Estate SALE

Sorry that I have been neglecting you. I, Lydia, your favorite dysfunctional mother has been moonlighting. Yes, I have been neglecting my babies and helping my friend set up an amazing estate for sale. That is where I have been. I even slept over two nights ago. I am going there tonight and will sleep over until Saturday evening.


What am I actually doing in this big old house filled with treasure? Well, I’d love to say that I am polishing the diamonds and fluffing the vintage wedding gowns but that’s Jen’s department. She is the expert and I am the brawn. I love being the brawn. I have been playing Indiana Jones and crawling through dusty crawl spaces looking for treasure. Jen and I have been knocking on walls looking for secret passage ways and secret drawers. We have been rooting around a dusty garage and basement in a 300 year old house. The same family has occupied the house since before the civil war so we are sorting, cleaning, and pricing hundreds of years of stuff. Personally I love stuff!

I have been hauling stuff! Being the brawn of this operation I have been hauling gardening tools, axes, mallets, and other man-tool-like things that weight more than Alice. I haul then set them up for sale. The irony? I am merchandising manly-man things? Me, the woman who grew up with a gay father who never even owned a hammer? What do I know about tools? I try my best; I group together a nice mélange of mallets by size on a pretty wood shelf. I artfully arrange shovels, hoes, and rake like thingies, by handle design. You know, dark wood here, tall ones there, metals, and of course by color.

My biggest job was bringing the hundreds of books from all over the house and arranging them in the book room. The house has three floors, four, including the basement office. Thank goodness for Curves because I ran by fat butt up and down stairs carrying heavy boxes of books for a few days. My arms still ache. I think that I have bulging biceps’ under this natural padding. I love books. I am trying my best not to buy them all myself. So far I have only bought about 25 pounds. Don’t worry there is at least a few hundred pounds left. People 300 years of books! The occupants were readers. Obviously they never went to the library because we have books published starting at 1826 and ending in 2009.

I am loving my new job. Jen and I have had a blast and worked our butts off. We are mommas here us roar! We have even uncovered a lot of treasures! I found a signed Buzz Aldrin letter discussing his role on the Gemini XII. Astronauts’ ladies, rock stars of the 1969 space program, this papers is worth thousands… of course we are contracted to give all items to the family. But, just finding it is awesome. She found actual gold coins! Yesterday I found a letter from 1772 hid in a book.

The Sale is Friday and Saturday. If anyone is local to Massachusetts come to visit and see fist hand! 63 Grandview Rd., Quincy, MA . For all of you who can't make the drive we will have a lot of items on ebay after the sale. The most imortant stuff. The jewelry. I'll post a link when it;s up there.

That’s where I will be tonight until Saturday night. I’ll tell you all about it when I come home.

Valentine's Attack

Dave and I had an interesting Valentine’s Day celebration. We went to a comedy event to support an old college pal of mine. The night arrived and Dave and I got all dolled up and drove to Rhode Island; a whole other state. I am that good of a friend. Actually I live about 7 minutes from the Rhode Island boarder. Dave and I drove about 30 minutes to a banquet facility near Greene Airport. The place looked like a place for a nice big Italian wedding. Upon entering and checking our names on the RSVP list Dave and I were notified that we had to pay by check or cash. We usually don’t hang out in Rhode Island with large sums of cash in our pockets. Ok so everyone knows that I never have money. In fact if you invite me out for dinner or just for a drink there is a fifty-fifty chance that I will forget my wallet all together. I am not a cheapskate I am a knuckle head. What I often do is change from my “Mommy Bag” to one of my sassy “Going out” purses. I am always running out of the house trying not to be late so I usually forget to put some essential like, gum, lip balm, or any form of legal tender. Of course there at the door I have a “Going out” purse, the big red one that my mom gave me. The purse is so cute and I am happy to report that I did have my wallet, unfortunately I only had fifteen dollars in there and no check book.


Dave had to run out to find an ATM while I drank a glass of wine and caught up with my old friend. Dave did come back, and with cash, he is such a good man. We found our reserved seats at the head table with my college friends other friends and family. The table was in the front of the room right in front of where the comedians were to perform. We ate a nice dinner and then the comedy show started. The first comedian was good. He was a frat boy backwards baseball hat type guy. The kind of guy who wears shorts all year round. He was funny he made us laugh, life was good. The second comedian was that scrawny neurotic fidgety kind of guy; you know the kind of guy that you see chain smoking in front of a liquor store early on a Monday morning.

He takes to the stage area and asks the audience if anyone is Portuguese. I raise my hand thinking that a lot of other people do was well. Um, no, just me. Mr. Malefactor proceeds to call me Fatima, yes! Fatima! I know right? You do not call a plus sixed diva like me FATIMA! Then he does this whole routine about how fat, hairy, and stupid Portuguese women are? All of his rants were directed towards me. During his tirade I looked closer. Did I know this creep? Did I break his heart? I’d like to break his neck. I am so bummed that the waiter cleared my plate. I could have used a sharp knife.

I was trying my best to be a mature adult. I sat there with a fake smile plastered on the face. I wanted to scream, I wanted to throw my wine glass at his head, but I didn’t want to waste my drink. Most of all I wanted to leave. But I promised my friend that I would watch he perform not to mention paid eighty bucks. There for I sat there and tried to be an adult. I basically tuned him out until he called me Fatima one last time and I yelled at him. I, the mature mother of two young children, started yelling at said scrawny pathetic non funny man. I told him that I was going to kick his butt after the show. I think that my exact words were “LISTEN YOU $%^*()*#&*)@__++$# ! YOU KNOW THAT AFTER THE SHOW THAT I AM KICKING YOUR ASS OUTSIDE!” At the moment I really meant it. I could have kicked his butt. When his set was through he left the stage area and quickly exited the building…and never came back.

Lucky for him! I am one tough bar fighting soccer mom! What I once hit Thea Izzi in the 6th grade. We fought for a good 30 secdons before we both started crying.