Such a Suggestible Girl

Sometimes it really worries me that the things I can most easily remember, can get to most quickly in the old brain bucket, are commercials.

Especially those commercials from the formative years.

I can whip out a jingle or a tagline from commercials dating way back, and repeat ’em like Rainman in a phone booth (yikes, no more phone booths!).

What makes these commercials so sticky in the brain? I don’t know, but obviously this is the intended effect, eh?

So here in this Christmas season, I’ve been thinking about all of those old Ronco commercials. No, not the new Ron Popeil ads. Those are lame.

The old Ronco ads. Let’s talk 1970’s.

Remember when Ronco ads used to repeat, ad nauseum, at every commercial break?

Here’s a few I was able to find on the web:

Smokeless Ashtray

Boogie Nights Record Album (Click to play)

Ice Cream Machine(Click to play)

Look at this!! The early Bedazzler!!

Rhinestone and stud setter(Click to play)

Oh yes. Good times.

There are a few of my faves I wasn’t able to find. For example, the Egg Scrambler. A funny little machine that with a pinprick to the egg and the revs of a small motor would scramble it up inside the shell.

Or the Record Vacuum. I found a couple of those ads, but not the one I remember. In the one I recall, they ran the vinyl through the vacuum then tossed a handful of confetti at it (to prove the static was gone, I think?).

Ah yes.

But then, there will always be the gold standard of Ronco commercials.

Found on the web and brought to you.

“Hey good looking! I’ll be back to pick you up later!”

Enjoy

Mr. Microphone! (Click to play)

Tis the Season

Yesterday was a weird day.

Sure, mid-December always gets a little bit dicey when going out to run errands, but yesterday was especially odd.

I had a list of things to procure and not a lot of time, so over lunchtime I started at the top of the list. First stop, Home Depot.

Oh Home Depot, I know so many people love you, but I rarely visit your orangey evil warehouse.

I needed some tools (I have a fun Christmas project for The Good Man’s little sister in progress). Since Home Depot is the Wal-Mart of hardware stores, and I wanted to spend only a little green, I decided to give it a try.

Wow, did you know there is some sort of force field going on in Home Depot? As soon as I set foot in the lumber aisle, I became invisible! It was really instant and rather startling!

The U.S. military should look into this!

The secret to a true complete invisibility shield!

A girl in the lumber aisle.

I found that on the tools aisle, I was only partly invisible. If I said, “hey, I need help!” then they could sort of see me. It wasn’t just me either, there was another woman trying to get help regarding a door knob she was considering.

She got the attention of one male employee who condescendingly answered her question then walked away…though she wasn’t done asking questions.

Oh, I did discover that in the gardening section, by the small pink canvas pruning gloves? They could see me fine.

Something about hardware and lumber.

Weird, huh?

My next errand was to go to the post office. A gift ordered online had arrived. Yay!

Well, it being mid-December and at lunch, the post office was crazy busy. We use a very small postal annex with only two employees, so that makes things an even bigger holdup.

It was a very, very long line.

Well, you know, this is to be expected this time of year.

Except for the cranky old man and the horribly cranky old woman in line behind me.

The old man kept cranking about how he can’t believe the lines and he had been there and hour before and the line was this long so he went and had lunch to wait it out and wouldn’t you know it the line is still long and how can this be!

You get my drift.

Then the lady chimed in.

“There are just too many people these days. Too. Many. People. You know why it is so crowded don’t you? Because of all the immigrants. Obama keeps letting all of those immigrants in. They all want the free stuff so those damn people keep coming in and it is just too crowded!”

Uh. WHAT!?!?!?

Crazy old bat continued on that line of rant for a bit longer, then went back to complaining about the line. She said, “Why is there only one person working, where is that [racial epithet redacted] who works here?”

I was horrified. Absolutely stunned into a horrified shock.

Evidently the “spirit of the season” is discrimination, racism and anger.

Once I picked up my package, I got in my car and made my way out of the parking lot. As I waited to turn out into traffic, I had the audacity to wait for a group of six kids from the nearby high school walking by on lunch break.

Audacity because the evidently impatient man behind me felt I shouldn’t have paused. So he laid on the horn and yelled “GOOOO!”

Well, clearly the spirit of the season has infected me as well, because I unrolled my window and shouted “WHAT THE F–K IS YOUR PROBLEM!?!?”

Tis the season to be assholish, fa la la la, la la la la……

Look at me pass on the season’s cheer….

I think I’ll hunker down at the house for the remainder of the year. It seems better that way.

Now I know it is Christmas

Oh yes, for me the season has finally begun.

Is it the tree that I put up over the weekend and decorated?

Nope.

The presents I am crafting for family?

Nope.

Nailing down dates and times to spend blissful holiday time with family and friends?

Nope.

It is just one thing.

My first full hearing of the song:

Feliz Navidad by José Feliciano.

Oh yes. I love this song. I love José.

THIS is Christmas to me.

And as I rock out at my desk right at this very moment…

I remember with mirth my former boyfriend who *hated* this song.

Born in Encinada, he felt that José’s epic hit holiday song was insulting to his people.

Despite the fact that José is from Puerto Rico.

Whatever.

Because he hated it, I always turned it up a little louder and enjoyed it a bit more.

And now living in brighter days married to The Good Man who doesn’t try to censor my musical tastes, I can once again truly enjoy José’s hit unencumbered.

Here’s a video from 1973. Gotta love it!

Feliz Navidad!!

I happen to like New York

This winter, the holiday season, has me profoundly missing New York.

Well sure, you might say, New York in December is beautiful!

And I’m sure you are right.

Only, I’ve not been to New York at the holidays.

I’ve been only once. And it was in May.

So how, you might ask, would you miss a season in a town where you’ve spent the sum total of ten days visiting?

Well.

I’d say, first of all, that maybe normal logic doesn’t apply to me.

But I’d go further.

Last night The Good Man was out at dinner with a friend from out of town, so I was on my own. Chilled to the bone from the freezing rain I went to my local grocer to find something ready-made to warm up (and yes, surprisingly, I wore a jacket on this jaunt. But only because of the rain. Otherwise I would have left it at home.)

I prowled the aisles of ready-made food looking for something to satisfy.

And my eyes landed on pre-packed containers of…

(Oh, my heart flutters just thinking of it)

Matzoh Ball Soup.

Here! In California!

I almost cried, I really did.

I know that I was baptized and raised Catholic, but I honestly believe there is a part of me that is fully Jewish. I’ve thought this for a while. Mainly, because I love Jewish food. Matzoh ball soup is only the beginning.

There is my deep and abiding love for chicken liver. Egads. It’s borderline obsessive.

And let’s talk schmaltz! If someone says something is schmaltzy, I’ll run toward it with a cracker! Delicious!

If it weren’t for that whole keeping meat and dairy separate, I might be kosher. But I need cheddah on my beef tacos, so that ends that.

But back to New York. I *loved* every minute I spent in New York. Every street block has a diner and every diner serves their version of the delicious healing chicken broth over a lump of matzoh-y goodness. Twenty four hours a day.

And I got to the point, after bowl upon bowl of the stuff, that I know my preferences.

Some serve a huge matzoh, some small. I prefer smaller.

Some matzohs are dense, some are lighter and almost fluffy. I like the lighter.

Some broth is heavily salted and with an onion flavor. Some lean toward bland. I like the salty onion infused broth.

Some broth has almost no other veggies included. Some have quite a few. I like no veggies, preferring to enjoy the broth as is.

But you can see, you get all kinds of variations depending on who is doing the cooking.

So as I paid for the soup last night, anticipating the chickeny healing goodness, I knew intuitively that it wouldn’t be good. It wouldn’t be right.

But, it was matzoh ball soup, and that was something.

See, you can look for yourself. It was ok, but it wasn’t right.

What’s with all the carrots!?!?

The matzohs were too big and too dense. I didn’t eat all of them (there were FIVE in the container!), preferring to slurp at the broth instead.

So while it wasn’t perfect, it was close enough to make me content.

Close enough to make me miss New York. I long to be back there, and not just because of the soup. The soup just reminded me.

I remember very clearly, as soon as I set foot on the island, my heart began to beat in time with the rhythm of the city. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it.

As Cole Porter famously said (and in this version, Bobby Short sings), I happen to like New York.

Still Life, with Gummy (or…oh no, there she goes again…)

As mentioned, I have been taking a photography class, and by thinking about photography so much lately, it has me looking at the world in a whole new way.

I see the daily items in my life differently. I imagine the world through my lens.

I look at light a lot more carefully too. As in “whoa, that’s good light” or “man, too bright…I’d mute that, maybe dampen it with a dark cloth.”

So it’s been overcast here the past several days. Before this class, I might look at those cloudy gray skies and lament the winter.

But now, with a photographic eye, I’m like “yeah baby! Best light ever!”

The muted light of a cloudy day really makes the colors pop. Who knew the winter could be so photographically fun!

Also, now, since everything gets my look as though through a lens, I notice more. Little objects take on meaning. A weird weather beaten door is endlessly fascinating. I have to stop and look…sometimes to the dismay of people I am with…

So yesterday, on a routine trip to the post office, I saw a fascinating little tableau.

A careless, random smattering of gummy bears.

The stormy skies lit up the colors. They were bright like lit from inside.

All I had was my iPhone, but I had to stop and take a picture.

The photo isn’t great. It isn’t even artistically very interesting. And technically…oy! Focus is on the middle gummy with foreground blurry. Whoops. The angle isn’t interesting. Oh well.

So the photo doesn’t capture exactly what I saw, but helps me remember. Remember that overlooked things, weird leavings, and random items can, with the right light, be made beautiful and interesting and worth stopping to look.

My photography teacher is quoted as saying, “A photograph makes us care.”

So, really, no one cares about some spilled gummy bears.

But to me, I have to wonder, just what sort of gummy tragedy occurred here?