Goin' Down to Mama's

Stuff We Like: Dave's Woodwork

And now, friends, a bit of blatant self-promotion—an outright commercial, if you will, for a crafty husband I'm proud of. Dave started making furniture when our friend Carole needed extra display space in her gift shop, A Little Something (which is in Cahaba Heights and fabulous and loaded to the hilt with Christmas wares as we speak, so stop by and tell her we sent you and buy us a present:) What Dave built for Carole made me see all kinds of possibilities in our little domicile. The sideboard in this picture is actually two four-foot-long sectionals hooked together. It gives me plenty of serving space to feed a crowd and holds more stuff than you can imagine—picnic baskets, turkey roaster, candlesticks, casserole dishes, everyday dishes, stemware, coffee urn—in short, everything I could never find a place for. We have a booth at the Chelsea Antique Mall, just left of the stairs leading down to the basement level. So you can see some of Dave's work there. What he probably enjoys most of all is custom work—you tell him what you need, and he builds it. He can turn things around pretty fast, and he keeps his prices as low as possible. So if you're in the market for tables or hutches or unique displays, just email me your phone number ([email protected]), and he'll get in touch with you. Herewith, some of my favorites from the Luesse line:)

 Here's a pretty display hutch he built for Carole's shop:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And one he built for my kitchen . . .

A farm table, quirky cube display, and shoe tree for Carole (the shoe holders tilt and turn, so I'm thinking about getting Dave to make me something similar for family photos) . . .

And finally, my favorite, a jelly cabinet he built for my cousin Vivian Ann, made out of reclaimed wood from my grandmother's house. This shot was taken before he added glass to the cabinet door, but I love the way the old wood looks, so I couldn't resist posting it.

Okay. That's it. We're through promotin' now:)

Stuff We Like: Hank the Cat on Canvas

Behold the artistry of my good friend Carol Damsky, who has launched a new pet portrait website called FunFurryFaces. You can find it at this link:https://sites.google.com/site/funfurryfaces/. Carol's portraits will also be available locally in Birmingham (more on that when I have the details). All you have to do is give her a head-and-shoulders shot of your beloved, and she'll paint a beautiful portrait. (Granted, Hank was a spectacular subject, the likes of which Carol will never see again, but I think she did a fine job of capturing his magnificence:) You can request portraits with or without frames, which are handmade by a Tennessee craftsman who is a family friend of the Damskys. (And if you're thinking this is starting to sound really expensive, it's not. Carol's prices are very reasonable.) I know exactly where I want to display Hank the Cat. I just have to figure out how to tell Dave that our wedding portrait will have to go . . .

Stuff We Like: Insurance Brokers with a Sense of Humor

Attention, readers under 50: get thee some life insurance and long-term disability insurance NOW. And you might want to think about getting some that isn't attached to the company you work for because believe me, once that AARP membership application lands in your mailbox, insurance underwriters can be a tad on the standoffish side. Our own little adventure began when I woke up one morning a couple of months ago and suddenly realized that I am now, like Dave, self-employed—and I had inadequate life insurance and no disability insurance. Every other day, Dave had to listen to my panicked barrage of what-ifs: "What if I have a car wreck? What if I get sick? What if I get hit by a train like that that respectable judge Holly Hunter made such a to-do over in O Brother Where Art Thou?!!!" Fortunately, my good friend Shari heard of our plight and sent us her husband's contact information. John is an outstanding insurance broker who sat down with us at our kitchen table and painstakingly walked us through the giant tangle of options and riders, somehow maintaining his composure and amiable attitude as Dave and I debated which one of us needs to cross Jordan first in order to maximize our financial stability and maintain our property value. We felt so good about the decisions John helped us make that we asked him to handle our homeowner's and auto coverage. And THERE is where the great injustice occurred. What did I have to do to apply for life and long-term disability? Submit income tax records, answer a ton of health questions, and rendezvous with a paramedic who took my blood pressure, WEIGHED ME TWO WEEKS AFTER CHRISTMAS, measured me, and collected an assortment of body fluids. To her credit, she did all of the above as painlessly as possible. Still, at one point during the application process, I asked John if there was any danger that the underwriters might try to hold my cat hostage till the lab results came in. What did DAVE have to do to handle his part of our insurance package? Why, he had to submit pictures of his cars, including the engines. That had to hurt. Still, I'm so happy to be on the road to financial security that I'm trying not to be bitter. I did, however, intentionally shoot that Buick from an unflattering angle. [We highly recommend John Wimberly at Country Financial. If you'd like to reach him, just send me an email or a Facebook message, or post a comment.]

Girl Stuff

I've spent the past couple of days helping my friend Carole move into her new gift shop, which is about five minutes from our house. Pretty sure I saw Dave burying all of our credit cards in the back yard yesterday:) Another good friend, Julie, is also helping, and as the three of us unpacked Christmas ornaments and stockings, holiday platters and pottery, and took turns arranging and rearranging jewelry, purses, shower gel, scented candles, and stunning bathrobes (sure hope I can find where Dave buried the AmEx), I told Carole she had basically created girl heaven. And that got me to thinking about girl stuff in general—the things that just make you feel special. Even as a child, I was a purse nut. I still remember a black one with a gold glasp and a chain for a shoulder strap. It made me feel ever so grown up. In junior high, all of us girls had those portable makeup mirrors that let you adjust your Revlon blush for day, nighttime, or (everybody's favorite) fluorescent light. One time, my much younger cousin Grey was watching me put on makeup in front of that mirror, and suddenly he said, "Before I marry anybody, I wanna see her with her face washed—you don't know WHAT you're getting!"  I think I was in late high school or early college when I asked for my first bottle of serious perfume—it was Oscar de le Renta, and it came in a curvy bottle and smelled like delicate flowers. Now that I have a house, Girl World has expanded beyond makeup and purses. I love scented candles—so much so that Daddy once looked around my living room and said, "Well, she's worshipping the devil—that's the only possible explanation for this many candles in a house." All the women in my family go jeepers over pretty tableware. Orange juice tastes so much better from a glass carafe than a Minute Maid carton, and even MY cooking ramps up a notch when there's a little silver on the table. How about you? Got any special memories of your most-favorite-ever-just-had-to-have-it girl stuff? (Guys, feel free to respond on behalf of your wives, sisters, and mamas:)

P.S. Carole is planning to have SOME gifts for guys. I told her we should call that display "the groom's table." Local shoppers, her gift boutique is called A Little Something, and it opens November 5 in The Heights Village, right next to Regions, in Cahaba Heights. I told my mother I was planning to help Carole during the holidays and she said, with a fair degree of alarm, "She didn't ask you to wrap gifts, did she?" I am sort of legendary in our family for poor wrapping skills. My cousin Kathy has been known to laugh out loud at my packages, with good reason. I maintain that I am trainable.

Stuff We Like: "Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific"

My mother recently introduced me to her new favorite catalog, from the Vermont Country Store. I was an instant fan. You will be, too, if you're the least bit nostalgic. Besides the expected jellies and jams and baked goods, you'll find oilcloth tablecloths—the kind that stayed on our kitchen table for years—plus, those illuminated ceramic Christmas trees that everybody used to have on their dining room tables during the holidays; "Lanz of Salzburg" coordinated nightgowns and robes "for all the girls in the family"; and such classic toys as Slinky, Duncan yo-yos, and a collection of Fisher-Price faves that every toddler prized in the late sixties and early seventies. Between them, my cousins Grey and Stanley had the entire Fisher-Price preschool product line: the 1968 Music Box Teaching Clock, 1966 Music Box TV (remember how the scenes scrolled by kind of jumpy), the record player with those thick plastic discs that played real music, the rotary-dial telephone on wheels. (The phone had a face, and its eyes moved when you pulled it). But the absolute best section of this catalog carries vintage beauty products. Walk with me, ladies, down the cosmetics aisle on memory lane: "Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific" Shampoo, Lemon Up shampoo (it came in a yellow bottle with a big fat lemon top), Tigress cologne ("Are you wild enough to wear it?"), Woodhue cologne (which, fittingly, had a wooden top), and Emeraude by Coty. (There were lots of fragrances by Coty, includng a musk that I latched onto in junior high.) I think I just might place an order today—get myself a Raggedy Ann doll and a bottle of Arpege. ("Promise her anything, but give her Arpege.")

Stuff We Like: Swiffer

What does it say about you if you go through three Swiffer dusters during your post-Christmas house-cleaning? I'm guessing it's not good. (And I should probably confess that I would rather hoe cotton than dust, so you could pretty much write your name with your fingertip on all our furniture by the time I bit the bullet and broke out the duster.) That's why I would like to take a moment to express my personal thanks to whoever invented the Swiffer product line. I like the feeling I get when I clean with them—the unique blend of pride and horror that comes from viewing what I'm tossing away on the Swiffer. I also enjoy convincing myself that I'm a decent housekeeper without actually filling the mop bucket or breaking out the Lemon Pledge. So here's lookin' at you, Mr. Swiffer. We shall meet again in the new year:)

Ralphie! You'll Put Your Eye Out!

I don't think it's possible to make a better Christmas movie than A Christmas Story. Ralphie and that Red Rider BB Gun, the school bully finally gettin' what's comin' to him, little brother Randy zipped into so much poufy coat he can't move, the swearing dad, the sweet mom washing out the kids' mouths with Life Boy, the pack of dogs, the FRAGILE (pronounced frah-JEEL-a) Major Award . . . Come ON! How can you beat that? Since, oh, about Thanksgiving, Dave's had to listen to my nightly whine: "Where are the Christmas movies? Why aren't they showing Christmas movies??!!!" Well, at last, they're showing them. And here's the thing. While there's nothing better than a great Christmas movie, there's nothing more dreadful than a bad one. But here at Goin' Down to Mama's World International HQ, we like to focus on the positive. Here are the movies I live for this time of year. Got some of your own???

1.    A Christmas Story, for all the reasons previously listed.

2.    A Holiday Affair (Original). I could watch financially strapped Robert Mitchum steal Janet Leigh away from her persnickety good-provider fiancee every day of the week. (Thanks to my friend Jane for introducing me to that one.)

3.    Miracle on 34th Street (Original). Love Maureen O'Hara and her common sense. And that fiesty little Natalie Wood. 

4.    The Bishop's Wife. Cary Grant. Loretta Young. Ice skates. Done.

5.    Anything Charlie Brown.

6.    Anything on Walton's Mountain.

7.    Home Alone I & II, though the brilliantly evil Tim Curry makes me partial to the sequel.

8.    National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, just because there are few things that make Dave laugh that hysterically, so I get a kick out of watching him get a kick out of Chevy Chase.

9.    Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (animated). Everybody sing—"Put one foot in front of the other . . ."

10.  It's A Wonderful Life. It's sort of required viewing. I don't think Santa Claus will come down your chimney if you skip it . . .

 

Mama Says: "Jane uses Jergens."

Mama glanced from her winter-white legs to mine on that first warm-enough-for-shorts day of late spring. "Reckon we ought to try some of that Jergen's tanning lotion? Jane says she uses Jergens." Jane is our dear friend and church organist. If you want to know the truth about a situation, ask Jane. We felt we could trust her not to mess around with any good-for-nothing tanning potion that didn't work. Back in the day, we got our suntans via the actual sun. My cousin Kathy and I used to drive our Grandme INSANE by putting on our bathing suits, dousing ourselves in oil, and "laying out" in the back yard.  "When I was a girl," Grandme would rant, "women PROTECTED their skin! Why, you wouldn't DREAM of going out in the sun without your arms covered up and a hat to shade your face. You are going to KILL YOURSELF in that sun!" Of course, we didn't listen.

When I went to college, it got even worse. We actually tanned using baby oil, because it has an SPF of hellfire and will fry you faster, which is important when you're trying to get bronzed in that three-hour break between history and biology.

Stuff We Like: The Mississippi Gift Company

If you can't find something you love at The Mississippi Gift Company, you might just be in a really bad mood. I took Mama to their Greenwood, Mississippi, store on her first trip to the Delta, and we both shopped till we dropped.They have everything from jewelry to paintings to notecards to food baskets, all Mississippi-made. But as for Mama and me—we're in it for the pottery. (And speaking of Mississippi pottery, you'll also want to hit world-famous McCarty Pottery in nearby Merigold if you make a trip to that neck o' the woods.) Fortunately, you can shop The Mississippi Gift Company's amazing wares online at http://www.themississippigiftcompany.com. (P.S. With the Mississippi still rising and flooding, our friends in the Delta tell us they're fine as long as the levee holds. So please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. This is a one-of-a kind, beautiful place. And Delta folks are just flat-out wonderful.)