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*I originally wrote this in 2005 for my private journal, but I thought I’d put it here and edit it a little. *

In the summer of 2000, I had an internship with WHYY TV Promotions. I spent every Friday that summer looking at television schedules and writing copy for “Community Connections,” something they no longer do. At that time, if you turned on WHYY at 8 PM, you would see a host introducing the upcoming shows for the evening. After the show, the host would mention a community organization that had some sort of tie-in to the show. For example, a local museum’s exhibit of photographs of the North and South Poles was plugged after a show called “Sled Dogs: An Alaskan Epic”. The connections involved a lot of thought– I had to research the show to find out what it was about, and then go through the pamphlets from local organizations to see if there were any connections. We didn’t have a lot of info from local organizations, so I searched the internet for places in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware (it was required I give equal attention to all three).

Sometime in May or early June, I saw that on July 13th, WHYY would be showing a biography of Steve McQueen. Because my mom’s friend B had once called us excitedly to tell us The Blob was on television, and that we HAD TO WATCH IT because it was FILMED RIGHT DOWN THE ROAD IN PHOENIXVILLE, I knew that Steve McQueen had a local connection. I remembered the cool diner in The Blob and started searching for info on it… but there isn’t an easy way to tie-in a for-profit diner with public television, so I kept looking. I found The Colonial Theatre. This historic theater had recently been restored, and was showing children’s and independent films. I called them up, and explained the Community Connection, and that I wanted to feature them. The next week, the director of the theater called me and said she was going to rent the Blob to show the weekend following the Steve McQueen documentary. I worried that my 30-second copy would end up being cut (that sometimes happened) and stammered, “Are you sure you want to go to all that trouble?” She assured me they had been meaning to show it anyway, but hadn’t gotten around to it, and this was as good a time as any to show it. I went ahead and wrote the copy and kept my fingers crossed:

For: Steve McQueen: Man on the Edge
Steve McQueen’s breakthrough role was in the 1958 camp classic movie The Blob, filmed not far from Philadelphia in Downingtown, Royersford and Phoenixville. The historic Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville presents The Blob July 16th as part of the theatre’s ongoing Sunday Classics series. Built in 1903, the Colonial Theatre is one of the oldest opera houses in Pennsylvania and holds a variety of art and independent films as well as children’s programs.

That month, I got to log the tapes of all the hosts that month, and saw Flicks’ host Patrick Stoner speaking my words. The Community Connection did not get cut, and did air on July 13th. On August 1st, the director of the theater faxed us to thank us for the plug– over 600 people had shown up for the Blob!

The following year, I noticed that it was playing again. In 2003, I saw a national news store about the 4th annual BlobFest. And a few days after I originally wrote this post in 2005, the BlobFest was featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition with Scott Simon. Here is info on the 2010 BlobFest.

Last year, I was surprised to see BlobFest featured in Jerry Spinelli’s book, Love, Stargirl. I wanted to write to him and let him know that I helped start BlobFest. Haha. I feel strangely responsible for BlobFest, even though I have never attended, and had nothing to do with what must be an incredible amount of work to put on such a festival every year since 2000. Some day, I will get to BlobFest–it usually falls on my birthday weekend– but this year it is the week before, and I have to work. I have seen a couple films at the Colonial– it’s a really great theater– the kind of theater that Philadelphia is lacking.

Here’s a scan of the thank you fax sent to WHYY from Colonial Theatre. It is addressed to my internship supervisor.

I’ve been boring my faithful readers with my writing… I know what you really want… you want Lilia posts!

While I worked through three summer courses, poor Lilia got very familiar with PBS Kids and a stack of DVDs I checked out from the library. She likes absolutely everything that is geared towards kids. If I change the channel to news, she gets very sad– we haven’t watched much of the Olympics, but she was interested in the actual events (diving, gymnastics), and when Bob Costas (ugh, do I dislike him!) would come on, she thought we had switched the channel on her! Her favorite shows: Curious George, Teletubbies, Sesame Street, and Barney. *Edited to add: we don’t have cable, so we don’t get Phillies games on TV often… but there is one tonight, and Lilia is very excited!* The videos from the library were my favorites.

A Tomie dePaola collection with a story called, “Charlie Needs a Cloak“– he shears the sheep, cards the wool, spins the wool into yarn, dyes the yarn with berries, weaves the yarn into cloth, and sews his own cloak! This is one of those cases where the video is better than the book… they are both great, but seeing it come to life is more entertaining than my reading of it, I’m sure.

I also loved Sesame Street: Old School, Volume 2 (1974-1979). I loved it so much, I bought it, and have just ordered Volume 1 (which the library doesn’t have). Our favorite clip: Two little dolls (enjoy!)

And Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and other stories, which had Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins and The Foolish Frog by Pete Seeger. Pat Hutchins is great! We have Good-Night, Owl! already, and I just checked out The Wind Blew, which is a new favorite. Lilia loves wind!

Speaking of Pete Seeger, did I mention that Lilia recognizes the sound of a banjo? Seriously, I spend most of the day in awe of Lilia. I don’t care how she compares to other little kids– it just amazes me that in less than 2 and a half years on this planet, this little girl can hear a couple strums on a banjo, and say “Banjo”!

The “Fall” semester starts Monday, and I anticipate we will be watching more PBS and checking out more videos from the library. We did manage to get out of the house a bit during my classes, and more after I finished on August 9th.

Walking with Daddy at the Schuylkill Center

Lilia STILL loves swings!

Driving the Trolley at the Please Touch Museum

Last Saturday, we went for a drive and saw three beautiful hot-air balloons in the sky. We managed to catch one of them landing!

On Sunday, after a really nice brunch at a restaurant Bonnie Mac recommended (Ida Mae’s Bruncherie), we went to a playground and a community garden. Look at this goldfinch chowing down on this flower:

Well, I hope that satisfies all you Lilia fans for now! As I said, classes start again on Monday… but my anticipated graduation is December!

Radio
Saturday mornings mean listening to Saturday Weekend Edition on NPR with Scott Simon. I have harbored a crush on Mr. Simon for several years now, and confessed this to my in-laws at Thanksgiving. It turns out my love for Scott Simon was not shared– and my husband and his father actually dislike… or even hate Scott Simon! How could this be? They don’t like his guffaws– they sound fake. They don’t like when he puts on his regular “I’m a sports fan” voice. But what about his sensitive essays? And now, their dislike has poisoned my opinion of him– today as he guffawed with the Annoying Music Show guy, I understood! How could I have been so wrong? But then, Mr. Simon redeemed himself with another insightful essay, and my crush was validated.

Television

Having no cable really limits our choices. But we still get all the regular networks (albeit with snow), and even some hidden gems. Last week, we spent four hours watching the Temptations docudrama on the Ion network. Oh, poor doomed David Ruffin! Oh, the dramatic Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone scene!

We also watch Jeopardy! almost every evening. The past two weeks were Jeopardy! Teen Challenge, and I was rooting for Zia, who won $50,000 in his first match. But he was no match for sophomore Rachel, who just blew everyone away.

We are watching Lost this season. Wow, things are actually happening! We started watching it during the 2nd season– caught up by watching DVDs of all the episodes within a couple weeks. This made us unprepared for the slowness of the next few seasons! We almost gave up on it. I just keep reminding Joe– there are only 2 more years (is that right, even?). It has an end date. We can watch it, it will be over, and then we can throw our TV away when the country converts to HD, and we can be TV-Free. (Well, this is what Joe wants… I happen to enjoy the dumb box.)

The Internets

I think I’m an Internet addict. In addition to Friendster, and LiveJournal, and MySpace, I have recently joined the Facebook world. Why are there so many ways to waste time? I need to read more.

Books

I’m in the middle of reading forty books for Young Adults. I will share my reviews with you in April, after I turn them in for class. But I do want to recommend Whirligig by Paul Fleischman. It’s about a metamorphosis– “He was lodged in his own chrysalis but had no idea what he was turning into”…

Film

Oscars tomorrow. I used to know all the nominees. I used to try to see all the movies. I would put serious thought into guessing who might win. I’d make popcorn and enjoy the show. Joe has no patience for Hollywood or awards shows. If I watch it, I’ll watch it alone (although Joe is camped out sick on the couch, so he may be an unwilling viewer). In the past two years, I have seen two movies in the movie theater. The first one,Neil Young – Heart of Gold , about a week before Lilia was born. The second was this summer. The film was not nominated for an Academy Award. Can you guess what it was? Out of all the movies in 2007, what did we see?

Yep, there’s a lot of snow out there!

We have a house full of yummy food, a movie to watch, the Olympics will be on, so normally I’d be pretty happy to just relax and enjoy being snowbound.
BUT
I’m worried that the Ladybug will decide she wants to make her appearance today!
I have no signs of this happening right now, except of course for the fact that I’m 39 weeks and 2 days pregnant, and that pretty much indicates a baby WILL be arriving sooner than later… but eek. They don’t plow our street and it’s TOTALLY covered out there! Oh boy, keep your fingers crossed that there is no water breaking or contractions today. Or even tomorrow. When is this supposed to melt???

Joe will have to get out there and shovel soon. In the 2 years we’ve lived here, whomever we share our walk with has NEVER shoveled. NEVER! Ah, the joy of renters. (Of course when we rented, we were required to shovel… so hmmmm….) I haven’t posted much about these new winners who replaced the Hallelujah folks, but ugh– they are smokers, and quite trashy. I don’t want to get into it… it’s depressing and makes us want to move.

Yesterday, I suffered through a headache on and off all day (had started Friday afternoon). I think it is finally gone. [Knocking on the wood of the Piano...]
We did watch City of God yesterday. I used to be a fan of gratuitous violence– all those action films of the late 80s and the Quentin Tarantino movies– but no longer. However, this movie, although violent, didn’t seem violent for violence sake… it was shocking, but necessary. It’s weird what movies our local library has. The other movie we have to watch is October Sky.

Oh, I’m looking at my to-do list, and I have “Laundry” on there. I guess I should get started! Woo hoo!

And, I’m trying to get Gallery on my website, so I can have a cool way of displaying photos. It turned into a bit of an ordeal, so this may happen later down the road… I have to take pictures of an amazing quilt I received from Michele!

I planned on spending the weekend cleaning the house and getting Christmas-y stuff out, since the family is coming for the big Turkey dinner next week (well, turkey or some other festive bird). But then I decided we should go see Good Night and Good Luck yesterday. We went all the way out to Doylestown to do that, since we always wanted to go to the County Theater, and it was still showing there. I would say it was a good solid film, but that it seemed to be lacking a real sense of drama, which is actually probably a GOOD thing, but since we are so conditioned for there to be DRAMA in EVERYTHING, it seemed a little lacking. Before the movie, we tried to get sandwiches at a fancy sandwich shop, but they screwed up my order. They fixed it, and I ate my sammie in the theater… shhh!
By the time we got home, I had an awful headache and I’ve been up and down emotionally, so I just did nothing last night.

So this morning, even though I still had the headache, I got started on laundry. And guess what? I am STILL doing laundry!! It’s nice not having to lug the laundry to the laundromat, but geez, with this tiny tiny washer and drier, it takes FOREVER!

We hauled out the Xmas stuff, and I put up my tree. My tree is about 1.5 feet high and made of aluminum. It was purchased in the 1960s to be the decoration in my sister’s bedroom. I think you can see my tree in the picture if the link works… that’s our old house, and my dear Saint Bono. I also pulled out my Christmas sheet music, and our three stockings. I guess next year we will have 4 stockings! I hung a string of lights up the banister– Joe thinks it looks like too much wire is showing, but eh, I’m not redoing it. And then Joe pulled out all my Holiday CDs, so I started listening to them. We don’t have an outlet outside, so we can’t put lights out front! :-/

In the middle of this, Joe made his awesome salmon dish, and I made baked potatoes. That was a yummy meal. And then, I finally broke down and took my LAST TWO tylenol, and guess what? My headache went away! I sent Joe to the drugstore to get some more, just in case it comes back.

I have Oldies 98 on tonight because it is supposed to be Hy Lit’s last show. I guess that starts in 10 minutes. Now they will never play 1950s oldies again. But right now, they are playing the John Lennon Christmas song, which freaking kills me. I don’t recommend listening to John Lennon while hormonally emotional. Joe checked out these 3 CDs that are part of a John Lennon box set, and we listened to it in the car yesterday, and I made him turn it off, because I was freaking bawling. Songs about how life begins at 40, and then all these cute clips of him talking to little Sean. Ugh! The other day, we heard In My Life on the radio, and Joe was wondering who played the keyboard part, so I googled it, and found out that that fucker Paul McCartney claims that he wrote In My Life!!! WTF!! So, I emailed my brother, who I consider to be an expert in these things, and he says he would assume it was John unless proven otherwise. Then, last night, I finally looked up how the heck Michael Jackson got the rights to the Beatles songs. Interesting.

Okay, well, now Joe’s making a big old pot of spaghetti sauce, or as they apparently say in South Philly… “Gravy.”
I hope it doesn’t give me heartburn.

I hope to post a picture of my lovely Xmas display when Joe takes one for me. I am contemplating doing Xmas cards. I have a whole bunch of Valentine’s day stamps… since the price is probably going up in the new year, is it okay for me to use those stamps? I am so bad at sending Xmas cards, but I love getting them. Maybe I’ll work on them some night this week. We’ll see if I feel up to it… the Little Bagel has to have an Echo Cardiogram on Wednesday, so doing the cards before that could be a nice distraction. Of course, I have a chiropractor appointment tomorrow night, Tree Tenders on Tuesday, Bradley Class on Wednesday night… and then I have to make sure the house is still clean for the weekend! So, I guess I already have enough to keep me distracted!