Back in August, I had an episode of arrhythmia (I could feel my heart beating in my throat) and wound up seeing to a cardiologist who had me wear a heart monitor to see if I had heart disease or if I might need a pacemaker. At the time, I was cleared and in fact, the arrhythmia disappeared in a few weeks. I never imagined I would have a cardiologist but I sure was glad everything was okay. —- Fast forward to last week: I went to my regular long-time doctor for an annual physical including a blood test. He called me today with the results and I was surprised he was calling on a Saturday of a long weekend. He had never called on a weekend before so it made me anxious. He told me my total cholesterol, which had been elevated, was good and so was my LDL. I said that was good news. “But I have some bad news,” he said. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” he went on to say, “but you are going to find out anyway.” I could feel a knot in the pit of my stomach and I started to sweat. “It was just 3 months since you saw your cardiologist,” he said as I tried to remember what was on my bucket list. My heart was pounding! Give it to me straight, doc! What have I got – six months? But I’m still working on my cookbook. Why is he taking so long?? I can handle the truth – just tell me. “Your cardiologist died.”

What? That’s great! … NO! Not great! … But good news! … No, it’s not! Not good news, not for him, but good for me. That’s wrong too. Not good for anybody. How can I feel sad for him when I was just pulled back from the long dirt nap. No doctor should ever say, “I have bad news,” unless you’re the one who’s dying! Now I hate myself for being glad, and the stress of this is making my blood pressure rise and my heart is beating in my throat. OMG, I think my arrhythmia is back!

“Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.” -W.T. Purkiser

The first season of the Jenny Jones Show  was a lot different from the last.  So was my appearance.  I can best illustrate the difference with this old clip I found of a little segment called “Bimbo School.”  I played the Bimbo (I still had the boobs!).  The Academy Award Nominating Committee did not call but we sure had some fun.

Enjoy some old school Jenny.

http://www.jennyjones.com/bt_video_highlights.shtml

1. Prince William and Kate Middleton are getting married! Kate, are you sure you want to do this? How much do you know about his father? The apple doesn’t fall…etc… What will you do when you discover text messages to another, much older, seriously older, woman?  Well, maybe not text messages, but I’d keep an eye out for homing pigeons.

2. It was bound to happen: they are banning plastic bags at the grocery. So now I’m hoarding my plastic bags in case I can’t get any more.  I have a better idea:  Why don’t they ban check-writing when there are more than 5 people in line. Or ban cell phones. Or ban price checks in the express line: No bar code?  It’s free!  Let’s move it!

3. The public is incensed that Bristol Palin made the finals on Dancing With The Stars. The same people who voted for Bristol will vote for her mother if she runs for president. Let’s hope the mom can dance better than the daughter because if Sarah ever becomes president, she’ll be tap dancing in the White House.

4. Eva Longoria is divorcing that guy Tony-something. What’s it gonna take for cheaters to learn to STOP TEXTING?!? Have we learned nothing from Tiger Woods? Here’s how not to get caught:  Pick up the phone, hook up at a Red Roof Inn, and if you get busted, hide the golf clubs.

5. Airport screening is out of control. They could avoid all the screening with a new mandatory flyer’s dress code: Tights and a Tank Top – No Underwear! Think about it. Ballet tights are comfortable for a long flight, there’s nowhere to hide anything, and they don’t have to touch your junk when it’s shrink-wrapped like that.

I had my first pomegranate today and I’ve never had one so sweet and crisp and ruby red inside. It took patience not to pick them off my tree but I waited until one was cracked and I could see the inside. Last year I grew two and this year, almost twenty! This picture is not photoshopped – that’s exactly what it looked like (it’s gone now).  

Here’s a picture of it after I cut it open:

I needed a treat today after my mini meltdown yesterday but I guess that had to come out. I had been holding that pain for years and it actually felt good to let it go. I’m feeling much better now thanks to the loving support and kind words sent by my blog buddies. Thank you all for caring enough to write.  I wish I could send you all a pomegranate, but I can send you a big thank you hug. (((H)))

I’ve received a number of emails asking why I wasn’t on the Oprah Show that featured other talk show hosts including Montel Williams and Ricki Lake. To put it simply, I was not invited. I guess she was not a fan. Oprah tapes her show in Chicago and in 1990, when I came to town with my show, I never felt welcome there. From the very beginning, the local press was brutal, calling me a prima donna, saying I demanded limos everywhere when in fact I rode my bike to work, or drove my Saturn. Chicago Magazine blindsided me with a scathing article titled “Talking Trash” about what a horrible person I was and to this day I don’t know why. I even contacted the editor and invited him to lunch, asking that he invite the reporter who wrote the lies in the hopes that once they met me, things would change.  The reporter had a previous engagement.  The press was so brutal, I even drove to the Sun-Times to ask their most vicious columnist, Bob Feder, face-to-face why he was doing this to me. His answer was, “You came to my city and I can write whatever I choose.”

It didn’t end when I left. I recently did a phone interview with a Chicago radio station looking for people who needed money from Jenny’s Heroes and this is what they posted on their website: “A lot of people will remember the Jenny Jones show for an episode that never aired — the one about same-sex crushes; The show that led to one guest killing another. A court found the Jenny Jones Show not liable for the safety of its guests. The show nosedived afterwards. That said, Jenny Jones is giving away $2 million, in relatively small increments, to people she calls “Jenny’s Heroes.” It seemed that even after I left, the local media still hated me.

I met Oprah once at a prime time special taping for Phil Donahue, in fact we shared the same elevator, and I spoke to her, trying to get her up to speed since she missed rehearsal, but she just ignored me and stared straight ahead. I still don’t know why. It can’t be that my show was bad because she has hired several of my former staff members, including my executive assistant. I was never going to write about this but once I started this post, I couldn’t stop.  I suppose I needed to vent and I’m sorry to be so negative.  The truth is it’s painful to be vilified the way I was (and still am) by a city I grew to love and called my second home. So the Oprah snub is just one more rejection. Life goes on.

Part Two: I was just told that Entertainment Weekly’s Popwatch posted this poll of who was missing from the Oprah photo.  But who’s missing from the list?  It sucks to not matter. Writer Kerrie Mitchell must be from Chicago.

Hair wasn’t the only thing that was big in the 80s – so were earrings!  The bigger and brighter the better. And I had some of the best and biggest, in fact some were so big & heavy they had to be clip-ons to provide ballast and stability. But they also had history: I wore one of them on my first date with Denis, one when I presented on the People’s Choice Awards, and another pair on Star Search, so I found a way I could enjoy them every day. I went to a craft store and bought a cardboard heart and some glue and I made this recycled art to hang on my wall. It’s full of sparkle and color but mostly beautiful memories.

I found another old Jenny Jones Show video from 1996 and it was one of my favorite shows to do. Check out “Totally Useless Talent” but be prepared to be grossed out! You’ll see a couple of things you actually could try at home, some things you’d be stupid to try at home, and some that are a complete waste of time 🙂 … but still pretty funny.  Here’s the link: http://www.jennyjones.com/bt_video_highlights.shtml

Oh, and I went to Target last night and bought three shirts, two pairs of pants and two sweaters.  My new fall wardrobe for $150 bucks!

1. Four and a half thousand people were stranded on a cruise ship off the coast of Mexico with no power, no toilets, no phones, no food (I don’t call Spam and Pop Tarts food). This was worse than the Chilean miners! But here’s the thing: The ship was only 80 miles from shore! They could probably see Mexico from the ship. How long does it take a power boat to go 80 miles & start picking people up?  An hour? What’s the problem? I could have made it to shore in an inner tube.

2. Somali Pirates have freed a  British couple after being held for a year.  Boy, that must have been haarrrrrrrd. Their release must have taken a lot of aarrrrbitration.  Or maybe someone paid a big ransom booty.  I guess they were determined to be freed, by hook or by crook.  Otherwise, it could have been aaarrrrrrmageddon.  Asked if they are glad to finally be free, the couple responded, “Yes, we aarrrrrrrre!”

3. Those with a morbid interest in dirty money spent two million dollars this week on Bernie Madoff’s stuff, like his Rolex, grand piano, and diamond rings… you know, the stuff he STOLE from trusting victims to the tune of Fifty Billion Dollars.  Isn’t that like fencing stolen goods?  Hey, Bernie’s living inside a fence!  How ironic!

4. You don’t supposed Oksana Grigorieva nailed Mel Gibson to further her singing career, do you? If she has a hit record, I’m playing tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers next year.

5. Sarah Palin has a new reality show about Alaska.  Let’s hope she gets voted off.

Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away so I’m sharing my recipe for fresh cranberries. Comparing fresh cooked cranberries to the canned stuff is like comparing Spago to DerWienerschnitzel. No comparison.  None. They may seem very “fru-fru” but fresh cranberries are super easy to make (5 minutes), and you can cook them days before turkey day. Cranberries have more antioxidants than broccoli and they have a fantastic sweet/tart taste. Try it. It’s fun too – they pop while you cook ’em!