Monday, January 29, 2018

Let's Hear it for the Sidekick

Ah, the noble sidekick. Don’t you just love them? A few  have been dancing around in my head lately and I thought I’d share.

The first time I even became aware that there was such a thing was way back when the old movie channel would show Laurel and Hardy. As a kid Stan and Ollie could really get me going. Mom didn’t think it was so funny when I’d try some of the head thumping moves I’d learned on my very own sidekicks (aka my sisters), but I had to try. I got just as annoyed at their antics as Ollie did with Stan’s. In my estimation he dealt justly. Heh. 

Next down the line was Vivian Vance who was the comic foil for Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy. Who wouldn’t love to have some wide-eyed alter ego ready to come to our aid no matter what kind of lunacy or hot mess we found ourselves in? Take a look at this.  You can tell they really “needed” each other.


Then there’s good old Eddie Haskell my favorite character in Leave It To Beaver. I often tried to channel him, too, with the same mysteriously hostile results from my sisters. What was the matter with them. Had they no appreciation for sarcasm and creative deception? Every time Eddie came into a scene I was right there laughing myself silly. I had a big crush on Wally, but Eddie had a little piece of my mischievous  heart, too. I’m still not sure I believe that he, Ken Osmond, outgrew the Beaver and went on to become a police office. Watch this. Eddie comes on at 5:14 if you don’t want to watch the whole episode. But it’s typical Eddie. Love that guy.


Now let’s haul this forward a few decades and talk about Kramer that lovable goofball of Seinfeld fame. He captured a whole nation’s attention whenever he burst through his friend Jerry’s apartment door.  When I went to You Tube to search for clips, I found some moments. It’s taken me a little longer to write my blog this morning because I was laughing so hard. But three tissues later, I’m good.


I often put sidekicks in my fiction and I think they can enrich a story and echo what goes on in the lives of ordinary folks. I’ve had the occasional sidekick and have been one, too. 

How about you?


Image: Free Digital Photos 

Monday, January 22, 2018

Book Review Anyone?

Time for some book reviews? I think so. I’ve been on a non-fiction kick lately. So I’ll start with those first.

From Silk to Silicon by Jeffrey Garten – I was always a big fan of his wife’s (Ina Garten) cooking show and now I’m a fan of his, too. He begins in China with Genghis Kahn and ends in China with  Deng Xiaoping.  In between we have such notables as Cyrus Field, John D. Rockefeller and Margaret Thatcher, people who affected your life and maybe you don’t even know it. For instance, Cyrus Field was the tycoon who laid the first trans Atlantic cable making communication across the ocean incredibly fast. And the man failed time after time before he finally accomplished the task in 1866. It took 13 years but he hung in there. Amazing stuff. This is a book I’ll read again. There’ s so much in there that I’ll have to.

The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell – I’m a long time coming to Orwell. Never read Animal Farm or1984 (! I know!) but am well aware of that book and the whole Big Brother is watching thing. This particular book was recommended in a You Tube video of Jordan Peterson that I happened to be watching. Orwell was a Socialist so he had a slant, of course. But he got down in the trenches with the coal miners in Yorkshire and Lancashire, England in the 1930’s and gives us a dire picture of their lives. He draws conclusions and makes recommendations according to his views. The book has pictures which help bring the story home. In this book, too, I learned a lot.

The Whole Town’s Talking by Fannie Flagg – Oh, Fannie. What a delight you are to read. Just like Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Miss Fannie takes us through the lives of ordinary people, in ordinary and extraordinary circimstances. We fall in love with the people in Elmwood Springs, Missouri and the family of Lordor Nordstrom, he of Swedish ancestry. You know I’m gonna love that, right? Lordor comes from Sweden in 1889 at the ripe old age of twenty eight and finds a good plot of Missouri land to farm. He rounds up other farmers, gets whole a whole community going, gets a mail order bride, begets children and on it goes. Great fun and her take on what happens in the cemetery Lordor designs is thought provoking. If you read it, let me know if you’d like to, eventually, be a crow or a flower.


There you go. Two non, one fiction. And you are reading? 

Monday, January 15, 2018

Things My Mother Taught Me

I’m self taught on many things. Like baking bread. Once upon a time, many years ago, I found a complete set of instructions for baking bread in a McCall’s magazine article. My little boys were asleep, I was slightly bored and I decided to tackle bread making. Mom played a small part in that she raved about homemade bread that she learned to make in 4H back in the 1930’s. So I did have her in mind that first time I made bread and last week, too, when I made it for the umpteenth time.

But Mom taught me many useful, frugal and stuck-in-my brain things. Like what, you ask?

Make your bed every day. No matter how rushed I am, I do. The Only time I don’t is if I’m sick, down for the count, and laying in it. There’s no excuse otherwise. Besides, who wants to face a bunch of wrinkled sheets and un-plumped pillows at bedtime? Seriously.

Perfume. A dab on the wrists, a touch behind the ears. “Someone should have to be very close to you to smell your perfume.” Um, in other words, Don’t take a bath in the stuff. Mom used Avon’s To A Wild Rose sachet a dab on her wrists at a time. I swear, if I got a whiff of it right now, she’d appear before me.

“Nice girls don’t kiss boys,” was the sum total of the advise I was given to deal with the onslaught of suitors soon to fall prey to my teenage charms. Funny how the suitors disliked that advise. Sex ed has come a long, long way in the past fifty years. Don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. Let me consult with my granddaughters and get back to you.

Never use a paper towel if an old rag will do. If Mom could have, she would have, hung used paper towels out to dry. They were a luxury item around our house and maybe even there on the counter just for show. Kind of like the “guest towels” in the bathroom. On the other hand an old cloth diaper (remember those?) or a carefully cut up tattered and torn tee shirt of dad’s was good enough for most jobs.

And then there was this:

Jesus loves me, this I know
For the Bible tells me so
Little ones to Him belong
They are weak, but He is strong

The thing that has stuck most of all. A child’s introduction to what matters most. A lifelong work on my sorry soul began with these simple lyrics.  

So, Mom, until I can get there say “Hi” to Jesus, the bread of life, for me.

What did your mom teach  you? Would love to know.


Image: Free Digital Photos




Monday, January 8, 2018

The Devil's Hairbrush

As any woman with hair will tell you, the crown is the most defining element of every hair style. Bangs, curls, side or center part, and, if you’re a trendy chick, half shaved / half curled. I don’t recommend that look for anyone over fifteen but it's your hair.

One fine morning, about a month ago, I took a little looky-loo in the mirror and thought my crown needed a little work, some smoothing out.

“Why don’t you dampen the area, twirl your little black brush through your locks just over your eyes there and leave it to dry while you put on your makeup?” Said the Devil.


“Excellent idea,” replied the foolish, foolish woman as she grabbed her brush.

Twenty minutes later, with both eyes lined, lashes swiped, and eyebrows adjusted, I grabbed the handle of the brush to begin the un-twirl.

Hmmm. A bit of resistance there. Did the foolish woman twist the brush a little too tightly? More tugging. More resistance. Ten minutes of this and I was beginning to sweat slightly from the effort.  

Using two hands now and facing the bathroom mirror I tried to calm the building fury by telling myself small comforting things.

Take a photo and post it on Facebook. Give all your friends their laugh for the day.

Call Britain, ask for the royal hat maker and convince him that a dangling hairbrush sort of falling forward from a red velvet beret could well be the next thing every savvy female subject in the land will want for the upcoming royal wedding. I’ll send him the Facebook photo so he’ll have a clear vision of what I mean. I’d even work with him. We have until May.

Stay in the bathroom and have my meals brought up until the hair grows out and I can cut the Devil’s hairbrush away. Three months tops.

Soon I was near tears and calling myself un-Christian names.

Then brilliance struck. I remembered when we had a Springer Spaniel we’d have to cut knots out of her coat. I’d read that sprinkling corn starch on the matted knot will make the hair slippery and easy to untangle. So, guess what I did? Yup. I flew down to the pantry and grabbed a box.

Five minutes later the devil brush was coated with corn starch, my hair looked like I’d developed an epic case of dandruff and the bathroom sink and floor seemed to have come through a snow storm. And there was no further progress in the de-tangle. Gaaaah! Full panic now.

I began blubbering. I cried out to God. I told myself to be calm and reasonable. Others have twirled and twisted their hair in brushes and they didn’t melt into a puddle on the floor. Well, except for that one woman in New Hampshire who now sells small “wigs for fools”. She got over it, moved on and actually monetized her puddle.

Anyway.

At the end, about an hour later, I did calm down. I went to work in earnest and pulled individual strands of hair slowly through the evil bristles working gently towards the middle of the tangle. When I had about half of the hair out I lost patience and got the scissors. Yes I did. I pulled that hairbrush out as far as I could and began snipping close to the bristles, cackling as I stuck it to the devil.

This has been about a month now and I’m still dealing with the little patch of short hairs in my “crown” just over my eyes. But you know what? I beat the Devil. With my fist in the air and a glorious roar I conquered a nightmare hair event and went on to tell about it. I expect women sympathizers to rise up from across the globe to pat me on the back and call for advise - which I may monetize.

How are your plans for 2018 shaping up? Need a wig?



Image: On sale now at Satan’s Stylin’ Salon