Tag Archives: blogging

What to Watch on Scattered Saturday?

Posted on July 16, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

There was not a whole lot of scatter to my Scattered Saturday today (nor a whole lot of scat either, if you’re into jazz) (which I am).  I ran, I wrote, I read, I did not do dishes, I went to an early dinner with my husband, Steven, and now we are about to embark upon the movie watching portion of the evening (as regular readers know, my favorite part) (along with the bra off, sweats on, wine drinking portion of the evening) (which it also is, except for the sweats; too hot).  This being the case, I share a picture I downloaded earlier to share on Steven’s Facebook page:

Just another unrealistic body type for us females to aspire to.

I’m pretty sure this is a publicity shot for House on Haunted Hill (1959), one of our go-to movies for just such an evening.  I think we will not watch this movie tonight, since we did recently view it.  What are our other possibilities?  Hmmm….

“You think I’m the murderer? I thought you were the murderer!”

Thinking of Vincent Price usually brings me back to Laura (1944), a stylish noir, as one reviewer described it, and another of our favorites.  Price plays, unusually enough, a leading man type, not a creepy murderer type.  This is another of our go-to movies.

Nothing to worry about, everything is fine.

I finish with one last shot of Price, in another of our go-to movies, House of Wax (1953).  Price does play a creepy murderer-type in this one.

So we have several suggestions right off the cuff for the movie watching portion of our evening.  What to watch, what to watch, what to watch (yes, you have to say it three times).  Tune in tomorrow, on Wrist to Forehead Sunday, and perhaps I’ll tell you.

Just a thought: would you be more apt to describe this post as Slacker Saturday?  I’m thinking, maybe.

 

 

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Various Vampires on Tired Tuesday

Posted on July 12, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

It is Tired Tuesday (don’t judge), and I am resorting to my new favorite thing: downloading monster pictures from Facebook and writing stuff about them.  For one reason, I am mysteriously able to download on my own Facebook account once again.  I downloaded this one purely to test my machine:

He’s a pleasant-looking fellow.

It is a 17th or 18th century vampire burial. I downloaded it from Murder, Madness and the Macabre, one of my go-to Facebook pages.  After downloading that, I thought I would make this a vampire day and clicked around looking for more.  I went to The Golden Age of Monster Movies, always a good sources.

A new shot of my favorite guy!

Naturally I wanted to include Nosferatu, which, regular readers know, has my vote for the scariest movie ever.  I haven’t watched this one in a while.  Perhaps tomorrow I will give it a view.

Vampires can be scary in color, too.

Christopher Lee is the favored Dracula of many.  I do love the Hammer horror flicks of the 1960’s and ’70’s.  I only recall one vampire flick with Lee (perhaps you read my blog post about it).  I must seek out the other ones.

You didn’t think I would leave out Bela, did you?

What post about vampires would be complete without Bela Lugosi?  Oh, I’m sure others have written them. I may have written one myself.  I suppose your better bloggers would be writing scholarly commentary, comparing and contrasting the various vampires, perhaps including some of the blood-sucking lore and history of the legends.  And here we come to the ugly truth about me.  No matter.  It is Tired Tuesday, and I have made my blog post.  Now I must prepare for rehearsal for The Tempest (which I mentioned in yesterday’s post).  I must shake off my tiredness and act!

I hope I don’t meet up with any vampires.

 

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Post Race Post

Posted on July 10, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I was going to title this “To Dress or to Blog?”  but I did not want to invite unkind comments about how nobody wants to see me naked.  Also, it would not be clear that this is yet another post about the Boilermaker.  Which I just ran.  Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! (That was a triumphant laugh, by the way.)

So this is not going to be a great post.  I ran. It was not easy for an overweight woman of my age who, as it turns out, perhaps did not train enough.  However, I finished without resorting to walking.  Full disclosure:  towards the end, my run could not catch up with some of the walkers.  I will write more about the run later.  For now my purpose is merely to publish something, so I can get on with celebrating my triumph as soon as Steven gets home from work.

For anyone just tuning in, the Utica Boilermaker is the best 15K race in the nation, possibly in the world.  It seems as if the entire City of Utica as well as the surrounding area turns out to run, volunteer or cheer folks on.  Runners come from all over the world, including elite runners from places like Kenya as well as those who run for fun and fitness from places like Syracuse and Rochester.  I believe folks come from farther afield, but I did not encounter any of those today.

My challenge now is to find a cute outfit to put on such that Steven will realize that the best way to celebrate is to take me out somewhere nice.  Or I could just sit here in my bathrobe, which I put on after a delicious shower, and he will probably make me a grilled cheese sammich.  I do like grilled cheese.  It is good to have options.  Tune in tomorrow, on Mental Meanderings Monday, which I will either tell you what I wore or describe in greater detail my triumphant Boilermaker run.  Happy Sunday, everyone.

 

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I’m Not Hydrated Yet!

Posted on July 8, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I have have Lame Post Friday in the middle of vacation, can’t I?  Of course I can; it’s my blog and I’ll cry if I want to.  Wait a minute, that’s something else.

I have spent all day having Boilermaker Butterflies (I think I once wrote a blog post of that title).  I mean serious, stomach-churning nervousness.  I don’t know why.  All my problems will resolve themselves at the proper time.  I will run the race.  There is no reason to think I will not have fun.  Yet here I sit, trying to drink more water and worrying.

I went for one final run today (is it bad that I have begun the last three paragraphs with “I”?  Just something else to worry about), 30 easy minutes.  It didn’t feel too bad.  I found the shirt I wanted to run in, a large yellow tee with a Superman logo which Steven purchased for 50 cents at a church thrift store some years ago.  It is a little wrinkly, and I am considering ironing it.  I rather like the thought of running the Boilermaker in a freshly pressed t-shirt.

This morning I had several errands to run: an afghan to drop off, a trip to the post office, a visit to the library to print out my Boilermaker registration confirmation.  By 11:30 I was headed to Utica to Mohawk Valley Community College (MVCC) to pick up my race number and goody bag.  What a crowd scene!  However, people were nice and numerous volunteers kept things running smoothly.

For dinner I had a London broil in the crock pot.  Some time ago, a nice young man at The Sneaker Store told me I should have a steak dinner on Friday and pasta on Saturday.  I substituted roast beef in the crock pot then as I did now.  I plan to use fresh basil from my container garden to make pesto for tomorrow’s pasta.  Yum!

What I am mostly worried about now is that this is a truly lame blog post.  Can I possibly expect tomorrow’s to be any better as the 15K race looms ever closer?  I should probably have an in-depth conversation with myself about whether the race is worth all this anguish I put myself through, with perhaps a side discussion about why I put myself through such completely useless worry.  Don’t worry, any minute now I will move on to the point where I start to laugh at myself.  Happy Friday, everyone!

 

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Psycho Strangers on a Blog Post

Posted on July 7, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

So it’s not going to be All Boilermaker All The Time after all.  I am indulging in Non-Sequitur Thursday complete with pictures.  First a little cheesecake for the discerning viewer (you know who you are):

So how come John Gavin is so small?

We decided to watch Psycho, which we have on DVD.  I think it starts a little slowly, but Janet Leigh does spend the first scene in a bra and half-slip.  Some folks enjoy that sort of thing.  Here is a more atmospheric shot for a little less prurient interest:

I love the sky.

After Psycho, I suggested we continue the Alfred Hitchcock theme with Stranger on a Train.  I recently acquired that DVD at a yard sale. Score!  I would like to see again the remake, Throw Mama From the Train.  I love that Danny DeVito.

Ah, the fateful cigarette lighter. There was a lot more smoking in the movies in those days.

I would have liked to get a picture of the carousel, a more dramatic setting than the titular train, but I could not find one.  Full disclosure:  I didn’t look very hard.  Regular readers may notice that I am downloading pictures again.   I still cannot download them on my own Facebook page.  However I can download them from my husband Steven’s page.  So I am sneakily logged onto his site.  Don’t worry, I won’t cause any more mischief while I’m there.

“Good Evening.”

I close with a picture of the master himself, Alfred Hitchcock.  We could have continued our movie viewing with Rear Window, The Birds, Rope, North by Northwest, The Lady Vanishes, The 39 Steps, or To Catch a Thief.  I guess we have quite a Hitchcock collection (no, no Vertigo!  I may lose all cinemaphile cred by saying this, but that movie has always left me cold).  And I thought of a good title while I was typing this.  Happy Thursday, everyone.

 

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When in Distress, Vampires Often Help

Posted on June 16, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

Earlier today, a friend at work gave me some icy-hot (it was Equate brand) to rub on my knees.  It seemed to help.  I have spent most of the rest of the day wishing I had something similar to rub on my attitude.  It’s not even Bad Attituesday!

It is, in fact, one of those days when I disprove one of my own rules: that writing begets more writing.  I just finished and emailed out two articles for Mohawk Valley Living magazine.  Shouldn’t I be all raring to go and write my blog post now?  It turns out, not so much.  I was just futzing around Facebook, looking for pictures, because that always seems to be a good fallback post.  Of course nothing appeals.  Maybe I should look again.

When in doubt, look for monsters.  Here are a couple of pictures from Mark of the Vampire.  I found them on a page I Like called Murder, Madness and the Macabre, Our Favorite Nightmares.

Bela and friend.

I gotta get me a dress with sleeves like that.

I’ve seen Mark of the Vampire a couple of times.  I can’t believe I don’t have it on one of my horror collections.  Maybe my husband will buy it for me for my birthday (he usually reads this blog, teehee).

I’ll throw in another picture of Bela Lugosi to round things out (you know how I like to include three photos).  Here he is from Dracula in 1931.

“I bid you welcome.”

He was fine, yes.  I haven’t seen an old horror movie in a long time.  Perhaps that is the ice-hot for my attitude I seek.  At any rate, it couldn’t hurt.  We’ll call today a Non-Sequitur Thursday post (although the title I have in mind is more of a sequitur) and drive on. Thank you for tuning in, and I hope to see you all on Lame Post Friday.

 

 

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Not Tired, Tempest!

Posted on June 14, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

You’ve heard of the rule, “When in doubt, eat ice cream.”  At least, if you read my blog post of that title, you have.  The only treats I have in my freezer are fudge bars, so I ate one of those.  I don’t think it’s helping.

I am trying to get my blog post done before leaving for rehearsal for The Tempest with LiFT Theatre Company in Little Falls, NY.  This is the group that did Much Ado About Nothing last summer, in which I memorably played Friar Francis and Second Watch (or do I flatter myself?).  Perhaps you read a few of my blog posts about it.  I only have one part in The Tempest, Gonzalo,  “an honest old counselor of Naples.”  I’m still working on the character, but I am basically a garrulous old man.  The way my body has been feeling lately, I will have no problem with the old part.

I will share more about the play, including performance dates, soon.  I may even bring my Tablet to rehearsal and take some pictures.  Won’t that be fun?  And the nice thing about me taking the pictures is… I don’t have to be in any of them! Ah ha ha ha ha!

Yes, the conclusion to be drawn is that a fudge bar is not a substitute to a dish of ice cream when it comes to making a blog post.  Then again, today is Tired Tuesday.  Also, I do not want to be late for rehearsal.  Happy Tuesday, everyone.

 

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I Didn’t Mean to be Melancholy

Posted on June 13, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I had meant to make a post about one of my recent Mohawk Valley adventures, but I’m afraid today is going to be more of a Middle-aged Musings Monday, if not Melancholy Monday, or even a Memories Monday.  Oh, all right, I’ll stop alliterating and start blogging.

Today on my Facebook On This Day, I noted that one year ago today we brought our sweet Spunky home from his foster dad’s (I even wrote a blog post about it).  Regular readers may recall that we sadly lost Spunkman (as Steven liked to call him) far too soon (I wrote a blog post about that, too).  I miss having a dog, but the time seems not right to adopt another one yet.

Logging on to WordPress, I noticed a post from a blogger I follow about how she and her guy adopted a puppy, Meet Harper, the Resuce Pup!  Full disclosure:  I do not read all posts by all the bloggers I follow.  This one I read.   Rescue dogs are the best!  And people who adopt them are awesome!  Oh dear, that sounded like I was tooting my own horn, but I was not, really.  For one reason, I have not adopted another dog since losing Spunky.  I don’t know if I ever will, although as I read somewhere, pets happen.

So I am remembering our little Spunky, and our sweet Tabby, who lived with us from 2007 to 2015.  Dogs enrich our lives immeasurably, but so is the sadness immeasurable when we lose them.  I suppose I could say something profound about how you have to have the sad to appreciate the happy, and I even know such a thing to be true.  But I’m afraid it would sound glib and trite, because profundity is not my strong suit.

I also feel I should apologize for intruding sadness into my silly blog, especially when the occasion for sadness is sometime past.  Then again, who can explain emotions and why apologize for them?  I like to say, sometimes you just have to feel that way until you don’t feel that way any more.  I’ll try for a better post tomorrow.

 

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Run then Rationalize

Posted on June 12, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

As soon as I started my run today, my legs were not happy with me.  I had been up and had coffee but nothing to eat.  Well, if I would have eaten something, I would have wanted to wait a little while for it to digest, and then it might have been to warm and I’d have had plenty of time to talk myself out of it.  I told myself I did not have to run as long as I ran yesterday.  After all, last weekend I ran 67 minutes Saturday and only 45 Sunday.  I had upped my time by the recommended ten percent to 74 minutes yesterday.  It might be a good idea to ran the same today, but I do not always follow the idea course in my running.

I wasn’t going to run any hills, either.  I had made up my mind to that, although I confess I was not as comfortable with that decision. There are a lot of hills on the Boilermaker (that is the 15K road race in Utica, NY, I am signed up to run on July 9, for anybody just tuning in).  I don’t have to run hills EVERY day, I argued.  A little voice in my head said, “Oh, just start running, you’ll talk yourself into it as you go.” As soon as I started running, my legs informed me that we were NOT going to run any hills and we certainly were not going to run for an hour and fourteen minutes.

Cutting right to the chase, I’ll tell you:  I did not run any hills but I did run for an hour and fourteen minutes.  I crossed State Street and ran on a bunch of streets I don’t usually run on, so it was a very interesting run.  I’ll have to walk it sometime with my Tablet and take pictures to share.  I probably won’t be doing that today, though.  It’s not that my legs would object (they LOVE to walk), but it is supposed to be close to 90 degrees and sunny today.  I’m kind of a vampire.  I admire a sunny day, but it doesn’t pay me to get too close.

As I was running, I was narrating in my head.  It seemed pretty interesting at the time, but now I’m not so sure.  Then again, it is Wrist to Forehead Sunday.   I think this brief description of my run will suffice.  Now you have time to read other blogs.  Isn’t that generous of me?  Yes, yes, I know, that is only a rationalization, but rationalization is not always a bad thing.  To prove this I will end with a quote from the movie The Big Chill:

Jeff Goldblum character:  Don’t knock rationalization, where would we be without it?  I don’t know anybody who can get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations; they’re more important than sex.

Tom Berenger character: Nothing’s more important than sex.

Jeff Goldblum character:  Oh yeah?  Ever go a week without a rationalization?

If I do not have the lines exactly right, sorry.  I don’t have a rationalization for that, but I hope you will forgive me.

 

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Lame Lycanthropy (Look It Up)

Posted on June 9, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

And the moon is full! Or was that last night?

I like to make a silly post on a Friday.  For newcomers to the blog, the official term is Lame Post Friday, and I often indulge in random observations and half-baked philosophy.  And I repeat that bit of definition perhaps a few more times than is strictly necessary, but you’ll have that.  On this particular Friday, I am taking a vacation day, so I am feeling a little giddy.  I’m just going to type in some silliness and get on with my fun day.  I saw the above photo on my Facebook news feed this morning and said, “ooh.”  It ties in with another photo I downloaded some days ago.  I downloaded it with the idea that I would eventually find other pictures to tie in with it for a blog post and, as you see, I was right!  I love it when that happens.  Now let’s see if I can find that photo in my downloads (must figure out how to organize those downloads; as you know, I am not computer savvy)…

Oh no!  I found it and it is not the photo I thought it was!  It is the Mummy, not the Wolfman!  How could I make such a mistake!  How lame is that!  Wait a minute, it’s lame.  That fits right in.  It’s even kind of random.  I’ll go with it.

Mummy, Werewolf… Compare and contrast. Discuss amongst yourselves.

I downloaded two other Werewolf photos, to round out the post.  I had been looking for one, because, you know, three’s the charm, but I could not decide between the movie poster and a humorous one, so I went with both (is that a run-on sentence?  I don’t care if it is).

I guess it’s the disc cover, not the actual poster, but I think that’s OK. Or is it just more lame? Either way.

The movie had an excellent cast, although I find it rather sad.  I’ll have to do a post sometime on the profound nature of horror movies.

I do not recommend an adversarial relationship with one’s stylist.

It looks as if he doesn’t want a shave and a haircut (two bits), and I can’t really blame him.  He has only to wait till the moon wanes.  And doesn’t that make you wonder what would happen if he did get a haircut as the Wolfman, then the moon waned.  Would his face be like all cut up?  His head completely bald?  I’ll have to do some research on lycanthropy (my computer is underlining that word, but I looked it up in Webster’s and it is correct).

Incidentally, I got the first photo from Dracula’s House of Halloween and the last two from the Wolfman facebook page.  I stupidly do not remember where I got the Loveboat photo and I am too lazy to try to find out.  I did mention this is Lame Post Friday, didn’t I?

 

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