A Life Blessed With Long Lived Television Sets

I was watching Annie Hall on Free Movies On Demand tonight. In this scene where Annie is moving out of Alvy’s apartment, I had to stop and grab this shot of the portable TV on the windowsill.

Sony within a Sony

That, my friends, is a 17″ Sony Trinitron. I know because I had one exactly like it. It was my first major purchase for my first bachelorette apartment, bought with the first credit card I owned – Macy’s. It was the top of the line as you can clearly see by the wooden cabinet encasing it. That was $50 extra. It was the largest portable TV made at the time.

I had it for about 20 years and the picture was still as sharp as it ever was that the color was true. Then one day my young son put an industrial strength magnet up against the screen and then (insert some kind of science here) and a permanent mark in the shape of the big magnet was on the screen.

My very first TV was a gift to the teenage me from the parents. That one was a B&W Philco, all tan plastic with it’s own stand made out of metal rods and clear plastic wheels. It had tubes inside of it. The mists of time shroud the exact chronology here – it might have been for my 13th birthday or my 16th.

It lasted beyond the day I got rid of it. Although it still got a nice B&W picture after it warmed up, no one wanted it. On the day that I set it out on the curb, it was at least 30 years old and still working.

I haven’t been nearly as lucky with my stinkin’ Blackberries.

Hey Who Wants To See My Wedding Cake Topper?

I ran out of things to look at on eBay so I started rummaging around in my own past for a change.

Sami said he couldn’t remember a thing about our wedding cake (“I was dizzy that day.”) except that the wedding cake tasted good. I pulled out the cake topper in a vain attempt to jog his memory and the receipt for the cake was taped to the side of the box. It was a two -tier walnut-cherry cake that served 38 people and it cost $32.00. Apparently, green and white dots were so important to me that I paid an extra $6.00 for them.

And now for the cake topper. For it’s time and place, it was very cutting edge. This was about as non-traditional as it got back then:

It did still have the traditional elements of that plastic base covered with lace, a glued-on veil, a bit of fabric for the dress and the standard blonde bride/brunette groom combination. But you can see that the dress is fashionably minimalist and the groom has  a Chad Everett hairdo. Looking back at the wedding pictures, Sami did have that kind of blow-dried helmet ‘do. And the moon – my dears, nothing like this had been seen. Can you see the two wedding bells hanging down? They are partly obscured by the cluster of polyester orchids and the I don’t know what THAT’S supposed to be sticking out of them.

That bride seems to be afflicted with "little eye".

I’m About To Have Cold Spaghetti and Meatballs For Breakfast

News bulletin! I’ve figured out how to live in peace with myself while successfully dieting.

Here is the secret of my success: I eat whatever I want in a reasonable portion the first thing in the day and then I just work with whatever allotted calories I have left for the remaining intake for the day. Is it not brilliant?

Do you see how it works? If you start the day off by spacing out the food evenly, sooner or later some form of temptation is going to come along, usually in the evening when you are tired and the spirit is weak. Then the choice is to stick to the day’s plan and feel deprived, or give in to temptation and feel like a failure. This way, you eliminate the temptation factor by making it part of the plan and starting the day off feeling in control instead of hoping you get through the day without derailing.

Also, I like cold leftovers for breakfast anyway. So, win-win.

The Dark Side of Suzette

I don’t mean to say that I have an evil side. I do but I don’t want to talk about it here. What I mean is it’s not all high style and fine living around here. By dark side, I mean the opposite of beauty and light. Here’s a brief glimpse at the other side.

Oh look. The Christmas lights have been patiently waiting for us under the mounds of snow that have been around since December.

Most of the bushes have pickery things on them. It's an undesirable job to put the lights on let alone take them off again. We usually go until about Easter before we can deal with it.

FYI – Easter is April 24th this year. Those bushes are in the front of the house but something more remarkable is going on in the back. There’s a little bump out/overhang where the kitchen sink is and the dog has taken the area underneath it as his own special hangout.

dirt nest

When he goes outside he does his business, barks around for a little while and then hunkers down into one of the dirt nests that he’s got dug out for himself. This is why he’s always filthy and stinky. He’s usually got  some kind of prize that he managed to snatch away. Right now only the top part of a tennis ball is visible there – its partially sunken because he sits on top of the stuff like he’s hatching it -but we’ve found a gardening glove, a dishtowel, knee high stockings and a baseball cap there.

Inside, important decorating matters await. From the day that the Martha Stewart “Old Brick” paint went up on the walls in the den, I knew it was wrong and I’d have to change it. I think that was about 10 years ago. I guess it does look like an old brick if you busted the brick wide open and were looking at the inside of it but to me this color always looked more Tequila Sunrise than Old Brick. For the last 4 springs, I’ve made serious plans to start painting but I just never got around to it. So this week, I took some Scotland Road that I had leftover from my latest office paining project* and painted patches of it onto each of the four walls. The theory is that this will force me to repaint the room.

Do not mock my heirloom paint-by-number egret. My father did that when I was in grade school. There's a companion flamingo, too.

I sure hope I don’t spend the next 10 years with color patched walls. It’s kind of unimpressive so far because 1. I used  a cheap 1″ brush to slap on one coat 2. the Old Brick is kind of peeking through and 3. the sunrise effect from the old paint color interferes with the tranquility of the new paint color. Nevertheless, I forge ahead.

*Interesting fact about Suzette: whenever I move into a new office, I have the walls painted in Scotland Road. I find it soothing.

Here Is Somebody Who Knows How To Make A Buck

 

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It’s a “gadget”. From Canada.

America used to be the world leader in making money on “gadgets”. Remember the extending fork? That was ours. The perpetually drinking bird? Ours. Now the Canadians are raking in the “gadget” money of the world instead. Hosers.