Me and the cat...

the knee bones connected to the....

2009-09-01T22:09:00.003-05:00

Hi all - this is Kitty, Lorraine's daughter.
Just wanted to let you know that mumsy dearest has a brand new kneebone and is working diligently to walk with it -- with the assistance of some lovely therapists.

So while she's roughing it and being served her meals & her every whim, I'll let her know you all say *hi*.

2009-07-30T18:09:00.005-05:00

Hello. My name is....ummmm....hold on now, I'll get it. Ah, lemme see. Starts with the letter 'L'. Right? Yes I believe it does. Start with an 'L'. OK. Close enough.

Anyway, I think I found an empty space to plonk down some words. They don't have to mean anything, just want to practice typing *words* again. Hope it's OK with you. If there's any "You's" around, that is. I have this bad feeling I've been totally forgotten since my WordPress blogpage was destroyed by some mean old alien from who knows what planet and is still in a state of Chaos. Bummer. Everybody
This is a mansion. Actual human beings used to live there. Today it is a decorative arts museum and an incredibly gorgeous venue for a really cool ceremony. A wedding ceremony! Hey Hey ~ ~ ~ Mazeltov! And add lots of Wheeeee and Yayyyyy. A dash of Holy Moley. A sprinkle of stardust, or in this moment -- sundust. Toss in a tall blonde young woman in a short fluffy white dress and a tall handsome man in an immaculate white shirt/tie and neat suit AND whadda got?Two beautiful people joining their lives at the hips and all that stuff, forever. I even managed to squeeze a sparkling tear or two out of the corner of my eyes at the sheer gorgeousness of it all. And the really, really lovely attendants to the bride in their sexy red dresses? 100% Vah-vah-Voom, babee! No. Really.

The pix below shows some of the house's *front yard* (?) if that's what it is.....heck, who knows? Its name is Villa Terrace. Was owned by Fred Smith, owner of a humungous company in our town called A.O. Smith. Big time stuff. Really. After Ol' Fred died, his wife lived there for a while, then decided it was too big a place to vacuum and do all that icky cleaning stuff, so she gave the whole schmear to the city. Milwaukee. So that was that.

It was a perfect day, especially for the lakefront. It's generally at least 10° "cooler lakeside" and the shoreline was really jumpin' with activity. There happened to be an Air Show which gave ME small shivers of delight as two of the Air Force Thunderbirds flew right over our heads a couple of times. Sheesh, all these years and I still get goosebumps when I hear that beautiful roar of air power. I like the sound of a charging Harley, too, but of course their roar is a tad lighter than a jet fighter plane....teehee. But a HOG revving up is no sissy in the *roar* area either. Love it.

And last but not least, a quick peek at where the pro-verbial knot was tied. This shot was not Jennie and Brian's ceremony, it came from a book about the Villa but doesn't matter, right? Jennie's female contingent of the bridal party all wore bright coral dresses *and* besides all being very lovely, these women were hard to miss! Jennie has known these "girls" forever, probably from kindergarten thru grade school, high school and college. I think that's absolutely amazing. They are -- The Glamazons. Ta-Dah! But of course no-one could have been more beautiful than the bride, of course. I ain't saying that just 'cause she's my granddaughter either, OK?

Weddings... Past & Present

2009-07-18T10:49:00.003-05:00

Since my lovely granddaughter is getting married in 1 week (!) I thought another oldie but goodie post would be appropriate...

Wedding/Air Force Style

Pick a year, any year —except for the 1950's. For some weird reason, nothing really exciting happened. Well, there were a few bright spots. Got me a daughter in 1954. Was voted "Miss Carswell of 1951" by the farm team of the St. Louis Cardinals, while I was stationed in Fort Worth. Went to Germany later that year, met some guy and got married, twice. It was the law there, had to be married by the burgermeister (Mayor) first, so Sept. 10th we tied the legal knot and Sept. 12th at the base's church was, at least to John, the biggie. I couldn't have cared less about the church wedding.

First of all, I had to borrow a wedding dress that didn't fit very well and wasn't exactly designer quality. Then my mother sent a pair of white satin shoes that didn't fit too well so hurtin' feet didn't help my cheery disposition either. I was almost three months pregnant which definitely did not help my disposition, unless you count morning sickness as a masochistic delight. Getting gifts was nice though, especially the crystal decanters/vases/liqueur glasses the guys bought at the PX. Real crystal was cheap there —and the reception was fairly decent (Had French champagne, altho the guys probably would have preferred beer). Tough.

OK, then we were kicked out of the base quarters where we lived, I had fought for that apartment on the basis of MY being the ranking NCO which meant I was eligible for the housing, my husband was only a Sgt/1st Class. The Air Force was not keen on that concept —a woman? A WOMAN? literally being the head of the household? They had never come up against anything like this before. Apparently I was the first to demand my rights as a ranking Non-commissioned officer, never mind what the other half of the equation was (the man). The Big Boys finally conceded that I was, indeed, a member of the U.S. Air Force, just like a real person (or male) and grudgingly put us up in base housing. Actually being married, however, changed the whole picture as far as the Air Force nincompoop male officers were concerned. Their reasoning, this time, was that a married woman could NOT —most certainly AND definitely not militarily correctly— be classified as a "head of the household". So we were told to pack up and leave the base's housing units.

Equal rights for women was totally unheard of then, obviously. Well, when it became apparent I was preggers, I was immediately discharged from the WAF, no such horror as a pregnant military woman walking around in plain sight, egads!! It also gave the Air Force more reason to substantiate their crapola claim that women could not be considered heads of households. Well anyway, the idiots declared that pregnancy was a no-no for a woman in uniform and that was that. They assigned us to the "German economy."

The German residents of Wiesbaden had their houses commandeered by the Air Force and Army (whether they liked it or not) and were literally forced to accept Americans like John and I to live in their homes with them. We wound up with an elderly couple who were totally blissed out with us though, as we had plenty of decent coffee, cigarettes and other scarce delights they couldn't get in their own markets. Ach, those rich Americans. We moved into one of their bedrooms, the couple had the other one. One bath. Baddddd news for a newly pregnant person. But we did it.

But we had to make a decision. I couldn't have the baby and stay at their house. They had no refrigerator and things were pretty cramped, blah blah. So regretfully we decided I should go home. Well, by this time I was 7 months pregnant, well over the limit for flying in an Air Force plane (it had to be one with a registered nurse aboard), so I just lied and said I was 5 months preggie.

I had a belly sticking out to —there , but looked so angelic and innocent (?) I got away with it. Doubt anyone believed me, but I got on the flight, anyway. Hmmm, where are we now? Oh yeah, the kid was born in Milwaukee, minus her father who was still in Germany. He came home, next stop —his assignment in Chicago (We lived in Gary, Indiana and he commuted). Gonna skip over this interlude, nothing exciting about the two years in Gary, for sure. Ah, but the next assignment? Green Bay, Wisconsin —Home of the Championship G.B. Packers. Yay!!

And a really big YAY to the next assignment —Southern California. Ah, that was very nice. Very nice, indeed. The Capeheart (Air Force) housing we lived in, with our patio and the huge area (yard) for kids, plus wonderful weather... Did I mention, nice??? We even had a lemon tree close to our patio wall but never was able to get a ripe lemon 'cause the kids picked them way before their time and threw them at each other. Lovely.

December 7, 1941

2009-07-18T10:36:00.003-05:00

*this is an oldy-moldy post—just to get you started*

I know what I was doing the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941. Oh yes, I was pretty busy. I was "helping" my Mom and Dad clean up the "rec" room, they'd had a party Saturday night.

I remember the smell of cigarette butts in the ashtrays, and the sour odor of stale beer. Ah, to a 10 (11 in 3 weeks) year old, this was ambrosia. Movie stars smoked like chimneys in the films then, what did we know? Ignorance is bliss.

I wasn't really helping. I was sitting at the bar with a cocktail glass (it had a stem and looked groovy, like the movies) with white soda in it, and a straw as my cigarette. I was a hep-cat, boogying to the beat. (Only in my mind though---my folks had polka music playing on the radio).

I was imagining myself in a sparkly gown with shoulder pads wide as a Packer defensive end, and an impossibly high swoopy hairdo, with the back hair captured in an equally sparkly "snood". These were the movies I loved. I was Hedy Lamarr, Joan Crawford, I was so glamorous, so gorgeous!! I was also in a "nightclub", where women wore long gowns and men wore tuxedos, and there was always a throaty singer on stage. All the nightclubs seemed to have big bands just a-bumpin' and a -jivin'. Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Harry James, Glenn Miller, and uh, can't think of any more. Oh, how could I forget... Xavier Cugat, oh yeah!! Rhumba, 1-2-3-kick.

Looking back, I realize how shaken my parents were with the announcement about the attack on Pearl Harbor by President Roosevelt, but it didn't mean a heck of a lot to me. Our teacher explained all that stuff to us, but we just blithely tossed it aside and skipped home for lunch. Kids really had it made then, I think, and we didn't worry about much of anything. I am, truly, a very lucky American girl to have grown up in those days of innocence and patriotic unity.

2006-08-11T12:21:00.003-05:00

~~I always feel compelled to fill up space, I don't know why. So I thought I'd stick this old story on here today...... Grin and bear it, OK?

Summer 2000

I'm not sure if I ever mentioned my day at the Al Gore campaign rally? I probably did, but I can't remember if I told anyone or not, so bear with me, I'm old and I demand some respect for a failing memory, OK?

Anyway, two hospital volunteer buddies and I went to this rally during the 2000 campaign. I'm not going to describe the frenzied excitement and how a person can really get caught up in it. It's pretty much like going to a concert to see some rock star, I suppose. Only the person we came to see is a helluva lot more important than a rock star, for sure!!

It was held on a parklike square downtown, and the green space was really crowded. Sharpshooters were watching from several tall buildings surrounding the square.. Bush didn't get sharpshooters at rallies, but then he was not the Vice-president, was he? Hah. We were standing way too close to one of the two gigantic speakers that nearly blew us over with the music and sound. Oy! Damm, it was exciting.

No-one was allowed to carry in purses, tote bags, etc, etc. Since I wasn't driving, all I needed was a coin purse in my pocket and my house key. I pinned the key to my bra. Then, after my buddies got thru the detector, they waited while I was beeped a couple of times.......couldn't figure it out---what the heck?

The FBI guys looked exactly like the stereotypes on TV, black suits/white shirts/black sunglasses. Two stood with that practiced grim expression and hands crossed in front of their crotches (what's that about?) while I started sweating and being beeped. Finally!! I remembered the key in my bra. Two other FBI smurfs watched carefully (too carefully, if you ask me) while I fumbled in my shirt to unpin the key and give it to them. At last!! I passed thru the detector with my life....and my house key.....intact.

An extremely cheery campaign volunteer came by with a box of cold Cokes for the great unwashed public (that would be us and a few thousand others).........Oh boy, that cold soda never tasted SO fine. And that's my big story of the day.

2002-02-12T17:13:00.002-06:00

~~Pre-Woman PseudoMenses

For some unknown reason, I started thinking about my prepubescent days and how different the world was then. I really need to share this little slice of innocence, c. 1943. Two of my girlfriends had started their menstrual periods and were strutting around like they invented the ovulating egg. I was jealous, 13 and no sign of this passage into "womanhood".

My mother had told me about this awesome event and bought a "belt" and a package of Kotex for me so I would be prepared for the momentous day. Well, I grew impatient. One day I took my new belt and a Kotex pad, spritzed a load of ketchup on the pad, put the gear on and went to my friend's house..........where I loudly proclaimed that I too, was now a woman.

I then showed them the evidence by pulling down my virginal white cotton panties and displaying "proof". I wore that mess for a couple of hours but even I couldn't take it anymore and the Big Revelation was dumped into the garbage.