Oh no.
I thought the whole “three hours to live” thing (#10 in the preceding entry) was just a joke, but apparently it wasn’t. So here I am. Like, dead and all. Great. This is wonderful. Fucking wonderful!!!
And no, I don’t mean the actual place itself. It’s absolutely nothing like the place where Albert Brooks wound up in Defending Your Life. It’s not pretty, you can’t eat everything in sight and not gain weight, and for the life of me I can’t find Rip Torn OR Meryl Streep anywhere. In fact, it looks entirely too much like 14th Street, around Sixth Avenue. I’m not too thrilled.
So here I am stuck in this strange place that I can make neither heads nor tails of, and I don’t know what to do. Because I only had three hours, I didn’t really have time to make anything, and by the time I made up my mind to just go down to the Lower East Side for chocolate macaroons, rugelach, a few black-and-white cookies, and some hamentaschen (poppyseed and prune), I only had 45 minutes left before the Big Moment, and I still hadn’t decided on what to wear. So I had nothing to bring. Rude, I know, but wouldn’t it have been ruder to show up at death’s door wearing something pedestrian, such as jeans and a turtleneck?
As it turned out, I found something appropriate in my closet, which was a godsend, given that I was not in the mood for shopping. I wore a black Armani pantsuit (Chinese-inspired jacket and slim, flowing pants), black boots (I’m sorry, but I couldn’t do the “sensible shoe” thing, even though I suspected I’d be doing a lot of walking where I was going). All in all, a very elegant ensemble that travelled well but didn’t look too casual.
So now here I am, waiting in what looks like a diner to meet my so-called “maker”. And somewhere along the way I wound up with an aluminum foil-covered 13×9 Pyrex dish full of warm apple-raisin kugel and a note from my darling Bubby welcoming me.
I’ll keep you posted. Someone just came in and is being led to my table.
Wish me luck!