The wife can be droll. Neighbors and family give her amusement. Mother Jones (doesn't print much news but does raise hell) is a hoarder and a clutterbug. Karletta, M.J.'s grandson's girlfriend, who's really a can-do person, has been hired to help Mrs. Jones (a nonagenarian) with housekeeping. The other day Karletta removed three 42-gallon garbage bags of groceries that needed removal (bulging cans? oozing? -- you get the idea).
After all that, an inventory revealed there were still sixteen cans of green beans. Prompting Rosie to sing:
Sixteen cans and whaddaya get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
St Peter don't-cha call me cause I can't come,
I owe my soul to the old folks' home.
Later, she reminded me of two neighbors. One is a man who was found to be keeping a horse in his house. The city finally persuaded him to find Dobbin a nice pasture. No charges filed, commitments to the insane asylum, or anything like that. The other is a gentleman who for a while was riding his bicycle around the drive, a back pack on his back, waving to one and all. What is strange about that, you ask? The man was naked. Yep, not a stitch.
This evening we watched Written on the Wind (1956), which neither of us had seen. I was reminded of The Carpetbaggers (I'd actually read the novel by Harold Robbins in my drinking days, when I was a lot more masochistic than I am now). It also reminded me of the nighttime soaps, Dynasty and Dallas, which I didn't watch but heard enough about.
Written on the Wind is a melodrama, and it is hilarious. Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone, and Robert Stack were perfectly casted and a hoot. Everything -- acting, dialogue, scenery, the fantastic score by Frank Skinner, and of course the quite nice song in the opening titles sung by the Four Aces, were perfect. And perfectly ridiculous. It makes me want to watch Some Came Running again, for laughs.
1 comment:
I think life on MSH grounds was less revealing than your neighborhood. Sounds like a fun place.
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