Tuesday, April 3, 2018

This is just another thrilling milestone in the life of your favorite housebound senior citizen!

MONDAY, 11:52 P.M., 4/2/2018. Yo. It’s nearly midnight, Monday night, and Sam and I are enjoying Executive Suite (1954) starring William Holden, Barbara Stanwyck and an all-star cast. We always love this movie, but for me it’s William Holden at the peak of his total goddamn adorableness.

William Holden at his adorable best, circa the mid-1950s.

Earlier tonight we saw William Holden and Barbara Stanwyck in their first movie together, Golden Boy (1939), co-starring Lee J. Cobb and Adolphe Menjou. Oy, what a melodrama! Holden plays Joe Bonaparte, a talented 21-year-old violinist who comes home one day carrying his fiddle and decides he’d rather be a PRIZEFIGHTER (holy crap) because he can earn some really big dough. Then Joe immediately falls in love with Lorna (Barbara Stanwyck), the wise-cracking girlfriend of his fight manager/promoter (Adolphe Menjou). Lorna begs Joe to give up fighting altogether and go back to the violin, and ditto for Joe’s father (Lee J. Cobb). So poor Joe Bonaparte is constantly being torn from one direction to another … fight, don’t fight, fight, don’t fight, fight, don’t fight … and on and on. Eventually Joe decides to walk away from prizefighting when he accidentally kills the “Chocolate Drop” in the ring. (No kidding, that’s the name of a black middleweight contender.) Joe falls apart, Lorna is there to pick up the pieces, dad is doing cartwheels with Joe’s violin in his teeth ... and everybody’s happy again! The end.

Barbara Stanwyck, Lee J. Cobb and William Holden in “Golden Boy.”

Here’s a silly tidbit that might interest you: Lee J. Cobb was only 28 years old (seven years older than William Holden) when he was cast as his father in Golden Boy. I find it hard to believe that Columbia couldn’t find a 60-year-old actor anywhere in Hollywood to play that part!

Stupid casting decisions aside, the Howdygram is pleased to award Golden Boy with our coveted four-star ★★★★ rating.



TUESDAY, 11:55 A.M., 4/3/2018. My project du jour is to find a home health agency that can provide me with a 24-hour live-in aide when Sam goes to Phoenix for a couple of days in June. Originally, back around the first of the year, we considered only having an aide for four hours a day, but it’s clear now that four hours a day really won’t cut it because you never know when I’m going to have a crisis of one kind or another. These might include: 1) unexpected pishing accidents; 2) emptying the commode on those occasions when I’m not having an accident; 3) microwaving my meals; 4) helping me get settled for a nap; 5) fetching pills for me; 6) helping me bathe ... and so on.

Therefore, I just spoke to Debra at Comfort Keepers Home Health Services to request a meeting and a list of their prices for private-pay clients (the only time Medicare picks up the tab is if I need medical, physical therapy or nursing services) and she’s coming over next Wednesday morning at 9:30. This is just another thrilling milestone in the life of your favorite housebound senior citizen! Stay tuned ...

And now, time for another chapter of Let’s Learn Yiddish! Here are today’s vocabulary words. Mazel tov means congratulations or good luck. Mechuleh means bankrupt. A megillah is a lengthy, detailed or tedious document. A mensch is a good person, a meshugener is a crazy person. Milchig means made with milk. A minyon is a quorum of 10 acceptable men needed for public worship. Mishegoss means craziness. And finally, mishpocheh means family.

I think I need some Jell-O now … my favorite late-night dessert, and it’s quiet enough not to wake Sam. Thank you for reading this.

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