Monday, November 29, 2010
Now that I have some time to date...
So I'm taking a week off from the gym to rest and recalibrate. I'm sure my rotator cuffs are in bliss right as a result. This has created some free time in my schedule which would theoretically allow for some social activities. Combine this new free time with the fact that since I am not training everyday I can also allow myself to imbibe, the only thing missing from a few casual dates are the dates themselves. So help spread the word folks, I am available for a limited time only.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Ingrid Pitt dies
One of the most seductive vampires in movie history has died. Ingrid Pitt, best-known for starring in Hammer horror films of the '70s like Countess Dracula and The Vampire Lovers, passed away in London at the age of 73. I was introduced to her talents in the 1973 original version of The Wicker Man, MUCH better and creepier than the awful 2006 remake with Nicholas Cage.The Polish-born star spent years in a Nazi concentration camp as a child. She survived the war but was forced to flee East Berlin the night of her planned stage debut. She dove into the River Spree and was saved by an American GI whom she later married. Fans called her the "first lady of horror" and she relished the title, always preferring to be cast as predators instead of innocent victims. See obit here.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Winters coming, followed by Arlene Francis!
Soaring Flight And in advance of it's onset I've been spending a lot of time in the garden cleaning up leaves from this season and prepping for spring. Last year at this time I was widening flower beds and adding hostas, the previous year I'd ripped out the front lawn and replaced it with a bed of bulbs and vinca.
Darlow's Enigma
The current project is to add more roses. I inherited a few roses form the previous owner when I purchased the house. Of unknown origin and some being in very tricky places for roses to grow, I'm wondering if more than a few had been self seeders. In any event, this time I am doing it right. I've been mapping the garden and picking prime locations. I've prepped all the beds for next spring, spading, loosening and enriching with manure and fertilizer. However, the most fun has been been pouring over rose catalogs with the avidness of a teenage boy and a newly discovered porn stash.
Alchemist
Celebrating the new job and FINALLY being able to refinance I'm allowing myself to splurge . As of last count we're talking 17 rose bushes, mostly antique varieties. The biggest find was tracking down a grower who still offered the Arlene Francis Rose in stock. Bred by Eugene S. 'Gene" Bourner in 1957 and named after the lovely Arlene herself. Alas, is no longer a popular selling variety but you can still acquire one by requesting a cultivated bare root.
Arlene Francis
Arlene Francis.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Nut side up.
Grapefruit, prunes, green peppers, cantaloupe, leaf lettuce, marshmallows AND THEN: "Serve with lemon, French dressing and peanut butter sandwiches, a beverage, and you have a complete meal."
Who it was.
A recent posting over at Stirred, Straight Up With a Twist inspired my latest guessing game, TJB's posting on Evolution, particularly his picture of Patrica Hitchcock(close guess TJB!) got me to thinking about "Strangers on a Train" and Hitchcock's fantastically shot murder of Laura Eliot reflected in the lenses of her fallen glasses.
My Mystery Lady was none other than Kasey Rogers, the actress who played Laura Eliot in Strangers on a Train but probably better known to TV viewing audiences for playing Louise Tate on Bewitched.
Born Josie Imogene Rogers in Morehouse, Missouri on December 15, 1925, she adopted the nickname "Kasey" as a child. At the age of 19. She was literally spotted on the street by a talent scout, and touched base with him again after the birth of her first child. This lead to a screen test and contract at Paramount during the late 1940s.
She really never struggled as an actress, winning a contract and lead role in Special Agent (1949) almost immediately. Kasey worked under the name "Laura Elliot" for Paramount. In addition to Special Agent (1949), she appeared in films including Two Lost Worlds (1951), Silver City (1951), Denver and Rio Grande (1952), and Jamaica Run (1953). With these lead roles, came smaller roles in classic films from the studio including Samson and Delilah (1949) and A Place in the Sun (1951 - uncredited role of Miss Harper) as well as work at other studios. Particularly remembered is her turn as Miriam Haynes (who has a very memorable death scene) in Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951) for Warner Bros.
From the mid-1950s, she guest starred on various TV shows, such as The Lone Ranger, Maverick, Perry Mason, The Restless Gun, and Hawaiian Eye. In 1964, she was cast as Julie Anderson night-time soap opera Peyton Place. She left Peyton Place in 1966, replacing Irene Vernon in the role of Louise Tate on Bewitched. She also returned to the name Kasey Rogers professionally. In 1972, she made her final appearance on Bewitched and appeared in a few more TV shows through the 70s. Later on in life she penned The Bewitched Cookbook: Magic in the Kitchen ( A copy of which I happily own).
Sadly Kasey Rogers passed away in on July 6, 2006.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Luvs me some black eyed peas....
SALAD!!!!
Ingredients- 1 cup dehydrated sun-dried tomatoes
- 2 (15 ounce) cans black-eyed peas, drained
- 1/2 small red onion, chopped
- 1 small green bell pepper, chopped
- 1 (6 ounce) package crumbled feta cheese
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 1 tablespoon honey
- Place sun-dried tomatoes in a small bowl with enough boiling water to cover. Allow to sit 3 minutes, or until softened. Drain, and cut into strips.
- In a medium bowl, mix the sun-dried tomatoes, black-eyed peas, onion, bell pepper, and feta.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, and honey. Drizzle over the salad, and gently toss to coat. Refrigerate 1 hour before serving.
Monday, November 8, 2010
The Fifty Foot woman versus the poisoned supplements
*Written as a presentation to my current Allied Health Sciences students as an example of the need for "Trust" in the health sciences.
Perhaps best remembered today for her starring role in the now cult Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman, Allison Hayes was a talented and beautiful actress whose career and life were cut short all due to a dire prescription of ill regulated supplements
Born Mary Jane Hayes in Charleston, West Virginia, on March 6, 1930, Allison Hayes grew up to become Miss Washington D.C. in 1949. Hayes took jobs in early television in Washington before moving to California in 1953 to begin an acting career. Allison Hayes acted in a string of B movies, along with a few "A" films, from 1954 to 1965. In addition, Hayes made many guest appearances on popular TV programs in the 1950s and 1960s. Always in demand, Hayes' busiest period came in the late 1950s when she was cast in numerous B film roles, such as Gunslinger (1956), The Unearthly (1957), The Disembodied (1957) Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman (1958), and The High Powered Rifle (1960). After 1960, Hayes began taking on more television roles and made films only sporadically thereafter. In her last film, she appeared alongside Elvis Presley in Tickle Me (1965). Hayes is featured in the beginning of Tickle Me as a drunken bar patron who lunges as Elvis as he performs. Viewers will note that she looks thin and gaunt in this, her only scene in the film. For years, Hayes had taken a doctor-prescribed calcium supplement with extreme levels of lead---so extreme that she contracted lead poisoning. After the onset of her illness in the mid 1960s, she was simply too ill to work and was housebound for long periods of time.
Sometime in 1962, Allison began seeing Dr. Henry Bieler, on the advice of her close friend, actress Gloria Swanson who had been his patient for many years. From Dr. Bieler’s recommendation and with his prescription, Allison began talking a calcium food supplement daily. Another physician, Dr. William H. Crosby later wrote that the supplement would have done nothing to correct the problem Allison originally went to Dr. Bieler forIn 1964, Allison returned to Dr. Bieler with a variety of complaints. The doctor told her to increase her daily intake of the supplement. By 1967, she had experienced a multitude of symptoms. She was unable to walk without a cane and her career virtually came to an end. Her auburn hair turned black and began to fall out. She had wrist-drop syndrome in her right hand and a constant gnawing sensation across the bridge of her nose. She also became surly. Something she had never been.Her friends were worried. 
She consulted over 20 doctors and endured over 340 X-ray examinations. Most doctors told her that her symptoms were psycho-neurotic. None were able to identify the source of the problems.
In 1968, during hospitalization for a fever, Allison stopped taking the supplement on her own.
Allison herself wrote:
"....as I finally came to see it, I had three options: (1) commit suicide; (2) go to a psychiatrist to attempt to learn to live with the pain accepting the fact that doctors couldn’t diagnose it; or (3) find the answer myself. I called suicide prevention though I was sure I wasn’t going to kill myself. I just wanted someone to tell me it was worth it not to. But I was placed on "hold" and they never came back to the phone. So I laughed and thought, "that’s the end of that!" Then I said to myself, ‘There’s an answer to everything. There has to be an answer! I’m going to find out.’ The question was where do I start?"
First she got copies of her medical records--a process she likened to "pulling teeth." Then Allison enlisted the help of friends who carried her to the medical library at UCLA. Because she had lost the use of her right arm, she sat on the floor making notes with her left hand. The technical books could not be checked out, so she would stay for hours, her friends picking her up sometimes after midnight. While reading a book called Toxicology Of Industrial Metals Allison came across a description of the metal poisoning of factory workers. She writes: "...the descriptions of some of the illnesses fit my own like a glove...ultimately I learned the truth; I had been poisoned!"
Strong words, but true. The lead content as shown by later analysis of the supplement she had taken daily for six years was 190 parts of lead per million. As was later discovered, the supplement was made in England from the bones of horses over 30 years old. Horses that had been sold to glue factories, the older the horse, the higher the lead content of the bones. The supplement had been imported into the US in 500 lb. drums and used in a number of products including baby food! And Dr. Bieler was still prescribing it to his patients!
After contacting a toxicologist (Dr, Karl Schwarz a researcher at Veterans' Hospital in Long Beach) and sending him a sample of the supplement, Allison got a telegram that told her to contact him immediately. Allison writes more: "...the...call came in January, 1970, on a day that was dark and cold and dreary. My first reaction was one of relief. I hadn’t been losing my mind. There was an organic reason for this. Then the anger set in. I’d spent thousands of dollars being bandied about from one specialist to the other with not a few of them baldy implying that my problem was primarily psycho-neurotic...in the end I had to depend on myself to educate the experts."
Allison started a campaign to get the FDA to stop import of the supplement Its lack of interest was based on the official judgment that food supplements were a "gray area." That changed when the FDA wrote: "We are incorporating health food issues into our FY ‘77 and ‘78 compliance programs, including the bone meal and heavy metal matter. Your case is a key stimulus for so doing."
Things do not seem to have improved however, as many substances are still unregulated by the FDA.By then, Allison had begun then dropped a lawsuit again Bieler, when he pleaded for her to. He died soon after. She did win a settlement of $50,000 against the Los Angeles distributor of the supplement in 1970.
Thanksigiving approacheth!
I know that it's is now deemed politically incorrect but I readily admit that I LOVE thanksgiving. It is my favorite Holiday, (seconded only by Easter due to the happy convergence of new clothes, spring bulbs in bloom and white chocolate bunnies) Thanksgiving combines a nice sentiment, family togetherness and a traditionally but fantastic menu without all the uber-pumped expectations of dreaded Christmas soon to follow.
I know that as a Holiday it hideously represents our forefathers and our current society royally screwing the Indians, and here I plead immunity as my forefathers were back in Sicily & Padua harvesting eggplants while all this was going on, but still...
Maybe there is some fitting Justice in the fact that the Indians gave the white Man tobacco and all it's ensuing health problems. Hence this lovely ad which features more cigarettes in five courses than I've smoked in my entire life.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
I'd already been cutting back on my meat intake...
And then this ad came along to further my resolve. Hello beans and quinoa!
