Murder, She Wrote has to be the worst show ever. Unless it's Matlock.

I went to a graduation party for an adult friend of mine who has completed her requirements for a teaching degree. She now has her certification! We were all so proud of her.

The event was held in a nice lodge in the north Georgia woods, in the foothills of the Smokey mountains. The 6 foot fireplace had a roaring fire, the full moon and stars blinked and shone over head, the wood planking inside the lodge glowed warmly in the firelight. And the tables were beautifully set with teacher kind of things.

Like apples.

I was surprised when my friend's son said that the apple centerpieces containing a tea candle were real apples. He said they just scooped out the top and set the tea light in the hole, and lit the candle. Neat! So I did the same at home. Here is how to do it.

Select a size apple proportional to your table. Also make sure it can stand upright. The apple I had was worse than the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

I took a sharpie marker and drew a circle around the tea light so I'd know how much to carve out.

I took a paring knife and carved. Occasionally I'd set the tea light inside to see how much more I needed to carve. I wanted the tea light to set inside just to the rim.

Place tea light inside and light. Voila!

I tried to wear nylons on Sunday with my skirt to church. It didn't work out. Kitten 1. Nylons 0.

Speaking of kitten, he tried to climb the lace curtain. His claw got stuck about halfway up and he was swinging like Tarzan. I was yelling at him and laughing at the same time. However that very same night I ordered a Kitty Claw Clipper from Amazon. This was not a coincidence.

My Bountiful Basket is so tremendous. I roasted Brussels sprouts this morning and they turned out incredibly yummy. And to think I had hated Brussels sprouts as a kid. Silly kiddo!

Yesterday I watched on snagfilms "Sundance Film Festival Classics "Sikumi" about an Inuit hunter who witnesses a murder on the ice. His friend kills another friend. Bringing the body back would mean his friend goes to jail. And will the murderer even let the witness return alive? It was beautifully photographed on location and it was only 15 minutes.

I also watched Word Wars. This documentary is like Spellbound, the movie tracking the spelling bee participants, but this time the Scrabble champions are tracked. Spelling bee kids are cute and charming. The four men in the Scrabble documentary on their way to the world Scrabble Championships in San Diego are not cute and not charming. They are rather pathetic, offbeat in a creepy way, and sad to watch. I learned a lot about Scrabble but couldn't take the men, so three-quarters of the way through I fast forwarded to near the end so I could see who won. Doing that only made me sadder.

The saddest part is that Scrabblers don't learn the words so as to learn their meaning, but only to know words so as to gain points. One participant said that trying to learn the definitions would drive them crazy, and I can see this, because there are a lot of words they have to know. But still. What is the point of knowing a word if you don't include it in your vocabulary? Where was all this memorization, winning, and losing...going? That's what made it sad.

I also turned it off because the black guy swore like a sailor and I couldn't stand it any more. The irony of his militant use of profanity and his standing up for the black man and his perception of the oppression of having to use English instead of Ebonics or African was not lost on me, Scrabble WORD GUY.

So I was off to watch another short, Picture The Leviathan, about painter James Prosek and his paintings of fish. He really likes fish. He really, really likes fish. He explains his emotional and creative process while fishing and seeing the fish as it comes out of the water. We see him photograph and note-take details of these fish, and his attempts to capture all the colors and details of this magnificent living animal as he puts all the information into his paintings, was pretty interesting. And I loved seeing the montage at the end of his finished work. It was amazing!


Then I was on to Murder, She Wrote, the world's worst tv show. I was looking for that elusive combination of nostalgia, clean watching, and mindless entertainment. I did not find it in Jessuca Fletcher. Here is why I had to turn it off, its flaws so glaring even I couldn't overlook them anymore, as lazy as I had wanted to be.

A murder had taken place on a train and a passenger was missing. Fletcher tracked the action to a strictly guarded government facility in the southern Arizona desert. She entered a crime scene, (!) stole the dead guys' ID card, who by the way worked at the government facility (!!). It turned out the facility was the NSA (!!!). Fletcher used the ID card to gain entry to the NSA facility (!!!!) and then hacked the computer to try and find information (!!!!!).

When inevitably caught, Fletcher told the NSA facility commander that she had been trying to get to meet him all along and then she gave him what-for.

The NSA guy just shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "Aw, man, what are we ever going to do with this no-nonsense Yankee spitfire lady, anyway? Chuckle chuckle."

No. Here is how it works. You enter a crime scene you get arrested. You steal something from a crime scene and you get arrested. You use a NSA ID card to unlawfully gain entry to a NSA listening facility and you get put away immediately. You hack their computers and you never emerge into the light of day again. (Snowdon? Snowdon? Anyone? Anyone?)

I spent some time last night buying stuff at Amazon. A kind person had given me a gift certificate so I spent a happy few hours carefully buying what I needed and wanted and got the most out of the gift certificate. I came in three cents under. Ha ha!

I am enjoying this day off. The temps have returned to normal, now it is 62 degrees. Bright sun is streaming through the lace curtains (the ones unmolested by kitty) and speaking of the three cats, they are sleeping. I will heat up a lunch and make some tea and read. Days off are great.