Again:  Phyllis just would not accept injustice.  Or to be more accurate, Phyl wouldn’t accept what Phyl perceived as injustice.  In this, Phyllis was genius.  Her brilliance in clipping the system was nothing less.  None of her moves were untoward; she didn’t lie or break laws.  She just used that feigned innocense and that incredible smile, to tweak the perception of the big boys, to undo their injustices.

Phyl was courteous, deferrent, and selfless.  But in some motifs, she’d go from kitty to tiger and would not be denied.   This is not a girl who bit her tongue.  She could be singleminded and aggressive when she believed a system was taking advantage.  She’d return items for unhappy friends afraid to try, she’d speak up or take up someone else’s cause, when no-one else would (a reason, in over 20 elections, she never lost) and she’d stick it to companies who had the absolute nerve to try to stick it to commonfolk like her.  That was myphyllis.  She was amazing.

Phyllis’trix3

The other day, our neighbor Theresa was explaining how difficult it was for her to sit her kids together on airlines with unassigned seats like Southwest.  Flashback to another phyllispeeve, airline seating.

Our flights were usually long,to Florida or Massachusetts.  Up to four times a year.   Because of her bad knees, Phyllis always tried to get an aisle seat.

When the airlines, further and further, limited seat- and leg-room, and later differentiated more and more moneyed classes of seating, Phyllis was indignant with this injustice.  She would arrange an aisle seat for her, a window for me, and an empty seat in the middle, so we could raise the chair arms for comfort.  She would arrange that with, or most often without, the airlines’ help.

To get her wish, she was so creatively tricky and undauntedly sneaky, I’m unembarrassed to say I was appalled, but proud.  One rarely saw outright aggression from phyl, or her considerable skills as an actress.  But, when they’d try to sit her where she didn’t want to sit, the airline was comped for her matinee performance.

We only flew American and Southwest.

On American, with assigned seating, one couldn’t reserve the coach seats in the bulkhead area and emergency rows.  Phyllis was indignant with this injustice.

Her progression would be

1—suck up to the agent

2—get huffy with the agent

3–play loudly to the onlookers and those behind her in line.   Only once I know of, these tactics didn’t work.  Papa took her to American at LAX.  Phyl was standby and got bumped.  So she fakefainted.  Wink, wink.  Papa says it was a perfect swoon. Of course, it worked.

Phyl would smile that smile and pour the compliments on the stewardess.  “Oh, your eyes are so beautiful.”  “Where did you get that gorgeous bracelet?”  “You’re so nice, where would I send a complimentary letter?” (and she really would.)  Then, when they did drinks, Phyl would always ask for the whole can, and another.  (She also had a very-unPhyllis, territorial peeve that I thought would get us killed, but never did.  If her knees were hurting toward the end of the flight, Phyllis would repeatedly tap, or even whack, the seat of the person, even if it were Godzilla, in front of her, who had the audacity to keep their seatback reclined, til they got the message.)

On Southwest, with unassigned, first-check-in seating, and later with 6 levels of pay for seated-first early bird, business class, membership class seating, Phyllis’ effort was to pre-empt the order, pre-board, and then save the seat between us.

At first, the progression was

1—get there one hour before flight, when the agent was just setting up, and give an incredible sob story that you’d think no-one would believe, like Tonya Harding just whacked her in the knee, or she was crumping and disjointed her ankle, and somehow get the agent to buy it and give her the little blue pre-boarding folder she’d then surreptitiously wave at me in triumph.  Later, after her knee operation, she had her doctor’s certificate (thanks, Jan) to get the blue folder.

2—She’d take her blue pass, ask/insist/just take her husband with her, and preboard.  It’s three across, so she’d stake out an aisle seat and an empty seat between us.

3—Put all sorts of our crap on the empty seat.

4—Perform.  First, she’d put on a hospital mask.  The parade of passengers would start.  If anyone even thought even to look even to try to sit between us, she’d hack up a lung coughing.  And when the plane was filling up, and anyone would ask if the empty seat were taken, Phyllis’d warn the person that she felt a duty to disclose that she was ill.  Or, if the person would actually make a move, she’d remark she may be contagious and they’d be sitting there at their own risk.  Often it eventuated that empty seat was the only one or one of two on the plane.  She’d take off the mask and flash that brilliant, triumphant smile.  Of course, if the plane were full, or it was an old lady, or the person had a pet, she’d drop the act and help them into the seat.  The kids didn’t get their talent from me.

This really happened.

Most say time heals.  But those who’ve Lost and said the 2^nd year was harder, were right.  Friends and family drift, marital regrets abound, she’s unmentioned, and there’s that fucking incubated realization that Phyllis isn’t coming back.  So

one’s even madder at the world and oneself; punching things and yelling at God, Religion, Destiny, Fate, “if You’re really there.”

Atop all that, mad for months i hadn’t remembered a dream of myphyllis, nor had anything else inexplicable occurred.

So, last Friday, yet another weekend without her, i was yelling at God and

Phyllis, “If You’re really there, give me another damn sign.  You owe it to me.  A dream, another hummingbird, something unmistakable.”

That night, i dreamed a kid threw red paint on the kitties, I brought them to Phyllis who cleaned them up.  Right then, I awakened at 3 a.m. and remembered the dream.  Saturday, there was no sign.  I went to Pete and Tammie’s to watch the Patriots game.  I left before Tammie’s lasagna dinner.  Sunday, Tammie and Pete came by with lasagna.  Tammie said, “Look at the hummingbird nest.”  On the corner of Phyllis glass cat mobile right next to the front door and directly above the distinctive cat on our mailbox is a 2 inch hummingbird nest.

2)     Phyllis was extraordinary.  A giver.  A perfect description is the song “Mandy”; “She came and she gave without taking.”  (confession: We went to Barry Manilow concerts on at least 5 different New Years Eves.)  Aside from Phyllis’ charity and library giving, were her efforts for others.  She’d buy things for herself, but, like her mom, always, always, if she saw something that she thought would please a friend, family, or colleague, she’d buy things unasked for them.  She did this all the time I knew her  It was so commonplace that, if you knew her, you already know this.

Phyl grew up poor.  She never complained, but, even early in high school, as her friends did afterschool activities, she worked at First National Supermarket.  In college, as her friends lived in the dorms, she subwayed from home.  She always worked and paid for her own schooling.  From age 15 until 6 months before the illness, she worked.  When I met her she was working two jobs, (at Suffolk Franklin Bank and at Filene’s), carrying a full schedule of senior year classes (at Northeastern University), and was full-day student teaching in Boston’s tough Charlestown (at Bunker Hill).  From15 until we were married, she had catalogued every cent she’d spent.  Really; to the penny.

So it was natural for Phyl to consider and re-consider every purchase, before she finally paid.  Sometimes she’d wait too long, and whatever’d be gone.  So, like her mom, her habit became to buy stuff for herself and for others, and return it if she or they reconsidered.  She’d buy 3 things and return 2.

Most know, away from Filene’s and local shops, Phyllis did most shopping on her beloved QVC-TV.  Laura Geller, Dansko, Joan Rivers, Dooney and Burke, (She bought for herself, and, as her mother’d always done, bought 100s of other caught-her-eye gifts for friends and colleagues.   (I found her 40-50 person Christmas gift lists for staff, from every year.)  But by far, the biggest  subtraction from our paycheck was Jeanne Bice.  Phyllis was a devoted Quacker.  She bought more Quacker Factory clothes than they made.  Just in the room I’m in right now, there are two double closets full.  Quackers would approve of or signal each other by saying, “Quack, quack.”  I’m not kidding.  And I saw it happen much more than you’d think. Another note; the only things too late to return that she ever regretted buying, so much so, that we put them on ebay, were from the QVC shyster Jackie Kennedy jewelry guy. (“The head of state of Sodom and Gomorrah, gifted this brooch to Jacqueline, who wore it when she yelled at her servants to clean her toilet at 4:05 p.m., on a rainy Tuesday in October, 1962, while husband John was amidst the Cuban missile crisis.”)

Then things changed.  QVC said Phyllis was considering things too much and returning things too often.   At the same time, QVC got big, became somewhat inaccurate, and began to eliminate their little scoreboard that said how many were left of whatever they were selling. Now Phyl had to be discerning and further, didn’t know exactly the last minute she had to consider calling in her  credit card or Q-card, before she lost out or was waitlisted.  Phyllis was not happy.  And she couldn’t buy three, think about it, and return two.  Phyllis, who used to consider every single item they put on there, and ALWAYS wanted to be able to reconsider, was really not happy.

So, of course she devised a phyllistrick.  Now, even if she had the slightest interest in an item, she’d call, shmooze the operator about the weather in Carolina, or the operator’s family in Carolina, and tell them “I don’t have a credit card (because they were in the kitchen), which I know is unusual, but I so desperately want that lotion or tzutzke or sweater; could you please, please, please reserve one and could I please, please, please send you a check?”  I guess it was such an unusual, earnest, and heartfelt  request, and there were so many operators, that they always said OK.That did three things.  1– She could call right away, she didn’t have to think about it, or decide before the last minute, or go on the waitlist.  2– She had an extra week or two to consider if she wanted to buy it.  If she decided no, she’d call and say she was sorry, but didn’t have the money.  3– If she decided yes, they’d send it out, but, for some reason, she could now return things with abandon, because it wasn’t on her credit or Q cards, which is how they tracked returns.

myphyllis was remarkable.  Next, her best tricks of all; the airlines.

Phyllis just would not accept injustice.  OK, to be more accurate, Phyl wouldn’t accept what Phyl perceived as injustice.   In this, Phyllis was genius.  Phyl’s brilliance in clipping the system was nothing less.  None of her moves were untoward; she didn’t lie or break laws.  She just used that feigned innocense and that incredible smile you see in every photo, to tweak the perception of the big boys, to undo their injustices.  (I know someone’s going to think I’m exaggerating phyl’s maneuvers, but I assure you, I’m not.)

1) Phyl clipped coupons.  Lots; placed in her everpresent coupon box. She’d talk to the shoppers behind her in line, simply so they wouldn’t take a fit, in a few moments, when she talked about kids to the checkers and paid with 600 coupons.

She always foodshopped at Vons and Ralphs because of their policy to double coupons.  When they dropped that policy, Phyl was not happy.

Proud to say, the only one of the thirty electives more prized and requested than our drama class was phyl’s student library aide positions.  (Aside: as her scholarship, she most often chose the lonely, bullied, or problem kids.)   There were two students per period chosen and Phyl did so much of the library work herself, that they always had downtime.  Fortuitously, (what-are-the-odds?) three seconds after the supermarket policy change, suddenly Phyllis’ new instruction to the student-library aides included teaching how to use food coupons, to save money for their families, by searching the library’s sets of daily L.A. Times for coupons.  Every once in a while, one of the kids’ exercises was to find and clip coupons they could share.   Many of the searches were for things like Fancy Feast cat food, Diet Coke, Windex, and Weight Watchers ice cream.  What a coincidence that these were things Phyl always bought.

When Phyllis went to the Agoura markets, she always made friends with the managers and checkers.  She brought them coupons they themselves needed, or little gifts.  I wrote of manager Harry and the folks at Kanan Ralphs who cried when I told them about Phyl.  Their friendships also helped with the aforementioned coupons.  She’d shmooz her checker friends, as she’s go through the line, and then give them ten or so coupons, including expired ones and ones for items she’d not even bought.  They’d always take them.  If, once in a million years, there were a problem, there was that incredible Phyllis smile, and her manager friends would OK it anyway.

more tricks to come.  myphyllis was remarkable.

Phyl had a Northeastern University Degree and both English and Secondary Life Teaching Credentials in both California and Massachusetts, a Long Beach State Degree and California Life Teaching Credential in Library Science, a Northeastern University Masters Degree in Reading, a California Life Full Administrative Credential, and was in the 5-person group of the very first State of California Reading Specialist Credentials. (She was first in alphabetical order, so she really was the first.)

And yet Phyl was her own multilinguist: she had her own languages.  Even aside from a wickud East Boston accent that 40 years could not dent: “ya gutta put a kwauduh in the meedah” , “around the cauhnuh, not fah from heah”, “it took an owuh to find my kahkees ovuh thayuh”.   You can take the girl out of Winthrop, but you can’t take Winthrop out of the girl.  She always used the beantown equivalents, the meanings of which no-one around here had a clue: “bubblahs”, “hoodzees”, “pocketbooks”, “jimmies”, “candlepins”, “culls”, “necco wayfuhs”, “barrels”, “frappes”, “tonic”, “elastics”, “with bellies”.  She had her own metaphors; “You lie like a sieve,”  “He looks like a mensch.” And a correlative large sprinkling of obscure (at least to me) phyllis-yiddish words; “gdempta”, “kunielemel”, “punim”; and phyllis-yiddish meanings: “schmatas”(for ugly clothes), “schmootz”(for anything bad), “tsimus”(for confusion or mishmash).  What the rest of English-speaking world call scallions, Phyl called “scunions”. Jewelry was “joolery”.  Kittens were “doodythumpers”.  Pacifiers were “fuhfuhs”.  People swore with f-bombs and s-words, Phyl cussed with “cuccahyodeez”.   

And I loved every single time she spoke these.  Because that was myphyllis. 

Really appreciate those who’ve written nice things on facebook and pbennettmeows, to help me, but our marriage was far from idyllic, because…..way, way more regretfully than anything I’ve not done in my life, I did not tell Phyllis these things I’ve written about how special she is.  I always told her how I love her and how beautiful she is, but the tragedy is, I told her very few of the prideful admirations I’ve written here.  Callous, stupid sins of omission.  I write this to everyone as a cautionary tale. 

As a matter of course, of course, a husband exaggerates that his wife is the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen or the most beautiful girl in the world.  I’ve never, not once,  exaggerated.  Phyllis is the most exquisite sight I’ve ever seen.  Astonishing, stunning, breathtaking beauty.  From the second in 1971, when she opened the front door in Winthrop, until this second, and for sure forever, no-one and nothing is close.  Way, way out of my league.  Goddess stature.  Absolutely, quintessentially gorgeous.  Yes, inside too, but I write about that every week.  If you don’t remember or doubt, check out the pix on this site.

Obviously, the eye of the beholder, but this beholder, shallow and full-of-himself as he was, had dated only really pretty girls (yes, hard for me too, to believe.)   Yet, ogling phyl, this beholder was thunderstruck, weak-kneed, drooling, doubting his own reality.  Incredibly, she had no pretention or ego about it. The lyric in our site video, “I Can’t Believe You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful”(One Dimension) is a perfect descriptor.  She had an inkling; she knew she was pretty.  But never let herself think she was how she really was.  For 41 years, I told her she was the most beautiful girl in the world.  I don’t think she ever once took it seriously.  Sometimes she’d say, “You always say that.”  Sometimes she’d say, “Not any more.”  Sometimes it was just, “Stop.”

I’d watch her sleep at night; her translucent olive skin, those classic almond eyes closed atop the mile-high porcelain cheekbones, the incomparable full lips incongruously snoring that little snore (ok, phyl, I know I stepped over the line when I wrote that, but it was so discordant and you were so cute, like Cindy Crawford picking her nose or Aphrodite farting a little.)  I always watched her, whether she was younger, in bed with the kids, or even later with fucking Nosy.  I could watch her forever.  I thought.  I was wrong.

Even when we weren’t fatties, Phyl and i had a tradition of Thanksgiving dinner the day after thanksgiving.  (Maybe that’s why we became fatties.)  Phyllis loved apricot turkey, egg nog, Ralphs’ cheap pumpkin chip cookies, and we’d save or put aside some of her  own thanksgiving tsimis, cranberry mold, and spinach pie.  i always said she burned jello, and we both said she couldn’t cook, but she really could, of course.  Some of the things she made were weird: her concoctions of whole mushroom appetizers, fried saltine sandwiches, toast-bacon-eggs, enchilada-lasagna, whipped jello; but they were all really good.  She said they weren’t, but they were. She could never take credit for anything.  When she won kudos or an award(and she won a lot of them), she’d fawn “oh, shucks” and credit someone else.  Even if Phyllis did all the work, she’d always defer, not say a word, and let the someone elses speak.  And she never talked about any of her awards, honors, or elections.  She was humility-personified.  Our own role model. 

Of all, Phyl’s number one marital complaint (more even than losing the baby shoes or any time I criticized jody or adam) was, “We don’t talk,” which really meant ‘YOU (her husband) don’t talk.’  Phyllis was an extraordinary talker and listener.  Her husband was neither.  I used to say, “That’s your job.” (OK, I’m an ass.)  Socially, she was far more adept than me.  So was Jabba the Hut.  Two Sundays ago, for the first time, we had a small dinner with only the kids. At Adam’s apartment.  In the span of two hours, I overtly and overly haggled both with Tracy, about the future of one of her sports shows and later, with Jen, about the responsibility of problem children on an airplane.  Though both, as always, were adept and nice-as-can-be, I left knowing I’d screwed up.  Despite Phyl’s complaint, we had always communicated perfectly. I always knew what she was thinking.  She always knew what I was thinking.  Always.  If Phyl had been at that dinner, she would have given me a look or nudge after the very first argumentative syllable with Tracy or Jen.  And immediately I’d have known to alter the course of the conversation.  Then two hours later, when we were home, because she was Phyl, she’d explain why, even though, as soon as she’d given  her idiot husband the look, he’d realized why.  Our own tune.

Watching one of your favorite shows, like The Closer, Dexter, Northern Exposure, The Middle, Monk, Drop Dead Diva, or NCIS, if you missed or didn’t hear even one word, you would rewind the DVR.  You just had to know every word.  That also happened if you were watching Regis, Quacker Factory, or especially Ann Coulter(What’d that bitch just say?)   You never watched repeats, even of Jody’s shows, with one exception, The Closer.  You watched every episode at least twice, some four times.  But the week the final episode of The Closer aired, you were in Cedars, and, even though fellow fans like Judy asked to watch with you, you didn’t want to see it.

Since you were 14 or 15 you had worked. You couldn’t take part in after-school activities in high school or the dorms or sorority house in college, because you had to work.  From high school until about our second year of marriage, you kept ledgers wherein you wrote down every cent you spent, and I mean by the penny.  You always clipped coupons and kept your coupon box and records, saving us up to $2700 a year.  When we’d shop together in Agoura supermarkets, I’d leave when you’d get to the checkout, because the coupons would hold up the line.  But you were brilliant about it.  It was your element.  You’d use that incredible abilty I’d seen a thousand times to make strangers feel you were friends.  When you first got in line, you’d use your super-shmoozing powers to ingratiate yourself with the people behind you, so minutes later they wouldn’t be mad while they were waiting for you.  And you were even more social with the checkers, whom you’d shmooz about their familtes and give them coupons.  So often, you’d get in the longest line, because that checker was your friend.

Even before you was diagnosed, because of your severe allergies , rare blood type, and prevtuos anaphylaxis, you were very wary of  affecting anyone.  Unlike the kids and I, who would leave our water bottles anywhere in the house, if you did not finish your bottle of water, you would write your initials on it and put it in the refrigerator.

You loved chocolate Easter bunnies, macncheese, drippy eggs and omelets, mint chip anything, lobster, scalloped potatoes, pumpkin cookies, egg rolls, salmon, eggnog, enchiladas and tamales, clams, tiramisu, pears, onion rings, and blintzes.  You weren’t fond of meat, coffee, chocolate if it wasn’t Lindt, Sees, or Nestles, ice cream if it wasn’t banana or mint, pastry if it wasn’t pumpkin or cheese.

A serious note.  You were the toughest cookie ever.  You tried so very hard to beat it for the kids. Our choices were always forego the radical and enjoy life as it was, or roll the dice, tolerate the pain,  and try everything to beat it.  It was no choice for you; it was always, try everything.  We are so, so, so proud of you.  When things got serious, you wouldn’t tell people.  The last year, you were really sick, and did your best to defray visitors, because you didn’t want people to see you, not because visits made you feel bad, but because you felt the pipes and your condition made them feel bad.  I won’t list stuff or enumerate the last months, but even the doctors always told us they were amazed at what you’d endured.