I did not paint that. It came with the house when Mom bought it, along with carpet that smelled of cat piss and ceilings painted brown to match the walls. We got rid of the cat piss carpets and brown ceilings years ago, but the coconut trees have been here the whole time. Until now.

For reasons that are completely unrelated to the fact that we're having house guests next weekend, we've decided to finally paint the solid green laundry room in tasteful Icebreaker Blue, Dutch White, and Purple Prince to accompany the Weeping Wisteria in the adjacent mud room. (You can probably imagine what blue, white, and purple look like, but do you know what color wisteria is? Hint, hint.)

Anyway, when our house guests arrive and wonder why the house smells like fresh paint, well, that's just me hiding the nuts in the laundry room.

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34/2466. Big Eyes (2014)
Tim Burton's biography of the artist(s) behind the kitsch "Big Eyes" craze of the 1960s art world is big on atmosphere, which is much appreciated, especially since the drama of the story itself seems so slight. I assume that Burton's sympathies lie with the protagonist, but it's Jason Schwartzman and Terence Stamp who steal every scene they're in as, respectively, an art gallery owner and art critic who recognize bad art when they see it and aren't afraid to say so.

35/2467. Murder on a Bridle Path (1936)
The first Hildegarde Withers mystery movie in which the detective is played by someone other than Edna May Oliver. Sure, Helen Broderick tries her best, but she just doesn't have the same snark. Oh, well.

36/2468. Crime School (1938)
Humphrey Bogart tries to get The Dead End Kids to straighten up and fly right (and, frankly, I say he's by far too lenient with Leo Gorcey, who tries to have him killed). Pretty entertaining, actually.

37/2469. Invaders from Mars (1953)
Less entertaining, though mostly because this was made for kids. The "it was all just a dream, wait, no, it was a premonition!" twist ending is really a bit too much.

38/2470. The Comic (1969)
In this Carl Reiner and Dick Van Dyke crafted the meanest, funniest possible love letter to a bygone era of silent film comedians. The protagonist is despicable (a conglomeration of some of the worst biographical elements of Langdon, Lloyd, Chaplin, and Keaton) and would be completely intolerable if almost every scene didn't end with a punchline at his expense. Only the movie's last scene, in which the jerk, none the wiser for his many, many failures, is finally humanized, ends without a joke. Bravo. Seriously.

Pratfalls and slapsticks go better with Coca-Cola.

More to come.

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My toilet wasn't filling well, so I bought a new fill valve. Then I pulled the old one out and put the new one in. It all went smoothly. I didn't break anything or hurt myself. That's it. Sorry, there's no entertaining story when everything goes right.

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You might think I'm kidding, but I really did just take this off the refrigerator:

Yes, those are cowboy boots with little jets in the heels. And no, there never was a time in my life when I wasn't obsessed with comic book super heroes.

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I've been so down about the recent behavior of what currently passes as "government" in the country I was born into that I got the idea to cheer myself up by doing something good for my fellow man that I had never done before: I would donate blood.

Why hadn't I done it before now? Inconvenience, mostly. And some anxiety about the whole process. And, of course, in my town it's run by the American Red Cross, an organization I've had a bit of contempt for ever since 2001 when they had a hard time appropriately handling the flood of donations intended for Twin Towers victims. (And then Hurricane Katrina. And then Sandy. And so on.) But their being the only game in town, my choice was either to sign up to give blood there or feel bad about thinking about and then not giving blood. One of those options is clearly better than the other.

So I signed up online Sunday for the Monday evening blood drive, but when I showed up, they had no idea I was coming. Someone had penciled-in my name on their printed itinerary sheet, but the computer didn't recognize me or my driver's license. Eventually they had to type into their software everything that I had typed into their website the night before. You have to applaud that sort of organizational efficiency.

Then I had to wait. For an hour and a half. To be fair to them, I overheard someone say they were short of phlebotomists (only three), so I wasn't the only one who had to wait a bit; I was just the only one who had to wait so long. Donors scheduled for appointments an hour after mine went in before I did. The nice ladies at the front desk (who spent much of their time talking up the quesadillas they were offering to all donors), realizing I had been sitting in the waiting area so long asked if I would like them to inquire from the nurses within where I was in their waiting list. I asked if it would make any difference. When they said no, I said don't bother. I got through it by telling myself what a good, selfless thing I was doing. (Martyrdom has its privileges.)

When I did finally get in, the actual donation process itself took about three times as long as my paperwork had told me to expect. The phlebotomist had a hard time getting anything out of me. He said that maybe I wasn't hydrated enough (despite my drinking so much water in the past two days that I was peeing every two hours) and maybe the vein I had presented wasn't large enough (despite my having given him his choice). I don't mean to criticize the guy who was clearly having a long day; maybe it's just hard to get blood out of a stone.

Anyway, I did it. Blood donated. I hope it helps someone. (I half expect the Red Cross to find a reason to throw it out.) I'm not sure whether it made me feel any better, but at least I got a blog post out of it. I really don't know if I'll do it again. Even for quesadillas.

Also for what it's worth: there were three Walters scheduled for the day, all in the building at the same time. I go years without bumping into other Walters. I guess this whole time they've all been waiting in line to give blood.

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