the More Desperate Christmas newsletter for 2008

Previously On DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES…..

Voiceover in soothing voice of Mary Alice

    “Not everyone writes Christmas Newsletters on Wisteria Lane….Most of us are too busy living their lives to include a gently written summary of the year’s trials and tribulations. Except Bree Hodge, who is careful to include everything she wants her friends to know except the details of her husband’s payment to society behind bars.. Gabriella has been struggling to keep food on the table through  the sacrifice of her designer clothes collection. Lynette will be happy if she can just sit down with a glass of wine and have a quiet Christmas eve. And as for Susan and Mike. I mean, Susan and Jackson. No, I really mean Susan and Mike….well, frankly, it’s all about Susan and she drives us all crazy. Yes, Christmas is a time of year when we all try to find a quiet time to reflect on the year we’ve just gotten through……”

    Every Sunday night at nine, George and I settle down to an episode of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES. Rod and Layne encouraged us to watch it in the beginning, but we were a little slow to catch on. Now life stops every Sunday night as we continue with another 41 minutes padded with commercials in a sixty minute time slot. The next day at work, Robin, Joseph and Linda will conjecture its future plot elements.   Penny, too usually has something succinct to say when she’s caught up with her PVR. The continuing tales portray an idealic neighborhood where nearly everyone harbours dark secrets that sooner or later bubble to the surface. It’s a community not unlike my wonderful community of friends and family, with our own dark secrets? It’s not just about the watch I found in the couch. A body was found shot in a car a few blocks away near Jeffrey up the street.   The bank machine was robbed across the street around 9pm. Lianne’s co-worker’s body was discovered on the floor when she returned for her next shift. As they say in Sweeney Todd, ‘These are Desperate Times!” Not everything gets resolved in forty minutes…

    And much as DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES is a great show, working fulltime doesn’t qualify me as a Desperate Housewife. I’m not a ditz like Susan, I don’t have the challenges of four kids like Lynette, I’m not the Martha Stewart wannabe like Bree, and I don’t have the looks or fashion like Gabrielle. That leaves only the man-hungry Edie. Enough said. If Edie had ended up with the sweet adorable yet blind Carlos, that would be me with George. 

   Without further ado, “Previously, in our year as Desperate Housewives….” 

The year began with a festive west Caribbean cruise with Jon and Joan.   Watching Jon and Joan riding with dolphins was amazing, and George swam with giant turtles as well as Flipper. The food was too great at Norwegian Cruise Lines—some of it stayed to our waists like barnacles, but someday we’ll cruise again.

 I don’t remember a lot of last year—I can always cheat and check my live journal, but generally, there was a lot less theatre and movie excursions than in years past. Mostly we stayed home and caught up with Dynasty, Dallas, Diagnosis Murder and our new best friend, Ugly Betty. Betty’s a great role model. She’s always positive in the face of adversity. We could have used her in the office. We’ve had more downsizing and restructuring in the office. Heather’s receptionist position was the first to go—the disadvantage of working so close to the exit door. Heather is hoping to bounce back in the world of Interior Design.  Are you tired of hearing the word “Economy” Everyone is affected. In our company, the US COO sent an email saying they were cutting staff by ten per cent, but also believed that we should have “more fun” this year. My own idea of fun is playing the usual “Musical Chairs” by just trying to get a seat on the subway ride to work. The company chopped and restructured which meant saying goodbye to a fair number of noble hardworking co-workers who will have to find new means of employment. The day most of them were given their notice was the day the marketing department sent out their invitation to the “let’s have fun” holiday party! Most of the unlucky chosen showed up and had a triumphant time. I’m enclosing a picture from the holiday party if you haven’t already seen it on Facebook! Not everyone left because of downsizing. I can think of two others who quite frankly had it coming and were let go long before the downsizing. Don’t ask for details. I’m still Not A Gossip. For some reason, I’m still there and about to hit the thirty year mark in February. Either I’m doing something right, or my number hasn’t come up yet. One never knows. I still feel like I’m a stewardess desperately trying to keep flying the plane. On the positive side, they’ve hired someone new and special for human resources. No, not Ugly Betty. She’s actually very pretty, and she’s more like Mary Poppins. She’s actually the one who’s added “more fun” to the weekly routine. Let’s de-stress by bringing in a masseuse, or sessions to focus on nutrition or stress management. She also ensured I returned to a gym for a yoga session with the security blanket of about twenty of my co-workers (all of whom were in better shape!). I also joined the Health And Safety Committee. I tour the office with a clipboardl like Dame Edna’s Neighbourhood Watch as I peer into nooks and crannies looking for mould, mice and other potential hazards!   Enough about my work. Pick on others!

     Others have changed jobs. Bruce left his fundraising job for one arts organization to join another. Jon was downsized from his job in the hotel industry and managed to find a higher paying job teaching the hospitality profession in a university. John retired from his full time company to take on two part time jobs, one for a performing dance company and the other organization advocating literacy. Where’s my spell-check? Faith is now happily full time with the ACC, and Robert is counting the months until he hangs up his postal bag! Anneli also has her retirement planned in the not-so-far-off future. Other changes?  The big bad economy is forcing a number of Broadway shows to close up shop in NYC in January!  Footlight Records closed up shop after decades of servicing out of town clients with hard to obtain showtunes. The Okeefe/Hummingbird/ Sony Center is closed while they add a condo which is morphing again since the original plans. The Diesel Playhouse, longtime home of EVIL DEAD the Musical is now defunct.   On the positive side, the Art Gallery is now bigger and better than ever. And Ross Petty’s pantomimes still go on year after year…this year, Sandra and Naomi and Martin joined me to see their fractured tale of CINDERELLA and it’s still lot of fun!! I encourage you to go and join the Girls Who Just Wanna Have Fun! Other highlights included a student version of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF with Laura and Dave’s daughter Laura in a cast of over a hundred. Tevye is also struggling to survive his Desperate Times, and if he’s going to wait for the Messiah to come, he’s going to have to wait somewhere else! 

    If you want to raise the ratings during November sweepstakes, you add something extra to your episodes of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES. Last year, the episode was called BANG! with Laurie Metcalfe going ballistic with a gun in the local supermarket. Later it was followed by an episode with a tornado on Wisteria Lane. The kind of Tornado where the street gets rebuilt three episodes later. That’s sooo television, and not unlike the unresolved mess after Hurricane Katrina! On our Lane, our big dilemma was first an invasion of flies in our hallway. But why complain about flies??   This was also the year that a gas company exploded about four blocks from our apartment. Many lost windows. Two giant explosions. I thought it was thunder until I read the news and a few people were good enough to call to find out if we were okay.  Last month, the big excitement on Housewives was a Fire in a nightclub that most of Wisteria Lane’s residents were attending. Which reminds me. There was also a fire in our building,  a floor below and one apartment over. God bless our super for banging on our doors before it registered with the actual alarms! .   The apartment in question was totaled, miraculously no one was hurt, and we spent a few hours outside in the early hours of the morning checking out the firemen’s performance and getting to know our neighbours better. 

     The interesting thing about this season on Desperate Housewives, they advanced the story-line by five years! Suddenly everyone is five years older. That’s the way I feel about Alexander next door. Well, he used to be Alexander. Now he’s Alex and he seems suddenly five years older. His voice is deeper, less chatty, and he’s looking down on me from six foot four or six foot five at the age of fifteen!!!   He hides behind his peek-a-boo rockandroll hair, and he’s pretty cool. One night, Alex, George and Iain went for a night on the town to catch the One Man Star Wars performance. They left at six and returned around two in the morning. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” is all I was told. I don’t think they Viva’d Las Vegas. 

     Darlene had her performing debut in an evening with Mysteriously Yours:   DANCING WITH THE STARS CAN BE MURDER. It was Darlene’s birthday, and she was picked (or picked on) to sing some ditty at a key moment. The cast picked on our whole table, including Mary-Liz as an Italian mother from Woodbridge, and announced Robert and I looked like Statler and Waldorf from the Muppet Show.

    I know the theme of this newsletter is supposed to be Desperate Housewives, but others could argue it’s really ER. Chuck received a phone call last April. “We’re ready with your new liver when you are!” After being on a waiting list for years, he finally got his wish, and it’s been pretty successful in the long term. You couldn’t stop Chuck completely from gardening, and John was forced to read the Nurse Nelly TLC Handbook. It was a gift of life that keeps on giving!    My sister Joan had complications stemming from a brain shunt she’d had put in twenty five years ago. No one told her she was supposed to have it replaced after fifteen years, and at twenty five, it stopped working. She wins the crown as the Most Desperate Housewife—last June, Joan got rushed to the hospital in a helicopter and had the old plastic brain shunt removed, and a new one put in. Which didn’t work and it had to be removed a couple of days later. And then another one put in. Which did work. She lost a lot of memory (she is beginning to resemble a Stepford computer) but mostly lost short term memory about the actual experience, which might be a good thing. Anyway, I’m very glad she’s back amongst the living. Last week she’s undergone a hip-replacement! Which reminds me, there’s a new production of Finn’s A NEW BRAIN in Toronto this February! 

     Most of us have joined FACEBOOK, which is a good thing. I’m now Facebook Friends with a number of kindred spirits I’ve been sharing an email list with for years! So THAT’s what they look like! It’s something wonderful. As for getting out and leaving the computer for a few hours, you can check out the Before and After pictures of Salim’s lawn and garden. It was my summer renovation project.  Get down and dirty! The Before picture looked like the lawn from the Addams family.  Salim kept insisting it could be improved by just pouring concrete over the site and building a mausoleum. I opted for the Wisteria Lane hedge and flowers approach and this year I won. He fed me chicken and we watched episodes of Six Feet Under together. There were more desperate games of Monopoly with Laura-Lee, Lianne, Salim and Robert. Mark kept me abreast of Prime Rib sales at Dominion, which is now Metro. Nash has just announced, “Take this job and shove it!” Not in those words, exactly. He’s too sweet and I’m going to miss him very much. Maggie also chose this year to say she’d had enough, and threw in the towel. I hear she’s very happy not starring in her own version of Nine To Five!  Robin launched his own website this year, focusing on his photography skills. Ron and Bruce have been reduced to stalking me around town. One night, it was the pantomime, the next night it was Stravinsky’s Rite Of Spring held during a snowstorm! Speaking of dark secrets yet to be revealed, George went off to beautiful Copenhagen, and still hasn’t told us why. I lost ten pounds in his absence. In the meantime, George has been making the rounds at SENSES and STILLWATER spas. I don’t want to talk about the Desperate scene he made in his gym when his lock broke and he stood there like Lady Godiva demanding for his clothes back. What a Woolly!   This was also the year they announced they’re going to try to bring back woolly mammoths with DNA from the hair that was left behind. Quick—send those scientists a box set of Jurassic Park and tell them not to bother. This was also the year Norris got me to enjoy Tomato soup by adding Cashew, Ginger and Carrot to it!  

 I’ve given up trying to get this newsletter done by Christmas. I’m hoping maybe by New Years. I also found those ten pounds I lost.   Christmas really hangs me up the most. People start playing the same sixty nine Christmas carols over and over again. The Christmas carols all convolute the Christmas mythology with Frosty the Snowman, some Herald Angels, Rudolph, Good King Wenceslas all Somewhere Away in That Manger. I also get confused when Steven Weber crosses over from BROTHERS AND SISTERS to play a different role on DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES. As Bette Midler sings on her Kool Yule Christmas album, “God is watching us from a distance”, which means that somehow or other, it all makes sense. To Him. Or to that all knowing voice-over at the end of the episode of Desperate Housewives as we wonder what’s next around the corner. You don’t need the newspaper to know that it’s going to be scary. Save your money. Group-hug your friends. Take a deep breath. Happy New Year!!!