Pavlov’s Wayne Newton

Posted on January 15, 2013 by pegoleg
When I hear the music, I need to sing!

When I hear the music, I need to sing!

I’m a serial singer of songs.

I’m not talking about great songs necessarily, and I don’t perform them well, either.   I’m no Wayne Newton.  It’s just that my brain is wired for song stimulus and I respond like one of Pavlov’s dogs.

Any little thing can set me off.  All it takes is a random word or expression and the Dick Clark Golden Oldies memory circuits are tripped.

Them: What are you doing tonight?
Me: Tonight, to-night, won’t be just any night…tonight there will be no-o-o-o morning star!  (Warbled in my best imitation of whomever-sang-for-Natalie-Wood-who-couldn’t-sing-and-wasn’t-Hispanic-so-was-perfect-as-the-lead in West Side Story)

Them: Happy birthday!
Me: Go Shawty, hey shawty, ish your birfday…ish your birfday…gonna party like ish your BIRFday! (Getting my 50 Cent on in a painfully white fashion)

Them: The situation in Syria is serious, but do we really want to get into another war?
Me:  WAR!  Huh… Good God y’all…what is it GOOD for?  Absolutely nothin’ – say it, say it, SAY-Y-Y-Y it…WAR! (That band from the 60s-70s.  Done with lots of grunting – love this song)

Them: Tell me more.
Me: Tell me more, tell me more…but ya don’t gotta brag.  Tell me more, tell me more…cuz he sounds like a drag. Oh!  Shimmy bop-bop, shimmy bop-bop, shimmy bop-bop…YEAH! (I always cover the “like does he have a car” part of this Grease classic with Marty’s fake smile/nose wrinkle move)

I don’t even have to know the song I’m singing very well; in fact, I usually don’t.  I find myself bursting into whatever song an expression evokes, armed with nothing more than a snippet of tune and 2 semi-coherent lines that would be unrecognizable to the original artist.

I have become so well identified with this little foible, at least within the family, that I think people would be surprised if I didn’t do it. Especially my mother-in-law, Virginia.  I suspect she deliberately sets me up on occasion.

I mean really…if somebody asks you, “Isn’t it a beautiful morning?” who WOULDN’T burst into the opening song from Oklahoma?  It’s like waving a red cape in front of a bull!  I think I show admirable restraint by not throwing my arms out and twirling around while I’m trilling “Oh what a be-eau-tee-ful MOR…NING!”.

You wouldn’t believe the looks I get when I do this in public.  I don’t get it.  Haven’t people seen all those old musicals?  That’s the way everybody behaved 70 years ago.  Heck, nobody looked at Gene Kelly funny when he tapped his way through every mud puddle down the street.

I got the worst looks from my own children when they were younger.

(Here’s a little tip for all you parents out there.  Out shopping with your pre-teen or teen and they start giving you a load of attitude?  Just commence with “De seaweed is always greener…in somebody else’s lake” at the top of your lungs, while trying to twirl them around in the aisle.   They’ll do anything – ANYTHING – to get you to stop.)

My steal-trap memory for random bits of tune and verse is inversely proportional to my dwindling memory for the actual names of songs or bands.   Even beloved favorites get all jumbled up in my aging brain.

I listen to the radio on my computer at work and if a good song comes on …wait a minute, here’s one now!  Oooh, I love this song!  It’s….it’s….it’s on the tip of my tongue.  That’s that song from that band!  From that dance in high school.  The lead singer is that guy?  And there’s that other guy?  Yeah, they don’t make ‘em like THOSE guys did anymore!  Good times, good times.

Dum de dum, dum… love you BABY, whoa, whoa, whoa… dum de deeeeeee!

Music adds so much to life.

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , | 73 Comments

Using Old, Familiar Words That Nobody Has Ever Heard Before

Posted on January 10, 2013 by pegoleg
Yo, wazzup with this shiz?

Yo, wazzup with this shiz?

If I told you that my life was “at sixes and sevens” right now, would you know what I was talking about?  You would if you lived in the year 1815.  That knowledge is surprisingly un-useful, however, when trying to communicate in 2013.

I’ve always loved to read.  That love has allowed me to greatly expand my vocabulary over the years.  That’s a good thing.  The down side of this is how often I come up with words that nobody else knows.  Sometimes they’re so obscure I don’t even know them.

One of my favorite time periods in history is the Regency era in England, around 1815.  I love the sparkling romances penned by Jane Austen and her modern-day (circa 1950) reincarnation, Georgette Heyer.  I have read every one of her books many times over since I got hooked on them in high school.  They’re like old friends.  When I check out a dusty, old hardback from the local library, often the only name on its old-fashioned card is “Peg” in various colors of ink and faded pencil stretching over the last 25 years.

I was talking to someone the other day and I mentioned that life was especially chaotic right now.  It wasn’t until I noted her look of confusion that I realized what I actually said was that life was “at sixes and sevens”.  Not surprisingly, that Regency-era expression meant nothing to her.

The problem with having read so much from one time period is that I forget that nobody else talks that way.   As new words and expressions come into vogue and old ones die out, the idiom of the day is very different now from what it was 200 years ago.

In addition to words and expressions that have passed out of favor, there are scores I know only contextually from seeing them in print.  I don’t know their exact definition and, more problematic (at least as far as conversation is concerned), is that I’ve never heard them pronounced.  In an effort to say precisely what I mean (and maybe impress the other person), I’ll occasionally try out one of these “never-heard” specimens only to be corrected by my more learned audience.

“That’s not how you say that!” they respond. Shot down.

One word that never ceases to bother me is artisanal.  Implying that something is hand-crafted has become such a popular advertising ploy that you see this word stuck on everything from beer to factory-produced bread.  Everyone I’ve heard say it pronounces the word “ar-TEES-uh-nal”.  But according to Merriam-Webster online, the accent is on the first syllable “AR-tuh-zen-al”.  If I say it correctly, I sound stupid.

This bugged me enough that I wrote to the Merriam-Webster editor about it.  Their response?  They said it is mispronounced so often they were now considering adding the alternative pronunciation to their site.  The experts change to match reality.  I guess that’s the beauty of a living language.

The most dedicated wordsmith I ever knew was my father-in-law, Bob.  He devoured words and never stopped studying and improving his vocabulary.   He delighted in using his new words in everyday conversation.

We had an ongoing, friendly disagreement on this topic for years.

Bob said that having (and using) an ever-increasing vocabulary allows you to say EXACTLY what you want so you can communicate more precisely.  I agreed, but argued that you can’t truly communicate if you are using words you KNOW the other person doesn’t understand.  He responded that if somebody didn’t understand a word, they should look it up.  To which I replied, that kind of exchange isn’t communicating, it’s a vocabulary lecture.

I think we were both right.

In daily conversation we need to use words that most will understand.  We should also challenge people to expand their vocabularies.  Especially ourselves.

After all, lifelong learning is the best way to avoid becoming a caper-witted rattlepate.

What words do you know that nobody else ever uses?

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , | 93 Comments

Skipping Stones In the Pond Of Life & Death

Posted on January 3, 2013 by pegoleg
Picture courtesy Picture Day, http://picproj2722.wordpress.com/

Picture courtesy Picture Day, http://picproj2722.wordpress.com/

They say that even when someone dies, they aren’t fully gone; they live on in the memories of those who knew them.  I think that the opposite is also true.  When someone dies, they take some of our memories with them.

In the past few days, two people I know died.  They weren’t especially close friends; they were so much older than I that to claim friendship would be impertinent.  But they were both people I admired and now they are gone.

The first, George, was a respected business and philanthropic leader in our community.  He and his family have been loyal clients and friends of my husband’s family for many, many years.  He treated me with unfailingly courtesy in the more than 25 years I was privileged to know him.  I would be hard pressed to think of someone who better personified the term “gentle man”.

The second, Marthe, was from my hometown – the mother of an old friend of mine from grade school.  She was French/Canadian and, with her marvelous accent, always seemed much more exotic than all the other moms.  Her son and I were in high school French class together.  Ever afterwards, whenever she saw me (usually in church) she greeted me with “Bonjour, Margaret!”, the lead-in to an incomprehensible question in French that I would gamely try to interpret.

But my memories are hazy and I forget details.

– Did she call me Margaret or was it Marguerite?

– What was the name of that fancy restaurant my boyfriend Lyle took me to in college, when we were celebrating our anniversary?

– Did my brother Pat and I implement, even once, our plan to go running every morning that summer before he went off to college?  Or was it on the very first day we agreed, sheepishly and groggily, “to hell with it”, and just went back to bed?

I can’t remember these things and I will never be able to pin them down because those who shared the experiences with me are gone.  All gone.

The landscape of our own lives is changed forever when people we know die.

When a family member or someone else we love is gone, the changes are immediate and obvious.  They stick out like a new highway suddenly plunked down in the middle of town.  But all losses, big and small, have their impact on us.  It’s just a matter of degrees.

A cousin…the house next door is torn down.  The woman who sang alto in the choir… a new grocery store goes up. The guy who sat 2 rows away on the commuter train, every morning for the last 15 years…Elm St. is closed.  The accountant who called with a cheery, cheesy, “time to meet with your friendly tax man!” every April 1st …a new school goes up.  Ernest Borgnine… the State Theater closes.   And so it goes, on and on.

This is, I think, the reason that so many elderly people find it hard to keep touch with the modern world.  It’s not the gigantic leaps in technology, changes in music or fashion or political regimes that come and go.

It’s the loss of people.

The landscapes of our lives are made up of human markers – some major, some minor.   Without these human landmarks, life is hard to navigate and the familiar starts to look foreign.

As I get older, the previous generation is passing from the landscape at a dizzying, rapidly accelerating pace.  Soon the topography won’t be recognizable as we, ourselves, become that older generation.

Each of our lives is a pebble in the pond, making waves that overlap all the other pebbles around us.  Just how big that impact is we may never be able to gauge here and now.  Maybe only in the next life will we gain the perspective to fully do so.

p.s.  Lest you think I’m all somber reflection today, know that George welcomed his first, little great-grandchild into the world a mere week before his passing.   Not all the changes to our landscapes are losses.

Rest in peace, George and Marthe.

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , | 78 Comments

Them That’s Got Shall Get…A Mix Master

Posted on December 22, 2012 by pegoleg

mixmastermonopoly

Them that’s got shall get,
Them that’s not shall lose,

…

Billie Holiday (paraphrasing the Bible) hit the nail on the head, especially during this merry season of gift giving.

I’ve got a friend who is rolling in the dough.  Roll.  Ing.  I wouldn’t say she and her husband are filthy rich, but at the very least they are incredibly grimy.  Not that I discriminate against the loaded – they put their diamond-encrusted pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us.  In fact, I’m happy to have wealthy friends.  As long as they aren’t cheapos, and remember to insist on picking up the check whenever we go out.

The problem is this:  when buying gifts for someone who is well-off, I tend to mentally kick the  limit up and over what I’d usually spend.

Take when this friend got married.  My go-to, all-occasion special gift is pot holders (I know – who doesn’t love them?) But I found myself perusing her registry at a high-end department store and seriously considering a Mix Master.  Those suckers cost $400!  I don’t have one –  my Mix Master is my arm with a wooden spoon at the end of it.

The same thing happened this Christmas.  I caught myself looking at the more expensive baubles when shopping for Rich Friend than for Poor Friend and I had to stop and figure out why.

I think what it comes down to is pride.  My pride.   I was unconsciously afraid that my friend would find my gift inferior.  That she who had so much material wealth would look down on what I had to offer and, hence, look down on me.

Didn’t I learn my lesson from the Little Drummer Boy? When I was a kid, a hitherto unknown Bible story about the nativity was discovered by those biblical scholars, Rankin & Bass.  It turns out it wasn’t just barnyard animals and wise men in the stable with the Holy Family 2000 years ago.  There was also a boy with a little drum and a big chip on his shoulder.

The lesson is clear. Whether grand or humble, gifts given from the heart are what are truly important.  This is true for our real friends as it is true for God.

I haven’t been fair to any of my friends.  Them’s that got don’t need more – but them’s that not, do.  If a friend sneers at something given from the heart, then they’re not the kind of friend I need.

This Christmas, my gift to the baby Jesus is very humble; I’ll try to be kinder and more patient to those around me.

For everyone else on my Christmas list, including my rich friend?  Excuse me, but I’ve got some pot holders to wrap.

God Bless us, everyone!

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Last Minute Gift Ideas To Keep You From Being Ebenezer Screwed Again This Year

Posted on December 21, 2012 by pegoleg

Christmas is all about traditions.  Every year we unpack our favorite, old ornaments.  We unearth our Bing Crosby and Manheim Steamroller CDs.  We watch A Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th St. and It’s a Wonderful Life.

Around this blog, tradition means dusting off the ghosts of Christmas blog posts past.

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Bah humbug!

Bah humbug!

Christmas is only a couple of days away.  The cards are written, the presents are bought, wrapped and under the tree, and now everyone can sit back and enjoy the season.

Everyone except you.

You haven’t done anything to get ready.  You have no presents, no ideas and no money again this year.   You’re basically screwed, right?

Wrong!

Don’t despair!  You don’t have to spend Christmas in the doghouse, just because you’re lazy and broke.  Borrow some of these last minute gift ideas:

1)      For the book lover:  Does someone on your gift list always have his or her nose in a book?  Have you priced hardcovers lately?  They can be $30 and up – ridiculous!  Trot down to the local library, check out the newest bestseller and wrap it up.  When the recipient opens your gift and looks bewildered, start on a long-winded diatribe about what an outrageous assault on the environment it is to cut down defenseless trees for books, and the importance of sharing resources.  Add a bit about the great history of Carnegie libraries in America and by the end of your presentation the book lover will be feeling vaguely guilty for ever having bought one.  Be a Christmas angel and remind the recipient they’ll incur overdue fines after 2 weeks, so they should read fast!

2)      For the wine lover:  With your Annie Green Springs tastes, you have neither the budget nor the knowledge to please a true wine connoisseur.  Don’t even try.  Take a card and write, “Here’s a little something to toast the season”.  Wrap up a box containing …2 pieces of dry toast.  I suggest using whole wheat bread since wine snobs also tend to be health food snobs.  They’ll look like poor sports if they even hint that they would prefer a real gift to your clever gag. (Thrifty suggestion: Cut a square of wrapping paper, fold in half and use this as a card.  You can write on the inside and it matches the package for an expensive, coordinated look.)

3)      For that special woman:  Is there anything a woman loves more than a truly spectacular piece of expensive jewelry?  Since THAT’s not going to happen this Christmas, you can still score points by hitting her other hot button: a love of schmaltzy romance.  Just write in a card, “You own the key to my heart.”  Wrap up a small, jewelry-sized box in which you’ve placed…a key.  Any old key will do –could be the key to your locker at the gym.   Make sure it’s not your car key, though, as it might be awkward to have to ask for it back at the end of the evening.

4)      For your kid:  Every parent has experienced this.  You get your kid a Suzy Homemaker kitchen, or Little Tykes workbench and they run right by the big, expensive toy to play with the box.  Encourage their creative spirit with an Imagination Kit: an assortment of cardboard boxes, rolling paper and toilet paper tubes, rubber bands and other stuff that you have around the house.  Pontificate about the importance of creative play, developing building and imagination skills and getting back to basics.  This will confuse the in-laws so they can’t be sure if you really believe all that stuff, or you’re just a cheap Scrooge.

5)      For the kid’s teacher:  Teachers get so much lame junk: ornaments, bubble bath and candles, they could open a gift store.  What do they really, really want?  Some relief from the unrelenting torment of having little monsters like your kid in their class.

Make up several coupons “Good for one day without Johnny”.  On days when your offspring has been acting even more like the spawn of Satan than usual, Teacher can send one of the coupons home with the kid.  You promise to keep him home “sick” the next day, thereby giving Teacher a much-needed break.  Be careful not to give so many coupons that all his days off catch the attention of the health department or truancy officer.

6)      For the brother-in-law:  Your lush of a brother-in-law is always getting in trouble with the po-lice.  What a hoot when he opens your gift in front of the whole family to reveal a stack of “get out of jail free” cards, taken from a Monopoly game.  Even funnier if you could be be there when he tries to use one when he gets stopped, weaving down the road on the way home from the family party.

7)      For your pets:  What dog doesn’t love a rousing game of “fetch”?  Simply gather up a couple of sticks (not too fat), about 1-1/2 feet long, and tie them up with a jaunty, red ribbon.   For the cat, smush a page from the Sunday funnies into a ball, wrap in twine or rubber bands, and you’re ready for hours of pouncing play.  (These also make thoughtful gifts for the dog or cat lover on your list.)

With my helpful hints, a little bit of cleverness can take the place of true thoughtfulness, money and any real effort on your part.

Merry Christmas, and good luck!

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments

The REAL Sounds of The Season

Posted on December 18, 2012 by pegoleg
Tis the season...

Tis the season…

My favorite classic rock radio station switched to an all-Christmas-music-format the day after Thanksgiving.  They call it “The Sounds of The Season”.  This annoys me for two reasons.

1) Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer instead of Another Brick In The Wall.  Enough said.

2) Even if you happen to like Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, that doesn’t really qualify as a “sound of the season”.  Those sounds go more like this:

The merry tinkling, clinking and clanking of …empty bottles of cheap Moscato (your only relief from this hellacious season of torment), knocking together as you lug a Hefty-bag full of them to the curb.

Children’s voices raised in…howling tantrum as they kick the floor at Wal-Mart after being told: no, you will NOT buy them the Barbies and Pokemons clutched in their sweaty little hands.

A group of neighbors gathered together ‘round your front door to share the message…that your Griswold-like, over-the-top light display blew the transformers for the entire block, AGAIN.

The cheery, hearty holiday greetings of…your newspaper and mail deliverers as they hand-deliver Christmas cards preprinted with their names.  This after both had snarlingly tossed their deliveries in the mud puddle in your driveway for the entire year.

The rat-a-tat-tat of the Little Drummer Boy…who took up permanent residence in your skull after last night’s office Christmas party, details of which are still pretty hazy.

The familiar strains of a beloved, old Christmas carol…now ruined forever for you by the off-tempo, multi-trilled, self-indulgent cover released by the pop-star du jour, who felt compelled to “make this classic song her own”.

HER song is what is played on the formerly classic rock station every 20 minutes, around the clock, from Thanksgiving until Christmas Day is over.  This, instead of Bing Crosby.

Then, at exactly 12:01 am you can at last enjoy the sounds of the season.  That’s when the radio station takes the tarted-up Christmas carols off their playlist and puts on Another Brick In The Wall.

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , , | 60 Comments

My Sister-In-Law Is Ruining The US Economy – Again

Posted on December 14, 2012 by pegoleg

Christmas is all about traditions.  Every year we unpack our favorite, old ornaments.  We unearth our Bing Crosby and Manheim Steamroller CDs.  We watch A Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th St. and It’s a Wonderful Life.

Around this blog, tradition means dusting off the ghosts of Christmas blog posts past.  This little ditty was my first ever Freshly Pressed.  Hope it helps firm your resolve to do the right thing for our country!

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Support your local eggnog farmer!

Support your local eggnog farmer!

My sister-in-law, Lisa, just announced she is starting a diet.  With 3 weeks to go until Christmas.

This is wrong on so many levels.  Besides the masochistic overtones, we have to consider how such a move might affect the nation’s economic recovery.

Lisa just wants to look hot for New Years Eve.   But she may be starting a dangerous trend.  Perhaps I can help her to see the bigger picture – what economists call the unintended consequences.

Seasonal industries have just a small window of opportunity to make sales.  (i.e. yellow marshmallow chickees that can only be sold for 1 week before Easter.)  In December, fattening Christmas food companies are scrambling to make their budget goals.

Take eggnog.   Its rich, creamy goodness is almost synonymous with Christmas.  But where does it come from?  Family farms in the heartland keep herds of  special, eggnog-producing cows just for the Christmas season.  No eggnog, no eggnog farms.

All the farms will be sold for shopping malls, the farm children will have to leave the land for New York to become actor/model/waiters and the cows will be processed into McBurgers.  Do you want to be responsible for the end of the family farm in America, Lisa?

And what about that company that makes those chocolate-covered cherries that you can get for $1 at Big Lots and other fine emporiums?  They do all their sales this month.  Does it occur to you, Lisa, that the firm that makes those has employees?  If health-conscious, get-in-shape people don’t buy those candies, all the chocolate-covered cherry employees and their families, some of whom might have lame children who use crutches, will be out on the streets. Just in time for Christmas, you Scrooge!

These are just a few of the businesses that would be affected. There are anise-flavored cookies, monastery-made bourbon fudge and whisky fruitcake, and candy canes.   I’m sure we could come up with lots of examples.

Sure, tofu sales will go up. But that won’t increase jobs.  There is such a huge surplus of tofu just sitting around on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator case in the grocery store produce section (often right under the Bleu Cheese crumbles, ironically), we could go years without making any more.

And what about after Christmas?  In the natural order of things, you sign up for diet and exercise programs in January.  If nobody is overindulging in December, no one will be repentant and resolved to change in January.

80% of the YMCA’s income is derived from initial membership fees garnered in January.  They can’t rely on the monthly fees, because those dry up in March.  That’s when the new members cancel, although they actually stop working out after only 2 weeks.  (The Y does get residual income from all the new members who forget they signed up to have the dues automatically deducted from their bank account.  They can end up paying for years after their actual 2-week attendance is over.)

Eat, papa, eat!

Do you want to be responsible for closing the doors on a fine, old institution like the Young Men’s Christian Association?  And then what?  Our nation’s young men will be out on the streets, joining gangs, becoming hooligans, and not being Christian.

Nutrisystems will go back to using their food as industrial lubricants, Jenny Craig will have to get a job as a brownie taster and South Beach will be deserted. Dr. Atkins will turn over in his grave!

(“America the Beautiful” starts softly in the background).

We are trying to climb out of a terrible recession right now, Lisa.  Our president, and our congressmen and women, are working hard to get this economy back on track

(for amber waves of grain…)

It is the duty of every American to help in this struggle.  If you think your hot-ness is more important than your country, Lisa, keep up the pre-Christmas diet.  Help put thousands, nay millions of our fellow Americans out of work.

But as for me and mine, we love the U.S. of A., and we will support her!

(music builds to a crescendo, “from sea to shining sea!”, I get up and walk out like that scene in Animal House where Dean Wormer revokes the Delta’s charter because they have been on double-secret probation ).

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go buy some peppermint stick ice cream!

 

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , , | 27 Comments

To Grandmother’s House We Go

Posted on December 12, 2012 by pegoleg
wiseguyscard

My real-life Christmas Card.

Sorry about the tiny type – I REALLY have to figure out how to use Gimp or Photoshop or something better than the Paint program that came with this old computer.  It’s on my to-do list. If you click on the picture it makes it just a little larger and easier to read.

This is also my entry in the “What the holidays really mean” Christmas card contest being run on both Go Jules Go and The Byronic Man’s blogs.  Julie.Davidoski@yahoo.com and byronicmanblog@gmail.com.   I could really use the sheets they’re giving away because it has been a tough year for us.  We had to sell our sheets to earn money for our child’s liver transplant….which she needed after we sold her liver to earn money for Muscato…which we needed to drown our sorrows because it has been a tough year.

Not that I want the judges to let my abysmal life situation influence their decision – not at all.  Nope.

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , | 41 Comments

peep

Posted on December 7, 2012 by pegoleg

PeepEtsyHeader-Yellow-2

It is finished.

Not really – it has only just begun.

Some of you may have noticed I haven’t been around the blogosphere much lately.

Because all I’ve done to get ready for Christmas is throw some lights up for decoration   without starting to shop…

Because things are crazy at work, what with staff changes and my debilitating concerns about the downturn in the economy…

Because my creative mental well has run dry and I have been shamefully neglecting my own blog as well as my wonderful, fellow-bloggers…

Because I’m in the middle of an epic midlife crisis that has me waking up in the wee, small hours of the morning to question my very existence…

Because I’ve got all this other stuff going on…I thought this would be the perfect time to start a side business!

I recently confessed my deep, dark secret; that I have crafty tendencies.  Now I’m taking crafty to the next level.

If you’re not familiar with Etsy, crawl out from that rock you’ve been living under and check out the world’s largest marketplace for handcrafted items.  From high art to kitschy crafts, with some vintage stuff thrown in, Etsy has it all as far as one-of-a-kind items.  All that fabulous just got kicked up a notch with the addition of one more shop – mine.

I am proud to announce the grand opening of my online Etsy shop, peep

I have been into reusing and re-purposing since my first foray into a thrift shop in Ann Arbor Michigan when I was a starving college student, 30 years ago.  My boyfriend was going to take me to a swanky restaurant for a special occasion; I had nothing to wear and almost no money.  I went to Second Hand Rose, snagged a vintage, little black dress and coat and I’ve never looked back.

I bought my kids’ clothes, much of our furniture and most of our house wares at resale shops and they are still my favorite places to shop.  To me a thrift store is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to find!  The greatest thing about them is that one person’s castoffs can become someone else’s useful treasures – out of the landfill and into a good home.

I’ve always loved real fabrics: silk, cotton, wool…especially wool.  The warmth, the rich colors, the luxurious, honest feel to the hand – all appeal.  Ironically, I could never wear wool, angora or mohair as a kid or young adult.  I had ultra-sensitive skin and just being near them made me break out in hives.  Now these are my working materials of choice.

Although I love fashion, I don’t want to look exactly like everybody else.  For me, vintage and one-of-a-kind, artisan-made goods make you stand out from the crowd in a good way.  I believe you don’t have to look like a model to have style.

Let’s add this up:

Love of real materials
+ well-developed shopping gene
+ thriftiness
+ hate waste
+ want to be unique
+ creative impulses
peep

peep is about accessories for people and their homes.  I handcraft all with re-purposed materials, primarily wool, angora and cashmere.  Most fabrics and many trims are vintage, although pillow forms and poly-fill are all new and unused.

I decided to list my things with Etsy to reach a wider audience, following in the footsteps of my blogging friends and talented artists Sandy Sue (mixed media greeting cards like Hallmark WISHED they could make)  and Spectra (one-of-a-kind, tiny clay sculptures).

This business is time consuming, so I’ve only been able to put a fraction of my stuff online yet.  It’s still a work in progress and more will be added daily.  I haven’t figured out how to calculate international shipping, so I’m just shipping to the USA for now.

If the spirit moves you, check out the shop.  If you like something, buy it.  Tell your friends. Did I mention that Christmas is coming?

OK, this marks the end of the shameless self-promotion.  I’ll post a link to peep on the sidebar for future reference, but on this blog I promise a return to crafting with (largely irreverent) words which you’ve come to love and expect (????).

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Wal-Mart, The Christmas Musical (Redux)

Posted on December 5, 2012 by pegoleg

Christmas is all about traditions.  Every year we unpack our favorite, old ornaments.  We unearth our Bing Crosby and Manheim Steamroller CDs.  We watch A Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th St. and It’s a Wonderful Life.

Around this blog, tradition means dusting off the ghosts of Christmas blog posts past.

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A speedy trip to everybody’s favorite big box store for toilet paper the other day turned into an Ordeal from which I barely escaped with my life.  This reminded me of one of my earliest posts (still a major contender for the coveted “Favorite Blog Posts I Ever Wrote That Were Totally Ignored By The Freshly Pressed Gods” Award.)

Sit back and relax while we present, with apologies to Broadway, the soon-to-be classic:

Wal-Mart, The Christmas Musical

Thanks to People of Wal-Mart for the cast member photo.

Thanks to People of Wal-Mart for the cast member photo.

Most Americans have been to Wal-Mart.  But you haven’t truly experienced it until you see Wal-Mart, The Christmas Musical.   I attended a performance just a few days ago.

The entire play takes place in a Super Wal-Mart.  It is Sunday afternoon during the busy, holiday shopping season.

Here’s the story in a nutshell.  Our heroine, a young ingénue who looks almost exactly like me, visits the Land of Wal-Mart.  She has been sprinkled with holiday cheer fairy dust and sent on a quest.  She must find a magic wand that will reanimate the Christmas tree lights when half of each strand has gone out (kind of like a Christmas light defibrillator).  Then she must get checked out and back to her car before the dust wears off and she turns into a mean, bitchy old crone.

During the prelude we were treated to Mariah Carey’s spiritual take on “Santa’s Got A Booty Call (So You Better Be Naughty!)”.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the place when one of the female leads, imaginatively costumed in black stretch pants and a shirt cut low enough to reveal a pair of angels tattooed on the upper slopes of her…charms, softly crooned a simple ballad to the children gathered around her cart: “I TOLD You 20 Times”.

“I TOLD you 20 times you gotta be 8 years old before Santa will bring you Call of Duty, Black Ops.  I’m going to have your daddy (Rodney, that guy whose staying with us and kinda like your daddy) WHUP YOUR A** if you ask me ONE more time!”

I wasn’t the only one who left the show singing THAT moving tune.

The children’s choir almost stole the show with their rousing hit, “I Want THAT!”   The lyric was not complicated – only “I Want THAT”, over and over – but the performance elevated the words to art.  The volume of their childish cries built and built to a mighty crescendo.  The number ended with the whole choir falling to the floor and kicking its collective heels.  Unforgettable.

The Greeter’s Gospel Choir’s a cappella rendition of “Go Tell It On The Mountain (The Holidays Are Here)” had everyone clapping along.   The reworked lyrics explained in an uplifting, catchy way why saying Merry Christmas at the door would be the same as forcing shoppers to join a church and submit to full-immersion baptism in order to get in the store.  Entertaining and really thought provoking.

But the showstopper was the big production number finale.

I took a couple of dance classes as a kid, so I’m familiar with steps like the flap-ball-change.  But I’ve never seen the moves the Wal-Mart Shoppers Dance Troupe perfected for this extravaganza, a routine they call the Oblivious Shuffle.

Each shopper/dancer leaned on his or her cart and pushed it slowly, oh so slowly, back and forth across the stage.  Their shuffling gate kept one shoe (or house slipper, as the case may be) on the floor at all times.  The shuffling feet made a “shush, shush” sound that underscored the “squeak, squeak” of their unoiled cart wheels.  The occasional crash of colliding carts played like cymbals in the composition.

About half of the dancers had cell phones pressed to their ears.  One at a time, each would burst into song with lyrics like “…so that witch he married said they couldn’t take the kids Christmas Eve and I told her if you think I’m going to pick them up on HIS weekend, you can just tell their dad…” Their solos were incomprehensible, one-sided conversations when taken by themselves.  Together, they wove a timeless Christmas story.

The dancers went through their movements with vacant, glassy stares that gave the illusion that they were totally unaware of everyone else around them.

Think of Night of the Living Dead as a ballet.

Meanwhile, the young ingénue wove her cart skillfully in and out of the shuffling throng, trying to get to the registers.   The checkers each turned their lights off as she approached, crying “price check on 10″, “change needed on 5”, “register frozen on 8“ in a surprisingly harmonious medley.  Everyone held their breath when a determined shopper with 2 carts piled high cut in front of our heroine in the “15 items or less” line, but there was no collision – it was all just part of the magical show.

I don’t want to give away the ending in case you decide to see it.  Suffice it to say our ingenue bore a marked resemblance to the apple-wielding hag in Snow White as she hobbled to her SUV when the curtain fell.

 

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