It feels like the seasons jumped right from winter to summer this week across Illinois with highs 90°-95° and heat indices around 100°!
Yuck, is it fall yet? 🙂
Have a fantastic weekend and thank you for taking the time to check out my random thoughts.
Oh, Happy Friday the 13th!
THE PANDEMIC AND COVID TESTING
The COVID-19 pandemic is still with us. We’re seeing another surge in infection rates and deaths.
Since masks and mandates are coming down, there’s still one change I hope happens soon.
I want the Biden administration and the CDC to drop its mandatory testing for American citizens returning from foreign countries by air. Currently, you have to have a negative COVID test one day before returning to the U.S.
This is from the State Department’s website: “The order relates to boarding a U.S.-bound aircraft and is meant to protect and preserve human life, as well as prevent further transmission of a highly contagious and often deadly virus.”
This made more sense early in the pandemic when there were more uncertainties and no vaccine.
But, it doesn’t make sense to me now that foreign travelers have to go through the expense of being tested before returning. (Last October, it cost me 10 Euros in Greece and $40 in Costa Rica in April to be tested.)
This is silly because people can travel freely on domestic flights in the U.S. without being tested and this could just as easily transmit the “highly contagious and often deadly virus”.
Drop the testing policy now for Americans traveling internationally and just bring back the flight mask mandates!
I’ll still be wearing mine! Your thoughts?
MY COSTA RICA SOUVENIR
While I’ve been back from my spring trip to Costa Rica for over a month, I finally have the souvenir I bought myself on display.
It’s now part of my memorable mementos’ wall in my bedroom — my photo with President Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter and with Hillary Clinton; the Moulin Rouge in Paris where I turned 50 at midnight sipping champagne sitting at the stage; one of my all-time favorite meals at Benny The Fisherman in Tel Aviv; and Tel Aviv and the Mediterranean from Old Jaffa, which I visited during the same birthday trip to Paris.
SHOCKED AND NOT SHOCKED…
When it was announced that Naomi Judd, of the iconic country music duo The Judds, died at the age of 76 at the end of April, it sounded suspicious. In the back of my mind, I suspected suicide because she had battled mental illness for years.
On Thursday, her daughter, actress Ashley Judd, told Diane Sawyer on “Good Morning America” that Naomi did take her own life. What shocks me is it was from a self-inflicted gunshot wound!
May is “Mental Health Awareness Month”. If you (or someone you know) are overwhelmed and thinking of taking your life, please make this call and talk!
FREE PREMIUM CABLE
Recently, I had free premium channels from my cable company, so I was able to watch “The Flight Attendant” and other series and a movie to take advantage of the free week!
“THE WHITE LOTUS”
If you need to recharge, but you can’t get away or don’t want to spend the money, there are two series you can check out covering relaxation (and drama) — one in Hawaii and the other in California.
The six episode HBO series, “The White Lotus” was interesting.
A group of Americans arrive in Hawaii and they bring all their drama with them. Geez, after watching this series, I really feel for those in the hotel industry!
While the series was great, there were only two likeable characters — a guest and one employee! Jake Lacy and Sydney Sweeney successfully make their characters very unlikeable! 🙂
Out Australian actor Murray Bartlett (“Looking” and the Netflix revival of “Tales of the City” in 2019) was incredible as hotel manager Armond. While dealing with the guests, he falls off the wagon after being “clean” for years.
And, when he falls off, some very interesting things happen. One scene was totally incredible (adult) and the other was nasty (yet, the person it’s directed at totally deserved it)!
Bartlett and Jennifer Coolidge both won the Critics’ Choice Television Awards for Best Supporting Actor and Actress in a Limited Series or Movie made for Television, respectively. Both were also nominated by the Screen Actors Guild.
I expect both to get Emmy nominations in July!
“The White Lotus” was renewed as an anthology series and Jennifer Coolidge will reprise her role as Tanya McQuoid in “The White Lotus: Sicily”.
GRADE: B
“NINE PERFECT STRANGERS”
This eight episode Hulu series is based on the book by Liane Moriarty (“Big Little Lies”).
While my girl crush Nicole Kidman was great (when isn’t she?), the standouts I expect to get Emmy nominations are Melissa McCarthy, Bobby Cannavale, and Regina Hall.
And, I was totally mesmerized by Manny Jacinto as Yao and I wished he had a larger role.
After watching the series, I read the book. Both were enjoyable, but neither were “Big Little Lies”!
GRADE: B-
“THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT” — THE BOOK
It was a year ago this week that I wrote about Chris Bohjalian’s 2018 bestseller, “The Flight Attendant”, and stated, “it’s incredible.”
I went on to say, “An alcoholic flight attendant wakes up in Dubai after hooking up with a hot man in first class on her flight.
The one night stand or doing the walk of shame would be the least of her problems. She wakes up and the bed is covered in blood! His throat has been slashed and she can’t remember what happened!
Did she do it????”
“THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT” — SEASON ONE
Well, I finally got the watch the first season and it was fantastic. While the book was very bleak, which was fitting with the subject matter, the series took a more comedic-dramatic approach. It worked perfectly.
Kaley Cuoco (“The Big Bang Theory”) was incredible as the alcoholic Cassie Bowden (she’s in denial about being a drunk). And, the men, (soon to be murdered) Alex (Michiel Huisman), Buckley (Colin Woodell), Max (Deniz Akdeniz), and Van (Nolan Gerard Funk) are all beautiful to look at.
And, Zosia Mamet, as Cassie’s best friend and lawyer, was amazing.
The second season is now airing on HBO Max.
GREAT SEEING BANGKOK AGAIN!
While the pivotal murder scene in the book takes place in Dubai, it’s Bangkok, Thailand in the television series.
I was in Bangkok in the spring of 2019 and it was absolutely stunning to see the Chao Phraya River again and the city aglow in lights at night.
The top left photo above is “Wat Arun Ratchawararam Ratchawaramahawihan” (try saying that!), also known as the “Temple of Dawn”, and in the bottom left is Iconsiam, a $1.5 billion mixed-use complex including a high end shopping mall, hotels, and residences.
“FROM HARPER VALLEY TO THE MOUNTAIN TOP”
“Harper Valley P.T.A.” was one of my favorite songs as a kid and it’s still one of my all-time favorites. Recently, I read Jeannie C. Riley’s 1978 autobiography, “From Harper Valley To The Mountain Top”.
Even if it was the late-1970s when the book was published, I was still shocked that she used a quote with the n-word in referencing the blues — a title her father used!!!!
Some of the other things I found interesting about her. I laughed when she talked about not wanting to be noticed one day when she doing something “undercover”, yet she was driving around in a lavender Cadillac. 🙂
Jeannie talked about her own hypocrisy and summed it up, “Not only was I Mrs. Johnson with her miniskirt, but I was philandering Bobby Taylor. I was the widow Jones with her window shades up, I was Shirley Thompson with the nip of gin on her breath. No one was as big a hypocrite as I was. But now, praise God, things are different.”
Jeannie was one of the celebrities welcoming President Jimmy Carter to Nashville in October 1980 at a “Town Hall Meeting” at the Grand Ole Opry House.
“HARPER VALLEY P.T.A.” (JEANNIE C. RILEY) (1968)
In a ranking of my 100 favorite songs in the first era of my life, “Harper Valley P.T.A.” was my #5 song.
“MY LIFE: THE FIRST 35 YEARS”
If you’d like to know the 13 biggest events of my first 35 years and take a walk down memory lane with my 100 favorite songs in those three-and-half decades (1964-1999), just click on the link below.
I had so much fun researching this blog and writing it. Obviously, many of you did, too, since it was one of my most viewed blogs over the past two years.
Click here: https://anthonypeoples.wordpress.com/2020/09/11/my-life-the-first-35-years/
THAT’S IT
With all the craziness in the world, make it the best in your little part of it!
Anthony
What's Peeps Thinking About Now? It's Probably Random! 