Odds & Ends Around the Valley

Howdy, New Year

Jack and Martha Jamieson will be at it again this New Year’s Eve.

For 36 years--with one exception--they have hosted a party every Dec. 31 in their North Hollywood house, and this year it’s business as usual.

Jack will cook for the midnight buffet, and he and Martha--who are both eightysomething--have cooked up the skit, which is the highlight of these annual high jinks. To hear Martha tell it, most of these little performance pieces would never qualify for a G movie rating.

“This year we are doing ‘Cinderella and the Madam,’ set at the Cottontail Ranch in Nevada,” she said, then paused. “You probably get the idea. My husband and I are both theatrical and musical, so we just sort of attracted friends who would like this sort of thing, and be willing to participate sometimes.”

In 1954, when the first party was given, she invited mostly friends from the PTA at Toluca Lake School where her children attended, and friends from local musical groups.

“There were probably 30 or 40 of them, and everything was pretty informal then,” she said. Over the years, the skits and the buffet grew to outrageous proportions and the size of the crowd did likewise.

“I just had to put my foot down,” Martha said. “There were more than 100 people in our little house and that just wasn’t good. One year I called the whole thing off so people would get out of the habit of coming here. But the next year we started up again with a smaller guest list.”

This year there will be about 60 guests and they will be invited to come at 10 p.m., “so they won’t be standing around with nothing to do half the night.”

At midnight, according to Martha, the guests are invited to sample Frank’s buffet. Afterward, everyone will watch the show and then go home.

“We get the skit written up, cast the parts, then do the music. Frank directs and I play the piano for the singing,” Martha said.

This New Year’s Eve they will again be surrounded by friends, and their house will be alive with laughter and singing.

“It’s a lot of work, but it’s fun,” Martha said. “It’s nice to think we started a tradition.”

Be Prepared

OK. Here’s what’s going to happen in the coming year--straight from the planets to you--and don’t think it was easy getting this information.

It seems this is the busiest time of year for psychics. They have a number of reasons for not wanting to give away predictions.

Psychic Madam Joanne in Agoura said she wasn’t interested in publicity or predicting about worldly things, she just does personal readings.

Psychic astrologer Audrey in Canoga Park couldn’t talk because she had company.

The California Astrology Assn.’s answering service said no one would talk without an appointment, but offered to send a brochure.

And the woman listed as the Royal Thai Star Path Astrologer in Studio City was on her way out the door but said not to worry too much about earthquakes.

Finally, Helene Woodman Cushman of Tarzana--the San Fernando Valley’s answer to Nancy Reagan’s Joan Quigley--called to fill us in.

We’ve been having confrontations in the Middle East because Saturn and Mars are configuring badly up there, causing those of us down here to push and shove. Cushman, who takes both the Middle East situation and astrology seriously, said things would ease up by March.

“By and large, 1991 is going to be a much gentler year,” she said. “The problems in the Middle East will not be resolved, but they will cool down considerably.”

Domestically, she said, the economy will level off. “We are not going to have a depression unless people lose their heads.”

According to Cushman, the planets say the stock market will continue to fluctuate, but the real estate market will revive. “By that I mean that the bottom is not going to fall out of the market,” she said. “If you are looking for a bargain, you’d best jump in now.”

Cushman, who says she is directly descended from rebel minister Robert Cushman who arrived in this country on the Mayflower, said she figures out what is going to happen to the country partially by doing President Bush’s charts.

“Bush is going to stay angry and feel aggressive about foreign policy for quite awhile,” she said, “but after the first of the year there will be some real mellowing influences on him.” She didn’t say what was going to make the stock and real estate markets behave the way she said they would, but she sounded confident.

Cushman, who once ran an astrology studio in Encino that attracted several Hollywood stars and at least one studio head, now runs her business from her house. But the prices haven’t relaxed with the atmosphere.

She charges $200 an hour to do a personal chart, and for businesses that want her to do financial projections the cost is “much, much more.”

Hoopster Heaven

Toys International in the Glendale Galleria has something that is as much fun for the big boys as for little kids.

It’s the Jordan Jammer, sells for $59.95 and is made for guys who dream of running around in basketball shorts instead of doing their daily legal briefs.

The Jordan Jammer is an adjustable pole with a red, white and blue net, a picture of Michael Jordan on the backboard and a plastic ball that can turn any desk-bound executive into a potential NBA star.

Although the store personnel said no one has admitted buying the thing for her husband, Janet Marley of Burbank fessed right up.

“I figure that if I get this for my husband’s office, he’ll be grateful enough to take the garbage out without being asked,” she said.

Tall Tails

There are lots of bookstores in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys, but An Affair With Books in Newhall has something extra.

Cleo.

Cleo, a black cat of unknown age who came from the pound three years ago, is the companion of bookstore owner Deborah L. Harth.

Cleo, said Harth, is serious about her job as the main distraction.

Cleo entertains the small fry while their parents shop.

When she is not entertaining children, she walks up and down the aisles doing her impression of a watch cat, or she curls up in the front window in the sun.

But when she hears children entering the shop, she’s front and center, Harth said.

Overheard

“My New Year’s resolution is to put an end to wars, stop the rape of the ecosystem, reverse the economic recession and stop eating M & Ms.”

--Woman in Calabasas