Spare Parts

I am sitting in a new nail salon on Sunday afternoon. The owner is too cheap to have air conditioning on even though it is hot and muggy outside. I sit there sweltering and trying to fan myself with a magazine. The place is packed. It’s in a nondescript strip mall similar to so many others in New Jersey. What makes this one different, though, is that unlike so many of the nail salons by where I live, this one is open on Sundays. I know! What a novelty! I came upon the salon accidentally, when I was picking up Obie from Pet Smart, where he had just been groomed. I quickly drove home to drop him off and turned right around to the place. I was in dire need of a pedicure and was excited at the prospect of being able to get one on a day when all the other salons are usually closed. Sometimes Sunday is the only day I get a chance to do my nails. When I get there, aside from the blast of hot air that greets me, I notice an Asian lady in the first chair using an electric tool to file a lady’s ...

I was at work last Friday and a coworker, who is too young to remember the Rubik’s Cube, let alone the Magic 8 Ball, was “reading” the paper, loudly commenting on the stories. I excuse her because she is too young to know any better. It had been a particularly bad week for the borough of Queens. The pages were riddled with crime after crime, one more violent than the next. There was the small argument about cutting in line at the bus stop in Jamaica, Queens that ended with the stabbing death of a 15-year-old girl. A teacher in another Queens town assaulted one of his students, just as the school year ended. A South Ozone Park guy was arrested for an armed robbery. She is smugly shaking her head, amazed, she says, that anyone can live there. From the other side of the room, I roll my eyes. This child, as I have begun to refer to anyone born later than 1985, is an extremely frustrating person to have to work with. She is not at all highly educated and I suspect she got the job based s...

A website called NYROCK states the following on their site: “Rob Thomas’s charismatic stage presence and catchy tunes have made Matchbox 20 the music biz’s latest greatest stars.” I agree 100%! I love the band Matchbox 20. I love the lead singer, Rob Thomas, even more. I always have. From the first time that I heard the song 3 A.M., I was hooked. One day I read that the song was dedicated to his mother, whom he had nursed through cancer, but who ultimately lost her battle. I almost cried! That was it! Rob had my heart! ***Well, Joe has my actual heart. Rob only has the heart I drew in 1st grade that was so rudely rejected. *** I decided to recycle it, since it is the hip thing to do these days. OK, I am trailing off again. The sound of Rob’s music and his voice seemed so different from everything else on the radio. Usually, if I am not familiar with a song, I will switch the station because I like to sing along to songs whose words I know by heart. However, on the day I heard M-20...

This morning, while deeply involved in my current read, The Namesake , I came across a familiar term that brought both a flood of memories to mind and a sweetly funny realization. The book’s female author, Jhumpa Lahiri, weaves this tale with precise accuracy and realism from the viewpoint of the story’s male main character. The Namesake is a book my friend Rebecca recommended with such fervor, that I had to pick it up and buy it. It has taken me a while to get around to reading it, but now that I am in the midst of it, I simply cannot put it down. Aside from feeling oddly connected to the hero of the book, Gogol Ganguli, and his account of his life as a first generation American, I also am learning what the immigrant experience must have been like for my parents when they first arrived to America. What is interesting is that Gogol and his family are of Indian origin. His parents came over from Calcutta shortly after their arranged marriage. My family is of Colombian origins and yet, b...

Here we are again! It’s another week, another dollar – or in my case – barely another dime. I don’t know anyone who will openly claim that they are paid enough at their current jobs for the amount of work (or crap) they do. I don’t know J.Lo personally, but I suspect she wakes up and thinks; another day, another 2.5 million. Must be nice. Mondays suck! When I got up this morning and reached over to turn on the radio, the very first thing I heard was that comedian George Carlin was dead of heart failure at 71 years of age. Before I met Joe, I really was not familiar with Carlin or his work. However, Carlin once visited Queens College and Joe and I attended his event. He was a riot! I could barely sit upright, I was laughing so hard. Carlin was a raunchy son of a gun. No subject was too taboo for this guy. Yet, he was also politically informative, academically intelligent and right on about so many things we all think, but never dare to say. If you were willing to peel away the layers of...

There is very little in my life that I am not extremely thankful for. I am thankful to the people who have passed through like angels and are instrumental in my rebirth over and over again. I am thankful that it is 2008 and I am here still enjoying life, though there have been times in the past when there was a good chance it would not be the case. I am thankful for Joe and Ellie. I am thankful for my brother, my father and all of my family because I love them. I am thankful for my friends. I am thankful for Obie and PennyLane. There are other things that like all humans I wish I could change. I would bring my mother back in a second, if I could. I would bring her back without pain or suffering and replete with health and life. And…I would have a baby. It is the one thing that remains constant and ever present that I will be unable to overcome: my wish to have a baby. There is nothing in my head that permits me to comprehend, let alone accept, this reality. I don’t voice how often i...

Yesterday, popular and respected journalist Tim Russert was laid to rest. Russert, the host of NBC's political stage show "Meet the Press," died Friday of a heart attack. He was only 58 years old. Although I respected Mr. Russert as a journalist, I was not a big fan of his Sunday morning show because the chatter and bicker of politicians, as well as their feigned camaraderie bore me to tears. However, it was when I saw him on Larry King, discussing his book about his father, Big Russ and Me, that I really became a fan. Russert came across as genuine, enthusiastic and jovial. You could feel the love and admiration this man had for his father coming right through your television. Though I can absolutely see why he was a giant in his field and why he amassed such an envious list of friends and devoted fans and colleagues in his 58 years of life, I felt overwhelmed by the coverage of his funeral and subsequent memorial. I honestly believe that it was completely excessive. Rus...

In 2006, Nora Ephron wrote a book titled I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman . I never read it, but I know what it’s about. While I love Ephron (she wrote Sleepless in Seattle among other treasures-turned-films), I just can’t bring myself to read this particular book. When she was on Oprah to promote the book, I changed the channel. Though I knew her interview would be brimming with laugh-out-loud moments, I couldn’t bear to listen to her list all the ‘wonderful’ things that are in store for me (and for all women). Let’s face it. I am in denial about aging. Denial manifests itself differently for different people. Some women are in the phase of denial where they really just don’t do anything to stop the vicious and unrelenting passing of time because they don’t see anything wrong. They live each day as if they are still 17, or 21, or even 25. They don’t spend a lot of time looking in mirrors. They don’t spend a lot of money on creams labeled anti-aging. They ...

Although I have started many stories and novels over the last few years, I have not seen any of them to completion. This saddens me because when I start them, I feel like I am off and running with a million different great ideas, characters, twists and turns that my story could take. What happens after, though, has become an unfortunate and ongoing bad habit. Suddenly, I drift from the intended subject, character or detail and the story takes off on some other unplanned path and I become frustrated and disgruntled with it and end up abandoning it midway. Perfectionism is a bitch! This, ladies and gentlemen, is a form of writer’s block. Some folks have writer’s block where they can’t even find their way to a piece of paper, let alone write a sentence on it. However, my writer’s block is not characterized by not having a clue or idea, but by not following through with these because I am unable to see the big picture come to fruition – a nicely printed, bound and shelved hardcover tome fo...

I have been to Shea Stadium several times in my life. Each time, it’s fun to sit in the stands and take in a game – whether they win or lose. After a while, though, you lose the novelty and fall into a sort of comfort of non-surprises or non-expectancy. However, when you go to a game at Shea, with a three-year-old who has never seen a live sporting event, the entire experience takes on a new twist and you see the game through three-year-old eyes and boy, is it different and exciting! That’s how it was for me yesterday, when we attended a special Father’s Day Mets game with my niece and family. The experience of seeing things through her eyes made me think about perspective in a different, less abstract way. The way we view things can color our overall approach in so many ways, yet we seldom stop ourselves from forming opinions when we are clouded by perspective. You find this kind of opinion forming in all aspects of our lives and no one realizes its power in determining how we live. F...

As I was set to begin another entry today, with not a thought in mind for its subject, it occurred to me that I have never made mention in this blog about one of my favorite people on the entire planet (my husband Joe notwithstanding). How is it possible, I asked myself, that my little niece has not made the front page of this rag when I live and breathe for her as if she were my very own? So I decided that today is the day! Welcome to Ellie’s Page! Forgive me if I get long-winded, but I could easily write volumes about this child! My Sunshine – my lovely sunshine – who makes me happy, when skies are grey – arrived on planet earth on March 10, 2005. The first thing my brother said to me about her, when I called, was that she had the prettiest mouth and pouty lips he had ever seen. I loved this child at first mention of her impending arrival, while she grew in her mommy’s belly. However, at first sight of her, I was a goner! She is this little miracle. I look at her, and my whole wide w...