I failed to mention over the previous two days that actress Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg died at the age of 82 on September 10 (2020). Supposedly she did so peacefully at home after being diagnosed around six months ago as having cancer.
Back in the second half of the 1960s, there was a period of about two years when I was mad for ─ utterly in love with ─ Diana Rigg / Emma Peel, thanks to her outstandingly overwhelming presence in The Avengers.
It was no light love, either ─ I loved her exclusively.
I even used to fantasize that if 'the end times' were soon to come as so horrifically detailed in the Herbert W. Armstrong booklet 1975 in Prophecy!, then I would somehow travel to England and conveniently become involved with her ─ perhaps with a chance meeting in Hyde Park; and thereafter the two of us would stand fast together in united love as we faced everything that was ahead, all whilst under the special protection of God.
Of course, in my fantasy, I was some physically magnificent version of myself that was as yet unrealized ─ a veritable action hero like the fictional heroes in the fantasy and science fiction stories I so much read and thrilled to.
It did not matter to me then that she was 11 years and nearly three months older than I was. Besides, if 'the end times' truly were imminent, then she and I would be living on into immortality with the Second Coming of Christ at the conclusion of Armageddon.
Again, these events were some imagined parallel as is outlined in the booklet 1975 in Prophecy!
I was a very socially isolated teen.
The Avengers T.V. series was essentially my only visual record of Diana Rigg ─ as well as various occasional photos in magazines and periodicals that I might happen upon, of course.
And so it was quite a surprise many years later after the arrival of the 21st Century that I was to see the very matured Dame Diana Rigg ─ to use that kindly phrase, she did not age well.
How could that have happened to the vivacious beauty whom I had fallen in love with back in the latter half of the 1960s?
I despise what Time does to us.
There are of course so many video tributes out now, but I don't find too many of them to be of much appeal to me. They are amateurish.
This one is quite good ─ it was uploaded to YouTube the same day that Dame Diana Rigg died: Tribute to DIANA RIGG 1938 - 2020 | In Memoriam.
I love that clip featuring Daniel Radcliffe ("Harry Potter") mischievously enquiring of his far older co-star, "Do you still got that catsuit from the Avengers?"
Her stern admonition in response, "Go away, Daniel."
Apparently the clip is from an episode of the two-season T.V. sitcom series Extras ─ specifically, it was from the third episode in 2006's season two of the series. I must seek them all out via our Android TV Box for my brother and I to watch.
I located a couple of other video tributes that I like which were produced long before Dame Diana Rigg's death ─ I shall now link to them both.
I just wish this first one uploaded to Vimeo on June 3, 2017 had used the original Ronettes song: The Avengers - Baby I Love You [John Steed & Emma Peel].
The second Vimeo video was uploaded slightly earlier ─ May 28, 2017: The Avengers - Blank Space [John Steed & Emma Peel].
I don't embed videos any longer because sources too often remove them, and my post is left with a big, useless empty block where the video had once been. It is better to just post links to them ─ if a link should one day become invalid, then my post will not visually suffer for it.
Here's a .gif of Diana Rigg as Emma Peel, and sporting a sexy outfit that I believe she actually designed:
It's certainly hard to imagine that this sensuously beautiful and athletic young woman is the same actress who was a cronish regular on Game of Thrones, isn't it?
As I said, I utterly despise Time and what it does to us.
I only learned today that she has a daughter who is also an actress ─ Rachel Stirling turned 43 back in May.
With the dream girl of my teens now gone, I cannot but consider my own mortality ─ in precisely one month, I will turn 71 years of age.
My brother and I are still working our way through the T.V. series Victoria ─ Dame Diana Rigg has a recurring role there in which she looks uncannily similar to her character in Game of Thrones; but I am considering seeing if her entire run of Emma Peel The Avengers episodes are accessible through our Android TV Box. If so, I think that I will rewatch all of them with my brother, beginning with the very first in which she was introduced.
It has been so very many years since I have seen a full episode that most of them will seem fresh and new to me ─ and more so to my younger brother.
oooooooooooooo
I never made it to bed last night until something like 12:38 a.m., for my brother was backing into our driveway at 8:28 p.m. and set foot into the house by the unspoken 8:30 p.m. deadline that I have for him.
Had he even not done so until 8:31 p.m., I was prepared to vacate the living room and get myself to bed to avoid a late evening operating our Android TV Box to locate episodes of some of the T.V. series that we follow in common.
It was almost as if his arrival involved some heavenly intervention.
I resigned myself to whatever it was that had taken place so fortuitously for him to have him arrived home when he did; and over the course of the evening, I even had two cans of the strong (8% alcohol) beer that I keep in stock.
My wife surprised me later that evening by showing up following her long day working at her friend's Thai restaurant ─ my wife normally spends her weekends somewhere in Vancouver and does not come home after her Friday workdays.
Such is my real marriage, and not the idealistic fantasy relationship that my teen self had conjured with Diana Rigg in an 'End Time' that has yet to present itself.
I had let my wife know by text at 12:40 p.m. that day that a rather heavy package she had been expecting had arrived. She has become deeply involved as a reseller or agent for certain Thai products of a reputed 'health' nature.
I figured the package was why she had shown up. Nevertheless, I did not expect that she would just leave a half hour or so later without a word to me as I sat with my brother in the darkened living room watching our shows.
She had only communicated (in Thai) with her two sons where they were in their den area amusing themselves on their computers.
Anyway, due to my late night, I was not to rise until after 6 a.m. this morning to put more work (content) into the post I am developing at one of my six hosted websites. The post is already the largest that I have ever put together (and I have some that exceed 30,000 words), and I am still possibly at least 10 days away from finishing and publishing it.
The day was never to be sunny, so my sunbathing has finally come to a finish ─ probably until sometime next Spring.
As I wrote in my blog yesterday, that day had been marked with considerable atmospheric haze due to Washington forest fires. As a consequence, I don't know if the overcast sky today has been due to solid cloud cover, or a mix of high smoke and cloud, or maybe even entirely due to thick smoke. Whatever the case, the air hereabouts smells strongly of smoke, and everything has a very distinctive reddish 'glow' to it ─ even the nearly hazy air itself.
It is almost like being on another planet.
Upon finishing the work this morning that I wanted accomplished for today on the website post, I returned to bed for a deep nap. I even dreamed of a former younger co-worker I had been sweet on. Michelle S. became engaged, according to a post of hers that I came upon yesterday in Facebook.
As co-workers, she and I had been very close from the first day that she began a work term back around 2003 or so. She would hold my hand at team meetings, and would seek me out for lunch. Sometimes we would even transit together at the end of the workday. I quite adored her. She made a lot more bearable the Hell that my supervisor Kelly M. had made of the workplace for me.
But we worked in Human Resources. I knew that it was probably only a matter of time until she researched me and discovered how much her senior I was. Although I did not look it, I may have been as much as 20 years her elder.
The day that she made the discovery was very obvious to me ─ she acted almost 'shell-shocked' and was markedly distant or aloof. And she would constantly look askance at me with clear discomfort and suspicion.
Of course this attitude would wear off in the days to come, but we never achieved the former warm and very comfortable relationship. I had been 'dropped like a hot potato'.
So I expect that reading yesterday of her engagement had sufficient effect upon me to inspire a dream late this morning during my nap.
It was not yet quite noon when I emerged from my bedroom following the nap, and my brother was still downstairs watching some T.V. But he soon enough did seek his own bedroom to rest up for his afternoon venture away to ultimately resume his daily drinking somewhere.
I was to have another needed nap in the latter afternoon following my day's first meal. I had held off eating aught until I had finally tackled some scheduled exercising out in the backyard tool shed.
Even light meals tend to weigh heavily upon me. I am like some great cat or even a serpent that needs to repose to allow the meal to settle and digest to some considerable degree.
Right now it is 6:39 p.m. and I am still unsure if I will follow through with a notion I have been entertaining all day long ─ the four-mile round trip hike to the nearest B.C. government liquor store (Google map) that happens to be located in Whalley to purchase a flat of two dozen cans of the strong beer I like to keep in stock.
I still have 11 cans of beer, so the need is not exactly dire. However, I feel that the walk and exercise are.
So on the eventuality that I will yet accomplish that feat, I am going to bring this post to a close and start to at least ready myself. Maybe if I then have a couple of shots of some liquor, I might find myself sufficiently inspired.
The store closes at 9 p.m. However, I will need to have left before my brother shows up for the evening ─ if he does not happen to stay and spend the night at the home of his girlfriend Bev.
To be continued tomorrow, I guess!
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