Who is Dan Onorato and why do I want to pronounce his name?

I had a revelation this weekend. I was at a funeral reception making small talk at a moment when I was really just trying to pull myself together. If you know me at all, you know I suck at death in general so I was just trying to breathe deep and get myself to a place where I wasn't going to fall apart. Now, I don't know if this other person sensed (or saw) me falling off the edge and thought she'd do me a favor by trying to get my mind on something else but she said something to the effect of "We gotta make sure we get Onorato into office!"

You know how free association works? For example, I say dog and you are supposed to say the first thing that pops into your head, like maybe house or food or shit. Well, this woman, who I happen to be quite fond of, says "Onorato" and all I can think is "Otteratoe" and "claymation hair". But I edit myself long enough to say "Are you kidding me? That dude doesn't even think I can pronounce his name. Why would I want him to be my governor."

Well, now I've just pissed her off. She becomes quite indignant and says "I'm very serious. He's going to save our (teacher) pensions." To which I say without edit...."Well, I don't have a pension. So it doesn't really matter to me."

Now I could go off on a tangent here about protecting pensions and supporting 5% raises per year for 4 years for teachers regardless of  performance in an economy which has forced many of us not protected by unions to accept pay freezes. But I'm not gonna do that (mostly cuz I don't particularly agree with it given the current state of the economy). But that's not the point. The point is that it suddenly dawned on me - the only thing I know about Dan Onorato is that he thinks I can't pronounce his name. And the only thing I know about the other guy (who I have come to know is Tom Corbett) is that he's gonna get those backroom cronies out of Harrisburg (cut to scene of old men smoking cigars, playing poker in a backroom in Harrisburg).

And then I realized that most politicians are really just freaks that we place our trust in to do the right thing. And then I think what kind of freaks want to place their trust in Christine O'Donnell who is spending her campaign money on assuring us she is not a witch. That, instead, she is, in fact, me. And I am, in fact, a witch. Therefore, in reality, she really is a witch.

And I can still pronounce Onorato. I just have no idea why I would want to.

September 11, 2001

I was 30 years old and on my way to a divorce. I was living alone in an apartment in Kennett Square and getting ready to embark on a month long trip to Italy. I was planning on taking a break from my life and go somewhere I had always dreamed of going. That was my plan the morning of September 11, 2001. It was such a beautiful day. I remember distinctly how blue the sky was that day and how there was just enough of a coolness in the air to key you into the fact that fall was on its way.

I spent many of my mornings the same way back in those days. I would get up around 7:30am, turn on The Today Show and by 8:30am I was on the phone with my friend Jen. On September 11, as Jen and I chatted about our plans for the day, the television screen broke to shot of one of the Twin Towers with smoke billowing out of it. The "breaking news" across the bottom of the screen said "small plane crashes into World Trade Center". I asked Jen if she was watching and she said yes. I remember wondering how that happens. How a pilot can misread where they are supposed to be going and end up hitting a building? I needed to get going so I said goodbye and we hung up the phone.

I had left the room for a few minutes but walked back in at about 9:03am and watched the 2nd plane hit the South Tower. I heard the female caller talking to Matt Lauer scream that a 747 just hit the South Tower and I heard Matt Lauer admonish her for speculating a plane that big has just passed by her window.

I remember just being confused. Shocked but confused. I called Jen. "Are you still watching?" I asked. "No." she said. I told her to turn it back on that a second plane had hit the second building. And then I said "The smoke from the first one must had blocked the view of the second one." I really believed that. Because, in my pre-9/11 world, the idea that not only 1 person, but 2 people would purposefully run planes into buildings was outside of anything I could ever imagine.

A little while later, it was the Pentagon, then a field in Western Pennsylvania. And all of a sudden, the world was a different place.

I remember watching the Towers fall and then walking outside. The sky was so blue and it was so quiet. And I thought, "There's no where to hide. What are they going to do to us?" And I remember thinking that much of my life would be defined by what happen before that minute and what happened after.

And then I learned that not only 2 people would run planes into buildings but entire groups of people would run planes into buildings in an attempt to bring Americans to their knees. And it backfired. I have never been more proud to be an American than I was in the days, weeks and months after 9/11.

And I will never forget.

Why A Working Toilet May Be Important

Please do not be frightened off by the title of my latest post. I assure you I will not speak specifically of any bodily functions, but this story is too good not to share.

Some of you were aware of my recent house purchase and the resulting search to find any "handyman" type who would actually call me back to do some work. Contractors, handymen and the like have unfortunately given themselves a bad name without any help from me. I'm not sure if this bad reputation is a result of a deficient marketing department or a faulty alarm clock, but either way, more often than not, my experiences have been less than stellar. Now, I don't mean the work is necessarily bad but the journey along the way can be painful. Take my good buddy and contractor Don. I've know him for about 19 years. We've been friends and along the way he finished my basement and remodeled the bathroom in my old house. What I knew about Don was this - his work is good, his prices reasonable and he likes to smoke and do Suduko puzzles while he works. I also knew he was working on the contractor calender and clock which meant if he was working on my schedule he could have finished the basement in the 5 weeks he promised but he was working on his, so it took about 8.

So when I bought my little crack house, as I so affectionately call it, and needed some work done, I knew I could call Don but I thought to myself, "Do I want to call Don?" But little annoying things kept happening like my basement flooded and I discovered a large hole in the wall. So I called Don. Ever the voice of handyman reason, Don assured me it was a simple fix and he'd be in town later in the week and would call me. Which never happened. After a few more floods, my friend Wendy (see earlier Spotlight Post) and I went to work and created a concrete ski slope masterpiece that protrudes out of my basement wall but has plugged the dam.

As time passed, the little things became more annoying like I needed a new toilet because the old one was old, smelled like pee and couldn't be cleaned. So I called Don again. The conversation was as follows:
C: Don, It's Carol.
D: Hi.
C: You never called me back.
D: I know.
C: Do you not want to do the work on my house because you can tell me no.
D: No, I'll do it.
C: Ok when?
D: Um, well I can come by tomorrow when you get home.
C: Ok - should I have the toilet and the door here?
D: Yes - You need to pick those things out yourself.
C: Ok - so I'll see you around 6 tomorrow.
D: Yep. Bye.

 6:45pm the next night

C: Don, it's Carol
D: Hi. I forgot to call you. I'm not coming over.
C: Ok - When are you coming over? Because now I have a toilet and a screen door in my living room.
D: You bought them?
C: You told me to.
D: Oh
C: So when are you coming over?
D: Monday. I promise.
C: Should I call you Sunday to remind you?
D: Yeah, you can.
C: Alright. Bye

As you can guess, I'm annoyed. But I decide if he blows me off again, I'll just find someone in the phone book. Well, it ends up, I see Don Saturday and remind him that I will be calling him to remind him to show up on Monday. Then I had an electrical issue on Sunday. So I call him and he agrees that I really should have the electrical looked at and says he'll be over in a few hours. And he shows up, which is impressive as a stand alone point. He troubleshoots the electrical issue and decides to bang out the toilet while he's there. It was a bit of a challenge since the old flange was rusted out, the wax ring needed to be bigger and the hose that connects the plumbing needed to be longer. But he did it just as I had to leave to go to my mom's house. I asked him to lock up and as I'm walking out the door I hear him say "Shoot." I say "What?" He says "I just turned the water to the toilet on and its slow." I say "Is that a problem?" He says "No, not really." And I leave.

Fast forward 2 days, I'm in the bathroom and flush the toilet. I brush my teeth, blow my nose, throw the tissue in the toilet and flush again. Nothing happens. I assume that the chain has come off and open the back of the toilet. There is about an inch of water back there. I wait about 10 minutes, try again, nothing. I wait another 10 minutes, check the back of the toilet and again only see an inch of water. I then realize, this must be what my good buddy Don meant by slow to fill. But he certainly couldn't have thought that was ok? Right? So I call him.

C: Don, It's Carol.
D: Hi Carol. What's up?
C: The toilet isn't filling. I flushed the toilet once, then blew my nose, threw a tissue in and went to flush it again and nothing happened. There was no water in the back.
D: I know. I told you that.
C: Ok - Well, I didn't think what you were saying meant I couldn't flush the toilet twice in a row.
D: Well, its not a big deal. How many times are you going to do that?
C: Yeah Don, but what if I had people over. They couldn't flush the toilet one after another.
D: You're right. But how often are you gonna have people over?
C: Don - What if Max went to the bathroom right after me. The toilet wouldn't flush.
D:  Yeah - I guess you're right. But I told you when I was there and you didn't seem to think it was a big deal.
C: That's because I'm not a plumber Don.Is this beyond your scope of expertise? Do I need to call a plumber?
D: No - I can do it.
C: When?
D: I don't know.
C: Ok - well I need an actual day that you are going to show up.
D: Well - how about Saturday?
C: Ok - do I need to call you to remind you?
D: Sure - you know how I always love to get calls from you Carol.

So, the moral of the story is even if you may only have guests over occasionally, a working toilet is important in everyday life. In the meantime I just keep a large vase in the bathroom that I fill with water to make sure any unexpected guests or my son can flush the brand new toilet on demand.

Calling all Unsupervised Children of the 70's!!!

Author's note: A special shout out goes to Lawrence White who through his FB status line stirred up fond memories of what is was like to roam freely in the world.

Remember walking out your front door and not being afraid. Remember being 7 or 8 or 9 and walking out the front door of your house at 9am on a warm summer morning and knowing you may not come home until the sun was going down and you heard your mother's voice far in the distance yelling your name. Remember jumping on your bike, bare feet and head and riding in the middle of the road and not thinking about whether or not you'd be hit by a speeding car. Because, you knew, intuitively, the car would stop. And you'd be ok.

Remember living in a neighborhood and actually knowing your neighbors.Remember living in a neighborhood with what felt like a hundred kids and the elaborate worlds you created.  Remember Kick the Can, King of the Mountain, Flashlight Tag. And those of you who played with me, remember The Anything Company, my Fortune 500 Company that was subsidized by forms stolen from my father's business and the bank. Remember running in the dark and not being afraid. And your parents not being afraid either.

Remember walking along the highway, down deserted back roads and through empty fields. Remember running across the highway to get to the pond. Remember knocking on your neighbor's front door and inviting yourself to swim (or in my case - people knocking on my door).

Remember when it was perfectly acceptable for your friend's mother to scream at you for talking back because your mother expected her to do it. Remember being allowed to be a kid. Allowed to make mistakes. Allowed the freedom to learn that the world can be safe. And remember learning that life can be hard too. That people lose. That we all don't make the team. That we all don't get a trophy. And that we survived.

The joys of homeownership

I had a dream. It was my desire to one day own a home that I could really call my own. Put my mark on it and make it an extension of myself. I thought I had that once before. When I was married, my ex-husband and I built a home and I spent hours upon hours turning that home into an extension of who I was. Who we were. I scoured antique stores, auctions and the like and complied a collection of "things" that told the story of who we were. I loved that house.

When my husband announced unceremoniously that the marriage was over, I was devastated. But over the course of the next 6 months, I came to realize, that while I was mourning the loss of my marriage, I may have been mourning the loss of my home a little more. I started to remember being a little kid and having a childhood that really afforded me anything I ever wanted in terms of material things. We had a big pool. We had trips to Disney every year. We had Christmas mornings that started and ended with an obstacle course over and around gifts. But for every happy memory, I had an equally unhappy one. My parents had a volatile  relationship. My father had a volatile relationship with just about everyone. And after he died, my mother thought she could make it all better by giving us things when all I really wanted that happy part of my life back.

So when I married and was able to own a home of my own, I went about turning it into a place that felt safe, secure and happy. Even when it wasn't. I think maybe that's why I was so blindsided by the news that my marriage was over. I had planned this all out the right way, hadn't I? I had a light and airy home. I chose each piece so carefully; a reflection of the things I found joy in. He seemed to love it too. In fact, he did because when it came to splitting the "stuff" up, he showed much of the attachment to those "things" as I had when I bought them.

I learned a valuable life lesson from that experience. I don't need things. I need a roof over my head and a good life. I have a handful of pieces that I have carried with me since then that will stay with me until I'm dead and gone. Even when I moved into this tiny little place, I knew exactly what I could let go of and what needed to stay. And the things on the stay list are small. I have an original Rea Redifer painting that was given to me  by Rea. I have 2 pieces of furniture that no one in their right minds would have bought but I did and handed them over to my neighbor Jim Donohue, who saw their potential and turned them into family heirloom pieces. Both Rea and Jim are gone now but I still have a piece of them with me and that's what is really important.

When I first walked into this little place I now call my own, I saw potential. Now, I'm not gonna lie. I saw a mortgage payment smaller than my rent payment and a $6500 tax credit too. But I saw a place that, while tiny and old, could maybe tell my story again. That is, once I patch the hole in the foundation and tear out the  kitchen.

One Year Later

I've been thinking about this for months; the anniversary of my brother's death. And here I am, a few days from the one year mark (and a few days from his birthday) and I still don't know what to do. Last year, hours after I got the call that Ralph had died, I returned home from the hospital and my mother's house. It was the middle of the night and I was alone.So I wrote. I cried and I paced the halls, and dug out pictures that I hadn't looked at in 10 years and I wrote. I did this for hours because I didn't know what else to do. I was so consumed with raw grief and regret and pain that I didn't know how else to get it out. So I wrote what ever came to my mind and within minutes I had written something that came strictly from my heart. I posted it on Facebook, tagging people I thought may want to know. I wasn't sure if I had done the right thing but at that moment, I didn't really care. My brother was dead.

After sleeping for about 2 hours, I got up and began to plan my brother's funeral. I felt compelled to run the show because I was so desperately afraid that who Ralph was as a person would get lost in the formality of a funeral. The Catholic guilt reared it's head early when my mother insisted on a viewing. I reminded my mother of Ralph's own severe aversion to funerals and distaste for anything of ceremony and the idea was nixed within a few minutes. We were unfortunately stuck with a Catholic funeral as my mother insisted on burying Ralph with my father, but knowing how much Ralph admired my dad, it was a necessary evil. We went to great lengths to balance the ridiculous rules of the Catholic Church with who Ralph was. I had been thinking of ways to put Ralph's signature on his funeral and as I wrote a very personalized obituary, it became clear that of all things, Ralph was a legend maker. Everybody had a Ralph story. That night Ralph died, all I could think about were those crazy moments between 2 siblings 12 years apart in age and how in spite of it all, we managed to be so connected.  So we put together what we called "his real funeral" - a memory book that paid tribute to who Ralph was in the context of our family. And in the context of the music he loved so much. And we gave it to everyone at the funeral because we knew that there was no Catholic funeral that could ever do who Ralph was, and what he meant to us, justice.

This year has been difficult. The most difficult this far of my life. I cannot fully express the pain of losing a sibling to someone who has not been there. I have lost my father. I have lost friends. I have lost a marriage. Nothing compares to the pain of losing Ralph. In a single moment, my family constellation changed in a way I never expected it to. At 38 years old, I had to consider that my other brother and sisters could die and I would be the only one left. As one of six siblings, I became racked with guilt for only having one child. And as irrational as that sounds, I was consumed with that for months.

It has been a slow road back to normalcy and normal doesn't look the same without Ralph. But looking back over the past year, I learned a few amazing things about myself and the people around me.

- I learned my mother is a much stronger woman than I ever believed. When I was 11 years old, my father died, leaving my mother widowed at 44. Having been a stay at home mother and wife to a domineering Italian businessman, my mother did not have the self esteem to believe that she could go out and start over. It was years before my mother ever got a job and the recurrent themes of a Irish Catholic housewife never really went away. I truly believed my mother could not survive the death of her own child. But she has. She has gotten out of bed and continued to live her life the best she can knowing that she has buried her son. She still laughs and keeps Ralph's memory alive through allowing all of us to celebrate who he was (warts and all). She has helped the grandchildren through losing Ralph by meeting them where they are in the process, even if it means having to read the newspaper article my 7 year old nephew wrote shortly after Ralph passed announcing his death (literally - it read "Extra....Ralph died").

- I learned children can process grief and pain in a healthy way, even helping us grown ups along the way. I remember feeling such fear after my father's death; much of it in reaction to my mother's own shock and despair. My biggest fear when Ralph died was that moment Stephen and I sat Max down to tell him. I was convinced I would rip his sense of security out from under him in the same way it had happened to me. And that wasn't the case. In many ways, Max took care of me, intuitively understanding my need to grieve. He showed me none of the fear that I had internalized as a child. For days, Max would come into my room in the morning and put his fingers on my closed eyes checking to see if I was crying in my sleep. He admonished me on my 1st day back to work for trying to cover up the dark circles under my swollen eyes, saying "Everyone knows you've been crying, Mommy." Like trying to hide it was the dumbest idea in the world. And my favorite of all of the grief moments - Max coming into my bedroom as I sat on my bed crying, blowing my nose for the thousandth time and saying "Come in the living room and sit with me Mommy. You're killing trees with all that crying."

-I learned that my family; the good, the bad and the ugly, continue to be my family and that I wouldn't have it any other way. I thank God everyday that I was raised in a family where there is no need to pretend not to see the writing on the wall. I see too many brothers and sisters, parents and children adhere to a polite formality that fails to tap into the most intimate parts of the self. If you can't be real with your own family, you will never be real with yourself.

-Finally I have come to terms with my relationship with my brother. It would be so easy to have regrets about the could have's or the would have's. But what made Ralph who he was and me who I am is our strong, often pigheaded convictions. It was not all, as Ralph would say, "roses". It was a relationship of real ups and downs. Real disagreements and fierce loyalty. All that is good and bad about Irish-Italian tempers. But there were alot of laughs. You couldn't have been raised a Ciliberti and not know how to laugh. And for that I am most grateful. Because I had a brother who I loved and who loved me. And we laughed. And we fought. And then we laughed again.

Shining the Spotlight On.....Wendy (because isn't it there anyway?)

This is the 2nd installment in my "Shining the Spotlight On" Series and it was with great contemplation that I chose Wendy. You see, I take these series very seriously and I need to have something worth shining the spotlight on in order to feel inspired enough to put pen to paper (symbolically speaking). But with Wendy's recent graduation from the MBA program at University of Delaware, I felt this was the perfect time to hit the on switch on my spotlight and tell her story.

Wendy Gable was born in South Jersey and spent much of her youth in the orchards of the greater Bridgeton area frolicking with a core group of friends that she remains close with today. I must say this is one of things I admire most about Wendy; her deep rooted ties with people she's known her entire life. I have kept in touch with almost no one from my youth except through Facebook and that's only been in the last 2 years. But Wendy and her Jersey friends have continued to be an integral part of each others lives, sharing life's ups and downs.

I first met Wendy in the mid-90's while I was bartending at the Kennett Square Inn (a recurring theme for this series no doubt). And as many of you know, I did not like her. Night after night, Wendy and her friend Mary would come at sit at my bar and Wendy would whine and drink and give out way TMI (and this was even before we were abbreviating such things) about her life. And her voice got on my nerves. I don't know why,  because I can no longer hear whatever it was all those years ago that drove me crazy about it. But it did. So I, at best, tolerated Wendy.

I lost track of Wendy for a few years because, quite frankly, I wasn't that interested in where she was. It was in the summer of  '00 that I ran into Wendy once again at the Kennett Square Inn. I was in the middle of a personal crisis and Wendy interrupted it without so much as a glance my way (shocking). I had spent the evening having a meltdown as my marriage crumbled and was crying my eyes out to Steve Warner, the owner of the Kennett Square Inn, when Wendy plopped herself down at the table and asked if she could become a bartender. Now I listened to this exchange and thought to myself  "Clearly, Steve will see this girl is crazy and tell her to pound sand." But instead he offered her a job and told her to come in the following Monday (or Tuesday). And she agreed. And when she walked away, I said to Steve, "You are not really going to let her bartend here, are you?" Steve replied, "Why? Wendy's great." And I said "Whatever" and went back to my crumbling life.

Fast forward to the next week and I go walking into the Kennett Square Inn to get dinner, feeling sorry for myself again. As I round the corner into the bar, I see a nervous Wendy standing behind the bar. I also see the manager at the time motion Wendy over to her and whisper something. Years later, I come to find out that the manager had been warning Wendy that I was nothing more than a plant that Steve paid (in a variety of currencies) to watch the goings-on of the Inn while he was away. Apparently, Steve and I were engaged in a hot and heavy love affair that was so hot and heavy neither of us even knew it was going on.

Because I was disinterested and depressed in general, I didn't pay much attention to Wendy until she came over, looking all nervous trying to find a bottle of liquor. Now, since I was a paid plant, I knew where this bottle was. But I wasn't really sure I wanted to tell Wendy. Maybe I wanted her to squirm. But after about 30 seconds, it was clear this girl was like a deer in the headlights when it came to bartending. And so I preceded to spend the next 3 hours training the girl with the annoying voice on how to make a vodka tonic.

Over the course of the next few months, I spent every week at the Inn teaching Wendy how to make a drink, fluff a trash bag and cut fruit. And then after a period of time, on occasion, Wendy and I would actually have a drink together. By the fall, I had struck up a friendship with Wendy's friend, Mary and by default, the three of us started hanging out together. 3 single ladies in the big city.

In January of 2001, I packed up all of my stuff out of my dream house in Oxford and moved it into a studio apartment in one of the Warner Brother's investment properties, 131 East State Street (or as we liked to call it The Estates). And as my friends helped me move my furniture into my studio through a sliding glass window that lead out to the porch, Wendy came walking down the fire escape (or as we liked to call it "the fire escape of life") next to my apartment. Because while I started my life over in a studio apartment, Wendy was well established in the spacious 2 bedroom next door.

Now, this period of my life, while sad in so many ways, marked some of the most memorable fun moments I had ever had. And all of that fun involved Wendy. I mean, lets face it, Wendy is fun. We were 30 years old and we were having a ball. We dated losers, we drank too much, we smoked too much and we spent hours analyzing all of it. We spun elaborate tales about wheels of cheese and ice cream covered in bread. We inserted ourselves into other people's drama just to make things interesting (although neither of us ever crashed a graduation party, guns ablazin'). We had Seinfeld moments, my favorite of which is getting trapped behind her Pap-pap's sleeper sofa as it sprung open when we tried to move it down the hall.

So, its 9 years later and Wendy and I have survived September 11, me having a baby, failed relationships, deaths of family and friends, multiple moves, arguments, the Blizzards of 2010, graduate school and a host of other curve balls life throws at you over the course of a person's life. And we've gotten on each others nerves and told each other the way it was when neither of us wanted to hear it. But unlike the men, the moves and the curve balls that have come and gone, our friendship still remains. Because sometimes, when God slams a door in your face, He leaves your friend in the room with you.