My thankfuls

Every Thanksgiving since I was five, my family has played a game we call The Thankful Game. This comes after dinner and before pie, and everyone who is present, whether family member or visitor, is required to participate. We begin by taking lots of paper, tearing it into squares, and then everyone takes several squares and writes down what they are thankful for. These "thankfuls" range from the serious gratitude we feel for the Gospel, for our family, and for our jobs; to sillier claims of gratitude for Brian Bosworth (the Boz), my brother Peter's pectorals, and..."A"? We put all these "thankfuls" in a bag, shake them up, and everybody draws out a handful and we read them aloud.

Also, immediate family members are expected to send in their "thankfuls" if they're not able to be present for the thankful game. While on a mission, we mail them to my parents. If we're celebrating Thanksgiving with in-laws, as I am this year, we must drive over to my parents and deliver them in advance so they can be dumped in the bag to be read with the other thankfuls.

One of the problems is that the game has gotten longer and longer as everyone has written more and more each year (and as there are more and more people in the family each year). I have already written my "thankfuls" and will deliver them tomorrow, but to try and keep the game to a more reasonable length, I left out some things that are, perhaps, frivolous, but are things I am nontheless grateful for. So I decided to do a list here. Here are ten things I am grateful for--leaving out the obvious family, heater, and chocolate.

2009 Grateful List:

1. "Leave it to Beaver": I was a long time coming around to this show. But, we don't have cable, and one of the few stations we have is RTN, which is just a lot of old tv shows. I love it! But just the idea of Leave it to Beaver used to make me cringe, until I finally started watching it, and now I eat it up with jam. Plus, Wally makes me think what Bobby was like at that age. Except for not so short.

2. Indoor Play Areas: We got a membership to the Kidsquest Children's Musuem, and I love taking Mabel there. With the weather being cold and wet, and our home being rather limited on toys and space, it's great to have a spacious indoor play area that I can go to almost anytime, with lots of toys I don't have to pick up! I also love the Tuesday playgroups at church, although I do have to help pick up toys.

3. Walk-Aerobics: I've been doing these also since the weather turned foul, and since I injured my knee and can't run anyway. They're obviously not as intense as running, but they still get my heart rate up, and anyway, I'm not so pooped afterward as I am when I run. I love them, and if Leslie Sansome wants to give me money for endorsing her tapes, I won't refuse it.

4. Small Batch Baking: This is a cookbook I got from the library, and I'm lobbying to get it as a Christmas gift. It's written by a woman from the south, which is always a good sign, and it has tons of delicous recipes that will serve just one or two. Cookie recipes that make 3 to 6 cookies, recipes for tiny cakes (baked in aluminum cans. Brilliant!), pies, cobblers, breads, etc. Now that's what I call portion control!

5. Archive.org: This is a website that has public domain books, movies, radio programs, among other things, and you wouldn't believe how much good stuff has fallen into the public domain. While I'm not much interested in reading a book on the computer, they have audio books (read by volunteers, of course) that can be played from your computer, or downloaded and burned onto a CD. There's also gadloads of classic old movies, and old time radio shows, which I used to checkout from the library, on broken-down old tapes, but now I can get them instantly on my computer. Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Suspense, Dragnet...sigh, the list is endless, and so's the fun.

6. They Might Be Giants and Caspar Babypants: Caspar Babypants in Chris Ballew, the lead singer of The Presidents of the United States of America, which was a favorite band of mine back in junior high/high school. Well, the guy had kids (or, kid) and now has a couple albums of kids music he's written, which is every bit as delightful as his adult music, but with no fear of swears or other questionable material. Plus, you can listen to his entire first album free on his website, which I don't have on hand, so you'll have to google caspar babypants to get it. They Might Be Giants has been and is quite possibly my favorite band of all time, and I recently discovered they're kids music (I think they have at least 5 or 6 albums, and counting, complete with groovy music videos). I'm currently listening to Here Come the 1,2,3's until Here Comes Science comes out. I get them all free at the library, but am also lobbying for these for Christmas.

7. Library Programs: Speaking of the Library...I'm crazy about my tax dollars at work in the different children's programs through KCLS: storytime, fun little concerts (including Caspar Babypants!), plays, etc. I can't really call them free, but since it's something we've paid for with our taxes that I actually can appreciate and enjoy, I like to cash in on that. Plus, it gets us out of the house.

8. Aeropostale: The poor man's American Eagle (which is the poor man's Abercrombie, I think). They've got great clothes, great sales, and annoying music, but two out of three ain't bad.

9. P.G. Wodehouse: My favorite author. Like somebody famous once said, "You cannot be miserable while reading Jeeves and Wooster, and I've tried." I'd say this pretty fairly applies to all of his works. The happiest, bounciest stuff there is, his writing is bound to cheer you up.

10. Mad Libs: I loved these as a kid, and recently bought one on a whim. Bobby and I started doing them together, and we laugh so hard we cry. They're as good as I remember them. Better, perhaps, since I have a bigger vocabulary now.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

Enjoying a well deserved rest

I decided to take a break (if you can call blogging a break--I know some of you can), even though it looks like I haven't done anything today. In fact, it looks like the only thing I've done is mess up the house--it was all picked up last night, and now it is scattered with toys (Mabel won't let anything be picked up), dishes (our dishwasher isn't working again), and boxes (I haven't made it to the post office yet).
But, in my defense, I've been up since six o'clock in the morning, which is not my thing, but it's the best time for me to go to the gym, and I didn't get a nap because Mabel was unusually erratic with hers. And I did do laundry, ironing, shopping, and attempted to get the oil changed (the dealership went bankrupt though, and the new one isn't honoring the free oil changes for life. So glad I drove all the way to Kirkland to find that out. Glad they didn't tell me when I called and made the appointment, because I really like surprises.) Now that I'm warmed up, I'll have to really get the oil changed tomorrow. I also have a homemade quiche in the oven, which--like Amelia Bedelia with her pies--I hope will appease the helpmeet when he gets home.
What I'm trying to say is, give me a break.
I was going to write about our recent trip to Coeur D'Laine, but the time is not ripe. Mabel, who is even more capricious than me, even though she has gotten more sleep, is requesting my attention by standing on my foot, jumping, and pounding on the keyboard.

Back from retirement

I was reminded once again yesterday of the existance of this blog, and the length of time it has been since I posted anything. It's funny, the demotivator (or, anti-successory, if you prefer) on my Despair calender for September is Blogging; with the legend reading: "Never have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few." So I guess I'll say a bit about nothing to you few.

For those who don't know, I was able to run the Green River Marathon back in June--my time was 5 hours 18 minutes. I was hoping to keep it under 5 hours, but that will be my goal for the next one. Speaking of the next one, I am signed up to do another in October--the Leavenworth Oktoberfest marathon, but my knee has been bothering me a lot, so we'll see what happens. It's just over a month away, and I'd rather lose my entrance fee than blow out my knee.

In other news, I got the part of Titania (the fairy queen) in our Stake's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. We'll be performing October 15th-17th, so if you're able, come on down to Renton and see it.

Mabel also had her first birthday just a couple of weeks ago, which was a lot of fun. I made lemon cupcakes and red velvet cupcakes, and Mabel got her very own red velvet cupcake. She knew exactly what to do with it, and ate it like it was an apple--holding it tightly in her little fists. I think she figured something this good couldn't be for her, and was waiting for someone to take it away from her.

Just a few days after her birthday, I decided she was old enough to start getting to sleep on her own, and crying it out if needs be, and she's done remarkably well. She hadn't been sleeping well for months, but once we set a bedtime, and kept it consistentant, she's been sleeping about 12 hours each night and we are all much happier and better-rested now. She's only taking one nap now, and it's generally just an hour, so I always tell myself I'm going to make the most of it--but I usually just end up relaxing (which, I suppose, is really making the most of it. It's really the hardest thing to get done while Mabel is awake.)

Well, that's about it. I'm tired, and Mabel just went down for her nap, so I reckon it's time for me to veg a bit. Over and out...

Head colds, Half Marathons, and Boot Camp, OH MY!

So, I finished the half-marathon down in Tennessee. It was unseasonably hot (even for Tennessee) that day, pushing 90 degrees, but I outsmarted the heat by having a cold. Pretty sharp, I thought. Needless to say, I didn't get the best time (2:32), but I didn't die, either (one young man did--although they say he had a heart condition. I have my doubts. He was, after all, in the military.)
I want you to take special note of the metal around my neck, though. It is the last time I saw it outside of Mabel's mouth. She took a real fancy to it, and it became a glorified chew toy. She has cut two teeth, though presumably she could have done so without my metal.

After letting the mutant cold virus rock my world for nearly a month, I finally got some antibiotics, which cleared things right up. However, now I'm trying to ease back into running, which hasn't been so easy, and with the Marathon less than a month off, I'm starting to get nervous. I've had to make some altercations to my training schedule, and as long as I don't have to make any more, I should be okay (I hope).

Bobby and I signed up at a health club (or meat market, to Dad) and I was going three times a week (except when I was sick) and felt like I was pushing pretty hard--certainly I was sweating pretty profusely--but I was never very sore the next day, and was not seeing much difference. So I decided to start attending one of the classes--Boot Camp. I don't generally like going to classes; I feel clumsy and stupid excersising in front of people (that's probably why I chose running as my sport to begin with, it takes little coordination, just a basic one foot in front of the other. I can do that.) but I needed something to push me. It did. I attended Boot Camp for the first time last night. "Boot Camp" was not a figure of speech, nor a name they tagged on to a beginners class to make it sound tougher. I hurt so bad, in places I didn't know I had on my body. I had never heard of Jumping Squats before last night, and I never want to hear of them again. Of course, I'm totally going back next week. Does Advil make a sports drink?

Prayer beads and Paddy's day

In honor of the holiday, Mabel is dressed up like an avocado. I gave her some wooden beads to play with yesterday, and she's really taken a shine to them. I call them her prayer beads.

Right after I ran an almost record-breaking 12 miles (my actual record is between 13 and 14 miles, but that was 7 years ago) I caught a cold and have been laid up in bed, rubbing Zicam in my nose, for most of last week. I did wickedly sneak out and go to lunch at an Indian restaurant with a couple other moms. I had to pretend it was the spices that were making my nose run (I don't think I was fooling anyone, especially since my voice had morphed into a distinguished baritone). I had just received my late but much appreciated Valentine's present from Bobby; season 1 of Monk, and I went through the whole thing in 3 days, and I reread Babbitt. But now I'm feeling most of the way better, and am trying to nudge myself into going out on a run today. Part of me is like, C'mon, just a little run...and then there's a middle part of me that's worried to listen to the "little run" spiel, because once I get out there, the other part of me (call it Martyr part) will say, Hey, now that you're out here, why don't you run 7 or 8 miles, go whole hog! And I'm afraid I will and then get sick again. We'll see who wins. If the sun stays out, I'm betting on Running part to win). There's another part of me that's like, I like cookies! But the other parts don't really socialize with that part.

After the Party

Mabel and I had a Hina-Matsuri (Japanese Girls Day) party yesterday, which is to say, we stole the name and nothing else, and had a brunch and playdate. I honestly did read up about the real holiday, but it involves making dolls and then setting them out to sea in a boat and/or burning them (it gets rid of bad luck), and the menu calls for soup with whole clams, sushi, and saki. We had none of those things (whole clams?! disgusting). I went with old brunch standards; fruit, cinnamon rolls (CinnaBwanas), and a cheese strata, which I had made (with a different recipe) once before a while back. I didn't decide to make it until the last minute (well, an hour and a half before the brunch) but I'm glad I did. It turned out well, and was very easy.
Anyway, here's Mabel after it was over. She zonked within 10 minutes of the last guest leaving. Oh, she was P-double O-P-e-D.

I heart my 2nd amendment rights

I got to go shooting this week. I haven't been shooting since Bobby and I got married (or rather, since before we got married. We didn't do any shooting at our wedding--and not because Bobby was opposed to the idea, I'm sure.) It was also my first time shooting a handgun; up until now I had only shot rifles. I went with the Young Republican--you'll excuse the expression--Babes (that's the name of the group; I didn't name it, I'm not claiming babedom. Okay, let's let this go, it's getting embarrassing) to Wade's in Bellevue. It was a lot of fun. One of the girls is a policewoman (her husband is a cop, too) and she helped me out; showed me how to stand, load the clip, picked me out a delicious selection of guns to try, all that good stuff. I have no idea what the first gun I shot was, other than that it was a .45 clip, but it had a monster kick-back. It was a good gun to start with, because compared to it, everything else felt great! Even the cop didn't like it (she said it was the gun her husband used; I'm guessing the kick-back doesn't bother him as much). Next I shot a .22 revolver, which was the easiest thing I've ever shot. It was some specialty number that was specifically used for accuracy shooting competitions. It had virtually no kick back, and I even shot a perfect bullseye (once). The last gun I shot was a .45 magnum (also a clip), and it was surprisingly light, with little kickback. Tomika sure knows how to pick 'em. If I'm caught in a dark alley, she's who I want with me. Or if I'm playing tackle football. Or moving a piano.
Tuesdays are ladies night at the gun range (isn't that hilarious?) so we're going to go the last Tuesday of every month. Next month, the girl who arranges our outings is going to try to arrange for us to take turns on a machine gun. I'll do it, but I'm not going to go first.

Some things I love this week

1. Space Ghost Coast to Coast: I loved these when I was a teenager. Bobby gave me seasons 1 thru 3 for my last birthday, and I've been rewatching them. Each episode is only 15 minutes long, and oh so funny.

2. Michael Medved's new book: The 10 big lies about America. I got this for Christmas from my bro-in-law. I love all the research Medved does, and he has a very readable style, so it's better than digging through dry-as-a-mouth-full-of-chalk textbooks yourself. Fabulous, facinating book.

3. Running: I've finally really started to love it again. I did a nine miler on Saturday, and it was fun!

4. Long-sleeved white onesies: for without them, all of the 9/12 month summer clothes that Mabel fits into now (but will not come summertime) would be for naught.

5.Protien-fortified foods: bars, shakes, even cereals. I'm glad we've got 'em, because my tastebuds have been on a protien (meat, eggs, cottage cheese, beans) strike lately, and without it I get migraines.

6. Bedtime: saaay, that's now!

6 months

Mabel is now six months old! I was able to leave her last Saturday with my parents for more than three hours while I went to a Young Republicans brunch, and I was very surprised (pleasantly so) to hear how good she was! I think the trick was that three of her cousins were over there too, and she loves to watch other little kids. Unfortunately, her cousin Henry wasn't feeling well (ear infection) and he got upset and started screaming, which upset Mabel, and she started crying. But Grandpa took her for a walk for about an hour and a half, and she loved that. When I showed up, Grandpa was just finishing the walk, and Mabel was sitting in the stroller, as mellow as you please.
We've also started a rotating playgroup with some friends, and Mabel has made friends with another girl her age named Taylor. They sit and watch each other, which is high entertainment for them.
Mabel also had her 6 month appointment yesterday; she was very unhappy about it, despite the fact that she is in the pink. She seems to anticipate what's coming (e.g. shots) because she starts crying the minute the doctor comes in--and he isn't even the one who gives her the shots.
She is weighing in at nearly 20 pounds, which puts her in greater than the 95 percentile for weight. She is still in the 95 pecentile for height (27 1/2 inches).
After the doctor, I went on a 6 mile run with Mabel, and she slept the whole time, and was all the better for it. She woke up happy as can be, and was up the rest of the day. I left her with Bobby, because I had to go to Seattle for a book group, and Bobby said she was great. She ate her rice cereal, and bounced to her heart's content. She loves her bouncer.
For the book group (which is through the Young Republicans) we read a book called the 5000 year leap, which is essentially about the priciples America is founded on and how they have helped it to excel. Anyway, about a third of the way through the book, I saw one of the refeerences was for a book by Spencer Kimball, and I thought...hmmm, I wonder. I checked it out, and the author is Mormon. I thought it was kind of neat.
Well, Mabel is awake, and fussing, so I'm going to have to bring this to an abrupt close.

Bouncing

Here's a picture of Mabel in her bouncer (well, Sam and Emily's bouncer, tecnically)

Real Food!

Mabel started eating solid food this week! Of course, by "solid" I mean a tiny bit of rice cereal and a lot of milk, but it's a lot more solid than what she's had before. Not sure how much she's actually getting, but she has started sleeping through the night better again (if there's any correlation).

Bobby and I are both feeling a little under the weather (I think I'm just tired. All this getting up before noon is killing me. Uhh, just kidding.) Bobby's had to work overtime this week, which beats not working at all, so we're not complaining.

We're having a playgroup over here on Tuesday, so we're scrambling around, trying to dig up all the toys we have (next step will hiding everything that isn't a toy in our bedroom). Here's Mabel,surrounded by some of the toys she got for Christmas.

I do my business with a wink and a handshake!

This picture kills me. She looks so nefarious!

Big day for a little girl

Mabel had a pretty full day yesterday! By the time we got home in the evening (after 11) she was zonked in her car seat--and it seemed a shame to take her out! Here she is, sleeping peacefully. I don't have a picture of the screamfest that occured after this when I took her out and changed her diaper (it really needed to be done, or I would have just let her sleep).

Here she is this morning, all happy again!

Whoa, she's a pretty saucy girl! Look at her sit up almost by herself (I cut my hand out of the shot). She looks so wide awake. Really, this is just a brief feed/change intermission before she goes down for a few more hours. Even as I write this, about 15 minutes later, she's sound asleep in her crib again.

Well, yesterday Mabel and I got up bright and early (ha ha, 9am. Well, it's all relative anyhow) so we could be to our play group at 10:30 (we got there at 11. Don't get so hung up in details, okay? Just let me tell the story!) I joined a moms club this week, aptly named "Moms club of Renton." They have activities for moms and young kiddies; playgroups, book groups, mall walks, lunches, free musuem admittance, etc. All that good stuff to get moms out of their houses. So this was our first play group, and it was a lot of fun. Mabel met a bunch of people her age and I met a bunch of people my age. Mabel was pretty wired from all the excitement (or maybe it was from hearing Jimmy Carter on the Michael Medved show) and when she finally did calm down and go to sleep, she took a record long nap, and I was able to clean the house a bit. When she woke up, I took her running, and she fell asleep again. It was a good thing too, because in the evening we went over to some friends of mine and Bobby's, and we watched Wall-E, and Mabel was buzzing, Buddy! She would not go to sleep, she wanted to stay up with the grown ups (who, in this case, were obviously just larger-sized children playing with their blu-ray toys) and watch the whole movie. I knew we'd all pay for it; she got overtired and then went from huge smiles to crying the whole way home. She fell asleep just in time for me to have to disturb her by waking her up when we got home, but I changed her and fed her and got her into her crib in fairly short order, and this morning she was all smiles again. Amazing how quickly kids are able to get back to sleep. I wish I could get back to sleep so quickly. The only reason I'm up writing this now is because I can't get back to sleep. I'm going to give it the old college try, though. I've got the Successories Rock that Dad gave me; it has "Never Give Up" etched into it, and reading that always inspires me. I may try banging myself over the head with it a couple times too; after all, it's NOT FRAGILE!

Lists of 10's

10 things that drive me crazy (in no particular order):
1. People who jog/walk/bike on the wrong side of the jogging/walking/biking trail
2. Tailgaters
3. Having to listen politely when people talk about Global Warming
4. The Freedom From Religion Foundation
5. Most (so-called) poetry
6. Waking up early
7. Listening to my upstairs neighbor "pray" at the top of her lungs
8. Pork
9. Malls
10. Reality TV shows

10 people that drive me crazy:
1. John Kerry
2. Michael Moore
3. Christine Gregoire
4. Al Gore
5. Jim Carrey
6. The lady who does Penguin Window commercials
7. Nancy Pelosi (changed from Matt Damon)
8. Franklin Roosevelt
9. Oprah
10. Carrot Top

For good measure...

10 things I love:
1. Kelloggs Fiber bars (mmm...fiberlicious)
2. My family
3. Monk
4. The David Boze Show
5. Mabel's smile
6. Old radio shows, old movies, old TV shows
7. Sundays
8. They Might Be Giants
9. Yogurt Covered Anything
10. Wishbone

10 people I love:
1. Jack Benny
2. P.G. Wodehouse
3. Garrison Keillor
4. Robert D. Hales
5. Abraham Lincoln
6. Audrey Hepburn
7. Joan Blondell
8.Ronald Reagan
9. Franz Kafka
10. Charles Bronson

More news from Lake Wobeg--I mean Washington

Baby with the Bathwater

Here's a snap of Mabel after her traumatic bath, day before yesterday. It's really Bobby's job to bathe her, but she had a monsterous blow out (maybe I should have taken a picture of that!), and really needed a bath. She doesn't like her baths--so she cried and cried, then I dried her off and put her in her robe, and she chewed merrily on her teething ring. This was just the eye of the storm, though, because as soon as I dressed her she cried bloody murder again.

It's been over a week now since I posted anything else on this blog. I was trying to get a couple postings up, then I was going to let you all know I had it--but kudos to Carrie for discoving it first! I ought to give a prize. Sigh, I have nothing.
Mabel's asleep, so I have a little time to blog, but nothing much to blog about. I'm stuck on my Mabel book; the plot gets me hung up--plus, Bobby and I just watched some Jeeves and Wooster, and whenever I am approached with Wodehouse, well, it can be very discouraging to hold his Forth of July style talent against my tiny candle. Does that work, or is that mixing metaphors? Should I have said "against my tiny Pop It of talent"? Y'know, those little things you throw on the ground that go snap. Anyway, we'll let it go. The point is, Wodehouse makes me feel pressured.

I've restarted my diaper sewing again. Mabel outgrew all of the newborn-sized diapers in less than 2 weeks, so I'm doing some that hopefully will fit her a little longer. Right now, they're still too big, but by the time I've got enough of them ready they should fit. For 2 weeks. Maybe. This child, she's like an Amazon.

Things have been going pretty well with my running this week. Not great, but better than last week. Right before Christmas I had built up to an 8 mile run, and then I got sick, and then the holidays happened, and the weather was so foul, and next thing I knew it had been 3 weeks and I had exercised twice (neither time was running). So when I next went on a run, I was struggling to do 3 miles, and two days later I did maybe one, then turned around, walked back to my car, and went home. I have no idea why I was doing so lousy, but this week I did 2 three mile runs and one that was close to 4 (I lie, it was maybe 3 and a half. I'm just trying to impress you.) I think maybe after I got sick the whole Epstien-Barr virus kicked in, and it just took a little longer for me to shake that.

For Christmas, Bobby gave me a Garmin Forerunner (for those of you who don't know what that is, i.e. Dad; it's like a watch that tracks my running; distance, time, heartrate, etc.) and I've spent hours trying to get that thing programmed. It's got all this computer software that needs downloading, and a footpod that needs calibrating (isn't that what businesses do? uhhh, never mind). I think I've got it mostly figured out. Mabel woke up, so I'll see if I can get a picture of her in her homemade diaper...

Here she is! I still can't get her to smile for the camera. She's so distracted by the flash.

Some pictures

She looks like Kincaid to me here. Look at that expression.. She's like Johnny One Act: either in complete shock, or asleep.

She fell asleep with the pacifier in her mouth, and then the next time I looked at her she was pulling this balancing act. Note the Tele-Tubby style outfit.

They're so sweet...when they're asleep

Mabel is mastering taking the pacifier out of her mouth and then crying to have it put back in. So Bobby thought if her hands were full, she wouldn't be able to take it out. It didn't really work.

Well, here's Mabel with the sort of placid look to her face that is typical of her. I caught her reading The Portrait of Dorian Grey.

We're on the air!

Okay, I've finally got started. It took me so long to think of a title, now Mabel has woken up from her nap, so I don't know how long I'll be able to write.
I think the new year has been working on me; I finally got this blog set up, I've started on my Mabel book again, and I've signed up for a marathon on June 6th which I've just started training for. We'll see how that goes.

Maybe I'll post some of the Mabel book when I'm a little further along (note to new viewers: my Mabel book predates my daughter Mabel by several years.) I started writing a book about a girl named Mabel from the perspective of her neighbor Benjamin (Benny) from the apartment next door. Mabel is modeled after the screwball blonde types from the 1930's movies. I specifically had Joan Blondell in mind. She was in a bunch of those-- "Hey, let's put on a show! We'll reherse lots of dance numbers and then find out we have no funding, but then the leading lady (played by Ruby Keelor) will meet up with a guy who is young, handsome and rich (played by Dick Powell), and he'll fund the show, which will be chock full of dance numbers that weren't shown in the rehersals!"--movies. Joan Blondell was always the wisecracking second fiddle to Ruby Keelor's character. I can't stand Ruby Keelor, or the crazy dance numbers, or even most of the songs--so, say 3/4 of the movie drove me crazy, but I loved Joan Blondell. They had a ton of these movies back in the thirties, and I've seen at least a dozen of them at least a dozen times. So, I lifted the Blondell character (who is often named Mabel), and I mixed her with a P.G. Wodehouse character named Ukridge. Ukridge's primary characteristic is that he is always running a get-rich-quick sheme, but his second most striking personality trait is that he has no bounderies, and no sense of what is yours and what is his, except that what's yours is his. Sort of like Sam.

So that's Mabel.

Just one more thing that drove me crazy about those movies from the 1930's; they were always choreographed by Busby Berkeley--and even though they were suppose to be stage shows, they would have been impossible on any stage. They have streams of water in a forest glade, and women frolicking and swimming around, and I don't care how big the stage is, it's simply not possible for a stage show. And yet, Busby Berkeley won one oscar after the next for these reality-defying "stage shows."

Look, I'm glad we could talk about this. It's been on my mind. I'll just go ahead and post some pictures now.