1976

Posted on December 9, 2011 | 4 comments

Our nation’s bicentennial.  A gallon of gas was 59 cents.  Taxi Driver was a hit at the box office.  The Muppet Show was on television.  The Eagles released Hotel California.  You’d have had to wait in line to get a Stretch Armstrong that Christmas.  Nadia Comăneci scored the first perfect “10” in the Olympic games.

And I was born.

There is an unwritten law that states that when a child is born in to a family you must have a Christmas ornament to commemorate their arrival.  And this is mine.

I don’t know that you can buy an ornament like this anymore.  At one time you could get a whole box of balls that were decorated with shiny polyester feeling filaments.  This is one of those, shrink wrapped with an image of a baby and the year of my birth.

1976.

I bought my first album at Waxie Maxie’s in Springfield.  KC & The Sunshine Band.  I rode a Big Wheel with a hand brake.  And I did it without a helmet.

I wanted to marry Tom Selleck . And have the Solid Gold dancers as my bridesmaids.

I didn’t mind black and white tv shows because one of the tvs in our house was black and white anyway.  I Love Lucy was the funniest show and it was on every morning.  The Love Boat seemed very risque to me, with all those unmarried, beautiful people vacationing together.  I wasn’t sure if I liked Chrissy or Janet better.  Chrissy had better clothes, but Janet was smarter.

I will never forget the episode of “Real People” where Sarah Purcell interviewed the woman with Lobster Claw Syndrome.  For years one whole side of my basement smelled like Strawberry Shortcake.  I made mixed tapes with songs I taped off the radio.

When I was very little I was afraid of Libya,  an economic recession and my father’s unemployment.  I knew that groceries were cheaper at Shopper’s Food Warehouse, because they didn’t give you any bags.  I have waited more than an hour at a video store to get a new release on VHS.

Pantyhose came in a plastic egg and the underwear section of a magazine was embarrassing.  I wanted to smell like Prell shampoo and Love’s Baby Soft and wear my dad’s old fraternity baseball jerseys.

I thought Parkay was fancy.  Sodas were for grownups. Fruit roll ups were for special treats and fast food restaurants gave out tiny orange juice glasses that were going to be collector’s items.  Everybody’s thermos smelled weird and their milk was lukewarm, but no one ever got sick.  I never met a kid with an allergy.

Because I was born in 1976.

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Simply Red

Posted on December 8, 2011 | 3 comments

Cherries in the Snow.  Raven Red.  Cha Cha Cherry.  Really Red.  Love that Red. Fire and Ice.  Ravish Me Red.

I was not always faithful to a single shade.  But I was a Revlon red lipstick girl for a long, long time.

In high school it was a look  I dabbled with.  There was a Degenerate Art exhibit at the National Gallery in the early 90’s.  I had the tshirt.  It was black.  It said simply DEGENERATE ART.  And I had new black cowboy boots.  Red lipstick completed the look.  It goes without saying that I wish I still had that shirt.

Cowboy boots were eventually  traded for Chuck Taylor’s and overalls, the red lips came and went.

In college I was the girl that didn’t wear shoes very often. I still wore Osh Kosh overalls almost every day.  But low maintenance I was not.

I fell in love with two things early in my college career.  Getting a wee bit baked and acrylic nails.  The hours I spent watching syndicated Beverly Hills 90210 on the WB (the only channel one could get in the dorms without cable) and sculpting the perfect red fingernail out of acrylic were  immeasurable.

To any and all concerned about the effects marijuana can have on a young mind I assure you the acrylic I inhaled in my dorm room did more damage.  Red lips completed the look.  Perfect red nails.  Red lipstick.  Overalls that haven’t been washed in who knows how long.  I was ready to go.

The latter half of my college career had me on my way to or from dinner theatre more often than not.  My “casual attire” moved from overalls to Ben & Jerry’s tshirts, tie dyes and pajama pants.

But the red lips remained.  In large part because the cold cream required to remove the make up I had spackled on for the evening was too time consuming.  And if you have a good reason to sport a painted on mole all night I have always been one to encourage you to go for it.

Bonus points for pearls and a red pageboy wig.

In summary, red lipstick and I go way back.

Red lipstick.  You can open a fashion magazine from nearly any decade and see at least one of the models wearing it.  It is timeless.  Classic.  But it’s only half of the equation.

Red lips without a pout?  You might as well be half dressed.  Ever since I was a little girl my mother has remarked upon my cupid’s bow lips.  (And my heart shaped butt, but that is a post for another day.  One perhaps not so rich with images.)  The first piece of art in her now vast art collection was a Tarkay.  She remarked then that the red pouty lips on all of the women in his paintings remind her of me.

I’d like to think I’ve not lost my pout.  Every girl ought to keep that skill in her back pocket.  But somewhere in the last decade the red lipstick started fading.  Traded in for chapstick with sunblock.  This weekend the red lipstick made a mini comeback.  Just for the day. But a gal can not wear a red feather headband with chapstick.  It was a no-brainer.

Every year when I hang this Patience Brewster ornament I will let it serve as a reminder.  Red lipstick is a bright idea.  Merry Christmas, Red Lipstick.  You have never let me down.  

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Soup

Posted on December 7, 2011 | 3 comments

At first glance you wouldn’t guess that the ornament that says “God made the beautiful skies with stars like twinkling eyes” would rank high among my all time favorite ornaments.   I don’t exactly go very far out of my way to keep the Christ in Christmas.  But this ornament has something special inside.

A little Kelly, circa 1979, plastic dress up shoes, Raggedy Ann pajama top, Dorothy Hamill haircut.  Behind that pantry door was the first and maybe second of what would be many marks indicating the heights of everyone in our family.

On the back it says “Love, The Speedys, Xmas 1979.”

The Speedys lived next door to us when we first moved in to the house I grew up in in 1979.  They had two teenage boys and a huge dog.  Sue Speedy liked to garden and she did so in a manner that made her appear as though she had just stepped out of an LL Bean catalogue.  I remember her seeming so put together.  Decked out in the best of early 80s fashion, whale turtlenecks and duck boots.  There were snap dragons planted in the island between our yard and theirs and I can remember sticking my finger in and out of the snapdragon’s mouths while my mom chatted with Sue.

This ornament is interesting to me for a couple of reasons.  The first, of course,  being that it has a picture of me.  And if you read here, you know I am wildly fascinated by old pictures of myself.  Heh.  But this year it took on an even greater degree of interest.  Christmas, 1979.  My mom was pregnant with my brother.  Not very, as he was born prematurely six months later. But she was pregnant.

I remember the snapdragons that spring.  I remember Sue Speedy’s duck boots.  I remember my brother being very small.  (Or at least I think I do. The line between photographs jogging your memory and real memories made up of smells and “brain movies” is fuzzy to me.)  But I have no memory of my mother being pregnant.  None.  I remember the way her perfume smelled, the way she looked in this amazing water-colored silk dress.  Her closet.  But I don’t recall her being with child. Strange the things the mind omits.

I wonder how Emily will recall this pregnancy.  If she will remember the nights I climbed in her bed.  Because pregnancy induced insomnia had me pacing the house and her steady breathing and warm little body relaxes me.  Last night as I slid in beside her she rolled over, brushed her hand across my face and said “Sleep, Mommy.  You need to sleep before the baby gets here.”

Earlier in the evening I was overwhelmed.  A sudden rush of “holy-shit-we-are-going-to-have-a-baby” consumed me and I sat down on the couch with a huge exhale, called MQD and said “I can’t make dinner.   My hip hurts, I am tired, I just can’t.”  Kindly, he said to just tell him what I’d like for him to pick up and he’d get it on his way home.  Ever the pregnant woman I was not satisfied with this answer and complained that the pressure of having to make up my mind was making me feel like I was going to cry.

Em sat beside me on the couch.  She put her arm around me and kissed me on the cheek.  “Just let it out, Mom.”  I smiled at her wordlessly.  She held my hand.  “We can get Mexican food?   Yanno, Mexican soup.”

She’d effectively broken the spell of my bad mood. “Sweetheart, I don’t think we have ever had any Mexican soup.  Do you mean Chinese food?”

“Yeah, Mexican soup is Chinese food.”

Of course it is.

And so I wonder if she will remember when we sat on the couch, side by side, because she no longer fits on my lap.  And she offered me Mexican Chinese soup and held my hand.  “We’re a perfect little family.” And my eyes teared up, worried that somehow I was destroying our perfect family of three with the new addition.  She continued, “and it will be even more perfect when the baby comes.”

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Silver teacups and Princess Parties

Posted on December 6, 2011 | 3 comments

In case you are still staring at my words from yesterday morning in disbelief… I am back again to blow your mind.  I don’t just love my mother-in-law.

I love my ex mother-in-law, too.

It will rain on my car every time I wash it for the rest of ever because nobody gets this lucky.  I didn’t get one great mother-in-law.  I got two.

The day we found out Emily was going to be a Girl I think the Carter’s outlet in Williamsburg got a phone call.  Ready the pink clothes!!!  Pam is on on her way!!  Em’s dad is one of three boys.  And one of many male cousins. And finally the Worthys would have a GIRL!

Like many first time moms I had all kinds of ideas about how I was going to dress my little girl.  She didn’t need to wear pink just because she was a girl.  She would have a yellow bedroom.  And I would never velcro a bow to her head, even if she looked like Charlie Brown.  I stuck to my guns on a few things.  She had a yellow bedroom.  And she never did have a velcro bow.

But there was  a day in the early fall when I was nesting something fierce and doing baby laundry, preparing my home for this little girl that would change my world.  I opened the lint trap in my dryer and I laughed.  I called Pam and I said “You win!!  There is PINK lint in my lint trap.”

I had a beautiful baby girl.  That wore a lot of pink.  And it didn’t kill me.  Or her.

Merry Christmas, Pam.  Since your retirement and move to Arizona we see less of you but your presence in our life is strong.  We had Grandmama Pam’s Sweet Potato Casserole for Thanksgiving.  And I think I will have to master your Chocolate Delight here pretty soon.  Through the magic of Skype we got to see your Santa dance and sing and I was reminded of the first Christmas that Em could walk.  It was cute the first hundred times she pressed the button.

A silver cup engraved with Emily’s name hangs from our tree.  It was a gift from your father, Pop-Pop, when Em was born.  It was too sweet to put away in a box of baby memorabilia, too precious to leave out all the time. So I put it in with the Christmas decorations.  Every year it reminds me of your grace.  You loved me and your son enough to encourage us both to love ourselves and each other enough to move on and let go.  I am forever grateful that I didn’t have to let go of you, too.

Grandmama Pam's Princess Party. Just a year after Em was born Pam got another Princess, Lily!!


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Christmas, Up to 11

Posted on December 5, 2011 | 4 comments

Taking a break from the ornaments to give a quick run down on yesterday’s Super Fantastic Family Christmas Celebration.

It was September when MQD bought tickets to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.  So we had been looking forward to this afternoon for a long time.  We got dressed up in our Christmas gear. 

Snowman outfit for Emily. New Christmas tie for MQD.

Red feather headband for me.

I was hellbent on this being a Fancy Good Time.  I wore heels for fuck’s sake.

I really don't need to remind you that I am 34 weeks pregnant, do I?

If you’re not familiar with TSO they are a progressive metal band formed in the early 90’s.  Think rock opera meets epic Christmas music.  Add some pyrotechnics and a LOT of hair flipping and some girls in glittery cat suits and a light show.  And then turn it up.  In between the face melting guitar riffs and the explosions and the lights and the super fantastic vocals add in…. about two and a half hours of what feels like a strange Christmas special on a cruise ship.  Or a fundraiser for public television?

Yeah.  That was probably not where you thought I was going with that, huh?  It wasn’t exactly what I expected, either.

But don’t get me wrong. My face was melted.  Angus Clark spins his hair while playing what looks like a Flying V (upon googling I find it is a Japanese made Jackson Randy Rhoads, but you get my point.)  From a hundred yards away it is a sparkling V shaped guitar being ravaged by a man that belongs in Pantene commercials.

Chris Caffery, their front man, made me feel a little bit like a 12 year old me had I had the chance to see Sebastian Bach in his Skid Row days.  He was pretty, even from a distance.  His hair spinning is unrivaled and his vocals make you want to simultaneously drive too fast and make out.  Bang your head and slow dance.  It’s that beautiful place where glam metal and real music meet.

And Roddy Chong is incredible.  My two years in the elementary school orchestra never taught me to play violin while running back and forth across a catwalk suspended from the ceiling.

Image Courtesy of RoddyChong.com

And the lasers.  The LASERS.  Until Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon Lasershow tours at Christmastime it is the only laser show you are gonna get to take your family to see in lieu of the Nutcracker or The Rockettes.

There was fire.  Tons of fire.  And big, huge teeth-like stage apparatus shooting that fire with screens above it featuring menacing creepy red eyeballs. At one point there was a thousand marching nutcrackers, over 30 feet tall, made out of a million tiny red points of light.  And lasers going everywhere.  And that ruled.  Emily said later “This was the best day I have ever had in my whole LIFE!”  This was after telling me that “kind of a lot of live real rock stars have long hair, Mom.”

I asked her why it was the best day of her life, considering she had cried through about the first twenty minutes because it was too loud, even with ear plugs.  And she cried for about ten minutes in the middle, because she really had to pee and I mistakenly thought eventually there would be an intermission.  “I have never been that scared of anything in my life” was her reason.    Fair enough.

But in between the face melting guitar and the fire… it was like that moment on a cruise ship where you wonder if you are drunk or bored.  But you know you kind of want to take a nap.  There is talent.  And spectacle.  But you’ve just had a huge meal and forty five drinks and you start to wonder how long this show lasts.  But you’re really glad you came.  Really.  You are.

Like so many things that MQD and I have done together we sat back on the couch last night, laughing.  I said “We can add that to the list of things I don’t think we need to do again, but I am really glad we did.”

How are you celebrating Christmas with your family?  I hope it melts your face.

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In Laws & Tradition

Posted on December 5, 2011 | 4 comments

If you blog or put yourself out there on the internet in any way at all you are quite likely aware of the way that you appear to a reader, be they casual or committed.  Often bloggers are criticized for being one-dimensional, only putting certain parts of their personalities out on display, some only the very best, some only the trainwreck that is their “personal” life.

I do my best to give a pretty well-rounded view of me, of who I am.  Not so much for a reader, but because my primary purpose in keeping this record is for my own benefit.  I will be able to look back and see what I hope is a realistic picture of the past.  Even if I do choose the images, the words, the stories to remember.   I make an effort to focus on both the good times and the bad.

The last year has held more good times than any year previous, in spite of the fact that I have led a pretty charmed existence all things considered.  But I try not to make bold statements about the greatness of my life, lest they bite me in the ass.

But I can say this was confidence.

My mother-in-law is better than your mother-in-law.  Without any grandstanding or superlatives I can likely convince you that I am right with one sentence.  I really like the little gifts she has surprised us with.  You know how your in-laws come to visit or you go to see them and they say “Oh, I picked these up for you” and you smile and make a mental note  – Every time they come to see me I will use these atrocious potholders.

But not me.  Nope.  MQD’s mother has been generous all while understanding that he did not marry a 20 year old bright eyed college girl.   I have opinions on things, some of them steadfast.  For chrissake she asked me what kind of toilet paper we like before she grabbed some the last time she ran out to the store.

She asked me if I was a Wreath Person before placing an order for a Holiday Wreath.  I am so totally  a Wreath Person and anxiously awaiting its arrival.

When we were in Boston this summer Ginger said “Oh, this is for you guys, you can put it anywhere, maybe your mantle.”  Gasp.  My mantle?  A girl’s holiday mantle is like the centerpiece to her holiday decorating. She can’t be serious?!

And I LOVE it.  Five months I waited to take it out of the plastic.  14 letters spelling out MERRY CHRISTMAS.  There was no way for her to know that I kind of love anything resembling vintage type set letters.  Or that I prefer colored decorations to brass.  And yet it is perfect.

We still need to get the garland for the mantle.  And hooks for the stockings. But I couldn’t wait any longer.  So much of Christmas to me is about unboxing the things that I have loved for years and years, the traditions.  It is a pleasure to put up a new decoration. One I will unwrap joyfully each year and remember, this was from our first married Christmas, in our new house.

Merry Christmas, Ginger. May I never have a box in my hall closet labeled Crap To Take Out When the In-Laws Visit.  Cheers!

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Bird Party Redux

Posted on December 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

“Which one do you like better,” she asked.  “Mine or Mom’s?”  MQD had brought us both home an ornament as an early Christmas surprise.

Ever the diplomat MQD answered, “I like them both, for different reasons.”

Ever the six year old she asked again “But which one do you like better?”

MQD did not reply.

We ate in silence for a moment.

“Which one of us do you like better?” I asked, ever the smartass.

And all at once, all three of us began to laugh.

It was spring in my old apartment.  Em was still sleeping with me nearly all of the time.   We had a rule.  No getting out of bed until the sun is up and you hear the birds.  Some of my favorite times were those early morning conversations.  Before we got out of bed.  One morning she told me she heard the birds.  Only Em pronounced it then (and still does) “boids.”  I asked her what they were doing out there.  “Havin’ a boid pahty.”

There is little in this life that makes me smile more than a bird party.  But the three of us, sitting around the dinner table, laughing.  That even puts a bird party to shame.  And let me tell you… birds can get down.  Merry Christmas, Birds.

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Honest you do…

Posted on December 2, 2011 | 5 comments

In our wedding ceremony I included a bit about how I knew that MQD was “the one.”  I said it was our first Christmas together.

She realized that Mike listened to her. All of you that know Kelly know that this is no small task.   As you can imagine this was both exciting and terrifying.  She opened her Christmas presents and saw that each item was chosen because Mike had heard her.   A big bottle of Delirium Tremens, her all time favorite beer, a package of Nutter Butters, her all time favorite cookie, and an ee cummings compilation.  Her all time favorite poet.
He did it again.
The listening.
He was late coming home from work this evening and I asked him where he’d been.  He smiled that sly Christmas-y smile and wouldn’t tell me.  I assumed he’d been Christmas shopping.
With both hands behind his back he told both Emily and I to pick a hand.   She chose first and he said “Nope, wrong hand.”
I’ll cop to getting slightly more intrigued.  These were specific surprises, one for each of us.
Mine was a  key.  An ornament.  Many years from now it will be the ornament that MQD gave to me the year we bought our house.  The year that we were married.  It is perfect.
We don’t always talk about what I write here.  Sometimes I am not even sure he has read it.  But tonight I had one of those Sam Cooke moments… the moments where he sends me.  He is reading.  He is listening.  Message received.  Loud and clear.  Ornaments are important to his girl.
And he found me the perfect one.
Merry Christmas, MQD.  It was only three years ago that I knew.  When I “found myself wanting to, marry you and take you home.”
And now here we are.  Home.

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Nassau and The Worst Day Ever

Posted on December 2, 2011 | 1 comment

An ornament we brought back from our honeymoon for Emily

On our honeymoon we were going to go para sailing.   MQD was excited.  So was I.  It was a very honeymoon thing to do.  I had a picture in my head, of the day, of us, holding hands high above a beautiful beach and crystal blue water.  The sun on our faces, smiling.

Only it was windy that day.  And they canceled our excursion.  There was a temptation to try and “do” something else.  Something special.  We strolled around Nassau, hand in hand.  Looking for something “to do.” We went in and out of a few shops, we thought about buying a watch.   And we laughed about how this was “the worst day ever.”  And that our honeymoon was the pits. We bought a Christmas ornament that says “Nassau” for Emily.

The dates that MQD and I plan have a way of not working out.  We have abandoned more concerts halfway through, or not gone at all, choosing instead to stay at dinner an hour or two longer, just talking.   He likes me.  And I like him.  It’s easy to have fun when you’re with your best friend.  I hope I look at him just like this for many, many years to come.

Honeymoon, May 2011

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Disco, the ornament not the music or the nap

Posted on December 1, 2011 | 3 comments

I have a tendency to attach a tremendous amount of meaning to the most trivial of things.  I remember where I got them, who I was with, how I felt.  This item, a lighter, a tshirt, a coffee cup, it becomes a touchstone to that moment in time.

It is only very occasionally that I have had something for a long time and I don’t have any recollection of where it came from.

I know I have had this disco ball ornament for a long time.  I know I bought it for myself. I can vaguely recall taking it out of the box.  I am not much of an impulse buyer of things like ornaments.  Again, always so sentimental, my ornament collection is largely made up of memories.

I know it hung on my Christmas Tree after Em and I moved to Chapel Hill and then hung from a teeny hook in my living room for the remainder of the time we lived in that apartment.  I remember it hanging on my first big Christmas Tree in our house at the beach.  And I am fairly sure it graced the tree in my dinky little duplex the first year I lived in Kill Devil Hills.

Going back in time to Williamsburg and the Christmas Trees I had in college, I don’t think I had it then.  Those years were full of disco naps and a tree decorated in Happy Meal toys.  But I don’t think I had a disco ball.

 Strangely, I can’t be sure.

Merry Christmas to you, mysterious Disco Ball.  And thanks very much to the Kelly of Christmas Past that had the good sense to snag you off the shelf.

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