Just Some Random Thoughts

1) I am an avid Facebooker. Can't help it. I love that little social networking sight. It has helped me get back in touch with people I went to high school with, whether I wanted to or not. It has also brought me a group of friends I would never have known otherwise, and yes, my life is that much richer for it. Sure, I won't ever meet many of them, but I know I will eventually meet a least a few. And who says you have to meet face-to-face anyway? We share jokes, life stories (happy and sad), advice. We do all the things friends do in the "real" world. We may live hundreds or even thousands of miles apart, but we have found each other through the "miracle" that is the internet and we are all so very glad we did.

2) The Super Bowl is coming up next weekend. I'm not the biggest football fan in the world, and what I know about the game could probably be written on a matchbook, but I do have many (MANY) friends who are avid fans, and most of them seem to be Steelers fans. So, since my Minnesota Vikings couldn't be bothered to actually do much of anything but lose this season, I have decided that for this very huge game, I will do my Steelers friends a favor and pull for their team. I apologize to any of my friends who are Packers fans, but they outnumber you and more of them live near me. (Not to mention that two of them are also pet sitting clients, so I really don't have much choice. HA.)

3) I think my cats enjoy driving me crazy. I know Muffin does for sure. She disappears every once in a great while. Not often, mind you. If it was more often, I probably wouldn't worry when it happens. Every couple of months or so, she doesn't show up for breakfast, today being one such day. Sometimes, I can go over to my neighbor's house and find her "trapped" in his basement. When he's down there working with the door open, she can't resist going in. She spent two full days in there one time, me panicking all the while. Now it's usually the first place I look, and sometimes she's there. Today isn't one of those times. I know she'll show up later on, staring in the window to let me know she's home, giving me that 'look' that cats give when they think you're crazy and they're the only sane ones here. As if they don't know that they're the ones driving us crazy in the first place.

4) I just realized that I am sitting here putting my random thoughts into a list format. My friend Angie would be so proud.

Katharine Hepburn

I adore Katharine Hepburn. I think I always have. Can't remember a time when I didn't know who she was, and boy what a woman she was. She jumped into Hollywood with a look that was at the time considered unusual...certainly not conventionally beautiful. She had a confidence that was usually reserved for men, definitely not women. She wore pants more than skirts, was very athletic and was never afraid to speak her mind. What a great role model for women then and still today.

I own a copy of the book "Kate Remembered" by A. Scott Berg. It is one of the few books I've read more than once. Although I wish there was a little more of her in it, and a little less of him, I can still read passages and hear her voice in my head. I can picture the look on her face when she fusses at the author for something silly or brushes off a comment about her legend. And a legend she was.

I recently picked up two other books about Hepburn from the local library, and I have to say, the one I am looking forward to reading the most was written by the lady herself, "Me: Stories of My Life." It was written in 1991 and is so full of wonderful pictures. I was just sitting here looking through the photographs and as I flipped to the end, I found a section where she wrote a letter to Spencer Tracy. Yes, I went ahead  and read it, and yes I will read it again when I read the book. And yes, it will probably again bring tears to my eyes.

(My favorite picture of Tracy and Hepburn.)

Tracy and Hepburn had a relationship that you would think in that day and age would have been a big scandal, what with him being married with children and moving in with her where he remained until his death. Maybe it's a testament to how much everyone respected them that it wasn't. Or maybe it says a lot about what good people they really were. Even Tracy's wife knew about it (of course) and was called by Hepburn when he died. All I know is, there was something about those two when they were on the screen together. (My husband and I love the movie "Desk Set" and the way they played off each other in that one. Pure joy to watch.)

I have to say that my absolute favorite Tracy-Hepburn movie is "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." They were so good in this one. All those years together really showed, and it's even  more poignant when you realize that Tracy was ill at the time and would not even live to see the finished movie released in the theater. Sidney Poitier was terrific as always and really seemed to have a genuine respect for the couple. Katharine Houghton, who played the daughter and is Katharine Hepburn's niece, also radiated a type of love for them both. A great movie and a fitting way to say goodbye to a man Hepburn often said was "the greatest movie actor."

Katharine Hepburn died in 2003 at the age of 96, and the world is a better place for having known her.

Wordless Wednesday (A Man Who Needs No Words) :)

**SIGH**