Just as the news sunk in about about losing Hugh McCracken, we heard about the devastating death of Phil Ramone.

Aside from being a dear friend and a true genius, Phil really was instrumental in putting dave on the map by hiring him to write the horns for Simon and Garfunkel’s “My Little Town” after an accidental meeting at the Grammy’s.

There is so much to say about this wonderful man. He was generous and kind and funny and incredibly gifted. My heart goes out to Karen and his wonderful sons.

Please Phil, please Hugh, both of you, rest in peace and thank you.

We lost Hugh McCracken yesterday.

He took his beautiful guitar and harmonica melodies and his sweet sweet smile with him.

We are all poorer.

Here’s why I’m crazy. I spent the whole week bitching when I was up at Steph’s but last night my bed seemed kind of empty without a million animals in it.

I did my share of damage while I was there though. I turned her big old black dog of mysterious heredity who was always a saint into somewhat of a brat.

When I’d sit on the couch reading, he’d come in and bark and wag his tail until I got up and went into my room so he’d have company lying on the bed.

In addition all her animals are twice as fat as they were when she left.

That’ll teach her no to ask me to dog and cat sit again.

I have a wonderful day planned today. Julie and I are going to spend it together doing whatever we want.

It’s almost 2 years since dave expressed his wish to date.

Would I be jumping the gun if I sold my wedding ring now? Not the engagement ring. I’m too Jewish to ever take that one off. Will I have to give dave half of what I get?

I remember when dave used to say “What’s mine is his and what’s his is mine”

My answer was always, “Then I’m going to put a bullet in my half of your mother”

Well I’m going home today with my skin and spleen still attached.

None of the dogs or cats got eaten and except for a bit of shoving when the horses tried to eat the hay I was bringing them before I put it down, everything went swimmingly.

Yesterday was pretty good in fact. My friend Ronnie came up to visit.

When she got off the train she was carrying a big suitcase on wheels.

“I’m moving in. Just kidding these are my vacation pictures”

I know you’re all saying why would I want to look at someone else’s photos of their trip.

Well you’d be wrong. I’m so impressed with Ronnie and her husband Dave. They travel around the world and go to places that  I wouldn’t think of going, Egypt, Machu Picchu, Gallopoli, Africa .

I like to look at her pictures so I don’t have to go there. I don’t like to travel anyplace where the bedspread doesn’t match the curtains.

This trip was to India. I was thinking that she was such an intellectual until I looked at the photos. A good number of them were of men’s pee pees. It seems that there are a bunch of men there who walk around naked with ash on themselves.

Here’s a pee pee man bending over, here’s one combing his hair, and don’t ignore the one checking the fruit until he found just the right apple.

She must have run out of film that day because the next set of pictures had a similar but quite different theme, still pee pees but this time not in the flesh. It was carvings of the Kama Sutra.

Speaking of pee pees and I believe I was, I never knew there were so many places to put them while still smiling for the sculptor.

I’m going to be looking at my friend with different eyes. Clearly she and her husband are sluts.

Still here in no man’s land. Still shaking in my boots.

I made a seder of sorts yesterday. My nephew Jimmy and his family came since they don’t live far from here. I think the town they live in is called “Civilization”. Maybe it was named that because IT HAS CABLE.

They were loving this house though. They were looking at the horses and playing endlessly with the dogs.

I really should have listened to Terry when he tried to tell me how the talking toilet works because 12 year old Jacob tried to use it and it squirted him in the face.

I know I sound like a broken record but toilets they decide should be high tech and TV’s not so much?

I have one more night and then I go home. I’ll just pray that no one breaks in and kills me tonight.

On one hand even if they do they won’t be able to find me in that bed with 3 dogs and 2 cats. On the other hand I should be easy to spot with every light in the house on.

Does anybody know how the finale of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills went? Did Fay get her comeuppance?

It’s my second day here with the animals.

I figured I’d get up at 4 am since there were 3 dogs and a cat standing on my chest anyway.

You can’t just let them out. You have to stand outside with them yelling so if there are any coyotes around they will think twice before eating any of my brood.

I know they are capable of doing that because  the day I got here the dogs brought in a deer leg that they had found on the grass. You read it right, a whole leg. No deer attached.

And if I wasn’t nervous enough, Shelby, the creative genius who does the incredible drawings for this blog came over yesterday and said ” Aren’t you nervous being alone here? The place is so isolated. Feel free to call me any time of the day or night. I can be here in three minutes” She thought for a second and said  “maybe four”.

I’m thinking “4 minutes, just enough time for some maniac to gut and skin me.”

Plus the cat must figure that I’m not that strict a disciplinarian because  even though he’s not allowed up there, he spends his days on the kitchen counters and every time I pass him he jumps on my neck.  I thought it was cute when I saw him do it to Steph’s husband Terry but I gotta say it scares the crap out of me.

But the house is gorgeous. My nephew Terry is an amazing architect and the house has just been totally renovated. It has beautiful grounds, a fabulous kitchen, artistic stone walls done by a real craftsman, and each bathroom is a work of art. I already told you about the talking toilet.

Without cable you can take the whole place and shove it up your ass.

Dr Phil has been on repeats all this past week because of March Madness.

Today I’m going out of town for 4 days so I wonder if I should post my best loved blogs for those days. Would it be the one where I couldn’t find my pants? How about when I take pi to the 342nd numeral? Or is the most important one the one where I explain levitation?

Actually it won’t be any of these.  I’ll be spending the days with 3 dogs, either 2 or 4 cats( they’re slippery little bastards), 2 donkeys and 2 horses. I  can’t even imagine that one or more of these guys won’t piss me off to the point of having to whine out my complaints via the internet. And since there won’t be any TV there I’ll have even more time on my hands than I usually do.

Did I also mention that at 5 p.m. every day I’m expected to go down the driveway and put 11 piles of grain out in a circle so the deer can eat it.

Steph told me that even though the 11 deer will be there waiting for me I am not to speak or make eye contact with any of them.

I remember one time when dave did an arrangement for Frank Sinatra. Everyone in the studio was told to stay out of the hall so that when Old Blue Eyes came in he wouldn’t have to look at them.

About 1/2 hour before Mr Rat Pack’s expected arrival, dave called me in a panic. He had forgotten to bring the original demo tape of “LA Is My Lady” to the date and Frankie’s people insisted on having it returned so the songs couldn’t be leaked.

I ran out, jumped in a cab and rushed to the studio. dave met me in the hall just as Frank and his entourage arrived.

Frank’s head spun around when he saw us there and you could see the shock on his face at this breach of security. He didn’t say anything though and just kept walking.

Since I dodged a bullet that time ( get it? dodged a bullet? Frank Sinatra, the mob? bullets?), I won’t make the same  mistake again.

Those deer can be dancing the jig and they won’t get so much as a peek from me.

Last night I was sitting in my chair minding my own business thinking that not much is doing when I get an email from David.

The subject : Lucky to be alive!!

Been in Beth Israel ER for 3 hrs. I fell in the gap getting off the 6 train at Union Sq.  Luckily some good Samaritans pulled me out before the train left and tore my leg off. Just got out of ex ray and in hopes that it is only a very bad bruise. Think I’ll live but will be needing some vicodin.

I immediately called him and  offered to come down but his son was with him and they were leaving the Hospital and going to get something to eat.

When I got up I sent him an email telling him to call when he got up and I went to get him his favorite breakfast, an everything bagel with cream cheese.

When  got back he was up and I went over there.

I fully expected him to be somewhat chastened by his close brush with death and dismemberment and maybe be a better person as a result.

I was encouraged by his first words,

“There’s a bullet out there that will find me one night but that night was not last night”

The fact that he didn’t say it in John Wayne’s voice added to my hopefulness.

But those hopes were quickly dashed. He proceeded to tell me all about the different ethnic groups  that were clogged into the ER wasting the doctor’s time when they should have been caring for his fully tax payed for hematoma.

Well he didn’t really know it was a hematoma until after the ex ray but one thing he did know was that a WASP’s hematoma trumps a gang members bullet wound in any arena. In his descriptions he spoke in what he believed to be the speech cadence of each of them in case I  wasn’t hip to the articles of fruit and vegetables titles that he gave to each minority present.

But as always I will look past his shitty personality to the sweet heart that supported and comforted me in my time of need even though I’m a kike.

One disappointment after another. But like my very good friend, Elton John says “I’m still standin”

Here’s something that surprises me.I got my first rejection of my book submission. It’s not the rejection, it’s the fact that it didn’t get me down one bit. In fact I took it better than the Harry Reems thing.

Mainly because my niece Julie, who writes like a dream, said she got a few rejections too before her huge successes. And also because writing this blog is what gives me something to look forward to every day. Anything else is gravy.

Also you know how I’m always having epiphanies? Well I had another one.

Women of my generation were raised to believe that not having a husband was a failure. Maybe not all women but certainly the ones in my family.

If you recall when dave first left I was terrified because I wouldn’t have a person of my own. I couldn’t say “we” like or don’t like something.

I have always had a boyfriend and later a husband. I truly never thought of myself as a single entity. In periods that I was alone I was just “in waiting” for the other part to complete me.

Well without even realizing it I have become fully formed. I noticed the other day that I am happier than I’ve ever been. I wake up in the morning and my day only consists of what only I want to do and I like it.

In fact the thought of bringing someone else in whose opinion I’d have to consider seems very unappealing.

I’m not saying I’d never want anyone else in my life, just that I don’t want anyone who’s going to want me to take care of him. I’d want someone with his own direction and interests who wouldn’t count on me to make him whole.

Maybe that’s why losing Harry was such a bummer. He had a career and interests of his own and I’m pretty sure he didn’t have a sailboat.

I don’t like sailboats.

I may not be a good Jew.

Although I feel Jewish in my bones, I never go to Shul so what makes me feel Jewish in the other parts of me is my partaking of the Jewish rituals and pulling in others to learning that our way is best. I believe that that falls under the heading of proselytizing.

My most successful inductee thus far was Miss Liz, the most waspy wasp I’m ever likely to meet. In fact early in our friendship I remarked that she and her parents were really fancy, like the Kennedys and I thought she’d faint dead away for lumping her in with those peasants.

When I first met her she refused to discuss the price of anything. If you asked her what  a new sweater set her back she’d actually swoon. Buy anything at a discount? Wouldn’t happen.

But after 15 years of her never missing a Seder and hearing me brag about things like my $350 Ralph Lauren scarf that I purchased for  (drumroll) $99 I was well under way to putting a kink in her high toned armor.

Once I even brought her to Brooklyn to buy curtains in a Hassidic store. She did stick out like a tulip in a bowl of carrots and she wondered why the salesman in the yarmulke showed her several choices without once looking her in the eye but I could tell she felt very “ethnic”.

Here’s the problem. This will be the second Passover that she won’t be in New York.  I’m so afraid she’ll backslide and next time I see her she’ll be saying “shan’t” and her pinky will be up.

I have a plan though. I’m going to go to New Mexico and work on my dream of making an all Yiddish speaking Santa Fe.