Pickers

Watched American Pickers. That show is cool! I can't believe how much $$ you can get for what folks think of as junk. It makes me want to go and forage through all my "junk" and see what happens. I have an antique mirror that could be refurbished and put up in my living room. It would look beautiful on my wall...........now all I have to do is figure out how to refurbish it. Any suggestions; let me know.

I was going to delete this.............

I can't believe it's been over a year since I used this site. Probably because I'm on facebook now. But I can put down my thoughts here so I think I'll keep it.

Right now, I have no thoughts I want to put down . Maybe tomorrow.

Been a long time

It's been over a year since I blogged. So be prepared to be inundated with innane musings about life!

I'm not ready for this

My daughter will be leaving for Florida in six days. Her father and I are going with her in her car and driving all the way to Tampa where we will stay with my sister. I have a lot of mixed emotions about the whole situation.

Sure, I'm going to love seeing my sis again. I just finished talking to her on the phone; and it's been over 6 years since we saw each other! Sure, I'm going to love to sit at the beach and watch the sun go down while I drink a pina colada from a straw. I'll love seeing and listening tothe waves splash against the sun baked sand. I'm just not quite ready to leave my youngest, my daughter ,who just turned 21 ,there all alone to face the world on her own. She's ready, I'm not.

I suppose you could be philosophical about it. Isn't that what parents are SUPPOSED to do? Teach their children to be self sufficient and independent? THEN WHY DO I FEEL LIKE CRAP!?? Why is it that when I sat outside earlier as I enjoyed the cool breeze and the fresh air I suddenly found myself crying?? How can I be happy and sad at the same time? It's possible.

This n' That

I've been sitting at this computer for hours when it is a beautiful day today. Why? I don't know why. Perhaps I"m a little sad. Perhaps I'm just being lazy. Perhaps I'm bored. I know, you're saying to yourself, "how can you be bored?" I used to say to my kids when they said they were bored, "UNBORE YOURSELF!!"

There's so much I could do; but it all involves CLEANING and I really don't wanna do that. I do enough of that at work. No, I"m not a cleaning lady, not per se, I have to clean up after the preschoolers in my class. Make sure the tables are sanitized, chairs are wiped, papers are tidy, etc etc, besides interacting, teaching, and guiding the little darlin's. So by the time I get home I"m not exactly enthused about doing it all over again in my own home; til it gets totally disgusting (like four inches of dust and a layer of pet hair so thick on my carpet you can't see the pattern in it anymore).

Only a few weeks til my Jessica goes away to college in Florida. We are driving down there and flying back, leaving her behind in her own apartment she will share with 3 other students. So we'll travel light and just take her essentials----clothes, shampoos and hair doodads galore. I hope we can stuff it all in the trunk of her car; she's got a small one. I am looking forward to seeing my sister Josephine and her new condo. And I'm so wanting to sit by the ocean, sipping a cold drink and watching the sun go down. Feeling the breeze on my face, watching the tides come and go; smelling the salty air and listening to the peaceful sound of the waves splashing at my feet. God I hope there is no hurricane!!!! I have many thoughts on taking her down there, but for now, I'll just keep them in my heart.

My Father 2

Dad was much older than mom. He met her in Greece. I don't know how exactly but my mother lived in Pireaus, Greece, which is a port town of Athens. From what I have been told they were introduced by a friend of his who was also in the merchant marines. They married in Greece, in the Greek Orthodox Church. My mom claimed she was only 16. My dad was around 40 years old. I guess at that time a May/December marriage was not that uncommon. Nor was an arranged one either. I can only assume that mom and her family, her brothers included, wanted her to get away from post WWII Greece and away from the Nazis. They wanted her to have a better life in America. I suppose she wanted a better life too. This is all theory; I really don't know the true story behind the marriage. Perhaps they fell in love???? I know Mom was a beautiful young woman; there are pictures of her to prove it.

Anyway, getting back to Dad, whose name is Juan Navarro Tigmo, He was born in April, 1905. At the time he met my mother he was already divorced from his first wife, Frances, and had 2 grown and married children. The first one was Evelyn. She married Harold Relucio and they had 3 children, Harold Jr., Roger, and Theresa. The second one was John Tigmo Jr. He married a woman named Frances and they had 3 children also. They are John, Mary Frances and Karen. But I digressed; let me get back to Dad.

Anyway, Dad and Mom married, moved to Brooklyn New York, and had Adrian. Then they moved to Clifton New Jersey and had Juanita, Josephine and myself. We lived in Clifton until I was about a year old. Then we moved to Elizabeth NJ We lived in an apartment on East Jersey Street upstairs from an antique store owned by a Portuguese family whose name I have forgotten. Dad worked at Alexian Brothers Hospital and Elizabeth General Hospital as head cook. He also moonlighted for a caterer named Johnny Bond.

As I mentioned before, Dad loved to dance. He was even on television. He used to be a dancer at Arthur Murray's dance studio and was televised. He danced ballroom. I remember seeing him at hospital gala's in his tuxedo dancing with a beautiful woman who wore a very wide crinolin floofy ball gown. He always wore sunglasses at these events. I think it was to hide his "oriental-looking" eyes. Or maybe he thought he looked more debonair??? He didn't need them; he was handsome just the way he was. It never, ever, dawned on me that my dad was not white. I knew he was Filipino, but I didn't realize the ramifications of having an Asian father instead of a white one. Having an oriental FATHER and a caucasian MOTHER was NOT common. I didn't notice the difference between dad's olive skin and black hair and Filipino accent and my mother's fair skin and medium brown hair and her Greek accent. They were just mommy and daddy to me; Ma and Dad as I got older. \

To be continued............................

My Father

Today is the 40th anniversary of my father's passing away. I remember it like it was yesterday. My dad was in upstate New York working at a resort as a chef for the summer. My mother got a phone call in the late afternoon. I heard the phone ring from upstairs and picked up the receiver. I heard my mom pick up the one downstairs in the kitchen. I listened to the conversation on the extension upstairs. It was someone from his job. He told her that my dad had died suddenly. I immediately ran downstairs. Apparently he had a heart attack at work. I remember the day before he called home and asked my mother to send him his pills because he wasn't feeling well. I never knew exactly what those pills were; I was 13 at the time. I remember my mother yelling "oh my God, No!" My sister came home just then and was told. My mother tried to reach my half sister Evelyn but couldn't. Little did we know that she was on her way to our house just to visit and by coincidence arrived shortly thereafter. Call it fate, coincidence divine intervention, whatever. It was as if she had an intuition about it. I remember that in May, four months earlier, he was pretty sick with pneumonia; or so they said. He probably had heart failure. I remember the death certificate said he died of "hardening of the artieries." I suppose that was a term they used back then.

My dad was a great guy. Although my mom and he did not always get along, he loved us very much. He was an extrovert. Loved to play tennis, and was a ballroom dancer. According to my aunt Patsy (his sister in law) Daddy was a stowaway on a ship from the Phillippines when he was 13. After he helped his brother Manuel come to the states. My dad and Uncle Manuel were merchant marines during WWII. I remember a picture of him in his uniform. He looked very handsome. I don't know where that portrait ended up. He became head chef (or cook) at various local hospitals. He would come home with the scent of food all around him......and I loved it. He taught me how to do the "Cha Cha" and the Fox trot when I was a little girl. He taught me prayers of his childhood. He ate with his hands, not with a fork, because that was the custom of his people. He had many friends and was a "ladies man." I say this with affection; not disdain. There are many other memories I have of him that I will blog at a later date. But for now I just wanted to say , I love you Daddy, I miss you still. I cherish the memories I have of you. I know you and Mom are watching over us and smiling. Keep dancing Daddy! Love, Your Daughter, Georgie. xoxo.