Happy Hanukkah!

Sybil: What are you getting me for Hanukkah? Barry: I don't know. What are you getting me? Sybil: I gave you a good birthday gift. That's what I'm getting you. Barry: I'll let you know.

Voice Mails

You ever read a book and have a clear picture in your head of what the characters look and sound like? Then the movie comes out and you are disappointed. I can't bear the thought of people getting the wrong idea of what Sybil looks and sounds like so I'm going to do my best to post some of the many, many, many voice mails I get in a week.

Enjoy, and sorry she doesn't sound like you may have envisioned.

Just trying to help

Conversation this morning:

Sybil: I want to live somewhere that I'll see people and have activities.
Me: You could always go to prison. You'll see people and have plenty of planned out things to do.
Sybil: You're nasty!

I was being practical. It seemed like a better deal than a nursing home.

Pizza Squirrel

Over July 4th I took my daughter on our annual trip to visit Sybil in New Jersey. What's the point of paying for her therapy if she has nothing to talk about. With this trip, there has been a huge influx of material for the blog. Much like cleaning out my mother's house when she kicks it, I don't know where to start.

Now that I'm thinking about trash we might as well start with the Pizza Squirrel.

Growing up, we had a very eclectic set of trash cans at Sybil's. At any given time there was a combination of the following:

• Metal Trash cans - taken from her house in the Bronx in 1972. The best way to describe them is the can Oscar the Grouch lives in.
• Lawn Can - One of those huge barrels for grass. Purchased in 1992.  Recently stolen. Sybil will not let this go.  I tried to explain that she got her money's worth.
• One Rubbermaid trash can with a mismatched lid.
• One barrel that fell off a truck, spilling chemicals everywhere. Sybil promptly grabbed it and now uses it for recyclables. Most likely radioactive.

Before the trip, Sybil informed me that some animals ate through the mismatched lid on her Rubbermaid can and were spreading trash everywhere. To combat these brazen thieves Sybil spent $24 on a new can and matching lid.

From the second I got to Sybil's, I was told over and over and over again to make sure the new can was shut tight so no animal would get in. I complied but first yelled, "Stop nagging me."

One day I went out and my phone was ringing off the hook. To no surprise it was Sybil. When I answered she immediately started screaming at me that I left the can open and animals ate through the lid. My question to her was, if I left the can open why would they need to eat through the lid? To that she responded with silence.

As I pulled up to her house I saw a squirrel running through her yard with a slice of pizza in it's tiny hands. I'm just going to assume he got it from the trash can, but then again it's Jersey so that slice could have come from anywhere.

Today I called Sybil and she said she was taking the trash out when a squirrel lunged for her. She pressed her Life Alert but they never responded! Don't you talk into it when you press the button?

"Help, help, I'm being attacked by squirrels and my sons aren't nice!"

Next Up: Elder Abuse

To protect and SERVE

I just wanted to take a moment to show my respect for the boys in blue. Every day you go out there and put your lives on the line to help others. All people do is focus on the bad. What about the good?

They need and deserve all the good press they can get. That's why I wanted to send a special shout out to the police of Hillsdale, New Jersey. On Sunday they saved my mother's life. At approximately 11:45am, Sybil accidentally sat on the TV remote, causing the picture to go black. Knowing that she would surely die if she had to wait for the cable company to come out, (first available appointment was Tuesday) she did what any sane person would do and called the police.

Twenty minutes later, a very nice officer pressed the input button three times and Sybil was back to watching her stocks float across the bottom of the screen.

For this, I thank you.

98.6

Sometimes I marvel at how far we have come in the last thirty years, black people in country clubs, the white house, electric cars, Amazon Fresh! It can all be summed up in the fact that I am writing this post on my phone while taking a shit. My daughter doesn't know how good she has it. What is she going to do, grow up and complain about how when she was little, her Ipad was a gen 3 and her dad was too lazy to hang her flat screen on the wall so it sat on her dresser. When I was little the dresser was the TV! She doesn't know the struggle.

I think about just how good she has it anytime she feels sick. If she appears to have a fever, I pull out a device, stick it in her ear for 10 seconds, and her temp appears on an LCD screen. No complaints, just exact numbers in a nonivasive way.

Now let me tell you how it went when I was little:

Picture me having the chills, due to Sybil not cooking a roast properly, or because my father blew smoke rings directly into my lungs. Sybil proceeds to pull an oral thermometer from the bottom of her pocket book that inexplicably has no case. She sticks it under my tongue for three seconds, notices I'm not holding it in place and screams that she needs a more accurate reading that she can only get rectally. My pupils dilate and I dart off to hide in the closet. Meanwhile Sybil goes to the hall bathroom, where she dips a rectal thermometer, that she also had loose in her purse, into a huge tub of A&D ointment that for some reason has no lid, but plenty of lint. She then proceeds to rip me out of the closet, throw me on the bed and treat me like Abner Louima, only this time there is no payoff for the victim. Five minutes later, the thermometer would be removed with the same care as it was inserted. After a quick wipe of the thermometer, it would be tossed back in the pocket book. As I was left there, pants down, ointment all over my cheeks, Sybil would mutter my temperature was 98.6.

No cleanup, no sorry, no day off from school due to a fever!!

The struggle was real indeed.

Never forget, I had a father too.

My daughter recently learned to ride a bike. I would say I was proud, but I really have no reason to be. You see I failed at teaching her to ride and I had to pay a stranger to teach her the one thing as a man I should have done myself. No reason to dwell on that though. Yesterday my kid was taking her bike out of the garage and I told her to be careful not to scratch my car. At that very moment I remembered the little tale of my brother scratching my dad's car with his bicycle and for some demented reason I felt my six year had to hear the story. Something about those who don't hear about my childhood are condemned to repeat it.

The story:

Lewis and I went on a bike ride around the neighborhood. Picture me bunny hopping through flames while Lewis exhibits retard strength by being able to ride uphill without needing to stand on his BMX bike. Quads of steel! After ripping it up we had to put our trusty steeds away for the night so they wouldn't get stolen by the local adopted kids (total joke, please don't sue or steal my current bike).  Not shockingly, our two car garage had a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde feel to it. One side housed my father's pristine 1982 Mercedes 240D, the other, mounds of disintegrating cardboard boxes filled with stuff from when my parents moved into the house from the old country (the Bronx). In order for us to get our bikes to the trash side, we had to carefully roll them passed the only thing my father cared about. On this day, Lewis went first. I can still remember the sound of his rusty handlebar scraping the rear corner of that Benz. He turned and looked at me. I smirked and darted for the house.

I ran into the living room to find my father, shirtless, smoking a Moore Green, while watching Sanford and Son. In my most tattle-taling voice, I screamed "Lewis scratched your car with his bike." I might have added in that he did it on purpose. My father always seemed like he was tired and out of shape but at that moment he moved like a gazelle. He leaped from the sofa, grabbed a broom, and darted for the door. Now think about this for a moment. Before he even assessed the damage, he grabbed something to what, beat my brother with? No consideration for the fact that, one, my brother was a child or the fact that it was an accident. My father was on a mission to beat my brother and I LOVED IT! My father chased my brother down the street screaming how he was a terrible kid, swinging that broom, as the neighbors watched in disbelief. Finally Lewis darted for the front door hoping to find shelter hiding behind my mother, who by the way did nothing to stop any of this. My father out of breath had no choice but to throw the broom at my brother like a javelin. He needed to be punished!! As the door slammed behind Lewis, the broom missile sailed right through the glass that made up 50% of that door. Shards flew everywhere. At that moment my father realized justice would not be served that day. He sulked off to the garage where I can remember him using a tiny bottle of touch up paint to fix the 1 cm scratch.

As I finished telling the story, I said to my daughter, "And this is why, when you want to take your bike out, you ask an adult to help." 

 

I wish I had a picture of my daughter's face when I was done telling the story.