songbird's crazy world

 So it’s been a tumultuous week.  The funeral, sitting shiva, celebrating my mother’s life.  Seeing people from the various aspects of our lives — relatives, my friends, my sisters’ friends, my daughters’ friends, even friends of my parents.  Talking about old times. Years ago, my father took my mother to Italy for a vacation.  My father had been stationed in Italy during World War II and had come to love the country, and wanted to share the experience with my mother.   They were in Venice, at a cafe overlooking a canal, and they ordered a wine they had never heard of before. It was a sparking wine, similar to champagne:  Prosecco. When they returned home they tracked down that wine. Few people in the US had heard of it.  It soon became their favorite.  And shortly thereafter, America discovered Prosecco. So we toasted my mother’s life with Prosecco.

 So we were driving home from the East End, and suddenly found ourselves driving through a rainstorm.  And I looked through the windshield and saw amazing cloud formations.    #skywatchfriday

 So last week, when we went out to the North Fork, we stopped at a farm stand.  Lots of local produce was available.  So I bought lots of local produce.  Too much local produce.  When I got it all home, I had to wonder “how am I going to eat all of this before it goes bad?” The answer? Ratatouille.  I mean, I had beautiful eggplant, zucchini and summer squash, what else could I make?  Though I wound up using canned tomatoes, the beefsteaks I bought at the farm stand weren’t completely ripe.  And I have to say I was not impressed with the purple bell peppers; red or yellow or orange are much more flavorful. I had not made ratatouille in years…   I served the stew with couscous.  Made for a very interesting and delicious meal.    So good.

 I sold my tickets at a profit.  And then I cried.  I genuinely cried.  Over concert tickets.  Seriously. Remember my  Temper Tantrum ?  The tale of the Billy Joel tickets I bought in January 2020? Joel has a residency at Madison Square Garden, he does one concert per month.  I wanted to see the February 2020 show, but wasn’t able to get tickets.  So I bought tickets for the May 2020 show.  Thanks to COVID the concert was pushed back over and over again.   The May 2020 concert will take place tonight. I will not be there. Drew took a friend to the Rod Stewart concert (tickets bought in 2020) last night. I just couldn’t go to a concert last night.  They had a great time, bought me a t shirt … The Billy Joel tickets were listed on StubHub Sunday night. I sold them for a small profit Monday night. Tonight I will be sitting shiva for my mother.  

We stood in the parking lot of the funeral home, four sisters.  Four daughters.  The last time we’d been in this lot was when we  buried our father . And here we were again, arranging another funeral. My mother passed away in the early morning hours Sunday.  She was 89 and in poor health, so it’s not exactly a surprise, but …  well, we almost lost her when she  broke her hip  last year, then she bounced back.  So why shouldn’t she bounce back from what seemed like a relatively minor illness, when the doctor sent her home with a prescription for antibiotics?  But at 89, nothing is truly a minor illness, is it?   She wound up in the emergency room Saturday night.   The funeral will be Wednesday afternoon,  graveside service, beside my father. Miss you, mom and dad.

 And today’s theme?  It’s National Radio Day, so we’re asked to post songs we remember from the radio. Growing up on Long Island in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, my radio station was WABC , 770 on the AM dial, the biggest radio station in NYC.  A weekday lineup that included Harry Harrison (the Morning Mayor), Ron Lundy, Dan Ingram and Bruce Morrow (Cousin Brucie) at night. You may remember Morrow as the DJ in Dirty Dancing , or from the oldies show he used to do on Sirius XM.  These days he has come full circle, he can be heard every Saturday night on WABC, which is primarily a talk radio station.  You can find the show on the station’s website.   You can find complete shows from WABC’s heyday all over YouTube, but I’ll just give you a few samples. Harry Harrison     Ron Lundy (“Hello, Love!)   Dan Ingram    And, of course, Cousin Brucie    WABC dominated the airwaves…until it didn’t. The end of an era came in 1...

 So the other day, when I wrote about vanilla pudding, I mentioned that I saw the best and worst doctors.   Today I’ll tell that tale. At the time my primary care physician was Dr. H.  Dr. H had treated me for mono during my first year of law school, and more recently he’d gotten me through two bouts with bronchitis.   When I fell sick, I thought I had bronchitis again.  I called Dr. H’s office.  His receptionist said, “Dr. H is about to leave for the day, but Dr. D is here. Do you want to see Dr. D?” Dr. H was about to retire and planned to sell the practice to Dr. D.  I agreed to see Dr. D. Dr. D examined me, told me “I think you have pneumonia,” and told me to go down the street to the hospital for a chest x-ray. At the emergency room I was examined again, x-rays were taken, I was hooked up to an IV and a nebulizar.  I started to feel a bit better. Dr. D walked into my room, said “I’m having you admitted,” and walked out again before I had a ch...