The dog is okay.

That felt good to write, so I’ll say it again: the dog is okay. The swelling had completely closed one eye by Saturday, but the antibiotics knocked down the infection and it had subsided by Monday - partly because it drained through his cheek on Sunday, something that made us think it wasn’t the tooth at all. But it was, according to the vet. That’s how they’re put together. A bad tooth can drain through the cheek. Well, now we see if it recurs, and if so, whether we go with a never-ending cycle of antibiotics, or pop for the extraction and take the chance.

I know what it feels like to have a molar in need of surcease, so I can’t imagine he’s not in discomfort. On the other hand, food is still his favorite thing - and he took about a 45 minute walk on Sunday.

“He just wanted to keep going,” my wife said. So they went.

---

Also on Sunday: I took down all the lights. They’d been off for a long while, but as soon as it gets warm, they must be removed from the bushes and tested to see how many still work. About 1/5th are dead. As I took them off the tall tree out front, I marveled at my memory: I could recall exactly which old radio program I was listening to when I did this last November. It was an episode of Suspense with Gerald Mohr as a con man, playing on the affections of a middle-aged spinster so he could learn the location of the hidden fortune everyone said she had. Later, while unwinding the lights from the evergreens, I remembered I was listening to Gunsmoke: a convict has come back to town to find his purty wife done gone and married another man, and she maneuvers him into killing her husband.

It’s amazing that I remember these things.

Phone rings; it’s my father-in-law. “Just wanted to wish my daughter happy birthday,” he said.

I stare straight ahead.

“I have to go,” I said.

Yes. After all these years. I knew it was coming up; I’d bought something, too. Should have had things out in the morning, but between the dog and the Friday events and daughter coming home late Saturday night, I - just - forgot.

Compensated quickly with a fast trip for some items and a fine cake, but I felt like an absolute fool.

On the other hand, she wanted the lights down, and I did that. So I'm okay!

HAH. Oh. The groveling.

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Modem / internet problems again. Epic annoyances. All my hate will be poured out in a future installment. I uploaded this earlier in the day, just in case - but now that I have some internet back again, let us remember Annette. I had a crush on her. In reruns. I think I was five. I think in North Dakota she passed as ethnic.

Some covers show her progress through the Disneyverse:

 

Gang symbols! No, maybe they're fanning a Colt.

Now she's old enough to bewitch the boys - specifically, the guys who came on Sunday night sometimes and made you think "well, it's not cartoons, but at least it's not a nature show."

 

 

Then she grew up some more. Real and approachable - she read your letters!!! She might even CALL YOU.

 

 

The Disney magazine seemed to grow up along with its readers, as if they fixed their gaze on a particular cohort and followed it up the path of adolescence. Annette almost has a girl-gang thing going here:

 

 

They ran her every other cover, it seems. Because it would be foolish not to.

Because everyone loved her.

 

 

Annette answering your queries, and Navy Rocket Tests: that was America.


   

   

 

   
   

If you're new to this and wondering why I am talking about Perry Mason: every time I take a plane trip, I watch a Perry Mason. It's a good way to kill an hour. This being the modern world, I take screengrabs from my phone, and when I get home they're already in my cloud files. I can't resize them using verbal commands or eye movements, alas. Yet.

Perry Mason wasn't always up against Hamilton Burger. Sometimes it was other DAs, like Grovesnor Cutter:

 

 

Recognize him?

 

 

Harry Townes. Character actor and Episcopal priest. I know, I know - another one of those? Hollywood was full of 'em! Tell me something unusual.

Fine. He was this guy. Does that help?

 

No? More at the bottom of the page, then.

 

 

Arch Johnson, who played a great heavy. He just beamed broad shimmering waves of contained violence and menace. At least in this episode; when he did "Bewitched" I'm sure he was a nice guy. He did five episodes of Bewitched, playing three different characters. He did five episodes of Perry Mason, playing three different characters. Four episodes of Gunsmoke, as four different characters. And so on.

It's almost as if they didn't have enough actors around.

In another episode, that beloved cliche: old ladies who read romance magazines:

 

 

Cheerio Meredith, who sounds like she should be from England, but wasn't.

Now, something else: the weekend B&W movie.

 

The House on 92nd Street was a documentary-style flick about a WW2 espionage ring. Real FBI Agents played Real FBI Agents! It begins with Agent #1:

 

 

There’s a round-up of German agents, and we see what a miserable, shifty lot they are:

 

 

 

 

That last guy is a Nazi specialty, isn't he? Bony death's head specter. The women are usually dumpy, except for the Top Spy, who is chilly and glamorous and Teutonic and cruel:

 

 

A note about the pleasures of Black and White: this shot stuck out. Note the composition - the skyline in the distance, the figures in the foreground, the people moving in the middle ground, spotlight against the white building or illuminated by the same source:

 

 

It's a quick shot, but it's quite nice.

Anyway. Whenever I see a street sign, I check:

 

 

Miracle of miracles: still there.

 

 

Oh, Harry? Of course.

 

 

It's been a while since we had the obligatory Star Trek connection, but there he is, in "Return of the Archons."

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Updates in all the usual places; see you around.

 

 

 

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
     
 
 
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