And whatever happened to Barney Google?

This morning I went for a walk around the neighborhood again. Reseda is really a beautiful place in a sort of shabby chic kind of way. And yes, there are some mansions in our little neighborhood but they’re kind of strange mansions, hidden from sight unless you know where to look. I guess the one that’s being built next door to us is not going to be one of those “hidden” ones, though. No, it’s a McMansion, and all its horribleness will be on full display to anyone who dares to look. It may well be beautiful inside but won’t be a lot of fun for us who have to look at it on a daily basis.

It’s also going to shut out our view of the southern portion of the sky, which means we won’t see the Hubble telescope any more when it passes through. Oh well, Hubble always makes me think of “The Way We Were” and “Sex and the City” anyway. Hubbell!

Hubbell was played in the movie by Robert Redford, by the way. And the other day, as a reward for doing my walk, I rewatched the movie “A Walk in the Woods” starting Mr. Redford as well as Nick Nolte, with Nick Offerman, Kristen Schaal, and Mary Steenburgen. It was a good movie and, while it definitely doesn’t make me want to walk the Appalachian Trail (and they didn’t, no matter what Katz says at the end!), it does make me do foolish things like what I did yesterday, going to REI to try and find a simple waist pack with a water bottle holder.

(The arrow in their logo depicts my chances of ever actually finding what I’m looking for!)

It wasn’t altogether foolish. I mean, they do carry outdoor gear, camping stuff, etc. So you’d think they’d have at least as much of a selection as, say, Amazon. But no, they had everything under the sun except what I actually wanted, which, as I wandered the aisles with my mini shopping cart, is pretty much what always seems to happen whenever I shop there, which isn’t often because I never find what I want. You’d think I’d know better by now, but no, I don’t.

That old saying, “We are too soon old and too late smart,” is attributed to the Amish, but I actually read for the first time in an old Dennis the Menace book, so for all I know, it was invented by Hank Ketcham to make himself sound smart. It sure doesn’t sound like he was all that smart about his own son, Dennis Ketcham, who was the inspiration for the comic strip but apparently had a pretty troubled childhood. Cartoon characters we grew up with, having different lives than what we saw onscreen? Well, that’s rough. But it’s tough to grow up in a spotlight.

Not that I’d know! I’ve never really been in a spotlight (karaoke night excepted!), although there WAS that one ill-fated attempt at becoming a genius ad-libbing breakout star, when I was in the Sacred Heart High School play version of “Meet Me In St. Louis”!

You know how you always remember the embarrassing things about your life more vividly than all the good things? Well, I had done one successful ad-lib earlier in the play, which I can’t remember now. But boy, it sure must have been good, because later in the show, when one of the other actors forgot their lines and looked at me, their previous hero, I became, like Charlie Brown, the goat!

“Agnes, what do YOU think?” asked the poor kid who was playing my older sister Rose Smith. To which I responded, “Um, uh, I dunno.” A moment that will live in the annals of the stage forever, I have no doubt! Oh well, if I’d followed through on that one good moment, become a successful actress, leaving rural Missouri far behind for the glittering lights of Hollywood, I’d be on strike right now. So it all works out, I guess! And there are probably a lot of other reasons why I never became a successful actress, but that memory seems as good a reason as anyway. Oh well, where there’s life, there’s hope!

Heh, you know, I occasionally drive through Toluca Lake, where Bob Hope’s house was, and still is. I mean, the house is still there, but I don’t know if it still belongs to his family. And to be honest, I’m too lazy to look it up and find out. Plus I’m now officially over my 750 Words for the day, so perhaps we could just look it up for ourselves?

Anyway, have a great week, or however long it may or may not be till my next post!