The Kennedy Center?

Is it that Lincoln Center never asked him to be on the Board?

Was he snubbed by the Metropolitan Opera?

The only rationale for anything he does is his easily bruised ego.

The Kennedy Center always felt accessible.  It's a big, beautiful, airy space.  One of our favorite cousins has sung with Placido Domingo on its stage.  It's a bright white light on the drive from The District to Virginia.  It's inviting, asking you to stop by and taste a little culure.

We know FFOTUS knows nothing about music.  He chose YMCA and (I'm No) Fortunate Son as his campaign anthems, annoying anyone with a thinking brain..... although there might be some delicious irony if I dig a little bit.

Someone tells the Orange Menace the name of the song, using the shorthand title, Fortunate Son.  The candidate thinks it's about him.... and it is.  Because John Fogerty sings about not being born, silver spoon in hand, and so he was. Only thing is, it's about being able to dodge the draft... or not if (I'm No) Fortunate Son.

Thanks for listening. I needed something else to think about.  Flying with unhappy air traffic controllers is not my idea of a good time.  I wonder if they'd let me into the Control Tower with a pan of brownies?

I Can't Believe I'm Getting On An Airplane Tomorrow

There are grandchildren with childcare needs this weekend.  Unfortunately, they are a plane ride away.

FFOTUS and The Real President have decided to fire personnel hired for FAA radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance.

Their union is investigating the situation.  The rest of us are just stupefied. 

Have I missed the Make Air Travel Unsafe voters?   Are there Ban Seat Belt groups organizing in the shadows? 

How is this making America great?

Today Was Not Their BIrthdays

And if it's going to be a generic Presidents' Day then I don't want to acknowledge it right now.

If you want to read what I usually post of Presidents' Day, click here.

It's Not My Fault

There are humans on this planet who think that RFKjr is qualified to be in charge of health care in America.  

I can't write about it.  There's nothing I can do about it.  

Thousands of government workers aren't sure if they have jobs any more; they can't find the answer because they're locked out of their computers.

Nothing I can do about that, either.  

The airwaves are filled with moaning and groaning but there's little information and I don't want to hear about it, anyway.

And an atmospheric river is sending fire ravaged hills flooding Southern California, Brother in Maryland made a serious sized snowman,  and I'm powerless there, too.

So TBG and I began bingeing The Newsroom, which is quaintly optimistic while pointing a sharp finger nail at broadcast media.

It's a much wiser choice.

 

Passwords - A Short Rant

After one account might have been hacked, I changed passwords on most but not all of my accounts.  By the time this caught up with me I was so frustrated that I started all over again with a play on something that makes me happy.

This was quite successful for many years.  If it was not recognized I knew what to add to make it so.  I never saved it anywhere because I liked typing it in.

Then, one day, it didn't work anymore.  Then an account established requirements it could not meet.  Bluesky blew up entirely when I used it to log on from the laptop.

I have been spending this week thinking about a new one.  It's alternately frustrating and delightful.  At the end there will be hours devoted to clicking Forgot Password and verifying that I am who I am, and that ain't great, but it's sure better than the shitshow that's passing for the Federal Government right now.

Happy Birthday, Abraham Lincoln

He'd be appalled at what's going on.  So am I, but I've got nothing constructive to add..

Andy Kim wants to shut down the government on March 14th.  AOC asserts she is not a Nazi.  My Congressman is glad I took the time to call about DOGE and he promises he'll remember what I said should the House take action.  It must be true, I have it in (what passes for writing these days) an email.   

Should the House take action..... now there's a thought.  

The 1st US Court of Appeals denied FFOTUS's request to lift the restraining order.  That leaves us with the delightful prospect of the Supreme Court weighing in on whether the separation of powers really does exist.  That decision might just end our democracy as the world knows it.  

And I've got nothing.

I can't lose myself in college basketball because the Big 12 games aren't as available as were the Pac-12's and we're not paying for ESPN+ to watch them.  I tried reading Alexander McCall Smith's latest Botswana detective story but the real world kept poking at the edges of my brain.  

Tomorrow is another day.  I'm hoping for some good news.

A Brief Escape As We Teeter On The Edge

Will the Executive Branch refuse an order from the Judiciary?  What happens if the answer is yes?  

Nothing for me to do about it tonight; all the offices I call are closed.  Why wallow, then?  Instead, I'll leave you with photos of Prince scholars eating lemons.

Why?  I do not know.  I had a shopping bag filled with some of my neighbor's harvest, and it's a good thing she has offered me more.  They were lining up for a wedge, then half a wedge, then wondering if I'd have more tomorrow.

Of course, not everyone was thrilled.  

I sent her home with some seeds in a pot; her visit to Grandma's Garden wasn't a total disaster.  

Isn't that leaving you with a better feeling in your heart, even for just a minute?  

What?  You need more?  How about this example of cooperation and problem solving and willingness to help?

That's three cubic feet of soil they are toting, weighing somewhere between 75 and 150 pounds.  They rearranged themselves to get through the gate, without resting it on the ground or asking for advice.  

They certainly didn't whine. After all, it says it on the t-shirts: Mustangs find a way, not an excuse.

There, now.  You must be filled with just a little bit of hope for what kind of a country these kids will inherit.  They believe they are the change.

Super Bowl Supper

I think it was on The Splendid Table that I heard it - the notion of having dips for dinner.  The panelists were laughing about A Super Bowl Supper consisting of all the foods you'd eat at a Super Bowl Party, and how all of it was finger food.

Dr K and Not-Kathy were, of course, joining us for the last Sunday of the season.  I prepared enough food for their entire families and mine - most of it from containers of sour cream and plain yogurt and Penzey's enhancements.  

It took a lot longer than I expected, so tonight all I have left is the energy to share the photos.  I thought I'd write about the commercials and the game, but they were all quite ignorable.  My food was much more interesting.

Add in six or seven pretty ramekins filled with different tastes and textures; raspberries and basil leaves as embellishments; cups of soup; sliced beef; and brownies and a lemon yogurt pie and you get the general idea.

Put in an exhausted hostess who sat down and enjoyed the fruits of her labors instead of taking more photos and you've spent the evening with us.

Thanks for coming.

Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza - One Woman's Reaction

https://tinyurl.com/b25zms2x

That's Susie Wiles, his chief of staff.

What exactly did you think you signed up for, girlfriend?

She Never Got Into Watching Old Movies

Doom scrolling and reading the major headlines have morphed into one another.  Taos Bubbe and I have a small scale political action promise similar to the one JannyLou and I created when Martha McSally was my biggest concern.  I'm going back to when the world was aright on its axis.

Linda's comment yesterday (cf title) got me thinking of how I got into watching old movies.  I cannot think or write about the coup happening right under our noses (anyone else remember 1933 Germany?  They aren't burning the books, they're deleting the websites and all the information stored therein.) so I'm taking myself to a happier place.  

Daddooooo's parents watched the Marx Brothers movies with me when I was very young.  I didn't understand it all, but Harpo made a lot of sense to me.  My recurring desire to pull a giant horn out of my pocket and blast away at stupidity comes straight from Sunday afternoons and Million Dollar Movie.  

G'ma and I laughed uproariously at Buster Keaton's The General when I was in high school.  If Errol Flynn knocks on the door, 

Wikipedia

your father knows to leave the house.  That was the reason I knew about his swashbuckling before I met TBG, who is still obsessed with it.  

I went off to Cornell, where there were seven movie outlets on campus.  Classic films, cult films, X-rated films; remember I Am Curious (Yellow)? There were first run movie theatres downtown and at The Crossroads (which really was at the crossroads of many diverse paths), but those required a car and a modicum of advance planning.  And they were expensive.  Ours demanded not much more than our attendance.

Then I took myself to Chicago and TBG came to visit and we walked into The Biograph Theatre

Wikimedia Commons

where the audience was convulsed in laughter.  It was the second half of Bringing Up Baby (neither of us can remember which main feature we were there to see) and although we had no information at all it took about 10 seconds before we, too, were howling as Cary Grant yelled Susan!!! at Katherine Hepburn.  

The blonde at the film

It was the beginning of a love affair with screwball comedies and the Biograph itself.  

We usually walked, my graduate school friends and I, through the (then) largely ungentrified DePaul neighborhood.  When it was super cold we'd pile into Big Steve's car, park in the lot that only locals knew about, walk through the alley where John Dillinger was shot, and pay $2.50 for the late shows.  \They started at 9pm, which was just about when we'd finished school and work and dinner and, if it were a weekend, a game or two of Clue. 

There was The Granada, a big, beautiful, ornate and overdone masterpiece of a real movie theatre,

Chicago Magazine

all the way up Sheridan Road but absolutely worth it.  Bogie and Bacall deserved to be seen in such a setting.

DVD's and Netflix helped when we moved to Marin.  TCM has saved us in Arizona.  I try to go to The Fox Theatre and sit in those two person upholstered couches in the loge

Historic Theater Photos

when oldies but goodies are shown around the holidays.  Taking Mr (now 19 and 21) as tweens to see Princess Bride (an old movie for them, after all) and Robin Hood was like transporting them to another dimension.

And isn't that what a good movie experience is supposed to do? 

*****

For Linda and anyone else who wants to start at the beginning, arranged roughly:

Casablanca

Charade

Singing in the Rain/anything with Jeannette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy

Bringing Up Baby

Robin Hood/The Sea Hawk/Captain Blood (and TBG would be furious if I left off The Mark of Zorro)

The Lady Eve

North by Northwest/Psycho (if your heart can stand terror... serious screaming out loud terror)

If you're not hooked by then, tell me what you want.....