The Blog I'm Not Writing

Department Of Corrections

Dateline: Sunday eve. As I settled in one of the Comfy Chairs ® in our family room, looking over my 2018 Oscar ballot (along with fellow Eager Oscar Watchers MH and friend LH), I gasped in horror and embarrassment. My reaction was worthy of a supporting acting nomination, as I realized I was mistaken re my previous claims (on this blog, to fellow movie-loving friends, to total strangers in the quick check line at the Home Depot….  [1] ) of having seen every movie nominated for the Academy Awards  “Big Ones.”

 

 

 

 

 

Just in case y’all have lives as pathetic as mine are wondering, the “Big Ones” are the seven awards for Best _____

Picture;
Director;
Actors in a Leading Role, male and female;
Actors in a Supporting Role, male and female;
Best Original Screenplay  [2]

There was the name, Canadian, dignified, yet mocking me for my smugness.  Christopher Plummer,  number four of the five actors listed for Actor in a Supporting Role, for his role as multi gazillionaire J. Paul Getty in All the Money in the World, a movie I’d made plans to see with a friend.  I can’t remember what happened…but I didn’t see that movie.

Christopher, darling, loooooove your work all these years – and really, could anyone have played a Shakespeare-reciting Klingon general as well as you did?    [3]   So sorry to have missed your latest.  I hope you’ll forgive me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Stress Reduction
Sub-Department Of Eventually Luck Runs Out

No political rants today; the week has been stressful enough.  To wit: one of the many, many things I do not “believe in” – including gods, the efficacy of homeopathic remedies, and the accuracy of the garment label claim, one size fits all – is “fate.’  Accordingly, I also do not believe that I can, intentionally or otherwise, “temp fate.”

So, apparently it’s just sonofabitch coincidence that, two days after musing to moiself, apropos of nothing, Golly gee, it’s been 40 years since anyone has hit my car, am I lucky or what?!, guess what happens in the parking lot of the Elderberry Inn on Highway 26?

Ford truck backing up, meet stationary Subaru Outback.

 

 

 

 

 

The first Very Nice Claims Department Person (for the insurance company of the dude who hit me  [4]) I spoke with asked me to describe the extent of the damage (to my front passenger door), starting with, Have you checked to see if the door still works?

I told her the door can be opened and shut and locked; I didn’t know about the power window (which was all the way up,) and would not check it. VNCDP asked why I would not check the window. The question surprised me. I told her I’d leave that to an auto service person and would NOT attempt to ascertain whether the window “works,” seeing as how:

(a)  This is NW Oregon (the claims dept person was located…somewhere else); it rains, frequently. It is raining right now, even as we speak. Thus, even if I am able to get the window down…

(b) I might not be able to get it up

(c) I realize (b) is a problem typically associated with men….

 

Okay; I stopped myself from saying (c). But I did think it.

 

 

 

 

 

Now I get to be acquainted with just how much fun it is to deal with insurance bureaucracy and repair estimates…and with what appears to be, as of this writing, the looming/potential ignoring of responsibility by the Dude Who Was Initially So Cooperative ®   [5] – a dude who almost made his boneheaded-act worthwhile  [6]  by telling me, as I was photographing his insurance card and driver’s license, how he’d once backed his truck into his wife’s car.

Your Honor, the Defendant has already admitted that he doesn’t look where he’s going when he puts his truck in reverse….

 

 

 

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of This Ought To Last Him

Back in the day, I used to regularly make buttermilk biscuits for son K and daughter Belle.  I gradually and persistently tweaked the recipe as the years went by, trying out more “healthful” ingredients,  [7]   but one thing that remained the same was son K’s love of Gloria’s Mount Hood Marionberry Fruit Spread as a biscuit topping.

I fell out of regular biscuit baking when the offspring flew the proverbial nest. Son K graduated college three years ago and is living and working nearby. He has turned into an occasional and enthusiastic baker, and recently asked for my biscuit recipe. He also wanted to know where he could find that marionberry fruit spread he loved so much (he’d looked, but had been unable to find it in any local stores).

Even when I served it on a regular basis, it had been difficult to find a regular supply of the stuff  – I used to order it by the case from the maker. I searched the web and thought I’d found a supplier via the Made in Oregon website, but the site had an out of stock notice re the marionberry spread. Perhaps, I sadly posited to K, it’s no longer being made?

A few weeks ago I spontaneously decided to stop and check out a roadside store I pass regularly on my drives to and from the coast. I had long been intrigued by the signs outside the store advertising the store’s various specialty items, such as, “vegan jerky.”  After stopping to sample the store’s wares I was able to assure MH that vegan jerky was not, in fact, “jerky made from vegans” (which was his guess). Unexpected bonus: the store had jars of various flavors of Gloria’s fruit spreads, including a couple of the Mount Hood Marionberry K adores. Gloria’s was still being produced, the store clerk assured me, but she had no idea where the store got their supply.

I did my Internet Snooping Thing, ®  found the local producer, and….

What to get your 25 year old son for his birthday?  Why, this, of course:

 

 

*   *   *

May you correct that which needs correcting;
May we all live in the future wherein car repairs are accomplished with a Harry Potter-ish Carrus Reparo spell;
May someone love you enough to give you cases of your favorite fruit preserves for your birthday;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

 

And a (one day belated) Happy Birthday to my favorite son.

Son K, age 2 ¾, Mackenzie River Valley, circa Fall 1995

*   *   *

 

 

[1] To the dude with the pack of florescent light bulbs, I am so sorry.

[2] I vacillate on including Best Adapted Screenplay in my “big ones” category;  I want the original author of the adapted material to get the lion’s share of the credit.

[3] In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

[4] Which shall not be mentioned by name here…unless they really piss me off, so stay tuned.

[5] Of course he was, seeing as how he hit me.

[6] Strike that – of course it wasn’t worthwhile, under any circumstances.

[7] Replacing most of the unbleached white flour with oat flour and whole wheat pastry flour; using non dairy “milks” and/or yogurts and other substitutes for butter….