The phone rang. "What are you watching?" I've become so predictable. Over 100 degrees in the shade, 94 in the house, and I'm a well-baked couch potato in front of the television. I'd just finished one of several documentaries, one of which was "The Seventies." It's being shown as history now, which I find amusing because, for me, those years are as if they were yesterday. It is sometimes difficult to reconcile the "me" in my mind with the "me" in the mirror. After my conversation with Linda (we're both becoming excited about her impending visit), I watched "Journey For Margaret," the 1942 film that introduced Margaret O'Brien (Robert Young, Laraine Day, Fay Bainter, Nigel Bruce). The little boy, William Severn, was every bit as darling as Margaret O'Brien, but never seems to get the same credit as she. As with so many of the old movies, I've seen it countless times and never tire of it.
I gave up on using mist on myself while Bessie was in her pool and went straight to running water over my head. With the mist, I'd be dry again before I got back in the house; useless. I wish there was more I could do for the animals. The wild things only come out in early morning or late afternoon, after the blazing sun drops. Mice are pushing and shoving to get to the milk I squirt out for them in the morning, desperate for moisture. Birds sit with beaks wide open. Vultures line the edge of the goat trough to dip in for a drink. I'm filling the water bowls for the chickens and wild things twice a day now, and the hummers are sucking up over two quarts of juice. It's a struggle to keep what little remains green alive in the yard.
I'm watching old movies, yes, but I'm also scanning the skyline constantly for smoke. It's in the air; I can smell it. I wish I could say that the smudge on the horizon and the reflected glow at sundown last evening were clouds, but in fact it is smoke from the Lowell fire up around Grass Valley and possibly still from the Kyburz fire, which is contained but not out yet. I can't imagine the torture being experienced by the firefighters in this heat. As one said in an interview, their heavy gear is meant to keep heat out, but also holds it in and they suffer. They are heroes.
Supposedly, we're due to drop back into the nineties tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll check the TV guide. You know where to find me.
1 comment:
I can't even imagine. I think I'd be in that pool right beside Bessie. Interesting about Margaret O'Brien. I have not seen the movie of which you speak, but last year I attended the Turner Classic Movie Festival and saw a few things, one of which was Meet Me in St. Louis and she spoke before. I knew very little about her but she appeared to be painfully thin, and that tended to make her look a bit haggard. I then told my hostess that night about my experience and she related that years earlier she had been at a fundraiser in someone's home and it turned out that it was Margaret O'Brien's, but I think the husband put it on and so my hostess didn't know that was the home where she would be. She then said that Margaret O'Brien was quiet heavy and wasn't very well dressed. I found that odd considering what I had just seen (and she was in a sleeveless or strapless cocktail dress when I saw her in the mid afternoon.) Anyway, I was watching an old Murder She Wrote (1991) the other night and there was Margaret O'Brien, and in a scene where she was standing, I could see that she was NOT svelte...but she sure is now at 78.
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