March 3, 2017--End of a Week Without Him

You can only imagine how unwelcome a call from Jack felt as I was approaching my last day of detox, especially since I was feeling optimistic about my progress, having managed to mention him (not Jack) only once in Thursday's Gala Girl blog.

For the past month Jack and I have talked about nothing but. I was therefore certain he wasn't calling to talk about the weather.

He wasn't.

"I assume," he began, "that in spite of your pretty pathetic efforts not to mention . . ."

I cut him off, "Please, I beg you, don't even mention his name." In the background Rona was frantically gesturing that I should hang up the phone. I was tempted but didn't since much of the 12-step literature I have been reading says that you can only consider yourself in recovery if, for example, you can be around someone having a drink and not fall off the wagon. So I didn't hang up, seeing this to be a test of how well I was doing as I approached step-12.

"OK," he said, "I won't mention Trump by name. I am trying to be empathetic, but so much happened over night, is probably happening right now, that I couldn't wait to Monday to talk with you about . . .  him."

I held off from responding.

"This business with Jeff Sessions is very disturbing. Less than two days after that amazing speech to Congress we're right back in the soup. I was thinking that before you lapsed into self-imposed silence you had some interesting things to say about the Russian connection. What did you call it, Oscar's Razor?"

I spite of myself I corrected him, "Ockham's."

"What?"

"Razor."

"Isn't it about if you connect all the dots they lead one way or the other to . . . him."

I held my tongue, already feeling quite proud of myself.

"That would explain why there are no tax returns. You probably would say, if you ever resume talking, that they would reveal that . . . he probably got bailout money from Russians through that money-laundering bank on Cyprus that his Commerce secretary, Wilber Ross is half owner of."

"I probably . . . "

"How about the report that Paul Manafort--rememebr him, . . . his former campaign manager who they fired when it became known he was on the Russian payroll--is under investigation by the FBI. If they indict him he could blow the whistle on the whole thing rather than going to jail for ten years. Like some of Nixon's people turned on him to save their scalps."

"Also . . ."

"And then there's that famous BuzzFeed dossier. Every day something else from it gets verified. Soon, like you wrote, we'll hear that the things with the prostitutes are true and that the Russians have the goods on . . . him."

"Then . . ."

"Then indeed. Didn't your favorite paper yesterday, the New York Times, publish a story about how Obama's people during their last weeks in office, to make sure that Trrrr's people . . . his people, wouldn't be able to destroy intelligence evidence about their Russia dealings because they spread what they had on . . . him around to members of Congress and the press?"

"It could be . . ."

"Listen to me."

"I try . . ."

"I'm beginning to sound like you. All this Trump bashing. But even to me it's disturbing. But to change the subject, my favorite story of the day--OK my second favorite--is that Oprah Winfrey is thinking about running for president in 2020."

"O . . . ?"

"Yes, Oprah told Bloomberg News that she never thought about it before  . . . he was elected. But now, to quote her, 'I just thought oh, oh.'"

"And your first . . . ?"

"Sorry. To top the week off there are reports that Beau Biden's wife began fooling around with Beau's brother just four months after Beau died. I mean . . ."

"I read that they're in love. Can't you leave it at that? But at least this story has nothing to do with Trump."