Christine had kept the pitcure from her childhood. Only recently her husband came across it wondering what it was all about. He was perplexed, since he believed she had never left Southern California until she had been in her mid-tweinties. She chuckled when seeing it, and it brought back memories of the occasion.
     She had been trying out for a role in what had been described as a "madcap" adventure about a set of identical twin cousins which would be shot mostly in studio but might have required her to travel for some location shots later on.
     This was one of the scenes the studio bosses had whipped up as part of her screen test.
     She remembered the smell of powder being used to create the illustion of snow as so pungent that it made Christine want to sneeze. She couldn't believe that so much soap would be wasted on a series of demo photos just to see how people would appear as if they were in the snow.
     At the time, she thought this was all pretty stupid. For that matter, so was the idea of the show. Who could imagine a show about twin cousins ever making it to television? This was all her mom's idea anyway; to make Christine a child star. So she didn't do the audition well at all. She even wore her socks on the set, which isn't what the director asked for.
     But the event was not without it's bittersweet memories. The girl doing the screen test after her was someone named Patty; Patty Duke.

¶ 21:40 0 comments

     Gwen had come up the stairs to find the sea chamber blocked off with a curtain. She was concenred about the folds of the curtain [if it confused the fish] and wondered if the fish behind the curtain would be harmed by residues emanating from the synthetic material from which the curtain was composed. She also wondered how the fish would be fed, and even if the fish had been killed off, the curtain being placed in the tank to keep the viewers from seeing their stiff, lifeless bodies floating near the top of the tank.
     This whole affair troubled her greatly, and it was causing her to reconsider whether or not she should pledge her annual support to the Center the next time a fund-raising drive was announced. After all, it was cotsing her well over $100 a year to support the place, and this is not what she was expecting when she came to visit.
     She would rather have seen a new collection on sea anemones in the tank, as had been suggested during the last fund drive. All it all, it saddened her to see the curtain across the tank.

¶ 11:39 1 comments

"...George Bush’s staff complained the day after Valentine's Day that his big healthcare announcement at Wendy’s Headquarters in Ohio went largely unnoticed because of Vice President Chaney’s shooting incident.
     Bush was pumping for his on-your-own “Health Savings Accounts,” the greatest benefits of which will go to the brokers and banks who sell them and manage them. Benefits will also go to people who have enough extra money that they need to shelter it from taxes until they turn 70. This plan will drive the cost of healthcare even higher for the whole country.
     "We all need to understand that Bush’s plan is not about healthcare for all and it is not about us. It is yet another boondoggle, another transfer of money from the poor and middle class to the wealthy, another privatization scheme, another chunk of money in the pockets of his cronies, another attempt to blame the middle class for our own illnesses, another discriminatory scam against the poor, another way of saying, “you are on your own for healthcare,” another shift in governmental responsibility, another lie to the American people, another devastating blow to those who are struggling to get the healthcare they need. Sorry to have to be so blunt, but I want to be sure to be clear.
     "Our country is # 37 in the world in the quality of its healthcare for its people. What would we do if our country were #37 in the Olympics? We’d get to work to change it, no?
     "Healthcare-now is gathering steam nationwide to be sure that every candidate for higher office this year in every state understands that we want a national single-payer healthcare plan that will cover all of us for every illness. NOW.
     "We want something like the H.R. 676 bill in Congress that would provide for healthcare for all so we would never have to pay another doctor or hospital, another dentist or optician, another psychiatrist or chiropractor, another prescription drug bill. And we would no longer have co-pays, deductibles, premiums, or out-of-pocket expenses for healthcare".

¶ 09:59 1 comments