Tony Dow

Gosh, it's been a terrible day for news.

Tony Dow is an actor that played on a TV show called 'Leave It To Beaver'  from 1957-1963.  Technically it was before my TV awareness time but it still runs in reruns today.  Dow plays Beaver's older brother Wally.  On the show he went probably from about 10 to about 16.  He was a good looking guy, nice & smart.  He had some bonehead best friends--Eddie Haskell, a legend on his own & Lumpy Rutherford.   As a teen, I had a huge crush on Wally.

Fast forward to now.  He's had cancer a couple of times & announced in May 2022 that it had returned with a vengence.  This morning, it was announced in the media that he had died.  His management team announced.  TMZ, the Networks, lowlife CNN ran with it.

Now we're told he is in his "last hours" per his son.  His stepmom was "distraught" and told the management team.  Interesting.  What a mess.

Anyway we look at the situation it's a sad day.  Another piece of my childhood is gone (or about to be).  He wasn't a guy who did bad things for attention. He served his country. He didn't whine about not getting acting work anymore...he was also a sculptor. Married twice, had one son. He was one of the good guys.  And of course he got older but the picture above is how I'll always see him.  May he rest in Paradise.

Update today, Wednesday August 27.  He did indeed officially pass away today.

Living in the Past?

Today was weekly grocery add day.  We get them every Tuesday & I give them a glance before I toss them. I don't give them much notice to be honest. When I decide the dreadful day has arrived...grocery store day...I look at the store website & may put something on the list that has a coupon.  I always wish I had the ability to look for store coupons although they are really old school.  I worked at Walgreens for a couple of months & a woman came in with a huge file & really worked the coupon game to the hilt.  I was waiting for the day when Walgreens owed her money!

So my friend D loves the 1940s.  She's fascinated with her pilot dad & her mom, who was married to first husband for 2 weeks before he was killed in the war.   She met dad at a local airbase. 

But my friend is obsessed with all things WWII. I have to admit that I loved that era...heroes coming home, the women's fashions, the strength to rebuild our country after a too long war.  But I don't try to cook with ration stamp recipes.  I can't say I listen to much Benny Goodman.  I can't name every fighter plane. I am obviously not a "historian".  

D is also obsessed with grocery prices & saving money.  Every week she scans the ads & plans her entire life around them. But seriously, is saving 25 cents off a jar of pickles going to solve things?  I actually spend not much on groceries, maninly because everything I make last at least (& at most) lasts 2 meals.  For the record, I'm not fond of leftovers.  And a lot of time I eat one meal a day, about 230 in the afternoon.  My friend smokes like a chimney so half of her budget goes for cigarettes.  But (she says sarcastically) don't buy those pickles til they're on sale.

I do like a bargain though but it's only a bargain if it's something I'll use.  I'm thrilled when I find them but I'm realistic.  I only dance a little though. 

Monitoring

 The title may be pushing it a little but I don't like people watching what I do.  Not openly & not in secret.  And I'm not paranoid about the Chinese government watching my life, mainly because everyone has better things to do than looking at my life.  It's people I know.  

I gave up Facebook a few months ago & have absolutely no regrets & one of the main things that are an advantage is that people know way less about my life.  I was never a big sharer but if I did share something I'm ok with someone asking questions if my post wasn't clear.  What bugged me is, for example, is if I followed a business (my cousin's business) that a person calls to ask why I'm following a brewery.  Or the same person attacking me if I passed on a joke that I thought was funny but she didn't think it was funny.  Everything I do is not everyone's business.  And yes, it was on Facebook but it was also info that was no big deal for someone to know.  Again, didn't share much & certainly not much too personal.  

And today, the person I share streaming services with questioned me about a movie that came up on her Firestick.  She was asking it if it was good but it bugged me because she knew about it.  And that info should not be out there. There was nothing problematic with the movie...I just don't like being questioned.  

Feud--Bette Davis & Joan Crawford

Feud is a TV mini-series about the relationship between movie stars Joan Crawford & Bette Davis. The show is set in the early 1960s when both actresses were in the September of their lives.  Both were big stars in the 1940s & 1950s but by this time their stars were fading.  There were few movies being made calling for stars their age.  Davis had 2 Academy Awards & had been nominated for 8 others. Crawford had 1 Award plus 2 other nominations.  

While both were desparately looking for roles, along came 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane'.  The movie was about a former child star (Davis) who lives with & torments her paraplegic sister (Crawford).  They are assigned the most patient director of all time who has to deal with dueling divas clearly trying to one up each other.  Clearly these women are not friends & they do whatever they can that they think makes them look better & the other look like the problem.  Crawford is clearly the high maintenance of the 2 of them, causing drama & delays & Davis is the more professional who sometimes retaliates out of frustration or spite.

After the movie is done, only Davis gets the Academy Award nomination.  And then Crawford really gets warmed up.  Her shenanigans around Oscar season are epic.

I'm abbreviating because I hate to give to much away...they later try to make another movie that doesn't work out because of even more diva behavior. (Hush,Hush,Sweet Charlotte).  Crawford was replaced by Davis' friend Olivia De Havellind!  

By the last episode, Crawford is dying alone of cancer & she still tries to act & remains a diva.  Davis also dies of cancer later & also tries to act & remains a diva.

One of the best things I've seen in awhile, especially because of the references of old Hollywood.

Joan Crawford won her Oscar for 'Mildred Pierce' a movie I hate above all reason.

I am a Bette Davis fan.  Joan Crawford, not so much.  One of her previous husbands had owned Pepsi & talk about product placement though apparently she hauled a cooler around with her wherever she went. 

I don't know if it's true, but Bette appeared to be a good friend to a few people.  Crawford only had friends who could advance her career. 

Envy

 

I'm envious sometimes.  But not jealous.

I grew up in a wonderful home.  We never had a lot but we always had enough. And we learned early that we did not get everything that caught our eye.  And if I really wanted something I would usually get it for Christmas.  Rocking chair, guitar, mixer...it was good.  And it's served me well over the years...I inheirited from both parents the truth that the person with the most stuff really doesn't really win.  I'm not a stuff person.

But I do envy sometimes.  

I wish I weighed 20 pounds less.

My friend L looks cute in her jewelry  but I can't stand jewelry touching my skin. But I envy her pretty necklaces. I wish I could wear one.

I wish I could love going to Texas Tech sports still.  Football games take too long.  Basketball games are too loud.  I can't afford more than a couple of baseball games a year.  I miss it.

I wish I could bake pretty things.  My cookies taste good but there's not a lot of finesse.  I know that practice makes perfect but if I practiced too much I'd need to wish for 50 pounds less.  

My neighbor is adopting a beautiful little girl.  40 years ago maybe but not now.  But she is such a sweet thing.

On Christmas day I wish I had someone to spend it with & I'd love a gift that I don't expect.  I have a friend that takes me out to eat for my birthday but at my suggestion we don't do gifts anymore because we were basically were shopping off lists that we could have bought for ourselves.  The spirit of giving was gone.

I would have loved my daddy walking me down a church aisle & would have loved a beautiful white dress.  Of course the styles 40 years ago were so different I probably would have chosen a cupcake dress with a butt bow.  I would have loved a handsome young cowboy standing there waiting for me. 

I was at Target the other day & saw a mom & daughter shopping for college dorm stuff & I was jealous.  No Target but mom & I shopped at K-Mart.  I envied that girl having that time with her mom.  I envy anyone who can spend time with either of their parents.

I would like a car with a bigger gas tank.  I'm scared to take my tiny tank car on trips, not that I could afford it now.  But I love my little car.  But I could love an Audi convertible too.

I wish my real estate career had worked.  I wish my card dealing career had worked.  But I don't regret trying.  I like my life very much now.  Even though I wish I had the money I spent with my follies I have enough now.  My life is fine.  I refer back to growing up in my parents home and I am grateful & don't have a lot but I have enough.

I wish I had 1000+ Twitter followers but I'm not that interesting.

I'd like a nice vacation every year to somewhere I haven't been.  I don't need Paris...I'd like to spend a couple of days in Colorado Springs.  Or Hot Springs.  Or Montana.  Although we did have pictures this week of a pasty Elon Musk on a yacht in Greece.  I'd be ok with that too.  But not with pasty Elon.

I'd like to get my house painted.

I'd like for my wrist to be completely healed.

I'd still like to meet a good man.  I don't need anyone to support me but I won't support anyone either.  Just someone willing to do his half.  Someone to eat a meal with or run errands with.  Someone to laugh with.

Basically, I envy stupid stuff.  People with pretty hair that would look like angel hair pasta on me.   Cute shoes that would make my feet hurt.  The ability of some to paint their nails. A weekend in Cloudcroft in a mountain cabin to just refresh.  

I'll probably be back to add more.  

Pants ON Fire

 

I used to work with a woman who told lies.  About everything  She would tell you the red cup on your desk was blue.  And she'd lie to you when it would be in her best interest to tell the truth.  

But I have another friend who lies in a different way.  She starts off telling the truth I think but then ventures into complete absurdity.  

So who annoys me more?  The flat out liar about everything or the person who enhances every story with bullshit?  It's a conundrum.  

I Have Peppers!!

 

I'm excited!!

In May I planted 2 pepper plants & 4 tomato plants.  One of the tomato plants has already bit the dust.  My yard guy P planted them but he'd broken one.  It lasted longer than I thought it would.  I have no tomatoes...lots of blooms...but no fruit.  And these are my first peppers.  When they grow up they are supposed to be red bell peppers.    !!!!!!!

It has been so flipping hot I hope they can all survive.  We have a mention of rain tomorrow about 2pm but it'll be gone before morning.  It's a tough summer.  But I water the plants every day so fingers crossed!!

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Prayers for my distraught 5yo whose pet ice cube just melted in his apple juice

Terry Blackwood & the Imperials

 Growing up,  my mom would play a lot of 4 part harmony gospel music & I loved it!  I grew up with the Gaithers, The Stamps Quartet, & The Blackwood Brothers, among others.  They'd go from town to town, performing at small churches.  And many times, the small towns did not have hotels so they'd stay with different church families.  We had a few over the years ...they were happy for a guest room & a good meal or 2.  The groups played for a small stipend & then got to sell their music after the show.  They even sold song books!  We had a few because my mom played the piano at church.  And the cool part was that my mom could not read music.  She'd learned to play by reading "shape notes" & the books had shape notes.  Interestingly, mom learned as a child when a salesman came by with a music program & her mom bought it for her.  Mom wasn't a Chopin but she loved playing her piano & that came through in her music.

I don't necessarily remember any Blackwoods but I'm thinking we probably had at least one since I recognize the name.

Tonight at the Cactus Theater they had a gospel night & Terry Blackwood & the Imperials.  Terry was probably a son of the original Blackwood Brothers & the Imperials were a back up group for Elvis Presley in the late 60s.  Neither of the today Imperials played for Elvis because they are too young.  Terry was an Imperial & did back him up.

They guys sang well together.  No four part harmony gospel because, first, there are only 3 of them.  And I was hoping for more older gospel songs but they were a little more contemporary.  And they're obviously they are on a budget because at intermission & after show they still sell cds themselves. I was possibly the youngest person there & lots of people were buying cds. I wasn't interested in a cd but if I was I no longer have anywhere to even play them anymore.  I just have Alexa...

I wasn't impressed or disappointed.  I just wanted more.

Best of Cops

1.  Guy hits 2 sets of stop sticks & has 6 police cars chasing him with lights & sirens & when he was asked why he didn't stop:

"I didn't know you were talking to me." 

Food Issues

 

Gosh, I know it's hard to believe that I have food issues.  I've been overweight all of my life.  I have horrible eating habits. I used to like to cook but now I go for the easy stuff.  I'm more likely to have cereal for supper than cook something. I eat too much junk food.  But, I have weighed 70 pounds more & have maintained my current weight for about 12 years.  I'd like to lose 20 more pounds but that's probably not happening & I'm actually ok with that. 

But I was reading an article last week about food hoarding.  And that definitely applies to me.  I inheirited that from my mom.  But she grew up in the depression.  She went through hungry times.  When times were better, she always had a lot of food on hand. Plus, we lived in the country & there wasn't a grocery store on every corner.  And she liked variety.  On her table would be 10 different bowls of something but not much of anything.  There would be meat & cooked veggies but also a bowl of tomatoes & cantaloupe & cucumbers.  Lots of choices.  And I read just yesterday about a woman who got charged 2x for an all-you-can-eat-buffet because she got so much.  My mom was like that sorta.  She would get a lot of things but she didn't eat anywhere near all of it.  She liked choices.  

Dang I miss my mom.

But I always have a lot of food.  If you weren't too picky and was ok with no turkey, I could make a Thanksgiving dinner on any given day.  For someone who doesn't cook, it's definitely a strange issue.  And it gets stranger because as I've gotten older, not much sounds good. 

One of my new year's resolutions every year is to stop buying so much food. I don't eat a lot of canned goods but I have them.  Although, right now, not a whole ton of them.  Tonight I cleaned out my pantry & put several in my donation box. And I have not bought any in awhile unless I specifically needed something for a rare recipe I might be cooking.  

And I've stopped buying packages of meat...I buy a single chicken breast or pork chop or steak out of the case. 

And I limit how much produce I buy because it tends to go bad.

Tomorrow I'm going to brown meat so I can use it later to make tacos & spaghetti. Even though I don't cook much anymore, I'd rather eat at home. Eating out is expensive right now & again, nothing much sounds good.

I'm trying to eat my way through my freezer before I buy big groceries.  I have taken to buying milk at Braums because they are reasonably priced & I don't have to go to big grocery store where there are more temptations. And I do some shopping at Target where choices are limited.

So I'm doing some self therapy to help solve my food hoarding issue.  I hope it works. 

Cops

♭Bad boys, bad boys....whatcha gonna do when they come for you??♯

Cops is a TV show that started back in the 1980s, disappeared for awhile & came back.  IMDB says it was still going in 2021 but that surprises me because of all the cop hate & the snowflakes complaining about their rights to have drugs, assault people & burn down buildings were being violated.  Crime is barely crime anymore.   

So there is an entire Cops channel on Pluto TV.  I've been watching tonight & one of the shows was with Lubbock police officers.  I used to dispatch, starting 37 years ago & I lasted 4 years.  I don't know any officers anymore because they've all retired & are old like me.  But on this show, I knew 2 of them.  I knew both as rookies.

One I knew pretty well.  RH was the unluckiest officer I've ever met.  He broke his arm in the police academy & had to work on the police desk with us til he healed so we all became friends.   Then he got knocked out with his own flashlight.  And poor guy had many other strange injuries over the years.  And the last time I talked to him, the worst thing ever:  He was the sergeant in internal affairs.  But after a chase, he had to go as a supervisor after the suspect ran into a tree.

I also think of RH because one night I woke up spooked about something, a thing that I don't ever remember happening before of sense.  It was about 3am. I got up, turned on every light in the house & checked all of the closets. I was flipped out. I had not worked at the PD for a couple of years but my friend D was working midnights & I called down there just to hear a friendly voice.  Not sure what I sounded like but I remember her saying "I've never heard  you like this" & she said she was sending someone to look around.  I at first told her no...she'd have to send someone I knew or someone I didn't know.  She finally told me RH was at the hospital finishing a report & I agreed he'd be ok. She called him & he called me right back.  He told me he was on his way & he'd call again when he was on the doorstep.  He looked all around outside & came in & sat with me for a few minutes.  He said, "I've never seen you like this!".  Obviously I was pretty flipped out.  But I lived through it & it's never happened since.  But I'll always appreciate his help.

The other, EH, was a rookie the year I left.  I don't know him well at all & am pretty sure he does not remember me.  But when he was in training, we had a strange encounter.  I was working one night & had cramps really bad & my boss gave me a muscle relaxer that wiped me out in a way I've never felt before.  People were talking to me on the radio & I seriously could not make sense of any of it.  We all decided I needed to go home.  So we got my beat car officer, BH, to drive me home & his trainee EH drove my car home.  They got me in the house & left.  The next afternoon, I woke up & found my front door open (behind unlocked screen door) & my clothes in the hallway leading to my bedroom. I can imagine I watched them leave & went to bed.  I only hope I waited til they were gone before I started losing clothes.  Lesson learned:  Never take muscle relaxers from boss. 

I have a love hate relationship with the tv show Cops.  People are strange & I used to enjoy watching the officers doing their jobs & the weirdos they came across.  Now, for some reason, I don't find all of it entertaining.  I like the chases & sometimes chunko cops running after people. And the suspects lying.  Some are pretty entertaining. But what I don't enjoy is the pathetic addicts that need help instead of jail.  I feel bad for the homeless people.  I hate it when there are domestic calls with drunks where there are children everywhere.  I don't like the hoplessness of some of the people they show.   But tonight I'm watching...so there you have it. 

Judge Shows--Wait what? 2022

I'm an admitted judge show junkie & Pluto TV now has an entire 'Judge Judy' channel & some of the cases are 25 years old--an era of no cell phones, pagers, phone cards.  How far we've come!   Now everyone is suing over cell phone plans.  But that's not really the point here.

I wish they'd have where-are-they-now blurbs. I'd like to see some of these idiots 25 years later.

Way too many cases are thirsty women giving a man "thousands of dollars" because he promised he'd take care of them forever. I realize my perspective is tempered by being an almost 65 year old never married woman but women need to learn that no one takes care of them but themselves.  And I believe a woman should always have a separate bank account & money set back so they are never in a position where they can't afford to leave. Then they go on court tv trying to get money back & then for moving expenses.  Idiots.  

I'm hoping to update the idiots when I need to here for 2022

Today July 14--16 year old gave her 23 year old boyfriend money.  Her mom let her jail bait daughter date this man "because he had the maturity of a 19 year old".  Idiot GF did not fall far from the idiot mom tree.

Who Is The Victim?

 

Several months ago I heard Megyn Kelly interviewing a poet named.  I missed most of the interview but Megyn said he was a great photographer & a good Twitter follow. Apparently lots of people took her advice.   I think I remember him tweeting that his follow count had soared after the interview.  I followed him.

He does tweet a lot of nice pictures.  His tweets are pretty calm.  He tweets poems often & talks about a solo  & a spiritual life  He doesn't like people or going out.  And he talks about being "cancelled" by "woke" people a couple of years ago.  He portrays himself as the victim of 2019.

I Googled him & what a story I found!  The account talks about his alcoholism, that he had an affair with a married woman & after they broke up he sent an anonymous messaage to her husband telling hubs that his wife was having an affair.  He finally admitted to hubs he was the other person in the affair.   He admits to this so far.

Then the woman went after him...found other women, mostly poets, who he'd allegedly used & abused & they accused him of using his influence in the poetry world to get them basically blackballed with publishers.  Then they went after his publishers to get his contracts cancelled.  One article says 20+ women.

Who is the liar here?  After reading everything, not sure Poet is the victim here.  There is a lot of animosity here for sure from the ex-girlfriend &  maybe the other 19 women.  Either way, I don't need to know anything else about him.  I'm unfollowing. 

What to buy...

 

I keep reading stories about Amazon Prime Day next week.  They take 2 days & give deep discounts on all kinds of things.  But of course, like Black Friday sales, they release the secret bargains early so people can salivate I guess. And, of course, they sell some stuff early.

But there is nothing I need.  I read all the lists.  I sometimes look at stores.  I browse online.  Not one thing I need.  Except a 1/2 gallon of milk right now.  What I need, not retail, is sofit & fascia boards replaced & painted.  I need siding replaced & painted.  I may need fence repair because my neighbor's is falling down  & while my fence is strong I'm afraid their fence will pull my down.  I need a new back gate.

As usual, I'm not normal.