Tag Archives: Joan Crawford

The Mohawk Valley experienced some very cold temperatures yesterday. My place of employment became rather uncomfortable.

Regular readers (and WordPress tells me I have a few) know that I rarely blog about my work. It’s not that kind of a blog, and I don’t want to get in trouble with management (go ahead, call me a chicken). Well, this isn’t really about work.

I work in an old building, actually a series of old buildings all kind of hooked together. It is not very well insulated. The temperature varies from building to building and from section to section within each building. Guess which section in which building was the coldest. I suppose I can’t say for sure it was mine, because it’s really too big a place to check the whole thing out, but in my limited perambulations, where I work was cold.

Then I remembered: Joan Crawford. Joan Crawford always insisted that the sets of her movies be kept at cold temperatures, because it made the skin on her face tighter and minimized the appearance of wrinkles. I wash my face in cold water most mornings for that reason. Joan used to stick her face in a sink full of ice cubes, but that would involve a trip down to the kitchen for me and I’m too lazy to be beautiful.

Once I remembered Joan Crawford and her little beauty trick, I felt much better about everything. Of course I had to share my happiness, so I went and found my friend Sally and explained the whole thing to her.

“We’re glamorous!” I assured her. She was suitably impressed. I went back to work refreshed.

A short time later, I heard a voice exclaim, “Hey, isn’t that Joan Crawford?” It was Harry, a mutual friend of mine and Sally’s. “Wow! I thought it was Joan Crawford!”

I burst out laughing. I don’t suppose I’m hideous, but despite my earlier assurances to Sally, it was not one of my more glamorous moments. For one thing, I was wearing my knitted toque against the cold. No lipstick. My blue collar clothes of BDU pants, a t-shirt and steel toed work boots. He kept assuring me he thought it was Joan Crawford and I kept laughing. Afterwards I reflected, Harry is much younger than me. I’m not sure he knows who Joan Crawford is; he may have thought I meant Joan Collins.

The next time I had occasion to talk to Sally, I said, “I have so much in common with Joan Crawford!” She confessed to sharing my remarks with Harry, and told me a few silly things Harry had said about an unrelated topic (subject for another blog post? Watch out, Harry!).

Sometime later, I looked across at Harry and Sally and saw them pointing and laughing. I went over and demanded an explanation. It seems they were in the middle of a conversation when Harry had interrupted himself to say, “Oh my God, it’s Joan Crawford!” and I chose that moment to let out a huge, head-splitting yawn. Like I said, not my most glamorous day.

So today I told both Sally and Harry that I intended to use the episode for a blog post. I said regular readers may remember them as candidates for the role of French maid in a previous post. Harry’s one regret was that he had not picked more imaginative aliases. Perhaps Buttercup and Westley.

In conclusion, I think now we all know why I so rarely blog about my work. Happy Friday, everyone.