About Amanda
I’m a disgruntled LIRR commuter by morning, real estate journalist by day, insomniac by night, and cancer butt-kicker for life.
Where To Find Me
When Google Takes You Elsewhere
Published January 1, 2012 | Preface: A few months ago, Lexcie and I were in a Goodwill store in Connecticut when I picked up a book called A Writer’s Book of Days by Judy Reeves for 25¢. The book is full of great writing inspiration and has a prompt for each day. I’m going to try and write from a prompt as many days I can this year (although my brain sometimes gets fizzled out since I’m constantly writing for work). I need to get my mind focused on more creative writing again.
A Writer’s Book of Days (01/01) – Write About Sunday Afternoon
New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday this year. Although it has probably fallen on many Sundays in my lifetime, this is only one I’ve remembered. What made it different was the absence of the annual Tournament of Roses parade on TV. Each year, I’d sit in my pajamas and watch it on TV, noshing on the previous night’s leftovers. But Pasadena, Calif. has a city ordinance that doesn’t allow the parade to be held on a Sunday, so it will instead be held tomorrow.
This change led to slight boredom this morning. But Mom, in her annual New Year’s Day calls, found out that my cousins were going to the Bronx Zoo for the afternoon. Perfect! We haven’t been to the Bronx Zoo in quite a while and would join them. (Last week, we went to the Central Park Zoo, which is considerably smaller, and the animals decided it was too cold to be out and about.)
Mom, Lexcie, and I made the hour-long drive to the Bronx. It was a clear, warm day, and despite being a holiday, there wasn’t much traffic on the road. We’d traveled this route to the Bronx often when I was a student at Fordham University – Southern State Parkway to Cross Island Parkway, across the Throgs Neck Bridge to the Bronx River Parkway. Usually, we encounter some sort of delay, but today, we zoomed across the bridge and the tolls. A giant green sign greeted us: BRONX ZOO PARKING. We turned right. Continue reading
The 31st Day of Christmas – For Auld Lang Syne
Published December 31, 2011 | I can’t believe 2011 is nearly over. It seems like only yesterday we were sitting in my best friends’ living room watching Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve and waiting to see if Y2K would make the world blow up. Even worse, I remember when Prince’s (the artist formerly known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince?) “1999″ was so far into the future.
Overall, 2011 was a decent year.
- Although January saw our car Zephyr’s first accident, it was repaired to even better condition that when Lexcie and I first purchased it. We traveled to many places in that car, including New England and down the East Coast to Virginia to see my friends Chris and Nicole get married. We then traveled to West Virginia, a state I’ve never been to before. I wish I knew how many miles we put on the car this year. Over 3,000, at least.
- Our travels also took us to Great Britain, Scotland, and Wales for 10 days in October, the first time I’ve ever been to Europe. It was a fantastic trip.
- I was promoted to an editorial position at my job.
- Healthwise, I reached my sixth year of being cancer free – each day is a celebration! But additional celebrating at the I’m Too Young for This! Cancer Foundation‘s (i[2]y) OMG Summit in NYC in April sent me in for a battery of tests after I discovered I had a strange reaction to drinking alcohol (so my memories of the booze cruise weren’t exactly as fun as everyone else’s). After eight months or so, arrows are pointing to a potential gallbladder issue, but I don’t find out until January 2. My body really needs to give me a break!
- I met a whole bunch of new friends this year, particularly through i[2]y, my lymphoma support group on Facebook, Long Island Tweetup, and 140ConfLI.
- I accomplished plenty of items from my 101 in 1,001 list.
The 9th Day of Christmas – Tinsel Tails
Published December 9, 2011 | I love tinsel on my Christmas tree. It reminds me of my childhood and Mom yelling at us for throwing up the tinsel in clumps instead of gently stringing it on the branches. But I loved the way the colored lights danced across the long silver strands, making them looked like colored icicles.
For years, we didn’t have tinsel, because my sister’s cats Pippin and Merry loved it. Merry only played with it, but Pippin ate it. And tinsel is not good for cats. I didn’t know that until one morning I woke up to this strange sound. I turned around, and there is Pippin doing “The Accordian” next to me. When he starts doing that, it only means two things – he’s trying to hack up a hairball or upchuck. Unfortunately, it was the latter.
And was a golf-ball sized ball of tinsel that smelled really, really bad.
From then on in, until my sister moved out with the cats, we had no tinsel. However, for the past four years, tinsel has graced the end of each branch. Obi, our dog, never seemed too bothered by the tree, and beside an occasional nosing of one of the ornaments, she’s left it alone. Until this year, when she decided to be a cat and eat the tinsel off the bottom of the tree.
Now we’re watching her to make sure she doesn’t get sick. It doesn’t look like we’ll have tinsel on the tree for the foreseeable future – or at least on the first foot or so of tree Obi can reach.
The 8th Day of Christmas – Christmas in NYC
Published December 8, 2011 | When I was younger, I went to St. Mary’s School in East Islip. Every December 8, we’d have the day off for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, so we took the opportunity to go into Manhattan and spend the day doing fun holiday things. Even though I’m not off on that day anymore, I love spending at least one full day in the city doing holiday things. My favorites, in no particular order: Continue reading
The 7th Day of Christmas – The Village
Published December 7, 2011 | Another one of my favorite Christmas traditions is our holiday village. When I was a toddler, we had a vintage dime store Christmas village. (And yes, those little cardboard houses only cost a dime when they were originally purchased.) My only recollection of the village was poking my pudgy little fingers through the cellophane windows, effectively breaking them.
But in 1986, Mom decided to move onto a ceramic Christmas village with seven buildings: a town hall, school house, apothecary, fabric store, farm, general store, and church. We also had a ceramic Christmas tree my cousin Annette made, which was the Rockefeller Center tree of the town. We’d put the village in the bay window of our house, filling it with snow, trees, and little figurines ice skating, riding in a sleigh, and sledding.
Over the years, the village just kept getting bigger and bigger. Continue reading