Shanekwa is a turtle we bought in Chinatown last year. We bought her with her brother Jason. The two turtles lived in a little house with a little bit of water. Shanekwa was much stronger than Jason. She would run around in circles around the tank. I couldn’t believe how fast this turtle would run. She ran like a marathon racer!

Aren’t turtles supposed to be slow?

When food entered the tank, Shanekwa raced and ate everything. Soon, Jason became very frail and weak. He died a few weeks later. Shanekwa didn’t seem to care. There was more food for her!

Once we went away for a week. I asked the people at HJMT COMMUNICATIONS, LLC to watch her. Lori and Lisa were very excited about watching Shanekwa. Tim, who was my office manager at the time, didn’t want anything to do with her.

While I was away, a woman came in for an interview. Kristie was on the phone. Lori was at her computer and the woman sat in the waiting area talking with Shanekwa. She was actually having a conversation with the turtle! Do you think the turtle was talking back?

When winter came, we couldn’t control the temperature in Shanekwa’s little house, so we decided to buy a 100 gallon tank with a filter and heating system. Derek and I decided to decorate, but Brian did most of the work in the tank. Thank you Brian!

Now, Shanekwa isn’t such a small little turtle any longer. She’s the size of a hockey puck!

Every day I go into Derek’s room to wake him for school and she hears me coming. She starts to wag her tail like a dog and jump up and down in the tank, waiting for food. What a spoiled turtle. She has a variety of food — shrimp, little pebbles of I don’t know what, krill and roaches. The worst part of this array of food, is that the roaches are in a little can in my refrigerator. It’s so embarrassing! I just hope no one thinks we’re eating the stuff!!!!

Tonight I was talking with Elisa G. on Facebook. Elisa used to work at HJMT as our graphic artist. She was with the firm for a long time. It’s nice that I still talk with her because I really enjoyed working with her. She was asking me about Shanekwa and she said, Shanekwa is the dog you never had. She’s right!

Shanekwa, the dog we never had!

Have you ever thought about why people slow down?  There’s no accident to look at, there’s no signs ahead, so why is it that people just slow down in their cars and create bumper to bumper traffic?

There is always traffic on the way to Westbury on the Wantagh Parkway from the Southern State going North.  I don’t know why… It’s always backed up and then once you get to Old Country Road, it clears up.  It absolutely makes no sense!

Today on the way home, I could barely inch my way into the traffic which was bumper to bumper.  I thought it could be because of the rain.  (It was raining hard!) But, no.  The hold up today was because everyone was trying to read a nonsensical sign that was blinking above.  It said something like, “traffic hempstead wantagh be careful…”  The sign made no sense!  Everyone was slowing down to read this sign that made no sense and instead of being careful, they were creating a traffic hazzard!

I thought the neon sign that said, “12345678901234567890″ was something that attracted attention.  Now, it’s some nonsensical sign!   It’s almost like these signs appear only during rush hour to create even more traffic…

Everyone looks forward to having a three day weekend, especially when the three day weekend is Memorial Day. The annual air show at Jones Beach, bicycling on the boardwalk, playing golf, BBQ’s and watching the local high school marching band in the annual parade are all part of the weekend fun.

This Memorial Day, I was determined to try to organize my personal life by cleaning out my closets, re-organizing my makeup drawer and picking up little tinkets to decorate the house. Usually, we are totally booked up during these three days off, but this weekend, I was determined not to make any plans.

So, on Saturday, instead of taking the car around on errands, Brian and I ran errands on the bicycles. You should have seen all the packages on the back of my bike! Following that, we went to golf range, hit some balls and went home. After pacing back and forth in the house, we couldn’t take it any longer. We raced into his new SUV and drove to Roosevelt Field.

On Sunday, we went to a family party at Brian’s parents home in Long Beach. We met some long lost cousins — from Woodstock, Plantation, FL and Israel. Isn’t it funny how when you get older, cousins just seem to come out of the woodwork? Once I turned 40, all of a sudden I had aunts, uncles, cousins, and more. Every time I turned around, I was finding out about another relative that I didn’t know I had!

And today, I woke up at 8 am to drive my daughter down to Ohio Street in the West End. She’s a flag barrier. But when I say that, she gets mad. The actual term is “Color Guard.” I worked out just a little and went to pick her back up in front of Topper Realty Corp. After that there was nothing to write home about except that I slept some and ate a lot! My friends, Sharyl and Geoffrey had their annual Memorial Day party at their home. We got there around 3ish and stayed for a long time. Everyone was there and we had a lot of fun catching up.

“So you want to go to London?” Marti asked. “Don’t you remember Kristie Koppe from High School?” I asked Tony. “Can Jewish people get tatoo’s and be burried in a Jewish cemetary?” I asked the Rabbi. And so on…

As we were leaving, Geoffrey said to me, “didn’t you just get here? I didn’t even see you…” So much for being invisible…

Lisa Gordon, Supervisor of HJMT’s publicity department, and I went to Kentucky this weekend. We left at the crack of dawn on Friday, got to the airport, and traveled with no problem to Detroit. Switched planes in Detroit to a plane going to Cincinnati (the Cincinnati airport is actually in Kentucky!). The bad thing — it was such a long day and it really tired us out when we finally got there! The good thing — when we were in the Detroit airport, we went through this long tunnel that had psychedelic walls that kept changing and new age music playing in the background. It almost looked like we were under water or at an aquarium with no fish! As we traveled via walking sidewalk, we both looked at each other and smiled!

The ACHCA (American College of Health Care Administrators) asked me to talk at their annual conference. I asked Lisa to come along and speak with me. Our topic was on marketing and PR. The bad thing… the seminar was at 8 am in the morning on Saturday and very few people showed up. We had about 18 people and expected 80 people. The good thing… Lisa and I did an amazing presentation. We played off each other and I think the attendees were impressed. We ended the presentation by 9 am and had the entire day to enjoy ourselves.

We decided to spend the afternoon in Crestview Hills and walked around Town Centre. They had shops like DSW, Talbots, Banana Republic and famous Dillards. We decided to shop, get our nails done and go to Spa 413 for a package consisting of a facial, massage and pedicure. The bad things… DSW had the worst shoes ever! No Stuart Weitzman, no Jimmy Choo, no nothing! The manicure place was terrible! We got the worst manicures ever and it costs us $15 each! The good thing… the spa was outrageous! The facial, massage and pedicure were probably the best I’ve had in years! I would certainly recommend, “Spa 413.”

After our shopping spree, we went back to the hotel and went to the chairman’s reception in the trade show area. Larry Slatsky is the Chairman of the group. It was great to see him at the conference but we didn’t really spend time with him. We did meet a lot of other people. The bad thing… It was a lot of walking and our feet were killing us! The good thing… A woman who sat in on our seminar came up to me and gave me a really nice complement about the presentation. Also, one of the trade show exhibitors told me I could be young enough to be his daughter. I bet him $100 that I couldn’t be his daughter. The bad thing… he didn’t take the bet. The good thing… he thought I looked in my early 30′s.

After the trade show, we went to the bar to have a drink and eat some appetizer’s for dinner. The good thing… we met up with a few of the trade show exhibitors and really enjoyed our conversation. The bad thing… we went a little over board on the drinks and had to get up at 5 am today to catch a plane back to JFK!

Did you ever hear of a good humor man by night, funeral director by day? Is that an oxymoron?

Yesterday, Allie and I were walking down the street and saw an old fashioned good humor truck from 1962. We went over to it to buy some ice cream before heading home.

“Cool truck,” I said.

“Yeah, it’s been in my family for generations,” said the good humor man. “I usually have someone else drive it for me but tonight the guy called in sick so I’m the driver.”

“What do you do during the day,” I asked.

“I’m a funeral director,” he said.

“Wow, that’s a great job,” I said. “Really cool.”

We walked away eating our chipwiches and I said to Allie, “wouldn’t it be cool to represent a funeral home? There’s so much you could do with that….”

I was talking with Lisa Gordon the next day and she said, we could have a contest asking people to write in and tell us why in 500 words or less they could use a casket?

Boy, I think that would make a great story! Good Humor Man, we’re going to be calling you soon!!!!