Friday was your yahrzeit.  Jody and I went to Etz Chaim to say Kaddish.  It was tough for him as he sat beside this guy who cried for two hours.  No post last week or yesterday, as a lot has happened; nothing good. Relatively, of course, it’s all little stuff.  I’ll wallow only once.  Soon.  Otherwise, a few more of our moments….

You were a skilled driver, but even more skilled at the formidable, muy dificil back-seat driving from the front seat.  For over 40 years, whether we were dating or headed to Cedars-Sinai, you sat beside me in the passenger seat, book in lap, reading intently.  Yet, somehow, every single time I drove within 50 feet of  another car, curb, pedestrian, biker, pothole, or fucking squirrel, you’d scream, “Alan!!!”, scaring the living beejesus out of me.

And I’d yell, “You drive!”

And you’d yell, “I’m not driving!”

You loved chocolate Easter bunnies, macncheese, drippy omelets, mint chip anything, lobster, scalloped potatoes, pumpkin cookies, egg roll, salmon, eggnog, 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. 

Everyone knows you’ve always loved cats.   We have literally hundreds of images and paraphernalia, from original Bukowsky and Lladro to ceramic soap dishes, knitted tissue boxes, and your own needlepoint.   We’ve had quite a few real ones too.  Thumper, Seaweed, Jelly Bean, Squeaky, Wolfman, Stinky, Webby, Nosy, Cuckookitty.  Our license plate and emails are ‘sixmeows’. You always spoiled them way beyond rotten. Presently we still have three.  I hate them.

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. 

Another of your superpowers.  You’re something else, you always were, myphyllis.