Tag: family

Monster good Christmas

You know that old thing about how if a moth sneezes in Lampung, a hurricane blows a roof off a house in Tampa? Something like that, anyway. It’s true that you never know what all the cause-and-effect moments in your life will be.

Last Christmas, Lindsey mentioned that one of her young relatives received all of Mattel’s Monster High dolls, along with binders her family made including the dolls’ biographies. Most people know I’m not a fan of the Bratz dolls; I took a brief look at the Monster High dolls at Target, noted that their body and head sculpts were similar to Bratz, and thought no more about them.

Then one of my LJ friends told me how her granddaughter was intrigued by the fashions I was making for my Model Muses. After seeing them on my blog, this young lady decided to start sewing her own clothes for her Monster High dolls, and my friend linked me to some photos of her work. I love seeing kids get creative, and it was delightful to feel like I had a small part in that.

Because of her granddaughter, I took another look at the Monster High dolls and found myself being charmed by them. I saw a set of the Gloom Beach dolls in a store and was tempted to buy them. Then I thought: Why not put them on my Christmas list? It’s always kind of hard for me to tell people anything I want; I usually just wind up saying gift cards that I can use on the music, books, or art supplies that strike my fancy throughout the year. Maybe the Monster High dolls would be a little more fun for a gift giver.

My brother-in-law Michael drew my name, and he did get the dolls for me. His daughter saw them and loved one of the dolls in the set, which motivated her parents to embark on another shopping excursion. Because of two little girls she’ll never know, Abby now has her own Clawdeen Wolf. And nobody lost a roof.

Here are my Gloom Beach girls:


Frankie Stein, Ghoulia Yelps, Draculaura, Clawdeen Wolf, and Cleo de Nile. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll be sewing for them…but I’m guessing probably.

Legacy Writing 365:2

When I was in the fifth grade, it was decided that the more musically-inclined students would put on some kind of spring concert. My sister was a singer who was always in choirs and choruses and she loved that stuff. I could think of nothing more horrifying than being on a stage in front of a bunch of people. People with eyes!* So when the music teacher came around to audition us, I had a plan. We sang as a group; she stopped in front of each of us to get a listen to our individual voices. I sang as poorly as I could; it didn’t take a whole lot of effort. And I DIDN’T GET PICKED! Success.

Only then the teachers weren’t sure what to do with us tone-deaf rejects during the times the other kids went to practice for their upcoming concert. My teacher, Mrs. Duncan, hit on a brilliant plan: Her leftovers would be in a play! How exciting! I would have lines to say in front of an auditorium of people!

Please reread my third sentence in the first paragraph.

That’s how I came to play “Dottie” in “The Picnickers.”

I still have a copy of “The Picnickers,” and I read through it before I began this post. The plot: Several girls decide to go on a picnic on a pretty day. They pack their picnic baskets and sneak off without letting the boys know, because:

Maxine: I’d like to know if they ever ask us to go on hikes with them.
Helen: I should say they don’t.

and

Mary Lee: We’ll show them that we can get along without them once in a while.

(Yeah, fist pump, Mrs. Duncan, if in fact you wrote this play.)

The girls get lost a few times, but finally find the spot they’re looking for. They play a few games; Mary Lee, obviously conflicted, periodically says how much more fun they’d be having if the boys were there. A few pointed comments are made about Betty’s hunger, and they won’t leave her behind when they go to the spring to get water because, as Helen says, “There wouldn’t be anything left to eat when we got back.”

(In a few decades, Mrs. Duncan, you’d be in big trouble over the whole young girl/body image/eating disorder thing.)

While they’re gone, the boys show up. Miffed about being left out, they switch out the girls’ picnic baskets for other baskets filled with turnips and carrots, raw potatoes, and stones. The boys then hide. When the girls get back and open the baskets, even Betty suffers a loss of appetite.

At this point, one of the boys emerges from the woods disguised as a gypsy (“gypsy” not having been replaced with the more aptly named “Romani”). Here’s where my willing suspension of disbelief switches off. A gypsy? Because the woods outside AnySmallTown USA are crawling with gypsies in gypsy clothes. And of course a group of girls would totally talk to her and let her tell their fortunes, as well as agree to give up some of their food if she does a magic spell to get their lunch baskets returned. This shit would never fly today, when Maxine would whip out her cell phone and have the police there to arrest the pagan child predator in nothing flat.

But I digress. The gypsy taps on a tree three times, the boys appear with the good food, “Tom” is revealed to be the gypsy, everybody laughs, eats, and they live happily ever after–or so I assume, because the last page of my script is missing.

Regardless, my real issue with this play is that my character Dottie is critical, bossy, and doesn’t deserve the totally suck-up fortune she gets from the gypsy (Tom obviously has a crush on her).

WAY TO TYPECAST, MRS. DUNCAN.


Me, bottom left.

*Line stolen from Rachel on Friends.

Oh, Christmas tree

One year, Tom’s parents didn’t take down their Christmas tree until Easter.

I may be exaggerating.

I’m not sure how long my parents left their trees up every year, but it’s always vaguely been in my head not to put it up before mid-December and not to have it up past New Year’s Day. I think Lynne’s tree was up this year by Thanksgiving: shocking! And mine is still up, and it’s January 2. Tom and Tim were both away for several days while Kathy S babysat me and a house full of dogs; we stayed up watching movies and talking every night, and I took a lot of naps and entertained dogs every day. This all means we’re a little behind in getting Christmas out of the house. Today, instead of being industrious, Tom would rather relax and catch up on his DVRd shows before going back to work, and I’d rather watch this entertaining documentary Puterbaugh recommended (Bill Cunningham New York–streams on Netflix) and take pretty photos like this:

So the heck with it. Where is it written that a house must be undecorated by a certain date? Are there Christmas police who’ll issue a citation? Will the dogs sleep any less soundly with all these festive Christmas lights sparkling around them? Is my sluggishness why people think the Mayan calendar says WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE?

The piece of Dove candy I snagged on my way to the computer told me:

Tom’s parents were right all along.

Legacy Writing 365:1

You may have noticed that my masthead changed with the new year. Since the Magnetic Poetry project has come to an end, I wanted to take on another year-long project. My conditions: It has to be uniquely mine, and it has to involve writing. My blog readers (and I thank EVERY one of you, especially when you take the time to comment) seem to enjoy it when I dip into my past for material. Since I have about ten zillion photos in the archives that include many of my mother’s photos as well as mine, and a seemingly infinite amount of memories, I hope to combine the two on my blog each day.

My relationship with memory has a certain poignancy. I have no children who will say, “Tell me about that time…” or “Not this story again…” as I often did with my own parents. They were both storytellers, so it seemed particularly cruel that both of them suffered diseases that rob the memory: my father’s Parkinson’s disease, my mother’s Alzheimer’s. However, though both of them had moments of confusion and disorientation, they could be gently guided into sharing their long-term memories until shortly before they died.

In a way, my novels are my children. They get sprinkled with bits of stories from my own life and the lives of people I know (or have known): meshed, reassigned, shortened, made better, made worse. Whatever works to breathe life into the characters. When these stories are read, they’re filtered through everything a reader believes, likes, distrusts, yearns for, laughs about, despises–the whole gamut of that reader’s experiences are sitting in his mind and heart.

In essence, all writing is collaborative. We write everyone and everything we’ve known or wished we knew. We work with editors and friends and critical readers to shape and refine our stories. And then our readers rewrite our stories to fit into their unique perspectives.

Over the past year, I’ve read a lot about the process of memory, and its accuracies and inaccuracies. I’ll try to be accurate with both the photos and what I remember.


When I was going through pictures to create the new masthead, I found this one. I correctly identified: SOFTBALL! I don’t know how my father, a good softball player on winning teams, produced me. The Brides and Kathy S try to get me to come to their games, and I always babble things like “softball trauma,” “junior high nightmare,” or a simple shrieking, “NOOOOOOOOOO.” I’m pretty sure there was never a worse softball player than my early teen self. Even after I was finally schooled on the basics–a base? a shortstop? a strike?–I was hopelessly inept.

Keep your eye on the ball? You keep YOUR eye on the ball and make sure it doesn’t come anywhere near me. I closed my eyes when a ball came from the sky when I was practically in the next county, which is where my “team” in P.E. sent me to get me as far from the game as possible. If a ball did manage to turn itself into a rookie-seeking missile, it went through my hands, through my legs, or hell, I don’t know, through the fabric of the space-time continuum.

And batting: OMG, the nightmare that was batting. You are supposed to stand there while someone hurls a ball at you! A ball that can hurt when it hits you! I just closed my eyes and hoped it would somehow dematerialize before it came near me. Needless to say, I never heard or felt that alleged satisfying crack of bat meeting ball. Or got to run to first base–though I think I may have walked a time or two. All of this, of course, to the taunts and jeers of the opposing team. And my own team. And possibly people brought in from biology or civics just to watch me. Which, praise the spirit of whoever is the softball equivalent of Babe Ruth, my father never saw. He never had to know the shame of fathering Jacksonville High School’s WORST Softball Player.

Kathy S looked at this photo and said they don’t make bats like this anymore. They do still make great softball players…I’ve heard.

There must be a boy!

Sometime this weekend I need to coerce someone into watching this movie with me.

If you know me, you might be thinking, How many times can she cackle at “Rex Stetson” and Thelma Ritter? Or sing along to “You Are My Inspiration” and “You Lied?” Hasn’t she seen that movie enough damn times?

Maybe. But not with my jolliest Christmas present ever from Tom sitting next to me:


Doris Day is fine, but Mattel did an amazing job on my man Rock Hudson.

Putting Your Minds at Ease

You guys have been pretty worried, haven’t you, that I might have suffered a vampire-free Christmas? Not so!


Score from Michael; game from Lynne. When’s everybody coming over for game night?!?

By the way, writers: Just as the soundtracks from the Twilight movies are UH-mazing, the scores provide great instrumental music to accompany writing sessions. I’m betting they’d be a nice break from Celtic music for body and energy workers, too.

Somewhat related: the Ongoing Saga of the Coasters. Last year, if you recall, I received FOUR sets. One I sent to Marika to match those matching citrus dishes (regifted to her after Christmas 2008). One set I regifted to Laura on her birthday in January–with ART. This year, I snuck Set 3 into a gift basket for Laura and Jess, and individually wrapped Set 4 with ornaments delivered to Lynne in a festive box. Since Laura gave Lynne the original lime coasters this year, I am currently COASTER FREE. I don’t remember the last time this was true.

However, I swear that somewhere out in the ‘burbs there’s a store called Citrus ‘R Us. How else do you explain these little items I received from Laura and Lynne?

<
I will find this retail mecca before Christmas 2012. Less than 365 shopping days left!

If you ever want to review the coaster saga:

Laura’s Birthday 2011
Christmas 2010
And previously:
Those coasters Part 1
Those coasters Part 2
Those coasters Part 3
Those coasters Part 4
Those coasters Part 5

Crafty Christmas

Just a few crafty things I did during the holidays…


My sister wrote a story for one of her granddaughters about a little gnome, and she wanted to give her one for Christmas who’d be like the gnome in the story. The online gnomes she could find didn’t fit the bill, and though she (and Tom and I) shopped in three cities at all kinds of stores, there wasn’t a girl gnome anywhere. I finally offered to create one. I found this little Fisher-Price Snap and Style Gabriela Doll and made her an outfit, including an apron and hat. Girl gnome!


All the little kids I’ve known like toys that make noise. Generally, parents do not. So it falls to kindly aunties to make sure they get them. Along with books (quiet time!) and Pier One’s jingle bell shakers, I found these pink maracas to give to Lila and Hanley. Only I bedazzled them to give them a little more magic. In doing so, the noise was a tiny bit muffled. You’re welcome, parents.


I think affirmations are a good thing–after all, look where Stuart Smalley is now!–so I created 30 family-related affirmations and put them in these little wooden boxes I painted to give to some of my family members. After all, I love these people and think they’re great; I want them to think so, too!


Speaking of crafty goodness and lovable family members, here’s an ornament Lila painted and gave to me, along with one of the cookies she baked with G (the name she calls her grandmother Lynne). She also sort of colored an angel for me. It may have been her first time using colored pencils, and my favorite part was that I, too, was coloring an angel next to her, and she’d periodically pull a pencil from the box and command, “Use this one!” I respect a bossy Aries. I think every year, I’ll coerce her into coloring another angel, so when the days of coloring are behind her (never!), she can see how her technique changed over the years. Another tradition!

And yes, Tim did keep his personal tradition alive and put up the angels on Christmas Eve, with a little help from Lindsey and Tom. Thanks, all!


You’re looking at the book titles, aren’t you? Stop it! Angels!

I have SO MANY PRESENTS

It’s like Santa exploded at The Compound last night, if Santa is named TomTimRhondaLindseyMarikaMichael/Katie. I can stretch this amazing haul over a sleigh-load of blog posts, but earlier today, I was reminded of the thrill of one of my favorite Christmases from childhood. It was the morning I ripped the Christmas paper off my Barbie and Ken Bride and Groom fashions and Barbie’s honeymoon trousseau. To a little girl who loved Barbies, opening those clothes and smelling everything new and plastic-y was heady stuff, and I played Wedding all day long. And all night. And all forever. Oh, how glad my family was.

This morning, as I was playing with a few of this year’s gifts, I felt like a total kid again. I dressed two new Barbie Basics from Tom in fashion I received from Rhonda and Lindsey and my Tom-family-Santa, Michael (though I feel like shopping for Barbie clothes may have fallen to Michael’s wife/Tom’s sister Katie).

Here’s how my dolls look in their new duds:

They’re standing on a black-and-pink woven basket that The Brides gave me, posed in front of a Barbie calendar page, also from The Brides. And therein lies the contrast between Young Becky’s Mattel and Old Adult Becky’s Mattel. The illustration is so chic, so classic, so Audrey Hepburn. And my Basics look very “So Lindsay Lohan and Tara Reid walk into a bar.”

Which leads me to the cautionary cross-stitch that is Marika’s gift:

I’m using it differently here, but “Don’t be a hooch” comes from a fantastic Tom Hanks spoof of “Toddlers and Tiaras,” which you can see here.

My new Model Muses have no names yet, so if you have suggestions, don’t judge them by their flashy fashion. They’re lovely girls. You can see names I’ve already used in this Flickr set. If I choose your name, there’s no prize EXCEPT GLORY! Don’t be so greedy–I’m sure Santa was good to you, too.