Wishes for the New Year 2013

Instead of the usual lists about how fabulous this blogger has been over the past twelve months, and we know I have been fabulous, don't we, I'm going to list my top three wishes for 2013.

Now mind you, these are things that I know have a snowballs chance in Hell of happening, still they are my wishes:

1. Kim and Kanye need to go away.  They need to fade off into the pop culture boneyard and keep company with Paris Hilton.  Its time for something just as vapid to take their place.  I am sure that when you strip away all the hype, they are humans.  But they need to be replaced with something more entertaining or talented or BOTH.  Sadly, we all know that once the news media gets tired of Kim and Kanye, they are going to find something as equally vapid and tiresome to jam down our throats.

2. Someone with an interest in Wikipedia need to remove this image of Rosalind Russell from her biography and replace it with something that really shows her joy of life.  This picture was a still from her first movie, and no one, Save for Queen Elizabeth I looks good in a ruff neckline.

How about this, instead:

There, now, isn't that better?

3. I need to find one of these and make it my own.  It's a Philco Golden Anniversary refrigerator.  Pull the "V" on the left side down, and the door opens on the left.  Pull it down on the right, and the door opens on the right,  Stylish, and sensible.  Then I need the great room to house it in.

4. I wish for a black 1965 Impala Convertible like my mom had, down to the plain old hubcaps like this one has.  For sentimental reasons, I need this car.

Those are my wishes, what are yours?

Have a Happy New Years Eve, and be safe darlings!

RIP in peace, Gerry Anderson

If you were born in the last 60 years, you probably know who Gerry Anderson was. Anderson created many of the most untypical children's shows on TV, airing first in the United Kingdom and then slowly migrating to the States.

While Hannah-Barbera insulted your child like minds with the Banana Splits, Anderson thought the children of the world, and I was one of them, could handle shows shot in SUPER MARINATION that involved puppets doing adult things, like working and having adventures without any children around to make them cute.

And these weren't any puppets - these amazing marionettes (See the clip above) that held down important jobs and had inter-species love triangles and adult theme music.  Male and female role models for kids - that made kids feel like they were talking to them.  What more, in Stingray, Anderson had a physically challenged marionette with a cool mobility device.

Mind you, Anderson made all this happen in 1964, DECADES before government and watchdog groups made TV networks air bullshit crap like the Noodle and Doodle Bus (where children are encouraged to hop aboard (unescorted, mind you) a bus driven by "Joel", a man who's into cooking and crafts and plays with, get this, puppets. Look at this douchebag on the right.  WHAT PARENT WOULD LET THIS MAN, OR ANY MAN, HOST THEIR CHILD ALONE IN A BUS?

Anderson later went on to film the syndicated SPACE 1999 about a moon crashing through outer space with Martin Landau and Barbara Bain in charge.  Hot!

So here's to you Gerry Anderson, for widening our horizons and giving us that bizarre inter-species love triangle between the Captain, the Admiral's daughter and the mute Mermaid.

Did Santa Make You Happy?

Or did you make Santa happy this year?

Did you get anything really good?

Merry Christmas, Darlings!

Miss Fishnet of 1954 and I wish you a Merry Christmas!

My Christmas Gift to You: Mother Goose A-Go-Go

With Christmas upon us, If I could give you all just one present it would be Mother Goose A-Go-Go (1966) for each of you.  For those of you who know about this salient work of cinema, which also goes by the name The Unkissed Bride,  enjoy the trailer and be refreshed.

For those of you who have never heard of this gem, Turner Classic Movies provides the most direct synopsis:

"Newlyweds Ted (Tommy Kirk) and Margie (Anne Helm) Hastings immediately begin to have marital problems on their honeymoon at the hotel of Margie's uncle, Jacques Phillipe.  Margie, to overcome her nervousness during lovemaking preliminaries, picks up a copy of Mother Goose and begins to read aloud from it, whereupon Ted faints. A secret visit to psychiatrist Dr. Marilyn Richards reveals that Ted has a "Mother Goose" complex. Hotel detective Ernest Sinclair complicates Dr. Richards' treatment (conducted for convenience's sake in the hotel) by his over-zealousness: he believes that Ted, like his employer, Jacques Phillipe, is being unfaithful to his wife. Dr. Richards solves Ted's problem by treating him with an LSD spray while he sleeps, causing him to hallucinate and thus incorporate into reality the fairy tale characters from his fantasies."

Midway through the film, Henny Youngman pops in for a visit and earns a screen credit. Tommy Kirk sang the title song. And because Hollywood loved putting bit players into drag, Robert Ball, who plays the hitel dick, shows up in the cocktail lounge in drag, go go dancing while he keeps tabs on Kirk.

Barbara McNair puts an appearance singing "The Queen of Soul".

The strangest person popping in the film is Joe Pyne, the first confrontational radio and television talk show host (and self appointed fitness nut) who was the Morton Downey Jr. of his day.  The chain smoking Pyne plays himself.

The film, which is truly campy, marked the beginning of a career spiral for Kirk, who was once part of the Disney stable of young clean cut talent. In 1964, Kirk was outted to studio executives when the mother of a 15 year old boy alerted Disney that the 24 year old Kirk and engaged in a sexual relationship with her son.  Walt Disney personally fired Kirk, only to have to ask him back to film the sequel (The Monkey's Uncle) to 1964's hugely successful Misadventures of Merlin Jones.

Towards the end of the 1960s, Kirk's life was in disarray   He was drinking and whoring around, which made his appeal less than desirable to major studios and television production companies.  Hollywood is great at finding child talent, but it does a lousy job at preparing those youths for real life and real life problems.

Kirk eventually sought treatment for his drug use, and he came to terms with his homosexuality.  He also established a carpet cleaning business that provided him with real continued success that he could control.




Don't look for this one on TV.  We've found this on Amazon (Under "The Unkissed Bride")if you would want to buy it, and you do.  Because its so bad, its good.

Merry Christmas!

Rocky and Kevin Meet Santa Paws

Rocky and Kevin have been very good dogs this year. They've been real troopers when its come down to all the upheaval in their lives. With the two of us been in a state of flux, the pups have been on their best behavior.  This includes leading up to the Husband starting his new job, living with me in Columbus, putting up with the open houses, the eight hour car trip to Baltimore, the moving and helping to establish a new routine.

Santa is bringing them toys and a new custom built fence (as soon as as the design is approved by the neighborhood association, too) for the back yard!  The fence will help keep them in and safe, and keep out the other dogs, cats and fox (yes, we have foxes) so we don't have to worry about them darting off into places unknown.  So they will finally get to be outside with us and play.

We interrupt this blog for a Kevin moment

Kevin (aka Kevin Kevin the Wonder Mutt, or KKWM to his peeps) approves of this message.  Now hold your face to the screen so he can lick it.

This year, forget the Christmas cheer, and instead make someone matter to you

The thing about Christmas that I have grown to hate is that there is a very large, and getting larger everyday, contingent of people who demand, and belittle people into having a "perfect Merry Christmas" instead of a having a meaningful Christmas experience.

To them, every blasted household in the U.S. goes home on Christmas Eve, where they are warmly welcomed by their parents, brothers and sisters and children - oh my GOD, its always about the children - and they eat well, make fond memories, and if you are to believe Hollywood, they fall in love while Santa watches from afar.

In reality, its a nice thought. Unrealistic, but nice.

In the real world, people have to work through the Christmas Holiday.  Whether its plowing snow, unclogging sewers, flagging in planes to the air port or being a cashier at the WaWa, people work, and they work because this horde of true believers run out of cigarettes, get their cars stuck being on the road when they have been told to stay home because weather conditions are bad.

Well it sucks to be you in that car in the ditch, but in the olden days, they traveled to grandmother's house by sleigh, not by Honda Accords with All-Weather (HA!) Tires.

And then there are the personalities.  Someone is always detached, some one is always whiney and then there are the children, who have all had enough sugar to power them through the night.  Again, it's always about the children.

I feel bad for the people who sit alone, and want desperately to belong to someone.  I'm not talking about the people who really see Christmas as a day to be by their selves and look forward to that solitude.  No, I'm talking about the ones who want to be wanted, yet have no one even think of them.  They say that they want to spend the evening with their cat, or their iguana, but no one wants to be forgotten.

Yet all around them are people so wrapped up in their own worlds and needs that they insist that everyone be happy instead of wanting around them to feel secure and safe and wanted.

So, my challenge to you is to be kind to people this holiday week, and put those around you, especially the invisible people that are inconvenient to your own sense of perfection.  Don't just think that giving a homeless person a dollar gets you off the hook.  No. Make that person the center of your life for bit of time.

Thank the girl at WaWa for being there when you need a pack of Marlboro, or think that some TicTacs would be nice.  Compliment her on that festive pin.  Either she thinks it makes her festive, or she hopes it will make you feel festive, but don't be a total tool and throw the money at her and then think "What a total bitch." when she throws the change at you.

Thank the doorman.  Yes, tip him, because we all know what can go wrong when we fail to tip the doorman, but thank him genuinely.

And most importantly, if you have family that you are spending Christmas with, even its your mother who drives you crazy, thank your lucky stars that someone cares enough to make you crazy.

Why is Cookie like this?

This is my second Christmas without my mother, and for as much as I would kvetch about her, since she's been gone I am all alone in this world.  Yes, I have my adoring husband, a man that I am too lucky to have love me, and make me laugh and take care of me through these dark winter months, but when a parent or a brother or a sister that is all you have left leaves you, you're alone.

So this year, if you are one of those dreaded Christmas People, spend less time on insisting others be happy and merry, which only makes your mania seem reasonable, and be good to those who have no one else.

Your Christmas will be more in line with what is important, one and other, and less about material things, which no one really cares about.

Little Boy Blue come blow your horn...

...MJ and Norma are in the bedroom, and they're acting in porn*. 

I'm a bit giddy from holiday merriment.  Please excuse the lapse.  But when you see it, you gotta use it. 

*please note that no sexual acts are depicted and no genitalia is displayed. 

All Over God's Green Acre

When we were planning our big move last winter, one of the reasons why Baltimore scored much higher than it would have (and that was just about damned near perfect) is because its close to my most favorite place in the whole wide world, Washington DC.  Cookie lived there 30 years ago and I came out of the closet there in January 1983, so this was like coming back home. There was also an added bonus that my eldest niece, her family and their children were there as well.

But, things being what they have been, a caprice to DC was not in the making, as getting accustomed to Baltimore was my number one job.  And while I don't know where everything thing is here, I'm made enough inroads that if stuck on a freeway, I can hop off and take back roads to get where I need to go without driving through a neighborhood that is a poster child for The Wire.

With that under my belt, today I made my first solo trip into Washington DC since the big move.  Like I said, its been 30 years since I lived there, and things change.  And my direction of approach to the city is drastically different then its been since those school days.  So my day was to stop by and see Niecy and the kids, and then make my way to some familiar turf.

In the car with me was was a Garmin GPS navigation unit that we have named "Garmin Miranda"

My thing with nav units is that they are handy if you don't know where you are going, and they came be aggravating as Hell IF you do know where you are going.

Niecy lives in Alexandria, and from Baltimore, you just can't take a freeway and get there unless you want to go 20 miles out of the way.  So Garmin Miranda did a good job at walking me through the steps of getting off at East Capital Street NE, hoping on South Carolina NE, and then South Carolina Street SE, onto Virginia Avenue SE and then across the river.

After the visit, I told it that I wanted to go to the Christ Child Opportunity Shop in Georgetown, which is one of my old haunts because everything there is fabulous, and I know Georgetown.  So I went there and shopped, and bought a wonderful Eikholt paperweight signed and dated 1983.

Traffic in DC get squirly around 3PM on a week day, and I left CCO at 2:45PM.  I thought about just shooting up Wisconsin Avenue to the beltway, but I made the mistake of asking Garmin Mirada to get me home.  And if you have ever driven in DC, it is second to driving in Boston (proper) for hair raising idiocy.

She not only chartered our course, but she took me on a wild goose chase as well as traveled through the heart of the city and into neighborhoods that I don't even recall from my college days.

The route she took me to get to the Beltway on is in blue, the route I would have taken is in red:

Now, from Georgetown, I would have hiked up Wisconsin Avenue, cut across to the Connecticut Avenue and then used that to get to the beltway. Minimum number of turns.

But Ms. Garmin Miranda took me through Georgetown, Dupont Circle, Adams Morgan, Mount Pleasant, Columbia Heights, Petworth, Fort Totten, Manor Park, Lamond Park, and at least seven other communities before she availed the beltway.  This whole escapade over Gods creation was an HOUR of travel.  An HOUR.

Suffice it to say, we've had a day.  It's good to be home.  But tomorrow is another adventure.

Cookies Axiom: I'm never far from someone who knows someone I know

The husband claims that wherever we go, however far we travel, that during the time we are away, I am no further than arms reach from someone who knows someone that I know.

Baltimore challenged that.  I was feeling quite alone, though as I am an introvert, I've been quite fine with that.  I knew no one.  Yes, Niecey and her family were just down the road in DC, and so is my first love of my life (read that as beloved ex-husband), but still, that doesn't really count.  So I am alone in a city with few people to talk to or admit we know one and other.

Or so I thought.

It's been confirmed: Baltimore seems to be within my gravitational pull.  And surprise, surprise!  It's the Shaker Heights and Jewish connections at play:

1) Unbeknownst to us, the family a down the street is the brother and sister in law of one of my oldest and dearest friends from my college days.   We knew that Jess's wife had a brother in Baltimore, but we didn't find out where until early November.   We had dessert there on Thanksgiving evening and there we met...

2) A young Rabbi and her husband who had just relocated to Baltimore from Arizona.  She asks where we're from and we say Ohio.  She has cousins in Ohio - University Heights.  I tell her I'm from Shaker (next door to UH) and we start talking Temples.  Then she mentions their last name, and I say "The candy company family?"   She says its one and the same, and if I know them.  Know them?  "My mother dated Sol's brother Abe for years."  The husband rolls his eyes. She says "Abe the Freckle?" It's a Mitzvah!  And they live around the corner, too.

3) But back to my friend Jess.  Jess and his wife came over after Thanksgiving and we showed them the house and we kibitzed.   I knew she was from Buffalo, but she tells me that her mother was from Cleveland. What part? Taylor Road.  By the big toy store?  Yes!  She remembers the toy store.  It was really a hardware store but they had the huge room that was double the hardware store where they sold toys.  Turns out her grandfather was the Rabbi at Taylor Road Synagogue, better known to the old families like mine as Oheb Zedek. I gave her a book on the Cleveland Jews and she promised to return it.  I told her to keep it and share it.  "What good does it do anyone if it just sits on my shelf?"  My husband turned me and said "you just sounded like your father." OY!

4) We're in the grocery store this Sunday and we have to go to the service counter because we got overcharged for a Sunday Washington Post.  There I meet "Abbey".  Abbey refunds our our dollar and we start talking.  Again, we tell her our story and she says "I was just in Columbus and had a Tommy's Pizza, then we went to Aurora to meet my mother."  So we go through the "your from Shaker, I'm from Pepper Pike."  So I say "What Temple?" because the Shiksa and the Goyum are not residents of Pepper Pike.  She tells me, and I tell her I went there as a child. She starts getting a tear in her eye and says that her mother's cousin was married to the Cantor at the temple and how much her meant to her.  And I'm like "Your mother's cousin was Sylvia?"  You know them, she asks.  Know them, Sam was my father's twin brother.  Again, the husband rolls his eyes.  And we make dinner plans.

In the car he asks "In the past three weeks you've run into people who know people that you know.  How is this possible?"

It's gotta be the Jewish thing, right?

There is an "I" in TEAM

Share this with the 'A' Holes that you work with.

She sells she-crab at the seashore...

If it were up to me, She-Crab Soup would have a prettier label.  After all, a lady wants to look her best, even when she's been canned and sitting on a shelf at almost $5 a pop.

Less one star, for turning me into a human flamethrower

We're all winners on Infomaniac

I have just been notified that I have won the first annual Infomaniac Kitchen Queen Cook Off Contest.  If you were here with me now I would give you a great big smile and a cold, formulatic pageant wave!

Here's the thing with MJ at the Infomaniac: she gives and gives and gives, and then she gives some more because, that's the way she is.  And I think that any of her regular readers, and I mean this with all sincerity would say that not only is she loved by us all, but a day without MJ is really like a day without sunshine. So let us all lift a glass and toast the Mistress of the Infomaniac, for no matter how her life is going (save for Blogger deleting her blog by accident) she still makes time for us.   Think about that Bitches - she is always there for us.  And she can be there for you too, reader.  Just join in the fun, that's all!

Now onto what you are waiting for...THE RECIPE.

I won it with my mother's famous brisket recipe that is the BOMB.  Never fails to come out right.  Never fails to be a favorite, and never fails to get you compliments.  Here it is:

Momma Cookie's Sweet and Sour Brisket

1) 5-6 pound beef brisket with the fat. No one likes a dry brisket.
2) 1 cup brown sugar
3) 2 packages of Lipton Beefy Onion Soup
4) 1 TBS of white vinegar

You'll need heavy aluminum foil and a meat roaster, and this needs to be made a day before you need it. It has to mellow overnight.

PREPARATION

Seam together two sheets of heavy duty foil (along the width) tightly and place on counter shiny side up.

In the middle of the foil, empty one of the Lipton Soup packages.

Place the meat, fat side up, on the dry soup mix.

Empty the second container onto the fat and rub it in

Carefully bring the sides of the foil up and neatly seal the meat completely up in the foil as air tight as possible.

Place this into a metal roaster lined with foil. Place the lid on the roaster and put this into the over at 325 degrees (F) for 4-5 hours.

After cooking is complete, remove from over, remove the roaster lid and CAREFULLY open the foil and dump the brown sugar onto the hot meat and quickly seal the foil back up. 

Let cool, then place in the fridge over night.

SECOND DAY

Remove from fridge, open the foil and pick off the cold white fat. Throw this loose fat away. 

Remove the meat, move the foil & pan drippings to a sauce pan and bring to a roiling simmer. Add in the vinegar stir and let cool.

Using an electric knife, slice the meat against the grain into thin slices. NEVER slice the meat with the grain.

Place the sliced meat, fat side up on a Pyrex dish, pour the liquid sauce from the pan over this meat, and then cover with foil. Reheat for an hour at 350.

Serve with Uncle Ben's Wild Rice, which has a nice counter point flavor to the meat and the sauce.

For leftovers (as if that would happen) build a sandwich on Challah with Swiss cheese. Throw some butter into a skillet and then toast (like you would a grilled cheese sandwich) the sandwich till the bread gets a nice brown color. Yummy!

NOTE: DO NOT Try this with a crockpot, or a tofukey. Jesus will cry if you do this. Trust me.

Christmas Gift Ideas For The Blogger in Your Life: Peenee in a Belted Sweater

Just think how great Mr. Peenee would look in a belted sweater.  I dare say that he would be dashing.