Veronica

Well, it has been a while since I wrote down my thoughts.  I said that the next time I wrote, it would be when Veronica got her condo.  SHE GOT HER CONDO! It wasn't the one she was looking at last year, in fact she put down offers on another property in between, but it's now official. Amazingly enough, she is living in the old Jersey City Medical Center building.  A place that I used to call on as a hospital rep when she was a baby.  Her condo is on a high floor with a great view of New York, it's an amazing place for an amazing young woman.


However, this post is not about an apartment/condo, it's about my first born.  Veronica or as I still think of her, Nicki, has been the light of my life since June 2, 1984.  As a baby, she was a gurgling, bubbling fountain of joy.  Before she was two she was talking, and as a precursor to her future skills, at the age of three she was sitting on her mothers' lap and pointed at a word in the newspaper and read her first word, Macy's.  In her early talking days she fell in love with the numbers 28, 29, so for months the answer to every question was 28,29.  Nick, how old are you - 28,29,  how much does daddy weigh - 28,29.  Since Daddy was a biscuit away from 300, he really liked that one.


As the voice said in the Bible, this is my daughter in whom I am well pleased.  While we all see ourselves in our kids, Veronica scares me sometimes in the ways she reminds me of .... me!  Yet she is totally unique.  She has exhibited numerous personalities in her 27 years, as a baby she was that embodiment of joy, a ray of sunshine in a little body.  Her next personality was Big Sister, she was almost 3 when her sister was born and for years she was spokeswoman, caretaker, and protector.  Around age 8, the little girl who never went to bed without a book and who loved school, ran into an idiot of a teacher and soon decided she hated school and although she was so smart that her grades stayed up all through her subsequent school years, she never regained the love of learning that she had as a toddler.


Just before Veronica turned 13 an evil spirit took over her body and the little girl who brought joy and happiness to her mother and me left us for a couple of years.  Well, it was either that, or we moved from New Jersey to Tennessee and Veronica rebelled in a very big way.  She hated the very idea of leaving Jersey and for the next two years she took every opportunity to remind us that we had ruined her life.  In January of 1999, we moved back to New Jersey and we got the real Veronica back.  It was like she threw a switch, and while she has never really forgiven us for that Tennessee move, she reverted to the person that continued to bring us joy and still does.


High school was a blur, I do remember that Veronica had a tendency to erase people.  A kid would come to our house for years, suddenly they had a fight with Veronica and we never saw the kid again.  I still wonder what happened to some of them.  


Veronica's college years started on a down note, although both her mother and I encouraged her to go out of state, she decided to go to Rutgers.  After one night in the dorm she came home and said she wasn't going back.  My daughter who is a clean freak was skeeved by the dorm and made up her mind in one day that she was going to live at home and commute.  Her mom and I fought her for nearly three days, but one thing that can be said for Veronica is her determination is harder than diamonds(or her head). She lived at home, commuted and within a year decided on the career path that was her true calling so she transferred to Bloomfield College of Nursing, where she eventually got her RN.  


Most recently, Veronica got a great job at the hospital where she was born.  Talk about coming full circle, my little girl is all grown up.  Great job, great condo, going for her Master's, my daughter is truly a remarkable woman.  She is loyal to her friends, but doesn't suffer fools.  She acts like she doesn't care, but her patients love her.  She's a little shy in groups, but draws people to her.


In the past 27 years my daughter has given me more than I could ever have asked.  She makes me laugh, she is compassionate, she can swear like a longshoreman, she jumps in the car and drives 4 hours to take her grandmother to the doctor, she's taken care of my dogs even though she hates animals, she is more Cuban at 50% than I am at 100%, and she loves her mother and father almost as much as her parents love her.


Good Luck Baby!

I'm Baaaaaaaaaack

My daughter Denise asked me why I had stopped blogging.  I responded that I had not stopped blogging, I was waiting for Veronica to close on her condo so I could write a stirring tribute to her like I had done for Denise when she graduated from college.  Well, today we found out that the bank that owned the short sale condo that she was purchasing decided after stringing her along for 6 months that they were rescinding their acceptance of her offer and would only consider selling it to her if she raised her offer by 25K AND the current owner signed an agreement to pay an additional sum on their loan.  Obviously she is upset, me I'm PISSED.  These clowns have eaten up half a year of our lives not to mention the deposit that has been in a non-interest bearing account for 6 months.  You want to know why banks should not be bailed out and should be allowed to fail, it's because of A******S like the decision makers at this organization who said yes, then no, then yes again and now 2 months after the last yes they say no, but since you've hung on this long let's see if we can hold you up for more money.  Unfortunately my daughter really loves this place and has been holding on to this dream for so long that she is tempted to give them what they want.  My advice to her was to walk away, and I hope she listens, but either way these F*****S have caused her pain and anguish and I wish there were some way to make them pay.  Unfortunately, once the units go unsold for another year or two, some elected idiot will decide they should write off the value of this loan and since the Chairman of the Board only made $25 million last year they should get an interest free loan from the government to offset the idiotic decisions they made  over the past 3 years.  So my little rant is done, I sincerely hope Veronica gets whatever is best for her and I will continue to blog about other s**t while I work on the stirring tribute to my beautiful baby girl.

My Bucket List - open for suggestions - will add as we go.

Play in the World Series of Poker
Have Grandchildren, take them to Yankee Stadium, hope they enjoy it more than my daughters
Write a novel
Visit England, Ireland, Italy, (going to China this year)
Spend a lot of time in Spain
Learn how to fly a plane

Denise Elizabeth Echevarria

It's been so long since I wrote anything that I could easily make this a multi-subject entry.  However, the major events of life deserve to stand by themselves.  Last month my baby Denise graduated from the University of Delaware with a degree in Visual Communications.  She put together a beautiful portfolio in her 5 years as a Blue Hen, but what impresses me the most about my beautiful daughter, (besides her blazing hair) is the friendships that she made and the level of independence she has achieved since she first left Edison.  She is an amazing young woman, but as Churchill said of Russia, "she is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma", so too is Dee.  


This is the little girl who could lie better than a professional poker player, but who promised her mother at age 10 that she would never lie to her again and to the best of my knowledge, she has kept that promise.  


The girl who never cried when she was taken to a baby sitter or day care.  The little girl who thought nothing of walking away from the group at Great Adventure, Sesame Place and Disney World, driving me and her mother out of our minds for the 15-20 minutes that she was wandering on her own, which felt like hours to us.  


Going back even further, she didn't talk until she was almost three, we took her to an audiologist at age two and while she was playing with blocks on the floor, the woman banged a pot behind her and she didn't react.  But there was nothing wrong with her hearing, it was her ability to tune out other things when she was concentrating showing up for the first time.  When she did start talking, she talked in full sentences.  


When we moved to Tennessee, her sister hated the move and made it very clear that we were ruining her life(Veronica still hasn't forgiven us, but the return to Edison got us a partial pardon), Denise wasn't too happy either, but for the most part kept it to herself and adapted quickly and started collecting friends.


We came back to Edison and she picked up where she left off with her old friends and soon the circle widened.  High School wasn't her favorite time because in many ways she was looking toward the future.  College was her first opportunity to leave the nest and she made the most of it.  She studied in Spain, where she met her newest best friend, she went to England with her class and came back with another best friend.  While in England she spent weekends in Amsterdam and visited Spain again.  Before her 23rd birthday she had more air miles then most people ever get.


Now, she has college in her rear-view mirror.  An honor student, a leader among her classmates, with a sister who loves her despite all of their bickering and parents who are prouder than anything to call her their daughter.  


Things are tough right now, jobs are not easy to come by, she is in a hurry to start the next stage, and hopes that doesn't include too much more time under her parent's roof.  She will find what she's looking for and she will leave the nest.  Her mother and I will miss her and hope that she always remembers that she CAN come home again, but we will also admire the thing inside her that drives her to dare, and when she becomes a famous artist, designer or whatever, we won't be any prouder of her than we are today.

Young at heart, but still an old fart.

About a month ago my friend Mike called and asked me if I wanted to play softball, for some ridiculous reason I said yes.  Here's a little background on my softball career, from the time I was 19 until the time I was 42 I played softball every year.  There were years where I played for three teams, playing 3-4 games every week, and pick-up games or tournaments on the weekends.  I played every position, I pitched everything except windmill, and I was a line drive, high average kind of hitter with occasional power, on one memorable Sunday on a field with a fence that nobody else on either team reached, I put three home runs over that fence, drove in 8 runs, pitched and won the game 11-4.  From the age of 42 through 44 I lived in Tennessee and my job involved a ton of travel so I retired from softball.  Then we came back to Jersey and although it took a while, I got a call to join one of my old teams for the 2000 season.  I did my usual warm-up, a Diet Coke and putting on sneakers.  The first game they asked me to come in during the fourth inning to play second base.  I sprinted (that's a slow jog for other people) out to my position ready to make every play.  God has a weird sense of humor, the first batter hit a shot to right center field, I went out to get the relay throw from the outfield.  The centerfielder threw the ball high, I jumped to get the ball reaching the top of my 3 inch vertical leap, I caught the ball and as I came down my right ankle turned into a gopher hole tearing bones, tendons and cartilege from the bottom of my foot to the top of my ankle.  After a metal plate, 6 screws, 3 months of physical therapy and a lot of crap from my wife, I officially retired from softball.  By the way Craig, you still have my glove.

So back to the present, I go out to play and on my first at bat I hit a rocket into left field, my first step out of the batter's box I heard a gunshot, ok maybe a cap pistol, and I felt my hamstring cut my right leg in half.  Yes, I exaggerate, I did pull my hamstring but since speed is not a major part of my game I played through the pain and have been playing for the past four weeks.  Everything still hurts so last week I took a week off and now I'm ready to go back and play like the agile 54 year old that I dream I am.

Miss Selaneous

The Sunday before the first day of the rest of my career at my current employer.  I am transferring from a hellish situation to what I hope will be a much more palatable one.  Unfortunately, I'm still not doing what I want to do at work, but how can I possibly complain when:

1)  Although I was demoted they didn't cut my salary.

2)  I know people who have been out of work in my industry for almost two years.

3)  I'll be working for someone I like and respect.

4)  The doctors and staff in the new territory that I met seem great.

So until something newly bad happens I propose that I will enjoy a job that I did for the first time when I was 26 years old, nearly 3 decades ago.  That is not to say that I will not continue to look for a different situation where I can get back to being a leader and helping others to achieve their goals, because after all, that is what I love to do.  I lived with my father for 23 years, and he used to say (in spanish) better to be the head of a mouse rather than the tail of a lion.  (It sounds much better en espanol, es mejor ser cabeza de raton, que cola de leon.) 


This afternoon the Yankees won 12-3, Phil Hughes pitched 7 shutout innings, Teixeira had 4 hits, Swisher , Gardner and Cano hit homers.  They have won 7 out of the first 8 series this year, and that's with Tex hitting a buck twenty, A-Rod hitting 2 Home Runs all year and the replacements for Damon and Matsui doing jack.  Still it's going to be a long year with Tampa Bay playing even better than the Yanks, but with Boston sucking and the Yanks kicking ass, life is good.

Shows I'm gonna miss.  Ugly Betty, Saving Grace, Medium, Numbers.  Shows I can't wait to see again, Royal Pains, Drop Dead Diva.  I'm glad Army Wives is back, and Fringe, and Chuck although they may  not bring that one back.

Just read a book by a former sniper, Jack Coughlin with Donald Davis.  I highly recommend it.  Anything by Matt Reilly is fun reading.   Harlan Coben,  Lee Child,  John R. Maxim,  Catherine Coulter, Stuart Woods, Dick Francis, Stephen Frey, Jack Higgins, Lisa Scottoline some are old friends some are new friends but all of them share the most important characteristic I look for in authors that I enjoy, they entertain me.  In memory of the old Alka Selzer commercial, try it, you'll like it!

Da Boyz "A Tale Of Two Puppies"

It was the best of dogs(Fox), it was the worst of dogs(The Choc aka Chocolate Chip or as Veronica calls him the Brown Bastard).  That's as much as I remember of A Tale of Two Cities so my literary pretensions have to end here.  After a two week Boot Camp that the trainer extended to three weeks at no extra cost due to the lack of progress that my two boyz had made, I went last Saturday to pick up my two doggies.  The Dee joined me to see how her two brothers had progressed.  I had previously spoken to the trainer and he'd commented on how well Chocolate Chip was taking to the training and how Fox was lagging behind. This amazed all of us and we had to clarify with the trainer, hey Bob, you know that Choc is the brown one and Fox is the reddish one.  Definitely, he said, as I fainted from the shock.  If you remember some of my previous stories Choc is the one that acts like he's half English Cocker Spaniel and half Bear, while Fox was always the docile obedient one who's only transgression was getting lost by wandering into a neighbors back yard and pushing open a swinging gate that then locked behind him and had us searching for him for almost three hours.

We were required to wait on a screened porch while the trainer put the dogs through their paces.  Chocolate Chip came strutting out like he owned the backyard and to the amazement of Dee and me, he was AWESOME.  He even looked sleek from a distance and Bob confirmed that Choc had lost a few pounds,(is anyone who knows me surprised that I overfed my dogs, I didn't think so, I've been overfeeding myself, my wife and my daughters for years.  It's amazing that they are as healthy as they are, people and dogs.)  This was a basic obedience course and the training is designed to get the dog to walk at the person's side, stop when the person stops and come when they are called.  There are only three commands, EASY which makes them stop, sit and look at you for the next command.  OK which releases them from the previous command, and COME which gets them to run to you wherever you are.  For almost twenty minutes Choc followed every single command and amazingly more than half the time he was totally off the leash and just following voice commands.  Fox followed and while he was more tentative than Choc he was also pretty damn good.  Since Dee was going back to UD, I loaded the dogs up and drove home to my empty house (Mary was in Prague on a company sponsored Masters Program thingie and Veronica was either working or out, I don't remember.)  I immediately began the process of ruining all the training that Bob had given da Boyz.  I took them out together, he had said to do it separately, I varied my tone on the EASY command sometimes too soft, sometimes too harsh, I threw in a sit or stay command occasionally which left the dogs looking at me with their heads turned to one side like the old RCA Victor dog(I just realized how old that made me sound, my daughters and any of their peers are right now Googling RCA Victor dog to see what the HELL I am talking about), wondering what the hell I wanted from them.  Mary called that Tuesday and pleaded with me to make sure there was some semblance of the training left by the time she returned the next Friday.  It is now 8 days since I picked up the dogs and I have to say they are much better.  I have done the solo training walk 7 out of the 8 days, I have had them loose in the house without any major destruction taking place, and while I have probably fed them more than Bob, I am certain it is much less than I used to feed them.  So all in all, I'm getting my money's worth.

One thing I forgot, when we picked up Choc we noticed that he had worn a smooth spot at the tip of his tail from wagging it against the side of his crate, I tried a band-aid and it fell off almost immediately.  Then later that day Veronica helped me put neosporin on the abrasion and wrap it with gauze and paper tape.  Being a professional Nurse she did an amazing job, it looked like Choc had just come back from the vet.  The next morning I took him out for his training walk and noticed that the bandage was gone.  I figured he'd taken it off and it was still in the crate, no big deal.  Halfway through our walk, he went into his usual, 'go on without me Ech, I gotta poop' pose and left a clear brownish line of liquipoop down the middle of the street.  As soon as he was finished we resumed the walk and he performed all of his commands like a champ including a three block stint without a leash.  I forgot all about the bandage and the liquipoop until the next day.  As we were walking by the spot I saw that the rain had turned the liquipoop white, upon approaching for a closer look I saw the bandage that had been ON his tail had traveled through his system and come OUT his tail.  That's my boyz.