On Saturday, I went with my family to a National Train Day event at the Amtrak Station in Toledo. Who knew that there was a National Train Day? There definitely exists no website for it.
I was afraid it would just be like one table giving away Operation Lifesaver stickers and keychains with, like, homeless guys peeing in the corner or something. But we got to ride on a railroad work car, tour an Amtrak train, see several locomotives up close, and saw two and a half rooms of train-related booths. Some were of places we have been, like the Steam Railroading Institute in Owosso, and others we have on our to-do list, like the Fostoria Iron Triangle. We also found some destinations we might add to our list, such as the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum in Bellevue, Ohio.
The Pere Marquette 1225 A.K.A. The Polar Express from last year’s visit to The Steam Railroading Institute
After several hours, we agreed we had all had fun, but we were tired and hungry. We headed to Chick-fil-A for a rest and some lunch. We would eat, I would make my husband stop at Five Below for a hat I believed I had to have, and then we would head home. I would probably be lazy the rest of the day, if possible.
Me in my new cool hat. Sorry I didn’t take a better pic.
Our intentions were almost thwarted when a carnival was being held nearby and parking was heinous. But we persevered, and upon entering the restaurant, it was busy but not over-crowded. My husband spotted his sister there with her daughter. Soon my sister-in-law’s sister-in-law showed up to too. We ditched the boys and through a crazy, unpredictable set of circumstances, I ended up awake past my bedtime an hour and a half from home on a girl’s night out with a completed painting inspired by my family. I had felt like the universe had given me an opportunity and I had no choice but to take it.
I used to list art as my favorite subject in school. Now I am sort of a non-practicing artist, like how someone could be a non-practicing Catholic. Those skills don’t disappear, they just lay dormant and get a lil’ rusty. But it felt good to use the colors and shapes part of my brain rather than the letters and grammar part I have been running marathons with for the past few years. I kept telling my sister-in-law that it felt like we were in art class back in school. Because, well, we indeed did go to school together and here is the proof, a picture taken in art class almost 22 years ago.
My S-I-L: The OG JS
So, here is my finished painting. I am kinda proud of it. Sure, it isn’t up to professional standards, but it is nice enough to hang on my wall. I stole the saying from Hallmark. And I’m not sure if you can tell, but the hearts have glitter on them. Because, well, when you carve into this tree, there is glitter inside. It is a magic tree.
My Masterpiece. I really love it.
Yes, even my painting has to have a story attached. But then, a picture is worth a thousand words, right? Sorry to disappoint, but this post is only 500…
Once again I will review a show that actually premiered almost a year ago. Luckily, in this day and age, I am not the only one who forgoes high cable prices to wait until a show is available by other means.
Today, I bring you UnREAL. My Entertainment Weekly magazine kept talking about this show and it really peaked my curiosity. A scripted drama about both a reality dating show and the shocking events that happen behind the scenes? That sounds pretty good but throw in Shiri Appleby and Constance Zimmer and I had to add it to my “To Watch” list. You know, the one I keep in my head because if I wrote it down I would lose the paper and I just don’t seem to have 60 seconds to enter it into my Google Keep.
So when I saw that season one of UnREAL was available on Hulu, I decided it was time for my free trail. I timed it out with the purchase of my new phone (with bigger screen and faster service) and the new month on my high speed data.
And, wow. Ignoring all my household duties, I binged all ten episodes in three days. It is TV so good that it sucks your life away and makes it so that you don’t want to eat or sleep or ever do laundry again. But hey, who cares about laundry anyway. Usually I like shows that are predictable and this wasn’t. That made my head hurt, but made for a very engrossing experience.
Rachel and Adam during a heated moment.
The reality show within UnREAL is known as “Everlasting.” The bachelor all the women are competing for is a Prince Harry wannabe British manwhore. We learn quickly that all the reality contestants are actually manipulated by the producers to produce the most ratings-worthy television. Sometimes it works out in the network’s favor, and sometimes it backfires. There is even a death of one of the contestants.
I am familiar with Shiri Appleby from Roswell and then Life Unexpected. I liked her well enough on those shows, but she didn’t have much to do on those series but be the damsel in distress or the bitch, respectively. On UnREAL, she gets to stretch her acting chops and I was really impressed with her. The fact that Constance Zimmer can rock any scene she wants to is no surprise to me. I have been a fan of hers since she was on a little sitcom no one but me remembers called Good Morning, Miami. Man, I could write a whole blog post just about that forgotten show. It had a great cast: Zimmer, Mark Feuerstein (Royal Pains), Ashley Williams (How I Met Your Mother), Matt Letscher, Jere Burns, Suzanne Plashette. Zimmer played Penny. She had ALL the best lines. I was totally sucked into a story line where eccentric Penny had eyes for uptight good guy Jake, played by Feuerstein. Not to mention my love of the theme song, “Once in a Lifetime,”sung by Goo-Goo Dolls’ Johnny Rzeznik.
[Thank you Universe for providing TV junkies with a way to revisit their old lost shows. Why does the show American Dreamer jump into my brain now? Shout-outs to Robert Urich, Carol Kane, and Johnny Galecki. You have all gone to better places now.]
Sorry, I was off on another of my blog tangents that makes each post take hours to write.
LOVE the homeless look!
Usually when I like a show intensely, I like to dress like the characters. I had random mini braids in my hair when I was in college inspired by Rayanne Graff from My So-Called Life. I still haven’t stopped mis-matching my socks like Punky Brewster. But I didn’t have to do that with UnREAL. Rachel actually dresses like me! Which, being that she is such a hot mess and the other characters tell her she looks like a homeless person (which she is, sleeping in the back of the electrical truck), I guess I shouldn’t be happy about. But, I think of myself as dressing like a homeless person most days, so I am on point. Rachel wears a green cargo jacket over a hoodie, with her hair in a messy ponytail. She stomps around the set with walkie talkie hanging off her ass. I have loved both jobs I have had where I got to play with a “radio” as is the accepted lingo, apparently.
That is another thing I like about this show. I have not-so-secretly always wanted to be a writer for television. Here, I get to see the behind the scenes with the cameras, sets, and what-have-you. I know I wrote before about Outlander. While the time-travel and romance appealed to me, I could never picture myself IN that show. I don’t want to live in the old-timey days. I could actually picture myself as Rachel, clomping around on the set and eating from the craft services table.
As crazy as “Everlasting” is, the behind the scenes is way crazier. I like Rachel being a hot mess. When we first meet her, we learn that she had a major meltdown on the set the previous year, even destroying sets and stealing a car. She is back, but not trying to rehab her career, she is just trying to make it through each day without losing it and without a drink, which she mostly fails at. But the writers let her make a recovery of sorts so that proposed career opportunities would seem realistic.
You are never sure who is lying. Actually, they all are at some point. I alternately loved and hated the characters: the same characters, depending on that they were up to that week. UnREAL even weaved its way into my dreams; that is a mark of great television. Oh, and I forgot to mention that there is swearing and sex as well. I love those. During the season I changed teams on what man I thought Rachel should end up with. Season one was pretty perfect. I think the creators of UnREAL have only set themselves up for a second season slump. But I will eagerly check it out when I can and hope they prove me wrong.
For those of you with real cable, you can check out new episodes of UnREAL on June 6th at 10pm. That’s on Lifetime.
Lifetime, you say?
Yes, I saved that for last. I didn’t want you to get preconceived notions about it based on its network. The network known for cheesy woman-centric movies has really stepped out of their comfort zone with this show. UnREAL has strong woman kicking some ass in a plot that won’t bore you into taking a Sunday afternoon nap.
Sidenote: After watching all ten eps of UnREAL, plus some of The Goldbergs and Nashville, I have toasted all of my high speed service on my phone for this month…in just three days. But, I still want to catch up on The Goldbergs and Nashville. I may just have to keep Hulu for another month, paid. There trick worked, Goddammit.
This week I ran into a woman I hadn’t talked to in years. She used to work at the bank when I was a little girl. When I was young I lived in Riga. My mom would be like “we are going to run errands. We are going to go to the bank and the post office.” They were both on the same road we lived on, not a half mile away. Having never known anything else, I just assumed this was normal for everyone. For the grocery store and the laundromat, we did have to turn left and drive about two miles.
The woman, I’ll call her Mrs. B, had her husband with her. Mr. B was like “Who’s this?”, which I found slightly amusing. Mrs. B said, “This is Lorie’s daughter.”
My first thought was “Lorie who?” Then I remembered that my mom said that everyone used to call my dad Lorie. My mom told me this because of course she didn’t like it, so she called him by his full first name Loren, which I have never understood. It’s not like his nickname was Stinky or something. If that is what he went by, why didn’t she just call him that too? But I know why. Because she didn’t want to.
Just as a reminder, my dad died before I was born. I know it is terrible to day, but days go by where I forgot that I have a never parental figure that I never met. Another reason why I like Memorial Day so much, because he is a part of it.
That is what it is like in a tiny town. Everyone knows each other. I don’t know what my dad was like. I only have snippets of stories my mom has told me that I must then transform into memories that are not mine. Stories of him wetting down his hair before walking to his one-room school in the winter time, only to have it freeze by the time he arrived. I’ve heard that he used to get the mail off the train when it arrived and carry it over to the post office. Not a fancy job, to be sure, but for a kid who loved trains, it sure sounds interesting. And I have spent years wondering if the mail came on the old Erie and Kalamazoo line that is still there, the first railroad west of the Alleghenies, that is still there today or the Toledo & Western interurban line that has long since been removed, known to locals as the Teeter & Wobble. Did my dad ever ride the Teeter & Wobble? I would assume so. The T&W is such ancient history that they put on programs about it at the county historical museum. I guess that must mean my dad is ancient too.
Toledo & Western engine
“Lorie’s daughter” is something I almost never hear. Once in 1997 when I worked at the gas station which was geographically Riga adjacent, an old farmer asked me, “Who’s your father?” out of the blue, for no reason. And that was perfectly normal in my small town. Everyone was just used to knowing everyone. I told him, not expecting him to know me from Adam. He said, “Lorie? Well I grew up with him.” The cleaning lady overheard this conversation. She had been a year or two behind my dad at the Riga school, which was so long ago it didn’t even exist anymore. (They tore it down to build the bank, which I think presently has been turned into a church building of some sort.) Her and I became good friends after that. I’m sorry to say she is in ill health these days.
And it literally has probably been twenty years since I have had the experience of someone realizing they knew my dad. And with a dad who would be 95 years old if he were still alive, how often is that going to happen again? Very possibly never. I NEVER knew my dad, and soon all the links of people who did know him will be gone.
Mrs. B left telling me that I had made her day. But after I left and kept smiling, I realized that she had really made mine. And the kicker? She saw me in the local paper and says she would like to buy my books. Maybe my dad would be proud?…
Eat gloomcookies for breakfast
The sweetness kills
all the tiny pieces of life
that once were
one falls
they all fall
Where did he fall too?
Down Down Down
Under the breakfast table
Through the cracks in the floor
His soul cracked
It speaks no more
–JLF
10/11/01 & 10/12/01
I'm not stalking you. 