Excerpt From "More Shit And Other Stuff That I Can't Make Up": At Least Fudge Was Alive. As For Our Hamsters...

Trust me that they each were dead: 

1. One inhaled refrigerator insulation (Dad's negligence)
2. The second had wet tail
3. The namesake fell into a squirrel-dug hole and fell 16 feet before meeting another six (Dad's negligence)
4. And the fourth died naturally 

With the namesake, by the way, Dad actually named the namesake one to make us think that the name-honored one had survived. At least I give that he used minhag Ashkenazi, even though that wasn't exactly his intent.

What I don't give—or get—is his intent to deceive—which could be called both lashon hara and perhaps shem hara, maybe even chillul shem (and since we're discussing deceit here, chillul HaShem). Even worsely is that we—that is, my sister and I—found out about it only long after both the name honoree and the namesake had been deceased, and even long after the final hamster had been deceased—and we found out when we were having lunch with my father and my grandmother.

To sum this up, then:

1. Dad allows Santa Little—whom, by the way, was named as a compromise for "Santa Claus" and "Stuart Little"—to dig a hole in the closet after escaping from his ball—and all of us agree that Dad should've gotten Santa out of the closet and back into the ball right away, as one cannot compromise wherein negligent rodenticide is involved.
2. Dad lets the second Frisky meet a similarly-ignominious end after not even telling us that the first Frisky died of Wet Tail—let alone that he searched around for a similar-looking hamster to make us think that the first Frisky had survived—and then the second Frisky ends up meeting the kind of ending that the first overall hamster met.
3. Dad lets Anastasia die naturally—because what better way to let a hamster die after her predecessors die is there, especially since she was named in honor of a princess whom was caught up in the middle of how her Anti-Semitic parents angered Lenin, Trotsky, and quite a few others? 

A "tail" of four hamsters that has fur-flying irony, paradoxes, and plenty of "Oy veys!" to accompany it—and with the reflection that a third-generation pogrom survivor uses minhag in a bad way while he at least has no mishaps with the namesake of a secondary victim of Anti Semitism.

As I said, more shit and other stuff that I can't make up!

Meanwhile, at least Fudge (whose story I just read on the news and thus inspired me to recall the story of my own hamsters) is apparently living a sweet and warm life in contrast to the cold and bitter endings that my own hamsters met—though at least they all had decent levayot in my grandma's backyard! 

My Next Book Is Being Published. Why I Made The Prices High This Time, By The Way

As I stated in the most-recent excerpt of the book, "[a]fter all, just typing all of this after a partly-mental-illness-affected hiatus from writing has affected my mental illnesses to flare up." For me, having Cerebral Palsy and mental illnesses (not to mention IBS) makes writing incredibly hard especially when I'm often drained of energy. Exacerbating the difficulty that I have in writing books is that I type with only one finger at a time, I can't format pictures and adjust screenshots as quickly as those without Cerebral Palsy or similar conditions can (at least physically—for those of them that have mental illnesses and/or other conditions, their difficulties in typing, formatting pictures and adjusting screenshots, etc. can be just as significant as mine).

Thus, I think that the labor that I put into writing this book justifies the $9.99 Kindle-editon price and the $18 paperback-edition price for which I am selling the book. By the way, my arms and legs are feeling tired as I'm typing; and my OCD/Anxiety, etc. is flaring up along with my muscles feeling tired.

Also by the way, I'm still giving away a copy of my first book—especially since its main subject has been incredibly patient with me throughout all of this, including a difficult time that I'm enduring for both my sake and for my first book's main subject's sake.

Update (7:03 PM EST): The new book is published.

Excerpt From My Upcoming Book: “Dark Irish”, Allen, and “Polio”—Three Bubbe Meises That Nana Allen Told To the Younger Kids (With My Maternal Grandfather Being One Of Them)

I seem to have more of a contempt for my late maternal grandfather’s mother the more that I understand about her, at least wherein her bubbe meises are concerned. The three bubbe meises that really (forgive my language) piss me off (as if “shit” wasn’t language for which I might need to ask forgiveness):

1.    That we’re of the “Dark Irish”

2.    [Not excerpted here]

3.    That my grandaunt Kas had polio

The real stories are the following, respectively:

The “Dark Irish”

We’re Portuguese Irish, and likely even Sephardic Jewish and Irish. Nana Allen’s maternal grandfather was a “John McCoy”, and probably an Anusi—and “McCoy” was certainly not his own name, as he is not buried in the McCoy Family Plot in Baltimore’s New Cathedral Cemetery. As for how he immigrated to Ireland, my grandaunt Bernadette “Bern” Allen Dew (z”l) stated that “He fled a war in Spain”—which I found out after I saw the Census record that read “Spain” and “Ireland” for the respective birthplaces of Nana Allen’s maternal grandparents, the parents of the Rosalita “Rose” (or “Rosa”) McCoy Reilly whose 1900 Census record lists the “Spain” and “Ireland” in question for her parents’ birthplaces. As for the “war in Spain”—as “John McCoy”’s 1850 Census record helped me to research—that war was the Peninsular War, from which he as a Lisboa-born infant fled with his parents to Ireland.

About three decades after he immigrated to Ireland as a war refugee—and almost certainly an Anusi one at that—he immigrated to the United States as—as far as I know—an immigrant. By 1850, he had been married to MaryAnn Elizabeth née McCoy for at least eight to ten years and had the following children:

1.    John, Jr.

2.    MaryAnn Elizabeth, Jr. (whom, per a record of her second husband’s family history, told the bubbe meise that her mother was born “Mary Dolan”)

3.    Ann

He seems to have named the first two children per minhag Sephardi—after all, the first son was named for his father, and the first daughter was named for her mother (and apparently got a flair for spreading bubbe meises from—ironically—her, as the 1880 Census Record for a “Rose Riley” lists both of Mrs. “Riley”’s parents as having been in Ireland—and even while the 1880 Census record for MaryAnn’s and Rose’s sister Lavinia lists them as having been born in Maryland.)

Then he had four more children, and a nasty divorce to boot about six years after the youngest one was born. While I don’t know the exact circumstances of the divorce, I know—as I said—that he is certainly not buried in the McCoy Family Plot in New Cathedral Cemetery, and that his wife told the Census taker that she was a widowed mother of four daughters as of 1870.

By 1880, he had a grandchild whom proved that his Sephardish Yidishkeit was still around and alive within the family, even though he apparently hadn’t been around or alive since 1870—his daughter Rosalita had a daughter whom she named “Ann(e)”, and his ex-wife and his daughter’s in-law mother both went by “Ann(e)”. Then he had more grandchildren by Rosalita with a mark to prove that no real Catholicism was to be found as far as he was concerned: after all, none of the granddaughters carried “Mary” or any variant thereof for either a first name or otherwise as an honorific for the mother of Jesus.

Even Alice Marie Reilly named none of her daughters “Mary” or any variant thereof insofar as the prénom d’honorifique de la Virginé is concerned—the first names of her daughters were “Marguerite” (since her in-law mother was Margaret Conley Allen—and I’m now realizing where her Sephardish Yiddishkeit showed up in that regard, if I hadn’t already realized it a little bit), “Katherine”, “Bernadette”, and “Dolores”.

 (Per JewishGen, by the way and although JewishGen covers mostly Ashkenazi Jewish communities, “Marguerite” and “Katherine”—and variants thereof—were used among Jews; and as one rabbi told me when I asked if naming Reilly for Nana Allen and her mother was permissible in Jewish tradition, “There are no rules for such a thing. You may name your pet anything you like.” Also, Ariela Pelaia of ThoughtCo—formerly About.Com—captures what I’ve generally read regarding both Hebrew and Non-Hebrew names when she states, “[T]here is no hard and fast rule when it comes to giving your child a Hebrew name.”

(Also by the way, Sephardic Jewish girls will sometimes be named after living grandparents as opposed to living parents—the minhag varies in that regard.) 

As far as Alice Marie’s sisters, they were (besides Anne—z”l—whom died at the age of seven or eight):

1.    Rosa

2.    Sara—not “Catherine”, but “Sara Catherine” (and contrary to what Mom claims, “Sara” is not a common Catholic name—or at least too common of one—as it would arouse suspicions, especially in a family in which the first girl is not named “Mary”)

3.    Helen

4.    Agnes—whom later became “Sister Mary Rosalita Reilly”

By the way, Alice Marie’s first son was Edgar Joseph, for his father and distinguished as “Edgar Joseph Eymard”—and I’m now really beginning to see the Sepharidish Yiddishkeit (or “Sefardishkeit” or even “Ladinokeit”— and I’m going to assume that I coined those despite I can’t say that I made those up—after all, “Sefardish” and “Ladino” were long around before I was, and making  “Sefardishkeit” from “Sefardish” and “Yiddishkeit” is simply just making a compound word that can be used to describe the Yiddishkeit of Sephardim in Yiddish.

(Also by the way, I’m pretty sure that this is at least part of why my maternal grandfather took an interest in Yiddish, although he was—even if he didn’t know that he was—reasonably ascertainably a matrilineally-Jewish grandson of a patrilineally-Jewish bat Anusim—and his widow, my maternal grandmother, is my maternal grandparent whom is of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage.)

Meanwhile, this alone (as I’m now realizing) helps to explain why I thoroughly and even defensively  explain quite a bit of what I explain—as if getting called “an overall liar” at Sheppard Pratt by a caseworker whom fell for my father’s lies about me wasn’t enough, having Nana Allen throw her younger children and their descendants for a loop really affected me to start laying out every detail of quite a few cases once I found out about being thrown for such a loop—and as if many of my matriarchs and patriarchs on Dad’s side didn’t do enough loop throwing, todah rabah (and their loop throwing was more understandable than her loop throwing, as—as I later read—the Inquisition ended in 1834, whereas increasing Anti Semitism still affects many of my paternal relatives loathe to admit that we’re Jewish—even to the point at which one relative is trying to paint me as an overall liar in regard to what my father’s maternal grandmother did, and notwithstanding that I can neither help what happened or conjure up evidence to fit the narrative of what he wants to believe what happened.

(Incidentally, that will—God willing—probably end up in More Shit And Other Stuff That I Can’t Make Up—after all, just typing all of this after a partly-mental-illness-affected hiatus from writing has affected my mental illnesses to flare up.)

“Polio”

This one probably pisses me off the most. Despite articles that discuss the Irish Catholic “shame” of the Kennedys regarding Rosemary Kennedy (with “shame” being the word that the Kennedys themselves used), Nana Allen—who herself identified as a strong Irish Catholic—still has no excuse for lying about Grandaunt Kas’ Cerebral Palsy.

The story still goes that Grandaunt Kas contracted polio when she was seven or eight—this despite that she wasn’t going to have time to contract polio in the midst of the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918 and the Rheumatic Heart Fever Epidemic of 1923-1925 or thereabouts. Rheumatic Heart Fever is what actually killed Grandaunt Dolores, whom died on January 25, 1923, by the way (and as for where I got the 1925 date, Great-Granddad Czarnecki’s sister Regina died of Chorea due to Rheumatic Heart Fever on June 23, 1925).

Grandaunt Kas was born on November 6, 1911, and Grandaunt Bern somehow remembered that Grandaunt Dolores died in the Spanish Flu Epidemic. Either way, no way was Grandaunt Kas going to be going anywhere where she could contract polio—she was probably as housebound when the Spanish Flu hit the Allen household as much as all of the Allen children were when Rheumatic Heart Fever hit the Allen household. The more that I thought about that, then, the more that I had to conclude that Nana Allen told another bubbe meise—even my grandmother at first said that she didn’t know for sure, and that Nana Allen had “a lot of stories”.

Besides:

1.    Mild Cerebral Palsy can become worse after illnesses such as the flu and Rheumatic Heart Fever—and with illnesses that can cause fevers, you’re messing with illnesses that can cause some serious brain damage. So either way, Grandaunt Kas either had exacerbated Cerebral Palsy after the Spanish Flu Epidemic or she had a fever that effected brain damage and resulting Cerebral Palsy.

2.    The person whom told me that Grandaunt Kas had Cerebral Palsy, he would have no reason to lie—he worked for her when he and my mother were in high school, and she could tell a kid like him what she wouldn’t have dared to tell peers of hers or quite a few people within her own family!

That would also explain the real reason that Grandaunt Kas turned down three marriage proposals—not because she wanted to be single and independent, but because she was afraid that each of her suitors would run if they found out what she really had—and I can tell you that because I’ve lived being both implicitly and explicitly rejected by peers of mine due to my Cerebral Palsy.

Excerpt From My Upcoming Book: What Knowing Would've Helped: e.g., My Father Passed His Mental Illnesses Down To Me

April 2006, Spring Break, a threat of suicide, and thus a whole week in April of 2006 and a whole Spring Break spent in Sheppard Pratt...and this after I reached my breaking point with my father's abusiveness. Not to mention that learning about the Holocaust 4.5 years earlier, right after 9/11, actually partly effected the onset of my OCD/Anxiety, Depression, and ADD—and that I would eventually figure out that that's why he had all of those pill bottles in his apartment, and that other matters would be explained by my father's OCD/Anxiety, Depression, and ADD.

So went my life with the fallout of 9/11, the times shortly before it, and the times shortly after it. At least my father's admitted to having ADD since then, but the Depression and OCD/Anxiety are still—albe an open secret to me and others—a secret. Of course, knowing about my father's Depression and OCD/Anxiety would've helped before I had to end up in Sheppard Pratt, let alone after I ended up in it. The worst part is that my mother knew about it and didn't tell me even about the day that she ended up discovering that he took Wellbutrin^®, the generic of which I currently take (at least when I have the energy and time to be at consistent with my medication as possible) and any given form of which I have no idea in regards to whether my father still takes it.

Speaking of medication, my father's paternal grandfather—whom took medication for his own Depression—did not have medication work for him, and he subsequently took his own life as a result of ultimately-medication-resistant Depression. That, too, would've helped to know, especially when the bubbe meise about him dying of Black Lung was pulled together from three facts that were quite the opposite of the facts of his too-late-to-abort suicide attempt:

1. An Anthony Czarnecki was born in October 1908 and died in 1972—and my father claimed that his grandfather died when he was 12. That Anthony Czarnecki died in a fire in Philadelphia, in contrast to the Anthony Czarnecki whom was actually born in October 1904 and jumped off of Exeter's long-since torn-down Falls River Bridge in December 1964.
2. He did have Black Lung as a result of being a miner and did actually immigrate from Poland. However, he as a pogrom survivor came over here with his parents, and his brothers Bernard "Bernie" (whom was subsequently exploited by my great-granduncles John and Joe), Joseph "Susi" (whom my granduncle Tony, z"l, understandably described as an "SOB"), and Edward "Ed" Czarnecki (whom subsequently served at Fort Knox when my grandfather served down there in the days of mandatory service) served in World War Two. In other words, the bubbe meise about a lone immigrant from Poland whom became a miner, served in Korea, and died of Black Lung obscured a darker story and helped my try to father steal valor from Great-Granduncles Bernie (whom died in 1963) and Ed (whom served stateside during Vietnam and prior to the draft, and probably Korea). Thus, not ever occurring to me was that a child survivor of the pogroms and an Anusi felt the ultimately-fatal weight of his being an Anusi and other matters in his life (including his brother Bernie's death from a Schizophrenia-caused coronary occlusion after years of suffering either a botched shrapnel-removal operation or a lobotomy, and his brother Susi's exploitation of a fellow veteran—and one whose botched shrapnel-removal operation or a lobotomy left him a child-like and easily-exploitable state for the rest of his 43 years.)
3. If Anthony Czarnecki wasn't the grandfather whom apparently died when my father was 12, then it would've been his grandfather Michael Gaydos. After all, a Michael Gaydos whom was born in 1891 did die in 1972. Of course, it wasn't the 1904-born Anthony Czarnecki whom died in 1972, and it wasn't actually Michael Gaydos, either—Great-Granddad Gaydos died of a heart attack when my father was 15.

Only a copy of Great-Granddad Czarnecki's death certificate that a maternal cousin of my father sent me cleared up that matter for me—and my father's excuses that I was too young to know before did not help my father, either, as he just added insult (his excuse) to injury (his bubbe meise). My mother's excuse that it was up to him and not her to tell me also didn't help, as she once again went along with my father's secrecy.

By the way, Depression also killed my paternal grandmother's granduncles Frank, Sr. Fosko and Andrȧs "Alexander" Foczko, as well as—despite the denials of some of my family in spite of the statistical evidence—her grandfather Istvȧn Foczko—whom died young and had seven children, with six of them being sons, and with 2/7 of his children and of his sons taking their own lives.

As for five of her maternal aunts and uncles, they had Alzheimer's and other forms of Dementia—and Alzheimer's and Dementia are linked to Depression.

Do the math, and you will figure out why knowing that I inherited Depression (as well as comorbid OCD/Anxiety and ADD that only exacerbate the Depression) from my father would've helped long before I was in Sheppard Pratt and long after I was in Sheppard Pratt, and long after I maybe wouldn't have been in Sheppard Pratt had I known about that the mental illnesses that I have and set on as a result of my father's abuse, the fallout of 9/11, and other factors came from that same father whom abused me partly by hiding that he has those mental illnesses. 

Excerpt From My Upcoming Book (Language Warning): "The Summary Of the Case For Saving The Old Farmhouse..."

Firstly, how the case to save the late Katherine Ushinsky Gajdos’ house is related to shit that I can’t make up:

1.    With my grandaunt Helen Gaydos Wojnar (z”l)—my paternal grandmother’s oldest sibling—being long deceased, her widower and children had decided to tear down her (and my grandmother’s) paternal grandmother’s old farmhouse down without even considering the historical ramifications of tearing down the farmhouse.

2.    Grandaunt Helen’s (and Grandma’s) sister MaryAnn once again told a classic bubbe meise that—I’m sure that—she still hasn’t told anybody: after all, the historical significance of the farmhouse begins with the fact that Anna née Jaszová was not “Maria Anna Yzchinski” by birth. As I mentioned in a telephone conversation and further explained to my father in a text message—since, as I type (on September 6-7, 2017/Elul 15-16, 5777), he’s visited one of Grandaunt Helen’s sons three times while he’s been down in Florida—I understandably wondered if Grandaunt Helen’s widower and descendants left up the farmhouse, which I’d seen the times that we were up on the former Gaydos farmstead (where the Gaydos-Wojnar cabin is).

3.     Bugs, rotting wood, excursions of wildlife within the farmhouse, apparently-common-across-Pennsylvania houses like that, and other given excuses for tearing down the Gaydos Farmhouse are no excuses at all.

4.    Until I brought up the possibilities of renovation or replica building, nobody even considered leaving up the farmhouse.

I gave my father the short version of the historical significance of the Gaydos Farmhouse:

“Mickey Haslin was Great-Granddad Gaydos' maternal cousin. They had the common grandparent of Anna (Szuszanna?) née Jaszová (Yashová), divorced from Jan Haszlinsky and remarried to Jan Uszinsky (Ushinsky). Her parents were Jan and Eva Polinová Jasz (Yash). She was Jewish as were her parents, and as was Jan Uszinsky.

“That is why Great-Granddad identified as "Russian"—his mom, Mickey Haslin's only parental aunt, was born as Katarina Szuszanna Uszinskyová to Slovakian-Jewish parents of Russian-Jewish descent in Gaboltov, Slovakian-Austrian Hungary. Mickey Haslin seems to have done the same—his father was George Hazlinsky, and not a single one of his kids was a "Mary" (even for the traditional Jewish usage for "Miriam". His kids were named Mercedes, Kathleen, and Michael.

“They used a mix of Ashkenazi and Sephardi naming customs, by the way—quite a few Ashkenazim overall, irrespective of beliefs re Jesus or amounts of Sephardi heritage, seem to have done this. "MaryAnn", BTW, could be used for "Miriam Chanah".) That alone makes the farmhouse significant if you ask me—i.e., the Crypto-Jewish paternal aunt of Mickey Haslin and widow of a Crypto Jew (a son of Jan and Anna Hommová Gajdosz) owned that farmhouse as a widow whom posthumously became the paternal grandmother-in-law to one of the three IRS agents whom would help bring Nixon down.

“Also, BTW, Ashkenazi Crypto Jews and their descendants (Anusim Ashkenazim v'B'nei Anusim Ashkenazim) are probably as numerous as Sephardi ones—even John Kerry would be John Kohn and Madeline Albright was born Madeline Korbelová, e.g.. Cameron Kerry is whom is called a "ba'al teshuvah", meanwhile, whereas John Kerry and Joan Kerry identify as Jewish Catholics; and Madeline Albright is a Jewish Episcopalian.”

In other words, the seven following simple words sum up any tearing down of the farmhouse of Katherine Susan Ushinsky Gaydos: a big mistake of literally-historical proportions!