Well, hello there, December! It’s absurd to say that a date snuck up on me, what with the availability of calendars and all, but the date snuck up on me. This morning the boys cracked open their Advent calendars, and here we are. December. I have so much to chat about!
First: Sexiest Man Not Alive. It turns out there is an entire tumblr account dedicated to this exact thing, called “My Daguerreotype Boyfriend” and I do not recommend visiting it unless you want to be sucked down the rabbit hole of captivating men of yesteryear. There are some very attractive not-alive men on that account but this fellow is my favourite:
That is one sexy criminal. A bad boy in need of reform and possibly temperance? He went to jail for “stealing a fur necklet”. What does that mean. I do not know. Anyway, go look at http://mydaguerreotypeboyfriend.tumblr.com for more fun.
The only problem with looking at sexy dead guys is that I know with 100% certainty they would have smelled bad, and although I’m happily married and just looking at men that died a century or two ago, it still affects my feelings for them. I mean really, how often would these guys bathe? And their dental hygiene would be abhorrent.
Speaking of sexy dead guys, I’ve been re-reading an autobiography of Lauren Bacall. I read it years ago and I’m finding it different now, from my almost-forty vantage point. For one thing, they started their affair when she was 19 and he was 44, which requires no further comment, I think. But the big issue I’ve had from reading this book is that I’ve had Key Largo stuck in my head for a week now. I had mentioned this book to my friend, who said “Wasn’t there a song about Bogie and Bacall?” ONE WEEK LATER I’m still randomly singing lyrics: I was your hero. You were my LEADING LAAYYY-DEEEE. I’ve tried to replace the song with all sorts of music from Uptown Funk to Mele Kalikimaka, and it only works for a while. Moments later: We had it all, just like Bogie and Bacall. Starring in our own late late show. Sail away to Key Largo. And repeat.
The other day Might As Well Go For A Soda came on the radio, so I quickly switched the station, denouncing the song along with the much-loathed Patio Lanterns. My older son took umbrage at my labelling of those two songs as the “worst ever”, saying that the B52’s Rock Lobster was “way worse”. We got into quite an involved discussion about it; the upshot was that once Mark had that song stuck in his head for two days. MY BOY. “I couldn’t even concentrate on SCHOOL,” he said, “Because I just kept thinking of that song.” Well, I can certainly empathize. I once had “Getting Jiggy With It” stuck in my head while writing my microeconomics final in grad school, so I know pain. Who’s the kid in the back? Who else – Will Smith! Living that life some consider a myth.
And speaking of getting jiggy with it, this past Friday was our school’s Costume Carnival, and I was in charge of the bake sale.
Pre-Festivities
So much baking.
People had brought the most interesting and creative baked goods, and it made me think I need to up my cupcake game a little – perhaps I need to FINALLY buy a pastry bag and some of those decorating tips, or at least add some gummy candies to my frosting because DAMN those candy-covered cupcakes are hot items at a bake sale.
I was a little worried that I would end up with this entire table of baked goods, because Friday was minus 30 with blizzard conditions. I drove through white-out conditions to set up at 3:00, and I only live a few minutes away from the school. I was a bit nervous that we would host this carnival and the only people there would be me and the other two organizers, but happily we did have a reasonable turnout, mostly from people in the neighbourhood. A good time was had by all, and the DJ even played a few songs at the end to get the parents up and dancing: I Like To Move It (Move It), Cotton Eye Joe, and, of course, the YMCA. You could almost see his thought process: If I play songs from the parents’ clubbing years, they will get up and dance. Hilariously, the DJ was the same DJ that played at my husband’s office Christmas party the very next night. I wondered if it was kind of weird for him to go from playing Shake It Off and Let It Go to playing music appropriate for a largely middle-aged crowd, i.e., Billie Jean. We left before Cotton Eye Joe could make it’s appearance.
I am glad the bake sale was a success, but I am having trouble imagining a world in which such an event would not be cancelled under those weather conditions. Where I live it might have been cancelled for a single snowflake, or the rumor that one might fall.
Evidently one of the ways my brain attempts to cope with heavy stress is to loop some random song in my brain for days. As a result when I took the bar exam I had Breakfast at Tiffany’s stuck in my head for weeks (I barely liked the song to begin with and after that, I never want to hear it again). Taking the CPA exam I was bringing Sexy Back for days. I sincerely wish there was some kind of drug I could take that would rid my brain of songs that get stuck in there for more than an hour or so – like the ad “if the song going through your head lasts for more than 4 hours, consult a physician”
Husband tells me he’s had Shania Twain’s “Man, I Feel Like a Woman” in his head since Saturday.
That’s some kind of special misery, right there.