Posts Tagged ‘Wordless Wednesday’

Photo by MZ

Sometimes we need to take a look at the signs we see every day. Are we missing the message?

Photo by MZ

Take your pick: Thumper or Rocky.
I came upon this while thumbing through a cookbook at my mother’s house. The brittle, crumbling volume held together by rubber bands and tape was a wedding gift.
She was married in 1963.
Indeed, judging by the recipes for Swedish meatballs, Waldorf salad and beef Stroganoff and the overuse of gelatin and aspic, it was pre-Womens’ Lib. The suggestion seemed to be that women spent their days hosting card parties, luncheons and preparing the family dinner.

Even more entertaining than the recipes are the illustrations. The book opens with the picture of a trim bride with a tidy flipped bob wearing a starched apron tied at her narrow waist. Her wan smile is probably the result of a mixture of Valium and a bridge club cocktail. She balances a serving platter and gazes into the distance somewhere off camera. Is she watching the frolicking squirrels in the back yard, deciding how best to trap them? Is she wondering if little Susie’s pet rabbit would be missed? Is she debating if potato or rice best accompanies breaded rodent meat? Does she need to add a Jello-O mold to the menu or would pudding suffice for dessert?

I asked my mother if she’d ever cooked squirrel for us and then lied and said it was chicken.
She gave me one of those looks. It’s the look I always get when I ask probing questions about the past.
Speaking of recipes, check out these bloggers, who do a much better job making fun of old recipes and advertising images from bygone eras. They have quite the collection.

Photo by MZ

Photo by MZ

My Girl from the East is high energy. This is an understatement. She needs her daily exercise. When she can’t get it in traditional ways outdoors such as when the weather is too cold or too wet, she will improvise. She likes to run back and forth and jump around in our bedroom. It drives me nuts. It also reminds me how simple it is sometimes to find solutions to challenges.

While strolling through a street fair in my town, I came upon this display in front of one of those eclectic shops that sells vintage toys and odd collectibles. Two nearly naked plastic baby dolls posed inside a toy convertible sedan, engaged in all forms of self-gratification and self-destruction. Yet, through the haze of smoke and blur of booze, their eyes still twinkled, their cheeks blushed rosy and their shame was nowhere to be found.

We all should be so lucky.

Kitten-becoming-a-cat has found a way to calm himself. It lasts maybe five minutes. It’s a start.

You cannot have enough, apparently.

This is a multiple choice quiz:

Why all the vegetarian hate?

A. This is actually a very tiny plate.

B. There was a broccoli special too good to pass on at the nearby Farmer’s Market.

C. The chef thought the world needed more bloating and intestinal gas.

D. I checked the vegetarian meal option on my response card.

– Does this mirror make my butt look big?