Here's To You Mothers!

I waited up so I would be among the first ones to make a post honoring you mothers. So here it is.

Damn, I'm tired so I'm going to bed now.

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First, the story of Mother's Day.

The earliest Mother's Day celebrations can be traced back to the spring celebrations of ancient Greece in honor of Rhea, the Mother of the Gods. During the 1600's, England celebrated a day called "Mothering Sunday." Celebrated on the 4th Sunday of Lent (the 40 day period leading up to Easter), "Mothering Sunday" honored the mothers of England.

During this time many of the England's poor worked as servants for the wealthy. As most jobs were located far from their homes, the servants would live at the houses of their employers. On Mothering Sunday the servants would have the day off and were encouraged to return home and spend the day with their mothers. A special cake, called the mothering cake, was often brought along to provide a festive touch.

As Christianity spread throughout Europe the celebration changed to honor the "Mother Church" -- the spiritual power that gave them life and protected them from harm. Over time the church festival blended with the Mothering Sunday celebration. People began honoring their mothers as well as the church.

In the United States Mother's Day was first suggested in 1872 by Julia Ward Howe (who wrote the words to the Battle Hymn of the Republic) as a day dedicated to peace. Ms. Howe would hold organized Mother's Day meetings in Boston, MA, every year.

In 1907 Anna Jarvis, from Philadelphia, began a campaign to establish a national Mother's Day. Ms. Jarvis persuaded her mother's church in Grafton, West Virginia, to celebrate Mother's Day on the second anniversary of her mother's death, the 2nd Sunday of May. By the next year, Mother's Day was also celebrated in Philadelphia.

Ms. Jarvis and her supporters began to write to ministers, businessman, and politicians in their quest to establish a national Mother's Day. It was successful as by 1911 Mother's Day was celebrated in almost every state. President Woodrow Wilson, in 1914, made the official announcement proclaiming Mother's Day as a national holiday that was to be held each year on the 2nd Sunday of May.

While many countries of the world celebrate their own Mother's Day at different times throughout the year, there are some countries such as Denmark, Finland, Italy, Turkey, Australia, and Belgium which also celebrate Mother's Day on the second Sunday of May.


Next, I figured I'd close this post with a nice sentimental poem just for you mothers.


"M" is for the million things she gave me,
"O" is for the way she never grows old,
"T" is for the tears she shed to save me,
"H" is for her heart of purest gold;
"E" is for her eyes, with love-light shining,
"R" means right, and right she'll always be,
Put them all together,
they spell "MOTHER,"
A word that means the world to your off spring.


I hope your off springs, husband or significant other, took good care of you today. If the bastards didn't, remember, Father's Day and their birthdays are coming up, so you can get even.

Oh, yeah. I almost forgot.

Happy Mother's Day!

Friday Night Out

Last night I got together with a bunch of people from my last job to celebrate my friends Scott and Joannies wedding next Saturday. About twenty people showed up, including James and Filippo, the two men that own the company. It was good to see everyone again.

I talked to Filippo for a while, but when I saw James, he shook my hand and said hi, but immediately turned and walked away. You see, James is very bitter about me retiring with only two weeks notice. I was told he felt I should have given more notice. I would have stayed longer if he would have just asked me, but he didn't, no one did. I made it clear to the HR manager that I had no time frame for leaving, but I guess she didn't relay that info to James. James didn't even speak to me the last two weeks I was there he was so upset. I wish he wasn’t so upset, but that’s his problem. All he had to do was ask.

About 9:00 I saw Joey, the bartender from Kenny’s Pub and John Micelli, the drummer from Meatloaf. They were setting up John’s drums. John plays drums for Meatloaf and a couple of local bands including the one we saw last night, ‘The Seventies Experience’. They were excellent, but I’m not surprised considering who is in the band. This is some info from the bands web site.

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70s Experience is your best opportunity to hear it like it was, sounds of R&B, Rock, Disco, and Funk from "What's Going On" to "Disco Inferno". They simply perform some of the best dance music from the 70's! They have shared the stage with significant 70s acts like the Rascals, Street Survivors, the Tramps and the Beach Boys.

STEVE STRECKER : vocals
He’s played with some of the greatest, including: John Miceli of Meatloaf; Mick Jones of Foreigner; Carmine Appice of Vanilla Fudge; Lionel Cordew of Special EFX; Bobby Rondenelli of Black Sabbath; Jules Radino of Blue Oyster Cult; Billy Heller of The Rippingtons.

JOE DEMAIO: Guitar / Vocals
Joe has worked with artists such as The Drifters, Donald Fagen and members of Pat Benatar, Steely Dan, James Taylor, David Bowie, Tower of Power, Spyro Gyro, Pat Metheny. For the last 2 years, he has been the guitar player for Grammy award winning artist Ashanti. He is a welcome addition to the 70’s Experience!!

GENE CORDEW- Keyboards / Vocals
Gene has played with various professional musicians, such as the Legendary Persuaders, best known for their number one gold hit "Thin Line Between Love and Hate" and touring with Ashanti on the St. Lucia Jazz Festival 2004 and other venues�all over�the United States.

JOHN MICELI - Drums / Vocals
John has toured with artists including Meatloaf, Blue Oyster Cult, Rainbow, and Marchello. John has just finished as the drummer in the Las Vegas Production of "We Will Rock You"- The Musical by Queen and Ben Elton.
Check His site

LENNY ROCILLO - Bass
Lenny Rocillo has written for music for an EA SPORTS Play Station game called Road Rash Jailbreak. Lenny has toured with guitarist/Producer, Larry Mitchell, as well as JOSIE SANG, which featured Stuttering John, from the Howard Stern show.
Check His site

MICHAEL AMENDOLA - Saxophone
He has shared the stage with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Bela Fleck, and Vassar Clements. Michael has written music for jazz artists such as Benny Golson, Mulgrew Miller, Terence Blanchard, Randy Brecker. He has played the Broadway Shows "Sophisticated Ladies", "Evita", and "42nd Street".

LLOYD DEBONIS- Trumpet
Lloyd as been very active section player over the last few years touring extensively and sharing the stage with such artists as diverse as, Chuck D, Hank Shocklee, the Tramps, and Harold Melvin's Blutenotes.

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I hung out with my friends listening to the music, drinking and talking until about 12:30 then I went home. I know that’s kind of early for me to be going home, but I really did miss being with my girlfriend Lori.

I took a few pictures last night.

JOHN MICELLI'S DRUM CASE

JOHN MICELLI SETTING UP THE SOUND SYSTEM

SCOTT & JOANNIE ORDERING FOOD FROM THE HOT WAITRESS
(LORI, SHE HAD NICE BOOBS AND A GREAT ASS!)

SOME OF THE BAND

SCOTT & JOANNIE AFTER SCOTTS BEEN DRINKING FOR A WHILE

I miss Lori

I went out last night and had fun, but it wasn't them same without her.

I'll tell you about last night later, but right now, I have to go shopping and to the bank.

Bye......

Man, this is going to be a long, long weekend…

You know why? Because I’m going to be lonely and sexless until Monday evening.

You see, Lori left for Connecticut yesterday to visit her family and won’t be back until Monday evening. Every year around this time Lori goes “back home” to visit her mom & dad and her brother and his family. Lori and her brother always go to the same fair every year. I’m not sure what’s it’s called or what’s so special about it, all I know is the thing is held this weekend every year. Last year Lori told me it was in the 80’s and sunny. This weekend the weather is going to suck. It’s going to be rainy, windy and highs in the lower 50s.

There are two bright sides to my weekend though.

This afternoon around 5:00, I’m going up to the Irish Times Pub and meet a bunch of people I worked with at the last job I had before I retired. My good friend Scott is getting married soon and the people from work have arranged a get together for him and his fiancée there. They didn’t forget me and invited me too.

Sunday, my son Brian and his girlfriend fly down to Florida for a week for a vacation. They are going to do the Orlando/Disney/Epcot thing and who knows what else and won’t be back until next Sunday. They will be staying in one of the homes his grandparents own so he saves money by not having to rent a hotel room. The bad part is that it looks like Sunday night I have to drive to JFK and pick Brian and Cheryl up when they get back if they get anyone else to do it.

Then Monday I pick up Lori from the ferry and she is going to stay with me all next week until Sunday night when my son gets home. I hope Lori doesn’t get sick walking around in the rain and cold this weekend. If she does, my sexless streak will continue for who knows how long.

Domesticated HNT

Not only am I good at this....



....but I also do ironing.

Look, I didn't even burn it!

If you want to see what other folks are doing this Half-Nekkid Thursday, click on the lady in red in my side bar.

Yawn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey, what time is it?

No kidding, 4:45 already!

Where did the day go?

Must have been that 3-hour nap I just took. :-D

You see…

I slept over Lori's last night.

We got to sleep around 11:30 PM.

Then around 3:30 I got up to pee and just couldn't go back to sleep right away.

I was awake for about two hours.

I don’t know why I stayed awake, I just couldn’t get back to sleep.

No you horn dogs, we weren't fooling around but that was a good guess.

Then we had to get up at 7:45 AM so I could take Lori to work.

That meant I only got about 6 hours sleep.

That is not nearly enough for me.

I’m used to a lot more now that I’m retired.

However, please don’t fret about me.

I feel better now after my 3-hour nap. :-D

Don't you wish you were retired and could sleep the day away if you felt like it?

Hee Hee!

Weekend Update

NOTE:
If you missed Friday's posts, you should check them out. Well, at least the second two, because they are pretty funny. "Shocked Sales Lady" and "Naughty Waitress".

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Friday Lori came over to my house around 6:00 after she got off work. My son had already left for work, so we had a few drinks and hung out there for a little while until it was time for dinner. We went for Italian food at a restaurant I've been going to ever since I moved into the area about 29 years ago.

After dinner we went to the hotel. We unpacked, watched a movie and fooled around a little before going to sleep.

Lori and I have been spending weekends, and some weekdays, at a hotel practically since we've been seeing each other. In the beginning, one of her daughters and my son, were not cool with our sleeping together in our homes. All three of Lori's children are fine with it now, but my son still doesn't like it. Any ideas on how I can help my son accept the fact that my girlfriend is going to sleep in our house with me?

Saturday morning we fooled around and then went to breakfast. After breakfast we went into town for the Earth Day celebration. The Earth Day celebration was held on one of the Little League baseball fields behind town. The street next to the field was blocked off so booths could be set up. We spent a couple of hours at there and then went back to my house for a little while. Lori felt like seafood, so we left, but decided to detour by the hotel room for a little fooling around before dinner.

After dinner we went back to the hotel room. We had talked about going to a comedy show earlier in the day, but the earlier side tracking, put us off schedule and it was too late for that.

Neither of us had watched the new Knig Kong movies, so I rented that on the hotel TV. If you've not seen it, give yourself plenty of time, because it's over three hours. We didn't get to sleep until almost 3 AM.

The next morning, Sunday, we woke up a little after 11:00. Checkout time was 12:00 and we still had to shower, so we didn't fool around that morning.

We went to breafast and decided to go to the movies. That wasn't until 2:40, so we went to the store so I could buy a wireless router. My new laptop is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow and want to be all set up so I can try it out as soon as it comes.

At the movies, we saw "RV" with Robin Williams. The reviews only gave it 1 1/2 Stars, but it was a lot better than that. Everyone was laugh their asses off throughout the whole movie, so I strongly suggest you go see it if you like Robin Williams.

After the movies we went back to my house and watched some TV until it was time for dinner. We went up into town for dinner and then back to my place again to watch TV and fool around until it was time for Lori to go home, which was about 9:30.