Cindy called me the other day while she was driving to work. I hate when my daughters do that as I don’t think it’s safe, but they obviously don’t care what I think about that. She told me her dog, Charlie, is not doing well. His hip is going bad as do hips of dogs his size most often do – Charlie is a big dog. So the lady veterinarian gave Cindy some fish oil pills that might help. I guess they do in cases like that. Cindy mentioned that she had a bulging disk and the vet said she did too! She said she takes the pills herself and they help her, so now Cindy is taking Charlie’s fish oil pills every day – two for Charlie and one for Cindy. That reminds me of “Seinfeld” – but everything reminds me of “Seinfeld.” One episode had Elaine at the vet’s office looking for help for a rash because all the people doctors in Manhattan had kicked her out as they said she was too difficult. And there was another “Seinfeld” episode where Kramer was taking a dog’s pills for a cough. He had found the dog on the street, and it was coughing. Kramer had a cough, and since he didn’t like people doctors, he took the dog to the vet and got some pills for the dog’s cough. So he took the dog’s pills. Jerry had to force one down his throat as it was quite big. But then Kramer started taking on a dog’s characteristics. When Jerry would jiggle his car keys, Kramer would run excitedly to the door to go for a walk or ride in the car, and occasionally he would bark!

I also thought of Cindy when Elaine’s area code in Manhattan was changed from 212 (that’s the only one that means anything in Manhattan) to some other numbers. The same thing happened to Cindy in Washington when they changed hers from the special one to some trashy number. Cindy complained and so did Elaine. But Elaine carried it further. She checked the obituaries and found an old woman who had just died with a 212 area code. So she called the phone company and requested that number. But then the old lady’s grandson kept calling and asking for Nana. Elaine got so frustrated she finally told him Nana was dead, whereupon he called 911 and the police broke into Elaine’s apartment to look for the dead Nana. The whole thing was very funny. Cindy got so upset, she canceled her land line phone and now uses just her cell. I guess she showed that phone company! In the picture, she’s looking ecstatic over how she solved the problem.

And then there’s George, Jerry’s buddy. George thought everyone should like him, and when Jerry’s girlfriend didn’t, George kept after her until everything blew up in his face. I think Jerry lost his girlfriend and George lost his. Cindy is like that in the way that she thinks everyone should like her, and it bothers her if she thinks someone doesn’t. She has never become quite as obsessed as George did. George obsesses over everything – that seems to be his life. Cindy hasn’t gotten there yet.

All in all, I think Cindy stepped right out of the “Seinfeld” group . . . or possibly into it. It’s like it was modeled after her life. She seems to have characteristics of those three characters – Elaine, Kramer and George - which is not a bad thing at all. Makes life interesting!

Cindy and I will soon be flying to Manhattan to stay with Teri, Mark and Harry for a few days. We haven’t seen their new apartment yet, so it will be an experience for all concerned. I’m taking a red-eye flight which will be a first for me. I’m hoping, with the help of drugs, I’ll be able to sleep during the flight. The apartment sounds very nice – two bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs. This is all on the 39th floor of a condo building which scares me as I don’t like being off the ground that far. But Teri said the windows don’t open, so I won’t need to worry about throwing myself out of one.

Teri and Mark moved from a big house in Los Angeles to Manhattan and are now in this apartment. And they have four cats and one dog . . . in an apartment! I can’t imagine what that’s like, but I guess I’ll be finding out soon. Teri had two friends spend a weekend with them recently, and they slept in the downstairs bedroom where Cindy and I’ll be sleeping. These friends don’t like cats which became a real problem at night. They shut the bedroom door, and the cats hurled themselves against the door - all four of them! The friends finally gave in and opened the door and the cats ran in and jumped all over them. So while Teri’s telling me this, and we’re both laughing, I’m also thinking about what’s going to happen when Cindy and I are sleeping in that room. I don’t want the cats on my bed, jumping around all night, and I don’t want them trying to beat the door down! Cindy said she can sleep through anything as Charlie, her huge dog, sometimes sleeps on her bed. But I’m not used to animals sleeping with me or on me. I love all of Teri’s pets and have spent time with them, so I’m used to what they do. I’ll just have to wait and see what happens when Cindy and I arrive. Maybe there will be some intense bonding, and we’ll find we can all sleep in the same bed and actually sleep . . . or maybe I’ll drug them all.

I’m so excited about my trip. I’m already setting aside clothes that I want to take with me to make sure I don’t wear them before I go. I have little tiny toothpaste tubes and hand lotion in my overnight case with similar objects. I’m getting everything ready as if I were leaving tomorrow. Do I sound obsessed? I think so. I haven’t seen Teri and her family or Cindy for a long time, so this will be a special time for us. I think we’re going to have an I Eta Pi sorority meeting while we’re all together. I wish we could get Meredith Baxter to attend since the sorority is based on Betty Broderick and Meredith knows all about her. Our president, Cindy, may have new recruits to tell us about, and since Teri is the godfather, maybe she’s scared up some recruits in Manhattan. Hopefully, we can take care of business in a short time.

The picture is of Teri with a few of her pets in their house in Los Angeles about three years ago. Two of the cats are missing from the picture, but they’re around. They’re always around.

Lately I’ve been reading about lowland gorillas and the fact that they’re dying off in our zoos. I love all animals as do my daughters, and we always had plenty when they were growing up. Now I don’t have any, but I watch Animal Planet quite a bit. Just the other morning I had Animal Planet on as I was getting ready for my shower. It was a program about fixing up animals that were too fat, lame, etc. One was Archie who was a really, really fat cat and couldn’t seem to lose the weight. So the vet instructed the owner what to do according to diet and exercise. So when I came out of the shower they were still talking about Archie and the narrator was saying, “There was much running up and down stairs and playing with his balls.” I assumed they were talking about Archie, the cat – not the owner. Anyway, it all worked out and several years later Archie was his old self, whatever that was . . . . . . . . oh my, I seem to have forgotten what I started talking about.

Now I remember . . . it was about lowland gorillas. It all started when Mopie, a 430- pound lowland gorilla at Washington D.C.’s National Zoo, suddenly dropped dead on July 3, 2006. He had earlier been diagnosed with a form of heart disease known as fibrosing cardiomyopathy where the healthy heart muscle turns into fibrous bands unable to pump blood. But Mopie had never shown any symptoms of the disease and appeared healthy. Two days earlier, the zoo had lost its only other male group leader, a silverback named Kuja. He died while undergoing an operation to implant an advanced pacemaker. He, also, had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure related to cardiomyopathy.

And there was Babec, a lowland gorilla at the Birmingham Zoo in Alabama, who was eating less and clutching at his chest in early 2003. The staff veterinarians examined him and found that he had cardiomyopathy. By the summer of 2004 he was in pretty bad shape, and the zoo decided to perform a risky procedure which was a first for a gorilla. They implanted an advanced pacemaker in Babec’s chest that would correct his heart’s electrical circuitry and restore its ability to contract properly. The operation was a success, and Babec’s prognosis is excellent. I feel a great affinity with Babec as I, too, have a pacemaker, but I had to wait two years before my condition was diagnosed properly. After months of prescribed antidepressants (I wasn’t depressed) and a shrink (I think my doctor thought I might be crazy as he couldn’t find what was wrong with me), he finally sent me to a cardiologist who had me in the hospital within days for a pacemaker implant. Maybe if I had clutched at my chest and started eating less like Babec, I would have had the correct diagnosis a lot sooner. Babec got an advanced pacemaker, and now I want to know if mine is advanced. I’ll certainly ask my cardiologist on my next visit. I hope Babec appreciates his pacemaker – I know I like mine a lot as I’d be dead without it which is not a pretty thought. I have some advice for Babec: When going through security at airports, don’t try to go through the one for normal people. You must go through a special one for people like me . . . and you.

In November of 2006, ape experts, human cardiologists, zoo epidemiologists, pathologists and managers from around the country met at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago to establish the “Gorilla Health Project.” Their first task was to build a National Gorilla Cardiac Database that lets veterinarians track rates of heart disease and death, and to learn why scar tissue was replacing cardiac muscle in apes. I hope they can find a way to keep the few lowland gorillas we have in captivity healthy. They’re disappearing in the wilds from poaching and encroachment by humans who are gradually taking over the gorillas’ habitat. I say too many humans and not enough gorillas.

One day last week -- the only day it wasn’t raining this month -- the weather was gorgeous, so I decided to take the bus downtown and buy some cosmetics to try and make myself look more relevant or appropriate with the times. I don’t know if that’s the right wording, but it’ll do. I ended up getting eye shadow to try and make my eyes stand out more. My ophthalmologist always tells me as soon as I walk into his office that I have the most deep-set eyes he’s ever seen. I keep thinking pretty soon I’ll be able to see out of the back of my head. I want to look presentable next month when Cindy and I go to New York to visit Teri, so this was the reason for my shopping. I got some eye makeup and left the store to head home. But that was just the beginning of my journey.

I was getting very hungry, so I stopped at a drug store on my way that always has skuzzy-looking people in front making drug connections. At least that’s what I hear they’re doing, but if they’re not, they look like they should be. I bought two York peppermint patties – I absolutely love them - and went outside and leaned up against the wall on the corner to eat one of them. Since I was then a captive audience, a couple men came up to me waving clipboards they wanted me to sign. But I declined as I haven’t signed anything since my divorce papers. I decided I’d better get moving, so I ventured on, eating the second peppermint patty as I walked. On one corner, a woman stepped up and said, “Jesus loves you.” I thanked her and moved along. I walked by many flowers, now in bloom, in huge pots on the sidewalks. They were colorful and beautiful and made my trip downtown all the more special. And then on another corner was a man holding a big cardboard sign with large letters on it that read, “Cunning Linguist.” When I looked at it, I started laughing out loud. The man said that most people just look at it in a puzzled manner, apparently not getting the drift. But I did. I think he appreciated that but would have appreciated it more if I’d given him some money. But I was in a hurry to get to the bus, so I moved on. When I arrived at my bus stop, there was a fat man sitting on the bench, shouting things about Jesus, how we should find Jesus, how we should love Jesus . . . blah, blah, blah. He wasn’t just talking, he was shouting! I wasn’t opposed to the content of his ranting, but it wasn’t the proper venue for his oration. I finally went up to him and tried to tell him to quiet down, but he waved me away and kept on shouting, even louder now. I walked down the block and he eventually shut up.

My bus finally showed up, and I got on and joined the others for the ride home. I sometimes think it would be fun for someone to write about each person on a certain bus . . . where they’re from, what they do for a living, are they married, do they have kids, do they go to church, are they democrats (I certainly hope so), have they ever committed a crime, do they cheat on their mates, would they like to cheat on their mates but are too afraid? If everyone were honest in his/her answers, it would be quite a book. But I doubt that anyone will ever attempt it. I know I wouldn’t answer any questions if I were approached. So there you go – not a very good idea. I find my trips downtown are very interesting and refreshing as I see so many different types of people in a very short time. I should do it more often.

Cindy’s having a birthday!

My baby’s growing up. Actually, she is all grown up, but she’ll always be my baby. In the above picture, she’s in dress-up clothes. Cindy loved dressing up and didn’t hesitate to look wild and crazy. Like this picture. She had on two different shoes which really stand out and some material that was covering her lap and one leg which could have come from a skirt I wore to a formal dance when I was in college. Other than that, nothing else is recognizable to me. I don’t know what kind of statement she was making with this outfit, but she must have been successful.

I sent Cindy’s birthday present to her early, and told her what it was. We never seem to be able to keep gifts secret. Cindy always manages to tell people what their presents are before they get them. Sometimes she even forgets to send them, but we know they are waiting for us at her house. She has never been good at keeping secrets. I’m sure she’s gotten better at it as she’s become older and realizes you can’t tell everyone everything. But when she was a little girl, we had quite a time with her sometimes. There was the time I decided to buy an Old English Sheepdog and breed her. I planned to sell the puppies and make tons of money. But first I had to cash in a couple of bonds my parents had given to Cindy for her college education to pay for the dog. I thought I could recoup that amount in no time with my puppy business, so I did it. Unfortunately, Cindy found out, and when my parents came to visit shortly thereafter, she met them up the street on the corner and followed them down the street screeching, “My mom sold my bonds to buy a dog and have puppies!” Needless to say, it was not easy trying to explain it to my folks. And Lucy, the dog, never worked out. She had a bad hip so I couldn’t breed her. I guess that was my punishment for doing the bond thing. But I’ll never forget little Cindy running down the sidewalk beside my parent’s car, screaming at the top of her lungs.

Cindy can always make me laugh. The other day I sent her an e-mail, telling her how much I loved the bedroom slippers she gave me for Christmas and how that’s all I wear on my feet in the house. The only time I don’t wear them is when I go outside. So she e-mailed me right back saying, “If you really loved me, you’d wear them outside.”

So, Cindy, I really love you and hope your birthday is a good one. Maybe you should put on something wild and funky and wear it to your office . . . the one where they sell fences. That could make all the fence people crazy and turn into a real party. Fence people do party, don’t they?