August Happiness Challenge -- Day 3

Look at my happy kitty

Today TCM and Summer Under the Stars makes me happy. For those of us who love classic movies, this is an awesome annual event. Right up there with Oscar season and Christmas.

For the uninitiated, here's how it works: Every day a different star is featured for 24 full hours. There's always interesting, thoughtful commentary between the movies, too.

I always look forward to seeing favorites again, to seeing movies I've only heard about but never seen all the way through, and a film or two I never even knew existed.

Today is Bing Crosby Day. Right now I'm watching an old favorite, The Country Girl. I get Georgie, the title character. Grace Kelly is so understated, so exhausted, that you forget how beautiful she is.

Next I may watch one of the Hope/Crosby "Road" pictures. I know they're supposed to be funny. Hope has never amused me, but then I only really know him from the dreadful NBC specials I grew up on.

And yesterday I DVR'd The Dark Corner. Tuesday was Lucille Ball Day, and in The Dark Corner -- made in 1946, years before anyone ever heard of Lucy Riccardo -- she plays a no-nonsense Girl Friday who helps her PI boss solve a crime. I can't wait to see it. I love noir mysteries, and I'm interested to see Lucille Ball display her versatility.

Each day in August you are to post about something that makes *you* happy. Pretty simple. And, it doesn't even have to be every day if you don't want it to be. It's a great way to remind ourselves that there are positive things going on in our lives, our communities, and the world.

If you want to play along, just come back here (meaning to this blog, not this individual post) each day in August, looking for the happy cat. Every day I will try to have a post with the headline: August Happiness Challenge: Day [X]. Leave a comment and then post your own daily happiness, with August Happiness Challenge in the title to make it easy to find. 

WWW.WEDNESDAY

To participate, and to see how others responded, click here. 

1. What are you currently reading? Barbara Stanwyck by Al Diorio -- and I'm enjoying it. 

It's a perfectly serviceable movie star bio, the kind that publishers used to crank out to fill shelves back in the 1980s, when Crown Books and Borders anchored every mall. (Meaning: It's likely a combination archive interviews, news articles and press releases cobbled together with a touch of craft. It quotes conversations the author couldn't possibly have accurate knowledge of. ) 

Yet I'm enjoying it because it's all new to me. I knew Stanwyck's given name was Ruby Stevens, but   beyond that I knew little about her childhood. And it was a harrowing one! Born into poverty, she was orphaned at an early age and shuttled from foster home to foster home. She began working full-time at 14, first in offices, then in a chorus line and finally with a speaking part on Broadway.

So this Oscar/Emmy nominated legend of Old Hollywood almost literally created herself. Knowing this makes me appreciate her impressive body of work all the more.

2. What did you recently finish reading? Wanton's Web by Alex Matthews, a mystery set in Chicagoland, revolving around the murder of a high-paid call girl. Our sleuths are a psychologist who works from home and her lover, an investigative reporter for a fictional Chicago newspaper. 

It took forever for it get started! Maybe that's my fault -- I started the series at Book #4 and maybe the early chapters would have been compelling if I was familiar with the series regulars. But once it took off, it held my attention. There was a terrible inevitability to the mystery's resolution that was true to the victim and the life she chose.

3.  What will you read next? I don't know.

August Happiness Challenge -- Day 2

Look at my happy kitty

Today's little jolt of joy came courtesy of my own cats. Dinnertime went smoothly!

I've done my share of complaining on this blog about my little beige demon, but Reynaldo has always been a prince at mealtime. Because of his sensitive kidneys he's on a special, high-protein diet. So he gets the same prescription food every day, and every day he snarfs it down with enthusiasm and without complaint.

Connie, on the other hand, is usually my problem child. She prefers kibble but must have a dollop of canned food with each meal because I've got to dissolve a supplement in the moisture. And she is so freaking picky about the  canned food! At first we tried gourmet foods, but after the first day/first meal, she sniffed at it. For a long time, she snarfed down Gerber Baby Meats (for human babies) but suddenly she decided she was bored with it.

Lately we've had ongoing success by mixing human baby food with kitten food. It's such a delight to watch her first poke around the dish with her nose and dive in.

I was a little apprehensive posting about this. For the fresh, homegrown cucumber I referenced yesterday played havoc with my gut. I hope spotlighting kitty cuisine doesn't jinx breakfast!

Each day in August you are to post about something that makes *you* happy. Pretty simple. And, it doesn't even have to be every day if you don't want it to be. It's a great way to remind ourselves that there are positive things going on in our lives, our communities, and the world.

If you want to play along, just come back here (meaning to this blog, not this individual post) each day in August, looking for the happy cat. Every day I will try to have a post with the headline: August Happiness Challenge: Day [X]. Leave a comment and then post your own daily happiness, with August Happiness Challenge in the title to make it easy to find.