Tea For Two

"Excuse me, ma'am. You look important, what with the sparkly jacket and the faraway look. Do you know anyone who can make the jackhammering outside my hotel stop?" "No comment."

The wonderful Carla Malden, conveniently in New York at the same time as moi, looks perplexed after I tell her my famous asparagus joke, courtesy of the late Steve Landesberg: "Why is the suicide rate so high in Sweden? The man comes home from work and asks, what's for dinner, snookums?"

"Asparagus?! Not again!" Bam! 

All smiles at the Plaza Hotel's Palm Court... even as Carla makes it abundantly clear that she doesn't understand my lame asparagus joke, no matter how many times I try to explain it. As my daddy, Mr. Ben Starr, used to say, "If you have to explain a joke, it's not funny." The truth hurts. It really does.

Meanwhile, have a scone, a cucumber sandwich, a pastry, a spot of tea, vicariously, on me, and ponder what today will bring the SJG. Hint: "My dear, all life is a series of problems which we must try and solve, first one and then the next and then the next, until at last we die."