Every June, I spend a couple of days preparing for the e(vil)Bay sale. I’m going through clothes, books, movies and other sundry items, in hopes of cleaning out some space. It’s like a garage sale, but with half the work.

I figured this was as good a time as any to do it — a rainy, dreary, chilly day.

Tonight, after I get home from spending time with the Most Amazing Toddlers in the World, the Thriller and I have an appointment:  a cull session. We are going through all of our Route 66 books and maps, as well as collected travel brochures from different cities, and arriving at a ballpark decision about what we can see, and what we have to pass up this time around.

And that is my Wednesday. Oh, and it doesn’t bite that we went to Detroit and came home with more money than we took with us — ScORe!

Rain Fink

Last night fizzled. It was supposed to be dinner-and-movie night for the Thriller and me. The dinner part worked fine, but then our video-on-demand service died, 30 minutes into the movie. Hmmm.

After calling the cable guys, the Thriller decided to go downstairs and watch the ball game, and I stayed on the sofa (drugged with DayQuil/NyQuil…stupid cold, ugh) and flipped channels, passing the time before passing out. I ended up on CNN, where Larry King was celebrating his last 25 years in the interview business. He had many predictable and entertaining favorites (Bette Davis, Johnny Cash, Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando), but one of his top picks really struck me as odd: Tammy Faye Bakker. He’d had her on his show several times over the years. What was the draw? I had to find out.

I did some research this morning on Tammy. Turns out I didn’t really know much about her, despite having her overpainted face taking up my TV screen every night as a teenager (my parents were staunch PTL devotees). After my hour of looking at vids, transcripts and pictures, I decided that regardless of what happened to the PTL network and all the craziness and criminal activity, Tammy was always Tammy. She described herself and Bakker as “two kids who hadn’t even graduated from college” heading up a huge empire and eventually falling for the glitz. Here is a picture tour of the deterioration of Heritage USA, the dreamboat of the Bakkers that eventually sank when Jim Bakker sold way more $1,000 PTL memberships than he had rooms to house them (everyone was promised a free stay). After the revelation of his tryst with Jessica Hahn, the whole project was pretty much in the crapper. I can only imagine the panic…

Anyway, her seemingly unabashed honesty continually impressed me. Faked or not, it was compelling. She said in one interview:

I never dreamed that someday, my name would be known everywhere. Only God could do that for somebody with no talent. Thank you, God.

Here is a clip from her final interview, where she talked candidly with King about the inoperable cancer eating up her lungs:

She died the next day.

So, Larry and Tammy — I never would have understood the attraction. But after watching videos this morning, I realized that she might have had a hidden grace; a dignity that the press (and her dedication to the clown makeup) never allowed to shine through.

Eenteresting. RIP Tammy.

Now to the sofa, with a blanket and Kleenex. *sniff*

And what am I doing? Working. But it’s good stuff, unless you count the Thriller’s reaction when I tell him I would like the furniture in Justin’s room switched out with Jake’s.

One of the neat-o things about having grown children is the extra bedrooms that can be turned into whatever one wants. We have three such rooms, so the transformation began a couple of days ago to flip two of them into private retreats for the Most Amazing Toddlers in the World. When the metamorphosis has taken place, there will be photographs.

In the meantime, there are beds, dressers, chairs and night stands to be schlepped about, housework to be done, dinner to be made, and movie to be watched.

It’s good to be on the first day of summer.

FO

…”Gee, I wish I’d thought of this first” ?

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There are a ton more of these. Can you think of any? Better yet, can you think of some that haven’t yet been invented, then tell me in my ear? Your secret will be safe with me, I promise.

Finkshhhhhhh