Wanna Be On TV — Apply Here November 22, 2006
Posted by Geri in family, feelings, HGTV, Home, love, Real Estate, Selling Your Home, television show, TV, wedding.add a comment
After having a hearty laugh over at Marlow Harris’ blog, I felt compelled to bring it on over here. There’s no limit to what some people will do for their 15 minutes of fame. Recruiting now, HGTV is looking for a young couple just about to tie the knot, but without a plan for the wedding’s execution. Seems a little short sighted to me since the show proposes to have three designers vie for the chance to create the perfect backdrop for this lucky couple this winter. Designers’ Challenge happens to be one of my favorite shows but . . . So, if you’re thinking of popping the question, now might be a good time –that is if you have friends and family in or near Los Angeles to share your big day.
On a more practical note, if you have a house on the market in Los Angeles or Chicago that could use a facelift, you might want to contact HGTV to have the Designed To Sell team work their magic and turn your property into a showplace. Now if they’d only come to Long Island.
To apply online, visit www.pietown.tv
Just In Time For A Christmas Miracle November 17, 2006
Posted by Geri in Dogs, family, feelings, General, Home, In The News, Long Island, News, Pets, Uncategorized.3 comments
There had to be divine intervention for two miracle pups rescued by Little Shelter on Long Island. Magic and Merlin, three week old mixed breed puppies born with severely cleft palates would have had no chance at survival without the intervention of the caring people at Little Shelter, one of the island’s oldest no kill facilities.
As so often happens when good samaritans hear about the plight of others, there was an outpouring of offers of assistance. They came from far and wide and included Plastic Surgeons, Veterinarians and the public at large. Reported in Newsday, they’re waiting for the dogs to be old enough for the first of multiple surgeries to set them on the path of hopefully long and happy lives. They will remain in my prayers.
Everybody’s A Doctor, But Find Yourself A Good Plumber October 15, 2006
Posted by Geri in Buying a Home, family, feelings, General, Home, Real Estate, Uncategorized.add a comment
I’m always amazed when buyers, especially first time buyers, are ready to make an offer on a listing only to get “expert” advice from . . . everyone. It can be incredibly confusing in a frightening enough transaction involving enormous amounts of money when you get conflicting advice. I’m reminded of a statement my allergist made many years ago when we couldn’t figure out just what was causing my problem. This brilliant and talented man was putting me through a battery of tests to determine what allergen was creating havoc in my body. In surprising numbers almost everyone I met had a theory and a cure. When I called the doctor to ask about some of these possibilities, he said “everybody’s a doctor, but find yourself a good plumber.” That statement has remained with me all these years. It’s so true, everyone is an expert. Well meaning friends and family are all to willing to offer advice but their experience, if they have any might be so dated as to be worthless or worse, it could be a premise built on shifting sand.
If you’re in the market to buy a home, find yourself a competent professional and feel free to ask as many questions as you need to in order to feel comfortable with the process. Then rely on their expertise to point you in the right direction. Your goal, as is theirs, is to get you into a home that will serve your needs and hopefully bring you a lot of happiness.
A Saintly Visit October 10, 2006
Posted by Geri in family, feelings, General, Home, Long Island, New York, Religion, Uncategorized.add a comment
In an unprecedented move, the heart of an unassuming parish priest, known as the “Cure of Ars,” who was later to become St. John Vianney (Jean-Marie Baptiste), was brought to an 80 year old church named after him in Merrick in its first visit to the United States. Attracting as many believers in death as he did in life, thousands of people waited in long lines for their chance to pray before the relic, many of them expecting a miracle. They arrived by bus, by car and on foot for this once in a lifetime opportunity to witness the intact heart of a man who died in 1859.
The son of a poor farmer, St. John Vianney was ordained at the age of 30 after twice failing the examinations required. Though he had trouble learning Latin he was said to have the gift of healing and of reading the hearts of those who came to him. He lived so in the service of others that he started hearing confessions in the earliest hours of the morning, spending up to 13 to 17 hours in the limited confines of the confessional.
When his body was exhumed in 1904 due to pending beatification, miraculously his body was found intact. Both his heart and his body have remained, encased separately in glass in France for over a hundred years.
This gift of faith comes at a time when the church can certainly benefit from a healing of its own. As the patron saints of priests, I would say he’s still doing his job.
Dorothy & Toto Had Nothing On Me October 10, 2006
Posted by Geri in Entertainment, family, feelings, General, Long Island, Long Island Fair, Restoration Village, Uncategorized.add a comment
Probably in keeping with the celebration of the Columbus Day holiday weekend, I had the incredible good fortune to steal a few hours away with my favorite fella and take a wonderful trip back in time. An early morning phone call started the chain of events that brought me and my five year old date to the 164th annual Long Island Fair at the Old Bethpage Village Restoration.
My buyer unexpectedly had to work and needed to reschedule our appointment for late morning. Because there were quite a few houses to show him I chose not to bring anyone else in later in the day. Serendipitously, just as he called, I was thumbing through the paper and happened on the ad for the fair. I’d been thinking a lot lately about my grandson and how the birth of his little brother last month appeared to make him feel just a little bit displaced. We needed to spend some quality time, just the two of us.
Convinced he’d have a great time, I called his dad. It’s not often that I get “time off” on a weekend so this would be a treat for us both. The ride out to the village was filled with lively chatter about the happenings in his world and his plans for the immediate future. I worried that the weather, threatening all morning, wouldn’t hold out and we’d be rained out. But luck was with us.
Standing in the vast expanse of grass that became a makeshift parking lot, I realized this was going to be quite a trek to reach the fair grounds and the attractions ahead. I girded my loins and began the journey, wishing I’d opted for sensible shoes rather than the heels I sported. After a quick stop to buy our tickets we left, map in hand to enter another world and another time. Though there was no tornado and thankfully no witch to flatten, I felt a little like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, when she first stepped out into that foreign land.
The Village Restoration is a collection of structures restored, transported and sometimes replicated to represent life as it was in a Long Island community of the mid 1800s. There are homes, stores, a one room school house, a church and a working farm among the many buildings that make up this quaint village. My grandson’s favorite aspect of the tour by far was discovering that homes of this era had no indoor plumbing. When told they used outhouses, his response, other than a wide eyed stare was “I guess they didn’t go to the bathroom in the winter.”
We walked past pony and camel rides, a horse and buggy tour around a wide track and all sorts of animals grazing in what appeared to be some sort of center ring. Tempted by none of it we continued our walk around the grounds and finally back out to a staging area where, to my great relief, there were waiting shuttle buses to take us back to the distant parking lot.
What a fun way to spend the day. Now I have to figure out a way to go back for the Halloween celebration on October 28th and 29th. Where there’s a will, they tell me, there’s a way.
Things — Do You Own Them or Do They Own You September 16, 2006
Posted by Geri in Clutter, family, feelings, General, Home, Uncategorized.1 comment so far
Clutter can sneak up on you and turn your world upside down. It can start with something as simple as putting down your mail and telling yourself you’ll get to it later, then not focusing on it till you’re drowning in paper, or the unconscious need to collect things. I’m guilty of both and finally, out of desperation made a decision awhile back that was liberating. “Just because I own it,” I reminded myself, “doesn’t mean it has to be on display.” A simple truth, but acknowledging it was a biggie for me. I don’t want to give you the impression that my world is now pristine, clutter free and organized, it’s anything but. I feel like I’m in a twelve step program and I’m at step three.
I’ve watched all the television shows in which they take someone’s littered space and turn it into a model of organization and planning. The before pictures, embarrassing at best, give the viewer the impression that no amount of time or talent can free these people from a lifetime of bad habits. Amazingly though, the outcome is always spectacular and the invariable revisit by the host within a few months of the project’s end reveals a happy convert to an orderly and more stress free existence. I hold that out as my hope as I slog through the process.
For anyone out there who can relate, I strongly recommend watching HGTV’s Mission Organization.
9/11 Remembered September 12, 2006
Posted by Geri in family, feelings, General, New York, Uncategorized.add a comment
I shall never forget the morning of September 11, 2001. It’s one of those moments in time when everyone knows exactly where they were and what they were doing. It was a beautiful morning with clear blue skies and the promise of summer extended. An early morning phone call to an attorney I often work with revealed the beginning of what was to be a day that would go down in infamy and forever change the landscape of a world I thought I knew so well.
“Hi, how are you?” I asked when Ted picked up the phone. “Not at all well,” was his immediate response. To my query, “what’s wrong?” he said “you don’t have your television on do you? If you’re near one turn it on.” He then told me a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. It couldn’t be, it had to be a mistake. When I finally got that it wasn’t, I thought a small plane had somehow gone horribly off course. Together we watched the nightmare unfold. Commentators were speaking to people trapped on high floors, above the inferno. They had been told to stay where they were and that they would be rescued. It was amazing how calmly they recounted their experiences of what happened.
With the phone still attached to my ear I gaped in horror as the second plane appeared out of nowhere and slammed full force into the second tower. In an instant we knew we had been attacked by some unknown force for evil. It conjured up President Kennedy’s assassination. That was the only other time in my life I remember the world turning in an instant from full color into a painful, silent, endless sea of gray. I stood transfixed watching replay after replay of these unspeakable acts perpetrated on an unsuspecting nation.
Things like that don’t happen here. We’re a world away from the atrocities brought about by brainwashed soldiers of an evil war. What kind of hatred propels people to gleefully rob children of their parents, lovers of their loved ones, mothers and fathers of a child? The world turned upside down that day, we were robbed of our innocence. We could no longer go to work in the morning with an absolute expectation of returning home again at night. My heart broke that day for all those trapped by happenstance and for their would be saviors, the bravest of the brave who went into that holocaust with eyes wide open.
In the dark days that followed, thousands of photos bore witness to the devastation as families and friends searched for missing loved ones. A woman I worked with was among them, hoping against hope that her 31 year old son was injured and taken to a hospital somewhere. Perhaps he had amnesia. Perhaps he couldn’t speak. As days became weeks, the grim reality settled in for all of us. We would never be the same.
Five long years have passed, years of untold sadness for those directly affected by this insanity. As I watched the services at ground zero it was as if it happened yesterday.
A Prince Is Born September 6, 2006
Posted by Geri in Blogroll, family, feelings, General, Uncategorized.add a comment
There was nothing special about yesterday. It was another gray and threatening day on Long Island, just after the anticlimactic Labor Day weekend. Mothers scrambled to get last minute school supplies, causing long lines in superstores and clogging exits of parking lots. I needed a few report covers, nothing important enough to fight the crowds, so I decided to come back some other time. 
Good thing. I got the first call shortly after ten, telling me my son and daughter-in-law were in the hospital and she was in labor. Since I’ve been sick with an upper respiratory infection I dutifully stayed away, though my heart was clearly there. I did my pacing at home and at my office till I finally got a text message letting me know they’d had a healthy baby and I should expect a call from my grandson (the big brother) to let me know the details. What??? No sex, no weight, nothing!! Because they decided early on that they didn’t want to know the sex of the baby we waited with baited breath for the moment when we could at last focus our thoughts on a him or a her. It was cruel to leave me hanging. Admittedly my son has a warped sense of humor, much like his mother and several other members of the family. But not now. I’d waited nine long months trying not to think pink or blue. It was my moment, they already knew. I wanted to go shopping. After several text messages of my own he got the message and at long last I found out. We had another boy, Dylan Hunter. I’ll risk sounding prejudiced as I say he’s as beautiful as his name. As is befitting royalty, he had a considerable welcoming committee to witness his first interaction with our world and I could swear I heard a twenty one gun salute at precisely the moment he arrived. Seemingly unimpressed, he glanced around and decided to take a nap. He’s a very lucky young man to have a very special and loving “big brother” who will no doubt teach him everything he needs to know.
Ernesto Leaves His Calling Card September 4, 2006
Posted by Geri in Blogroll, family, feelings, General, Long Island, New York, Uncategorized.add a comment
As I sat at this keyboard on Saturday watching the wind whip through the trees, announcing Ernesto’s arrival I thought little of it. It was nothing more than a typical summer storm, or so I thought. Functioning on a limited level, I was at what I hoped was the tail end of a stubborn upper respiratory infection. As the day wore on the relentlesss rain and swirling winds were beginning to get me down. We’d had a wonderful summer on Long Island this year, with beachgoers enjoying eight weeks of uninterrupted sun. But the whole last week, as if heaven held it back as long as it could and was finally giving up, the rains fell. Nothing devastating, sometimes not even heavy rain, but the dismal gray days and moisture filled air that make you want to seek shelter and curl up with a good book.
What a shock when I finally ventured out on Sunday to pick up a newspaper and a few things at the supermarket, to see all the downed trees. Stately oaks with massive trunks leveled and occasionally split down the middle, near misses as local residents ran to get out of the way of falling trees, downed power lines — this was no minor event. We generally consider ourselves lucky in the northeast when it comes to hurricanes. The last really devastating one I remember on Long Island was Gloria. It hit in 1985 and left thousands of people without power for a week or more. You could barely drive down any street without detouring around massive downed trees and huge chunks of concrete.
Every now and then we get a reminder of our place in the universe and just how vulernable we are to the things over which we have little or no control. At least now we have the technology to be warned about some upcoming natural disasters.
The Devil’s In The Details September 1, 2006
Posted by Geri in Blogroll, feelings, Long Island, New York, Real Estate, Selling Your Home.add a comment
The phone rang and I picked up to an agitated voice at the other end. We had, a few days before, 
finalized a deal on this seller’s home with terms that worked well for my client. I was elated. She’d suffered a difficult start to her year and needed the tranquility this sale would bring her. The buyers were perfect. They had nothing to sell, had very high credit scores and were going for 80% financing, with a preapproval in place by the lending institution.
Secure in the knowledge that we had nothing to worry about, I started to focus a little more on some of the other matters calling for my attention. Now here it was just days later and I could hear the terror in her voice. She was frantic. Her attorney, away from the office, sent her the contract and she read something that set her heart racing and had her questioning the sale altogether. I went to her home to look at it with her and to try to make sense of it.
What I realized as I gazed at the document, paragraph after paragraph, was that in layman’s terms it did look frightening. It didn’t break out the cash from the mortgage amount in calculating the balance due after the down payment. It was all there if you read it as professionals would, but to her untrained eye it was missing details intrinsic to the transaction. Try as I might, explaining it and going over the math, I couldn’t convince her it was right in it’s essence. It was important in this case (as in most) that her attorney be there to explain the contract he was asking her to sign.
The lesson in it for me is to remember that the language of real estate is unique and it is incumbent on us as professionals to explain it in as much detail as necessary to those in our care. It is the responsibility of the buyer or seller to ask any questions they have in order to be completely comfortable with the process in which they’re involved. I will never again end a conversation without asking, “do you understand what’s happening, or do you need more information from me?”
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