It was closer to noon before I finally had a jelly and cheese omelet and fruit and got the TV working. Was able to watch most of the noon episodes of Match Game '79. Brianne Leary came in for ribbing early-on about her newsboy look, while Jon "Bowser" Bauman honored the show with his own poetry. Brett fussed about Gene wearing blue socks with a brown suit, but he and Bob Barker were too thrilled with the woman who called them sex symbols to care what Gene wore.
Bob starts off the next episode by saying the Match Game regulars were going to appear in a Showcase Showdown on The Price Is Right. I wonder if they ever did? Bob's more nervous when he has to answer "__ Handed" for the Head-to-Head.
Switched to Scooby Doo while doing the dishes. "A Scooby Doo Christmas" was released around the time of What's New, Scooby Doo? Mystery Inc finds themselves stranded in a town that hasn't been able to celebrate Christmas in years, thanks to a holiday-hating snowman who attacks people's chimneys. While Shaggy and Scooby nearly freeze to death in a lake trying to dodge the icy monster, the others try to make sense of a local legend about missing gold.
Headed out for a walk after I ate. It was a gorgeous day to gather more boxes, sunny and relatively warm for this time of year, in the lower 50's. Stopped at the metal recycling bins behind Dollar General first. Found at least four I was actually able to use. Probably would have gotten more, but two people drove into the back yelling at each other. The woman threw - or someone threw - all of her things into the dumpster on the other side of the lot and was trying to get them back. The man yelled back that she was drunk and he should do it. I took off before I saw if anyone retrieved her things.
CVS was a lot safer. The permanent marker I'm using isn't writing well anymore. Discovered when I tried to use rubber bands on some of my cords that they were all dry and breaking, so I bought new ones.
I also bought my first live Christmas tree. It cost me about ten dollars and is barely bigger than Charlie Brown's tree, but it does have a pleasantly piney scent and a cute little bow in the center. I'll plant it in one of the near-by woods after the holidays. I'd like to have something out for Christmas, even just a little tree.
After I got home and watered the tree, I finally decided to text Rose. I haven't heard from her since I went to dinner at her house the other night. She called shortly after I texted. The gist is, no, still no news. Jodie just won't let her talk to the people selling the house. She's desperate to get rid of it and is probably terrified that if Rose talks to these people, she won't sell it as fast or at all.
I know everyone keeps telling me not to be so hard on myself, but...I shouldn't have let this happen. Admittedly, Jodie should have drawn up a lease in early August, when we recovered sufficiently from Dad's death, and made it clearer that I was a tenant. She did say she wanted to sell the house in January, though. That probably wasn't going to be practical or even possible with the pandemic going on at that point, but then she said she'd put it on the market in June.
I should have started looking for apartments in June, or even May. I put it off because I was tired from triple the hours at work that I usually have in the summer and the heat...and because I foolishly hoped Jodie would put off selling the house another year or would make an effort to find someone who wanted keep me on. She told me she put off selling the house because of me! (Although she did end up doing all those repairs in the spring and early summer, too.) I really feel terrible about causing all this trouble.
Broke for lunch and to switch the DVD cases to boxes and the nonfiction hardbacks to a bin. Watched one of the WKRP In Cincinatti holiday episodes while I worked. Jennifer gets upset when the others don't show a lot more pleasure in going home for the holidays. They all think "Jennifer's Home for Christmas," but it turns out she has a lot more going on than they know.
Tried to put on Tattletales while eating quickly, but the TV was back to not connecting. Watched it on my laptop while I packed in the bedroom instead. Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall, who are usually good at this, just couldn't get anything right today. The winners were another long-married pair, Gary Collins and his southern-belle comedienne wife Mary Anne Mobley.
New Year's Eve 1984 on Press Your Luck started slow, with everyone earning money on the first round and no one hitting Whammies. The champagne-toting creatures didn't show up in full until the second round. They hit the champ three times, but he still managed to pick up a car and tons of cash and retire with almost 60,000 to his name.
Went into writing for a while and looking for apartments. Richard leads the group across the first two squares. They're amazed with the variety of insects they find in the green valleys there, including elephant-bees sipping nectar from towering flowers. He finally tells them it'll be a lot faster if they take a train...
Broke for dinner at 6:30. I just ended up eating the last of the leftover turkey soup at my laptop, since the TV still won't connect. Brett and Charles had a great time in this episode of Match Game '74. She dumped pieces of one of her bad answers on him. He threw a few wisecracks at her, especially after she walked out because she didn't recognize JoAnn Worley's answer to "Bella __" in the Audience Match.
Richard Dawson was in a less pleasant mood during Match Game PM. Good thing the others were a lot happier. Lee Merriweather was likely a little embarrassed that she didn't mention her co-star and good friend from Barnaby Jones Buddy Ebsen for the Audience Match "Buddy __." Despite his grouchiness, Richard had fewer problems helping a contestant with "__ of the Game" in the Head-to-Head.
Switched to more holiday sitcom episodes for the rest of the evening, starting with MASH. BJ Hunnicut hopes "Death Takes a Holiday" when he, Hawkeye, and Hot Lips try to keep a fatally wounded soldier alive so they won't have to tell his family he died on Christmas Day. Charles Winchester is happier to help with a party the others throw for a group of Korean orphans. He's angry when his gift of candy is stolen by their caretaker, until he finds out what the money was used for.
The Golden Girls' holiday isn't going much better. "'Twas the Nightmare Before Christmas," and Rose, Dorothy, and Blanche first find themselves held up by a lonely man dressed as Santa Claus at Rose's office. Even after Sophia appears and reveals the guy's only after attention, their flights home are canceled due to a snowstorm in other parts of the US. It takes a kindly diner owner to put things in perspective for them and remind them they're lucky to have each other.
Christmas is also going badly for Oscar Madison on the original Odd Couple. Felix wants Oscar to play Scrooge in a local production, but Oscar's even grumpier than usual and refuses. It takes a really weird dream on Christmas Eve that makes Felix into Marley and Al the Cop into Tiny Tim to prove that "Scrooge Wins an Oscar" and make Oscar realize he was born for the role.
Carolyn Muir and her family also have a strange dream during the Christmas episode of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Claymore, the nerdy descendant of Captain Gregg, finds a baby in his car on Christmas Eve and turns it over to Carolyn for the night. After her refuses to give them a Christmas tree or help pay for the baby's care, the Captain gives them all a dream that he hoped to have...one representing a hundred years before, where he's alive and Claymore's descendent is a Scrooge who learns the true meaning of the holiday from "The Ghost of Christmas Past."
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