Facebook is Worth it

Me circa 1981

My friend Bek had been asking me to join Facebook last year. Well no actually, there was a little pestering, “oh come on, join” but I so didn’t want to join another anything.

I am here to report that I am so glad I did. I found my friend Jerry who I was looking for for like 15 years and who has yet to contact me since the first two weeks, but I found a friend of mine last week that I had been searching for for about 33 years.

Romy and went to school in Brooklyn back in 1981. We saw each other again in 1985 or 1986 one time when I went to the city with her and another of our friends. That time I found her by calling her number which I found in the yellow pages. We didn’t have the internet then.

I don’t know why we always lose touch, but I think its sad. Hopefully this time we can maintain a better friendship.

I’ve searched out her name on MySpace, Google, Yahoo, and last week I searched her on Facebook. There were a few pages of Romy’s and just as I was about to throw in the towel, there was her face. It’s been quite a while so I didn’t want to assume anything, it’s been 33 years so how could her face be the same?

I sent a message and asked if she was the Romy who attended SJH School. Logging on the next morning, I didn’t have high hopes but there it was…a message saying “OMG, yes, it is me, yada, yada, yada.”

We have spoken through email 3 times and exchanged phone numbers. I hope to call her tonight when the kids are asleep so I will not be interrupted. After 30+ years we should be able to talk without me putting her on hold to get the kids a drink.

I look forward to our first conversation and hope she is available tonight.

The break down of my last email to her when she asked what I’ve been doing these last 100 years.

EMAIL
This is so crazy and I am so glad I found you too.

Wow. My life pales in comparison. You have been busy and really LIVING life. Good for you.

The last time we saw each other I was with my second “serious” boyfriend (how serious can you be at the ripe old age of 19?). After that, I dated quite a bit. I won’t even bore you with the number.

I had a very serious relationship from the age of 19-23. I moved from Brooklyn to Staten Island (after H.S. Graduation) back to Brooklyn (when I was sure that I had made a mistake about moving in with a crazy cousin after a year of living with him and his crazy life. Then to New Jersey before I was 20 to live with a guy I met at work who was 8 years older.

He had a kid and we got him every other weekend, I was too young to live the life of someone who didn’t know anyone and waited around for him to come back from work, his weekend acting jobs or whatever else. He loved it because he always knew where I was, either working or home waiting for him. Boring!!!

I finally met my best friend Teresa and he got to show his colors. He was very jealous that I had someone besides him and didn’t like that all of a sudden I made plans when he wasn’t home. As you know that wasn’t going to work. I think if we had met at a different time in my life I would probably have married him but I was too young and still hadn’t experience life.

After him I was a free agent which meant I was free to date away and date I did. I had guys calling around the clock and dates 3-5 nights a week with about 5 different guys. There was one time that I actually called my 2 girl (Teresa and Diane) roommates to listen to my answering machine because there were 12 different messages from 12 different guys. Not that I was dating 12 guys but I was bartending at a go go bar and met loads of guys.

Those days are long over…

I hung out a bunch of local New Jersey bands Xenon, Spread Eagle, and Sleepy Hollow and had a great time going to their shows and being the “with the band” so to speak.

After my Grandmother passed in 1991 I broke up with a year long, going nowhere relationship. Driving with my girl Teresa she noticed “my type guy” and followed him through 2 towns until he pulled over. He got out and I walked over asking about his bumper sticker (Really what do you say?)

He was 5 years younger and loads of fun. Really great guy. Totally in love with me.

Because he was so young I dated another guy who was very much the guy who needed saving. I tried to save him but ended up getting hurt and my 5 year younger “dude” was there (always there) to pick me up. I finally woke up and looked at him in a different way.

We got married in 1997 and had our first baby in 2003 then the second in 2005.

He started his own business in 2005.

I am a stay at home mom since 2003 when my job wouldn’t let me take 2 breaks during the day to pump for my son and go breastfeed him at lunch. I tried to tell them that smokers take numerous breaks a day and lunch so why couldn’t I do what I needed to feed my baby? They told me that I could do one or the other and if I wanted to make it work I would. It was a 9-5 job with an hour lunch but I was always there 8 a.m. – 7 p.m and working through lunch for the 5 years I worked there before my son. After him I was giving them 9-5 but they were spoiled and didn’t realize that I was about to chose my job over my son. I was stressed as I pumped and losing milk, I wasn’t about to not go and feed him at lunch so I gave my notice and left. It was a lawsuit waiting to happen and I totally could have taken them up on charges but they did me a favor. I didn’t want to leave my baby at daycare and if they hadn’t given me a hard time I would have both kids still in daycare and be hating every minute of being away from them.

I always have believed there is a reason for everything. My son needed speech therapy 4 times a week and I am not sure if he would have gotten what he needed if I wasn’t with him and every day.

My boy, 5 and and girl, 3 are awesome kids. I love every bit of them. They are my heart on legs. We are together all day and I debated home schooling but my son really needs to be with his peers right now. He is extremely smart but his speech delay created a social delay. He has been coming into his own over the past year, his speech is great and his socialization gets better every day.

For fun I take thousands of pictures of my kids every month and load them onto a website so that out of town family and friends can keep up with our lives if they so intend.

To keep my mind busy, I have two blogs that keep me feeling creative, thinking and help create a legacy for my kids so if (like my mom) that if I am ever taken from them early they will always know who I was which is something I have searched to know about my mom since I was 12.

http://reesspace.blogspot.com My Mommy Blog

http://chotskies.blogspot.com My Other Blog (whatever peaks my current interests)

Family Recounts Are Entertaining and Odd

Last night while talking to my dad he mentioned a few things that I want to write down before I forget them.

Oddly enough, at 41 years old, I still learn new things when an elder starts opening up about family.

Here are some brief bullets from lasy night’s call that I hope to build on over the next few weeks.

I learned today that the reason my father and his brother had 5 years between them was because my grandmother had miscarried a baby girl. Ummm, a possible aunt? That would have been nice.

During Air Raid Drills or power outings my father, grandparents and my uncle would pile into “the bathroom with a candle in the sink to wait it out because it was the safest place to burn a candle”.

My grandfather was an air raid officer. I had no idea.

My dad and his family had the first TV on the block because my grandfather built it. This story I had heard before but I didn’t know that he was able to build it because he went to TV and radio school. TV and radio school? What the hell is that? He was a construction dude when I knew him. He helped build the Brooklyn Bridge what happened to his education?

My uncle was born on V-Day in Brooklyn NY. He was what they called a Victory Baby and everyone at the hospital was very excited so much so that someone stole the placenta. Grandma had a vaginal birth but my uncle was born inside the placenta like a calf or a horse. He had to be cut out of it and it came on with a V shape on top. Sounds like some crazy, old Italian malocchia thing. Malocchia by the way was used often in my house whenever someone was ill or if I wanted to get out of school. “I feel over looked.” Don’t ask because I don’t know where that term came from but “over looked” meant someone gave me the malocchia and it was taken very seriously in my home.

Anyway, I digress…as I was saying, my uncle had to be cut out of the placenta like a fowl. The placenta was wrapped around him in the form of a “V”. Ummm, ok…I am just relaying a story here people, these are not my memories. Anyway, when he came out a nurse exclaimed, “we have a victory baby.”

From two accounts of the story, my dad and today my sister who heard from my Grandmother, things are sketchy here. My dad says that my grandmother wanted to keep the placenta to put into a necklace because supposedly she heard this would keep you safe at sea, as if she was boring an ocean liner in the near future! Anyway, when she asked for it she was told that it disappeared and that perhaps one of the nurses had stolen it.

My sister says, my grandmother told her that a nurse had wanted it for a necklace and when she asked for it, she was informed that it was missing.

Weird, either way I say. No?!

I also learned tonight that my dad was an RH factor baby and that when my uncle was born very ill. He was sickly as a child and very blond with blue eyes. My grandmother and my grandfather both have brown hair and brown eyes. The story is that when my grandfather came home from the war, he asked “whose baby is that?”

I am here to say that my cousin’s born from my uncle look like my grandfather, especially the oldest. He is the spitting image. It is actually a bit distrubing considering my history with my grandfather.