One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 60

(This photo of my dad, which I don't think anyone in our family has seen before, was taken when he was about 39 years old, right around the time he married my mom.)

#60– “Put a pillow at your back.”

This one of one hundred things my mom taught me a million times just joined the list yesterday. It’s funny how things trigger memories. I was rearranging the 6 pillows in my living room chair (my office), and the memory just popped up like a cartoon caption bubble! “Put a pillow at your back!”

There’s so much irony in this lesson that I hardly know where to begin. Let’s see, there’s the dearth of pillows in my childhood home, the fact that I am a “pillow pig,” the infectious aspects of pillow hogging - oh well, I’ll just dive in and see where this memory leads me.

I’ve heard that people who survived the Nazi concentration camps were prone to obesity later in life.  Pillows were few and far between in our house, and usually homemade and virtually flat. As a result, pillows are important to me -  a measure of opulence and a source of solace. When most little girls were dreaming of marrying prince charming, I dreamed of owning as many pillows as I wanted –pillows in every room of every size, shape and color, pillows to burn. I remember when the zillion pillows on your bed trend first surfaced. I would stare dreamy-eyed at the pictures in Better Homes and Gardens.

I have lots of pillows, shop rather obsessively for them (FYI, Garden Ridge and Tuesday Morning are the best sources), and keep Goodwill well stocked in cast-offs. Let's see, I have 12 pillows in my living room, 6 in the Cowboy Room (masculine bedroom), and12 in the Frou-Frou room (feminine bedroom). My hubby put his foot down on too many pillows in the master bedroom and the lounge (where he spends his leisure time). Also, no pillows in the bathrooms or kitchen. He can be so unreasonable sometimes! Click on Read More Below...

Life by Keith Richards

Keith Richards' begins his autobiography, Life, with “Believe it or not, I haven’t forgotten any of it.” then goes on for 576 pages (23 hrs - audio version) to prove it.

When in Life, Richards talked about the process of writing the Rolling Stones music, I forgot that he was a horrendous heroin addict. I even forgot that Johnny Depp was reading the audio version (I listened to it on my iPod), and I felt myself falling into the book, comfortably. I’ve seen this same phenomenon in other musicians’ biographies (e.g., Jimi Hendricks and Eric Clapton). They’re adept, exacting and soulful about their music, but complete morons when it comes to managing their lives and relationships. But even the horror of Richards' life was irrationally compelling. I found myself strangely interested in his vivid, albeit macabre, descriptions of his drug use. I know, just stay with me here.

If you’ve any interest in the Rolling Stones, this is an admittedly one-sided yet seemingly thorough and absolutely entertaining chronicle. And you might enjoy Life if you’re simply interested in music history or trivia. For example, the Rolling Stones never wanted to be a rock and roll band; they wanted to play Chicago blues. Or that Veronica Bennett of the 60s hit girl group the Ronettes (Be My Baby) was a major fox and Keith's first serious crush, but she married famous music producer Phil Spector who was apparently a complete a-hole. Or that the Beatles and the Rolling Stones would exchange music when one or the other (usually the Stones) got writer’s block. I loved Richards' story about he and Mick Jagger cutting out newspaper and magazine headlines, tossing them on the floor, and then grabbing them randomly for song lyrics. Click on Read More Below…

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 59

#59– “Make sure you have plenty of beds for family.”

 (Happy 10th Birthday Sweet Granddaughter Syd)

I’m not sure why, but it galls me when I have to admit that I’ve adopted one of my mother’s particularly weird idiosyncrasies.  Do you ever wonder why nasty words like gall, which is a “tumor-like growth of burrowing insect larvae,” and “the greenish, profoundly bitter-tasting fluid in bile ducts,” aren’t profanity? I didn’t think so, but back to beds and mom’s idiosyncrasies.

My mom’s genetic makeup evidently included a “not enough beds” code. Perhaps it evolved from generations of bed sharing by too many kids. I don’t know, but whatever the reason, we had beds all over our house. They were in the bedroom like normal homes, but each of our bedrooms contained at least two full-sized beds. There were also beds on the porch, beds in the living room, and even beds on the front yard. All predicated on mom’s eternal hope that all her chicks (kids) would come home with family in tow.

Let’s see, if everyone was home at the same time, which would be mom’s five kids, their five husbands/wives (total, not each), and their fourteen kids (total, not each) – that would be 24 people (not counting mom). If everyone slept two to a bed, that’s 12 beds. So mom’s logic wasn’t really that off I guess. However, (1) No doubt to mom’s dismay, I don’t think all 24 of us were ever in mom’s house at one time, and (2) That’s probably a good thing, as parricide (killing a close relative – my new word) would have undoubtedly occurred.

I should admit that the beds on the porch and front yard were mostly about the heat of summer and no air conditioning. Central air wasn’t common in our neck of the woods, and the “swamp cooler” wasn’t turned on unless it was so hot the pavement was still liquid at midnight. Click on Read More Below...

Feliz Navidad

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