Scuzza me, but you see, back in old Napoli that's amore.

Things are understandably a little weird right now.

I look at Facebook; I look at the news, both local and cable, and I find myself teetering on a daily basis between hope and worry. One morning I am thinking all will be well, only to find myself in a bit of a puddle later in the afternoon after reading about how sad people are, how tedious their lives have become, how separated they are from one another, how low hospital supplies have become, how death could be lurking around the corner on the next doorknob I turn.

So...last night my super intelligent and empathetic husband suggested we do what we always do when I am upset...he suggested we watch "Moonstruck".

"Moonstruck" is my absolute, hands down, no contest, 100 percent favorite movie. I wore out two copies of it on VHS after seeing it in the theater three times. I own the DVD. We were able to stream it last night on television. "Moonstruck" makes everything better.

Hubs, God bless him, knows almost every word and I definitely know every word. In fact, a great test for me, if assessing my penchant for dementia in years to come, would be to feed me a line from the movie to see if I can finish it.

Medical Practitioner: "Old man..."
Me: "give that dog another bite of my food and I'll kick you 'til you're dead!"

Medical Practitioner: "Now he's going to play that Vicki Carr record..."
Me: "and when he comes to bed he won't touch me!"

Can you see how well that will work when the time comes? Anyway...

The first time I saw the movie I saw it in the Hellman theatre in Albany, NY. I couldn't get enough of the Italian American kitsch, the way the Castorini home was decorated, the Brooklyn accents, the mannerisms of the players. The first night, I saw it with my Aunt and Nana. The second night, I brought my boyfriend who was of Italian descent. The third time I saw it, I went with a bevy of five girlfriends. Every single person loved it to a fault. I think that's impressive considering it's nearly impossible to get 9 people of different ages and backgrounds to agree on anything.

After getting paid and going to the mall one summer afternoon, I bought it on VHS and drove directly to the house of my cousins. An Italian family of four, it was their first time seeing the film. My cousin Agnes made me stop, rewind, and replay several scenes during the movie to point out china, wall hangings, verbal iterations in Italian, and food items.
"That's the champagne we drink, and with a sugar cube!"
 "We had that wallpaper back in the 1960s!"
"My mother cooked our breakfast eggs and toast exactly like that!"
For her, it was like watching This is Your Life.

I don't tune into the Academy Awards anymore because I prefer my entertainment without a side of politics, but back in 1988 I still looked forward to watching them, pen and paper at the ready so that I could create a list of new movies to rent at Blockbuster. When Cher won the Oscar for leading actress, Olympia Dukakis won for supporting actress and John Patrick Shanley won for best original screenplay, I raised my glass and cheered from my heart right along with them.

So last night I watched it for probably the two hundredth time. I find great comfort in knowing what's about to happen; in seeing lives upended and things turning around for the better. I really like to laugh and cry all within and because of the same film. The music is divine (did I mention I have the soundtrack?) and Hubs even croons along with "That's Amore". Dean Martin was a favorite of his late father's. I can see that the song transports him to another time and when he sings, I sing along.

If you know the movie, you probably love it too. If you don't know it, do yourself a huge favor and watch it. If you are reading this in March 2020, I found it in the free movies on Spectrum last night.

I wish you all a safe journey and much amore.

I am dreamin' tonight of a place I love even more than I usually do.

You probably recognize the post title - it's from the song "I'll Be Home for Christmas". Some people have suggested we hang Christmas lights to brighten the mood during what we know as the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020.

I like that idea.

Because you, reader, cannot see my Christmas lights, and I cannot see yours, I will post a bunch of my most favorite nostalgic decorative Christmas items and sincerely hope you find enjoyment here.

So, without further ado, here's some neat holiday décor from my childhood: 

I don't know why I thought of this first item, but they were among the first things to come to mind. 

These are Santa hangtags from when the milkman delivered bottles to the house. 

My family did not have a milkman but my Nana saved some of these hangtags from the days when she did and displayed them on her tree. 

I still send cards. 

Grateful for friends and family, we still receive a good number of printed cards as well. 

However, I do miss the days when everyone sent Christmas cards 

and they all looked something like this.

Or this.

This holiday dish is a little fancier than what my Mom would put together in our white plastic Tupperware mold but Mom's sure was amazing. 

Strawberry jello, canned fruit cocktail, & walnuts.

 I would love some right now. 

Look at these aluminum cookie cutters! 

We had the same ones which we used to make cookies every December.

Mom always put out these amazing hard candies. 

My Nana used to offer me ribbon candy, a favorite. 

My Moo Moo's aluminum tree with the color wheel looked a little like this.

If you can look close enough to see the prices in this ad you will chuckle. 

We still have two of these at my house, one green, one white. 

Christmas windows downtown were magical and fanciful. In the community where I live, many merchants still make a grand effort to put pretty window decorations up at Christmastime. 

Don't touch these suckers...and don't leave them lit all night on a dry tree, either. 

Hot!

My favorite decoration at my Nana's house was her Aerolux filament Christmas light bulb 

which she always displayed on top of a doily on the same end table, year after year. 

I was totally mesmerized by it. 

Cardboard fireplaces were in all of my friend's homes who didn't have actual fireplaces;

ours included, and we had a built in light bulb to provide a nice yellow glow. 

Mom and Dad would thumbtack our stockings on the mantle. 

We used to call these "sugar" candles because they had a granular surface. 

I think we had one Santa one and one manger scene one in our home.

You could put new tall pillar candles in them year after year, 

preferably bayberry scented for the holidays. 

I know it wasn't much but I hope this provided a little distraction during these odd times. 

I find my sadness dissipates a bit with a little trip down memory lane to a simpler time.

Please be well. 

Part 4: The hands are there for friendship. The heart is there for love.

Walking up the steps to the front door of Ash and Rob's house, I knocked and waited for a minute. I could hear Ash rushing toward the door. She answered with an oversized floppy yellow semi sheer hat on. It was like an accessory from a cheesy 1970s wedding. She chortled and opened the door as wide as it would go.

"Come on in!" she excitedly offered. Unusually jubilant and alert, she led and I followed her into the kitchen where Teddy was set up with a rectangular-shaped plastic watercolor tray with 8 ovals of gummy looking, new and shiny paint, a clear jelly jar of water, a thin handled tiny tipped paintbrush and a fat pad of unblemished white paper. He was looking it all over pensively but hadn't touched a thing.

Ash removed her bridesmaid's hat with a flourish tossing it into the air toward the hallway. She stared me down with a wide eyed Cheshire cat grin, clearly eager for my reaction. Her hair was magenta.

"Wow! Holy cow! That looks great!" I gushed, although it was quite a shock even to me, a girl who had recently had magenta hair, mine made possible with spray-on color the previous Halloween.

"I had it dyed Friday, and hacked too!" She twirled for me, showing me the back where the curls had been undercut in a perky bobbed style, very popular for the day. She fluffed her ends with her fingers and talked about how the salon owner had been excited to try something new and how she herself had loved the results, over-tipping and making a second appointment for six weeks from now. Rob had been less enthusiastic about the overall hue but she didn't care. It all made her feel young and vibrant and a bit rebellious.

"I'm going to take that aerobics class today over at the YMCA." Ash squawked. "You're okay alone with the kids for an hour or so, right?"

I noticed then that she had on black stirrup pants, brand new white Keds and a melon colored sweatshirt which had been cut Flashdance-style at the neck, all perfectly fine for aerobics at the Y.

Certain of my readiness, I said,"Yeah, of course. Go ahead and have fun!"

Ash grabbed for her purse and car keys, kissed Teddy quickly on top of his head and sauntered toward the door, waving wildly like a deranged parade float beauty queen and promising in a lilting voice to see us soon.

As the door shut behind her, I asked Teddy if he wanted to have a dance party in the basement and he nodded, carefully putting down the paintbrush (with which he still hadn't painted). Checking Evvie in her room on the way down, I found her wide awake, holding her sock-covered toes while lying on her back staring intently at her mobile. It had a pig, a lamb, a cow and a horse, with a skinny plastic farmer in the middle bobbing pleasantly amidst the slightest bit of movement. I retrieved her and placed her on the changing table where she babbled nonsensical words as I wiped and diapered her. Teddy, scowling at the mobile, climbed the side of the crib. He swung at it mightily with a pink stuffed bear he'd found on the floor.

"Mine!" he pummeled. "Mine, mine, miiiiiine!"

"Hey!" I cried. "Stop that!" Teddy turned to look at me and stopped but the mobile repeatedly smacked against the wall reeling from the force of the heavily slung bear. He glared for an instant at Evvie and me, scrambling down off the crib and sprinting from the room toward the basement door.

"You! Wait for me!" I yelled after him but disregarding my instructions, he bounded recklessly down the stairs. Quickly, I yanked Evvie's little jean overalls up over her short sleeved pink flowered onesie and we scampered after him.

Sitting in wait on the bottom step, Teddy had his back turned; too short to flip the switch and too scared to venture further into the basement without a light source. I turned it on for him, and then powered up the television to MTV. Teddy didn't lose his gloomy countenance but he made his way to the front of the screen, hesitantly bouncing to the beat of a poppy Whitney Houston song as the box warmed up and momentarily broke the mood by transporting us to a tune-filled world.

I jostled Evvie around lightly singing "How will I know if he really loves me?" She smiled, pronounced "muh muh muh" and lifted her diminutive right arm skyward, flexing her fingers, searching my face for cues. Teddy came over by us when the song was nearly over, grabbed a good sized chunk of the skin on Evvie's leg exposed beneath her pants, and twisted it...super hard! Evvie sucked in her breath and held it, eyebrows aloft, poring over my face searching for an explanation for the pain. As her eyes began to water, she finally yelped tears of hurt and surprise.

"Teddy!" I screamed, looking down at him, "What are you doing to her?" He let her go.

At that moment, I realized he was insanely jealous of Evvie. Somehow, he'd kept it in check when Ash was around but with just me, he had shown his brotherly displeasure within minutes of us being alone. Unsure how to handle his misbehavior, I wasn't provided clear direction with regard to discipline and there hadn't been any need for it on the other days I'd been helping.

"Upstairs!" I commanded. Turning off the television with a flourish and pointing in a way that showed I meant business, I sternly ushered Teddy where he needed to go. He obeyed, looking back several times on the way up, making sure we were still behind him. Rubbing her back, I locked a slightly calmer Evvie into her high chair and hurriedly got out the Zwieback toasts. I placed one carefully on her tray and turned to Teddy who was standing like a soldier at my heels.

"What is going on?" I demanded. Looking me in the eye, he mustered himself with balled up little fists and blurted "Not heppy!" Then he plopped down hard on the tile floor and began to cry. Pointing at Evvie, he made unintelligible noises in the back of  his throat suggesting frustration and possibly an overdue for a nap kind of weariness. As I began to squat down beside him, he started to launch his body backward onto the floor. I caught him and quickly pulling him to his feet, despite his body being purposely limp and rubbery, I hoisted him up like a sack of potatoes. Scooting out a chair, I heaved him onto my lap with his jangly legs dangling off my left side. He finally surrendered, leaning his head into my chest. My attempts to soothe him as he sobbed ugly sounds was futile. Evvie began crying again, too, so I rubbed her arm in an attempt to provide comfort when, without warning, Rob walked through the front door. Sensing his presence, they looked at one another and began to wail louder.

"Jesus! What have we here? Where's Ash?" he said, swiftly putting down his briefcase on the floor and scanning the room and hallway.

"She's at the Y taking a class." I stammered. "The kids are upset because Teddy pinched Evvie hard and, well..." I didn't finish. Rob scooped Evvie out of the high chair and positioned her over his shoulder. Then he brought her into the living room and sat on the couch rocking forward and back. Teddy, snorting and wiping his nose on his arm, wriggled off my lap and trotted to join them. I followed, offering napkins and hoping I wasn't in trouble for not being able to suitably maintain the peace.

Rob soothed Evvie and dabbed at her nose while she breathed heavily. Teddy tucked into Rob's side, mumbling about wanting to paint. Rob reached around and rubbed Teddy's back, tucking his blue sweater into the back of his droopy gray sweatpants.

"So what happened, again?" He implored. I explained about the teddy bear fight with the mobile, the running away down to the basement, the pinch, the wailing. Rob acknowledged and listened. Because he seemed to understand so readily what I was telling him about Teddy, I began to feel that this wasn't out of the ordinary.

"He's mean to her sometimes, " Rob articulated. "He gets jealous. He pinches. He pokes. He yanks her arms. We try not to overcorrect because it's attention he wants. Paying attention to it won't make him stop."

"But what if he hurts her?" I said, incredulously. I couldn't believe he knowingly allowed this hurtful, physical behavior to happen.

"It's not a big issue. Don't make it one." Rob shrugged. He pushed his sneakers off with his toes and left them on the white carpet, and then he and Evvie sauntered back out into the kitchen. He snapped her back into her high chair, placating with another biscuit from the package on the counter. He rubbed his elbow, looking at me. He was wearing scrubs. He said he needed to get out of them.

Offering to take Teddy, he guided him down the hall and went to change out of his work attire. He  returned wearing jeans and a well worn Lemieux Penguins jersey. His feet were bare. I couldn't help but notice that he had hairy toes. Teddy meandered behind Rob, peering at me as if to assess my level of disappointment in him. I walked over and took his hand, leading him firmly to the chair where his paints were still laid out.

Rob grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat down at the table, motioning for me to sit as well; then he started talking about work and how hard it was, how demanding operating in the ER had turned out to be; and how difficult it was to settle down after being in hyperdrive all day. As he talked, Evvie chewed her biscuit, and Teddy bit his lip while thoughtfully making art. Then, he leaned back, rolled a brown vial out of his front pocket, shook a small tablet into his hand, and threw it back with a big swig of Michelob. Then, he shoved the prescription bottle back in his jeans without missing a beat. Feeling slightly unsettled about these seemingly inappropriate actions, I didn't know whether to carry on as though this were a normal, everyday happening, or to ask what it was he just took; I mean, after all there were babies here. Maybe I should know in case he passed out? My mind began spinning with concern and unease.

He thrummed on about work and the hospital staff while I made a solid attempt to look him in the eye as he spoke, making certain his pupils remained the same, unaffected size. Missing much of what he said, but maintaining eye contact, he assumed I was interested in his tale of woe and kept right on talking. Because it was past time for Evvie's bottle, I took one out and warmed it for her. I also poured Teddy a glass of milk and gave him a generous handful of goldfish crackers on a napkin. The kids seemed well at ease. I continued to attend and observe.

Hearing a car in the driveway, I stood erect, mid sentence, and excused myself. It was Ash! Relieved, I couldn't wait for her to come in and figure out what was going on. I got to the window just in time to see her irritably slam the door of her Fiero, stomping toward the door with a gait suggestive of anger. Letting herself in, she threw her purse on the floor announcing, "Well THAT sucked!"

Rob called to her from the kitchen, suggesting she calm down and come join us. She strode past me and stood threateningly, arms on hips, over Teddy's chair. "He's STILL painting?" she said, looking accusatorily at me.

"We had a small problem." I started to explain, nervously.

Rob jumped in, making hand motions that looked like pinching and twisting and said, "Stop. Please? Pinching. Again." Ash, understandably a bit more subdued, said, "Oh, Jesus. That. Well, that just SUCKS too."

Dramatic in her movements, she stepped heavily to the refrigerator, and swung it open. Passing Rob another beer, she grabbed a big green glass bottle of Perrier for herself, unscrewing the cap and swallowing several big gulps. Then she took Evvie's fully drained bottle from her tray where she was spinning it in her sticky little hands, put it in the sink, threw a kitchen towel over her shoulder and lifted her up for burping.

Ash revealed, as Rob had minutes before, that Teddy had a bit of a sibling rivalry-inspired mean streak and that they were doing their best to manage it, although there were no specific suggestions offered as to how. Teddy, nonplussed, smiled at Ash and painted big red, then black, then blue streaks of color across his paper, not bothering to rinse the brush in between colors and smearing it with his hand. He painted over the paper's edge more than a few times and was aggressively composing what appeared to be an abstract design on the table cloth. No one seemed to care. Ash then passed a satisfactorily burped Evvie over to me and politely suggested I take her for a stroller walk. She and Rob would stay behind and watch Teddy. As she sat down next to him at the table, I saw him reach in his front pocket again, rooting for the pill bottle. Disillusioned, I shoved my feet into my docksiders and turned the two of us toward the door, grateful for the opportunity to go.

I dressed Evvie in a tiny red jacket with blue piped trim that was hanging on the hall tree and tied a matching navy knit hat under her chin which I found stored in its sleeve for safekeeping. With her on my hip, we ventured outside and down to the open garage where the stroller was kept. Evvie looked around, gurgling softly as I buckled her into the stiff webbed straps. In her bitty voice she sounded out "buh buh buh" and sighed as I crouched in front of her. That sigh made my heart hurt. It seemed like a mixture of sadness, resignation and an emotion that I couldn't place but deep in my guts knew shouldn't be felt by babies. I straightened her warm hat, pulled up her fuzzy white socks and made sure she was comfortable. Then I took her little doll hands and nuzzled them telling her I wouldn't let anything bad happen. I think we looked at one another for a full minute before I started pushing her down the street.

The sun began setting as we walked block after block, and I kept going, not wanting to bring her back. She sat erect, not fully relaxed because she was engaged in the surroundings: a barking dog, a car driving past, trees, birds, crisp leaves underfoot, children running past bay windows inside well lit houses. About an hour into our jaunt, she purposely turned her face toward the sinking rays, closing her eyes in what appeared to be, eventually, contentment.

Grease is the Word - Part 1

We’ve got, in our house, what can best be described as two Kenickies and a Sandy. 

I’m the Sandy and my brothers Richie and Tinker are the Kenickies. When my parents loaded us in the back of our station wagon for a special night at the drive in during the summer of 1978, I thought Grease was the greatest piece of cinematography I’d ever seen. As Jeff Conaway sauntered across the big screen guffawing, kicking those black boots around, and combing his hair back with a sort of devil may care/hotly aware flair, I felt like I was watching my brothers. I hooted with a little too much gusto when Kenickie had a strawberry milkshake thrown his way as payback for his obnoxiousness. Tinker punched me and told me to settle down. 

Along with Kenickie, I watched Sandy with great interest. She was all innocent and choking on cigarettes while the other Pink Ladies sat enraptured at Rizzo’s feet listening to her warble about Elvis’s pelvis. I felt, quite mindfully rubbing my non-pierced earlobes, that this was me…destined for a life of tan pantyhose, a G.I. pen pal turned husband, pink swan shaped guest soaps and the normalcy of a commonplace four door sedan; but then, a miracle happened! Frenchy, who can’t even wash and set old lady hair in beauty school is mysteriously able to transform Sandy into a tramptastic goddess who makes all jaws drop and no one even remembers that a few scenes ago she was crying and attempting to soak up a puddle with a single piece of blue flowered stationery in the driveway. I just knew that I was destined for this sort of transformation, but would need to wait a few years. 

We all enjoyed the music of Grease. My brothers liked "Greased Lightening", my parents swooned in their seats to "Blue Moon", I bounced around to "We Go Together". My mother, after days of me pleading, whining and promising to do the dishes every night for the rest of my life, kindly bought me the double album. She also surprised me with the Fotonovel which I devoured on summer mornings while I waited for my friends to come out and play. When the street awoke and the kids came 'round, the neighborhood got treated to front yard Grease skits. I'd lug out my Donny and Marie record player, extension corded from the living room through the window, and we'd dance on the porch. Our nearby residents didn't seem to mind; that soundtrack really had something for everyone. 

When the summer waned, I listened to Grease in my bedroom, creating complex routines to all the fast songs. HBO made it so my friends and I were able to watch and enjoy the movie several more times that winter. My mother would sigh loudly when we dashed through the house whooping and hollering that it was on, suggesting we please watch it in the den, with the door closed. She knew the dialogue of nearly every scene would be run through, loudly, word for word; all the while jumping to our feet so we could twist and shimmy during the musical scenes.

With that much immersion and repetition, Grease came to color my life. I walked through the halls in school mentally labeling the funny chubby girls as Jans, the girls who got their periods early and mooned after male teachers as Martys, the girls who swore and sported short haircuts as Rizzos. My friends were the Patty Simcoxs: overachievers, pep rally participants, and ponytailed band geeks. As the year passed by, and boys were starting to populate my radar, I longingly dreamt of a different world where guys who looked like John Travolta would ask me to hand jive and try to give me their class rings while surreptitiously brushing across my chest.  

Our first day of Junior High School, after a long hot summer, was a time of great excitement and hormonal awakening. I'd say 99 percent of us were all revved up. The boy in the seat in front of me? You know, the one who sat there all these years because our last names begin with the same letter? Well, unexpectedly, he now looks kind of muscular, a foot taller, and wait, is that a downy moustache? The lip fuzz is what makes me stare and sweat…and not just in my armpits. My, my...was Roger Benjamin this good looking last year? I studied the back of his neck, and the back of his Levis, during the pledge, planning to mention his transmutation to the girls at lunch. To me, he was definitely a Zuko. 

Lunch table mates were my sounding board for truth, opinion, and just about everything. We gossiped about teachers, homework assignments, siblings, and rules, both in school and at home which we all found so style-cramping and unfair. This year we also gossiped mightily about boys. At night we'd call each other to finish conversations that we had to suspend at the end of our lunch. It's important to be able to reach someone who is available for talking without interruption. That being the case, we regularly compare notes about who's allowed to use the phone after dinner and for how long. Karen is allowed a half hour once her homework is done. Ingrid can use the phone in her room whenever she wants and for as long as she wants; her dad is an attorney and they have two phone lines in their Tudor style home. Mary and her sister fight incessantly about who gets phone privileges, so much so that their mother uses the phone as a means of punishment between Mary and Lisa and one or both seem to be banned from phone usage every day of the week. Plus, Lisa's always listening on the extension. We can hear her breathing. My house is a challenge as far as our phone time goes, not because of a bratty sister, but because girls are always calling for Tinker. One of the girls who will be calling someday for Tinker is my friend Jenny. Jenny doesn’t fit into the Grease script. She is too complicated for it, even in the seventh grade. 

I have adored Jenny since Kindergarten but I am afraid of Jenny’s mother. We have to tiptoe around the house during the day if I am over because she sleeps a lot. I think she has a problem with drinking that is getting worse. By taking the night shift as a waitress at the local 24 hour diner, she has developed sad and bruised looking eyes, sort of like our Bassett hound, Waddles. 

Jenny’s Dad has a no-name, backfiring, Bondo'd, and grimy motorcycle with a gigantic yellow Don’t Tread On Me flag, whatever that means, flying off the back. I'm not a big fan of rattlesnakes so I don't look at it if I can help it. He also has a sleazy collection of Penthouse magazines, and a nasty girlfriend who calls and hangs up when Jenny answers the phone. Laura, Jenny’s sister, lives with her grandmother Nana across town. Jenny doesn’t live with Nana, not because the arrangement hasn’t been offered, but rather because Nana is strict and Jenny takes full advantage of being unattended. I don't blame her for not wanting to give up that perk. She's the only one of us with no curfew and no dress code. Of course, she also routinely has no dinner or school supplies but she eats with us a lot and my parents include her when we go to Schatz Stationery for Little Twin Stars notebooks and pencils with fruity smelling erasers. They know the deal.   

Jenny adores my brother Tinker. I know he thinks she's pretty because he pays attention to her in ways that make me uncomfortable. I keep telling Jenny he's way too old for her, plus he's gross. The last time she was at our house, he unfastened her skinny gold stretch belt from behind by grabbing onto the shiny disc above the button on her jeans and flipping it expertly between his fingers while she stood at our kitchen counter making a PB&J. He made it look way too easy and her giggly reaction was more invitation than reprimand. I grabbed her and dragged her and her sandwich into the den before he got any other weird ideas. 

I warned Jenny that Tinker thinks spanking is hot. I have no idea where or why he got started with all of that but I’ve overheard him and his disgusting friends more than once on our porch talking about girls who like it. I don't believe he has actually spanked anyone, but he will one day, I’m pretty sure of it. I just hope to God it's not Jenny. 

My brother Richie, although rough and tumble in his own way, is more of a lover than a spanker. He wrestles on the Varsity team for school, and arm wrestles me for the TV whenever his beloved Red Wings hockey is on. He always wins so I watch the games with him and Dad. They say the more bloody the fights, the better but I usually bury my nose in a People magazine while the fights are happening. While I read about Kristy McNichol, Richie yells at the officials on the screen and his purported disdain for any kind of authority is all puffed up and on display. He pretends to hate anyone telling him what to do but I think it's all a front because Andie tells him what to do on the regular and he loves Andie. She's his girlfriend and then his ex-girlfriend on a rotating schedule because she is a competitive swimmer and always calls their relationship (3 years strong now) quits during swim season. It's a necessary break so she doesn't miss any practices, per her parents and her coach. However, once the meets are over and her red Speedo has faded to a revealing pale pink color from all the chlorine, she will set a land speed record pedaling her Schwinn back into our driveway and she and Richie will engage in their favorite activity, lying side by side in our huge ropy backyard hammock or on the living room sofa, each with one earbud from Richie’s Walkman, listening to REO Speedwagon until she is called home because it’s getting late and almost too dark to safely ride the four streets back to her two story bungalow. I think Andie, who looks like a squeaky clean jelly bean, might be a Cha Cha DeGregorio when they are alone, but I'm not sure. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you like this, let me know by commenting and I can do a few more installments of the story. I'm trying to teach myself to write from the perspective of a pre-teen girl right now. It isn't that hard, thankfully. 

Thank you for reading!

#1970s #1980s #greaseistheword #sandradee #kenickie #Rizzo #pinkladies #mushroomtumbler

LaChoy Makes Chinese Food Swing American!

Hubs and I sat over dinner this evening conversing about what everyday foodstuffs were in our childhood homes while growing up. We spoke about the ritual of weekly grocery shopping, certain favorite brands, kitchen staples, household treats, and overall abundance (or lack thereof). Great talks like this sometimes spur me to blog, so here goes...

My family's 1970s food storage cabinets, very likely built in the 1920s, were farmhouse style and painted a shade of avocado green, popular for the times. Lined in flowery contact paper, autumnal in color and cut expertly to fit by my mother, there were three spacious wooden shelves within each tall closet-like repository along one side of our kitchen. Although the top shelf was totally unreachable by me as a small kid, even when pulling up a chair and stealthily standing tiptoe on our white sparkly Formica counters, I felt certain that lofty ledge held hidden and forbidden treats (such as Mom's Toffifay candies) but there was really no need to risk breaking my neck nor getting caught climbing about like a scullery marsupial, because the rest of our kitchen held plenty of eats which were fair game for me and anyone else who was around.

We grocery shopped as a family whenever possible, and if Dad wasn't available, I happily accompanied Mom on the weekly trip. From age two 'til five, I was allowed to get a Little Golden Book every time we shopped at the Albany Public Market in Rensselaer, NY. Economically, I'm sure this was a quite a luxurious frill, but mom knew I adored books and encouraged me to learn new stories and words. I had quite a home-based library of my own (and resultant vocabulary) as a little squirt. My baby books state that my most favorite thing to do was read; and knowing Mom was buying me a new book every time I went, I'm sure my second most favorite thing to do was grocery shop.

At the store, Mom would push the cart with one hand while holding onto a handwritten list and tan pocket-sized grocery adder with the other. People wrote personal checks or paid cash for groceries in the 1970s, no one handed over a credit card; and that being the case, sticking to a budget was absolutely critical. Eventually, around age seven, I was given the grocery adder responsibility as we rolled along the aisles. It was thrilling to me!

When we checked out, it took a bit of time. There were no scanners back then, everything got punched into the register; individually keyed, digit by digit, dollar by dollar. Once home, we'd lug the brown paper bags up the back steps and into the house from our driveway and take turns putting things away. All of it is etched in my mind; and even though I haven't lived in that house for 34 years, I'm positive I could put those groceries away tonight just as efficiently as I did all those years ago. Closing my eyes, I see my surroundings clear as day.

In the far left cupboard, we had breakfast cereal, Quaker Oats, Bisquick, and instant Cream of Wheat. My parents ate the Wheaties and I ate whatever cereal I'd been allowed to select for the week. I can almost taste the strawberry sweetness of Crazy Cow and the spongy marshmallows in fruit flavored Kaboom. My absolute favorite, however, was Waffelos with the guitar strumming horse and artificial maple syrup flavor, which I now regard as dietetically rather gross, but damn...my mouth waters looking at that picture all the same. Breakfast was widely varied when I was little because my mother made something for me every morning but by the time I was 12, I had a paper route and cereal and coffee were all there was time for.

The second, or middle, cupboard held things like coffee, baking supplies, Ovaltine, Lipton Iced Tea mix, a dozen or so packets of Kool Aid powder, canned Juicy Juice (which had to be opened with the triangular end of a puncture style opener), and both Chun King and La Choy Chinese food. La Choy makes Chinese food swing American! (Retro commercial below, enjoy!)

The third (far right) cupboard held oil, vinegar, peanut butter, and other canned goods like fruit, vegetables and soup. All preserved soup in the 1970s required the addition of a can of water. We'd open the can with a twisty handled metal can opener, scrape out the contents, add a can of water and stir, stir, stir on the stove until hot. Campbell's alphabet soup provided fun for about fifteen minutes each time it was served. Soup's on, now spell something, and no swear words!

That cupboard also held Underwood ham spread (with the little red devil on the wrapper), tuna fish, and multiple glass bottles of Orville Redenbacher popcorn kernels. When we bought Orville for the first time around 1977, my father, a popcorn aficionado, prepared and tasted it and it became an absolute staple in our home; we never bought any other popcorn brand, or really any other snack, for that matter.

We had a breadbox in which we stored Freihoffer wheat bread and assorted crackers. It was metal and took up a fair amount of counter space. Most people I knew had a breadbox back then. I could definitely use one today.

Our refrigerator and freezer held what I'd deem "regular" everyday items like leftovers, eggs, Dannon yogurts, Blue Bonnet margarine, whole milk, condiments, jelly, sour cream, blue cheese salad dressing, pickled beets, dill spears, fruit, vegetables, wheat germ, mom's Faygo soda (redpop, root beer, frosh and chocolate flavors all in sturdy glass bottles), frozen meat and fish, ice cream, otter pops, TV dinners, pot pies, and port wine/nut covered cheese balls and spumoni at Christmas time. It also always held a gallon jug of Carlo Rossi Rhine wine. My Uncle sold Sweetheart plastic products to restaurants and we could buy samples for very little cost so everyday company was routinely offered a clear disposable party cup full of Rhine upon arrival at our home.

We had no chips, no cookies (with the exception of Christmastime), and no snacks other than the occasional bag of sunflower seeds (in the shells) and the popcorn which was made on Monday nights and weekends to enjoy while watching televised sports. Other than my Moo Moo and my Aunt Rene, both of whom had a wicked desire for sweets, no one I knew had store bought snacks in the house on a regular basis; and no desserts, either. Desserts were for guests and God forbid you cut into that Entenmann's crumb cake on the high shelf if someone were expected. That fare sat untouched, sometimes for a week, in anticipation of visitors. Girl Scout cookies were a once a year treat, and only three boxes were ever purchased. When they were gone, you had to wait twelve months for a reappearance. 

I look at photos from those years and we were all pretty slim. Food was fuel and it was not stockpiled. I don't believe BJs or other warehouse grocery marts existed. If we ran out of something, we did without until we bought it on grocery day or if it were needed in a recipe, Mom sent me on foot to the neighborhood market to buy it. Meals were carefully planned. I didn't have a submarine sandwich or restaurant prepared Chinese food until I had my own job as a teenager. We ate when it was time and didn't eat when it wasn't.

We celebrated with dinner at the Red Coach grill on birthdays; we took my Dad's boss to Mama Riso's when he came to town, and occasionally we dined at Friendly's, Howard Johnson's and Sambos, which were three of my Dad's accounts so it was good to bring the family there now and again. 

I think of how often I snack and how regularly hubs and I eat at restaurants now. I'm not surprised I could lose a few pounds. All of our food rules about gluten, sugar, organic eating, and carbs intrigue me at first and then frustrate me altogether. I would like to go back to that 1970s kitchen for a few months and see if simpler, less fussy, and overall simplification would do me some good. I'm sure it would.

Later, during the 1980s, my Dad and I began living in our home without my Mom and our grocery shopping took a bit of a radical turn. More on that and some long lost 1980s food provisions next time!

PS Can you think of any 1970s food - perhaps a brand which you always had at your house?
Please share in the comments!
And...I'd be remiss if I didn't thank you for reading. I truly, madly, deeply appreciate it.

#1970s #1980s #lachoy #waffelos #carlorossi #rhinewine #mushroomtumbler

Part 3: The hands are there for friendship. The heart is there for love.

 

Thursday afternoon came and Ash and I did regular things. We changed the sheets and pillow cases on all three sleeping spaces. We made bottles out of powdered formula and refrigerated them. We took Teddy outdoors with his trike. We pranced around the deck chanting the alphabet over and over basking in the late afternoon sun; Evvie safely barricaded by a makeshift fort of soft toys and pillows at our feet.

When the sun set, the kids were fed, and I washed Teddy up bathroom sink style with Ivory soap and a sponge. Ash held Evvie on her lap and read aloud from a waterproof plastic book made for tub time. After carrying him to the white carpet, I raked a Garfield comb through Teddy's thick hair while he sat wrapped in a warm from the laundry towel, listening attentively to the story. Then, far earlier than normal, it was time for pajamas.

Quiet and settled in the living room, the kids drowsily listened to Ash read from another book, her voice layered atop the hum of the clothes dryer and the low purr of the tv in the kitchen. Not long after she finished the second reading, Teddy, in his red footsie sleeper, rubbed his eyes and walked Ash down the hall. She tucked him in and motioned for me to bring Evvie who was asleep on my shoulder. We went together to her room.

"What do you think of the color?" Ash inquired.
"What color?"
"Uhhh, Evvie's room." she said, arms aloft and pantomiming.
Cautiously, I expressed my feelings as I settled the baby on her back.
"It seems like a lot for a baby. It just...seems like a lot."
Ash lamented, "Ugh. Really? I picked the paint before she was born, when I found out she was a 'she'. All I could think about in the hardware store was my butt-ugly bedroom when I was a kid. The wallpaper had big orange and gold flowers on it. Can you imagine?"
I thought yes I could, and not in a bad way.

Ash never had a voice as an artsy small fry. No one cared about her likes or what she wanted, either in terms of room décor or future plans. She mentioned being flighty and forgetful; her parents expecting a lot from her, but what they held her to wasn't anything she herself cared about or desired. Then, she walked out of the hideously purple room and when she returned, she had a bottle, a glass and a corkscrew.
"We serve no wine before it's time." she chortled. "I think it's time."

We returned to the living room where she dropped gracelessly onto the couch and remembering that I had nothing to drink, motioned to the kitchen and suggested I go grab a soda.
"I'm good." I said. "I had milk with Teddy at dinnertime."
"Oh, ok." She opened her bottle with a no nonsense jab and twist into the cork and released it. Pouring a glass, she broached a subject I couldn't have prepared for.

"You know what bothers me about Vanessa Williams?" she asked.
"No, what?"
Ms. Williams had been the subject of a recent news piece on Entertainment Tonight because she was trying to break back into the entertainment business after a scandal involving her Miss America crown and some nude photographs.
"It bothers me that people buy into this puritanical bullshit. Who hasn't taken a few topless photographs?"
"I don't know." I stammered. "I honestly have no idea."
"Want to see mine?" Ash popped up, sloshing the wine in her glass, dangerously close to the rim.
It was more of a forecast than a question. I sat and waited uncomfortably as she felt with one hand through a library of fat white photo albums arranged neatly on a shelf next to the fireplace.
"Ah ha!" She plunked her glass down on the table, grabbed one, and came and giddily knelt next to me.
"Look here." She showed me two pages' worth of pictures clearly shot at some sort of outdoor gathering, perhaps a concert. She'd taken careful steps to put small squares of black electrical tape over the sensitive parts, but it was Ash, beyond a doubt in white overalls, one strap broken or maybe just carelessly unhooked, totally shirtless and free-spirited.

"Good thing you aren't running for Mrs. America." I giggled, my eyes wide.
She laughed, too, and then mumbled something, while gulping the last of her drink, about there being far too many skeletons in the closet for any public contests.

"What about Rob?" I said, meaning that I wondered what he thought about her righteous public bareness. I figured he probably was there with her.
"Yeah, he's got skeletons too. Don't we all? I can't see us lasting here. He isn't exactly making friends at work."

Not the answer I expected, I waited as she rose and poured a second glass.

"He understands pain, but only when it comes to patients, certainly not to me. He's good with their pain. But he's reckless. And he's playing with fire."
Feeling uncertain about the level of disclosure she was approaching, I said nothing but then after a few seconds there was jazz music; the theme song from the Cosby Show trumpeting breezily from the kitchen.
"Hey, do you want to watch Cosby?"
"Oh God, no." Ash uttered. "Do you know any families like that? I sure as hell don't."
Picturing Bill making goofy, pursed lipped faces as he danced around in his expensive but awful sweater, I didn't mind that the Cosbys' family dynamics weren't real. I sort of liked that they weren't.

The next twenty minutes were spent briskly discussing her state of unemployment, how she'd wished for her children but now found raising them tedious and tiring, how she and Rob had very different ideas about how the future would play out, and how disgruntled she was at this point in time. I listened. I nodded.

"Go to college. Get a career. Then, and only then, think about kids and a husband." she pronounced. "Otherwise you will be fighting for the next twenty years to get your life back."

Jut then, a car pulled up outside. Grateful for the distraction, I leapt up and jogged to the door, peering though thick glass.

"Is it a Cutlass Ciera?" she called.
"I think so, It's big and black."

Just then Rob appeared at the door, pushed it open enthusiastically, and gave me a million dollar smile.
"Hi! You're Ash's helper!"
"Yes, I'm Valerie." I held out my hand.
He shook it with a firm grip. A contrast in styles, wearing sage colored scrubs and clean sneakers, he held a black leather padfolio in his left hand; a Burberry trench coat draped over his elbow.

Giving Ash a kiss on the cheek, he said, "Am I driving her home?"
"Yeah, and you're paying her too."

Taking my queue, I said goodbye, gathered my stuff, and nodded to the open album on the table so Ash would put it away but she missed my signal.

"See you Monday?" she proposed.
We'd agreed during the afternoon that since I stayed late tonight I could have Friday to myself. She was going to get a haircut and Rob was due home early. I nodded, waved, and walked to the car.

Rob closed his door and said, "Hey, I'm really glad to have this time."
Pulling out of the driveway, he asked a few questions about my previous babysitting jobs, and my studies in high school. I provided short answers because I was also providing driving directions. Seemingly satisfied that his wife and kids weren't in the company of a imbecile, he launched into a sermon about how Ash was not herself; how Ash had hated moving here for his job but that there would be another move sometime soon; and how he needed to find the right community in which to raise kids. When I suggested that this was a great community, he shook his head indignantly and stared ahead.

"I'm not so sure it's for us."

When we got to my Mom's street, I had him drop me at a house three doors up. I couldn't put my finger on why, but I didn't want him to be familiar with where I was staying. Maybe it's because his speech vaguely suggested I not get too close to his family. Maybe it's because Ash had said he didn't adequately acknowledge her pain and that made me feel like I didn't want to know him. Maybe it's because my gut told me something was alarmingly absent behind his huge, forced smile which manifested more like a clenched jaw than an expression of happiness.

"See you next week." I said.

Forgetting to pay me, he scanned the neighborhood, locked the doors and drove off without making sure I was safe inside.

#1970s #1980s #mushroomtumbler

Part 2: The hands are there for friendship. The heart is there for love.

When I arrived at Ash's the next day she was sitting on the bricked front porch waiting for me with a bed-headed Terry by her side wearing a small blue velour track suit and bright orange and yellow slippers, one Ernie, one Bert. I waved and hurried up the walk when I saw them, shifting my bookbag.

"I'm glad you're here." she said.
"Me too. What's on tap today?"
"Ha!" she cackled. "I wish!"
"Oh and those are how those slippers came. It's a pair." She explained.
She stood up to go inside, held the door aloft, and Terry shuffled along as I followed. Evvie, Ash reported, was asleep in her crib.

I took off my jacket and hung it on their hall tree along with my bag while she unabashedly looked me up and down.
"I need to exercise." she said, grabbing both sweater and belly with both hands and jiggling them around.
"Well you live in the right place." I said. "The YMCA is wonderful here."
Excitedly, I prepped her on the pool, the classes, and most notably a ladies' afternoon aerobics group, hugely popular. I knew about it because I'd handed them their towels and keys and we bought our family home from the celebrated instructor who'd been teaching for 20 years.

"What kind of music?" she asked.
"Well, I think it's mostly synthesized pop, but it's ok. Mostly you'll hear Susan counting down from 10 to 1 over and over throughout the hour."

Ash raised an eyebrow at me as though this suggestion were less than ideal, but she groaned and reluctantly said she'd probably give it a try someday, assuming I was prepared to stay alone with the kids while she was there.

"Of course." I said. "I'm used to babysitting multiple kids at once" and went on to explain how when I was ten, I babysat five kids under the age of 7; they were children of family members who knew how responsible I was. Ash raised her eyebrow again and said, "I have no doubt."

Terry was in the living room looking for companionship, waving and vocalizing while he pushed a toy train engine through the dense white carpet. I bent down to help him, scanning the room for any remaining train cars so we could hook them up.

"Ash," I said, "do you have a finished basement?"
"Yes, why?"
"Well, we could take all of these toys and bring them down there so that your living room can be, ummm, tidied. Then, when people come to your door it'll look nice in here when you open it." I was taking a chance critiquing her cleaning skills, but she had walked me through this room the day before indicating she was living "in a shit hole mess" and wanting to clean it up.

"I have to keep an eye on Terry when he plays and I'm always upstairs" she explained.
"Well, now I'm here, and I can watch him downstairs, so should we try moving his toys?"
She shrugged in a half-decided fashion and bent down to pick up an Oscar the Grouch hand puppet. She put her fist in the trash can bottom and made him whine "But I loooove trash!"

Eventually, we got to work grabbing toys by the armload. Metal Tonka trucks, a floppy Dapper Dan doll, a xylophone, a soft gray rabbit missing an eye, and a wheeled dome with a long blue handle with which to push and pull. It held little brightly colored plastic balls which popped like they were being heated from beneath when I dragged it along.

Ash yelled, "Oh, God! I hate that fucking thing. Terry's jagoff Uncle gave it to him."
I lifted the wheels, "Does he live around here?"
"No, " Ash said. "Pittsburgh. And that's fine. We don't need any annoying toys or relatives right now."

We shuttled hard cover books, the rest of the train cars, a golden horsehead on a mop handle with a tangled yarn mane, and a Fisher Price farm which showcased a door bellowing "MOOOO" that Terry reluctantly passed to us after opening it over and over. He scouted Ash under his long eyelashes every time he did it, making sure it was okay to keep breaking the seal.

"It's ok buddy." I said. "Do you hear the cow?"
"Moooo." Terry giggled.

"That kid and his farm." Ash scoffed, waving her arm. "There's a hideous See and Say in the closet in Evvie's bedroom if you want to go grab it. Chickens, horses, pigs, and the whole damn barnyard makes a racket when you pull the string. The only sound it doesn't make is the farmer's wife running out the door screaming and losing her mind."

She stepped into the kitchen, opened the drawer next to the back door and swiped her cigarettes. Then she walked out onto the deck, closing the door abruptly behind her.

Terry shadowed me as I continued up and down, lugging toys until I had cleared the living room of all things childlike. In the sparsely furnished basement there was a lime colored rough and tumble beanbag chair, a small sized tv and lots of worn but clean carpeted surface upon which to play. Terry seemed eager to explore the newness of the space and I went to work lining up toys in rows on the floor since there were no shelves or toybox. As I organized, I flicked the television on and turned it to MTV. Teddy's eyes lit up and he gingerly touched the screen. Then, bending his knees over and over in a mini squat to the music, he peeked sideways at me with big wide eyes, looking for approval. I clapped and nodded enthusiastically. He, too, then clapped and grinned.

When Ash had finished her smoke, she appeared at the top of the stairs with Evvie and the See and Say precariously tucked under her arm. Terry saw it and squealed with joy flexing his knees and stretching his arms out. Coming down and presenting the toy to him, she then passed the baby to me, and pointed at Def Leppard's Joe Eliot in his white scarf and mullet, squinting and paying homage to Marilyn Monroe as she lay in a chalk outline.

"You like this?" she signaled.
"Um, yes, totally. I love it." I admitted.
"Mmmmmm." She wiped damp hands on her jeans and bent down to look closer. "I don't watch MTV anymore but I liked it BTK."
I bounced Evvie, wearing a pink shirt and matching pink and white plaid leggings, on my hip in time to the beat. Her little head bobbed up and down and swayed like she was riding a mule. She looked at me, trying to decipher who had a hold of her, trying to poke my eyelid with her thumb.
"Why can't you watch it with the kids?"
"I...I don't know." Ash stammered. "I feel like...actually I have no idea what I feel."

She stood upright, gesturing at the toys lined up in rows.
"Do you think a big cardboard box would be okay until we figure out how to contain this?" she asked.
"Yeah, maybe."
She went to the dark far left corner of the room and lugged over a sizable box. It looked like it held an appliance at one time. The only contents in it now were a few framed pictures, which she mistakenly upturned onto the floor. As I bent down to retrieve them, I saw that the largest was of her and someone who I assumed was her husband, presumably BTK.

"That's Rob," Ash tapped at the glass "when he had hair."

It was a great photo of two young, attractive, and freewheeling people. I'd not heard his name before that minute but he looked like a Rob or a Robbie, with an inviting smile, cocoa brown curls, and a cornflower blue vneck sweater low enough to showcase ample chest hair and a gold cross.

"Daddy" Teddy announced, nudging the image with the See and Say while he danced.

"Yes and Mommy" I said jutting my chin toward Ash in the frame. Teddy looked blankly at the photo and went back to pulling the string without making the connection. Ash was about 50 pounds thinner then with long straight hair and a tight black turtleneck. She smirked in the picture, suggesting mischief, and her hands were casually placed on Rob's shoulders as they posed for the photographer. Her head dipped toward his torso like they were in love.

Evvie's little legs started kicking as she spit and babbled, clearly digging the tempo of the Papa Don't Preach video. A newly buff and white blonde pixie'd Madonna argued with Danny Aiello on the tube. Ash said, "She looks like that because she's never really been pregnant." She then flopped down into the bean bag and told me about how having two babies in a span of two and a half years had levelled her body. She lifted one denim leg up and pointed her toe, complaining about flabby thighs, a fleshy derrière, and then, lightly cupping her breasts, declared they were like balloons with no air in them.

"No one tells you this" she simpered, "but let me be the one to tell you! Breast feeding ruins your rack."

Not knowing how to follow her pronouncement, I said, "Do you want me to vacuum? Feed the kids? Get things cleaned up upstairs?" She didn't answer me. Instead, she leaned forward, her eyes scrunched up, closely inspecting Madonna bopping around on the screen.

"Okay. How about if you let Terry play with stuff and I'll take Evvie up and vacuum? Where is it?"
"Yes. Please. Hall closet" she flapped her hand at the stairs, eyes fixated.

I went up with the baby and got out the Hoover. We made big sweeps up and down the white grain as it perked up a bit. I'd vacuumed my way out of the living room by the time they came back upstairs and was wrapping the cord. Ash made a noise which seemed like approval of the rug's condition. We all went into the kitchen where she poured Terry some milk and sat him in his chair. Flipping on another small countertop TV in the kitchen which I had not noticed the day before, she tuned in a show for Teddy, took a bottle out of the fridge for Evvie, and secured it in electric bottle warmer which looked ancient and had a picture of a doggy and a duck on it. I made a mental note of everything she did, hoping I'd be doing it someday while she was at exercise class.

As I checked the temperature of the bottle, and bumped Evvie up and down on my hip, Ash held the framed photograph up to a variety of spots on the living room wall.

"I think Rob would like me to hang this." she said.
"Do you have a hammer and nail?"
"Yeah, somewhere in the garage but we don't need to do this now."
"Why not?" I asked. "I've got them; go find it and we'll hang it."

She went and fetched the hardware. It was good to see her enthusiasm for things that led to accomplishment. After we hung the picture together, she shifted a corner, leveled it, and smiled.

For the rest of my time that day, Ash loaded laundry into the washer and dryer and I gave Evvie her bottle, chubby baby digits grasping mine as we sat at the kitchen table. Tracing her tiny fingernails I saw it was dark outside.

"Tomorrow's Thursday" Ash said, folding socks on the kitchen table. "Do you have any plans?"
"Not really," I said, "why do you need me to stay longer?"
"Yeah, Rob's working late and I would really like to have a glass of wine when the kids go to sleep."
She stopped talking, looked me in the eye, hedged for a moment, and then continued.
"And I'm afraid once I start, it'll be hard to stop at one glass."
"And you want me here in case the kids need something before Rob gets home?"
"Yes." she nodded.

So I conceded. I'd come back the next afternoon and stay into the evening as long as she needed me to. Unsure about getting back to my Mom's late at night, I pictured myself walking miles in the dark or maybe balding Rob could drive me.

Ash pushed a large wad of crumpled dollars into my hand and thanked me as I stood up to leave. I grabbed my jacket and hearing the noisiness of MTV still lingering, I looked back, stuffing them in my pocket. Ash stared in the direction of the basement door as she folded and I wondered if she would go back down and watch some more.

Walking, I considered her disclosure. I'd seen a sizable wrought iron wine rack in the adjacent dining area when we were cleaning up the toys and I wondered how our night would go.

I looked forward to finding out.

#1970s #1980s #defleppardphotograph #papadontpreach #mushroomtumbler