Nothing’s fun that can’t be shared with someone you love.  And when it’s too late, life’ll reiterate that hokey lesson. Unless you’re crazy.

As time treks, inexplicably, I’ve changed.  Becoming (a bit more like) Phyllis.

Phyllis had a terrific sense of humor. I couldn’t often make her laugh (unless I tripped and fell).  She could always make me laugh with her.  But there were two types of Phyl’s humor I didn’t “get”, and that aggravated her.

Part 1 Jewish

Watched the kids’ screener of upcoming season 2 of “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’: terrific stuff, except the cartoony too-stereotypic Jewish parents.  Usually, it’d be fingernails on a chalkboard for me.  For Phyl, it’d have been Jackie Mason-Myron Cohen hysterical.   One’d be able to hear her laughing from Philadephia. And yes, I’m bananas, but watched it as if Phyl were beside me.  On one hand, it really hurt, because I knew she so would’ve loved it.  And, sure as the cat in her lap, she would’ve looked at my not laughing and said, “You’re no fun.”  On the other hand, I really liked it.

Our senses of ethnic humor had always differed.  I never laughed at Reiner or Rickles or Fran Drescher (who was in our same cancer ward) or even Joan Rivers, all of whom we’d met.   At his concerts, between songs, Neil Diamond tells funny ethnic-laced tales of his early life in New York City.  14,999 Jewish sycophants and tone-deaf devotees in Staples are joining my wife in uproarious laughter at his ubertalented storytelling prowess.  I’m either looking around  for something with which to commit suicide, or hoping for the only time in my life, for “Song Sung Blue”, so we can get on with this and outta here.

In the first couple of Mrs. Maisel episodes, they’re in Paris.  When things went bad, I thought of giving up on the chemos and taking Phyl to Agatha Christie’s home and Paris.  She never once heard my French. But we didn’t want to take a chance.  So, in retrospect, unfortunately we stayed home.  But she did discover Gracie Allen.  Phyl was really sick by then, but watched episodes of George and Gracie throughout the nights.   A little ironic for me, as that and Gleason were the two shows I watched with my Dad.  Gracie’s was the same overthetop, manic humor as Mrs. Maisel.  Miriam’s father, manager, inlaws; Phyl’d have laughed that loud, deep, long, choking laugh, that, even moreso than the kids’ babytalk, was just the most beautiful sound I was ever blessed to hear..  As indelibly precious as it was, it was seldom accompanied by my own laugh. Except this time.  Though it hurt, likely because of my wishful pretending, I enjoyed it.  I may have even laughed.  Along with Phyl.

47 years ago, I met the most wonderful girl in the world.  Her bedroom was decorated with a billion books; all but one of Agatha Christie’s(including her Westmacott romance novels, which she’d quietly read, amidst my friends and insane crowds, during expensive Boston Garden hockey games), a poster, book and paperweight (she kept, see pic) from the previous year’s  humoungoidly popular, best-selling book and film, Love Story.

“What can you say about a 25 year-old girl who died?”   We’d seen the movie, and I laughed, teased, and derided Phyl about how schmaltzy, oversentimentalized, and just stupid this nonsense was.  And how could she possibly cry at this crap.

Yesterday I made the mistake of not turning off the tv when this pap came on.  The acting is beyond horrible. The dialogue insipid.  The direction slugworthy.  The story implausible.  Just an abysmal movie.  I bawled through the whole thing.

“Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”  Not really.

Our neighbors have all been here 20 years or more.  Phyl was very friendly with everyone, up and down our street.   Everyone loved Phyllis. They were terrific to me, in so many ways, when Phyl passed.

They all know I wear my Celtics, Red Sox, and Patriots shirts, just as much as my Dodgers shirts, nearly every day.

Last week, our neighbors Frank and Kim, along with daughter Megan, came across the street.  They said, because of my Boston loyalties, and moreover, to thank Phyllis for what she did for their daughters, Frank wanted to take me to the World Series.  In my life, there are favors and smiles, and then there was that moment.  Un-fucking-believable.  Beyond excited is understatement.  See my only wall posts in years.  My niece Erica said it was Phyllis watching over me.

Game 4, we sat downstairs, with the Sox wives and families.  I’ll never be able to come close to thanking Frank, Kim, Megan, Josie, …and Phyllis.

“Retrospect is 20-20” Alan B.

As the my Dodgers play the Sox in my dream World Series, I can’t but dwell on baseball and Phyl and remorse.

1–Both kids played and hit well from 4 years old to teenage.

2—On July 4 each year, we’d go to the Dodger game and fireworks.

3—I collected baseball cards.

Phyl wasn’t thrilled by any of these.

1–I pitched to the kids or took them to the batting cage almost daily.   Neither Jody nor Adam loved it, so neither did Phyllis.  She hated when I watched their games and criticized.  She’d tell me from time-to-time, but wouldn’t dwell on it, because, I suppose, she knew it meant a lot to me.  But she was so right.

2—July 4 was our anniversary.  Phyl and the kids would sit through the game and on the outfield grass for the fireworks.  None of the three knew Kirk Gibson from our cleaning lady.  I doubt either Jody or Adam loved it, and I was inexplicably blind to the obvious that neither did Phyllis.  She never did say anything, because, I suppose, she knew it meant a lot to me.  But it was our fucking anniversary, and I know how she felt.  She was so right.

3—I spent hours and hours and thousands of dollars going to card shows, shops, and buying through mail.  Phyllis’d mention from time-to-time, “we’re not rich; it’s just cardboard,” but wouldn’t dwell on it, because, I suppose, she knew it meant a lot to me.  But she was so right.

In the rear-view mirror, these were so time-consuming and self-serving, I just cannot believe that was me.   And yet, Myphyllis was so unselfish and self-sacrificing and devoted, I can’t but regret.  As I say every damn night, if I only had one of those minutes back….

Six years to the day, later.  I’m pretty sure, after what Dad, Mom, Maureen, Papa went through, 2 in the past 6 months, we’re not one of God’s or destiny’s favorites.  Of course I miss them.  But, as untoward as it sounds, even to me, the overwhelming hurt: regret, anger, sorrow, agony; my being, is Phyllis, who was, is, always will be my life.

I don’t think I can express it better than last year, but I will post new notes all this week.

Mybeauty, you reveled in, life like no-one else, though it certainly was a bazillion miles from what you deserved.  For me, you were life.  In that, I cannot believe my good fortune.  Corny, but there will never be another you, because that good isn’t possible.  Your stunning beauty, especially within, is saying something to certainly the most gorgeous girl ever.  Hundreds of friends and a ton of family; everybody loved you.  Both your empathy and passion were beyond.   Pets, reading, bullying, needlepoint, flood channel, lgbt, student govt, holocaust, hospital volunteering, ahs drama, libraries, full-time at chs and phms, and your very best work, motherhood.  You’d have been the greatest grandmother ever.  Your humanity; your compassion; especially that motherhood: all transcendent. Without your love, it isn’t life.  I miss you like crazy.

Of a bazillion autographs, Phyllis hung only two in the house and her library; Ray Bradbury and Neil Simon. Right now, I can’t find the picture of Phyl and Neil Simon, but the autograph is still up. It’s the only entertainment poster she ever put up, because the Lost in Yonkers artwork always reminded her of her two boys (even if Simon couldn’t spell Phyllis). She especially loved The Odd Couple and Brighton Beach Memoirs. Here’s the intro of Jody’s AHS essay (with a bit of fellow devotee Mom’s help).

it happened again.  yesterday, ran the neighborhood. came home, in  house, heard really loud persistent caw-ing, went outside, raven flew lower branch to higher, above it was hummingbird.

took this pic, but too slow to get hummingbird.   i swear.

My own Mom passed in March.  She always believed strongly in afterlife.  Recently even moreso, often repeating , “I don’t know what form it will take, but i know you’ll get all the answers to your questions.”   That’s verbatim.

Haven’t had a hummimgbird incident in well over a year. Haven’t even seen  a hummingbird since #14.   So, as much as seeing Phyl again is what I live for, and despite the past hummingbird incidents and the multiples of books and testamonials, as time goes on, hope dwindles, doubt doesn’t, and I’m back to 98% ain’t -gonna-happen.

I was in Florida with my Mom most of March.  (My Mom is the greatest person I’ve ever met, but that story follows later.)  Without delineating tsuris, things went from bad to worse in a few weeks.   The last 5 days and nights we were there with her, while she was in a coma in Hospice House in Port Charlotte.  I talked to her, watched her leaving, and doubted a lot more.  I asked one thing over and over.  “When you get ‘there’, I want you to tell Phyllis to send another hummingbird right away.”  OK, so there’s the 2%.

The funeral was in freezing, snowy Boston, and I came home.

Phyl bought this ugly birdbath sculpture.  It’s sat for ten years, with never a bird, at the edge of our walkway.   The first day home I slept. All day.  Each of the next three days three days, there was a humongous black bird, like three feet long, sitting on the dry birdbath,  and, when I went out., it would swoop right over my head to Joan’s roof next door.    I had never seen such a bird.  I had never seen any bird on the old birdbath.   So I’m thinking……Phyl’s lifelong favorite authors , by miles, were Agatha Christie,  Dr. Seuss, and Edgar Allen Poe.    The only thing we did together at school, was a Halloween program where my drama class would act out  funny and scary skits, and Phyllis would read, really dramatize, “The Telltale Heart” and “The Raven”.   So I’m thinking…..

Ok, before I even go ‘there’, you have my word, everything I’m writing here is what happened.  I’m NOT making ANY of it up.  I’m NOT exaggerating.  It’s NOT eye-of-the-beholder.   I’m NOT nuts.

I’ve lost weight.   I still eat like a pig, but I exercise a bunch.  On weekends, I run at the Agoura High track.  The fourth day home was a Saturday.  I finished my run and was walking past the girls’ softball field, back to the car.  It sure looked like it, but there it was.   I don’t know if it were the same raven, though i’d never seen one at the high school either, until this fucking giant bird was swooping in front of me, about fifteen feet away.   For a full twenty seconds, less than a foot, right over the raven’s head, flying with it, was a little purple hummingbird.   See the preceding paragraph.

Among Tracy and Jody’s  screeners was the 2017 Amazon series, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”.  It was exactly Phyllis’ sensibility.   Over-the-top, clever, nostalgic, Jewish cultural.   I watched the 8 episodes, and I knew precisely when and even how she’d have laughed.   And it is really good.  She’d have adored it.   She loved Joan Rivers, Jackie Mason, Don Rickles, all of whom we went to see, and none of whom I laughed at.  She’d tell me, “You’re no fun.”

Forlorn cracked her up.  Reading Eeyore in Pooh, watching Sue in “The Middle”, or Regis in the morning.   Adorable animals were another laugh treasure.   Those cutesy cat videos.  Or really any animal that bit someone in the balls.  Dirty jokes, husband jokes, and Bush jokes too.  I didn’t laugh at any of these.  And begat, “You’re no fun.”

And she was Mrs. Maisel.  After all, I was the big, bad wolf who lost the bronzed baby shoes, yelled when she was barfing and pregnant, and took her from the sand to the asphalt, from where her students rode horses to school to where her students did drive-by’s to school.  And those were just the mountain peak of “you won’t believe my husband…” stories she loved to tell.   I never once took offense. I cherished when she laughed.  And if she lost the handlewhen I walked into the door, all the cuter, because she would absolutely lose it.  Bonkers.  In tears and unable to stop.  I know the momentary thought balloon popping over her head was “I can’t believe I married this kuni lemel.”  I never could believe it either.   And loved it.