— Great game last night. I am not emotionally prepared for October baseball, but whatevs, it doesn’t matter. It’s here.
— I miss Lucy. Hopefully I will get to see her real soon!
— Speaking of October baseball, Miss Lucy had her first trip to Fenway last week.
— I’ve been reading a book about Melvyn Pervis and John Dillinger for, oh, 4 months now. Actually, it’s about that whole crime wave at that time, and it’s quite good, and engaging, and all that, I just am moving slow as molasses. I have not finished a book since before my crack-up in June/July. I keep putting perfectly good books down, unfinished, and I am determined – even if it takes me all year (which it looks like it might) to just finish the damn thing. I just read the Little Bohemia Lodge section. Baby Face Nelson was a wackjob. I have hundreds of pages to go. I read about 4 paragraphs a day. That’s my speed these days.
— Gearing up for the reading of my script. Setting up a couple of rehearsals, all that jazz. I REFUSE to touch that stupid script until after the reading. Although I know I won’t keep that promise.
— Trying to get back into movie-watching as well. Slowly but surely.
— My siblings all sent emails today that made me laugh out loud. I love them all.
— Hope brushed too close to a candle last weekend and set herself on fire. It only singed her fur, not her skin – she didn’t even realize that she had basically erupted into flames. I leapt on her and SLAPPED the flames out, terrifying her completely (“why has that lady gone completely crazy?”) – and our relationship has yet to recover. She is none the worse for wear, and I pick her up and cuddle her, saying, in a loving tone, “Hope, you were on fire this weekend!” as though it is now a fond memory we share. She purrs like a maniac.
— Today is so windy that the streets of New York have become a neverending series of slapstick comedy sketches. Women’s skirts blow up over their heads. People’s papers are whipped out of their own hands. I was walking on 16th street and I saw a paper plate rolling at what seemed to be the speed of freakin’ light, WHIPPING by me, headed towards the East side. I saw one elegant man, in a suit and tie, struggling into the wind, and finally give up. He began to walk in slow-motion, like a mime, briefcase in hand, and went all slo-mo, causing general hilarity among the passersby.
— I was nervous about moving to an apartment building directly across from an elementary school. I’m a morning person. Would my mornings be disturbed by the cacophony of the arriving schoolkids and school busses? For some reason, no. The busses don’t pull up on my street, first of all, and the main entrance is not on my street either. But at 8:29 SHARP every morning, I hear some little pipsqueak (a different one every morning) first say The Pledge of Allegiance (in the very particular “I have no idea what I am saying and I take breaths in odd places because I have no idea what I am saying” cadences of school children everywhere) – and then lead the class in song, singing “God Bless America”. Again, with the small pipsqueak voice, sometimes with a strong Spanish accent, screaming “white with foam” at the top of his lungs at 8:29 in the morning … God bless America indeed. I have really grown to look forward to the ritual. “Oh, it’s a girl’s turn today!” I will think to myself, as the voice floats at me across the street. “Oops, he doesn’t know how to say ‘indivisible’,” I think, as I go get more coffee. It’s hysterical. A blessing, actually. Not a big fan of the Pledge myself, never have been, but boy I love hearing little mouse-voices shrieking it out every morning. Oh, and some mornings they sing the National Anthem. I am trying to figure out their schedule. If they alternate days? Not sure if I can discern the pattern yet. But again: starting my day with hearing a small child who was probably born in the DR, blasting out “Star Spangled Banner” at the top of his lungs into a microphone, is pretty awesome. I should record it.
— Rest in peace, Irving Penn. Big obit here. I have always had a strange attraction to his stuff – especially the portraits where he puts famous people in corners (The Spencer Tracy one is my favorite). Slideshow of his work here.
The school bus stop is pretty much right outside my window and the 5th and 6th graders are the LOUDEST! Every morning, I wake up to the sound of them screaming at each other to “HURRY UP OR YOU’LL MISS THE BUS”, howling with laughter or sometimes even playing the clarinet – and not very well, I might add.
I’ve often thought about opening my window and screaming “SHUT UP!!!!” but I’m not sure I’ve gotten to that crotchety-old-woman place in my life yet.
Yet.
We had a golden retriever named Molly who set her tail on fire, once. Big dopey dog that I liked, to this day, better than 99% of people I have ever known.
We were having a bonfire. How you wander too close to a bonfire, I’ll never know. But, she also often attempted (and succeeded sometimes) eating bees. We liked her for her personality, and not her reasoning ability.
She wandered too close, enough for her tail to pass through the flame. She was more surprised (and pleased) with the attention than anything else. She never knew, I don’t think, that she was on fire.
De – hahahaha “playing the clarinet”
Tommy – just from what you have described, I absolutely adore Molly. “Oooh, why is everyone paying so much attention to me? I LOVE THIS.” “Because YOU ARE ON FIRE, MOLLY.”
That incident still gets brought up. She was so surprised, looking almost like “What?!?! Is it my Birthday?!?!?!”
She was a good dog.
I spent Tuesday morning being the reading helper in my 2nd grader’s classroom – it was so cute. Great when the hardest question I got asked was “How do you spell extinct?”
And, have to ask which Purvis/Dillinger book? I recently finished Public Enemies and loved it…
Melissa – yes, that’s the one! I am enjoying it too.
“Public Enemies” is a great book. Currently reading one that just came out called “Dillinger’s Wild Ride”. Check it out.
Love the mouse voices ..
The boys’ elementary also did the kid-led Pledge of Allegiance. When Alex was chosen, my friend (who is a teacher at the school) called me on my cell phone and held it up to the intercom. so that I could hear him say it.
You’ve never heard a more flat, unenthusiastic Pledge in your life; it was like he was a hostage in a video on Al Jazeera. And he sped up “liberty and justice for all” at the end JUST TO GET IT OVER WITH.
I was already starting to get tickled when my friend came back on the phone and deadpanned, “He could’ve said no, you know. We don’t MAKE them say the Pledge.”
Hahahahaaa.
al jazeera – hahaha
I love that you got to hear it over the cell!
I get to hear it every morning. This morning was a little girl with a raspy voice who had no idea what she was saying. Taking huge random breaths in the middle of sentences. It is a grey morning, kind of dull and quiet, so it was so hysterical to me to hear her Pledge emanating across the way.