I Know You Are Out There

Maybe I'm new to this old blogging thang. Well, it's been more than a year and I just kicked in the Google analytics tool three days ago. In those three days I have tracked 35 whopping Absolute Unique Visitors! I think I can identify about 34 of you, but who is the mysterious 35th visitor? Come on, out with it.

I know it is you, Shuffles. I can just see you hunched over a dusty laptop with stained keyboard, sipping a cup of Chamomile tea purchased in the Stop 'n' Shop bargains aisle. A withered cat is twining around your unshaved ankles, and the smell of burnt broccoli is in the air. The bills are piling up in the broken-down oven, and I believe those are old love letters crowding the dishrack. You might want to check your porch, too. There's a package there containing a creepy owl-eyed doll that you got for a steal on eBay. (I would recommend returning said doll, because there is a curse attached. Don't say I didn't warn you, Shuffles.)

Also housed on your laptop is the unfinished novel, all 46 pages of it, about love, love, love. Love that you made. Love that you spurned. About your love of an old collie dog named Shep, who died peacefully one night by the fire in your childhood home. And your rather unconventional love of socks, and your never-ending quest to find the perfect sock that doesn't sag and bunch around your unshaved ankles. I think you have ankles that are quite fine, Shuffles, and they should never be encased in socks. Never! Some women have frightful ankles, but yours are nothing of which to be ashamed. I too have decent ankles, even during pregnancy. In that we are kin.

Shuffles, come clean. I know that you are reading my blog. You are Unique Visitor # 35. Please give me some comment love, Shuffles. I won't turn it aside, like that poltroon Tommy McBiggers did back in high school. I won't toss the processed tater tots at you like the rotten Heathers did in the lunchroom on that long-ago day when you were a mere Freshman with pie-crust teeth just begging for braces to tame them. Nolan Krinick, the evil dentist, fixed all that, didn't he? And then you entered your "roller coaster of slutdom" phase. Oh, but we won't discuss that further. Unless the comments are not forthcoming. Yes, I can be cruel.

When I drag my garbage to the street tonight, I will think of you. Maybe you will be watching from your porch, wondering if I ever used all of the Saffron. I did not. I have extra. I have enough for the whole durned block! Watch me make a cous-cous that will knock your socks off, revealing your unshaved (but well-defined) ankles.

Oh Shuffles, when the snow falls, will you still be there watching, even though we have departed? Just one comment and I will know that Unique Visitor # 35 is not but a hiccup in the Google Analytics architecture.

It's August, People!

Witness the Curious Incident of the Summertime Snowman. Sighted on a porch on our street. Beats having to take your Christmas gear down from the attic come December.

Note: Click on the pic to see the snowman. I would have gotten a better shot but someone might have shot me for trespassing.

Habitat for All Things Creepy

After writing my earlier post on the New Rochelle armory, I decided to go on a reconnaissance mission and check out the rear end of the place. Rear end, indeed. There we witnessed this rather scary Habitat for Humanity Warehouse Sale, in a newer building not part of the original armory. My husband entered with much trepidation and found a few pieces of crappy pasteboard furniture in an abandoned hallway, as well as weird junk lying around on the floor. There were holes punched along the wall at various intervals. And not a soul to be seen. He backed out quickly. I thought about locking the car door while we waited.

As we drove away, feeling decidedly creeped-out, a strange man lurched out and stared at us with beady-eyed suspicion and malevolence. Another guy was picking through refuse in an alleyway next to the building. Is this really a Habitat for Humanity outfit or a front for--as my kids would say--a Ghosts and Monsters gathering?

We did note one key thing. The weed-infested property behind the armory will be grand indeed one day, when the brush is cleared and the view of the water is complete. Hopefully the armory will still be there to witness it.

It's the thought that counts

I have never been a particularly adept gift-wrapper, but this beauty for my son's third birthday was such an atrocious job that I snapped a photo of it. Note the masking tape. Was I drunk? Stoned? No, dear reader, that is simply the lousy wrapping job that I did while perfectly alert and sober.

He tore the paper off without a second glance.

Three Conversations

On humility:

Elder son: I like playgroups with girls. I really prefer girls to boys, actually.
Younger son: I like grills too! I perfer grills better than boys!
Elder son: Girls are cuter.
Younger son: Yes, they is cuter. Grills is nice!
Elder son: But my brother and I are the cutest persons of anyone on the whole planet.

On the nature of being:

Elder son: Mommy, can we ever go visit another planet?
Mother: Other planets are far away, and we don't know if there is one that supports life like ours, etc.
Younger son: Mein raisins!
Elder son: Did specks of dust float from a different planet to our planet? Is that where we came from?
Mother: Whoa...that's deep!
Younger son: MEIN RAISINS IS STUCK TOGETHER!
Elder son: But mommy, how did people come to life on this planet?
Younger son: MEIN RAISINNNNNSSS IS STUCK TOGETHER!
Elder son: Be silent! We heard all your talk the first time! Mommy and I are having a conversation!

On love:

Radio song: "Don't steal my heart and throw it away..."
Younger son: Dat's mean! Stealing hearts is MEAN!
Radio song: "...leave me drowning in my tears..."
Elder son: Hey! That's a real goofball thing to say!

To Arms for the Armory

A mere stone's throw from my home sits the old New Rochelle armory, its grand old brick facade facing the Post Road, with two anchors flanking its entryway. Opened in 1933, the armory was a base and training facility for naval recruits. Now, of course, someone wants to tear it down. Developer Forest City Residential's plan to revitalize 26 acres of Echo Bay waterfront has the armory slated for the wrecking ball—-to be replaced by a 20,000-square-foot community center. Perhaps it will have a vaguely nautical theme, in order to preserve a bit o' history and honor the naval veterans who served there?

The armory hasn't seen a lot of action in the last several years, serving only as the home for New Rochelle's famous Haunted House each fall. Last year, a local politician stopped by our door with his hopeful plan for turning it into a museum, an ice-skating rink, or--just think!--a community center.

While there is no doubt that the Echo Bay waterfront deserves to be a place of real beauty rather than a sludgedump, why not incorporate the armory into the plans rather than tear it down? It seems that Forest City may have spiritual kin in the braintrust who razed New York's grandest train station in order to build Madison Square Garden, leaving us with the execrable fluorescent wasteland that is today's Penn Station.

Nonetheless, earlier this year, the City of New Rochelle accepted Forest City Residential's proposal, which includes the construction of hundreds of condos and townhouses along the waterfront, as well as restaurants and shops. “We will be long-term partners," said David Levey, executive vice president with Forest City Residential Group. "We will become part of the fabric of this community. We’re going to do a bang-up job. . .it’s going to be something that’s pleasing to the city and pleasing to the developers.” When it comes to the old armory, however, a group of local citizens are not pleased, and they are not going to let the building go down without a fight.

The armory has its biggest hero in Larchmont resident Alex Litzky, age 21, who is hiking the Appalachian Trail from New York to Maine in order to raise awareness and funds to save the armory. Many local merchants are standing behind Litzky's trek (which he began on Sunday, August 3), with several offering to donate percentages of sales to the cause. Walk down Palmer Avenue and it's encouraging to see how many Larchmont stores are advocating to preserve this element of New Ro history.

Litzky's hike was inspired by his father David, a member of the Save the Armory Committee. The group has spoken out in defense of the armory at public meetings on the Echo Bay plan. "Developments have brought a lot of congestion to downtown New Rochelle," the younger Litzky said, "and I don't think it's for the better."

Pledges for Litzky's hike can be made by calling 914-500-3165 or e-mailing djrl56@aol.com.

Good-Bye to All That

The rumors are true. We are leaving New Ro and setting sail for the northern reaches of Mamaroneck, a town I once mispronounced as "Mama-ro-neck" after getting desperately lost there on the way home from Newport about, say, twelve years ago. (As a side note, I would like to apologize to all and sundry for hooking a piece of the Newport house's porch with the tail end of my 1984 Volvo and dragging it clean away as I left. I still can't imagine how it happened! I hope the check I wrote sufficed.)

I have held a certain sense of pride as New Ro's wee little voice of vitriol-sometimes-love from the trenches, but I'm sure I'll always have a bit of the New Rochellian in me. "Rochelle! Rochelle!" I'll sing idly while doing the dishes, a la Seinfeld. I'll come down and wander the aisles of the Stop 'n' Shop on Palmer Avenue, forlornly seeking Shuffles in the bagging area. Maybe I'll even come back to my street and toss an egg at a speeding car.

As if in farewell, a woman just slowed in front of our driveway, opened her maw, and expelled a great cloud of smoke. She then flung her cigarette onto our lawn and roared off to her own driveway down the street. "Goodbye, neighbor," I wept.

So what awaits us in Yo' Mama-Roneck? I sure do like the fact that it's diverse and kind of quirky, just like our humble hometown of New Ro. And friendly! We already have one neighbor who graciously offered us the use of his house whenever the mood strikes us. "Come on in and get yourself a cup of sugar, a drink, whatever!" he shouted, when we met. He stuffed all sorts of things into my hands, including icy-cold bottled water (it was a hot day) and hot coffee (I had an infant and he knew I needed it). "Just walk in the back door," he added. "No need to call." Another neighbor heard we signed on the house and dropped off a gift-wrapped banana bread, even though we don't move for about three weeks. Now that's unparalleled niceness. (Supernanny made a stealth mission and claimed the bread.)

I was also delighted to see that Mamaroneck has its own rather shopworn mannequin in the window of a store offering specialized bra fittings, although she hasn't fallen quite as low as the Craftform broad. Give her a few years and a couple of abusive boyfriends. She will be duly photographed. Hi Ho the Derry Oh, I'm off to enrage another entire township of citizens! (By the way, when was the last time you had your bra fitted? I did this as a teenager. An older, pinched-faced woman dragged a measuring tape around my bust in a most humiliating manner. I have been far too scared to repeat the experience and therefore I am sure I am wearing the wrong bra size. But I digress.)

There are just so many things I'll miss about our neighborhood. For example, a posse of boys on bikes rode through some time back, and the conversation as they passed was without price. It went something like this:

Boy One: My ball got squished! I got one ball left!
Boy Two: Screw yer ball!
Boy One: I went over a bump and my ball flew off.
Boy Three: Titties and ass! Titties and ass! I'm a-gonna get me some titties and ass!
Boy One: My baaaaaallll.... [Fading into distance. Exit stage left.]

Boys of Mamaroneck, can you do better? I challenge thee!