Monday, April 19, 2010

I consider this an honor

Your result for The Classic Dames Test...

Katharine Hepburn

You scored 26% grit, 38% wit, 38% flair, and 19% class!

You are the fabulously quirky and independent woman of character. You go your own way, follow your own drummer, take your own lead. You stand head and shoulders next to your partner, but you are perfectly willing and able to stand alone. Others might be more classically beautiful or conventionally woman-like, but you possess a more fundamental common sense and off-kilter charm, making interesting men fall at your feet. You can pick them up or leave them there as you see fit. You share the screen with the likes of Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant, thinking men who like strong women.


Find out what kind of classic leading man you'd make by taking the
Classic Leading Man Test.

Take The Classic Dames Test at HelloQuizzy

Getting the ball rolling


It feels like I have been talking about having this done forever (really, check out #4). And this afternoon I took the first solid step to having my spider veins treated. This photo isn't of the inside of my right knee, but it could be. I have patches of veins like this on both legs.

The doctor I have settled on specializes in this and will use a combination of injections and laser. It should take three hours -- spread out over three treatments and (I think) six months. I got a good feeling from him in that he was interested in answering my questions and managing my expectations. (Let's face it, haven't we all experienced doctors who were anxious to get us out of their offices?) It's expensive, but, like getting my teeth fixed in the best way possible cosmetically, this is a good investment in me. It will not only help me feel better about my creaky old self, it will help me remain marketable. After all, I'm a 50-something veteran in a young person's industry. It's simply sensible to try to maintain my youthful appearance.

Today was the consultation. My first treatment is on Saturday, May 1. Not that this should matter, but the doctor has the softest fingertips. Wouldn't it be great if, instead of being even remotely painful, these treatments felt like little massages?

Movie Monday -- Rock the Vote


Share on your blog movies about politics and leave the link back here to the Bumbles.

The Candidate. Some things (like Redford's sideburns) are dated. But the basic political truths are still relevant ... unfortunately. My favorite scene is when Senatorial candidate Bill McKay, riding to yet another appearance, exhaustedly begins riffing on his own too-often delivered, by now numbingly insincere stump speech. "No can do, no can do. Can't any longer play black against old or young against poor. We cannot house our houseless or feed our … foodless. Blah, blah, blah…"

A Face in the Crowd. A pre-Mayberry Andy Griffith is devastating as "Lonesome" Rhodes, a charming, talented performer who parlays his "aw, shucks," man-of-the-people schtick into TV gold, cynically inciting his audience -- simple folk who feel disenfranchised by the elite -- to angrily vote exactly the way Rhodes tells them to. Sound familiar? An unfortunately timely movie filled with unfortunately still-relevant truths.

All the President's Men. As cinematic story telling goes, this is about as good as it get because knowing how the tawdry tale ends doesn't make watching "Woodstein" get to the bottom of it any more thrilling. An indictment of politics at its worst and a celebration of the press at its best.

Definitely, Maybe.
This Abigail Breslin/Ryan Reynolds movie is predominantly a love story, but the segments during which our hero is working on the Clinton campaign is about as real a depiction of the local, unglam, day-to-day goings on as I have ever seen onscreen. I volunteered for both the Clinton and (especially) the Kerry campaigns and spent many mundane hours doing the grunt work of stuffing envelopes, soliciting funds and trying to answer unanswerable questions (I still don't know why -- or even if -- Senator Kerry was "weak on mad cow").