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"The Mistress of Doom & Gloom" & "Our Lady of Perpetual Crisis"

I dedicate this blog today to my dear friend, Joanne Darvin.

I just found out Joanne Darvin, my good friend from Miami - whom I have called "The Mistress of Doom and Gloom" and "Our Lady of Perpetual Crisis"..... died a year ago! I'm stunned. How could this happen?? I just called her house to say hi since I had not spoken to her in a couple years. Her husband answered and told me the sad news. She fought and won her battle against cancer but succumbed to an embolism. Go figure. She died suddenly, and quietly.

Joanne was such a vital spirit and truly a wild woman in so many ways. Although I gave her these titles that some may think derogatory, it was only because she represented such crazy charm and an incredible non-stop penchant for crisis and drama that caused her to earn every bit of these fondly assigned titles. I never knew a drama queen, nor any Jewish female from NYC until I met her! Drama was her middle name to be sure. However, on the other side she was one of the most gracious, kind, and entertaining human beings I ever had the pleasure to know!

She was hysterical to listen to and....full of so many episodes of drama and crisis...that I dubbed her The Mistress of Doom & Gloom ..AND... Our Lady of Perpetual Crisis a long time ago. Her manner and her dialog in relating the latest events that happened to her were so amplified I could not help but assign her 2 titles! All in fun. And she could talk and talk and talk..... I often fell asleep on the phone with her.. Once she got going, she rarely came up for air and was perfectly content to just keep talking and talking - so I don't think she noticed the frequent snoring on the other end of the phone.

My very first trip outside the building in Aventura with my new friend in her first car (ahhhh...a NYC native..) was to go to a pawn shop to pick up - and re-purchase - goods stolen from her by a friend of a relative. Get that? Ok so that's how the story of my friendship with Joanne began. A crisis. Doom and Gloom if we didn't get the goods back right now! And perhaps someone would get shot. I think there was a gun involved as well...but do not recall all the details. What a start.

When I met her, Joanne was a mid-30's gal with her first car.... That in itself was so foreign to this midwestern native whose cultural background calls for driving a stick-shift at 15 and getting your own car - beater or otherwise - as soon as possible. I did not understand what "calling for a car" or "having a car service" meant until much later in my friendship with Joanne. I just let it go since every question would elicit a 45 minute explanation, annotated and filled with digressions... I learned early on to ask few questions and just sit back and listen and enjoy the ride!

Anyway, we retrieved the goods which then morphed into a lawsuit, a restraining order and daily assistance from the on-site security to maintain vigilance against the perp. As time went by there were more and more incidents and events or non-events that escalated into just another crisis - or a situation that needed some form of resolution....as in asking the building management to sleep in her apartment living room every night for a week to authenticate late night noises in the building that were making it "impossible to sleep"... or to replace parts of her rented apartment - ...because of something "vile" or whatever... I got a daily call relating her latest escapades and issues... All with much flourish, laughter and entertainment value that you just could not buy anywhere! She was a master at crisis... and "oh dear...can you believe THIS happened?"....

In any case, I memorialize her here as one of my most endearing - yet dramatic - friends since my move from Minnesota to Florida in 1988. She told stories that would make us all laugh for weeks and weeks and weeks! Her background in high fashion - New York style - as a vital cog in the Valentino dynasty, gave her all that much more international flair that turned out to be beyond priceless. She knew fashion! And...she knew lots of other drama queens - who were actual queens. New York queens! I met a number of her past associates; they all provided so much charm, fodder and flair to life with Joanne.

We spent endless hours on the phone, going to the pool and just talking about our mutually exclusive background and experiences. Being from the midwest, I had no idea what she was talking about when describing her wardrobe... a blah blah blah dress, or a blah blah blah scarf or shoes or skirt. Her stories always began with..I was wearing my blah blah blah outfit.... which she ASSUMED meant something to me - which it didn't... God forbid if some date misinterpreted her expectations for the evening, she would indignantly assert "why would he THINK I would be interested in going to a baseball game? ..in my blah blah blah outfit??? This is a DINNER dress! I didn't wear my blah blah blah dress to go to a BALLgame!" I smile at her amplified indignance on these matters of monumental significance....

I'd just go along with her because I too did not know you could not wear a blah blah blah dress to a ballgame either! How boorish of both of us! In any case, she was so vastly entertaining in making these assertions! I just enjoyed the story and her animated flair for telling the tale...

Another noteworthy Joanne event was the high Jewish holidays - which I didn't know anything about at the time. She wanted to go shopping but did not want to be seen. So she dressed in a wig and scarf and we sneaked out of the building - by WALKING to her car! ..and somewhat pretending we were going to temple... Actually walking to the car was a notable event. She always valeted. She never carried anything from the front door to the apartment herself. She never parked her own car in her own spot in the garage. In fact her first trip to the garage was one day when I was driving; she asked me to pick her up at the front door. I told her I was not her car service and she would be walking to the car with me or she could stay home! She complained loudly that this was so awful to force her to go into the garage... "moi Joanne walking to the garage!"... Ultimately she was in awe that the garage - which was connected to the building, was not really that far away! Yah. We all knew that.

Anyway, in disguise on the highest of high Jewish holidays, we had great fun shopping and FILLED THE ENTIRE CAR AND TRUNK with stuff she purchased from home stores and such. Not wanting the wrath of the Jewish Gods to come down on her - or anyone in the building to recognize her WITH packages - we pulled our car full of purchases to the front door to the valet station and she literally RAN to the elevator and left me with the valet staff ...She asked me to "bring up her things.." She said she could not be seen shopping on this holy day! I'm sure we went to her apartment and ate some form of pork.... So much for the rules...

Man-hunting was another sport that provided much adventure, laughter and fun! It would too tedious to go on here, but suffice it to say, I will never, never forget her! I will never, never forget some of the gut splitting laughter from her stories. She was the best!

I am saddened by her death and I will miss her a lot. ;-(

Rats and Rat Poop...and BTW who ate the bananas???

Day 1:
A typical morning.... but no. The doorbell rings at 9AM and it is Henry, Amanda's latest boyfriend. He has a spray can of something in his hand and he wants to know if all of my orafices are plugged up. My orafices??? Evidently, his girlfriend had some bananas. They were on the granite counter next to a pass-through window to the patio. When they woke up one of the bananas had a huge hole dug into it by something!! AND there were RAT DROPPINGS ON THE COUNTER!!

OMG!! Call someone!! WE HAVE RATS!!!

THEY ATE THE BANANA! AND POOPED ON THE COUNTER!

So Amanda goes to work but leaves the boyfriend to call Nozzle Nolan - the exterminator. Not convinced he could do it right - or do it by himself - she also called her Concierge Service and asked them to stop by to oversee the investigation and extermination.

Henry is at my house spraying foam - I'm still in my PJ's. My dog is barking and jumping around while Henry scouts out orafices in my house where RATS could enter. He is spraying some icky beige foam into every crack he finds....

While this is going on I grab some shoes and the keys to Amanda's house and go check out the banana caper. Who or what ate a hole in the banana? And when did it happen? Are there rats still in the house??

Amanda seems to think it could have been a bird, a bat or a rat that came in the prior evening while she was sipping cocktails on the patio. Yes, that bat/rat/bird zipped into the kitchen, undetected, and grabbed a bite of banana??? Some feat. They flew over the pool, over the outdoor bar and into the window to grab that banana!

Anyway, back to the mystery. I'm at the house checking out the banana and the droppings. Jack arrives from the Concierge Service, Henry finished fixing my orafices and now he's back at Amandas. Nozzle Nolan shows up and checks the entire house for rats, bats or other rodents.

3 hours later the rat team still included the boyfriend, the concierge service, the neighbor (me) and Nozzle Nolan who said the rat poop on the counter was dried blueberries. Ha ha. A 4 alarm call to action, foam getting sprayed into neighboring A/C vents - all for dried blueberries!!

We still don't know who or what ate the banana but we are holding the evidence until we get the perp.

The Story Unfolds....5 Single Women Move Into the Neighborhood - On The Same Street!

This is an episodic tale of 5 single women - their friends, their jobs, their relationships and much more. It is a compilation of select excerpts from the daily lives of real women. Names and actual places have been changed to protect the identity of the characters. And so we begin....

DAY 0:
Morning begins peacefully every day on Sugar Plum Circle, a quiet cul-de-sac of homes built just after the war. The homes are of modest size and they pretty much all look the same - with several variations in square footage and floorplan. Beautiful landscape - regulated by the "association" - is mandated for every well-manicured yard, as is the color of the house paint and what types of accessories are allowed in the driveways and in the yards. All so very prim and proper.

No basketball hoops. No offensive trees that create droppings or attract pests. No trucks, no boats, no trailers, no vans. Hmmm.... Just very pretty little houses in a perfectly maintained little community just on the edge of town.

What you see - day or night - are cute little dogs, large dogs, multiple dogs, dog walkers, kids playing, skateboarders or rollerbladers, bikers, walkers and generally 30-something moms and dads off to work or "the club" or whatever. You will also see a daily influx of workers who help to maintain these homes in pristine condition - doing such things as the yard work, landscaping, tree trimming, pool cleaning, house cleaning, painting, driveway sealing, pest control, dog grooming, yard fertilizing and rodent control. In the evenings you may see parties hosted by a plethora of party planners - often including live music, tents and catered food.

Large HD TV's dominate the landscape throughout the meandering streets at night and most residents keep their front drapes open so you can see what everyone is watching. Not that this is the goal, but the point is - it is a pretty open and hospitable neighborhood. Joggers line the boulevards morning and night while landscape lights and motion lights twinkle at night to light your path. Trees are trimmed to look like the mushrooms or toadstools in Alice In Wonderland. Life is pretty tame. A family oriented community to be sure.

It is into this bucolic family setting that several single women - recently divorced, professional and otherwise "experienced" - decided to settle and build their nest. Coincidently, they all happened to land on the same street.

The Sugar Plum Chronicles begins to unfold!

We promise to give you drama, intrigue, passion, deception, humor and lots of great adventure!!