Miss Liz is coming back from Santa Fe tonight.

I’m so happy. I really missed her.

It’s about time too. David will need to be whipped back into shape and she’s the one who can do it.

He hasn’t seen Rupert practically at all since she left or as he says, “Only when I’m getting in the elevator and he runs out of your house, barking and trying to bite me”

He’s also taken up the very sensitive method of contacting me by banging on my door and screaming in german.
There isn’t a nazi reference that he doesn’t jump into with both feet.
Now that he lives down the hall from one of the few Jews he is on speaking terms with he must be thrilled that he can put them to good use.

He does have his sensitive side too.

To explain why he didn’t answer the email I sent him yesterday, he said his phone is acting weird and he didn’t get it until just now.

“After all,” he said “You know if I had gotten it I never would have ignored you. I would have sent you some insult in return.”

The french lady down the hall wanted me to meet her mother who is visiting from, I guess, France. When introduced, her mother said “Enchante”

That beat out my “pleased ta meetcha” by a mile.

I think I’m going to be saying that french thing from now on.

I haven’t had much to say in the past few days because no one would find my going to the dentist very interesting even though I actually tried to talk him into looking at my teeth without touching them.
Now that I think of it, that might just be one more nail in my crazy coffin.

I was talking to Julie about a fabulous present that Stephanie is giving to her husband for their anniversary. I can’t tell you what it is because he won’t get it until tomorrow and you all know how mean Stephanie can be if you screw something up that she has planned.

Julie was asking me when was the last time I got a present that absolutely floored me. I thought for awhile and then I remembered that many years ago we had company for dinner and Dave (he was capital ‘D’ then) passed a box with a necklace in it down to me. It was beautiful and he picked it out himself. I was so proud in front of my friends.

Julie said “Was that the time with the tube socks?”

That brought to mind the most awkward gift exchange ever.

It was before we were married. dave was working for James Brown and he had what, at that time, was plenty of money.

He bought me diamond studs for Christmas. I knew I was getting them so I decided to make a Christmas Eve party so he could present them with a flourish. Even now I say “What was I thinking?”.

But it gets worse. I figured how would it look for dave to give me such a fabulous present with no one else receiving gifts?

So I bought gifts for all my guests. Tube socks for the boys and jacks for the girls.

The party was pretty lousy to begin with.

Everyone was just sitting around not talking that much.

At about 10 p.m. I realized that these people weren’t going to hang around until midnight for the holiday to begin so I decided to announce the opening of the presents.

Everyone started opening their lame-o gifts while I, the hostess, opened my diamond earrings and showed them around for everyone to ooh and aah about.

One more aspect I never even thought of was that once 2 guys opened their identically wrapped tube socks, the mystery was pretty much gone for the others.

I still remember my friend Cynthia, slumped on my couch wearing sunglasses, looking over at the girl across from her opening up her jacks, and just throwing her package on the coffee table unopened.

My friends were not badly brought up. I’m sure they thanked me for the gifts. I only wish I could remember what they said after thank you?

“How’d you know I needed socks without heels?”

When Lisa, my agent, asked me if I was angry at dave, I had to stop and think.

I know I feel sad. I know I am scared about the future but angry? uh uh.

I am starting to get a little angry at myself for this.

Bills have been piling up.

Even though money has been coming in it’s not enough to keep up.

In the past I would take money out of what my father left me to make up the difference but all the liquidity of that is gone.

I finally asked dave for money. He had just finished an album.

He immediately arranged for it to go to me.
I was able to pay most of what we owed.

Instead of making me happy it made me sad. I’m even crying now while I write this.

I know he needs money but he didn’t hesitate to send it to me.

It’s so much easier when he’s thoughtless.

Now I know that I’m going to get a bunch of comments saying that it’s because I’m nice, except for Stephanie who will be disgusted with me. (Although even she said a few weeks ago that she’s realizing that she’s feeling the loss of uncle dave too.)

And she’s right. There’s nice and there’s martyr like.

When I think of him needing money it breaks my heart but then I must remember that he needs money for her too.
He’s the one who told her to quit her job so she could spend more time with him. I have to keep remembering things like that.

It’s almost a year. Why am I not over this? The longer it is, the more I remember his good sides. The bad stuff fades unless I force myself to remember it.

Mostly I feel good but every once in awhile I get these setbacks.

Okay, my sister and Julie just called and made me feel better. I’m not sad any more.

Julie and I went out to dinner last night. We hadn’t seen each other since before I went on my trip to promote world peace so we both had lots to discuss.

One of the things I brought up was that Lisa, my agent (I will never say her name without that addition) asked if I was ready to date. She even suggested J Date.

I used to joke that if dave and I ever got divorced (at the time I thought that possibility was ridiculous) that my next husband would be a fat guy who would sit on the couch and say “See what’s on 4”.

That really doesn’t sound that bad to me but now that the reality has set in, he’d also have to love dogs as much as I do, go to the beach with me and actually go in the water, take me on vacations that we both wanted to go on, not feel that as long as I went he didn’t care if I wanted to be there, and not take advantage of my serious need to please.

Oh yeah and he’d have to really love me and not date.

But I’m nowhere ready for even that yet.

Even if I was I don’t know who I could get.

Sometimes I walk down the street and say to myself, “Could I get him, or him?”

Men my own age or even older would want someone younger. And even they aren’t so great. It’s one thing being with someone and watching them grow old slowly. You don’t even notice it. But to get turned on by an old guy in the beginning? I don’t know about that.

Then I remembered that dave’s japanese flower found him attractive enough according to the email she sent him about licking parts of him that I didn’t even know he had but he’s a star in Japan and that makes up for quite a bit.

That’s when I remembered that Lisa, my agent, may make me famous so that would increase my choices. I might even get a younger man or as Julie suggested in the title of this post there are even more possibilities.

About a month ago a young woman named Lisa Leshne that Julie knew from Violet’s school reacted to a post of mine that Julie had put on facebook.

She’s a successful agent who has done a lot for new writers and bloggers.

Julie suggested that she read the rest of my blog and after she did she said she wanted to meet with me.

I was really scared and didn’t want to see her without Julie. Julie was too busy finishing her new book so we put it off until yesterday.

At the last minute Julie (am I saying her name too much?) had some emergency rewrites and had to back out.

She suggested we postpone it but since I had already polished my nails I decided to go it alone.

As I’m writing this I realize that if the meeting had been for dave I would have met with her when she first showed interest.

I walked into the restaurant and there she was. She was beautiful and warm and welcoming. I wondered what I had been afraid of.

We sat down and since my hands were still shaking ( you could barely notice my flawless nails polished with # 626, “Eternal Optimist”) I ordered a glass of wine.
Lisa was so easy to be with that I only drank half of it.

After a bit of small talk she asked me if I ever thought about writing a book.

While we were sitting there discussing the possibilities Lisa kept coming back to what I had considered a throwaway line in my blog where I mentioned that my trying to take care of my rapist was pretty much how I handled my divorce.

Only lying in bed later, having woken up because my sleeping machine tried to drown me again, did I realize how lucky I was to be involved with someone that perceptive.

I know I’ve learned a bit about myself writing this but a whole lot of it doesn’t resonate with me until I get a comment from a reader or in this case, my agent.

Well I’m back.

The truth is I could have been anywhere and it would have been just as good.

Whenever I’m with my sister it’s usually with the rest of the family or for a short period of time.

For two weeks we were together for 24 hours a day. We had time to sit silently and read. We didn’t feel that we had to entertain each other or squeeze every thought into our brief visit.

There was not one moment that wasn’t absolutely perfect. We felt no need to do something we didn’t want to do to make someone else happy. (I’ve chosen to ignore those fish faces for this post)
We were totally in sync.

We were hungry at the same time and tired at the same time.

I love her so much and I have since I was a little girl.

On a less pleasant subject. I truly could do without flying.

Luckily I am always alert and everyone on that plane should have given me a hearty thank you upon landing.

At the airport I noticed a man with a Qatar Foundation tee shirt (some kind of terrorist organization if I’ve ever seen one)getting on first class, then another swarthy man with the same shirt getting on coach.
My antennae were up.

While the rest of the plane slept in their stupid ignorance I kept a good watch on those two guys.

There was a young girl in the window seat next to me who was sound asleep with two pillows, one stolen (mine).

At about 2 hours before landing, sleeping beauty woke up. That’s when I noticed that she too was wearing that shirt. She looked up and her eyes met with man number 2 who was standing in the aisle.
I was just about to wake Marcia to alert her.

Only when the girl stretched did I see the back of the shirt. It said UNICEF.

Well it could have said “Death To America” and I would have been prepared

Europeans will eat anything.

They are not put off by seeing faces in their food. OR FEET!

I don’t take any chances. I almost always order chicken but my sister, who if you don’t mind my saying so is not an adventurous eater, keeps ordering fish.

Twice I had to change plates with her because the first time it was filled with faces and eyes and the second time it was slimy and had a hole in it.
Plus I had to pretend that I liked it so she wouldn’t feel bad.

That face thing didn’t have just one face, it had about nine of them.

We went to another Gaudi museum today and I saw the most beautiful necklace designed by Gaudi (a copy).
If dave weren’t dead, at least to me, he definitely would have bought it for me but since I’m poor now, instead of buying beautiful gifts for myself and the people I love, I’m collecting refrigerator magnets from each place I visit.

Thank goodness for Barcelona.
Today we went to Gaudi’s “La Pedrera”
Tres interesante.
Marcia, who cries at the drop of a hat (I once made her cry 5 times in a row by singing “Good Bye Old Girl” from “Damn Yankees”) burst into tears when she signed the guest book.

Before this we might as well have been vacationing in the Bronx.
All we did was eat, shop and lie like lumps on the boat.

We did go to the Picasso homestead but that was on the first day. After that our heads hurt from all that brain stuff.

Funny thing about my red shoes. Well not funny exactly, just more proof that I’m losing my marbles.
When it was time to pack to leave the boat I pulled out my big suitcase and opened it up only to see it empty except for one red shoe.
What made me look into my suitcase on that first day, see one red shoe and figure that I was unpacked.

Since we made so few friends on this trip, all our vacation photos are either of each of us alone or pretending to be chatting it up with one statue or another.

We couldn’t have been happier.

Every day and every evening Marcia puts on one beautiful outfit after another. Her skirts match her blouses and she looks beautiful.
During the day I wear my casual black and in the evening for a change of pace I wear my dressy black.

Since I was feeling so happy before I left I decided I wanted to bring a splash of color. Last summer Lizzie bought me red shoes.

I knew they were just what I needed to brighten up my trip and had I packed both shoes I’d certainly be wearing them.

We’re in Mallorca now.
We’re dining on tapas in an outdoor restaurant and if every person at every other table wasn’t smoking a butt it would be perfect.

Tomorrow off to Barcelona and then home to try and start my new life

Here’s what’s wrong with espana or should I say Los espanioles.

In spite of the fact that I speak to them in impeccable Spanish they answer me in incorrect English.

Por examplo, the answer to “donde la taverna?” is not “twelve”

Btw we did survive last nights near death trip. But I should say that the Capitano (I can barely speak english any more) threw up 3 times during dinner.
It put a real cramp in marcia and I finishing our surf and turf.