Wouldn't It Be Loverly?

Hard to believe that if she were alive today, Judy Garland would be 93, or in other words "almost hunnert."  She was 47 when she died, an age that seemed so old to me in 1969 but today seems so young, since two of my children are older than that!  Proves that age is all relative.

Speaking of being "almost hunnert" (did you know my mother is almost hunnert?).  I came away from Atria today, after four hours with my mother, with such an incredible admiration (as well as sympathy) for caregivers who take care of loved ones on a 24/7 basis.  My mother has good days and bad days and I always arrive hoping this will be one of her good days.

It was one of her less good days, when she seemed just very tired and unable to concentrate on anything.  I've started trying to bring her news of all the "exciting" things I've been doing since I last saw her (2 days ago), since that's usually the first thing she asks me.  "Exciting" in my life is relative, but I did tell her how surprised I was yesterday when I could not remember the name of one of my friends' children (whom I have known all of her life) but could remember the name of my godmother's boss, whom I never met or even saw a picture of but remember his being talked about a few times...and remember, she died when I was 10!)

Her comment when I finished:  "Well, life goes on, I guess."  This is one of her go-to phrases when she hasn't followed or understood what you said, but thinks that a response from her is necessary.  It also effectively ends that discussion and usually precedes "I'm old, Bev."

She probably asked me 20 times what I was doing for the rest of the day (taking her to the hairdresser and when the hairdresser was finished, taking her back home again and then going to Sacramento to review My Fair Lady).  Each time I told her that she had a different response -- do I have to write a "report" about it?  How did I happen to get tickets for that show? Have I seen that show before?  Will I get paid to write about it?  Is Walt going with me?  Where will my review be printed? When I finish answering her questions she then says "so what are you doing for the rest of the afternoon?" and we start all over again.

A new wrinkle, though, is that she thinks never sees enough of me.  I haven't been there in a long time (2 days) and she misses me and when will I come back again (tomorrow).

About the 20th time she said "I'm old, Bev--do you think I'll live to hunnert?" I decided it was time to go.  I could either walk calmly out to the car, or stay behind and start screaming.  If I were her 24/7 caregiver, I would not have that luxury and that, I admit, makes me a tad guilty, but not really, because I know that she has the best possible arrangement right now and, whether she realizes it or not, I'm there almost all the time.

But maybe next time will be one of her better days, and I really enjoy them.  Wouldn't it be loverly...?

I've decided I really do not like her hairdresser at all.  She was fine up until she did my mother's hair last time, when she came out looking like she had stuck her finger in a light socket. I figured it was because she had been given a permanent. Fortunately it loosened up over the next few days, but the "look" was just horrible.  Today she was just having her hair cut, washed and set and it still looked like she stuck her finger in the light socket again.  We are scheduled to go to lunch with her friends on Monday and I'm hoping by then the tight curls will have relaxed and she will look more like her old self.

I did go home and we did go to see My Fair Lady, which opens the Music Circus season (there will be one major musical every 2 weeks for the next five weeks).  I have reviewed two previous Music Circus productions of this musical, one in 2001 and one in 2008 and, according to my reviews, this was probably as good as the 2001 production (which I liked) but not as good as the 2008 production (which I loved),

I was amused, however, to find out that there was a "Content Guide" printed for parents unsure about whether this is suitable for children to see.  It reads:  "With themes that include the importance of self-worth, the need to respect others and the value of education, it will likely appeal to a wide range of patrons, although younger children may not grasp some of the concepts or plot elements. It includes no violence or sexual situations. It does include references to excessive alcohol consumption and antiquated views on women’s rights and roles, and some of the plot elements focus on relationships."  I'm just kind of speechless that anyone would think such a content guide for such an old chestnut was even necessary.

But then we have become a country where your children can be taken away from you if you let them walk home alone from the playground 3 blocks away, something I did when I was in grammar school.  And Miss Hunnert walked 3 miles (I clocked it--it was 3 miles) to and from school from the time she was in kindergarten!  Today's children are going to grow up with no survival skills whatsoever.

That's My Answer

I've mentioned before, a few times, that one of my favorite sites on line is "That's My Answer," the question and answer site with only a handful of regulars, but which poses a different question or two every day for us to answer and then on the weekend there is a Q&A where a question is posed and then the first person who answers it posts their own question for the next person to answer, and so on.  I've been answering those questions for years now, and the regulars have grown into this strange community where basically the only things we know about each other are from our answers to the questions (or from our blogs, if we check out the writings of the others in the group).

The other day the question was posed "What is your favorite movie starting with the letter M."  I had to think about it and I checked the answers that had been posted, the first of which was Meet Me In St. Louis, posted   by "l'empress," who frequently posts comments here.

Well that's a bummer, I thought.  Here I had the perfect movie right under my nose and I didn't get it posted in time.  I could, of course, have chosen the same movie, but what fun would that be?  Instead I picked Miracle on 34th Street, which I love, though it is one of those 40s movies that I loved when I first saw it for the magic in it and now, having become a jaded old lady, I see it for the cheesy shlock that it is...but if I can get in the right mindset, I still do love it.

Later in the day, I checked out l'empress's blog, A Place of My Own, where I saw that she had written an entry based on her That's My Answer answer.  She wrote an entire blog entry about Meet Me In St. Louis and never mentioned Judy Garland!  I left a comment to that effect on her entry and she answered back that "Seriously, I didn't really notice her the first time around.  In my mind, this was a movie about Margaret O'Brien."  

Didn't really notice the star of the show??  In fairness she was young at the time and says that her parents took her to see it because of Margaret O'Brien.  So I guess she can be forgiven for "not noticing" Judy Garland.  

But what she missed!  This was Garland's first experience with director Vincente Minnelli and she never looked so beautiful in any movie before (and possibly since).

From the early scene where we see her sitting in the window singing "The Boy Next Door" to the red dress she wore for the ball (red was her favorite color)

To the almost ethereal shots of her singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" to Margaret O'Brien, trying to cheer her up.

She never looked more beautiful.  Some say that Minnelli was falling in love with her during the filming (he would later marry her and father Liza Minnellli) and that in these gorgeous shots he's making love to her with the camera.

The movie was released in 1944 and was an instant hit, becoming the second highest grossing film, after Gone with the Wind.  It is still, today, considered one of her three best performances (the other two being Wizard of Oz and A Star Is Born).  

The movie was all about the importance of family and home and released at a time where many young men were serving in the war and nobody knew for sure if they would return to their homes again, it must have been nice to escape into a simpler time, when problems were much smaller.

I often think of the very final scene of the movie...

...with Esther and John standing in the St. Louis World's Fair watching the fireworks and marveling about how other people have come long distances to be there, but they don't have to go a long distance because this wonderful fair is right where they live, right in their own back yard.  Whenever I visit San Francisco, especially during some sort of special event, I think how lucky I am, like Esther and John, that I don't have to come from far away to be a part of it, but that it is right in my own home town (even if I now live 80 miles away).

Yeah, Margaret O'Brien was in the film too, but I never paid much attention to her...I was too busy enjoying Judy Garland's performance.

Judy and Cappy

If she were still alive, Judy Garland would have been 89 years old today. I had a friend, also a Garland fan, who always imagined her becoming a grand diva, like Sophie Tucker, and living a long life. I always knew on some level that she would die early. In fact she died at age 47, when Paul was a baby. I can still remember sitting on the couch in the living room of our Oakland home when my mother called to ask, jokingly, if I were in mourning. It always hurt somewhat that she thought it funny that I would feel so deeply sad at the passing of a performer I had loved since I was 10 years old.

In many ways it's probably good that she died so young. She didn't have to move forward into her later years, with the kinds of plastic surgery that has made such bizarre looking figures out of some of the stars we have loved over the years. None, perhaps, as bad as Joan Rivers, but there are enough of them out there with frozen faces and misshapen faces that I'm glad Garland never reached that point.

Turner Classic Movies always runs marathon movies of stars on their birthdays, and the Garland marathon started around 5:30 with her very first major movie, Everybody Sing. I was aware of it starting, but slept through most of it. I saw more of The Clock, her first grown up, non-singing role in 1945, a very sweet story of a boy and a girl meeting in Grand Central Station in New York, he in town for 2 days on leave from the Army, she on her way to work. Over the course of two days, they fall in love, lose each other, find each other, and marry. I always wondered why they called it The Clock because a clock plays only a very minor role in the story, but I suppose it sounded good as a title.

I noticed for the first time, in the credits, that James Gleason, who plays a milkman in the movie, has a wife...and the wife is played by Gleason's real life wife, Lucille. Just an odd bit of trivia.

The Clock was followed by The Pirate, one of my least favorite Garland movies, which was just as well because I had to leave to go and give blood while it was on.

What's so difficult about taking blood? I have been donating for years at the same place with never a problem. You walk in the door and they greet you by name, the same person takes your blood, it takes me 5-8 minutes to fill a bag, and I'm at the donuts in no time flat. Lately, however, there have been new people and new procedures which involve in-depth examination of the same arm that has given nearly 40 pints of blood already, marking the spot with tape and ink and having you do things that they told me years ago I didn't need to do. Last time, the blood taker tried three different spots on/around the same vein and finally had to call someone to help her. Today's person got the blood started all right, but it wasn't going fast enough and she kept saying she had put the needle "in a bad place." She finally gave up, with the bag "almost half full" after more than 10 minutes. I don't know what they do with not full bags, but I get credit for a "real donation" (she told me).

By the time I got home again (after stopping at Peet's for coffee beans), The Pirate was ending and Summer Stock was just starting. I actually slept through the end of Summer Stock and the beginning of A Star Is Born (it's not like I haven't seen it before!) and when that ended I Could Go on Singing was rounding out the marathon.

I love that movie, not because it's such a good movie -- it's a kind of cheesy story of a mother who gave up her son to his father and is now trying to get him back -- but this seems more like The Judy Garland Story since there is a lot of her giving a concert to a filled Palladium in London and during an emotional scene she utters these words, which sound so much like something Judy Garland herself would have said during moments of stress.

I can't be spread so thin, I'm just one person. I don't want to be rolled out like a pastry so everybody can get a nice big bite of me. I'm just me. I belong to myself. I can do whatever I damn well please with myself and nobody can ask any questions....Well I'm not gonna do it anymore. And that's final! its just not worth all the deaths that I have to die.

So I've wallowed in Judy Garland today and it was a nice way to spend the day.

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In other news, we have a visitor. Remember Cappuccino?

Cappy was adopted a few months ago and his new Mom is going off on vacation to Hawaii, so she asked if he could spend the next couple of weeks here. I was a little concerned about how Polly would take to having a "new" dog here, but the two of them have been chasing each other around the house ever since Cappy arrived. I think Polly is happy to have someone her own size to play with.

I was also concerned about how having a strange dog here would affect my insomnia, but Polly lets Cappy share my lap and somehow having two dogs on me all night long helped me have the best night of sleep I've had since we got back from China. So all is good.

And besides, they are just so cute together!