Nora Ephron Remembered By Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman

[FloridaJudy]

7. "Where's the butter?"

I'll always love her for "Heartburn" - the novel, not the movie (which I haven't seen). In it, she offers the classic definition of a "Prince". To younger readers, a Prince is not someone who rescues you from a dragon, or wakes you from a coma with a kiss, but a man who has been raised to be so entitled that he expects the world to revolve around him.

Hence, the man who while eating dinner asks "Where's the butter?" He knows where the butter is. Hell, everyone in the house knows where the damned butter is! It's right there on the top shelf of the fridge. But instead of getting it himself, which would only be fair because you've just spent over an hour cooking dinner, he asks you where it is in the expectation that you'll put down your own fork and go fetch it for him. And he figures he's being gracious because he didn't just demand "Get me the butter, woman!"

In our house "Where's the butter?" was code for "You're acting like a jerk. Cut it out".

The woman had the gift of turning her pain into pure comedy. I'll miss her.