Author: NouveauSoileau

Optimistic mother, devoted lover, careful writer

So much spirit, it’s scary

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There’s something ridiculous, and most probably truly scary, about someone who just spent 20 minutes taking 97 pictures of herself in the hopes of getting a decent shot of my Halloween jewelry.

It’s scary because frankly, it’s not all that fantastic. Much more interesting is my son’s Halloween costume, which he donned in the gray dawn of morning in order to wear it to Preschool.

Darling, no? As are Mrs. Fleenor and Mrs. Gabbard, there on the right, who confided she was “too embarrassed” to pick up her morning Diet Coke at McDonald’s this morning. Can you believe that?

This year Trassie appears as Luigi, of Mario Brothers fame, which every kid I know insists upon calling Mario Bros. Like, he’s my bro, plural of. Like that. Maybe that’s how the games are marketed; I don’t know — but it’s one of those things that make me cranky if I haven’t gotten enough coffee or I don’t have more important things to bother me.

Honestly, Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays. I mean, really: death and dismemberment, who is really for that? Plus the decorations don’t even fit the definition. Don’t look to me as someone who wants rig out her house so that it looks like crap.

Oh, I can be talked into things. One year I purchased some of that spiderweb junk and draped it all over the bushes so that it appeared a massive arachnid had set up camp in my hollies. This theoretical spider also caught all manner of dried, curled leaves; windblown Kroger plastic grocery bags; and the occasional small rodent.

No, the rodent is a lie; he was discovered beneath the recycling container decomposing. Thankfully he’d mostly gone back to earth because there really wasn’t any stench, just bones — which has perplexed me ever since because I more or less faithfully take out the recycling every week. So how did he die and lay decomposing and stinking for weeks? Maybe it was because I rolled the cans to the curb after dark and never saw the horrid thing. Bleck-o. Now I’m viewing trash disposal in a whole new light. Thank heaven I’ve got two slaves, I mean adolescents, to take over most of the KP duty.

See what thinking about Halloween has done? Set me to ruminating on dead animals and stinking garbage. Oh what a fun season. And let’s don’t forget about the whole reason for the season: evil spirits loose in the world. It falls the night before a Holy Day in the Church calendar, All Saint’s Day. Halloween, or All Hallow’s Eve harkens back to a pagan holiday that the Christian observence was meant to counteract. Something about going all out for a holiday celebrating the antithesis of what I believe just chafes a wee bit.

But that’s not to say I am AGAINST HALLOWEEN or that IT’S THE WORK OF THE DEVIL. I mean, look at me, I’m wearing skulls.

Halloween is full of happy memories of my childhood — trying to cover then entire residential area of Carrollton in the time allotted for trick-or-treating was always the major goal of the night’s festivities. On a good night’s haul, we went home to change bags more than once. Then there’s the sweet memory of the Halloween party in the school basement at church, where the perfunctory bowl-of-spaghetti-as-guts were the main attraction of the “haunted house.” I’ll never forget the time I got water up my nose bobbing for apples and thought I was going to die, right there in the sight of the Blessed Virgin smiling down upon the satanic activities. Good times, good times.

Last year I purchased a small graveyard from a neighbor who was moving out, peopled it with a ghoul coming out of the ground and threw in some pumpkins to up the cheer factor a bit.

Trassie, who as you can see, last year dressed as Spiderman, thought it was pretty fun. But after a while the ghoul, who has taken up residence in the garage since he concluded his duties last year, started to bother him and he didn’t care to see his ghastly face every time we got out of the car. Ditto for the hideous death head, or something that Tras nabbed at the Wal-marts a couple weeks ago, expressly at the behest of Mssr. Trasimond, who wanted a “scary thing” to art the house up a little bit. Ever since it’s been home, he’s begged Tras to get rid of it. I can’t say I disagree; Mr. Death Head has spent the week facing the wall on top of the refrigerator, apparently his own personal version of hell.

So every once it a while, it’s fun to get in the spirit of Halloween. Death and decomposition, whee! I’m content to throw some skulls around my neck, rig up my children as Nintendo characters, Illegal Aliens (it’s true; Christopher is sporting the quasi-racist little green man-with-a-green card mask) and even a Powder Puff Girl.

Just as long as no real ghouls come knocking and turn me into a simpering idiot, prone to scampering through the house like the demons of hell are after me, like I did one time when Tras came back from a shopping expedition unexpectedly.

It prompted him to ask if I found this “tippie-toe run” an effective deterrent to burglers, home invaders or visitors from the spirit world.

Well you never know. It might.

Enjoy the season, celebrate death and remember when you go to Mass early Sunday morning to thank God he spared you a visit from some miscellaneous demon from hell the previous night.

From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!

Amen!

Shoe thing

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A couple years ago I was visiting my husband’s family in North Carolina. At some point the big box of photos came out and we spent several pleasant hours poring over the old snapshots, and not a few slides, with much calling back and forth, “Is this Diana or Rachel?” “Where was this taken?” “Where was I when you all were here?”

It was entertaining for me because obviously I wasn’t anywhere near wherever ‘there’ was at the time. After a while we dug down into the good part: photos from Tras’s parents early years together, and even some of their own childhood photos.

As we looked there was one picture that I was completely struck by. As though it was just yesterday, I remember seeing it: every detail is seared into my brain.

OK, that’s a lie. Not every detail is seared. One detail is, shall we say, somewhat indelibly marked. And that is the shoes my lovely mother-in-law wore the night she was crowned Homecoming Queen in Vivian, Louisiana.

Mercy, I wish I had that photo to show you. Tras’s dad might have it scanned, but seeing as how he lives way up in God’s Country in the North Carolina mountains with no Internet access, I doubt he could email it to me anyway.

But there she was, circa 1947, on the arm of some football player carrying a bouquet of flowers, beaming, and sporting these killer peep-toe ankle strap power wedges.

“Look at her shoes!” I exclaimed, while everyone else was saying, “Aw, look how pretty Mom is!”

“Oh she is! She is!” I hastened to add, babbling something about her cute hair style and smart little jacket dress.

But you know my eyes wandered. Back to the shoes. Those darling vintage cuties that my very own mother-in-law got to wear when they were au courant, the very latest thing!

The picture-looking crowd moved on, but I kept flipping back to the Homecoming Queen, occasionally squeaking out, “man, those are cute shoes!” when finally Tras just looks at me and says, “Do you see anything BUT shoes??”

Dear God, I’ve been caught. Found out. Guilty as charged.

I place the blame squarely at the feet, if you will, of Dorothy. We women of a certain age, Boomers and post-Boomers, grew up watching, with religious-like fervor, the annual television airing of The Wizard of Oz. Plans that had been made were postponed. Schedules were completely rearranged. One HAD to be home watching the night that Dorothy was sucked up into the sky, out of black-and-white Kansas and into the glorious Land of Oz in living color — where a miracle occurred. No, the miracle wasn’t that she survived a cyclone ride. No, it wasn’t that she killed some witch and some shifty little people proclaimed her God Emperess of Dune.

No, the miracle was that she no longer had to trudge through life in those hideous, dusty, crappy-looking, rundown farm girl boot clodhopper things. She got new shoes!

And thus, an obsession was born.

I cannot believe that I’m the only person that can more or less enumerate most of the shoes I’ve ever owned in my life. But then again, maybe I am. I still think about a pair navy pumps I had in college, and a coral pair of huaraches I wore with everything, c. 1986. No, these aren’t that pair. Mine had darling little laces across the front which sounds weird, but believe me they were adorable.

I found myself telling a friend the other day about a photo taken of my cousins and me around 1975. I was around 12 or 13 and all my cousins were somewhere in the neighborhood of infant.

My dad was the eldest of nine, and there was quite an age gap that showed up around aunt #6. I’ve even got one aunt that’s five years younger than I am.

But the point is, many of these aunts were beginning their families when I was hitting adolescence, and the amusing photo featured me just plain covered up in kids. But, as I told Missy, I was wearing this great pair of stacked-heel loafers with an enormous block heel that made me feel exceedingly groovy, especially when worn with genuine pantyhose and a minidress.

And that’s what happened, too: I spent about half the conversation describing the shoes I had on when I was 12 and the other half detailing my dad’s family history.

These days I have found the Internet is quite adept at feeding my hunger for cute cheap (and by cheap I mean inexpensive not cheapo!) shoes. I’ve found tons of gorgeous sandals, wedges, clogs, pumps, sport shoes and even CROCS, God help me, for as much as 90% off retail.

I’ve got a horrifying weakness for cowboy boots … oh, hell let’s just be honest: boots in general. Gladiator sandals make me weak in the knees. Stiletto heels inspire the required naughtiness while ensuring that indeed, my legs look long.

I’m sure greater minds than mine have analyzed the female obsession with shoes, because if the Internet has taught us anything, it is that We Are Not Alone. My friends and family are well aware of my inclination to seek out all that is Shoe in any situation. Coworkers wander in to see what style UPS has brought.

Never mind that I’ve got clogs on my screen saver. Please ignore the photo of my Old Gringo boots that still graces my bulletin board. I just wish I could find a good vintage reproduction of the fabu strappy sandals that were once worn by a post-war Homecoming Queen.

On a roll

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Yesterday I burdened the world wide web with an abundance of my photos from New York last summer. I’ve got bunches more, many of which send me into uncontrollable giggles every time I look at them which, believe me, is not a pretty sight.

So let’s just take a look at one today.

And here is a quiz for you: Name all the reasons why I love this photo. There are at least five.

Have a great weekend.

Love,

Ellen

Come along for the ride

Published on by NouveauSoileau5 Comments

I really enjoy taking pictures, and for the last couple years, I’ve kept a point-and-shoot Canon in my purse at all times. I was completely convinced by those commercials a while back, when Steven Tyler walks into a restaurant and a whole table full of women go completely to pieces trying to get a photo of him. “This will never happen to me,” I vowed — though since it’s rare that I run into celebrities, this danger is frankly pretty low.

So I took a lot of pictures when I visited New York this summer. I’ve always got an eye open for the quirky, so in addition to a good many touristy shots, I also came away with a mini-mother lode of Pictures of New York by a Visiting Yokel.

For example, subway tile.

To me this is just beautiful; an unexpected jewel in the urban landscape.

There’s a lot of this too.

We saw this as we walked along the street to the East Village on the Sunday morning of our visit. The tiny restaurant, called Joe Doe’s, was perfectly interesting and served duck eggs, which I did not eat. Not because I’m not adventurous — Lord knows I am — but I simply forgot to order them. Now I can’t say, “I went to New York and ate duck eggs!” the opportunity for which I’m sure I would have come up in conversation at least once sometime before Christmas.

This was sitting in front of the restaurant:

Naturally I had to sit on it, looking at it did worn from countless generations of bottoms. Most likely it was generations of chopping carrots since it’s apparently a butcher block table. But still. It looked sitonable.

(As an aside, “sitonable” is what certain friends of mine, and one husband, likes to call an Ellenism. It gives them great amusement that I earn a living as a writer, yet I’m always making up words. Now, I consider it an attribute and a testament to my creativity that I’ve got this inclination. Buttheads that they are, though, they’re more amused that a purported writer has “difficulty” adequately utilizing the vast array of words available in the English language, and feels it necessary to improvise. Well, it’ll come as no surprise to this contingent — Steve, Todd and Tras I’m looking at you — that this attitude gets a big raspberry from me.)

Anyway, back to the New York Tour. We stayed in Chinatown, and my rube-reaction here was the most pronounced. Somehow, I didn’t envision it quite so full of, you know, CHINESE PEOPLE.

What did I think I was going to find in Chinatown, you might reasonably ask? Well, I certainly expected some Chinese people, and some speaking of various Chinese languages. But here’s the rube in me talking: I didn’t completely understand that Chinatown is populated by people from various Chinese lands who are continuing to live more or less as though they’re still in China. It’s fascinating, intimidating, perplexing, and frankly unusual for someone who is still getting used to hearing Spanish spoken by the growing number of Hispanic immigrants to Kentucky. In New York, hearing English starts to become the unusual thing. It’s quite marvelous.

Our hotel was in the Bowery, an area adjoining Chinatown and Little Italy that was, until just a few years ago, Slum Central. Not anymore. This hotel was an unexpected treat. A little smaller than the plump, cornfed midwestern hotel rooms I was used to but perfectly wonderful for a week-long stay in the city.

We also shared it with half of Europe. I’m not kidding. I think we were the only American citizens staying at the place. Every morning at breakfast we were knee-deep in Italians, Germans, Swedes, Belgians, Spaniards and I don’t know what else, since I didn’t march up to everybody at eight in the morning and demand their nationality.

I mean, I wanted to, but I didn’t.

Food was a big part of our stay, especially when Cara the Chef arrived. A cooking school graduate and buyer for an organic restaurant in Washington, D.C., Cara is totally consumed by food. She does consume it, too; some of it I consider hideously inedible, such as the tripe, yes TRIPE she ordered one night. Eating the “whole animal” is big in the circles in which she moves and really, I don’t disagree with most of her ideas.  But you know, guts, ick.

No, the carb-laden wonders of Little Italy are more my speed. Oh the pasta I consumed, along with this, my last night there — salmon with a little rosemary tree on top.

And this was fun — a shop that sold rice pudding in precisely the same Baskin-Robbins manner most ice cream parlours dish out the calories.

I also indulged my weakness for ice coffee at least once. It’s strange, but I only seem to remember I like it about once every two or three years, and then I can’t get enough of it. I’ve been making it at home ever since and it goes a long way toward explaining my high energy levels lately.

Of course I took far more photos than I can wedge in here, and maybe if you’re lucky (ha!) I’ll throw in a wacky one every now and then just to amuse myself. I’ve got loads of strange detail shots of artwork we saw at the Metropolitan, which unfortunately for me are on another computer and I’m too lazy to go fetch it and boot it up right now.

But here are a couple more, just for fun, that I shot mostly for Tras because our Prius, when I went to New York, had only been in our possession for a few short weeks.

I didn’t even take a taxi, not even one, while I was in New York, but as you can see, they’ve gone somewhat green there in the Big Apple, big surprise to me.

Sure New York was crowded and noisy, big and bewildering, and very visually interesting. But it’s also one of the more pictoriffical places I’ve ever been, specializing in the most blog-postabillimous photos I’ve ever pixallagated.