My favorite babysitting gig was for a child named Sunny Gayle. Her parents, Sonny and Gail, were heavy drinkers who always paid well and never insisted on driving me home. I liked that their house always had a lot of food, and I spent most of my time cooking Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat, and watching cable, which in those days meant that you subscribed to HBO. Whenever I requested similar Rice-A-Roni privileges at home, Mother would tell me to wait for my next good babysitting gig since the boxes were pretty expensive and it was good to have a job with perks.
Certainly it beat babysitting Brad and Blake, the two little boys that lived behind us. Brad at seven wanted to be a Marine and spent most of his time trying to get me to play China Beach, a game where he'd ask me to dance on the table for money while he drank wine. I never danced on any tables, but I did put his Welch's grape juice in a wineglass and let him hold some Monopoly money in case any would-be strippers sauntered by. His brother, Blake, named after the poet, decided by his tender age of five that life was too hard and that he wanted to kill himself. I didn't know much about William Blake at the time except that fucking "Tiger, Tiger" poem Mother liked so well. The road to excess and all that, the way a friend had written in a journal about a visit with him, Still dirty, still poor. Brad would goad Blake and tell him he wasn't man enough to take his own life. I told him if he kept up that kind of talk, there'd be no wineglass for him and he could forget staying up late and watching "The Twilight Zone" with me. After all, why put it on television when you're living it?
Michelle's Spell of the Day
“True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked.” Erich Segal
Cocktail Hour
Drinking blog post selection -- my beautiful Jodi's post on the good and bad points of Facebook communication is a must read!
Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Wednesday! Rest in peace, Erich Segal! And special birthday wishes to my dear lovely Jill and sweet adorable Marci! Hope you both have a wonderful day.
8 comments:
"Love Story" had them running out of the theater in tears. It was really something to see.--Oscar Winner
You gotta wonder where Brad and Blake are now.
True story: my childhood babysitter used to make me dance to Bon Jovi tapes. It felt like torture to me.
She became a mother at 16, dropped out of high school, and as far as I know, is your basic piece of powhitetrash.
I'm a little bitter.
Best babysitting stories, ever! And one hot chick pic, sweetie! xo
“I'm going to go out and do a little cowboyin'. You know what that is? Cowboying is getting in a motor home or a van or something like that and you just let the air blow in your hair and you wind up in some little bar in Arizona someplace…. You shoot one-handed nine-ball with some 90-year-old Portuguese woman who beats the hell out of you, and the next day you wind up in a park someplace playing chess with somebody, and you go see a high school play where they're doing 'West Side Story.
Robert Blake
DON'T FORGET ROBER B. PARKER WHO DIED THE SAME DAY AS SEGALL. I LOVED HIS DIALOGUE ABILITY, ALWAYS WATCHED SPENSER FOR HIRE, AND NOW WATCH THE JESSE STONE SHOWS ON THE TELLY. HE WROTE OVER 50 NOVELS.
Tom Selleck is great as Jesse Stone. My mother went to high school with Tom's father at Detroit Southeastern. She said Tom's dad was even better looking than Tom.--Bad to the bone Brad
Michelle, Ah "Love Story". I remember wanting to BE Ali's character with the knit hat playing in the snow. Even her dying was beautiful and romatic with a guy so devastatingly crushed. The passion and tragedy of it. Thank you Dear Doll for the props. I miss u and want to hook up soon! xoxoxo
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