Dona Nobis Pacem

This year, Mimi challenges us to "Speak Love." To embrace and enhance and nurture love with "your families, yourselves, your communities, OUR WORLD."

So I'm taking this opportunity to give a shout out to Letters Against Isolation. This organization is all about the positive power of the handwritten word and how it can help alleviate loneliness. Every week I create little cards that will be tucked into a Meals on Wheels delivery or handed to a resident in a senior facility. I am sending a handwritten connection to a lonely person. 

Loneliness is a thief. According to the Cleveland Clinic, it can rob you of your health – increasing your risk of cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure. According to Mental Health America, it can rob you of your happiness – often sparking anxiety, depression and substance abuse.

So I'm using the written word to Speak Love. LAI is not a pen pal program. I'm corresponding with people who will never know my full name or address. It's just a simple moment we share, beginning with me at my dining room writing and culminating with an isolated senior opening and reading my card, hopefully when they need to know they are not forgotten.

 
Find other peace bloggers here.

 

Sunday Stealing

Monday Morning Meme

1. What was the last thing you laughed at? My niece's baby. Violet is not quite 5 months old. She sleeps very soundly but wakes up (snap!) instantly. She was asleep in her mother's arms when I arrived to meet her Saturday morning. Violet awoke on her own, caught sight of me sitting beside her and had this wide eyed look of, "What the fuck?" Her big brown eyes telegraphed her thoughts so clearly, she was like a cartoon character, and it made me laugh. She also literally rubbed her eyes when she got sleepy. Aside from the fact that she's cute, her face is animated and expressive. For someone who has no words, she makes herself understood quite clearly. I found her endlessly amusing.

2. Who among your friends/family "gets" your sense of humor? This is why I miss my friend John so much. He always got me. My oldest friend used to, but her cognitive/mental challenges get in the way. On the plus side, my nephew usually gets me.

3. What jewelry are you wearing at this moment? Little faux pearl studs.

4. If you could offer one bit of etiquette that everyone should follow while dining out, what would it be? Before you go to the restaurant, stop at the ATM so you can leave your tip in cash. If you put the tip on your credit card, your server likely won't see it until they receive their next paycheck. 

5. What's the first thing a guest would notice when they walked through your front door?

Saturday 9

Saturday 9: Angie Baby (1974)

 

1) This week's song is a spooky one about a young man who breaks into the bedroom of a troubled girl named Angie. Their encounter doesn't go well and he's never seen again. Though there's been gossip, no one knows for sure what happened to him. Does your town have any scary legends that have been passed down through the decades? Every kid in Chicagoland knows about Resurrection Mary. There are many versions of the story, but this is the one I always heard. It's late at night. You're driving past Resurrection Cemetery. A teenage girl appears by the side of the road. Even though it's dark, you can't miss her because she has white blonde hair and she's wearing a white party dress. It can't be safe for her out here alone so you stop, roll down your window and offer her a ride. She wordlessly shakes her head. You roll up the window and pull away but somehow she suddenly appears in front of your car! You can't stop in time and are sickened by the awful thud when you hit her. You jump out of the car to see if you can help her but ... there's no one there! Yes, you just (literally) ran into Resurrection Mary. The "real Mary" (if there was one) attended her high school prom in the 1930s. Her boyfriend "got fresh" and she ran out of the ballroom to hitch a ride home. She was killed by a hit-and-run driver and buried at Resurrection, where she haunts drivers to this day. BOO!

 

2) Songwriter Alan O'Day said he drew upon aspects of his own childhood to come up with "Angie Baby." He was an only child who often stayed home sick from school, with only Top 40 radio for company. What do you recall about when you think about sick days as a kid? My mom was big on checking my tissues to see the color of my snots. I thought it was gross, but I get it now. Green, yellow, clear, bloody ... the residue on my Kleenex were clues as to how I was doing. Poor moms. They check toilet bowls and examine tissues and do all kinds of other icky things as they care for us.

 

3) Helen Reddy said she enjoyed hearing what her fans thought happened in "Angie Baby." Can you think of another song that is open to interpretation? Exactly what was thrown into the muddy waters off the Tallahatchie Bridge?

 

 

 

4) When Helen and her husband/manager Jeff Wald heard "Angie Baby" the first time, they immediately agreed she should record it. She went into the studio that afternoon and in less than 10 days, disc jockeys were playing it and "Angie Baby" became an international hit. When were you glad you acted on impulse? I'm going to see Sir Paul next month. As soon as I heard he was going to end his international tour here in Chicago right around my birthday, I just acted on emotion and decided I was going. He's 83 now. He's not going to keep doing this forever. The fact that it's the last stop of his world tour and two days after my birthday ... well if that's not a sign from the universe I was meant to go, I don't what is. It took me forever, watching the website and waiting for Ticketmaster to give me a chance to buy a seat. I didn't know what it was going to cost and I didn't care because I would find the money somewhere (OK, so now my kitchen remodel will be a new faucet) and I am so glad I did it.

 

Questions inspired by Halloween .... 

5) Though best known as a recording artist, Helen Reddy also acted on occasion and appeared as a singing nun in Airport 1975. A nun's habit is a popular Halloween costume. Will you/did you dress up this year? Nope.

6) In 2024, more Americans than ever dressed their dogs up for Halloween. Have you ever taken your pup with you trick-or-treating? Nope.

7) According to the Guinness Book of Records, the award for highest number of jack-o-lanterns in one place went to Keene, NH, where in 2013 there were 30,581. Did you carve a pumpkin for Halloween this year? Nope.

 

8) In years gone by, the Irish celebrated Halloween not with pumpkins but by carving turnips, potatoes and beets. Are any of those foods in your kitchen right now? Nope. (Sorry my answers are so boring.)
 

9) Some Elvis fans insist his ghost hovers in the trees over Graceland. Have you ever seen a ghost? Nope. I don't believe in ghosts. But if I'm wrong, I hope my girl JBKO haunts a certain ballroom.

 

Graphic from the JFK Library

 

Thursday Thirteen #436

Celebrating Halloween. Halloween is a massive big deal at the card shop where I work. This is a comparatively new phenomenon. When I was a kid back in the 1960s, we carved pumpkins and left them on the front porch. My mom let me tape a cardboard cutout of a ghost or black cat on my bedroom window. My sisters and I put on costumes and went trick-or-treating. That was it. We were happy.

But now there are parties, for children and adults alike. Decorations are intricate and imaginative. Halloween is a multi-billion (with a "b") dollar business, and I see that reflected by what we sell at our little store. 

1. Greeting cards

2. Wrapping paper 

3. Wreaths. We offer some pre-made, some DIY.

4. Washi tape

5. Stickers

6. Squishies shaped like black cats, pumpkins, and Frankenstein

7. Black cat sunglasses (Please buy these! It's not that they aren't popular, it's that we were sent enough to outfit every man, woman and child in the tri-state area.)

8. Shot glasses shaped like skulls

9. Paper plates and napkins

10. Pumpkin and/or ghost pens

11. Dog- or cat-in-costume ornaments

12. Candles (so many pumpkin candles – I think these would also be appropriate for Thanksgiving)

13. Trick-or-treat bags

How are you preparing for/celebrating Halloween? 

Please join us for THURSDAY THIRTEEN. Click here to play along, and to see other interesting compilations of 13 things.

Get Ready!

On November 4, I'm joining in Mimi's Blogblast for Peace. Why don't you do the same? It would be lovely if we filled the blogosphere with peace signs and gentle good wishes for a better future.

Happy Birthday, Ms. Kwiz!

 

Here's to a new decade of joy and opportunity. 

Do you read my blog buddy, Kwizgiver? If you don't, you should. Find her here. And while you're there, you can wish her a happy birthday.

 

WWW.WEDNESDAY

WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here. 

PS I no longer participate in WWW.WEDNESDAY via that link because her blog won't accept Blogger comments. I mention this only to save you the frustration I experienced trying to link up.

1. What are you currently reading? Muzzled by David Rosenfelt. A boating accident in the usually lazy waters off New Jersey was ruled a triple homicide. It got extensive press coverage and Andy Carpenter was aware of the case. Which is why he was startled when one of the victims shows up at his animal rescue, looking for his dog. Andy's not used to reuniting pets and dead people.

 

I enjoy these books because Andy is sports loving smartass with a heart of gold. He may have an imaginative and talented legal mind but he displays what I feel is an admirable lack of physical courage. Most of all, he loves dogs.

 

I just hope this book is a bit more straightforward than others in the series have been. Lately Andy has been sucked into complex cases revolving around drug cartels and international assassination plots. While I'm sure these things do happen, I'm aware that most crimes (murder, included) are much more mundane affairs, more domestic in nature. I'd be so happy if this case ends up being about about garden variety lust and greed. 

2. What did you recently finish reading? The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington's Most Private First Lady by Heath Hardage Lee. Oh, this book! I am glad I read it because I learned a great deal about Pat Nixon, but I would be reluctant to recommend it. Heath Hardage Lee is a good storyteller, but she is not careful about letting us know which are her opinions and which are Mrs. Nixon's.

Throughout the book there are comparisons of how Pat and Jackie Kennedy performed their roles as Senate wife and First Lady. Pat always comes out better. The author ignores that Jackie was pregnant five times during her 10-year marriage. As a Senate wife, she suffered first a miscarriage and then a still birth, she was pregnant during the Presidential campaign with JFK Jr., who was born five weeks prematurely via emergency C-section, and she gave birth to a baby boy as First Lady. You may not have heard much about John and Caroline's baby brother because he lived only two days. As a historian, Ms. Hardage Lee knew all this. She just glossed over all that blood and pain and heartache to present Pat Nixon as the better political wife who kept a busier schedule yet never enjoyed Jackie's fawning, glowing press.

Now I wonder, was Pat Nixon consumed with Jackie jealousy, or was this rivalry something created by Hardage Lee? And don't you think Jackie would have preferred Pat's easier pregnancies and healthy babies to positive press clippings?

Similarly, Hardage Lee downplays Nixon's role in Watergate. The President is portrayed as a swell guy who trusted the wrong people. That is simply not true. I wonder, did Pat Nixon feel that way, or did she come to the uncomfortable conclusion the rest of the nation and historians have? 

Pat Nixon suffered her first stroke after the world watched her leave the White House in disgrace. She was 64 years old and had been a heavy smoker for nearly 50 years. Yet Hardage Lee blames the stroke on Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein for portraying her as a recluse who liked her bourbon in their book The Final Days. Apparently a skit on SNL based on the book disturbed her, too. After all she'd been through, I find it hard to believe this was all that shocking to her. Over the next 20 years she would go on to battle oral cancer, emphysema and lung cancer. I'm sorry The Final Days upset her, but I think we can assume tobacco and the stress of being the only First Lady to lose her home to looming impeachment were more detrimental to her health.

So while the book is filled with a lot of wonderful and new-to-me information that gave me a more dimensional portrait of a First Lady I grew up with, the context is screwy and I'm not sure I would recommend it to someone who doesn't understand our history between 1950 and 1980. 

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

 

  

Sunday Stealing

Four 5's

FIVE things on my to-do list:

1. Book a ride to/from the airport for my upcoming trip

2. Wrap a pair of birthday presents

3. It wouldn't kill me to vacuum

4. Write to my cousin

5. Pick up a prescription at Walgreen's

 

FIVE snacks I enjoy:

1. Potato chips

2. Cookies

3. Cold cereal (I go through periods where I love it, and then I forget about it)

4. String cheese

5. Apple sauce in little cups for kids' lunchboxes

I eat like a child, don't I? 

FIVE places I have lived:

1. My parents' house

2. My apartment

3. My condo

4. 

5.

 

FIVE jobs I have held:

1. Receptionist

2. Administrative Assistant

3. Copywriter

4. Creative Director

5. Shopgirl

 

 

Saturday 9

Saturday 9: Do You Know the Way to San Jose (1968)

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

 

1) In this song, someone moves to Los Angeles looking for "fame and fortune" but ends up with a job "pumping gas." Today, the majority of service stations are self serve, so very few people pump gas for a living. Can you think of another job that used to be common but doesn't exist anymore? Elevator operator. Every time I see the movie The Apartment – and it's one of my favorites, so I've seen it a lot – I watch Miss Kubelik in her uniform and carnation, getting to know everyone who works in that massive office building and I think, "That looks neat."

 

2) The San Jose travel bureau advertises "300 days of sunshine" every year. How is the weather where you are today? Chilly and cloudy. But it should be. I'm so glad that awful unseasonal heat is behind us!

 

3) Lyricist Hal David became fond of San Jose when he was stationed there while in the Navy. Tell us about a place you visited that you have affection for. Hot Springs, AR. It's so green and being a flatlander from Chicago, I'm enchanted by the rolling hills and trail that leads up to the Hot Springs Mountain Tower. This is the Grand Promenade at the foot of the trail. I always had such good times on my solo spa trips to Hot Springs. 

 

  

4) Composer Burt Bacharach grew up and worked primarily in New York until his marriage to actress Angie Dickinson. She had to live in Los Angeles for her career, so he relocated and remained a Californian for the rest of his life. Where do you feel most at home? (It doesn't have to be a city. It could be your favorite chair.) Curled up with these two.

 

5) Dionne Warwick thinks this week's song is "dumb." She won her first Grammy for "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" and, decades later, still sings it in concert, but she has not changed her opinion of the song. What is something everyone else seems to like but you just don't get? Football. 

 

6) Now in her 80s, with more than 60 years in show business, Dionne still enjoys performing. She told a reporter that she loves looking out into the audience and seeing an arm go around a shoulder, or a couple begin holding hands, when they hear her sing "their song." What song reminds you of a special romance? I was in love with the most conservative, straight-laced guy. It was a delight to see him go all parrot-head, complete with Hawaiian shirt and foam fin.

 

 

 

 

7) In 1968, when this song was popular, The Doris Day Show premiered. The show was, initially, a surprise to its star. Her manager/husband died suddenly without telling her he had committed her to a weekly sitcom. She was not pleased but honored the contract. Think of the last time you were surprised. Was it a happy or sad surprise? One of my coworkers surprised me by asking me how things were going for me at the store ... and she meant it. I felt very safe being frank with her. I was surprised and grateful for her sensitivity.

 
8) According to the Social Security Administration, the most popular baby names of 1968 were Lisa and Michael. Are there any Lisas or Michaels in your life? Yes, on both counts.

 

9) Random question: What are you looking forward to this week? This coming week I'm going to Michigan to meet our newest family member, Baby Violet!

 

 

Thursday Thirteen #435

 This one started with a sniff. I have two bottles of rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol – one in the kitchen and the other in the bathroom. While I use the alcohol for many things, often I sniff it. Really. When I have a tenacious cold or feel the flu coming on, I check to see if I can sense that distinctive smell. It reassures me I don't have covid. Silly, I know, but in 2020 during those dark pre-vaccination days, I had a bad case of covid and my first symptom was no sense of smell. Today that familiar sniff comforts me. (Yes, I realize this is not definitive; it's just my way of dealing with post-covid PTSD.)

This TT was inspired when I overheard someone say she was given alcohol to sniff when she came out of anesthesia because it helps prevent nausea. So there's a more scientific reason to sniff alcohol! 

I found a variety of uses for alcohol at Healthline. Most of these do not include sniffing. 

1. Surface disinfectant for thermometers, tweezers, etc.

2. To clean cuts 

3. To treat post-op nausea (again, sniff it, don't ingest it)

4. Astringent to tighten pores

5. Deodorant (but not after shaving your armpits)

6. Applying a rag soaked in rubbing alcohol can soothe aching muscles

7. Cleaning dry erase boards

8. Refreshing kitchen sponges

9. Deodorizing shoes by spraying alcohol inside and then letting them dry in the sun

10. Removing ink or marker from clothes

11. Removing the adhesive left behind by stickers

12. Refreshing cloudy mirrors

13. Removing water stains from stainless steel faucets

 

Please join us for THURSDAY THIRTEEN. Click here to play along, and to see other interesting compilations of 13 things.

WWW.WEDNESDAY

WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here. 

PS I no longer participate in WWW.WEDNESDAY via that link because her blog won't accept Blogger comments. I mention this only to save you the frustration I experienced trying to link up.

1. What are you currently reading? The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington's Most Private First Lady by Heath Hardage Lee.  I recently finished a long and quite balanced biography of Richard Nixon and it left me wondering about Pat. On one hand, the Nixon's had what appeared to be a good marriage. There have never been any rumors of infidelity, separation or serious, ongoing domestic discord. Her pregnancies were joyous and uneventful (though one of her girls was born with a broken shoulder, thanks to 1940s-era obstetrics). As First Lady, she was on the "Most Admired" lists. Then she had to endure Watergate and leave the White House engulfed in scandal, knowing her accomplishments and place in history would be forever tainted. I hope this book will tell me how she dealt with all the anger she must have felt, and where that anger was directed.

 

I didn't realize she was had always been a very complicated woman. Her mother died when she was just 12, leaving Pat to clean and cook for her father and brothers. Her father took ill and she became his nurse until his death when she was in high school. She had to wait and earn money before she could go to college, since times were hard and higher education for her brothers was the priority. She had a long list of jobs before she finally got the degree she longed for. Then she got a teaching in Whittier, CA, where she met Dick Nixon. She wasn't sure she wanted to marry him. After being responsible for others her whole life, she liked being independent. She liked having her own money. Yet marry him she did. I was intrigued by her letters to him during WWII. Yes, of course she missed him. Yes, of course, she prayed for his safe return. But boy, she enjoyed that alone time in San Francisco when he was stationed in the Pacific. I admit I'm intrigued by this self-sufficient woman.

 

Ms. Hardage Lee tells the story in a linear fashion. She relies a great deal on the recollections and writings of Julie Nixon Eisenhower, so I question how balanced it is. But it's giving me a window into the life of a formidable woman I grew up on without knowing anything about her.

 

PS There's an ongoing compare/contrast with the much better documented life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The author assumes Jackie had a much easier go of it. Financially? Certainly. But the Kennedy marriage was famously marked by infidelity. She endured five difficult pregnancies and brought only two babies home. Oh yeah, and she had to wipe her husband's brains off her face, so there's that. Besides, why do women have to pitted against one another – and by a female biographer? I admit it's pissing me off.

2. What did you recently finish reading? Murder on a Mystery Tour by Marian Babson. A young English couple have a cat named Ackroyd and a rambling estate called Chortlesby Manor. Maintaining the big old house is expensive, so to make ends meet they rent it out to an American company that hosts "mystery tours," aka staged murder mystery weekends for well-heeled tourists. There's a snowstorm, an unexpected guest arrives, the roads become impassable and someone is murdered. Not as part of the staged mystery, for real.

At first I was into this book. Babson was good at setting the scene and taking us backstage as the innkeepers prepare for the mystery weekend. But then it just got stupid. No one with an IQ higher than that of a gnat would behave as these tourists did upon discovering the murder. I stuck with it because I'm stubborn, but I'm glad it was only 220 pages so I don't have to resent wasting that much time on it.

 

I hope it's the worst book I'll read this year, but there's still over two months left and I don't want to jinx anything. 

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

 

  

 

Sunday Stealing

Meme Schmeme

Complete the thought:

I AM I said. (Neil Diamond)

I LIVE in sad, stressful times. Donald Trump has only been President for 9 months. It feels like 9 exhausting years. Greetings from Chicagoland, where our local police protect us from the federal government. (See post below.)

I THINK I can still make a difference, though. I'm proud I participated in No Kings yesterday.  

I KNOW Shohei Ohtani is a unicorn and I'm lucky I get to see him play.  

I WANT the AL to win the World Series, though. I am so over the Dodgers and their fans.  

I WISH there was someone else here who could clean the litter box. Didn't I just do it yesterday?  

I PRAY all the time.  

 

 

I wore Henry's necklace

 

The Wrigley Building, 10/18; Chicago Sun Times

Yesterday I attended my third No Kings protest. While the above photo is of the main rally in Chicago's Loop, I went to the one in my neighborhood. I wanted to be there for my minister, who made the opening remarks. She was followed by a performance by a group of senior women who sang an original composition for President Trump ("Now You've Pissed Off Granny") and "Amazing Grace." Then we marched from the WWI memorial, past the post office and my church (along with two other churches) and through the business district, past the card shop where I work.

Sounds pretty Norman Rockwell, doesn't it? Well, according to Speaker Mike Johnson, I'm a pro-Hamas, America-hating member of Antifa. That's what this Administration does when you disagree with it – they demonize you. MAGA supporters choose to believe it because, well, they accept whatever fits their narrow worldview.

I have not posted about what life has been like during Operation Midwest Blitz because it's too depressing. Armed men who refused to wear masks to protect their fellow man during the Covid-19 pandemic now wear them to scare us as they pick up our neighbors and "disappear" them into the facility in Broadview. I am not kidding. 

These are not "the worst of the worst" that Kristi Noem and Tom Homan brag about bringing to justice. These are Uber drivers and Home Depot day laborers. My friend Kevin no longer buys tamales at lunch because the lady who sold them off the cart in front of his office building is now gone. My friend Jamie was standing feet away from a protester named Levi who was pulled into the Broadview facility and detained for hours. ICE agents have been spotted waiting in the parking lot outside the children's museum. Yes, you read that right. They want to arrest parents in front of their children. They intend to separate families.

ICE is legally prohibited from entering businesses or residences in my neighborhood, so we have a protocol in place at the card shop where I work. They can stalk sidewalks and parking lots. If I feel "unsafe," I am to go into the office in the back, lock the door, and call the local police. Yes, I am supposed to wait for my beat cop to come protect me from my federal government. Mike Johnson doesn't talk about that, does he? 

I dressed for Saturday's protest with care. I wore an Anthony Rizzo foundation t-shirt because it champions pediatric cancer research, and this administration has drastically cut funding to universities that do this work. I put on a necklace I got in Key West, because my darling friend Henry worried so about being "a gay brown man in Trump's America." I used to think he was paranoid. I know now he wasn't. I miss Henry ever day, but I am glad he isn't living through this. A Puerto Rican, he was born an American citizen. I can't bear to think of him being required to prove it, just because of his skin and his accent.

It's ruefully amusing that Donald Trump so obviously lusts after a Nobel Peace Prize. He may be trying to stop wars internationally, but he is using force against us here in Chicagoland. I don't know what award they give for that, but it ain't the Nobel Peace Prize. 

PS While Chicago is safer today than it was during Trump's first Administration, there is still a serious problem with violence. It's not because of illegal immigrants, though. The cause is – wait for it – illegal guns that come in through the porous borders with our neighboring states. Indiana and Kentucky both have far more lax gun laws and it's just lucrative to sell guns here. If Donald Trump was really interested in saving lives, he would send the ATF here, not ICE. But I'm not stupid. I understand that gun fetishists vote MAGA. He doesn't want to make me safer. He wants to pander to his base to solidify his own power. And so I march and work the campaigns of progressive candidates. 

I'm a fan of Madisonian Democracy. NO KINGS!

Saturday 9

Saturday 9: Into the Groove (1985) 

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

 

1) Madonna begins this song by telling us, "I'm waiting." What's something you're waiting for today? For the rain to stop.

 

2) She sings that dancing gives her a feeling so good she hopes it will never end. What reliably lifts your spirits? Cuddling a cat.

 

3) As a school girl in Michigan, Madonna was a good student but could be disruptive. Classmates recall her doing cartwheels in the halls between classes. Can you do a cartwheel?

X Do Not Want Stickerfrom X Stickers

 

4) It's not surprising that a girl from the Detroit area would love cars. Madonna's car collection is valued at more than $2 million. The one she seems to drive most often is a 2022 Cadillac Escalade ESV. Insurance industry data tells us Americans typically keep their cars for 8 years. How long have you had your current vehicle? I don't have a car.

 

5) She has referred to Nancy Sinatra as one of her idols, saying "These Boots Were Made for Walking" and its accompanying video impressed her when she was a little girl. What pop song brings back memories from your childhood? As a 3-year-old girl, I got very excited whenever this came on the car radio and sang along as best I could, much to the amusement of my parents.

 

 

6) Madonna suffers from brontophobia, or the fear of thunder and lightening. Are you afraid of storms? Not usually. I get a little concerned when tree branches slam into my living room window, but that only happens when the wind really whips up.

 

7) In 1985, when this song was popular, the Titanic wreckage was discovered. There have been at least a dozen movies about that ill-fated ship. Have you seen any of them? I saw Leo and Kate, of course. There's one from the 1950s starring Robert Wagner and Barbara Stanwyck that I've seen a time or two, also.

 
8) Also in 1985, Bruce Willis became a star with a hit show about a detective agency. Can you name it? (Extra non-existent points if you can recall the agency's name.) Moonlighting, and the Blue Moon Detective Agency. Wherever shall I spend those extra points?

 

9) Random question: Describe your perfect ice cream sundae. Vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, whipped cream, chopped nuts and a cherry. Pretty standard, huh?

 

 

Thursday Thirteen #434

The undercover edition. The other morning my go-to channel, TCM, ran back-to-back-to-back Man from UNCLE movies. Here in the States, these originally aired as two-part episodes of the TV shows, while in Europe they were theatrical releases. 

 

At first I was excited. When I was a little girl, I loved The Man from UNCLE. Ilya, Napoleon, Mr. Waverly ... in the mid-60s, they brought glamour and excitement to my young life.

 

I couldn't make it through 15 minutes of the first movie. While Ilya and Napoleon were still very handsome and unflappable, I realized I do not like spy tales. Yet people do. It's an enduringly popular genre.  

 

So this week I give you 13 famous fictional spies.

1. James Bond. There have been 27 movies 63 books, and people all over the world are consuming them.

2. Napoleon Solo. The senior agent in The Man from UNCLE series. The American, who looked great in a suit/tux and got laid all the time. Played by Robert Vaughn on TV and Henry Cavill in the 2015 movie.

3. Ilya Kuryakin. Napoleon's intense junior partner. He was more serious and reserved than Napoleon and introduced me to karate. Though played by Scottish actor David McCallum, Ilya was Russian.

4. Austin Powers. A British secret agent with bad teeth, thick glasses, a Beatles haircut and irrepressible, irrational optimism. There have been three movies and they made me laugh.

5. Maxwell Smart. Now that I'm in a jokey mood, let's look at Max. Don Adams won an Emmy for his portrayal of the inept spy. Steve Carrell played him in a 2008 movie. I watched the show when I was a kid because, well, it was on. But I wasn't really a fan. Except for Hymie. A robot, Hymie was very literal and awfully sweet and I remember him fondly. 

6. Agent 99. She was a massive big deal when I was a little girl. She was Maxwell Smart's partner and she was the competent one. She always kept her head, wore great clothes, and kicked ass. Barbara Feldon is over 90 now. I hope she realizes she what a mid-60s role model she was.

7. Emma Peel. Thinking about the ladies, I must give a nod to Mrs. Peel. I never saw The Avengers, but was aware of her as the partner of John Steed. Played by Diana Rigg, she had the distinction of confusing two of my gay friends when they were very young. John and Patrick never knew one another, but they separately confessed being madly in love with her back in the day.

8. John Steed. Mrs. Peel's Avengers partner. Again, I know nothing of the show, but I assume he was a proper English gentleman because he wore a bowler.

9. John Drake. Played by Patrick McGoohan, he was the title character of Secret Agent. I never saw this show either, but the theme song is indelibly imprinted on my memory. "Secret agent man! Secret agent man! They've given you a number and taken away your name ..."

10. Simon Templar. He was The Saint. Roger Moore played him. Along with Perry Mason, it was my icky grandmother's favorite show. I just remember I had to be very quiet when it was on.

11. Boris Badenov. I have no idea why he was assigned to "get moose and squirrel," but he tried his best to destroy Rocky and Bullwinkle at every opportunity. He worked for Fearless Leader, who in turn answered to Mr. Big. I suppose I should be embarrassed by how much I remember about Rocky and Bullwinkle, but I'm not. I loved that show.

12. Natasha Fatale. She was Boris' statuesque partner, called everyone "dah-link," and flashed a lot of animated leg.

13. Jack Ryan. I know nothing about him, except that former Cub manager Joe Maddon invokes him all the time. Created by Tom Clancy, Jack Ryan was a Navy man who went on to work for the CIA. There have been novels and movies and mini-series and video games and apparently all the world but me is into him.

Do you like spies? Did I leave out your favorite? 

 
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