I'm A Patsy - Gotta Problem With That?

Thursday, May 28, 2009

In my previous postings, I wrote about my New York trip. But I left out something that almost happened to me on the way home. I was sitting in the Newark airport when suddenly I smelled the worst B.O. I’d ever encountered. I stiffened up and tried to figure out where it was coming from. Was that person going to travel with me on my way home? Would he/she sit by me? Could I have him/her kicked off the plane? I finally identified who was the stinker – he was a Mexican man sitting behind me. Occasionally he would get up and leave along with the stink, but then he’d return and it would start all over again. I have nothing against Mexicans as they don’t all stink – just this one. It reminded me of a Seinfeld episode where Jerry picked up his car from valet parking and the inside smelled of B.O. There was no way to get rid of it. The smell stuck to everyone – Elaine’s boyfriend wouldn’t even have sex with her as her hair smelled so bad. Jerry finally left the car on the street for a bum to take it, but he turned it down. Nearly everything reminds me of a Seinfeld episode. Why is that? Thankfully, the guy behind me didn’t get on my plane which was a big relief.

I got sick when I came home – I think it was some kind of flu – so I’ve been not doing much at all as I had a fever and was pretty weak. I’ve watched a lot of TV, and come to think of it, it’s sort of like my regular routine when I’m not sick and feverish. I’ve been reading about the new shows coming, and some look pretty good. My favorites will be back next year like “Fringe” which is so weird and creepy, “Lie to Me” which is interesting and has a cute leading man, and “Bones” which I love. However, I think the finale of “Bones” sucked! It ended with Booth in the hospital with his head all bandaged, and he looks at Brennan and says, “Who are you?” It was like the “Sopranos” finale. You sort of feel like, “What the hell was that?” “The Closer” will be back and “Law & Order, CI” will be back with a new actor, Jeff Goldblum, whom I really like in that part. He’s quirky and intelligent and downright funny at times. He’s a good addition. “Mad Men” will be back in August, and “Breaking Bad” will return sometime. “Breaking Bad” is one of the most brutal and strange shows I’ve seen, but I love it. The acting is great and I hope it goes on for a long time. “Burn Notice” is coming back next week and I can hardly wait. I love all the characters in it and just everything about it. There are many more shows I’ve not mentioned, but I can’t think of everything. I don’t think I’ll watch Jay Leno at 10pm. What’s that about? That’s the L&O time slot for God’s sake. I think it’s less expensive to do him than some drama. With a drama you’d need writers and someone who really gave a shit about the program which could be quite expensive. But that’s the sort of show I like because it keeps your mind going. You’re not just sitting there listening to jokes for an hour. The networks are doing more reality shows which I have never watched nor liked. I have enough reality keeping up with my daughters, Teri and Cindy. They are both so funny and sharp and could be their own reality show. Now that one I’d watch!

I’ve even been watching “The Young and the Restless” this week since I was sick. I actually watch sometimes even when I’m not sick. But it has been going downhill fast, and is now so weird it’s hard to explain. For example, Sharon is pregnant and it could be by one of three leading men on the show. Ashley is pregnant and Victor’s evil son, Adam, is trying to drive her crazy. The whole show is really off the rails – I must get well and away from the TV. But then what will I do? Maybe read a book? We’ll see.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009


On my recent posting about my trip to Manhattan to see my family, I didn’t mention much about Mark and Harry and used a picture of Teri. So now I’ll cover them.

My grandson, Harry, is 13 years old, and is a real New Yorker. He travels all over on the subway by himself – he amazes me. But this time he was sick with a bad cough . . . no, it wasn’t Swine flu as they took him to the doctor. But he stayed home a couple of days. We even took his temperature one night with my new digital thermometer which I hate. I thought the standard number was 98.6 for people, but I could never get it up past 97 for me. Mark made a nasty crack to the effect he had always found me cold. I ignored him. We all watched as Harry sat with it in his mouth. I was hanging over the back of the couch and watching it click, very slowly, upwards. It finally reached 98.3 at which time we had grown tired of the whole thing, and I rescued the thermometer so could we move on to more interesting things. I assume he had a little temperature since it went up past 97, but not the Swine flu kind. So I spent a couple of days, sitting on the couch with Harry beside me as he coughed this horrible cough. But we had fun.

Mark took me to Brooklyn one day and we went to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens which is a beautiful place. We didn’t have much time to look all over as they were closing soon, but we did see some gorgeous blooms. We saw lots of Japanese Wisteria – the reason I know it was Japanese is there was a pretty Japanese woman there who told us. Do you suppose they pay her to stand under the wisteria, look pretty and tell people about the flower? I figured it was the real thing, and it was beautiful. Mark was using my camera and became enthralled with the wisteria - or possibly the pretty woman - and kept taking pictures of it which, of course, all looked the same! I finally grabbed the camera away from him and we went on our way. But then he saw something that stopped him in his tracks. It was a birch tree and he went crazy over the bark on it. So he took the camera and got up really, really close to the tree trunk and took the bark picture. I then rescued the camera and we had to leave as the Gardens were then closing. I’m sending him the bark picture and the wisteria pictures. I wonder if he’ll frame the bark picture.

One of the above pictures is obviously the bark, and the other one is my grandson in his Swine flu mode under a blanket. I had a wonderful time with all of them.

Sunday, May 24, 2009


Last week I spent with Teri and her family in Manhattan. Teri had been in Portland for a few days so we flew back to New York together. The plane ride was pretty good. I was sitting next to a young woman with a 2 ½ year old little boy. He was a real sweetheart and had just recently completed his potty training successfully. We were on the plane for over 5 hours, and he went to the bathroom 4 times! His mom said he’s doing so well but doesn’t yet realize that you can pee and poop on one visit. What was that? How come no one ever told me? So it was back and forth, back and forth. But I didn’t care because he was so cute and well-behaved, and I had learned something from him. Now if he’d been ugly and obstreperous, I wouldn’t have felt the same. Directly behind me was a woman with a little infant who was crying as soon as we got on the plane. The only time the baby wasn’t crying was when the mother was nursing the child. So it was a little crying, and a little nursing all the way to New York. I think the airlines should look into that. Why not have a wet nurse on all long flights who could nurse anyone who was crying and behaving badly. I’ll bet they would have a lot of takers . . . and not just little kids either.

Everyone in Manhattan walks so fast. The stockbrokers rush by with their briefcases and a worried look on their faces, probably because they just lost their jobs and are on the way to the unemployment office. The women rush by in their stilettos, stylish suits, perfectly coiffed hair and usually talking on their cell phones or texting. They probably just picked up their unemployment checks and are meeting “the girls” for a drink. Everyone is always on the cell or blackberry or something similar. Teri always has her blackberry in her hand, reading texting from God knows who. Then she immediately begins texting back. When I watch her little thumbs clicking on the blackberry, I wonder if in the years to come she’ll have calluses and bloody thumbs. Pretty soon there will probably be a new affliction called textaphobia, and Teri will be a textaphobic and will need to check into a rehab facility. I’ll have to tell all my friends that Teri’s in rehab, but there’s not such a stigma about rehab anymore as nearly everyone has done it at least once. So I don’t imagine my friends will stop inviting me to lunch. Or, rather, maybe they’ll start inviting me to lunch just to hear about my daughter’s rehab. It could be a plus either way.

Teri, Mark and Harry were so good to me back there. They took me to see “Blithe Spirit” with Angela Lansbury who was fantastic! She’s 83 years old and danced around the stage like someone 60 years younger. We were in the second row, and she came right to the edge where you could see everything on her face – her expressions, her eyes. It was thrilling. She was close enough where we could have almost touched her. But if we had, we’d have been thrown out and missed the rest of the play. After the play, they took me to dinner at Patsy’s, a lovely restaurant in the theater district known for its association with Frank Sinatra. I loved its name. There should be more establishments with that name.

The picture is of Teri and three of her pets. Two of the cats are elsewhere. I’ll write about Mark and Harry in my next blog.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009


This is a picture of a dog in Greenwich Village in New York City where Teri lived at one time. I was walking down Christopher Street and saw the dog and the typewriter. What was that about? I thought it was great! Maybe I’ll see him on my next trip and find that he’s learned how to type by now, or maybe he just pees on it.

I’m going to New York this weekend to visit Teri and family after Teri spends a couple of days here. We’ll be flying there together. Teri said maybe she and I could sit on my deck, have a glass of wine and wait for Larry to appear. Larry, my sparrow, comes along at different times, but he likes to come in the evening, just before it gets dark, and sit on the ledge and do nothing. He just sits there, all puffed up and looking like he’s in a trance. He doesn’t eat or drink – he just sits. So I sit in my living room about 10 feet away and watch him. I sit for a long, long time, almost as if I were in a trance. One day I got worried, thinking maybe I was getting some weird, trance-like disease, so I jumped up from the couch and ran into the computer room and got going on Google. I checked all the weird diseases I had checked once before such as Prune belly syndrome, Stiff person syndrome, Jumping Frenchmen of Maine disease, Asperger’s disease, Trypanosomiasis, Cysticercosis and oh, so many more. Nothing jumped out at me that looked like what I might have. Isn’t Google wonderful? The only bad thing about Google is the fact that they have too much information stored up on people like me who use it frequently. Do you suppose they turn it all over to the FBI or CIA or a panel of psychiatrists at some hospital in one of the countries where we send people to be tortured? Isn’t that called rendition? What happens to all that information? Will someone be coming for me? By the time I was through with my Google research, Larry had gone to bed and it was dark

Cindy just called me and we talked about April, her Bull Mastiff. Cindy really loves her and April loves Cindy. She follows her all over the house. Cindy said she woke up this morning and April had her head on the pillow with her! She goes every place in the car with her. Yesterday Cindy went to the grocery store, with April, and a woman in front of the store asked her for $5.00. Cindy would normally give something, but since she’s lost her job, she told the woman no. So the woman asked her if she’d have some money when she came out of the store! Cindy then helped an older woman get into an office building. The woman couldn’t park her car in front of the building and she had a bad back. Cindy said she was swearing and very upset, and was very appreciative of Cindy’s kindness to her. Cindy really liked her; I think she maybe reminded Cindy of me . . . the swearing part, that is. Cindy is very nice to people and not like me on the phone. A couple of times a week I get the automated calls from telemarketers about my car warranty running out. I have no car warranty. Twice I’ve clicked to talk to a real person, and twice I’ve told them to fuck off and not call again. But they still do. What’s the matter with those people? I signed up on the “Don’t Call” registry a while back and did it again today. Will that help?
I’m also getting calls from automated telemarketers about lowering my credit card interest and the fact that they’ve been trying to reach me for weeks and this is my last chance. I usually just hang up and haven’t told them to fuck off yet. I don’t imagine that would help. Maybe I’ll give them Cindy’s number.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009


Mother’s Day and Father’s Day

Both of those days are coming up soon, so I put up one of my favorite pictures of my folks. I have a framed one in my living room. They look so natural in the picture – my dad is wearing blue, his favorite color, and my mom is wearing a red and white T-shirt – she wore red quite often which was very becoming. They were sitting on their deck, and directly in front of them was my dad’s rose garden. He’d always grown beautiful roses wherever they were living. It must have worn off on me as I carried on the tradition and grew roses for many years until I moved into apartments. My dad wrote poetry – mostly short, humorous poems – and was published in many newspapers throughout the state. He did that for many years, and now I’m writing a blog – something else I inherited from him. I enjoy writing and hope my dad would be pleased with what I’m doing. He had never heard of blogs and would have written great ones given the chance. He climbed all the mountains in Washington and Oregon and went on many mountain rescue operations. Now that’s one thing I didn’t inherit – high places scared me to death!

My mom was a tiny woman and very pretty. She may have been tiny, but she had a mind of her own and was ahead of her time with many of her opinions. She was very independent and had strong beliefs on many subjects. I’m like her in a lot of ways which makes me feel good. I couldn’t have had a better role model. I had so much fun with her throughout the years. I remember when she was in an assisted living home and she called me as she couldn’t get her TV to turn on. I tried to help over the phone and could hear her hitting the buttons on her phone rather than on the remote! I think I finally got her to use the remote and we both were hysterical by then! I think of her when I’m cooking a Lean Cuisine in the microwave and the buzzer goes off when it’s done . . . and I open the refrigerator. I wish she were here to laugh with me. There are so many times I want to pick up the phone and talk to my folks. I have so many questions I should have asked them years ago, but didn’t. I miss them every day.

I took this picture four days before Daddy died.

Saturday, May 02, 2009

“Mental” – new Fox show premiering May 26, 9:00pm-10:00pm

I just finished watching the first two episodes of “Mental” which take place in a psychiatric department of a Los Angeles hospital. Dr. Jack Gallagher (Chris Vance) has just arrived for his first day as Director of Psychiatric Services at Wharton Memorial Hospital. Right from the beginning you realize he has a very unorthodox way of treating patients, and he’ll have to win the trust of the rest of staff, some of whom thought they should have gotten his job. He’s an outsider, and the long-time staff members aren’t that pleased with his presence. But even though his approach to patients is very curious and quirky, you soon realize he’s very effective in getting good results.

This reminds me a little of “Lie to Me,” another new Fox show which I like. Both of the lead men are quirky and very intelligent. I like that in a man whether it’s on television or in real life. I think I see more men like that on TV than I do in my everyday life which I find sort of sad. The hospital staff members all have their own problems and they come to light very quickly. There will be sex in store rooms, marriages will most likely break up – just the usual goings on you find at every hospital.

The hospital administrator Nora Skoff (Annabella Sciorra) apparently had an affair with Gallagher in the past which I’m sure will be brought up during the series. Gallagher is also trying to find his mentally ill sister whom he believes is living on the streets of Los Angeles. She keeps calling him and hanging up. This all sounds like enough drama to keep the show going for a while. I hope so because I really liked what I saw.

So I highly recommend “Mental.”