Since I was definitely in the mood for something more lighthearted than the previous movie I watched, last night, Tom and I streamed 1999’s Dick, a fun comedy with Michelle Williams and Kirsten Dunst as two teens who stumble into encounters at the Watergate facility on a fateful night. This happenstance later repeats on a class trip to the White House, when they encounter Nixon, his dog, and major players in the Watergate scandal. The timeline was compressed a bit, and it was a fun watch for me. I was an avid Watergate follower (and kept making little asides to Tom about how true facts were bent to involve the girls). It was also nostalgic to remember being a teen in that era, having fun and cutting up magazine pictures of our teen idols with a best friend. (Note to Lynne: Can you believe they love Bobby Sherman? Like Susan B.)
The dog Brunswick played the movie’s version of another Checkers (Nixon’s original dog Checkers, who died at the age of 13 in 1964, never lived in the White House, as Nixon was elected president in 1968).
There were three dogs in the Nixon White House: King Timahoe, Nixon’s Irish setter, Vicky, Julie’s French poodle, and Pasha, Tricia’s Yorkshire terrier. All three dogs wore flowers and participated in Tricia’s wedding.
I don’t remember if there’s a dog in my last RomCom DVD with a president to rewatch during DNC week, 1995’s The American President. I haven’t seen it for quite a while, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it again.
Directed and produced by Rob Reiner and written by Aaron Sorkin, Sorkin has said that the film influenced his later TV series, “West Wing,” which aired from 1999 to 2006. Websites attest that Sorkin says much of the first season was actually taken from material he edited out of the first draft of The American President’s script. Though it was highly recommended by Denece and Tom, I didn’t watch “West Wing” when it aired, but watched it in full a few years after it ended. Marika simultaneously watched it late at night (she from either New Orleans or Arkansas; I from The Compound). We Google-messaged each other with commentary while we watched each episode. Some of you may remember I joked that from November 2016 to January 2020, I chose to keep my head in an alternate universe wherein WW’s Josiah “Jed” Bartlet (Martin Sheen) was my president. =)
As predicted, I started reading this last night and finished it today. Once again, enough time has passed that things seemed fresh and new to me, and it was nice to read it without an inner critic. Some things are dated, of course; it was written over the years 2006-2008. But I no longer think the beginning is problematic. It may take a little effort for some readers: We’re being dropped into someone’s life as she deals with an automotive crisis and has time to think briefly of how she got to that point, plus she tells us about two encounters with the person who’s going to help her resolve said automotive crisis. Basically, we’re getting her backstory as she mentally processes it in three parts before the action begins.
Sticking with RomCom Summer, last night, thanks to Debby’s Kindle streaming a movie for me, 2023’s Red, White & Royal Blue, on Prime, I got to hear Uma Thurman don a lovely accent as a U.S. president from Texas, and see a funny, sweet romance develop between the president’s son and a member of the British royal family. 
Joe Nick Patoski’s Willie Nelson: An Epic Life. I very much look forward to reading this when I’m ready for another biography. (I think the most recent three I read are on loan to Lynne: one each on Stevie Ray Vaughan, John Mellencamp, and Bruce Springsteen.) Willie’s bookmark advertises the animal rescue group Scout’s Honor Rescue. This was the organization to whom Lynne turned over two dogs she found tied to a fire hydrant on her way home from work one night. The poodle mix, Curly, was adopted immediately. When she took the chihuahua, Paco, to an adoption event, she realized she couldn’t let him go and adopted him herself. He was part of her family for years before crossing the Rainbow Bridge. I adored that little guy.
From then on, my inscriptions from Mark in his books always included encouragement and best wishes for my writing. And then, in a most unexpected way, I did find a voice for telling those stories when I began doing a fun writing exercise with my friends Timothy, Timmy, and Jim. I could recognize the spirit, humor, and sadness of the friends I lost and their larger community in what I was writing with them. When we had a draft of a first novel that grew out of that exercise, I began sending it out and got dozens of rejections. I shared that information with Mark at a signing in 1999 for his memoir Firebird, telling him I was happy to be writing but sad that the writing wasn’t finding a home. This is what he wrote when he signed his book that night.
Recently, Tom and I were talking about the novel Bill Clinton cowrote with author James Patterson. I bought it, read it, liked it. (They wrote a second, but I don’t have it. Yet.) Tom asked me if I’d ever read the novel Hillary Clinton cowrote in 2021 with Louise Penny. And I said, “I’m pretty sure I got it from Murder By The Book, but I haven’t read it yet.”
Explanation: One of the roses was broken, so at the same time I was starting a meal in the crockpot, I went to get that small silver vase from a cabinet, cut another rose to the same length, and put them with water in the silver vase. However, I forgot I’d never put water in the cobalt vase before I moved it to the table. When you are older, these are the moments that make you question, Is this the beginning of [dementia, Alzheimer’s, whatever]? And hope it’s just a sign of doing several things at one time.
…I play games. It began with one game, Spelling Bee, in my news feed. I didn’t play it the way other people played it. I had a single goal (there can be several with this game), and I waited until the next day to learn if I’d accomplished my goal (you can get immediate online solutions from many sources, but for me, waiting was a deliberate exercise in patience). I thought of the game as my mental acuity test: How well is my brain working this morning?
Through my same newsfeed, I started checking out Connections, and I was surprisingly good at it and got even better over time. Occasionally, I only correctly guess all four groups because the fourth is made up of my leftover choices, but once I see the answer, it makes sense, and I realized I sometimes have to put my logic aside and try to guess the game creators’ logic.
When the online game Wordle took off in 2022, I briefly glanced at it, but it didn’t grab me at the time. I knew several people who played, including Tom, Jim, and Timmy. Then, for whatever reason, Jim, Timothy, and I began talking about Wordle since Jim played it, and the next thing that happened was that both Tim and I began playing, and he, Jim, and I began sharing our game results in our ongoing text thread.
For some reason Instagram isn’t working for me at all today. I’m taking that as a message to preserve my sanity by knowing as little as possible about how “Super” Tuesday is making people feel and behave. In honor of those who are willing to endure politics with their popcorn, here’s a wee miniature I received recently. Popcorn kernels added for scale.