Chanukkah, Thanksgiving, work, baseball transactions

12/07/2013

(I started writing this Wednesday late night)
Tonight was the last night of Chanukkah. It’s been a nice week.
Thanksgiving was spent at my twins house.

My parents, my twin brother Justin, his wife Lindsay and a friend of Lindsay’s name Stephanie who is originally from SF. Linday’s parents and her brother along with her brother’s wife.
AND of course the star of the day, my nephew Devin.

We all got our time to play with Devin.
My mom had made a meatloaf and two types of cramberry sauce. Stephanie brought grilled vegetables and Justin and Lindsay made the rest. Turkey, mash potato, peas, stuffen and Justin made his amazing apple pie and people brought other desserts.
We lit the candles for Chanukah after dinner but before dessert. It was very nice.

BLACK FRIDAY

My mom and I headed out at 12:30 and didn’t get home till 4:30ish. I could not believe how many people were out there. We went to Macy’s first. We were there for an hr. I don’t remember how much we bought-saved but it was over $100 as one item alone (a set of pots-pans) she saved $50. . We went to Khols after that and my mom really did some damage. Between sales, coupon and Khol cash, she bought about 800 dollars worth of stuff and she paid about 300 dollars. I was like…wow. OH, the line was a wow too. We were in the checkout line for close to an hour and they had 12 registers opened. We went home for a quick moment but went back out to one more store. We went to Bob’s store. I guess it’s a clothing store but has a lot of sport’s shirts-jerseys too. So my mom had a few coupons including a $10 off $10 and $20 off entire purchase. This was on top of the black Friday sales. So we went to the register. If there was no sales and no coupon it would have been $80… My mom went to hand the lady her credit card and the lady said “you are all set…no, really, you are all set” so it ended up $0.00 is my mom the greatest shopper or what?

We got home about 4:30AM and it was a very seccessfull first black Friday shopping for me.
I was surprised how many people were out there at 4:30 AM…you’d think it was in the mid afternoon.

Saturday: went down to my brother's house to baby sit Devin. My twin and his wife Lindsay, her brother Nick and his wife Lorrie and their parents went out for the mother's birthday.

I got a lot of playing time with Devin. We played with his cars and his building blocks...ok, so I had more fun with the blocks but it was really fun to play with with. The kid is 18 months and still cant walk on his own but he'll hold on to your hands and walk as fast as his little legs will carry him. He doesn't trust himself-his ability to balance-stand on his own but he's a smart cookie though.

SUNDAY CHANUKAH PARTY

We usually have about 35-40 people in-out of the house but this year there was maybe 20? One of my cousin’s and his family go away Thanksgiving week to Aruba so we were minute 4 there. plus his two oldest girls from a previous marriage with one of their boyfriends didn’t come. Then another cousin my mom didn’t invite because when my twin got married, they not only didn’t send back their return but never said anything about coming-not coming. So we were down a few there and another cousin’s kid was sick so they didn’t come and her brother Michael is still on house arrest, so he couldn’t come. So anywho, there was some of my family, some friends from our temple, my sister’s two best friends and my best friend with his kids and my dad’s best friend and that was pretty much everyone.

I hung out in the living room with the older people. It was quieter plus I didn’t feel like dealing with my best friend’s sarcasm. Sometimes it was a bit too much and he had made a few comments when he first got there so I avoided him.

My sibs and sibs wives and I did a hidden Harry. The Chanukah version of a secret santa. It worked out very well like I wrote in my last entry because instead of buying 5 people $30 we just bought 1 person $50 worth. So I got my sister’s wife a gift card to dunin donuts with a mug from there along with a gift card to target. My twin got me in the draw and He got me a booklet to hold sports tickets. And…these really cool headphones. The big ones that cover your ears. I’m actually wearing them right now.

My mom put out 2 rounds of food. Everything came out perfect. We all gathers for the lighting of the menorah after and my mom gave out gifts to everyone.
Then we did a RedSox swap. (we’re not allowed to call it a yankee swap…) I drew the #7. I got hmm actually I don’t remember what I innicially got but I ended up with a little stuff redsox snowman and patriot snowman and fuzzy redsox socks and a pair of Patriot ones. I had taken it from John but ended up giving the snowmen to my niece and nephew. Grace came over and asked me for it the redsox one. How could I say no to her? I think Holden asked for the other one so he didn’t feel left out. So out of the entire deal, I ended up with two fuzzy pairs of socks.

Soon after, the party broke up. It was a nice time as always.

Rest of Chanukah was uneventful. Although my mom always got us all 8 nights of gifts. She kept apologizing and for the nights I didn’t get anything and I kept telling her that it’s not about the gifts. She just really enjoys seeing our reaction when we open a gift. So on the last night of Chanukah, after getting a Dunkin donut gift card for the first night, my annual subscription to XM radeo another night and a jar of yummy jelly (a berry mix) she handed me a box and said “you said you wanted sneakers right?” I sarcasticly said “ya, I wanted sneakers” I opened the box and reached in, as soon as I touched it, I knew what it was and I screamed “YES!” I had asked for a Pedroia 15 Red Sox jersey with the 2013 world series champion patch and that is what I got. He had just signed an 8 year contract with a no trade claws so I know he’s not going anywhere for a long time which is why I asked for his jersey.

WORK WORK WORK

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving I went to work as usual and while I was preparing for my group someone came over to me in a voice I never heard before, although I could swear he sounded like a client of mine who had passed away a few years ago. He spoke with a very soft voice and he said hi, I said hi he asked if I could shake hands I shook his hand, he said his name, I didn’t catch it. He said something about working here and asked how long I’ve been working here for. I told him 5 years for the house and 9 for the company. We shook hands again, he said “it was nice meeting you” I said “It was nice meeting you too sir” and in a disbelieving tone said “you are joking? right?...” (I was shocked and confused and just said) “ah, ya, I was”

What is wrong with calling someone sir?

I talked to my coworker later to see who that guy was… She said that it is the new program coordinator. He’s my new supervisor. His name is Allen. I asked her what she thought of him and she said that he seems nice she said that she was sitting in the other room when he had introduced himself and she said that I looked “confused” I’m glad I wasn’t playing poker.

Fast forward to this Tuesday. I had sat down with him and he asked me about myself, well, I think I volunteered that stuff, and I got into what I do and how I can help him, and told him how I do group work and some 1-on-1’s when needed. And how I have known 3 of the residents for 9 years as they were in the day program when I worked there. I asked him about his background. He said that he had worked at a few mental health counseling centers. I had interviewed for a few of the companies in the past so we talked about them a bit. I told him my issue with finding fulltime employment. He offered to help me with interviewing, I told him that I never had a problem with interviewing. He said well, maybe you can help me then. I don’t know if he was kidding or not. When I turned the question back on him on what he hopes to happen, he wasn’t sure yet. Which at that moment Iwas like…umm ok? So you are asking me that question and you don’t have your own ideas? But now that I think about it, he’s just feeling out the layout of the land. He had asked me to find out from the residents what they would like to see change. I said to him that I would but I’m pretty sure they would say nothing is wrong. They wouldn’t want to change anything…

I did my group that day. I asked the residents if they all met Allen. They all had but it was just in passing through the hall, just a “hi, I’m Allen. I’m the new program coordinator here. Whats your name? oh, nice to meet you” and that was it. So one of the residents asked me if I would have him come to the meeting on Thursday so we can get to know him more. I said yes, I will. I will make sure he’s here on Thursday.

Thursday
I went into work, put my bag on the dining room table, where I work from, and went down stairs to say hi and find out who’s working and to see if Allen is in. He was, so I went over to him said my hi and how are you… then asked him when he’s working till today. He said 5 o’clock so I said ok, we’ll have an early group at 4:30 so you can join and. He said ok. (I was like, ok? Really? It’s that easy?) I smiled and talked to my fulltime coworker, telling her my plan and she said ok. So 4:30 Allen came up, and my relief staff coworker went around gathering up the residents who are home.

I told Allen before everyone got there wthat when ever we have a new resident or new staff member, I will run a group where I have the new person introduce themselves then go around and have everyone introduce themselves and say something about themselves. He said I never knew there was a format to this? I just smiled.

When everyone got to the table I introduced Allen and told everyone what we were going to do and I would start. Everyone took a turn, including my coworkers. I then went around the room with the residents and asked them to tell Allen something about the house. We talked about laundry, cooking, chores, rules for smoking and a few other things. I asked them if they had any questions for Allen. One client asked a question I was wondering about but didn’t ask. Where did he go to college and what was his degree in. I was pretty shocked that it wasn’t in mental health but rather communications from BU. Then asked Allen if he had any questions for the residents and with 3 minutes to spare before 5pm, I thanked Allen and he thanked me and everyone else. We continued with the normal house meeting of updating residents on what was coming up for activities. We went over what they wanted to make for dinners and we called it a day.

Allen seem like a nice guy but I still am unsure about how he’s going to workout but we’ll see in time.

Other news…
Still think of Karen a few times a day.
TX Lisa and I were on the phone the other night for over an hour…till her husband said it was past her bedtime lol. We talked about everything including our past adventures and the coming one which had us both laughing.
My twin’s Miami U best friend’s wife gave birth to her second and last child. Ethan on 11-30-2013. Both baby and mama are doing well and are home.
My NJ cousin Hayley is 8 month pregnant. She called me last night and we talked for almost an hour. We had not talked in a few months so we had a lot to catch up on.

There is a bunch of baseball news which I will write now for myself…

AJ pierzynski RedSox 1 y 8.5m
Napoli redsox 2 y 32m
Cano mariners 10 y 240m
Ellsbery Yankees 7 y 153m
McCan Yankees 5 y 85 m
Beltran 3 y 45 m
Karota Yankees 1 y 16m
Kelly Johnson yankee 1y
JP arencebia texas 2y 4m
Scot Feldman Astros 3 y 30 m
Saltilamachia marlins 3 y 21 m
Phyl Hughes twins 3 y
Rickey Nolasco 4y
Paul Konerko white sox 1y
Joe Nathan tigers 2 y
Scot Kazmir athletics 2 y 22m

Trades
Tampa Acquired C Ryan Hanigan from Cincinnati and RHP Heath Bell from Arizona. Agreed to terms with Hanigan on a three-year contract. Tampa Bay sent RHP Justin Choate and a player to be named to Arizona. Arizona sent LHP David Holmberg to Cincinnati.