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Archive for the ‘Fashion’ Category

Mary Etta’s Purse

Monday, May 16th, 2016

When my grandfather died, we cleaned out his house, and there was just. so. much. stuff. Stuff that felt important and that I knew I should save, and I couldn’t make a decision about at the time. I put it away in boxes, and they ended up in the basement.

The basement flooded.

Much to Todd’s chagrin, none of my boxes of genealogies, family papers, history books, and old photos were damaged. However, the whole basement had to be emptied to do the renovations required to put in new floors and paint, so all of the accumulated stuff is kind of being moved into safekeeping until the renovations are complete. (By “safekeeping” I mean mountains of boxes in our bedroom, foyer, and dining room.)

While we were moving them, Tiller immediately caught sight of one item on top of an open box of photos that belonged to my Grandma.

My great-grandmother’s purse.

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I kept it because it’s a classic, beautiful vintage purse. Score. But I had forgotten until we opened it up that I had also kept it because it was a mini-time capsule of my great grandmother’s last years. I think that when she died, her daughters probably just took her purse home, and they couldn’t bare to throw any of it out. (Must be genetic.)

Here are my Grandma Palmer (Evelyn) and her sister, Lessie, at the funeral home. I know it’s morbid and sad, but I don’t care; I like this photo.

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She was born Mary Etta Richardson (her mother was Matilda Denmark, which is partially the origin of Till’s name, but mostly we just liked the name), in Liberty County, GA in 1888. She died December 7, 1959. (Pearl Harbor day, and my sister’s birthday, too.) She married my great-grandfather, Horace Ray Butler (Rollie dodged a bullet there) and they had five children. Two of them died as babies, and the stories of their deaths are heartbreaking to hear as a mother.They were older than the three who lived and died before the others were born. The three who lived were: Lessie, my grandmother Evelyn Jean, and Clayton. (I believe he was actually William Clayton.)

 

Both of the babies are both buried at Thomas Hill Cemetery on Fort Stewart. Here is a photo of Marie’s grave and one of R.C.’s. This gets mighty confusing, because my grandmother would tell me about her mother telling her about losing the babies, and the names above are misleading. According to my grandma, Marie was not pronounced with the common pronunciation. It was “MA-ree,” rather than “Ma-REE.” And there is no french accent to it, just “Little Ma.Ree.” And when my grandmother told me about the babies dying, the boy was “Little R.C.” Not “R.O.” which is what the gravestone looks like, but I am sure that it was R.C. and i think maybe the stone was not well-engraved, because I am sure she knew what her own mother called her dead baby brother. And we never heard a word about “Meldrum.” That makes Little R.C. quite a mystery, as he seems to be named “Meldrum R. C. Butler.” Genealogy nerd me would really like to know what the R. and C. stand for – I think R. might be for “Richardson.” Who knows.

Anyways, a ton of my other Butler, Richardson, Denmark, Shuman, and other families are also buried in cemeteries at Fort Stewart. (I hope to get down there for a cemetery visit, but you have to make an appointment, i think due to the Army not wanting you to get blown up driving around the base. Heck, I could do a whole post just about the people buried on Fort Stewart.)

Whoa. That was one of my more offensive genealogy tangents. Sorry about that. So, here’s the juicy part . . .

I guess the statute of limitations is probably up now on these folks, so I can say that we have not figured out the actual truth, but it is rumored that Horace also had a relationship with another woman (possibly a Sarah or Maude, who was perhaps a Shuman) and fathered a son, but I have never been able to figure out much more about it. People just alluded to it, but never actually gave us any real dirt. (If you happen to stumble across this post and know anything about this other relationship, marriage, or illegitimate child or his descendants, we would very much like to hear from you. I know that’s a long shot.)

Horace and Mary Etta lived in Bryan County, GA, on (as I understand it) the original land grant that the Butlers received in Georgia. My grandmother was born there, near Clyde. When Fort Stewart was created, everyone in their area lost their farms. They moved to Savannah, where both died and are buried.

So, back to the purse. The satin lining is sooo silky.

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Tills and I started laying the things in the purse out on the table. Here are the things we found in my great grandmother’s purse:

This really cracked and cool looking mirror. If Mary Etta was anything like my Grandma Palmer, she would not go out of the house without lipstick.

 

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One box of tithing envelopes. I think at the end, she maybe lived with my Aunt Lessie in Garden City, outside of Savannah, because I know she didn’t always attend church out there.

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Here is one of the cards inside. I love that they are numbered and have the date on them, so that you don’t miss one single Sunday of tithing.

 

 

 

Here is her wallet:

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It contained a lot of medical receipts and newspaper clippings of bible verses and obituaries.
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I thought this one was very interesting; A tuberculosis report, from 13 years prior to her death. Negative. I’m curious if there is some reason she would have kept this in her wallet all those years. At the time of the test, she still lived on Stevenson Ave. Daddy would have been about five at that time, and also lived there.

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Another bible verse. I can’t figure out why it’s printed so oddly. Are they like bible verse flash cards? Because even upside down, I can still figure out it’s from Proverbs. . . and I missed a lot of Sunday School.

 

She had the card for the Superintendent of Sunday School. Love the old phone numbers. No (912) back then.

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One Walgreen’s prescription. I didn’t realize Walgreen’s had been around that long.

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Okay, nerd that I am, I looked up history of Walgreen’s. No wonder they were around so long; They started in Chicago and were allowed to sell “medicinal” whiskey during Prohibition. 

Also of interest: Mary Etta’s doctor was a female. Thinking that wasn’t super common back then, but made me smile.

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Quick Google search on Anne Hopkins came up with nothing, but I bet she might have been pretty interesting. And anyone know what that cream is for?

 

Here’s an obituary for some British dude, William Wright. A boyfriend, perhaps? None of the names look familiar.

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The next one is sweet: A memorial clipping, of some sort, for Mary’s husband, Horace. He died when Dad was around five. IMG_8733 IMG_8735

 

One flashy red change purse.

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A whole bunch of hair doodads.

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I particularly like the packaging for the bobby pins, which did not photograph well, but reads, ‘Gayla 10 cents.’

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Here’s a brooch, of jewels in a crown. A few of the jewels are missing.

I really like this old letter opener. Does anyone actually still use these?

And here is my absolute favorite item in the purse. One, unopened, perfectly preserved stick of Beech-Nut gum. 
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One pair of vintage bifocals.

I really love that they just folded up her glasses and stuck them in the purse. There is something so sweet and personal about holding someone’s glasses for them. It almost feels like an honor. Someone really trusts you if they hand you their glasses for safekeeping. And there is something heartbreaking about folding up someone’s glasses for the last time and putting them away.

Here I am wearing them. Rollie and Tills both had to try them on and we all did our best schoolmarm impersonations. (Ignore my hair frizz. I just ran.) See any resemblance to the photo of Mary Etta below?

Mary Etta Richardson Butler. October 1888-December 1959. Buried at Hillcrest Cemetery, Savannah, GA. (I guess this photo was probably taken at the Stevenson Ave. house. The house is long gone, I think.)

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I guess maybe I will start digging through these boxes as I put them back in the basement after the renovation. I am guessing there might be some related posts in the next few months. History nerds unite. Everyone else just stop reading for a while.

The Plain Gray Hat

Sunday, January 10th, 2016
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Remnants of a once vast collection. + one Argentinian fan.

Hats. I love’em. I used to collect them. Vintage hats in particular, but the random, really great baseball hat, here and there, too. Then I moved into a very small two bedroom/one bath bungalow with my boyfriend (now husband) and at some point, I could no longer justify the space needed to maintain a 100-200 piece hat collection.

So, on New Year’s Eve, I found out the party I was attending that night at my friend Cass’ house required hats. As in, “you need to bring funny hats.” THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER THROW ANYTHING OUT. I had hundreds of the perfect hat. I knew I would need those, even if it was 16 years down the road. Damn it.

Todd reminded me that I still had a few in a storage box in the basement. (I admit that it is also true that you kind of forget what things you have when you keep them in storage and you don’t really miss them.) I rummaged around in the basement and found the box. I opened it. I smiled involuntarily. I couldn’t help it.

Those hats.

I do remember when we moved and I put the rest of them into storage, I kept the “prettiest” one out and put it on our new shelves in the basement, along with many hardback books, photos, some artwork we’ve collected over the years, a collection of hammer heads and figurines that belonged to my grandfather, my old camera collection, and my pottery. (That stuff could be a post of its own.) The hat originally belonged to my Aunt Lessie, who was both an occasional Goat Man, and a very fashionable woman of Savannah. She also forever remains ingrained in my memory for insisting on going swimming at our neighborhood pool with us when I was probably 12 or so. She actually brought her own bathing suit. God, I wish I had that still – probably 1960s! She wore it with her swimming cap, also vintage, a plastic number with plastic flowers on it. She was well into her 70s by this point, and I think my Dad almost had a heart attack when she insisted on going off the diving board. 12-year-old me thought she was a badass. I still do.

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Aunt Lessie’s vintage hat that sits on a downstairs shelf.

She and Grandma seemed to buy many of their hats at Savannah’s Glendale hat shop. Most of their hats had the Glendale label sewn inside them.

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I love the internet. This postcard, part of the Library of Boston archives, was issued approximately 1930-1945.

Um, I guess I should admit that I also collect some postcards, but only of places that any line of my ancestors lived. (If you are interested in Georgia postcards, you can see the rest of that library’s archived Georgia postcard collection here.) I later ended up with these Aunt Lessie hats and about 10 others, plus Lisa and I split all of my grandmother Palmer’s hats. These are the only ones I kept.

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Two of my Aunt Lessie’s hats: The one on the left is Italian, and the one on the right is a weird, stiff material, with plastic flowers. I always loved the way it fit, although now I would probably not wear it often. For one thing, it looked better with my hair dyed black. I used to wear it with vintage dresses and Dad would call me Minnie Pearl.

 

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I did not inherit this hat (or her others) until after she died, but seeing photos of my grandmothers and Aunt Lessie wearing hats fueled my love for hats very early on.

My hat collection, though, really started one fateful day in Little Five Points. I believe I was skipping school that day, although I can’t quite remember the details. I was there with my friends Jenni, John, and. . .one other person, but I cannot for the life of me remember who it was. Time makes things foggy. I bought this one at a vintage store. Or it might have been Junkman’s Daughter when it was over near where Criminal Records is now. Again, fogginess.

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Forest green beret with velvet bow.

Oh, how I loved this hat. I know exactly why; If you are a girl of the eighties, the hat with a bow might ring a bell for you, too.

In middle school, when that video came out, I wanted a hat just like Madonna’s. The green beret with the velvet bow was as close as I ever got. Side note: This hat was later hijacked for at least a year by my boyfriend at the time, who wore it liberally. He also wore eyeliner, because it was 1990. My Dad loved that I was in love with a boy who wore hats with velvet bows, and eyeliner. (And he was a Yankee, no less.)

My mom must have picked up on this new obsession, because she gave me the following hat for Christmas one year when I was in high school. (Jason B. Vat 69! And the pink cassette player from middle school. Lisa, why do we not have that any longer? It was awesome.)

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Me, wearing a hat from my mom. Christmas of my Junior or Senior year, I guess? That’s Pop sitting over to the side, wearing his signature goat man outfit.

So, over the years, I collected more and more of them. Vintage stores, yard sales, estate sales. It probably got out of hand, but if you ever loved collecting, you know how that happens. I had so many people start bringing them to me, because they knew how much I loved them. Here’s a not-so-great photo of my room at home one Summer.

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I used to have a protruding clavicle!

I must have really chopped my hair and it looks like it was black at this point. (I cannot even begin to remember what it was like to have so much time on my hands that I would move home in the summer and decorate my room. Does not compute.)

I know it was college, because my sister is wearing a hat that I either stole from my friend Mike Maier, or let him draw on. I know that the artwork on the hat is his. I believe he also drew on some shoes I had, and definitely some jeans. See all the hats on the wall? They went all the way around the room, and it was not the whole collection. There are some on the bedpost over my shoulder, too. You can also see the very odd 1980s intercom system we had in our house (behind the lamp).

Side note: I had a different room in high school. My sister moved into it after I left for college and I took over her room, shown here. In my old room, I would unscrew the intercom faceplate from the wall, pull it out, hide contraband on the ledge inside with the wiring, then replace the plate and screw it back into the wall. I struggle to see how my children will ever pull anything over on Todd or me.

Remember the boy with the eyeliner and the beret?  Here is a hat he gave me for Christmas the first year we were together. We were Freshmen at UGA at that point. It was a beautiful gift. (Another beautiful gift, in the background, is the fan and silver stand that my husband brought me from Argentina a few years ago. I have a habit of picking men who are more thoughtful than I am. Opposites attract, I suppose.)

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I adored this hat and yes, I kept it all these years, despite the fact that it was too small for my large head. I just loved it. I love it still.
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Side note: It was never lost on me that the boyfriend’s purchase, while acknowledging my love of hats, was also a nod to his obsession with Perry Farrell. I mean, come on.

There was one more hat in the box.

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The gray hat.

It is not beautiful. I don’t remember buying it or someone giving it to me, although someone must have. I do remember it being a staple of my wardrobe in college, though. I wore it almost daily, backwards (the 90s, yo), and I think that it’s functionality was the reason that I wore it so much. It was lightweight enough to wear in Summer and I didn’t care if it got messed up, so I wore it while I worked at The Grill, where every time you went home and you smelled like hamburgers and french fries (with feta) and grease. At one point, I lived in a three bedroom house on Prince Ave. with my friend Mya and a rotating cast of characters, sometimes as many as 6 of us living there at one time. There was also a time when every roommate also worked at The Grill and our house completely smelled like The Grill. It makes me gag now, the thought of waking up hung over, or having to be at work at 11PM for a night shift, and unable to find clean uniforms. We’d just share dirty work shirts off the floor of our bedrooms. My bedroom one summer was actually a dining room. With a curtain to the living room and a swinging door to the kitchen. (It is amazing what you start remembering when you start typing.)

I wore that hat out.

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So, here I am, on the day before New Year’s 2016, and we are asked to wear hats to my friends’ NYE party, and I open that box, and I am flooded with memories of high school, college, music, and friends. Of being excited by things and people and culture and life. But it was that gray hat that struck me the hardest. It made me think of that first time in my life that my heart was broken, and I didn’t know yet that pain lessens over time, or that you don’t actually need other people, because either way things will be okay. I learned that, if you’re patient, things will get better. I learned how to be alone and how to get over things, and how to love myself, all around that period of time that I used to wear that hat.

When I saw it lying in the storage bin, I immediately thought of this photo of me in the hat, and my grandmother’s vintage coat (GOD, why do I get rid of things?) standing on the beach in Charleston. I was brokenhearted and had that awful feeling of wanting to run away, of fear, of not knowing I would be okay. I remember discussing it all with my friend Matt, a fellow insomniac who visited me quite often while I worked the night shift at the Grill. We made the decision to drive to Charleston as soon as I got off work at 7 a.m. We took my truck, a hand-me-down tan Nissan truck with a camper on the back that had belonged to my grandfather, with zero bells and whistles and which smelled like old dog farts, no matter what I did to alleviate the smell. We drove to Charleston and spent a cold day walking the streets, snapping photos, and then finding a cheap motel. And the next morning we drove out to the beach – Folly, I guess – and we had breakfast and then walked on the freezing beach. He took this picture without me knowing.

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The other thing I notice about this photo is that it very clearly shows my “old” nose, before the drunken face-first wall incident of my 21st birthday, or the “Memorial Day drunk driver hitting us head on in Florida on the way back from Brant and Melissa’s wedding” accident, both of which busted my nose and required surgery to fix. It looks pretty much the same now, but I can still tell the difference.

I still remember that morning on a Charleston beach, and the thoughts I was thinking, the things making me feel sad and overwhelmed. The feeling of not knowing what would happen. I was on a precipice. And it reminded me of the sadness and depression I felt just last year in 2015, on a different beach twenty-five years later, where I walked my dog at 7 a.m. on New Year’s Day, and snapped this photo of myself.

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There I was that morning, on another precipice, seemingly standing at the edge of the world. I was in a similar place: Not heartbroken, but sad, lost, frustrated, and wanting to run away from all of my confused feelings. The difference was that I had already been there once before. And I didn’t really run that first time, 25 years ago, even though I had the benefit of spontaneity, no responsibilities, and a road trip. I came back from Charleston to Athens, and I learned how to deal with feeling the things that I didn’t want to feel, and I learned that no matter what, I would be okay, because I loved myself and I could take care of myself. I learned that Everything would be okay.

And I learned it all while wearing one nondescript, really nasty, trashed gray hat.

More Fun at the Dinner Table (Or, “Why I Drink”)

Thursday, January 7th, 2016

You may remember a while back when I wrote about that time I talked to my 6th grader about strip clubs over dinner. It’s always something at the dinner table. So, tonight, I came home after a canceled therapy appointment. Thank you therapist, for canceling after I’ve already driven from my office in Cumming all the way down 400 and around 285 to Decatur. If you don’t live in Atlanta, just picture the seven circles of Hell. It’s bad.

Since I’m doing Dryuary, I couldn’t even hit Brickstore instead for a beer. I was cold and hungry, because I’m also doing The Fast Metabolism Diet. Don’t laugh, it’s not really a diet, it’s more of a lifestyle of clean eating, and I actually lost over 50 pounds a few years ago doing it, and kept it off. It works and it makes you feel good. It changed the way I eat and is pretty much responsible for the fact that I will eat half an avocado with a spoon, and then just have wine for dessert. I just can’t stuff myself so much anymore. Anyway, it is much better than training for a half-marathon, I’ll tell you that much, which I also did, and I gained ten pounds in the process.

Let’s just say I was the Mayor of Crankytown by the time I arrived home today. But it’s always something at dinner, and tonight was no different. A story in three parts.

Part I

The husband went to the grocery store on his way home and cooked dinner. He’s a good egg. We were about to sit down, but I was still freezing, and frankly, I just wanted to put my PJs on at seven p.m., so I went upstairs to change.

When I came back downstairs, I made a plate and heard Todd and Tiller whispering.

“What?” I asked, eyebrows raised.

More giggling, then leaning across the table for more whispering.

Tiller sat back, looking very pleased with herself, and said, “Mom, 1992 called, and they want their outfit back.”

Let’s back it up here a second and place the blame for this statement squarely where it belongs. That would be Jason B., who just a couple of days ago posted the same thing on my Facebook page when I posted a new profile photo.

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What? I’m wearing a hat, because I’m outside waiting on Uber after watching the football game, by myself with my new friends Saleem and Melvin, at the bar of a local restaurant and it’s cold. And plaid flannel never goes out of style. It’s a classic. Period. I can’t help it if my hair looks about the same as back in 1992. You’re wearing yours differently now, aren’t you, Jason? (You mess with the bull, you get the horns, you know what I’m saying?) Point being, Todd obviously borrowed this little gem from Jason. Moving on. . . .

I don’t really wear PJs. I usually wear a tank top and panties (or boxers if I’m walking around the house) in the summer. In the winter, leggings, and a tee shirt, with a sweater, sweatshirt or hoodie. I like fluffy slippers, and I don’t care how silly they look, as long as they are warm, and they have hard soles that can be worn outside in the damp. I wore holes in my old slippers, so the girl gave me some for Christmas, and they are indeed fluffy on the inside, and they look like Uggs, but shorter, which makes me laugh, because I’m not really an Uggs kind of girl.

Now, the difference is that tonight I had put on my new nightgown, which I purchased mostly because I needed pajamas of some sort that didn’t have any holes in them, and this was the same price as some crap that I returned from Christmas that I will never wear. And so I bought a nightgown. I have not had a new nightgown in over ten years. Over that, I put on my Bitter Southerner sweatshirt, which I love, (Thanks, Todd!) because, as I mentioned, it is cold.

So, Tiller cuts me down, and then everyone laughs at my expense, and I pretended to be mad, but let’s be honest, the joke’s on them:  I was all warm and toasty in my slippers and comfy clothes, and I had taken off my bra after wearing it all day, which all women of bra-wearing age universally acknowledge as the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Let’s cut to the chase. I looked like this:

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Nobody wore Uggs knockoff slippers in the 90s. This sweatshirt didn’t even exist five years ago. And I weighed about 40 pounds less. The kitchen, on the other hand, is completely stuck in the 80s. . . .

And then Tills and I goofed off.

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See how she’s wearing a fleece at dinner? Because it’s cold.

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Brody doesn’t like wrestling or demonstrations of affection of any kind. I mentioned it’s cold, right?

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Part II

So, then, we sit down and eat. Rollie is reading a book at the table. Todd doesn’t like reading at the table, which is anathema to me. He finds it rude. But somehow over the years we’ve come to a truce, and I only do it when I’m having the absolute worst day ever. Or when he is out of town. Then Tiller, Rollie, and I all get giddy and grab our reading material and sit around the table in ecstasy.

“Rollie, are you reading at the table?” I ask.

“Yes.” Sullen 12-year-old. I look at Todd to see his reaction.

“Are we allowed to read at the table?” I ask.

Todd says, “Of course, although I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to sit and talk with your family.”

Rollie, deadpan: “Because we could be reading books.”

Rollie and I high five.

I ask Rollie, “What are you reading?”

Tiller says, “He’s reading my new copy of The Graveyard Book, and he’s bent up all the pages!”

“Dogeared it, you mean, Tiller?” I say. “Rollie, did you ask if you could read her copy of the book? We already have a copy, but either way, you should have asked. And you definitely don’t dogear someone’s book without their permission.”

“Okay.” He doesn’t even look up from the book.

I say, “Thank you for letting him borrow your book, Tiller. Likewise, he has lots of books, and since he doesn’t mind dogearing, I think you can dogear his books when you borrow them. But I would ask first.”

Tiller is aghast. “I wouldn’t want to dog-ear his books! It crumples up all the pages and looks messy!”

My two children are night and day. And that female one . . . well, if I didn’t see her come out with my own two eyes, I would swear we were unrelated.

Part III

Oh Lord. This one takes the cake. I get up from the table to do the dishes. Someone makes a comment about my butt, and my son says: “Dat Turnaround Doe.” Um, if you don’t understand this language (and I really can’t blame you for that one bit), this and this will probably help clear it up. A little. The misspelling will never make sense to me, nor be okay. It’s just wrong.

[needle scratches across record]

Todd and I do turn around and stare at him, and in near unison, “What did you just say?”

R. (tentatively, the boy ain’t dumb) repeats it.

Todd says, “You don’t say that to your mother, first of all.”

“Where did you learn that?” I ask.

Rollie looks at us like we’re dumber than a box of rocks. “The Internet. Duh.”

“Do you even know what that means?” Todd asks.

“Not really.”

“If you heard it on the internet and you don’t know what it means, you don’t need to be saying it,” I chime in.

“Okay, okay.”

Y’all. I’m not sure I’m going to make it through a whole month. I love my family. They make me laugh. But this stuff is part of the reason I drink.

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Changes

Monday, April 8th, 2013

Dogwood Girl had some database issues that had me really out of my depth, but I managed to have time to sit down and work through them yesterday, and while I was there, I decided to go a little more simple with the site look. So, now that I have that fixed, perhaps I will write more. (Yeahrite.)

In the meantime, here is a photo of my ratty old Toms, posted just to annoy my friend Carrie, who thinks they look like ace bandages wrapped around your feet.

And yes, I do know I have big feet.

20130408-210848.jpg

Crazy Shirts Alive and Well

Sunday, March 13th, 2011

“Crazy Shirts are Alive and Well,” says a distracted Tech Writer Attempting to work on projects at coffee shop on Sunday afternoon.

There are a plethora of Crazy Shirts available for my viewing pleasure today at the coffee shop. For the uninitiated, Crazy shirts are any bold and colorful patterned button down shirts worn by aging men trying to look interesting or cool despite beer guts and receding hairlines. Most commonly-seen are the hawaiian shirt variety, but lucky crazy shirt sightings might include geometric Max Headroom-style shirts, and other CRAZY patterns. Todd and i first identified the crazy shirt phenomenon a few years ago when given free tickets to see The Church at the Variety Playhouse. Crazy shirts abounded at that show.

Crazy shirts are alive and well at Alcove Coffee this beautiful Sunday afternoon. Thank God the hippie chick isn’t working and some punk rock kid with pink hair and piercings is controlling the music, or i would be in compete and utter hell.

p.s. Wife of most recent crazy shirt sighting had on a female version, involving palm trees on a sea blue background bordered by rum and tequila bottles. This will need further research.

A Tale of Two Sisters in Overalls, Part III

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

Continued from A Tale of Two Sisters in Overalls, Part II. . .

Busted Flat in Nashville
I got a flat north of Nashville. So, when my tire blew out, and my sister was right in front of me, she didn’t happen to see me swerve across three lanes of traffic and into the emergency lane. She just looked in the rear view mirror and I was nowhere to be found, and thought, “uh-oh.” And then got off at the next exit, turned back around and went north on 75, and drove until she saw me broken down on the southbound side, then found the next exit, and got back on 75 South, and drove until she found me. Because we didn’t have cel phones. i swear to God, it was like living in the dark ages; we are lucky to have survived.

I was just sitting on the back bumper of the truck, because I’d already inspected the blowout. When you are driving from Colorado, getting a flat in Nashville is like getting a flat in your neighborhood. You are so close, and yet so far. You are so tired. You so don’t want to fucking change a tire. Which is good, because it turns out, even if you did, there are no spare tires on Ryder trucks. You have to call Ryder.

So, i sat there, and waited for Lisa to find me, and then told her what was up, and then sent her to the next exit to get drinks and call for help. I sat there a really long time. It was August 2, sitting on the side of 75 southbound, just north of Nashville. It was, to put it lightly, hot as fucking Hades.

Lisa came back. She said it would probably be a couple of hours. Have you ever sat on the side of 75 South in the midday sun for a couple of hours? It is horrific. We plowed through our snacks. The seats of the truck were like molten lava. Lisa was grumpy and sitting in the only shady spot in the truck. She is not a lover of the heat.
Lisa Heatstroke, Outside Nashville

Me? I was trying to keep it fun. I had on red overalls. Nothing says fun like red overalls. I got a piece of dried grass and made Hee Haw jokes and tried to make Leelee laugh.
HeeHaw Annie in Nashville!

It didn’t work.

If Looks Could Kill, With Maybe a Touch of Laughter

The sun was high up in the sky. There were almost no shadows. We sat on the back bumper of the truck, because it was the only way we could get some shade. I sat closest to the road, and Lisa sat right next to the edge closest to the grass on the side of the road. We didn’t talk. We watched cars fly by. Each one gave us a hot breeze, and the ones closest to us rocked the van. Some of them honked. Lisa and I sat in a daze, until a red jeep with three boys was coming towards us. There was something shouted, and then I heard and felt a loud, “thunk!” when something hit the van. Lisa immediately let out an “uuugggghhh!”

I looked over at her, and she had something yellow on her face and in her hair. She burst into tears. And, God help me. I’m not proud of it.

I laughed.

Those Nashville fuckers had thrown a half-eaten piece of corn on the cob at us. The kind you get from KFC.
Corn Cob

They didn’t just toss it either, as evidenced by the splat on the truck, directly over Lisa’s head.

Corn Splat

They winged that thing.

We sat for almost another hour until the guy came to fix the tire.

Tire Guy. Yep, I took his picture too.

We finally got back on the road. We would have made it home before dark. Instead, we made it home in the middle of the night. And the next morning, I was ready for my new (old) life.

Home

And yeah, really just posted that last one to show that I had on cutoffs. Something else that I never wear anymore, although i would if I was skinny.

In my new life, I would move into an apartment with my sister, and I would meet my future husband in an East Atlanta bar, and move in with him, and get a couple of cats and a dog and drink a lot, and then end up with two kids and a minivan in the burbs, wondering how the hell that happened.

And none of it would have happened if it wasn’t for the red overalls. I’m sure of it.

A Tale of Two Sisters in Overalls, Part II

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Continued from A Tale of Two Sisters in Overalls, Part I . . .

Have you ever been to East St. Louis? I hadn’t either. First of all, it’s not in St. Louis, which is in Missouri. (I smart.) It’s in Illinois. I am so serious. (You know you didn’t know that either.) Secondly, all you really need to know about East St. Louis to get the picture is that on Wikipedia, it has the following subheading under East St. Louis:
“East St. Louis In Popular Culture,” and under that, a subheading for “East St. Louis in Film,” and under that, you find this:

In the 1981 science fiction/action film Escape from New York, director John Carpenter used East St. Louis to represent a decaying, semi-destroyed future version of New York City. At that time, East St. Louis had entire neighborhoods burned out in 1976 during a massive urban fire, which suited the director’s vision of a Manhattan Island that has been turned into a maximum security prison.
In the 1983 comedy National Lampoon’s Vacation, The Griswolds were thought to accidentally drive through East St. Louis and get their car stripped while asking for directions . . . .

There’s also a lengthy section on its severe crime, which ranks it as having a higher murder rate than Compton, CA.

I think you get the picture. Let’s move on, shall we?

So, we’re in Illinois the next day. I swear, you drive through Illinois to get to Denver from Atlanta, and no, children, we didn’t even have any Illinoise! to listen to back then. So, we’re in Illinois and the sparks start again, and this godawful metal on metal sound, and I see an exit, and I pull of at that exit and Lisa is following me and I pull over at the closest gas-station-looking parking lot I can see, and i gotta tell ya, nothing looks open in East St. Louis in 1998. It just looked broken down and empty. And then there’s this nagging feeling that maybe East St. Louis is famous? But I can’t remember why.

I pull over and I get out, and Leelee pulls up next to me. We both look under the truck. I am smarter than she is, though, because I didn’t let her have the camera while i was up under the truck.
Lisa Checks Muffler

Then I get busted with the camera.
Lisa Catches me Photographing her Checking Muffler
The truly funny thing about these pictures is that if you knew Lisa then, back when we called her Princess? She never woulda been caught dead under a Ryder truck in East St. Louis, Illinois.

Now, right about that point, Lisa started trying to find information about calling Ryder again, because the muffler baling wire fix was not working so well anymore. Here she is looking at the map, or the paperwork, or something.

Lisa Knows East St. Louis
It was about this time that we also realized that there was no earpiece on the payphone at the deserted gas station. There was just a nice shell of a payphone.

So, I crawled back under the truck, hell bent on getting the thing wired and getting out of that parking lot. That’s when I heard the car. I rolled back out from under the car, and there are Lisa and I, standing next to a Ryder truck, and this old 70s car, but rebuilt, with fancy rims and all that, rolls up with two guys in it, and a nice gentleman with gold teeth and a shitload of gold jewelry leans out the window, and no, i am not kidding. And this is what he says, looking us up and down, and nodding his head real slow, these immortal words that I can still hear to this very day, uttered very slow and cool:

“Where’s y’all’s boyfriends at?”

Where’s. Y’all’s. Boyfriends. At.

I still use this phrase just about weekly, when calling my sister and getting her voicemail. I simply say, “Where’s y’all’s boyfriends at?” and she knows it’s me. Now, the truly funny thing about this is that Lisa is wearing a too-big hippie-looking Colorado t-shirt, and cutoff duckheads. (See previous picture.) And me? I’m wearing red overalls. With Doc Martens. And braids. But we’ll get to that later. We look real good. I am surprised he thought we even liked boys. Suffice it to say that I am surprised he didn’t just go ahead and shoot us for looking ugly.

And what did I say to him? Just what is the proper response to such a well-turned come-on? Well, it was hot, and I was tired and hungry. This is what my big mouth said:

“Just leave us the fuck alone! What the fuck?! Can’t you see we’re having car trouble?!”

And now, now you know who is the OG.

And he, obviously impressed with my street cred, said, “Okay,” and nodded, and turned up his music, and drove off. I know. The story would have been much better if he had gotten out and said, “Here, Let me help you ma’am” and fixed my damn muffler. But it didn’t happen that way. Instead, I crawled under, and tried the baling wire thing, and then climbed back out and ate leftover, cold pizza from the night before, sitting in a post-apocalyptic-movie set parking lot in East St. Louis.
Cold Pizza, Parking Lot, East St. Louis

And we made it all the way to Nashville before we had any more problems. But the boys in Nashville? They were not as nice.

Continued in A Tale of Two Sisters in Overalls, Part III.

Covet

Saturday, June 19th, 2010

You know me. I don’t particularly like to shop. I buy from Value Village, or Target, or out of my grandparents’ closets. (I just had to create a new Category for this post, because i have never posted about clothing or fashion before!) But for some reason, i am totally coveting this boot. I am not sure why. Maybe it is that the suede reminds me of a suede jacket I had in middle school that I loved. Maybe it is the brass hardware detail.

I don’t know. I just want it. It is speaking to me, i swear.

Weird, huh? Also? I really like the word Covet. So romantic. To wish for earnestly.