Blergh

OK, my neck of the woods got a shot of winter weather early Wednesday morning which made a tricky commute but otherwise wasn't too much of an issue. The city didn't pick up the garbage and recycle that I'd put out on the street that day. ..or even Thursday or Friday when everything had melted. BUT this morning Iheard garbage trucks driving through so I think this means that I've FINALLY had my garbage and recycle picked up! HOORAY!

One thing I think needs to be at least seriously considered is forgiveness. Before anyone blasts me, I'm not saying we should forgive each and every transgression of every unrepentant individual but those who have come to believe that they made a terrible mistake and want to do all they can to make up for should be at least evaluated instead of instantly and forever condemned for said mistake. I mean if a person who voted for #45 has sincerely seen the light and believes that they made a horrible earlier should at least be considered whether one wants to give the benefit of the doubt (e.g 'I know I was being greedy and selfish by overlooking zillions of atrocities he did/sanctioned and the cruelties he inflicted on innocents via slanders and tarring,etc but now I realize I made a horrible error in judgement and want to help right that wrong to the best of my ability'). Seriously, we need to unite as many folks as possible to stay strong and hold the faith so I don't believe we should sneer at any sincerely contrite folks who want to atone for their earlier horrible decisions. Now if it's strictly a selfish thing like 'Heh, heh, I thought he'd bring down my egg prices [but couldn't have cared less about all the hatred,blasphemy, bigotry, discord,etc. he'd sown and encouraged]' that would be a different ball of wax.

BTW, did anyone else wonder how big that strawberry patch victory garden was supposed to have been and had Mrs. Hall herself somehow picked ALL those baskets of berries without any stray leaves or stems clinging to the fruit? I hope they grew other fruits, vegetables and/or seasonings,too. Still, all those berries looked perfectly ripe and delicious and I think they made delicious jam despite not having added sugar due to their own fructose sweetening them.

Mrs. Reagan managed to put a thoroughly negative depiction of her daughter Patti that, as per said autobio, from Patti's literal birth [which she somehow blamed her child for having been conceived premaritally] to the book's writing there wasn't a single positive thing her daughter did in her eyes- and she even gloated at Miss Davis being [at the time] on strained terms with her younger brother Ron and half-sibs Maureen and Michael. I mean, I don't believe Miss Davis was a flawless angel but surely Mrs. Reagan could have put in something positive about her. One would have thought that Mrs. Reagan would have been honored that Miss Davis chose to use the surname Mrs. Reagan herself had been desperate to obtain prior to her stepfather's adoption of her years after her own mother Edith's remarriage but she made no mention of it. The child I felt most sorry for in all this was Maureen (1941-2001) who seemed smarter than the rest of them and had no illusions about any of them yet still clung to the desperate hope that her parents and stepmom would love her for who she was but all of them seemed to consider her virtually at the bottom of their priorities .That is until the last part of her life when Miss Wyman seemed to finally realize that she had lost so many years of what could have been a fantastic mother-daughter bond- and Mrs. Reagan came to appreciate how hard Miss Reagan worked to help put together her father's Presidential library, her hard work advocating for Alzheimer's patients and caregiver AND aided Mrs. Reagan with her father's caregiving- all when she herself was dying of cancer AND finalizing the adoption of her own daughter. I guess better late than never but it seemed it was barely better.

Does My Turn (1989) by Nancy Reagan count? Even in her own autobiography in trying to defend/explain away her actions, Mrs. Reagan thought nothing of sharing for public record with the whole world that her pet name for the President was 'Ronnie' while his for her was. ..'Mommie' -despite her being a foot shorter and thirteen years his junior! Hoo boy!

I have to admit that I liked that one moment of Mrs. Pumphrey's temporarily regaining her former flightiness (going back to ascribing stuff far beyond Tricki's actual knowledge,etc.) when she said that Tricki was willing to do his part to sacrifice for the war effort. Still, I agree that it was good to see her actually jump in to help the overwhelmed Mrs. Hall (and Helen) when she could have left in an angry huff (and would have had the right to have done so)- and extra points for having her actually winding up having been helpful instead of the trope of being a well-intended but causing more problems via her input!

I've been trying to find out where to apply for a transfer back to 1979 for the last few years!

As long I'm doing Hapsburg trivia. Here's one, the last Austrian Emperor Karl I( 1887-1922) succeeded his great-uncle Franz-Josef in 1916. The sad irony Karl had been the son he'd Franz-Josef had never had. .even marrying a bona fide Catholic princess in 1911 (albeit of a deposed domain), Zita of Bourbon-Parma (1892-1989) and the two had were devoted to each AND eager to do their duty which brought comfort to the old Emperor in his twilight years somewhat adopting them and their growing family (yes, Carl and Zita proved quite fertile). Anyway, Carl succeeded as Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary in 1916 but, alas, the Great War was too big for him to stop (though he and Zita tried but were reviled for it at the time). .and Karl wound up being forced to give up his powers. However, Karl very carefully just released everyone else from their obligations to him but did NOT technically abdicate in 1918. After a disastrous attempt to (re)claim the throne of Hungary, they were exiled to the Portuguese island off the coast of Africa called Madeira where Karl caught a cold after shopping for a present for one of his sons which turned into bronchitis and pneumonia and, despite the efforts of Zita personally nursing him [and the others who'd gotten ill], Karl had two heart attacks and died declaring his love for Zita. Zita who was heavily pregnant with their 8th child turned to their eldest son Otto (1912-2011) and told him that 'Your father is sleeping the eternal sleep, YOU are now the Emperor!' and bowed to him! This would also be the last time her children would see her in anything but completely black dresses. After many decades of adventures (including being on Hitler's literal death list due to trying to stir up NAZI opponents in Austria) and, Otto von Hapsburg wound up giving up his claim to the Austrian throne and would become a member of the European Parliament in addition to raising a family and helping to support his aging mother. It should be noted that even when the budget didn't cover food or clothing, Zita had somehow made sure her children were all well-educated and she would be rewarded with a comfortable old age in Switzerland while becoming a great-grandmother of a multitude before her death. She'd be buried in Vienna along with the other Hapsburg rulers and consorts with her heart entombed next to Emperor Karl's after 67 years of widowhood! As for Otto, he would inherit his mother's longevity in addition to having adaptability to make the most of his talents in a changing world before his own death at 98 in Germany. In 1972, Emperor Karl's casket was open before witnesses and his 60-year-old son was among the group that saw that his remains were perfectly preserved which led Herr von Hapsburg to observe that he got to see his father as a young man once more in his own old age! Anyway, had the Austro-Hungarian Empire not flown apart and he'd never renounced his own claim, Otto have beaten Elizabeth II of Great Britain and Louis XIV of France's records with an 89-year long reign after his father Karl's death.

Long-short is that, thanks to one great-grandparent who emigrated here but kept in touch with a sib in the Old Country, I have kin who are just one nation's width away from the Ukraine. I wish I felt better about their security and those of their fellow compatriots and others in their neck of the woods after #45 decided to blame the victim for getting ambushed. Why does that not surprise me, though?

OK, I know it's almost over in the US, but I'm going to stick my neck out to wish everyone in the US a Happy Presidents' Day - and everyone can individually decide WHICH US President/s to celebrate the life/ves and achievements of and which to ignore due to not believing they merit the same accolades as the good ones. I leave it everyone's individual imaginations. ..

Now that I think about it, perhaps Miss Grantley may not have totally ruled out ever . ..at least conversing with Siegfried again. What's my evidence to back up this theory? Because she left her manuscript in his house (the one which he wound up being too blunt causing their fall out). OK, had it been a first edition/printing of an author's written work, an author might be willing to .. .write that off along with the friendship after a falling off. But a manuscript? That's their work in progress chock full of notes, sources,etc. No way would an author have deliberately left said manuscript (barring risk to life or limb) in the hands of someone they'd want ZILCH to do with again! Miss Grantley could have easily made a beeline to Skeldale House to grab it out of the Farnon Bros. unappreciative/careless mitts,sent one of her staff to have demanded its return. .or even had him served a legal notice to compel him to turn it over. However, the fact that she left it with Siegfried even though she's not currently on speaking terms with him gets me to think that maybe she's just waiting to cool off before she decides whether there could be a future. . .or grab that manuscript so she'd have absolutely NOTHING more to tie herself to him! Also, I just remembered that Mrs. Pumphrey mentioned her French butler Marcel having cooked for Tricki via that being the possible source of that irritating chicken bone. No, we haven't seen Marcel but it seems likely that she's pulled the right strings to keep him in her employee as a foreign national so he can have a safe refuge despite his nation currently being occupied. Of course, that would bring up how he is dealing with his loved ones being behind enemy lines,etc. but that's not being touched upon. Since the Matron and military hospital are occupying the Pumphrey Manor, I suppose this means that Marcel is in that guest cottage along with Mrs. Pumphrey and Tricki (and likely was getting worried about their very lengthy veterinary appointment in town).

The Archduke Franz Ferdinand had quite a few faults(e.g. hunting animals to an alarming degree even for the times) and likely would have been just made things worse had he lived to succeed the Emperor Franz Josef. However, he WAS a devoted husband and father to his morgnatic wife Countess Sophie and their children (one of his main conflicts with his uncle Franz Josef was that Sophie had been a mere countess rather than a princess of a Catholic nation or deposed realm that was the rule for Austrian empresses-to-be and he wound up having to agree that she could never be empress and their children could not succeed to the imperial throne). Anyway, after the two of them had become mortally wounded in Sarajevo on June 28,1914 (on the 525th Anniversary of the Fall of Kosovo to the Ottomans), some of Franz Josef's dying words were to plea 'Sophie-love, Sophie-love, don't die! Stay alive for the CHILDREN!'

Well, somehow I had the feeling that Siegfried would be too . ..blunt for his romance with the Persian manuscript author to last. It's too bad that she doesn't seem to want to communicate with him any more (not even to have messages passed on). Oh well. Yes, I agree that Tristan was a bit obnoxious with virtually him virtually parading his 'free time' status in front of the now very busy Siegfried and James but that wasn't a new kind of development for his character. He did let himself get guilt tripped into going with Siegfried to that farm where he put his two pence in far more than was helpful. I knew something was very wrong with James with him initially treating the waiting clients like he was a music hall emcee- with the whole thing melting down with him winding up being rather rude to Mrs. Pumphrey and blowing off (as it turned out) a legit concern re Tricki. Thankfully, Mrs. Pumphrey didn't storm off in an angry huff but was willing to make an allowance for James's . .altered demeanor. And even more proving a help to Helen and Mrs. Hall who had their hands full with a packed waiting room, Baby Jimmy and a feverish James. ..to say nothing of all those strawberries to be jammed. Yes, that fever sure brought out some horrible guilt James had been carrying and had tried to stuff down even though, of course, it wasn't his fault what had happened to his military comrades! Meantime, Siegfried and Tristan sure made a mess of things after barely treating that miniature horse each having thought the other had had the car's gas tank filled and winding up on stuck on that remote road (in those days of no cellphones- don't forget!).Then, of course, getting increasingly drunk on that donated dandelion wine as they ambled about making their way back to Skeldale House. At least Tristan proved to be strong enough to safely carry Siegfried through that creek without dropping him! Just like James's fever had freed up his suppressed angst, their drunkenness cleared up their misunderstandings and they DID have a good talk despite all that with them winding up at Skeldale House with the whole town seeing them in rather disheveled and looped conditions. Nice reflections by Mrs. Pumphrey and Mrs. Hall over their respective times in the Great War and how Mrs. Pumphrey wished she could have stayed a working partner to her late husband instead of reverting to being a society ornament to him after the personnel shortage crisis had passed (by no means an unheard of sentiment for wives back then). Also, cute that she finished the Lewis Carroll poem that Siegfried was unable to complete in his state! At least James had thrown off the fever and seemed recovered by the episode's end (and gotten Tricki's chicken bone out to make him all right) but I have the feeling the Farnon Brothers felt a LOT of pain in the morning. .and had to deal with somehow retrieving the car and filling its tank! Yes, I'm sorry this season has to end next week but I look forward to it!

OK, I'm curious but does anyone know if the late Mr. Howard's given name was originally spelled K-e-v-y-n by his parents at birth or did he later alter it from Kevin so as not to share the same name as another performer in ACTRA? Prof Wiki and his cousin IMDB make no mention either way.

Let me say that I was sorry to see Norah O'Donnell retire as the CBS Evening News anchor. However, I can't help but think she realized that had she not done so when she did, she'd have wound up having either deliver watered down news or blatant propaganda.