Romancing the Kominskys

I am boring myself with my ridiculous cliches.

  As in, every time time we're forced to stay inside because of terrible weather, I talk about something I'm watching that that brings sunshine into my life or some nonsense like that.

Today is no exception.

I'm sitting here, smelling the not-quite-as-rancid-as-it-was-smell coming up from the almost dry carpet, as I'm listening to the rain hitting the roof, and I'm trying not to write something cliche, even 'though that's exactly what I'm doing.

(It's right up there when people post birthday pics of their kids, and say, "I can't believe Johnny is ten today!" and I think, "he was born on this day in 2011--why can't you believe it?")

Stop the cliched writing, people!

But here I sit anyway, listening to rain on the roof, smelling the fading smell  of a Pineapple-scented Glade Plug-In that's a little like fruity, vomitous  body odor, and ..and I'm crying.

Crying and smiling and laughing and praying..PRAYING that the Emmy voters answer my prayers, because we just finished the six episodes of Season Three of "The Kominsky Project" , a superb swan song for an outstanding series.

I've loved Michael Douglas in almost everything he's been in, but his acting is this goes to a whole new level.  This wasn't acting..this was a personal invitation into a character's  heart and soul.

And who knew that Jessica Rabbit could ditch the sexy outfits, retain the sexy voice, and act her chunky little heart out as Sandy's ex, Roz?

Kathleen Turner is magnificent. 

 As is Paul Reiser . 

 As is Sarah Baker.

Twists and turns, shocks and surprises, tears and laughter..the series has it all, especially in this final season.

Kudos, Chuck Lorre. 

The only thing this series lacked was your vanity cards.

The one with the poodle urine.

Rainy nights aren't so terrible if you spend them with a couple of good "Friends"..which we did tonight.

 The much-hyped reunion was not over-hyped at all.  It was funny, and touching, and sentimental.  I was a twenty-something brat in the 70's, but I still could relate to these 20-something brats because...because no, I could not. 

 Not really.

The Friend I most identify with  is the Philadelphia-born, feminist, sassy, unapologetically fat Marta Kauffman.  With her unmanagable mane and her gay BBF, I should have--Jim Donio and I should have--been Kauffman/Crane..

Yeah, right..

"Dream On."

(And the fact that I can make an inside joke like that means I SHOULD have pushed myself to be a little less Karen and a little more Marta)

As I watched the reunion, I asked myself which actor has had the most successful career after the series ended.  None have Oscar nominations, but that isn't necessarily the only measuring stick.  Many were in series that were critically touted but ones I never watched (Kudrow and LeBlanc). I absolutely loved Courteney Cox in "Cougar Town" (she deserved an Emmy nomination) but personally, I think the biggest success post-show would be Jennifer Aniston.  She breathed life into "The Morning Show" as Alex Levy--a performance that would have Meryl Street herself turning green with envy.

The reunion show was entertaining on many levels, but for me, it was being  back on the Warner Brothers set, like we were  during out trip to LA in the fall of 2019.  We sat in Central Perk: we laughed in front of the broken elevator from "The Big Bang Theory" and on that same day, I had one of the greatest moments of my life--and a photo op--in the gazebo in the town square of Stars Hollow.  Jim and I stood on that platform, like Luke and Lorelai had just a few years before, and I was overwhelmed by how surreal it all was. 

Seeing this reunion show, and live audiences on chaotic sets, reminded me of being in the studio audience of the short-lived "Broke", starring Pauley Perrette.  It was no "Friends"..but the experience  was both awful(being imprisoned in that seat for nearly seven hours with no phone or food other than miniature kit-kat bars, seething at how forced the writing was, how each awful joke had to be rewritten so many times, knowing that the punchlines I whispered to Jim had more oomph, ) and wonderful..because..we were watching a television show being made.  At CBS, where so many icons walked on the very same lot we had.

I was flooded with so many happy memories.

And speaking of floods, which I'll now do, because I can't blog about only one subject,   we've been having quite a few days of fun here on Noah's Ark.

Evan came over for dinner the other night, and  as soon he as he took off his shoes, his sock immediately became drenched when he walked into our family room..  I walked on the carpet of  a four feet area too, and I felt the squishy wetness immediately.  We all looked at Luke, wondering how a housebroken, nine pound poodle could fill his tiny bladder with enough fluid to fill up an inflatable kiddie pool.  We(well..JIM..got down on his knees, emptied an almost full bottle of Nature's Miracle, and scrubbed it clean.)

Until, ten minutes  six thick  beach towels later, the rug was still sopping wet.

Our plumber came the next day, (and no, it wasn't the plumber I had in my twenties who was named, I shit you not, Bill Flood) told us we definitely had a major leak in our radiant heat pipes.

Let the nightmare begin!

Jackhammers, , ripped up carpet,  upended furniture, that wet dog/body smell that rugs get before they become dangerous with mold, endless calls to insurance companies.

Ugh..I was so not in the mood for this mess.

We called the specialists in our area, who referred us to a plumber that we stopped using because he never returns calls.  We called nonetheless, got a message that said the mailbox was full, and then  called our regular guy, Bill,  who was just here a week ago, BILL-ing us $150.00 to install a new toilet seat because I thought the old one looked like someone permanently stained it with bodily fluids, and I am  planning on hosting pool parties since the pandemic is ending, and now I've gone off topic for the third time.

After calling our home owners insurance and the drying company and the plumber, we started with step one, a call to Dr. Leaky(no, he's not a urologist) a certified Leak Detector.

He arrives at our home nice and early with 100 pounds of gear.  We told him about how we used every towel in the linen closet to sop up the water.  We took photos.  We both cried.

And Bud--his name was actually Bud--spent a good thirty minutes, examining the boiler and making us turn on all the hot water faucets from every sink and shower while trying to find  multiple collection buckets(our housekeeper was here at the same time, wondering how she was going to be able to do her job) and working us into a frenzy.

We flushed toilets and filled sinks.  He looked at us, shaking his head, arms akimbo, as he says, "folks..there is no leak here.  That tsuanmi you claim is in your family room?  It's from the poodle."

"No way!"  Jim screams.  "

I had just taken him out..he only weighs nine pounds.  He is HOUSEBROKEN!"

I add:  A herd of elephants couldn't produce this much urine!"

My housekeeper adds:  "It vas not my Luuu-cas.  My Luu-cas would not do dat" (She's Euro-PEEIN')

But Bud insists:  "100 gallons of foul smelling water was, as he put in in professional plumbing  terms, "poodle piss."

We were NOT going to accept that diagnosis.  That's what bad doctors say, when you go to them with something that could be fatal and they just shrug and tell you to knock off a few pounds.

Jim finally gets Bud to agree to rip up the carpet as he took a screwdriver to a floor tile.

And up through the ground came a bubblin' crude..of PIPE WATER..NOT... poodle piss.

That poor little dog gets blamed for everything!

At Jim's insistence, Bud drained the pipes of all the water.  We have no heat, and Jim is freaking out how we're gonna freeze to death--in these waning days of May.

Smelly rug..smelly rug..why aren't they believing you??  Smelly rug, smelly rug...Luke didn't relieve (himself)on you!

Thanks for flooding me with all these memories.

Next Up:  "The One With the Jackhammer"

Rules of Engagement

My favorite author, Jennifer Weiner,  started off this year like most of us did-with optimism that a new vaccine and a new White House occupant would make 2021 a year for the books. 

 Books you'd want to read over and over again...like those written by Jennifer Weiner.

She was about to unleash one of her best, "That Summer" which I devoured in two readings.  I wasn't going to wait 'til I hit the beach for that beach read--it was too good, too witty, too unpredictable, and too close to home in this #MeToo era.

The year started normal enough for her too, with her healthy, youngish Mom  that readers have grown to know and love.

And then her world was rocked, just  over two months ago, when her beloved (and our much-admired) mother Fran was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which felled her on Mother's Day, just the day after Ms. Weiner  broke the sad news of the diagnosis to her many fans, and six months to the day after we lost Alex Trebek to the same awful disease. Fran may not have been as well-known as TV's favorite game show host, but she was just as beloved and iconic to the author's followers.

Jennifer has been sharing so much with her fans--on Facebook, in TV interviews--and even 'though there's a wonderful book to promote, we all feel her pain, especially those of us who have lost loved ones to cancer.

Yesterday she shared that she is going to try to process her intense grief by taking a 185 mile bike ride.  To clear her head. To sooth her hurting soul.

It  reminded me so much of Lorelai Gilmore, who, in the 2016 revamp of the series, "A Year in the Life", considered  hiking the Pacific Crest Highway, like Cheryl Strayed did in "Wild" and for similar reasons.

I don't think I could even be a passenger in a car that traveled from California to the Oregon-Washington State border, yet alone do what Cheryl Strayed did.  (I am not a fan of howling coyotes: my coping methods usually include vats of salsa, facials, and obsessively planning Woodloch vacations)

I admire Jen's determination to complete this journey.  It's nice to know that some plus-sized heroines are strong and athletic; they're tall and  muscular and can do things like tackle biking trails and swim for miles, while others in the plus sized community spend hours in a lounge chair, looking for split ends  or trying to figure out if there's enough leftover sour cream in the fridge  to make onion dip with.

Jennifer shared another sad loss with her fans in yesterday's post, the loss of her wedding rings that fell out of a pocket when she was planting flowers in her late mother's garden. (That, and losing prescription sunglasses and driving over her bike in the garage all motivated her to plan this trip)

It reminded me of something from my own life, and no, I never ran over (or even properly rode) a bike, and I never had prescription sun glasses because I'm an idiot.

But I did lose the diamond from my wedding ring.

Or thought I did.

I noticed it was missing when we were in the courthouse in Freehold, New Jersey, bringing a lawsuit against the videographers  who were supposed to present us with a memorable keepsake from Evan's 2008 bar mitzvah, and we got nothing but  seventy five minutes of snow.

Almost thirteen years have gone by, and I am grateful that the poor folks we were suing were on their hands and knees in that courtroom, searching through every nook and cranny for that missing diamond.

I was so obsessed with planning that bar mitzvah!  I "Karened"(yes, I went there..I made it a verb, even 'though it wasn't even a meme  in 2008) over every detail, conjuring horrible scenarios of what could possibly go wrong on that perfect day.  (The snubbed neighbor is going to throw bright yellow paint on my pretty white party dress, which didn't happen.  Or..I'd get a case of the uncontrollable giggles  in a solemn moment on the bima, which did)

I don't think I would have survived 2020, when a PANDEMIC caused the cancellation of weddings and bar mitzvahs and funerals, as I barely survived that the temple placed their  coffee maker in a  location that most guests couldn't find after Evan's reading.

What would you call a "Bridezilla" who unrelentlessly tried to plan their kid's b'nai mitzvah?

A..GOD-zilla??

Anyway, the bar mitzvah ended, the lawsuit was settled out of court, and the diamond was..found.

In my guest room!

By my cleaning woman!

MONTHS after it went missing in that courtroom!

It's true, I noticed" something" gleaming from the carpet as I'd furiously type messages about lost videos to anyone who would still listen, but I thought it was a staple from the rug that reflected the sun light.

It wasn't..it was the diamond!--but by that time, Jim had gotten me a new one.

And he gave it to me in front of friends in an Indian restaurant,  with a REAL proposal, getting down on his knee like he did in the courtroom that day.

It made me cry..it was so beautiful! And unexpected!

(Unlike the first proposal. New Year's Eve, 1988, when I said, "if you put your left turn signal on, we are going back to my apartment to break up.  If you continue straight, we'll get on the turnpike, drive to New Jersey, and I will say yes to the ring I know you already bought.")

He put on the left turn signal, bore my wrath, turned off the &&*^*@!!!%%!! turn  signal, drove to New Jersey, and  we welcomed in 1989 as an engaged couple..the start of our happily ever after.

(Which has a lot to do with my cooking.  And my "Wheel of Fortune" bonus round prowess. And knowing I'm going to always share stories like this about him)

Here's to diamonds in the rough..or the nap of the carpet!

Bye bye face mask

Broadway Break #(???)

Tune to the title song from "Bye Bye Birdie"

Bye, bye, face mask!

you're heading to the trash...

that's your place, mask..

Adios..face rash.!

No more sweating

no stifling every cough

no more fretting!

get that sucker off!!

You'll see unwanted hairs

you'll spot a double-chin

I'll say to you:  "Who cares???!!!"Our new lives can begin!"

No more mask breath!

No hidin' every smile

I don't fear death..

I'll be here a-whiiiiiile!

Thanks to Pfizer's triiiiiiial!

You can bet that I'll....

******

go outside more..

I'll even wear brassieres!

I won't hide, nor..

shed those angry tears..

No more hidin'!

While cooped up in this zoo!

Thanks, Joe Biden!

I knew you'd come through!!

I soon can tame my hair!

or see a local show!

I can go anywhere..

(so where shall we all go??)

Bye, bye, face mask!

So glad we got the facts!

Trusting science..

Now I can get w-aaaaa-xed!

Since we all got..v-aaaaa-xed!

Time to get unmasked!

I. Can. Breathe.

Life is like a box of chocolates

Don't be a Karen on Mother's Day.

Don't be me.

Ever.

On any day.

My poor husband is working so hard trying to clean the pool, and I was about to go outside and read him the riot act, because I didn't look before leaping.

I was just about to update my Facebook gossip when I noticed he left a huge tome on my computer  chair..I thought it was an old dictionary or medical encyclopedia, (WTF???!!!) but then I looked closer, and it was a beautiful card(in an envelope the same size as the cover of a reference book) sitting atop a Whitman Sampler.

Life is like a box of chocolates..you never know how a Karen is going to react to it.

(I never understood the Tom Hanks quote..of COURSE you know what you're going to get.  There's a CHART, so you don't HAVE to grab something filled with grape jelly)

Now if only my fur baby would stop hogging my side of the bed, this would be the perfect Mother's Day.

I am so blessed..

The list is life

"The List... is Life"

(Ben Kingsley's Itzhak Stern, to Liam Neesons's Oskar Schindler, "Schindlers List", 1993)

"The List..WAS life"

A distraught Karen Levson-Amster, to her husband, approximately two days ago, when the list she had been compiling since the pandemic's beginning of  "TV shows/Movies to be eventually  watched" was lost forever, in that vast sea of tablets and notepads and scrap paper that she(aka "I") have been amassing for what seems to be centuries.

I have always denied I am a hoarder but the lists say otherwise.

I have full sized tablets, and pocket notebooks, and old calendars with blank pages taking up space on most of the empty surfaces in this house..the unused Casio, the overstuffed  junk drawer, the computer table.

(Flip through some of the pocket calendars that I've been keeping in front of the computer since 2016.  They are filled with..take out orders!..since the phone is here too and I am too lazy to look for a sheet of fresh paper. ) 

(March 2nd: 2018:  Someone ordered the BBQ chicken platter with rice instead of fries, but not on that date.  It was more likely ordered just a few weeks ago)

These important reminders should have been saved electronically, but you're reading something from someone who took two rolls of film on a vacation to Montreal and got nothing but  24 photographs of her eyeball: technology is not my friend.

I used to think I was copying David Sedaris with my constant notes in my pocket notebooks.  Only essayists or would-be essayists need so many reminders.

But I am no David Sedaris.

Only adults who've spent  three-quarters of their lives in psyche wards--or nuclear power plant workers--take such copious notes.

I am always creating mnemonics in the shower; acrostics and acronyms to help me remember things that I will not remember by the time I'm dried off and in front of the computer screen.

I have notebooks that have collapsed under the weight of other notebooks;  Grocery lists written  for a shopping run scheduled three weeks from now, in case Jim forgets to buy the strawberries I have on this week's list.

There are names and contact information of social workers and doctors and aides that my Mom may need, even 'though she's been gone for over seven years.

Sometimes I'll uncover a treasure, like the love letter Evan penned to his pre-school girlfriend Jade in 2000.

Jade and Evan lost touch through the years, but I still keep in contact with her awesome mother Lauren, who, after I emailed her a copy of that buried treasure, told me that Jade's long term boyfriend is also an Evan, that her first and last love letters were  from her fans with a shared name.

We always joked that it would be very cool if Evan got involved with a Jade, since they spent so much of their childhood together, along with Evan's poodle Max and Jade's boxer Phoebe.

And now that Evan has posted pictures of his girlfriend, which means it's OK to discuss it here, I find it to be deliciously coincidental that while Jade found her Evan, Evan has a relationship with Lauren's other daughter, her fur baby,  her late boxer Phe(o)be.

I was like a madwoman, going through tablets and tablets and tablets of partially written song parodies and forgotten dreams and lame jokes, and even lists that Evan and Jim compiled for fantasy football leagues and other sports, but nope...that all important Must See TV list is gone.

I even made Jim retrieve a trash bag, as I searched through mounds of egg shells and sour cream containers and supermarket circulars and baggies full of Luke's gifts to the sidewalk.  I searched through the unidentifiable contents that had been in the crisper for five weeks, but there was no list.

Now it's on my bucket list to find that list.

Otherwise, it's hate-watching  as the networks wrap of their regularly scheduled programs in the next couple of weeks.

I don't WANT to watch "Big Sky" anymore--I don't want to see a weirdo who has  the strength to wrap up and hide a corpse and drive away with the corpse undetected by investigators within the time frame of a minute or two.

I don't want to, but I will...

I WANT to see...??

I WANT to see..

What??

Does anyone remember what they might have told me to stream?

I'm getting panicked and insecure..

"Insecure!"

That's it!

That was one of my TBW(To Be Watched) binge-watched series.

I just wish I could remember more...

The telephone hour

I talked with three different people this week for over forty minutes a pop, and all three expressed the same sentiment that I couldn't agree more with: 

We all HATE talking on the phone.  

I had three different conversations about how much I hate having conversations, and the weird thing is..it didn't feel weird.

It wasn't always like this.

In the 70's, the teen line was my universe.  

It was a scene out of "Telephone Hour" which is a terrible example, because "Bye Bye Birdie" came out in the 50's, the last decade where we saw telephone operators losing their minds trying to keep up with the tangle wires that needed to be plugged into a busy wall of frantic lights because Hugo and Kim got pinned, even 'though his name was Hugo.

The phone was everything, and even 'though there were no VCRS to tape a show you'd miss because of a call, you took that call. 

I shared a teen line with my brothers(it was in their room because it was in my brother Steven's name, but it had a cord that could stretch into the hallway) and it might as well have been a cell phone of today that is never out of reach. I wouldn't care how uncomfortable it was to kneel in that hallway or stretch out without unplugging, I would take the call.

I'd hear that damn thing ring from the kitchen, a floor below, and become Usain Bolt as I dashed up the stairs, desperate not to miss a call where a high school friend had to tell me about a new part she bought for her car.

And I listened!

And we mastered the long lost art of crank calls, impossible to do today because of caller ID.  (Although I answer calls with a familiar number/name almost daily, and they're ALL about solar panels and credit cards and I need to curse at someone)

We talked nonsense because we could.

We talked dirty because we could.

But wow..I despise the phone these days, as do the three friends I alluded to in the beginning of this post. 

 And they all text..I don't even TEXT!

I communicate with my BFF via emails on an average of three-four times a day,  and I'm not sure I even remember her house or cell phone numbers, which I need to remember if I don't hear from her daily or at least every other day.

Some of this can be blamed on the pandemic...one caller lives in Manhattan and not only hates the phone, but hates talking to people in general.

 I think she needs to see a theater or two reopen.

I don't understand the appeal of ZOOM calls, which seem so March 2020 to me.  If I want to talk about returning towels to Target, I'll find a website for like minded folks.

The phone brings out the Imposter Syndrome that's buried deep within all of us: we need to chat just to hear ourselves chat.  Just to believe we've connected for real.

It's all so...phone-y.

Meanwhile, after my satiric attempt to write a send-up of "Promising Young Woman" in my post yesterday(my alternate universe was not widely read--I even confused myself trying to make my point) I did promise to do something similar with Oscar winner "Nomadland" so here goes:

"Nomadland"

Scene I Act !

Setting:  A massive gathering space filled with vans and trucks,  in the southwest, set against skies of purple and yellow, of silhouette of cactus.

Fade In:

HIM:  We never say goodbye..we say, "see you later down the road."

ME:  So you're saying in the sequel, I'm still going to be sh*tting in a bucket?

HIM:  It's what we do..it's how we live.

ME:  F*CK!!!!!

FADE TO BLACK