I got new ink on Saturday, much to the distress of some of my friends. “It’s your freakin’ ARM, not a t-shirt” was one of the comments, along with the suggestion that if I needed the reminder, then, well, that’s what the album is for.

And so it is. But this is more than just a reminder, it is my own personal pop-up timer. When the day arrives that I can no longer read it and understand what it means, that’s the day to put me down. I do not want to live out the end of my life like my mother: a delicate little eggshell whose mind is the yolk which has been blown out.

This was not an easy tat to acquire. The surrogate daughters and I made appointments with our regular guys up in Delray Beach. But then the RLA and I saw a guy at the local TJMaxx who had the most delicate, beautifully rendered lettering on his arm, and he told us about Calvin. We made a few recon visits. I loved Calvin’s vibe and his skills with typography. When a graphic designer wants a type tattoo, there is a lot of pressure on the tattooist to have mad skillz with hand lettering. It was obvious that Calvin has those skills. I made an appointment. The RLA and I dicked around with type. Calvin added swashes and flair.

The Number Two Surrogate called up north to cancel our other appointment. Oh, yeah, said the girl on the phone, Your mother wanted that Bon Jovi thing, right?

I… she said… wha… I…

Bon FUCKING Jovi? Are you kidding me? I’m not sure I can ever forgive the insult. JON FUCKING BON JOVI? What, next they’ll think I want a portrait of David Lee Roth on my ass? JON BON FUCKING JOVI? Do I LOOK like a refugee from a rehab house for 80s skanks? Bon Jovi? Please.

There is from New Jersey

and then there is from New Jersey. 

I am so undone by this, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to let Scott ink me again. Jon Bon Jovi. I weep. I mean I understand that Scott and his receptionist are eons younger than me and maybe all aging rockers look alike to them, but Springsteen is not Bon fucking Jovi. There is a world of difference between… Well, you know what? I can’t finish this sentence because the ONLY Bon Jovi song I could identify is Living on a Prayer, and that alone makes me blind with indignant rage that anyone would think that I, me, Miz Fucking Shoes, who has been up against the amps at a Ramones show, walked out on Frank Zappa for inordinate amounts of miscellaneous guitar ramblings, seen Bob Dylan, the Band, the Who, the Stones, Ike AND Tina Fucking Turner back in the day, ditto Johnny Cash, Dire Straits and Stevie Ray Vaughn, who has talked baseball backstage with George Thorogood (he’s a National League guy) would be so impressed with Bon Jovi that I’d want some of their insipid lyrics tattooed on my arm.

Jon Bon Jovi. Really?

Yeah. I don’t think so.

The lyrics in question.

Miz Shoes has been working on her family genealogy for years now, and has uncovered a missing relative or two, but nothing earth-shattering. As a clan, there have been some small re-connections. It’s been slow work, and done in fits and starts. There is one branch of the family, though, that seems to have been pruned from the tree of man. My mother was the only child of her mother, a lovely (based on the two photos we had of her) woman who died in the flu pandemic of 1918, when Mummy was merely 7 months old. I am named for her. I have visited her grave in Newport, Rhode Island, but there is no record of her death in the Rhode Island databases. Lillian was herself the only child of her father, but she had numerous half-siblings, all of whom had a different last name. I have found the immigration records for the siblings and their mother, but not for Lillian. I have found the marriage records for my grandfather and his second wife, but not for Lillian. I have seen my mother’s birth certificate, but there is nothing in the Rhode Island databases of her birth. I have found census records from 1910 when my grandfather was single, and from 1920, when he was already married to my grandmother.

In researching the Ellis Island database, I found Great Uncle Jake’s immigration papers. He was headed to New York to his relative, Morris Rube. Well, Rube was Lillian’s maiden name. I found in the Polish records the marriage of my Great Grandmother and her first husband, Rube, and there was some fuzzy oral history about Grandpa being a cousin somehow to Lillian. Morris Rube had to be the connection.

I found Morris Rube in the 1910 Census. He had a wife named Ida, and four children: Bessie, Jacob, Leo and David. I found a photo in my parent’s home of three young boys and on the back was written “Morris Rube’s sons”. And that is the end of the trail. The 1930 Census shows no children at home. There is only one WWI draft registration. I can’t find anything else. No marriages, no deaths, no WWII military records.

In the Jewish Genealogy websites, I can’t find anyone else looking for the Rubes. None of the extended cousins on my Grandfather’s side know of them. They are my personal lost tribe. I throw this out to the magic of search engines and the interwebz. Where are the descendants of Morris Rube of Yonkers, New York?

Today is day two of training for a new system for the office. It comes off the shelf as a way to manage IT projects. It was designed by a bunch of guys specifically for managing code writers. It has all sorts of vocabulary to learn, most of which come from sports or script writing, and none of which pertain in any way, shape or form to advertising. Everyone in the room is certain that this system will reveal the failures and incompetence of everyone else in the room.

I spent yesterday taking notes in a sketchbook. The notes were for a logo for The Coolest Person In the World, and not for the system, but who’s counting? Lunch was provided by the hotel, and if that spread was indicative of the meals they offer to guests, then I am amazed that anyone gets out alive, or at least not hungry. We had a choice of processed ham and American cheese on plain, soft commercial white bread, processed “turkey” and processed Swiss cheese on the same WonderLoaf, or a wet Caesar salad/chicken wrap. There was a sweet cream soup of indeterminate origin. Some thought it might have been squash. To round out the vegetable portions, there was wet, creamy cole slaw. Today I have packed a lunch.

I also forgot my sketchbook, which means I might have to pay more attention to the training.

There is another person I often see on my morning commute with an inimitable sense of style. He is deft with a pair of scissors, and almost everything he wears, he has altered. He is fashion-forward, as they would say on Project Runway. Michael Kors would say that there is a clear sense of who this designer is, although he might not be able to figure out who “the girl” is to whom this is geared.

I took a few photos surreptitiously. He has these head scarves in a variety of materials. One morning I watched as he made one.

And here are his high-top sneakers, carefully crafted into very on-trend gladiators.

The leather jacket has been cut away and its closures replaced by self-fabric (or leather) ties.

Another day on public transit, and another life story that I’ll never know.

Human beings, it is said, are creatures of habit. Miz Shoes can attest to that, as she has ridden in the same seat in the same car (more or less) during the last 17 years of her commuting life. And because work hours are pretty typical, she has seen a lot of the same people day in and day out for the same 17 years.

There is a woman on the afternoon MetroMover who fascinates me. She is a kewpie doll of a woman: short, prone to wearing short little skirts. She is possessed of a tiny button nose, puffy lips and a blonde bouffant flip (none of which appear to be hers by birth, but of acquisition). She wears t-strap pumps of moderate heel that look like jazz dance shoes and sheer support hose. Her face is a study in botox and eye lifts. I’d would love to take a picture of her, but there is just something about her that is a little scary.

The other day, another woman of Miz Shoes non-acquaintance, but similar work schedule got on the shuttle at the same time as Kewpie Lady. This other woman has spoken to me once or twice, unsolicited, and displayed a sort of innocent mild looniness, so it seemed safe to approach her with the following question: How old do you think that woman with all the plastic surgery is? She is a cipher to me.

Well, with that question, we went from cordial impersonality to Miz Shoes was the Crazy Woman on the Train. The Other Woman looked around and said “I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.” Really? Because there are not a lot of crazy Kewpie Dolls with Too Much Plastic Surgery on this shuttle. “I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.” and she scooted a little bit farther away.

So this has left me free to imagine Kewpie’s life story. And this is what I have decided. She is, indeed, a woman of a certain age, but she was not always. In her youth, how ever far away that really was, her name was Juan, and she was the star of a cabaret show where she portrayed Charo. Juan was fabulous and made a fabulous living as a drag queen Charo, enough to retire from the life, and have the ultimate surgery. Unfortunately, this did not work out the way he had hoped (i.e., he was not asked to marry by some handsome millionaire playboy), and so Juan-Charo has had to go to work as a secretary in a steno pool somewhere here in downtown Miami.

Yesterday was the old man’s birthday. He would have been 93. In May, it will have been seven years since he died. It doesn’t get easier, it just gets farther away. I miss him every day. I hear his voice in my head every day. I hear his advice. I heed his advice. The nurse practitioner for my mother called me yesterday, just to tell me what I already know: that Mummy is on the downside of the bell curve and declining. She’s been switched to soft foods. She’s losing weight. She’s not in pain, nor is she of this world, really. I am so glad that Daddy never saw her like this: it would have killed him.

My SisterGirlCousin went to see Daddy yesterday and lay a stone on his grave. She says that she let him know she was standing in for me. I’m sure he understood.