Tuesday, June 30, 2015

MAMIE


Man... if ever I had to choose which First Lady was my favorite I can promise you Mamie Eisenhower would NEVER be anywhere near the top of the list. True... she was soooo 50s but still... what the fuck was with those BANGS?? I mean. Come on. Had she no mirror?? Ike never said: uh... about those bangs? LOSE 'EM! On the other hand, I do have to admit that as we speak I am listening to my Kindle, hearing a pretty good biography of none other than: Mamie herself.

Why on earth I would ever READ such a book about this First Lady is nuts. But... truth be told it's because I do have to admit she had pretty interesting takes on being a lady. My FAVORITE take is a quote that I read recently and it knocked my socks off.

“Mamie believed that once a woman reached the age of 50, she was entitled to stay in bed until noon.” 

OMG. I could totally be this woman's best friend. In spite of the fact that to me, she was nothing to ever write home about in the least. Once I heard this quote however, I did a complete 180 degree turn in my interest in this woman. All of a sudden I thought to myself: time out. I SO have to learn more about this nothing more than ordinary woman and hence the download of her biography onto my Kindle. Come to find out: while she's no Eleanor Roosevelt or Jackie Kennedy, she did in fact fit into her times pretty damn well. Besides... I'm totally intrigued with her love of the color pink. But I'll get to that later.

Let's first get back to the issue of her belief system regarding staying in bed until noon. You have no idea how wholeheartedly I have to ditto that dictate. And frankly, I'm adopting that concept the best I possibly can, especially in these heated months of summer. Afterall... what the hell does one after 50 even need to DO before noon other than eat breakfast? For the past year, I've even decided that any appointments I have to make are never to be made before 11:30 a.m. In fact... 1:30 p.m. is even better. Any time after that btw, simply cuts into my daily nap time but whatever. All I can say is: what a great credo Mamie came up with. Thank you Mamie for your oh so wise words of wisdom! Which by the way, could very well be her only wisdom throughout her lifetime. Anyway...

There are a couple of other things that intrigue me about her. Case in point: Mamie's adoration of the color pink, as I mentioned above. Turns out everyone of the bedrooms she and Ike ever lived in was decorated in almost the exact same way... with green moss walls and pink decor. Especially her bed linens. In their Gettysburg home even her bathroom fixtures were all pink which is kinda funny given that when my parents built their first home in the early 50s not only was their bathroom in some sort of decorating magazine but get this: their entire bath room was pink and black! To this day I still can see the black and pink tiling of their shower. There must have been a tub, probably pink, too, but I can't picture it in my head anymore... I'll have to ask my sister about that I guess. Bottom line:

Indeed while First Lady, Mamie was well known for loving pink. In fact, her inaugural gown was... naturally... pink with 2000 rhinestones on it. Long pink gloves, pink beaded Judith Leiber clutch purse for which I have to give her points. And guess what? My Mother too, had a stunning beaded pink cocktail dress and the most beautiful pink beaded pocket book you ever saw. Talk about Mom being completely in the style of the 50s. Oh yeah... need I even tell you that every fancy dress I ever wore as a little girl was pink?? To this day, were there never any men in my life, I could so have done my bedroom decor in white and pale pink. Maybe I'll do that for my 75th birthday as a present to myself, men or no men.

Another thing that impresses me about Mamie is that while she came from pretty fancy schmancy beginnings, when she married President Eisenhower she knew right off the bat she'd have to bring her style of living waaaay down. Goodbye high life. Hello army life. And let me just tell you... it was not easy in the least. Were it me... I'd have left the hubby 1-2-3, I think. Seriously. If they moved 21 times, they moved 121 times... to all sorts of Army posts in and out of the country. Of course the big pay off was when they finally moved into the home of all homes... the White House but who's counting. And by the way... who the hell KNEW that after WWII Ike was immediately asked to become President of Columbia University in New York. Which he accepted but he had to give up to uh... become President of a much larger group of people: The United States of America.

And in case anyone is interested in genealogy here's a tip for you. Mamie's son John, had a kid named David who then fell in love with Julie, whose father was none other than the ever popular Richard Nixon. Too bad Julie lost major points in my book, bringing her down to a minus zero since she defended her father to the nth degree during the Watergate crisis. Really Julie? Even I saw right off the bat that your Dad was a lying, conniving, good for nothing lousy anti-semitic prick. But moving on...


I do have to say I've enjoyed learning all about Mamie and Ike and if nothing else, Mamie was a devoted wife and mother. Her signature bangs however are STILL a sad story as far as fashion goes. Who in their right mind curls bangs all the way up to the hairline?? Even her own mother asked: Huh? What the hell?? No wonder the world went crazy over Jackie O. as the next First Lady. Which reminds me... how long you think it took Jackie to switch up all of Mamie's pink bedroom designs? Think: seconds! 

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

GUESS WHO GOT WHAT


Well the who is easy. ME! The what is even easier. A NEW CAR! Yippee. I'm totally thrilled, too.

I began thinking about a new car several months ago. It was kinda like when you begin thinking about giving the guy you're with the ole heave ho. It may not be the exact right moment at first thought, but eventually you know things are sort of pointing in that direction. That's how I felt about looking for a new car. I wasn't quite ready five months ago, but bingo. 

Once the thought was implanted in my mind... boom. The idea of giving my old car the boot became stronger and stronger. Next thing you know it's four months later and time to get really serious about figuring out which car I wanted as a replacement. No easy feat, I might add.

Plus... come to find out, new cars are really expensive! OMG. Talk about sticker shock. In addition... it took me at least a month and a half to bond with the fact that full sized sedans are no longer even an option anymore. HUH?? WHAT'S WITH ALL THESE NEW SMALLER CARS WITH EVEN SMALLER INTERIORS? Not to mention, so much shorter in height. Like where the hell was I when all these new small designs came onto the market. Especially supposedly full size luxury automobiles. NOWadays full size apparently means: way tinier interiors unless of course you REALLY want to lay out major bucks and hook up with a $70,000 car or something. Which basically means...

The days of my being able to afford a pretend luxury car is way over. Which naturally then sent my search into a whole new direction. Even some pre-owned cars were priced out of my league. Therefore I began looking at, test driving, etc. several different makes/models. Not only that... I had to also become feature friendly given you kinda have to now practically have a pilot's license to figure out the display panel. Oh man. Don't even get me started on the keyless entry bit, btw. Soooo crazy.

In the meantime, while I had some time to kill before an appointment with one salesman, I decided to mozie on in to the Toyota dealer and next thing you know I test drove a brand new Avalon and within the hour, good bye other dealership, hello new one. It took several hours to negotiate the price I wanted, the trade-in I wanted, etc. etc. and by 5:00 that afternoon whammo. I drove away in a beautiful, totally spacious, comfortable brand new car. Hal-le-lu-jah! Of course the fact I settled on a silver car with black interior, still now, absolutely floors me since ordinarily I would NEVER have made that choice. But whatever. I'll live on the edge.

Besides, when I kick the bucket altogether I bet my kid will give a thumbs up to this color choice. Oh yeah... no time was needed btw to negotiate any sort of features to include since this car is pretty much fully loaded and thus has just about anything you'd ever want. Well... other than an ejection seat, maybe.

Which reminds me: navigating your way through all those features?? Don't even ASK. My first clue that things were going to be a challenge was when, five seconds into driving off the lot with my new purchase, BOOM. A HUGE voice came out of nowhere alerting me I had new email and wanted to know if I wanted to ignore it or read it. Are you kidding me?? Since when does THAT sort of alert ever occur? My car can now speak to me about my email?? Talk about hearing voices in my head! Geez. Just what I need.

Anyway... care to guess how many times I've been BACK to the dealer to have them answer my 425 questions regarding all the fancy schmancy features? Let's put it this way: I've owned the car for five days. Hence I've been back to the salesman five times. See a pattern here? All I can say is thankfully by now I've pretty much got a handle on what does what. 

Oh yeah... the best part was that I drove away with my new car four days before I even paid for it. Now THAT'S service, alright. Turns out I bought it on a Thursday, told them I'd have to get monies into my bank account which could take about three days since there was a weekend coming up. Hey... no problem they said and kindly told me: Not to worry. Here. Take the car. It's yours to keep. And we'll just deposit your check in five days, on Tuesday. UH... REALLY?? WELL... UH. OKAY. GEE. THANKS! By the way... I highly recommend your doing business at this place.

Anyway the bottom line is that I've just gotten what could possibly wind up being my very last car for ever. Well, maybe not. But I'll tell you this. Whenever I DO buy my next car, I'm pretty sure it'll have to be a Toyota truck given I'll be way close to 80 years old and I have NO idea what kind of driver I'll be by then. Meaning: in 10-12 years I totally had better have as much protection surrounding me as possible.

Monday, June 8, 2015

NINE YEARS AND COUNTING


Man... how time flies when having fun. Or... when you have a nine year anniversary, which btw I'm having on the 14th of this month. For it was on June 14, 2006 that I published my very first blog entry and lo and behold... here I am, after all this time, still posting bullshit about whatever may be going on in my life. Which is pretty ironic given there is absolutely nothing about my life that would make anyone else on earth give a damn about what I do or what I have to say on any topic whatsoever. Yet... believe it or not... I have quite a little following. From around the world, too. Who the hell KNEW?? I know. Pretty scary, right? In fact... in the past month... I've had 17 page views from China! Seriously?? Like is some Chinese guy actually interested in my garbage or instead... is someone from the Chinese higher ups just plain out to get me?? EEEKS.

I also have followers in several European countries although I do have to admit my biggest following is from right here in the United States which I always guessed was my main target audience, anyway. But hey... if someone wants to make me famous world wide who am I to dissuade them?? My favorite audience location btw, is in the United Arab Emirates, which is where Dubai is located and trust me... I'd LOVE to visit that country, so rich in opulence. Better yet... I'd love to visit the palace of the reader he/she lives in but I have no way of knowing exactly who that reader may be. Damnit. For THAT could be a friendship I may indeed want to embrace. Can you imagine??

In the meantime I totally admit I get a pretty happy spark from of all my readers' emails, not to mention the fun I have while writing my posts. Once in a while I'll sit down here at the computer, go through many of the posts, and get a major chuckle while reading all the postings. Several make me laugh right smack out loud. Some I have no memory of writing in the first place. 

My favorite thing to see however, is how many typographical and/or grammatical errors I have written. Which is so strange given I really do try to polish the posting before it's published. I have a real sequence I follow before I ever publish anything too, including a three time read through to 1.) be sure it all makes sense and 2.) it's written correctly. Thus to actually MISS a mistake all three times hardly speaks well for me, but whatever. Anyway...

I have two announcements to make.

The first one is: OMG. I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. I am now going white!! As in: goodbye blonde! Hello old lady. I made this decision about two weeks ago and yes the time has finally come. I will not be coloring my hair for quite a while until I see what my natural hair color looks like! I can not even IMAGINE what will be but if it turns out to be a stunning pure white like my Mother's was then I am damn well thinking: I'll keep it white. 

Well that is, unless I look 15 years older in which case then I'll just head on over to Walgreen's in a flash to buy my ever popular Excellence by L'oreal in Champagne Blonde. On the other hand, I really am psyched to see exactly how much white I have (I'm not doing salt and pepper!) and if it's anything like my snow white roots then bingo. I just may be onto something, here. Naturally I check the growth every 30 minutes to see if I'm all white yet, which winds up being nothing different than hours before, but believe me. Patience will totally pay off at some point. DEAR GOD: PLEASE LET THIS BE A FANTASTIC LOOK. THANK YOU GOD. AMEN.


The second thing is: I'm a total wreck given I have a colonoscopy tomorrow! OMG. I HATE THIS. Normally people don't have a problem with this procedure and frankly neither do I. The procedure itself is no big deal. No wonder. You're completely knocked out, thank God. It's just the PREP POISON I have to drink later today that's the killer. And for me... I do mean killer. I CAN'T STOMACH THAT CRAP! No pun intended. Everyone else in the world seems to get through drinking this HORRIBLE HORRIBLE solution just fine, but two years ago I thought I would die altogether. And... though I didn't, I WANTED TO. I could hardly get down half of the poison before I began gagging, wanting to throw up. 

Nor did I get much past the halfway mark of the container so basically... don't ask. All of which is pretty funny considering I spend three quarters of my life having to find a bathroom IMMEDIATELY. In the meantime, you can be sure that already I took an Ativan just so I can calm down from the mere THOUGHT of having to drink this prep. 

I'm nauseous already. 

Thursday, June 4, 2015

FATS

And no... I'm not talking carbs and calories. I'm talking about the REAL LIFE Fats. As in: Fats Domino. The alltime best rhythm/blues singer ever put here on earth. I could listen to this man sing for ever and ever. And the very first song I'd listen to, will without a doubt ALWAYS be either one of two: WALKING TO NEW ORLEANS or I WANT TO WALK YOU HOME.

In either one of these songs, like so many others... the music/melody literally roll with a basic blues rhythm that almost reQUIRES your body to begin gently moving to a raw, sensual beat. Which by the way is exactly why BLUEBERRY HILL was such a hit back in the 50s. Everybody on the planet began to sing along with that tune the minute you heard the very first three notes of the intro. Then of course throw in Fat's smooth voice and base lyrics and boom. You're in musical heaven.

Where thankfully Fats is not yet resting. Instead, he is still alive and kicking although no longer performing. He lives in New Orleans where he was born Antoine Domino and before he even spoke English, he spoke Creole. He learned to play the piano when he was seven and from that point on... well, the rest is history. Besides Fats has the most gentle looking face I've ever seen...he's got a smile that'll knock your socks off.

As it happens... piano is my alltime favorite instrument. Enter: my love for Elton John and Billy Joel. But still... listening to Fats Domino speaks to an innocence of love and simplicity that is far different than any other pianist. Well, in my opinion, anyway. Which is why I've linked my absolute favorite Fats Domino songs down below. If you have any musical inclination whatsoever then you totally need to listen to each and everyone of them. You will be delighted. You can also thank me profoundly via email.  

What I can't believe is that I am going to kick the bucket without ever having had the chance to see Fats in a live performance. You know those crazy ass girls who screamed and fainted when the Beatles used to perform?? Well guess what. That would ME at a Fats Domino concert. He is in his 80s by now thus he stays pretty close to home nowadays. And basically has, ever since Hurricane Katrina, which pretty much destroyed everything he had. In fact... there is an album called Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino that has hordes of the best known rock stars ever, recording songs by Fats with proceeds having gone to help rebuild his home.

Actually I myself did a cover song of sorts when I was but 8 years old. I totally remember being a little girl and belting out Blueberry Hill for my family, grandparents included, while once at an outdoor picnic. It was probably the first rock song I memorized and trust me... yes, I was a chubby idiot while performing but also... I was a budding diva. Oh man... if only there were a home movie or something to have documented this crapola performance. It would have been HILARIOUS.

In closing let me just say if you think for one minute that Pat Boone's AIN'T THAT A SHAME is anywhere NEAR a hit sound then not only are you nuts but more importantly... you and I have absolutely NOTHING in common whatsoever. Even all those artists who covered I ALMOST LOST MY MIND should be ashamed of themselves. NO ONE, not a one, can compare to how Fats Domino sings it. Not even Ivory Joe Hunter. 


Okay... so I am now into day three of binge listening to Fats and am loving every minute of it. Take a gander at some of these songs for yourself, to enjoy some of the best tunes EVer. Talk about not being able to get enough. And no... you won't see Blueberry Hill in the lineup below given who on earth hasn't heard it a million times already. 

In the meantime... tonight is dinner and the Patsy Cline musical play. Yes, it will be great. But still and all... it won't be Fats Domino. Damnit.

I WANT TO WALK YOU HOME 
WALKING TO NEW ORLEANS
SO LONG
I HEAR YOU KNOCKING
YOUR CHEATIN' HEART
And... the REAL best of the best, which you need to begin at 2:22...
I ALMOST LOST MY MIND