Clean Up on Isle Five!

Boris Karloff as Captain Hook in the stage play Peter Pan (1950)

Ahoy, maties microfictionados!
Welcome to another fun-loving chapter of

microfiction Monday,

sponsored by our hostess with the mostess, Miss Susan at Stony River, where the good-natured pandemonium is all about a picture painting 140 characters or even fewer! (For more flash tale fun, click the side-barring mM button-->)

Here’s
THIS WEEK’S IMAGE
and
MY STORY:

Now that the Cuss Word Remover had arrived, Hook would soon realize Jim and Larry’s Swear Word Jar idea wasn’t such a bad one after all. –136 characters

ONE WORD:

AND, FOR YOUR LISTENING pleasure,
because, hey, why not?
There’s a theme going on here, for crying out loud,
I leave you with:



"I Swear"
PLEASE NOTE: Don't forget to turn off the playlist located waaay at the bottom of my blog page (<-- Easy does it, it's a long drop down!), unless, of course, you are actually into Sondre Lerche-Boys 2 Men mashups that are less than seamlessly overlaid. LOL!

Yo ho!
SparkleFarkle~~~~~*

Sweet dreams, my Mollo and Zuzie.

YIKES! I've Created a Monster!

“ONE BAD THING about Lassie, she was always warning you about something. Let me be surprised for a change.” –Jack Handey

HAPPY
Jack Handey
FRIDAY!

Instant Conversion Circles the Drain

LAST SUNDAY morning and in the middle of channel-hopping, a probably less than fleeting glimpse of Mass for Shut-Ins appeared on the screen, and, then, The Tour continued. “Go back! Go back!” shouted my daughter. “Holy moly!” I thought to myself, “Is Puppet having some sort of spiritual awakening?! Do I smell an epiphany or what?!” Immediately putting the remote in reverse to land us back on a Roman Catholic padre with outstretched, paying-homage-to-God hands delivering his sermon, I wondered what sort of religious exclamation point would profoundly spew from my daughter’s mouth, any second now! Heck, maybe she’d even say it in Tongues!

PUPPET: OooOooOoooo!
I love his necklace!!!
Is this QVC?!

TWO WORDS: or what.

THEN, LATE YESTERDAY morning, I invited Puppet to join me in watching a Syfy marathon. After a coupla two tree hours worth of “friends” (<--inspired by science fiction and horror films)

scaring
the bejesus out of their friends and loved ones
in this hidden camera

prank show hosted by Tracy Morgan,
my daughter turns to me and says,

“IF YOU WERE a serial killer and you kidnapped someone and you were about to kill them, I think you should say, ‘Are you afraid? You shouldn't be. You’re on Scare Tactics!’ It might calm them down a little bit.”

IF I DIDN’T KNOW better, I‘d swear she was Jack Handey’s daughter. And, by the by, studies show that too much television viewing can have adverse affects. I guess I should know better.

See you next week with a brand-new showly,
SparkleFarkle~~~~~*

Rest in peace, my Mollo and ZuZu.

Image Credits:
Cereal Killer: originally downloaded by lendmeurear
Father Kens: kudos go to wishboneclover
Tracey Morgan: Syfy network promo shot
Lunching Lassie: Life magazine

Viaducts Do Not “Quack,” But SparkleFarkle Does, AGAIN!

WHO DOESN’T remember Bachelor Father?! Okay, possibly nobody, since I am the black-and-white TV-watchingest fossil, and you are probably not.

ATTENTION, THEN, my fellow prehistorics, if there are any: would you mind sitting out the following summary, allowing me to shed some much needed Bachelor Father light on the situation, for the In-the-Darkers who might be giving me a read, and not bore you to tears at the same time? Thanks, this shouldn’t take too long at all. Can I get you a cookie or something while you wait? What? No. No, I don’t have any buffalo wings. Nope to a beer either. If you can just hold on a smitch, I promise you this shouldn’t take but a minute. *with eyebrows knitting above them, narrows eyes and, chuckling, wonders "Why in the heck do some readers have to be so demanding?!" Not you, of course. Just some*

PRIOR TO HIS 5-year stint as The Invisible Man in Charlie’s Angels (1976-1981), and his soaps-at-night role, playing oil magnatey patriarch Blake Carrington in Dynasty (1981-1985), John Forsythe was very wealthy Hollywood attorney Bentley Gregg in CBS’ 1950s sitcom, Bachelor Father (<--the only series to have been carried at one time by all three major networks during its run from 1957-1962). Bentley, who became her legal guardian after her parents died in a car accident, lived with his niece, Kelly (Noreen Corcoran, real-life big sister to

Huh? You’re kidding me, right? You don’t know who Moochie is either?! (Cripers, he even included coloured Television on his résumé !) Sorry, little friend, you’re on your own. I’m afraid you’re just going to have to Google.

Moochie),

in Beverly Hills. When Gregg wasn’t too tied up raising a “daughter, “ with the help of his “house boy,” Peter (Sammee Tong) and Jasper, the dog, which was easier when Kelly was a little girl, but when she turned into a teen-ager, and began to date –namely: next door neighbor Howard Meechum (Jimmy Hodges)– and dipped a toe or two into young adulthood, while Bentley continued to juggle his career and dating glamourous women (<–“Hello. My name is Bentley G. and I’m a borderline playboy.”) and Peter had to still keep on freshening up Mr. Gregg’s suits while simultaneously coralling the rest of the laundry; doing a variety of other household chores limited to those that can be accomplished while wearing a bow tie and a white sports jacket; and financial schemed to the hilarious beat of his own drum , Bentley Gregg spent his time going through secretaries. Five in five years! Can you believe it?! LOL! Meanwhile, Kelly spent most of her time looking for the perfect wife for her uncle and was best friends with Ginger, whose last name changed three times in five years on the show. I suspect the math in this show is planted and has got to count for something, that of which I just haven’t quite figured out yet. ... ... ... I think the moral of Bachelor Father is: I need to get a life, don’t I? (Or at least make the one I have less long-winded.)

WELL, WHAT THIS all comes down to is,
for the sake of
microfiction Monday,
and because my daughter

Puppet

is unable to participate in this particular meme adventure of mine (I believe her exact words were,“No thanks, Mom, the dog ate my homework and the kids need shoes, and Little Bo Bice lives in Kathmandu, but it’s sure nice talking to you, Mom. It’s been sure nice talking to you.” She gets a kick out of channeling fluky, unused portions of Harry Chapin to use as excuses. You gotta give her credit, though, because, heck, it works every time!), I need to borrow a niece to call my very own, in order for my today’s mM to work. To fill that bill, Tah-Dah!–> I’ve chosen Uncle Bentley’s.

SO, TO MAKE this long story finally short,

I’ll now without further ado you:

Calling all microfictionados!
Welcome to another fun-loving chapter of

microfiction Monday,

sponsored by our hostess with the mostess Miss Susan at Stony River, where the good-natured pandemonium is all about a picture painting 140 characters or even fewer! (For more fun, click the flash tale side-barring mM button-->)

Here’s
THIS WEEK’S IMAGE
and
MY STORY :

Knowing her pun-ladened, random-thought talking Aunt Sparkle would next utter, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it," Kelly rolled her eyes in advance.
–158 characters (*Police car siren wails* Guilty: 18 over the “speed” limit! Pull me over already. LOL!)

Tell me it was worth it-ly,
SparkleFarkle~~~~~*

Rest in peace, my Mollo and ZuZu. You, too, Mr. Forsythe, Mr. Tong, and Mr. Chapin.

Image Credits:
Bachelor Father pictures courtesy of tvrage.com

All You Need Is Luve, Luve!

“I WISH I WOULD have a real tragic love affair and get so bummed out that I’d quit my job and become a bum for a few years, because I was thinking about doing that anyway.” –Jack Handey

HAPPY
Jack Handey
FRIDAY!

WHILE STROLLING DOWN “Hallmark Street” at my local Walgreens, yesterday, its racks already red and lacy-lined with all things Valentine, a BIG lit candle in my brain was soon dripping wax all over a jar labeled “Nostalgic.” You know, the one next to that enormous stack of photo albums topped with a dog-eared copy of

Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide 2007
(Great in its day!)

that I keep on the coffee table in front of the over-stuffed couch we should have never, ever gotten rid of, even though its arm edges showed a little smitch of sticky-outy batting, and the dog maybe, but only maybe --COME ON, we were never really sure about that, were we?-- peed on it, but it was just a dribble, if anything, I bet, and it was only that one time, right?

ANYWAY, BEFORE I KNEW IT, I was thinking about romance --the BIG Screeny kind in particular. And, by the time I got to the Something Anti-fungal aisle (<–DON’T ASK. --I’ll tell you this much, though, I won’t be doing my husband’s shopping for him again any time soon!), I was as dreamy-eyed as a teenager mistaking Bollywood for reality (<–That would be the star-crossed-lovers-and-angry-parents or the courtesans-with-hearts-of-gold kind I’m talking about.), and, heck, I may have even started to smell those

little message hearts

that taste like Pepto Dismal Bismol, but we never think twice about that and eat them anyway, because we’re in love, dammit!

I DUNNO, maybe I was just imagining that nose part. I have this phantom-smell thing (Phantosmia or olfactory hallucinations) that “entertains” me on a regular basis. I sometimes smell weird-burnt rubber when nothing is burning, and no one else can smell it. It use to be a really greasy french fries aroma that I’d routinely take in, later to be replaced by the crap-smell of cigarette smoke (which lasted two years, during which time I thought it would kill me!), but, of late, it’s always a weird-burnt rubber. (A while back, I smelled violets for a couple of episodes. That was actually quite nice!) It only ever lasts for a few seconds to a minute or so, then disappears. It happens every so often, but not all the time. Sometimes, it precedes a deja– HOLD IT. Where was I again? Oh, yeah.–> That's when I decided I’d ask you this, when I got home:

What is your favourite
movie love story?
Maybe it’s

“I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich...I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes.” --Harry
When Harry Met Sally (1989)?

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)?

OR MIGHT it be

Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and ‘Julia’ (1968)?

No?
Then, how about

Janet Livermore (Bridget Fonda)
and Cliff Poncier (Matt Dillon)
in Singles (1992)?

Or... I KNOW!!!

Titanic (1997)!

No? Not that either? Hm...

Oo! Oo! Oo! I’ve got it!
It’s Moulin Rogue! (2001), isn’t it?!

“Love is a many splendor thing. Love lifts us up where we belong.
All you need is love!” --Christian
Moulin Rogue! is great!
(It's my second favourite!)

HM, AGAIN, then, because it could very well be a more recent film, now, couldn’t it? Let’s see....Mama Mia? (<–Pah-leese. SAY IT ISN'T SO.)...Penelope?

“Trust me.” --Edward to Bella
Twilight (2008)?!

NEED SOME more time to think it over?
That’s okay, because, meanwhile, guess who

I could see

myself spending the rest of my life with, every time I watch (or merely think about) this, my best-loved "Je t'aime-Je t'adore" film?

C'est pour toi que je suis, Bob, er, I mean Frank!
Robert De Niro as Frank Raftis
in my all-time favourite Romance movie:

De Niro shares top billing with Meryl Streep in this 1984 film directed by Ulu Grosbard (Splendor in the Grass --Assistant Director-- (1961), The Subject was Roses (1968).

WELL, WELL, well! What a nice surprise! Here comes the beat-all scene from my movie now! --which happens to also be its last, so if you don’t want me to spoil the movie for you before you get a chance to rent it, maybe you should hold off. ... ... ... FORGET IT AND LET'S GET REAL: you know as well as I do, you’ll probably never in a million years rent this movie. LOL! So, go ahead. Just watch the clip:

EIGHT WORDS:
"Sometimes magic is the only thing that’s real."
--The guy doing the voiceover for the Falling in Love movie trailer

Skinnamarinkly yours,
SparkleFarkle~~~~~*

Sweet dreams to my two funny valentines: Mollo and ZuZu.

Image Credit: Falling in Love banner (<--minus the twinkling hearts, because I put those there) goes to merylthon.

Toe Jam

One of the many fabulously dreamy scenes fashioned by director Sofia Coppala in her stunningly gorgeous film, Marie AnTOEnette (2006).

REGARDING THE MAGIC that is me, without hesitation, I am more than happy to send up this "heed-or-you-will-be-sorry-DEAD-sorry" warning volunteer the following Sparkly Farkly: I would much rather repose on a silk damask chaise lounge in an 18th Century gilded French Palace, surrounded by pink iced cakes, a riot of rustling gowns, sparkling jewels, and Manolo Blahnik-designed shoes, than repose on a silk damask chaise lounge in an 18th Century gilded French Palace, surrounded by pink iced cakes, a riot of rustling gowns, sparkling jewels, and Manolo Blahnik-designed shoes, while being pampered with a pedicure –-unless, of course, my shoes are on, because nobody, but nobody, touches my feet. DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.

WARM TIDINGS,
my little microfictionados!
Welcome to another fun-loving chapter of

microfiction Monday,

sponsored by our hostess with the mostess Miss Susan at Stoney River, where the good-natured pandemonium is all about a picture painting 140 characters or even fewer! (For more flash tale fun, click the side-barring mM button-->)

Here’s
THIS WEEK’S IMAGE
and
MY STORY:

“NO WAY!” said Dave to one of Rick’s “fancy” pedicures. --55 characters

ONE WORD:
Engarde!
. . . . . . . . .

PLEASE DO YOURSELF this kind and affordable favour: allow our wonderful world to treat you to a good week! But if by chance it looks like a little "rain" is gonna fall, I offer you this sound advise, often spoken (to just about every body and their brother --I tell ya, sometimes the woman just couldn't be stifled! - LOL!) by my late, great, and favourite

”Auntie Katushka,”

Mildred,
who uncannily resembled Ma Kettle
in each and every way:

"Let your

smile
be your bumbershoot,
my little petit four*!"

*To the exclusion of anyone
under the age of twelve, that is.
To a youngster, she would instead say:

"Let your smile
be your bumbershoot,
my little

(Yes, this was my auntie's idea of what "small Frenchy confections" are.)
petit two!"

Looks like I’m ready for leaving!

Fondly,
SparkleFarkle~~~~~*

Rest in peace, my Mollo, Zuzie, and Aunt Mildred.

Sittin’ on the Dog of the Bay

“IF THERE WAS a terrible storm outside, but somehow this dog lived through the storm, and he showed up at your door when the storm was finally over, I think a good name for him would be Carl.” –Jack Handey

HAPPY

Jack Handey

FRIDAY

on a Thursday!

THOSE

Alexandra Day’s Carl, who, hamming it up, says, “When the cat’s away, a powder puff makes a nice hat! What’s for supper?” (Man, I just love a good Rottweiler novel!)
Good Dog Carl

books that my daughter Puppet and I devoured when she was just a smitch, were terrific! Yeah, when Puppet was a toddler (I think “toddler” is a weird-- no, actually, a grrR0sS sounding word. I’m just saying.), we ate up every copy that we could get our little paws on. We liked them so much in fact that even now, every other Christmas or so, one of us will find a shiny, brand-new one in with all of our stocking loot, come “Santa Claus” morning! But ENOUGH ABOUT CARL ALREADY, because can anyone answer me this:

How come when dogs eat garlic,
you can’t smell it on their breath?

*SparkleFarkled deep-thinking causes brain to misfire,
resulting in the hardly reasonable, all-important next question*

DOES THAT mean, then,
if a poochie wears a garlic necklace,
it won’t necessarily ward off

vampires?

OR WORSE YET,

the unwanted advances of suitors?!
(What? You never wore garlic on a date???)

TWO WORDS:
That bites.

Hot diggety-ly,
SparkleFarkle~~~~~*

Rest in peace, my Mollo and ZuZu.

P.S. THIS JACK HANDEY FRIDAY on a Thursday
is dedicated to Good Dog Chance!

P.P.S. ONE MORE question: catchy as it might sing,
what in the world does the title of this blog
have to do with anything?!

LOL!

Image Credit: Cat-fangs can be found at http://www.strangezoo.com/

The Adventures Come to a Close

David Nelson in his supporting role as Tommy Gordon in 1959's The Big Circus (SPOILER ALERT!–>), a homicidal trapeze artist and the man responsible for the train wrecks, escaped animals, fires, and other Whirling Circus sabotage.

“HE FLEW through the ‘air’
with the greatest of ease.”

–SparkleFarkle, fondly remembering actor David Nelson

David Oswald Nelson

October 24, 1936 – January 11, 2011

Dearest Mr. Nelson,

DURING THE NINE years I religiously watched

your alpaca cardiganned dad, Ozzie; Harriet, your mom, who was forever with a ready pot of coffee and a plate of brownies; your unexpectedly-turned-teen-idol brother, the “irrepressible” Ricky; <--and a more-or-less-play-"straight"-for-the-rest-of-the-family-from-then-on-out, easygoing you, I always thought,

“Wouldn’t it be great to have
a big brother just like David?!”

AND IF YOU’VE yet to head "Up," and you're reading my blog (Because who wouldn't be, on their way to Heaven? ahem), Dave, before you “Go,” could you answer me this: what did your father do for a living??? Yeah, what exactly was the great and powerful Oz (<--God love him.) up to between wandering around the house and mowing the yard???

SIX WORDS:
Inquiring minds still want to know.

ALL KIDDING aside, Mr. Nelson, thanks for all the memories, forever time-capsulely, and Televisionlandy-preserved for our viewing pleasure! Well, aren't we in for a treat?! Here's comes one now!:

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet - “The Boys' Paper Route” (Part 1 of 4)

(And if Ozzie's mild befuddlement and Harriet’s blandly unenthusiastic, ultra-grating, read-right-from-the-paper, scripted voice AND Rick's novacained-mouth line-delivery isn’t your cup of tea, OR, actually, you couldn’t care less about black and white TV, let alone David Nelson --which most definitely would be your loss, because, heck, a sweeter guy you'll never meet, who even though he wasn't slated to be the toast of the Ozzie and Harriet World his pop created, no one ever asked him if he was okay with being “toast” after his little brother became an overnight singing-sensation. Yep, I love ya, Dave. I might just be your biggest fan!)– watch this clip for the 007 After Shave commercial alone. It’s a hoot!

Rest in peace, David Nelson, my Mollo, and ZuZu.

Some Microfiction Should be Taken with a Grain of Salt

PRELUDE TO Microfiction Monday (sponsored by our hostess with the mostess Miss Susan at Stony River, where the good-natured pandemonium is all about a picture painting 140 characters or even fewer!):

I'm in Love with the Morton Salt Girl
by Richard Peabody,

the crookedly humorous but not mean-spirited author and not so anapaestical (<--Hm. Is that even a word?) poet (which is okay by me, because, heck, having metric feet might mean you can ‘talk the talk,’ but can you necessarily “walk the walk”? In so many words: limericks get on my last nerve), a self-described “why are they famous and not me” sort of writer whose compassion for human frailty especially endears him to me, engaging and inspiring me with plenty of his other poems as well, including such insightful commotion as “We're Siamese Twins: We Sleep Together,” “What I Like About a Rifle,” “I Have Always Lived In Basements,” “What’s Your Favorite Toxic Smell?,” “I'm a Television Baby,” and “Canned Peaches”

I'm in love with the Morton salt girl.
I want to pour salt in her hair
and watch her dance.
I want to walk her through the
salt rain and pretend that it is water. I want to
get lost in the Washington Cathedral and follow her
salt trail to freedom.

I want to discover her salt lick
in the forests of Virginia.
I want to stand in line for hours to see her walk on
in the middle of a movie only to have
the film break and watch salt
pour out and flood the aisles.
I want to sit in an empty theater
up to my eyeballs in salt
and dream of her.

When I go home she will be
waiting for me in her white dress
and I will drink salt water
and lose my bad dreams.
I will seek the blindness of salt,
salt down my wounds,
hang like a side of ham
over the curtain rod in the bathroom
and let her pour salt directly
on my body.

When she is done
I will lick her salty lips with my tongue
and walk her down the stairs into the rain,
wishing that I could grow gills
and bathe in her vast salt seas.

AND NOW, without further iodized adew (Dew meaning “rain.” <--Never mind, you’ll get it later. Then, again, maybe not. Far too many times, it is only I who thinks I’m funny. I’ve been known to carry purse-size canned laughter, did you know that about me? Wock! Wock!), here’s

THIS WEEK’S IMAGE
and MY STORY:

Even though his doctor advised him to cut back on sodium, Mothman couldn’t resist sweeping the Morton® Salt Girl* off her feet. –127 characters

*aka Morton® Umbrella Girl, only this one's wearing a raincoat, so I was able poetic license the whole deal.

FIVE WORDS:
When it rains,

FOR MORE

flash tale fun,
click the side-barring mM button-->

Looks like I'm ready for leaving.
Fondly,
SparkleFarkle~~~~~*

P.S. Rest peacefully, my Mollo and ZuZu.

P.P.S. DO YOU REMEMBER goiter pills? Man, I loved them! Everybody did! I don’t know about you, but goiter pills were these chocolate-flavoured iodine pills that were periodically (and after the Pledge of Alligiance) fed to Wisconsin kindergartners in the 1950s to prevent thyroid “sitchiations.” (<–One of my favourite words back then. It drove my mother nuts, so, there for a while, I made saying it an activity of daily living. Not to worry, I won’t be going to Hell. Not for that, anyway, because as soon as I received the Sacrament of Penance in the second grade, I confessed to Father Malloy. But before he had me make a firm Act of Contrition and sentenced me to six Our Fathers and six Hail Marys, he laughed out loud at me from behind that little curtain protecting your identity, even though your recognizable shoes showed the whole time.).They had a chocolate taste that has yet to this day been matched. (Thank you very little, Hershey and Nestle. You, too, Lindt. And, yes, Godiva, I DO see you hiding behind the couch.

Lady!)

and I miss them practically everyday, because that is when I think about them most, they were that good!

Image Credits:
Richard’s book cover: source
Caesar froggy: I Can Has Cheeseburger?