Zella

Yeah it's definitely one of those jobs that seems like it would be glamorous and exciting. I've read quite a bit about real-life moles like Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames, and I think one of the personal incentives for spying for them--beyond the money, which of course was a huge incentive--was to also have the kinds of adventure you're supposed to have, in theory, as an intelligence officer but that they weren't experiencing at all.

Le Carré was an intelligence officer, so he wrote from experience. I loved the books precisely because George Smiley was such a desk jockey. LOL

I follow her on social media--she's a lot of fun!

Agreed. You also can't force someone to get help if they don't want it. I've dealt with this in my family. You can suggest and advise all you want, but you can't make the person be sober/seek help for depression or PTSD/leave their terrible spouse until they're ready to do that themselves.

I had originally thought that from the beginning, to be honest, but some of the other details do make me wonder if she had a medical emergency in the bathroom, and he fell trying to get help and the dog just had the misfortune of being kenneled when everything happened. I saw one article that said their home had patchy cell service, so if he was in the mudroom because he was trying to leave the house to summon assistance (or just because he understandably panicked), that would make sense. Regardless of what happened, it's so sad and unfortunate. I always really liked Gene Hackman in movies and was happy to see him any time he pop up on the screen. Cinema lost something when he retired, though I am glad he seems to have enjoyed his retirement and the other interests he pursued. Last year, I tried to watch Kevin Costner's Wyatt Earp for the first time in a long time, and it absolutely bored the hell out of me. Except for Gene Hackman's scenes. LOL He always lit up the screen and was always worth watching, even if the movie itself wasn't anything special.

They tested negative for carbon monoxide poisoning and Hackman's pacemaker last registered activity on February 17. https://variety.com/2025/film/news/gene-hackman-wife-test-negative-carbon-monoxide-pacemaker-stopped-1236323847/

I'm another one who usually quits if I'm not feeling a book. I usually give it 50 pages but sometimes nope out on the first page or chapter. I have been known, however, to read an entire book while entirely loathing it if the powers of hate-reading compel me. LOL But I don't do that anywhere near as much as I did.

I've read multiple sources that say one of the dogs was alive in the bathroom with her, while the one that had died was in a kennel in the bathroom closet. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/gene-hackman-wife-found-dead-investigation-santa-fe-sheriffs-rcna193960 I don't want to engage in too much speculation without more facts, but I do not believe what is described has anything to do with carbon monoxide poisoning. I was also confused about the caretaker, but the above source, which is the most thorough I've seen, clarifies it is the subdivision caretaker who called, not a personal caretaker. Apparently when maintenance workers--or pest control, I've seen both in various articles--couldn't get ahold of Hackman and his wife, they called him, and then he called 911. I suspect that Betty was, essentially, Gene's caretaker.

I think I referenced this quiz a while back when we were discussing how to say water but didn't realize it was still active. When I took it in grad school, it considered me vaguely Southern as in from somewhere south of the Mason Dixon line and east of Texas. LOL It absolutely pegged one of my classmates at the time perfectly, though. He'd grown up in Little Rock and spent his early adulthood in Tennessee, and both locations showed up for him. This time around, the heat map did pinpoint me as more Upper South, with boundaries moving into Missouri and Kentucky and Maryland, which is fair enough, but it pegged locations for me as Columbus, Georgia, and Louisville and Lexington. I've only ever driven through both states. I think I throw these for a loop because my vocabulary is an accurate reflection of the fact I am originally from Appalachian North Carolina and spent most of my life in the Ozarks. But the way I pronounce things is much more neutral and harder to peg to a specific location. Part of that is having a master's in English, so I do things like distinguish between a pin and a pen in speech because I learned them in school, but even as a kid I never had a pronounced accent like the rest of my family. As an adult, I have had people try to hit on me by asking me where I was from ("You're obviously not from around here" one of them started with), and they always get so puzzled when I'm like "But I am from here?" LOLOL

I don't think that's a local idiom. It's not unfamiliar to me. If you look up "well and truly," it also yields multiple results, including book titles and dictionary entries. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/well-and-truly

Thanks! That's what it sounded like, but I was curious if I'd missed something.

When did this happen?

And per Pearce, he wasn't the only one Spacey was harassing on set.

They picked a good time to flee Arkansas temporarily too. We're supposed to get a pretty good snowstorm starting tomorrow.

Thank you! I feel like my brain cannot retain the in-laws of the past few years. LOL