It's a chilly and gloomy morning.  I have to bring in some hanging plants before this evening, and check the covers on my perennials.  I  also plan to go grocery shopping for my son's 32nd birthday lunch on Sunday.  

Last knit as I was knitting on my loom, I realized that i spend a large percentage of my life watching classic movies on TCM.  I also thought about how long I've preferred the old black and whites..since I was a kid...over 50 years.  I had a crush on John Garfield, Cary Grant, Nelson Eddy, and Clark Gable(before I saw him in gone with the wind).  I also enjoyed John Wayne but I didn't appreciate him till I was a teenage.  I was crying when Clark Gable died, and my father asked me why.  I told because he didn't stay alive long enough for me to marry him.(and I was in elementary school!)  I use to rush home from school to watch the classic movie on tv before supper.  And in the summer and on weekends, I would stay up until the late show was on with more classic movies.  I remember running upstairs to cry when Robert Mitchum died in a car crash in the movie because I didn't want my parents to see me crying.  I kept most of my crushes to myself.
As I grew I discovered Bogart, Jimmy Stewart, James Cagney and George Sanders, Walter Pidgeon, and others. I wanted to grow up and be just like Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn.  Now, Id like to be like Greer Garson and Irene Dunne.  My sense of whom I'd like to be like has really changed over the years.  And, I have so many favorite movies now, that it is hard to say which is THE favorite...but I decided it is the one I would watch every time it is shown.  I'm not a huge fan of silent movies, but some of them have such great special effects for the time, and beautiful music, that I wind up watching them if I'm home alone.  And, you have to watch the,  With "talkies", I can knit, read and do other things while they are on....especially if I know most of the dialogue.

When I was in high school, I got the best Christmas present of my life.....tickets to go see Gone With The Wind in the theater.  My mother got them for me and my boy friend.  She made a beautiful sapphire blue- velvet dress for me to wear.  It was a very cold winter night, but nothing could dampen my excitement.  There is nothing like seeing GWW on a big screen.  We had loge seats in the balcony of the theater and when the movie was over, I sat there for a while crying. I couldn't stand it that Scarlett was refusing to take back Rhett.  Well, I told my boy friend as we strolled back home that I believed he would never be able to stay away from her because he loved her too much.  He just chuckled at me. He'd never seen anyone cry over a movie before!

As I've aged, these movies have been a link to my childhood, and teen years.  I search the internet for trivia.  As I've aged, I've become a huge fan of some character actors who have made 50+ movies.
  It amazes how many movies I"ve seen them in , yet have  never learned their names till I reached my 50's.  And, after you watch enough of their movies, and note the studies, you get a real feel for the studio system....the constant  repeat of the same group of actors for each studio. 
 I look forward to  hearing more information on TCM from Robert Osborne and other members of their staff.  My husband make a game out of asking each other actors' or movies' names, and who starred, and what else were the actors in...what line was said by whom.

BOOKS!  I can't get enough..whether printed or on my NOOK.  I had to stop saving them all...but I have kept very special series or some by my favorite authors.  I will save that for another time. Just heard two sirens drive by, and my cats are banging on the back door to come in.  They go on the enclosed patio to watch the birds, squirrels, and other critters that come into our yard.  They are an early warning system...they back on the door when a siren goes by, or a vehicle comes up the driveway. So, I have to forgive them for not learning to bark.  lol