On Vertigo

 Because of the vertigo I had earlier, we re-watched Hitchcock's Vertigo last night. Of the entire cast, only Kim Novak is still alive.

I wish I could say it held up, but it did not. The sexism was really bad, for one thing. The age gap--James Stewart was 49, Kim Novak 24--bothered me and apparently wasn't well received in the 1950s, either. She's stunning, but what does she see in him? He's not rich, powerful, handsome, fun, or especially sweet. Zero chemistry on screen. At least the husband she's cheating on, also older, is filthy rich.

Whatever does Barbara Bel Geddes, the unrequited love interest, see in him? And puh-lease, don't tell me they went to college together when he looks his actual age and so does she, fourteen years younger. Stewart is a lean, lined almost-fifty and she's a girlish thirty-five.

The older man's assumption that a woman should be willing to change her appearance completely because he wants her to? Hell, no. When he tells her to bleach her hair platinum blonde and change the style, she doesn't want to and his reply is, "Judy, please it can't matter to you..." Dude, it's her head. How about you shave your head. It can't matter to you.

And since she was paid to turn herself into the same person in the past to commit fraud, why the hell does she forget how to move, act, and be more like the person she's imitating on his command--a role she played previously to perfection?

There's much more not to like. Two people swearing love when they haven't had an actual conversation? Nope.

His taking a half-drowned semiconscious woman to his apartment, where he strips her naked and puts her to bed, instead of to a hospital... Ugh. Creepster, especially when you add the age difference. It's not TLC, it's predatory.

And--spoilers okay on a movie from 1958?--why the hell didn't the nuns lock the tower door after the first death from a fall? And why would Judy be so scared of a nun's arrival that she backed away and "died again"?

And finally, Acrophobia would not be as good a movie title, even though that's what Stewart's character has.

Foam Alone

When we were new to this house, I got my first-ever new chair that was just for me. The plan was I'd use it in my sewing room/study. Which I did, for a while. It looked good with the carpet color, which we would not be changing. It fit my body and supported my back. It rocked. It rotated. It was magical!

But we needed more seating where the TV is, and my chair was appropriated. It even looks good in there. I had to make a solid case for getting it back, and I did.

We ordered a leather chair for the family room in June and were quite surprised to learn it would not be ready until March, nine months ahead. We joked about them having to first impregnate a cow, wait for her to calf, let the calf grow chair-sized...

My mom-mobile has long had a little body damage and Mr. Maryn thought it might be time to trade it in, since every time he sees it he gets mad at himself all over again. (Super tight parking garage in Toronto, steel meets concrete column.) Did I like the car enough to get one just like it? 

Well, you can't. There are no new models of this car within hundreds of miles. How about a road trip to where we used to live? Check it out--none there, either. WTF?

The foam shortage is what. It's a big deal to the furniture, mattress, and auto industry. The makers of the chemicals saw a huge reduction in demand at the start of COVID, laid off workers, reduced production to some low percentage, and hoped to hang on.

Little did they consider that being home for long periods of time made people want new furniture and mattresses. Or that working from home and/or home schooling demanded more spacious quarters that needed new everything because the old furniture just didn't work.

Less safety in air travel meant the demand for cars was up, too--cars with upholstered seats. So the foam industry came back hard, trying to make up for lost time, which caused them to make a grave error. Some workers had moved on, and training takes time, so production had not reached pre-pandemic levels.

Usually when hurricanes or other "weather events" are predicted, virtually all heavy industry shuts down well in advance, battens their hatches, sends workers home while it's still safe, and waits it out. Only the chemical companies had such high demand, and the Texas blizzard gave so little warning, that all five plants in the US were running when they lost power. All of them!

Improper shut-down damages equipment. Apparently it's freakishly good luck no person was injured or killed as machinery abruptly stopped. They lost supplies to ice and cold. Lines froze. Some burst.

It's a testament to plant engineers that they recovered as quickly as they did, the industry says. It wasn't all that quick, and orders for foam chemicals backed up even more.

My chair might come in May. Might.