I know I haven’t written in awhile. I’ve been busy and frankly there wasn’t much to say.

Thanksgiving is over. I had 23 people for dinner. As usual I served Indian food.

I want to pay homage to the people we stole America from but I don’t know what Native Americans ate except for corn so I do the next best thing. It’s kind of like a food homophone.

The day was wonderful. Everyone was so happy to be together. We all love each other so much.

Not to pat myself on the back but I did hear it said that this was the best Thanksgiving ever.

The out of town family stayed for from 2 to 5 days and one, Cheryl, is still here. Some at my house and some at Lizzie’s due to her kind generosity.

When I say everyone had a good time I am not being entirely honest.

To Ray it was hell.

In spite of the fact that he tried to stay awake the whole time to keep his cousin Burt from touching his stuff it didn’t help.

He sat and stared as Burt taunted him with Ray’s own pig every chance he got.

Yes, he suffered.

It didn’t help that his other cousin Theo stole his thunder by coming dressed as a turkey.

I know this is post isn’t that interesting but I can’t help it.

When David was here and things were kind of slow I could always amble down the hall and he would spout some offensive and stupid stuff that made good reading.

It was interesting because here in New York, the land of the liberal intelligentsia, it was kind of unique. But now that he’s moved to Texas, he’s hard pressed to come up with something that isn’t just business as usual down there.

He is trying though. He sent me this headline the other day:

So if you folks in Texas want a safe and happy holiday season, visit your local zoo.

An upsetting thing happened to me the other day.

As many of you know, I just returned from Italy.

While I was there I wrote copious notes and took pictures, some of which will surely fall in the iconic category.

i.e. the one of me faking my death after falling down the stairs (or step) in my hotel in Venice.

When I got back I wrote to Yahoo to ask if (when) I should submit a piece on my trip.

Since last year I won a prize for an article I wrote for them, I assumed it was a shoe in.

https://www.yahoo.com/travel/67-dumped-a-newly-solo-traveler-heads-to-rome-83655802141.html

Well I was wrong. they weren’t interested. It seems they claim that they only use in house writers now.

I gotta think that my career as a PRIZE WINNING travel writer is at an end. This is not terrible news since not only do I hate to travel but my dog hates me to travel.

So as the title of this post states “Back to the drawing board”.

Of course I have this blog but it’s not putting food in my matzo hole.

Therefore I’ll have to go back a bit further to see what path I could have taken but didn’t.

Then I can find where the pitfalls were that kept me from being a huge star. At that point I will see if I can revisit them with more success.

I wrote for a few sailing magazines but I don’t go sailing any more and anyway I hated it when I did.

I wrote liner notes and articles on dave or jazz for Japanese magazines but they were all in Japanese so I could never read them after they were printed so who knows what they said.

I had about 30 songs recorded but they were all for Japan and anyway I don’t know if they stunk because on many of them my husband was the producer so I was guaranteed a spot on those records.

Now that I think of it, most of my successes had dave as a common denominator.

Wait, there is one thing I did well that had no connection to him.

My friends and family used to call me when they were wronged and didn’t know how to respond in a way that would get their points across in a dignified manner.

Since I was always very successful at being mean and I had a gift for getting that meanness in writing I’d put pen to paper so that they could copy it and send it under their names.

After awhile I graduated to more poetic letters. Here are some examples:

Note: this was a long time ago so I’m not sure what each person’s transgression was.

In this letter I believe my nephew Brian didn’t get paid all he was due for a job

I also came to the aid of Violet’s dad when he felt he was being misused at work.

Actually the first one I wrote was for my nephew Barry who had some conflict with the Mayor of the small Oregon town that he lived in when the Mayor wanted to buy his house.

Barry is my oldest nephew. He’s a doctor and quite serious. I sent him the following letter and suggested he forward that letter to the Mayor.

If he had taken my advice the deal would have gone through without a hitch. Unfortunately he was too “classy”. I guess I don’t have to tell you that the Mayor passed on the house.

As you can see I have an absolute gift for settling conflict. In many cases I lay out the problem, drop a minor threat and follow up with a little something to pierce their self confidence.

I’m thinking my future holds some kind of mediator job or maybe a nurse or a singer.

In either event, Yahoo!Travel better check their in-box for a letter.

I hear Academy Award winner, Meryl Streep has something to say to them.

David has been gone for almost a month now.

I haven’t had a chance to miss him because 1. I went to Italy and 2. My family was here from Israel and 3. I talk to him almost every day sometimes more.

At first it was just to discuss how he was doing and then every once in awhile we would have cocktails together on the phone.

Then there were the phone calls for me to help him do something long distance that if he were here he’d get me to do for him.

For example, putting the duvet cover on his quilt.

I gave him detailed instructions, even offering to make a diagram and scan it.

He called me the next day only to tell me that I didn’t know what I was talking about and that fortunately he had found someone who did.

His next door neighbor, an older woman, happened to be outside watering her flowers and hanging up her KKK outfit to dry when he struck up a conversation with her and he mentioned his problem with the duvet cover.

She immediately came over and did it for him in two shakes of a  lamb’s tail.

Fortunately he had just gotten his bed skirt delivered so she was able to help him do that too.

Good luck lady. In a week or two you’ll be cutting his toenails.

Although David said she can’t take my place yet mainly because his new Mattie agrees with everything he says.

“I don’t even know no liberals” She told him.

The fact that he can’t find anyone to argue with is really getting him down.

When I told him about cooking for my whole family and how much they loved it he tried to be his usual mean self.

“Did anyone ask for seconds or did they just push the food around their plates?”

“That’s kind of a weak insult. You don’t seem like yourself”

“I know. I’ll do better. I know I can. After all I don’t want you to feel like I’ve left you emotionally as well as geographically”

He’s coming to NYC tomorrow on business and as he says, he’s going to “squeeze me in for cocktails before he goes to dinner with someone he likes better”.

Just thinking about coming to a City that isn’t voting on whether it should be in the Constitution that a man can hunt and fish whenever he wants and that there should be a third bathroom for gays and transgender people is sharpening him up.

Yeah he’ll be okay.

This probably won’t be interesting to anyone who isn’t related to me.

My nephew Eric, now Yizhak, visits me every year about this time.

He comes to do something or other at his mother’s, my sister’s grave. I’ve told you before that to him I’m a hair away from being Catholic so he won’t be surprised that I don’t know what he’s doing.

He won’t eat off my plates, cook with my pots, or use my silverware so while he’s here we eat on paper plates with plastic forks etc. I keep a big black bag behind my couch with kosher knives, bowls and pots which I don’t touch unless he’s here.

I buy only kosher food and work very hard not to let any of my heathen shit touch his Godly crap and as I’ve said, I remove my Pope magnets from my refrigerator.

For the past few years he’s brought with him one or more of his kids, he has 10.

A few weeks ago my sister Marcia and I went to visit 2 of his kids and their families in London and we fell in love.

Two of them would be  here in New York when Yitz with another son and daughter was coming so we made plans to get together at my house.

Usually it’s just me and Yitz and Julie but this time Julie brought her family, Marcia drove 5 hours to be here, my nephew Brian came up from Annapolis, Yitz’s brothers Jon and Jim came down from Ct and New Hampshire. Added to that were Yithaks 4 children. Six of these people slept over.

It was all so great. Not everyone spoke english but we all felt like what we were, family.

In spite of the distance we all had the same senses of humor and we just spent the whole time laughing and saying how much we love each other.

Here are some pictures.

And my sister Phyllis would be so touched and proud to see that her grandson came all the way from Israel to kiss her spirit.