Home In the Rain

Couldn't have been happier I asked for this week off. Not for the first time this month, I awoke to a gray, cloudy day. By the time I settled down with breakfast and Blockbusters, snow drifted past the trees, falling on the slope just beyond my kitchen/living room windows. The father-daughter team was soundly beaten by a young man, but he didn't do nearly as well at the Gold Run round. 

Switched to cartoons as I sipped my tea. I'm not the only one who's been frustrated about a lot of things lately. "Daniel Gets Frustrated" in Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood when his stuffed animal Tigey won't sit right on top of the block tower he built with his mother, and then when they knock it over. Mrs. Tiger reminds her son to step back and ask for help with his project. He's "Frustrated at School" after the pretend spaghetti he wanted to use for his friends' play restaurant vanishes. Teacher Harriet calms him down and helps him figure out where it is.

Moved on to Sheriff Callie's Wild West as I cleaned up from breakfast. "Callie's Got Trouble" when the Trouble Brothers escape from jail. She does manage to catch the youngest Trouble brother, Teddy. Teddy thinks he has to be like his brothers, but he's too nice to do many of the terrible things they do. Callie and her friends teach him that being nice definitely isn't a bad thing. Peck tries to make an "Outlaw Roundup" after he reads yet another newspaper story that praises Callie and ignores him, but he's in over his head when he encounters a whole den of bad guys. 

Finally called Mrs. Stahl while Sheriff Callie's Wild West ran and gave her my phone number. I haven't heard from her since last April. I did call her around the time I moved, but she never called me back. She still hasn't. I'd like to at least touch base with her about the goings-on this past year. 

Also texted Jessa around this point and invited her over tomorrow or Wednesday. We could go out to lunch on West Clinton Avenue and have a nice long chat. She couldn't come Wednesday, but we did opt to get together tomorrow at 1. 

The snow had changed to rain by the time Match Game '78 started. I settled down on the futon to enjoy the show. The first episode kicks off with Debralee Scott trying to help a young man with a magnificent Afro win 10,000 by answering "__ Condition." Betty White has even less luck with the Head-to-Head later in the episode. 

Alas, it would seem that the next week and a half's episodes after that are lost, including an entire week that can't be shown due to celebrity clearance problems. Buzzr picked up with Greg Morris, Fannie Flagg, and Barbara Rhodes joining ever-nervous Bill Daily and the regulars. Bill and Barbara get very, very close with Gene Rayburn while he reads them a question...maybe a little closer than he'd like!

Put an episode of Bewitched on The Roku Channel while making a banana-berry smoothie for lunch. During the 6th season, Samantha's joke-loving Uncle Arthur (Paul Lynde) has a cold that makes him lose his powers. Dr. Bombay (Bernard Fox) gives him a pill to help him recover, but it makes him turn into anything he thinks of. This becomes a problem when Samantha takes him outside, and he turns himself into "Super Arthur" and flies off. It's Darrin who manages to explain it all when he claims Arthur's really helping him with a new advertising campaign.

Tried to settle down for a nap after the episode ended. This lasted for an hour, or until I heard a crash. I'd accidentally kicked the dolls' bench and knocked them on the floor. Putting them back up left me too much awake to go back to bed. Watched long-married Scoey and Claire Mitchilll become today's big winners on Tattletales instead. 

Found three more large bowls and platters from that dish set and put them on the bar in the den for Jodie while Press Your Luck was on. Whammies flew fast and furious today, especially in the second half. It came down to the champ and the other man. The other guy went on for one spin too many and hit a Whammy, leaving the champ today's big winner with one Whammy and cash.

Worked on writing for a while after the show ended. Decided I really didn't need Allen Ludden and Betty White's characters and cut their entire subplot. Dolly Martin is now the one who tells Gene about Brett being a runaway noblewoman after her husband Dick told her his suspicions. Bill Cullen arrives in a barrel after Dick and Dolly roll them into sailors to knock them overboard. He's dizzy, but feels well enough to once again pull a gun on Governor Goodson and make sure he doesn't hurt anyone else.

Broke for dinner at 6:30. Had leftovers while watching Match Game '74. Things get really wild towards the end when Robert Morse does an ape imitation to help a very nervous contestant with her answer to a Tarzan question. There were so many complaints from the panelists on what matched and what didn't, they decided they'd start the round over next time. 

Match Game PM remains in 1977. Charles and Brett continue to enjoy picking on each other, even as Joyce Bulifant fields jokes about her yellow feather-trimmed outfit making her look like a chicken and Brett's about ready to kill Richard after he reminds her that she's a tad old for the handsome young male contestant. Richard does one of his longest and most suspenseful fake-outs in the end when the contestant is desperately waiting for his answer to "__ Majors."

I finally figured out which cake I wanted to make by the time of Sale of the Century. It started out as the fourth nail-bitingly close game in less than a week. The women were so neck-and-neck through the second half, they bought no Instant Bargains and didn't even look at the Instant Cash. The champ got a number card on the Fame Game that allowed her to pull ahead and win the Speed Round decisively. Though she did pick up a trip to San Francisco, she had more trouble with the Bonus Round again.

Finished the night online after a shower and the cake came out of the oven. Returned to The Roku Channel for The A-Team. The crew discovers a "Recipe for Heavy Bread" in the second season when they rescue their former Vietnamese POW camp cook, now a pastry chef in LA, from their brutal former POW commander who wants revenge on them for escaping. They end up helping the cook and a reporter stop a drug smuggling campaign operating out of a bread-baking business.