The Stuff of Which They Make Movies

Did you know that the chief of police of Egg Harbor Township is Blaze Catania?

Honest, I'm not making that up, but doesn't it sound like a name you'd see in a mystery novel? Blaze Cantania, Chief of Police

I think somebody should make a TV series based on him. It almost writes itself.

1. He lives in Egg Harbor - that's a name made for television.
2. Egg Harbor is close to New York and to Atlantic City and not that far from the District of Columbia. We can send Blaze on a clue hunt to one of those locations when we need a boost in ratings.
3. He's a police chief who worked his way up the ranks. In the show, Blaze will be popular with everybody except the creep who got passed over for promotion because every show needs somebody to boo (i.e., the antagonist).
4. He has FBI and West Point training so we could work in some episodes about his connections with federal agents or an army captain.
5. He's an assistant football coach. There's an opportunity there for episodes involving kids. High school, drugs, sexting, run-aways,throw-aways. They're all popular.

You know, I'm thinking with a little tweaking (or a lot), this would make a great Western. Maybe it could even make Westerns popular again.

To do the impossible...

is just silly.

I re-learned an important lesson this week (and it's only Tuesday). If your boss gives you an 'impossible' task, don't do it!

Even if you're the type that takes pride in doing the impossible, don't do it!

Even if you know that it's not a brain-busting task, just a little complicated and time consuming, don't give in to that urge to show off. Just don't do it!

And especially don't do it today if you can stretch it out for a week or a month, like it's really, really, REALLY hard.

You know why, don't you?

Because if you do the impossible today, he won't be grateful. He won't give you that raise or bonus you deserve. All you'll get is more work because he'll just think up something else that's even more impossible to do tomorrow.

Show me the money!

One good thing about renewing my TV service, I get to watch the westerns that have been absent from my TV for several months (due to Channel 40 electing to switch to DTV early). I only get home in time to watch part of Bonanza, but all of Gun Smoke and yesterday I got to see a Gun Smoke episode that I didn't remember seeing before.

It was slightly strange. Matt Dillion got hit by a gunman robbing the bank and lost the use of his right arm - his gun arm. While he was flat on his back in Doc's 'hospital' nobody went after the bank robbers - they didn't even think about going after the bank robbers. That was just silly. Then they let Matt go off by himself because he was afraid that gun fighters would come looking for him, knowing he was handicapped, and put the town at risk. Then when they knew the bank robbers were looking for Matt because he had killed one of them doing the robbery, Doc talked Festus & Newly out of getting a posse together to go after Matt to save his life - Hello, they were bank robbers - why were the deputies not going after the bank robbers? That was just silly.

Then Matt meets a young man who deserted the army. He had a fast draw and could shoot the antennae off an ant at 50 paces but he didn't believe in killing for any reason. He was sitting over an open fire with something turning on a spit over the fire when he declared he had never hurt another living thing. What was on that spit, honey? Roasted lettuce?

Anyway, the kid learned that sometimes you have to shoot back to save your life (or Matt's life), but he threw his gun away and decided to go back to the army because they were bound to have a job for him that didn't involve killing people. Matt went back to Dodge and everybody went on with their lives except for the bank robbers. All but two were dead and the last we saw of them they were face down in the dirt (the live ones, the dead ones were belly up).

Nobody ever went after the money.

It's over

What's over? you ask politely.

My protest against governmental interference in my television viewing pleasure, I respond sheepishly.

I lasted longer than I thought I would. A whole weekend and almost a whole day after that. Monday I tried hooking up the world's stupidest converter box (you know it converts a normal TV to one that will accept digital shows) to my 'big' TV. It wanted nothing to do with any of it. I got one channel in but the picture was in groups of pixels in different areas of the screen, not altogether to make one picture.

I tried adjusting the antenna control as per the instructions (that were almost but not quite written in English) but the quality (based on their scale of 0% - 100%) got smaller and smaller. I think it actually dipped to a negative number. So I gave up and watched She Spies on the portable DVD player. (Please don't tell anyone I told you that I watch She Spies and even paid for the first season DVD collection. How embarassing!)

Tuesday I got a big bright idea as my nephew Jeramy used to say. I hooked the converter box to my little TV in the bedroom. It works beautifully. If you have a pair of binoculars to see the screen and don't mind sitting on the bed. And if you don't mind having to surf through useless channels to get to the good stuff between commercials.

Hey, I think that still counts as a protest. It's uncomfortable, cramped, inconvenient.

Yeah, my flag is still flying. Now if you'll excuse me it's almost time for So You Think You Can Dance.

Another time and place

Have you ever seen the play "Our Town"? There's a pivotal scene where Emily is at her own funeral and learns she can go back in her life for one day and experience the day all over again. Not as if she were living it, but as an observer. Those who had gone before warn against it, but she chose her 16th birthday thinking that it will be a special day. She found out that it's the little everyday things that people take for granted that are so achingly special when you can't live them anymore.

When I fixed my breakfast on a tray today, I slipped a knife under the back of my plate so the syrup would stay on the pancakes. I learned that trick from my grandfather. Sometimes he would have cereal for breakfast in a plate instead of a bowl and he would put a knife under the back so the milk would stay on the cereal. Do you think it ever occurred to him that 45 years later his granddaughter would remember that?

It never even occurred to me that I would miss that someday because I never thought the time would come when I wouldn't be able to eat breakfast with him. When he wouldn't be sitting at the head of the little red table in the kitchen.

How could I not have known he would not last forever?