• Motherhood
  • Love & Marriage
  • Roots
  • Writing
  • Best of Lance
  • Pregnancy
  • Photography

While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

Archives for October 2008

Squinters for Obama!

October 30, 2008 by heidi 1 Comment

I should have gotten a press pass … 

Attending Barack Obama’s rally today in Sarasota hadn’t occurred to me, until I was held up at University Parkway and U.S. 41 as Obama’s motorcade passed. 
For the hell of it, I turned toward my buddy Roger’s favorite Ed Smith Stadium, and walked one mile to the field, where I ferreted my way through the town’s underground democrats. 
Before I leave for my 4 p.m. massage, I’ll leave you with four observations from the ground:
1. One Obama supporter was in such a hurry to park his Ford pick-up truck that he drove it off the road and into a grassy ditch, where he instantly buried the back tires in the mud. I’m not sure how the christ he’s going to tow the thing out. He ran the hitch underground.
2. Two teenage boys discussing the nature of their mothers’ apathy: “My ma never votes,” said one boy. “Where does she live?” Asked the other. “Pennsylvania,” the boy replied. “Shit, dude. That’s a swing state,” said his friend.
3. Sarasota City Commissioner Fredd “Glossie” Atkins doing a kind of Christmas storefront Santa Claus jig in the front row bleachers. When the speech was over, Glossie held up five fingers and repeatedly yelled, “Five days.”
4. An exasperated man in a Montgomery Air Conditioning & Heating uniform elbowing his way through the crowd, frantic because he couldn’t find, “the wife.”

Dummy watches figure by drinking Mich Ultra

October 12, 2008 by heidi Leave a Comment

Go Rays!

This is the uber bizarro Rays dummy sitting on the porch four houses down from my apartment.
However, I should point out that Joe and I no longer live at our apartment in Old Northeast as we relocated 20 blocks north to a home we bought two weeks ago on 2nd Street across from the idyllically-named Coffee Pot Bayou. 
Since I’m in the middle of finishing a story that helps pay our mortgage, I best not piss away the valuable midnight hour.
But I promise you I’ve got a crapload of self-indulgent, heartwarming stories to sum up the last three weeks of my trifling life. None of which will include Saturday night’s Tampa Bay Ray’s nail-biter victory over the Boston Red Sox. (For more on that click here.) 
So, as my Aunt Dot would say, I hope you have a blessed Monday. We’ll be in touch soon. 

Grandpa Ra

October 2, 2008 by heidi 3 Comments

I stayed with Joe’s grandpa a few weeks ago. I started this post while we watched a baseball game on the couch:

Joe’s Grandpa Ra (his mother’s father) has lived with Joe’s parents since 1985. When the Bardi family moved to Tampa in 1989, Grandpa Ra moved into a garage-converted apartment separated by two doors and a laundry room.

Last month he celebrated his 90th birthday. Save for the cane he keeps by his blue recliner, Grandpa Ra isnt hearing impaired, memory impaired or anything impaired come to think of it. 

He’s also three times the cook I’ll ever be. 

A Brooklyn, N.Y. native, Grandpa Ra was a diehard Brooklyn Dodgers fan until Walter O’Malley moved the team to Los Angeles in 1958. In the years that followed, Grandpa Ra begrudingly rooted for The NY Mets.

Joe says he still hasn’t forgiven O’Malley for the move and when I asked Grandpa about it, he said, “Joe’s goddamn right.” 

So I persisted. 
“You’re still upset about it after all these years?”
And he shouted, “UPSET?! Agghht.”

Agghht is Grandpa Ra’s favorite expression. He uses it to punctuate his frustration at the beginning of sentences. (And to mark his frustration at the end of sentences.) It’s an endearing conversation staple. 

Example:

Me: “If the Rays make it to the playoffs, will you go to a game?”
Grandpa: “Agghht. I don’t like going to the games because I have to get up so many times to go to the bathroom.”
Me: “Even if it’s the playoffs?”
Grandpa: “Agghht. Can I fix you a sandwich?”
(In the middle of this conversation, Joe walked through the living room and announced that he was going to take a shower.)
Grandpa: “Why dont you just jump in the pool?”

Joe laughed. Shook his head and walked into his parents’ house presumably to take a shower. Grandpa shrugged, made the agghht noise and turned his attention back to the TV presumably to the baseball game he’d been watching.

“You know,” he rasped. “Lou Gehrig. They called him the Iron Man, and then he got a disease and just like that he was gone.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty sad.” I said. 
“Iron Man. Agghht. He lived two years after he got that disease.”
To change the subject, I asked Grandpa Ra if he ever caught a baseball during a game.
He smiled and said yes:
“At a Philadelphia-Mets game at Shea Stadium. MaryAnn wasn’t married yet. They tried to kick us out. They said I interfered with the play. They come over and ask me for the ball back. ‘Hey,’ they said, ‘you either give us the ball back or we make you leave.’ I said no. And I tell you what, they made us move, and they gave us better seats than we had before. The whole family. We had the best seats in the house.”

Why do I even blogger?

If you really want to know why I continue to write here, read this post.

Lance lately

  • Old School Values
  • Land of Hives and Honey
  • The Happy Camper
  • Truth Bombs with Henry [No. 2]
  • Truth Bombs with Henry [No. 1]
  • By now I’d have two kids

Social commentary

  • Crystal on Pug worries, or what to do when your dog starts having seizures
  • heidi on Land of Hives and Honey
  • Roberta Kendall on Land of Hives and Honey
  • Jane on Pug worries, or what to do when your dog starts having seizures
  • reb on The Happy Camper

Back in the day

  • December 2017 (1)
  • September 2017 (1)
  • May 2017 (1)
  • June 2015 (2)
  • May 2015 (1)
  • February 2015 (1)
  • September 2014 (1)
  • February 2014 (1)
  • January 2014 (1)
  • December 2013 (6)
  • November 2013 (3)
  • October 2013 (5)
  • September 2013 (7)
  • August 2013 (2)
  • July 2013 (3)
  • June 2013 (2)
  • May 2013 (5)
  • April 2013 (2)
  • March 2013 (6)
  • February 2013 (6)
  • January 2013 (4)
  • December 2012 (1)
  • November 2012 (3)
  • October 2012 (3)
  • September 2012 (3)
  • August 2012 (5)
  • June 2012 (5)
  • May 2012 (1)
  • April 2012 (4)
  • March 2012 (5)
  • February 2012 (6)
  • January 2012 (3)
  • December 2011 (1)
  • November 2011 (2)
  • October 2011 (6)
  • September 2011 (6)
  • August 2011 (5)
  • July 2011 (3)
  • June 2011 (4)
  • May 2011 (7)
  • April 2011 (7)
  • March 2011 (6)
  • February 2011 (6)
  • January 2011 (5)
  • December 2010 (7)
  • November 2010 (4)
  • October 2010 (4)
  • September 2010 (11)
  • August 2010 (6)
  • July 2010 (4)
  • June 2010 (6)
  • May 2010 (7)
  • April 2010 (8)
  • March 2010 (5)
  • February 2010 (6)
  • January 2010 (6)
  • December 2009 (10)
  • November 2009 (6)
  • October 2009 (8)
  • September 2009 (4)
  • August 2009 (4)
  • July 2009 (8)
  • June 2009 (8)
  • May 2009 (11)
  • April 2009 (5)
  • March 2009 (14)
  • February 2009 (7)
  • January 2009 (6)
  • December 2008 (3)
  • November 2008 (3)
  • October 2008 (3)
  • September 2008 (5)
  • August 2008 (11)
  • July 2008 (10)
  • June 2008 (13)
  • May 2008 (9)
  • April 2008 (4)

Oddities

Reading material

Wild by Cheryl Strayed Travels with Charley Home Game bossypants just kids the time travelers wife Boys Life The-Liars-Club My Uncle Oswald Stephen King On Writing

Me.

Heidi K

Joe.

Joe on guitar

Henry.

henry as werewolf

Chip.

Chippy in a cupboard

Buzzy.

Buzzy

Why Lance?

This blog is named after my old friend Sarah's manifestation of a dreamy Wyoming cowboy named Lance, because the word blog sounds like something that comes out of a person's nose.

About me

I'm a journalist who spends my Mondays through Fridays writing other people's stories, a chronic procrastinator who needs structure. I once quit my job to write a book and like most writers, I made up excuses why I couldn't keep at it.

My boyfriend fiancé husband Joe likes to sleep in late on the weekends, but since we have a kid now that happens less than he'd like.

Before Henry and Chip, I used to spend my mornings browsing celebrity tabloid websites while our dog snored under the covers. Now I hide my computer in spots my feral children can't reach because everything I own is now broken, stained or peed on.

I created Lance in an attempt to better spend my free time. I thought it might jump start a second attempt at writing a novel.

It hasn't. And my free time is gone.

But I'm still here writing.

I'm 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 and I've yet to get caught up in something else, which is kind of a big deal for a chronic procrastinator.

How I met Joe

If you're new here and looking for nirvana, read this post.

And if that’s not enough…

heidikurpiela.com

Join the fan club

Subscribe

Copyright © 2022 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in