Nothing Left
To Rant About?

I was going to rant this morning.  Maybe I still will.  It all started to go downhill Thursday, when I found out that my doctor didn't know what brand of diabetes kit I have (I test my blood sugar every other morning to make sure that diet and exercise are still adequate for controlling my system, and they are), and I was going to have to call Liberty's 877 number to order supplies.

I dread calling 800 and 877 (and 866 and all those other nos. of the same type) because of the long holds.

And then when I couldn't call Thursday afternoon, because of an interruption right after I dialled, and when I couldn't call early Friday because Barbara gave me a chore to do that would ultimately take five hours to finish, I was SURE I was going to have a lot to rant about today.

But then, as suddenly as the weight of the world was crushing me, the weight lifted as first one, then another, turned into a piece of cake instead of a Xanax-requiring bother.

I have NO idea why my doctor, who is otherwise quite competent, screwed up my testing kit requirements.  This started a week ago yesterday, when I innocently drove to her office and asked for a fresh supply of test strips.  Her nurse handed me a vial, and when I got home the test strips I'd just been given did not fit my testing machine.

Since, as I said, my blood sugar is well under control, I didn't feel any rush to correct the situation.  I can go without testing for a week or two, or even a month or two, with no worries.  So I put it all on the back burner of my brain.

And oh by the way, on that same trip to the doctor's office, I called the staff's attention to the fact that my cholesterol drug prescription needed the doc's approval for a refill, and they would be getting a fax from the pharmacy.  They nodded that they understood, but the refill got screwed up anyway, and I had to first get an emergency refill of three days' supply, until I had time to go by the pharmacy again on Thursday to get the rest of the prescription.

At that time, the pharmacist asked if I wanted my lancet refill that the doctor ordered.  "I don't need lancets," I told him.  "But I do need strips.  How did she know that I needed strips?  I haven't told her yet that her staff gave me the wrong strips."  "Well, she ordered you a refill of everything, so what brand of tester do you have?" replied the pharmacist.  "All I know is 'Liberty,'" I said.  "That's the company's name," he said.  "Well, that's all I know," I said.  "I'll go home and get the kit and come back."

So I went home, let the dogs out, waited for them to potty, left a note for Barbara who hadn't yet come home from work, and went back to the pharmacy.  "We don't carry the right brand of strips," they said after they saw my contraption.  "You'll have to call Liberty."

So I got home and tried calling, and just then Barbara was getting home, so I abandoned the effort.

Yesterday morning (next day, that is) we went out to breakfast and Barbara asked me to go online at the library (because they have scanning equipment and I don't) and submit an anniversary notice for Rita and Art and the local newspaper (Press-Journal) had a firm policy that all notices HAD to be accompanied by a picture and that the picture HAD to be scanned by the submitter and there was no other way to get the notice in the paper.

So, hoping that I'd have time to call Liberty's 877 number later, I went to the library and found out that I didn't remember my user name so I had to get a new password via my home email.

This was almost a good thing because I had to go home anyway to get my annuity check that should have been deposited last May but my bank routing number got changed and last May I had to make A TOTAL OF EIGHT 800 calls to various agencies that either automatically deposit or automatically withdraw, and the annuity company's check didn't get deposited that month, which I never knew about until I got a letter from them asking what I wanted to do about receiving my money and I said send a check to my home address and I'll deposit it, so good, I went home from the library to find out my Press-Journal user name AND get my check so I could go to the bank (actually my broker's office) and deposit it.

Oh, by the way, I forgot to say that Barbara also wanted the notice placed in the Home Town News and when I tried to call them Friday morning, the phone seemed to have been disconnected, which made me think that the Home Town News has gone out of business.  I wrote down their address anyway and so on my way back to the library I was going to go to my broker, then the Home Town News, before seeing if I could figure out how to use the library's scanner so I could get Rita and Art's anniversary notice in the Press-Journal as well as the Home Town News.

Oh, by the way, I forgot to say that while I was home I called the Press-Journal and found out that I could submit the information and include a note that a picture was to follow, only to find out two things:  they REQUIRED information about Rita and Art that I did not know (where they got married 25 years ago, for instance), and that the photo was required with the original submission, which isn't what the Press-Journal person told me.  So before going to the broker, Ispent an unproductive hour at Rita's house as we tried to use HER scanner except after the picture was scanned, we couldn't find where it was on the computer.  And there was a whole lot of time reconnecting wires (which I don't know how to do) trying to use first Art's, and then Rita's, computer.  So after a while we gave up and I went to my broker's office.

All of a sudden, things started to break my way.

My broker's office is moving across town.  I did not know this.  Friday was their last day at the old place.  I got there JUST IN TIME!  Imagine how I'd have felt if they'd already moved and I would have to wait how many days before getting my check deposited.

From there I decided to drive by the Home Town News office and lo and behold they were open!  I told them I'd tried calling earlier and Julie said the phone wasn't working in the morning.  Then, when I said I'd like to get an announcement of Rita and Art's 25th anniversary in the paper, Julie said sure (if, that is, her paper was still printing such notices, which she wasn't sure of) and when I showed her the picture I had, she said she'd be happy to scan it.  And when I told her about the Press-Journal problem, Julie emailed what she'd scanned to my home computer so I didn't even have to go back to the library!

The day turned out to be a pretty good one, after all.

Sure glad I didn't have to rant.

The Funniest Obituary
I Ever Read

It's only fitting, since the humor is based on the greatest sitcom episode I ever saw, and by the way, there's fairly wide agreement that "Chuckles Bites the Dust," from the old "Mary Tyler Moore Show," was one of the all-time great episodes ever written and performed.

The author of that half-hour, David Lloyd, has died.  Here is that obituary, written by Bruce Weber for the New York Times.

David Lloyd, 75, Dies;
Wrote 'Chuckles' Episode

by BRUCE WEBER

David Lloyd, who wrote scores of scripts for some of the most popular television sitcoms of the 1970s, '80s and '90s -- including the memorable Chuckles the Clown episode of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," which was revered by comedy connoisseurs for wringing belly laughs from a funeral -- died Tuesday at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif.  He was 75.

David Lloyd

The cause was prostate cancer, which was diagnosed 21 years ago, his son Christopher said.

Mr. Lloyd was an astonishingly productive writer by series television standards, not only generating scripts on his own but also working with other writers to doctor scripts in trouble.  In addition to "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," for which he had credits on more than 30 episodes between 1973 and 1977, Mr. Lloyd wrote for, among other shows, "The Bob Newhart Show," "Lou Grant," "Rhoda," "Phyllis," "The Tony Randall Show," "The Associates," "Taxi," "Dear John," "Amen," "Wing," "Cheers" and "Frasier."

In a trade where some are strongest in writing jokes and repartee, others in building characters and still others in shaping stories, Mr. Lloyd was gifted across the board.

"His own work was always in great shape, and he was very helpful on other people's scripts," said Bob Ellison, who worked with Mr. Lloyd on "Mary Tyler Moore," "The Bob Newhart Show" and others.  "He lit up the writer's room when he came in.  And that's a big part of the job, bringing the room to life, resuscitating it."

He was also the creator of the series, "Brothers," which ran for several seasons in the 1980s on the cable network Showtime after being rejected by broadcast networks because a main character was gay.

"He was maybe the most highly respected television comedy writer of all time, and very likely the most prolific," said Les Charles, a producer of "Cheers," "Taxi" and "Frasier," among other shows.   "He was the first writer we asked to write for "Cheers.'"  He added:  "You get an episodic writer to give you four or five shows a season, that's tremendous.  David would do 10 or 12."

His enduring reputation was made relatively early in his career, two years into his tenure at "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," on Oct. 25, 1975, when "Chuckles Bites the Dust" was broadcast.  The series, which was set in a television newsroom in Minneapolis, starred Ms. Moore as Mary Richards, an earnest news producer; Edward Asner as her boss, Lou Grant; Ted Knight as the self-admiring nitwit of a news anchor, Ted Baxter; and Gavin MacLeod as the news writer, Murray Slaughter.

In the episode, Ted is invited to be the grand marshal of a circus parade, but Lou forbids it as undignified.  Ted's replacement is Chuckles the Clown, the host of a children's show on the same television station.  But on the day of the parade, Lou rushes into the newsroom, stunned, and explains that Chuckles, who attended the parade dressed as one of his characters, Peter Peanut, had been crushed to death.  As Lou explains it, "a rogue elephant tried to shell him."

For the remainder of the episode the newsroom denizens deal with the shock of the death by joking about it.  Mary finds this distasteful, but at the funeral, when the priest leading the service lists Chuckles's silly-sounding characters (Mr. Fe Fi Fo was one) and recites his catchphrase, "A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants," Mary can't keep herself from guffawing.

At the height of her embarrassment, the priest tells her to let it all out, that Chuckles would have approved of her laughter.  At that point, Mary burst into tears.

The hilarity derived from Mary's discomfort (and Ms. Moore's boffo rendering of a woman in full squirm), but the power of the episode was Mr. Lloyd's exploration of how people deal with shock over a death, by deflecting it with humor or stifling it with somberness.

The episode won Mr. Lloyd an Emmy Award, became legendary among Hollywood script writers and was named by TV Guide this year as the third-best episode of any show in television history.  (The Top 2 came from "Seinfeld" and "The Sopranos.")

David Gibbs Lloyd was born in Bronxville, N.Y., on July 7, 1934.  His father, H. Wilson Lloyd, worked in public relations and advertising but was also a songwriter and humorist who passed on the show business gene to his son.

David Lloyd graduated from Yale and thought about entering drama school afterward, but enlisted in the Navy instead.  He was a schoolteacher before landing jobs in television, writing monologues for Jack Paar, Johnny Carson and Dick Cavett.  He moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s after a friend, Ed. Weinberger, a writer and producer for "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," suggested he write a script on spec for the show.  He did, and sold it.

Betty White, Gavin MacLeod, Ed Asner, Ted Knight, George Engel, Mary Tyler Moore 
(clockwise, from lower left)

Mr. Lloyd is survived by his wife, Arline, whom he married in 1958; a sister, Sally; two daughters, Julie and Amy; and three sons, Douglas, Christopher and Stephen, the last two of whom are television writers.  Christopher Lloyd said that his father's wit and restless intelligence created an intellectually competitive household that was especially focused on what was funny.

"And now I've learned myself that that's what the writers' room is like," he said.  "That's the environment he thrived in."

***************************************************************

Blasts From the Past

Nov. 13, 2004 A little-commented-on post that deserved wider readership.  Can I call 'em or can I call 'em?

Nov. 13, 2008 A concert and a movie.

Warning

If you don't want your crossword solving fun spoiled, and you're planning on doing today's Thursday puzzle in the New York Times later today,

READ NO FURTHER.

On second thought, skip down to the Blasts From the Past.  They are more interesting than the crossword puzzle anyway.

This was as hard a Thursday puzzle as I've seen in a very very long time.  I filled in maybe a half dozen answers, and then felt totally stumped.  After I worked out the theme, however, it proved to be smooth sailing.

For those who like their puzzles easy,  here is a LOT of help:

The theme answers are as follows:

Diamond Jim Brady

Diamond Head

A Diamond Is Forever

Neil Diamond

Baseball Diamond

Now go enjoy the puzzle.  And if you want to join my friends at the New York Times wordplay blog -- click on the link and enjoy the party.  I hope the link works for you.  The Times website has been having some problems and I can't access it from the office computer.  I won't be able to visit the site until I get to my home computer later in the day.

****************************************************************** 

Blasts From the Past

Nov. 12, 2004 I debated with myself whether to link this controversial entry, but a comment by symbolreader influenced the decision.  I guess it's a good way to find out who my friends really are.  But I really should say that I was overwhelmed just now to see how supportive were ALL the commenters, not just symbolreader.

Nov. 12, 2005 Back online after a 20-day absence due to Hurricane Wilma.  It will take me a while to read through the 45 comments -- including long-goners such as Lisa_Zaran.  Anyone know what happened to her?

Nov. 12, 2006 A dream I don't remember having.  Sure glad I blogged about it though.  I guess.

Nov. 12, 2007 A Master Naturalist Conference.  I sure do miss those things.  And by the way I said "Naturalist" not "Naturist."

Nov. 12, 2008 The Yes. We. Did. Party -- I think that says it all.

The Margie Chronicles

I don't know where my head was yesterday when I wrote that My Little Margie, the miniature poodle who came here as a foster pet less than a week ago, was on her way back to our friend's house and thence on to a more permanent dwelling.  Permanent Dwellings R Us.

I also don't know where my head was at when I wrote that it would be nearly a thousand years from 12/11/10 when we would have another configuration like yesterday (11/10/09).  A mere 90 years is more like it.  Feb. 1, 2100.  02/01/00.  Of course, as my_final_username pointed out yesterday, in Great Britain yesterday's date is written 10/11/09 so for the Brits, never mind.

Back to Margie.  I never had a chance.

Barbara took her to the groomer's, then brought her to the hospital, where four of my coworkers got a load of how adorable she was and couldn't believe I didn't want to keep her.  One potential adopter emerged, giving me the confidence to stand firm.  "At least she'll have a good, loving home," I was able to say.

At dinnertime, the conversation went like this:

Barbara:  I want to keep her.

Bob:  But Tom's willing to take her.  At least she'll have a good, loving home.

Barbara:  I want to keep her.

Bob:  We agreed to discuss this.  Now we're discussing it.

Barbara:  I want to keep her.

That pretty much ended the conversation.  It's all in the tone of voice.

I never had a chance.

Blasts From the Past

Nov. 9, 2005 I've been asleep at the Blasts switch for a few days.  Recently (as in here in 2009), posts have been popping up titled "What Xanga Means to Me."  I'll be doing one of those soon, methinks.  In the meantime, this particular Blast, from 2005, is another case of LittleEgypt bailing me out while I had connection problems post-hurricane.  There are strong inferences here about what Xanga meant to me back then.  That is still the case.

Nov. 9, 2006 The links don't all work, so be warned.

Nov. 9, 2007 Car trouble?  Not so much.

Nov. 9, 2008 Xanga drama?  It's a reach.  Goodbye and farewell, TA.

Nov. 10, 2006 Oh, great.  Now I have to research the 2006-7 college football season to find out how right I was.

Nov. 11, 2006 If you click on this one, you'll be treated to a quotation on optimism that is worth remembering.

Today is 11/10/09

In 366 days, it will be 12/11/10.  And then we'll have to wait nearly a thousand years for a similar configuration.  March 2, 3001, to be exact, when it will be 3/2/01.

Other Random Stuff

Margie
Steelers/Broncos

Margie

I don't want my readers to have conniptions over this, but Margie just might be given back to Dr. Nancy and we'll be saying, "Find a home for her.  We can't handle this."  She's lovable and cute, but I just can't abide all of the annoyances associated with puppyhood.  This is a very hard thing for a dog lover to say.

This was originally supposed to be a joint foster care arrangement -- a few days a week -- until a permanent home could be found.  As fond of her as we've become, Barbara and I are on the same page.  But stay tuned.

Steelers/Broncos

My Steelers were dominant over a team that as recently as nine days ago, was undefeated.  But the Broncs have lost two in a row now, including getting creamed by a team (the Ravens) that couldn't even beat the Bengals.  I can't believe I just said that.  The Bengals are good this year, after a decade of doormat practice.  Big game next week:  Steelers vs. Bengals.