Yesterday, I bought a carton of ladybugs at the nursery. They’re supposed to be good for the garden and they were on sale so I decided to try it. The package said it contained 1,500 ladybugs. The top was vented so they could breathe and I could see some movement inside. You’re supposed to release them in the evening when they’re less likely to fly away. Oh right…they have wings… they can fly. But out of 1,500, if half flew away, I’d be in ladybug heaven. So last night, I slowly opened the carton to let them go, afraid they’d all make a run for it. But no. They were in one sticky mass in the bottom of the carton, not moving much, resembling a giant meatball. So I shook the carton and spread them around my garden (mostly in lumps) and then night fell.

This morning, I went out with my camera expecting to spend the whole day taking ladybug pictures as they filled the air, flying from flower to flower in my magical garden. How would I decide which ones to shoot?  It was an easy decision – I found two. What happened? Where did they go?  1,498 ladybugs gone! How do I know the one on the daisy was from the box? Maybe he flew in from next door. Hey, isn’t he missing some spots?  Never buy ladybugs on sale. They must have been seconds.

Jeff Conaway has died.  He was terrific as one of the stars of Taxi, a TV series that ran from 1978-1981, and we loved him in the musical Grease. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy when he appeared on my talk show in the early 90s.  I extend my condolences to his family and I’m sharing this video in his memory.
Click here.

I was stunned to see Scotty and both Haley and Lauren in the final three and not James. He wanted it more than any of them and clearly had a hard time accepting defeat. Watching this show is too sad when losing is so painful.  I remember being on Star Search and how with every performance my heart pounded so hard I was afraid the microphone would pick it up. Everything was at stake. And when I won, my career soared. But the comic I defeated seemed to disappear. Watching this episode brought back a lot of memories of striving for acceptance, dealing with rejection, and the roller coaster of emotion that being a struggling performer brings. I thought once I succeeded, things would change and I’d no longer have to face rejection and even worse, I’d never feel like I didn’t matter. Some day, I will talk about the many times I was rejected at the peak of my television career and by whom. Maybe that’s why I won’t go back…

The painters are gone.

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I got my house back.

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And I photographed some back yard flowers.

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I had to add the smilies to make this page fit right.

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More smilies.

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Now it all fits. Enjoy my flowers.

It was a beautiful, sunny day today so I knew when we heard water drops on the living room floor, it was not good. We saw a leak that ran the length of our double doors so we had to put down a row of bowls to catch the water coming from the door frame. I called the plumber. I was not ready for this.  I was already dealing with the exterior of the house being painted by a crew of twelve painters who have been here every day this week from 7 am.

The plumber came right away and had to cut into the wall of my bathroom – my sanctuary – my beautiful powder blue bathroom, tossing insulation and drywall onto my floor, to get to the broken pipe. The leak is fixed but now I have two giant holes in my wall. I started to imagine what might come crawling out of these openings so I just taped some fabric over the holes as a spider-block. Tomorrow: more painters… AND an electrician who is coming in the morning to fix an electrical problem guess where? In my bathroom! Why is this happening to me? I don’t want all these men up there! That’s too much testosterone in my girlie place. After they all leave, I’ll have to burn a smudge stick to cleanse the room, or some incense or candles to get rid of the butt-crack vibe and get my girlie place back.

My talk show premiered in the fall of 1991 and one of my first big features was a behind-the-scenes tour on the set of All My Children including a sit down interview with its biggest star, Susan Lucci. Here we are chatting in Erica Kane’s wardrobe room. Now remember, this was almost twenty years ago but when you watch the video, look at Susan then compared to how she looks now. She looks awesome today, maybe even more awesomer (a made up word) today – how does that happen? I can’t say the same for the woman in the royal blue shoulder pads and bouncy hair… Hey, I just noticed my flying saucer earrings! Don’t look at me.  Click here

Osama bin Laden is dead!

Ding Dong – the witch is dead!

Hey, Osama,

Good luck spotting those 72 virgins through all the flames down there!

I must be in a bad mood because I tried to watch Idol and see how the singing was but  I couldn’t focus for all the distractions.  When Jacob sang, I couldn’t stop looking at that upholstery jacket and the yellow shirt, then I couldn’t stop focusing on the bow tie. Why? It’s too close to the face. Then the wide shot and I saw those shoes! It was too much! The only thing louder than his voice was his clothes.

Then Haley sang something but I don’t know what it was. I was trying to identify those giant objects dangling from her ears. Were they car parts? Sifters? Cheese slicers? Her song escaped me.

Scotty sang and…. wait…. was this last week’s show I recorded? Are you allowed to sing the same song over and over?

Note to  James – no backlighting.

Casey, Casey, you’re getting on my nerves and I don’t know why. If I want to hear growling, I’ll just wake Denis up at 3 a.m. to kill a spider.

And another thing: This show is just like Taco Bell meat – too much filler!  Maybe I’m just in a bad mood and I’ll have to post a retraction tomorrow.

(I added a new “Send Me a Message” blog category) 🙂