On This Date In ISBL History: Random Musings

As Carlos and I are in sunny Miami for business and pleasure, I thought I’d do something I’ll call “On This Date In ISBL History” and repost some things from back when the blog was new, and newish … this was originally published January 9, 2014:

Random Musings

Congrats to icon Lily Tomlin, who married her long, longtime partner, Jane Wagner on New Year’s Eve in New York.

The two women have been a couple since meeting in 1971, and now some forty-two years later they are a happily, legally married couple.

Congratulations!

They are still happily married ... still funny ... still fabulous!

As many of you know, my sister, undergoing chemo for lung cancer, had seen most of her tumors shrink, which is good news right? Well, not exactly, because as anyone who’s gone through any kind of cancer treatment, or known someone in treatment, knows that while tumors shrink, the cancer cells run and hide in new places throughout the body.

This is what happened to my sister. The cancer has metastasized to her brain, causing several large lesions there. She was suffering all kinds of memory issues and lethargy, and, in talking with her doctor, has decided to undergo radiation treatment.

Radiation was something she said she’d never do, but faced with the issue, she changed her mind. First though, steroids were given to reduce the swelling on the brain, so now she is functioning better. Then came the issue of where to have the radiation. The insurance through her employer had ended — she stopped working last year when she began chemo — but as a retired military person, she was entitled to radiation treatments at a VA hospital. Trouble is, one was about an hour from home, and they couldn’t take her, and the next closest one was two hours from home.

Then it was learned that her employer insurance has not ended, and so now she is back home, taking radiation at a hospital just five minutes away.

So, it’s been a mixed bag this week of bad news and good news, but that’s the way things happen, I guess.

My sister passed away a month later, February 15, 2014.

I still miss her something awful.

So, Hostages is over and if it ever comes back to TV again I’ll stop watching CBS altogether. What a ludicrous show, so badly written and so badly plotted that it was almost laughable; and yet, like a train wreck, I could not look away. But the finale tied every storyline up in a neat little bow with all happy endings — mostly. The doctor didn’t kill the president. The family got back together. The president, who raped a girl eons ago, was now being held accountable. The mastermind of the Kill The President plot got the bone marrow to save his wife and then decided he’d turn himself in. His brother, who aided him, as well as a woman who helped, had fallen in love, and even though the brother murdered an innocent man during the series, he and his girlfriend were able to escape and live happily ever after.

The most disturbing issue? Two of the bad guys were black; one helping with the Kill The President Plot and the other the mastermind behind it. Those two, the only Black men on the show, were killed, meaning, I guess, if you’re white and you commit a crime you live happily ever after but if you’re black, you die?

Bad on you CBS.

Better news for TV? Downton Abby is back; so is House of Lies — featuring the amazing Don Cheadle — and Episodes — with Matt LeBlanc as the anti-Joey.

American Horror Story and Stevie Nicks? Say.No.More.

Also, Josh Holloway has returned from Lost to Intelligence, in which he plays a spy with a microchip that allows his brain to function like a computer or a Smartphone, I guess. Implausibility abounds, but Holloway is nice eye candy.

Plus, be still my hearts, Justified has returned with the oh-so-handsome Timothy Olyphant; good storylines, great writing and a hot leading man!

Hostages never came back. Downton Abby and House of Lies finished their runs. AHS is still, thankfully, a must-see. Josh Holloway didn’t last long on Intelligence, but he is back again, for Season Two, in Colony and is still hot. Worst of all ... Justified ended its run and Timothy Olyphant is not on my TV every week any more. I find that one still hard to take ...

So, if you drop by here regularly, you know I love a good f-bomb. I’m fairly good at containing my usage in public, but in private, in the car, at home, writing for this bloggy thing, I love to drop ‘em.

But apparently Martin Scorsese loves an f-bomb more.

His new film, “The Wolf of Wall Street”, is all about excess, with orgies on a plane to cocaine and cash and everything in between, so it’s no surprise that the film has set the all-time record for the use of the f-word.

According to Wikipedia, the word “f**k” is used 506 times on “Wolf” and the previous record holder was Spike Lee’s 1999 film “Summer of Sam” with 435 instances. But “Wolf” isn’t the first time Scorsese has set the f-mark; Scorsese’s “Casino” dropped the bomb 422 times, while his “Goodfellas” dropped it 300 times.

My hat is off to you Mr. Scorsese, you win!

Still, I used the f-bomb thirty-seven times this morning. I’m so proud.

Seriously? The Washington Blade reports that American Idol contestant and openly gay pop singer Clay Aiken is considering running for the U.S. House from North Carolina.

A source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says Aiken, a Raleigh native, has taken the initial steps for a run, including consulting with political operatives in Washington, D.C., about a bid for the seat. Aiken made phone calls to gauge support, talked to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and met with figures in Raleigh about a potential bid.

He has also been working with Betsy Conti, a Raleigh-based political strategist who’s worked for former North Carolina Governor Bev Purdue and Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore.

I hope she recommends he go a bit lighter on the mascara if he wants to be taken seriously.

Clay lost; ‘nuff said.

Don’t ever underestimate the power of a queen; or even the Queen.

Prince Harry has been ordered by the Queen to “sooner rather than later” shave off the bushy polar beard he grew while on his charity trek in Antarctica.

Harry returned to Britain just in time for the festive celebrations at Sandringham and though his brother William and sister-in-law Kate said they loved his “Windsor whiskers” his grandmother was apparently not amused.

Harry maintains that beards are a royal tradition and told a well-wisher watching his family walk to church on Christmas morning that he intended to keep his, and a place insider, probably Princess Anne because what else does she have to do says, “The rest of the family liked it and were taking the mickey, especially his cousin Zara who dubbed him ‘Prince Hairy’.”

Prince Hairy. Prince Hottie, too.

PS Who's that next to him? O M G I’d like to be trapped in an igloo with those two!

I’m still up for a tryst with Prince Hot Ginger and the Unknown Hunk ... don’t tell Carlos.

So, Consuelo Roca-Jones, our youngest feline child.

Carlos goes from calling her Princess one minute to Little Bitch the next, but it has become abundantly clear who is in charge around here.

See, Miss Jones likes to sit in an open window and watch the birds and smell the yard and such. And Carlos, who obviously kowtows to the Little Bitch Princess, has taken to opening a window just so she can perch in it. Trouble is, the heater in the house is running and it’s 30-degrees outside but he doesn’t want to, and I quote, “Make her mad.”

Consuelo 1, Carlos 0.

And this battle of egos still wages on in our house, and Consuelo is up by over a hundred points by now!

So, the Polar Vortex brought out all the scarves and hats and gloves and coats, but in Illinois, at one move theater, it brought out the funny.

Take a look at that marquee …

Luckily we are in Miami during the South Carolina cold snap!

Liz Cheney is still a moron. But that isn’t really surprising really, is it?