King Baby's Crazian Persuasion

Well I'm going to talk about today. Yes i know it isn't valentines day yet, and yes kids, it is V-A-L-N-T-I-N-E-S day not V-A-L-E-N-T-I-M-E-S day... Frannie and i have always had a hangup about this holiday as it really is the poster child for the Ultimate "Hallmark Holiday" and we never celebrate it, BUT the 13Th happens to be the day we started dating in college in 1998. It's actually an amusing story. I was seeing someone else who went to school in Boston and plainly, it just wasn't there, she was fun to hang out with, but nothing more. However despite the fact we were pretty far from each other, i couldn't bear myself to set things straight (as i did not really know how she viewed our relationship) over the phone like any rational guy would have done considering the situation. So i trucked myself out to her school on the 12Th... we hung out, talked, and i set out on my way home knowing that my conscience was clear to start dating Frannie. I had flowers, candy and was ready to pour my heart out only to find that she had left the dorms to go home for the weekend... SIGH....

Well it's been 11 years, 2 cars, marriage, a baby, the worst real estate purchase ever, and we're still happily together... Happy Anniversary Sweetheart. (like she even reads this blog...LOL)

OK A ton of stuff happened in December, the most important of which was my friend Mr. Petey Spids moving to PA in search of a fresh start. you can read up on him on my blog list "You're Like a Bear" but you have to bribe him for the invite... Frannie and i went to help him pack up and ended up making the trip out there with him and seeing his tremendous house complete with multiple solarium's, grudge attic, bat cave/garage, and easy hookup meth-lab. I'm not joking. this place is awesome...i just miss him.

Also it's funny how things just kind of fall into place. i mentioned an old friend of mine who i recently got the information to get in touch with. he never got back to me but finally did recently. turns out he was quite excited to get my voicemail, but he lost his phone 2 days after he got my message. then he got sick with Mono. yes Mono...lol i guess it is still possible to get it at our age. we got a chance to catch up on none other than Facebook. so I'm looking forward to meeting up with him for coffee as soon as he is feeling better.

Dec-Feb has been a Facebook friend list explosion for me, jumping up 20 friends which is quite alot for me. and it's really been great catching up with so many old friends. whatever your feelings about the site, it certainly provides if that is what you're interested in doing. i can't believe so many of us have kids and are married.

January saw the arrival of Frannie's cousins from Italy, Francesco and Gisella. They were awesome and we tried hard to keep them entertained. there's that fine line between entertaining and exhausting and we think we balanced it pretty well. i did the "tourist" thing for the first time in a few years, and it's just amazing how awesome the city we live in is. I am definitely guilty of taking NYC for granted... they stayed for about 2 weeks and we ended their trip by spending a weekend in Atlantic City thanks to my brother in law Vito, and his disgustingly huge amount of Comp points at Ceasers, DIAMOND status baby! Thanks to him we got 2 ridiculous suites and had a wonderful time. The only setback on their trip was that Virgin Atlantic lost Gisella's luggage and did not locate it until 4 days before they left. absolutely disgusting customer service for this airline. i will never ever fly with them and also advocated my belief that a direct flight is worth it just for the odds of not losing your crap. the worst part about it is that when they were on their way home we talked to their customer service and asked them if they would bump them up from coach for their flight home considering Gisella didn't have clothes for 75% of her trip and had to buy clothes here. their answer was "that's not in our policy to do that" no we're sorry, no looking like they wish they could do more, just "it's not in our policy to be courteous and try to keep your business for screwing up your trip big time" so here's a big F- U to Virgin Atlantic on dropping the ball on that, and for outsourcing their customer service to India which is HUGE pet peeve of mine.

Well they got home fine and low and behold, they apparently use facebook in Italy as well so we are in touch. i guess i should really try to brush up on my Italian better. (here's hoping my bootleg Rosetta stone works....)

There is so much more i am forgetting that happened in between all the time i was neglecting my blog, in short birthdays galore in January, too many to count really..its that many for me... and overdosing on Restaurant Week (which is extended by the way...) Frannie and I enjoyed Amma (fantastic indian food http://www.ammanyc.com/ ) Mesa Grill (Bobby Flay's joint http://mesagrill.com/newyorkcity/ ) and Brasserie with my cousin Jill and her Boyfriend Kin (http://www.patinagroup.com/east/brasserie/) We also had a mini game night which was just my cousins, we played a few games and it was a blast. Cranium is really fun!!!!

Now we get to February. which normally is a pretty good month, my dad's birthday, my dating anniversary with Frannie, my anniversary at work, etc...but so far it's had its fair share of bad news. a few days ago my department handed out pink slips to about 15 officers that weren't civil servants. they ranged in time from just over a year to 15 years and in one upcoming case 28 years. 5 officers got their letters this week with the other letters following every 2 weeks but we know the total number for now. though i am not directly affected, i now apparently have the dubious honor of being the last officer picked up for civil service status by my department...I was processed and certified over a year ago but only finished the process last month because they apparently lost all my paperwork and had to start from scratch. These series of layoffs has already directly affected me, as my regular partner on the midnight tour is one of the casualties despite 15 years of service. He's in no way in bad shape, he came on as retired corrections, and he also has a 2nd pension coming his way as a security head for a big banking company before he came on with DOHMH. He's also a veteran, and in fact was going to retire next year anyway once he was eligible for his bank pension, but i will miss him, his stories, and most importantly I'll miss having an officer to work with that i can trust completely.

The other set of bad news came as a double whammy within 30 minutes of each other yesterday. my friend Angela had to be rushed to the hospital and we still don't know what is going on,let's hope she's doing better. I also found out my great uncle LoLo Andoy passed away. i remember him distinctly as a man who i admired the last time i saw him at 16. I'm just sad that Frannie didn't get to meet him. a wonderfully caring man...

Well i shouldn't end on a depressing note so i will talk about Medieval Times. That's right the quintessential 13 year old boy's wet dream. The Don and i were talking about how awesome that place was when we were kids going on school trips, and we found out that Frannie and Colleen had never been, so it was a wrap we had to go. We went along with Colleen's little sister (who was a little firecracker) and Colleen's older sister and her boyfriend who were as equally awesome as Colleen. We had a fair amount of booze (at least they did) and had a great time rooting for the blue knight who lost. (Check this blog or facebook for pics in the next few days) Damn that green knight i hate him so much, but i can't help but want to pillage the countryside with him...that and he was a handsome son a bitch. Don't they know I'm a King? Well apparently not because nobody wanted to take a picture with me after the show.

So that wraps it up. it's not everything but it's most of what has happened in my corner of the universe these past months. Let's hope I keep this up, it's been great writing.