By Julie Klam

I keep one Kindle in my bathroom because I need to keep my mind occupied no matter what I’m doing.

Read into that what you will.

Yesterday I decided to reread my niece’s book (see title of this post).

I first read it about 15 years ago but since my brain is like oatmeal it all seemed new to me.

You will be surprised to know that I am not a laugher.

I love anything funny but few things make me laugh out loud which is why my father always said that he was worried that I would marry Jack the Ripper if he made me laugh.

Well this book makes me laugh out loud every few pages.

It made me glad that I’m divorced because my ex husband had one thing he simply would not accept which was anyone laughing on the toilet.

In fact, if I was in the bathroom the first time I read it I would have been divorced 3 years earlier.

I want to be clear about this.

I am not writing this to push my niece’s book.

I am writing this because if you’re reading my blog I love you and am sharing a good time with you.

Plus I am lording it over you because I actually hang out with Julie and se is every bit as funny in person.

Now Zen

Plus Julie’s new foster

The other day I received a text from a childhood friend of my nephew and a favorite of my late sister Iris.

He had found a note that Iris had written to him yeas ago and sent it to me.

Here it is.

I forwarded it to the rest of my family.

Every single one of them, myself included, reacted not only to the sadness of the letter but seeing her handwriting

brought her back to us in a way that no email or text could ever do.

It brought to mind a collage that I had made years ago.

Little parts of this show the heart of my family history.

For example:

My father traveled a living. My mother wrote this to him on top of one of the kid’s letters.

It said “If I don’t get to talk to you soon I’ll burst. I miss you terribly (P)

And there’s this little note from me

Or this very informative and hopeful letter from Iris about our cousin’s new dog.

And Phyllis wrote

Marcia let my father know about the movie she saw even though she had shitty seats.

Look, these letters were all written in the 1940’s and will be of no interest to anyone who isn’t in my family.

But here’s my question to you.

What kind of letters can your children put on their collages?

Now everyone will need this after reading this boring blog….

I know you look to me for all the answers

Particularly on the subject of pets and their training.

My dog training school was only closed due to 6 or more of you neglecting to read the fine print re: non refundable deposits.

Your notifying my sister and threatening to beat me up was uncalled for and made it necessary for me to change the location of my school which I will do in the near future.

Anyway, back to my current situation.

Yesterday I drove my niece Julie, the kindest girl in the world, to New Jersey to pick up a sad little dog that will need medical attention and a new home.

The meeting place was at a McDonald’s in Fort Lee.

We got there early so I decided to pick up some dinner for myself and Debby.

This happens to be the Debster’s favorite food.

when we got home I removed the pickle and the cut up her cheeseburger.

Come morning I go into the kitchen and find this….

In the living room I find this

A dog going through the garbage, not news.

BUT… also in the kitchen..

I’d like to mention that the pink bowl has a cut up cheeseburger in it.

I tried to question her but she pretended I wasn’t even speaking

Maybe youse can figure it out.

Anyway Happy Birthday in heaven Mom. I love you.

If you were here I’d ask for your advice but my dog Norman uses to hide a meatball behind her bedroom curtain when we’d visit so that he’d have a snack next time we came back.

I’m driving up with Julie.

I haven’t been there for a long time because 1.I almost never leave my house and 2. There are snakes there.

(#2 is just an excuse. Not one snake has said a word to me and I’m getting crazier and crazier about leaving my apartment.)

Debby is not coming because she gets car sick and she would try to kill my sister’s dogs.

I am therefore paying someone she loves to stay at my house while I’m away.

Now here’s something kind of interesting. One of my sister’s friends who reads my blog wants to meet me.

THIS I CAN NOT ALLOW TO HAPPEN.

It can only end in disappointment

There are quite a few reasons for this.

Firstly any pictures of myself on social media, facebook, Twitter before I cancelled it etc were taken in the late 80’s.

So that’s gonna be a shock.

Also I have a terrible personality.

Oh I can write up a storm and sound like I’m a laugh a minute but in the flesh….nope.

I have no ability for small talk or even large talk.

If I see a gap in conversation I’m liable to just try to fill it with something nutty.

An example of this was many years ago my then husband and I were at a party and he introduced me to the wife of his favorite music teacher.

She smiled and said “David spent so many happy evenings at our house when he was in college”

Now what would you say to that?

“Oh how nice”? or “That must have been fun”?

Not “I hope he didn’t steal anything”

Man the look on her face.

“Oh no no of course he didn’t” and then she sidled away.

If you ask me why I said that I have no answer. It just flew out of my mouth.

Sometimes I’ll do something that I think is funny but isn’t to anyone else.

Like when I was saying good bye to the assistant to the conductor of the Boston Symphony who had played an arrangement of a John Lennon tune that my husband had written after John’s death.

I put a dollar in her hand and said “Tell the Maestro we really enjoyed it.”

No one thought that was funny.

Anyway I think I’ll let my sister’s friend just think of me as that 30 year old with a quick wit.

And now for your enjoyment…

If you have any wish to continue liking me stop reading this now.

Well that’s not exactly true.

It’s just the coat part.

The second half about my fucked up Thanksgiving is fairly readable without disgust.

Part 1

Let me tell you about the wonder that is the Norma Kamali Sleeping Bag coat.

It is fluffy and LIGHT AS A FEATHER and really warm

When I was married I bought at least 4 of these coats or jackets.

Two of them were for my sister Phyllis who was battling cancer and needed something to cheer her up.

(You think you like me now but wait.)

And a jacket and a coat for me.

My then husband Dave was very generous and loved my sister.

Then he ran away and took my thoughts of new Kamali crap with him especially since these coats had more than doubled in price.

The other day my niece Julie sent me a text that Norma K’s sleeping bag coats were half price.

Even at 1/2 price they still weren’t cheap so I said “I don’t really need one even though my old one had torn pockets.

I had more important things to spend my money on.

But I couldn’t resist looking at them.

Then Norma, spotting my interest, kept putting ads for the coat on Facebook and almost everything I looked at on my computer.

I’m weak, I admit.

Ignoring the part of the ad that said no returns and no exchanges, like anyone could ever find fault with these coats, I ordered it.

I rationalized that I hadn’t bought myself anything luxurious in 10 years and dreamed about how toasty and cute I was going to look.

The coat came.

It weighed 1000 lbs.

Yeah it was fluffy and warm but when I tried it on I fell forward 6 times.

I almost had to call my Super to come up and lift the coat off me so I could stand.

I hate that no exchanges, no returns coat.

And I’m glad that I hate it. If I just found it disappointing, I’d wear it sometime. This way I can pretend it doesn’t exist.

That may not seem like a sad story to most of you but if there are any New York Jews out there you feel my pain.

2.

As always I invited my family for Thanksgiving.

I was expecting 16 people.

The day before I noticed my floor warping near my terrace door.

I could go into how it turned from a slight warping to a huge flood but I’m all tired out from the Kamali shit so I’ll give you the highlights.

My super Lester and the plumbers were in my house and on my terrace with sledge hammers for the next two days.

Looking for sympathy I kept telling the plumber that I was having 16 people for dinner.

“So you’ll have 18”.

And when he came the next morning with 3 more of his workers he said “Or 20”.

I will put pictures of the situation in case you’re still reading this.

And Here’s Debby trying to help them fix it

I’m pretty sure the one in my neighborhood is me.

I’m getting nuttier and nuttier.

First of all I hate to leave my dog. Therefore I hate to leave my house without her.

And I don’t just walk her like a sane person.

I hook her onto a shopping cart because she pulls me if I don’t.

Also as you know I wear Black Lives Matter shirts every day.

A few times a week this woman who lives near me screams “Don’t you have any other shirts?”.

Instead of thinking “Maybe I’m carrying this too far?”.

I say to myself “What is she blind? It’s not the same shirt.I wear different color shirts”.

I have to say that the antisemitic shit that’s been going on particularly from Kanye has given me some thoughts.

I have a very proud Jewish family and that is disgusting.

But I don’t want to be like Kanye

I can still hear George Floyd’s voice call for his mother and I don’t want to live in a country where that is acceptable either.

I haven’t had my hair cut since the pandemic so I did the other day.

Debby sat on my lap and was perfectly behaved.

That is until the guy foolishly thought he could blow dry my hair.

I’m just hoping that 2 little holes in his hand won’t interfere with his ability to give someone a charming new look.

This is a busy month for me.

Next week half of my Israeli family is coming to visit and a week later (I think it’s a week) is Thanksgiving.

I have 16 loved ones for that.

Luckily my family embraces crazy so it should be fun.

Oh yeah, VOTE!!!

You ain’t seen crazy yet if the Democrats don’t come up on top.

and now Zen

Debby helping a guy read the instructions for fixing my toilet.

The whole time I was walking Debby I was singing “Gangsta’s Paradise” in my head.

So last night I was looking at Facebook and my nephew, Dave’s sister’s son who lives in Florida said he and his wife and child were staying on his boat during the hurricane.

I thought this was really stupid.

I did hear from them this morning and they are fine.

Since I gave them that boat I explained how embarrassed I would be if they had died or been blown away.

It’s shocking how kids these days only think of themselves.

Once again I want to recommend the greatest TV show I’ve seen in a long time ” A Place Called Home? on Acorn.

Why you should listen to me:

Even my sister Marcia agrees.

Why you shouldn’t listen to me:

1. I watch every Bravo show and if I could figure out how to do it I would constantly comment on the recaps because I have loads of opinions on them
2. The only reason the first line of this post didn’t say “Gangster’s Paradise” is because I saw it correctly on Huffpost before I pressed “Publish”

Now Zen

I don’t know if it’s because I’m old or what but moments of my life flash into my mind every once in awhile.

Some are good, some are upsetting, and some just are.

For example when I was a teenager I had a party.

It must have been a Friday night because my parents weren’t home. They played cards every

Friday.

Why they let me have a party when they were out stymies me but maybe my sister Marcia was home.

I was the fourth kid so they didn’t pay that much attention to me.

Anyway some kids from another neighborhood came uninvited. (I’m thinking “not Jewish”,therefore way sexier than the ones who were invited)

Anyway the party got out of hand (not my words but those of the cops).

But here’s the part that came to me in the night.

One of the boys (Jewish) went up to my father and said “Excuse me Mr.Smith but while I was dancing with your lovely daughter someone stole my glasses and my socks”

BTW in case you’re interested I had Covid and now I don’t so let those hugs be acoming!

Now Zen..

Or is it the same fly?

Maybe he thinks this is the only way to get my attention.

I may be engaged.

And it’s only 9 a.m.

So I go into the kitchen, look down at Debby’s bowls and what do I see?

What appears to be a dead fly in her water.

Now I knew this would be unacceptable because Debby is a very fussy eater which is why I always give her choices at mealtimes.

Today we have chicken , roast beef and dry food (she never touches that).

I only put that there in case I drop dead so she’ll have something to eat that isn’t me until someone comes.

So I pick up the water bowl and put the fly on my finger only to find that he was just unconscious and was beginning to become alert. I hold him for almost a minute while he dries his wings.

He then flies (get it?) away.

Watching him I felt real affection. I will never swat a fly again.

This is not the first time I saved an animal from certain death.

In Florida I held a pelican while a fisherman cut the fishing line that was wrapped around his snoot.

I don’t want to call myself a hero.

That’s for you to determine.

I was going to rant about what a shitty dishwasher Bosch is but I wrote it on Facebook so I don’t want to kill a dead horse.

Which I wouldn’t because I am a …….you know.

Now a picture of someone who is NOT an animal lover.