Writing Update

I recently started another writing class--this time it's Flash Fiction & Micro Fiction. It was supposed to be held at Norwalk Public Library staring on March 16. On the 13th, the class was postponed. I was bummed. At the time, the recommendation was to avoid groups of 25 or more people. Our class wasn't that big. Obviously, it was the right decision to postpone the class and close the library.

On April 6, we started our class on Zoom. It's worked pretty well for the most part. A person with an old phone and old computer can't access the class. A few people had trouble with their Internet access last week.

I like the challenge of working within a short form. Flash Fiction is a story of 1000 or fewer words. Micro Fiction is 300 words or fewer. For last week's assignment, I wrote only 113 words. It was more a poem than a story.

Bonus: We are submitting stories from our last class: WPA inspired writing for a possible anthology. I had to type one and format a few, but I'm ready to send them out today. Should be interesting.

Happy Anniversary Lola!

Four years ago, we brought Lola home. It took her awhile to adjust and we had some tough times. She's happy now and we're happy with her too.

I know it's Earth Day, but Jeff told me it's also National Beagle Day. How appropriate.

Here's to a special girl. We love you Lola.

What's Cooking?

Last week I thought I'd do some cooking. Since Jeff's working from home now and we're rarely going out, I thought it would be a good idea to have a few things on hand.

I started with spaghetti sauce. I didn't make as large a batch that I normally do, because I didn't have much room in the freezer and didn't want to have multiple pasta dinners. I got thinly sliced chicken breasts on my last shopping trip, so I'll make chicken parmesan. I think we'll have enough sauce for a side of pasta.

Next I decided on a lentil walnut salad and a curried lentil soup. The salad recipe said the lentils would take 20-25 minutes. My lentils were small, so I knew they wouldn't take as long to cook. I checked them after ten minutes, and they were destroyed. I tossed them. I didn't have enough lentils to make both the salad and the soup, so I chose the soup. After five minutes, half of those lentils had turned to mush. The recipe called for pureeing part of the soup; I pureed all of it and saved the soup. In hindsight, I should have saved the mushed lentils from the salad, but I didn't think of that.

I opened a can of coconut milk for the lentil soup, so I made a variation on a chicken dish from this cookbook.

A few days later I made another soup: two cans of organic pumpkin, a sweet potato, a few carrots and apples, onions, and garlic in a vegetable broth. Normally I wouldn't be making so much soup in mid-April, but it's been cold and rainy lately. Soup's been a good option.

Saturday night was Jeff's turn. He got half a pound of shrimp (my suggestion) and cooked it with andouille sausage, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, onion, and garlic. When Jeff got the shrimp, he also got some cooked lobster. I used some in Sunday's scrambled eggs and then made lobster risotto for dinner. Tonight, it's chicken parmesan. We still have two andouille sausages, so I'll have to think about that for tomorrow.

Along the NRVT

Some people have been busy painting.

RIP Brian Dennehy

I'm sure I had seen Brian Dennehy before, but I really took notice of him in 1986's F/X. Leo McCarthy could have been just another stereotypical cop: the one who gets the job done, but doesn't play by the rules, and pisses off his bosses. Dennehy make McCarthy a real person. I understood him and rooted for him.

F/X made Brian Dennehy my favorite actor beating out my faves from classic Hollywood such as Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, and Frederic March. Dennehy was frightening as John Wayne Gacy in To Catch a Killer and mesmerizing as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. Jeff took me to Death of a Salesman for my birthday in 1999. I remember watching Dennehy's every move on stage.

Brian Dennehy--a great actor who will be missed.

Shopping with the Oldies

For the past three weeks, I've been taking advantage of senior-only shopping in the early morning hours. It's not easy getting up so early, but I like that the stores are relatively uncrowded.

Most of the time the stores don't have toilet paper (but one did today!) or disinfectant wipes. They've been sometimes been low on chicken and meats. So far, I haven't had any trouble getting fresh fruits and vegetables.

I've been watching what things aren't available each week. A few weeks ago, I couldn't find any canned beans except a large can of small white beans. That inspired me to make a white bean sausage soup. For the past two weeks, I couldn't find lemon juice in two stores. I don't get that: did some quack say lemon juice can cure coronavirus?

I'm lucky to have two superstores right across the street from each other. By the time, I got to the second store, senior hours were over.  At the second, I found lentils, better looking broccoli, and toilet paper that I couldn't find in the first. Still no lemon juice.  I grabbed a small basket for the few things I was hoping to find. It was big enough until I saw the 20-roll toilet paper. I really don't need tp, but I remembered all the times there was none and the stress I felt. I struggled to juggle the tp along with the things in my basket as I waited in a long line for self-cashier kiosk. There were only two cashiers in the second store and only a few self-serve options.

I guess I better get up even earlier.

PS The title of this post was inspired by Sweatin to the Oldies.

Along the NRVT

Here are some photos I've taken along the NRVT this week.

Book Eight: The City on the Edge of Forever The Original Teleplay That Became The Classic Star Trek Episode by Harlan Ellison

"The City on the Edge of Forever" is my favorite Star Trek episode of the original series.

This book wasn't just a teleplay of the episode. The 77-page Introductory Essay was basically a rant about what an ass Gene Roddenberry was. I get it; it was apparently a long time coming, but it was a bit over-the-top. (I still enjoyed reading it.)

The book included two treatments, the original teleplay, a partial revision, and afterwords by Star Trek writers and actors.

The original teleplay is much better than the aired episode. I understand why changes had to be made to the original for the Star Trek series, but the show's producers could have retained more of the original for a stronger episode.

Who Was That Masked Woman?

It was me at the grocery store.

Recommendations for mask wearing have been changing. Jeff purchased emergency food supplies and a few masks about seven years ago. I wore one of those masks on Monday's shopping trip. I've only worn a mask once before when I visited my mother at the health center during flu season.

Masks are uncomfortable, especially if you wear glasses. Your breath fogs up the mask. Apparently, there are a few techniques to fight that. I'll have to try them.

Since I went shopping, I've only taken Lola out for walks without a mask.

We'll see what happens next.

Saturday Movie Night: Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood

When I first heard about this movie, I thought it was about the Manson murders of Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger, and Steven Parent. Quentin Tarantino's films are generally quite violent. I didn't want to watch these horrible, brutal murders.

It ended up that the film wasn't about the murders at all. In fact, in the film's alternate reality, those murders didn't take place. The film focused on an actor and a stunt man who have seen better days.

I liked this movie much more than I expected.

I knew I would love the soundtrack: a lot of Paul Revere and the Raiders, with some Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, and Otis Redding. I especially liked hearing "Son of a Lovin' Man" by the Buchanan Brothers; I thought I was the only one who remembered that song. Then there were those strains/riffs/notes from the Vanilla Fudge version of "You Keep Me Hangin' On;" I recognized those immediately.

Best of all: the supporting performance of Brandy the pit bull who saves the day.

A Bourbon Themed Dinner

A few weeks ago, the grocery stores had limited meat available. I got four filet mignons and two pork chops.

Last night I cooked the pork chops. I looked through a folder of recipes and found a bourbon-honey glazed carrot recipe. We had a recipe for root beer glazed pork chops, but we had no root beer. I looked online and found three recipes for bourbon glazed chops. I remembered that Jeff sometimes uses bourbon in mashed sweet potatoes, so I added that to the menu. I sauteed spinach with garlic in olive oil. I also made Manhattans as our before diner cocktail.

It was a bit of a challenge dealing with four pans on the stovetop, but I managed. The dinner was good.

Happy Birthday Bette

I spent the morning thinking that April 5 meant something to me. Then it dawned on me--it's Bette Davis's birthday. She was one of the screen's great actresses and my favorite.

I've seen most of her films and several of her TV appearances. An early film I'd like to see is The Menace. On TV, I'd love to see Madame Sin; I think I've only seen excerpts of that. Another telefilm I'd like to see is Right of Way with Bette and James Stewart. She had always wanted to work with him, she finally got her chance.

Jeff to the Rescue!

I've gone to several stores in the last two weeks looking for toilet paper with no luck. Jeff had ordered TP online, but it won't come for another week or two.

I was getting nervous--wondering if I should start counting squares each time I use the bathroom. I remembered that people had lived without toilet paper through millennia: I could live without it too, but I didn't want to.

I've been taking Lola for walks during the week but decided to stay home today while Jeff walked her. He mentioned getting fish, but I didn't expect him to go to the grocery store.

He scored toilet paper among some other things: a 9=36 megapack. Now I can relax.

RIP Bill Withers

Just heard the bad news today.

I first heard of Bill Withers when he recorded "Ain't No Sunshine." I loved that song. My other favorites of Bill's were "Use Me" and "Lovely Day." I often think of the latter song on nice walks.

I need to listen to his song "It's All Over Now" that he recorded with Bobby Womack whom we lost six years ago.

A Photo Post

Today Lola and I walked at Schenck's Island. These are Buddhist prayer flags someone hung between two trees.

On the way home at a red light, I saw these forsythia bushes: so bright on such a dreary day. 

Here's a tree at Sherwood Island from earlier this week. I like to draw and paint trees even though I'm not very good. 

Finally, this is a view from our backyard today.

TCM Movie Night: You Can't Get Away with Murder (1939)

I checked out the TCM line-up today and saw this film with Humphrey Bogart, Billy Halop, and Gale Page. All three starred in 1938's Crime School, a remake of a Jimmy Cagney movie The Mayor of Hell with Frankie Darro. I love my Warner Brothers crime films.

So today I watched You Can't Get Away with Murder. Of course, I liked it: I love my Warner Brothers crime films.

Humphrey Bogart is always good even in a film where he has to fight an octopus. Billy Halop does well as the good kid caught in a bad situation. Gale Page is okay; she's never made much of an impression on me. I enjoyed seeing Henry Travers as Doc, John Litel as a lawyer (he only has one scene) and Joe Sawyer as an inmate. 

I remember John Litel mostly as a lawyer, including Carson Drew in the Bonita Granville Nancy Drew films. Off the top of my head, I only remember one non-lawyer role as a truck driver in They Drive by Night also with Bogart. He was in many other Warners films. Joe Sawyer also acted in many Warners films including The Petrified Forest starring Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart. He was memorable in The Killing in 1956.

I enjoyed You Can't Get Away with Murder. It's not a great film, by any means. The story is jut okay, but the acting is good, and it's fun for Warners films' fans.