Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing: The Nasty 31 Meme

Cheers to all of us thieves!

1. What has been you longest love relationship? The one in my 20s. What a waste of time he was! Most of the men I have known have been good guys. Why did I waste the most time with the only stinker in the lot?

2. What was the last gift that you received? One of my coworkers made sure there was a flower in my vase when I returned the office on Wednesday. It made me happy.

3. What do you spend your extra cash on? Books and purses. Purses and books. My weaknesses.

4. If you could live anywhere would you live? I'd love to live down town in a building with a doorman and a view of the Lake.

5. Who's your cell provider? Credo Mobile. I love them. It you're thinking of switching companies, check them out.

6. What's your favorite mall store? Carson's (or Bergner's, or Bon-Ton, depending on where you live)

7. What's the longest job that you've had? (No parenting does not count!) I've been a writer for -- wait for it -- 30 years now. At 6 years, job I'm at now is my longest stop along the way.

8. If you won the lottery, who'd you call first? My mom, to tell her she doesn't have to worry any more.

9. If you won, how would you spend your money after investments? I want to redo my apartment! I have such big dreams for my bathroom, kitchen and dining room. (I'd love exposed brick in the dining room.) While I can't have any more pets myself, I'd like to "foster" a lot more. I'm currently "foster mom" to a cat at The Tree House. And I'd help my niece with her college tuition.

10. When was the last time you went to church (or a religious house)? I haven't been to service in a few months. But it's right around the corner and I know it's there when the time is right.

11. What's the biggest lie that you've heard? You won't believe this. I know I didn't. My oldest friend actually believed the whopper that a woman she knew through a Fanilow fanclub site was Barry Manilow's secret wife. These 50 year old women all deluding themselves into thinking they had a little "glamour" in their midst, it was kind of desperate and sad.

12. When you go out with your friends, where do you go? There are a couple bars that we frequent.

13. When was the last time that you cried? I'm not much of a crier.

14. What food do you hate? Tomatoes.

15. What do you like best about yourself? I'm very loyal.

August Happiness Challenge -- Day 6

Believe it or not, LAUNDRY. I wore one of my favorite t-shirts to see Sir Paul on Monday night. It bears the logo: Star Club: Hamburg. The Star Club was a dive bar where the Lads played in 1962. The likelihood of my finding another such shirt is slim, which is why it broke my heart when an angry McCartney fan bumped into me and spilled a margarita on it. I admit the dampness kept me a little cool on the very hot night, but I worried so about that green stain smack dab between my boobs. Well, glory be, it came out in the wash!

My secret: clarifying shampoo. If you get a protein based stain on cotton, pre-treat it with clarifying shampoo (aka swimmer's shampoo). Clarifying shampoo is formulated with chelating agents to life chlorine and minerals off hair, and those same agents also work on food stains.

They say it's your birthday ...

Lucille Ball: Celebrating 100 Years of the 'I Love Lucy' Star

Getty

The Hollywood Museum marks the occasion with a special exhibit running through Nov. 30. The actress' centennial is also being commemorated on TV: Hallmark will broadcast 102 I Love Lucy episodes, ME-TV will air 100 episodes of various programs including The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour and The Lucy Show, and TCM will show 14 of her films beginning on Saturday.

Ball died in April 1989. She was 77.

Here are 5 facts about her most successful series, I Love Lucy, which debuted on CBS in 1951:

1. Everything on I Love Lucy was scripted.
Despite what seemed like ad-libbing, Ball made sure each moment of the show was rehearsed and perfected. Ball said on the commentary of the 1991 Criterion laserdisc Criterion Television Classics: I Love Lucy, "Because Viv [Vivian Vance] and I believed, and because we knew what we were going to say and because we were thinking, we were listening to each other, and then reacting and then acting, it came out like may we'd made it up. We never ad-libbed. We never ad-libbed on the set when we were putting it together. It was there."

2. Ball credited writers Madelyn Pugh Davis and Bob Carroll Jr. for the success of the show.
Ball said (via Criterion Television Classics: I Love Lucy), "Many times when we would review at the beginning of the season, they would say Viv and I ad-libbed our way through some mediocre writing. They have since found out that that was ridiculous. They know how great our writers are because hundreds of people have copied from them. I have such respect for those kids, my writers I call 'the kids,' Bob and Madelyn."

3. I Love Lucy was the first television comedy to use the three-camera format in front of a live studio audience.
Cinematographer Karl Freund developed a system for lighting the set from above so that production wouldn't have to change lighting when camera angles switched. Christopher Anderson of the Museum of Broadcast Communications writes, "Although the technique was not generally used outside of [Ball's production company] Desilu until the 1970s, it is now widely used throughout the television industry."

4. I Love Lucy was more popular than President Dwight Eisenhower.
Eishenhower's presidential inauguration drew 29 million viewers in January 20, 1953. The next day, 44 million viewers tuned in to watch Lucy give birth to little Ricky, accounting for 72% of all U.S. homes with TVs, according to the Museum of Broadcast Communications.

5. The show broke racial and social barriers on television.
I Love Lucy was the first television series to show an interracial couple (Ball and husband Desi Arnaz). It also was the first to feature a pregnant woman playing a pregnant woman, but could not use the word "pregnant" on telecasts, according to the Lucy Desi Center. Additionally, Ball was the first woman to head a Hollywood studio, Desilu, which produced Star Trek, The Untouchables, My Three Sons, The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show and My Favorite Martian.

I've been watching her all day and can truly say, "I love Lucy."