(Herman's Hermits, 1965)
This Mrs. Brown didn't have a daughter, lovely or otherwise. She was one of my sociology professors in college. Nobody called her Dr. Brown. We called her Mama Brown. And not because she was the motherly type. It was because she was married to Papa Brown, the head of the sociology department. Of all my college professors, she was clearly the most unhinged. She was about five feet tall and four and a half feet wide. She had closely cropped gray hair and wore house dresses to class. You know, those kind your grandma wore: cotton, short sleeved, snap fronts and two huge pockets on either side. Every single day. Rain or shine. Sleet or snow. She also wore house slippers. With no hose. Are you beginning to get the picture? Quite pretty, eh?
Since I was a sociology major the first three years of college I saw a lot of Mama Brown. Her lectures were amazing. And not in the "Ohmigosh that's totally insanely interesting and I can't wait to use this knowledge in the real world" sense. This is what her lectures were like:
Imaginefourdaysofmoisturewhereyouwantitthemost.IntroducingnewKYBrandLiquibeads.Thefirstandonlyvaginalmoisturizerthat'sadiscreetandgentleinsert.Oneliquibeadsinsertdissolveswithinminutes,thengentlyreleasestolastuptofourdays.Useitregularlyandyouwon'teventhinkaboutbeingdry.
(I literally opened up my Health magazine and started typing. Stuff sounds kind of interesting . . . )
Yes, she read for solid freaking hour (an hour and a half on Tuesdays and Thursdays). She never looked up, never broke stride, never changed her inflection. She would be extremely inconvenienced if we asked her to repeat something. I bgn wrtng wtht vwls. Glad to see I can still do it. Oh, and she'd suck on hard candy the whole time, too.
Papa Brown died right before my senior year and Mama went bonkers. She grew her hair long and started wearing jeans and t-shirts. She also started holding class at her home, but by then I had switched majors and didn't have that enriching experience. Mama Brown didn't last much longer at the school. I think her brandishing a Bowie knife during one of her home schooling sessions might have had something to do with it.
Ron and I got a card from her for our wedding. She signed it "Mama and Papa Brown." Doo-doo-doo-doo doo-doo-doo-doo.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Monday, July 2, 2007
I'm A Yankee Doodle Dandy
(James Cagney, 1942)
The fourth of July, it ain't what it used to be. When I was a kid it was the quintessential summer holiday. It was the picnic on Pill Hill, the area where all the doctors lived, complete with burgers, hot dogs, chips, deviled eggs, lemonade, hand-churned ice cream and watermelon so juicy there was a continuous red river running down your neck. After dinner there'd be fireworks in the back yard and then we'd all head out to the city park to hear a band concert and watch more fireworks. Could it be any more Norman Rockwellian? I don't think so.
I miss those crazy black tabs that turned into the head of Medusa when lit and left black circles all over the pavement. I miss doing extra chores to pad the fireworks fund. One summer my dad paid us a quarter an hour to paint the back of the house. You could get a TON of stuff for three bucks. I miss the smell of punks and the absolute terror that comes from lighting blackcats in your hand (our parents were pretty lax when it came to fireworks safety - really any kind of safety; when I was a toddler riding in the car I'd stand on the seat next to my dad and put my arm around him, no seat belt . . . ).
One summer when I was about 13 we all went over to Myrtle's house on the Fourth. Her name was Marilyn but my parents didn't want us calling her by her first name, as that was a serious breach of the respecting the elders rule, so we made up this silly nickname. This, by the way, is the same lady who, while driving us kids around in downtown Jefferson City, slammed on her brakes and yelled, "There's Squeaky!" the town's most famous prostitute. We all about broke our neck to get a good look at her. It was pretty dang funny. Anyway, she had two kids that were the same age as my brother and me and she worked for my dad. We'd known each other forever, and her parents, too, Grammy and PaPa. There was a whole herd of kids there and we were all horsing around. I had a sparkler and was waving it around, probably writing my name in the sky - right over the full box of highly combustible fireworks. Well, all of the sudden, the box started sputtering and hissing and before we knew it the fireworks were flying everywhere. PaPa, who was clear across the yard sitting in a lawn chair with a blanket wrapped around him jumped up, ran over and stomped out the fury. I was COMPLETELY mortified and locked myself in the bathroom and refused to come out. It took encouragement from Ricky Hempe (only the cutest boy on the whole block) to make me finally show my face again. We call Myrtle almost every year on the fourth and laugh, laugh, laugh. I still get a tiny bit embarrassed about the whole thing.
So, anybody got any odd jobs? I feel the need for some Roman candles, fountains and cherry bombs.
The fourth of July, it ain't what it used to be. When I was a kid it was the quintessential summer holiday. It was the picnic on Pill Hill, the area where all the doctors lived, complete with burgers, hot dogs, chips, deviled eggs, lemonade, hand-churned ice cream and watermelon so juicy there was a continuous red river running down your neck. After dinner there'd be fireworks in the back yard and then we'd all head out to the city park to hear a band concert and watch more fireworks. Could it be any more Norman Rockwellian? I don't think so.
I miss those crazy black tabs that turned into the head of Medusa when lit and left black circles all over the pavement. I miss doing extra chores to pad the fireworks fund. One summer my dad paid us a quarter an hour to paint the back of the house. You could get a TON of stuff for three bucks. I miss the smell of punks and the absolute terror that comes from lighting blackcats in your hand (our parents were pretty lax when it came to fireworks safety - really any kind of safety; when I was a toddler riding in the car I'd stand on the seat next to my dad and put my arm around him, no seat belt . . . ).
One summer when I was about 13 we all went over to Myrtle's house on the Fourth. Her name was Marilyn but my parents didn't want us calling her by her first name, as that was a serious breach of the respecting the elders rule, so we made up this silly nickname. This, by the way, is the same lady who, while driving us kids around in downtown Jefferson City, slammed on her brakes and yelled, "There's Squeaky!" the town's most famous prostitute. We all about broke our neck to get a good look at her. It was pretty dang funny. Anyway, she had two kids that were the same age as my brother and me and she worked for my dad. We'd known each other forever, and her parents, too, Grammy and PaPa. There was a whole herd of kids there and we were all horsing around. I had a sparkler and was waving it around, probably writing my name in the sky - right over the full box of highly combustible fireworks. Well, all of the sudden, the box started sputtering and hissing and before we knew it the fireworks were flying everywhere. PaPa, who was clear across the yard sitting in a lawn chair with a blanket wrapped around him jumped up, ran over and stomped out the fury. I was COMPLETELY mortified and locked myself in the bathroom and refused to come out. It took encouragement from Ricky Hempe (only the cutest boy on the whole block) to make me finally show my face again. We call Myrtle almost every year on the fourth and laugh, laugh, laugh. I still get a tiny bit embarrassed about the whole thing.
So, anybody got any odd jobs? I feel the need for some Roman candles, fountains and cherry bombs.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Fly Me to the Moon
(Frank Sinatra, 1961)
I'm really steamed. And not from the sauna that is my office. Last night on NPR there was a segment about a NASA expedition that would chart new territory. For the first time EVER a spacecraft was going to orbit two separate "worlds," (in reality they're actually asteroids) in one trip. The mission will be completed in the year 2015. Yes, the year two thousand and fifteen. That's EIGHT - one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight - years from now. Ok, I may have some of the facts mixed up . . . I really don't care if it only takes 15 days. Why, why, why do we need to orbit two obviously large asteroids? There was some verbiage on the segment about being able to see into our past . . . WHAT? I thought space exploration was the final frontier, the future, the vast unknown. You know billions and billions and billions of dollars are being spent on exploring . . . big huge rocks? Can orbiting these two asteroids give us the cure for cancer? AIDS? Wipe out abject poverty and starvation? Eliminate drugs? Crime? Will it lead to better pay for teachers or more funding for the arts in schools? Will it clean up the horrible mess our health insurance industry is in? Yeah, that's a big fat NO you're hearing me scream. Where's my blood pressure medicine?
Late in his life Harry T. was asked if he thought there would ever be an expedition to the moon. He said probably, but he could not imagine why. Ha! I seriously think the only reason we went to the moon in the first place was to keep up with the Jonesescheviks (aka Russians). The whole Cold War and all. My rocket's bigger than your rocket. Blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, I'm steamed. And just like Ralph Cramden of the Honeymooners used to say to his wife, "To the moon! One of these days, Alice!"
I'm really steamed. And not from the sauna that is my office. Last night on NPR there was a segment about a NASA expedition that would chart new territory. For the first time EVER a spacecraft was going to orbit two separate "worlds," (in reality they're actually asteroids) in one trip. The mission will be completed in the year 2015. Yes, the year two thousand and fifteen. That's EIGHT - one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight - years from now. Ok, I may have some of the facts mixed up . . . I really don't care if it only takes 15 days. Why, why, why do we need to orbit two obviously large asteroids? There was some verbiage on the segment about being able to see into our past . . . WHAT? I thought space exploration was the final frontier, the future, the vast unknown. You know billions and billions and billions of dollars are being spent on exploring . . . big huge rocks? Can orbiting these two asteroids give us the cure for cancer? AIDS? Wipe out abject poverty and starvation? Eliminate drugs? Crime? Will it lead to better pay for teachers or more funding for the arts in schools? Will it clean up the horrible mess our health insurance industry is in? Yeah, that's a big fat NO you're hearing me scream. Where's my blood pressure medicine?
Late in his life Harry T. was asked if he thought there would ever be an expedition to the moon. He said probably, but he could not imagine why. Ha! I seriously think the only reason we went to the moon in the first place was to keep up with the Jonesescheviks (aka Russians). The whole Cold War and all. My rocket's bigger than your rocket. Blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, I'm steamed. And just like Ralph Cramden of the Honeymooners used to say to his wife, "To the moon! One of these days, Alice!"
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
I'm Just Wild About Harry
(Judy Garland, 1939)
Tonight I finished ready David McCullough's mammoth book "Truman." It was 900+ pages with an additional 100 pages of footnotes, bibliography and index (I did NOT read that). It was completely fascinating and I found myself wishing I'd been born 40 years earlier so I could have had dinner at the White House with him and Bess. (Aside: When I was a wee young lassie, my dad used to reprimand me for cutting my dinner rolls. Apparently it's bad etiquette. He always used to ask me if I'd commit this flagrant act of impropriety if I were dining at the White House. I'd be like, like that's ever going to happen.)
So here are some interesting facts about HST:
* He didn't go to college.
* He enlisted in the army when he was in his early 30's during WWI.
* He didn't get married until he was 35, although he'd had his eye on Bess since childhood.
* He owned a haberdashery at 104 Main in KCMO (a haberdashery is not a place to smoke hash, which is what Tyler thought it was. A haberdashery sells men's dress accessories - ties, belts, shirts, hats, etc. The business failed after a couple of years.
* Except for the time he spent in Washington as Senator and President, he lived his entire married life in his mother-in-law's house at 219 Delaware in Independence. It was also the house he and Bess returned to after being President.
* He was vice president less than four months when he was sworn in as President after FDR's death.
* Within three months of becoming President he made the difficult decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki (millions of flyers were dropped weeks in advance, warning civilians to clear out.). Prior to his swearing in he had no knowledge the bomb existed (FDR kept him in the dark on many important issues.)
* During his second term, the country had a balanced budget and actually reduced the national debt for a couple of years.
* He was largely responsible for curtailing the escalation of the Korean War (and the spread of communism)with his refusal to drop another bomb, this time the H-bomb.
* He was instrumental in the founding of the United Nations and enacted several important civil rights laws.
* When he left the White House he had no pension and no job. The only thing that saved him from bankruptcy was selling the family farm in Grandview.
* He raised the $1.8 million needed for his presidential library himself (it was the first library of its kind).
* When his memoirs came out he signed 4,000 autographs in five hours.
So there you have it. I could have written that book in one page. But it probably wouldn't get a Pulitzer Prize, like McCullough's book did.
I'm adding him to my list of people on my "People I'd Like to Have at a Dinner Party."
Tonight I finished ready David McCullough's mammoth book "Truman." It was 900+ pages with an additional 100 pages of footnotes, bibliography and index (I did NOT read that). It was completely fascinating and I found myself wishing I'd been born 40 years earlier so I could have had dinner at the White House with him and Bess. (Aside: When I was a wee young lassie, my dad used to reprimand me for cutting my dinner rolls. Apparently it's bad etiquette. He always used to ask me if I'd commit this flagrant act of impropriety if I were dining at the White House. I'd be like, like that's ever going to happen.)
So here are some interesting facts about HST:
* He didn't go to college.
* He enlisted in the army when he was in his early 30's during WWI.
* He didn't get married until he was 35, although he'd had his eye on Bess since childhood.
* He owned a haberdashery at 104 Main in KCMO (a haberdashery is not a place to smoke hash, which is what Tyler thought it was. A haberdashery sells men's dress accessories - ties, belts, shirts, hats, etc. The business failed after a couple of years.
* Except for the time he spent in Washington as Senator and President, he lived his entire married life in his mother-in-law's house at 219 Delaware in Independence. It was also the house he and Bess returned to after being President.
* He was vice president less than four months when he was sworn in as President after FDR's death.
* Within three months of becoming President he made the difficult decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki (millions of flyers were dropped weeks in advance, warning civilians to clear out.). Prior to his swearing in he had no knowledge the bomb existed (FDR kept him in the dark on many important issues.)
* During his second term, the country had a balanced budget and actually reduced the national debt for a couple of years.
* He was largely responsible for curtailing the escalation of the Korean War (and the spread of communism)with his refusal to drop another bomb, this time the H-bomb.
* He was instrumental in the founding of the United Nations and enacted several important civil rights laws.
* When he left the White House he had no pension and no job. The only thing that saved him from bankruptcy was selling the family farm in Grandview.
* He raised the $1.8 million needed for his presidential library himself (it was the first library of its kind).
* When his memoirs came out he signed 4,000 autographs in five hours.
So there you have it. I could have written that book in one page. But it probably wouldn't get a Pulitzer Prize, like McCullough's book did.
I'm adding him to my list of people on my "People I'd Like to Have at a Dinner Party."
Monday, June 25, 2007
Summer in the City
(Lovin' Spoonful, 1966)
Not long ago I was demanding that a pox come upon the cold snap we had. Now I'm including this miserable, sweltering mess. It's 12:03, I'm in my office and I'm nearly dripping with sweat. It's SO disgusting. You'd think at this time of night it would be cooler, but not in MY office. I've got a fan blower on the air conditioning vent, a ceiling fan and a box fan trying to draw in cooler air from our bedroom. It's so obviously not working.
My office is just off our bedroom and was finished in 2000; I think in a prior life it was a steam sauna from the pioneer days. Or maybe hell. Ron doesn't think there's enough insulation in the walls. I just think there's not enough damn cool air. Each year he tries something new - more duct work, this blower on the vent, closing the bathroom vent to force more air in here. How about putting more insulation in the walls?
I think I'd be better off filling a tub with ice and putting a fan behind it. No, can't do that. I saw a CSI once where a man did that and the ice melted and ran down the floor to the wall where it encountered some faulty wiring. That guy's now permanently on ice.
You know what I'd kill for right this second? A motel room. I'd crank down the a/c so low that I'd swear I was at the North Pole. Bring on the Eskimo Pies.
Not long ago I was demanding that a pox come upon the cold snap we had. Now I'm including this miserable, sweltering mess. It's 12:03, I'm in my office and I'm nearly dripping with sweat. It's SO disgusting. You'd think at this time of night it would be cooler, but not in MY office. I've got a fan blower on the air conditioning vent, a ceiling fan and a box fan trying to draw in cooler air from our bedroom. It's so obviously not working.
My office is just off our bedroom and was finished in 2000; I think in a prior life it was a steam sauna from the pioneer days. Or maybe hell. Ron doesn't think there's enough insulation in the walls. I just think there's not enough damn cool air. Each year he tries something new - more duct work, this blower on the vent, closing the bathroom vent to force more air in here. How about putting more insulation in the walls?
I think I'd be better off filling a tub with ice and putting a fan behind it. No, can't do that. I saw a CSI once where a man did that and the ice melted and ran down the floor to the wall where it encountered some faulty wiring. That guy's now permanently on ice.
You know what I'd kill for right this second? A motel room. I'd crank down the a/c so low that I'd swear I was at the North Pole. Bring on the Eskimo Pies.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Found A Peanut
(author unknown)
Yesterday Ron convinced me to go look at the SoHo lofts downtown. It's something we've done from time to time, all the while never having the tiniest inkling of ever buying one. Well, Ron thinks he'd like it, but I'd give him two weeks. After that, he'd be stalking grass and trying to get at the neighbor's bonsai trees on the 18th floor patio. We like the green-ness of suburbia too much. And all the shopping.
Anyway, we got downtown and parked in the library parking lot. If you haven't been to the library downtown, you MUST visit. It's really a stunning building and has some fun stuff for kids to do. Anyway, we walk across the street to what Ron says are the SoHo lofts, even though the sign says "Library Lofts" (which I point out to him, not quite as nicely as I could have). We asked a nice lady. Affirmative. We were in the wrong place. After we found the correct lofts, we realize that we'd already seen them (start taking notes on your life soon after age 40). We were feeling a little hungry so Ron says, "Let's go to the Peanut. They've got great BLT's." Sounded good to me. And they were REALLY good. It was quite a place, though. The trio behind us was knocking back raspberry tea and vodkas and smoking up a storm, using the excuse that's it's noon somewhere in the world. The whole joint looked like a good stiff breeze would topple it. They had very cool bar artifacts, if you're into that sort of thing. There was this large spherical thing - I don't know what it was (maybe a light) that had the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales running around it. Ron said he'd love to have that thing. I asked him where exactly that might fit in our decorating scheme and he said he'd put it in the basement (yes, that's the perfect place for it). They had old photographs of KC from the 30's and a flock of decoy ducks flying upside down? Our waitress would never win the Waitress 500, but the menu warned us that this was not a fast food establishment. She was, however, very pleasant and the chef personally brought us our meal. Not many places can boast that service. I think the waitress was in the can.
All in all, it was an enjoyable lunch at the Peanut. It's good to break the bonds of strip malls and cookie cutter subdivisions once in awhile and journey into the bowels of the city for an alternative dining experience. Next on our list: Church's Fried Chicken at Linwood & Main. Ummm, do they deliver?
Yesterday Ron convinced me to go look at the SoHo lofts downtown. It's something we've done from time to time, all the while never having the tiniest inkling of ever buying one. Well, Ron thinks he'd like it, but I'd give him two weeks. After that, he'd be stalking grass and trying to get at the neighbor's bonsai trees on the 18th floor patio. We like the green-ness of suburbia too much. And all the shopping.
Anyway, we got downtown and parked in the library parking lot. If you haven't been to the library downtown, you MUST visit. It's really a stunning building and has some fun stuff for kids to do. Anyway, we walk across the street to what Ron says are the SoHo lofts, even though the sign says "Library Lofts" (which I point out to him, not quite as nicely as I could have). We asked a nice lady. Affirmative. We were in the wrong place. After we found the correct lofts, we realize that we'd already seen them (start taking notes on your life soon after age 40). We were feeling a little hungry so Ron says, "Let's go to the Peanut. They've got great BLT's." Sounded good to me. And they were REALLY good. It was quite a place, though. The trio behind us was knocking back raspberry tea and vodkas and smoking up a storm, using the excuse that's it's noon somewhere in the world. The whole joint looked like a good stiff breeze would topple it. They had very cool bar artifacts, if you're into that sort of thing. There was this large spherical thing - I don't know what it was (maybe a light) that had the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales running around it. Ron said he'd love to have that thing. I asked him where exactly that might fit in our decorating scheme and he said he'd put it in the basement (yes, that's the perfect place for it). They had old photographs of KC from the 30's and a flock of decoy ducks flying upside down? Our waitress would never win the Waitress 500, but the menu warned us that this was not a fast food establishment. She was, however, very pleasant and the chef personally brought us our meal. Not many places can boast that service. I think the waitress was in the can.
All in all, it was an enjoyable lunch at the Peanut. It's good to break the bonds of strip malls and cookie cutter subdivisions once in awhile and journey into the bowels of the city for an alternative dining experience. Next on our list: Church's Fried Chicken at Linwood & Main. Ummm, do they deliver?
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Little Shop of Horrors
(Alan Menken, 1982)
One of the things that gives me secret delight is trying to come up with completely bizarre combinations of items when I go shopping at places like Walgreen's or Target. Tonight at Target we bought chocolate, cat litter, a new welcome flag and tiki torch fluid. One of my favorite combos was tampons, lighter fluid, chocolate (seems to be a recurring theme, eh?) and Tylenol PM. Again, it's SO pathetic that it takes SO little to amuse me.
We also visited HyVee tonight, not our regular grocery store but it was close to Target . . . Ron was looking for some random faucet thing (at HyVee? He found it) so I was kind of wandering a previously unexplored area of the store. I looked up at the aisle directory and this is what it said:
Adult Undergarments
Candles
Feminine Hygiene
Girl Scout Supplies
Nylons
Girl Scout Supplies? I did a double take because I thought it said "Girl Scout Cookies" and I was sure as hell going to get some Thin Mints - do you know how good those would taste "out of season"? Then I did a full body double take and was compelled beyond all reasoning to go down that aisle and see what the "supplies" were. I'm not sure what I was expecting - maybe s'mores kits? They had the whole outfit - kicky little beret, socks, the sashes where you sew all the merit badges. They had brownie stuff, too. And something called "Daisy Girls"? But no Thin Mints. Damn.
One of the things that gives me secret delight is trying to come up with completely bizarre combinations of items when I go shopping at places like Walgreen's or Target. Tonight at Target we bought chocolate, cat litter, a new welcome flag and tiki torch fluid. One of my favorite combos was tampons, lighter fluid, chocolate (seems to be a recurring theme, eh?) and Tylenol PM. Again, it's SO pathetic that it takes SO little to amuse me.
We also visited HyVee tonight, not our regular grocery store but it was close to Target . . . Ron was looking for some random faucet thing (at HyVee? He found it) so I was kind of wandering a previously unexplored area of the store. I looked up at the aisle directory and this is what it said:
Adult Undergarments
Candles
Feminine Hygiene
Girl Scout Supplies
Nylons
Girl Scout Supplies? I did a double take because I thought it said "Girl Scout Cookies" and I was sure as hell going to get some Thin Mints - do you know how good those would taste "out of season"? Then I did a full body double take and was compelled beyond all reasoning to go down that aisle and see what the "supplies" were. I'm not sure what I was expecting - maybe s'mores kits? They had the whole outfit - kicky little beret, socks, the sashes where you sew all the merit badges. They had brownie stuff, too. And something called "Daisy Girls"? But no Thin Mints. Damn.
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