The Misanthrope’s – Sunday’s Lighter Side

The people are unreal. The flowers are unreal, they don't smell. The fruit is unreal, it doesn't taste of anything. The whole place is a glaring, gaudy, nightmarish set, built up in the desert.
Ethel Barrymore (1879 - 1959)

Brushing Your Teeth. I walked by Daughter’s bedroom and there she sat on the edge of her bed, cross-legged, watching the morning news, brushing her teeth. I have no idea where she picked up that little gem of a habit. I prefer standing in the bathroom over the sink. Maybe I’m just old fashioned.

Daughter Again. When she was little, she would go out to the garage with me, hunt down crickets, and stomp on them with her tiny hiking boots. Now that she is older, she has developed a squeamishness about spiders and other insects (not that I am Mr. Outdoors. I won’t sit in the backyard without my fly spray), but on our evening neighborhood walks, we have to walk in the street to avoid spider webs. The itsy bitsy spiders string their webs thither and yond across the sidewalks from parkway to front yard and she has now walked through her last web.

On the Set. I have a great aunt who is an extra in many television
and movie shows (“Minority Reports” as the crazy woman with the corncob pipe, a passenger in the train in “Spiderman 2,” and most recently in “Six Feet Under,” she was the dead woman sitting on the pot when she was discovered). Friday night, I thought I would be a great nephew, especially since she called me asking for a favor, to take her out to a location beyond where B2 lives, for her role/part in an HBO special. It was only to be from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., but I had to pick her up at three, meet her co-extra at four, but those plans were scraped, then travel 40 miles one way to get her to the location. By 1 a.m. I had lost my patience. I am not enamored by Hollywood, as I told her, you can send Hollywood to Canada for all I care; location filming frequently blocks traffic and is just an overall nuisance. Celebrity does not impress me, but it’s fun to say you have seen so and so or talked to so and so. On the set, Bill Paxton was the star, he rode a bike around and was talking to everyone. I agreed to hangout thinking I could read my book, but once the sun went down there were no lights for reading. I read inside a teamster’s van for a while, I sat on a porch in the neighborhood for a while, but I just wanted to get home. I got my wish sometime after 2 a.m. Daughter wants to do it next time.

New Rolling Stones CD. I have this love hate relationship with the Stones. I think their songs have declined greatly over the years, I would love them to retire, so I won’t hate it when I miss their concerts. I, of course, will have the new CD the day it is released.