Saturday Evening... It Snowed!

Baby, it's cold outside!

Not as cold as it was, though. The snow has stopped. It was coming down heavily mid-afternoon, but it's warm enough now that it didn't stick and stay. That may change, now that it's night time again.

I bought a Casio keyboard. Jackie's Realtor gave me one but it doesn't work without squealing like a banshee and I got frustrated, so went to Wal-Mart, deciding I'd buy a new one if it was under $150. It was only $88!

So I've been teaching myself to play piano again most of the afternoon. I must say, these Casio keyboards are so fancy and helpful these days that it has already taught me six songs (beginner and intermediate range level) -- three Christmas songs, plus Amazing Grace, Row Row Row Your Boat (thanks for the memory, De!), Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and --- Auld Lang Syne.

The Casio even comes with accompaniment and all sorts of extra bells and whistles -- even a microphone if I ever find someone who wants to sing along! I'm looking forward to getting the Reader's Digest piano course I ordered. It should be here in the next few days... I was half-expecting it to be in the mailbox today, but no dice.

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I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief since last night. My friend Anne Richardson in Australia seems to be out of the woods now after a truly frightening and scary several months and many hospital stays. I really was beginning to think we were going to lose her. She still isn't completely better, but she's so much better that, over the phone, she sounds like the Anne I know and love! Full of energy and sparkle. A light in the world.

Recently she has been losing weight without explanation and she has been breathless; and from time to time her ankles and legs have swelled. Extensive tests all have come back saying she isn't experiencing any of the life-threatening diseases or illnesses we were worried about, but they still haven't been able to pinpoint what the heck is/was wrong. She's lost sixty pounds without an explanation and can't afford to lose much more. She's about model size now for her height. So keep praying for her!

Oh, by way of introduction for those of you who don't know her, Anne was De's Aussie fan club President for many years. You met her in my De book, if you read it. I met her in 92 or 93 in Hollywood and three years ago she flew over to the Pacific Northwest and took an Alaska cruise with me. I hope to see her again this coming April, if I get the definite go-ahead to fly to Adelaide to talk to De's fans at Stuart Blair's convention.

Stuart is trying to get Leonard Nimoy there, and if he does, he's going to see if he can finagle a way to get me there at the same time. (Ooooh.... can I fly from L.A. with Leonardo da Wow? That would be great!)

A chance to go to Australia once in my life would be a dream come true! And Anne will put me up at her place. I just have to get an extra week vacation at On-Hold Concepts (without pay) to be able to do it, because no way am I flying to Australia and staying only one week! I'm going to stay long enough to get an Aussie accent, I told Anne! (That won't take long. I fall into accents and dialects faster than you can say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! spelling? Close enough for government work!)

I want to stay in Australia two weeks, maybe two and a half... We'll see what I can get away with and still keep my job and not go broke... I'll get airfare, but no speaker's fee... so after a week, I'll be going backward financially unless everyone at the convention orders a De book ahead of time for me to sign. Yeah, right... They run $75 dollars each over there, because of shipping and handling. Outrageous! And I imagine shipping a box of fifty books would be astronomical, too, so there's really no way to fund the extra week in Australia. I'll just have to bite the bullet!!)

I'd like to see Leonard again on stage (unless I fly with him from L.A. and we get to have a short conversation en route. There are a couple things I'd like to tell him about De.) I missed seeing him (and everyone else, except Rene A., who spoke just before I did) in Vegas 'cause I had to get to the airline terminal.

I doubt Leonard would remember having met me (in 1968, the same year I met De the first time) but he might know of me as a result of my Vulcan-eared cat (Deaken the serval). Carolyn told me De showed lots of Deaken's pictures to the whole cast one time... and I know Grace Lee Whitney kept looking at me quizzically the two times she spotted me (in a studio commissary the first time and at Planet Xpo last year), as if thinking, "Where do I know that girl from?" -- although we had never met until Planet Xpo.

Even though Leonard doesn't know me, if he searches his memory banks he might remember that I did two covers for his official fan club (The Leonard Nimoy Association of Fans) back in 1968-1969 and that I called his character (Paris) on Mission Impossible a "chameleon," in one of them, which I think he swiped and used in a subsequent interview. (But that's all right. Copycatting is the second sincerest form of flattery - after imitation.)

Anyway, it would be great to sit and chat with him for about 20 minutes, if I ever got the chance. But I probably never will and I'll survive just fine if I don't!