Yet Another Journal

Nostalgia, DVDs, old movies, television, OTR, fandom, good news and bad, picks, pans,
cute budgie stories, cute terrier stories, and anything else I can think of.


 Contact me at theyoungfamily (at) earthlink (dot) net

. . . . .
. . . . .  

 
 
» Sunday, February 24, 2019
Even More Rain, Some More Sun, and Sister Tales

Talk about two days different as...well, day and night!

Our little Echo Dot described Saturday as "dreary." It was indeed: grey, often misty. We had breakfast, I walked Tucker, and then we were off to Hair Day. It was not a "dreary" day at the Butlers, but warm and happy. We feasted on roast lamb (Phyllis' usual, delicious as always), Asian salad (Lin's Asian salad is soooooo good), steamed carrots, and rice. We chatted (unfortunately about some unhappy things as well as happy ones, but that's adult life) and hugged and everyone got "shorn" and we learned that Colin is indeed taking a job in Massachusetts. Wow. This will be a big move for him.

We came home to get the power chair and went to Barnes & Noble for a little while. Not much on the cross-stitch magazine front, and didn't see any new mysteries out. Ah, well, we didn't have any coupons anyway. I was considering getting a copy of Lambs' Tales from Shakespeare from the remainder stand, which is a very famous book from the 19th century that you read about mainly in children's books from that era, as it tells the plays as stories, but I skipped it. I still have two ARCs to finish.

On the way home we stopped at Publix to do the shopping.

During the evening James eventually went down to the man cave. I was watching The Snoop Sisters, both the pilot movie and the four episodes of the series. Ernesta Snoop (Helen Hayes) is a mystery writer who dictates rather than types her manuscripts; her sister Gwendolyn (known as "G") (Mildred Natwick) is her amanuensis and  continuity checker (G is a writer of poetry, having had one volume published, and a lover of movies). Ernesta is a happily single lady; G is a widow. And of course, since this is a mystery story, the ladies seem to continually be getting involved in murders. Their doting but harassed nephew, Steven Ostrowski, is an NYPD detective and the ladies are chauffeured (in a vintage hunter green Lincoln sedan) by their bodyguard and general helper, Barney (no last name given). In the pilot movie, Steven is played by Lawrence Pressman and Barney, a retired police officer, by Art Carney; in the series Bert Convy is Ostrowski and Barney is now an ex-con, a petty thief but otherwise good egg played by Lou Antonio. (Many people were upset that Pressman and Carney were not in the series, but I think Carney was filming Harry and Tonto at the time, and he earned an Oscar for it, so I think he got the better of the deal. I never bought Bert Convy as a police detective, but as much as I love Art Carney, he played Barney as crusty and always perpetually irritated. It didn't bother me when I saw the pilot, but this time around it kind of irritated me back.)

It's a cute series, very light and easygoing, with funny scenes with the two sisters doing things like bluffing suspects. It was created by Alan Shayne, who later helped cast Natwick in the four Addie Mills stories, and produced by Leonard Stern, who of course did Get Smart. While most of the series was filmed in Los Angeles, there were filmed-on-location scenes including in front of Rockefeller Center and a chase scene in the pilot film near the old Silvercup Bakery (now a film studio) in Queens (and what looks like a chase on the Queensboro Bridge). It features many familiar 1970s character actors like Roddy McDowall, Vincent Price, Liam Dunn, Sam Jaffe, and has a very campy appearance by rocker Alice Cooper, who appears in a story about Satanists.

I put it on because I got Lou Antonio's book in the mail the other day; he was a popular character actor who went into directing, including The Partridge Family, McCloud, The Rockford Files, Picket Fences, Chicago Hope, and more. He also starred in the cop series Dog and Cat, which got purged in the TV violence controversies of the 70s (ironically it was tame compared to the network series today). His chapter on The Snoop Sisters is only three pages, but includes a priceless anecdote about Helen Hayes effortlessly stealing lines from good-natured "Milly" Natwick.

Today we slept in and then went to Walmart, since we discovered in the deluge last Friday night that James badly needed new windshield wipers. We also finally found him some new diabetic socks. It has been so difficult finding calf-length ones! The sky was bright blue, the sun out, and about 60℉; the only drawback was the wind, which was so strong at one point that it blew James into the side of the truck.

We also stopped at Lidl so James would have a chance to see this new supermarket. A new one opened nearby a few days ago, so this one was finally free of the clotting crowds and we got a better look around. Without the crowds I did like it much better, and I did like the bakery. We got two large chocolate chip cookies for dessert tonight—they were quite good—and I also bought two of their "dinner rolls" (what in Rhode Island we would call "buns"), one of which I had as a sandwich for a very late lunch. They are pretty good.

So James has new wipers and we had a great supper: diced chicken breast and some chives with linguine noodles in a chicken/miso broth, with the cookies for dessert, watching the final two Snoop Sisters episodes (the ones with Alice Cooper and with Vincent Price, the latter who hammed it up for all he was worth).

And now we are back to Victoria.

Labels: , , , , ,