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.
