Because I Say So!

Lab Results

I rush to make sure I get to the corner before the light turns green so I can greet Oakley, a yellow Lab, and his dad-person (whose name I don't know), the way I always do when I see them.

"Is this Oakley?" I say, as is my custom just in case the pair has dual doppelg�ngers.

"No, this is Blanche," the man says, and I know it's Oakley's dad because of the Irish lilt. "Oakley passed away suddenly in September and Blanche came to us ten days later."

Tears sting my eyes and I express effusive condolences.

Oakley, who was about 12 years old, had developed a tumor and left the world suddenly. I know I'd seen the man out and about in the past six months. Could it be I hadn't greeted the dog as "Oakley" in the interim, and had been unwittingly smooshing Blanche instead?

Blanche, resplendent in her red collar with gold metal embellishments, looks at me, smiling prettily. She bounces like a puppy.

"She's 10," the man says, "and we rescued her. She's our first girl ever, and now she has her forever home."

Oh yes, Blanche, the kindness of strangers!

Side saddle

Kidz, it's been way too many ages and aeons and peons and peonies and pipsqueaks since I really posted here, and so much has changed since I last haunted these halls on a regular basis. I'm not one for revealing intimate (oooh!) personal details here for the world to see, not for airing laundry whether dirty or clean or a little bit of both, so I won't go into how different my life is from when I used to post here every day way back before Facebook broke out like an oily-faced teenage before the advent of Stridex. (Does that stuff still even exist?)

I'm more active on Facebook than I ever thought I would be, but there you are privy to slightly more intimate details of my life on a more by-invitation-only kind of basis. There, you get to peek up my skirt only when I want you to, and how far up you go is also at my discretion. This is, of course, metaphorically speaking, because I wear pants more often than skirts -- indeed, if we're going to get technical, I never wear skirts, I wear dresses -- but hey, if you want to try to peek up the leg of my jeans, by all means, like, GO FOR IT like gangbusters.

This much I will reveal: I am no longer a lady who lunches. I have neither the time nor the inclination nor the zloty with which to do it. And now that everyone and his brother's plumber's pumpernickel bread baker's daughter is posting photos of lunch, no matter how pallid and boring or vibrant and fabulous via Facebook, that's gotten pretty stale.

I'm not sure what 2013 will bring -- maybe an update of the template, at least, a site redesign to spur me into action? Could it be that the old house is so shabby and static that it needs a revamping, a jolt of, like, FENG SHUI or a smudging? I don't know. I just work here.

But something's afoot. Pants are being kicked. I think I'm back.

Clean

FACT: Every time someone instantly says, like a reflex, "Nobody puts baby in a corner" at the mere mention of "Dirty Dancing", Jerry Orbach's ghost suffers a Mob-style punch to the gut. Please, for the love of this marvelously talented man, let it go. Let it go.

Six Hundred Words About My Dad

"It's not good," my mother says on the phone. The next call, it's worse. I'm on a train to Philadelphia where the worst will be happening over the Thanksgiving holiday.

He's not looking good, my father. His small wire-rimmed glasses, which would be thick as Coke bottle bottoms if it weren't for advanced technology, are on the hospital room counter. He grimaces through his breathing tube, eyes never to open again. I unfold and put on his glasses. He's as blurry through them as he is when I remove them, where tears impede my vision as much as his lenses.

- - -

Not long ago my dad was diagnosed with bladder cancer, but underwent a series of intravenous treatments that, although they left him weak and groggy, seemed to be doing their job. His voice on the phone sounded weak and small, but I knew it would only take time for that voice to match his burly body again and for him to be laughing the laugh I'd come to love since he came into my life 40 years ago. We joked around that this was bullshit. Cancer should know better than to try to take down my Jerry Garcia lookalike dad.

- - -

We had thought he had beaten this thing. But the weekend before Thanksgiving, his body started to swell, a biopsy was performed, and he stayed overnight at the hospital. That Sunday, his blood pressure dropped perilously low and he was put under sedation. He never learned that his body was riddled with the most aggressive lymphoma the doctors had ever seen and that, given a pre-existing heart condition, there was nothing they could do except keep him as comfortable as possible. Instead, there he lay in a bed that was far from the comfort of home and his goofy dog.

- - -

So here I am at his bedside, with waterfall face. Stroking his thick forearms, the fine hair on his temples, touching my lips to the top of his head, which has never looked more innocent or vulnerable. I press my lips against his ear and whisper, "You're a crazy old fuck, Daddy, you know that? Thank you for marrying my mom. I don't have soccer player legs and you know it." If he can hear me at all, I know he's laughing inside his head. I tell him over and over that I love him, something I rarely said aloud.

- - -

A day or so before his hospitalization, we talked on the phone. "What the fuck are you doing over there, Daddy?" I said. "I know. It's bullshit," he said. His voice was weak, but he laughed, and I could imagine his smile peaking from behind the gray and white shrubbery of his beard. Right before we hung up I said, "Love you," words I can't remember ever saying to him.

My mother told me, on Thanksgiving night, that he told her about it. Clueless idiot that I am, I had no idea it would have meant so much to him.

- - -

I dread the first time someone inevitably says my dad is "in a better place". I dread the torrent of rage I'll feel, the overwhelming sadness, the excruciating pain in my brain, heart and soul, thinking that anywhere but here -- with us, being a pain in everyone's ass, sticking his fingers in the food before it's done cooking, watching endlessly stupid TV, entering a room and uttering inanities -- is the better place for him to be. His body is ashes, his energy has joined the galaxy, cosmos, or whateverthefuck. And I just want him back, chewing chocolate-covered cherries forever.

The kick in the pants I needed

This morning, a Sunday, I woke up at my "school day" hour, which is way too early o'clock, and checked my email on my iPad, almost like a reflex. A lone email, like a sole sourball in a cut-glass, greeted me. The message was far from sour but just as sweet. It was this:

I suppose a lot of us stopped reading blogs somewhere along the line. I came to check yours today and saw that it had not been updated in three months. I just want to say that back in the age of the blog yours was one of the very best, so thanks for everything from all of us nameless readers out here. Jodi, you made us smile and you did a great job! Best wishes in whatever you are doing now, even if you aren't doing anything at all. You touched a lot of people.

It is no secret that I haven't "blogged" with any regularity for several years. I could blame the fact that a long-term relationship ended, then I moved into my own apartment and had to (and still have to) work my ass to the bone (um ... ewww?) to afford to live here, and then I was in another relationship and that tanked, and then I floundered and dated and found someone else and then that went belly up, but really the fault lies within me, not the situations, and it's time that I took the bullshit by the horns and just started writing here again. I've missed it.

Although I do dig Facebook, and the interactions I have there, and the friendships I've made and the people I've met and all that other trite claptrap, it's not the same as having my own space to write what I want without fearing that Facebook is somehow spying on all of us.

So, to the man who wrote me the note above (yes, I have his name, but I didn't want to use it out of respect for his privacy), thank you. Thank you for the kick in the pants. It's just what I needed, to paraphrase the song.

His note wasn't the first of its kind that I've received, but it will be the last. To semi-sorta steal the name of a TV show that used to annoy the pants off of me, "Welcome back, blogger."

Ahoy!

In Living Color

Poppop wanted a 70th birthday party, so we granted his wish on 19 July 1979. We weren't even sure if it was his 70th, because we were never quite clear on the year he entered this world. 1908? 1909? 1910? Who knew? No one, apparently. But since he wanted festivity in 1979, that's what he got. How do you say "no" to a man who always said "yes"?

You don't.

What you do is you put up balloons. You get cake. You have tons of food. You act ridiculous, with paper hats. You laugh like a hyena. You rejoice in glorious color. You say, "Ehh, what difference does a year make? He's 71, he's 70, he's 69 ... so what? He's here and that's all that matters." Why waste time worrying about time?

Poppop, a week ago I lit a Yahrzeit candle in your sweet memory and cried so many tears they would have filled a huge bowl, the kind in which you used to serve me your insanely delicious matzoh ball soup. Today there is no candle, but your light shines so brightly still, and I swear I can hear you laughing.

When you left this world in 1993, Mommy decided your "official" year of birth was 1910. I love thinking that if that were the case, and you did know all along, then you were just eager to get the party started a year early. Don't you realize, though, that every day with you was one?

Happy 102nd or 103rd or 104th birthday, my dear sweet man! ♥

Behold!

The rectangular plot of grass adjacent to the projects is the equivalent of a threadbare carpet. What it lacks in lustrous green, it makes up for with small plastic pinwheels, paint-chipped Hot Wheels, primary-color Fisher-Price figures, and bedraggled plush toys who lord over the kingdom like mangy Godzillas. The breeze animates the pinwheels and stirs what little grass there is. Sunlight glints off the tiny cars. The Fisher-Price kids smile, some tilted this way or that from last night's rain. This is not the most beautiful garden in the world. But it's beautiful because whoever created it thinks it is.

Sheba

Yesterday on my walk home from the gym, in quasi-rain, I met a 13-year-old dog named Sheba. I asked her lady-companion if I could say hello, and when she said of course, I did so and commenced gentle smooshing. I noticed a red smudge on Sheba's nose and then realized the red smudge WAS her nose -- or where her nose used to be. I asked the woman what happened, and she said it was cancer. She said Sheba also had vaginal cancer. I bent down and hugged Sheba even more. The woman said, with a tiny smile, "She's a mess, but she's my mess." I told Sheba she was beautiful, thanked the two of them for sharing a part of their day, and walked away ... my own mess.

Plucked

I am the daisy whose petals you plucked off in a misguided attempt to determine whether or not the schmuck who hasn't called you a week after your first date -- during which he didn't comment on let alone compliment you on the outfit you spent hours deliberating with your girlfriends and didn't even suggest dessert after dinner and used his tongue on your cheek when you averted your face in your lobby and declined his offer to come upstairs -- loves you or not. For this you plucked me from the earth, robbing me of my life? I love you not!

Baby love

According to the comments posted below the baby's photo, it's unanimous: The kid's a knockout. In all possible ways, he's the baby to beat the band -- the best-looking, the smartest, the luckiest -- even earning an accolade expressed in the most annoying fashion known to mankind: "Cutest. Baby. Ever."

Are they seeing the same alien troll I'm seeing? Are they seeing the unruly hair the color of an orange Creamsicle rotting in the sun, the loose and drooly lips, the pin-dot eyes, the facial expression that smacks of irreversible catatonia?

Oh, how I fantasize about commenting: "Blindest. Commenters. Ever.

God is in the details

The homeless man on Broadway refuses the bagel I offer. Jesus loves me, he says. I tell him I know and that Jesus wants him to have the bagel. "God is not in there!" he says. I want to ask if that's because there's no cream cheese but instead advise that God AND Jesus want him to take it. He refuses again, so I give it to a homeless guy on Fifth who accepts it with a quiet "God bless" and a gap-toothed smile.

Is this thing on?

Yes, I'm here, I haven't gone to the great beyond or been kidnapped like Erica Kane or run away to the hills of wherever the hell there are hills to live "off the grid". I'm here, still in glorious Manhattan, still doing my thing, still wanting to wring people's necks for a variety of infractions, but with very little time to do so. But I'm here, and I would like to resume "blogging", but I keep on putting it off like the laundry or cleaning out my closets or getting rid of old MTA receipts from my wallet, all of which are vying for my attention as well ...

I rarely if ever go out to lunch anymore, so I don't have photos of my food with which to delight you on a regular basis. I do still smoosh dogs, but I keep forgetting to get their photos. The gym still exists and with it all the hideous transgressions of both etiquette and attire.

I'll see what I can do. And then ... do it.

Beating the Brand (a 100-word musing)

Are people really so mindless that the only way they're willing to get past prunes' historically maligned image is if they're repositioned as individually-wrapped candy-like treats, as Sunsweet has done by introducing them as "Ones"? I don't know what rankles me more: That this moronic mind-game will actually work on the general public or that all of that wasteful, unnecessary wrapping won't faze most self-proclaimed health-conscious cretins targeted by the advertisers. I suppose none of this should surprise me and that instead I should just be happy that I'm capable of knowing that this rebranding is plum full of shit.

Far from the tree

The old oak tree may wear a yellow ribbon well, but this fallen lady sure rocks her fuchsia boa.

Save it

Shut up and eat your Daylight Saving Time. Think of the children in Arizona and Asia who have to go without.