A Stepford Wife.(???)

Hello Dahlings...The first order of business is that we must welcome young Joshua to our lovely meetings.  We are now 6 1/2!  Ha cha cha!!! OK, I regressed there for a moment because this afternoon I've decided that I need to become "The perfect housewife".  I've read several articles today on how a good wife and homemaker  un- fortunately they were are published  in the 1950's. The thing is...I don't think I can cut it.  I'm a failure before I began.  First off our role model is supposed to be Donna Reed. For those not old enough to know who Donna Reed was and why she was famous I shall enlighten you (see I'm trying to be refined and gentile).  Donna Reed was an actress from the 1940'a and 50's.  She was Jimmy Stewart's wife in "It's a Wonderful Life" (hated that movie) had her own TV show in which she played the perfect homemaker (I'm even to young to remember that series except from re-runs) and for those who are much younger she was the second Miss Ellie in Dallas. To tell you the truth I never accepted her as the second Miss Ellie, I also had issues with the second Darrin on Bewitched.  To be a good Stepford ummmm I mean housewife I need to do certain things.  I'm supposed to always look like I stepped out of the beauty parlor, my hair and make up are to always look as if I've had them professionally done and it was just in the last 10 min.I also need to wear pearls allot.  Now I like pearls and have been known to wear them, but it's usually for an evening out and I haven't worn them much since the late 70's and early 80's when we all wanted to look preppy and wore them with everything! I'm supposed to take 15 min. before my husband comes home and rest so I look "refreshed" and to place "a fresh ribbon in my hair" to complete this.  I need to "wash the children's face and hands as they are your little treasures and need to be presented this way"Gracie and Lacy watch out I'm comin for you.  I'm also supposed to have a hot or cold drink in my hand to give to my husband when he comes in and have him either lay down or sit in a comfortable chair and speak in low pleasing tones.  I'm not supposed to complain about my day because my issues are small compared to the issues and people that my Stepford um I mean husband has put up with all day.  OK...I've failed before I started.  Let me first say, it's a cold snowy Saturday and my sainted Danny has been at work since 12 pm.  I have been alone and have had plenty of time to do my hair, find my pearls and wash the children's, well in our case, dog's faces.  I have done none of this.  I'm wearing my Eeyore slippers I have a flannel nightgown on that is 4 sizes too big and my pink fluffy bathrobe. My legs are shaved so there has to be points for that!  I do have dinner ready so there is another positive.  The hair ribbon part is not working for me either.  Donna Reed would have on a lovely pink ribbon tied around her hair like a hairband.  I'm looking and all I have is either a Pittsburgh Steelers bandanna or one from Pet Smart that Lacy and Gracie came home with.  I have to admit either one of them would look good with what I have on, but it's not 50's housewife material.  I know I usually give you all the benefit of one of my precious "random thoughts" but I think this entire thing I've just written is one big random thought! I probably will bitch at Danny in a loud cranky voice about something and he can sit where he wants.  I will, as I always try to do have a cup of tea ready for him when he comes in.  Actually, I'm really not that bad...cause I do always have a meal ready for him.  I guess that's my nod to Donna Reed.  I kinda think I'm working closer to Deborah Barrone housewife from "Everybody Loves Raymond".  I'm kinda cranky (understatement) I don't always look good and the dog's still need their faces washed!  So, I think the best thing I can offer Danny is a cup of tea, a hot meal, two dogs who adore him and me who even if i don't look like Donna Reed loves him with all my heart.  I think I'm going to stop reading those articles and go back to reading old issues of "High Times" and "Rolling Stone".  My fun fact is that the most recent numbers I could come up with for women who stay at home and are housewives and Mom's is 5.3 million. Do you think I'm the .3 cause I'm not so good at it???   Right now I'm gonna go find a set of my pearls and the tiara I own, since I don't have a hair ribbon and see how they look with my nightgown and Eeyore slippers.  Thanks as always for listening and feel free to give constructive criticism on how you think I might improve!  So as I assume Donna Reed would say, It's been a pleasure visiting with you (bee ah ches, that's from me not Donna!).  I'll be back soon....sounds like a threat!  xoxoxox Pammy

One ole girl....

Dear 4 1/2 we are now welcoming number 5 to our fold!!! Welcome Shoezanne!! I love it when I get a new follower (even though I think I had to strong arm Suzie to become one!) Ve vill stop at nafink to get our vay!!!!  So...here's my news.  I have become obsolete!  This was news to me.  I still thought of myself as fairly cool, but it seems I'm not.  I'm like that lady in the music video by Bowling for Soup, 1985.
 "She’s seen all the classics
She knows every line
"Breakfast Club", "Pretty In Pink"
Even "St. Elmo's Fire"
She rocked out to Wham!
Not a big Limp Bizkit fan
Thought she'd get a hand
On a member of Duran Duran"
I mentioned the word "walkman" to a 10 year old the other day....she said "wahhhht is that?"  I was afraid to say the word vinyl, it would have freaked her out.  I read something the other day when a grandma (who couldn't have been that old!) put on an actual record for her grandchild and the child responded with "Gee Grandma, CD's were really big in your day".  Says it all doesn't it.  What happened to my red snake skin shoes and my black stockings that had roses as a design not even to mention my spiked red hair with the rat tail hanging down the back!  I WAS COOL DAMN IT! (?)  Now it's half stockings and flat black ballet shoes.  I've regressed to the age of 10.  I keep telling these young people I'm cool but they are so not believing me.  People born between 1982-2000 are called Generation Y.  They say they are more compassionate about the world around them, but also because of the Internet they expect instant gratification and answers immediately.  They also keep full time job on an average of 1.1 years before they more on to the next one. Instant gratification when I was younger was having your own set of encyclopedia's and my job's consisted of looking for a place I could retire from (Oh god I was old even then!).  Ahh but the world is a different place now and so are young people.  I know I'm not old.  I only mentally feel 16 and according to my sainted Danny I only act 10 (on a good day).  Me knees are shot so my dancing days are over but I can still rock out pretty good sitting down, got that whole Wayne and Garth head banging thing down to a science!  No more red hair or rat tail.  Now a nice conservative bob that I still can spike up at will!  I still have 7 piercings in my ears but have given up to wearing usually 4 and they lean towards the emeralds and pearl earrings, at least I have taste.  All and All I like the new older version for the most part.  I'm kinder and more understanding and I don't think I'm nearly as impulsive and bitchy as I was!  Kids may not think I'm cool but I still remember dancing with a guy who I swore was Jim Morrison (no comparison to any of those music kids today, I hesitate to use the word "rockers" cause in my opinion Enrique Inglasis's little sweet ditty about cheating on his girl friend while she's out of town does not hold up to "Riders on the Storm"!) Not really knocking the music today, just doesn't have the same oomph that it did...we made a statement (I think it had something to do with peace, love and rock and roll, but I'm not real sure cause we were all pretty drunk or stoned in the 70's and 80's!). My random thought for the day is....oh damn, I forgot it cause I'm so darn old!! All kidding aside we are as cool as we feel we are and I still fell pretty darn cool.  So let's rock on and remember those tattoo's we got in the 80's may not look as good as they did cause the ink fades and things sag.  To quote Def Leppard "It's better to burn out than fade away"! I do have a fun fact for you today as well did you know that this guy created inflatable underwear for people who are afraid of falling! I think I need those!  As always, thanks for listening to my rant.  I'd say have a good day, but I always hate it when people tell me what kind of day to have!  Peace out...Pammy.USA has invented Emergency Underwear that contaAirbags for afraid of Falling!

Another New Years Eve....

What Shakin Bacon my dear 4 1/2? Here we are at the end of another new year.  It went by so quickly and I'm sure we all had the good with the bad, but then I think that's what they call life.  Again to quote my fav John Lennon "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans". This year my goal is to quit planning life and take it as it comes, lord, did I just make a new years resolution??? Well, that was an accident cause I don't make promises I can't keep!  Ok, so I've decided there is something wrong with me, much more than the obvious!  I despise New Years Eve.  Yes, there I've said it.  The night where everyone is making merry I just want to stay home and watch an old movie.  It didn't help a whole lot when I had to bury my Mom on New Years Eve, but then I figure she didn't have a whole lot of choice in the matter and neither did I!  When it comes to New Years Eve I am a "glass half empty" girl.  I tend to look back at all the hard stuff instead of ahead to what can be.  My sainted Danny always looks ahead with his glass half full!  What a wonderfuly way to be!  He loves the social interaction and the hoopla.  We usually spend it with dear friends John, Suzanne and their son Johnny Jay.  I have to admit I never make it to midnight and I want to be in the privacy of my own home.  I totally don't get all the fuss about one night.  I guess it's just a way of marking a milestone.  The images of Time Square on New Years Eve just make me nervous.  I've had some good New Years Eve, most of them involve Danny.  I still remember as a child my parents having New Years Eve parties and it never failed, I puked.  Now some of it was nerves but some of it was the fact that I was allergic to the damn Christmas tree and we didn't find that out until I was about 5.  It's hard to have fond memories of puking. I didn't even have the benefit of tying one on!  I did have one drunken New Years Eve where I woke up in a closet (now this was not one of my prouder moments) all covered with coats and pretty hungover.  I thought I died because I couldn't see anyting!  Thank goodness my friends came looking for me cause I think the coats, and some of them not very fashionable, were smothering me.  I'm lucky I didn't throw up on them even though it might have improved the look and smell of some of them (those darn smokers didn't smell good!)  This was about the time I gave up getting drunk, it was really not that much fun, luckly I was in my early 20's when I figured this out.  I have to admit I did have one other drunken night and that was after a dear friends wedding.  I'm told I did a tango to a polka and proceeded to dip my partner!  I woke up the next morning basically neked on my bed with my head in a purse (what is it about me putting my head in places I can't see) and my panty hose was gone but somehow I still had the ankle bracelet on that was over my panty hose!!! Again, because of the dark I thought I was dead!  Seriously not a proud moment in my young life but funny in it's own twisted way.  Needless to say a glass of wine or a nice gin and tonic is about as far as I go nowdays!  So I think my random thought about New Years Eve is to watch out for the coat closets and big purses!!! So this New Years Eve I'm going to try to have a glass full kinda night and celebrate it to where I feel comfortable, even if it means coming home before midnight (Sorry John and Suzie it had nothing to do with you!) I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year! Be safe. Of course I do have a New Years fun fact, did you know that  foods that are eaten on New Year's Eve are cabbage because the leaves represent prosperity. Ham (or a hog) also symbolizes prosperity. In Asian cultures, rice is a hearty and lucky staple that is eaten around midnight to signify the coming year of fortune,  Well I think we all need to watch out for the cabbage and I still have trouble eating Miss Piggy!  So to quote Mr. Spock(which I've don't before!) Live long and prosper! And for all the Star Wars fans, May the force be with you!  xoxox Pammy  P.S.  I trust you all to share my embarresing drunken stories! 

Random thoughts: "And so this is Christmas....."John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Random thoughts: "And so this is Christmas....."John Lennon and Yoko Ono

"And so this is Christmas....."John Lennon and Yoko Ono

goedendag Campers (that's hello in Dutch, except for the campers part!).  So here we are 6 days before Christmas day.  Am I organized??? Not....Are you??? I hope so!  As I've always done since I was a little girl I always wait for the week before Christmas to bake my Christmas cookies.  Never any sooner because we liked nice fresh cookies.  When my Mom and Dad were both alive we baked around 12 difference kinds of cookies, doubling and tripling the batches.  That didn't even include the breads, candy and homemade Scottish Shortbread we made.  You never left our house without a package of cookies!  I spend most of the time fending my father off the cookies as he wasn't allowed to have any of the Christmas cookies until Christmas Eve....we used to make him eat oreo's!  Needless to say it didn't make him happy, so then he got to eat the "accidents"!  The cookies that broke etc.  I always made sure I "broke" a good many for him cause he was getting cranky on the oreo's!  The year my Mother, her best friend Evelyn and Evelyn's sister in-law Yvonne took up candy making was interesting.  We had chocolate covered cherries and pecan turtles coming out our eyes!  Talk about sugar plum dancing in your head we all had one heck of a sugar high going on!  I fondly remember as I grew older coming home from work and baking with my mother.  Now I must remind you I LOVE TO BAKE...but not so much after working 10 hours in an office!  We never used a mixer or a blender to do our cookies they were all mixed by hand (I still have the calluses!),  We had this one lovely little cookie that was a jelly star, you made a sugar cutout cookie of a star and on one of the stars you cut a hole in the middle and you iced the bottom cookie with grape jelly and put the star with the hole on top and sprinkles with powdered sugar....now these were really good and very time consuming.  They were also very very delicate.  You broke the cookie that had the hole cut out you were off balance.  One very busy Saturday before Christmas I was baking a pan of "The little bastards" as I liked to call them when for some reason I slipped on the floor and bam down went and entire pan of "little bastards". There were "little bastards" everywhere and me sitting in the middle of them.  I was really tired as we were doing what I like to refer to as "commando baking", only the strong survive.  I sat there half on the kitchen floor and half in the hallway and I cried, so what wasn't broken was cried on!  My Mother was in the other room decorating cookies and her hands were full so my Dad came to see what had happened.  I told him I had a whole pan of rejects for him and proceeded to sob.  Dad didn't think he'd like that batch so much what with the tears streaming onto them and the ones I was sitting on he thought he's pass.  He helped me stand up and brushed me off and took me into the living room.  Now mind you I was old at this point I must have been in my 30's.  Mum, Dad and I had a discussion about how if you had to give a cookie and name that had nothing to do with Christmas and sounded less than appealing it was time to stop making those cookies and cut back on the baking!  It was agreed...we'd cut back and no more "little bastards"!.  Now I must admit I did have a detox period.  My sisters used to call me Pammy Bakker, they said I was the illegitimate child of Jim Bakker and Betty Crocker and that at the end of the Christmas season I had to be sent to cookie rehab to uncurl my fingers from around a cookie sheet! Now that Mum and Dad are both gone I don't bake near as much and I don't enjoy it the way I did.  I always honor my Dad by making his mothers Scottish Shortbread recipe, you know you are special if you receive a cake of this from me!  I make a few different kinds that Danny likes and I try to make one recipe from my childhood baking past.  I still bake the breads as gifts and I've toned the candy down to homemade Carmel's.  I still enjoy it, but I much more enjoy eating other peoples Christmas cookies!  I look forward to my Aunt Marybelle's cookies as there are things that she bakes like we did but also wonderful Italian cookies.  After Daddy died it wasn't the same as I had no one to fend off the cookies until Christmas.   My Mom left me two days after Christmas three years ago this 27th.  I didn't bake at all that year as she had a heart attack on December 2nd.  Our last Christmas was spent in the hospital with her.  We opened her presents for her and we opened our presents from her (which I had bought trying to keep normalcy). When Evelyn's son Greg was a little boy he had bought her a gift of scented dresser paper and that was one thing she had wanted.  I made sure I had lovely lavender one's for her.  It really made her happy cause there was nothing like good smelling undies (doesn't sound so good when written!) She wanted a taste of my Aunt Marybelle's cookies (I can't even remember which one) but she did have it.  We stayed for a few hours but she couldn't stay awake and asked us to please go home and rest as it had been a long month.  Grudging I left her.  We checked on her several times during the day and wanted to go back in the evening but she was way too tired to have anyone come be with her.  I cried and cried because I knew my childhood was gone.  Two day's later Mum left me, everyone told me how wonderful it was that she went home to be with the lord at Christmas, I didn't feel it as I was just sad she left me at Christmas. Now as I look back I can see the poetic justice of dying at Christmas.  The holidays haven't been easy since she left.  Cookies aren't the same, shopping is not the same, wrapping presents are not the same...but now Danny and I have started our own traditions.  They are just as wonderful. Dan has made my life and my holidays complete and full. I think my random thought for the day is that it doesn't have to be the same to be good.  Honor the past but live for the present and enjoy every moment of it because someday you might be someones Christmas memory. I do have a fun fact for Christmas for you....Did you know Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer was a marketing campaign started by Montgomery Wards in the 1930's??  So until the 30's I wanna know who was "guiding that sleigh by night"???? Late at night I've been having cravings for broken cookies and those damn "little bastards"...who knows maybe this will be the year I attempt them again.  I wish all of you and my usual 4 1/2 a very Merry Christmas.  And remember, it's not all about cookies and presents.  Feliz Navidad!!

xoxox Pammy

Random thoughts: "It was 30 years ago today......"

Random thoughts: "It was 30 years ago today......"

"It was 30 years ago today......"

Dear 4 1/2, sorry I haven't checked in for a few weeks buy my mind doesn't work quickly enough to blog every week, plus most of the time I don't have anything interesting to say! Well today we are going to discuss someone who helped write the soundtrack to my life.  I'm not old enough to remember Buddy Holly as he died the year I was born, but I have to say for myself that "the day the music died" for me was the day 30 years ago today that John Lennon was so brutally taken from us.  First off, I so can't get my head around the fact that John would have been 70 years old!!! I always thought about my parents being so old when I was little, but my Mom was only 3 years older than John Lennon and she was a year younger than Elvis.  I guess Mom wasn't that old after all!  On the other hand, Daddy was old...he was almost 10 years older than Mom, but I digress!  We could discuss for hours how horrible it was how and the fact that he died and how the person who did this should rot in jail and in hell (which I believe he will!).  I want to talk about the joy listening to John Lennon and The Beatles gave me.  When I was a little girl all of about 4 I remember listening to The Beatles on the radio and having trouble with the "concept" of radio.  I knew The Beatles were from England and I knew England was very far away because my family is from Scotland.  What I couldn't figure out was how they got The Beatles to be there on the radio in Pittsburgh to sing "I want to hold your hand" a few times a day??? So, I wasn't the brightest blub in the box.  I also had trouble with movie listings in the newspaper...I was appaled that after the movie synopsis it said "black and white"...I didn't know what racisim was but I didn't understand why they had to put a "color" to the movie.  It took me a while to figure out they mean't the movie was black and white and they were not talking about the people in it!  Like I said, not the brightest bulb! I still remember sitting on my living room floor with my sister Donna with her arm around me watching The Beatles on Ed Sullivan.  Cousin Philip was supposed to be watching us, but he slept!  I was only young but I understood the excitement.  I also remember being clearly taken by John Lennon, even though at that point I didn't know his name.  He looked like a "bad boy".  Even at 4 I had a thing for bad boys!!  I adored him flat out.  Mum got us Beatle Dolls, to this day I still have the Paul McCartney one (bet he's worth something!), I think I cut the hair on John Lennon's!  What can I say, I liked him and decided his hair needed to be done better!  I followed John and the rest of The Beatles career's all through the 60's 70's 80's on up to present day.  I watched the ups and downs.  I tried to put it all in perspective in my young mind.  It all didn't always make sense to me as youngsters in those days were not as savy as ones today.  All I really knew was when I heard a Beatles song nothing made me happier.  As I got older I really understood what a crush I had had on John Lennon most of my life.  I also remember clearly having the thought that wether or not you agreeded with what John had to say you had to acknowledge how intelligent he was.  Again, I feel this was before I even clearly understood what intelligence truly meant.  I was sad when John married Yoko, but I learned to respect her as I grew older.  All I could see was how much she loved him and that was so evident the days after he was killed.  I did want to join one of their "happenings".  My favorite one that I read about was a room all in white with a ladder that had a magnifying glass attached to it.  You had to climb up the ladder and use the magnifying glass to read the word "peace"!  To this day I want to climb that ladder. I also loved it when they hosted "The Mike Douglas Show" and created a happening there, they got the phone book and randomly called people to say "I love you"!  Poor Mike didn't quite know what to make outa that, but god bless him he went with it!  I was worried when they kicked John out of the country and relieved when he got back.  I don't know why, as this person was no one to me other than a voice on the radio and face on the TV.  But I cared.  The pictures of John with his son Sean as a little boy still always make me cry because they were so beautiful.  In the 80's I watched Julian start his career and it overwhelmed me how much he looked and sounded like his father.  Now when I see Sean I get the same feeling but in many ways he's so different musically (perhaps a bit of Yoko influence there as well!).  My first copy of a Beatles album came from my cousin Sammy who copied their first album to cassette for me.  To this day I still have that cassette, thank you Sammy! I love all the imagery of the music...you can see the music if you close your eyes, and no, I'm not taking drugs!!!  I just see their music and it's always beautiful!  I will say I remember waking up on December 8th 1980 and my Dad telling me John had died.  I cried, I cried, I cried......as we all did.  Imagine (as John would have said...) what he still had ahead of him.  People may not have agreed with his lifestyle, his politics but they had to acknowledge the music was amazing.  OK...here's my fun fact and surprise....it's a Beatles fun fact...In a contest held by Mersyside Newspaper to see who was the biggest band in Liverpool, 1962, one of the main reasons that The Beatles won was because they called in posing as different people voting for themselves!  I love it!!!! I can just hear John Lennon calling in as some little old lady!  So today friends when we remember John, try not to think about his death but the life he lead and the wonderful legacy of music and family he left us.  We will all be listening to Beatles music to the day we die because it's everywhere, and our children's children for long after that!  What a wonderful thought!  So...today I steal my random thought from John and Yoko....give peace a chance!  Take a quiet moment today to remember someone who brought great joy to many people......Seacrest out!!!! xoxxo Pammy