Many years ago after Pamela and I got married, we began the creation of a family.
Sometimes it seems like yesterday, sometimes it seems like 100 years ago.
Perspective is such a fickle thing.
That I have been an absentee blogger has never been lost on my wife.
She said to me tonight, and quite casually I might add,
“When are you going to change the picture on your blog?
Write a post about the annual Easter Egg Hunt with the girls.”
I hate it when she’s right.
And I really hate to think she could be a better blogger than me.
If she blogged as well as she ‘Pinterest-ed’, she could put me to shame.
The reasons my blogging has slowed down to an incessant but slow drip is a post in and of itself,
for many varied reasons.
Tonight, though, I am here to talk about eggs.
Brightly coloured eggs.
Easter eggs.
Hard boiled eggs.
Egg salad sandwiches in a shell, yet to be born. [yum]

When our girls started walking we devised a plan for an Easter Egg Hunt to be held in the backyard on Easter morning.
We bought plastic pastel colored eggs that could be filled with all kinds of goodies, from candy and small toys (that nowadays are labeled as DANGEROUS! Your KID could CHOKE on THIS!) to dollar bills and matches.
(yeah, I’m kidding about the matches, calm down)
In New England, Easter morning could be rainy and cold so we needed to use something that would hold up to the elements.
It was the Easter Bunny’s job (namely, me) to hide the eggs in the backyard while the girls were sleeping.
When they woke in the morning to find an incredibly beautiful Easter Basket on their nightstand (compliments of Mr. & Mrs. Easter Bunny)
they were ready to don the appropriate clothes for the ‘going-to-get-mine-before-you-do’  Easter egg hunt.

Now it should be said that Mr. Bunny liked to have several Easter cocktails on the night before and while hiding the eggs wasn’t a problem, remembering where they were the next morning could sometimes be.
There are still eggs somewhere in our yard that I may never find.
I’m still looking for the elusive ‘Ben Franklin’ egg from years ago.
Can’t remember the exact year.
I’ve thought of using some power equipment to try and find it but the money I would spend doesn’t justify the means.
Right now, anyway.
Many years (and mornings after) would find the once loveable Mr. Easter Bunny reduced to the ‘Stupid-Easter-Bunny-that-doesn’t-know-how-to-hide-shit-we-can-easily-find’.
And, my moniker grows so damn lovingly.
I love it.

Fast forward to 2012 . . .

My girls have grown into young, beautiful and intelligent women and yet, I still have to hide eggs.
I am not a freekin’ Easter Bunny anymore, I am a grown 53 year old man.
I don’t have long and fuzzy ears or a cute little tail.
My ass is now flat.
I need three wallets to assimilate an ass bulge.
And I’m a crazy curmudgeon that thinks the world has gone insane.
Maybe I’m insane because I’ll still be out this Saturday night hiding eggs and loving it, rain or snow.
And on Easter morning I will still have no idea where the hell I put them . . .
In my heart, I’m hoping they keep the tradition going
because as silly as it was it’s a part of Pamela and me that will live on.
And maybe in the end, that’s what it’s all about . . .

A Happy Easter to all.

It began as an innocent and seemingly serendipitous friendship that came by the way of my personal weblog some 5+ years ago.
If you’ve read my blog before you will know the backstory of all that I am about to say.
If you haven’t, this will be a good time for reading a pretty amazing story.

How this friendship happened seems to defy any logical explanation because that’s how many friendships start.
What happened in the ensuing years is the stuff of fairy tales and Ripley’s ‘Believe it or not’ stories, all but true.
I still have to pinch myself some days though; days when I find myself woolgathering about whether me and Pamela did actually visit Australia for two simply incredible weeks this past July.
It’s taken some time to not only process the whole experience but also to figure out
just what I want to say . . .
[Interpretation: this is gonna take a lot of  posts]

We left Boston on a sunny,  pure and crystal late Friday afternoon in July -  our first destination: LAX.
Good weather, nice takeoff, flight is smooth, everybody is happy, life is good . . .  piece of cake, right?
As we crossed somewhere over Lincoln, Nebraska at approximately 30,000 ft my gorgeous wife grabbed my hand and said, “I don’t think I can do this.”

“Do what?” I said. [me thinking about the mile high club]

“Flying this far. I don’t know if I can do it.”

“Sure you can,” I said, “we’ll be fine,” as I squeezed her hand harder in mine.

“You promise?” She said.

“You betcha,” I said.

Not what you want to hear from a wife on the verge of tears and only 3 hours from your point of departure.
We still had another 13+ hours in the air to get to Brisbane after getting to LA.
This was not working out as I’d planned.
It rarely does though, right?
It was about this time that I was able to connect to the net with my laptop.
I have never loved Facebook more than I did at that particular moment in time.
“Here,” I said,  passing her my laptop, “Play Farmville or chat with someone who’s on.”
Maybe sometimes a human connection is all you really need to get you over a flying hump.
The Facebook diversion worked and we landed safe and sound in the City of Angels at 9PM (PST) Midnight (EST).
Our flights were connecting so we didn’t need to worry about our checked luggage as we would pick it up in Brisbane on our arrival on Sunday morning (thanks in part to the International Dateline)

Turned out that our 11PM flight was delayed and we didn’t take off until 1AM (PST) or 4AM (EST).
We were both sleeping in the terminal like oh, so many homeless people when our plane started boarding.
We made our way onto a V-Australia huge ass airbus and found our seats.
We were ready for some sleep.
After a nice snack we both hunkered down for a long summer’s nap, as visions of the calming waters of the great barrier reef danced in our heads . . .
(alright, I made that part up)

If anyone tells you that flying to Australia is easy and you could ‘do it in your sleep’, tell them they can go pound sand.
It is a long ass ways away and when we finally landed in Brisbane [19+ hours later] if all that we saw was two crazy kangaroos getting their freak on with some abo playing the didj, we would have left happy campers.
Truth.
That’s not what we found.
The air was different.
The sky was different.
The layout of the land was different.
The spring water was different.
The birds sound were different.
The toilet water flushed the wrong way.
And the people are friendly! [unlike some in Boston]
And they drive on the wrong side of the road (a trip unto itself!)
I think I actually shit my pants as we drove through our first roundabout.
Bringing adult diapers is merely a suggestion.

We found out very quickly that Australia was more than just an island,  a huge ass country, and a continent unto itself.
It was a place of incredible beauty and majesty, a place of tropical fish the likes of which we had never seen, wildlife that boggles the mind, food that makes us yearn for more, Cadbury chocolate that will never see the US shores and nighttime constellations that are unique to the southern hemisphere.
We also found out that Australia is a place where one very special family would open their hearts and homes to two American strangers they’d never met before.

We got our suitcases in Brisbane and headed to Australian Customs before embarking on the final flight to take us to Tropical Queensland and the home of Mark and Maureen Harrod, friends of a lifetime.

We didn’t know it then but we’d already fallen in love with this magical place called Australia.
As I looked at the Southern Cross in the sky on our first night,
I decided I should stop dreaming. I was here, we were here.

to be continued . . .

Maybe in another space,
another time,
another place,
another silly rhyme
we would gently collide,
in a dance of serendipitous destiny and fate;
and all that the blessed heavens could cast in our way
Falling stars, like ethereal butterflies touching our lives without us even knowing,
with whispers of ‘meant to be’,
transforming the colours of life that we once took for granted

When the tired and crimson sun sets on another distant horizon,
know that chance and coincidence are sometimes pure and beautiful random happenings . . .
meant to give our lives an oh, so deeper meaning and understanding
but for the biggest part, they give us love
from a place that’s not so mysterious after all; the heart.

Mine whispered.
And yours answered.
But that 1 click ultimately took us on a long and still unforgettable journey home . . .

for Kel

~m

It’s very difficult to stay away from my little place of comfort but I wanted to
update the blog a bit.
I’m tired of looking at the ‘Closed for Winter’ picture in my previous post.
Since I last posted many things have happened
I got a 3G Kindle for my birthday (thanks to all that conspired on the Amazon gift cards!)
and I haven’t stopped reading.
I looooove it.
(‘love’ just didn’t have enough ‘O’s in it)
Can you read too much?
I don’t think so.
I have been writing but still not enough for me.
Gotta work on that.
And I am.
I am also now a member of a writing group in Boston.
We write, critique, laugh, talk about writing and drink funky smoothies in Davis Square, Cambridge.
It’s taken me a long, long time to join a writer’s group and this one is looking very promising.
I will hopefully get some honest opinions on my writing which is ultimately the reason I joined a group.
I posted tonight because I had close to 20 spam comments that went into moderation when they should
have been clobbered by Akismet.
Turns out my plugins needed some serious updating.
It’s all good now but I wanted to check in anyway.
God, I miss this place.
Thanks for still visiting me and I promise to at least post an update or two from time to time.
Until the next time,
Be safe, be well, be happy . . .

~m

I’ve de-activated my Facebook account because I go there when
I really should be doing other things.
I’m a great one for talking about all my writing goals and how I’m achieving them
but truth be told, I get sidetracked by things that are too easy to do.
Like Facebook.
Like Twitter.
Like Youtube. (that’s a tough one)
No more posting funny pictures.
No more posting really cool links.
No more fucking around with stuff that will ultimately get me nowhere.
Real fast.
I’ve finally come to the realization that if I want to write a damn book, I need to write.
Period.
No distractions.
No games.
No Facebook.
No Twitter.
And NO YOUTUBE.
Kind of like a self-imposed ‘Lent’ for writers.
And if I truly want to call myself one then that’s what I need to do.
That’s my story and I am sticking to it.
Until next time.
Check my archives.
There’s much reading to be done.
Thanks all.
~m

ps. if you really need to get in touch with me?
Go to the page that says, ‘Email Me’.
I check email daily X 12 . . .

What can you say to a wall?
Not much, I guess.
What can you do when there is so much left to do but nothing left to accomplish?
Wait.
Who do you talk to when the one person you need to hear is no longer present?
Wait.
Why do some people believe they are always right?
Because that’s their ‘truth’.
When will people realize that life is a journey with happy endings, awkward beginnings AND unhappy endings?
Never.
When will the telling of one-sided fairy tales stop?
Ask Walt Disney.
When will you get off of that cross? [someone else needs the wood]
*no answer*
Where are the answers?
But more importantly where were the questions that should have been asked?
Never sent.
Ask and you shall receive.
Unless you aren’t prepared for the answers.
If you don’t have the intestinal fortitude to ask,  zipper that talkbox shut.
(say that 3X real fast) [LOL]
Amen, my brothers and sisters, amen . . .

The text below was a spam comment on my blog that absolutely floored me.
It went into moderation (go figure) but I decided this was not a ‘bot’
but an actual person spamming me.
A very funny person, truth be told.
Sorry to say I will not be posting any Christmas links. (boldface text=meta tags)
They commented on a post written for Sarah before she started out on her current venture.
Funny stuff.

“I’m currently being held hostage by the Russian Mafia  [-xmas, christmas, santa]-
and being beaten to post spam comments on public forums!
If you don’t approve this they will maim me. [-jingle bells, christmas music-]
They are coming back now. [-one horse open sleigh, christmas gifts, christmas music-]
Please save me! [-xmas jokes, christmas morning, christmas carol]
-
but seriously, just trying to make a buck.
Help me out if you know how/can.
Hope this one was at least a bit entertaining.
Original credit to a much more original hustler.”

Original?
Entertaining?
Hells yeah!

3 weeks are winding down and I just can’t believe how fast its gone.
The biggest part of me feels sad that Maureen and Mark will be flying out on Friday afternoon,
the smaller part feels very happy that they will be going home to family and friends.
(I know, a bit selfish)
This is a picture post of some of the places we’ve seen and things that we’ve done these past 3 weeks.
Look for more pictures and many future posts about this most special of vacations for
Pamela, me and the girls.
This has been like a little slice of  heaven . . .

Yet to see . . .

I am: in transition and wondering about my future
I think: the world went to hell in a hand basket . . .
I know: I miss writing
I want: new teeth
I have: questions, too many
I wish: I could find some answers
I hate: goodbyes and temporary crowns
I miss: the old me
I fear: insomnia and more root canals
I feel: like I’m on the verge of something, maybe good, maybe bad
I hear: a fan cooling my sweating cueball head (I shaved this  morning)
I smell: a lit cigar
I crave: being 8 years old again running through my neighborhood
I search: for signs of my Mom and Dad everyday
I wonder: about my new neighbor next door and the fact that he wants to swindle me (NOT)
I regret: not finishing college and working retail. I’m so much better than that
I ache: for calm, for indigo breezes and purple sunsets
I care: about the future of my three wonderful girls (I am: so lucky)
I always: look before crossing  Boylston Street
I am not: perfect
I believe: in dreams
I dance: when I’ve had too much Maker’s Mark
I sing: because I can
I cry: more often than I believe I should
I don’t always: look before crossing Boylston Street
I fight: to stay alive
I write: because I can’t afford therapy
I never: wanted to be President
I stole: my wife’s heart
I listen: to things no one else seems to hear
I need: a creative kick in the ass and to play my didgeridoo more
I am happy about: my dear friends from Australia that will be here in less than 3 weeks.

Just updating my life status is all.
This post may turn out to be a monthly occurrence.
Tanks for the nudge, M

~m