rizzoli & isles

i live in a neighborhood full o' celebrities. these stars o' the sceens you have to buy a ticket to view as well as those you just plop down in front of aren't of the human nature - though there's plenty o' those poked here 'n there...the fabulously famous i'm talkin' about are the houses that those with the speakin' parts pretend to live in.

right around us are some you might be familiar with....the house behind ours was home to jed clampett 'n granny in the movie version o' the beverly hillbillies...on the other side o' the street from it was where the fresh prince lived when he left philly... down my street a bit is where that handsome guy from madmen pretends to live....not too far from it is my favorite - the house that starred with steve martin - twice - in those father o' the bride movies.

seems not a week goes by that there isn't a slew o' trucks and a swarm o' headset wearin' workers in somebody's driveway. often while takin' the lil white prancin' pups for a parade to be petted by everyone we encounter i'll realize a house on our route is one i have recently seen in a commercial.

personally, i'm not a big fan o' livin' in a neighborhood of homes that have their own agents. luckily, with one exception, our neighborhood consists o' like minded home owners who may allow their residence to do a lil actin' once or twice a year, make a point o' followin' all the strict rules for doin' so and donate a bit o' their earnings to a cause their neighbors support.

that one exception is a couple o' doors down from us...these people use their house as a main source o' income...their downstairs is kept just about empty to accommodate whoever might wanna pay the fee to shoot a commercial there. before mini's daddy started payin' attention to what they were up to they violated just about every rule and paid no attention to the limited number o' days one house is allowed to 'act' in a year.

since our home had a major role in an academy award winnin' movie in the early seventies - a movie on the list of the best 25 ever made - we have gotten requests from location companies since the day we moved in. right away i announced we were NEVER going to let anyone use our home for a shoot. but mini and jo have always wanted to do so....mini's daddy only if it was for whatever his favorite tv show was at the time. finally i told the three of 'em that we could do it once but that only the outside was available...that the inside was off limits. years have passed and there have been many requests but none for just outside.

FINALLY...around the time i tumbled down the back staircase - a request was made to use JUST the pool and back yard. i don't recall anyone askin' OR tellin' me but all three say they did both. the shoot was for a new show called rizzoli & isles with angie harmon. here are a few pictures mini's daddy snapped. as you can see, the rule was bent just a wee bit so that angie could sit inside. we locked jo in her trailer so she could watch from the window but not attempt to be in front o' the camera. she, mini and mini's daddy are still fightin' over who gets the majority o' the ridiculous amount o' money paid for a day's use of a backyard 'n pool. once i found out what the current rate was, i understood a bit more why that family a coupla' doors down was so upset when they found out their house's unlimited actin' days were over.

i do so hope you are enjoyin' your summer. i plan to enjoy every remainin' second....as soon as i finish puttin' all these doo dads away in their new home. i've got one big box o' miscellaneous 'crap' left but it seems to be bottomless. i must admit - the stuff in it is lookin' less 'n less necessary to my existence.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxmo

my neighbor james mitchell

when i was makin' mini i had to spend alotta time in bed and often entertained myself watchin' the comins' 'n goins' o' the neighbor residin' directly across the street, a handsome guy named rob lowe. this was before he was a husband, daddy and employer o' big mouth nannies 'n cooks and apparently prior to havin' any knowledge of window coverings.

rob's house was pretty much a fishbowl...from my prone pregnant position i had visual access to almost every room plus the pool 'n the garage....just about everything but the afternoon hot spot for rob's pack - a full sized basketball court in the backyard. and while i couldn't see the action that took place on the court, i did look forward to seeing who would arrive to walk the concrete carpet and was often kept awake by voices familiar via the screen - both large 'n small - and a thumpin' ball long after midnight.

rob was kind enough to stay put until i gave birth to mini but shortly after fell in love and moved away. while i would miss rob and the entertainment he provided, i couldn't wait to see who my next neighbor would be.

as soon as i saw boxes began to arrive i headed over and knocked on the door to introduce myself. i was shocked when i saw who opened the door.

my new neighbor was someone i already knew. he was a mean man...a vindictive man...a man who had been married at lest seven times and spent his life gleefully plottin' 'n plannin' 'n pittin' people against each other. this man, my new neighbor, had already been entertainin' me for decades as i peered into his life every monday through friday. how could i possibly live across the street from this man....this villain...and what did he need rob lowe's discarded house for anyway? he had a perfectly good home some place else...it was located at 25 white oaks drive in pine valley and it even had a name...it was called cortlandt manor.

as my new neighbor introduced himself and his partner to me, his gentle handshake shook me back to reality. the handsome man replacin' the handsome rob was actually james mitchell - who just pretended to be the villain palmer cortlandt each weekday on the long runnin' soap opera "all my children".

in real life james mitchell was nothin' like palmer cortlandt - in fact it was difficult to believe that such a wonderful person could be so convincin' while pretendin' to be so creepy.

since james and his partner, albert wolsky, had the knowledge o' window coverings that rob had lacked, they didn't provide as much visual entertainment and unfortunately, they weren't around that much. james lived in new york during the week and albert, bein' an academy award winning costume designer, was away much of the time. but when they were home they were wonderful neighbors.

as i got to know james i discovered he had spent time as an actor and dancer on broadway and in touring companies and had been in many films. in one he had even danced with cyd charisse. he had taught at drake and yale and had even been awarded an honorary doctorate. durin' his time on "all my children" he was nominated for seven Daytime Emmy Awards.

james died a couple of months ago at cedars-sinai here in los angleles at the age of 89. i'm sorry that he is gone and know that he will be missed by albert and everyone who knew him personally.... and of course by those who only knew him only as the mean ol' self-made millionaire via the television but loved him any way.

no neeked celebrities here...

i have always thought it would be nice if a few manly types desired to dedicate a day or so to designin' a depository o' their near 'n dearest or possibly do some decoratin' with digital doo dads. recently it appeared that that thought o' mine was actually takin' place as a few men came 'round to register for the doo dad shop. when those few quickly multiplied by hundreds i was confounded by so many men's curiosity in my creations.

i didn't have to ponder this odd surge o' manly interest in moland too long....afterall...i still have the good fortune o' cousin jo livin' within' hollarin' distance (in her house on wheels in the backyard) and there's hardly anything she doesn't know (unless it has somethin' to do with the stuff taught in school) and if she doesn't know off the top o' her head she'll get the information needed before you can figure out who to ask next.

sure 'nuf she knew exactly why so many men were attemptin' to get an all access pass to mojackson.com. she had heard all about it from the man she says is the most trusted person in journalism - the one and only harvey levin. jo says if harvey says it then it you must believe it...especially since "he's the only serious journalist who admits if he makes a mistake" - though she says , as far as she knows, he's only made a couple - the most recent bein' that picture o' j.f.k. on a boat with neeked girls.

and neeked girls - or at least one neeked girl - is why, accordin' to harvey, all those men appeared to be interested in dolin' out some dollars for my delightful digital doo dads designed for delivery via download. seems there's another website with the same name yet spelled a bit differently that was offerin' up a neeked snapshot or two o' a celebrity from that high school musical movie and all those men got lost along the way to viewin' her neekedness and instead ended up at my cyber front door. i'm a bit surprised that the headers with me in my fat snowman suit or blue cat eye glasses 'n striped tights didn't give 'em reason to pause before takin' the time to register...but then i've never visited a site with neeked pictures....maybe they use somethin' along the same lines.

i'm still thinkin' the day will come when more men are interested in digital doo dads...of course it may take me doin' up some neeked ones for that to happen.

later today i'll blog up the winner o' pretty thing number four and post up pretty thing number five!

p.s. if you look closely at the above picture o' jo (she made me promise to tell you she's donnin' FAUX fur) you can see harvey on t.v. inside the trailer.

pay day

growin up there were two days that i loved the most. one of em was 'pay day'. i don't know who was gettin paid or remember how often this day occurred. i do remember that it provided only temporary delight - sort of like christmas or your birthday because the very next mornin after this much anticipated day, the anticipation started up again and grew until it reached a fevered pitch and then once it rolled around again, well of course the waitin started all over and it's all the grown-ups talked about.

it's probably a real good thing i didn't understand how bad it was when i'd hear my mom say there was only three dollars left in the checkin account cause if i had known how bad that was for a family of five i may have been tempted to hit the road with my easy bake oven and try to sell some of those teeny cakes to raise some grocery money. instead, i was able to master the art of eatin whole cakes in one sittin while waitin for pay day again.

what i liked about pay day was getting into the old chevy with my mom and brother and sister and headin for piggly wiggly. now i'm sure there are those of you who have favorite family memories of picnics or vacations to disneyland or such...but for me, it's the trips to the piggly wiggly. when all talk revolves around waitin for pay day and how five people can live off three dollars for i'm guessing even for as long as a week, there's not much vacation plannin takin place. but i could a cared 'a less. i don't think i even knew people went on vacations.

my older sister rode in the front with my mom while my brother and i would ride in the back. since we were not bound to stay alive in case of a car accident by seat belts, we would sit on the floor of the car and stare through the hole that had rusted all the way through the floorboard and look for money as my mother drove probably at least 45 miles an hour. i'm not sure how we thought we would see it or grab it at that speed but we sure had big plans for spendin it.

anyway, we'd stay at the piggly wiggly for what seemed like hours taking turns pushin the cart and lookin at all the groceries and making each other laugh. now that i think of it i don't remember there ever being lots of good things to eat in our cupboards - maybe we just went and pushed the cart...whatever the case - it was one of my fondest memories of growing up and being with my mom and sister and brother. my mom had a way back then of making everything seem like the greatest adventure and i always felt sorry for everyone else that didn't lead such an exciting life.

but here's the bad part. we'd always get to that last aisle and there it would be - that spinning display holdin all those neat doo dads with names printed on em. pencils, little license plates, coin purses and such. there was just about every name you ever heard of - there would be somethin my brother could have and my sister, my mom's name right there for all to see, even my dad's and probably the dog's...but never ever was there anything with my name. there wasn't even anything that came close so maybe i could chew off the rest of the letters or whatever. think about it - how many names or even nouns can you think of that start with m-o...?

i think this never seeing my name printed out on anything available for buying was one of those life definin moments dr. phil's always going on and on about because from that point on i always felt no gift was worth giving if it wasn't made real personal for the receiver somehow. seems from about the time i was six, i personalized every gift i gave by painting or sewing or scratchin a name on on it. it was no surprise to anyone that not too long after i graduated from college i found myself having started a mail order business consistin of personalized doo dads of all sorts.

everything went along all fine and dandy until that first christmas season when i sent out a big batch of pretty little catalogs filled with all sorts of personalized doo dads. i was told i could expect maybe 2000 personalized doo dad orders to arrive over the next four months. that sounded okay and i put me together a band of misfits to assist. jo came of course and it worked out real well cause there was a big place in front of the warehouse for her to put the trailer. i had three really good artists. a real sweet girl goin just by the name 'girlie' who ended up moving in the trailer with jo cause she was deaf and was always over sleepin and we'd get hysterical worrying about her not showin up for work. then there was eugenia. best artist i ever have known. biggest too. she had once been the fat lady in the circus and only owned one dress. and handsome herman - he had so many children that it took him almost a full three hours just to pin their pictures on the wall in front of his art table. he sure was handsome and we figured he was quite the romeo after hours cause three or four different women would come looking for him each week, surrounded by all sizes of teeny kids. after a few weeks he ended up staying in the trailer too.

we had a good time and jo put out lawn chairs and t.v. trays with all the art supplies and everyone would sit outside to work and get a tan and drink iced tea and jo would take requests for what to play on that old jukebox thing she's had in the trailer since high school. at night i'd always stop by after a date with one of my many beaus and we'd all play cards into the wee hours.

but not long after that pretty lil personalized doo dad catalog went out, the phone wouldn't stop ringing and the mailman told us there was too much mail and we'd have to start pickin it up ourselves and to bring a big container. disaster was headin toward me in the form of over 10,000 orders and they all arrived in just under four weeks. i have never been so horrified by success in my life. it was as bad as all those nightmares everyone has rolled in all together - you know - where it's the day of finals and you had never even gone to class and don't even know where your locker is but there you are - standing naked in front of everyone and all your teeth have fallen out. it didn't help that at that very same time, after years of looking, girlie found her birth mother and moved away and herman got put in jail for not paying child support. i still had eugenia and she brought along her husband, a tattoo artist which sounded good but in no time we discovered he couldn't spell worth a darn and all the orders he did ended up comin back and i swear if you were sitting still too long he'd start eyeing any bare flesh and we all feared if we dozed off we'd wake up with a dragon or some such thing permanently stained into a forearm.

why, you ask, is the doo dad artist with the delayed store bloggin on and on about this today- when you just stopped by to find out where the second part of dorothy's kitchen is! well....when i started taking orders myself for digital designs to be delivered via download (or cd), i had sort of guesstimated how many orders would come in by the sales previously reported to me by the downloadin duo. since jo was coming to help she could certainly handle that many! and maybe even twice that many since i was offering a lower price to thank everyone for all the support they'd shown to me over the last year and maybe people would might be ordering more than they usually bought at once. but since i wasn't going to advertise or try to drum up any doo dad desirin business, we would be fine while i also worked openin my own little store on the internet.

well lo and behold we got about 10 times more doo dad orders than we had imagined and the whole time jo and i have been trying to fling these doo dads out around the world, we couldn't help but compare this adventure to that other time we were more successful than we had anticipated. we have laughed til we cry about all the things we went through to try and get all those personalized doo dad orders out and all the people we ended up meeting in the process. jo still keeps in touch with many of em and some have even met up with her when she's travelin on her wal-mart tours. we may just get all these doo dad orders out too and sure have enjoyed getting to know so many new people and jo is already plannin on meetin some of THEM in person next time she hits the road.

the problem is we have been only doin doo dad orders so i fell behind in getting the second edition of dorothy's kitchen out on time and have fallen behind in getting the store open - even the temporary FAKE store! but we all put our heads together this morning (me, jo and the honorary board of doo dad devotees) and think we have everything back on track and are shooting for having the ugly temporary store (the doo dads will still be beautiful!) open in the next week or so.

for those of you who have just plum given up on me...well...i will miss you but there are so many talented designers deliverin art via downloads nowadays that i can certainly understand why you abandoned me and my doo dads so don't worry...and we'll still be here waiting for you if you change your mind. to all of you who have been hanging around and waitin for me and jo to write back or send your downloads or get a new blog logged or have been sending me your art and little notes cheering us on........it has been such a pleasure to get to know each and every one of you and and please accept my apology for things not going as i thought they would. i sure do hope i can repay the love and patience you have extended to me little by little once i get the store open! thank you oh thank you! this most certainly includes nancy from idaho sendin those shiny baubles for mini mo and pam writin me such a sweet thank you note and sending it through the mail and janet - well, you'll have to wait and see what janet has been working on for tracy squirrel and of course miss peggy, a fine digital artist herself, who included a picture of the little bag i made for her doo dads right smack dab in her blog.

so here's the plan for now...i thought i'd pop in and blog to show off a little of the beautiful art sent to me using dorothy's kitchen part one and apologize for it appearing i am sitting around here eatin lil cakes mini makes me using my old easy bake oven when in fact i have been setting those uploadin pipes on fire sending the downloads around the clock. i mean - if 'they' can put a woman and some fellas in space with a broken space ship you'd think 'they' could come up with a faster pipe for sendin doo dads! anyway, once i wrap up dorothy's kitchen part two i'll come back over here to the blog and let you know when it's on the site for you to download. hope this plan meets with your approval! i think you'll forgive me for takin so long to get part two of dorothy's kitchen ready for you to download once you see it...all your patience has resulted in a pay day full of lots of pretty kitchen doo dads you'll wonder how you ever lived without!