New Relationship Status

I'm changing my "Relationship Status"
to "in a relationship"
with a person I am committing myself to love
a person I promise to respect
a person whose worth I will value
whose thoughts and feelings
I will acknowledge and validate
someone I will listen to
and encourage
and believe in.
Her name is Me.

Disappointment

You wanted it
thought it was going to happen
but
it didn't work out
It wasn't meant to be
it wasn't “time”
you tell yourself that
hoping to fill that small pit in your stomach
you’re a big girl
you can accept it
and then you find
there’s more to that feeling
than you care to admit…

EASY FACEBOOK ETIQUETTE: How to Get Along in the Neighborhood

Yesterday I created a meme for my blog, which I shared on Facebook (the meme).  Within five minutes I got a “your opinion is wrong” comment on the meme.  In spite of my response asking, basically, that people ‘agree to disagree politely’ the comments went from there, including this one:

           

“And I don’t think it’s right for someone to post something and not to expect someone to disagree, ESP(ECIALLY) with a huge list of friends that they don’t really know.  Hey, it’s a free country for a while, right?”  

                                                         (the Facebook post and it's comments)

I would be an absolute fool if I didn't expect people to disagree with me.  My issue is not in the fact that they disagree, it is how they go about it.  In this free country, we all voice our opinions in different ways.  Not all of them spark debates or arguments, either.  If you wear a cross or a Star of David around your neck, you are making a statement of your beliefs --a VISIBLE, PUBLIC statement of beliefs—yet no one would condone an Atheist running up to you and ripping the cross or star off of your neck in “disagreement”.  Think about it.  There’s “disagreement” and there’s “argumentative action”.

Here is a hopefully easy-to-understand idea of Facebook etiquette.  If we can all adhere to this, then maybe we can all get along here (or on any other social networking site):

FACEBOOK – Your neighborhood
YOUR PROFILE PAGE – Your house in the neighborhood
OTHER PROFILE PAGES – Your neighbors’ houses (whether you know them or not)
NEWSFEED – The street with all the houses on it

Pretend it is an election month in your neighborhood (Facebookland).  You put out a “Tastes Great” sign on your front yard (your profile page/wall).  Your neighbor puts out a “Less Filling” sign on his front yard (his profile page/wall).  The person in the next house down—who you don’t really know—puts out a sign that says “Where’s the Beef?” on his front yard (his profile page/wall).  Three different signs on three different front lawns, right next to each other.  These neighbors have to walk down to their mailboxes to get their mail and are able to see the signs on the lawns, yet are STILL able to say “Good Morning” to each other, even though each are putting up signs that offer different and conflicting opinions.  And none of them would dream of taking their own sign and putting it up on someone else’s lawn.

Then someone comes driving down the street (scrolling the news feed) and is able to see all the signs on each person’s front lawn (profile page/wall).  They are not going to get out of their car and deface the signs they don’t like with a can of spray paint (put a hateful, mean or argumentative comment on someone else’s post), they are just going to DRIVE BY IT (IGNORE).  If they agree with the sign, they may wave to the homeowner (“Like” the post), or even invite themselves over for coffee (comment, “I like that”).  This is how people with different views live together in the same neighborhood without killing each other.

If we can understand this ‘neighborhood etiquette’ concept, maybe we can apply it to Facebook.  And maybe we can also learn to allow other people to have their own differing opinions and still respect them as human beings.

Choose Your Words Wisely

Willis Lake Village and The Friendship of a Lifetime-- HAPPY BIRTHDAY EVE, DONNA AMADO!

Do you all realize it’s been FORTY YEARS since Willis Lake Village (Flintlock Road, Pheasant Run, Powderhorn Drive and Forge Drive)  - and to those who lived on South Crane Ave (up to Timmy Wade’s* house), FORTY YEARS since we chuckleheads disrupted life as you knew it (read Mark’s “The Nimrod” for a better explanation!)  Can you say, “There goes the neighborhood!”?

And it’s been FORTY YEARS since I met my bestest friend, Donna.

I can’t begin to talk about my relationship with Donna, without including the neighborhood where we met and grew up, and a lot of you.  I’ve tagged as many of you as I could from that area; you are all a part of it.  We had a solid core of kids all around the same age at the time—obviously, my focus is on my age group.

We were one of the first families in the brand-new neighborhood in 1973, just before I started first grade (count the years, Donna, it’s been 40!!) (Donna LOVES when I say that!).  I didn’t know anything about the planning of the neighborhood, why it was built or why we moved there (hell, I didn’t even know that section of Taunton was called “Oakland” until after my own kids were born! I knew Whittenton, the Weir, East Taunton… we had the Taunton West Little League, ergo: West Taunton?).  All I knew is that EVERY SINGLE HOUSE had kids.  We had a great neighborhood, didn’t we?  I wish my kids had been able to grow up like we did, in a neighborhood like that.

My family (Roulusonis) lived at 103 Flintlock Road.  If you looked straight down into the neighborhood, our house was almost the last visible house on the right, where the road bent to the left.  You knew which house was ours by all the cars in the driveway that Dad was either working on or racing. Very LOUD cars.

Our neighborhood was tight.  Of course we had our issues, but for the most part we all got along, and we all knew each other.  Most of you even knew that I was NOT Margaret Wade.

Random neighborhood memories:

Sitting on the no-longer-there wall at the top of Flintlock Road, where there used to be signs that said “Willis Lake Village”.  (Remember when that was our bus stop, and the ‘big kids’ were blowing up snakes and frogs with firecrackers?)

Riding our bikes down “the Big Hill” (Forge Drive).

Trick or Treating in the neighborhood.  SO many houses; SO much candy! (Hey, remember when Rik dressed up like that guy from KISS for Halloween?—wait! What?)

Block parties on Pheasant Run (Eddie Rabbitt’s “I love a Rainy Night” always makes me think of those)

Playing football out in the street in front of Mike’s house “’til the lights came on”.

The path in the woods between our house and the Amancio’s house that led to Willis Pond. The bent tree that we used as a see-saw.  What else did we do in those woods, down that path with the little creek over the years? And Truth or Dare, Denise?

(Did we actually inhale? And does that count?)

Park and Rec behind the Taunton Nursing Home

We all went to Barnum School for two years before they moved us all to Bennett School.

(And here’s where my memories get a little my core-group-of-friends-centric: )

Mrs. Nadeau’s class (she had me and both of my sisters three years in a row and was pregnant with a new child each of those three years!).  Remember racing each other to get our before-school work done first? When Michael got his pencil stuck in the ceiling?  She called you guys “pills” because you were ‘hard to get down’.  How mad did Mr. O’Neill get?  And how could we tell? He’d put his head down on the desk and you could see his ears getting red! Mark’s comedy skills, I believe, were honed here.

Donna, remember that you called me “Pepto Bismal” many times during these Bennett years because of this pair of hideous patchwork pink pants I used to wear?

The Girls’ Club.  Rollerskating and “Molding and Painting”.  Vanilla, chocolate and strawberry taffy.  Swimming at the Boys’ Club and having to wear those STUPID rubber swim hats.  Each mother taking turns driving.  We all knew Donna’s phone number because her mother, Nancy, had an effective intonation of it: “EIGHT two-two, THREE one, five SEV-en!”  I remember being in Nancy’s car, squeezed in the front seat between her and Donna, when Donna’s door flew open and Nancy was able to reach across both of us to pull it shut!

Being in my little pool in the backyard when Grandma came out wearing only a wet towel, jumping around and screaming “It’s a BOY!” when my brother was born.  (We had a number of babies born that year: Bobby, Heather, Missy).  Donna, when you mentioned Grandma’s stuffed artichokes in conversation last month, I almost cried.  I was so glad you remembered that.

They taught us the New York Hustle in gym class at Bennett School, which we all continued practicing in our driveway, “Staying Alive” playing on Dad’s jukebox.

The Blizzard of ’78.  Sleds to the store for milk, bread, eggs and beer.  When the plows finally made it to our neighborhood, celebrating being out of school for the week by turning the plowed chunks of ice by the road into desks and just sitting in them.  Donna got one leg stuck in a snow drift all the way up to her thigh.  I had to be the lucky one to go wake up her father to pull her out.  He thought she was faking at first!  We had two of the scariest fathers (both Bobs) on our side of the neighborhood—you did NOT want to have to wake them up!) WHAT WE DID TO MY FATHER’S RACECAR THE NIGHT THE BLIZZARD STARTED! Climbing up the snowdrifts behind the car and sliding down the roof and hood onto the snow in front of it--- and he didn’t see the damage our zippers and buckles did until the snow cleared! 

Fun and Games’ song “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” with Mike Gargano. “AAAhhhh   AAAhhhh YES!” jumping off the chairs.

Playing “Charlie’s Angels” with and without the dolls.  You were Sabrina, I was Kelly.

“Flipping” Star Wars and Charlie’s Angels cards.

Making up dances wearing ponchos my Grandmother crocheted as skirts.

The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew.  SHAUN CASSIDY.  …sigh…

And then we went to Mulcahey School.

Crunchy hair at the bus stop on cold mornings.  You can’t blow dry a perm!

Being the first (and sometimes only) two out on the dance floor at the dances (Chris Menard, when you came up to us on the dance floor at our 25^th high school reunion and said it was like a ‘flashback’ seeing us dancing together—that was my favorite part of the night!)

“Jogging” at 4:30 am.  Donna would climb into my bedroom window (I never understood why we did it like that, since we’d go outside using the front door).  Jogging quickly turned into walking, which turned into eating cereal, sitting out in the middle of Flintlock Road.

Swinging upside down on the swings and scraping foreheads on the ground

Wearing shorts under our dresses and standing up on the swings at Mulcahey, scaring the shit out of Mrs. Bednarz.

Larry Masterson at Mulcahey

Being Mrs. Jacobs’ ‘pets’. 

The Pirates of Penzance, and our trip to NY to see it.  Freddy trying to get a room with girls by putting his name down as “Frederica Boltona”--  and he was your date to my wedding in 2001!

Betting pennies on who laughed first over The Monkees and The Little Rascals after spending the afternoon in Debbie’s pool.

Donna was the person I called the night I ran away when we were 13.  And she and her mother came to pick me up at Reese’s Variety (I will always call it that).

Rollerskating and bike riding to school

Super pinkies handball in the tennis courts/superballs against the wall at Mulcahey before school.

When Richie and Louise moved into the neighborhood!

Mike, Joey and Stevie and BMX.

Her dad’s band, and Dave scaring the shit out of us on Halloween

Meatloaf’s “Bat out of Hell” album.

Jump roping

Double Dutch Bus and Tainted Love

Reading “Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret” and waiting for our periods.

Reading ALL the Trixie Belden books.

Parties at my house where we’d spend weeks deciding which 45s to put in the jukebox, and after the party Dad would laugh at us because out of the 80 records we put in, we would usually only listen to 6 or 7 over and over again.  (That was, if we made it through a whole party without Dad shutting the whole thing down!)  REO Speedwagon and Journey songs feature prominently here.

Our 8^th Grade Grad trip to Rocky Point.  Donna was on the ski lift ride (what was it called? The Sky ___?) and her flip-flop fell off while she was over my head.

After my parents’ divorce, when I moved out of the neighborhood briefly with my mother, Donna and Debbie were walking by my house and Dad was outside mowing the lawn.  They made the mistake of stopping and asking him how I was doing.  They got stuck there for two hours listening to him lecture about the importance of a good education, the moral of the story being “Hold the pickles”.  That was Dad’s thing; if you didn’t get good grades, you would end up a lifelong employee at McDonald’s.

Unfortunately, we went to separate high schools, and I moved to CA for a year. We picked up again, right where we left off after I came back.  I’ll never forget almost 10 years ago when she called me to tell me that she was pregnant, and I laughed “better you than me”—then three weeks later I called to tell you that you must’ve been contagious, because I was pregnant, too!  And our girls, both born in December have a great jump on the best-friendship, with the dubious distinction of being the next Donna and Susie!

Because Donna’s a nurse, she became my Dr. Spock.

Because she’s a Scorpio, she was also my Dr. Ruth!

In 2010, my daughter Deren surprised me for my birthday with tickets to see Tears For Fears at the House of Blues in Boston, and was even able to book Donna to go with me!  That made the night so much better! Best surprise ever!

Oh, yeah, and then there was that time last year at her house when, for the FIRST time in my life, I was “that person” at the party who was ‘holding up the ground’!

When my friend Don was dying last year, she surprised me at my mother’s house on my birthday, knowing I was upset that that day was the last I would see him.

When I almost lost my apartment this past summer, she was right here immediately for me as well.

I can talk to Donna about anything, at any time, about anything, with no judgment and unwavering support.  I only hope that when all is said and done that I’ve been as much of a friend to her as she has been to me.  One thing I’ve learned, especially over the past few years, is the value of a good friendship.  I have it all, with Donna.  There are so many more memories I did not include here.  Thank you to everyone else that was a part of them!  I know there will be so many more to come!

Thank you so much, Donna, for everything over the PAST FORTY YEARS! J  (I’m gonna keep saying that!)

I LOVE YOU!

BFAAFNMW!

And for your actual birthday, there will be PICTURES!

*Sorry, John, I will always think of you as Tim!