The Color... Purple??

 

Continuing my explorations down the rabbit-hole of You Tube movie sites, I came across one that had an old black & white movie that was marked as being colorized.  I took a peep at it, and indeed it was in color  --  the color purple.  The whole film had apparently been tinted purple, and the blacks and whites were now dark and light shades of purple.  I don't think this is what most people mean by "colorized" !
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September 1st is the first day of spring in Australia.  As often happens, it decided to drizzle.  I am feeling a little run down, so walking back from the meeting at the church hall to the bus stop seemed a long way, even if it all downhill.  Stopped off for my periodicals in the mall, and had tea & scones at Beaujangles.  
Expensive detour though JB Hi-Fi even with their 20% off sale.  A boxed set of the DVDs of MURDER CALL, one of my favorite Australian shows from the 1990s, DVD of the new movie EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, and the Blu Ray of Goddard's BREATHLESS (with lots of bonus features for we Nouvelle Vague fans).
Agonized for five minutes over whether to write "I was the only one on the bus wearing a mask" or "I was the only one wearing a mask on the bus";  decided in the end not to mention it at all.
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Thursday I had nothing planned aside from pottering around at home, but Keith phoned and said "Let's meet for lunch". After a couple of hours dining and op-shopping, I called in at K-Mart where things were disappointing.  When I asked for a refill for my diabetes injections, the pharmacist just said "We are out of stock."  When I tried my new credit card in the coffee machine, it responded "Try another card" which is all it ever says to me.  Went home and made a coffee gratis - that'll show them!
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For years people have been saying that social media is bad for you because it makes you feel inferior after comparing yourself with the wonderful time all your friends seem to be having.  All I can say is you must have a different lot of friends to mine.  I have a lot of Facebook friends who are having a tough time.  In fact over the years I've had several people comment "You have such an interesting life", a compliment I'm at a loss to know to respond to  ("Yes I do" or "No I don't"?)
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I knew this would happen someday, now that I'm no longer wearing my glasses all the time I'm out of bed.  I watched a gripping disaster movie FLOOD on You Tube last night, then when I got ready to retire I realized I didn't know where my glasses were.  I looked in a few places, then decided it might be easier in the daylight.  So the next day I got down on my hands and knees and crawled around the chair I'd been sitting in during the movie.  After a couple of minutes, I spotted them next to the chair and muttered "Eureka!".  A relief, since a replacement set would not only have been expensive but would have meant a two-week wait.
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This comment from Ted of California on a New York Times story about AM radio gave me a wry chuckle on this day 9 years ago:  
"One of the two classical-music radio stations in Los Angeles is on AM.
It used to be on FM, but the owner (an individual, not a media conglomerate) switched the FM frequency to country music. That was after the media conglomerate that had operated the one country music station in Los Angeles decided that they could better serve shareholders with yet another automated Top-40 station that could offer advertisers a more desirable demographic. Faced with declining revenues from the classical station, the individual owner figured that country music could be sufficiently profitable for him, even if it's not profitable enough to satisfy a media conglomerate's bean counters. He figured right.
Strangely, the relocated classical station is doing well enough to remain on the air, despite the very inadequate sound quality. I only recently realized how that's possible, when I went to a concert of a local semi-professional orchestra. The large hall was filled with gray-haired patrons, whose whistling hearing aids randomly added notes the composers never wrote.
That is also the audience for classical-music radio. And hearing aids, by design, have an even more limited frequency response than AM radio. So the AM signal carrying pleasantly listenable programming probably sounds just fine to its intended audience."
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Sept 18 - I left for church the usual time this Sunday but I had so many supplies to deliver to the church kitchen that they were half way through the first hymn before I slipped into my pew.  During morning tea, I went over to one of the girls from the music group and told her I appreciated her singing in that morning's service.  I could have added "And you're very pretty" but I didn't think she would appreciate a guy 50 years her senior hitting on her.
On the way home from church, I stopped off at the pharmacy to see if they had any new stocks of my diabetic injections.  Nope, they didn't.  That makes three weeks I haven't been able to source my medication;  no wonder my blood glucose level is up.
I had coffee and a croissant in the cafe and a distraught individual shambled up to my table and said "I have mental health problems and I'm very upset but nobody here will talk to me.  Can I talk to you?"  I shrugged and said "Sure, sit down."  I listened to his problems for a while and asked him if he was seeing a doctor;  he said he was and he'd been prescribed Escitalopram.  I think he was a bit surprised when I nodded and said "Yeah, I take that once a day myself."  He looked a bit calmer when he left.
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Sept 20th
Tuesday was a bit tiring.  I had to go out for my blood test before my doctor's appointment next week, and have an empty stomach.  By the time I drove around trying to find a parking spot near the pathology lab, and waited while the technician looked up my records because she couldn't read the doctor's handwriting, and drove home again,  I felt exhausted.
Some food and rest made me feel fit enough to see if there was anybody at the Croquet Club.  There was but they left just after Terry and I arrived, so we had one game then departed to our respective homes.  
More rest, which meant I was almost late in leaving for the quiz night.   Whew.
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Sept 27th
A few things on this Tuesday, so it was a good thing I slept a bit better.  Started off the day with my first appointment for months with my psychologist.  She reassured me that the stressed feelings I've been having lately are just a normal response to some nervous tension.  Then on to the Croquet Club where one of the members took pity on me and stayed on to have a game with me - which I lost 7-3.
After a quick lunch, attended the funeral service for one of the grand old men of croquet, Maurice Woodmansee.  To put it in a modern perspective, he was the Yoda of Tasmanian croquet.  I still hear his instructions in my head when I prepare to hit the ball towards the hoop.
Quiz night tonight and the four of us were unfortunately unable to make it a hat trick.  Even with some inspired guesses from June, we ended up coming third, beaten by a team of newcomers who had never played before.
Then home for a 42 minute phone call from Keith about books and autographs he was hunting on the Internet.  After which I was ready to go to bed.
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October 4th
On NPR this morning an American radio newsman sounded shocked that interest rates may go up to 7%.  Back when we were in the hotel business fifty years ago we were paying up around 17%.  At the risk of sounding like a a grumpy old man, may I just quote the old saying "Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it."
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Keith looked a bit gloomy when we met for lunch last week.  He seemed preoccupied and distracted, though he did cheer up a bit when I brought the conversation round to one of his favorite subjects (old westerns).  In retrospect, he may just have been undercaffeinated; I noticed he had two cups of coffee with his lunch and when we emerged from the Salvo store later he muttered something about it was a shame the coffee shop was closed.
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Tuesday I was too busy for croquet.  Mick and Helena said they'd meet me for lunch and we had a filling if not overly healthy meal down the road from my place.  Then we separated so they could visit the tip shop and I could go out to Glenorchy to pick up some stuff and call in to get some feed at Animal Tucker Box.  After that I visited my pharmacy for the first of my twice-a-week visits;  no, they didn't have any of my diabetes injectables.  It's now being reported as being out of stock till next year!   😕
I returned home only to have Mick & Hedlena turn up five minutes later.  Helena showed me the things she had bought, then started tidying up my back room.  At one point I had to wrest the groceries I'd bought this afternoon from her grasp.
Managed to send them home about 6.15, leaving me just enough time to feed the goat and high-tail it for the quiz night.  
I think I will have an early night.
*
Is it old age or just lack of concentration?  Whatever I'm up to, I always seem to be thinking about something else unrelated to what I'm actually doing at that moment.....
triangulation of quantitative data (factor-analyzed items) and qualitative data (semistructured questions) reveals that they are orthogonal and independent in nature.
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Woke up early on October 11th so I made a cup of coffee and went back to bed to listen to the morning news round-up on the radio.  It was a Tuesday but there was nothing happening at the Croquet Club so I went into Moonah for lunch and a haircut  (now that winter has finished I do not need so much insulation).  I didn't have time for a nap before I went out and this evening consumed an energy drink, a cup of coffee and a gin & tonic.  No wonder I felt a little befuddled by the time I got home.
The postman delivered three issues of The New Yorker today; I must do something about catching up on my reading tomorrow.
I was a bit late getting to bed because Keith phoned and we talked about books for 68 minutes...
*
I felt tired Wednesday morning and spent the day at home.  In fact after lunch I nodded off in my armchair for a bit  (what I need is an app for my laptop that tells me how long it has been since I used it, so I will know how long I've been dozing).  With the days drawing out, I can't get away with not feeding the animals in the evening;  they are still wide awake and ready for a snack.
Had dinner and watched a series 2 episode of MY LIFE IS MURDER, planning on an early night.
*
Sounds in the Mall today:
1. Police siren
2. Running feet
3. Crash into fence
4. voice [stern] "Stay where you are."
5. voice [whining] "I didn't do nothing."
6. soft footsteps as I walk away minding my own business.
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The only calls I get on my house phone are scammers and people wanting me to give them money.  This week I got a call from a woman with a very familiar voice.  "Hello this is Helen Murphy calling from the Fund Raising Centre.  I hope you're well?"  I replied "I'm find thanks, but weren't you Ann Fitzgerald last month?"  There was a moment of silence and I took the opportunity to hang up.

 

Onward and (maybe) upward

 

 I nearly always play croquet after lunch on a Tuesday, but one day was just too cold.  The following week I was asked out to lunch unexpectedly.  The following week I finally got out on the lawn, mallet in hand.  I lost, but they say that taking part is the important thing, not winning.

Friday was a bit of a madhouse.  I had to be in town in the morning for a committee meeting;  this went all right and I was sent off with some leftover home-made scones for lunch.  On the way home, I detoured through the JB Hi Fi shop to look for a couple of movies I wanted;  I didn't find them, but I was pleased to spot the boxed set of television serials based on John Wyndham's novel CHOCKY for ten dollars less than I'd seen it on-line.
Taking the bus home was a bit of a drama.  The bus left late because police had to be called to remove a woman who was abusing the driver.  When we did start off, the bus turned onto the highway instead of taking the road through the suburbs and I realized I must be on the wrong bus.  After some thought, I waited till we got to a bus stop on the same latitude as my home, got off and started on a 45-minute walk through the back streets to my house.  
Spent an hour on hold with my bank so I could straighten out some irregularities with my credit card  (I googled a transaction I didn't remember, and it took me to a page with 300 complaints about the merchant!)
In the evening, my friendly local goatherd came round and we spent two hours after dark in the backyard rounding up the roosters, who were the subject of a noise complaint to City Hall.  I think we got them all, because it was unusually quiet when I woke up the next morning.
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Feeding the chickens this morning, I noticed a woman and her little girl watching the hens pecking about.  I had to bring in the rubbish bin, so I ambled down the driveway and bade them a good morning.  The mother sighed and said "I'd love to have chickens, but I can't where I live at the moment."  "That's a shame," I said, "once every family had chickens in their back garden."  I waved goodbye as they went on their way and the little girl gave me a big smile.  I was reminded of something my sister Julie said about how sad it was that some city children grew up with no animals around at all.
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Sunday was wet and windy, so I motored into town cautiously, driving to the conditions.  This had the usual effect  -  cars behind me who decided I was driving too slowly so they overtook me and zoomed off.  But I'm used to that.
The Sunday before, I was worried about other stuff.  It was my turn to stand at the lectern and read from the Bible, and I was down to read the whole first chapter of Samuel.  Not only is that a large chunk of text, but there are several unusual names in the first paragraph.  I started off all right, but halfway through I lost my place in the middle of a sentence and couldn't find it again;  A couple of people in the congregation were starting to look concerned, so I skipped to the start of the next paragraph and carried on.
Over morning tea, a woman approached me and commended my clear reading of Samuel.  But, she said, as a GP she had been worried for a second that I might have been having a mini-stroke.  I replied "Well, if you'd known I was recovering from a head injury, you would have been REALLY worried."
*
The doorbell rang at 7 a.m. and the phone rang at 11 p.m.  Nobody there either time.  Sometimes it's like living in a haunted house.
The meeting I was going to on Wednesday afternoon was cancelled.  So what did I do with all that extra time?  Fooled around with the laptop and drank too much coffee of course.  In the evening there were just two of us at the quiz night, but we did fairly well  --  at the beginning we solved the puzzle question on the first clue, and got a perfect score in the first round.  Unfortunately we didn't keep up that standard, especially in the Sports and Music rounds!  Still, an entertaining evening out.

Imaginary conversation:
"I'm not eating that, it's going green."
"You did order the Pesto Parmagiana, didn't you sir?"
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Friday was a nice day but I spent most of my time resting up from the day before. Thursday had been one of those "perfect storm" days when everything happened on the same day.  It started straight after breakfast, when my friendly local goatherd stopped by to check on the goat.  Then I drove down to South Hobart for a morning tea with friends from church;  I'd never been to the Rivulet Cafe but it's a nice modern place with (of course) a view of the Hobart Rivulet.  Took a couple of minutes trying to get pictures of the ducks paddling around in the rivulet.
Not long after I returned home, got a call to meet visiting friends for lunch.  Grant doesn't get down to Tasmania often, so it was good to see him and meet his wife Cheryl.  Following that, I went around the bookshops with Keith, who took pleasure in showing me a couple of desirable items he'd picked up for two dollars a throw this morning.  I'm trying not to buy books these days myself, but I was happy for him.
Then I had about sixty minutes before I had to leave for the theatre.  Just time for a hasty meal before my lift arrived. I met Helena at the Playhouse and we saw the comedy 39 STEPS in which four actors play dozens of characters in a high-energy spoof of the Hitchcock movie.  Some clever stagecraft meant the pace never slowed down and the audience (mostly from the older age group) seemed to enjoy it a lot.
I returned home and sat down on my bed.  Looking at my watch I realised I'd been on the go for twelve hours, not something I'm used to these days.  Either a feast or a famine, eh?
*
Haiku for the TV serial of WAR OF THE WORLDS 20/08/2020
Robots a-scuttling
as a world goes to ruin.
The blind see again.
*
Free and easy?  Well...
I noticed one of my tyres was getting down a bit so I thought, no problem I'll just stop off and get some air while I'm out.  Nope.  First station I stopped at had a big Out Of Order sign on the air & water.  I traveled on to another station, but their air hose was missing altogether.  Third time lucky, at the United station in North Hobart I was able to inflate the tyre back to normal pressure.  I was so grateful I went into the office and bought coffee and a sandwich just to thank them for having a function air pump.  (And I noticed another car was waiting to use the pump after me - air may be free but it's not always easy to find)
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In 2020 there was an arts project in Huonville where your three-line poems were stencilled onto walls of buildings:
See those words on walls
a community haiku
for all Huon eyes
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Clear weather, which means a fine afternoon but a cold morning.  No croquet again this week, but made it to two quiz nights. We went from the sublime to the ridiculous  -  Tuesday we finished second, the closest we've come to winning this winter, but Wednesday night we came second-last!  I will admit that the latter was the first time I've ever scored 2/10 in the TV and cinema round.
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The following Tuesday, it seemed a bit wet for croquet so I went out for lunch with the goatherd and his partner.  Later she persuaded me to remove my shirt so she could rub arnica onto my shoulder after my fall in the garden yesterday.  Fortunately I haven't mowed the grass this month so it was a relatively soft landing.

Got ready for the quiz night.  There were five of us there tonight and we finished second out of nine teams.  Second week running - not bad.
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I've been scouting around the various channels on You Tube and I've found several that offer a lot of old B-movies from the post-war period.  So far I've watched THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, THE GIANT GILA MONSTER, THE NIGHT THE WORLD EXPLODED and EARTH vs THE FLYING SAUCERS.  These are actually better than you might think from the titles.  The last mentioned one is a triumph of special effects by the great Ray Harryhausen  --  if you came to it cold you'd find it hard to believe it was made in 1957!
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I posted this on Facebook back in 2012 when I was younger and sadder:
Sometimes on a wet afternoon you leave the TV and the radio switched off and think.
You think about the past and the future.  The people you knew.  The people you never met but you felt you knew them.   The things you wish you'd done and the things you wish you hadn't.   The things that you know now that you'll never do.  
I guess that's life, in all its richness and heartache.  But every day we get a new 24 hours, to do with as we wish...