My Sports Teams

Rah Rah?

Go ahead, BOO and HISS. I don’t root for any team really. Just not into sports, never was, never will be. When I moved to Boston in my young twenties I was lectured on who to root for so I tried to root for the Boston Red Sox and since I got married and we had our children in Boston, that’s the only time I felt somewhat of a connection to a team. I remember going to a professional cocktail party and making the mistake of asking who the Boston Celtics were? Someone almost hit me! So, I learned quickly but sports was never in my blood. Since then, we moved back to our hometown of New York and while here the Yankees rule, I secretly still root for the Red Sox because I do, in a way, feel sorry for them. They seem to choke at the last-minute and who can’t relate to that? I guess I’m for the under-dog…..

The Most Impulsive Thing I've Ever Done

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“Please Come To Boston In The Springtime…..”

Move. I was living in Brooklyn, working at Paramount Pictures when I got sick with mono and broke my ankle. They stole my job away from me (Thanks, Diana) and I needed a new start.

After working out a deal with PPC, I got unemployment and health insurance but had no job or at least no job that was comparable to the one I held. (Again, Thanks, Diana.) It was during the seventies and Affirmative Action was newly discovered and revered. It was at that point when our boss, Diana, added a J. to her first name. All of a sudden she was J. Diana,( J for Juanita.) All her employees laughed behind her back, but it was SO Diana. I happen to know she has dropped the “J” since. I bumped into her near Starbucks one day about thirty years after I worked there and she still gave the same, big, fake smile, on her heavily painted (and probably surgically enhanced) duplicitous made-up face.

After that incident, I decided I wanted to move, so by myself, (and with my parents permission!?) I traveled to several different cities to see if I would like to put down roots. I spent an entire day on a smelly Greyhound bus to go from NY to Portland, Maine and then from Portland to Bar Harbor, Maine. I stayed a few days in each place but it didn’t seem like a fit. I landed up in Boston and lived there for many years. I thought my best friend Matthew would be moving there too but he changed his mind. I waited for him to come for longer than I should have and I played “Please Come To Boston” so many times it is engraved in my heart. I will play that song after I post this, that I know for sure.

I got married in Boston, bought a house, had two children there and rooted for the Red Sox. Between you and me, while I don’t still live in Boston, I still root for Red Sox. Don’t tell the Yankees, or my son.

For Matthew and Denise

Someone I Wish I Were Closer To

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*”She Rides In The Front Seat, She’s My Older Sister”

* song by Carly Simon

I didn’t have to think long for an answer; the question was already answered in my mind and in my heart before I stopped reading the prompt. Who would I pick?  My sister. We look nothing alike but many people say we sound exactly alike, especially on the phone. Sounding identical on the phone came in very handy for practical jokes when she grew tired of talking to a guy or a girlfriend and handed the receiver over to me; I joyfully took over. No one ever knew, we laughed about that a lot, it is still a funny memory. We tricked our dad all the time he could never tell us apart on the phone, tricking mom was a challenge but we even got her once or twice.

We may be connected by blood but we don’t really have a lot in common. Our mother and father used to call us Day and Night, probably not a good thing to encourage a warm, trusting, sibling relationship but they were right. You probably could not find two more dissimilar sisters if you tried.

We are opposite in most everything. If I love a movie (Ferris Bueller) she will hate it. If she recommends a Doctor (she did) I hated him on sight. We have no preconceived notions it’s just that are tastes are so different. When she picks out a present for someone she buys what she would love to have; when I buy a present I think of what the person will like based on who they are.

Our hearts must be wired differently as well as our personalities. I’m trying so hard, so deliberately NOT to push buttons or start a fight. We have the same issues for each other yet with different circumstances. I feel like I walk on eggshells when I talk to her and she feels the same way about me. There are dangerous, hidden explosive mines that should probably all be detonated by now but I’m afraid they are not. They explode a few times a year and I’m being conservative.

I always wanted a Hallmark sister, I longed to buy one of those cards that said “To My Sister And Best Friend” but I couldn’t. I wanted us to be the two sisters in the photograph above, loving, sweet, bound by an indescribable connection. I wanted an older sister to play with me, someone I could rely on for support and warmth. Someone that would teach me things about boys and make-up but our five and a half-year difference and our different styles made it hard if not impossible. She probably wanted another person like herself, more adventurous and wild but we can’t seem to meet half way on anything.

I love my sister, I wish we weren’t that different but we are. Understanding each other will never happen; now we are trying for acceptance but that’s really hard too. I wish my sister was my friend, I wish she was my best friend but she isn’t. I wish we didn’t have the complicated emotional history we have; we’re the Yankees vs the Red Sox, the chocolate to vanilla, our pet names for each other were “stupid” and “ugly” and that just sounds so wrong. But, we were also “tuna fish” as we said good-night to each other through a fake wall partition and “peanut butter,” and that exchange usually lasted a good ten or fifteen minutes or more. Until one of us started to get tired and then we would ask good-naturedly “What time is it?” just to prolong our simple game.

My most favorite memories when we were older and our parents would still be sleeping but she and I would wake up and gather around the kitchen’s white formica table and sip coffee together and talk. In the end, she is my only sibling and when our mother dies we will have our history and memories to link us together. Maybe then, we will be able to put away our differences and cling to what we have left: each other.