Mrs. Dalloway's Coffee Break

1. The first time I saw Joni’s Eye was after a huge argument with Lizzie. Of course, being the chicken I used to be back then, the entirety of the fight had taken place within my dishwashing, soul-searching, rage blowing, bile-venting, and finally, teary admission of defeat and loneliness-succumbing, mind. Father was, for once, at his book club, and I was both happy he was out of the house and scared to be alone. Isn’t it amazing how one can wish so much for something to happen, and when it does, be not kind of sorry it did, but apprehensive, and waiting for the other shoe to drop? I was wearing my reading glasses to get all the grease stains out – I just hated how Father had become so neglectful, he who had always preached about the hospital corners when Mom was alive, and maybe it was the old age, too, and for the life of me I don’t know why I just couldn’t find it in me to say something about it. But that night, getting him to agree that a little night air might be just the thing, I

In an all-but forgotten Garry Marshall -helmed romantic comedy from a little shy of the Early Aughts, a quick-witted newspaper columnist, played by the ever-charismatic Richard Gere, hears a story at his local watering hole. A heart-broken man sitting at the bar next to him, nursing a beer, bursts into an emotional diatribe about his would-be fiancé, who had just left him at the altar, and, according to him, a number of others before him.  Inspired by the man’s story, Ike writes his column of the week about this incident, titling his piece humorously The Runaway Bride. After the story has run in the paper, he is surprised to find his editor fuming at her desk on Monday. The alleged Bride has contacted the paper, demanding, with heated words, a correction on the column, and has included a play-by-play with the sum total of 15 downright mistakes or erroneous conjecture in the piece.  Fired and at his wit’s end, Ike decides to write a follow-up on his original story; he will travel himsel