A New Dawn (with apologies to George Lucas)

HE'S GONE! He's actually, completely, in Thailand. Or, you know, his plane went down somewhere and I didn't see it on the news. Whichever. The point is, my cousin is no longer in residence in my house!

Tra la, tra la, tra la...also hallelujah, also hosanna in the highest.

So on Monday I got up at a civilized hour to do Ugly Betty, and it was even in Manhattan, down in a bar on Park Place. A 9:00 am call translates to practically mid-afternoon, when you consider all the mornings I've hauled my elderly ass out of bed at 3:30 am to get to a 5:30 am location bus that some bright child decided should be waiting on 96th and Broadway. The shoot was terminally dull (as I keep telling you, movie making is NOT glamorous), but it was a nice 11 hours, which means a nice paycheck, and the scene was with Judith Light, who turns out to be a darling gal...she actually turned to the two of us background people who were closest to her at the bar, put out her hand and introduced herself. Now that's a sweet person.

Tuesday I woke up way too early (like 5 am), from anticipation, no doubt. But by God, the airport car arrived, Joshua got into it, and he rolled away. I then read the paper and had breakfast, watching the clock all the time because his flight was at 10:15, and I fully expected him to come down with some exotic disease in the airport and turn around and come back and have eighteen months of doctors' appointments. Face it - he was SUPPOSED to leave in January. In point of fact, he was supposed to leave eight weeks after he arrived, which was six years ago. After I judged I was out of danger, I had a short beer and took a restorative nap in my beautifully empty house.

Caesar came over and we ordered Thai food to celebrate, then Sarah came over to lend me 20 bucks. I had hoped that Joshua would leave me a nice farewell gift, but no, of course not - he had evidently changed all his money into bahts (which is what one spends in Thailand). This, even after I mentioned rather pointedly that my Social Security check hadn't come and I was down to about three bucks. Yes, well - just another excuse to celebrate his leaving, right?

Then I had a seminar job yesterday and today, which was as boring as usual...this one, however, had an extra added attraction in that the room I was sitting in had no heat whatsoever, which was NOT fun.

Just for fun, I was waiting for the crosstown bus at 2nd Avenue and 9th on my way home today, and in a building across the street, there is a window air conditioner with a large sign on it saying, "No dogs allowed." They must have some dogs in the East Village who are related to the cow who jumped over the moon, since said air conditioner is on the second floor.

And I am throwing things out! I have gotten rid of so much stuff from the kitchen alone...I cleaned the icebox, I cleaned the counters, I got rid of Joshua's toaster, and the fan he insisted on keeping in the powder room, and thousands of orphaned plastic lids, and all of his gluten free food (not to mention several things that were just sort of hanging around in the cupboard like way out of date baking soda and rice wine that had formed a vinegar mother...you know). I have cleaners coming in tomorrow to actually deep clean the kitchen, because it's inches thick in grease, due to Joshua's habit of frying everything. I have tried everything short of a flamethrower, and I can't get the stuff off. So tomorrow I'm getting up early to finish dragging everything out of the kitchen, and the team will turn up at 10:30 or so. Glory!

Then all I have to do is get the living room back to being a living room, get my room clean, get somebody to clean Sarah's room (Vicky by choice because now her stuff is all over it).

And I'm really, really furious with the World Series. I was so looking forward to seeing Glee last night in my very own den on my very own big screen hi-def TV (a hi-def TV sounds like a relative of Mos Def, doesn't it? Mos Def and his brother Hi). But the damn series preempted it! Growl. Nobody loves me.

But I don't have a live-in cousin any more! YAHOO!

Love, Wendy