My Morning

I have an extra bedroom and I use it as my ironing/blocking room.  But with my daughter and family arriving tomorrow, I had to make room.  Seems wrong somehow to make them sleep on the floor.

This is what I found on the bed and on the ironing board:

Really and truly, I hate ironing, and although I'm not the only one to feel that way, I also know people who love ironing. I tend to let it all pile up (obviously) and then iron what I need when I need. It has sort of backfired. I have (according to Rowenta) a GREAT Rowenta iron, with the ability to put out lots of steam, and that should make the task easier and quicker. However, it's summer in Georgia, so lots of steam isn't completely a plus. It kind of feels like punishment for letting things get this out of hand.  As if the universe cared.

I've done what people I know who love to iron do. I brought the whole pile of clothing, hangers, the ironing board and iron into the tv room, and Monsieur Hercule Poirot kept me company. 

I spent some nice time with Hercule (I love him and I call him by his first name; he does not approve.) and finished the stack of ironing.

But then I checked the closet.  

Back to ironing. And Hercule.



WARNING:  In surfing the internet for information about the quarter of a century of Poirot episodes, I came across a spoiler about the final episode.  And it is SHOCKING, y'all.

Do not read the Googles about Hercule!!!  Seriously, don't!

Really and truly, don't.  :-(


(And just so you know, David Suchet says that he accomplished the sort of mincing waddle of Poirot by clenching a penny between his buttocks. I report.You decide. Ick or interesting? Your call.)

And I must say, if I say so myself, you really do get your money's worth here, don't you!

I am Smitten

with a British TV series called Doc Martin. I LOVE it. It takes place in Portwenn, a fictional town along the Cornwall coast in England. The characters are wonderful; the scenery is drop dead gorgeous and I swear that everyone who lives in the tiny REAL town (Port Isaac, Cornwall, United Kingdom) has a view of the ocean. The show has the usual mix of British humor and eccentricities. It is on PBS, but on Hulu, I can watch every one of the episodes of the seasons I missed before I discovered the series.

It's perfect.

Leonard Cohen

Has anyone heard of this man? I hadn’t until I came across a concert that my local PBS station was playing during a pledge drive, or begavision, as it’s known to some (me). I had expected a different show to be on, but then when I heard this man sing, I stopped dead in my tracks.

It turns out that he is very famous – duh, where have I been - and is a poet, songwriter, singer, artist, and Buddhist monk. He has been all of these things for decades (he is 74) but apparently I’ve been clueless.

I’ve listened to a lot of his songs now, and I enjoy his gravely, deep voice. I feel as if I should be in a dimly lit, smoky bar, drinking a glass of wine, or, better yet, a really, really smooth scotch straight up, when his music is playing.

An odd thing about his music is that the words don’t always make any sense (to me) but they do generally rhyme. I don’t know if rhyming is his main goal in writing and I’m not sure that coherence and meaning should be sacrificed for rhyme, but then I’m no poet:

And just when I was sure
That his teachings were pure

he drowned himself in the pool

His body is gone,

but back here on the lawn

his spirit continues to drool

(from "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong"

Anyone? Anyone?

Yes, I know - it’s out of context - but believe me, context doesn’t help here.

What surprised me, in addition to Mr. Cohen’s existence, was that the local station was selling a membership for $1,000.00 and that the membership also included two tickets in the front rows of the Fox Theatre for a performance by Leonard Cohen. They sold quickly. Then the station offered the same deal, but with the seats farther back, for $800.00 and they sold. Then for $600.00 and they sold right away. I have never seen anything offered by our local station for these amounts of money, so I guess Mr. Cohen has a lot of fans.

I'm still not sure if he is:

a. talented or

b. a case of the emperor has no clothes.

I guess I will have to listen some more... Where's the scotch?

Two TV Show Reviews for the Price of One

Two times zero is still zero, right?

Wallander
Stars: Kenneth Branagh.

Wallander, a PBS Masterpiece Theatre mini-series, shows Mr. Branagh concentrating, observing, worrying, seeing, thinking, pondering, sleeping, studying, being comatose (now stop that, Knittergran), and ....well, I don't know what else because his face looks pretty much the same no matter what he is doing. Because most of the running time of each episode shows Branagh concentrating, observing, worrying, well, you know, there isn't much dialog, action, or even plot, really.

As a result, I've had lots of time to notice that Kenneth Branagh has a freakishly small mouth and almost no lips. It's quite odd.

Burn Notice

Stars: Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar, Bruce Campbell, Sharon Gless

Sigh.

The sky is beautiful.

The ocean is beautiful.

The palm trees are beautiful.

The nighttime sparkly Miami is beautiful.

The people are beautiful.

The plot is irrelevant.

And it's funny!

Every time I watch it, I want to move back to Florida. Florida without the humidity.

The End.