Boston Strong.....................

I was born and raised in Roslindale, MA, about five miles from the Boston Marathon Finish Line. Last week, specifically Friday, while we were all on lock down, and watching our City fight back by doing what absolutely had to be done, I was never more proud to be a Bostonian.  While my heart bleeds for the families and friends of all of the victims, I applaud all of the people involved with the man hunt and all the people who stayed out of their way.  I applaud all of the business owners who didn't open Friday, I applaud all of the mothers and fathers who kept their children inside and occupied while outside all hell broke loose.

While watching the lock down on TV, seeing the images of the stark streets of Boston and hearing helicopters in the distance, I was filled with such an enormous amount of pride for our people, and impressed with the compassion and unity that was so apparent. I was amazed with the speed in which inspiring pictures and symbols were popping up on Facebook - - with one phrase in particular -

  ~ BOSTON STRONG ~

I feel that Boston Strong defines us as a community, but more importantly, it has bred throughout Boston for years and the individual culmination has created this solidarity that can only prove the old adage “power in numbers”.

I've been told that I am a “strong person” for as long as I can remember. I have family and friends and acquaintances alike that can all claim the “strong” title. I just assumed it was a universal thing. But now, after watching the events unfold and reading the various stories come about, and witnessing the community pull together in unity, I am deeply moved and touched to my core by the humanity we are blessed with here in our wonderful City of Boston.

Prior to last week's awful events, I had been mentioning to a few friends of mine that I wanted to reach out to Jennifer Graziano, creator of Mob Wives, and pitch a new show based in Boston. I would hope to banish the current image our City has from recent Reality TV shows or older movies where at least one person had a really bad accent. Wicked Single? Seriously? I want my five minutes back. Unfortunately, a piece of that five minutes was the “Work Hard and Party Harder” quote that the blonde chic blurted out and VH1 loops on commercials. It's like acid in the eye.

Boston's Finest has redeemed our rep quite a bit, but it also brings the rest of the country to the doorstep of crime and negativity in Boston.  Last week, the strength, unity and sheer determination to eradicate the evil-doers from our midst, and the bond that we all shared as Bostonians, gave the rest of the country a glimpse of our “Bad-Ass-edness”...... We should be celebrated, and not as a bunch of weird talking drunk people who are loud and obnoxious.

I have an idea and a story, and I feel as if it's a valiant one. I love my children fiercely and am raising them alone.  My eldest, Kerry is 19 and in her first year of college, and my youngest, Eleanor, is 5 and in K1. The past few years have been challenging and I've had to really think outside of the box to be able to support my children and keep our heads up. My family, friends and community really helped us when things looked grim.....personal proofs of a city full of people who ultimately stand with one another.....I am truly blessed.  My parents, God rest, were incredible people who started a Legacy of successful, wonderful human beings. I am the baby of eight children, and have 24 nieces and nephews, and 20 great nieces and great nephews......the legacy keeps expanding and it's an awe inspiring thing to watch. I also have a lot of very close friends and thousands of acquaintances as I meet people regularly in my business as a Realtor. My Dad used to say that there was a birthday every 11 days in our family, and that was over 15 years ago.....I have not taken the time to figure out the current number, but my point is more that we as a family are so wide-spread in professional fields and continue to grow in that direction that the chances are high of vast audiences being able to relate to someone in my immediate circle.....or their circle and so on and so on....like water ripples.

The long and short of it is; I think we should be on TV. This shit is too funny not to share with the rest of the Country.    

I love the show Mob Wives. I just stumbled onto it one day and then watched both season one and two on Netflix like a recluse. It was not healthy. Now, you have to understand, I am not usually into the Jersey Shore or Kardashian type of shows, so was unprepared for my own crazy obsession for watching these women dealing with difficult situations and survival....... just like me. Maybe not exactly like me, as I don't have fur coats and don't have fist fights on the regular, but you get the point. As a single mom, the pressures are high of raising two girls on either end of the age spectrum.. I have wiggled and scootched and succeeded in balancing the unbalanced for a very long time. I am always going to want more for my girls. Always. It just means that I will be continuously striving......and teaching my children that they should as well. Just about everyone I know, and everyone they know, and their two friends and so on and so on, have issues.  

That's Life.

We would all be robots if our days and nights were vanilla ice cream. Maybe I will write a book that gets turned into a TV series......or maybe I should just have a TV Series and call it “Boston Strong”, about a plethora of subjects, mainly but not limited to Family, Real Estate and Football. Sounds like a success to me.

Boston Strong, how real people struggle and succeed with a little help from their friends. <3 Love you guys.

Stay Red White and Blue Boston. You truly are inspirational.

If I owned Heaven and West Roxbury, I'd rent out Heaven and live in the BURY!

That's Jay.  He Loved West Roxbury.  He was Loyal and True..... Although, if he was with us today, a creaking guy at almost 41, he would probably have a slew of kids and live in the Suburbs. Ha Ha.  I can hear him now....."School's are expensive Berl!"

Although, I don't picture him as a golfer or anything too suburbanite-like, but most definitely a gym membership, probably to the YMCA, and he would be involved in some kind of extreme sport.....most likely a weekly game of paintball.....he would have freaking loved those indoor paintball arena like places...maybe a handball player, like my dad.  He would own a dog, for sure, maybe two....Big.....

This is starting a little sporadic, pretty much like my mind all day.....jumbled with memories, flashing from super young to older and back. Boing a Boing a Boing.  A super ball on speed.

I have been trying to sit down, rein it all in and write for most of today, (2/4/13) and I have images and impressions and nostalgia flowing through me at a million miles a minute.  It feels similar to the day I learned we lost Jason, 18 years ago.  My mind is in over-drive, trying to recreate every waking moment I had until age 24, when my world changed irrevocably.

We were so entwined, Jay and I, like siblings but not.  Aunt and Nephew.  I remember the picture of me at age 3, holding Jason as an infant and I remember the look on my face in the photo, but not the actual act of holding him........ however, I DO remember stepping on his head within the first six months of his life..........  My sister was driving my Grandpa's old fashioned station wagon......seat belts weren't even invented if you can believe that, and I was in the way way back, goofing around until Carol or my Mom, it's fuzzy, yelled at me to "get up here!"......so, I launched over each seat, like a hurdler and pop, stepped right on his head. I don't remember how hard he or they screamed or anything other than stepping on his face.  Fade Out.

The next clear memory is at age four and of my gorgeous fuzzy orange and black caterpillar....I only left him for a minute to go into the house for something!  I came out onto the back porch just as my caterpillar was being consumed by my one year old nephew.  Dumb baby.  I was horrified.  He ate my pet.  Ate it.  Didn't squish him, step on it, or poke it, kid couldn't even walk yet, how the heck did he manage to get my caterpillar and eat it so fast?  Actually, I just triggered another memory of Jay eating dog biscuits around that same time - - clearly he had digestive issues. 

I flash forward a handful of years and a boatload more nieces and nephews and remember having dinner at  brother Tommy's house, down the street.  Jay told him he was going to puke if he ate beans.  All the other kids ate them, I ate them.  But not Jason, oh, noooo - - he gagged and carried on until there was nothing left to be done.  Ha Ha.  After that, he always asked what was for dinner before accepting an invitation.  I distinctly remember rolling my eyes.

Then there was the time that the awful little kids around the corner were throwing rocks and one almost hit him, he was about 4 years old......maybe 5, so I was 7 or 8.  I remember it like it was yesterday, and in slow motion.  I stood up and yelled, "Don't you throw rocks at my Nephew!", and the rock came out of my hand as my hand fell forward, and the sound effects like do do do do do........end over end like a perfectly thrown spiral......do do do do, plunk....right between the eyes....a drop of blood, and that is all we had to see, we high tailed it out of there because we knew we were in trouble.  Barney Rubble.  Man.  I had awful aim too, but not that day.....

I remember when Jason was around six or seven, he would make up jokes.  They would make no sense at all.  He would say the same kind of poop jokes each time that made no sense and went on and on and would make him laugh and laugh.  I would always say the same thing.  "That doesn't even make sense"...the only one I can truly recall with accuracy is; "There was this guy and he was pooping all over the place and his house filled with poop so he had to open the door, but the street was filled with poop, so he was swimming in poop all the way to the poop store.  poop."  sniffle sniffle laugh laugh.  I had to laugh.  It was so ludicrous it was funny.  Jay was the original Ludicrous.

I remember the first time I was ever on a horse was with Carol and Jason, and we flew, and I developed a love for fast horses that to this day still burns strong.

Every Summer we spent a couple of weeks at Manomet.  There are parts of the beach and some back roads that I can't even walk on without being slammed into the past.   I could write another couple of blogs on those memories alone.......Green Harbor, Marshfield too.  On Brian Dowling's boat.  Water skiing, tubing, jumping off huge bridges with mad currents, or sliding down barnacle covered jettys, staying in the ocean until we were waterlogged and sun kissed.......only to swim some more.
We would both actually emerge into made up worlds no matter the season, all we had to do was make it up, describe it a little and  boom, we would be gone, off and running with it......like the "little people" in the sand dunes, or Tarzan, flying through the air on a rope swing - from the neighbor's garage roof.  Honestly, how did we not have broken limbs?

We were both on the Gator's swim team, albeit different age groups.....but I remember that no matter what big race I was in, Districts or New England's, Jay was there too.....and always Carol.  Cheering us on.  He didn't get nervous like me, he would just do it.....me, I would puke before each race. 

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Throughout the years, there were so many water slides.  We broke all the rules when it came to water park fun.  We were clever and usually only had a half hour to ride, so we did not mess around.  We would bug Carol all day while we were at the beach.....ALL DAY.... So, all bets were off when we finally got our time, every minute counted.  Jason was small and very nimble.....he could do the Russian dance where you cross your arms and kick out your feet in the chair pose.....he actually did that dance well......I think it's Russian.  Anyway, he was small, fast and fearless.....so, I would set him loose and he would run from the bottom of the staircase, through the people, to the top of the water slide....and I would run after him, yelling "Jason, stop! You can't cut people!" ......over and over again until we reached the top.....then he would stop himself halfway down the slide until I caught up and we would train the rest of the way down.......and he would run through the same line of people and so would I, saying the exact same thing, but usually laughing and splashing water all the way.  Hey, it worked.....it didn't even occur to us to change it up, or use false names.....ha ha....we were so smart....nobody said anything to us.....every Summer we pulled that.

Another clear memory is of skiing with my brother Tommy and his kids.  Tom brought Jason and I along.  After a full afternoon of lessons, of which everyone else passed with flying colors, I was still stuck on the bunny slope, shutting it down every time I tried to just "lean", until I was literally asked to just "walk up the hill if I wanted to ski".....ha ha....but not Jay.  I remember he took to skiing like a duck to water.

Years later, I may have been 20, Jay 17, we went on a weekend ski trip with my niece Dawn, and some of her friends. Jay spent the entire first day skiing backward and holding my hands......until he thought I was ready and then took me on the black diamond trail.  Boy, was he wrong about that one.  Tumble tumble tumble, ski, pole, sky, ski, pole, sky.  Luckily no flashing lights on that trip - neither po po nor ambulance. 

A couple of years later, after I went to Cali, then England and back,...  I moved to Maine and we would spend every Saturday night together.  Those were the Kara days.  I love that girl.  Kara Powderly LeBlanc....xoxo love you girl.  I am so thankful, and eternally grateful, for those nights......Time, it's a tricky and wily thing.  It's barreling past me at the speed of light and there are no handrails to slow it down.  Spend time with the people who  matter.....you might not get another chance.

I remember a few times, coming down from Maine and going out with my friends, with plans to crash at Jay's......only to "sneak" into the house very late at night...... tip toeing into a full blown party and my sister in Mexico....  big ass dog asleep, everyone else awake. And being psyched and yelling "I've got the water bed!"  Speaking of the water bed, I slept so awesome in that bed, until Jay would wake up and turn the cartoons on a little too loudly in the morning (usually at an unbelievably early hour and those Poke Mon like kind of cartoons that I didn't even like), and then laugh and laugh until I would grumble and stomp into the Living Room to see what was so funny.  We would always end up the same way, feet to feet, under his ugly as sin, brown and orange afghan blankie, waiting for the other to get up first so we could nonchalantly ask "get me a drink while you're up?".......I always lost.  Always.  Well, until I peed in a glass and tried to get him to drink the "warm lemonade"....my laughter tipped him off....that, the heat, and my willingness to not only bring him a drink, but say "ha ha ha drink it, ha ha, it's LEMONADE, drink it" ha ha...   OMG, we used to drink hot chocolate with cold milk and eat the chocolate powder bubbles with a spoon.  It was awesome.  Although, I tried it about a decade ago and it was awful.  Ha Ha....Time, playing tricks again.  Taste Bugs Change.  

  It's closing in on midnight now, and the beginning of another year of missing my boy....there are so many more stories, impressions, memories....there are millions and I have them wrapped up and tucked away, I bring them out,  shine them up and pass them around sometimes.  I am always anxious to hear about yours, so please share. I will write again and more often than once or twice a year.

I know he's watching......I can feel him with me a lot....every step of the way, just like always......xoxox love you forever...
 
I'm adding things here and there, as things come to me...I'm happy to share and want you all to know that throughout this creation, I've laughed and cried and again asked aloud "Why Jay?, Why?"

Battle of the Brothers in today's Sibling Superbowl....

The Harbaugh Parents can each pick one of their kids to root for in this year's Super Bowl XLVII.  Later tonight, in the New Orleans Georgia Dome, Baltimore Ravens coach, John Harbaugh will compete with his younger brother, San Francisco 49ers coach, Jim Harbaugh, in their quest for the Lombardi Trophy.  Beyonce will be there, and some new funny, albeit expensive, commercials will air.......Superbowl XLVII.

Big Brother against Little Brother, East Coast vs. West Coast, Retiring Emotional Line Backer versus Young New QB, An Under team vs. an Over team......  Ironical isn't it? Is it opposite day?

San Francisco is favored by 4-points, the total is 47.5.

So far, 60% of the public is all over Baltimore and the Over. Let's think about this.  Two defensive teams....although both sides can score, and in their last three meetings, 03, 07, and 2011; the Ravens prevailed, by a lot of points (38), 2 and 10-points, respectively.

Understanding that the Ravens are coming in EMOTIONAL.  It's Ray Lewis's last game.  I can remember when Ray Lewis was involved in the shaky shooting at a bar one night, the attention he received from that time, he enhanced with his leadership and consistent play, and he has since turned himself into a born again Christian who is channeling all of that emotion through his teammates in a farewell to beat all farewells.

Then we have the opposite coast, younger brother, and a pup of a QB who is gliding through games, unshaken, dead on, and perhaps a bit as if he made a deal with the devil.  Kaepernick....I guess he would have negotiated a better name for himself, but hey, who knows?  This kid doesn't seem to be easy to shake and has gone against better offensive teams and come out on top.  He led his team to wins over top notch QB's, Tommy Boy, Number 12 and Matty Ice.  Like nothing.  A snow plow.  Joe Flacco be warned.

I like San Fran breaking the trends and this Kaepernick kid taking it all the way.  IDK, the total seems a bit high for such an important game.  In my opinion, usually the game goes by quickly and each play is so calculated and examined ten fold compared to a Regular or even Post Season game.  Then again, both teams put up numbers and crazier things have happened....and it is sooo easy to slip into the Over column, let's face it - - it's way more fun to scream for points, and celebrate touchdowns.  I am not gambling on this game, but if I was, I would say..........OMG, I'm so wishy washy right now.  I want to take San Fran -4 under 47.5; but something is telling me the public might be right with Baltimore +4 and over 47.5......it's easy to get sucked into the public and what they choose, but also, the trends lean toward the public choice, which brings into question the validity of such choice.  Well, now that I have helped Not At All, ha ha, please enjoy the game, for the pure FB part of it....it's what I'm going to do.  Happy Superbowl Sunday Folks, may you eat like Kings and Queens, Enjoy the company of good friends, and Yell and Hoot at every touchdown, since in the end, who really cares who wins?  The Pats aren't in it.

Before Bedtime Banter with my Beautiful BBG...

So, before bed each night, when my five year old daughter is brushed and washed, we either read a book, or occassionally I will make up a story, whispered in the dark, with our imaginations fully engaged.  At the conclusion of said silly story, Eleanor always says "Ok, it's my turn....." and with a giggle in her tone, reiterates my story word for word.....to which I always cry "Copier!", and tackle her, we both laugh, I rub her belly and she goes to sleep. It's our pattern for silly story nights.

Flash to tonight, January 31st, we were snuggling and I started to rub Eleanor's belly, and we were just laying together nice and cozy with a few minutes of comfortable silence as I was thinking of what kind of animal the main character for my made up story would be.  I mentally listed the characters I had already used.....a frog, a squirrel, a chipmunk, a unicorn and a bear.....and I found myself speaking before my brain chose anything, but as it's my custom to make it up on the fly, the sillier the better, I didn't sweat it.....and this is what happened next......

Me:  "Once upon a time, in a land far far away, lived a very small, very white, pebble.  And  one day, it turned to it's Mother and said  "We never go anywhere, I'm bored."

....I then paused for a brief moment and followed up with "the end"

there was another brief pause before Eleanor and I burst into simultaneous laughter, and each time it sounded like it was petering out, grew in heartiness and expanded over another couple of minutes.  I had a hysterical moment with my kid.  We laughed and laughed, totally in sync with each other over this silly little imaginary pebble who was stuck on the road.  Poor pebble.

Finally, as we recovered our breath together and gave into the final sighs of laughter, Eleanor started to reiterate the story, per the norm, and we laughed and laughed all over again at her exact replica as she, for once, didn't try to pass hers off as an original.....and then I said....."aaah, that was a great story"........................to which Eleanor immediately responded "Short, but great!" as she succumbed to another wave of little girl laughter.

Aaaah, what a great night....... If only I could capture that sound.....It's like music of the pure and innocent ......and now, I've stored the experience in this time capsule of blurbs......one day I will recall it and lose myself in it's simplicity and joy and remember my little girl frozen in this moment...... I have generously shared with  you, cyber space.......and all of your minions.......a true precious moment.  And yet, a small part of myself still thinks, ......that poor little pebble.....