There was a deluge on Saturday.
The downspouts empty into my containers, splashing soil onto the columns and bruising the blossoms.
The companion pot on the other column was down to the bare roots; for some reason the water comes down more forcefully just ten feet away. I didn't want to lose the remaining plants, and I didn't want to hire a contractor to renovate my downspouts.
I created a removable plant umbrella.
It made me laugh and it served its purpose.
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Responding to the washer's buzzer while concentrating on baking brownies results in 40 minutes of towels tumbling on Extra Delicate. It seems that I can concentrate on exactly one thing at a time these days.
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Dean Martin has a sexy twang in his voice, Bing Crosby is lighter. Perry Como is never surprising, while Nat King Cole catches me unawares with a phrase or an extra-long pause.
I have favorite versions of almost all the standard holiday tunes, and I am becoming annoyed when artists omit the third stanza of Jingle Bells. Since we've already determined that, at this time of year at least, I can only hold one thought at a time, I've kept the Ella Fitzgerald Holiday Station on permanent play in the kitchen. The theory was that it would be inoffensive and cheery and unchallenging background music.
It turns out that there aren't that many holiday tunes, there are just a lot of people who think I want to hear them singing those tunes.
When I start to get aggravated by Christmas carols I know it's time to take a break from baking.
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There is so much football available on so many days that I've been able to bake and wrap and write with reckless abandon. I never have to worry that TBG is yearning for my presence. He likes me to be around, but he doesn't need me to be happy ... at least at this time of the year.
Still, I get to missing him so I'll take Lenore the Lenovo Laptop and sit next to him as he's watching Thursday Night Football on Saturday Night (this is true... and should not be allowed) or they'll-make-the-playoffs-unless-this-game-ends-in-a-tie sort of games and I can be productive and not distracted. It's like white noise.
And then I hear Al Michaels use the word prescient (correctly, of course) and it feels like a small gift, a thank you from the football world, for my presence.
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Judy Holiday is the most aptly named actress for this time of year, and last weekend TBG and I enjoyed her not-that-ditzy-at-all Gladys Glover in It Should Happen to You.
Gladys Glover is the first Kardashian - she becomes famous for being famous, has her privacy invaded (or not), and stands for nothing.
Judy Holiday is my mother, incarnate.
It's always a pleasure to watch her movies, because it means my mom is right there in the room. Her cadence is the same, her body language is eerily familiar, and her absolute certainty is disturbingly G'ma-ish.
Half of my enjoyment is imagining my own mother on the screen... and it's not that hard to do.
It was lovely to visit with my mom, remembering her in the swivel chair in my living room, unwrapping the same ornament for fifteen minutes, watching me work, looking at her hands and wondering aloud "What am I doing?" and laughing.
And then, after a chorus or two of holiday cheer, she'd look down and wonder, again, what she was doing... and why.
It's the laughing I'm holding near.
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We watched Holiday Inn last night which I don't think I had ever seen. I got it at Walmart on a whim as I walked by. A little ways into it, my husband and I were both saying-- wow, this would never go over today. It turned out a song that Bing did called 'Abraham' has been regularly deleted from some of the cable showings. No big surprise. It was made in 1942 and political correctness was not a factor. I am still trying to decide if I enjoyed it. Irving Berlin wrote the songs and most were forgettable instantly. The two that were not, White Christmas and Easter Parade made it into bigger musicals ;).
ReplyDeleteI thought it interesting that the leading lady never had much of a career and yet she was beautiful and could dance quite well. Her singing though was dubbed by Martha Mears, which was another peculiar aspect as that voice had like some kind of accent that the speaking role never had-- yet both were born in the US. I find it amazing as to which actors/actresses make it to the big time and which have maybe one big role and never more. Of course, these days, I find marketing more of interest than i used to ;).
I've seen that unedited version, Rain. Holiday Inn isn't one of my favorites, but it is certainly Americana.
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Streisand does a surprisingly good Jingle Bells...
ReplyDeleteEven more than usual, my annual Christmas playlist tortures me this year. When I started the practice of adding ten songs a year, of course I had a whole satchel of selections I knew I HAD to get into the mix. What's happened over time is that I keep adding 2-3 new albums to my candidates every year, and even the nomination process is becoming unwieldy. I may resort to the dartboard method.
Hope you and TBG are having (mostly) fun!
Dartboards work for stocks, too, I've heard.....
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