Met a woman at a barbecue.

We cooked.

Everyone asked me for stories about movies. She noticed.

We spoke briefly. I moved off to join friends at a table.

She took the seat next to me.

We clicked on tennis, cards, and engaging conversation.

She was attractive. Nice legs. We talked a long time.

She said something I missed as she left for home.

My friends who threw the party said, “She was so into you. Did you get her number?”

I said, “She wore a wedding ring.”

Their daughter said, “Did you get her digits?” Meaning her number.

I said, “She wore a wedding ring.”

My friends said she’s been widowed for years.

I said, “And I’m supposed to know that how?”

They said, “What are we going to do?”

I said, “I don’t know what you’re going to do but I’m going home.”

She wore a wedding ring.

Saw Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette.”

Was bored silly.

Frosting thickened with lard.

Kirsten Dunst does sexy well but is swallowed by the decorations.

A friend warned off her mother, who is not a fan of Coppola’s “Lost in Translation.”

“All Scarlett Johansson did,” she told her daughter, “was sigh and look out windows.”

Her mother could make it as a critic.

Saw Clint Eastwood’s “Flags of Our Fathers.”

Was moved enough to give it four stars out of four.

Despite a similarity in the way they portray carnage, “Flags” is very different from “Saving Private Ryan.”

In common:

_ Steven Spielberg directs “Ryan” and produces “Flags”

_ Barry Pepper and Harve Presnell, noteworthy as Debbie Reynold’s hubby in “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” appear in both

_ War is hell

Six days with a bad chest cold and a dead TV.

I’ve become a country-western song.

The TV was 20. It lived a good life, moved around a lot, was a prolific storyteller.

Near the end, I couldn’t turn it on without pulling the plug, counting to 20, then sticking the plug back in quickly.

After a while, I had to repeat the process, then kick the side of the TV before it would start.

About the time I came down with the plague, it uttered it’s last “click.”

Funny how easy it was to manage without it, especially with movies to see, stories to write, and antibiotics to numb my brain.

The A’s still won. The Bears, too. The Raiders played like I felt.

I saw five or six films, my mind’s blurry on details. I wrote up three or four, columnized the rest.

Was aware of the absence of TV, the void. Discovered radio.

Read books. Looked at magazine pictures. Talked to people I hadn’t talked to in ages. Sorted through clutter.

Slept.

Missed ESPN. And the background noise. Took more antibiotics.

A colleague recommended orange juice with a lot of vodka.

It didn’t hurt.

The new TV’s due tomorrow. It’s a mini-monolith.

The guys who install it will take the old 27-incher to the TV burial ground.

Its caretaker watches everything.