Friday, September 10, 2021

Heroes and Desert Adventures

Started off a glorious, sunny morning with breakfast and Hogan's Heroes. LeBeau becomes a "Man In a Box" when he's the only one short enough to be smuggled to a research facility in a crate. He's not happy about it, until he realizes the damage he can do in the name of France there.

Dashed off to work shortly after. Work was busy almost the entire afternoon. There were a few annoying customers, and an older man was upset because he had trouble in Hurricane Ida and wanted the 10% off coupon for victims of the storm, but couldn't get it because it's online.

Didn't really need to pick up much after work, either. Found salmon with a manager's coupon and buy one, get one ibuprofen. Had a free coupon for a tiny bottle of hand sanitizer that's already marked down to a quarter. Restocked bananas, milk, butter, and peanut butter.

I have long hours Sunday and Monday, 8 and 1/2 on Monday. After that...vacation! Lauren will be down on Tuesday. I have so much to do, including cleaning the apartment and getting the linens washed on Jodie's side of the house. 

Went online and into writing after I changed and put everything away. The Mock Turtle's song "Beautiful Soup" is a lovely and sorrowful way for Brett and her sons to relax after the Lobster Quadrille. Duchess Marcia and Bill the White Rabbit want him to sing it again, but Sir Richard Dawson's son Gary runs to them with bigger news...

Oh, and Mom sent me a lovely and sweet card. Apparently, she hasn't called or texted because, in addition to summer being her busy season at the Cape May-Lewes Ferry, where she takes tickets, she had to replace her cell phone and upgrade her Internet service. She says she'll try to get a hold of me again now that she has her phone. 

Broke to have scrambled eggs with tomatoes and cheese while watching Match Game '76.  For some reason, they skipped the last Bob Barker episode and went straight into the next week. The panel, including Gary Burghoff and night time soap star Susan Sullivan, tries to help a contestant with "Ann __" on the Audience Match and figure out what a woman's doctor husband does when he wears his rubber gloves 24 hours a day.

Did the dishes during Match Game PM. Sullivan sticks around, joined by Nipsey Russell and Marcia Wallace. They got to help a Marine chief figure out why the Snow White balloon at the Macy's parade shocked the announcer and the spelling mistake on "__ Goodman." (Their boss' name is Mark GoodSON.) Charles, meanwhile, tried to get the chief to take Brett for a ride on his submarine. 

Returned to Hogan's Heroes as I lay down for a rest on the futon. "The Return of Major Boncelli" brings back the Italian officer from the first season who became Hogan's contact, this time played by Vito Scotti. When his contact disappears, the guys insist on getting him out of the country. Klink wants to show him a good time, but he'd rather eat LeBeau's closest approximation to pizza than heavy German cooking!

Finished the night on the Watch TCM website with Valley of the Kings. Ann Mercedes (Eleanor Parker) travels to Cairo with her husband Phillip (Carlos Thompson) to fufill her father's life ambition and prove that the biblical Joseph did travel in Egypt. Mark Harmon (Robert Taylor) is skeptical, but he was a pupil of Ann's father and respected him, so he takes the job. The trip is fraught with peril, including a little smuggler (Leon Askin) who doesn't always tell the truth and obnoxious Phillip allying himself with smugglers. Ann's almost ready to give up after they lose their guides in a sandstorm and learns what really happened to her father, but Mark reminds her she's come too far to quit now.

Intriguing bit of Indiana Jones/Amelia Peabody-style blarney, with Parker doing especially well as the strong-willed woman who wants to see her father's work carried on. The on-location shooting may have made the movie hell to film (according to Parker and Taylor), but it does look wonderful in Technicolor, with the rugged desert vistas proving a glowing background to this adventure romance. The ending is frankly dull and anti-climatic, but it's a heck of a lot of fun getting there. 

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