Muddling Through

Well, to steal a phrase from Miss Deven Green, hello there.

Today's Sanity Check

This is how it's done.

Redux 2018: M is for...

M is for... first appeared on May 10, 2009 and has become my Mother's Day tradition. Once, again, Happy Mother's Day, Mother Muscato, wherever you are...

This year the day brings a bit of a double punch, for it's also my birthday - 55! Imagine being so old. Mother Muscato always got the closest - being a rather flinty sort - she ever got to sentimental on the occasion, every six years, when Mother's Day and the anniversary of my first appearance happened to coincide. "My little Mother's Day present," she'd say, either earnestly or with a tinge of sarcasm, depending on her mood, my behavior, and, truth be told, exactly where we were in the afternoon's Old Fashioneds. I hope you all are enjoying the day and well in general; we are, for the most part, more of which, perhaps, anon.

In any case, here it is again: a memory of my mother:

Birthday Girl: Trouble Proof

Our very dear TJB has reminded me that today is Dusty's birthday. Here puts a wistful, almost anesthetized, and very, very effective spin on a song I don't otherwise associate with her.

Au Reservoir

Carissimi, the Café is going on a little break.

You'd Better Shop Around...

...And the award for Most Enchanting New Products goes to...

Living in the Moment

I came upon this arresting image at some point this week, and I can't get it out of my mind. Somehow, it explains Joan Crawford to me in a way I'd never considered so clearly.

Tell Mary to Call Diane!

The fabulous Miss Dina Martina gives us her... unique... perspective on this most invented of all long weekends..

Once More, With Feeling

From all of us here at the Café (that is to say, the Yorkie, the Mister, and me), it's once again my pleasure to wish each and every one of you a happy and enamored Karen Valentine's Day.  May your celebrations be more successful than the ill-fated and utterly unremembered Karen...

Birthday Girl: The Pre-Teased Superstar

Well, it's deepest gray and pouring rain here in Our Nation's Capital, and I have to admit that my seasonal funk continues. If anything, though, were to drive away the clouds, I think it would be spending some time, as I've done this afternoon, in the very personable company of today's Birthday Girl.

Birthday Girl: The Miraculous Miss Mercer

As part of my ongoing cheer-up efforts - and in recognition of her 118th birthday - herewith a half-hour with Miss Mabel Mercer.

Medley Madness

It's hard to not to feel at least a little more cheerful in the presence of the divine Josephine, I find. Isn't she just too too too? If you're not grinning helplessly by the Big Finish, I'm not sure we can be friends...

Complaints Department (With Bonus New Drag Name)

So, O Best Beloveds, I won't lie to you: la vie is rather bleak chez nous at the moment. I'm in a slough.

Of Flaring Pains and Old Flames...

So 2018 has gotten off to rather a pesky start, chez nous...

Birthday Girl: The Dame

Insofar as a force of nature can have a birthday, Dame Shirley Bassey is doing so even as we speak - 81 going on eternal.

New Year's, Baby

Just look at the red cheeks on that bellboy...