Hello, hello, hello…Is anybody there, there, there? This place is like an old West ghost town. All it needs is a couple tumbleweeds rolling by.
Life has been good in the past eight months since I last posted. Nothing momentous, neither great nor horrible, just a solid good. Healthy, happy, and working (thank God!). Earlier in the year my younger brother, Joseph and I drove down to Virginia to visit my older brother, Eric, who had to have open-heart surgery (quadruple bypass). This is only two years after Joseph also had open-heart surgery. I know what you’re thinking. I probably should’ve asked for a group discount, because you can see the freight train coming down the tracks. We do have a family history of heart disease, but they were both smokers (key word in that phrase is “were”, they quickly became reformed smokers after surgery) and I’ve never smoked a day in my life (of course, that’s not counting the two packs a day I used to inhale as second-hand smoke from my mom), so I'm hoping that makes a difference (wishful thinking on my part, I'm sure). After that little scare, things settled back to normal, and thank God, Eric is fully recuperated and back to his old self.
The month of May brought the date of mom’s first anniversary in heaven, and July was her first birthday without us. I choose to think that she still celebrated it in heaven, but instead of us she was surrounded by all the loved ones that hadn’t been lucky enough to spend the last few decades with her…like her mom, her abuelita (grandmother) – whom I never realized how much she loved, until she was sick and would lovingly call me by her name, my older aunt Marina – whom she loved deeply, and of course, my dad. I hope she got some cool presents, after all the sky’s the limit in heaven, because mom LOVED presents. Any holiday, even St. Patrick’s Day, was a good occasion for a gift, and believe me, with a last name like Rodriguez, we’re nowhere near Irish.
The summer saw me on a soccer and/or football field every weekend, as I played cheerleader to my two nephews (aka “the knuckleheads”). I shared some other fun moments with my boys, including attending a live MMA (mixed martial arts) event (exhilarating and bloody), a Mets game (a win, surprisingly), a visit to an amusement park, and many a movie. I tell you that when I visit those two, I come home exhausted, but in all honesty, I miss them dreadfully when I don’t see them. I love them both so much. I dread the day, which I’m sure is soon coming, when they’re fully immersed and initiated into “teendom” and they tell this old lady to get lost. For now, I’ll just bask in the splendor of their love and attention.
It goes without saying that summer wouldn’t be summer, without a healthy dose of reality TV, including good ‘ole reliable Big Brother, and a new fave – Bachelor Pad, as well as some fun, light summer reading. Lastly, I ended the summer and started the Fall with a wonderful Labor Day weekend in Oneonta with all my cousins and friends.
Now you’re all caught up with my goings on. I'll try to not let another 8 months go by 'til my next post.
