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I couldn’t believe my eyes.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I walked out on my driveway today, getting ready to run some errands, and I noticed some movement in the bushes off to the side. I thought it might have been someone’s dog because it sounded pretty big and then I saw it. It was a stunning bird with beautiful colors just walking through the plants, under some trees. I ran inside to get my camera, hoping he’d still be there when I got back. I grabbed Denis, our assistant Damon, and housekeeper, Antonia, and said, “You guys have to see this! What is it?” The bird was still there, in fact, he didn’t seem bothered by us, if maybe a bit curious. We decided it was probably a pheasant and wondered if it was somebody’s pet. I started taking pictures as he casually walked around for about ten minutes. After a while, he headed up towards the big hill behind our house, never even looking back to see if we had weapons, or a net (hasn’t he heard of “pheasant under glass?”). He had a chance to fly away but he never flapped his wings, just took his sweet time, sauntering along to the back hill, then up into the safety of some shrubbery.

We looked him up and it’s a ring-necked pheasant, not native to southern California.

We get used to the deer, coyotes, bobcats, raccoons, rattlesnakes, and skunks around here, but this was really a treat.

I hope he comes back.

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Sunday brunch

Sunday brunch is one of my favorite things and today, Denis and I had brunch with my makeup artist from the show, Earl Nicholson. We haven’t seen each other in 3 years so we got to catch up and stuff our pie-holes at the same time. Brunch was at the Hilton in Universal Studios and guess who was at the next table? Gloria Allred. This was some fancy brunch with spectacular displays with food carved into animals. The buffet was huge! I made six trips in this order: 1) omelette bar; 2) carving station; 3) El Salvadoran papusas; 4) barbeque station; 5) fresh fruit; 6) desserts. Wait, it was seven trips – I went for carnitas and beans, too. I know that sounds bad, but we did have to walk to the parking lot. Later, we watched the Academy Awards together and I can’t have company without serving a little something, so I made crudite, guacamole & chips, deviled eggs, tuna melts & grilled cheese, store-bought California roll, and grapes. I should probably skip my midnight snack.  Here we are, together again…

Here’s Earl’s purple yam cake. Very purple… but very good!

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Academy Awards

Our streets have been blocked off all week for the Academy Awards on Sunday – it’s less commotion when the President comes to town! But I will be watching on Sunday, doing my own notes on who’s had work done and who should invest in a full length mirror. Plus I’m putting together my own list of who should win just to see if I have my finger on the pulse of the voters, or if the voters would give me the finger if I was right. 😉 Here are the nominations:

Best Actor: Javier Bardem; Jeff Bridges; Jesse Eisenberg; Colin Firth; James Franco

Best Actress: Annette Bening; Nicole Kidman; Jennifer Lawrence; Natalie Portman; Michelle Williams

Best Picture: Black Swan; The Fighter; Inception; The Kids Are Alright; The King’s Speech; 127 Hours; The Social Network; Toy Story 3; True Grit; Winter’s Bone

My choices would be: Javier Bardem (haven’t seen the movie but I think he’s sexy!), Jennifer Lawrence (haven’t seen the movie but she’s only 20 & a newcomer, how awesome would it be for her to beat the other “veterans?”, and Inception (haven’t seen it either but Denis liked it). Just because I haven’t seen the movies doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion, right?? 🙂

Who do you think should win?


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Is this legal?

I’ve always wondered what kind of ads people place in the tabloid classifieds so I decided to take a look. I saw lots of astrologers and chat/datelines but then I saw this one tiny ad and I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Is this legal? What kind of people would need a new identity? Aren’t most of them in jail? How much is a Master’s Degree in Literature? I would like one. I decided to google the phone number and came up with a publishing company (Eden Press) that sells How-To books, like…

How to Disappear in America

Methods of Disguise

The ID Forger: Homemade Birth Certificates and Other Documents Explained

The Modern Identity Changer

Birth Certificate Fraud

Collection and Use of Social Security Numbers

Reborn Overseas

100 Ways to Disappear and Live Free

How to Make Driver’s Licenses and Other ID on your Home Computer

Does the DMV know about this?  Shouldn’t these people be arrested? But then they’d skip out on their bail & resurface as somebody else! This has to be great news for criminals. Lets hope the Taliban doesn’t pick up the Enquirer. I just can’t believe they can sell books like this! What’s next?…books like…

“Ten Ways to Steal Your Grandmother’s Identity”

“How to Print Money on Your Basement”

“Better Homes for Squatters: Beverly Hills Edition”

“Don’t Let Cataracts Keep You from Driving”

“Ponzi Schemes for Dummies”

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It makes me cringe

For some people, it’s fingernails dragging across a blackboard (do they still use blackboards?) but for me there’s one thing that makes me cringe. It’s so bad that I don’t even have to do it – I just think about doing it and I get the shivering shakes as though a spider just crawled down my back. It’s putting a piece of newspaper between my teeth and rubbing me teeth on the paper. Oh God! I just said it and I’ve got the heebie-jeebies! And it has to be real newspaper, the kind that’s sort of fuzzy – eeew!! I’ve always wondered if I’m the only one. Does anybody else have this aversion to newspaper between the teeth? What makes you cringe?

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Live with Regis & Joy

Regis Philbin is finally retiring!  When I was an up-and-coming comedian, my career got a big boost when I appeared on Live with Regis & Kathy Lee. It was 1990 and Regis’s wife, Joy, was filling in for Kathie Lee. They helped me promote my Girls’ Night Out show, comedy for women only,  which led to my talk show. By now you must be thinking, “If only there was a way to see Jenny’s appearance with Regis from back in the day… if only we had that kind of technology…” Wait a minute — this might work: 🙂 Link

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Happy Valentine’s Day

I met Denis 26 years ago when I was a struggling stand up comic and he was a Hollywood location manager. I had invited a personal manager to come and see me perform at the L.A. Cabaret in Encino, hoping he would sign me for representation. He invited his friend, Denis, to get his opinion on this new female comedian. I guess Denis must have liked me because the manager signed me, but I never heard from Denis after that. I tried to let him know I was interested.  He had a great sense of humor so I would often call him for his opinion on some jokes, saying, “It’s Saturday night and I’m just home working on material.” He was clueless. My manager brought him to other performances but Denis still never asked me out. For a year. Yes, it was almost a year from when we met that Denis finally asked me out. He picked me up in his 1969 Volkswagen Bug (that he still has!) and took me out to dinner. It seemed like we could talk forever and I was in love. So was he. I took a steady job in Las Vegas with the Playboy Girls of Rock & Roll as their comedy act, and Denis came every weekend, leaving right after work Friday to catch my late show, he stayed for the weekend, and he’d stay up with me Sunday night until 2 in the morning, and then drive back to L.A. in time for work Monday morning. I called  him my “precious little puppy fluff.” As my career progressed, he supported me at every turn. He was at every Star Search taping (that’s where this picture was taken), calming my nerves with his humor, he travelled all over the country just to be with me when I was on the road.  He has been my source of strength through family emergencies, my breast implant nightmare, the talk show crisis, and I know he will stand by me no matter where life takes us. My wish for everyone this Valentine’s day is that someone loves you the way Denis loves me.

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The Spago walk of shame

Denis’s family was in from New York and Spago Beverly Hills was the place to go for dinner last night. It’s always an experience to dine at this famous landmark but I could not eat my food.  I wanted their famous pizza but it wasn’t on the menu. Our waiter recommended the short ribs so I thought I would try them. Since I make my own, lean, melt-in-your-mouth short ribs, I decided to see how mine compared. These were so laden with saturated fat, they should have come with a cardiology team standing by. It was like chewing on meat-flavored gummy bears. I casually removed the first bite from my mouth, then moved my entree around the plate so it looked like I actually ate some, hoping not to make a scene. This was upscale dining: we had a waiter, a wine guy, a bread guy, a food bringer, a plate taker, and Wolfgang Puck was walking around. So the bread guy kept coming by and must have heard me say the kitchen looked amazing (you could see it through glass windows) and he said, “You know, you can take a tour through the kitchen.” We all said we would love that and he said we could go after our dinner.  When the waiter brought our check, I told him that we understand we can take a tour in the kitchen and he said, “Who told you that?”

I didn’t know what to think.  Was I overstepping my bounds? I didn’t want to get bread-man in trouble but I had to say that he was the one who told us. “I’ll be right back,” he said, as we assumed he went back to fire bread-man and we’d see him leaving out the back in his street clothes, final paycheck in hand, glancing back to give me the evil eye for rolling over on him. Or… security will be escorting us out of the restaurant, being asked never to return… the Spago walk of shame. Our waiter came back a few minutes later and said someone would take us through. I didn’t want to go now. Not this way. But if we declined, wouldn’t that be worse? Mind you, the kitchen is very visible and we never saw anyone walking through except the staff. This just felt wrong. But we went, walking right past Wolfgang himself, barging into his kitchen, where no one else had gone all evening. I wanted to be invisible.  I wanted to leave.  I wanted to eat – I was still hungry.

There must have been fifty people in there, all dressed in white, each one tackling his or her own specialty.  Then I saw a pizza oven (with pizzas cooking in it!) and I asked who they were for. Our guide said, “Oh, we always make pizzas, you just have to ask for them.” What?! I could have had pizza?! I want it now! I’m starving! But alas, it was too late. We left, went home, and I had a sandwich.

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My hometown girl wins!

Congratulations, Dana! She’s from my hometown, London, Ontario and she guessed 88 earrings, which was the closest to the actual number, which was 95. I own 95 pairs of earrings and it should have been more but I didn’t get my ears pierced until I was forty. I did give up a few pairs when I made that earring heart (see Nov. 17th, 2010 posting). Anyway, congratulations, Dana. Damon will be in touch to send your $100 gift card. Thanks, everybody, for playing (twice!) This was fun. Let’s do it again! 🙂

We just heard from our contest winner, Dana, who is a Senior Research Scientist with a Ph.D. in Chemistry. “I am so excited to win the earring contest,” she said.  “I think Jenny just has a few more earrings than I have.  When I was younger I used to watch The Jenny Jones Show with my mom when I was off school on summer breaks and holidays.  We love her blog and check it every day and love her funny stories and great recipes. Thank you very much for the gift card.” Here is Dana’s photo from a family vacation this past summer at Disneyland. It’s nice that she took time to send in her photo and congrats again, Dana, (my homie) from London, Ontario, Canada!

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