Here's To The Lady Who Lunched , The Spirited Men Who Joined Her, Unsinkables and "Always Dreamin'".

       The birth of this new month is etched on my heart by its being the start of my second post operative week, having  had  foot surgery the week previous .  Home alone.  So  much time.  I used it to entertain  - lavishly - the many thoughts I've been  wanting to  share with neglected loved ones.  But the  'party' never came off as it sadly lacked the action verb - share.
       Here we are, then, dear readers, at week's end and as the inimitable Dorothy Parker spat in response to her proferred party invitation, "Oh, are you entertaining?", "Not very.".  Worse yet, my neglected loved ones deserve better lest they begin to see themselves  as forgotten, shunned even.  In a paltry attempt at mimicry - imitation  being the highest form of praise, I shall adopt an acid-tongued, clever story-telling style used by Ms. Parker in her column/poetry proliferative years.
       She told several stories at once using (known in cardiology as 'interpolation' or an extra heart beat 'fitting' between two normal ones without disturbing the rhythm).   Post operative foot notwithstanding  I shall leap over Dorothy's acuity (fat chance), incorporating a 'crowd'.  Many loved ones. Very little time.  No appreciable attention span (you may recall.  Or not.)
       (On the first rumination day, I was haunted by thoughts of my dear, thespian friend, Marty McGaw, whom I've not seen in years but spoke with two years ago on the occasion of the tragic, sudden death of  one of  her beautiful sons (Sandy).  Karma guided me to my desk - ostensibly for stationary and I stumbled upon a haltingly begun emotionally abandoned letter which I give to her now:
'Marty, et al,  There are no words - save those that the levelled and bereft must continually come up with to fill the never-ending voids generously offered by 'The Comforters'.  Ere long you become a turnstyle easing another group of "I-don't-know-what-to-sayers" down and through, oozing along with an occasional, "Yes. Henceforth I shall be sloshing my Alaskan King Crab legs around in the salty, down home bath of my tears.".
I keep a notebook - but promise to write directly to you clearly as soon as my heart can handle clarity - titled, "Ridiculously Good Ideas".  Last week's entry: RANDOM THOUGHTS - THE SANDY 'HAPPY LIFE FORMULA'.
If we could see life as a spectrum, with SPLENDOR at one end and TRAGEDY at the other, what would the diagram look like? (work with me here, Marthena.  Picture a horizontal, bisected paramecium with words in each section.)  On the left or SPLENDOR Side: finding the right life partner; good health for you and your family; freedom/opportunity to move around to tropical climes; surviving/overcoming daily annoyances. Now the right or TRAGEDY Side: moving ahead after a crisis; losing a long-held job unexpectedly; leaving a listless, apathetic spouse; raising young kids by yourself; dying young.
Does 'feeling happy' require discipline?  How or should or need one maintain a large, transparent perspective?  Is that the trick, Sandy?  Or is that too unrealistic an aspiration for the average, non-Sandy Mac who can barely remember to buy toothpaste in the drugstore?
CURTAIN
Guess I developed 'writers block'.  The people in my head stopped talking to me and each other.  We had to 'take it on the road' for a year or so while you were taking it on the chin.  But I'm preaching to the choir.  Of all beautiful, temperamental souls, you most of intimately understand the crippling quirks of the artist.)
       Dorothy Parker once put forth in a poem,
"For art is a form of catharsis, And love is a permanent flop.".  I would have given those lines to Sandy but she saved the piece , "Comment" for him, as do I:
"Oh, life is a permanent  cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And love is a thing that can never go wrong; And I am Marie of Roumania."
       (Sandy's Life Song:

Will of necessity be garbled in the morn.  A night of brain rest is a-bornin'.
Later, Lorane. : . .