Saturday 9

Saturday 9: You Make Me Feel So Young (1956)

 

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) This morning, do you feel younger or older than your years? I have a slow-healing bruise on my forearm and my knee is achy. Also, when I hear all the bitching that Bad Bunny is a "dumb" or "silly" name, I can remember people saying the same thing about The Beatles in 1964. It's like everything old is new again, and I feel every moment of my 68 years.

 

2) In this song, Frank Sinatra tells us that every time he sees his lover's grin, he's happy. What's something you can reliably count on to lift your spirits? Feeding the cats. They are so cute at mealtime! Chatting with me to make their menu selections known, herding me into the kitchen, supervising food prep ... I love how communicative cats always are individually, but at mealtime they coordinate and double team me. 

 

3) The lyrics mention hide-and-seek. What games did you play when you were young? I don't recall ever playing hide-and-seek. The games I remember were the outside games – SPUD and all the permutations of tag (stoop tag, freeze tag, etc).

4) Frank Sinatra was a fan of Campbell's chicken and rice soup, believing it helped his throat feel better after an evening of performing. Is Campbell's soup in your kitchen right now? Yes. BTW, in her memoir, Streisand repeatedly rhapsodized about her love of Campbell's Tomato Soup. The marketing whore in me sees a campaign here. Somebody should reach out to Katy Perry or Kelly Clarkson. Maybe Reba. If one of them will also swear by Campbell's, we've got some commercials to make.

 

5) Frank's favorite dessert was a slice of lemon ricotta torte. He believed every meal should include "a final flourish." Do you more often indulge in or skip dessert? I'd be more likely to skip the meal than the dessert.

 

6) At Sinatra's home in Palm Springs, CA, you'd find a less sophisticated dessert. He always kept Entenmann's Crumb Cake on hand for his young granddaughters. Share a memory of your grandparents. My grandpa thought I was pretty great. Every knock-knock joke I learned at school was hilarious. Whenever he saw me with a book or comic book, he'd ask me to read aloud because I was so good at it. Every little girl should have a cheerleader like my grandpa.

 

7) In 1956, when this song was popular, Frank was tooling around Southern California in a blue Continental Mark II. That model was known for its interior of hand-stitched imported Scottish leather. 70 years later, Scottish leather is still used in luxury cars because it's both soft and durable and the production methods minimize environmental impact. If you could splurge on something right now, what would it be? A luxury car, jewelry, travel, clothes, something else? (No responsible answers allowed!) A luxury 2026 BMW is about $100,000, which is an awful lot of money to imagine myself playing with. In fact, I can't. After all, I'm a gal who has $1.25 cans of Campbell's Chicken Noodle in my cabinet. So I'll imagine that I have approx. $10,000 earmarked for fun. I'd take myself on the TCM Classic Film Cruise. To have my own private, deluxe stateroom (with veranda) for five nights would be $8,650. That includes all the movies I can handle, plus meals. I'd have to fly to/from the port in San Diego, and I'm not going economy, so that's about $1,000. One of the ports of call is Catalina Island, a place I'm curious about. Ah, like the song says, I'm California Dreamin' on such a winter's day.

 

 
8) Also in 1956, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Forbidden Planet were popular at the box office. Do you have a favorite sci-fi movie? Not really.

 

9) Random question: What were you doing three hours ago? Taking a nap. Which was stupid because it's after midnight and I'm wide awake.