Morning

Transmog Tintype

Jen the Pirate Blogger was so touched by my story of Rocco’s nighttime dinosaur-y antics (he specifically favors the Giraffatitan Brancai transformation, don’cha know), that she made a tremendous and truly lifelike illustration for us.

Isn’t she wonderfully helpful and thoughtful?

Answer: Yes, yes she most def is.

Also, now I have this awesome song in my head!

I met you in a cave, you were painting buffalo
I said I'd be your slave, follow wherever you go
That night we split a rattlesnake and danced beneath the stars
You fell asleep, I stayed awake and watched the passing cars
And walked the dinosaur, I walked the dinosaur

Boom boom acka-lacka lacka boom
Boom boom acka-lacka boom boom

Yes, this is a tune of stone (d?) serious romance!

Jen Remembers Bob

Yesterday was Bob's After Party. It was a well attended shindig with a lot of folks standing up to tell their fave tales of my MOST Amazing Bob. This is what Jen had to say:
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I met The Amazing Bob on July 17th, 1995.  It was my first day at Copy Cop, and my first job in the BIG CITY.  I was a nervous wreck.  NOTHING about that day remains in my memory bank, except for the moment that I was introduced to Bob.

The person giving me the ten cent tour eventually brought me to the back of the store where the jobs were QC'd and packaged (official name: "The Wrap Department")… it looked crazy and chaotic back there and folks seemed annoyed that I was in the way.  I started thinking that I'd made a big mistake, taking this job/moving up to Boston etc.  This place was not exactly generous with the warm fuzzies.

Bob was crouched down on the floor, taping up a large box. When he saw me, he stood up… and up and UP and UP.  I was rooted to the floor, watching this beanstalk of a man unfold before my very eyes.  The man was TALL.

Bob gazed down at me, giving me the warmest smile I'd seen all day, and simply said Hi…. I took in his smiling eyes, his casual stance and his beautiful flowing grey hair and thought WOW, this guy looks like a ROCK STAR.

I decided this place can't be so bad if a guy like Bob works here, so I stayed…. for  **18 YEARS**

For a chunk of those 18 years (the BEST chunk), Bob and I worked as a team down in the basement press room doing Wrap/QC, a team  by the way, that was assembled by his wonderful and devious lady friend, Donna Maderer.   I learned years later that she had arranged the whole pairing (thank you Donna!).

Bob and I got along like a house on fire, a house that giggled while it burned.  We worked hard, but also had the chance to goof around.

Goofing around consisted of many very productive things:

Pitching practice — Most of you know that one of Bob's passions was pitching.  I'd played softball as a kid, but rarely picked up the sacred BASEBALL. Bob put an end to that and started teaching me how to pitch...with an actual baseball, downstairs in the press room.  He was an amazingly patient and encouraging teacher and before long I was firing off fast balls, knuckle balls and curve balls, all very necessary skills for the printing industry of course.

Rubber band target practice — Bob's good friend Bob Broughton ran the cutter which was just a little ways off from Bob and my work space. Tradition stood that every day at about 10am, the Bobs would take a break and head to Dunkin' Donuts.  Bob bought coffee, and Bob bought a donut (I bet you can guess which of the Bobs was the donut lover)... Broughton always placed his coffee on the side of the cutter nearest us, with the lid removed for cooling purposes...which, if you look at it from Bob Grant's perspective, was THE PERFECT TARGET.  Bob and I set up camp like a couple of kids in a snow fort, gathered our rubber bands and fired at will. Surprisingly few would actually make it into the coffee, but when they did, Broughton, a patient and tolerant man, would stop what he was doing to fish them out.  He wouldn't even glance over at us as we howled with victorious laughter; he just continued cutting, business as usual, which made us laugh even harder.  For the record, he never put the lid back on the cup.

Tape Gun wars — This "activity" was saved for special occasions and was often paired with "Christmas Caroling", two things that Donna, who's desk was a mere 15 feet from our area, COULD NOT TOLERATE. Here's how it worked:  Bob and I would each arm ourselves with a tape gun and a box, wait for the clock's second hand to pass 12 and then go on a  full metal taping spree for a minute to see who could add the most amount of tape to their box.  It was LOUD, and the fact that we would cackle with joy as we were competing, drove poor Donna to the edge.  She would storm into the little office and SLAM THE DOOR. The first time this happened I was horrified and felt awful, but Bob thought it was great fun. I realized Bob and Donna's relationship was a beautiful and complex one, and it was OK to sometimes make Donna mad.  Bob magnified the situation when he added the singing of Christmas songs to the end of each tape gun war.  I don't think I've ever met anyone who hates Christmas songs more than Donna does. You can imagine how hard she slammed that office door once we started singing Jingle Bells. Bob Oliviera, the boss of the press room dealt with the issue by giving Donna his office, so that she wouldn't have to deal with me and Bob! Talk about a win win situation.

When occasionally confronted about our behavior, Bob would point to me and say she started it, to which I would respond no, YOU started it... and we'd go back and forth, each getting more and more impassioned until either the person confronting us would roll their eyes and back off or Bob or I would kick imaginary sand onto the others foot.  We continued with this practice, on and off, for years to come, long after Bob had retired. We'd play it up for Donna, who would faithfully play her part and tell us kids to cut it out or threaten that we wouldn't stop for ice cream.

Bob and Donna had a wonderful bond and an amazing relationship. They loved and supported each other, and strove to make each other happy. Goal number one in the Maderer/Grant household was making sure the other was happy, whether this meant a trip to St. Fratelli's bakery, asking how the Red Sox played the night before, helping find the perfect word for a blog post or simply being there for one another. Bob and Donna were world class pros. They complemented each other in ever evolving ways. On the rare occasion when one might not quite be on the same page as the other, they would pull out their famous Yes Dear and everyone was content. Long ago,  Donna's sister Ann gave Bob a T shirt that had Yes Dear printed on the front which was just perfect.  Even if Bob wasn't wearing the shirt, all he would have to do to convey the sentiment was pull on the front of whatever shirt he was wearing and we'd all get it.

When the chips were way down, when Bob or Donna was facing a serious health issue, they made the most of it by finding ways to laugh. They giggled their way through some major stuff, and those of us lucky enough to know them learned some valuable lessons. To this day, when a doctor or nurse asks me to confirm my name, my first urge will be to declare I Am Spartacus! Bob actually mustered up this line last week in the hospital, to the absolute joy of his friends and family.

Bob was a rare gem... he had life all figured out. He found the fun in everything, treated everyone with kindness, and encouraged others to do the same. It was simple for him.

He accepted all of us for who we are and didn't try to change us. He was always there with a smile or a joke, or some incredibly insightful words. His smiles started in the deepest part of his soul and radiated through his every pore. We were all warmed by his love; he made each of us feel so special.

Miles and I were talking recently, and he shared that sometimes when he felt  down or frazzled, he'd call Bob for a lift. Before he knew it he'd be laughing and within about ten minutes on the phone, feel so much better. I agreed that Bob does the same thing for me.  Miles wisely noted that now that Bob is gone, we have to become that person for others...talk about being a chip off the old block.

Bob would advise all of us here today, to remember to Pace ourselves – so please do so.

I will miss you Bob...more than I can say in words. Thank you for absolutely everything.

Two Years On

Jen remembers...
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Patriots Day 2013 bloomed humid, sunny and hot. The runners would have their work cut out for them. I remember thinking that morning that my father had always preferred cool rainy days when he ran the Boston Marathon.

Donna and I were gearing up for a full on chick afternoon replete with chianti, snackage, couch-with-cats, and a Sex in the City marathon, much easier on the constitution than the 26.2 version.

We were halfway into the first episode when my cell phone rang. It was my sister Erin calling from her workplace in Brookline, and she was crying. Bombs, she wailed, someone had set off bombs at the Marathon finish line. Bodies were on the ground, smoke and chaos had flooded the Boston's Back Bay, and nobody yet knew how many people were dead.

The news stations were showing the same footage, over and over. Two explosions closely spaced and white smoke, lots of billowing white smoke. People were running, not victoriously towards the finish line, but away from it in panic. The small set of bleachers where the VIPs sat were empty and littered with debris. It looked like a war zone.

We watched in silence and horror, as the scene unfolded, wondering if there would be more bombs, how many people had died, and if we might have known any of the victims.

Our former place of employment was located just beyond the finish line on Boylston Street and we worried about our old coworkers and friends. I tried to send off a text message to one of them but I don't know if it ever went through. Massive amounts of calls were jamming all communications, leaving everyone isolated and dependent on what little television news was available.

I was reminded of when the planes hit the World Trade Center in 2001. When the first plane hit, I thought it had to have been an accident, a plane in distress that spiraled out of control into the heart of the city.

This catastrophe in Copley Square just couldn't be a bomb—who would do that? It must have been what some of the newscasters were reporting, a manhole cover explosion set-off by a burst steam pipe or something similarly unfortunate and accidental. The idea that a human being had set this tragic ball in motion, was unthinkable.

Horrifyingly, we soon learned that it was in fact a bombing and that people were dead, maimed and bleeding. Ordinary citizens had risen to the occasion and helped however they could. Heroes were made that day and some lives that might have been lost, were saved. But it was far from over. An historically huge man-hunt went down. Boston and our Marathon changed forever.
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Which brings us to today. Two years on and Tsarnaev, the surviving bomber has been found guilty on all counts and is awaiting sentencing. Should he live, if you can call it that, in prison for the rest of his existence or should he be executed?

A life incarcerated? That is a fate I can’t wish on him or any other. It’s beyond barbaric—mercilessly savage.

But who are we to take a life? Even Martin Richard’s parents down’t want Tsarnaev sentenced to death.

“We are in favor of and would support the Department of Justice in taking the death penalty off the table in exchange for the defendant spending the rest of his life in prison without any possibility of release and waiving all of his rights to appeal,” they wrote.

They argued not against the death penalty itself but against what the continued pursuit of it would mean for them — endless appeals, never letting them move on, forcing their two other children “to grow up with the lingering, painful reminder of what the defendant took from them.”

“As long as the defendant is in the spotlight, we have no choice but to live a story told on his terms, not ours,” they wrote. “The minute the defendant fades from our newspapers and TV screens is the minute we begin the process of rebuilding our lives and our family.”

Their reasons aren’t identical to mine BUT...still...against death.

Also too, word is that Tsarnaev wants to be put to death.

"Imposing it [the death penalty] won't undo the death and destruction Tsarnaev caused two years ago. The defendant has expressed a wish to die a martyr. I prefer that he have many years to reflect on his crimes."
~Michael Capuano, US Representative (D-MA)

Die a martyr? Maybe he's simply thinking he'll get it over quick and physically painless-like (as long as you're not offed in Oklahoma)—he'd escape the slow, horrific death of a life in prison.

I’m just glad I’m not making this call.

Poor Besieged Rocco

Donna mentioned the overly aggressive, marauding gang of Blue Jays who hang around her porch, right? They're just wild about Rocco and Gus' Fancy Feast and they're willing to go to war for it too. Beautiful but nasty fuckers.

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Jen — facing away from the camera because she's all shy and shit.

Separation Anxiety

Did you know? Donna suffers from fierce Separation Anxiety. It's not just The Amazing Bob that she has a rough time being away from — it's that herd of cat of hers too. She's forever trying to smuggle one or three through security.

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Jen who's facing away from the camera so's we don't see her laughing at Donna's 
feline addiction prob. Yeah, like she's able to resist those furry charms! //snort//

Breakfast with the Herd

My morning ritual according to Jen the Devious Pirate Blogger.

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Jen who's facing away from the camera so's I don't see her laughing at my total sucker-tudedness with the cats. Yeah, like she's able to resist their furry charms! //snort//

Bix

This is Jen the Pirate Blogger’s vision of Bix -- that’d be my brandy new Smart Car, or as Jen insists I pronounce it Smaht Cah. She is, after all, a born and raised Boston South Shore Babe. There are linguistic protocols which must be observed.

Oh course.

Todd Whitelaw, the bestest car sales guy/Brand Manager EVAH (see, another South Shore-ism -- Jen’s a big influence on me, as you can tell), texted me to say that Bix will be all fixed up by tomorrow afternoon.

YEA!

Except I’ll be in Hoosick Falls until Thursday, welcoming my awesome niece Helen and her family into her new fab home. So long Texas and hello upstate New York!

YEA!

I'm def gonna have to get a pirate flag like that for Bix!
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Jen, the piratical yet shy blogger

Che Cosa è la Famiglia

Scene from Celeste's VERY sober wedding

View from Michal's kitchen

‘the hell is this thing we call ‘family?’

The definition varies from person to person. Really.

For me ‘family’ is a designation that I use for folks who nourish and nurture me, who give as good as they get. Sometimes we’re connected by blood or marriage but, often enough, not. Being kin, merely because we share a bit of biology, a smackeral of DNA, isn’t enough for me to name a person ‘family.’

Jen on Ice

Yes, yez, we ARE still technically famiglia but I don’t necessarily feel the connection or feel the duty/need/pull to save a life tonight (to wax all purply hyperbole).
Elton John -- Someone Saved My Life Tonight

What inspires this? There’s a lot of mother-love/gratitude/missing happening on Facebook lately. Including a funny from my pal Brian.

My fab talented cousin Della

My mother and I were never close. We were far too different and she lacked the ability to understand me in any meaningful way or accept me for who I was. That is, until The Amazing Bob and I married. All of a sudden she could love me, she could be open, more relaxed and supportive. Apparently I'd been a wholly alien being before.

Cindy's wedding

She would’ve been able to go farther still had I been able to have children/give birth but she understood that, due to the Nf2, I could not. She spent most of her life feeling sorry for me -- thinking, because I wasn’t married, that I was unloved and had no friends. Truth be told, I wanted her to accept me/love me on my terms NOT just because I was connected to a man. This being a significant part of why it took 17 years of living in sin (I just love that phrase!) before I agreed to wed The MOST
Amazing Bob.

Jenny's puppies -- Odie and Bonnie

Me, Daddy and Helen

Oni, Jen, TAB, The Green Miles and me

She felt horrifically guilty for passing Neurofibromatosis Type 2 down to me, in large part because this meant I couldn’t risk pregnancy and childbirth (this being no big deal for me. The only children I ever wanted were The Green Miles and my fabulous Helen. Someone’d already gone through that nasty prego shite for me! Yea me -- I won!)

In any case, in her last few years on the planet, I let go of my need for her to understand me. (took me bloody long enough, eh?) and focused on providing her with news and chatter about the things that mattered to her -- children, her relatives, TAB and my friends (who she could see, now that I was wearing a wedding band).

We got on well in those last few years.

I have a lot of fabulous sisters and a few awesome brothers now. Genetic connections not required, nor does it automatically put you outside the velvet rope of my heart.

Escape Artist

While I soldier on in my fervid efforts to throw off this vile cold, which I seem to have brought back with me from Pennsylvania, Jen The Pirate Blogger steps up to the blogging plate.

This is the artist-currently-known-as-Jen's take on Thelma's, generally failed, escape attempts.

Blind Tuna Thelma

Why do I have the blues, specifically Blind Lemon Jefferson, playing in my head right now.

Hmmm. It's a puzzler -- innit.

Carlos Cats-aneda

While Helen and I are galavanting   around Western Pennsylvania, Jen The Pirate Blogger and her herd of cat are apparently having mega high times at home.

I believe Skitter's scored some sweet Peyote and has set off on some sort of vision quest - except she's having Thelma and Rosie go with her. Because, ya know, vision quests are ever so much more fun when you have them with friends.

Year's End

This was a good yet hard year. Aren’t they all?

These are some of the past year’s posts -- ones that I like most, feel all special about or best illustrate some shit or other. Yes, try to remember that I'm your très sophisticated and eloquent friend...and shit.

There were posts about Neurofibromatosis Type II and the brilliant docs from my Pit Crew:
Good Vibrations   
Dr. Michael McKenna arrived at MGH and onto the Maderer Brain Pit Crew in 1989. He’d missed my first surgery by seven years but he’s been with me for every single one since then.
The Day The Music Died  
It was the year I turned 46 that my hearing took the last train for the coast.

Tales from my wild days as a Carnie:
Carnival Kidnapping
This was at the end of my first season with the show and I was majorly sick of the 1950s-esque restrictions. You know, “don’t sleep with any of the guys unless you’re gonna shack up with him for the season.” You see, everyone would think I was nothing but a stone whore if I just went off for a one night stand. Christ, I thought I’d escaped high school tiny brained male/female horseshit!
Northline
In November of each year, back in the my carny days of the late ‘70s, 5 or 6 different shows ended the season by coming together, melding into one giant carnival in the mall’s parking lot. A collection of small to mid size carnivals became one oceanically colossal midway.
Galahad, Heracles and Keith Partridge
Beware the beautiful, studly Tiger Beat-esque heartthrob lookalikes. More often than not they carry deep senses of entitlement along with the sure knowledge, if only in their own minds, that others will happily do for them.

Essays about friends:
Kevin Alexander Scott
Prior to Kevin there’d been no one I could really let my hair down/ bare the old soul/be utterly ME with. I was too monstrously afraid -- so sure was I that NO one could possibly like me if I showed my true form. (Manticora on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Ljubljana Dragon on Tuesdays and Thursdays -- I take the weekends off ‘natch).
Werewolf with a Chinese Menu
We met at Rodney’s beforehand -  a used and rare book sellers. Meeting there, I’d sorta forgotten, is a sure fire way to fall into a serious fold in time, only to awake 6 hours into the future, dazed and toting a sack of 20 books.

Short fiction and comics!
From Della Marinis -- Through April Woods
I walked ahead because the others dragged their feet. The woods were damp and cool that morning and the sky a deep blue I hadn’t seen in months. The scent was resonant, speaking something other than the city so that I became lost in it and didn’t hear the approaching crackle of leaves underfoot. Not at first.
Brian Luciano -- Wild Ride
I walked into my house with unbelievable pain in my lower back and the realization that Dan was dead -- never coming back to the house. The police had finished questioning me hours earlier and released me.
and Jen, The Pirate Blogger -- The Moosewood Commute
The return of Jen the Pirate Blogger and yes, we rilly, rilly do eat like this.  You may commence with the major league sympathy for Bob and Oni any time you're ready.

We had travel adventures:
Reunions and Language Adventures
Della lives in Berlin and doesn’t get back to the States much -- I live in Boston and don’t need much of an excuse to travel ("oh look, the sun came up -- let’s go!"). Jen and I packed our rucksacks and made our way to the airport.
from Jenny Jones -- An Anniversary in the Gila Wilderness
As a resident of Phoenix, AZ, I always try to get someplace cooler, with lots of trees when I go on vacation. So, to celebrate our fourth anniversary, in October of 2009, my husband John and I chose the Gila Wilderness area in Southwestern New Mexico.

We had poetry
from The Amazing Bob -- A Bird for Nixon and Kissinger
It’s Veteran’s Day -- a complicated thing for Bob and I. He was in the Air Force during Viet Nam -- 2 tours.
from Vonnegut, McGrath and Alexi -- Hyacinths and Biscuits
The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. -- Golbert K. Chesterton

There were massive changes recounted:
I lost my mother -- this is the post I wrote after my last visit with her just four months before she went on to the great library and pizzelli factory in the sky.
Mother and Food Reunion

This was the year of Jen’s boobectomy and retrofitting.
Stayin' Alive

We provided tremendously valuable instructions and rants:
The Fine Art of Head Banging
I bet you thought there was just one way to do it. Hell, even within the relatively narrow spectrum of Metal, there are at least 3 distinct ways to bang.
Cars are Cars 
 For every Lamborghini, for every Bugati, for every Jaguar there’s a boring ass SUV or 50, along with a whole slew of chubby, featureless smaller boxes. It’s like being in the auto equivalent of a Botero painting only with less color and humor.

Come, set a spell, put on your reading glasses. I’ll get you a nice cup of chianti and tell you a story or 50.

Happy New Year y'all!

The Moosewood* Commute

The return of Jen the Pirate Blogger and yes, we rilly, rilly do eat like this.  You may commence with the major league sympathy for Bob and Oni any time you're ready.

* Moosewood -- one of the great cookbooks or so I'm told by vegetarians who actually cook. 
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Jen's facing away from the camera, of course, so we don't see her giggling madly over us having world destroying cases of the vapors.

Antelope Blogging

Jen, Pirate Blogger, back in action -- right here, right NOW! I've taken control of the ship and we're headed for Valhalla, dammit, to watch...da, da, dunnnnn...BBQ Master Oni Flash!

I think we're gonna need a bigger grill...

She NEVER Learns

Donna, always the optimist. Or maybe 'sucker' is the word I mean. She always believes Coco when the little Houdini says 'No, no, I promise I'll be good this time. Just take me outside and you'll see.'

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Jen standing with her back turned so Donna can't see her laughing.

Normal Tea

On weekends we have afternoon tea and THIS is what Donna is usually doing:

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Jen waits, alone and sad in the corner, for normal weekend tea times to resume.