I woke up this morning and saw a large manila package outside our door.  I opened the door, still in my underwear, and took it.  It was for Sophia.  Since she was still sleeping,  I took the initiative to open the package myself.  Out came a huge brochure, a press kit, and a free movie pass for a Paul Thomas Anderson-directed movie for Miramax.  I laughed to myself. It was for the SAG awards.  It was that time a year again, despite the Writers’ Strike. The Weinsteins must really want to win and Oscar this year.   Did they really send this to each and every SAG member?

I heard Sophia rustling in bed upstairs.

“You got a package!”

“A package? From whom?” she asked, half asleep.

“Someone really wants you to vote for them! — “There Will Be Blood“.”

“Oh my God.” she replied, her voice cracking nervously. “What did you say?!”

“Someone really wants you to vote for them! — “There Will Be Blood”.”

“Who would do such a thing? Is this a threat?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Sophia stepped out of the bedroom, looking like she spent a little bit too much time on Facebook last night, particularly the US politics application. She heard me say: ” Someone really wants you to vote for them or there will be blood!”

I assured her that Hilary Clinton would never send her a manila package with a threatening message.   She would put a horse’s head in the bed.

Thank you for your emails and comments about Fanya, Sophia’s mother.  She is doing better, and was released from the hospital tonight.  

Fanya’s room was located in the Saperstein Critical Care Tower, which was opened last year after entrepreneur and philanthropist David Saperstein and his wife Suzanne made the largest donation to Cedars-Sinai in the Medical Center’s history.

“The Sapersteins have accepted a crucial role in the reinvention of our campus by providing us with the means to build a state-of-the-art critical care tower,” said [hospital President and CEO Thomas M. Priselac when he received the donation]. “The Suzanne and David Saperstein Critical Care Tower will combine the latest monitoring technology with staffing to provide the most fragile patients with the most sophisticated care available.”

The Saperstein Critical Care Tower is clearly important for Los Angeles.

Annual hospital admissions countywide are up 20 percent in the past 10 years and seven hospitals have closed since 2003, according to a new report funded by The California Endowment.  West L.A. hospitals have been hard pressed to keep pace with demand, particularly institutions like Cedars that draw patients from a wider area. Population growth, on top of an aging demographic more likely to become seriously ill, have only exacerbated the situation, said  Dr. Paul Silka, [medical chief of staff], noting that Cedars often has long waiting lists to schedule elective surgery.

While Cedars-Sinai Medical Center clearly has top-notch doctors and medical equipment, I was not impressed with the human aspect of the patient care.   For example, why did no one come out to tell us how the surgery went?  Why did no one tell us that Fanya was taken back to ICU half an hour earlier?  Why were nurses laughing loudly with each other all night, waking up the patients in INTENSIVE CARE?   Or why was Fanya not fed for fourteen hours?  Even though the doctor gave the order to give her food, the nurse forgot to inform the nutrition department.  It took Sophia three and a half hours of fighting with everyone to get Fanya some food after her angioplasty.  Is this the bad effect of “Grey’s Anatomy,” where the personal lives of the staff are more important than those of the sick people?  Like in many other big-city hospitals, the basic concerns of the patient and his family seem to be of secondary consideration.   

Nothing symbolizes this better than the Saperstein Critical Care Tower itself.  As you can see from the above photo, the $110 million dollar facility may be “state-of-the-art,” but someone forgot to put up a sign telling patients and their families which building it is and WHERE THE ENTRANCE IS LOCATED.

It’s been hectic.   My mother came to town.  We prepared for the first seder. I fought a cold.  My mother cooked a wonderful brisket, matzoh ball soup, kugel, etc.  We went over to the home of Fanya and Vartan, Sophia’s mother and step-father.   After the meal, Fanya had pains in her heart.   It was hurting her so much, that we called 911.   An ambulance came and she he was brought to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s emergency room.  We sat in the waiting room for hours.  Tomorrow, Fanya is going to get an angioplasty on her heart and liver.   Wish her good luck!

Now for some bitching about the hospital:

Cedars-Sinai is a world-famous hospital.  Its proximity to Beverly Hills has made it famous as the “hospital for the stars.”  This is where Hollywood celebrities have their babies.   Frank Sinatra died at Cedars-Sinai.  Movie producers have their names on hospital wings.  So, why do Sophia’s parents always get poor service at Cedars-Sinai Hospital?  

Because of the language barrier.   

They are an older couple who can only speak Russian.  Now, I’m all for immigrants learning English, but after a certain age, it is just too difficult a task.  Sophia often works in court as an interpreter, where every defendant who needs it is guaranteed BY LAW to have a language interpreter, and from what I understand, it is the same with every hospital patient.   Cedars-Sinai says that they have interpreters on staff.  So, why are so rarely used?

I was sitting in Fanya’s ICU hospital room this morning.  Sophia left to get some paperwork for her mom.  I noticed that the reading on the EKG monitor was at zero.  I told this to the nurse, a grouchy woman who looked like she came from another country herself. 

“Don’t move your right arm!” she told Fanya.  “It makes the monitor shut off.”

“She doesn’t understand what you are saying,” I said.  “She doesn’t speak English.”

“NO ARM UP!” the nurse yelled at Fanya, lying there with tubes stuck inside her arms, as if that was going to solve the problem.

“Don’t you have a Russian interpreter on call or on the phone?” I asked.

“She’s not here now.  Don’t you know Russian?”

“No, and I don’t think it is my job to be translating for the hospital.  When will there be a interpreter?”

“Let me go see.”

She left and I never saw her again.

The entire day has been one mistake after another.   Fanya is a slight woman.  She had lost 25 pounds in the last 6 months.  She was put on a restricted calorie diet!  The staff didn’t bring Fanya any food until 3:30 PM because they “thought” there was an order not to give her food.  Then she never got dinner.  After Sophia spoke to 5 people, they eventually brought her, a diabetic, four juices and Melba toast with cheese, at 10 PM. They gave her pills for diabetes with orange juice!   This is just poor medicine, but had Fanya been able to communicate - she would have been able to point their mistakes out, before they made her drink sugary juice with a pill to lower her blood sugar!  It is scary enough to be in a hospital.  It must be terrifying for a patient to be there and not understand the language of the staff, and Sophia can’t be there 24 hours a day.    Sophia told the nurses they can call her anytime to help with the Russian, but no one ever called.  God help the person who has to go into the hospital without having a family or friends to speak up for her!

When Fanya first came to the hospital, a male nurse was trying to figure out what was wrong with another Russian patient, a disheveled elderly man who was sobbing.   The nurse was poking the man in different places on his shoulder trying to figure out what pained him.

“Baleet?  Baleet?” the male nurse asked, using the only Russian word he knew, meaning “pain.”

Eventually, Sophia asked if she could help.   She spoke to the guy in Russian and learned that he wasn’t in physical pain, but emotional pain.  His grandson had just died, so he drank himself into a stupor, and his family didn’t know what to do with him, so they drove him at the hospital.  With three Russian families in the emergency room, wouldn’t it make sense to have an interpreter readily available?

Cedars-Sinai built a a major new building last year.  It cost millions of dollars.  The medical center has the best equipment, which must cost a fortune.   But would it really cost that much more to have a few more interpreters?   The hospital doesn’t need to have an interpreter for every language on duty 24/7, but Cedars-Sinai is smack in the middle of the major Russian and Persian communities of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills.  Many of these are elderly people who don’t speak the English, and they end up getting less than mediocre medical care in a supposedly top-notch hospital.  There are Spanish interpreters in most city hospitals.  There are Korean-speaking interpreters in mid-city hospitals.   Why is Cedars-Sinai so stingy with their interpreters?  Have a donor put his name on the interpreters’ uniforms if it would help get more money!

I know Cedars-Sinai would rather be known as the “hospital of the stars” and promote all the A-list actors who go there after drug rehab.    I understand that UCLA Medical Center is stealing some of the “celebrity cache” from Cedars since it is located in the less immigrant friendly, more upscale Westside (oh no, Britney had her baby there!).  The truth is Cedars-Sinai is now more of a “city hospital,” which means catering to the immigrant community.  Sure, it must be an annoyance for the busy, overworked staff to deal with foreign-speaking patients (unless, of course, the patient is a member of some Royal family),  but shouldn’t effective communication be an essential part of medical care?

Update:  Fanya is doing better.  More complaining about Cedars.

In a calllous show of one-upmanship, the Los Angeles Times contrasts bundled-up New Yorkers freezing their asses off with nubile young Angelenos in Santa Monica enjoying a carefree afternoon having lesbian sex with popular LA-produced “Rabbit” brand strap-on.

Remember years ago when parents used to take their kids to the zoo?   In Los Angeles, they do things differently.  This morning I went to Whole Foods to buy some orange juice.  There were about fifty mothers in the store, kids attached, and the kids were being given a “tour” of the store by a special Whole Foods docent guide. 

 I followed them around for a while and found the whole thing completely bizarre.  Even if the store was preparing the next generation of  soy-milk users, do little kids really care about this stuff?  Is it fun for them to see vegetables?  Will there be Whole Grain Happy Meal Toy next?

Docent Guide:  “This is called organic goat cheese.  Can you all say that — ORGANIC goat cheese?  You want to make sure you always ask for ORGANIC goat cheese, even thought it is much more expensive.  You don’t want to be like those poor Mexican children who eat REGULAR goat cheese, do you?”
 

Near my home is a little independent donut shop. I’ve never seen one person inside other than the owner — a petitie, middle-aged, Korean woman. I was driving by today and decided I was in the mood for a donut. I went in, ordered a jelly donut and cup of coffee, and sat down at the bright orange, plastic, uncomfortable, table/chair thingamajig that’s bolted to the floor. The donut and coffee were truly the worst coffee and donut I’ve ever tasted. As I sat eating my disgusting donut, the owner watched some infomercial on a 13″ TV sitting on the counter.

The infomercial was one of those get-rich-quick schemes:

“Use my stock market technique, and within two weeks, your two thousand will be two hundred thousand!”

As one “success story” after another gave his testimony, I could see the eyes of the donut woman widen. She was totally enraptured by what was being said.

I began to feel bad for this woman. She clearly had no talent in making either donuts or coffee. She was probably losing all her money in this awful donut shop. This type of infomercial preys on a woman like this — someone who may be uneducated or part of an immigrant community. It is these innocent people who don’t realize that it is all a scam.

“I put two thousand dollars into the stock market, and soon I was able to quit my job,” said some overly-eager male voice on the television. “Now I don’t spend time behind a desk, but behind the wheel of my new yacht!”

I felt anger at this scam artist on TV, with this modern era three-card Monte swindle. I was so furious that I squeezed my donut with my hand, shooting some jelly onto my shirt.

What was I to do? I had to warn her. I saw her writing some information on a piece of paper. Was she actually going to call these crooks?

I knew this really wasn’t my business, but I felt it was my duty to speak up. As an American citizen. As a Good Jew. I walked over to the counter. She pointed at the pile of donuts.

“Donut?” she asked.

“No, thank you,” I said. “I just wanted to tell you to be careful with these types of TV shows. They might look like real shows, but they are commercials. Don’t believe everything they tell you. You weren’t thinking of calling them up, were you?”

“Donut?” she asked again, being that it was the only English word she knew.

(photo by roadsidepictures via flickr)

I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but I haven’t been adding my “A Year Ago on Citizen of the Month”’s at the end of my posts for the last few days. The reason is because when I look at my archives, I see that the first anniversary of my father’s passing is coming up, and I’m avoiding looking at the archives. The last few days have been depressing. Since the Jewish calendar is different than ours, my father’s memorial day was on Monday. That’s right — on 9/11. I lit my father’s “yahrzeit” candle in Los Angeles, and my mother lit hers in New York. I couldn’t deal with reading all of the 9/11 blog posts until Tuesday, which made me depressed two days in a row.

Even my recent posts seem grouchy. Sophia’s job has been extended another week or two and I’m forgetting what a woman smells like. I would be miserable if my friend Barry didn’t come to town on business. He is a friend from New York who I have known since kindergarten. Yesterday, we met up for dinner.

Remember when you were a kid you could spend the whole day having “adventures,” but when you got home and your mother asked, “What did you do?” you answered, “Nothing.”

It was that kind of “wild” night.

The night actually did start out with a bang. We were stopped by the police on La Cienega Boulevard. The reason: My registration sticker was one month old! Woo-hoo, I’m a rebel! I looked the cop in the eyes and said, “F**k you LAPD pig! I’m no Rodney King!” And then I meekly said, “I’ll take care of this immediately, Officer,” and he let me go.

Next up: Barry thought he had an ear infection. Rather than going to the hospital, he suggested we go to this “walk-in” clinic in Beverly Hills. I didn’t even know they had these things. We met with some friendly Iranian doctor, who gave Barry a prescription for antibiotics. We headed over to Walgreens for the pills, but they said it would take three hours.

Three hours! What do two Jewish guys from Queens do? We walked to Pico Kosher Deli and ate some of our favorites. We flirted with the cute waitress and tried to figure out if she was Jewish or a non-Jewish actress acting Jewish as her role of deli waitress.

As we ate our soup, we discussed 9/11 and why so many people think Bush knew about the attacks ahead of time and did nothing, wanting it to happen as an excuse to go into Iraq. We decided that the only way for this conspiracy to work would be if both the Bush and the previous Clinton administrations were in cahoots, which would at least show some bipartisan cooperation.

After our meal, we discovered this cool used clothing store that sold wardrobe pieces from major films and television shows. Most of the clothes was very high-end and looked like they had only been worn once or twice. Barry bought a nice Perry Ellis sport jacket for $35 that originally starred in Mission Impossible 2.

We went back to Walgreens, but still had an hour to kill. So, we spent the time wandering in and out of the aisles, playing with products. We talked about which razors we both used. We agreed that Swifter is overpriced for what it does. When we noticed that Barry had a mustard stain on his shirt, we experimented with different “spot removers,” but nothing worked. We read Us Weekly, Star Magazine, and Black Men Magazine. Finally, Barry got his antibiotics and downed it with some Gatorade.

We hung around for another half hour, sitting on the trunk of my car. Barry got cold, so he put on his new sport jacket. We wondered who could have worn the sport jacket in Mission Impossible 2. Was it Tom Cruise’s sports jacket? Anthony Hopkins? Or was it just some extra in the background?

There was only one way to find out!

We walked over to Blockbuster, rented Mission Impossible 2, and went back to my place. We watched the movie in slow motion, our only purpose being to FIND THAT SPORT JACKET! Unfortunately, this was so tedious a job that we both fell asleep with the TV still on.

Fun!  Eat your heart out, Sophia.

I recently went with Danny and his wife, Kendall, to a Academy screening of Bob Fosse’s “Cabaret.”  It is a great film and would have won the Oscar in the 1972 if a little film titled “The Godfather” didn’t win instead.

My favorite scene takes place in a German beer garden.  An Aryan boy in his Hitler Youth outfit stands up and sings “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” a beautiful nationalistic song about the Fatherland. One by one, all of the customers get up and chant along, mesmerized by the boy’s voice and the Nazi vision.  The only one who remains sitting is an old man.  He is shaking his head.  He’s old enough to have seen this shit before.  He knows better. 

Do people really get wiser with age?  Who knows.  I have some really dumb older relatives.  But I think you do gain experience as you age.  I’m surprised that our culture doesn’t draw more on the experience of those who have ”been there, done that.”  We might think that an older person — someone over 65 — is ”out of it” because they don’t use a Tivo.  But the last generation has adapted to changes in society and technology that are more dramatic than anything we have seen.   We’ve watched a 56k modem evolve into an iPod.  But they’ve seen a 56′ Ford become a space shuttle.  And isn’t the latest rock star really a different packaging of the last rock star who was a different packaging of Elvis, who was a different packaging of Frank Sinatra?

Lately, I’ve been feeling “older.”  When I say that, I don’t necessarily mean in body or spirit, but more in my interests in life.  When I started this blog, I was going to write about “pop culture.”  I still love movies, TV, and music, but recently, less so.  Lindsay Lohan – should I really care about her life?   After all, I’m not a 15 year old girl.   I’m not even a gay editor of a gossip blog that caters to 15 year old girls.   I skipped the Emmys this year.  And the MTV Video Music Awards.  And you certainly didn’t see me waiting in line for the first night’s showing of “Snakes on a Plane.” 

I know for many of you, admitting this lack of interest of popular culture is the greatest sin possible.  I know how essential it is to be on top of everything.   To be a hipster.  To be in the know.   To be seen at the right places.  To know the cool bands.   I’ve been there.   And now Neilochka is saying he doesn’t even care about “Snakes on a Plane” — a movie with Samuel L. Jackson of all people!  How DORKY is this guy?  Does all he do is IM single women and read blogs?

Which brings me to my next topic of conversation — the website Gawker, the hip New York media blog.

If I don’t stand in line for the opening of a movie, or a nightclub, I’m certainly not going to stand in line to write a comment on a website.  Did you see the rigmarole you have to go through to comment there?  My friend told me about an interesting article today on Gawker.  But when I went to comment, I saw this:

If you’d like an invitation to become a Gawker commenter, you can apply by leaving a comment. Try to make your first one particularly witty. The comment will only appear once (or if) you’re put on the list.

1. Who can leave comments on Gawker?

Anyone who has been invited, either by us or by a friend. The invite system works like Gmail’s invite system. We’ve invited a bunch of our favorite media mavens, bloggers, and frequent tipsters to comment, then given them invitations to share with their friends and colleagues. That way, the burden of inclusion, and exclusion, is shared.

2. Why are comments by invitation only?

Most online communities, like hip bars, are quickly overrun. Not that we’ll be any exception. But we’re going to try to put off that moment for as long as possible.

3. How can I become a commenter?

A) Find a friend with an invitation to share. Many of the people who we’ve invited to comment have also received invitations to share with friends. We’ll continue to seed selected inboxes with invitations to share so the supply doesn’t die out.

B) Tip us. We’ve invited some of our most frequent tipsters to comment, as a thanks for all the help they’ve given us. If you’re looking to comment, raise your chances by sending useful tips to us.

C) Convince us. If you’re lurking inside a major media company, with dirt to dish, we might be interested in having you as a commenter. For instance, we’ll send an invite to anyone with a condenast.com or nytimes.com email address who asks for one.

D) Blog. If you’re a blogger, you’ve got a stake in what you’re saying. Many Gawker comments invitations have gone out to fellow bloggers whose work we admire.

Jesus.  It’s like I have to learn to juggle just to write some dumb comment.  I’m surprised that they didn’t want me to bring them the head of Medusa.

Now in the past, this type of thing would make me upset.  I would be desperate to be included with the cool folk or bitter that I was such a loser.  I would feel insecure that I am not good enough (which is the point) and probably one of the reasons thousands of need-to-be-connected bloggers link to this commercial site.  

But, instead, I just shrugged.  I was too lazy to write a witty comment.   I had a good comment, but I wasn’t sure how witty it really was.  Besides, from my own experiences in real life — the people at these type of parties are never too exciting.  So, that’s it.  No huffing and puffing.  If Gawker wants my comment, they know where to find me.  I can always get my gossip at Entertainment Tonight.

I had a similar “shrug it off” experience at Saturday’s Los Angeles Blogger’s Garage Sale.  I stopped by and it was great seeing Carly and Communicatrix.  And the rumor was true.  Half of the participants were drag queens.  As I was leaving, I encountered two guys who were friends of friends.  One guy had on heels and the other was carrying colored wigs. I made some passing comment about the cool wigs, but they ignored me and started acting very “draq queenish.”   I figured they were trying to shock me.  I was wearing khaki pants and a button down Oxford shirt, despite the 100 degree weather (I need to do a laundry again!), so I must have looked like John Cheever walking into the wrong suburban cocktail party.  These guys perceived me as the white-bread Redondo Beach guy and they were going to do a little extra prancing to shock me and make me feel as uncomfortable as they would be in a redneck bar.   

Now, in the past, this might have bothered me.  What if these with-it guys actually thought I am a  — my god — a Republican — in this preppy Ivy League dress shirt?  I would have desperately felt the urge to tell these guys that I am as “hip” as they are.  That I’m OK with their outlandish lifestyle.  That it isn’t shocking to me to see men wearing women’s clothes.  In fact, I would have told them to run home and do a search on Google for the #1 link to “Husbands who wear women’s panties” — Yes, I’ve seen it all, done it all. 

But, it wasn’t worth my time.  I didn’t need to prove to them that I am a hipster or trendy — or anything.  I really didn’t care what they thought.  And that was a good feeling. 

And that made me feel “older.”  Or maybe, more “mature” is a better way of saying that.

Before I headed off, one of the drag queens dropped a wig, and bent down to pick it up.  I caught a glimpse of the back of his underwear.  They were Fruit of the Loom tighty-whiteys.

“Faker,” I mumbled to myself, as I headed down Melrose Blvd.

A Year Ago on Citizen of the Month:   When I Grow Up to Be a Man

I lied to you on my last blog post — the one about that Forbes article, “Don’t Marry Career Women.”  I made it sound as if I’m a super-cool feminist guy, the type of evolved man who doesn’t mind one bit that Sophia “wears the pants in the family.” 

I lied.  I wanted you to like me.  I wanted you to respect me.  I wanted you to say, “Neilochka is so much more of a feminist than macho bloggers like PaulyD and Kapgar.  I’m only going to read his blog from now on.”

The truth is, yes — I do get insecure.  There is a lot to be insecure about with Sophia.  She makes more money than I do.  She is smarter than I am.  She has a better sense of humor than me.  She can easily beat me in Ms. Pac-Man.  And she looks better in her underwear than I do.

But these items are not what really bother me.  I’m cool with her inherent superiority.   They don’t make me feel any “less” of a man.  My Achilles heel, if we can call it that, revolves around something else entirely — the use of my Vons Club Card in the supermarket.

Let me give you some history:

As an innocent young boy in Queens, New York, I remember the supermarket as an unpleasant place, a world of chaos and anger.  The aisles were too small and customers were always smacking their shopping carts into each other — sometimes on purpose, as if we were in the middle of some sadistic urban demolition derby where people actually enjoyed seeing boxes of Cheerios flying onto the filthy supermarket floor.  Many New Yorkers did not have cars, so this is where all aggression was released.  They had “shopping cart rage.”  Back in the old days, no one ever said, “excuse me.”  If your cart was in the way, someone would rudely push it aside.  It was a Hobbesian world of shopper eat shopper.  No employee would ever help you.  Once, an old woman died on Aisle Seven of my local Waldbaum’s and the employees closed the store later, just leaving her there.  The underpaid checkout girls hated their jobs and never let you forget it.

When I moved to California, I was not impressed with the weather or the girls in bikinis.  I had already seen that in the movies.  What shocked me were the supermarkets. 

They were enormous.  They were clean.  Three shopping carts could fit side by side in each aisle.  Kids happily sat and played in their shopping carts while their mommies bought dinner.  Some of these carts were bigger than the playpen I used to have as a child. 

Customers were kind to each other.  They actually went to the “Ten and Under Checkout line” with the ACTUAL correct number of items!  They didn’t argue, like Mary Riccio’s mother used to do – that milk, eggs, yogurt, and ice cream was just one item — “dairy product.” 

Life was like a dream in a California supermarket.  Music by “Air Supply” was piped in on the loudspeakers.  Some supermarkets were so large, you could also buy pots, pans, concert tickets, and even Samsonite luggage right there!

And the employees were always so polite.  Where did they find these people?  They acted less as if they had a low-paying job and more like they just won the lottery.

“Hi there, sir, can help you find the best fresh vegetables?”

“Are you looking for something that I could help you with?”

“Have you see our sale on Bounty paper towels?”

“Do you need any help carrying out that 1/2 pound bag of raisins?”

Now I knew why all these illegal immigrants were moving to California.  For the supermarkets!  

California supermarkets were like heaven to me — until Sophia signed up for a Vons Club Card.

Even though Sophia and I are legally married, Sophia decided to keep her last name –Lansky (what a typical career women!).    She wanted to remain Sophia Lansky, not become Sophia Kramer.  At first, it didn’t bother me a whole lot. 

But then was the turning point.  

One day, as I left my local Vons Supermarket, having just used our “joint” Vons Club Card, the overbearingly-friendly salesgirl shouted out joyfully, ”You saved $10.55 today… MR. LANSKY!”

Ugh.  What a strike to the male ego!  And it didn’t happen just once.  Every time I left the store, having used my Vons Club Card, it was the same –

…Mr. Lansky…  Mr. Lansky… Mr. Lansky…! 

But did I ever scream?  Did I ever say, “I’m goddamn Mr. Kramer, not goddamn Mr. Lansky — you stupid Stepford checkout girl!?”   No.  I kept it bottled up inside. 

I thought of not using the Vons Club Card at all  — but I would feel like an asshole for paying an extra $10.55.  It was a lose-lose situation.

The stress affected me physically.  The symptoms started small.  I began losing interest in sex after shopping at the supermarket.  It didn’t matter if it was for bananas or milk.  Just walking into Vons was a blow to my male ego.   The “Mr. Lansky” line would be pounding in my brain over and over.  What type of wimpy man is known by his wife’s name?

Mr. Lansky… Mr. Lansky… Mr. Lansky… 

I started shopping at the over-priced Whole Foods for one good reason:  they didn’t have a “club card.”  Unfortunately, the mere passing of the Vons Supermarket across the street would give me the inability to have an erection for 24 hours. 

I became desperate.  I drove to Santa Anita racetrack and bought myself a pair of horse-blinders, to prevent me from seeing any Vons Supermarkets as I drove down the street.  But I always knew the supermarkets were there, close by, mocking me — especially since Sophia’s new GPS system was constantly telling me so.

However, with Sophia away, I was desperate for some love and affection.  I decided to fight my fear.  On Friday night, I went out with my mother-in-law’s chiropractor’s unemployed sister, Andrea.   After a nice dinner at Chicago for Ribs,  we ended back at her place.  We drank some wine and watched some TV.  Soon, we were in her bed.  It felt good to be with a woman again.  I was proud of myself for moving beyond my problem.  We made love for an hour.  Andrea was passionate, screaming things like, “Neilochka, you are amazing!” and “I’ve never been f***ed so good!” 

(note:  This unemployed woman should have said, “I’ve never been f***ed so well!” — another reason to always marry a “career woman,” who usually have a better command of the English language).

The lovemaking grew even more intense.  It felt as if the bed was levitating off the carpet.  Her face grew red, her breathing irregular.  Andrea was nearing the orgasm of her life, when I noticed that the TV in the living room was still on.  It was the end of Conan O’Brien.   There was a cut to a commercial — an advertisement for a certain local supermarket chain:

“This week at Vons:  use your Vons Club Card and get two packages of fresh strawberries for only four dollars!”

“Don’t stop!” yelled the hyperventilating Andrea.  But it was too late.   The Vons Club Card took its toll, and the toll was on me.

I have not heard back from Andrea since then.   And I don’t expect to.

But this tale does not end sadly.   Every psychological problem has a solution, if you are willing to work on yourself. 

Today, I walked into Vons like a REAL MAN and signed up for my very own Vons Club Card. 

Problem solved.

A Year Ago on Citizen of the Month:  138th Post About Sophia
 

I hate moving!  It is so tedious and time-consuming.  But I’m never too busy to sing in the car as I’m shlepping boxes… 

sung to the tune of ‘The Jeffersons’ theme, “Movin’ On Up”  (listen to the original song)

Well, I’m movin’ on up, to the Westside
To Sophia’s apartment by the beach
Movin’ on up, to the Westside
Her panties are now within reach.

Sophie’s bras in the morning,
Wearing her stockings at night.
How does she wear these stilletos?  Isn’t this teddy too tight?
Wearing her dress on the weekend,
Looking like Barbie, not Ken.
I’m livin’ the high life, just me and her undies,
Until she kicks me out once again!

Well, I’m movin’ on up, to the Westside
To Sophia’s apartment by the beach
Movin’ on up, to the Westside
Her panties are now within reach.

A Year Ago on Citizen of the Month:  She Exists!