Fried & True (27 page)

January 2006

LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH

AND THE WINNER IS…

Please don't think badly of me for the following story. It's one of those blasphemous yarns, skirting, okay, plunging face forward into the mush of questionable taste. But it happened. And when polled, even my rabbi thought it was okay to share it. So here goes.

Over the past two weeks I attended two memorial services, a week apart. One for an acquaintance and the other for Anyda.

Prior to the services, following two weeks of terrible sadness and loss, I was sitting at this very computer, writing a eulogy for the service a week hence. I turned to the Internet to check a historical fact and was stunned by AOL's headline: “Oscar Winner Shelley Winters Dead at 85.”

I stared at the screen, not knowing whether, as they say, to poop or go blind. “Alrighty!” I yelped, followed by a crushing sense of doom.

It's like this. A while ago, some immortal-feeling twenty-somethings started a unique combination of gambling and drinking called The Dead Pool. Clusters of young people get together and select names of elderly celebrities. Each player antes up a set amount for the jackpot and when a celeb falls off their perch the person holding the winning name, if you can call this winning, collects.

I know, it's a ghoul pool. Perfectly horrid.

On the other hand, in a world filled with terrorists winning elections, our own government spying on us, hateful discrimination and Bird Flu panic there's never enough reason to celebrate, so why not take advantage of every opportunity?

Borrowing from this 20-something fad, our group of old-somethings launched the Rainbow Dead Pool Society. Some energetic New Jersey gals put it together and soon invited a
slew of us to participate. In our version, we pick names, ante up, then when there's a loss, host a party to send off the dearly departed. Costumes are encouraged. We try to make it a great celebration, respectful in every way. Unless of course, too many Bloody Marys are involved and then you never know to what sacrilegious depths we will sink.

The gang has held a royal send off for Prince Rainier, went ape at a party for Fay Wray, and held a simply delicious soiree for Julia Child, among others.

Yep, you're getting it. After paying my dues for a while now I finally, oh, forgive me, hit the jackpot with Shelley Winters.

And that meant, in addition to receiving the funds, I'd have to use said money to throw an immediate “memorial service” for Shelley—because we had to rush to pay, along with our respects, our damn dues in case another AARP headliner suddenly kicked the bucket. The phrase “unfortunate timing” doesn't even begin to cover it. I was hearing strains of “There's Got to Be a Morning After,” from
The Poseidon Adventure
ringing in my ears. Pun intended, I was sunk.

Gingerly, I shared the absurd news of our “good fortune” with my spouse. She was appalled—both by the untimely circumstances and the realization that we'd have to hostess Shelley's “memorial” the following Sunday, immediately after the real memorial service for Anyda on Saturday. It was so horrible it was hilarious, may I not burn in hell for saying so.

After we got through a spectacular spell of guilty laughter, I sent out e-mail invitations to Society Members about our upcoming Shelley Winters brunch. Then, I tried to put the whole sordid mess out of my mind. After all there were two truly sad occasions to attend within the next seven days, the first of which was the following morning.

That's when things got dicey. I was eating a canapé, following a very touching and incredibly sad service for a member of our community, when a Society pal whispers, “Congratulations on Shelley,” in my ear. “Not here…” I murmured, expecting lightning to strike.

Then another very close friend of the wonderful person we were memorializing also referred to my win and I had to put my hand over his mouth—but not before persons in the vicinity heard the word “congratulations.”

“Congratulations for what?” somebody asked as I broke out in a sweat knowing that over MY dead body would the words “Dead Pool” come out of my mouth at this particular time and place.

Avoiding the question, and sending the evil eye to a quartet of people who seemed poised to spill the beans, I fled, to mill about the room, paying my real respects to the family.

Although there were at least ten society members at the service, I dared not look at any of them. In fact, every time I saw somebody approaching with a twinkle in their eye, I'd hide behind the potted palms. It was all I could do to keep my decorum until I got out to the car, where, sad to say, I disgusted myself by exploding into howls of laughter.

Returning home, I went about my business, deciding what to prepare, purchase, or plan for Saturday's real memorial service and Sunday's incongruously fake one. Frankly, it wasn't hard. In both instances we'd celebrate lives well lived, and use ample booze and good food to get us through.

As for the authentic memorial service, we capped a crushingly sad week, with a true celebration of a literary life very well lived.

We sent Shelley Winters off gloriously, too. I hung her
Washington Post
obituary over the fireplace, decorated the house with photos from Shelley's Oscar nods for
Diary of Anne Frank
, and
A Patch of Blue
, played
Poseidon
on the DVD and enjoyed the time with our friends. One person arrived with a patch of blue material on her sweater and three yokels showed up dressed as if they'd been in the drink from the Poseidon. We all had a good laugh. A lot of good laughs. Especially me, being quite glad that the sad, bad week was history.

So we all anted up our dues for the next round of the celebrity Dead Pool and I collected my winnings—some of
which I'd already spent on the brunch. To assuage some guilt, the rest went to pay bills. But however much I won in the pool, the money was, of course, totally inconsequential compared to the way the friends we lost that week had enriched our lives. And it probably goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that both of our dearly departed would have been tickled by the abject absurdity of this whole irreverent dead pool business.

Timing is everything. Live, love, laugh.

March 2006

LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH

FILM AT 11

Ok, I'm scared.

Some days it's hard to get out of bed I'm so terrified. I'd have a fight or flight response but I don't know who to slap or where to run. It starts when the clock radio goes off in the morning and doesn't stop until I fall asleep watching CFN: the cable fear network.

Come on, don't pretend you haven't noticed. We are all in terrible, terrible danger from thousands of hideous, well…things. These amorphous THINGS are all on the way, all about to happen, imminent, pending, coming soon to kitchen, powder room, neighborhood, city, or sneeze near you. Be afraid, be very afraid.

These kinds of warnings used to herald horror movies, but now they announce our daily life. From tsunamis to color coded security alerts, bird flu to bacteria, we're just sitting ducks. And those ducks are looking for flu shots.

For a while I took all the warnings, if not seriously, at least like bona fide news. But now it's clear that, with only a few exceptions, (like the polar cap melting, which NO ONE is taking seriously) these scare tactics are designed only to boost network market share. We're being scared silly for ratings.

So I started a tally. The following are real headlines, TV graphics or things somber anchor people warned us about this week alone:

Killer Bird Flu: Just a breath away!

Tsunami: It could happen here!

Radon: A killer in your basement!

Is Delmarva prepared for a Category 5?
(Ya think?)

Startling new report! Killer infections for people already on antibiotics!

Honey bees turn killer!
(Somebody should check a
Thesaurus for a synonym for “killer.”).

Antibacterial soaps: Are we being scammed?

Are YOU ready for a chemical attack?
(Okay. How the hell do I get ready for a chemical attack? I'd look stupid eating a bagel in a hazmat suit).

Is nuclear waste driving by your neighborhood?
(By itself?)

Panic at sea! Dozens missing from cruise ships!
(Not gay cruises. Nobody jumps those ships for fear people will dish about them.)

Mobile phones and radiation: Are you talking yourself to death?
(No, but Rush Limbaugh might be. Although it has nothing to do with his phone).

And, of course, daily we get the ubiquitous
Health Scare Over
(pick one)
pesticides, Mad Cow Disease, Ebola Fever, Flesh-Eating Bacteria, Anthrax
, and this year's winner and new champion,
Avian Flu
.

Remember SARS? China had a run on doctor's masks and people walked around with brassiere cups covering their noses and mouths? That was scary. But what the hell happened to that doomsday plague?

It's enough to give me a headache but thanks to the recent Headache drug health scare I can't remember which pills won't kill me. As far as I'm concerned, the only true health scare is whether we can afford, or even get health insurance anymore. Our elected officials should be fixing that scary mess rather than rearranging the deckchairs on the titanic snafu that is our current congressional agenda.

Now that I've got that off my chest (
Mammograms: Is the machine at your hospital safe
?), I'm trying to figure out how to relax while everyone's yelling duck and cover, the sky is falling. All the media covers is stuff that COULD happen, rather than what actually IS happening.

Washington Post
superstars Woodward and Bernstein have a theory about the death of investigative journalism. They say it takes too long. It's boring. It took months of picking through garbage, badgering secretaries and meeting with furtive moles
in parking garages to bring down Nixon. With the current ratings race, nobody has that kind of time. I think they're on to something.

Why should talking heads investigate anything at all when they can just shout specious warnings.
Identity theft! Computer Viruses! Brokeback Mountain!

But the granddaddy boondoggle of the warning wars is the daily debunking of food, vitamin, and diet claims.

This week we were warned that oatmeal, estrogen and calcium, CANNOT protect your arteries, heart and bones after all. This was good for my health because I'd been guilty about not chowing down on Tums, fiber, and hormones. I feel better now.

But not much. I keep embracing diet advice only to have it change faster than you can say low carb lasagna. One week we're warned fat is bad, next it's good; pasta is good, then it's bad; You say tomato, I say tomahto. Alcohol causes cancer but helps the heart. The heart causes angst that's bad for the immune system. And nobody doesn't like Sara Lee.

For all the dire predictions, when the media had a legitimate reason to warn us they failed. There was no orange alert warning us Dick Cheney had a gun.

Amid all the shrieking admonitions I'm still sure of only two things—semi-sweet chocolate and red wine have been declared good for your health. I'm not listening to another medical warning past that.

And if I'm forced to be terrified by the media day and night I should do something to calm my blood pressure.

Pour me a Pinot Noir with a snickers chaser.