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August 29 movie: Zatoichi. (Note: promotional materials are calling this film The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi, but the title screen in the movie itself just said Zatoichi. So that is the title I'm using.)

This is the 2003 remake by Takeshi Kitano. Wow. It rocked. I mean it RAWKED! Best movie I've seen in a long time. Zatoichi is so well-loved in Japan, and so firmly associated with actor Shintaro Katsu (who played Zatoichi in all the old movies) that this was a big risk for Kitano. It would be like Quentin Tarantino making a new movie about the Man with No Name, and making it work brilliantly. We had heard that this was an updated version of Zatoichi, set in the twenty-first century. Which I wasn't thrilled about, and I am so glad turned out not to be true. Kitano's style is well suited to the subject: Georg and I both felt that it was very much a Zatoichi movie, and also very much a Takeshi Kitano movie.

There were several great interludes where soundtrack music blended with percussion sounds created by peasants working in the fields (well done too -- I watched each actor and their movements synched perfectly with the sounds), some hilarious comedy scenes, and a bizarre musical finale that made me feel like the movie had suddenly gone Bollywood. Georg loved it; me, not so much. Though I have to admire Kitano for doing something so kooky. There were even touching subplots about two geishas, and about a ronin who becomes an unwilling bodyguard to the bad guys, to raise money for medical care for his wife. The movie was no more violent in terms of body count than an original Zatoichi film. True, there was more blood and gore, but it was so extremely fake as to be okay for even the most squeamish viewer. Actually that was my only criticism of the movie: I hate phony CGI effects in fight scenes. I much prefer the low rent effects of older movies, the wire work and packets of fake blood. But that's a minor quibble.

Zatoichi was funny, moving, and kicked my ass across town and back. Go see it!

August 28 movie: Zatoichi and the Fugitives. IFC showed a couple of original Zatoichi movies in honor of the release of Takeshi Kitano's new remake, and we're finally getting around to watching them.

For those of you who don't obsessively follow Asian swordfight movies, Zatoichi (played by Shintaro Katsu) is "The Blind Swordsman," an itinerant fighter who travels around the countryside helping people in need and killing bad guys. Lots and lots of bad guys.

There are over tons of Zatoichi movies, many of them available on DVD. I've only seen a couple but they've all been fantastic. All a bit formulaic though, I must admit. Zatoichi shows up in a new village, helps some people who take him in and offer him a job, he discovers some gangsters bullying his new friends, the gangsters humiliate him, he kills them all. Nothing really to distinguish Zatoichi and the Fugitives from the rest, except a supporting role for Takashi Shimura (veteran of many Kurosawa films) as the doctor who takes Zatoichi in.

I can't wait for Kitano's new Zatoichi. We're going to see it tomorrow afternoon. yay!

August 27 movie: Walk Don't Run. Yes, that makes three movies yesterday. What can I say, I couldn't sleep. Cary Grant's last movie has him playing matchmaker to a young woman and an Olympic athlete (Jim Hutton, father of Timothy Hutton) while the three of them share an apartment due to lodgings scarcity during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. It's not a great movie, but considering how some silver screen stars ended up (Fred Astaire in The Towering Inferno, Joan Crawford in all those cheap horror movies, Barbara Stanwyck on The Colbys) it was a classy note on which for Grant to end his career. Not that he wasn't always classy. The highlights of the movie (for me at least) were Grant slyly whistling the themes to Charade and An Affair to Remember, a big set piece during the Olympic speedwalking race, and a small role for George Takei (Mr. Sulu!) as a police captain.

August 27 movie: Sign of the Cross. Wrapping up Claudette Colbert day on TCM (and how I regret not recording Tovarich, Midnight and Since You Went Away! But I'm really too busy to watch that many movies right now) with a Cecil B. deMille epic about the persecution of early Christians. Didn't the early Christians use the sign of the fish to identify themselves, not the cross? Whatever. Colbert plays the decadent Empress of Rome, who loves the prefect of Rome (Marcus Superbus, no I'm not kidding), who in turns loves an innocent young Christian girl (Mercia, again no joke). Charles Laughton also has a nice turn as Nero.

This pre-code movie is one of deMille's classic exercises in debauchery dressed up in a thin veneer of pious moralizing. The movie is as decadent as they could make it, with not much plot getting in the way of the sin, sin, sin: Orgies! Milk baths! Some kind of weird lesbian love dance! Torture! Gladiator fights! Amazons battling dwarves! A naked lady wearing only flower garlands, tied up and ravished by a gorilla! Another one eaten by alligators! Elephants walking on people's heads! Christians fed to lions! One of Claudette Colbert's nipples! It's all here, folks.

Trivia note: according to Robert Osbourne, the milk bath (more like a giant pool) was real milk, and since shooting took two days the milk started to spoil. Colbert was a trooper and sat in sour milk all day, but said later she had a hard time washing the smell off her skin.

August 27 movie: It's a Wonderful World. Jimmy Stewart is a detective whose client is framed for murder. He hides his client, thus making himself an accessory, then goes on the lam to find the real killer. On the way he kidnaps a poetess (Claudette Colbert) who quickly falls for him, and the two of them travel the countryside together trying to solve the crime.

They were clearly trying to recapture the magic of It Happened One Night here, and while it was good, it wasn't that good. That said, I love both Stewart and Colbert, I'll watch almost anything with either of them in it. Both is just that much better. And I did enjoy It's a Wonderful World, but if I were to recommend a madcap Claudette Colbert road movie it would definitely be It Happened One Night. (I can't think of a madcap Jimmy Stewart road movie off the top of my head.)

This week wasn't as productive in the garden as last week, but I still got some stuff done. On Monday I planted the balloon flowers down by the road. Tuesday I took the day off. Wednesday I mowed the lawn. Thursday I spent the day finishing the drywall, so no time for gardening. Friday I was feeling really crummy, between lack of sleep the night before, and the Armada having another jam session (with amps set to 11) in the afternoon, so I did nothing.

Today I planted some lantana down by the road. It's supposed to be a good ground cover, hardy, can handle slopes, tolerant of drought, and very few pests. Sounds nearly perfect. Lantana is also loved by butterflies. They planted some right outside the radio station and there are always clouds of little butterflies all over it.

The soil continues to be quite rocky, but I dug big holes so the plants will have at least a chance of getting their roots out. Along with the rocks I dug out some huge bramble roots. (I guess actually they're called rhisomes? The thick rooty things right under the plants.) The brambles have pretty much owned that slope for the past few years and I'm sure it's going to be a continual problem. Well if we just keep pulling as many root systems as we can every time we plant in there, eventually we'll get the better of them.

Took me about 2 hours to get the lantana in the ground, and it was hotter than I expected too. Good thing I put the dogs back inside. They like hanging out with me while I work in the yard, but this weather isn't safe for them. I got a little overheated myself. Nothing dangerous, just that I could feel how hot & thirsty I was when I went in for a drink of water. Which I really should do more often. I have a bad habit of treating it as a reward, thinking "I'll go inside for a drink after all the holes are dug," when really I should have taken a break after each hole.

The two gardening books I had ordered arrived: Gardening Southern Style and The Southern Gardener's Book of Lists. The former is an instructional book with an almanac in the back. It's written by someone in Mississippi so the advice is geared to the Deep South and not always totally applicable to the Piedmont. But still, for a beginner like me it's invaluable. The list book is just what the title says: 200 lists of plants. Lists of everything you can imagine: shrubs that like shade, ground covers that grow on slopes, vines that smell nice, perennials that bloom all summer, annuals that reseed themselves, etc. I think I'm going to be taking that one with me to go plant shopping. My only gripe with it is that it doesn't describe the plants at all, just lists their names. So, even though I wanted to limit myself to 2 books, I had to order another one with an encyclopedia of plant information. And I ordered the book about mongo while I was at it. At least I'm using my Amazon store to get myself a 15% discount on all these books.

August ? movie: The Glass Bottom Boat. I saw this sometime in the past two weeks but I forget when exactly. Doris Day is a career girl working at a research lab who falls for her boss, Rod Taylor. Hilarity ensues when the military decides Day is a Mati Hari-esque spy. Overall this was a bit too slapstick for my taste. And I found it really disturbing when Day finds out they think she's a spy, and starts acting like a spy to get back at them. I guess it was supposed to be funny but all I could think was, "great way to get yourself declared an enemy combatant, lady." My other disappointment is that the glass bottom boat of the title is hardly in the movie at all. Just the very beginning before the credits, and then the action shifts to the research lab.

Karsh Kale was awesome! I just got back a couple of minutes ago. The first act was great too, an unnamed DJ (local I'm assuming) who rocked the house. Too bad the house contained five people, only one of whom was dancing. The dancing guy was so cool: most of the time he danced by strolling around in a circle. The only part of him that was dancing was his arms. It was like hipster walking meditation. I wish I had gotten that DJ's name. I'd love to know if he has a regular gig around town.

Kale took the stage around 10:30, not too bad since he was supposed to go on at 10. It was just him DJing/remixing, no band. Which bummed me out at first, but he did an amazing set. I wish I could get a set list! The only tracks I recognized were "GK2" from Kale's last album, and "Bhangra Fever" by Midival Punditz (red hot remix too). Which are both tracks I love. But the entire set was that good, I just didn't recognize the rest of it.

I felt like an idiot for not taking my camera. I thought it would be packed like Stereolab was a couple months ago, and I wouldn't be able to set up any decent shots, so taking the camera would be a waste. Okay, so it wasn't crowded. In fact calling the audience "sparse" would be generous. I guess I have a distorted idea of what is a big name act in these parts, because I seriously thought Ming & FS and Karsh Kale would draw tons of people. (As Georg pointed out, it doesn't bode well for them or artists like them coming to Chapel Hill again. Unless they add a mopey guy with a guitar whining about his love life to the lineup.) So anyway, the crowd was pretty thin and I could easily have gone up front and gotten some nice close-ups. I so need to get a new bag and just take my camera everywhere. Every time I leave it behind I end up wishing I had it.

I didn't stay for Ming & FS, who came on around 11:30. It was getting late for me, and I'd had a long day, and I'd really gone to see Karsh Kale anyway. Ming & FS are good but they're not my favorites. And also, I am a poopyhead. Georg walked me to my car (what a gentleman) and went back for the rest of the show. So I guess he'll tell me in the morning that Kale went back on and the three of them did the show to end all shows, and then I'll wish I had stayed. But actually not; I'm really tired and I'm glad I came home.

I heard this story on NPR this morning and I must read the book. It sounds like that movie The Gleaners and I, only about New York rather than France, and it doesn't suck.

I've never heard the term mongo before and unfortunately I missed the beginning of the story, when I presume they explained the term. I was also surprised that the term dumpster diving didn't come up, except when one caller explained that it's called that in her town. Does New York even have dumpsters? If not, that would explain why they don't use the term. Here it's called dumpster diving even if you're not literally taking things out of a dumpster. I've never actually climbed into a dumpster but at one time my house was largely furnished with stuff that students had thrown away at the end of the school year. I've gradually replaced all the scavenged furniture, and I don't think I have any left at this point.

The annoying thing is, I just ordered gardening books from Amazon a couple of days ago & I could have added Mongo to the order if I'd known. Oh well, maybe the library will have it.

Something happened today that, to my knowledge, has never happened to me before.

See, I wanted to take a break from planting because my wrist has been bothering me a lot, and I suspected the shoveling was aggravating it. So, yesterday instead of planting I mowed the lawn.

That's not the new experience though. I hadn't mowed in a long time (long enough that I was surprised to find our mower, which we've had for over a year, isn't self-propelled) but I used to do it all the time. I actually kind of like mowing. It's good work but unless it's super hot, not exhausting, and the noise from the mower makes me feel like I'm inside a "cone of silence" where I can think about whatever I want without interruption.

Anyway, my neighbors on the one side had just mowed last weekend, as they do every two weeks like clockwork. The yard on the other side wasn't just mowed, but it wasn't getting shaggy or anything, it looked like they had another week to go.

This morning I went out to run a quick errand. Got back around noon, and saw that the yard on the other side is now freshly mowed. They must have mowed right after I did, either this morning or yesterday evening.

I shamed the neighbors into mowing their yard! That has never, ever happened to me before. They hate me (the mother will literally yell at her kids through the window to get inside if she sees them talking to me) so it must have rankled her that my yard looked neater than hers for even a few hours. I wonder if they'll feel obligated to match all my yardwork efforts so their yard alway looks better than mine? If I keep up with my landscaping plans, they'll have to make their yard look really amazing to stay ahead of me.

I'm going to start mowing at weird intervals, to see if it was a coincidence.

August 25 movie: Tender Comrade. Ginger Rogers stars in a weeper about four war wives sharing a rented house and trying to be brave while their husbands fight the good fight during WWII. There's a great cast but the dialogue is pretty clunky, and the movie never rises above itself to affect me the way Since You Went Away, the ultimate war-wife movie, does. Both were made during the war and obviously intended to raise the spirits of real war wives, and both are highly sentimental, but Since You Went Away manages to avoid the treacly, phony schmaltz that keeps Tender Comrade locked in mediocrity.

Unfortunately Tender Comrade is mainly known not for its own merits, but for its role in the McCarthy era 10+ years later. The director and writer were among the "Hollywood 10," and this movie in particular was used as an example of Hollywood's insidious influence on American minds. First off, because the word "comrade" is in the title (according to a title card it's from a Robert Louis Stevenson poem about the role of a wife). But mainly because the premise of four women living together and pooling their resources smacked of communism. Even star Ginger Rogers testified that she had objected to anti-American sentiments in some of her dialogue.

Watching this hyper-patriotic movie today, it's hard to imagine how anyone could have seen communist propaganda lurking within it. I guess it just goes to show how people will believe anything if they've whipped themselves into enough of a frenzy. The director, Dmytryk, wrote later of Tender Comrade: "Their motto is 'share and share alike,' which sounded quite innocently democratic when we made the film, but which turned up to haunt me a few years later when I was instructed that the real motto of a democracy is 'Get what you can while you can and the devil take the hindmost.'"

August 25 movie: Old Acquaintance. Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins play writers and best friends: Davis is a talented serious writer and playwright with more recognition than income, and Hopkins is a wildly successful author of trashy women's novels who "cranks them out like sausages." The movie follows their friendship/rivalry over three decades.

I would have liked this movie better if it were more balanced, if they had shown that each woman had something for the other to envy. Instead Davis is a paragon and Hopkins is a total shrew. It was still fun though. Hopkins throws herself into the role of a silly, selfish bitch with wild abandon, and the payoff (when Davis finally grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her really hard) is well worth it. It was during that scene that I realized I'd seen this movie before. But the first hour didn't seem at all familiar so I think I must have come in on the middle.

John Loder has a nice turn as Hopkins' husband. I've seen him in other things and really like his work. I'd like to see more of his movies, but I looked him up online and unfortunately most of his career was in the British film industry, starring in movies that sound great but aren't carried by Netflix. I think I might write to TCM and suggest they do one of their day-long specials on him. Although, with my luck they'd just show Hollywood movies in which he has supporting roles, many of which I've already seen.

Does anyone know where I can get a lot of old newspapers? I need them for mulching my garden and we don't get a daily paper.

August 24 movie: The Letter. Bette Davis in a noir-ish melodrama based on a Somerset Maugham story. The first few moments of the film have Davis coldly shooting a man as he tries to flee her house on a rubber plantation in Malaya. The rest of the movie unravels the story of why, focusing on a letter (thus the title). As you might guess from the source material, it's pretty depressing and decadent and everyone comes to a bad end. Actually, the lawyer's inscrutably obsequious Asian assistant makes out all right -- he gets a cut of some blackmail money and he doesn't get killed, arrested, ruined or consumed with guilt. But he's about the only one.

Good movie though. Very dramatic and subtle. I liked how long they waited after the letter's appearance to even let us know its contents. Most movies would feel obligated to have lengthy scenes of the characters standing around explaining to each other what the letter meant.

August 24 movie: Bell, Book and Candle. Every time I watch this movie it strikes me the same way: a half hour in I think it's the best movie ever, and by the end I hate it. Kim Novak plays a witch who lives in witchy contentment with her relatives Jack Lemmon and Elsa Lanchester, until she meets and falls in love with normal human Jimmy Stewart, thus losing her powers.

My problem with the movie is that Novak's witch life is portrayed as so marvelously cool. Giving it all up for Stewart seems like an appalling sacrifice. And seeing her change from a sultry witch in black trousers and bare feet to Donna Reed in heels and yellow silk, was just depressing. The message: love makes a woman lose all her power, but her life will be empty and unfulfilled until she debases herself for the man of her dreams.

I still watch the movie when it's on, if only to see Jack Lemmon's bongo-playing beatnik warlock. Ernie Kovaks also has a nice turn as a self-described expert on witchcraft.

August 19 movie: Jezebel. The rumor is that Bette Davis did this movie about a willfull Southern Belle because she was angry about not getting the part of Scarlett O'Hara. But as Robert Osbourne pointed out, that can't be true because Jezebel was released almost a year before they started filming Gone With the Wind. In fact, he said that one reason she didn't get to play Scarlett was that she had just done such a similar character.

In any case, Jezebel is a great melodrama about a bad, bad Southern girl who causes a lot of trouble and then redeems herself with the ultimate sacrifice. Lots of ladies flouncing around in huge hoops skirts and saying "I declare!" and men drinking mint juleps and challenging each other to duels. Good fun. Afterwards I watched most of Now, Voyager which I may have mentioned is my favorite Bette Davis movie. I love TCM's "Summer under the Stars."

August 14 movie: The Petrified Forest. Lesley Howard, Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart star in a talky but affecting drama about a bunch of people trapped in a rustic inn with a gangster. Most interesting to me was the way everyone projected their own motives and desires onto Bogart's desperado. Also interesting was a small subplot about the ideological clash between two African Americans: one Bogart's henchman, the other a rich man's valet. The gangster lectures the manservant on giving up his freedom to take orders from a white man, yet himself has no more freedom than the valet does. Each one is totally obedient to his respective boss.

Catching up with the August 13 movie: The Maltese Falcon. I think I've put off writing about this because I don't have a whole lot to say about it. Bogart is Sam Spade. There's also Mary Aster, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. The falcon is a macguffin. It's brilliant. That about sums it up.

I never realized before how closely the voice of Ren from Ren and Stimpy was based on Peter Lorre. I guess it should have been obvious all along, but it wasn't until Lorre loses his temper and starts screaming "You imbecile! You bloated fathead!" at Greenstreet that I caught on. It's pure Ren. Heck, he even looks a bit like Ren.

Although they say at the end that Lorre and Greenstreet are captured by the police, Georg and I always like to imagine that they get away and go on to Istanbul as planned. I wish they had made another movie about the adventures of Joel Cairo and the Fat Man. What I wouldn't pay to see that movie.

Did not get anything else done on the room yesterday. We were both so tired that I think a break was good and necessary.

Mondays are always my busiest day, between catching up on work in the morning -- I always have a list of "oh my god I need this right now!!!" client messages first thing Monday morning -- my HKB meeting, and then my show. As I posted at the time, I was in a crummy mood and didn't want to do my show, but being there really brightened up my day. Unfortunately I didn't bother to record the show, I thought it was going to suck, but it turned out to be a good one if I do say so. Lots of vinyl, and some things I had never heard before but randomly pulled off the shelves, that turned out to be really good. I wish I had recorded it.

Then when I got home in the evening, I planted some balloon flowers down by the driveway. I love balloon flowers; they have weird cool balloon shaped buds and bell-shaped flowers. (I guess they ought to be called "balloon buds" or "bell flowers," but hey, I'm not the one making up these names.) The soil near the driveway is the worst I've encountered anywhere in the yard. Solid clay except for all the rocks. Mostly gravel (I guess the driveway must have been gravel at one point) but also lots of rocks about the size of my fist and a few much bigger than that. You can't even really dig the soil: it's more like hacking at it with a shovel to loosen up the rocks. I almost gave up on planting there, thinking that no plant would survive in soil that poor, but along with the rocks there were a lot of earthworms. I figure the soil can't be that bad if it has earthworms, so in the balloon flowers went.

Then I made dinner -- nothing fancy, just chicken sauteed with some vegetables, but I've been eating out (mostly junk) for the past week, so it felt really good to cook. Plus I made extra to have for my lunches for the next couple of days. After all that I was totally exhausted and went to sleep before 9:30. Woke up around 11 and thought it was pre-dawn the next morning (we don't have a clock in the bedroom right now because of the drywall work), staggered into the kitchen and asked Georg "what are you doing up already?" Then saw the clock, said "oh" and went back to bed. I'm really glad I slept so long. I feel much better now.

I was in such a crummy mood this morning. I had to drag my ass to the station; I really didn't want to go. But being here always cheers me up. The webcam caught me deciding which Joe "King" Carrasco album to play. Whee!

The Starlite drive-in's screen has burned down.

I think about going to the Starlite often, and always have a fabulous time there, but rarely actually go. Just a couple of days ago Lisa and I talked about having an art car night there.

The owner says he's going to rebuild and re-open. I hope he does, but I wonder if money is a problem. (The Herald-Sun said he had fire insurance, but the News & Observer said the screen was not insured.) I think I'm going to send him a donation.

We didn't get as much done today as I had hoped, but that's only because I seriously underestimated the time involved in hanging drywall. Three coats of wall compound! Why the #$&*%@ does it need three coats? After we put the drywall up, I was saying "I can't believe hanging drywall is so easy!" By the end of the day I was saying "I can't believe hanging drywall is so hard!"

We did get a lot done though. The new drywall is up, two of the three coats of wall compound are done, nice and smooth if I do say so myself, and the blotchy paint on the adjoining wall has been sanded off and replastered. (I even got to plant my Joe Pye Weed this morning before we got started!) We still need to do the third coat of wall compound, sand everything, prime and paint.

It's a lot of work but I'm so glad we did this. Even yucky and half-finished, I still think it looks better already. Before we started I had grandiose notions that we'd get the priming done tonight, and be finished with the whole thing tomorrow. But we ran out of steam around 7 this evening and decided it was better to quit before we screwed something up from being too tired to work. Georg let me take a break and put the furniture back, because he is the best boyfriend. Then we had takeout for dinner and now we're watching the Food Network's tribute to Julia Child. It's really good, full of funny clips. I highly recommend it if/when they rerun it.

Today was a good day. We went to the farmer's market early, bought ripe peaches, a few herb plants, and a perennial called "Joe Pye Weed." It's pretty, supposed to attract butterflies, I saw it in a book on low maintenance gardening, and plus it's called Joe Pye Weed. How can we go wrong?

After the farmer's market I helped Lisa clean out the interior of 9 Westy. This was to repay her for the work she did on my room last week, but it seemed much less strenuous and also took less time, so I don't think we're quite even yet. In any case, we took down the curtains (neatly so she can use them as patterns), removed the upholstery from the seat cushions, and pulled up the carpet. Really nasty carpet that was holding moisture & encouraging corrosion in the floor pan.

Good music was listened to: greatest hits from the Cars (which reminded me intensely of the summer I bought their self-titled first album, and the girl who was my best friend that summer. She lived in Arden, a sort of hippie community in Wilmington, and we hung out together all the time, then somehow near the end of the summer we decided we hated each other and I never spoke to her again. But it was a great summer.) Many baggies were filled with various types of hardware. Many staples were pulled from teh seat cushion and thrown away. The gas pedal was broken but easily repaired. Much barbecue was consumed. An important consensus was reached that Lisa fucking rules the world.

In the afternoon Lisa used 9 Westy to help me get a couple sheets of drywall home. Tomorrow we're going to try and fix that wall problem in the bedroom. I sat around feeling grubby and drinking lots of water for a little while, then went out and planted the new herbs. The plot we've set aside for the herb garden is still looking pretty bare, but at least it's not totally empty anymore. A lot of those plants will spread so I don't want to fill the space up too much.

Then we got cleaned up and went to an opening at Tyndall Galleries, a client of mine. It was a great show, gorgeous work and a lively crowd. We tried to chat with Jane Tyndall but she was busy talking with people at all times so I never got close enough to say hello. We're gearing up to redesign their site but she probably didn't want to talk about that at an opening, and I sure didn't.

Last we had a nice dinner at Vespa, marred only by the noisy people at the next table who stayed long after their meal was over because it was pouring out. At some point David Sutton came in, he told me he had just finished up his second big celebrity makeover in two days! The first one was Christa's, and today's was for a TV show. Sure enough, soon after David a camera crew showed up and started filming right near us. I think they were doing the pre-reveal interviews. Which basically consisted of standing people up against a wall and asking them "How do you think your mom is going to look? What does your dad think about so-and-so changing the color of her hair?" The light from the camera was shining right in my face, but they weren't that close to our table so it wasn't a big problem.

As we left (thankfully, just after the downpour ended) we saw a party being filmed in the restaurant's private dining area. I guess this is one of those shows where the big reveal happens at a party. I've got to remember to find out what this show is called and when it's going to air.

It's only been a couple of days but the gardening seems to be going well. So far I've mulched the raised bed that once was our herb garden and planted Georg's potted herbs in it; attached extenders to the downspouts to draw water away from the foundation; gone through a pile of old hoses, figured out which ones were usable, connected the good ones to the spigot and coiled them up; and planted two big azaleas on the shady side of the house.

I know it's the wrong season for planting but it's been a mild summer and I'm watering them every day so I hope they'll be OK. The soil is terrible on that side of the house -- lots of clay and tree roots -- so even though I added lots of good soil, I don't know how well they'll do in the long run. Although it might be good if they don't thrive, because I accidently bought a larger variety than I wanted (8' tall!). It won't bother me if they don't get that big.

I also tried to clean the driveway (which is covered with dirt from the landscapers) with a hose, but it took a lot of water so I stopped. We're not having a drought anymore but I'm still not comfortable wasting water. I'll sweep the driveway or something another day.

Overall I'm pleased with the first few days of this project. I'm trying to focus on work that will have a long term effect, like planting perennials and shrubs. That helps me feel like I've accomplished more, which (I hope) will help me stick with it.

Does anyone know of any good books on Southern gardening? There are so many different plants at the garden stores & I don't want to waste time and effort on plants that won't do well in this climate. I was looking at these books, but I'd rather just get one. I don't want to spend all my gardening time reading books.

The Southern Gardener's Book of Lists
The Southern Living Garden Book
Month By Month Gardening in the Carolinas

I just realized that I totally forgot to post about the only real goof by the landscapers: I had asked them to leave the rosemary and sage plants alone, but they pulled out the sage. I saw the hole in the ground on my way to lunch with David and Hervé, while we were working on the room, and couldn't help but exclaim "Oh no, my sage!" Which the landscapers heard, and were very apologetic. I told them it was no big deal, I could plant another one. At lunch I decided that it was better this way. Because the old sage plant had gotten really big and leggy, and I had planted it too close to the edge of the bed so it stuck out into the driveway.

Then when we got back, we saw that they had found the sage plant in the refuse pile and put it back! It looks terrible: only a handful of leaves survived. It was nice of them to try and undo their mistake, but I'm still going to pull out the poor old sage plant and put in a new one, further from the edge of the bed. We're going to the farmer's market this morning to see if the herb plant people are there.

So anyway, I'm not at all upset about the goof with the sage. In a way they did me a favor. Now, if they had dug out my huge rosemary bush, that would have been really upsetting.

Christa's celebrity makeover was awesome. Two tons of fun. I was a few minutes late and by the time I got there, "the Antonio" had already started cutting her hair and there was a big crowd in attendance. Our little corner of the blogosphere was well represented with Lisa, Pinky, Ruby, Phil, and probably others I'm forgetting. I and several others tried to peer pressure Shayne to start a blog, but she's reluctant due to being a school teacher and not wanting her students to have easy access to her whole life.

I didn't take my camera because I assumed they wouldn't allow photos. Only to find that photos were allowed, nay welcomed. Ray was snapping photos constantly and no one seemed to mind. I was kicking myself for not bringing my camera. But then again, without the camera I could enjoy the party and not worry about photos. And I did get a couple of decent shots with my camera phone.

In fact, the first thing I did upon arrival was snap a photo of Christa's haircut and upload it to my photolog. At which point several people took photos of me uploading my photo, which they then uploaded to their blogs. It was dizzyingly self-referential for a minute there.

The publicist for Curl Friends (the product line sponsoring this shindig) got all excited and offered me a press kit when she overheard me tell someone that I was uploading photos live to my website. I told her that it was just my blog, to which she replied "We love blogs!" I told her that I'm not anybody important, but I took the press kit anyway. Also I bought a sample pack of Curl Friends products -- only $10 for all 10 products. My hair is naturally quite curly and although I am still digging my straightened, mod 'do, at some point I will go back to a more current, less helmet-head style. So it would be nice to have some good products for curly hair.

My big disappointment of the evening was that, while Christa's color was setting, "the Antonio" did some quick styling on everyone present who had curly hair. I had straightened my hair and put on a ton of product, so I couldn't participate. What a bummer. If only I hadn't done up my hair tonight, I could have had it styled by a celebrity!

Speaking of which, the whole point of the evening was Christa's hair, and it looked fabulous. Not that her hair doesn't always look nice, but this style was just gorgeous. They did her makeup too and she looked so glamorous, like something out of a movie. I saw David (the host of the evening and my regular stylist) carefully watching "the Antonio" work, which is good because I may ask him to duplicate the style on me sometime soon.

Everyone went to the wine bar down the street to celebrate, but I bailed because we're getting up early tomorrow morning to go the Raleigh farmer's market and shop for herb plants. Also because I don't drink wine or go to bars, so a wine bar isn't much of a draw for me. And also because I'm a poopyhead.

I just got an invitation to join this group.

And here I thought the "I'm blogging this" t-shirt photo was going to get me porno attention! I would like to know if someone posted my tights photos there, but I don't really want to join the group to find out.

In all the craziness over the room I forgot to post about the landscaping. The whole family were here most of the day Sunday and basically finished the job. Peggy came back on Monday and put down mulch, but I wasn't here because I'm always out all day with meetings and my radio show on Mondays. Then Tuesday (as I think I did post) I ran into her at Home Depot and paid her.

The yard looks amazing. It looks as good as when we moved in. Actually better, because they took out the big cypress tree by the driveway, which I've always hated, and trimmed the trees out front which have always needed it.

My disappointments are few and minor, but this is my space to bitch and moan so I guess I will. First, they only dug up a few shrubs; most big things (including the cypress) they just cut down to the ground. I guess I should have realized that digging out stumps would take longer and cost more, so they wouldn't do it unless we specified. Second, I thought they were going to mulch that whole long area along the driveway, outside the fence, but they just mulched around individual plants. No big deal; I've already arranged with my friend David to get a load of mulch in his truck.

Those quibbles aside, I'm really happy with their work. It's like living in a whole different place, as I'm sure you can imagine from the photos. The dogs seem confused but happy. They've been spending their time outside wandering around the perimeter of the yard, checking things out.

So now I have a yard that looks nice, but is pretty bare. I need to get to work with mulching and planting right away, to keep it from getting overgrown again. Which brings me back to lack of time, the problem I had in the first place. Coincidentally, a couple of weeks ago I hit my 8 week slump on my exercise program. This is a pattern for me: I throw myself into an exercise program, work really hard at it, then after about 8 weeks I start to think "why am I doing this? it's so narcissistic and takes so much time" and usually quit.

So I had stopped going to the gym about two weeks ago, and was feeling pretty guilty about it. Then last night it occurred to me that the four days I was working on the room were a way better workout than I would have gotten at the gym. Plus I had a beautiful room for my trouble, instead of a series of endless, pointless sessions on an elliptical machine.

I'm thinking about trying to use my exercise time on yardwork. Including travel time it had been an hour a day, sometimes more, 5-6 days a week. Rather than trying to go out and entirely do a major project in one go, I'll just do a little each day: plant one thing, pull up some bamboo, etc. I probably won't get as much exercise as if I were going to the gym -- there's no cardio to be found in gardening that I know of -- but it's heavy duty work so I think I'll still get some benefit out of it. Anyway I'm going to give it a couple of weeks & see how I feel about my physical condition and my yard's condition. If it's not working out, I'll renew my gym membership (which coincidentally expired at the end of last week because of the term starting). But if I could stick with this until my next 8 week slump, I'd get a heck of a lot done.

Tuesday, 8:45 am. Got the headboard mostly painted this morning. It looks really nice. It's amazing what a difference a second coat of paint makes. Unfortunately the brushes weren't dry yet from last night. So I can't finish the fiddly bits of the headboard until I go to Home Depot and get another brush. They open at 9, so I have just enough time to write this before I go.

I expect painting the room to take about 3 hours. Then I've got to take the paneling to the dump, clean up, and put back all the furniture. I can get all that done by 7. It will be a rush, but I can do it.

Time to go to Home Depot.

10:30. I'm almost finished painting the headboard -- just waiting for one part to dry so I can slide the doors over and paint behind the other side. Waiting for David to get here with his truck to take the paneling to the dump.

I thought Home Depot would be deserted at 9 am, but apparently that's when all the contractors go get supplies. So I had to wait in line behind a guy getting ten different gallons of paint. Grr! Fortunately another employee came to help after a few minutes.

I ran into Peggy, the landscaper, while I was there. Since the job is finished and I had missed her yesterday, I wrote her a check on the spot. I hadn't gotten money from Georg before he left, so when I got home I thought gee, I better make sure I have enough to cover that check. Went online and saw a balance of $300 in my checking account. Ack! A few seconds of mad panic, thinking that I was going to have to call Peggy immediately and ask her to wait until tomorrow to cash my check, and how humiliating that would be. Then I looked at the detailed view and saw that the $300 balance was after the check I had just written her. She must have driven to the bank the minute she left Home Depot. I had no idea checks could clear that fast. I thought there was a delay of a day while the check went from the depositor's bank to the check writer's bank. But apparently not, because that check showed up in my statement about 20 minutes after I wrote it.

David is here. yay!

3:00. The trip to the dump took an hour; painting took 3, just as I expected. The color is more blue than I had wanted. I hope it turns more grey as it dries. Or looks less intense when all our stuff is back in the room. Didn't I say I'm bad at selecting paint colors?

4 hours left to clean up and put everything back. Oh, and take a shower. I am gross!

5:15. The furniture is in! The bed is made! The color does look a little less blue with other things in the room. Actually it looks just right on the walls that get direct sunlight. Unfortunately, it looks a little too dark & blue on the walls that don't, which is most of the room.

It's a good thing I'm so extremely dirty and sweaty, because my desire to keep my filthy self out of my nice clean bed is overriding my desire to lie down and rest. Time to install lighting and hang the curtains.

7:15. I made myself late hanging a picture, but the room looks great. Time to leave for the airport.

9:30. We're back! Georg is suitably wowed by the room. We're eating dinner now. I was too busy to eat all day (almost literally -- all I ate was an Atkins bar around noon, and two slices of cheese around 6), and Georg was stuck in an airport or on an airplane, so we both wolfed down our food. Q Shack, god damn is it good! I threw caution to the wind and had the brisket plate with mac & cheese and onion rings. Mmmm, mac and cheese. They were about to close so the guy loaded up our to go boxes with huge portions. The hush puppies were awful, stale and doughy, but everything else was fantastic. I so needed that.

Monday, 11 pm. Things are still going on schedule, but it's been tough. Working hard all day, every day, and then sleeping poorly every night (I've been too tired to open up the air mattress, instead I've been passing out on the couch around midnight every night) is starting to take its toll on me. I will be so glad to sleep in my own bed tomorrow night.

They got the station back on the air so I did have to do my show after all. It was fun to be there, but it would have been nice to have that time here.

I got back to work around 5, cleaning the headboard so I could prime it. Which took a little longer than I had hoped -- all those fiddly bits where the doors slide back and forth, to paint in and around. Ray and Christa came at 7 to help prime. Have I mentioned that I have amazing friends? I had just started cutting in when they got here, and the two of them took over and did all the priming, all I had to do was finish up priming the headboard.

There were only a couple of goofs: first and most seriously, the old paint started peeling up off another wall when Ray tried to prime over it. Ugh! It looks horrible and scabby. I ought to resand that entire wall, but it's not going to happen if the bedroom is going to be put back together by tomorrow evening.

Second, we made the mistake of turning up the ceiling fan, which brought down a shower of plaster dust. I hadn't thought to dust it when I was cleaning the floor and walls! When it started, all three of us just stood there like, "duh, what? what's that stuff falling on my shirt?" Ray was the first one to figure out what was going on. I think we got it turned off before much dust got on the walls.

Also, we were surprised to discover that paint rollers come in different sizes, because the rollers I had bought were too short for the metal handle. Actually the rollers were the right size; it was the handle that was too wide. The handle was also too wide for the paint tray and Ray had to sort of dip it in diagonally. Who knew? I had assumed paint rollers were all a standard size, at least the big ones.

The last goof was potentially the worst, but turned out to be nothing at all. Christa was up on the folding bench (which is a cool thing by the way: made of aluminum like a ladder, but it's a bench so you don't have to get down and move the ladder as often) and I was working on the headboard. I tried to move the headboard with one hand while holding my little paint tray in the other. Unfortunately the headboard got caught on the slippery plastic drop cloth and tipped right over. It could have knocked Christa off the bench and really hurt her, but it fell just short of the bench, thank god. The only damage was a bruise where it bonked me on the leg.

Christa gave me advice on the wall color, which is always a problem for me. You'd think from my profession that I'd be good at picking out colors, and I do feel comfortable selecting colors for design projects. But for some reason I lack confidence with paint colors. I can't look at a color chip and visualize how it will look on an entire wall.

I wanted the wall color to look nice with the furniture, which is white with light green frosted glass. So I got out my copy of Color Image Scale by Shigenobu Kobayashi (which I had forgotten I had until Lisa reminded me of it) and we picked out a nice soft blue that goes with the green glass.

Christa also advised me on what to do about that short wall with the contact paper. After only 1 day it's already starting to peel off, so it obviously won't work even as a temporary solution. We agreed that it was best not to waste the effort trying to paint it, but just leave it as is so Georg and I can replace the drywall maybe next weekend. So the room won't be quite finished when he gets home tomorrow.

And Ray offered some tips on making sure the surprise isn't spoiled for Georg -- I was planning to post all these entries today at 1:30, when Georg gets on his plane. But Ray warned me to be sure the plane leaves on time, because otherwise Georg might be sitting in the Las Vegas airport websurfing just as I upload all my posts. Ray also suggested I make sure it's a nonstop flight (it is).

They left around 9 and then I had dinner and got caught up on some work. Now I'm tired. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. I have to go to Home Depot and buy the paint, get David to come over with his truck so we can load up the paneling and take it to the dump, paint the walls, paint the headboard, clean the room, put up the lights and curtains, and replace all the furniture. Who-ee! Hope I can get it all done in time. I have be done by 7 pm to pick Georg up at the airport.

Monday morning. I had hoped to prime the walls last night, but I ran out of steam in early evening while I was sanding the fourth wall. I really made a mistake on those goggles. I should have splurged for the kind that look like glasses. The cheap kind fog up really fast. I had to stop every few minutes and go wipe them out with a tissue. Otherwise I couldn't even vaguely see what I was doing.

Also I should have realized cleaning up would take a while. Because it wasn't just running the tack cloth over the walls, but also getting the dust up off the floor. Man, there was a lot of dust in that room. I still need to mop the floor but I swept and vacuumed and it's mostly cleaned up.

Anyway, between being tired and moving slowly on these jobs, and also going over to feed & walk Corn Dog, plus having some actual work (you know, the paying kind) I didn't get back to work on the room last night, and somehow managed to plan so poorly that I ate dinner around 10 pm. After that I watched a very slight movie (Night Nurse starring Barbara Stanwyck, soon to be written up) and fell asleep on the couch without even bothering to open the air mattress.

This morning I've got work to do & then, as usual, I'm out most of the day with meetings. The station is back on the air, which I confess I'm bummed about. I mean, I'm glad we're not off the air for days at a time, but I could have really used that time here. Oh well! I still have enough time to get everything done. The plan is to prime the walls and headboard tonight, then tomorrow paint the wall color, paint the headboard, clean up and put everything back. The painting will go fast because the baseboards and window frames are down. So the only trim is around the 2 doors and there's very little cutting in to do.

I wish I could start priming right now! But this client work has to be done first.

Sunday, 4 pm. This morning I got back to work around 9. My friend David and his friend Hervé came over in mid-morning to help patch the plaster. They also helped me figure out what to do about the drywall, which was a serious mess. Whoever had put up the wood paneling had glued it right to the bare, unprimed drywall. The result was big tears in the drywall where the glue took off the top layer. We didn't think that spackling and sanding bare drywall would work very well, and the torn edges were really rough.

So we went to Home Depot, where they suggested that we cover it up with contact paper and just prime and paint right over the contact paper. Luckily Hervé is tall, unlike me or David, so he had the job of hanging the contact paper. It's a little bumpy over the torn edges, but once it's been primed and painted I guess it will look ok.

To be honest I'm dubious of this as a solution to the problem. It seems like the real solution is to replace the messed up drywall with new. But there's no way that's happening this weekend. Oh well, I'll go with the contact paper for now, and if it starts to peel off the wall we can go back and fix it for real. We did at least use additional adhesive, not just the sticky that's already on it.

Anyway, after lunch with David and Hervé I got to work on the sanding. It was much easier today; I must have just been tired yesterday. I got three walls done in an hour, and would have done the fourth but it wasn't quite dry yet (Hervé went really thick with the plaster. Which is good, it will be nice and smooth, but it takes a little longer to dry).

I'm going to go buy tack cloth now. My method for quickly cleaning plaster dust off walls is to attach tack cloth to a Swiffer, and mop the dust right off the walls. By the time I get back, the last wall will be dry enough to sand. Then time to clean up, and I might even be able to prime tonight. Yay! Plus, the station is off the air right now and if they don't get it up again by tomorrow, I won't have to do my show and that will be two hours more for painting. Now comes the hard part: deciding what color to paint!

While Georg is in Vegas, I'm doing some work on the house to surprise him. (I'm writing this on Saturday night but I won't post it until he gets back on Tuesday so as not to spoil the surprise.) Before you say anything, yes this is kind of like that show. Except that I don't have a TV designer installing a lame "design" that features shoddy workmanship and lots of MDF. Or leaves glued to construction paper and called art. Or TV cameras following everyone around. Or an army of PAs doing the real work. OK, actually the only thing in common with the TV show is that I'm doing one room, it's a surprise, and it has to happen very fast.

When we moved in to this house, every room had that horrible fake wood paneling. Room by room we've been slowly removing it, and the bedroom is the last room left. That's what I'm doing this weekend: pulling down the paneling, repairing the plaster, and painting. I dropped Georg off at the airport at 8:30 this morning and got to work as soon as I got home.

I couldn't get all that done by myself in four days, but lucky for me I have the help of some amazing friends. Lisa came early this morning, just after I had gotten started, and stayed until almost 4. Together we got tons done, way more than I had expected. We pulled out all the paneling, trim and baseboards, scraped off all the glue, and even had time for a nice lunch at the Q Shack.

The glue came off much easier than it had in the other rooms. In some places we didn't even need the heat gun; it came off with just a scraper. After a while we realized that the reason it was coming off so easily was that the paint underneath was so fragile, it was peeling away from the wall. We were concerned about moisture damage messing up the paint. But eventually it became clear that previous residents had painted latex over oil, without bothering to prime.

I don't begin to understand the people who last decorated this house. What were they thinking? "Oops! We screwed up and the paint is peeling. Let's slap on some fake wood paneling instead of fixing it! And there's a hole in the middle of the floor. Let's patch it with wood that doesn't match and then cover it with cheap wall to wall carpet! Now let's install a built-in a bookshelf. No need to trim the carpet, we'll just put the bookshelf right on top of it!" Lisa and I discovered today that the carpet in one place runs under drywall. Most of the walls are plaster, but at some point a pantry was added to the kitchen, the walls of which (made of drywall) jut into the bedroom. Instead of trimming the carpet, they just put the drywall on top of it. We had to cut the carpet away, because it couldn't be pulled out from under there.

After Lisa left I kept working until about 8. I sanded the two walls with peeling paint (why did only two walls only have this problem? Like I said, I don't begin to understand) and started patching the plaster. The sanding was harder than I remembered, but that might be because I was already tired from a full day's work. Got the plaster entirely patched on one wall, but the wall with the most gaps (2 doors) so I'm less than 25% done.

Then I quit for the night. At which point I discovered that when we unloaded the bedroom furniture and piled it up in the study, I had neglected to keep my dresser drawers where I could reach them. But I was able to climb over everything and get to some clean clothes. I somehow managed to convince myself that cooking would take less energy than driving to Bojangles, so I even ate relatively healthy. It's 10 pm now, and I'm exhausted. I'm going to be sleeping on the air mattress in the living room because the bed is with the rest of the bedroom furniture in the study. I'm watching The Maltese Falcon but I probably won't make it all the way through the movie.

August 15 movie: H.M. Pulham, Esq. Robert Young is a rich Bostonian who spends the movie in flashback, thinking about the life he could have had as a New York adman with career woman Hedy Lamarr. Based on a book by John P. Marquand, this was a thoughtful, sensitive character study of the two leads: where they came from, what they gave each other & why they didn't last. I don't know what the book was like, but the tone of the movie is a wistful look back on lost opportunity.

Good supporting work by Charles Coburn as Young's father, Van Heflin as the best friend, and especially Ruth Hussey (Liz Imbrie from The Philadelphia Story) as the Boston woman everyone wants Young to marry. But I have to close with a major "Boo!" to TCM for messing up the schedule for this movie, so the DVR cut off about a minute before it ended. I think I have the gist of it but it would have been nice to actually see the ending.

August 15 movie: Night Nurse. Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Blondell play young nurses who uncover a scheme to murder two young girls for their trust funds. Which makes the plot sound much more substantial than it really is. The real point of the movie is Stanwyck and Blondell changing in and out of their uniforms, which they do as often as possible in this pre-code film. Seriously, the cost of lingerie must have been one of the largest line items in the budget. Also, a moustache-less Clarke Gable has a small part as a villainous gangster/chaffeur who punches Stanwyck's lights out (off camera).

Night Nurse allowed me to shut off my brain and soak up some cathode rays, and for that I thank it. But I can't otherwise recommend it unless you're hankering to see a very young Barbara Stanwyck in a bra and half-slip. Which, come to think of it, is a pretty good way to spend 72 minutes.