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Actual email:
"The United States Navy's Office of Legislative Affairs cordially invites you to a Pizza Brief from 1200-1300 on Day, Month Date in Room XXX. Join us as S.M.I., Assistant Director, National Security Directorate, Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) provides information on NCIS. To ensure we order enough pizza, please send me a short e-mail RSVP if you think you will attend."
Yes, the real NCIS! As if they have to entice me there with free pizza. They had me with blue eyes.
[Title taken from this.]
Today is the third installment of the 30 Day Non-Facebook Prose-Instead-of-Pictures Challenge. If you haven't been keeping track, here is the list so far.
1.A picture of yourself with 10 facts -- Check
2.A picture of you and the person you have been closest with the longest -- Check
3.A picture of the cast from your favorite show -- You're reading it
For someone who doesn't watch TV, today's is quite a difficult challenge. Not because of a lack of subject matter, but because of too many favorites from which to choose. The first thing that crossed my mind regarding "favorite show" was stage production. The second thing was whether "cast" meant of which I was a part.
Really good Broadway shows aren't big-name vehicles. Will "The Addams Family" continue its run after Nathan Lane or Bebe Neuwirth leaves? What happened to "Spamalot" after Tim Curry, Hank Azaria, and David Hyde Pierce left? Who were the big names in "A Chorus Line"? But stage productions are so much more than Broadway. "The Fantasticks" holds the record for the world's longest running stage show at 42 years -- Off-Broadway, no less. There are also ballets, operas, plays (as opposed to musicals), etc.
Do movies count as shows? Weren't they once referred to as moving picture shows? Whoa! Too many choices. It's making my head spin.
As for the cast, well, should it include me? My parents introduced me to the theatre at the age of five. They were on the Board of Directors of my hometown Civic Theatre. My roles included everything from Ngana in "South Pacific" as a five-year-old (my red hair wasn't anachronistic, was it?) to a chorus line nurse in a different production of "South Pacific" as a high school senior.
Narrowing the list is harder than anticipated. But there is one that affected me like no other.
On a couple's weekend to New York City several years ago, we ended up seeing a total of five shows -- "Wicked", "Hairspray", "Fiddler on the Roof", "Chicago", and "La Bohème". Of those five, one was the sexiest show I've ever seen and one was the most romantic. "Chicago", hands down, is the sexiest. "La Bohème", the most romantic.
Oh. My. God. Nothing has ever touched me as fully as seeing it live on stage did. Even though I've seen it live on stage before, there was something about that production. Even though I know the story backwards and forwards, Mr. Gaelic had to give me his handkerchief during the last scene. I was sobbing. After the last round of applause and the house lights came up, older ladies puzzled at me, sitting there crying, dabbing my eyes.
"Baz Luhrmann's La Bohème" only ran for a few short months on Broadway. But, for me, nothing can ever hold a candle to that one show. Vive la vie bohème!
*Title taken from this.
Who has the least grip on reality, Muammar Gaddafi or Charlie Sheen?
You're all sworn to secrecy about what I'm going to tell you. The reason for the secrecy is also the reason you're reading this here on Blogspot rather than on the MSN site. My former blog is shuttered because of a stalker. Bear with me in my cryptic ways of blogging. It's for safety reasons.
Last month, after taking time away from the paid workforce to raise my children, I accepted a job with an incoming Member of C0ngress* from my home state. One of my blogs described the journey to this job. During the first week in the office, my boss was interviewed for one of the three major nightly news programs. In the segment was a very quick shot of me at work at my desk while his press secretary stood beside my chair. We were in the background as he was moving some things into the office. It's around the ten minute mark in the video.
My apologies for not explicitly saying my boss's name or home state. Please understand my need for a bit of privacy. Even by posting the past few blogs, my fear is that someone can still piece together too much information. Now for the consequences.
Please, please, please, if you have figured out all (even with my cryptic writing), keep it to yourself. If my stalker ever discovers this site, it too will be taken down.
*Purposefully typed wrong to throw off search engines.
Since there was more than one request for a link to the video that I mentioned on Wednesday, here is the video. Look closely. I'm not on camera that long.
Did you see me on TV last night and tonight? It was very short. In the background shot of my boss. On one of the national nightly news programs.
What? You didn't TiVo the news?
As I said, very short. Just like this blog.
Match Game was a hilarious show. It still is, even in reruns. The panel just wouldn't be the same without Brett Somers, Charles Nelson Reilly, Richard Dawson, Nipsey Russell, and the dumb blonde at the end of the bottom row. It was always a dumb blonde, always female, but not necessarily with blonde hair.
Gene Rayburn had the best time with audience participation in asking the panel questions that went like this. "Dumb Dora is so dumb," At which point the audience would yell back in unison, "How dumb is she?" Gene would smile and laugh like it was the first time that happened. Then he would complete the question to the panel, "Dumb Dora is so dumb, she tried to BLANK her birthday cake."
Recently in telling a friend about my new job, I said that I was already working on the job without being on the payroll yet. My new job as the scheduler to a freshman Member of Congress begins on 3 January. The 5th is the Swearing In ceremony. But people already are requesting appointments with the new Congressman. People who will be in town specifically for the Swearing In and the celebrations that follow. So work I must. Because he has to have his schedule worked out for that first week.
I told my friend that is the reason I was hired. Because I'm good at what I do. "Really gooooood," were my exact words.
Which made me feel like Gene Rayburn with some audience that should be yelling back, "How good are you?"
I don't watch TV. But yesterday was an exception to the rule. I just had to see the last miner emerge from his home tomb of the last 69 days. Joy! Elation! They're all safe. Except for possibly the one whose wife didn't meet him at the surface because his mistress did. Boy, did he look unhappy to be freed.
For one of the few non-TV watchers in America, I can fake my way through it pretty well. Sue vs. Shue? The Situation got the boot? It's mostly through an osmosis process known around the world as "reading my Facebook feed".
To know who Sue and Shue are might put me into the Gleek camp were it not for the fact that I've never seen the show, don't know when it comes on, much less what channel. But you'd think that I live with a house full of Gleeks.
Before Finola went away to college, her study habits included doing homework while having clips from Les Mis, Rent, or Jesus Christ Superstar playing in the background. Her interest in music was reflected in 13 years of piano study, 3 years of pipe organ study, and a legacy of introducing Maeve to Avenue Q.
Last night as I was watching the repetition of the Phoenix being lowered and raised through that 22" hole, music from Rent and Les Miserables floated in from the library. My mind knows that Finola is not in the house. But I turned around to look, half expecting to see her at the desk doing homework.
Instead it was Deirdre. Listening to the music that her older sister loves so much. Either Finola's choice of music impressed Deirdre enough so that she enjoys it or Deirdre misses Finola and can't or won't consciously acknowledge it.
Either way, it was quite nice having my own personal Gleek fill the quietness of the waiting time while each miner was hoisted to new life.
October:
5 - Maeve, 13
9 - John Lennon, 70 (as if that tidbit had managed to escape anyone's attention)
11 - Deirdre, 17
12 - Colin, 46 (Mr. Gaelic's brother)
13 - our proposal anniversary and marriage renewal (not a birthday, but still)
20 - Viggo Mortensen, 52 (be still my beating heart)
26 - Jaclyn Smith, 63 (she was the Angel I most wanted to be)
29 - Kate Jackson, 62 (my second favorite, I didn't want to be blonde)
31 - Juliette Gordon Low, 150 (because where would we be without Girl Scouts and Girl Guides)
OMG! Have you heard? Jennifer Grey is the judges' favorite on "Dancing With the Stars". Snooki wants to date a nympho. "Australia's Next Top Model" crowned the wrong winner on live TV. Michael Douglas has cancer. And the Bachelorette just broke up with her fiance.
When did this happen? When did talk shows like "The Merv Griffin Show" devolve into Jerry Springer and Howard Stern? Will we do anything for our 15 minutes?
It used to be that only "white trash" would air their dirty laundry in public. That lesson stuck so hard that I view all "reality" shows as catering to the sleaze factor of the trailer set. Come on, people. Do we really need to watch a bunch of vapid narcissists out-shallow each other with their tantrums and gotcha moments?
Anyone who knows me well enough knows that there is only one television set in the Gaelic household. And the one set is usually unplugged (damn energy vampire) and turned on only for special occasions or Netflix viewings.
Just as the families on "19 Kids and Counting" and "Sister Wives" don't discuss how their religion plays a major role in having so many children or spouses, this blog is doing a grand job eluding the question of whether activities like blogging and Facebook updates aren't grasps for 15 minutes' worth of fame, if only from a small number of people. Is it really important that the people I went to high school with know whether I had an intense ballet class or am missing Finola? Who do I write for? Why do I write?
Is it important to know that gunmen hijacked a school bus in Nigeria and kidnapped 15 children? What does it mean that Syria and Iraq have restored full diplomatic relations (you mean they broke diplomatic relations sometime?)? Who is Kim Jong-un and why did he go to boarding school in Switzerland? Is Brazil's cozy relationship with Iran really threatening the presidency of Dilma Rousseff? Does the Spanish unions' strike have anything to do with the austerity measures in other countries?
Do most people prefer the pablum of fluff? Has our national attention span been relegated to mere seconds? Is anybody still reading this?
Maybe none of us is better than the dirt-poor mama with six kids running around in a yard that she keeps clean with a broom. Maybe we need the fluff to keep our minds off of our daily monotony. I don't have the answers. But I doubt I'll find them in the grocery store check-out aisle.
Is next weekend really October? It can't be! It's still summer, isn't it? Around my neck of the woods, it certainly feels like summer. Not Indian summer but a continuation of summer with no reprieve. Our fair city broke records last week for temperature highs, and lows (the highest lows at night for this time of the year).
My figs are still ripening but there isn't enough to make another batch of fig preserves. I pulled up my tomato plants two weeks ago thinking fall and frost would be on the way. Those green tomatoes could have ripened on the vine. And my cool weather veggies were all burned to a withered crisp which means no late crop of collards, broccoli, or spinach.
This at a time when the dearth of veggies in the American diet has been everywhere recently. Health professionals have been trying to push the 5-a-day program for eating more fruits and veggies. In news reports in recent weeks have been stories about a campaign for baby carrots taking on junk food. In yesterday's New York Times was an article about how we Americans have (sort of) listened. We've turned to French fries to up our veggie intake. The article has a photo of a baby carrot vending machine next to a junk food vending machine. The baby carrot vending machines were even lampooned in last night's Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live (too recent for a video link).
So let's see if I can fit more fruits and vegetables into my family's menu this week.
- Monday
- Breakfast: bagels with cream cheese
- Supper: potluck (Maeve's ballet, Deirdre's Girl Scout press event, Mr. Gaelic's weather delay from work [rain in the forecast means no motorcycle ride to work which means public transportation])
- Tuesday
- Breakfast: cereal
- Supper: whole baked cabbage (cabbage left over from last week's borscht)
- Wednesday
- Breakfast: grapefruit halves, toast
- Supper: baked mac & cheese, fried okra, honeyed carrots
- Thursday
- Breakfast: toast, fig preserves
- Supper: cheese soufflé, asparagus
- Friday
- Breakfast: oatmeal
- Supper: shrimp étouffée, rice, salad
- Saturday
- Breakfast: muffins, muffins, and more muffins (Muffins and Mugs [BYOM - bring your own mug] breakfast party we're throwing before our neighborhood arts festival)
- Supper: pizza for girls, dinner our for adults (fundraiser for new grand piano at our church)
- Sunday
- Breakfast: bacon, eggs, grits, toast
- Dinner: pot roast, roast potatoes, sugar peas
Wow! Even for a foodie like me, it's damn hard fitting in all those fruits and veggies every day. Lunch and snacks will have to help make up the deficit. And maybe the installation of a baby carrot vending machine by the back door?
Lots of you have already seen the new Evian babies advertisement that's making the rounds on the Internet. But which version have you seen? The international version or the U.S. version? Seems like as with many things in life, Americans are given a different rendition. How many of you know that "The Philosopher's Stone" is in the dictionary, but "The Sorcerer's Stone" isn't? In America, the book and movie are known as "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." In the rest of the world, it's "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone."So what did Evian change? In America the opening graphic asks, "How does drinking Evian make you feel?" Whereas the rest of the world is told, "Let's observe the effect of Evian on your body." It seems like such a niggling little thing to blog about. But why do companies change things for American audiences? Sure, Sorcerer sounds more exciting than Philosopher. But what gives with Evian?
How embarrassing!
Last night every room in the house was occupied with kids and noise. With my husband working late and my pain meds’ keeping me from anything very productive like my PTA or Girl Scout paperwork or finishing the next chapter in my latest book, mindless online puzzles were the way to go. After finishing three puzzles within ten minutes, my attention turned to something even more mindless in hopes of putting me to sleep for the night. Online quizzes.
According to those scientific gems of personality discernment, I am 15% Bitchy, 12% Girly, if I were a Green Army Man, I’d be the Machine-Gun Soldier, I’m attracted to both good boys and bad boys, my true zodiac sign is Leo (which it actually is), my ideal mate is an Aries or a Gemini, and, here’s the shocker, guess where I should have sex next? (Yeah, I know, it’s a weird quiz but, hey, the TV had been commandeered by the kids.)
A Public Bathroom! I’m sorry, I always considered myself more of a Carrie than a Samantha.
It was posted on YouTube three days ago and has already logged over 2.6 MILLION views. As the friend who shared it with me said, "If this doesn't inspire you, nothing will."
You know that guy from CNBC who yells all the time? Why is he yelling? Does the title of his show, Mad Money, have anything to do with why he yells? But it brings up an interesting observation.
Have you ever noticed that we’re getting more and more entrenched in our beliefs? You can’t turn on the radio anymore without being bombarded by people yelling about their perceived injustices. Every time you turn on the TV or radio the talking heads are spouting off about something new that we should all be up in arms about. They rally their audience to call in with just as much ire as they have.
What does it do to everyone? It separates us. It keeps us from our full potential. As long as it’s always Us versus Them, it’ll never be We.
The other day on television, I saw that someone I used to work for was claiming something as fact about the new stimulus package. But the actual history that he was “quoting” was exactly the opposite of what he was claiming to be true. He was claiming something as true that was completely false. I should know. It was one of the areas that I covered when I worked for him.
And he was mad about it. He was trying to get his constituents riled up. Knowing his constituents, they’re as mad as he is now. They’ll be calling into the talk radio shows with their hatred for all things out of their comfort zone. And we’ll still be divided.
It’s time to do the hard thing. Tell all the fear-mongers to sit down and shut up. It’s time to do the even harder thing. Realize that it’ll take all of us. Because we’re all in this together. If the ship goes down, it’s taking all of us with it.
The other day I was reading an article about ways to save money. The author was noting that today most families have multiple TVs with one being at least 35 inches and more cable channels than you can keep track of. She wrote that in 1970 her family had a black-and-white 27 inch TV. "A" TV. One. With three channels and a public television channel picked up via a rooftop antenna. Remember those days? We got ABC, NBS, PBS, sometimes CBS, and when the weather was just right sometimes TBS. (We lived about a three hour drive away from the TBS studios.)
When my father bought our first color television set, he brought it in after work to set it up. I was on the floor, cross legged, watching The Brady Bunch.
“Can you wait until it’s over?”
“The picture will be in color.”
“You mean like our home movies?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Can you do it during the commercial?”
But switching out the sets took more time than the commercial did. And when the picture was back on, I’d missed prime viewing of Peter Brady. Bobby was the closest to my age but much too much like the other boys my age. Greg was much too old and much too BMOC. Peter was just right, just geeky enough to be human and just average enough to be your regular Joe.
Even worse than missing seeing Peter onscreen was seeing Peter as a Martian. He was green! Everything was green.
My father adjusted some knob and voila! He wasn’t green anymore. He was red. More adjusting. No longer red, now wavy.
“Daaaaa-dee!”
The actual episode is lost in the dark recesses of my mind. The memory of missing out on Peter is still there. Even though my infatuation with Peter is gone, I’m not too enthused with going back to just three (and on a good day five) channels. Saving money is good. But sometimes you just need a good Brady Bunch fix from TV Land.
There's a recession going on. There's also a stimulus package being debated in the Senate. A lot of the stimulus package has implications for my husband's clients. He's been working eleven and twelve hour days for the past two weeks while the Congress works on the package. He's had to attend hearings on both sides of the Capitol, some lasting all day and past the usual quitting time. This week he's been coming home only thirty minutes to an hour late but eating supper in front of the TV. ESPN? Nope. C-SPAN 2. My kids have started recognizing senators by face, even those in the background shots. His boss sends bed-check emails at 9:30 p.m. asking if he's working his contacts. It's great for his job. He's very busy and has been billing beaucoup hours. His utilization is double the normal rate. But, watching the Senate votes on the stimulus package amendments on a Friday night? Come on! What about the latest blu-ray we just got from Netflix? Cuddling on the couch with his laptop and his Jameson's while listening to the umpteenth roll call isn't my idea of romance. Of course, there's always tomorrow. Unfortunately the voting may continue tomorrow as well. Maybe it's time for a solo date with a nice warm bubble bath, my latest magazine, and a glass of red wine. The current broadcast or the bubble bath, either way, will both lead to a drowsy feeling. I just hope he doesn't wake me up when he comes to bed.
Jennifer Hudson? Beautiful. The Boss? Rockin'. The ads? Creative. The game? Incredible. The food? Depends.According to some news sources, the average person's choice of finger foods racked up as many calories as some people should consume in an entire day. Stop the grumbling. I can hear you, "Why didn't you write about this last week?" Would knowing that eight buffalo wings and four tablespoons of blue cheese dip pack 920 calories have stopped you from having another one? It now seems that everywhere you turn you're bombarded with ways to exercise more, cut calories, and decrease your waist size. "Yeah, Wifey, even here." So, whatcha gonna do? Other than the hour and a quarter of vigorous push-ups to offset those eight wings and blue cheese, what are YOU doing to watch your bottom line? I need all the suggestions I can get, 'cause all those beers last night really add up.And one last thing. Go Steelers!!!
What hath American Idol wrought? It seems that everywhere you turn on television these days that you’re confronted with yet another installment of reality TV. You’ve got a number of people thrown together for a certain amount of time with certain members voted out and finally a winner proclaimed. And I’m not talking about Big Brother or Survivor. I’m talking about Miss America.
Haven’t you heard? The pageant organizers decided to jazz it up to attract more viewers. So they turned it into a reality show-type pageant. Now instead of an intense week-long pageant (including the time for judges’ interviews, practice sessions to learn the various marks on stage, and preliminaries) with only the final night of competition broadcast to the world, the TLC channel has a month-long pageant to broadcast. And with viewer participation to boot. Every bit of the pageant is now out there for the world to see.
Watching the competition of the women behind the scenes is akin to a man watching his wife/girlfriend put on makeup before a big night out. Some men might find it sexy, but it takes the allure and mystery out of the process. It’s almost like leaving the bathroom door open when you’re doing your business. Do we really need that much familiarity?
It really knocks Miss America off her pedestal. Some Miss America’s through the years have been knocked off that pedestal, either by their own doing or by others exploiting their earlier doings. Why don’t we leave her on her pedestal? In a world beaten up with financial crises, we need some beauty, some allure, some mystery as an escape from the harsh realities of the world. We don’t need to bring Miss America down to Simon Cowell’s callous reality-TV level. We need more of the old Miss America, more of the old Disney Prince Charming, more aspiration that there is something good, and pure, and beautiful still left in this world.
At the December meeting of my DAR chapter, we instituted a new tradition by having a three-piece jazz/swing/Big Band-style group preform. They played several songs that I knew and some I didn't know. One of the showcase pieces was introduced just by saying that it was from a '50s television detective show. The detective impressed the leader of the group because he was always very dapper and somehow managed to always come out of every scrape or chase or fight with nary a hair out of place. Hmm. What could it be? I couldn't figure it out. I recognized the music with the opening beats. But even after the number when the leader confirmed what most of the other ladies already knew, I was left wondering, Who is Peter Gunn?
