Life Is a Contact Sweater
Journeying through bookland
This subtitle is a little deceiving because I have not been journeying heavily through bookland right now. TV land, sure. Walking land, you bet your bananas. I did just finish reading Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt and found it kind of a perfect novel. He named about thirty writers in the back as people to whom he is indebted (including Eudora Welty, lol. Sure, who isn’t indebted to her 💞) and now I want to dive into his list. I also want to capitalize the third letter of MY last name! Please welcome to the stage: Kara noRman.
I bought a whiteboard last week and got it into my car somehow while a couple idled in theirs nearby waiting for my parking spot. I was so annoyed even though the woman helped me including by offering statements like: “let me see if there’s some twine in our car” and “we might have a screwdriver” lol. They finally gave up and moved on. As soon as they did, I shoved the final foot of the whiteboard into my car, shut the door, and scooted home to wrangle it out before my next meeting.
Behavior like what I exhibited that day in the parking lot, solving semi-domestic, physical conundrums with sloppiness and aplomb, exhilarates me. My brain loves a puzzle and my hands have to involve themselves. Hire me to go through your grandmother’s closet and find space for her Tupperware collection / extra doilies no one will ever use. I will conquer! Together we will vanquish!
In case you thought I couldn’t fit any more pictures into this post, I need to share stills from a movie I watched on Netflix this weekend called The Four Seasons. It was made in 1981 by Alan Alda and I don’t recommend it, exactly. BUT. Please look at its colors, and more importantly, at its sweaters.
The Four Seasons also contains a great line performed / shouted by Carol Burnett that she delivers while chastising her husband (Alda) that he’s jealous of their friend who has taken up with a younger woman.
The line: “The reality is you’re married to a middle-aged woman with a good sense of humor and dry skin!”
A+ for that line, and for Carol Burnett’s delivery of it. There is far too much yelling in this film, but it also stars one Jack Weston, the actor everyone else knows as Mr. Max Kellerman in Dirty Dancing.
You cannot believe the sweater/wool game in this movie. I just want everyone to know, if I am not buried in Alan Alda’s outfit above, complete with hand-knitted creamy-white cap, we all have failed.
It snowed this weekend when I was making a zesty sugar scrub for my “spring” skin. It snowed last night, too. A loose piece of siding from our house blows in the wind right now, rattling the air, making it feel like we dwell on a piece of scaffolding, or that this is how the sound engineer making a movie of our life wants the audience to feel.
I found some old recipe cards that Tim made in early elementary. Of the many things we own, this small dusty tub of recipes is one of my most valued treasures. I love to see his little kid spelling. What, for instance, are Fuge Balls? Are they snacks for a fugue state? In a minor mood, will they lift you out of your sadness? Do tell, chef mini Tim!
Thank you for hanging with this blitz of photos, and a report on eighties sweaters. In snow we trust, in minor moods. May we find the snacks and friends and middle-aged ladies who lift at times like these!
Xoxo
I hate to tell Rite Aid but there is nothing fun about this fact.
I think Carol Burnett might benefit from some of your zesty spring sugar scrub (aka "suger skrub"), from the sounds of it (just think of how that could have altered the map of reality she offered to Alan Alda). Weird synchronicity: Carol Burnett came up during my recent dental debacle as we waited for the bonding gun to heat, we reminisced about the famous Tim Conway/Harvey Korman dentist skit on the CB show (a must watch). I was so glad to see that your WUV got some cred in your photo lineup :))
Umm…HORRIFIC FACT.
I want a purple turtle neck, bib snow pants & some fuge balls.