We always want to get something we can use for our birthday.

Now this, I can use. It’ll be my new credit card. I can use it to buy things, like….

A new hip, a walker, a motorized scooter, one of those chairs that pushes you up to stand…. and some teeth.

Finally, a gift I can use! 🙂

We went to a concert at the Greek Theater in Hollywood last weekend that featured Sierra, War, and Tower of Power (remember “So Very Hard To Go” and “What is Hip?”) Tower of Power rocked the outdoor arena. (I hope the surrounding neighbors were fans!) It was a four hour, loud concert – outside – and around 9 p.m. it got cold! I wore three layers and was still freezing. Oh… my new pet peeve: people who stand up at a concert when everyone else is sitting. About twenty people kept getting up to entertain the rest of us with their own personal choreography. One guy, who made five trips to bring more beer (which they served in giant cups big enough to bathe a small child), danced as thought he was alone at home listening to headphones, oblivious to the other 5,000 of us forced to watch in disbelief. His moves were a bad combination of country line dancing without the line and the hokey pokey. He may not remember it but all of us do.

Yesterday, I bought a carton of ladybugs at the nursery. They’re supposed to be good for the garden and they were on sale so I decided to try it. The package said it contained 1,500 ladybugs. The top was vented so they could breathe and I could see some movement inside. You’re supposed to release them in the evening when they’re less likely to fly away. Oh right…they have wings… they can fly. But out of 1,500, if half flew away, I’d be in ladybug heaven. So last night, I slowly opened the carton to let them go, afraid they’d all make a run for it. But no. They were in one sticky mass in the bottom of the carton, not moving much, resembling a giant meatball. So I shook the carton and spread them around my garden (mostly in lumps) and then night fell.

This morning, I went out with my camera expecting to spend the whole day taking ladybug pictures as they filled the air, flying from flower to flower in my magical garden. How would I decide which ones to shoot?  It was an easy decision – I found two. What happened? Where did they go?  1,498 ladybugs gone! How do I know the one on the daisy was from the box? Maybe he flew in from next door. Hey, isn’t he missing some spots?  Never buy ladybugs on sale. They must have been seconds.

Jeff Conaway has died.  He was terrific as one of the stars of Taxi, a TV series that ran from 1978-1981, and we loved him in the musical Grease. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy when he appeared on my talk show in the early 90s.  I extend my condolences to his family and I’m sharing this video in his memory.
Click here.

I was stunned to see Scotty and both Haley and Lauren in the final three and not James. He wanted it more than any of them and clearly had a hard time accepting defeat. Watching this show is too sad when losing is so painful.  I remember being on Star Search and how with every performance my heart pounded so hard I was afraid the microphone would pick it up. Everything was at stake. And when I won, my career soared. But the comic I defeated seemed to disappear. Watching this episode brought back a lot of memories of striving for acceptance, dealing with rejection, and the roller coaster of emotion that being a struggling performer brings. I thought once I succeeded, things would change and I’d no longer have to face rejection and even worse, I’d never feel like I didn’t matter. Some day, I will talk about the many times I was rejected at the peak of my television career and by whom. Maybe that’s why I won’t go back…