The Friday Dispatch: January 17, 2024
Happy Birthday Ben Franklin! We totally would've dated
Gosh dang it! Howdy. It’s Friday. We made it. We may be a little beat up, but we made it, and now we’re only weeks from spring! I promise you that! Unless, of course, you are reading this in the southern hemisphere. In which case I’m lyyyyyiiiiiiing! Happy almost-fall, y’all.
Yesterday, I was sad about the death of Bob Uecker1 when I learned that David Lynch had also passed away. Then, I was more sad. Sometimes, that’s just how it is. So, readers, I hope you have the weirdest Major League/Mulholland Drive double feature planned for this weekend. Two films which warn against the dangers of letting women have a lot of money! (Mulholland Line Drive…is this anything…)
Down to business.
Payday Call to Action!
Earlier this week, I opened a random GoFundMe link, shared by someone I was not connected to, from a group on Facebook. Imagine my surprise when I saw the organizer was someone I knew! Okay, yes—that’s how social networks are meant to work—but that hardly ever happens.
Cheyenne Pacholke and I were classmates in high school. We were a couple of years apart, but crossed paths often, and were always thrilled to find ourselves reunited in a class or a club. I hadn’t spoken to Cheyenne in a decade (!) when I saw her name on GoFundMe, leading the fundraising charge for her mom, Cindy. Cindy went to the hospital in December, suspecting that she had pneumonia. Actually, she had experienced a heart attack around Thanksgiving without knowing it. She's beginning to heal, thanks to an open heart surgery successfully completed last Friday, but she can't return to work until she gets medical clearance. Her husband, Steve, is taking time off to care for her, too. When I was in school, the Pacholkes were always the family who would contribute to the community without thinking twice, and now, it’s time for those years of support to find their way back to the family!
Cindy, Cheyenne and their family are making progress toward their goal, but that progress could be a little faster. Please share or donate here! If you aren’t in a position to donate right now, sharing is great. The family has mentioned that prayers are welcome and appreciated, too. Thank you!
Comment dit-on “binge watching”?
Last night was Girls’ Night (I put on a potato face mask2 and petted Dottie for three hours because my plans got canceled and Myles wasn’t home!). So, I finally started watching Call My Agent!, a French series I’ve been meaning to watch for…well…seven years now? I’m almost certain my friend Genevieve recommended this show to me first; she tends to be one of the first people in my life to recommend cool things. As part of my Grand Schemes for 2025, I’m enjoying more French media, and guess what! This is four whole seasons of that.
I’m bad at TV—we’ve talked about this—but Call My Agent! had me from the first five minutes of the first episode, thanks to an equestriennecentric quick-change that set the tone of the show flawlessly. The show follows the employees at a talent agency in France who represent a bunch of high-maintenance film stars. Hence the show’s French name, dix pour cent, literally ten percent, the fraction of the actors’ checks that the agents take home. There are secret (familial) relationships, there are beautiful women being demanding to the media. People are rich and run all around. I haven’t seen Succession, but I think it’s probably like Succession if Succession were fun to watch. It’s fun to hear the little vocal tics of the language, see how common phrases are shortened or modified to fit contemporary slang, and get a sense of what regional accents are like. Or not! “Quentin Tarantino” sounds the same in French.
Highly recommend! C’est bonne!
Speaking of entertainment, TikTok is getting banned and will go away after this week, so let’s all take an hour or two to watch the Best TikTok Ever on repeat:
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Two Books I’m Reading
I followed Linda Holmes3 on Twitter forever, and always meant to read her debut novel, Evvie Drake Starts Over. And then I forgot! And now she has three novels. But I finally started EDSO and I’ll finish it tonight or tomorrow. This is a very straightforward romance between a widow and a disgraced baseball player. Lots of good northeastern accents. I’m reading an ebook from the library, so I have to read it before the clock strikes midnight on Sunday, or it will turn back into a pumpkin (aka go back to the NYPL) (New York Pumpkin Library)!
I’m also reading How to Be Good, by Nick Hornby, and so far everyone in it is an asshole! I know nothing about it. I saw it was by Nick Hornby and it was on clearance and I said “Yay, okay!” and I bought it at The Strand. I haven’t even read the back cover. I’m 30 pages in. Anything could happen!
WIDNBTW
I smell like a cupcake because I saw
again this week and she sent me home with more delicious cake-flavored body butters. If you missed this most recent Empties installment, you should tune in, because I think the next couple editions will be entirely Empties Of Things Lynn Gave Me. Thank you Lynn!Here is What I Did Not Buy This Week:
Delicious lotions from Twisted Allure
A $600 faux fur coat (I thought it was a robe!) (that would not have impacted my financial decision lol)
THESE. These file folders that are also NOTEPADS. Help! Help!!!!! I want these so much and I absolutely DO NOT need them. I have, no joke, 30 notepads within two feet of me. I have 25 file folders coming in the mail. I am not a project manager, I am not truly organized enough to justify the desire. I don’t need any of these! Not a one! And yet! Here I am! COVETING!!!
Some sort of beautiful, elegant socks for ladies?
These dog toys, which I thought were bath bombs
This L’Oreal face cream which a girl in a makeup tutorial mixed into her foundation (she put foundation directly on the skin cream dispenser which sort of grossed me out!)
This special bag for carrying around a baguette (WARNING: fancy)
Rabbit food (but I ate some and it was pretty good)
Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black: Collected Stories
A Cinnamoroll tote bag, which I desired, BUT then Myles surprised me with the Sanrio skateboarder stickers I had mentioned in a previous newsletter! So my Sanrio craving is sated…for now!!! (He also got me the throw blanket mentioned in this newsletter which was sooooo cozy for Girls Night)
And with that, happy weekend! It’s supposed to be decent-ish weather, sunny, at least, so I’ll be going juuuuust a bit outside. I hope that Saturday and Sunday are both equally good—the twin peaks of your week, so to speak. I’m off to eat ricotta cheese with a spoon. Farewell!
Do you think it was fun to be one of Bob Uecker’s children, so you could say “Please, MISTER Baseball is my father…”
According to the company, these sheet masks are great for after-sun exposure!
Of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour! It seems her newest book is about a podcast producer, which, LOL