Airport Clamor Imagined.

Carl, Carl did ya hear me?

Root Beer, yes, no not diet.

Stanley get on line, go on, say you just had your hip replaced. (Art imitating Life.)

Sol, hurry I want to stop at the place that has pizza so I can have a couple of slices on the plane. No, nothing to drink. I get dizzy when I pee on a plane. Ugh and the floor is always wet. TMI.

Marty hold my coat, I knew I should-a checked it with my luggage. What ya mean I have to hold my mah jongg set on my lap. Are you joke(r)ing me. Get it Marty that’s a joke. Ha! Ha! Next time go for the Mosaic thingy.

Ron- ( hello Ries) go show em your shoulder strap so we can get the exit row. No one can bang into you, you’ll sit by the window. 

Mel-ask for bags of cookies and 2 bags of pop chips and pretzels. I’m hungry.

Frank- can you get me a magazine in the front of the plane? Doris what century are you living in? This is Jet no magazines) Blue. Ok, so buy me earbuds. I’ll catch up with Teresa Guidice on RHONJ.  

Joey, wanna play gin rummy? I brought the cards we got when American Airlines sprung for them.

Morris-ask what plantain chips are and if they’re kosher? Be nice. Don’t tell me to shut up.

Paul- you wanna sandwich? I brought cream cheese and grape jelly on white. Or sardines on a roll with butter and onions. Neither one? No worries, eat the plantain chips.

Dinner? We are having Chinese. The new place I heard about at Canasta has an early bird all the spareribs you can eat special. Did you ever?

Danny, Danny you sleeping? Watch my handbag I am going to see what they are selling in the cart. Quick let

me out. 

To the Moon Alice. To the moon. Vayismir

A Side of Gypsy!

Have some nova, Mr. Goldstone.

Have a bagel, have a schmear.

Have a latke Mr. Goldstone.

Any spare that I can spare I’ll be glad to share!

Take a dish, have a pickle, have a knish, here’s a fork.

Put your feet up. Feel at home.

Have a coke, something corked?

Would you like to hear a joke?

G-d forbid a smoke.

Have a decaf mit your babka.

Mr. Goldstone come sit by us.

Come Daven by the river, meet us on East End and 84th.

Finish up Mr. Goldstone, you’re already on your fourth (course.)

Have some flanken, cooked with care.

Everybody give a bissel cheer.

We sat you-next to Murray.

Go sit in that Big green chair.

Have a Goldstone, Mr. Bialy.

Tell me any little thing that I can do.

Have some liver, chopped on a cracker.

Have a cookie, have a few.

What’s the matter, Mr. G?

How bout another pot of tea?

Good Shabbos-Mr. Goldstone.

Raise a stoli, maybe two.

Keep your senses- helps stability.

Mr. Goldstone we love you.

A. e I. o. u.
A virtual who knew.
A little siri a lot of algorithms.
What is right or is it true?
Am I writing this, or is it coming from You?
I before E except after C.
Artificial sweetener not good for you.
Not good for me.

That was the week that was.
“And All the News that’s Fit to Print.”
Appears on the masthead of our daily read.
Will creativity be abbreviated?
Or replaced by a digital degree?

We write some prose add a lyric or two.
Original thoughts add a concept we construe.
Will our world as we know it.
In the simple and true.
Be usurped by learning techniques wiser than me, bigger than you?

ChatGPT can create an AI text.
But our experiences we behold.
Recalling our adventures a computer code can’t unfold.

Keeping our erasers, our inkwells close by.
Our modus operandi holding our head towards the sky.
Our feelings are our treasures that can’t be taken away.
Regardless of the fact AI is here to stay.
Take Two.
U of Instagram and Fb.
How to make the best Onion Soup or where to buy new crochet needles, we learned from Social Media.
Whether it is paired with our morning coffee and a Kossar’s bialy or over a cocktail, (lots of lemons) at days end, we scroll the ever loving, addictive mother lode-insta or fb.
Who went where or who did what, come out come out wherever you are I know what you ate for lunch.

So just by chance so and so we were supposed to meet before the interview at the 92Y for sushi. I thought you had to babysit your grandchildren.
Opps posting is a b- tch, well certainly as our memory becomes a blur.

So Bethenny show us what you are 100 calorie snacking on today.
Make it a virtual Sunday in the Park with George.

You’re Not Gonna Believe This. T.S.

With two silver wings
on either side.
He blow dried and sprayed it
himself.
Woody Allen frequently cast
him.
His Black Velvet Track suit a
look in itself.
As chief henchman to Tony
Soprano.
Paulie Walnuts clearly had clout.
A germophobe, whose aunt was
his mother.
With a pillow he snuffed her
friend Minn Matrone out.
He claimed he saw the
apparition of The Virgin Mary
one night.
The famous Bada Bing was the
sight.
Tony ran it by Dr. Melfi and
asked Carmela her take.
She called out his name so
familiar.
And told him she thought it was
fake.
David Chase cast him as “Paulie
Walnuts Gualtieri.”
Cause nuts fell off of a truck.
His t.v. chair was covered with
plastic.
When he got up he often got
stuck.
The resemblance between fact
and fiction.
Was so absurdly dead-on.
Tony Sirico had lived his
character.
Early in life he did “stuff.”
Not everything was always real
kosher.
Hence Satriales Meat Market.
The infamous scene of the
crime.
Paulie Gualtieri beat Shlomo
Teittlemans son-in-law.
In a room on the upper floor,
shot from behind.
As we binged all 86 episodes.
We really got to know why.
He threw Christopher Moltisanti
out the window.
Ate a ketchup pack in The
Barrons of Pine.
Well known for cracking jokes, always at just
the wrong time.

RIP-Paulie Walnuts, so salt
peppered with flare.
Your character was ever so
compelling and one we will hold
ever dear.

How to Win Friends and Influence People.

“Understand people’s anxiety- Always have a suntan-” Aristotle Onassis-

Dale Carnegie-kind and ever so real. He Won friends and influenced people he never met. His basic principle to aim for cheerful friendliness and approach things with zero ambiguity. His motto “Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.”

His book has gone the distance on the daily, like our morning coffee and Al Rokers weather report. His suggestions served as the prototype for all The Chicken Soup for the Soul publications. Helen Gurley Brown in her Cosmopolitan style, told it like it was as career and love life merged, through red lipstick and panty hose, we listened.

Who remembers Revlon “coffee bean” lipstick and a spritz of Shalimar on the way out the door to hang with friends?

We watched, we must confess, early on when Phil Donahue met “That Girl” and interviewed Jean Nidetch (founder of Weight Watchers.) We learned the value of zero point foods in an attempt to keep our girlish figure.

Back to -Oh Dale, how your words resonated loud and clear upon first read and today when we need a reminder. That unpleasant look from so and so the other day had everything to do with them and very little to do with us. People project their feelings and own bias when they’re defending the one side of the story they didn’t hear.

We long for the days when we walked into the candy store and put the new Betty and Veronica, Little Dot and Dennis the Menace comics on the counter next to our bazooka and red licorice treats. How bout the primordial smells of the gum in the pack of baseball cards that one of the kids on your block shared with you? The very familiar smell of a brand new spalding ball lingers on in our bag of childhood treasures. Exhuming those scents easier than remembering, well a-lot these days.

We believe our first art lesson was on Etch a Sketch, and early writing lessons happened through creating stories of where Barbie and Ken would go on their honeymoon. We thought Bermuda would be nice. One guilty pleasure we recall was chewing double bubble, piece after piece (not knowing we were helping our dentist enjoy his summer home in the Berkshires with each bubble that landed smack across our faces.)

Oh the 60’s, where art thou now? Our world is bleeding out of control. Worry, insomnia and zapped energy a deleterious trifecta too common in our everyday. So hit it Dale-“ Get busy. Keep busy. it’s the cheapest kind of medicine there is on earth- and one of the best.” Thanks, Mr. Carnegie -we’re in.

A bissel fun dizes, a bissel fun dizes.
Who isn’t sleeping in the auditorium while a Benny Goodman look alike a.k.a. King of Swing plays “Sing Sing Sing” on his clarinet?
Save us seats on the aisle we call out to the new couple we met at water aerobics and had dinner with in the dining room tonight. Yum to the Lamb chop special and Key Lime. Could you plotz?
Go know, their cousin from Rockland, Murray Katz is a jeweler we bought Jewish stars from as Bat Mitzvah gifts for our granddaughters.

Such a mensch, he threw in the chains. B’h Murray.

Love the coincidences that come along as -a ha -moments in between schepping nachas and inconveniences. Shout out to J.D on minimizing not fun stuff and couching them as “inconveniences.” You shouldn’t know from the big stuff. Vayismir.

So just for today we will get pickled herring from Russ and Daughters, nova from Sables, bagels from Tal, cheese cake from Juniors in the theater district, babka from Barney Greengrass, cookies from Levain and Eat like no one is watching.