Why? Because too many things are expected of you.

You must be smart, kind, fleet of foot and dare I say spunky.

You must also be diplomatic and have grace under fire.

I don’t like to brag but I have all those things so if you move here I am what you should aim to be.

I’ll give you an example.

About a week ago my Super Lester asked to enter my apartment since either the apartment above or below me had a bad leak and he would need to go though MY wall to fix it.

I must remind you that for a NYC apartment dweller the people of importance in your life are your immediate family, close friends and right before either of them is your Super.

So when Lester said he needed to do this I graciously agreed.

Now remember, I don’t have a leak. MY floors are dry as a bone and I couldn’t pick the people above or below me in a line up but because I have at times been called ‘saintly’ I gave the go ahead to my dear Super who I’ve needed in the past and may need again one of these days.

Also I’m kind of walking on eggshells with him for calling him a pussy when he was changing my light fixture. These latinos can hold a grudge.

So he went about making a giant hole in my wall. Well maybe not giant but not so little either.

He worked on it all day and when he left he covered it with some plastic shit.

A few days passed and I decided to text him a little nudge

I gave him a bit more time before my second little hint was sent to him.

Still patient I gave him a small heads up.

In answer to my question of did he know when he’s closing the hole he did say “yes”

So he does know. I, however, don’t.

Now Zen

lester fixing my sink, not the hole.

Does it sound like I’ve run out of things to talk about?

Kee-rect.

I almost never leave my house.

That’s not entirely true.

I always walk my dog. I always go somewhere with Julie when she’s willing to see me.

And I did leave the house to go to my friend Susan’s birthday because , well because my personality has gotten so lousy that I can’t afford to lose any friends.

I read something on either Twitter or Facebook that even if Biden wins and trump goes to jail we still have about 40% of the USA that are racists and homophobes and the rest of that shit.

I was born in 1944.

I saluted the flag in school.

I grew up in a protected environment that thought that being Jewish was good. I was the best kind of Jewish. We celebrated Christmas not religiously but presenty and my sister Marcia always got me an Easter basket.

During the 50’s and 60’s I demonstrated for racial equality and against the war.

I remember going to a demonstration at Bryant Park and Mary Travers and the Mayor of NYC joined in. That convinced me that I was on the right side of history.

Streamers of support flew out of the office buildings on 42nd Street as we walked home.

I looked around and though I wasn’t happy with the government I felt that America was still the greatest country in the world and the people were basically good.

Remember I’m seeing this from my own vantage point.

Now I’m 76.

I’m keeping my promise of wearing my Black Lives Matter shirts every day, except for weddings or bar mitzvahs, until I either die or I don’t have to.

I’m pretty sure that the die thing will probably come first

See here’s the difference between me at 18 and me at 76.

I no longer believe in America.

I thought the only way trump will win a second term, he’s already talking about a third term, would be by cheating.

I’m not so sure any more.

I see all those Senators that did nothing to stop him no matter how horribly or ILLEGALLY he behaved.

I see people in the country, more than just a few, cheering for him even when he is proven to be incompetent and lying.

I’m thinking that even if he loses he’s preparing Ivanka or don jr. to follow him in 2024.

I have a little hope for the youth but we were young once and we didn’t really change much even though we thought we did.

Did I cheer you up?

Maybe this will make you feel better.

As those who know me or follow me can attest, though I am beautiful and brilliant I do have one or two flaws.

For example I watch dumb person TV.

Many in my family have been quite cruel in making fun of me for this.

I won’t mention the names Julie and Marcia because those of you that put me on a pedestal might turn against them.

In fact I have never responded on ‘Reality Blurb’ (my favorite) or ‘About the Tea’ no matter how hot under the collar I get because if either of them were to see my name in print on the comment section there would be ridicule like you wouldn’t believe.

They would say I sullied their name which is stupid because their name is Klam and my name is Matthews.

Oops have I given up too much?

Anyway watching Below Deck last night put me in such a state that I felt I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I didn’t give Captain Sandy and Malia a stern tongue lashing in print.

What to do? What to do?

Eureka! It came to me in a flash!

I can use my same email address with a compatible name.

So I was finally free to speak my piece and live the American dream!!!

So from now on astute and clever comments will come from my email address in the name of ..wait for it…dave matthews.

Now Zen

I have to admit that I wasn’t that unhappy about this whole staying home and not seeing anybody thing.

At least that’s what I thought.

Last night I had kind of a party and it was wonderful

Allan and Susan Schwartzberg and Dave and Ronnie Taylor came over and we had a mostly socially distant get together.

We had cocktails on the terrace and sent out for indian food and had a wonderful time.

It was pretty close to perfect.

Of course there were a few bumps.

We were talking about old times as long time friends do.

As you all know I’m not one to hold a grudge but when I happened to mention the time Dave made me carry his bass trombone IN A HARD TRAVELING CASE because he had a “bad back”, I believe it was late ’84, Dave claimed that there were wheels on that case, a fact that I knew to be a lie.

He was lucky I couldn’t touch him because a bitch slapping would have been on the menu along with the pappadum.

And it’s possible that Susan might have gotten a little hot under the collar when she asked Al to get her more wine and I remarked that it was like she had a butler.

Her response “I do plenty of things for you too. Don’t I Al”

He looked up from polishing her shoes and answered “Sure you do. Sue”.

I personally have never seen her do anything for him but I let that slide.

Oh wait, I think I remember him asking her to pass him the salt and she did.

That was in ’08, I remember it clearly.

Debby was having a wonderful time. She loves company.

Drinks were flowing.

I vaguely remember Ronnie asking me to call my dog because she was eating her pants but I may be wrong.

I know Debby had pants for lunch so she was probably just licking some indian food that Ronnie dropped.

It was a magical evening. I hope to do it again soon.

Now Zen

I might even call it catastrophic!

I get the flyer from Costco saying that they once again have the Heathy Choice Fudge Pops that Debby and I both enjoy.

Saying “enjoy” is meaningless.  I should have said NEED.

I can’t tell you how happy that made me. You see they were out of them last time I was there.

I know, I know there are bigger problems in the world  yadda yadda yadda . I can’t think of any right now but I’m sure there are some.

Back to my tragedy.

As you all know I rarely leave my house except for emergencies.

So I’m on line , in my mask and gloves naturally, with a few non essentials,  batteries for my iron lung, socks and the 4 boxes of pops that I have secured.

When to my horror the check out guy removes THREE of my four boxes from my cart and he says, as if he was just passing the time of day,

“Only one to a customer”

When I got up from the floor, I’m light as a feather since I’ve been out of my favorite dessert for months, so only two rather small gentlemen helped to pick me up.

I think I’ll cut to the chase. No amount of pleading helped. I even limped over to the manager to make my case to no avail.

I know I should have thrown the iron lung batteries and the socks on the floor and stomped out but I really need socks.

Just to prove how wronged I was when I relayed th story to my friend David, who is without doubt the worst person in the world, he was shocked.

“There’s a limit on fudge pops due to the pandemic (oh yeah that’s one of the problems that I couldn’t remember before)??? It’s not like it’s masks or disinfection wipes, Pops???”

I believe I have made my case.

I’m quite sure that anyone who knows me even on Facebook or Twitter will boycott Costco until they change their draconian rules.

But for now I give you… Zen.

I’m not going to say that’s the only thing on my mind but it’s right up there.

I feel guilty if Debby acts even a little sheepish while I’m cleaning it up.

And why is it always on the rug?

Now to the business at hand.

I watched all of John Lewis’ funeral yesterday.

His life and death has overwhelmed me.

I don’t have to go into how brave and kind he was, and at such a young age.

In his memory I intend to wear my Black Lives Matter shirts (I have many attractive colors) every day until I die (I’m 76 so that could be any day)  or I don’t need to any more.

Of course that excludes weddings and bar mitzvahs unless they come out in sequins.

We all do what we can.

Luckily I have this Zen…

So here’s the story.

When I admitted that I lied in my last post I found it amazingly freeing.

After careful thought I’ve decided to incorporate lying into my everyday life.

I’m sure many of you have noticed that doing the same thing every day, mostly alone, has made for really boring phone calls to your friends and loved ones.

Anyone with half a brain has stopped starting a call with “What’s new?”

Well with a bit of imagination your friends and relatives can introduce that question back into their convos.

I’ve already started.

Last week Julie baked me a pumpkin bread.

I’ve been eating a slice a day with my morning coffee.

Usually I keep the mother loaf in the kitchen but yesterday I decided to only eat 1/2 my piece so I would have the other half this morning.

I wrapped it in tin foil (a grandma word) and left it on my desk.

I came in this morning all happy only to be greeted by this.

Now we all know who ate it.

1. she’s been eying it all week and
2. I got her from the pound so who knows what kind of record she has. For all I know she was in a gang.

But will I say that?

No, mainly because when I spoke to my sister this morning and barely got the sentence out ” I left my cake on my desk last night” when she countered with “You’re an idiot”.

So here’s what I’ve decided to do.

I’m gonna call the cops and say I had a break in.

Then if you call me tomorrow I’ll have something interesting to say.

I guess I’ll have to call you. I assume I’ll get my one phone call.

Now a real Zen

Remember in my last post I talked about that African American guy who took my picture and said that the whole Black Lives Matter thing was bullshit and that he preferred trump to Biden?

Remember when I said we hugged and I walked away?

I lied.

Number one I don’t hug anyone any more.

And number two if I was going to hug someone it wouldn’t be a cocksucker like that.

And number three when he took my picture he didn’t tell me that one side of my hair was all flat.

In actuality I just drifted away with my head down while he was talking.

Phew that feels better.

By the way, my niece Stephanie didn’t buy that hug for a minute.

And now,,, wait for it… ZEN

Nor an impending really bad storm could keep me from viewing the completed project on Fifth Avenue.

You people know I’m not one to complain, heaven knows, but don’t ask about my knees.

And this fuckin’ dog doesn’t know the meaning of saunter.  Pull pull pull that’s the only language she understands.

I mistakenly thought painting Black Lives Matter would take days to complete and because the weatherman said that by 12 noon it would be 55 knot winds I decided to interrupt Debby’s beauty sleep, she’s a late riser, and go look at the finished product.

It was beautiful.

I was standing in the glow of loving my City and just witnessing what I thought was history when I asked an African American man on a bike to take a picture of me ( see below).

He took a great deal of care in taking the picture. And as I was thanking him he said “You know this Black Lives Matter thing is bullshit, don’t you?”

I can’t remember exactly what he said but the gist of it is that it’s the rich people that are promoting this and that all this marching won’t do anything, We have to change the Constitution.  He also said that he’d vote for trump over Biden any day and thank goodness Hillary didn’t get in. If she had Jeffry Epstein wouldn’t have gone to prison.

I countered with the first people that marched in the sixties didn’t stop the war or get the civil rights laws changed it was the continued marching that made change,

But that went down like a turd in a punchbowl.

Remember that glow I had a few minutes ago…gone.

He and I hugged each other and wishing that I never met him I slowly limped or tried to limp slowly (remember that fuckin’ dog) home.

Here’s a picture of me before I lost all hope.

And some Zen of that fuckin’ dog and my Super.

I know this will be very disappointing to the people that sent me the $125 advance for my virtual dog training extravaganza but I must cancel.

This is as painful to me as I’m sure it is to you.

It seems that I have not only totally failed in training my own dog but I think she’s gotten worse since we became mostly homebound.

For example she no longer waits until I’m finished to eat off my plate.

Plus she’s taken to howling whenever I’m not paying attention to her or doing exactly what she wants.

For this reason I’ve had to stop some of my previous activities because the neighbors have been threatening to call the police  because they think I’m hurting her.

And with my Black Lives Matter shirts having a visit from the police is a no no.

It seems that brushing my teeth irritates her no end. I’ve had to cut that out.

She also has put a kibosh on any TV show or movie with Adam Sandler in it. So I can forget the hilarity of “Grown ups”.

And why she doesn’t want me to take her on walks without wearing a hat I have no idea.

So you see dear people that until I can get my house in order I have no right to teach.

True, only 19 of you have actually sent me money and I wish I could return it but if you listen to the virtual contract carefully you’ll see that in appendix IV,  I say, under my breath and in latin (the pig type),  that “down payments are not refundable”.

So sorry but anyway I can send you Zen at no cost.

At least I think she will still allow it.