BRRRR? For these parts!

It was cold this morning-39! Have homemade soup and though a bit premature, I can't help but have this this song was in my head all day:

Of course I'm tempted!

I've thought about this more than anyone should but....



No, I don't think I will.

Yay! Layaway

I used to put Barbie dolls and other toys at Circus World on layaway when I was a kid, back when I was handed down a modest passbook account. I hated that it was done away with shortly after I graduated from high school. It became less and less popular but I hear it's making a big comeback.

Actually, layaway never died out completely. I managed to find a few local retail stores that still used layaway so I frequented them. It's cool to know that it may be available more and more. I always thought it was the way to go. Yay, layaway!

Note: I am hoping that tres cool artists, authors and a different point of view can come from this recent financial turmoil. Something really good needs to rise from the big finale of these past eight years. There haven't been many reactions in the past eight years...this current situation seems to have drawn blood. People seem to be at the point where they are now able to unite or at least considering coming out to take a look. While out there, why not make the absolute best out of it.

These days...

I seem to think about how all the changes came about my ways
I had almost forgotten that I owned this piece of furniture:

the last, the very last of my unwanted possessions. It's an antique buffet with a glass display cabinet built into it. To be honest I don't know why this was purchased back in 2002 or so. If ever there were lost years they were 1/2000 to 12/2003.

Until December 2003 I really had no clue what I was doing or where I was going or what I wanted on so many levels. I bought so much crap seemingly without thinking during that time. It was definitely a symptom. I found myself not wanting any of it later. Hence my talk of purging and living more simply these past five years. I don't know the person who wanted those things. There is such a relief to be here now and not back there. I am thankful for all the changes that brought me here.

The new studio has me confronting some old possessions. This buffet cannot belong to me anymore, it makes no sense. Of all the things I purchased during that time, this is the one piece that clearly reminds me of those unhappy and confused times. It has been in a storage unit since March 2004. It's weird to feel this way about something and then sell it. Ick, it's like selling a person my bad memories. So, what to do? Even giving it away....anyone want my old, ugly stuff from back there? I wonder who's bad memories I have picked up or bought along the way. These days I need less because I found more one evening while on a walk with a friend, taking in the lights and sharing some whiskey.

I'll stop my rambling, teehee.

Minutiae I eaituniM

I voted before 8am this morning. I sent my vote off with a lil kiss and a prayer in the hopes that it be counted the way it should. I can't help but feel paranoid after the last two elections. Seems like everyone was acting sort of squirrely at the voting site.

The IN in my world:
Frito pie
The 70's
Cold days
Homemade soup
Turquoise painted rooms
Jackson Browne
Patience

The OUT in my world:
SNL
TV
Souper Salads (haven't been to one in years then popped in and UGH)
Anything negative
Stocks
Micromanagement
Signing in, time clocks and keeping time

Egg Nog, noooooooooooooooooooooo

I spotted egg nog at HEB!
Already? EEK!
There are a ton of things I haven't even started and wanted to have completed before egg nog was made available. The months have managed to just run me over me this year. I always say the days go pretty fast after July, but this was incredibly zippy.
Egg nog, should only be made available the week of Thanksgiving.

Non-sequiturs

*Don't start a vintage fan or typewriter collection until you have found a forever home. Same for books and LPs.

*Raisins make a lousy snack.

* I've just discovered Fred Dibnah. He was awesome and I enjoy his views on things...

"...good,I got to watch Dick Van Dyke",

said Michelle Obama in her interview with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show 10/9. Anyone who watches Dick Van Dyke is tres cool in my book. She's a classy lady.

Mind Ooh sha

The mind is fickle and it's weird what memories it decides to keep or purge. As a kid we'd travel by train to Mexico. On these trips I remember loving the dining car. It was always spacious (for a kid) and well lit with natural light from windows on both sides. It was exciting heading over to the dining car because we had to cross cars and I found that adventurous. As I hopped across the walkways I would catch a quick look at the blurry ground below.

There was always that diner smell, sort of a mixture of ham and toast or something. What really stands out in my mind was the appreciation I had, already as a kid of five or so, for the heavy, well made, railroad china. The dishes were an off white and had maroon trim. I also remember dark green and cobalt blue trim on the different trips over the years. My mother would get a tiny little ceramic creamer for her milk. I always wanted to take it, it was so cute. The butter would come on tiny little plates. I did managed to swipe one of these at one point. I remember taking it and putting it in a white, cardboard lined, toy purse. I felt incredibly guilty and I remember being very paranoid about the whole thing. I still have it! I even buried it once, along with a few other treasures.

My brother and I were really into putting a few treasured items into cigar and jewelry boxes, wrapping them in plastic or foil then burying them. We'd make little maps and then dig everything up months later. It gave us something to think about when it would finally rain. We'd wonder if our little boxes were getting wet and what about the items in them.... It was hard not to dig up things after a rain to check and see. There was a feeling of success and achievement to find our items intact.

But I digress... Some sites on railroad china:
The Railroad Commissary
Cabin Class

I also remember being on a trip once and seeing a girl running around with this cute little plastic purse with a doll. I really wanted one. Never forgot it. I now know they are Remco Pocketbook Dolls.

BOO!

I am always looking for old holiday specials on DVD.

How did I miss this last year?

KISS was on it, Florence Henderson! Oh yeah, this is going in the cart along with Mad Monster Party. Going to get some caramels and apples...well maybe not. I tried those a year or two ago and not so fun. Just sticking to Old Witch's Magic Nut Cake.

Poignant, especially if you buy into all that folksy stuff:

A good movie to watch right now is A Face In the Crowd (1957). It really hashes out the realities that hover around the current crop of "folksy" politicians. 

Two decades ago...

I don't talk about high school much and that's because I wasn't really present those four years. I went to school, made good grades, was in advanced placement(except for math) but my best friend and I were in our own little world. I remember that world well and have blogged about it. I wish I had kept the notes we would pass between classes. We hated being there, we wished we lived in a city so we could go to concerts and meet cute, cool guys. We didn't go to a single pep rally, not one the entire time we were in high school. I went to one football game and was so bored I went home before halftime. We weren't involved in any clubs or organizations. Drama was my elective but I don't remember actually being in any plays. Seems we auditioned, rehearsed but nothing ever got off the ground. Claudia and I hung out with the thespians but even then, no parties or anything. I did attend two proms, escorted both times by good friends. Either we didn't stay long or I just can't remember anything after the free professional photo. That's it, that pretty much sums up my memories of DRHS.

I remember the library, the librarian and going there during lunch with Claudia. I'd look at magazines because their holdings were slim pickings. Claudia spent several months reading Of Human Bondage. I can't remember what year this was though. We went through high school without any drama at all. No girly cat fights, no crushed hearts, nothing. Sort of boring I guess. I do remember seeing fights, one girl put a fork into another girl's head during lunch. We'd hang out with our friends and mostly talk about music and movies and everything was about New Wave.

When Pretty in Pink came out we were 15 and the movie could not have been more perfect for Claudia and I. We identified with Andie's taste in clothing, music and friends. In our school there was a rather large group of kids who were the "richies" the sons and daughters of the well to do Mexican and American ranchers, the great-grandchildren of the families who had settled the town. These kids were the cheerleaders, the football players, the antagonists in every teen movie. I used to wonder how they felt when they watched a John Hughes film, did they see themselves and feel ugly or ridiculous? For the first time we saw a movie that reflected the dynamic in our own school, the class difference.

Every school has them but I think the eighties was a particularly record breaking decade for the mean spirited, rich, popular teen stereotype, a result of the Reagan years. Prior to that you had the mean bully, the rich snob or the distant yet popular co-ed. In the eighties you had these stereotypes rolled into one (the John Hughes teen terrorist)and that's who you could find at my school. That character was not too far fetched.

It's been twenty years since I left high school and I remember very little compared to what I remember before the 9th grade or just the town itself at the time. I do remember all the fun Claudia, Cecilia and I had. I remember we snuck out of school to watch Dirty Dancing , have a submarine sandwich and drink these fizzy,sugary Koala sodas. We would check out old foreign films from the library, dance to our mix tapes and listen to The Clash, The Cure, The Smith's. Saturday mornings were spent at the old warehouse buying vintage clothing at 10 cents a pound. Wish I had kept all those clothes. On Friday nights we'd sit on her roof top and talk about what we wanted to do and where we wanted to live how there wasn't a decent guy in school to swoon over, no one remotely like Blane or cute like Duckie. This is where the story failed us, no cute, cool guy out of a John Hughes film ever enrolled at DRHS. Years after I graduated though, my sister, saw Anthony Michael Hall at Bealls.

I won't be going to the 20th DRHS Reunion because if old tv show episodes and movies like Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean and even Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (guilty pleasure)have taught me anything it's that those events aren't real cool. At the very least it's an evening filled with awkward social interaction. Just about all the people I hung out with live here in Austin and I run into them from time to time. Claudia was maid-of-honor at my wedding. If anyone really wants to catch up with me, I'm a Google search away.