I had some high toned guests yesterday.

Carmon Deleone and his lovely wife, Kathy.

Now these are two people that when dave and I broke up I was afraid that I’d never see again, not only because Carmon has a snooty job, he is the musical director of the Cincinnati Ballet and the conductor of the Middletown Ohio Symphony, but he’s dave’s best friend in the world.

In fact I used to say that after me, Carmon was the person dave loved most in the world. I really know people.

The thought of losing those two and their wonderful daughters really made me sad so you can imagine how happy I was that I was going to see them. In fact they’re coming to stay with me in May too and I can’t wait. I do have a guest room you know.

Let me tell you about them and our history.

Before he was a big time conductor,  Carmon was a drummer at the Playboy Club and that’s when he met Kathy. She was a bunny supporting 3 little daughters, he played in the band.

You know how you don’t want to introduce an older friend as what they used to be because, well, we all age, but Kathy still looks like a Playboy Bunny. She’s still beautiful and joy and light enter the room with her. I personally think she should stop wearing the ears but you know me. I like to mind my own business.

I remember the first time I met Carmon. dave and I were engaged and we went to Cincinnati to visit. All over the airport were pictures of Carmon in tails.  You can imagine how I dreaded having to make conversation with this guy. Especially since I had heard that dave’s first wife thought Carmon was “difficult”.

Well he was wonderful and if he was fussy about exactly which Pepperidge Farm cookie he preferred I could live with that.

In fact it was almost a year before I found the right one. I’d serve him the cookies and each time he’d take a small bite, smile and say “very good but….” and he’d shake his head.

I was shocked to see that his preference turned out to be  Bordeaux, a relatively plain choice for such a fancy guy.

They live in this beautiful big house with giant white pillars in front.

Kathy not only takes care of this house all by herself she also paints it and spackles stuff while serving Carmy his snooty guy breakfasts that almost always include a white sauce.

She’s everything I always wished I was.

One of my favorite things she does is totally decorate her house for Christmas. Each year she makes a beautiful wreath for her front door and takes out all her decorations so she can bring the season into every room in the house.

One year after visiting them , loving the holiday feeling, even finding little reindeer in the guest towels, I promised myself I’d do the same thing when I got home.

I bought tiny blue lights and put them all around my living room and placed candy canes in all my plants.   I obviously shot my load on that effort because those decorations stayed up for 8 years until the last candy cane was eaten by somebody that didn’t consider freshness a prerequisite for enjoyment of sweets.

I knew then that I could never be like Kathy, I’d just have to enjoy her.

There’s another Carmon and Kathy story that I’ve always loved.

They were dating for several years when Carmon planned a trip to Europe and told Kathy to bring her divorce papers. She naturally assumed that Carmon was going to ask her to marry him and they’d do it on the trip.

Actually Carmon told us later that that was his intention but when he got there he just didn’t feel like doing it. Being Carmon, he also didn’t feel it was necessary to mention  his change of plans.

I keep imagining Kathy getting up each morning, hopefully putting on her wedding dress only to be disappointed. I pictured Kathy getting on the plane to go home wearing a frayed, dirty gown and holding wilted flowers.

Well Carmie and Kathy did get married and they lived happily ever after. In fact dave’s father performed the ceremony.

I’m so glad they’re still in my life. Not only because I love them and I do but because the Maestro said he’d fix my TV before going back to Cincinnati.

Life is good.

1. The night before last I got undressed for bed and I realized that my shirt was on inside out and it was a shirt with buttons.

2. Yesterday I was in Home Depot with Miss Liz and tried to reach into my pocket only to notice that my pants were on backwards.

Nuff said.

I went to Hugh McCracken’s memorial on Monday.

They kept playing a video with Hugh just talking and it felt like he was there.

So many people that loved him got up to speak and a few played.  You could hear a pin drop when  Will Lee sang  “Blackbird” in his beautiful soulful voice.

I came away with a few thoughts other than what a great musician Hugh was.

He made everyone feel like he really cared about them and was happy to see them.

People came from all over to pay their respects and return that love.

It was standing room only. I can’t imagine that many people showing up for me (something that many of the people at this thing said about themselves)

The memorial was held at a church affectionately known as the Jazz Church in the Citicorp building.

I’ve paid my respects to several musicians there.

I always expected to hold a memorial for dave there. I just assumed he’d die first and that all the musician’s that played with him would come and play his arrangements and I would receive their sympathy stoically.

Well I hope he tells his girlfriend where the jazz church is because if he wants a nice send off it will be up to her and if he has any regrets about leaving me, first on the list should be that I won’t be organizing his memorial. I do know how to throw a party.

In the old days if your dog died you had to put his body in a bag for the garbage men to pick up and you had to label it “dead dog”.

My sister Iris used to say to her children. Don’t come to my funeral. Visit me now. When I die you can just put me out on the curb in a bag with “dead mother” written on it.

So here’s what I want. When I die I want everyone I cared about and who cared about me to know I said “Thanks and See ya”

It was an exciting weekend.

I spent Saturday night at Steph’s. She took me, her sister and her friend Donna to dinner theatre to see “Kiss Me Kate”.

The show was wonderful, beautiful music, talented actors, dancers and singers.

I did think there was one flaw. Remembering Howard Keel in the role, big strong and handsome, I originally thought that the guy who played the lead was too old. He had trouble lifting his young partner and he was a little jiggly in his tights.

I was clearly wrong though because at the end when he kissed Kate he had a big hard on.

Well not big but a hard on never the less.

And yesterday Miss Liz came home.

The 18th floor is whole again.

While David watched  the Dallas Cowboys, Lizzie and I went shopping.

Remember my telling you that when I’m uncomfortable I talk crazy? We were in the elevator with our packages when this giant handsome man got in with us.

For some reason I said ” You think we can’t beat you up but we can”. He didn’t miss a beat. He just smiled and said “I never doubted it for a minute.”

Julie would have cringed but Liz didn’t even blink. We’ve been friends for a very long time and she’s not related to me so my genes ain’t hers.

That was actually a New York story.  It’s such a high functioning city that you have to think on your feet all the time.

Another example of this happened only yesterday when I accidentally walked in front of a young man who was taking a photo of his friend.

When I apologized he said “Don’t be silly we were trying to get you in the picture”.

I’m so glad I live here. I can be as crazy as I want and no one cares.

I’ve never been much of a drinker.  In fact, I could never see the point of having a drink just to have a drink.

I’d have a glass of wine before dinner but that’s pretty much all I’d do.

As I’ve mentioned dave loved drinking, maybe too much.

So did my sister, Iris. When it was 5 pm on the nose she’d pour herself a cocktail. She did it scientifically. She had determined exactly how much gave her a buzz without putting her over the edge. She measured out her scotch or whatever carefully and you could just see her relax.

Iris and I couldn’t have been more different but she was definitely my best friend and I was hers. It pained her that I didn’t like to drink. She complained of it often.

She and dave loved each other and they both loved drinking together.

I remember sitting at dinner with a sober, disapproving expression on my face while the two of them were trying different cocktails and laughing and laughing.

I hated them both so much. In my defense, I had just quit smoking and was going through menopause so I was almost always furious and sweating and my watching them be happy made me want to kill them.

Well things have certainly changed. One of the things that dave left me with, along with half his worldly goods, was a love of the grape or the potato (is vodka made from a potato??)

When David sends me an email saying “Cocktails?” I can’t get over there fast enough. Hell, if the doorman sent me an email saying “Cocktails?” I’d shoot down to the lobby lickity split.

I was beginning to worry that I may be drinking too much because 1. It interferes with my wish to lose weight. Not only because it’s fattening but it opens the chicken parmigiana door and 2. I never can remember what 2 is.
That can’t be good. 2 might be important.

But then I started thinking. With the government shut down there’s nobody out looking for commies ergo the Russkies could overtake us and we’d have to drink vodka to get along and if I already like vodka I will be popular and maybe become a government official so I could shut down the government and there will be nobody looking out for honest well meaning politicians and they can overtake us and I can stop drinking.

It’s a no brainer.

This past Saturday was my great nephew Jacob’s Bar Mitzvah.

My nephew Brian and his two girls spent the weekend at my house and we all drove up together to celebrate in Connecticut.

Naturally I drove, it being my car, with nothing but criticism from Brian.

First because I passed by two different exits that the GPS told me to get off on because I knew a better way. At least I thought I did. It turns out I was wrong and we did a bit of backtracking.

As I told Brian, in my defense I wasn’t paying that much attention and I thought I was on a different parkway.

Second, when we were almost there, Brian discovered, to his shock and dismay, that there was only one seat belt in the back seat so one of his daughters was at risk.

All during the Bar Mitzvah Brian was giving me suggestions on how to immediately get the rear seat belt fixed when I got home.

Julie just laughed at him.

“She’s not going to fix it”

He gave me a disbelieving look. “You won’t?”

“No”

“Why not?”

“Why would I? My car is a million years old and no one ever sits in the back seat”

“Sadie did (that’s his daughter)”

“So if once in a blue moon Sadie sits in the back, she can hold on”

Back to the Bar Mitzvah.

It was wonderful until I got on the dias with my sister Marcia and my brother in law Paul and got the giggles. The whole time the Lady Cantor gave me dirty looks trying to  make me get hold of myself.

She was the last person to give advice since she had a hacking cough that she was intent on spreading and blew her nose like a fog horn every time she wasn’t singing.

It brought to mind all the functions I’ve ruined. I laughed hysterically at my friend Sue’s first wedding, I burst into tears at my niece Laura’s wedding when I was supposed to do a reading and my phone rang during the ceremony at my niece Alexandra’s wedding.

If anyone puts me front and center again they get what they deserve.

The day was wonderful and when it was time to leave Brian insisted on driving. He put me in the no seatbelt seat while Sadie sat up front since I was the only one who was dispensable .

As he explained he was the head of his family and the two girls “had so much to live for” while it was clear that I wasn’t putting my twilight years to good use for the most part as far as Brian could see.

Since on the trip home we would be passing Katonah, Brian asked his girls if they’d like to see where he grew up. Sadie who had 1. just escaped the jaws of death by no seatbelt  and 2. knew which side her bread was buttered on and who pays for that butter, said “Sure Dad, I’d love to”

So while Brian pointed out his high school, his junior high school  and where all of his friends lived,Sadie oooed and ahhhed with interest and appreciation and her sister, Lily sat in the back seat pretending to shoot herself in the head with her finger.

I wanted to show that I was every bit as much fun as their father so on the way back from parking the car I showed the girls where my dentist’s office was.

One of my pet peeves is being dismissed because I’m old but after giving it some thought I realized that it’s partly my fault.

I am not embracing new things until they are a memory in the minds of the younger set. I remember when I used to laugh at my sister Iris  who referred to me as a “swinging single” in my twenties about 2 years after that was an acceptable expression.

Also how funny was it to see our parents in leisure suits? Bad example, they were never in style.

Why just this  morning I was talking to Julie and agreed with something she said by responding “For shizzle” when I clearly should have said “Word”.

I tried on a pair of those pants the other day, I don’t know what they call them but they look like harem pants with a low slung crotch. I didn’t buy them because I kept falling down when I tried walking in them but I’m going right back to that store and getting them today. I can practice at home until they become a second skin.

I might get a tattoo also. Something on my ankle. Maybe a snake or a picture of  one of the “Lil’s”

Also I notice that I don’t stick my tongue out in photographs as much as I should.

Yep I’ve had it with people offering me a seat on the bus.

My friend texted me about yesterday’s blog entry saying that her boyfriend said that his dog would never pee inside.

First of all, I never said his dog peed. I said he did.

Plus, every dog that ever came in my house peed under that desk. Since it used to be dave’s desk I think it’s the animal kingdom showing what they think of dave leaving me.

Word.

I had a BBQ last night, actually it was yesterday because it started at 3 p.m.

It was really good. I think everyone had a nice time. Who doesn’t love turkey burgers and hot dogs? And loads of wine. I even had a pitcher of wine with fresh peaches in it which almost demands that you drink more than you might  if it wasn’t there.

Today I discovered that one of my guests peed 4 times under my desk. There was only one person there that I didn’t  know before.  It was probably him.

He did have a dog with him but he said she was house broken so it couldn’t have been her. It had to be the guy.

He’s dating a friend of mine. I wonder if I should warn her that if he comes to her house she should keep an eye on him.

Nah, just my luck to try and do a good deed and have her get all hoity toity claiming that I was framing him because he was a stranger to me. She’d probably even claim that I did it myself just to break them up, me being a woman alone.

Yep maybe I should  just keep this info in my vest pocket.  It’s only a matter of time before this guy pees or drops a deuce under her desk.

I’ll just smile knowingly when she tells me about it.

I just got an email from my niece, Stephanie. It said:

“I just pulled a snake out of my car. It was in my side pocket and I was putting my hand in there for a pen and felt it.     You should’ve heard my screams.”

That’s the second snake story that has occurred in my family recently. Remember the snakes in the towels at Marcia’s house?

What’s with all the snakes?  Jews don’t have snakes yet my people seem to be overrun with them. Is it some kind of sex thing?

David and his sons are in Texas watching the Texas Bluebirds play the Oklahoma Hot Dogs. I think that’s the name of those teams.

He keeps sending me and Liz pictures of Texans walking down the street in Dallas with machine guns hanging on their shoulders.

It seems that they are having some kind of demonstration because even though Texas is full of nuts they haven’t seen fit to allow those nuts to openly carry guns.

These people are marching to not have to keep their guns in their dungaree pockets or for the ladies, in their bras.

Think of all the time you waste if you have to reach into your clothing to get your gat. You’re just asking for a second thought or two so you  might not shoot someone for taking your parking spot. Yep cool heads are dead heads.

Naturally David jumped right in line with them and he brought his two innocent sons with him.

If those two weren’t almost thirty I’d fight for custody and I’d win.

That’s when my fast ended but don’t blame me.

David threw a bagel at my door.