I'm going off for a week of home wrecking. Maybe not so much wrecking as dismantling. For the third time in about ten years, I get to take apart and pack up a family home. Yippee, she says with as much sarcasm and distaste as she can manage.
This exercise is freighted with memories and sadness, of course, because this time it is my childhood home I'm putting into boxes and sending away to Goodwill.

Books. My mother was a reader, and there is a huge library of books ranging from cookbooks to mysteries to histories to coffee table picture books and on to art tomes and reference books. There is a pile of Judaica and next to it my childhood books and college texts.

Furniture. Photos. Clothing. It's all there and it's all going somewhere else.

This is week one, and it's the week that will tell me how long this project will take.

I'm taking JoJo, so that I won't have to be in the house alone, but the truth is, I'll enjoy the solitude for a while. Maybe I'll even be able to do a little beach combing while I'm gone.

Talk amongst yourselves.

Oh, how I wish I were going to the dogs, the Westminster Dog Show, that is. But I'm not. I am watching it, though, from the comfort of my couch and with that big old flopsy walrus of a puppy, Miss JoJo in my lap.
Tonight is the hound group, and you can see a PBGV in that group. The first time they showed at Westminster, it was JoJo's grandsire... I think. It might not have been the first year, but he was in the center ring there one year.

I love this show. I love hearing the breed standards, I love seeing the dogs strut their stuff, as aware of their audience as any rock star, or star athlete.

For the first time this year, Westminster is offering streaming video on their site of ALL the breed judgings. So you can see, for example, all the Komondors looking like animated mops as they prance around in their dreadlocks.

I love the dogs.

Woof.

This was the last graph in a short story about Cheech and Chong doing a show together recently.

"Marin and Chong, who recently completed a nine-month sentence for trying to sell marijuana pipes on the Internet, said they are writing two new films, "Grumpy Old Stoners" and "Lord of the Smoke."

Oh, yeah. I laughed just reading the titles.

Blame Reecie for this, because she listed me first in the last question, and heaven forfend I not answer...
Q) What was the last movie you went to see in a theatre?
Hmmmm. Shrek 2, maybe? I hate theatres these days. Too loud, too small a screen, too many other people, and the popcorn isn't as good now that they made it healthier.

Q) What is the last movie you watched at home?
The Vampire Effect.

Q) How many movies do you own?
Hahahahahahaha. Oh. You were serious. Over 100?

Q) What was the last movie you bought?
Hmmm. We bought the entire second season of Kung Fu. Does that count?

Q) Got Netflix (or a similar service)?
Oh, yeah. Just got it and have never been happier. I already have way too many films in my queue.

Q) List five movies you adore or that mean a lot to you.
M*A*S*H
Chinatown
Pleasantville
Galaxy Quest
Restoration

Q) Name your guilty pleasure film?
Easy: Malibu's Most Wanted. It just makes me howl. And any Pauly Schorr or Adam Sandler comedy.

Q) What's your favorite quote from a film?
Only one?

"I hate the living." — Men In Black

"See, that's your problem, Jason. You were never serious about the craft." - Galaxy Quest

"She's my sister. She's my daughter. She's my sister and my daughter." — Chinatown

"I'm thinking with sand here." — Bubba Ho-Tep

"There's nothing in that little black bag for me." — The Wizard of Oz

"Look, mother, I want to go to work in one hour. We are the Pros from Dover and we figure to crack this kid's chest and get out to golf course before it gets dark. So you go find the gas-passer and you have him pre-medicate this patient. Then bring me the latest pictures on him. The ones we saw must be 48 hours old by now. Then call the kitchen and have them rustle us up some lunch. Ham and eggs will all right. Steak would be even better. And then give me at least ONE nurse who knows how to work in close without getting her tits in my way. " — MASH

Q) Name three people to whom you will pass these questions.
Ian
Dan
and
Miss Bliss

My GirlCousin and Star have, independent of each other, decided that I should do this.
That is the Martha Stewart Apprentice, of course.

And I gave it serious consideration for about fifteen minutes. Then it struck me: "What if I win the audition, and have to actually play the game?"

Granted, my twelve years at the hospital have given me super powers in the areas of toxic work environment, backstabbing and evil axis building, and granted, those could come in handy in a "reality" TV competition, but the bottom line is, I'd have to be on TV.

Eww. And ewwwwww. And maybe a retch or two. I don't want to be on TV. Ever. And certainly not in a situation where the editors have plenty of footage to cut together to make me look like an even bigger bitch than I can accomplish on my own. And let me tell you, I do just fine with that, thanks.

Reality TV series all have archetypes: The Bitch, The Bimbo, The Backstabber, The Nice One, The Smart One Who Loses The Game Despite or Because Of Being Smart. I have enough problems with my personality as it is, I do not need editing to accentuate the negatives.

I often say that I am like asparagus; people loathe me or love me and there is no room for indifference. Great. I should go on TV and try that phenomenon out with a few million people all at once.

Um, no.

Or worse, I could get on the show and actually last for more than a week. I could get into the show. I could want to win, and my naturally competitive nature could be unleashed. Bad idea. Bad idea for me, bad idea for anyone in my path, probably great TV. Ick.

So, despite urging from family and friends, and despite the fact that the whole concept of trying to be Martha's avatar appeals to some really dark part of my soul, (Oh, come on, be honest with yourself. Wouldn't you want to go out and abuse the gardeners? Stand around and complain that the exact shade of lilac you wanted the living room to be painted is not the one that is now on the walls, and they have fifteen minutes before air time to fix it...) I think that I shall have to pass on this chance for fame and fortune.

I guess that it isn't this way anymore, what with telecommunications deregulation, and unlimited long distance on any number of carriers, but in my youth, and, I suspect, for many, many others, Sunday mornings were when you made/received long-distance phone calls.
Sunday mornings were when you talked to distant family members. My parents called me on Sunday mornings (and morning is a very relative term) all four years I was in college. When I moved to New York City, to New Mexico, to anywhere other than their home, Sunday mornings were for family phone calls.

When I settled in Miami, and I was my own person, I called them on Sunday mornings.

This is the hardest part of being a fatherless child, this emptiness when there is no phone call on Sunday morning. My mother can't use the phone anymore; she lost that ability a couple of years ago. There was a certain black humor to it at first, hearing my father tell her that of course she couldn't hear me since she was trying to talk into the remote control.

That passed fairly soon. Now she lives down the street, and doesn't know me at all. She is losing her verbal skills at an alarming rate. Would it be any less poignant had she not been a 40-year volunteer at the library, an avid reader, a woman who daily did the crossword puzzles in ink? Now she can't process the words. Sometimes she even is aware that they have left.

But I was thinking about telephone calls. The RLA lost his parents many years before I did. We have few surviving aunts and uncles. How can you call one of them out of the blue, and ask them to speak, so you can have a conversation by proxie with someone who's gone?

I miss my father. It is Superbowl Sunday, and Daddy would have been watching. My nephew would have gotten a call this morning from Daddy, and they would have talked about Dan Marino's entry into the Hall of Fame. They would have trash talked a while about the Patriots. When it was my turn for the Sunday morning call, Daddy and I would have talked about what I was cooking for my party. He would have asked about my friends; which of them would be coming over, and what would Star be bringing.

He and I would have discussed Dan, too. My brother missed out on the sports junkie gene, but he is my mother's child: a man of words. We are all book collectors, fearsome readers and ruthless Scrabble players. That was my mother's legacy to us.

Sunday mornings without telephone calls. This is when I feel the loss most keenly.