Those who know my family, know that none of us are not really ‘all there’. Just attempting to describe the various personalities would take a week! From the oldest to the youngest, we’re never short on personality.

One of the highlights of this Thanksgiving was my grandmother coming down to visit. We literally had to bribe her with $$ to get her to visit, b/c she hates the Maryland area. She feels that if she visits that she’ll be held hostage and won’t be allowed to ever go back to NJ, b/c of all of the worrying we do because she’s basically up there by herself now.

I can only take my grandmother in small doses. After a couple of hours, typically, I have to either leave the room she’s in or just tell her to shut-up. The woman will talk your ears off with her complaining, nit-picking and about all of her ailments. This year, she couldn’t stop talking about her close friend, Frank Lucas. Yeah, that Frank Lucas. Mr. American Gangster himself.

See, for the past 8 yrs, Frank Lucas has been my grandmother’s next door neighbor. For the longest, I’ve heard stories about the man in apt. 703 of her senior citizens building. Every time I would go & visit her, Mr. Frank (is what she’d call him) would be sitting in front of the building in his wheel chair smoking a cigar. I’d always politely wave at him or give him a hug. When I had my son with him, he’d give him a $5 bill or a stick of gum. He seemed nice enough to me. I guess I never realized how much of a ‘gangster’ he really was back then, b/c of his present condition after the suffered a stroke a few years back.

Anyways, my grandmother wouldn’t keep quiet about him. Frank this, Frank that. To make matters worst, she wouldn’t shut up during the movie that my mother brought over. Now this is where I introduce the “Amnesiac” aka my Uncle Vinnie. The reason I call him the “Amnesiac” is because about 3 yrs ago, my uncle suffered a brain seizure which in return created a domino effect on a few other medical issues he’s been dealing with, such as kidney failure (he got a new one a few months back) and a tumor on his brain that had to be removed. He’s somewhat fully recovered BUT his memory is shot. If you’ve ever seen the movie, “50 First Dates” with Drew Barrymore & Adam Sandler, he’s somewhat like her, but not as bad. Over the past year his memory has gotten alot better, but it’s still blotchy in some areas.

Anyways, my uncle back in his ‘hay-day’, dabbled in drugs. His drugs of choice were cocaine & heroin. Although growing up, it was supposed to be this huge secret, believe me, I was the nosey kid who knew everything. When I got older, I learned that my uncle was considered a functional addict (he’s been clean for about 15 yrs now). He worked in the medical field at a prominent hospital in NJ, was always receiving awards and praises in the newspapers, but what people outside of the family didn’t know was his ‘issue’.

As my uncle was sitting there watching the movie, bits and pieces of his mental puzzle were being put together. He started talking to my grandmother about the man he referred to as “Frank Lewis” (I don’t know how many times we had to correct him that night) Lucas not Lewis. Lucas not Lewis, was repeated about 10xs. He asked my grandmother if he knew him, and she looked at him like he was crazy. From what my grandmother tells us, my uncle knew the man and his brothers very well growing up in Newark during the 70’s. Frank Lucas’ brothers, “The Country Boys”, basically ran the heroin in Newark during that time, and my uncle back then was a HUGE buyer of their product. He says its what got him through medical school, but I doubt it b/c he was a crappy student.

In any event, it was definitely an interesting after dinner conversation with my Grandmother and my uncle. At one point I had to get up and excuse myself, b/c I couldn’t take any more of my uncle repeating questions after receiving answers to them 15 minutes before. It was hard trying not to laugh, although most of my family members were close to tears during some points in the evening.

The morals of this story? Say no to drugs. It’s ok to tell a grandmother to shut up sometimes and also, every ones family should have an amnesiac in it.

The turkey’s have started a Jihad at my house! Yesterday morning my son & nephew looked at their window and started yelling about these 3 big birds they saw outside, just sitting on the bench. At first I didn’t pay any attention until they yelled that they were “HUGE” with red heads and one had just pooped on the bench. Immediately, I said to myself, “WTF” and then ran to my bedroom window.

Outside there were 3 huge turkey vultures just sitting in my backyard. Needless to say I was thorougly disgusting. Typically turkey vultures only come out when there are dead carcasses around. I figured there must have been either a dead deer or a dead racoon in the woods behind my house.

Calling animal control proved to be a waste of time b/c they don’t handle wildlife. So I attempted to reach the State of Marylands Wildlife Reserve’s office. Of course, their emergency line was closed on weekends. I guess they figure wildlife only bother people during the week. Eventually I found a listing of contractors who worked through the Wildlife Reserve. When I was able to get one on the phone, he quotes me $500 just to come out! Hell fucking no! If I could get my hands on a gun, I’d shoot them myself, is what I thought to myself.

Around 11 a.m. I hear a banging at my front door, which pissed me off even more. Why the hell is someone banging on the door when there’s a perfectly working doorbell button??!?! My sister answers the door, she’s greeted by a police officer. Why the hell did a fucking neighbor call the cops b/c of the turkey vultures they saw on top of the house??? The cop is questioning my sister, asking her if everything is Ok.

No officer, we have 3 dead carcasses in my living, hence the turkey vultures in the backyard!

I swear, I wish I knew who called the police. They’d definitely get an earful from me! In any event, seemingly the nasty turkey vultures seem to have left this morning. I guess they finished eating whatever dead animal they found in the woods. How appetizing!

& I’ll tell you no lie.

It’s that simple.

Fire away.

If you ask anyone who knows me, what my biggest weakness is they will definitely say electronic devices/gadgets. I can’t even pinpoint when this ‘habit’ formed. I guess it was when I purchased my first cell phone during my Senior year of highschool. That phone could now be lethal if thrown at someone. It was huge and bulky, the screen was black with basic green numbers. All you could do at that time was talk. Nothing else. No camera, no text messages, it was no frills.

Like the Virginia Slims slogan, phones have come a long way.

It’s bad, but I can’t even count how many upgrades I’ve had this year. This year so far, I’ve had Pocket PCs and Treos. For the past few weeks, I’ve been patiently waiting the release of the newest line in the Treo family, the Treo Centuro.

Last week, I placed my order, only to cancel it a few hours later because they didn’t have the red one available. Unfortunately, they didn’t fully cancel my order in the system and sent me a black one instead. So today, being the gadget fiend, I found myself waiting outside of the Sprint store at 11:35 am just so I could be one of the first people to get my hands on the red one that was released today. Of course I wasn’t alone. After I arrived about 10 other people lined up just to purchase the Centuro. We were all like kids in a toy store, eagerly waiting for our new gadgets.

As the customer service rep. is processing my exchange, he then decides to let me know that Sprint’s version of the Iphone will be released tomorrow! I looked at him and immediately felt my face heating up from anger, because I wouldn’t be able to make another exchange tomorrow. I totally forgot the touchscreen/iphone clone would be released this month!

Yes, these things are a big deal to me. In any event, after I further researched the HTC Touch, I did find a few issues that still hadn’t been fixed with this new release and also, I think I’m used to the full keyboard that the Treos have. In any event, I guess I’ll spend the rest of my Sunday playing around with my new toy and hopefully I won’t get the urge to purchase another one any time soon!