I spent the rest of the morning doing some inner work. I figured a few things out in the past week. For one thing, I need to be a better friend to myself before I can let any other adults in my world. Most of all...I need to figure out what "home" means to me. My family moved 4 times by the time I was 4 years old. By the time I entered college in 1997, we'd moved 7 times. The only home I've had as an adult that wasn't recommended by a friend, neighbor, or family member was my first apartment in Wildwood, and that was a roach-ridden mess in a noisy neighborhood two blocks from the boardwalk.
All I want is a good, stable, quiet home that belongs to me. One that will never be taken away, or that I'll be pushed or priced out of. Where I make the rules, I decide who comes and goes, make my own meals, do what I choose, when I choose. There's a lot of people around here who bought their homes years ago or inherited homes from parents and don't understand. They've always had somewhere to go. I want a kitchen of my own and a bathroom of my own and a life of my own. I want to live like a real, true, honest adult.
Listened to George Shearing while I worked. I found Satin Affair almost 20 years ago at a yard sale and loved it. The laid-back instrumental jazz album was perfect background music for lazy late summer afternoons at home. It took me another decade to dig up more of the Shearing "fabric" titles. In fact, they didn't really start popping up until the record stores did. Now, I can pretty much find them anywhere. Satin Affair leans into the late summer-early fall aesthetic with "Early Autumn," "The Party's Over," and "Midnight Sun." Blue Chiffon dives into darker night titles like "Nocturne," "I'm Old Fashioned," and "Welcome to My Dreams." Deep Velvet is deep, dark spring rain storms - "Here's That Rainy Day," "I Used to Be Color Blind," "Nightfall," "Spring Is Here."
Had a really quick lunch before calling Uber. It was too hot for me to be riding my bike. It's going to be in the upper 90's for the next three days. The first driver came in 11 minutes. The one going home came in 5, a pleasant surprise for the height of rush hour (after I waited 20 minutes for the prices to come down). I got to school right on time, and there was no traffic anywhere.
On one hand, we only had 20 younger kids today, far fewer than we have had. Once again, there were more older kids. On the other hand, we decided to wait until it cooled off slightly to take them outside, which meant they were running around in the cafeteria for far longer than they have been lately. I had 9 at my table, and other than two of the girls played around in the sinks, they were fine in the bathroom. They were wild again in the cafeteria. The two girls and a curious boy wouldn't come out from under the table again, even after what happened on Friday. The head teacher had to call the head of the program to get them out and tell them that what they were doing was wrong. They could get hurt a lot worse than bonking their heads on the table if the table collapses.
We did finally get them outside around 4:30. We can get away with that because, unlike a lot of newer playgrounds and play areas (including the playground at Cape May Elementary), there's several large trees in and around the Thomas Sharp playground that keep the area around the swings shady and cool. By the time they got outside, they had dwindled enough in number that we let them on the swings. There was a little squabbling over the swings, but other than that, they seemed to fairly enjoy themselves.
Even after we took the remaining six kids inside, they were fine. It was the older kids who were wild when we came in. The boys in particular were slamming plastic trucks against each other and letting them fly all over the place. Even some of the girls said they were really being annoying. The younger kids were happier dancing to "Dance With Me" and songs from Moana, Moana 2, and KPop Demon Hunters.
Put on Match Game '73 when I got home and had dinner. The first two episodes introduced Joyce Bulifant, here in the 4th ingenue seat, and was the only week for comedian and long-time game show host Robert Q. Lewis. Bill Daily made his debut the next week, joined by Judy Carne of the then-just ending Laugh-In. She complained about sitting in the sixth comedienne seat. When she and Fannie Flagg changed seats, it would be the first time Fannie sat there.
Finished the night with a few childhood memories. Before Game Show Network or Buzzr debuted, USA Network devoted its afternoon schedule to re-runs of then-popular game shows. From 1986 through 1995, USA was the best place to find old favorites like Tic Tac Dough and The $25,000 Pyramid and made-for-syndication shows like The $100,000 Name That Tune. Press Your Luck would prove to be a bigger hit on USA than it ever was during its original run on CBS. They also gave a second chance to shows like Hot Potato and All-Star Blitz that didn't get a fair shake from the networks the first time around.
The re-runs proved so successful, USA commissioned its first original shows from Canada in the late 80's. I used to love Bumper Stumpers. Charming Al Dubois had two pairs, one returning champions, trying to solve the "Super Stumper," a vanity licence plate with letters missing. Dubois would ask them which of two plates belonged to a certain character. The couple who chose it would guess what it said, then ask for a letter and see if they could guess the Super Stumpers. Winners went on to the bonus round. They had to correctly guess 7 plates in 30 seconds. There were two versions of the final game. The episode I have features the second format, where they either find up to $1,000 or a "win" sign on the monitors. Really fun show, especially if you love words and letters.
The revival of Chain Reaction also involved making words. This was slimmed down from the Bob Stewart original. Here, there are no celebrities involved, just two contestants figuring out how a chain of words relate to one another. The bonus round had the winner making a chain from just the first letter of a word. Fast-paced and intense, you really had to be good with words to keep up with this one. Geoff Edwards was hosting by the time of this 1987 episode.
Game show characters of all kinds are welcome in these classic dives into the past of one of cable's quirkiest networks!
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