That Hobbit Lady

So I was going from one thing to another on the internet and somehow I ran into this music video by these guys called Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, and it’s all about shopping at a thrift store, and it’s pretty amusing. But because it’s rap, it’s also got some vulgar language.

But then I found a take-off video by some white boys in Indiana lip-synching the song, and it’s just as amusing, and the language has been cleaned up, so I actually kind of prefer the take-off.

Watching this makes me nostalgic for the days when I used to shop a lot in thrift stores. Don’t do that so much any more. These days, I’m much more interested in getting rid of stupid stuff, rather than acquiring more. Russ and I watch Hoarders a lot, so that keeps inspiring me in this ongoing project of clearing out the house. It’s much more comfortable living in a clean, uncluttered environment.

But at the same time, it’s fun to watch this video. (And the music’s pretty catchy as well.)

That’s venting. Not TENTING. We do NOT have termites. But we do have a Termite Bond with Terminex and today we were supposed to have our yearly inspection, but it didn’t work out. So I’m venting about how ridiculous this experience has been.

Back in November, we got a postcard from Terminex saying “We are coming out to do the inspection on November…whatever.” I don’t remember the exact date, but it was in November. Well, in the Fall, getting time off from work to meet a serviceman at the house is next to impossible, and besides which, our contract starts in March, so why were they bothering us about November?

So I called them, and they said “You can have the inspection done any time between now and March.” So I said, “Well, good! Then let’s do it in February, when it’s easier for me to get time off from work.” So the November “whatever” appointment was cancelled, and it was set up instead for today, February 22, from 2-4pm.

A few weeks after that, on November “whatever,” we got a note on our door saying “Terminex was here, we inspected the exterior of your home.” (Oh, and btw, no sign of termites.) But I call them and say, “Why did you come out today? That appointment was CANCELLED. I was assured over the phone that it was CANCELLED.. We have an appointment set up for February!”

They say, “Well, you really just need an exterior inspection.” Oh really? Then, since the exterior inspection has been completed, and we don’t need an interior inspection, then let’s cancel the February appointment.

Okay. Appointment cancelled.

In January, we get another card, saying “Time to set up for an interior inspection.” So I call and ask why we are getting this card. “Well,” they say, “it’s a good idea to have an interior inspection done also.”

That’s NOT what I was told on the phone last time I spoke to Terminex, but we don’t want to do anything to invalidate our Bond, so we agree to the interior inspection and set it up for…once again…February 22nd. But from 4-6pm instead. The lady on the phone tells me it’s February 22, from 4-6pm.

Yesterday I get an automated call: Don’t forget your inspection on February 22, from 4-6pm.

Well, I haven’t forgotten it. In fact, Russ and I have made arrangements to get our of work early so we can be here to meet the serviceman. But when we get home there is a note on the front door: We were here today, February 22, at 12:45, and did an exterior inspection. (No termites.)

So I call: why did you come out today at 12:45 when we have a scheduled appointment for 4-6pm? Why did you do another exterior inspection when one was already done several months ago? And why did you even bother to send me an automated phone reminder saying the appointment was from 4-6pm, and then come out instead at 12:45?

No good answer to any of those questions. The person I spoke with said they would have a supervisor call me. Needless to say, no one called.

Russ called the 800 number and they said someone in the local office must have switched our appointment and FORGOT TO TELL US. What kind of company switches your appointment without your consent and then forgets to tell you???

Russ set up an new appointment for next Saturday. Needless to say, I will be calling them every day between now and then to confirm and then reconfirm the appointment. I’m not entirely sure it will actually take place as scheduled.

Next year, when we get the card, we’re going straight to the local Terminex office to confirm the appointment and GET IT IN WRITING. Not really sure how much good that’s actually going to do us, but I’m sort of hoping that they might feel more obligated to honor a commitment they put down on paper.

This whole experience has been extremely frustrating. But at least we did get home ahead of the rain, and had a great chance to sit down and watch our Dark Shadows episodes for the week.

Last week I posted how Russ and I are going to do “Saturday Night at the Drive-in,” a festival of B-movies. Lest you think we are total lowbrows, I’m here now to tell you that we are also instituting another tradition: Sunday Night at the Academy Awards. Of course it might not be every Sunday, and it might not actually be on Sunday, but every now and then we plan to watch an Academy Award winning film. For the cultural experience. And to balance out the B films with some A+ cinematic outings.

Russ being such a chronologist, he wants to go in order, and I have no problem with that. It will be a lesson in film history. To start us off, last week we watched Wings, the 1927 silent film that won the very first Academy Award for Best Motion Picture.

Now, to tell you the truth, I was kind of dreading this. Not only is in black and white, but it’s also silent, and to top it all off, the film runs over 2 hours and 20 minutes! Ugh! Right? No. Wrong! It was absolutely delightful. This film has everything. It’s a war story, it’s a love story, it’s about friendship, there’s melodrama and pathos, social commentary, and even a bit of comedy.

But by far I think the stars of this film are…the stars! For one thing: Clara Bow. Now, I had studied film in college, but I don’t ever remember running into a Clara Bow performance, and I imagine that if I had, I would have remembered her. For not even being able to get her point across verbally, she’s incredibly expressive. Of course in these silent films it’s all about facial expression and gesturing and posturing, and she’s got all that down. When her eyes and her lips turn down in sadness, you feel for her. And when she’s jumping around in glee, you feel like jumping around as well. She’s so appealing, I completely understand why she was the big star of the day.

The other main players are Charles “Buddy” Rogers and Richard Arlin, who were relative newcomers at the time and went on to have successful careers, but I don’t think ever rose to the iconic status of Clara Bow (she was, after all “The It Girl” of the Flapper era). They’re both in love with the same girl (and guess what, it’s NOT Clara Bow!), so there’s some tension between them, but the perils of war cement their friendship into a sort of “bromance,” long before the word bromance was ever dreamed up.

But wait! There are even more stars in this film. Gary Cooper appears in a brief scene that helped his Hollywood career really take off. But more than that, I was so impressed by the spectacle, and the use of special effects. As for spectacle, the US military participated in the making of this film, providing planes and soldiers, thinking this was going to be a sort of military PR film. I didn’t exactly see it that way, but perhaps the audiences of the day, eight years out from the end of World War I, found the war aspects of it affirming and inspiring.

But most impressive: I really got a big kick out of the scenes in the Paris dancehall, where one of our fighter pilots is rip-roaring drunk, and sees bubbles everywhere. I had no idea they were doing stuff like even before sound had been added to film! It was surprising, and refreshing as a glass of champagne.

Also in the special effects department: when the planes are shot down, we see yellow fire in the exhaust. Look! Color! We were certain this was an effect added in for re-release of the movie decades later, but watching the DVD documentary about the making of the film, we learned that this effect was actually available when audiences saw the movie back in 1927. I guess someone painstakingly added color (paint? I don’t know, how would they do that?) to each and every frame of film that needed it.

Another thing 1927 audiences got with this film was full orchestral accompaniment. No kidding. We watched the film with the traditional silent movie organ soundtrack, which was quite entertaining in itself, but later learned that there is a full orchestral version available as well. And the music is GOOD! I mean, I’ve put this movie on my Amazon wish list, because I imagine it as the kind of thing you could have playing in the background while you’re cleaning the house on a Saturday afternoon, or writing or editing a blog post.

Wings cost $2 million to make, and was the biggest thing that had ever happened up to that point. It ran in New York City for 63 weeks. Nowadays, a great movie is lucky to get a few months, and a mediocre one single digit weeks. Not only that, in the big cities, people paid two dollars to see this movie. Do you know how much money that was back in 1927? Offhand, I don’t know, but a quick check on the internet tells me the average wage in 1927 was fifty cents a day. So, almost a week’s salary….to see a movie! Geez!

I guess I could go on and on, but that’s enough for now, as there are other movies to watch. Later today, I’ve got to choose the next B movie for tonight’s showing. I’m glad we’re taking on the Academy Award winners as well. Having watched Wings, it’s amazing to me to see that placement on the timeline really has very little to do with quality. The best movie of 1927 is a thousand times better than the worst movie of 2012. And frankly, I can’t wait to see what the Academy Award winner of 1928 will be!

As I’ve been going through my photos, I’ve found a few videos. I don’t do videos often, but when I do, they’re usually of my kids or cats. Here’s one from Joey’s high school graduation, back in 2005. You can see that even way back then, he had some showmanship when on stage, as evidenced by the chuckling of the crowd.

You go, Joey! Now, let’s just finish up so I can post a COLLEGE graduation video!

Now that football season is over, Russ and I are creating a new tradition of watching a really bad B-movie on Saturday night. Popcorn may be involved. Last week we watched Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968). I chose this one from our 50 Classic Sci-Fi DVD set because from the title I believed it would be difficult to find a more awful movie.

Well, I was wrong. Turns out the “prehistoric women” were an afterthought to an already existing movie, Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet , released just three years earlier. The earlier movie starred Basil Rathbone as a scientist, and some unknown actress as astronaut “Marcia.” As you can see from the pictures above, Basil Rathbone is not much to look at, and “Marcia,” with her Marge Simpson hairdo, fares only slightly better, so I guess someone figured the way to make this movie sexier would be to add “prehistoric women.” Of course, here, prehistoric women are hot blondes in skintight shiny bell-bottoms and strategically-placed shells. I’m certain all prehistoric women looked exactly like this. And communicated telepathically. And worshipped an amphibious pterodactyl.

But wait! It gets even better. Before this movie was the 1965 Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, it was actually a RUSSIAN sci-fi flick, sans Basil Rathbone. So whether you’re watching Prehistoric Planet or Prehistoric Women, the astonauts (Hans and Andre) have a slightly foreign look about them and spout totally inane dialog that doesn’t quite match the movement of their lips.

There were some nice underwater scenes, though. At one point, Hans or Andre (not sure it really matters which) meets up with a fairly bizarre-looking octopus. I also thought this shot of one of the “prehistoric women” was particularly haunting and well done.

There’s a robot, some rockets and space stations, baby godzillas and an erupting volcano, but even though this is essentially the third attempt to get this thing right, it’s still extremely dreadful.

Yes! I think we have succeeded! Can’t wait to see what Russ has lined up for tonight’s movie!

Well, I did it. I took the big step and ordered a juicer. I’ll be getting an Omega J8006, from Amazon, with two day shipping, so it will be here by Tuesday. I checked with Mary, who knows a lot about this kind of stuff, and she said if she was buying a juicer today, she would get this one. It has a ton of good reviews, and is supposedly less noisy than some of the other juicers, and easier to clean.

I’ve been enjoying some “green smoothies” in the blender, and feel ready to move up to the next step of juicing. I don’t know if at this point it’s so much about losing weight as it is about getting as much nutrition out of my food as possible. One thing several reviewers said about this juicer is that when they looked at the leftover pulp, they thought “There is no way I could possibly squeeze any more juice out of that.”

My only concern about juicing is that by juicing you are removing the fiber you would get from actually eating the fruits and vegetables, but I’m planning to find creative ways to work the pulp back into my food—perhaps in soups, muffins, vegetable spreads.

Now to find a great place locally to get a good assortment of fruits and veggies! There are a few farmers’ markets in town that operate during the warm months, but I’m not sure if they’ll be open now. The other day in Publix, though, I did notice a HUGE bag of “organic carrots for juicing.” That’s what I need to get started.

I’ve been eating less meat lately, so I feel the money that would have been spent on meat can be put towards more fruits and vegetables. I’m not really missing the meat too much, though I must confess, Russ and I just got back from McDonald’s where I had that new $1.00 sandwich, something with grilled oninons on it. It wasn’t really that good, and I doubt I’ll be ordering it again. I don’t know what inspired me to order a burger instead of a salad. I think maybe it’s just that I know I can make much better salads at home than I can ever get at a fast food place. The McDonald’s salad is really pathetic, unless you bring some veggies and stuff from home to spice it up a bit.

Maybe I got the burger to conterbalance the awesome act of finally ordering my juicer!!! I had a cucumber/kale smoothie for breakfast this morning, then ordered the juicer. I had to do SOMETHING bad to make up for all that good stuff! Anyway, I’m hoping my new juicer is something I’ll use often, and that I’ll soon see the benefits of juicing.

Haven’t done much work on my photos these last few days, but just now I’ve cleaned out my phone and found a few recent photos I feel like sharing, in no particular order.

I don’t think I really got a chance to write much about the vacation we took over Winter Break. We stayed in a condo at the beach, 17 floors up, and this was our view. It was such a great place, a very relaxing few days. Of course it was too cold to appreciate the beach, except at a distance. We hope to be going back.

Recently I’ve set up a couple of bird feeders in the yard. Two reasons: first, to feed the birds, and secondly, to give Squee something to look at. And he does enjoy taking up his post by the door pane, and keeping an eye on the birds! We get little birds, like those pictured below, and also some bigger birds, pigeons, I think. I call them “the fat birds.” Squee calls them “Reality TV for Cats.”

Just this week I got myself some new glasses. Haven’t really had a chance to wear them much yet. They’re in my purse and I just keep forgetting to bring them out. Been doing a lot of computer stuff at work this week, and didn’t want to start out straining my eyes with a lot of close work. I’ll probably break them in this weekend. They’re “Geek” glasses, clear plastic frames, as you can see. I though the “Geek” aspect of them really suited me.

Mary’s been inspiring me to try to eat healthier, and with a Barnes & Noble gift card she and Ken gave me at Christmas, I bought a juicing book that has some recipes for “green smoothies.” Not yet willing to make the financial commitment for an actual juicer, but I’m enjoying the smoothies.

Below I have an update on the rose clippings from Dorothy’s house. (Sorry the picture is so blurry. It’s just a camera phone, not very good at taking closeups.) The clippings are hanging on, and even getting some buds, though no roots yet. I keep them at work by a window, and change the water every day. I’m hoping to see some root growth in a few more weeks.

The other night while driving home, Russ and I saw something very peculiar in the sky. At first it looked like the contrail from an airplane, but it started heading in a downward direction. If it was a plane, it was going to crash! But then, it stopped all together. I kid you not. We pulled over and watched, waiting for it to start moving again, then it did, but much more slowly than before. Here you can see the contrail, lit by the setting sun, in an almost vertical position. After that, it just sort of…stopped. Still have no idea what it was, but as Russ says: “Was it flying? Yes. Could we identify it? No.” Then you know what we have…

And finally, one more look at Squee, enjoying some time in one of his “cubes.” Every cat has their own idiosyncrasies, and Squee is a “burrower.” He likes to be in and under things. He likes “tents” and enclosed spaces. Whenever we play with him with the “bird” on a string, he likes to go into the cube to hide, and then POUNCE from there!

Well, that’s it for now.

I’ve just had a chance to sit down and go through a few more folders in my massive collection of photos, and here are a few more I want to share, from different times in my life:

The beginning of a new year always brings out a yen to get things organized, and among my many projects, I’ve undertaken to organize all the photographs in my computer. Technology is such that it’s just too easy to take pictures nowadays, and I’ve got probably thousands of pictures spread out among my three computers, not to mention what has already been committed to disc. Of course what this means is that when I’m looking for a particular photo, I have no idea where it is.

So I had a brainstorm. I went to Amazon and bought a 16gb flashdrive (for only $10!) and I’ve put ALL my photos onto this flash drive. The next step is to sort through and delete the garbage. Then, I’ll create new folders, by subject, and drop the photos in accordingly. At that point, there will probably be some more whittling down.

Finally, I’ll make a duplicate flash drive of all my photos, and keep one in a secure location, so if anything happens to the first, I’ll have a backup. Then, I’ll go back to my computers and delete all the photos, freeing up a ton of space. And then, if I ever want a photo, all I have to do is pop in the flash drive and easily navigate to the correct location.

In theory, this should work like a dream. The proof will be in the pudding, but right now, I’m just getting started.

Of course, as I get started looking through all these photos, certain fun ones will spring to the top, and I’ll probably want to share them. So here are just a few samples of what I found as I began my journey last night.

We hadn’t seen the sun in weeks. Literally. We’ve had so many dreary days on end, and then for the last week or so, it’s rained every…single…day.

But then today something magical happened. The rain turned to snow, and for several hours this morning, we were treated to a silent and beautiful transformation of the landscape.

And then, to top it all off, once the snowing was over, the sky cleared, completely, and the sun has come out.

Now at last, it feels like a New Year.