June 2026 Message from Tina - June Gems

1.    Last weekend, I stayed in a hotel where my room and my sister’s room were on the same floor. But the numbering was so strange on the sign near the elevator that one day I went looking for her room, ended up back at my own room and knocked on the door, thinking I had found her. I should have used a GPS!
2.    My 70-something girlfriends are all hooked on “Off Campus,” a new series on Prime Video about a men’s college hockey team and the girls they date. My friends insisted I watch the 8-episode season, and I was hooked immediately. I saw the first 7 in one day and then finished up the next morning. I won’t go into detail here (look for my review at the end of the month) but I can just say that women like me, old enough to be the grandmothers of the main characters, are hooked. Lots of cute guys with their shirts off, lots of smoldering looks and more, and great music. Season 2 comes out NEXT YEAR. Damn, that’s too long to wait!
3.    My entire supply of rubber bands comes from bunches of broccoli or grapes in a plastic bag.
4.    With the growing use of GLP 1s for weight loss and health conditions such as diabetes, side effects of these drugs are affecting the users. There’s the usual nausea, diarrhea and constipation, but then there is hair loss. I foresee a future filled with balding, thin old folks like me!
5.    I appreciate the fact that Thomas’ English Muffins come pre-split. I worry that young people might just slice them with a knife and ruin the nooks and crannies.
6.    For someone with no known allergies, I sure sneeze and blow my nose a lot.
7.    There is always that one traffic light that I never get. It always turns red as I approach it. Without fail. I just assume I will have to stop there. If I ever made it through that light, I would plan a parade!
8.    If you are driving the car at the head of the line at the traffic light, you are responsible for moving ahead quickly when the light turns green. It is so frustrating to miss the light because the idiot ahead of you didn’t go as soon as the light changed. 
9.    Whenever I buy something packaged neatly in a box and open it to remove the contents, I’m always surprised how everything I took out fit in that package. Buy a set of sheets or a new phone and just try to get the packing material back into the original box. It’s like clowns getting out of a Volkswagen. How did they fit in there in the first place? You just hope you don’t have to repack the item to return it!
10.    I always have trouble with those plastic containers from the salad bar or from leftovers from a restaurant. I can’t get them to stay closed so the contents won’t spill out, and then I can’t get them to open when I’m ready to eat!
11.    I have bought more than my share of gadgets over the years from infomercials and online ads, and some of them have worked out great. I still have my V-slicer, which is a mandolin for use with vegetables. I could never get it clean enough to suit my standards, so actually I have replaced it twice. I also have my bread knife – appropriately called the “TV Knife,” which still works perfectly after many years. So not all impulse buys are duds after all.
12.    Since I am retired and don’t have to go to work Monday through Friday, there is no reason I can’t change my sheets on, say, a Tuesday or Thursday. But old habits die hard, and changing the sheets remains a weekend chore.
13.    I saw an ad online for Old Navy that boasted “50% off EVERYTHING.” Underneath, in small type, it read, “Exclusions apply.” OK, if it is 50% off everything, that would have to be WITHOUT exclusion. Which is it? There is no truth in advertising.
14.    Considering that my bachelor’s degree is in English, I would think I would do better on the online game Spelling Bee. Sometimes I can’t even get to the “Amazing” level, and I have only achieved “Genius” level twice. I’ve been so bad at it lately that I am worried someone is going to come to my house and take back my graduation diploma!  
15.    I park my car so badly that I am worried about someone showing up to confiscate my driver’s license, too!
16.    I think that once you have grandchildren who get married, you should be classified as old. I don’t have any grandchildren, so I’ll never get old!
17.    As I attempted to lick an envelope to seal it and then realized that there was an adhesive strip for that purpose, it occurred to me that young people today have no experience with having to lick envelopes and stamps to put things in the mail. Christmas cards could make you sick (which happened to George Costanza’s fiancée Susan, who died in a Seinfeld episode from licking the stamps on their wedding invitation). I doubt they use USPS much anyway. 
18.    The nice thing about ordering items online is that by the time they arrive, I have already forgotten what I ordered, so it’s like getting a surprise gift!
19.    When I found a T-shirt online that said, “Back and Body Hurts” in the familiar Bath and Body Works design, I just had to buy it! The folks at my physical therapy place loved it!
20.    There was a woman in the restroom at the gym the other day who was washing her hands so vigorously and for such a long time that I thought she was scrubbing up for surgery.
21.    And why do we call the ladies/men’s room a restroom anyway? Who is in there taking a rest?
22.    My Mercedes just turned a year old and a few of the features that came free with it have now expired, though I can renew them and pay. Most of these I didn’t know I had, and I’m pretty sure I can survive without geofencing, since I don’t know what it is. If the car is stolen, there is a service for that, although calling 911 might just come in handy, too. Apparently, I had a parked vehicle locator, a vehicle tracker and a remote vehicle finder, which sound to me like overlapping services. Maybe the remote starter would have come in handy had I known I had one, but most of the time my car is in the garage, so it is safe and warm. And I wonder what “car to X communications” means. Now I’ll never know, because I will pass on the opportunity to purchase these services I didn’t know I had in the first place!
 

Tina's May 2026 Movies and More

The dirty dozen is presented here for your viewing pleasure. All ratings are on a scale of 1-5 cans of tuna and those entries marked by an asterisk are things I had not seen previously. Numbering picks up from previous months.

44. Out of Africa (1985, Cable TV) – Magnificent Meryl Streep and gorgeous Robert Redford co-star in this beautiful-looking Sydney Pollack movie about a Danish woman trying to create a new life and a coffee plantation in Kenya while living with her part-time husband (Klaus Maria Brandauer). But she is really in love with dashing Denys Finch-Hatton (Redford), who is not a man to be tied down. Everything in this movie is magnificent, from the vistas of Kenya to the sumptuous music, and especially to Redford. In a scene where he washes Meryl’s hair, you can’t help but swoon. I hadn’t seen this one in many years and thoroughly enjoyed it again. 4 cans.
45. An Unmarried Woman (1978, Cable TV) – The late Jill Clayburgh is Erica, a relatively happy housewife who works at an art gallery and still loves her husband (Michael Murphy) after many years of marriage. And then, out of the blue, he breaks down and tells her he has been having an affair and doesn’t love her anymore. She orders him out of the house and tries, with the help of her group of girlfriends and a therapist, to adjust to the fact that she is an unmarried woman who is starting over. Excellent acting and views of New York in the 1970s. 3½ cans.
46. The Devil Wears Prada 2* (2026, Manville Cinema) – Gird your loins, folks, because Miranda Priestly, the Emilys and ever-faithful Nigel are all back in this sequel to the 2006 movie. Meryl Streep’s Miranda is still the doyenne of fashion and still running “Runway,” a magazine that is now mostly an online publication. Andrea Sachs (Anne Hathaway) has spent 20 years in “real” journalism after her stint on the magazine. And Emily (Emily Blunt) has moved to a senior executive position at Dior, which is a sponsor of Runway. Andy is summoned back to the magazine to handle damage control for a major PR issue, so her role is very different from being a second assistant to the impervious and demanding Miranda. Will the owners dump the publication, or will they move Miranda up to be the creative head of the conglomerate that owns it? This was a satisfying sequel to the original, and I can’t believe 20 years have flown by since we first watched them run around in their Jimmy Cho shoes! 3½ cans. 
47. Norma Rae (1979, Cable TV) – Sally Field won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance as the gritty Norma Rae in this movie about an attempt to establish a union in a textile mill in an impoverished Southern town. Generations of employees have worked in the sooty, dusty plant, getting sick and dying. When a union rep (Ron Leibman) comes to town to organize the employees, he has to sell the idea of a union to them. He doesn’t have a lot of credibility with the townfolks, who mistrust the New Yorker in him. But Norma Rae gets it and starts working in her spare time to convince her friends and co-workers at the plant to vote for the union. When she stands on that table holding her hand-drawn “UNION” sign, I still get the chills. 4 cans.
48. Three Days of the Condor (1975, Cable TV) – Robert Redford is Joe Turner, a low-level CIA researcher who goes out to pick up lunch one day and returns to his office to find his entire unit murdered. Why? And is he next? He calls in the incident to his CIA boss (whom he has never met), but he has to communicate with people he doesn’t know and trust with his own safety. He randomly kidnaps a woman (Faye Dunaway) to force her to help him, and soon they are both in danger. This is a tense and intriguing plot, as Turner tries to figure out why his colleagues were killed and by whom. An oldie but a goodie. 3½ cans.
49. Remarkably Bright Creatures* (2026, Netflix) – This heartwarming movie stars Sally Field as Tova, a lonely widow who works as an aquarium cleaner. She has developed a friendship of sorts with Maurice, an octopus (voiced by Alfred Molina) who likes to escape from this tank. She shares her plight with Maurice, being torn between staying in the house she has owned for decades or moving to an assisted living facility. The house houses memories of her loss of her son, and she doesn’t understand what happened to cause his death. Then Cameron (Lewis Pullman) shows up, searching for his biological father, and gets hired at the aquarium to help the injured Tova. They butt heads – she sees him as doing a half-assed job and insists he do things right. The octopus pulls them together even as he faces his own impending demise. 3½ cans. 
50. Cash McCall* (1960, Prime Video) – If you ever wondered what the 60s were like in corporate America, watch this movie. Men are in charge, of course, decked out in their fine business suits and ties, with women only there to be accessories. You can’t forget the name of this movie, because the main character, Cash McCall, who is played by a debonair-looking James Garner, has his name mentioned practically every minute. He is a wheeler-dealer, buying and selling businesses while trying to impress Lory Austen (Natalie Wood), the daughter of a business associate/friend/foe. She wears period-appropriate hats and pointy bras and has met him socially, before he knew her lineage (or did he?). This is NOT a good movie and I won’t urge you to run out and rent it, but sometimes you go into this kind of movie knowing what it is and you enjoy it anyway. Besides, who can resist the charms of James Garner? 3 cans.
51. FDR* (2026, PBS - Netflix) – This 3-part documentary is a comprehensive look at the life and times of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Born into wealth and privilege and a cousin of President Theodore Roosevelt, FDR seemed destined to pursue politics, and he followed in the elder Roosevelt’s footsteps in the positions he held. FDR married distant cousin Eleanor, who bore him six children before he was stricken with infantile paralysis and lost his ability to walk (which apparently did not diminish his taste for other women, as Eleanor found out). His disability was largely shielded from the public and he made appearances standing and walking with crutches, a cane or with his son by his side to bear his weight. He was elected President during the Great Depression in 1932 and had to lead the nation into sustainable recovery. The bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese drew the US into World War II. FDR’s dealings with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill are covered here with plenty of actual footage as well as some dramatizations where actors play the characters.  There is nothing new here, but I thought the documentary put to good use appearances by historians and authors like Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss and others we are accustomed to seeing on PBS. 3½ cans.
52. Hacks, Season 5* (2026, HBO Max) – This wonderful show comes to an end as veteran comedian Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and writer Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder) move to a solid and beautiful friendship after plenty of sparring and mistreating each other for the past 5 years. Deborah, despite being banned from performing, has just pulled off a coup against her former employer and is enjoying the aftermath of an outdoor showstopper of a concert, her way of sticking it to the man. Young writer Ava, who has served as Deborah’s writing partner/muse/opponent/ since the series began, is now her confidant and someone Debroah has grown to trust and love. I don’t want to reveal the plot, so I will just say thank you to the creative team and actors, led by the formidable Jean Smart, for creating indelible characters. And I am eager to see where Hannah takes this experience in her next role. It has been a blast. 4½ cans.
53. Miss You, Love You* (2026, HBO) – This movie that should have been a play stars Allison Janey as Diane, an embittered woman planning a funeral for her second husband. She could trip over the chip on her shoulder that she carries for her son, who rarely keeps in touch and doesn’t seem likely to attend the funeral. Instead, he sends his assistant, Jamie (Andrew Rannels), to help his mother with the preparations. Although Jamie tries hard to be helpful, Diane knows it is her son who should be here and not some efficient assistant, but mother-son have been estranged since he was 9 (as you find out). This dance of words and accusations between the grieving widow with a sharp tongue and the assistant who is in love with his gay boss peel back the layers of the story. The dialog is delivered like shotgun blasts between the mother who feels she has tried her best and the substitute “son.” There are a few other characters in the show, mostly for comic relief (including my beloved Bonnie Hunt), but Diane resents them, too. The mood is dark, and so are the sets, despite the New Mexico locale. But even though I found this movie a little hard to take (lots of arguing), I love Allison Janney in any role, and Andrew Rannells holds his own against a tough cookie. 3½ cans.
54. Rafa* (2026, Netflix) – If you have watched any tennis in the past 25 years, you probably saw Rafael Nadal’s rise to prominence. This 4-part series examines his career, the challenges he had to overcome – physical and mental – to perform at the top of his game for decades. The one stat that stands out for me is Nadal’s record at the French Open, where he captured the title 14 times! Nadal was in it to win it, fighting off foot injuries and pressure that he mostly put on himself. Just when you think someone has a limit to how well they can perform, along comes Rafa to reach a new level. He is retired now, having spent time as the number 1 player in the world many times in his 3-decade-ling playing career. I miss his tenacity on the court. 3½ cans.
55. Marty, Life Is Short* (2026, Netflix) – Comic actor Martin Short possesses a rare gift – JOY. Whether he is creating it with his comic antics and performances on TV, stage or movies, or whether he is experiencing it with family and friends, this man emanates joy and happiness, despite a life filled with tragedies. This documentary ode to joy is filled with his home videos of his beloved family and famous friends, from Tom Hanks to Steven Spielberg and many more. Beware of excessive smiling. 3 cans.
 

May Meditations

1.    Have you ever paid full-price for anything at Kohl’s? If so, why? There are always sales and they give out Kohl’s cash every time you buy something to entice you to come back (trust me, it works). I can sense that Kohl’s cash burning a hole in my pocket! And then there are the coupons, which, for me, always seem to be 30% off. Maybe the constant discounts will eventually drive Kohl’s out of business, but right now, their philosophy works for me. It seems that the amount they tell me I saved on the receipt is more than the cost of the entire purchase. It’s Kohl’s math!
2.    I don’t know whether the bags under my eyes are getting better or whether I am just getting used to them.
3.    My surgically-repaired (2019) right shoulder is acting up again, probably from too much exercise (who would have thought that could happen to me?)! Today I put a pain patch on it and I think the way that works is that that you are so distracted by the strong scent of wintergreen/menthol soothing ingredient that eventually you forget the pain.
4.    Everyone I know seems to have joint pain – a knee, a shoulder, a wrist. I haven’t heard this much discussion about joints since the 1970s!
5.    If you are looking for a new car and want to see various models without going to a dealer, just peruse the parking lot at my health and fitness club. Every kind of car you can imagine is there. There is even one of those hideous Tesla trucks that seem to have no windows, as if the driver is crossing a field of plutonium. 
6.    I have one very annoying habit (actually, I have many but I’m not going to bore you with a complete list): I open a cabinet, remove what I am looking for and then leave the cabinet open. Why? Am I going to grab more than one Tupperwear container? Another plate? And since I live alone, there’s no one to blame but me! That’s OK, I’ll give myself a good talking-to.
7.    Don’t you hate it when you bite the inside of your cheek and your tongue keeps going there?
8.    Does anyone around my age sleep through the night? Sure, I can sleep soundly on the couch after lunch, but going to bed, falling asleep and staying asleep? Everyone I know says they are up at 4 or 5 or 6 am. It’s at least partially related to having to use the bathroom, but no one can sleep. When I worked, I couldn’t get up in the morning. Now I don’t work and I can’t sleep. Life seems unfair sometimes.
9.    A friend of mine and I were discussing having to take certain medications for the rest of our lives. That would have been more of a big deal if I were 30 years old than it seems now that I am 75 and the rest of my life will be considerably shorter than the first part.
10.    I get bills from my doctors now in the mail, as an email attachment, on their apps and in text messages. I had better keep good records or I’ll be paying that bill multiple times!
11.    To be a good fitness instructor, you have to be enthusiastic and have bright, uplifting energy even at very early times in the morning. You also have to be in great shape and know how to count backwards: “That’s 8, 7, 6…” I don’t qualify for even one requirement, but I do my best to follow along in the water at my aqua exercise classes.
12.    Road etiquette: If you need to merge, I will let you in, but don’t keep inching your way right next to me looking for a one-more-car advantage. Take the opening I gave you and GO! And when you do go, give me a nod or a wave to acknowledge my good deed. Don’t leave me hanging and questioning my politeness!
13.    My real estate tax bill came in and I paid it, forgetting that I had set up automatic payments with the money being withdrawn from my bank and going directly to the local tax office. Oops! I went to the office to request a refund and was informed that it would take months to get the funds back, so I might as well wait until the next quarterly taxes were due and have the amount credited for that payment. Funny how they can take the money SO FAST, but giving it back is nearly impossible.
14.    With stores closing left and right, we sometimes have no choice but to order things online. When the blankets I ordered (buy one, get one free) came in and they were not big enough (despite being advertised as queen-sized), I contacted the company about returning them. Although they were shipped from the US, they told me that all returns have to go to their facility in GERMANY. Really? That’s going to cost most of my refund. So, they offered to let me keep the blankets and, for my inconvenience, they will ship me a new one in a larger size for free. So now I will have 3 blankets – and no refund. This is my reminder to read the small print on the return policy when ordering anything, just in case.
15.    I read that my beloved Bed, Bath and Beyond soon will be reopening retail stores, mostly through a partnership with the Container Store. And guess who kept most of her BBB coupons? Somehow, I knew they would come in handy one day!
16.    My superpower is guessing numbers. This skill works for guessing the time on the clock in the middle of the night, on the timer when I am grilling steaks and on things like the word count on documents. It does not work on the Lottery or in a casino at roulette, unfortunately.
17.    Italian food is my favorite, and I love the traditions and culture of Italy. Many of my best friends are Italian, and Italians have much in common with Jewish people. But I know I will never be accepted as an Italian because I break my spaghetti before I cook it and I use a spoon to twirl it. So, I have no chance of being mistaken for a real Italian.
18.    If you ever have the opportunity to make a sandwich for me, please make sure you cut it on the diagonal. I can’t eat sandwiches cut straight. 
19.    Speaking of sandwiches, my mother probably made me a million tuna fish sandwiches since that was my choice of sandwich growing up. They had to be Bumble Bee Tuna, solid white fancy, packed in oil - later, water, when that option became available. No mayo, no celery, just plain tuna on white bread – preferably Duggan’s or Wonder. If there was no tuna in the house, my mother would go door-to-door in the neighborhood seeking Bumble Bee. If she was desperate enough, she would borrow a can of Chicken of the Sea. One bite and I would know it wasn’t Bumble Bee; I would check the garbage can to verify my suspicions. When I went to college, the cashier at the supermarket questioned my mother about the lack of tuna in her shopping cart and she would have to explain that I was not home. When I moved into my own apartment, I bought my own tuna and made my own sandwiches, but they lacked that special touch of Mom’s. When I would go to Mom’s, I would come into the house singing the Carly Simon song, “Nobody Does It Better,” to charm her into making me another Bumble Bee tuna sandwich, because nobody COULD do it better. I wish I had just one more sandwich made by the late, great Sylvia Gordon. 

Tina's April 2026 Movies and More

April seemed to fly by, but I managed to find a baker's dozen movies to watch. Those marked with an asterisk were new to me, and everything is rated on a scale of 1-5 cans of tuna fish. Numbering picks up from previous months.

32. Sports Heaven: The Birth of ESPN* (2026, ESPN) – Imagine a man whose vision exceeded the availability of technology, who could imagine broadcasting all kinds of sports, major and minor. Bill Rasmussen was that man, and his creation of ESPN, with the help of engineers, broadcasters and outside investment, exceeded even his own imagination. As a sports junkie, I loved this look back on how tiny Bristol, Connecticut, became the sports center of the universe. Not for everyone, but I loved it. 3½ cans.
33. The Madison* (2026, Paramount +) – Stacy and Preston Clyborne (Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell) are a happily married couple rich enough to live in affluence in New York and maintain a rugged property in Montana, where he goes with his brother to fish. When a devastating tragedy leads Stacy to travel to the cabin in Montana along with her spoiled adult daughters, it is more than a change of pace for the grieving family. Pfeiffer, still gorgeous at 67, and Russell don’t have scenes together in the present, but there is plenty about the past that helps her understand his fascination with the rural life. This is a six-part series and has been renewed for season two. The settings are as beautiful as the cast. 4 cans.
34. The Pitt, Season 2* (2026, HBO Max) – Season 2 was just as dramatic and compelling as season 1 of this series that takes place over the course of a single shift during a jam-packed day in the Emergency Department of a Pittsburgh hospital. The cast and department are headed by Noah Wyle as Robby Robinovich, who commandeers an eclectic group of established doctors, young doctors, medical students and one bad-ass nurse without whom the place would fall apart (Dana, played with gusto by Katherine LaNasa, an actress so good in her role that I was shocked I didn’t recognize her from previous work). Robby is supposed to be wrapping things up in the ED so he can start on a much-needed sabbatical, but throughout the day (July 4th) we have our doubts whether he will actually go – or come back in one piece or otherwise if he does. The filming here seems to be incredibly accurate, at least to a layman. There are interesting, complicated and crazy characters waiting to see the docs or die trying. I cannot sum up the entire series, so I highly encourage you to find it, watch it, and relish it. And if this review had sound, we’d throw in a “Baby Jane Doe” for you! 4½ cans.
35. The Logo: Jerry West* (2026, Prime Video) – Once upon a time there was a basketball prodigy from a tiny town in West Virginia who became an Olympian, a college star, an elite pro player, a coach and an executive, a man who affected the game so much that the NBA created its logo based on a picture of him. Starting in the 1960s, Jerry West was a phenomenal shooter, a prolific scorer and the executive responsible for “Showtime,” the story of the Los Angeles Lakers of Magic and Kobe and Shaq. As an executive with the Lakers, he spotted Kobe as a high school player and brought him to LA, where he became a superstar. This documentary traces West from his meager and sad roots to the top of his career, never neglecting to show how his competitive fire almost crushed him when the Lakers failed to defeat the champion Boston Celtics so many times in a row. There are excellent interviews here with his contemporaries and the teams he led. The man was a winner. 4 cans.
36. A Little Prayer* (2023, Prime Video) – This movie is a low key, almost laconic story of the fractures – large and small – in a family. Bill (David Strathairn) is the patriarch, living with his wife (Celia Weston), his adult son David (Will Pullen) and his wife Tammy (Jane Levy) in a modest little house. The son works with him in his company and Dad can’t help but notice his roving eye. Bill and his wife adore their quiet daughter-in-law Tammy and it hurts Bill to see David put his marriage in jeopardy. This is not an action movie, but a quiet look at the kinds of things that pull families apart. 3½ cans.
37. Crazy Stupid Love (2011, HBO) – I have seen this movie so many times, but it had been a while, so I decided to make my day better and brighter with yet another viewing. Start with the stunning Ryan Gosling who plays man about town Jacob, who dazzles the ladies with his looks and charm, his perfectly tailored clothes and his sculpted body. He takes pity on Cal (Steve Carell), a plain, middle-aged guy whose wife (Julianne Moore) has just dumped him. Cal has no game, wears clothes too big and generally looks like any suburban dad. Jacob makes Cal go shopping, ditching his New Balance sneakers and cheap haircut to make him over so he can get back in the game. I will refrain from providing any additional details but instead will urge you to see this movie if you haven’t already and to see it again if you have. 4½ cans. 
38. Love With the Proper Stranger (1963, Prime Video) – A young Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen play two strangers who have a one-night stand that apparently will lead nowhere. A musician, McQueen’s Rocky has no allegiance to anyone, while Woods’ Angie is a proper Italian girl whose over-protective brothers constantly interfere in her life. They want her to settle down with a nice guy, like Anthony (Tom Bosley), but Angie yearns for the feeling of bells and banjoes, some kind of romantic magic. When she finds herself pregnant, she tracks down Rocky to help her through the predicament and the two stop sparring long enough to learn more about each other and think that just maybe they could end up together. Last scene is worth the whole movie. 4 cans.
39. Just Between Friends (1986, Prime Video) – I remember this made-for-TV movie when it first aired. The terrific cast (Mary Tyler Moore, Christine Lahti, Ted Danson and Sam Waterston) and a key plot twist elevate it above the more typical TV genre. Moore is Holly, married to Danson’s Chip, a seismologist who studies earthquakes. Lahti is Sandy, a single TV news reporter who strikes up a friendship with Holly in an exercise class. Holly and Chip have an idyllic life and a good marriage. A tragedy leads Holly to discover secrets about her husband and her new best friend that change everything. 3½ cans.
40. Murphy’s Romance (1986, Hulu) – The charming James Garner stars as a druggist in a small western town that becomes the new home of a much younger Sally Field. The spunky divorcee and mother of a young son is a down-on-her-luck would-be horse trainer, saddled with a deadbeat ex-husband who shows up in time to interrupt the growing May-December romance between Field & Garner. Garner can do everything from ride horses to make ice cream sodas to sew, and he spouts aphorisms that warm the heart of the plucky Field (who looks startlingly like Kristy MacNichol). Best line in the movie: “How do you like your eggs?” Directed by Martin Ritt, who guided Field to an Oscar in “Norma Rae,” playing an even pluckier and more prickly character. I like her, I really, really like her. 4 cans.
41. The Devil Wears Prada (2006, Hulu) – In light of the release of the sequel to this movie, I thought I’d take a refresher course to study the indomitable Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), her assistants Andy (Anne Hathaway) and Emily (Emily Blunt) and her general factotum, Stanley Tucci. Miranda is the haughty boss lady of the fashion magazine “Runway,” throwing out rapid-fire orders and demanding immediate response. Andy wants to be a journalist, but she needs a job, fits amazingly into the sample clothes that change her from frumpy to fashionable, and somehow begins to live the life she thought she would hate. Streep, as always, is terrific and Hathaway goes from beleaguered beginner to survivor. Definitely worth seeing again as a prerequisite for the new version, which I will report on next month. 4 cans.
42. Rabbit Hole* (2020, Prime Video) – This is an extremely sad movie about a couple (Nicole Kidman and Aaron Echhart) whose 4-year-old son died in a traffic accident. Counseling isn’t really helping them, nor are the good intentions of family and friends. He is unable to move forward, clinging to every family picture and stuffed animal, but she cannot bear the constant reminders of the lost child and wants to get rid of the toys and more. Their different coping mechanisms are putting a strain on their once-solid marriage and are not helped when she befriends the teenager (Miles Teller) who was driving the car that hit and killed the little boy. 3 cans.
43. #Skyking* (2026, Hulu) – This is not the Saturday morning TV show about a rancher with an airplane that I watched in the 1950s. It is a documentary about Beebo Russell, a ground service employee at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport who, in 2018, hijacked an empty plane and went for what may have started out as a joy ride and ends up as anything but. The story is told through the actual recordings of the conversations between the inexperienced pilot and the air traffic folks who try to save him from himself, patiently explaining what steps he can take to safely land the plane despite having no flying experience. Interviews with his family, friends and airport colleagues help to flesh out his character and why he would take such extreme measures to create a potentially disastrous situation. It held my interest. 3½ cans.

Springtime in Somerset, April 2026

1.    I wonder if TS Elliot knew about federal income tax when he opined, “April is the cruelest month.”

2.    Last month ShopRite had Devil Dogs on sale, and to add insult to injury for me, they had a display right at the entrance so I couldn’t miss them. I think they are the work of the Devil himself, and if I indulged in eating them, it would put me on the road to ruin. And, let’s face it, they aren’t even GOOD chocolate. (We can discuss the superiority of Yodels and Ring Rings among the Drake’s Cakes lineup.) As Dionne Warwick sings, “Walk on By.” And I did.

3.    I’m going to a formal event this weekend and I am planning to wear pantyhose. Who wears pantyhose anymore, you ask? ME. I don’t want anyone to see these pale legs sticking out of a fancy dress without hose. Not that pantyhose is easy to find. Those ubiquitous “Eggs” used to be in the supermarket, the drug store, and plenty of mass merchandise retailers, but now the supply is limited – a case of supply and demand, where they don’t stock them because we aren’t wearing them (except for me). If you are short, it is impossible to find a pair that doesn’t pool around your ankles. The wider the pantyhose, the longer they are. Leave out the control top type, please. My top can be out of control if that means that I can get them up over my hips without them hanging around the crotch. TMI?

4.    I hope whoever invented the blood pressure meter was adequately compensated for this old-time invention that is still found in most doctors’ offices. You know, the one with the cuff and the bulb that gets squeezed until you think your arm will explode. Some of my doctors have gone to electronic machines, but most still use the same device that Dr. Marcus Welby used on his patients. And it still works!

5.    Jeopardy has gotten so boring lately that I can barely watch it anymore. It’s not just that current champ Jamie, from New Jersey, is devoid of personality, but he is so far ahead of his competitors that by the time Final Jeopardy rolls around, the other folks are practically waving the white flag. He certainly knows a tremendous amount about a wide range of topics but watching him win every day without any real competition is just plain boring!

6.    I broke my cardinal rule the other day – I ate ice cream before Memorial Day. I was out for lunch with some bad-influencer friends on a beautiful day and we decided to stop for ice cream. I had a single scoop of delicious grasshopper pie ice cream and enjoyed every bite, even though for me, it is not ice cream season. I have heard from many of you who insist that there is no such thing as ice cream season, arguing that ice cream is fine to eat at any time of year. But I am always cold and the idea of eating ice cream with a blanket on my lap isn’t very appealing. I think I can hold off for another month. I wish I had this level of discipline in all areas of my life, instead of merely refraining from ice cream for much of the year.

7.    On a similar subject, why does an egg cream contain neither eggs nor cream? Just a little milk, some chocolate fudge sauce like U-Bet, and some seltzer make a delightful concoction. I have to change this subject!

8.    My branch of Chase Bank finally went back to using tellers again. For the past few years, all of my interactions have been with the ATM machine. I had to go into the bank and use the ATM in the vestibule as you enter. I could never use the drive-through because my arms are too short to reach the machine. There was no way to ask for $10 bills or change of $100. I have no idea why they got rid of the tellers, but it is nice to have them back, to engage in a conversation again, to watch them count the money on a machine and to thank me for my business. It truly is the little things.

9.    The King of England has people who iron his shoelaces. Why? Do they get wrinkled? It just goes to show that the rich are different. If I hit the Powerball, I’d hire a chef, a driver and someone to clean my glasses every day, not just when the fingerprints on them make it impossible to see.

10. I went to the dentist for my usual check-up and was told that everything looks great and that I have excellent oral care. I like going to the dentist because you don’t need to get weighed, but to be told I have excellent oral hygiene? I’ll take it!

11. Sometimes having Alexa in the house is like having my mother around. Alexa will alert me to the fact that it MIGHT rain, starting at midnight and going until 2 am, with an expected accumulation of 0.07 inches. Do I really need to know that? A hurricane warning I would appreciate but a minor rain? My mother definitely would have told me about that, too.

12. I wonder who decided that bananas tasted great and somehow knew NOT to eat the peel.

13. The trees here have flowered at last. I had thought they might have snow-laden branches until Memorial Day!

14. I’m not the only person who cleans the house before the cleaning service comes, right?

15. Gas prices for premium hit $5 a gallon last week. Only a few weeks ago, I was paying $3.49. Tell me again what this president is doing to address the economy.

16. Spring cleaning! I had the yard cleaned up, the bushes trimmed, the dryer vent emptied, the gutters cleaned and the sprinklers serviced. I’m happy to cross those things off the list without having to do that work myself!

17. My aqua aerobics class used the classic Don McLean song “American Pie” recently, but it was a sped-up version that moved very quickly from the Chevy to the levee. I doubt Don McLean had this tempo in mind when he wrote it back in the early 70s.