The Day I Met Tom Cruise And NBC

Sometimes she will say, “I think I’m losing my mind, Brit. I don’t know up from down anymore.”

Then I’ll look at her, smile, and ask, “Which way is up?”  She points to the sky; I call her a liar and she laughs.

It’s the most appropriate human response I have to fact that she is, indeed, losing her mind. The other option is running away. The most tragic and heartbreaking part about Alzheimers is the moments when they realize their mind is going. As hard as it is for us, I cannot imagine what it’s like for them.

A couple of days ago, I took my grandma for a walk. It was hard for her to even move her legs considering she sits in a chair all day long. Since I couldn’t bare the thought of going back inside the sterile rehab facility where she is temporarily staying, we sat down on the bench to talk.

She still remembers who we are, but rarely knows where she is and always looks scared. My grandpa takes care of her; unfortunately, he was admitted to ICU last week and most likely won’t make it out. She constantly asks where he is.

Out of nowhere, in a moment of perfect clarity, she looked up at me and said, “My how the tables have turned.”

What do you mean?” I asked. “Well, I used to take care of you…and now you’re taking care of me,” she responded with a somber face.

It’s the kind of full circle you never want to happen. I quickly distracted myself by eavesdropping on the conversation between these two men:

I heard one of them saying he has been married for 65 years, but his wife hasn’t recognized him for the last two. I empathized with him and struck up a conversation immediately.

I asked them what their names were. The 60 yr-old African-American guy turned to me and said, “Tom Cruise, ‘cept I ain’t got his money.” I laughed and was trying to determine in my mind if he was joking or if he actually legitimately thought he was Tom Cruise. “That’s funny,” I said, simultaneously rolling my eyes.

“No, that’s really his name,” his friend said with all the authority of Dwight Schrute. “I eat with him and I’ve seen his ID card.”

“Well then, that’s easy to remember,” I remarked.

“And I’m NBC” he affirmatively added.

Ok. Yep, these guys are officially nuts.

“Niles Baldwin Claussen,” he continued.

“Like the pickle?” I asked.  “Yes, but you can call me NBC.”

I learned that he had beaten pancreatic cancer 17 years ago. “But that has a 99% fatality rate, right?” I asked.

“Correct. I’m Mr. 1%,” NBC replied. “Well, well, maybe someday I’ll see you on a Smuckers commercial when you turn 100,” I said.

He was currently at the rehab facility while he was undergoing chemo for bladder cancer, which my grandma also battled several years ago. He said the reason he didn’t have any friends to take care of him was because he had outlived them all.

Tom Cruise kept interjecting into the conversation with little comments. “My wife died last year,” he mumbled under his breath. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “I been married three times… But she was the best I ever had.”

Oh, that Tom Cruise. Such a character.

Although he was completely debilitated and confined to a wheelchair, he kept saying, “Blessed to be alive. Fortunate to have lived this long.”

On the way home, it occurred to me how rarely I remember that just being young is something to be thankful for. To have empty pages. Quality years ahead, where health problems are nothing more than just hypochondria. To be starting a life with someone, not anticipating the end. To have the opportunity to try things and fail.

To even have the ability to remember.

Wondering where I went? I have returned to blogging over at my whole foods blog Celery and the City, where we live so clean it’s like your insides took a bath.

 

Kenny Chronicles: “Officer, What Do You Take Me For?”

STOP THE PRESSES! If you keep reading, you will be lost and wandering through the woods like Bambi after he got ravaged by a wolf.  This is part II of a series, first you must read the Kenny Chronicles: Risky Doesn’t Begin To Describe This Business. No really, get out of here.

This is quite long, it really should have been 3 parts… but who has patience for that?  Okay, where were we? Oh yes. Circa 2006. I was going to house sit for Slumdog Millionaire [heroin addict ex-boyfriend] while he was in London “sorting himself out.” So being the responsible house sitter, I was in full party planning mode with Kenny [metrosexual BFF] for our Top Secret Risky Business-themed-birthday bash, scheduled for the weekend after Slumdog departed. My old London roommate was flying out from the Big Apple. The DJ was booked. Ray Bans and five thousand glow in the dark beads were ordered. Approximately 300 invitations were accidentally sent out.

Brief history of “the house” in question: I don’t think you understand. This house was in the NICEST neighborhood in my entire city. Quiet little families. Doctors and Lawyers. Maple trees, Unicorns, and rainbows EVERYWHERE. The only parties thrown in this neighborhood were, like, Mary Kay related.  This knowledge will come in handy later on.

And now, courtesy of the recent archaeological dig in my Myspace Museum, I present to you an exact replica of the invitation to the “Kenny & Brit Risky Business B-day Bash of 06.”   [My observations have been made in pink]

dj-party1Dear those who like Tom Cruise and those who don’t,

I’m about 99% sure one of these things is currently true: 1. Your panties are now officially in a bundle.  2. Your mom still cooks a mean casserole.  3. Making out is my favorite past-time. Wait, sorry! We’re not talking about me.

Well, fear not, for the clouds have cleared and I can see the party of your life shining through – as if it were some golden ray of sunlight after a cold, dark & lonely winter void of human interaction and … wait, what?  So break out the Velcro shoulder pads, the stars are aligned and its the Age of Aquarius. [clearly, my schizophrenic writing style and tendency to digress have not matured over time]

THE OFFICIAL DAY THAT YOU’RE GONNA LOVE YOUR LIFE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 4th @ 9pm-?  We have condensed the guest list considerably [from what, 1000?] because this cannot get out of hand!! WARNING: Hey, Conan and the rest of you barbarians! You will be kicked out faster than Michael Jackson in a daycare if you do any of the following: [this was the second, ahem, slightly over-sized and out of control get together that we threw in Slumdog’s house]

*smoke inside the house (cuz you did last time)
*punch holes thru the walls or rip off the thermostat (cuz you did last time)
*spill stuff all over the place like you’ve got cerebral palsy (cuz you did last time)

[INSERT CRISIS] Four days before the party, Slumdog informs me that he’s not flying home.

Me:  Um. [ losing my last fricken’ marble on the inside] I thought you were going to sort yourself out and get better?  Don’t you want to get BETTER?  Don’t you care about me?  And your mom.  What about your mom? You haven’t seen your mom in like a year?!  What kind of son ARE YOU?

Needless to say, guilt trips don’t work very well on people who are on drugs to escape reality and feelings -thus, he missed his flight. Kenny and I went into full fledged Mission Impossible crisis mode. I had to do something drastic.  I bought him a new ticket and if I had to sell my soul to make sure he went, I was ready.  But the only ticket I could get was for the day AFTER our party.

Me [to Slumdog]: So I’ve bought you a new ticket for this weekend. You leave on Sunday, but I’ve arranged for ___ to pick you up on Friday and you’re going to stay in Chicago for the weekend and hang out on a yacht.   It’ll be good for you.  Have fun.

scan00021Night before the party I receive this email from Kenny:

From: Chad-a-licious

To: Neil, I still hate you.
Date: Aug 3, 2006 7:43 PM
Subject: Oh, by the way…


…let’s see. Could I be anymore frickin’ nervous??!!
[[exhale]] oh, boy… :S

and is that receptionist from the laser place still comin’???

Typical. When Slumdog arrived in Chicago, Kenny and I were an hour away moving all the furniture out of his house, taping black garbage bags to all the windows, installing ambient lighting, and sweating bullets.  It was a hot mess. And so were we cus I got a call from Slumdog every 5 minutes saying he wanted to come home.  [For a moment I’d like to flash back to my college days and have Miss Brooks switch that “B” to an “A” cus, wow, this was a persuasive speech the likes of which you’ve never seen.]

So the DJ was set up in the main living room.  Yea, the one with a big giant window that you’d usually drive by and see a Christmas tree in.   By about 10 pm, the entire neighborhood was lined with cars and people I’d never seen before were wandering through people’s yards in pursuit of the party.  The back deck was filled with rowdy smokers.  This party was anything but down low.

By the third time the cops came, I mistakenly thought he said I would be arrested, and I burst out into tears.  Kenny, as usual, took over.

[standing in the front doorway]  Officer: Do you realize this is a neighborhood where people have children?

Kenny:  Yes, sir.  I know, we had no idea it was so loud.  [lies. lies from the depths of hell!] We will keep it down.

Officer:  I’ve been getting alot of complaints.  [peeking his head in at all the destruction] There wouldn’t happen to be any minors here would there?

Kenny:  Officer. [putting his hand on his heart]  Officer, what do you take me for? I am 25 years old. Do you really think  a guy like me would allow something like that – in a neighborhood like this?  In a house like this? Sir, rest assured, I have dotted every “i” and crossed every “t.”

And at that very moment, you could hear the sound of every Abercrombie & Fitch employee running out the back door and taking shelter in neighbors’ various swing sets and tube slides.

Kenny Chronicles: Risky Doesn’t Begin To Describe This Business

[This is part I of a two part series, inspired by the fact that I was deleting my Myspace account. I realized that they had saved every email correspondence from the past 6 years… it was like discovering the Pompeii of my social life. There they were, all my shennanigans.  Pefectly and horrifically preserved.]

PREFACE: To be a successful person in life and also to understand this blog, you should have some familiarity with the Kenny Chronicles .  But for those of you who won’t because you’re too lazy (and God love you for that) I will give you a brief background. Whilst attending college in London, I met a charming, British Indian lad who was stricken by yours truly.  Several months later, he moved to my blue-collar, closed-minded Midwestern town to “study abroad,” but I fear all of that was just a really pathetic excuse for said illegal immigrant to be with yours truly.  But can you blame the chap?  Shortly thereafter, I discovered charming lad had more money than God and a very hopeless addiction to heroin.  Two traits that I don’t generally seek out.  In the rolodex of past relationships, I now affectionately refer to him as My Slumdog Millionaire. Oh, and Kenny. He is basically the male version of me, otherwise known as my metrosexual best friend.

The moment Slumdog moved here, it was blatently obvious that he didn’t belong.  Everyone here is exactly the same.  He was British. He was Indian.  He was 26.  He wore Versace Couture and got regular facials. He had no occupation, yet immediately paid cash for a home in my city’s most expensive neighborhood, where he parked a Porsche Carerra 911 and two Mercedes in the driveway.  He was surrounded on all sides by maple trees and white doctors with young families.  To say that he stuck out, would be to say that my mother is paranoid of life, or that my dad hates Al Gore, or that I have a mild distaste for mayonnaise and commitment.

study-abroad-londonAmong the many positive benefits that heroin has to offer, my favorite is paranoia. It only took about two days on American soil for Slumdog to decide that our unexplainable chemistry meant that Kenny and I were having a secret, steamy love affair.  I laid down the law that Kenny wasn’t going anywhere. Long ago, Kenny and I came to the conclusion that when we finally meet “the one” they will understand our relationship.  It seems that since then we’ve both dated quite a few “not-the-ones.” During the three years of hell that followed, Kenny was the only person who knew.  He helped me hang on to any small shred of sanity I had left, when he wasn’t pissing me off, of course.  We crafted many a sneaky maneuver to carefully hide the addiction from everyone, including  friends, neighbors, family, my employees… and the cops.  As someone who hadn’t had any experience with drug addicts [so sue me], I didn’t want everyone to judge him on the off chance that he might someday overcome his addiction.  Chalk that up to naivete and Nice Midwestern Girl Syndrome – both traits of which I’m glad to be free.

In a last ditch effort to gain me back for the 100th time, Slumdog planned a trip to see his London doctor and “sort himself out.”  As usual, I was left to tend to all of his bills, the ginormous house, 3 cats, 300 gallon salt water SHARK TANK [for which I had to dice up raw shrimp and squid to satisfy their ravenous appetites morning, noon, AND NIGHT], and various other duties – all while I was attempting to run my retail store in the mall.  Bottle of wine, anyone?

Kenny and I had always thrown combined birthday parties. Well, hey, whaddya know? I’m going to have a big, huge house all to myself… I spose we could just have a small little get together type thingy here, eh? And so we started planning a top secret gathering for the week after Slumdog’s departure. It was especially confidential since Slumdog hated the Kenny.  And Slumdog was a freakishly paranoid about his house and/or possessions.

risky-business-tom-cruise

The theme was to be “Risky Business”… cus well, it was. And Kenny has always had a ridiculously unwarranted mild obsession with Tom Cruise [and does bear a slight resemblance to him circa Top Gun. ..or so he says].  We had sent out a few, or 300,  invitations via every social networking avenue available.  I should also mention that we’re not good at keeping promises, or anything on the “down low.” Thus, we booked a DJ, purchased ambient lighting for the entire house, ordered several hundred glow in the dark beads and Ray Bans, and secured people to help us move out all the furniture.  My London roommate was also flying out from New York for the, uh, get together.  Oh, this is only the beginning.

Things to anticipate in part II:

*An exact replica of the party invitation as has been preserved in the MySpace museum.

*When everything blows up in our big, fat lying faces.

*Slumdog misses his flight to London, which throws Kenny and I into Mission Impossible crisis mode.

*Kenny distracting the cops, as I burst out into tears and tons of minors scatter out the back door and hide inside the rich neighbors’ tube slides.

UPDATE: CLICK HERE FOR PART II

For more of the Kenny Chronicles:

How We Met

How to Talk Yourself Out of Dating Almost Anyone

A Conversation at Starbucks

A Metrosexual in a Yankees hat

A Bad Gordita and Some Classy Water