The Serval Zippers Sign

At the end of last night’s most exciting Mets victory, I saw something I haven’t seen in 20 years: rally caps on the Mets bench!

Johan Santana, Oliver Perez, Argenis Reyes…all were wearing their “gamers” inside out.

I think that says something about this team which we all thought was missing: comeraderie, togetherness, support. Just 3 short months ago, this clubhouse was toxic.

And people still say Willie got a raw deal?

So…

Anything…y’know…big happen in my absence?

Let’s see, when you & l last spoke, The Mets were dreadful, Willie Randolph was the manager, the Worlds Champeen Giants had just got their rings and were wondering what would happen with Jeremy Shockey and Sarah & I were in the process of buying our house.

In a nutshell, the Mets had been good for awhile, but now they’re dreadful again

Willie Randolph is no longer the manager, Jerry manuel is.

The Giants sent Shockey to New Orleans.

And the house? Aaaah, the house…

We made an offer on April 1, it was accepted on April 2, we closed on May 15. Fairly quick process, no?

OK.

So Friday, May 23 was moving day — Friday of Memorial Day weekend. I was staying home to supervise while my wife went to work.

My mother-in-law had an appointment in the City and didn’t want to leave my father-in-law home alone, so she had asked if he could help us out in any way with the move. “Of COURSE,” we say. PS – my father-in-law doesn’t drive anymore; if he can’t get a lift, he takes a NJ Transit train wherever he needs to go.

So, the movers show up on my old doorstep at 8:20 AM, as planned. Great. They’re going along loading stuff into the truck and I get a call at about 8:40 from PC Richards, delivering the Sony 40-inch to the new house. “We’ll be there in about a half hour-45 minutes,” they say. Fine.

I tell the head moving guy, “Listen, I gotta go over to the new place because I’m having a TV delivered and I’ll be back in about an hour or so.” Fine.

So I go, the PC Richards guys are already there and they bolt the Sony to the wall. It’s frikken AMAZING! We put a DVD in to test it out and …well…Michael Strahan was sitting in my lap! Unbelievable.

Anyway, I start heading back to the old place to supervise again. On the way, I stopped in Stop ‘N’ Shop to grab a Pepsi. As I’m leaving there, I get a call from my father-in-law. He says, “My wife went into the City today and thought it would be a good idea if I came down to help out where I can.”

“No problem,” says I. “We’ve got just the job for you: you can help us finish screwing in the new handles on the kitchen cabinets!”

“Great,” he says. “Now, what train station do I get off at to get to you?” So I tell him and he goes, “Oh. Well, I may not have enough for train fare.”

So I said, “OK, I’ll call Leigh (my sister-in-law) and see if she can either pick you up & drop you off down here or give you some money for the train.”

So I call Leigh and she puts my brother-in-law on the phone – he was working from home that day. So we work it out that he’ll drop my father-in-law at our old place, seeing as he didn’t know where the new place was. Meanwhile, as I was talking and driving, I realized that I didn’t have enough cash to tip the movers & cable guys later, so I headed back to the bank to get some more cash.

So while I’m on my way back to the old place, I get a call from my office. We had some notes coming due and some proceeds coming in from a note sale, but I had already had this move scheduled, so I made myself accessible via cell phone. So my boss says, “The payout didn’t go through. We’re $160,000 short.” I said, “What do want me to do?” He says, “Call Jay [my assistant] and talk him through making a transfer. His hair is standing on end right now.”

So I call Jay and he’s not at his desk. Now what? So I call my boss back and he says, “Call his cell phone.” So I call his cell phone. Not there. I leave a message. He calls me back 2 minutes later, cool as can be. “Oh, no. I handled it, no problem.” I said, “Are you sure? ‘Cause I’m here to talk you through it.”

“No, no. I’m fine. It’s done.”

OK

So by this time, I’m about back to our old place. I turn the corner…no moving truck, no men hauling furniture. Bad…very bad!

So I turn around – don’t even park – and head to the new house. My first move was to call my brother-in-law, who by now is blocks from the old place. So I said, “Don’t go to the old place, go to the new one: I’ll give you directions.”

He says, “Well, I’m almost at your door. I’m coming up to your stop sign.” I said, “OK, take a right at the stop, sign and…”

He goes “Wait! Did you just go left at the stop sign?” I had. He says, “Well, slow down. I’ll follow you.”

So I pulled over and he caught up with me and we caravanned, finally, to our new house.

He comes in and immediately starts exploring. Meanwhile, my father-in-law starts screwing in door handles and I’m pacing, wondering where the Hispanic men with the big truck could possibly have gone with our furniture.

Then, my brother-in-law leaves. Fine.

I go to call the moving company and as I’m talking to them I see the truck pull up. Whew! So they’re unloading our stuff and I’m telling ‘em where to put things and so on.

I get a call from Cablevision to install the cable/phone/internet. “I’m running ahead of schedule and would it be OK if I came over now?” Absolutely!

So the movers go along and bring stuff in.

The Cablevision installers arrive – one guy and a trainee on his third day on the job. So I show the lead guy where I want the modem installed and he asks if there was a phone line in the room. No. “Well, I have to drill, then.” I said, “You do whatever you need to do.”

I go back downstairs and I’m talking to the movers and talking to Sarah on the cell phone and I hear the smoke alarm go off. I think nothing of it – probably sawdust got in there.

Then I hear and see the lead cable guy come bolting down the stairs yelling “FIRE! WE’VE GOT FIRE!”

So he runs down the basement and turns off all the circuit breakers. Then we all go out to the side of the house where he starts yelling for a hose.

I give him the nozzle and tell him to run with it. I turn on the water and he gets the flames out.

Meanwhile one of my new neighbors saw sparks & flames coming out of the side of the house and called 911.

Turns out, he drilled right through the electrical conduit on the outside of the house where it runs into the electric meter.

And then put it out with water.

An electrical fire.

With water.

Well, the Fire Dept. showed up and made sure everything was cool with their thermal imaging cameras and J C P & L came and shut the service off from the street.

I told the cable guy, “Man, you’d better go play the number tonight, ‘cause you’re the luckiest thing on 2 legs.”

He says, “Whaddaya mean?”

I said, “Well, first of all, I don’t know how you didn’t get shot across the room when you hit the wires…”

He goes, “I was holding the rubber handle on the drill.”

I says, “And number 2, you DO realize that you put water on an electrical fire, right?”

He goes, “Man! I didn’t know what else to do…”

So we called an electrician we knew and he came and put new wires in, J C P & L came back and turned the power back on around 9:00.

And that was day 1 in our new home.

It’s been so long…

Anyway, technical gremlins have kept me from keeping The Serval Zippers Sign a going concern.

So, I have some tenative hope that this thing will keep going through the summer & beyond.

We shall see…

Anyway, hi!