they told the story.  The story of family and friends coming together.  I even saw a soldier returning home a couple weeks ago in full gear as his mother screamed when she opened the door (adorned with a yellow ribbon).

All of these images (including the fiery portable toilet) told the story of 2009.  Maybe they weren’t my story, but they were nice ones.

2009 will be just that for me.  “A Nice One”.  I’ll definitely take that after 2008.  I needn’t look much further than 2008 to remember what was happening last year as my wife was recovering from her second surgery in 3 months and we scheduled ourselves for a very low key Christmas with only enough fanfare to keep our kid’s spirits high.  Just 365 days ago I sat by her bedside making sure she’d be okay just to get up and deal with Christmas.  While 2009 was no picnic, and we did deal with two more minor surgeries, life today compared to last year couldn’t be much better healthwise.

The holiday is often on its long tail as we’ve already had two family gatherings, a work party and a large bash at a friend’s home yet we are still 3 days shy of Christmas.  We still have two more family gatherings to go to.  Such is the life of the fragmented world and family.  As I sit here in my den, I know of local friends spending the holiday in Hawaii, Argentina, Spain, France, England, Italy & Brazil just to name those places not on this continent.  They all sound enticing…. the Champs Elysees on Christmas?  How magical does that sound!?

Well San Francisco is where we remain and where we will keep our hearts this Christmas!  No snow and no sand!  The image above is from  Sara Showalter, (www.sarashowalter.com) or @gidget on Twitter.  A great local artist, the image was used for our holiday card this year. If you are looking for an artist or photographer, I highly recommend her.  And the best thing about her?  She is a diehard San Francisco Giants fan!

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