Yesterday I raced through traffic, screamed over speed bumps, charged through stop signs to get home in time to watch the season finale of Oprah.  My sister always tells me that she comes on Channel 1,027,382 at other times of the day but I don’t know how to work the Rogers remote and there is something about the 4:00 Oprah Hour that is almost sacred.    When my kids were babies, the Oprah Show was their feeding hour, a half an hour on each boob. Long after they were weened, I’d lactate at 4 whether I was watching Oprah or not.  Zing!  That is the sensation that the let-down of lactation makes, it’s Oprah o’clock!  Otherwise now known as cocktail hour.  Double zing!

Anyway, yesterday, Lorraine came over as she by divine intervention has the week off and is able to watch the final 3 episodes.  We had champagne and shared a box of Kleenex.  “I thought you hated Oprah,”  said my daughter.  I have been known to bust Miss O’s balls on a few occasions.  She is only human after all.  The whole James Frey scandal made me crazy.  “His memoir is a big lie!” she said.  I wrote her a scathing letter years ago:  All memoirs are “lies.”  Do you think Jeannette Wells didn’t take a few liberties when writing “The Glass Castle” since she would have to remember events and dialogue of when she was a toddler?  I think she ruined James Frey’s life in the worst possible way in that she made him famous, then took it all away by humiliating him.  I boycotted her show for a year after that.  See you next Tuesday, Oprah!  But I eventually got over it.  I’m not sure her recent two part interview with him was redemption but it was better than leaving him to rot in obscurity.  She has the power.

When she interviews people, she interrupts by finishing their sentences in order to move on to the next topic.  This is because she is one of those know-it-alls that you knew when you were in school.  You could just tell she was one of those kids who, 20 seconds before the bell, would put up her fucking hand and ask Teacher a question that would take 5 minutes to answer because she keep the questions going while everyone else was going squirrelly.

And I am suspicious of excessive amounts of generosity.  There was a woman at my gym who would do the most over the top things on other people’s birthday.  She once walked into a full spinning class with a lit birthday cake for someone she hardly knew.  Everything was always done in front of an audience.  All this “giving” this and that, is it more about achieving notoriety?  Look at me!   Then look under your chair, there’s a chicken pot pie!  A pair of Uggs! A Volkswagen Beetle!  A school in Africa!  Don’t get me wrong, she’s done great acts of philanthropy but she looooooves the accolades. 

Why is she the only one who appears on the cover of “O” Magazine?  Why doesn’t she call it “Eg-O” Magazine?

And if she is all about truth, why is maintaining the lifestyle lies of the certain couch-jumping, airplane-flying Scientologists that appear regularly on her show?  Is she one of them? 

Or is she the second coming of Jesus?  WWJD with a wagon load of lard?  Doubts he would be parading it on a tv soundstage wearing high-waisted Calvin Klein jeans.  He’d  probably fry lentils in it and serve them to the lepers in the cave colony.  Jesus wins.

So she’s not the second coming but she is a force, that’s for sure.  The finale was perfection, down to the pink dress which by the way was designed by L’Wren Scott.  It went over like a sermon that included the things she learned from the guests she had on her show.  And no, my child, I don’t hate her.  I’m only critical because skepticism is my nature and blogging about it is my game.  And isn’t that what Oprah wants us to do?  Be our best selves and find our forum to spread our energy around.  Yo, I listened and learned.  So from now on,when 4 o’clocks zings by, there’s going to a big void!   God knows I won’t be watching OWN because it is on those baffling upper channels I don’t know how to find to save my life.   I’m going to miss you, Oprah!