Saturday Afternoon Chat: Remembering the times I had to drive in the snow and hated it

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Saturday Afternoon Tea21 Comments

This week we were surprised by snow and unfortunately it wasn’t a pleasant surprise since I was driving in it at the time. I thought it was merely going to be flurries, but oh no…it started sticking. Driving with snow on the road? No. that’s not something I do. Like ever anymore.

But there I was driving to my parents to return their car to them, thinking the entire seven minute drive that it really wasn’t as slippery as it probably was. You ever ask yourself, “Why are people out in this?” when the weather is bad?

I am normally one of those people who ask that, not one who is driving in it but I just kept thinking the snow would stop and the road would clear up.

I made it to my parents with white knuckles. The plan was for my husband to pick me up on his way home from work but Dad decided he’d better drive me home so my husband didn’t get our car, which doesn’t have great tires, stuck on my parents’ dirt road.

Honestly, I think Dad was excited to be needed and get out in that snow. He loves driving in the snow. That’s crazy to me. On the way back to my house he said, “If there isn’t six inches on the road it doesn’t bother me.”

We made it back to my house fine and Dad made it back to his house as well. Another inch or so fell that night and The Boy didn’t have to go to school the next morning.

While I don’t usually drive in snow at all, there was two other times I had to do it — both while working for newspapers.

The first time I was working at the local daily newspaper and when I left work the roads were covered. I was nervous but started inching my way the 15 miles to  home. There was one hill I was very worried about and I did well going up it but was nervous going down. There was a line of cars behind me but only one of them seemed annoyed by me going slow. Everyone else was also going slow since there was maybe three inches of white slush covering the roads. Well, almost everyone. One driver of a pickup truck decided he needed to get by us so he passed a couple of cars.

I might have muttered something like, “You idiot,” as he went by.

Several feet in front of me he fishtailed but was able to gain control again.

“See!” I shouted at my windshield. “There’s a reason we’re all going slow!”

He ended up having to drive slowly all the way to the area called The Valley where we lived.

The other time I was stuck in snow was, again, coming home from a newspaper job. This time I was working in New York State, about 50-minutes from our apartment at the time.

I kept asking to go home but the editor wanted me to finish a couple of things. He finally allowed me and by then the main highway was covered in snow and ice. There are two lanes going east and two going west on this highway and I was going east to get home. I was not going very fast and no one was passing me because it was that snow with a layer of ice on top.

At one point I hit some of that ice and my car started to spin until I was all the way around facing the oncoming cars. Thank God I didn’t go into panic mode, causing my brain to freeze up. Instead, I ripped the car into reverse and backed it into the median and waited for the other cars to pass me before trying again.

A 50-minute drive took probably 90-minutes that day, but I was so glad to be home.

All this being said, I am really looking forward to some temps in the 40s this upcoming week where we live. Even a couple days of sun would be so nice.

Other than my driving adventure, we didn’t do too much else this week. I did take Little Miss to Kid’s Club at a local church on Wednesday and it was nice to get out of the house a little bit.

I’m not sure if I shared this photograph of a bald eagle eating a rabbit that The Husband took a couple of weeks ago on here or not. I’m going with not.

He took this shot with his iPhone. The eagle was close to the edge of the road, and I am so excited that Little Miss was able to get a look at it because she often misses the wildlife we see.

How was your week last week?

Do anything fun or interesting? What teas are you drinking this day if you are a tea drinker? Let me know in the comments.

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot: Come Link Up With Us!

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Weekend Traffic Jam9 Comments

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about them.

Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.

I think weather forecasters have just given up on trying to figure out our weather in Pennsylvania. Today we were told we’d have some sun but instead we got half an inch of snow and me driving to my parents with white knuckles. I had borrowed their car and was taking it back with plans for my husband to pick me up after work. My dad ended up driving me back because the tires are better on his car and he didn’t want my husband to get stuck on their dirt road. So, we headed back with Dad driving because I honestly think he loves driving in snow. I, however, hate it and don’t want to drive at all the rest of this winter – especially if these unexpected snow events are going to happen.

Anyhow….on to introducing your hosts for Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot!

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity.  Oh, who are we kidding?  Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!  

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household  – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting! 

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more. 

Sue from Women Living Well After 50 started blogging in 2015 and writes about living an active and healthy lifestyle, fashion, book reviews and her podcast and enjoying life as a woman over 50.  She invites you to join her living life in full bloom.


We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!

WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello! This week we are spotlighting Style Yourself Confident.

Pamela says about her blog, “Hi – I’m Pamela thank you so much for visiting my corner of the Internet.

This website is about LOOKING GOOD and FEELING GOOD about yourself, whatever your age shape or size!

Although most women will tell you that looking good and feeling good generally go hand in hand, each of us has a different agenda for what makes that happen. 

Many years ago, I trained as an Image Consultant but I’ve always been reluctant to use the title because it’s so pretentious. We’re overdosed with patronizing makeover shows on TV which have nothing whatsoever to do with real life!

The world as a whole often regards the older woman as invisible but it’s easy to take back control of the way you look and feel with a little fun, flexibility and plain old fashioned common sense. 

Let me help you discover a little about the COLORS and SHAPES that nature designed for you because it’s never too late to discover STYLE CONFIDENCE!”

Thank you for being part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, Pamela!

Now for my highlights this week:

|| Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere by Where The Wild Things Are||

|| Ideas for Styling Stripes and Spots by Is This Mutton ||

|| Friday Morning Catch Up by Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs ||

|| Outfit Inspiration With a Neutral Long Cardigan by Chez Mireille Fashion Travel Mom ||

Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up! Please remember that this is a link-up where you can share posts from the previous week or posts from weeks, months, or years ago. All we ask is that they be “family-friendly”.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
https://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef

Winter of Fairbanks: Sinbad the Sailor. Not even my crush on Fairbanks Jr. could get me through this one.

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn classic movie impressions, Movie Impresssions, Winter of Fairbanks Jr.5 Comments

This week for Winter of Fairbanks Jr. I watched Sinbad the Sailor.

Oh my, readers.

I watched this one with a face you make after you’ve taken gross tasting medicine.

Not even my crush on Fairbanks Jr. could get me through this one.

What was I even thinking? I really should have read up on it more or watched a preview first.

Cheesy? Check.

Sort of disrespectful to other cultures? Check.

Horrid, garish colors and really bad makeup jobs complete with darkened skin and dark eyeliner? Check.

A red-haired Irish woman who is supposed to be a Middle Eastern princess? Check.

There were so many yikes with this one, I just couldn’t wait for it to end. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be in the adventure or slapstick comedy genre. I found myself singing “It’s Sinbad the Sailor man” to the tune of Popeye’s theme song throughout much of it.

We’re supposed to believe this American man wearing blue eye shadow and dark eyeliner is a Muslim from Baghdad? Oh be still my horrified heart.

There is nothing like hearing a thick Irish accent say, “I am Shireen, Princess of Baghdad” to really emerse you into a movie about a middle-eastern folklore hero. *facepalm*

That darkened skin? They apparently got bored of using it about 15 minutes in because everyone miraculously appeared white again for a scene or two. No idea what that was about because a few scenes later they were dark again. I think there might have been only two or three actors in this movie who were actually not white. Anthony Quinn was one of them but not even he was middle-eastern since he was born in Mexico.

*I just want to add a clarification here (that wasn’t in here when I originally posted this): I do not mean to imply that the people making this movie or starring in it were racist at all. I just mean that it jarred me out of the story to have them be so clearly pale, American, and Irish, or with horrible makeup. I don’t think any ill-will was meant toward any culture. It was common in the early days of movies just to want to make something fun and not really think about how they might be slighting cultures. I am not excusing that but I also don’t think that movie makers set out to be offensive.

Another thing that always puzzles me about these old movies — couples meeting each other one day and already kissing each other that same day.

What was with that anyhow?

I’ve done my share of ranting about the movie so far so how about a little plot for you as presented by an article on TCM.com:

“Surrounded by friends, charming storyteller and adventurer Sinbad (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) regales his audience with a tale of his derring-do in exotic lands. In this particular adventure, his ocean journey with sidekick Abbu (George Tobias) pauses in the remote Daibul where nefarious auctioneers commandeer his ship. A bidding war erupts between rightful owner Sinbad and the feisty Shireen (Maureen O’Hara), resolved only through a bit of Sinbadian sleight of hand.”

“Meanwhile the powerful Emir (Anthony Quinn) notices Sinbad’s attentions towards the headstrong Shireen, who saves the sailor’s life before being captured by the Emir. This time salvation arrives in the form of Eastern sailor Melik (Walter Slezak) who enlists the couple’s aid in tracking down the elusive treasure of Deryabar, located beneath the palace of Alexander the Great. Loyalties and vows shift as the trio races to the treasure with the furious Emir hot on their heels.”

The film was shot in Technicolor so it is way out there with crazy colors from the paint on the ship to Maureen’s gaudy dresses.

TCM says Douglas was “famously ignored by his father as a child” but still wanted to make the movie in honor of his father’s swashbuckling movies. It was the first movie that Douglas Jr. made after returning from voluntarily serving in the United States Navy during World War II.

The writer of the article on TCM, Nathaniel Thompson, did have an “obsession” (as I’m sure many did) with what he called Maureen’s “exquisitely endowed bosom.”

He wrote, “which she was wisely but discreetly at pains to exploit and which I, ever an untiring student of such anatomical addenda, discreetly admired.”

Writing in his autobiography, A Hell of A War, Fairbanks wrote that he knew no one in a lead in the movie was Arab at all.

“After all, I was not exactly a typical Arab any more than Walter Slezak was even remotely (with his taped-up blue eyes) Oriental.”

 And I guess none of them really saw a problem with that. Sigh.

Anyhow…if you want to watch this movie simply to see how much you can cringe in 1 hr and 57 min (I felt like this movie would never end and fast forwarded a couple of times to get there), I would recommend it.

Holy eyeliner, Batman!
Have you been playing with your mother’s curtains again, Douglas? Don’t lie…

I am hoping my next choice, The Rise of Catherine The Great (1934), is a bit better. It is streaming for free on YouTube. At least in the United States.

After that I am watching  The Sun Never Sets (1939). It is available for free on PBS and I also found it here: https://archive.org/details/sun.-never.-sets.-1939

You can find my impressions of previous movies in the series, as well as other classic movies here: https://lisahoweler.com/movie-reviews-impressions/

Classic movie impressions: The Stranger (1946)

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn classic movie impressions, everyday musings, Movie Impresssions9 Comments

A few weeks ago, my husband suggested we watch an Orson Welles movie. Since I’ve liked other movies by and starring Orson, I agreed to it.

The Stranger was released in 1946 and tells the story of a war crimes investigator who tracks a high-ranking Nazi fugitive to a small Connecticut town.

Welles both directed and co-wrote the film but was uncredited for the writing, which was most likely part of the many concessions he made for the opportunity to direct it. This is a movie that some call his most conventional. It’s also one he wasn’t as fond of because so many changes were made to the final cut without his consultation.

The movie stars Welles, Edward G. Robinson, and Loretta Young.

The creepy undertone throughout the entire movie left me always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Nazi fugitive, Franz Kindler (Welles), has done his best to assimilate into American society. He’s even about to marry the daughter of a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Edward G. Robinson, playing war crimes investigator Mr. Wilson, follows one of the recently released followers of Kindler to the town, hoping he’ll lead him to Kindler. The man suddenly disappears though, and Wilson is certain he’s been murdered by Kindler, but still doesn’t know who Kindler actually is. Only that he is somewhere in the town.

We the viewer, know all along what happened to the man and who made it  It happens about 15 minutes into the movie, but Robinson has to spend much of the movie trying to figure it out and once he does figure it out, he spends the rest of the movie trying to make Kindler admit who he really is. The only thing Robinson’s character really knows when he comes to the town is that Kindler had an almost unhealth obsession with old clocks.

It’s a fantastic, stressful game of cat and mouse that had me literally biting my nails part of the time.

The music of the movie is very interesting – mixing in a creepy violin-based humming, with happier melodies to try to show the contrast between an innocent, happy world being infiltrated by pure evil.

It always amazes me how quickly movies were made back then. Filming for this movie took place from September to November of 1945 and was released July 2, 1946.

Originally the film was going to be directed by John Husten, but he entered the military and Welles begged producer Sam Spiegel (also called S.P. Eagle at the time) to let him direct the film. Spiegel agreed as long as Welles agreed to several concessions and to be let go as director if he stepped out of those perimeters. Welles would still have to continue on as the lead actor, even if he was let go as director, however.  

Welles agreed. He needed the job if he wanted to continue in Hollywood. Five years earlier Welles had been essentially backlisted with the release of Citizen Kane, which won 9 Academy Awards, including Best Director, Best Movie, and Best Actor for Welles. This should have made Welles a sought-after director and actor. Citizen Kane was based on the life of one of the most powerful men in the world at the time — William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper publisher and owner — though and Hearst wasn’t happy. In fact, he was furious. He made life very difficult for Welles and anyone else associated with the making of the movie, which is now considered the greatest movie all time thanks to its innovative filmmaking techniques, complex story, and influential impact on cinema history.

“In September 1945 Welles and his wife Rita Hayworth signed a guarantee that Welles would owe International Pictures any of his earnings, from any source, above $50,000 a year if he did not meet his contractual obligations,” an article on Wikipedia states. “He also agreed to defer to the studio in any creative dispute.”

This became a challenge when Editor Ernest J. Nims was given the power to cut any material he considered extraneous from the script before shooting began.

“He was the great supercutter,” Welles said, “who believed that nothing should be in a movie that did not advance the story. And since most of the good stuff in my movies doesn’t advance the story at all, you can imagine what a nemesis he was to me.”

Reading about all the cuts that were made from the script, and the final product helps me to understand why this movie feels so choppy at times. It feels like elements that would have helped to explain some of the plot better are missing.

What is really missing is building up Welles’ character and helping the viewer get to know who he is. As I read online, I found out that there were scenes removed from the beginning of the movie that would have given us more character development for Welles’ character.

I feel like Nims really overdid things and should probably be ashamed of chopping up Welles’ work.

I also thought that it was interesting that Welles wanted a female actress to portray the investigator.

“I thought it would be much more interesting to have a spinster lady on the heels of this Nazi,” Welles said. 

Welles would later say in interviews that nothing of The Stranger was his in the end. Biographer Frank Brady disagrees, “Welles has said, since the making of The Stranger—which he completed one day before schedule and under budget—that nothing in the film was his, this despite the fact that the unmistakable Wellesian moods, shadows, acute angles, and depth-of-focus shots are pervasive. Within the film is a second film, another Wellesian touch, consisting of snatches of documentary footage showing Nazi atrocities.”

One unique aspect of The Stranger is that it was the first commercial film to use documentary footage from the Nazi concentration camps.

Welles viewed Nazi Concentration Camps (1945), a film used as evidence in the Nuremberg Trials in early May 1945 as a correspondent and discussion moderator at the United Nations Conference on International Organization

One thing I didn’t remember until reading about it this week was that in the 1940s, many in the world simply couldn’t accept that the concentration camps were real.

Welles wrote about the footage in a column for the New York Post:

“No, you must not miss the newsreels. They make a point this week no man can miss: The war has strewn the world with corpses, none of them very nice to look at. The thought of death is never pretty but the newsreels testify to the fact of quite another sort of death, quite another level of decay. This is a putrefaction of the soul, a perfect spiritual garbage. For some years now we have been calling it Fascism. The stench is unendurable.”

Though the studio did not think The Stranger would be a success, it actually was and right out of the gate too. It cost $1 million to make and earned $2.25 million in U.S. rentals in its first six months. Fifteen months later had grossed $3.2 million.

I very much enjoyed the film, but I do wish that Kindler’s German accent would have come back as soon as his cover was blown. Having him keep the American accent he’s been using to keep his cover, even when under pressure, seemed unrealistic to me.

Despite that small issue, Welles is so deliciously evil in this. His excuses for his crimes against humanity were presented with a lecherous smile that sent shivers down my spine. The tension throughout the film is extreme. I never knew when Kindler would finally snap and reveal himself or worse — kill someone to keep his identity secret.

I found this one on YouTube for free, but it is also streaming in better quality on several streaming sites, including Amazon Prime.

Have you ever watched this one? What did you think?

Top Ten Tuesday: 10 books I never reviewed on my blog or social media

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, top-ten-tuesday17 Comments

|| Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. ||

Today’s prompt is: 10 Books I Never Reviewed (Share the titles of books you never reviewed on your blog/tiktok/insta/etc. and if you liked them or not!)

This one was hard for me because I have actually reviewed most of the books I have read in the last two years. I had to search hard for those I had not reviewed in some fashion

  1. Anne’s House of Dreams by LM Montgomery.  – didn’t review and didn’t enjoy as much as other Anne books

2. The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright — Loved this middle grade book but did not get around to reviewing it.

3. The Burning Issue of The Day (A Lady Hardcastle Mystery) by T.E. Kinsey – I liked this one okay but wasn’t really doing a lot of reviews at this time (2023) and didn’t like it as much as other books in the series.

4. The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien – really liked it but for some reason never reviewed in on my blog or social media

5. An Amish Inn Mystery: Murder Well Played by Rachel O’Phillips – I like this book. I have no idea why I never reviewed it.

6. A Highland Christmas (A Hamish Macbeth Mystery) by M.C. Beaton – I don’t remember ever writing a review for this book. I liked it okay. It was very cozy, but I don’t know if I am a huge fan of Beaton’s writing.

7. Sarah, Plain and Tall by Sarah MacLachlan — I very much enjoyed the middle grade book but for some reason never reviewed it.

8. The Darling Buds of May by H.E. Bates — This book was super weird and full of possible references to incestual attraction. That’s all I gotta say about that one.

9. Death Without Company (A Walt Longmire Mystery) by Craig Johnson — I enjoy this series but rarely write book reviews for them. I am not sure why.

10. At Home In Mitford by Jan Karon — Despite being one of my favorite books and book series, I have never shared a review of this book on my blog or social media, that I can remember anyhow.

A bonus: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. Read it. Liked it. Never reviewed it and I don’t know why.

How about you? What books have you never reviewed? Maybe you are a reader who doesn’t even do reviews and that’s totally fine too. This list shows that I really don’t review every book. I do have fun writing reviews and telling other readers about the books I read though.

Sunday Bookends: More cold weather and switching back and forth between books

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends18 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

The weather is so cold in our area that we are doing our best to conserve heating oil by dressing in layers, wrapping ourselves in blankets, and using microwavable rice packs to warm our feet and laps. This might sound dystopian to some, but I have actually been having fun with it and enjoying my little blanket nests and my warm rice packs. Check back after our planned arctic cold snap this week and see if I still see this all as an adventure. Of course, my attitude will also plan on whether or not I need to go out in the cold on any of the days that the weather is supposed to be so cold.

I talked a little about what else has been going on in our world in my Saturday Afternoon Chat yesterday.

I’ve been switching between The Tuesday Night Club (Miss Marple) by Agatha Christie and Every Living Thing by James Herriot.

I read Miss Marple during the day, usually, and James Herriot right before bed.

I am enjoying them both, but Herriot’s a bit better. Both are a collection of short stories with some connections, such as characters. I am not a huge fan of Christie’s writing style at times and this format, which involves people sitting around and telling each other stories, is a bit dry to me. The stories are good but it does get repetitive for every story to feature someone telling a story they supposedly don’t have an ending to, Miss Marple to solve the case, and then the person telling the story to go, “Actually, I do know what really happened. Let me tell you.”

It’s all a bit tedious but there are some humorous moments and quotes from Miss Marple so I am pushing through.

I also just started Nancy Drew: The Sign of the Twisted Candles by Carolyn Keene.

I am itching for a good novel after these two, which I will finish this week, so I am planning to start A Fatal Footnote by Margaret Loudon, which is a cozy mystery.

I am listening to Frankenstein while doing my dishes.

Little Miss and I are also reading Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare.

She is reading (here and there) Harry Potter: Prisoner of Azkaban.

The Husband is reading Starter Villain by John Scalzi.

This past week The Husband and I watched the first part of Going Postal on Peacock. I watched a lot of Victorian Farm and more All Creatures Great And Small (even going back to the beginning for fun).

I also watched Angels Over Broadway from 1940.

Last week on the blog I shared:

Now It’s Your Turn!

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, The Sunday Salon with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date.

Some commenters have been telling me there are issues with commenting on WordPress. If you can’t comment, but want to, please feel free to hit the contact link at the top of the page.

In addition to my blog, I write fiction, and you can learn more about my books here: https://lisahoweler.com/my-books-2/


You can also support my writing and chat about books, mysteries, old movies, vintage books, mystery shows, etc. for $3 a month at my Patreon here: https://patreon.com/LisaHoweler.

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Saturday Afternoon Chat: Small town newspapers and small town vets

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Saturday Afternoon Tea10 Comments

Tuesday morning, I watched my neighbor drive by my house and less than two minutes later drive back again.

He and his wife run our little county newspaper and Tuesdays are their publication day.

In a few minutes, he came back again with his white newspaper van (which we jokingly call the kidnapper van). I’m not sure if he forgot it was the day to pick up and distribute the newspapers or what, but it was somewhat funny to watch.

Their little newspaper, by the way, is not who my husband works for. Their paper is more like a community announcement paper, with little to no hard-hitting news and not even names on most of the stories. It is a beloved staple in the community because of its simple presentation and has been around for probably 100 years. My neighbor’s dad and mom owned the paper before him.  His dad, Tom “Doc” Shoemaker was also the local vet and a wonderful man, as far as I know. I based a side character in my latest book on him.

In the book I share how the vet checks over Gladwynn and Lucinda’s cat and I drew on an actual experience we had with Doc Shoemaker when I was a child. My dad and I had taken one of our cats to see Doc Shoemaker because we had noticed blood in the snow when he went to the bathroom (I think that was the incident anyhow) and Doc wasn’t exactly rough, but he wasn’t exactly soothing either. He did speak to our cat — Zorro — in a fairly soothing tone but then he abruptly and quickly yanked Zorro’s tail up and inserted an old-fashioned thermometer right where the sun don’t shine.

Another time we took our pet dog to him, and he had to pull needles from a porcupine out of her snout. Poor, pup.

I have book here that Doc’s family self published and I really want to sit down and read it this spring. I think it will be a nice follow up the James Herriot book I am currently reading.

Poor cat. It was necessary though because it helped to determine that he had a UTI and needed antibiotics. Poor Zorro had bladder problems for the rest of his life, but lived until he was around 20-years-old. Longevity must be something which occurs with black cats because The Husband and I also had a black cat and she lived until she was 19.

She was so old that when we took her in at 17 the vet (not Doc Shoemaker because we were living an hour from where he had once practiced and because he was retired) asked if we had named another cat Squeek.

 Squeek was my husband’s cat and I said, ‘no’ that this was the cat he’d brought in some 15 years before after rescuing her on the street. The vet tech was shocked. Even more shocked, I’m sure, when we had to bring her in two years later to have her put to sleep after she had a stroke and could no longer walk.

As I write this I have a cat and a dog staring at me from my bed.

They are not staring at me because they want me to go to bed. They are staring at me because they want me to give them a sample of coconut oil. I don’t know why but they both love coconut oil. The only coconut oil brand they seem to like though is Better Body Foods.

One time I picked up some organic coconut oil from Aldi and they wouldn’t even look at it. They literally walked away. This makes me wonder what the difference between the two coconut oils is.

So yesterday we went grocery shopping in the store for the first time in probably a year. We did this because I had tried to place an order with Instacart to Aldi for pick up but was told I could not have my order at the time I had chosen. Instead, I could have it at some point but they had no idea when. That didn’t work for me since I had other things I wanted to accomplish today and didn’t want to simply wait at home for them to tell me when I could come get my order. I have to drive 30-minutes to get to an Aldi, or any large store, so I needed an actual time.

This was all even more irritating because something similar happened last week when we were supposed to pick up our groceries at 5 on Friday, but two hours before they sent me an email and said my pickup time had been moved to the next day.

That wasn’t convenient for us at all but there was no way to contact anyone and even Instacart didn’t help because when I did a chat with them via text on their app, they said they would move the time and did. It was changed right back, however, by the staff at our local Aldi (I guess) so we had to get it on Saturday.

The reason we do pickup is because I have a couple of weird health issues where some days I feel well and other days I deal with a lightheaded and weak feeling when I do something like shop at a grocery store. No idea what it is, other than being overweight, having hypothyroidism, and getting a bit old. A friend would like me to be checked for POTS, as I do have some symptoms of that, but I have not yet asked a doctor about it. Hopefully in March.

Plus, pick up keeps us from buying extra things we don’t need and it is simply faster. I did find today, though, that there seemed to be more options available in the store than on the Instacart app.

I am not sure what we will do about pickup next week now that we’ve had two weeks of Instacart issues.

The nice thing about yesterday, though, was that The Boy, my 18-year-old son, offered to do the shopping for me. In addition to my weird health issue, I’ve also been dealing with a very sore knee (or muscle by the knee really). Luckily it is so much better but a lot of walking isn’t yet in the cards. In The Boy and Little Miss did the shopping and I helped some by walking around the store some, but not all the way around.

Little Miss has always loved helping to shop and has been very disappointed that we haven’t been able to do it lately.  She even likes riding with me to get the pickup. It’s our mother-daughter time and we listen to audiobooks on the way. The Husband or my dad have been picking up our orders lately because we are currently down to one vehicle. I’m grateful we’ve been able to do the pickup as long as we have and hope that we can continue to do so.

Today we are supposed to get a freezing rain/snow mix, so we don’t have plans to go anywhere. I am sipping a cup of peppermint tea with honey and hope to spend most of the day reading.

Tomorrow we will be visiting my parents for a late Valentine’s Day lunch.

The upcoming week is going to be very, very cold so we probably won’t be going out much but I would really love to get to the local library at least one day. I am hoping that maybe Dad will need to take a trip out here to our tiny town for something and can give us a ride. I would love to be able to walk downtown to the library but…the aforementioned knee issue and right now absolutely freezing cold.

How was your week this past week? Did you do anything exciting? Or did you simply have a nice, relaxing week?

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot. Come link up with us!

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Weekend Traffic Jam6 Comments

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about them.

Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.

I hope that you will look through the links and click on some and find a new blogger or two to follow. First, I’ll introduce you to our hosts:

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity.  Oh, who are we kidding?  Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!  

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household  – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting! 

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more. 

Sue from Women Living Well After 50 started blogging in 2015 and writes about living an active and healthy lifestyle, fashion, book reviews and her podcast and enjoying life as a woman over 50.  She invites you to join her living life in full bloom.


We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!

WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello! This week we are spotlighting Nancy’s Fashion Style! https://nancysfashionstyle.com/

Thank you for linking up to Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, Nancy!

Here are a few of my highlights for the week:

|| How To Make World’s Easiest Electrolyte Drink by Scratch Made Food for Hungry People ||

|| Jewelry: material – end pieces and dividers  by Moo Is Van Me ||

|| Five Valentine Activities Littles Will Love by Our Grand Lives ||

Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up! Please remember that this is a link-up where you can share posts from the previous week or posts from weeks, months, or years ago. All we ask is that they be “family-friendly”.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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Classic Movie Impressions: Winter of Fairbanks Jr., Angels Over Broadway

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn classic movie impressions, Movie Impresssions, Winter of Fairbanks Jr.5 Comments

This winter I am watching movies starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

I had to switch movies for this week’s Winter of Fairbanks Jr. because I couldn’t find Chase a Crooked Shadow. Instead I chose Angels Over Broadway, which I found on YouTube.

It was a simple movie with a very sweet ending. It definitely had some plot holes and some vague back stories and some not great reviews online but I found it endearing.

Douglas (remember we are on a first-name basis now) plays a down-on-his-luck con man named Bill O’Brien who thinks he has found his way to fortune when he sees a man named Charles Engle (John Qualen) blowing cash left and right at a night club.

The issue is that Engle really isn’t loaded at all. He stole $3,000 from his business partner to make his wife happy and then his wife took the money to leave with another man.

Engle’s been confronted by his business partner and is ready to kill himself. Now he is spending one last night on the town before he ends it all.

Rita Hayworth is a lounge singer named Nina Barona who spots Engle and wonders if he might be a producer or director who can help her become famous.

O’Brien sees her and wonders if she might be someone that he can pull into one of his schemes. Also, you can tell he likes the look of her, if you know what I mean. *wink* *wink*

So, yes, we have a group of scammers ready to scam each other. O’Brien sees in Engle a quick buck because he’s going to talk him into going to an illegal poker game and throwing away some of his money and then getting a cut of whatever is taken from him. O’Brien’s main source of income is leading rich men to notorious gangster Dutch Enright (Ralph Theodore). Dutch then cheats them out of a fortune and gives Bill a cut of the profits for luring them in.

Thomas Mitchell portrays playwright Gene Gibbons (Thomas Mitchell….also known as Uncle Billy in It’s A Wonderful Life) whose last play fell on its face.

He’s intoxicated and handed the wrong coat when he goes to collect his. Its Engle’s coat and in the pocket is the suicide letter Engle has written for his partner and estranged wife to find after his death.

Gibbons reads the letter and asks who it belongs to. He doesn’t like the idea of someone killing themselves and tracks Engle down to try to talk him out of it.

Gibbons reveals himself to Engle to be a womanizer, adulterer, and a failure at success. He tells Engle he doesn’t want him to miss out on all the beautiful things in life so he decides to  help Engle get the $3,000 back. His plan to do that fails so in walks O’Brien, who learns Engle doesn’t actually have any money. Nina thinks this is hilarious and blurts out the scheme O’Brien tried to pull her into.

O’Brien is a bit ticked at her move to blather about the plan but Gibbons believes they can still pull the plan off by pretending Engle is rich.

Scam a gangster? Eek. O’Brien doesn’t like the idea but if Engle can win more than $3,000 in the game then O’Brien can take whatever is left.

The bulk of the movie is watching three people try to play each other or others to benefit themselves and then later having to decide if this is the person they really want to be.

Douglas is a bit of a jerk and a softy in this one. He does,  however, rescue Nina from a predatory man when she tries to use the man to get to an opportunity to make her famous. He also shows he’s not all about himself later in the movie.

I wasn’t sure what to make of his thick New York City accent in this one. All I know is that I kept talking like him for the rest of the night, including asking my kids, “Eh, you ready for dinner or what? You need me to wait to get dinner on the plates or do ya’ wants me to bring it to  you while it’s still warm?”

My children didn’t find any of this amusing, by the way.

Hayworth got the role after Jean Arthur turned it down and it was her first “A” list film. As we all know, she flew to fame after this by becoming a heartthrob of the 1940s and a pin-up girl during World War II.

Before this movie she was in 35 different movies starting in 1926, but in most of those movies she portrayed secondary characters.

Angels Over Broadway was directed by Ben Hecht and co-produced by Douglas, who convinced Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures, to finance the rest.

“Cohn couldn’t figure out what the picture was about but neither could we,” Fairbanks was later quoted as saying about the film.

Samantha Richards from Musings of A Classic Film Addict writes on her blog, “The plot and theme are clear to audiences today, as the screenplay, which earned iconic screenwriter Ben Hecht an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay for 1940, has since been regarded as far ahead of its time by critics. I find it difficult to understand why this film isn’t universally recognized that way that I see it: as a strong and riveting drama that blends the realism of New York City life, with a touch of fantasy and the idealism that maybe good guys can sometimes win in the end. To answer my own question, Rita Hayworth is miles apart from the calculated femme fatale image that she would later be known for, with a mousey voice and a doe-eyed look that would make even diehard fans of hers puzzled.”

Richardson continues, “Each performance in Angels Over Broadway (1940) is spot on and impeccably cast, made up of wildly underappreciated actors like Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Thomas Mitchell, both of whom rank highly in my book. Jean Arthur could never have portrayed a role like Nina Barona, but I also doubt that even Rita herself could have pulled this part off after being transformed by the Hollywood machine after this film’s release.”

I feel Douglas was very good in this, but in some ways Mitchell stole the show as the intoxicated, and later repentant and sober, Gibbons. He seems to play drunk fellows well. I hope that wasn’t because he knew a lot about it in real life.

It did hit me as I was watching the movie that Douglas always has a small mustache, no matter what movie he is in — other than one of his first movies, The Power of the Press.

There isn’t a ton of information about this movie online, so you won’t have to read through paragraphs of history, behind the scenes stories, or trivia today.

I do have a couple tidbits of trivia I read on Imdb, including:

“The tagline on the original movie poster – “A HECTIC ROMANCE TO BLOW THE FUSES OUT ALONG MAZDA LANE” – refers to the Broadway theater district in New York City as “Mazda Lane.” Mazda was a brand of light bulbs common in the first half of the 20th century, with a name referencing an ancient Persian god of light and good. Broadway was and is known for its brightly lit marquees, and had many nicknames in its heyday.”

And:

“The working title for this film was Before I Die.”

So, there is one line from Douglas in this movie that made me swoon a bit. I’ve gone to the trouble of clipping it for you to share here and it was a bit of an ordeal to do so I hope you appreciate it. *wink* Let me know if you figure out what the line is.



I would guess that many of you have not seen this movie but if you have, what did you think?

I found this for free one on YouTube, by the way.

Up next for me in my Winter of Fairbanks Jr. marathon is Sinbad The Sailor (1947) and I did make sure this one is streaming somewhere.

After that I am watching The Rise of Catherine the Great and writing about it February 27. It is also streaming.

My last pick, The Sun Never Sets, 1939, is available for free on PBS and I also found it here: https://archive.org/details/sun.-never.-sets.-1939

You can find my impressions of previous movies in the series, as well as other classic movies here: https://lisahoweler.com/movie-reviews-impressions/