All's well that ends???

We experienced two disappointments yesterday. First, Mike and I tried a new Japanese restaurant for our anniversary dinner and were saddened to discover that they had no green tea ice cream for dessert. Darn.

Then we watched the final episode of The Sopranos.

You probably wouldn't have pegged me for a long-time Sopranos fan. I'm not. When Mike and I first married, I left the room when his favorite show came on. I was put off by the almost-laughable excess of foul language, and then there was all that graphic violence. Eventually, I decided to be present for the show to keep Mike company. The "good wife" thing, you know. I ignored the language, couldn't really see the violence, and became interested in the characters and plot lines.

So -- no surprise -- we planned our Sunday around the need to be home with the telephones turned off to view the Sopranos finale.

Most of us are familiar with great series endings such as M*A*S*H and the Mary Tyler Moore Show. We've seen endings that were just okay like Friends. And we've been dumbfounded by horrid endings like Seinfeld. The Sopranos didn't fall into any of these categories. It didn't end. It stopped. This isn't the famous short story "The Lady or the Tiger?". Tony's fans don't want to make up their own ending. They wanted an ending that would knock their socks off.

My socks are firmly in place. I have to agree with the msnbc commentator who said that "last night, it was the viewers who got whacked."

But with the Sopranos furor dying down this evening, maybe we can get back to really important things like whether or not Barbara Walters can smuggled some moisturizer to Paris Hilton.