I'm A Patsy - Gotta Problem With That?

Monday, February 23, 2009


OSCAR Night!!

Oscar night has finally arrived. It was always an exciting night for my daughters and me. This picture was taken a few years ago of Teri and Cindy, all dressed up for the ceremony, at least I think that was the occasion . . . I could be wrong. I talked to Cindy this morning and she said she was wearing a crown she recently purchased in anticipation of the evening. I don’t know what Teri will be wearing . . . possibly her wedding dress which was gorgeous and vintage? I hope so. I’ll be wearing my “home clothes” which I wear all the time. No crown for me! I’ll write more later after the excitement is over.

Well, it’s over. I think it set a record, for me anyway, at 4 hours long. I started watching 2 hours before it started as I wanted to see the Red Carpet action. There weren’t that many people on the Red Carpet as the academy hid the presenters from the public so we couldn’t see them until they did the presenting. Whose idea was that anyway? Not a good one as far as I’m concerned. I did see Sarah Jessica Parker in a dress with a tiny bodice. It just didn’t work as her push-up bra nearly pushed her out of the tiny bodice. Jessica Biel had on a strange dress that had many flaps of material. What was that about? I thought Angelina Jolie was gorgeous in black with the green ear rings, but she’s gorgeous in anything. Natalie Portman’s dress was beautiful as was she. Sophia Loren’s dress was awful! She would have looked better in a simple black dress without all the material fluttering around. During the Red Carpet segment, they talked incessantly about ontheredcarpet.com where one could watch the proceedings. Why would you do that if you had a TV? Does this mean that sometime in the future, the Oscars will be shown only on the internet? Or should you watch on a laptop in front of your TV? Miley Cyrus was on the Red Carpet, chattering away. I think she was the first on the carpet, so she had some air time. She strikes me as an un-polished country girl who takes sexy, suggestive pictures with her daddy which doesn’t impress me at all. In fact it’s rather icky. But then, I’m an un-polished country girl, so what do I know?

I think Hugh Jackman was a hit. He moved things right along and was very entertaining. I liked the musical production number, but it took up quite a bit of time. Time was spent on old acceptance speeches which I don’t think was necessary. All that is fun to see, but it makes the ceremony very long. The non-actor winners always seem to spend an inordinate amount of time thanking every member of their crew, their agents and all their friends and family members. I guess that will never stop. We had heard that this award show was going to be new and improved. I think it was very good, but still too long. They could have done without the nominated song portion which I wouldn’t have missed at all.

There were some great comic moments. Ben Stiller and Natalie Portman presented an award for cinematography. Ben was disguised as Joaquin Phoenix when he appeared on the Letterman show. He even stuck his gum on the podium just as Joaquin had done. He was very spacey and wandered around the stage while Natalie was reading from the script. I liked that! I also loved the comedy sketch done by James Franco and Seth Rogan. Teri tells me it was a take-off on their film “Pineapple Express” which I haven’t seen but I hear was hilarious. Judd Apatow created that which makes me wonder if possibly he could be in charge of the next Oscars. We know they would have a lot more humor in them, and instead of musical numbers, just comedy sketches. It’s a thought.

I approved of all the winners because they were my choices! So now we wait to see what the academy has in store for us next year.

Thursday, February 12, 2009


Teri’s having another birthday!

It seems like someone is always having a birthday. Is my family aging faster than others, or is it just that the older you get, the faster time flies. Whatever it is, I hate it. But I’m happy for Teri and hope she has a big party at her office with balloons, noisemakers and cocktails, but I doubt that will happen. But it would be fun. I’m so proud of what she has become, and I’d like to say she owes it all to me. Okay, I will say it – she owes it all to me. But that’s just me in my fantasy world. She has accomplished so much in her lifetime and will keep on doing the same in the coming years. I love and admire her a lot . . . an awful lot!

I looked for a picture to use and found this one which I love. We both look so happy and are really looking at each other. Is Teri wondering why I’m not wearing my glasses? Or can she see in my eyes that I’ve totally and completely fallen in love with her? I hope it’s the latter, because I didn’t know how much I could love someone until I had her.

So, happy birthday, Babe. Your momma loves you.

Monday, February 09, 2009

Another uneventful Saturday

My Saturday started out as usual, opening the blinds, watching Larry (my sparrow) hopping around my deck and pecking at all the birdseed I put out for him. I can lie on my couch (bed) and watch everything. Some days I think maybe I’ll just lie there all day and watch, but I don’t. But why don’t I? So I finally got up, ate breakfast and went into my bedroom (I do have one where there’s an actual bed) and lay down on my bed to floss my teeth – something I do 3 times a day, that is if I eat 3 times a day. I turned on the TV and, much to my surprise, there was on old, old episode of Law&Order. So I was flossing and watching TV when my phone rang. It was Jane from across the street who has a good view of my back deck. She told me the squirrel was back on my ledge! I’ve had a squirrel come a couple of times and sit on my ledge and won’t move until I throw the door open and start yelling and running at him. That is very upsetting to me as I fixed the deck for Larry and not some squirrel. I don’t like squirrels anymore. They’re very brazen around here, and follow you when you’re taking a walk. A couple of years ago when I was feeling nice, I took out some walnuts and fed one right out of my hand until he bit my finger and I had to shake him off! That called for a tetanus shot for me – I don’t know about the squirrel. So I had been thinking of ways to scare the squirrel away and thought about an air horn. I called several hardware stores and no one had any. So I called WalMart. I don’t like to do that as I’m not that crazy about their business policies. What’s the deal with no unions? Who do they think they are anyway? But I needed help. I talked to a woman who said they had two kinds – one for a bicycle that was pretty loud and one that was sort of like a bugle. I don’t think I need a bugle, but I’ll take a look.

I finally got dressed and headed off to Safeway for some shopping time. This time when I did the thing with my debit card, it came up funny and I guess I hit the place for food stamp people. So when the checker was done she asked me if I was on food stamps. I said I wasn’t, but they would sure help. So I had to do the transaction over again. When I got home I was looking at my receipt and couldn’t figure out all the totals they had on it. I finally called the store and they told me the total with FS by it was for food stamps but they had corrected it. It was quite a bit less than my actual total. Who knows? The way things are going I may be doing the FS bit one of these days.

After I came home I went for a walk and picked up a weekly newspaper we have published here. I read through it and noticed all the ads on the back page. Here are just a few:

Trouble Getting Pregnant? We can help.
Weekly Group on Depression and Self Esteem
Mens Addiction Treatment
Mama’s Medical Marijuana Clinic
Ferret Adoptions
Fight like a Girl
Absolutely Amazing Huge Cash Paid Daily!

I liked the last ad. I would love to be paid absolutely amazing huge cash every day, but I decided not to pursue that one. I even decided against the ferret. So that was pretty much the extent of my Saturday. Exciting, huh?

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Very interesting

I just read Liz Smith, Page 6 of the New York Post, where she’s giving Timothy Gray’s views for a much better Oscar celebration. Gray wrote about it in Variety. I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Gray. The Oscars are about an hour too long, and when it’s all over, I sometimes feel like I’ve aged a few years! I think half of the awards could be given off-camera and shown another day for viewing. I know I don’t want to see 8 or 10 people rushing the stage to receive Oscars for lighting, costume design, cinematography and so on. All I want to see are the actors. As far as awards for nominated songs, don’t play them. Maybe play a few bars of each one. We all know the songs, and some aren’t that good and actually are pretty boring. And how about a separate ceremony for foreign films? Forget the production numbers – they merely waste time and have nothing to do with the awards. Just get a good host – or maybe several – who will make things move quickly and not take up time. And make and enforce a law that states the winners have only so much time to speak – don’t let them thank everyone from their agents to their shrinks. NOBODY CARES!!! The only reason I watch award shows is to see who wins. I don’t care about all the other stuff they put in. I don’t think I’m alone in my view. And let’s get it done before this year’s ceremony.

Monday, February 02, 2009


Larry

I recently wrote about Larry, a little bird that came to my deck in the snowy, windy, cold weather we had a while back. He would stand on the ledge on my railing and look into my condo through the sliding glass door. I started putting out food for him which he loved. I even flattened a stewed tomatoes can on one side and put a rock in the bottom of it. That way I could put seeds in it and it wouldn’t blow off the ledge. I put out the lid to my garlic salt for a water container for him as I had nothing else. He comes early in the morning and sometimes is there until it gets dark. I love having him there and feel like he’s sort of keeping me company. I’m getting quite attached to him which is not a good sign. I talked to a lady at the Audubon Society the other day who told me it’s not good to get too friendly with him. I can’t remember what the reason was. I just said “Yeah, you’re right – uh huh – uh huh.” And then it was time for me to feed him again.

I went to a pet store today and showed the owner Larry’s picture. She said he’s a sparrow. I don’t know much about sparrows, but I do remember something that happened before I got married. My mom was sitting on the lawn in front of our house and sewing little seed pearls onto my wedding dress. They had come off due to the fact that the dress had been worn by 3 generations before me! She was facing our garage where there was a nest of little swallows that my mom loved. But there were sparrows that kept coming there, trying to scare the little swallows away. So there was my mom, with my dad’s revolver in her hand and shooting at the sparrows when they appeared! I wish I had a picture of that.

Larry spends his days on the ledge and also on my deck. He likes to peck at the seeds I put in a planter on the deck, and he likes hopping around the bowling ball I have in a planter. I put seeds in the soil around the planter and Larry likes that. Sometimes he sits on top of the bowling ball. He hops all over the deck, so I know when spring comes and I want to plant flowers, there will be bird poop all over everything. Today while I was on my treadmill in my bedroom, I looked out the window and there was Larry, on the ledge. He looked like he was watching me.

I’m sure he will leave just as all Larrys do. But I’m enjoying it while I can. Larry is in the above picture on the right side of the ledge.