I always forget how much I like The Philadelphia Story until I see it. It was on the local PBS station last night and I couldn't resist watching. The only thing I don't like about the movie is at the end I want her to end up with both guys.

The Thursday Threesome

Onesome. The Good. Read a good book lately? Recommend a recent read - as well as your favorite book of all time. The last book I finished was "The Talbot Odyssey." It was a real page-turner and very thought-provoking. My favorite book of all time is "Gone With the Wind." I like to read it again every few years.

Twosome. The Bad. Was it so bad that you couldn't watch anymore? Tell us about a bad movie - did you leave or suffer through it? The worst movie I ever saw in a theater was that Harrison Ford/Anne Heche fiasco. Six Days and Seven Nights or Seven Days and Six Nights or some such thing. I hated it so much I'm not even going to waste my time looking up the correct name. I remember looking at my watch to get an idea if it might be over soon and being stunned to learn I'd been watching it for only a little less than 30 minutes. I didn't leave though. I kept thinking to myself "Harrison Ford's in it. It's got to get better soon." It never did.

Threesome. And The Ugly. And then things turned ugly.... Oh, have a day (or date) seem to go so horribly wrong it can only be described as "ugly"? Tell us all about it. I've been sitting here thinking about this one for quite a little while. There have been events that have been ugly, but never really entire days. It wasn't too long ago that I wrote about the date from hell/boyfriend from hell or something like that, so I don't want to do that again. But August 20, 1999, comes to mind. Around noon that day, rain started pouring down really hard. But there was no wind. The clouds weren't moving. They stayed over the area and the rain just kept falling and falling and falling. Around 1 p.m. my now-ex-husband came home from running some errands, told me East Main Street was flooded more than usual and part of it was blocked off so he couldn't get to the bank to deposit his check. But he said it looked really cool and asked if I wanted to go take a look. I did. We figured we'd also take an alternate route to the bank. By the time we got there (5 minutes later) the street was like a raging river and more water was flowing hard and heavy off the hills/side streets. We went home. Fast. Our basement had already started flooding. The ex started freaking out. I started freaking out because I wanted to go to work. It was my day off, but I knew I should be there because in a natural disaster there are always more stories to write, more people to talk to, more things that have to be done. But the ex was freaking so badly that I didn't dare leave. The ex and a neighbor started using buckets to get the water out of the basement, but it was coming in too fast for them to keep up and it was inching toward the fuse box. There had been reports on the radio saying that if you needed your electricity turned off, call the fire department. I did. Several times. They finally showed up about the time the rain stopped. But after the rain stopped, I would have thought the ex would calm down a bit. But no. That's not how his paranoid schizophrenic mind works. During the couple weeks leading up to the flood, he'd been digging in the backyard, which is adjacent to a wooded hill that is part of a national forest. For more than an hour he insisted that he was going to get arrested for (and this is an actual charge in Pennsylvania. I don't know if it is in other places.) risking a catastrophe. In his mind, he thought it was his digging that caused the entire city and surrounding areas to flood. Somehow I got him calmed down enough to call his foster mother who is a minister. She prayed with him and that seemed to help for a while. Until we decided to go get some food before cleaning up what we could and assessing the damage. Since we didn't get to the bank, we didn't have any cash on hand, or food, and now all branches of our bank were inaccessible, so we couldn't use an ATM. So we decided to go the grocery store where we had a check cashing card and get something from the deli. As we drive down that street, we see all kinds of bags, boxes and cans of food all along the side of the road. We get to the grocery store parking lot and see yellow caution tape. The roof of the building caved in from the weight of the water. So, the ex starts freaking again thinking the grocery store owners are going to sue him because he started the flood. Somehow I calmed him down yet again and managed to get him to help me dig through the car for any loose change we could find. We found enough to buy sandwiches, chips and soda at the closest convenience store. (All the fast food places were closed.) So, we get home. Eat. Talk. Listen to the radio. Find out just how much the initial damage estimates are. I try reasoning with him to make him realize he didn't cause the flood. It actually worked that time. But just about the time we were going to try to get some sleep and put off everything else til morning, it started raining again. But even though it was just light sprinkles, he started freaking again. I couldn't deal with it anymore. I fell asleep on the couch. He stayed up all night watching the rain.

Christy's HumpDayHump

1) Would you say you had a good childhood or a bad childhood? What made it so either way? All things considered, I think I had a good childhood. We spent a lot of family time together. We went on several cool family vacations. My parents bought me just about everything I asked for (not everything I wanted; just what I asked for. I knew they had limits.) My dad was an alcoholic, so my mom did whatever she could to be a great mom to, I think, looking back, balance it all out. I also have an aunt who took me to Europe and who I used to spend a couple weeks with every summer in the Philly suburbs. Before high school, when most kids are friends with only the kids in their own neighborhoods, we all had a great time together. We were all friends with each other and looked out for each other.

2) Were you the athlete, the brain, the princess, the criminal, or the basket case? (stereotypes direct from the end of the Breakfast Club) Hmmm? I'd say I was a combination of the brain and the basket case with, weirdly enough, a little bit of the princess thrown in.

3) Did you attend a private school or a public school? If private, were there uniforms involved? Private Catholic school. We didn't have to wear uniforms, per se, but the girls had to wear dresses or skirts (no more than an inch above the knee, thank you very much) and the boys had to wear ties and couldn't wear jeans.

4) Favorite teacher in elementary and secondary schools? Why were they your favorites? In elementary school I liked all my teachers except Mrs. Grady (1st grade) and Miss Finno (5th grade). Oh yeah, and Mrs. Knupp (3rd grade). But I guess Mrs. Caruso (4th grade) was my favorite because she was a history and science buff. We got to do all kinds of science experiments. Each day started off with current events. I liked that a lot. And she didn't talk down to us. Mrs. Brown (6th grade) was cool because she took her role of getting us ready for junior high very seriously. But still, she let us be kids. She also read to us if we got our work done early enough. She introduced me to "Harriet the Spy." In high school, I'd have to say Sister Christine. She was my communications media teacher (and English for one year) and the advisor for the school paper. She encouraged me to follow my dreams.

Thanks Christy!

what kitchen utensil are YOU?

I've lived in California for 11+ months and haven't felt an earthquake. But what happens in the northeast today? An earthquake. And yes, people where I used to live in Pennsylvania felt it. Weird, isn't it?

The Friday Five

1. What's your favorite TV show and why? "Six Feet Under" because it's so different from anything else that's on. The characters are so quirky and interesting. Also, just when you think you have something figured out concerning something in a character's life, the story takes a different turn or they do something completely opposite of what you thought was going to happen. This is a bit sick and wrong, but I also like seeing how the person at the beginning of the show is going to die.

2. Who is your favorite television star? I don't know if I have a favorite television star. There's really no one that I have to see every week. But if I have to choose, I guess I'll say Steven Van Zandt.

3. What was your favorite TV show as a child? It was a tie between "The Brady Bunch" and "The Partridge Family." I also really liked "Starsky and Hutch."

4. What show do you think should have been cancelled by now? "Law and Order." Hasn't it been on since the late '60s or something? It sure seems like it. Seriously, during the first few seasons I loved it. For a while it was my favorite show. But now it's like it's the same thing over and over.

5. What new show do you hope escapes the axe this season? "George Lopez." Does that count even though it just started a few weeks ago? The episode with Sandra Bullock had me laughing so hard! Even the shows without her were funny though. I hope ABC gives it a chance and keeps it around.

I had a bad anxiety attack last night, shortly after I laid down to sleep so I'm feeling a little slow and out of it today. It seems the anxiety attacks are coming closer together and are getting worse. I used to have them every couple of months or so, and it was usually related to PMS. Now, I'm not sure what's causing them. But last night was bad. Besides feeling as if I wanted to jump out of my skin, I had itches in places I just couldn't scratch effectively, like in and around my eyes and ears and in between my fingers and toes. It felt as if spiders were crawling all over me. Also, when the fan blew on my face I felt as if it was sucking my breath away. But I couldn't keep the fan off because I'd get too hot. I kept tossing and turning, trying to get into a comfortable position. I wanted to get online and blog about it, but I didn't think I could sit still long enough to write. I don't think I could have put together a coherent sentence at that point anyway. I don't know what time I finally fell asleep, but I remember birds singing.

Saturday Scruples

1. a close friend will be interviewed for a job with your employer. he asks you for a list of the questions in advance. do you supply it? No. I would tell him what the job entails, what's expected of him, etc. to help him prepare for the interview. But giving him a list of questions in advance would be cheating.

2. you work for an optical store. jimmy has broken his glasses and his parents are agonizing over the price of replacements. a competitor is selling identical glasses for half-price. do you send jimmy's parents there? It would depend on how I felt about Jimmy's parents. If I had a good feeling about them. First I'd talk to my boss and tell him about the competitor's prices, hoping he'd lower our price. If that didn't work, I'd suggest Jimmy's parents shop around for a better price but I wouldn't actually send them to the competitor.

3. you are a reporter. the family of a murder victim has refused your requests for picture and interview. your editor demands that you keep calling them. do you? This, folks, is one of the myriad reasons I'm no longer working for a newspaper. Sometimes editors forget sources for stories are people -- with emotions. The last thing these people need is for some reporter digging around in their personal lives. It doesn't matter if it's the family of a murder victim or a small business owner whose store is closing or someone who was harassed by a rogue cop. If they don't want to talk, they don't want to talk. Reporters who push too hard and are willing to do anything to get a story are the people who give reporters a bad name. I wouldn't want someone hounding me like that. What makes other reporters think the people they're trying to interview are any different? Anyway, to answer the question: What I would do is call them one last time, make sure they have my name, phone number and e-mail address and tell them I'm ready to listen when they're ready to talk. A lot of editors wouldn't be happy with that (in my experience, anyway), so I would try to talk to the victim's friends, people he worked with, etc. Usually you can find someone who will talk. If the editor still wasn't happy, I'd quit.

The Friday Five

1. What is your favorite restaurant and why? This changes a lot, but lately it's been the 24/7 Truckstop that's close to our new house. The food is awesome! We went to their breakfast buffet last week and left absolutely stuffed. The biscuits and gravy were so yummy. The first time we went, Shell and I got the dinner buffet and it was pretty yummy, too. As anyone knows, you find the best food at truckstops. And ... you don't have to get dressed up.

2. What fast food restaurant are you partial to? It's a tie between Subway and Arby's. Subway always tastes so good. But sometimes ya just gotta have Arby's curly fries.

3. What are your standards and rules for tipping? I haven't left a tip since I've been here (Nick takes care of that) but I used to be a really good tipper. If the service was just okay, meaning the server did his/her job but didn't do anything extra I'd leave about 24%. (Why 24? As far as I know, a standard tip is 20% of the bill. Pennsylvania sales tax is 6% so I'd just multiply the tax by 4.) If the server went out of his/her way in any way, was pleasant, attentive but not annoying or any number of intangible things, I'd leave more than the 24 %, depending on the service. (I once left a 50% tip. I've never had a better waitress. I think she was the queen of waitresses.) If the service sucks, however, I'd just leave a dollar. But I always leave a tip, no matter how bad the service is. I learned while working in restaurants that if a customer doesn't leave a tip, the server may just think they forgot. But if you leave a buck for a $30 meal, they might start thinking about how much they sucked. Of course the server could just think you're a cheap bastard, but so what? He/she is a lousy server.

4. Do you usually order an appetizer and/or dessert? Not usually, but we tend to order dessert more than we order appetizers. But there's one restaurant, Mexicali, where we order guacamole for an appetizer. It's so good! (Well, it was both times I was there anyway.)

5. What do you usually order to drink at a restaurant? Usually Diet Coke/Pepsi or Sprite/Sierra Mist. Sometimes coffee or iced tea. We've been talking about going to Mexicali and ordering margaritas though. mmmmmm

Thanks Heather!

Nick's on the phone with his father. I don't know what they're talking about, but Nick just told me that his dad said some of the people at Wal-mart are so stupid they probably couldn't tell you where their feet are. .... We cracked up!