191 Hampton Road

So, last night I was lying in bed talking to Phil, when the little ditty, " God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference" popped into my head and with it a string of very vivid memories.

My Nonnie and Poppy had that saying cross stitched and framed over their tiny kitchen table. I can remember countless times sitting at that table eating, or just talking and looking at that saying. I remember Poppy's scanner sitting on the table sometimes squaking sometimes not, his pill box with the days of the week on it sitting to the right against the wall watching him cut bananas into his ceral. The wall paper that I am almost positive was the same through out my childhood, I don't ever remember any redecorating, with the one exception of my grandmother getting rid of the shag carpeting. I remember the downstairs storageroom/pantry being changed into a bathroom other then that the house stayed the same for decades.

191 Hampton Road, has been sold and remodeled after my grandparents passed away. I was sent pictures of what it looks like now and it is unrecognizable and I cried, I know childish but when there are so few places in life that have held any comfort for me it was hard to see. Gone is the blue bedroom with twin beds where we used to stay, gone is the pink room where if we were lucky we could sometimes stay if there was only one of us spending the night. Gone is the "study" where they kept toys for us grandkids to play with, domino's and big ass lego's. A cordaroy teddy bear. There was a stationary bike we like to sit on and pretend to be riding. Worse yet, gone is Nonnie and Poppy's bedroom. A place we never went into unless invited. It wasn't a huge room but it was enough for them. The carpet has been taken up from the stairs we used to slide down and now they are just bare floor. Beautiful but sad.

Every year Southamton holds a 4th of July parade, and I remember how my siblings and I would look forward to the BBQ at my grandparents afterwards, we were so isolated from the world that we looked forward to the interaction with our cousins with a kind of rabid hunger. They were all older then us by at least 8 or 10 years with the exception of Blair who is only 2 years older then I am. But it was fun, we would hide soda's in the Suburban that we could sneak home for later because it was a forbidden food, we would gorge on hot dogs and hamburgers. We would run like crazy making sure we didn't trample my grandfater's garden. We would play in the field behind the funeral home which neighbored my grandparents house, searching for wild rabbits and crab apples, I had my first kiss there, a boy named Christian. There were these toys, I can't remember the name but they were like big bouncie balls with a handle on top and you sat on them and we would hop forever around the driveway laughing like crazy. I adored my Aunt Pennie ( and still do) and looked forward to spending time with her, sitting on her lap, or holding her hand or the simple act of her brushing my hair out of my face and calling me Peaches, and of course her kick ass seafood/pasta salad. I remember wanting to emulate my cousin Siobhan, I thought no one could be cooler, I remember being disappointed as she got older and married and did other things for the 4th. 191 Hampton Rd is one of the few places I could be a kid, where the wrath of my mother couldn't reach me for just a few hours.

Gone now is my grandfather's garden, replaced with a gunite pool, standard "Hamptons" fare, I suppose. The small steps on the back of the house are gone, replaced with a screened in porch. Poppy's big white garage is still there, with new black shutters. I wish I had the money to buy it and restore it to what I remember it being, Poppy's chair and bookcase in one corner of the living room, Nonnies in the other, The marble table in front of the couch, the piano. I know time marches on, and I know this is just another indicator of it, but it also means they are really gone, not that I ever thought that they were coming back but it means I won't walk through that house and smell my grandmother's ivory soap and perfume, I won't hear my grandfather lecture me, and even though they have been gone for years now it was comforting to know the house was largely untouched, though I never entered it again after Nonnie passed away. I will always see that house as 4th of July's, A&W cream soda in the fridge, the fridge covered with pictures of various grandchildren and great grandchildren. The german shepards named Kim, sitting on the front porch with the older kids and eventually becoming the older kids.

So 191 Hampton Road, here is my final salute, thank you for housing some of the best memories of my life, Lord help me if the ever sell 44 Ocean Ave. I love you Nonnie and Poppy Thank you for helping to shape me into who I am.

Kunty and Wonder

Kunty and Wonder

Our summer superhero's are still plowing through the list that the Great Schlong has given them in order to satisfy the Hampton Elite, when the happen onto yet another pool. It's cold and raining and Wonder has had about ENOUGH. They pull the cover off of said pool and as Wonder drags out the equipment to start over boarding the beast Kunty is looking around the shed (that would put most two bedroom houses to shame) for the cover bag and the baskets and eyeballs for the returns. One of the shed doors and locked, so Kunty walks around to the other the whole while Wonder is cussing and muttering trying to get things done. As Kunty comes back around the shed reporting that there is no sign of said cover bag and that even if there was there would be no way to get it as the shed is chock full of SHIT that most people will NEVER use in their lifetime. So they give up momentarily, and get to work. While Kunty is vacing out the pool, because being the controller that she is Wonder does not do it fast enough, Wonder goes about backwashing the filter and getting the chems ready to put in the pool as soon as Kunty is done. Wonder however soon gets bored, (seeing as how she has the attention span of a goldfish this happens quite often) and decides to investigate the shed further. Walking into the shed Wonder finds the light switch and begins to look around. To her relief she finds the cover bag, shoved in the far right corner of the shed. She begins to climb over chairs and boxes and rugs and tables and other such things when she happens to find a few piles of shit. Wonder who along with a short attention span has a vivid imagination stops cold. Wondering if she should continue or just back out and pretend that she never saw anything decides to continue on with her venture and grab the stupid f@#$ing cover bag and get the hell out. Wonder returns from the shed and shows her prize to Kunty who at this time is fighting a rose bush near the equipment because NO ONE knows how to prune their shrubbery. "Great you found it where was it at?" she asks Wonder, "In the far right corner of the shed" ' Well it's one last thing we have to worry about right!?' "Yes' responds Wonder, ' but either they have a small dog or a very large rodent problem' Why would you say that" Kunty asks. So Wonder proceeds to tell her of the obstacle course and the shit piles and then adds ' I think they are breeding King Cobra's and must have mongooses' to control the over breeding.' At this Kunty laughs so loud and hard that she is doubled over, and when she stands up gets snagged by a thorn and receives a most horrifying injury to the scalp. Cussing and screaming and standing up out of breath from laughing, they leave the mongoose house in East Hampton with blood running down Kunty's face only to fight another day.

The Adventures of Kunty and Wonder

The Enoch Incident

So it's the summer of pool bitching and our heros, yes I did say hero's Kunty Kunterson and Wonder Titts who are yet again working for the order of the Schlong in trying to get the pools right for the Hampton Elite along side their more humble coworkers whom we shall describe at a later date. Kunty and Wonder are slamming through the openings one fine May morning thinking hey we will DEFINITELY have these pools on the Great Schlong's list open by Memorial Day, when they happen upon the dreaded Nappeauge Stretch to the Horrid Enoch Pool. Now keep in mind that this pool is a vyn-all pool and is in DESPERATE need of a new liner, but with the evil Enoch forces refusing to replace it for YEARS the pool shows no signs of hope until in their trusty white steed our super hero's arrive, ok so it was a white ford van with the pool company logo on the side but you get the point. After two days of filling, again NEW LINER ENOCH they take off the cover only to find that the blue liner is GREEN from the Alge. So they do what any good pool bitch would do and they pull out all the stops the over board pump the extra hoses the extension cords the 5gallons of liquid chlorine the nets the brushes ALL OF IT. Well, while our unsuspecting hero's are working in separate area's the equipment decides to help the pool try and take them down. Fist Kunty can be heard yelling and cussing by the filter and pump. Then wonder sets up the overboard and starts to suck the algae out of said pool. Unsuspecting Kunty wanders on to the deck only to be tripped by the extension cord. The pump STOPS. Kunty and Wonder gaze at each other wonder what is going to happen next, when all of a sudden, there is a sizzling sound and THE CORDS CATCH FIRE. Now our hero's always the professionals look at each other and start screaming like the girls they are, until Wonder Titts has the where with all to shout at Kunty Kunterson "UNPLUG THE CORD UNPLUG THE CORD" Kunty sprints to the side of the house and unplugs the extension cord while the fire continues to grow. Why not just throw said pump into the pool to extinguish the flames you ask? Because at the precise moment our superhero's were both TOOLS. Lucky for them in the misdt of all the girlie screaming there was a running house and Kunty started to put out the fire. Alas, order was restored and Kunty and Wonder picked up the implements of destruction, I mean pool cleaning and said to each other "FUCK THIS LET'S GO HAVE A BEER"

Night Out

OK, so here we are at Murf's having a good time. Picked up my mother's friend Karen because she has been having a hard time lately and thought that maybe if she got to come out and have a beer she could really unwind. So it's me Kate, my sister Kim my brother's John and Lawrence and Karen and Roger just back from Iraq. So I have 3 beers when I first walk in and don't even realize it. They were going down like water(always a bad sign). So we are there for like two hours I guess and my sister is talking to some kid and someone decides that what the night is lacking is some type of drama. So this kids says something to John (who by the way is like 6'4 and180) and he starts mouthing off to this kid and I walk up in the middle of it and John stands up so I got in front of him to make sure he doesn't do anything cause the other kid was only like 120 soaking wet if that maybe 110. So John is yelling I am in front of him Rob the bartender comes out ( he reminds me of the kid from the Terminator movies) and he's in front of the other kid and the kids comes around Rob towards us and I guess I kinda picked him up and tossed him and his beer across the bar and he fell, can I just tell you how bad I feel about that too. I kept apologizing to him I didn't mean to do it and I don't remember putting my hands on him. Everything else but that I remember, So Rob is telling him to leave and I guess when I threw the kid my brother was so taken aback that he stopped what he was doing and laughed. The worst part is that the WHOLE BAR was deathly quite even the stupid Juke Box stopped playing. So we left (after I kept apologizing to this kid and tried to buy him a beer.) even though Rob wanted us to stay.I still feel really bad But to be beat up by a girl in a bar you've never been to. That has to suck. So that's my story :P