More legal crap going on but I’m trying to not let it get me down.

I was talking to my nephew Barry yesterday , the doctor from Oregon (and yes, David he went to Cornell) and he asked me how I am.

I said some days good, some days bad.

He seemed totally surprised like “Aren’t you over that yet?”

First of all he caught me at a bad time. I had just come back from having dinner at Julie’s where cocktails are de rigueur and since I had 2 wines I was as they say, easily weepy.

Secondly, Jeez I had the rug pulled out from under me suddenly and even though it’s been a year and I’m probably doing  better than most I still wake up having to remember that I live alone and if I see a mouse I need to use the phone to tell anyone.

And doesn’t the little shit read my blog? Doctor, shmocter, that chick from Canada and a couple of Mexicans find time to read it.

Poor him he has to cure some stranger of something icky so he’s too busy to check in on his aunt?  Who I should remind him when she was 10 years old put a half slip on her head and pretended to be a fairy princess for his amusement and delight. THAT  wasn’t exactly no trouble. And frankly it doesn’t say much for his brain power that  that was enough of a disguise to fool him.

I feel better now that I let it out. That kind of crap can eat you away inside so that you’d have to call your nephew who’s a doctor.

I went to the movies alone yesterday and I have to admit I pitied myself.

It was a Woody Allen movie. I liked it okay.

At least this time I wasn’t the only one in the theatre but it is New York and it was Woody Allen. Of course on a Saturday afternoon there wasn’t anyone there under 60.

And guess what. They all talked during the movie. No, not talked, yelled.

“Whad he say?”

“Is that a rug?”

“Is Alex Guinness supposed to be a ghost or what?”

“Where da ya wanna eat?”

“We had chinese last night”

They were mostly couples, or friends together.

I found it interesting that they stayed for all the credits. Then I figured that they were in no hurry because it was about 3:30 so they had an hour to kill before dinner. I’m guessing deli.

Yesterday I wrote about people from other lands who are reading my blogs and much to my delight I heard from one of them. I then realized that in addition to my new best friend Ceecee I have a lot of friends from Canada.

Most outstanding is my friend Eva. We were really close friends since college. I mean really close but one day when I asked her if she felt guilty for smoking in a closed car with her kids that friendship went south. Sometimes I’m such a pompous schmuck know it all that I’m surprised anyone wants to be my friend. I never could fix our friendship after that.

Eva and I spent our weekends going from restaurant to restaurant eating one item from each place. We were in our late teens but we weren’t bogged down with dates so we had plenty of time to frolic. I remember a period when our only entertainment was paying tolls with a giant rubber gorilla hand. Good times  spent constructively.

Eva wasn’t born Canadian. She moved there after she was married. Her marriage was kind of romantic. After college she took a job in California and asked around for someone who wanted to share the driving with her. One of her friends introduced her to this guy Walter and when they got as far as Las Vegas they got married. That marriage stuck. At least they were still going strong 10 or so years ago when I last spoke to her.

Another Canadian friend is Paul Shaffer. Well “friend” is stretching it. More than an acquaintance but not quite a friend. Although I was invited to his wedding. Well “invited” is a strong word. He let me come.

I just realized why I’m so obsessed with friendships today. I’m reading Julie’s new book “Friendkeeping” and it’s making me think about my friend connections except mine aren’t nearly as funny or poignant as hers.

Anyway now that I think of it I only have 2 Canadian friends plus my new best friend Ceecee and since Eva hates me I only have Paul plus Ceecee and Ceecee doesn’t really know me and if Paul never saw me again he wouldn’t notice it.

Another thing is that David who is in Santa Fe with Lizzie finally commented on my blog to insult my dear Ceecee so bye bye Ceecee.

How he was able to find a Canadian slur is beyond me. As you can see the quality of my friends has diminished through the years.

When you write a blog you can tell how many people from each country are reading your stuff. There are 3 people in Canada and 24 people in Mexico who read my thing yesterday that I’m wondering about. I’d like to know who they are. Not for any reason but maybe I could sprinkle some Canadian and Mexican in my writing to keep them interested.

I’m seeing Julie and Violet again today. Julie seemed down in the dumps since her computer is broken. Well down in the dumps may be a bit strong but she did put something on Facebook about becoming a crack whore since she had so much time on her hands.

I’m nothing if not tuned in so I called and asked if she’d like to go to Costco. Although she seemed to like the idea, until I sprinkled it with lunch and Toys R Us we couldn’t get Violet to okay the trip.

I’m off now. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’m back. It went well. Violet even let me get my brake light fixed so I know she was  enjoying the day.

Costco is truly a Jew Wonderland. Huge packs of crap that will enable you to not buy more of that same crap for a year.

It brings the essence of my mother back.  My mother never bought one of anything. Since she had 4 daughters 5 was the magic number of any purchase.

I think my sister wrote about my mother buying 5 vibrators in different colors because she thought they were face massagers. For as long as I could remember she kept hers on my father’s dresser. I don’t know that it was ever used , just the thought of that gives me the screaming meemies.

I was about 12 at the time so mine just stayed on my bookcase.

Not one person ever remarked on the oddity of this. I guess they realized that we all had very relaxed looking faces.

I went to American Express to cash in some foreign money for Stephanie. She and her husband Terry have no doubt been collecting it for a million years because much of it couldn’t be cashed because either the country was now on euros or they were old bills.

While I was there I came upon one of my favorite things. A story or conversation that was so perfectly boring that it became an art form.

It seems that one of the AE workers had gone to the cupcake store and brought back a cupcake for one of her co workers at his request.

I know I can recall it because every one of the sentences was said at least 3 times. Even my saying that rather than stating it the correct number of time steals some of the beauty of the exchange.

“They didn’t have the one you told me you wanted but this one seemed to be most like it. I thought of calling you but I didn’t want to bother you and I said to myself “I’ll take a chance and if he doesn’t like it I’ll eat it myself” so you don’t have to pay me for it. I can save it and eat it tomorrow because I’m a chocoholic. that’s in case you decide you don’t want it.”

“That’s okay, I’ll take it.”

“Because you don’t have to take it. I can eat it tomorrow. I’ll just wrap it up and then I can eat it in the afternoon tomorrow. I thought “Should I call him and see if he’d like this one but I said no I’ll take a chance” but if you don’t want it I can eat it tomorrow.

“No I’d really like it but if you prefer to keep it that’s okay”

“Well if you don’t want it I can keep it but I think you’ll like it. It’s all chocolate even inside, I’m a real chocoholic so if you change your mind… ”

The guy took the cupcake which was $4.50 but he told her to keep the change.

“Are you sure? It might have been a little more than $4.50 with the tax.”

I had to leave so I never found out how it went with the cupcake because I heard her asking if he liked it and he said he hadn’t tasted it yet but he was looking forward to it.

I cried 2 times this morning.

Once when I spoke to my broker about my money situation and the other time with relief when I realized that I didn’t have to go on the voyage through the cosmic crapland that is the Planetarium again today.

Half the day yesterday was spent with Violet lying on the floor  taking pictures of a black ceiling and Julie trying to answer her emails on her iphone since her computer died.

First of all it cost an arm and a leg to get in there even with my old person’s discount.

Now I remember the Planetarium as being a dark room with comfortable seats that you could sit in and admire the show or catch forty winks, whichever you desire.

No such luck. If you wanted said experience it cost more money, namely the body that connects the arm and leg you already paid to get into the place or as the woman in the gift shop said “If you wanna sit down ya gotta pay”

What they had for your entrance fee was a load of  holes you can look through and rocks you could touch and displays of some planet that used to be a moth.

Violet seemed to love it and Julie couldn’t get enough of photographing signs that said  “Gaseous mixtures” or Uranus.

The only slightly bearable part was a 4 minute experience of the Big Bang narrated by Liam Neeson which was hard to hear because the woman standing next to me kept  cracking her gum. If it wasn’t for me and Julie doing a chain of  “Not bad getting banged by Liam Neeson” chatter on the way out even that would have been a bust.

I’m not sure what I’m doing today but whatever it is my eyes will be looking downward the whole time.

It’s been 35 years since Elvis’s untimely death.

He and I had a very special relationship. His was the first album I ever bought. I carried it around until my father took pity on me and bought me a stereo. It was pink and when Julie got old enough I gave it to her.

I was in Europe when he died. My first thought other than “oy” was that now I”d never see him live and he’d never spot me from the stage, pull me up a la Bruce Springsteen and request me to do the twist with him only then seeing that  I also knew that lasso move so he would karate chop dave out of my life and bring me back to Graceland for a life of touch football with the memphis mafia, peanut butter and banana sandwiches and Cadillacs up the kazoo. That’s what I call livin’. I loved dave then but hey it’s Elvis. Even he would have understood.

Those were the days when dave had that James Brown money and he would have taken me any place I wanted to go. I just thought I had more time to see Elvis.

So what am I doing to  commemorate this momentous occasion? (lotta m’s)

I had a pretty good day planned. Julie, Violet and I were going to Brooklyn to meet up with Susan. We were going to have mani pedis. In Brooklyn that costs $15 as opposed to the cheapest rate in Manhattan of $30. Then a great lunch and whatever else we decided to do.

Unfortunately Violet put the kabash on that. She wants to go to the Planetarium. When Violet says “jump” we like to say “How high?”.

And who wants to have a fun day when you can sit in a dark room filled with screaming kids instead? There is one good thing however. In Manhattan we can have cocktails with lunch, even Violet if she wants, since there is no driving involved.

RIP Elvis

I went out to dinner tonight with Ronnie and Mary Moreno, Allen Rubin’s widow.

It was a really nice girl’s night out. We chatted about the music business, the difference between Mary’s loss and mine, a bunch of other things like all the new things we all hoped to try.

We eventually got around to our backgrounds. Although I’ve known Ronnie for a lot of years, Mary is a new friend. She happened to mention that she’s from Chicago and Ronnie asked her what her father did.

“He was a gangster. In fact we had to leave Chicago because Al Capone had taken out a hit on him.”

Our eyes almost popped out of our heads.

“Did he get killed?”

“No, we moved to Washington and he changed our names. Our original name was Marino and he changed it to Moreno”

Remember this morning I was sad?

Well I’m not sad any more but I am becoming nuttier and nuttier.

I decided to meet my friend Susan for lunch. She thought I needed cheering up. We were to meet on 14th Street and 6th Avenue.  That’s one downtown bus and one crosstown bus (thanks dave for taking cabs out of my life.)

I get to the Lexington Avenue bus and realize that I didn’t have my bus pass. I was pretty sure I mailed it with the 3 bills I put in the mailbox but just to make sure I ran home. I emptied out my pocketbook and couldn’t find it. I kept looking and finally found it in my bedroom.

I rushed back to the bus stop and began my trip. Some fatso was screaming at an old lady for getting in line in front of her but I’ll save that for another day.

I finally get to the restaurant and Susan and I order. I wanted to pay because Susan paid for me last time but she wouldn’t hear of it so I agreed to split it.

We asked for the check and I went to take out my credit card and my wallet was missing. I was sure I had it on the bus. I figured it must have fallen out or that angry fat bitch stole it.

My wallet had everything in it. All my credit cards, my license, my medicare card, checks. I was really sad.

Anyway Susan had to pay for me again.

We go back to my apartment  by cab because I was so distraught and when we got there I found my wallet on my dining room table. It seems that when I emptied my pocketbook I forgot to put it back in.

Much relieved Susan and I went into my bedroom to watch Dr. Phil or something when after about 1/2 hour I was forced to tell Susan that she was useless as a friend.

If she were any good at all she would have noticed that my blouse was on inside out all day.