Photo Friday: The Bride Wore Glasses Edition

Good morning!

So, as we've said, bridal fever is in the air. I'm taking off this morning to visit Texas for the first (and hopefully not last!) time, in honor of Caroline's wedding (her first marriage, and definitely her last, haha). My sister Sus and her fiancé are working on making my Save the Date dream a reality by Monday, so next week, Nashville mailboxes, get ready to see if you've made the cut! :) There's just wedding on the mind lately.

In the meantime, I've been trawling flickr for, you guessed it, photos of brides and their bridal finery. This flickr stream has THE MOST ADORABLE BESPECTACLED BRIDE YOU HAVE  EVER SEEN. I know you were intrigued by the title on this post, so let's just get straight to the goods:

Wear those glasses loud and proud, mama!

This woman is a true inspiration to me. I have been down around the mouth all freakin' week because I'm having trouble with my contacts and have been bespectacled like whoah for the third consecutive week. Don't get me wrong! I love glasses. I just love glasses on other people who don't have a disfiguringly high value in the prescription column of their eye exam (-9.75 in glasses! -9.75! I know I've told you this again and again, but it's still disturbing to me!). Following the Parkerism Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses, you would think a pre-contact lense era style-hound like this 1956 bride would at least palm her cheaters until after her official wedding portrait was taken. But lo! She keeps her glasses on, and STILL manages to look like an absolute doll. Do you love the lace of the detail on the boatneck of her dress? The little crown anchoring her veil to poodle curls? I think she looks wonderful. I wish I had this confidence!

Here, the bride and her mother primp for the final countdown to the ceremony. See, she gets her nearsightedness honest, her mom wears glasses too! I love that the dresser in this photo looks exactly like one at my grandmother's house, except hers is stacked with sewing spools and newspapers and other detritus, while this lady has neatly arranged her cosmetics and powders, accessorized with an Orient-themed lamp, and even decked out the mirror with a festive bow for the occasion. Well done, ma'am!

This is such a sweet picture because of just how in media res it is. If I were assembling a wedding album, I would start with this candid photo, and then move along in semi-chronological order. See how elegant she looks in her dress in even an informal pose? That's the true test of whether or not your dress is up to snuff, I think...do you look good grabbing a last minute crab cake from the dinner buffet at your reception in it? Then you're good. There will be no bad pictures of you in the ones you get back from the photographer!

All her bridal party have these weird, but cute, little bird cage fascinator type things. I'm not sure what the design is, but I'm sure they were super cute in real life. See how voluminous even the bridesmaids dresses are! What I like about this photo are all the shoes on display, from the socked feet of the junior miss on the far left, to the mother-of-the-bride's strappy black pumps, to the bride's own tiny, ivory heels.

Pretty maids all in a row...are you not charmed by how this is probably the bride's house where everyone's gathered for a last photo after getting all gussied up for the main event? Whoever the photographer was for this wedding was exhaustive in taking photos of e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Example, here's the bride getting out of the car at the ceremony. I think it may be the father of the bride at the right...look how he's a) wearing a look of fatherly consternation and b) not helping with the dress!

The happy couple. It wasn't until I saw this photo of the two of them together that I realized how young they must be. The photos in the rest of the album, from before the wedding, seem to indicate that they were married directly out of high school (there's a similar photo of these kiddlings in this exact pose, but in prom clothes). Ah! Again! I am amazed and think it is totally sweet when people marry their high school sweethearts!

The embraaaaace. ((smoochies, smoochies noises))

Don't they look just like lillies floating along this dance floor? I like that the younger girls are dancing with each other, and that there's a little boy breaking free across the dance floor like "Now's my big chance!", not knowing he would be caught in the photographer's lens and seen by me, a total stranger, almost sixty years later.

Congrats, wedded couple! See the girl's "not impressed" face at the left and her gorgeous dress. I also love all the little doll cakes on the table. I need to make some of those creepy things for my reception, I love the idea!

How did you like our glasses wearing bride this Friday? There are to-o-o-ons more pictures, all equally winning, up on that user's flickr account....go look! What vintage reception or ceremony ideas do you think still hold water today? Do you remember any particularly "wow" receptions from your childhood or your parents' recollections that were homemade and fun? Advice and comments are always welcome! :)

That's all for this week, folks! I'll have news to bring back (and hopefully many photos!) of the great state of Texas when I get back. Wish me luck!

Lee Riders (1946-1950)

Good morning!

Well, the scoop today is that it's Staff Appreciation Week's "dress down day" here at the library, and I am uncharacteristically clad in a pair of blue jeans and one of my favorite t-shirts, a concert souvenir from a 1982 Elton John show I obviously did not attend (but someone having a yard sale about five years ago did! And I thank them!). Why is this headline news? I am the person most likely to wear jeans in this building! "For-never in blue jeans", they should call me. It's become easier because the dress code on the reference floor actually specifically outlaws blue jeans on the job, but even in my civilian life, I'd usually have to be doing work up in the attic or going to play kickball or picking up sticks in the yard to really think " Ah, yes, jeans today". A sartorial anomaly in this, our twenty-first century! But something about the lack of casualness in my daily dress makes me stand up a little taller, and feel a little more put together. Do you vintage-wearing or dress-loving girls and gals out there feel the same?

Thinking about denim in general, I went back to my beloved Google Books and nosed around Life magazine from the forties' for examples of blue jeaned baby queens. What I found was Lee Riders! While I remember this brand primarily being paired with weird, southwestern patterned cowboy shirts on the backs of nineties' country singers on CMT, the line actually has an illustrious blue collar past as the "jeans that built America". Take a look:

That's right you don't wear the pants, lady! It's 1946, and you're no doubt wearing shoes and stockings and a day dress I would kill a person for, so why would you want to wear jeans! I'd rather buy the pants than wear 'em, too! Look at the blonde homemaker's grey, scallop collared dress and little gold cuff. See how happy 1940's Ronald Reagan is to receive his Lee overalls. Additionally, wouldn't it be funny to wait for the new model Lee's the same way you would anticipate Ford's new line of coupes for the next calendar year?

I'm ashamed of myself for having cropped this picture so that you can't see that the little boy is wearing this HIGH cuban heels on his cowboy boots, but just sit and be satisfied with that quirky mental image for a moment. One of the advertising angles of these Lee ads is having little boys wear "the same pants the grown up guys do!" And what do the grown up guys do when they wear their denim? They work! From left to right, I see an architect, a farmer, an airplane mechanic, a cowboy, a gas station attendant, and a machinist. Do you see how clean and sharp all these guys look in their jeans? There's no distressed, oversized, acid washed, craziness going on here. Just clean, pressed denim for working in. And I love that! 

This is cut from an ad that goes on to tout Lee brand jeans as bringing western romance eastward (for you aspiring greenhorns who haven't quite made the passage into the frontier yet, obviously). My issue with this ad is not the stack of four inch ribeyes the woman is inspecting....it's the guy holding the plattter's jeans. What in the world! WHAT IN THE WORLD! You're supposed to look like Gary Cooper in your Lee Riders, not Gumby! I am so weirded out by the proportion of this man's denim pants that I couldn't even properly enjoy his neckerchief (so movie cowboy of the thirties' and forties') and his wife's perfect permanent wave. Ah, well.

Here are some more illustration of guys on the go in Lee pants, and the different kinds of pants you may want to order:

The context of these ads, again, is everything. Look at the pretty girl getting a tank of Esso in the top right hand corner. How about that airplane mechanic on a cotton candy colored runway? I love that Lee Riders have an alias of lower case "cowboy pants" (in common vernacular, you needn't name us by name), and what in the heck kind of scooter are those teen denim wearers sitting on and standing next to, respectively?

Note that the denim comes in different colors! It might not be lipstick red or bright yellow, but that olive drab is kind of a fun change up from the indigo wash of the overalls and the cobalt blue of the all-in-one. The man on the right reminds me of how my dad would describe his grandfather, a career truck driver, as always dressed in one of two pairs of overalls in his retirement. He had his "work overalls", which were worn with a work shirt and good for working on the tractor or maintaining the small farm he lived on, and he had his "good overalls", which were starched stiff, darkest blue Liberty overalls he would wear with a  nice shirt and hat. The class of it! You know? I love that.

We're all marching for Lee! Isn't this advertisement beautiful? I always wonder about the original paintings that show up on Antiques Roadshow every once and awhile of these glowing, gorgeous 1940's illustrations that appear in commercial advertising. Do you know what I mean? The original oil painting of this or whatever kind of painting must have been even more glowing and eye catching in its original.

Well, that's about it for today. How are you fixed on the blue jeans thing? With long legs and a short torso, I feel like I look weird in high waisted, vintage style jeans, but gosh I wish I could wear them for the occasional "Carole Lombard on the weekend" look. Do you remember your parents or grandparents having specific for or against arguments for the pervasive denim devil?

I'll see you guys tomorrow for Photo Friday! Til then.

Both of Us (Ryan O'Neal, 2012)

Good morning!

And oh, Lord, Lord, do I have a doozy of a book recommendation for all you viewers out there in Blogland today.

Wait! Let me explain!

Preface: Now, usually, I don't drink to quite the excess I ended up drinking on Saturday night, but some time early, early Sunday morning, I woke up in one of those drunken torments that is COMPLETE AND UTTER INSOMNIA.I was sleepless! Sleepless as I have ever been! Have you ever done that? You wake up, hours after having fallen asleep in a state of extreme inebriation, and realize you have never been so completely awake in your life? Not even hungover, just awake in some cave bat like nocturnal state. Well, there I was, and Matthew just sleeping like a baby with his sweet little cherubic face turned up to me, looking like an advertisement for Serta and restful repose. I sock-footed it out of bed, drank a glass of water, drank another glass of water, popped some Advil, and hoped that sleep would take merciful hold of me. No dice. So I went for my iPod, and the only book-on-audio I hadn't listened to yet was Both of Us: My Life with Farrah, by Ryan O'Neal.

source

Ryan O'Neal, in case the name doesn't immediately ring a bell, was a moderately successful leading man in the sixties' and seventies'. I was familiar with him from his work with director Peter Bogdanovich, which includes What's Up, Doc?, Nickelodeon, and the most perfect, perfect, perfect Depression-era movie not actually made in the Depression, Paper Moon. He was in Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. He's handsome in a high school basketball star from the time period kind of way...all reddish blonde hair and boyishly toothy grins, and there's something about his voice and look that reminds me of George Segal or early Robert Redford. He initially shot to fame in the tv version of Peyton Place (with gorgeous Mia Farrow, both before and after her groundbreaking Vidal Sassoon hair cut) and 1970's six-hankie-weeper Love Story (with gorgeous Ali MacGraw). (Confession: I HATED that movie the one time I saw it. Loved the clothes, hated the idea of it. "Love means never having to say you're sorry" is one of the dumbest, most nonsensical things I've ever heard in my life...I hate to think of people using that in earnest, EVER, when they honest to God should just accept the person's apology and move on! But I digress. Great clothes.)

See what I'm saying about the clothes? You could wear this NOW. Right now. And not look a jot out of place. source

I'd read daughter Tatum O'Neal's biography, A Paper Life, a few years back when it came out, so I had a pretty good idea that things between the precocious, troubled actress and her father were not all peachy keen. Then I remembered that not that long ago, she'd done an interview where she said their fences were mended and she'd actually given him the Oscar she'd won for the movie they made together. Then I read that the book was actually supposed to be about his relationship with Farrah Fawcett, so maybe it would be new material altogether from the book I'd already finished.

source

Folks, this book is crazy. CRAZY. Imagine poor me tangled up in the bedclothes, listening almost against my will to this at-times searingly self-confessional, at-times chatty, at-times strangely tangential narrative, read by O'Neal himself, about everything in the living world. Troubles with his first wife Joanna Moore, who in her youth looked like a prettier Joanne Woodward, and battled alcohol and barbiturate addiction. Troubles with Tatum, with whom fences are apparently UNMENDED, as he speaks on several accounts of how vicious and unstable and hurtful her behavior has been to him throughout her life. Though the book is subtitled "My Life With Farrah", there's none of the attention given in other memoirs of celebrity love affairs (God knows I've read them all) to the actual relationship. I mean, he talks about it, but mainly in "what I should have done", "what she should have done", "can you believe this is what happened" type ways. I don't know if it's the grieving process or what the deal is, but the end product is decidedly bizarre. I would actually tack the breakdown is 45% about Ryan O'Neal, alone; 35% Ryan O'Neal's reaction to things Tatum or his other children have done "to spite him"; and a paltry 20% actually about Farrah Fawcett.

What do I have to do to get hair like that? What?

I was like, maybe I'm crazy! Maybe I'm not listening to/reading this correctly due to the duress of being awake at 2 in the morning for no reason! But a Jezebel article, in reaction to a piece of FF that appeared in Vanity Fair after her death from cancer in 2009, bears out my theory here, running under the byline "Vanity Fair’s Farrah Profile Essentially A Ryan O’Neal Tell-All". Ok, good. I am correct.

For a preview of what this six-hour rollercoaster of an audiobook is like, here are some 2011 chat show appearances by Ryan O'Neal, both with and without daughter Tatum. Imagine the book is like this, but with no one else talking, just Ryan O'Neal. Ah, the oratorical fireworks.







Am I ghoulish to be as interested in this trainwreck of personal-lives-meeting-public-spotlight as I am? Have you seen any of these before? What's your take on the whole airing-private-disagreements-in-public? Wouldn't you rather just remember Ryan O'Neal as the adorable teen heartthrob from the photos at the top of this post? How do we break this to him?

If you've read any flat out crazy celebrity memoirs lately, you know I'm on the hunt for a new one, and there's a high bar to meet after this one!

That's all for today, I'll see you kids back here tomorrow. Til then!

Shop Til You Drop: David Bowie Is... Exhibition at the V & A Edition

Good morning, folks! 

Well, I now have a generally positive idea about the clothes I had planned to wear to Texas at the end of this week! Thank you all for your feedback. I think I'm going to take both and see where the night takes me, haha. To Cher, or not to Cher...that is the question. :)

Speaking of weddings, kind of, I was thinking of bridal registries, and the kinds of things people would put on them. Being a lifelong collector of kitchen-goods, I am the rare twenty-seven year old who actually has PLENTY of vintage hand painted china settings. I've got three punch bowls, all the cups; two fondue pots, all the forks. Chip and dips like a mo' up in this piece. It's like a Betty Draper version of the Little Mermaid's undersea collection. What I really need? MEMORABILIA FROM THIS V & A EXHIBITION OF DAVID BOWIE'S COSTUME CLOSET. Can I set up a registry that is 100% Bowie-related items?

One of the images that shows up again and again on the exhibition's website is this outtake from the Aladdin Sane cover shoot. It freaks me out EVERY. TIME. (source)`

Let's take a look at the things I would put on the registry. Oh my goodness, there are so many things here I love:

Ziggy Stardust Silk Scarf ($98.67 USD)

Full disclosure: Know now, know forever that David Bowie is the single most defining interest I had from age 13 to age 18. For those five years, I don't think anyone in America, the world, the universe was as interested in both Bowie's musical output and biographical information than yours truly. I know! Stiff competition! I would put my teenaged self against any Bowiephile, head to head, in a just fact-based trivia bowl and dollars to doughnuts I will come out on top with my "World's Greatest Bowie Fan" medal. No joke! I read every memoir, every book...every biography of people related to him. I would pore over ninety-nine cent copies of seventies' and eighties' back issues of Rolling Stone that the Great Escape used to keep in fragile heaps under their comic book holdings, wondering if he would make an appearance in the "notes" section at the front, or (hope beyond hope!) be featured on the cover with a new album that came out before I was born. Liner notes were devoured. Ryko reissues, in their electric green cd cases, were coveted. I spent a LOT of time in Bowie scholarship for someone who hasn't written a book about him. Even for people who have!

That said, WHAT DO I NOT LOVE ABOUT A ZIGGY STARDUST PATTERNED SILK SCARF? It's souvenirs like these that make me love exhibition related items manufactured specifically for the museum. Besides the avant garde styling and silhouettes, how about the gorgeous, GORGEOUS patterns Kansai Yamamoto would use in Bowie's stage costumes?

I'm With Bowie Greeting Card ($4.17 USD)

This (extremely moderately priced, compared with the four-figure prices of a lot of these items) badge reminds of this Heroes era RCA promotional material (which I very much need a poster of):

Look at that petulant, browless face! The allegiance I feel like pledging this man!

The Archer ($1,745.70 USD)

I'm obviously nowhere near actually getting this, but shoo-wee! How majestic does our Thin White Duke look here? Bowie's background in pantomime (yes, as in MIMES, pantomime, look at him pre-music career here) always made seeing live performance f his from the seventies' kind of fun...you spend a good chunk of time waiting for exactly when he was going to work his first artistic love into the stage show. If you've seen Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars: The Motion Picture, the DA Pennebaker made documentary of his last concert on that tour at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1973, there's a sequence done to the extended instrumental in "The Width of a Circle" (from The Man Who Sold the World album) that shows just how in control of his tiny, lithe body the man was in his heyday. Click the link there to check it out (also, look at thigh muscles on that man! I wish I looked half as good in a playsuit).

David Bowie Life Mask ($189.75 USD):

Don't tell anybody, but this is actually one of the things I would seriously consider shelling out for. How often does one have the chance to buys something this freakin' creepy of their idol? LIFE MASK, PEOPLE. LIFE MASK. Created as "a makeup tester for the 1983 The Hunger", here we have Bowie's face exactly as it appeared in that sun-kissed, second-youth period of his Let's Dance fame. I don't know where I would hang this in my house that it would absolutely terrify me every time I walked by it, but still. You could probably make a pretty good gag reel of me reacting to it in late night refrigerator raids or when I first got home from work and turned on the lights. "IT'S STILL THERE! Why did we buy it?! It's still THERE!" #doesnotchangethefactthatIwantone

Aladdin Sane Contact Sheet ($5,246.21 USD)

Like I said earlier, it's so interesting to look at "what could have been" in terms of the cover for Aladdin Sane. While Ziggy's arguably the more effective "dramatic persona" of Mr. Bowie, you'd be hard pressed to come up with a cooler album cover from his discography (though Low, Heroes, and Pin Ups are right at the heels of its graphic design success...wouldn't a grouping of the four of these look interesting in album frames...Diane, take a memo....).

David Bowie is Watching You T-Shirt ($37.85 USD)

I wish this was available in calmer colors. Who among us looks good in bright orange? However, the combination of the stare that will conquer the will of the world and the simple typographic statement of "IS" is in fact, killin' me. $40 for a t-shirt! And yet!

My only disappointment was in how MANY items were super-collectors-editions and financially out-of-reach. But as for all the items under $100, friends! Countrymen! Let's get on this! You can see all the rest of the exhibition swag here.

Last but not least, here's me and my favorite current piece of Bowie memorabilia. This is a poster that came with the seventies' reissue of Space Oddity ("Ground control to Major Tom..." is the title track off the album).  Though I have a back up (and probably three additional copies of that record...when you're locked into a major collecting habit, you are LOCKED IN), this copy is particularly sentimental because it used to hang on my closet door all through high school and college. That hair! That face! I love it to pieces.

In the fine tradition of poorly-lit iPhone photos of me from inside my own home, here's another gem.

So! Now it's your turn. Are you a rabid David Bowie fan? Did you like the new album? Which of these items would you bite the bullet and pay international shipping fees to have and to hold? Which Bowie phase appeals to you?

That's all for today! I'll see you guys back here tomorrow. Til then!

Weekend Finds

Good morning, folks!

And phew, what a gusty, blowsy, overcast and drowsy kind of Sunday it was yesterday! Friday I went to the flea market with my pappy, Saturday I feel like I ran errands all day (and bought out the 70's paperback occult books section of McKays...when you feel a hankering for good trash non-fic lit, you feel a hankering!), and Sunday, I met up with fellow bloggers, galore! Lauren from Lladybird, three traveling Chicago-based vintage collectin' connossieurs, and I all descended upon the last day of the flea and hit some Goodwills and Athens Family Restaurant. Laughs were had! LA Gear backpacks (well, singular, but still) were bought! Leilani, Sarah, and Kyla, it was great to meet you and I can't wait to see all the fabulous pictures you took on your respective blogs! Hope the results of the times I was behind the lens aren't too fuzzy. :)

There's a lasso like ribboned embellishment that the camera didn't pick up-- know that it's there.

I'll tell you, I came out pretty good on the first day of the flea! This one, endearingly gabby seller was at the fairgrounds in the Antiques Shed when I went with Rae and Travis a few months ago, and upon my buying a red, patio squaw dress from him for five dollars (And Travis found it after I'd walked by the booth twice. He and Rae are pro level item spotters), he said he would be back in the spring with a whole table full of old clothes. The seller, who may be distantly related to Andy Devine, he's a dead ringer for the old actor except in Liberty overalls and a long hair/beard thing going on, didn't tell any lies, either. When I got to the shed, there were PILES, AND PILES...two feet high!... of musty, dusty, pulled from someone's barn clothes. And clothes. AND CLOTHES. I saw sundresses with matching belts, and button-up-the-back blouses begging to be worn with skinny sixties' capris, in every color of Kool-Aid and impressionistic flowers spattered across them.

Oh là là, mesdames et messieurs! Voilà "le crinoline"!

Now, mind you, nothing was in particularly good shape. Owing to its provenance more likely stretching back to a long neglected attic or hay loft type thing, there were holes and stains and faded, ripped things as well as some real gems. I pulled out the taffeta, I-Love-Lucy era skirt you see above (with surprise built in red crinoline!), three black wiggle dresses, a white dress with lipstick-red polkadots and a lipstick-red swing coat with matching lining, and satin dress you see below:

This thing is in poor shape, but that material is actually to die for.

And talked the man down to forty bucks for the whole kit and kaboodle. Six dresses, a short coat, and a skirt. More than I usually spend, sure, but I was buying in bulk! And this satin dress....whooo, this satin dress, folks. If I can get it cleaned (it has a water spot on the shoulder, some staining, and is in desperate need of pressing), this may well be a wedding dress candidate. The skirt is SO. FULL. Imagine what it would look like with the white crinoline I've been hoarding just for the occasion! If I can just squeeze down another inch or so in the waist measurement (those wrinkles are actual signs of life at the rib cage, because I think I made one every time I drew breath...this thing is tight on me!)...it's super cute.

On the trip with the girls today, I found this Whiting Davis mesh bag from the fifties' ($8), and this pin with parrot/birds on it made of celluloid ($10...I always end up buying some extravagant pin at these things, but it's so hard to find delicate brooches in good shape!). Do you see the weird, box-like way the purse opens, rather than the traditional envelope clutch style thing? After this picture was taken, I went and shined the silver clasp of the purse with some polish and you can see yourself in it now!

I've also been hoarding wire racks when you weren't looking. This record rack ($2.99, Southern Thrift) looks completely innocuous without records in it, and totally awesome when they are present:

See what I mean? I always have stray records laying around out of pocket, so this will be a cool way to not have them stacked up behind the actual container in which they're kept (overflow, accounted for!). This magazine rack ($10) was at the second day of a Patterson sale two weekends ago, and my, isn't it yar:

This hairpin, sharp, sharp atomic stuff is something I'm seeing less and less of out in the wild, so I had to get it. Plus, it holds my Valley of the Dolls cover issue of LOOK and this copy of Blood and Glitter by Mick Rock with grace and aplomb. Tangent: have you SEEN the stuff they have at the V & A right now? Bowie, Bowie, BOWIE, Bowie, and more Bowie. I might do a whole post on it soon, it makes my heart literally swell with joy to see things the man himself actually stood onstage in. Imagine seeing them in person!

Speaking of costumes, one last thing...my friend Caroline is getting hitched in Texas, as I've repeatedly said...I have two dresses vying for supremacy for this very special social occasion! I might just wear one to the reception and the other to dinner wherever we go in Austin the next night. Or I might just never take either off, because I love them so much. Donelson and Rivergate Goodwills, respectively, you have been very good to me lately:

Choice A, The Cher Affair

I somehow managed to photograph a little dumpy in this, but I really don't think I've worn a more flattering dress in any of my nine lives. Tight but not uncomfortable in the top, perfectly cut at the straps, and flowing down to a full length hem. It's all yellow polyester gathered in a faux pearl encrusted diamond at the center. When will I otherwise have a glamorous enough occasion to wear this?

Choice B, the Blanche du Bois dress

I really should be flouncing around the quarter in New Orleans, accessorizing with some "inexpensive summer furs she's had a long time!" (my style icon...oh, my literary style icon), in this dress. It's a sixties' or seventies' piece by "Miss Elliette", but it looks so thirties and dreamy to me. Now that I've said it though, I might well accessorize the former with a stole...again, when do we get occasions to be as dressy as weddings! I am not wearing something simple, even if I have to wear it on the plane with me, by Godfrey.

Anyway, I have to get going....how do you like my weekend finds? Which dress do you think I should wear to the wedding? Did you find anything crazy out at the sales or the flea market this weekend? Let's talk, let's talk!

That's all for today...see you kids back here tomorrow. Til then!

Photo Friday: World's Cutest Mom Edition

Good morning! I'm feeling better! Folks, I might just make it to the weekend! :)

As I was sorting through photos on the world wide internet to hobble together a post of someone-else's-family photos for our Famous Photo Friday (TM, LTD, C, etc), I kept coming back to this user's flickr stream and how winning, how very winning a smile the mom, Marguerite, is boasting in almost every photo dedans. There weren't a lot of photos in the stream, but what there were-- adorable! JUST ADORABLE. Take a look:

We've talked about in weeks past the clothing in vernacular photography, and here's another perfect example. Look at the belt and the pockets and the little detail at the neckline on the dress on the left. Look at the high waist of the skirt, the leather belt, and the buttoned-to-the-neck, pert little plaid blouse on the woman to the right. There weren't many details to go by on the photos, but the woman on the right is identified as "Marguerite" (and her husband, Harold, is wearing a shirt in this photo identical to one I saw on Glenn Ford. IDENTICAL!). The gal on the left in the sundress is the mom I'm so coconuts about. Regard:

That big, slightly gap-toothed smile! That all American, fresh-scrubbed prettiness! The demure string of pearls at her neck! The perfect hair! I was really happy to see these two professional studio photographs. The one on the left is with her husband (newly minted at the time, I think, and handsome!), and the one on the right from slightly before. I think part of what makes me like her so much is how she reminds me of my mom (whose 1976 senior photo depicts her as a dead ringer for Ali MacGraw, but with better hair...I'll have to show you some time).

Anyone know what kind of car this is? Other than one I would like to own? We've talked about "sitting next to/near/in the car of the time", and this is great. See the mom's tiny, in-heels feet? See her skirt and the painted-flower on her silk blouse (kind of like the handkerchief dress I got at that vintage sale, except a rose instead of a hibiscus!). I love the terra-cotta shingled house in the background. Tropical!

Ah! The CUTENESS OF IT ALL! Here she is at her wedding. I want you take a good look at the wild woman who decided to wear not only that dress, those gloves, that clutch, but THAT HAT, MY STARS, THAT HAT. We're still in the planning stages of our wedding, but I really am thinking about having it at my parents house with this kind of elegant laid, but small scale buffet service of a table. No lobster, no fine filets of sole, just little snackettes and my friends and family all around. See the iced lemon bars and the cake-that-someone-made? How about the punch glasses stacked up to the right. I knew I'd been hoarding punch glasses for some reason! I love her sweet, sweet expression and the headpiece with its tiny flowers. Good work!

See how you can still see the crazy hat in the background...I wonder if it's an ex-girlfriend or a jealous sister trying to show out on the big day! Here, the bride's father is the winner of the Truman Capote lookalike contest (with those same dark, sparkling eyes as his daughter!) and I'm actually jealous of the mother of the groom's corsage and dress. See the brooch at the top of her collar? I'm doing that on whatever dress I wear next. How smart it looks!

Above, one of the few photos attached to a date...1946. I love the "smiling...not smiling" of this one, and the perfect red lipstick. I have a similarly small mouth yet big smile, which makes stoic face slash not stoic face photo combinations such a contrast.

There are more photos in another two albums in this set, and all ones in Album3 feature the youngest son (possibly the user?) who has, guess what, sole among his siblings, inherited those mischievous eyes from his grandfather and his mother! And is thus....you guessed it...world's cutest mom's cutest kid.

What do you think? Is this mom not a living doll? Do any of the photos remind you of outfits your own mothers and grandmothers have worn in family photos? Did you or any of your relatives have a wedding at home that was way more elegant than chintzy (I'm seriously looking for pointers!) ?

That's all for today...I have to bundle up so I can head out to the flea market in just a little bit. Wish me luck, and I'll see you back here next week for more fun, fun, fun.

PS: Don't forget to follow on Bloglovin, folks. I'm over there; you should be too! See ya soon.

Wack Thursday

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Good morning, readers!

Vintage 1940s Get Well Card with Girl, Retro Greeting Card with Colorful Vintage Graphics, Via Etsy.
And exactly what I look like today, with lighter hair!

I have called out of work ONCE AGAIN due to a lingering sinus/eye/everything else in the world wrong with me feeling this morning. Guh! When will I once again enjoy a regular, whackadoodle day as I have in the past? The extra sleep was nice, but now in the midst of my sniffles I'm cagily trying to think of things to do at home without leaving the house.

Things I've done so far, in my thirty minutes of wakefulness:

Ate a piece of Vegan Pizza from Whole Foods:

source

Do you guys know about this mess? Luckily, Matthew works a stone's throw from one of the only Whole Foods in town, and can follow my directive of "I NEED PIZZA" when asking me what I want for dinner without throwing our whole diet for a loop. I totally stuff my face as in days of yore, crunching down on roasted garlic/ sundried tomatoes/ spinach like a P-I-G, but with only half the guilt I used to have, since the cheese is soy-shreds and the toppings are good-for-you. Something about eating cold pizza for breakfast or lunch takes me right back to elementary school as a fat fourth grader with an Alfred Hitchcock young adult book from our super (awesomely) outdated school library propped open by my enormous Lunchmate lunch box, absently chowing down on congealed Domino's from the night before, carefully wrapped in tin foil, as I tried to solve the mystery of the disappearing mummy two steps ahead of the sixties' junior sleuths in the book. I've come a long way (or a short way, when you get down to it!), but gosh it's good to wallow in that carby-nostalgia from time to time. What leftovers do you like to eat in the next morning for breakfast?

Checked out EstateSales.net:

Halllllloooooo, couch. Pray tell, whither camest the stone edifice shirking in all chasteness at your anterior? 

I've got my priorities! While I hope the rest that I needed (and the pizza that I ate) goes a long way towards restoring my head to health,  gotta make sure my ducks are all in a row for tomorrow's either estate sale or flea market plunder. My dad's out of school this week and next for spring break slash something they call intersession (technically an "enrichment" week where kids can come to school and prep for tests, get tutored, etc...in actuality, just a second week of spring break), so he's game for once to hit the sales and or the fairgrounds of a Friday, alias the MOST PRODUCTIVE day to do so. I didn't see much in the way of estate sales to go to, except one possible diamond in the rough off 12th Avenue? But we'll see what tomorrow turns up!

Imported my Google Friend Connect Blogs to Blog Lovin:

Take your time, dude.

Everybody and their mom in the blogging community is freaking out about the imminent demise of Google Friend Connect and Google Reader. I guess I knew this day would come, but what about the blog addresses I don't have memorized? I'm going to (sadly) replace the box of readers on the right for a Bloglovin badge-- that way, you guys can keep connected via the next step in what-I'm-going-to-check-every-so-often-to-make-sure-I'm-not-just-talking-to-myself. The cool thing is you can import all your GFC blogs with the click of one button on the left hand side of the main Bloglovin page. WE CAN GET BEHIND THIS. Click on the link at the top of this post or the picture-link-thing I'm about to put up in like five minutes to join She Was a Bird on Bloglovin. Come on, you know you want to.

Tried to Decide Whether I Would Watch the Rest of The Mindy Project Episode I Began Last Night But Was Too Tired to Watch

Mindy, I love you

I hate when I get started on something like five minutes in and then quit! Need to see what happened at the rest of Mindy's surprise birthday dinner. I also have a stack of movies I checked out from NPL yesterday, not knowing that they may be my saving grace today. Check this out: Chernobyl Diaries, Dreams of a Life, Prometheus, Intruders, Lace (the tv miniseries from the early 80's), Buffalo Bill and The Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, and McCabe and Mrs. Miller. I love that this list accurately reflects the mix of terrible horror movies, recent releases, trash tv, documentaries, and Altman movies that run through my DVD player on a weekly basis (for free! Thank you, library! I promise I'll be back at work on Monday!). When I'm not watching internet tv, I am watching these categories of movies. What does this say about me?!

Wondered How the Stray Pup Matthew Picked Up at the End of Our Street Was Doing:

I got home from straight-to-class-from-work yesterday night around 7:30, whereupon Matthew met me at the back door with this poor, scruffy, spaniel looking stray that had followed his car from the end of the street. Obviously thin and matted-of-fur, he did the right thing and piled the dog into the car. Owing to the lack of daytime supervision and place to keep the dog inside the house, not to mention my allergies, which are legion, she's being fostered by Matthew's mom, Deb, in Hendersonville until we can get her scanned for a microchip and put up ads and all that good stuff. After a frantic late night call to Eartha Kitsch, who's involved in East Nashville and Inglewood dog rescue efforts, I feel slightly more soothed about the little gal's future being bright. But if you know anybody who's missing a sweet natured, black and white, kind of spaniel-y pupster in East Nashville, please let a girl know!

Well, that's it and that's all for a blow-by-blow update of my sick self this morning. I think I'm going to drink some orange juice and go snuggle back in the bed with my Altman movies, for the time being. Have anything good coming up this weekend? Any cheery news or tv slash movie rec's to buoy up the spirits of a home-bound illster? Let's talk!

I'll keep the Vitamin C flowing, and hopefully see you all back here for Photo Friday tomorrow! Til then.

Postscript: Minutes after I wrote this, I checked out my seriously-favorite-blog-ever, Dangerous Minds, who posted this AMAZING LIVE 1974 Tim Buckley performance of "Dolphins" on Old Grey Whistle Test. I might live after all. "Sometimes I wonder...do you ever think of me?"