I put on one of my pairs of red shoes. (No one can be unhappy wearing red shoes.) And I eat chocolate. Just saw the greatest menu for Thanksgiving dinner: Hershey Bar lasagna, M&M soup, mashed Snickers with hot fudge gravy. Now that’s my idea of a GREAT dinner, particularly when I’m feeling funky!

Bill Clinton is a charming scumbag with a sex problem. Ick!

Same thing as balderdash and treacle.

Bonnie - Am thankful for your good news. Something to cheer about! (Especially when you think about all the energy involved in the attendant stress.) I hope you did something special for yourself to celebrate on this great day! A “low-density mass” is something that’s transparent on the CAT-scan - and it was only 3 cms in diameter. A “normal” ovary for a woman of my age is 2 cms - so it’s anybody’s guess what it is. I’m working up the courage to call the surgeon who does the colonoscopies around here. I’m waiting until I feel I have the stamina to go on a clear diet for 48 hrs. before the infamous “prep.” (*:*) I am rejoicing with you over your news!! LPP

Bonnie - Still awaiting word from you. Had the ultra-sound this a.m. - a real non-event, even tho’ the tech decided to do the trans-vaginal thing just for good measure. I was surprised she didn’t find a ball of dust. (*:*) Now, it’s on to the colonoscopy - oh, joy! Please let me know about you! Sending more prayers your way………….

Ernie was a comedic genius who paved the way for so many brilliant comics to follow. (He, also, if I remember correctly, had a major gambling problem, and was no slouch in the drinking department.) I lived in Beverly Hills in those days - and remember how we all went to see the utility pole on Santa Monica Blvd. where Ernie met his death. Edie cleaned up all the debts with absolute dignity, working her ass off to do so. She never uttered a bad word about her late husband - and she was one of the well-loved and admired performers of her era. Great lady, who suffered more than her share of grief.

I join with those who’ve already said they hope you’ll keep us updated. I saw the GYN guy today - and, fortunately, he has a sense of humor, too. We’d never met before, even tho’ he’s a neighbor. He has a weird location for his mailbox on our road, and it keeps getting knocked down by passing cars on a regular basis. My husband was one of the people who ‘nailed’ the mailbox - so he replaced it, and even dug a new post hole for it - so he knows my husband, altho’ hubby will never be one of his patients! (*:*) The doc also has two enormous chocolate Labrador retrievers who got out one day and appeared on our property - so I got them into the car and gave them a ride home. But I never saw the doc. He’s singularly unexcited about whatever this “low-density mass” is inside of me, and has ordered up an ultra-sound for Monday a.m. (He thinks it has more to do with diverticulosis than anything ovarian.) The ultra-sound is no big deal - no needles and no icky-tasting stuff to drink. You just have to consume a QUART of water an hour before - blub-blub! And then he’s leaning on me to have a colonoscopy just on general principles. (I HATE the idea!) But I’m gonna have to screw up my courage and go for it. Will see if one of the docs can juice me up with an injectible tranquilizer before I go in for it. I’ve thought of you all day - sending up prayers and positive thoughts. Hang in there, Dearie. We’ll weather this.

Oh, Bonnie. Been away, and am just trying to catch up on all the threads. Please know you have all the ‘positives’ I can send your way. I’m with ya’, Dearie. I am off to the gyn. guy tomorrow to see what the devil a “low-density mass” is that was discovered on a CAT scan of my lower abdomen last week. I’m practicing denial for the moment, and just staying in ‘now,’ because there is absolutely nothing I can do about it, until we know what it is. When I called the gyn’s office, I explained that I’m a neighbor from down the street. I told the receptionist she could tell the doc he could save a lotta time if he’d just swing by here with a drape, some rubber gloves, and some K-Y - that I’d meet him at the end of the driveway - and my husband would hold a flashlight. I think the receptionist thought I was serious!!!! Gotta laugh. Takes the pressure off. I’ll hold your hand in cyber-space - and you can hold mine.

Scarlett O’Hara and Atticus Finch.

I went to three high schools in four years, and am on the class list for each one! (My father was in the aerospace industry, and we kept being transferred.) I have attended the 20th, 30th and 40th for the school I graduated from, which is 3,000 miles away. For those of you who have attended, I wonder if you’ve had the same reaction I had: “Who are all these old people, and what are they doing at my class reunion?” (*:*) My best friend from those days is still my best friend, Leslye, and she and I always go together as each other’s “date.” Thank God I have her with me, because after so many years away, I have no idea who more than half of these people are! The only people I REALLY remember are Roger, who sat next to me in Honors English Class - and he had red hair in those days, and still has it, and still has the same outrageous sense of humor that never fails to crack me up - - - and dear Anne, a fellow Art Class student, who has remained a faithful friend over the years. Many of our classmates have died too young - many don’t care about class reunions - - - many are too notable to be able to go to a class reunion without paparazzi stalking to them. I harbor no old resentments, because I loved my high school days. Any uncomfortablility just had to do with me, and not others. My 50th will come in 2011, and, God willing, I’ll be there to celebrate with the other “survivors.”

My mother was 20 years old when the Great Depression hit. She lost her mother when she was just 11 years old - and was packed off to boarding school when her father re-married. (He married his late wife’s younger sister - and we’ve often talked about how his second wife, Aunt Mary, probably married him out of some sort of sense of loyalty and duty to her deceased sister. It sure wasn’t a love match.) My grandfather, a pharmacist, lost his independent pharmacy in Manhattan sometime between the death of his first wife and marriage to his second. Fairly affluent initially, the family re-located to northern NJ, where my grandfather spent the rest of his career being an “employee-pharmacist” for the Rexall chain. I can only imagine the upheaval, the heartbreak, and the fear they all must have lived with. As a result, my mother was the kind of person who ALWAYS paid her bills on time, had ONE “charge-plate” at John Wanamaker, and at the time of her own death at age 84, was virtually debt-free. On my in-law side, it was kind of an interesting scenario. My husband’s grandfather owned a lumber yard - and I’ve heard the stories of how he “carried” many of his customers through the Great Depression and World War II. They always paid him back. My mother-in-law was raised on a farm - and her father went through bankruptcy during the Great Depression. To her dying day, my mother-in-law always kept a garden, with a goodly supply of fresh fruits and vegetables for canning - which she did herself. She also saved string, aluminum foil, and scraped the butter off the waxed-paper wrappers for sticks of butter. She was extremely frugal - didn’t even have a clothes dryer until she was about 70 years old - and would re-invent leftovers into some kind of fabulous casserole. She saved wrapping paper and ribbon from year to year, eschewed such things as having her hair “done,” or having a manicure - and when our first child was born, she put him in the old family willow laundry basket for a bed with a hand-made mattress. He slept under blankets she’d saved from her own five children. She, too, died debt-free, having outlived her husband by 11 years. All of her children knew the value of a dollar and hard work. They kept chickens and sold eggs - they all had to line up at the old wringer-type washing machine on Saturday morning to help get the clothes on the wash line. They all grew up knowing how to repair things, how to mend, how to make bread, jelly and apple pies from scratch - and how to use a meat grinder. There is something to be said for the building-blocks of sacrifice, for hard work, for saving, for sharing, for trading, and for trust. It isn’t easy - it isn’t “fast” - and rarely is it “convenient.” But it sure can make the difference between being homeless on the street and being able to survive.

The whole “Town Hall Meeting” format was so stilted and so sterile, I felt like I was looking at a wax museum - and Brokaw is not the man for the moderator’s job. What I think is interesting about the fall-out this morning is that the Acorns have really hit the fan. Voter registration fraud all over the place - and the Acorn reps. were being PAID for quotas. Hm-mmm………….

I know. I saw “The View.” And I know about Sarah Silverman. I fail to understand why this crap is viewed as “brilliant,” when it plays to only the lowest common denominator. It’s not even clever. Sam Kinnison was clever. Sarah Silverman is just foul-mouthed and stupid. If that’s “young, hip, and cyber-savvy,” what does that say about our young people? Not much. And it’s a disgusting reflection on the candidate she supports.

Can’t say I learned anything new, one way or t’other. Major yawn. And Brokaw was a pain. I’m off to bed.

What a revolting video. Am sure Barack and Michelle Obama won’t be sharing it with their kids - or any of the higher-ups in the Democrat party. And if I were Barack Obama, I’d want to distance myself as far as possible from Sarah Silverman. (And I’m not a prude. I know the words, and have used them upon occasion myself.) But there’s a time and a place for everything - and I am disgusted with this genre of “Saturday-Night-Live-Spillover” humor. It’s not even mildly amusing. It’s juvenile shock-talk - with just about as much appeal as slop-mouthed Howard Stern. Sorry, MaryPage, it’s not a great view - and I’m embarrassed for Obama, even tho’ I’d never vote for him. What a “lovely” representation of a candidate. Sarah Silverman needs her mouth washed out with soap!