Monday!
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in at to let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. It's also so we can find other Kossacks nearby for in-person checks when other methods of communication fail - a buddy system. Members come here to check in. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, etc.), we and your buddy are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care!
IAN is a great group to join, and a good place to learn to write diaries. Drop one of us a PM to be added to the Itzl Alert Network anytime! We all share the publishing duties, and we welcome everyone who reads IAN to write diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news!
Ok, we do have a diary schedule. But, when you are ready to write that diary, either post in thread or send FloridaSNMOM a Kosmail with the date. If you need someone to fill in, ditto. FloridaSNMOM is here on and off through the day usually from around 9:30 or 10 am eastern to around 11 pm eastern.
Monday:
BadKitties
Tuesday:
ejoanna
Wednesday:
Caedy
Thursday:
art ah zen
Friday:
FloridaSNMOM
Saturday:
Dave in Northridge
Sunday:
loggersbrat
I didn't get a chance to ask my brother for the Net Nanny password :( I vaguely remember that it has his name and the word "French," and a number, possibly part of his address in Manhattan, but I'm not sure. I have abandoned all hope, as DS and his friend have taken over the library and I am forced to use my IPad.
I am at our beach house. This house has only twenty-some-odd years of memories. Our old house had many more. This house is a quirky, peculiar house. The kitchen is on the second floor, which is truly a gigantic pain in the ass when one is lugging heavy bags of groceries. Fortunately, in the twilight of our years, we can ask DS to carry them.
My old room, which I loved, is now my mother's room. It has a separate entrance, its own bathroom, and two closets, in spite of being a small room. One is a small clothes closet, for hanging clothes, and the other is a large closet with shelves. I filled the shelves with books from the library's annual sale and assorted bedding, towels, and beach totes. Bad Mommy probably gave everything except the books to the church thrift store.
My husband and I are now sleeping in what was originally the second-floor living room, with a fireplace, that became my parents' bedroom, with a beautiful four-poster rice bed, but as of last summer is now a second library with a pullout sofa. I couldn't bear to let the book vultures take too many of Daddy's books from the libraries in the city apartment, so I shipped 9 cartons to myself and marked many more "Q", for the beach house. My brother had to build shelves for them. Daddy's library is unchanged, except my brother had his "fruit salad" and dog tags framed and hung on a wall. I don't know what all of these are for. I recognize the "infantry" and "Airborne" ones, and the colonels' eagles, but the rest are a mystery to me. If any Kossack can tell me what they are, I would truly appreciate it. Daddy was a Scorpio and deeply secretive. Also, modest. But he shot a bunch of raccoons in our attic with a silenced pistol, and silencers, AFIK, are not easily purchased. Although he WAS a sharpshooting and marksmanship instructor for the Army. Among many other things. Maybe he MADE the silencer. He could have. I think he made some of his own bullets. Or filled them. I vaguely remember a lecture on bullets. I miss him so much :(
I cropped the picture to remove his name and the "Colonel Armor, US Army" name plate. I am too sad to say anything else about Daddy, as the fifth anniversary of his death approaches this August. I will say that I am effing pissed at the draft-dodging fools like Donald Trump (Bad Mommy likes him because he makes her laugh, but my brother and uncle think he is a cheap-ass clown. They all know him personally.) because my father SERVED.
This house has a shower on the main floor, in the laundry room. The boys from The Anchorage, which only had saltwater showers, would come over and go through the garden gate and laundry door to use it. My mother kept it stocked with shampoo and body wash, because she liked them. They were always terribly polite. The Anchorage was a fabled, extremely WASPY group house on Dune Road. Every year, in the 1980's and early to mid-90's, they would have a "Black Tie Beach Party," which was a much coveted invitation-only party. Men wore tuxedo jackets, shirts, bow ties, and boxer shorts. Women usually wore black lace slips, or bikini tops and ball skirts, or whatever. I remember wearing a black John Kloss dress one year, and one of the spaghetti straps broke, so I tied it in a knot and kept dancing.
I was usually the designated driver of our 1965 Cadillac Eldorado convertible. That car was a BOAT. I didn't get my driver's license until I was 28 or almost 29, although I learned to drive at age 11. So I could/would never have more than two drinks whenever I went out, including to the party. But one year, my friend M said that she would drive, so that I could drink. One of my very best friends was in The Anchorage that year, so I had a very merry time. Alas, M ran into an ex, had a huge fight, and went back to my house in a cab. I was completely plastered and ended up sleeping in my best friend's dog's bed, which was a twin bed covered in Jack Russell hair. That may have been the year of the John Kloss dress, because it was black, and I woke up covered in white dog hair and completely stuffed up from allergies. Then I had to drive home, in a convertible while wearing an evening dress, still slightly tipsy.
There were roadblocks on Dune Road, and my middle brother was approaching on the other side in the truck, when I got stopped. The cop asked me for my license and the registration, which I handed over silently. Then he asked me something else, and I just stared at him. He said, "Oh, you're wearing your seatbelt, you can go." I nodded and drove off. My brother had to get out of the truck and go through a whole rigamarole. He had not been to the party and was completely sober, in search of me. Lol. I couldn't risk talking because I hadn't brushed my teeth and quite possibly reeked of vodka.
When I got home, my parents had several friends over for brunch. My father said to me, "You are in DEEP SHIT TROUBLE." Apparently, M's noisy arrival by cab, around 2am, woke them up. They observed that she was alone. They drove down Dune Road in search of me and the car, and saw the Cadillac parked at Anchorage with the top down--a cardinal sin because the seats were leather and the dew, especially by the ocean, was heavy. If it had been driven home, I would have put the top and windows up. I was grounded (at age 31!) for the rest of the summer. Thankfully, it was August and I could have friends over, just not go out. They DID let me go to the Labor Day parties.
Most of The Anchorage got washed away in a storm in 1993 or 1994, except for Mandingo (the boys' cabin, at the beginning of the driveway. Only girls and one engaged couple, if there was one, stayed in the main house.) The boys built a deck on the sand dunes, and there was one last party, but the era of Anchorage was over. There is an enormous, modern McMansion there now.
One funny addendum: I got a fundraising call once from DSCC. The man who called me was from NY and had been to an Anchorage party. We knew several people in common. Such a very small world, sometimes.
I had to move the picture because nothing that I wrote below it showed in the final version. Weird. Wishing everyone a good Monday! I should be up early tomorrow. My old roommate is arriving on the ferry :) I have to go to the gym first, will host when I can. What are some old summer memories from your youth? Admittedly, mine was rather degenerate. Oh well.
My father's insignia