“A lunch sits on a blue tablecloth with a brown paper bag and red napkin. There are carrots, a pear, a sandwich on wheat bread with lettuce (chicken salad) and a carton of milk.” Image courtesy the National Cancer Institute, 1989, via Wikipedia.
I’m a lunch person.
If you want to win my favor, butter me up, pitch me an idea, ask me out, or ask me to do something for you that will not be fun for me or that will be very challenging but that I will consider doing because I love you, like you, want to pitch you an idea or ask you out, it would behoove you to ask me out to lunch and discuss everything there. Over a tasty meal in a pleasant, lunch-serving establishment, I am amenable to many things.
This love of lunch probably springs from my continual astonishment that I am, in fact, an adult. I’ve said it before: Whenever I do things like pay a doctor’s bill, return home from an airport, or take my seat at a lunch — to say nothing of a luncheon — I just shake my head. I don’t know when it happened, but at some point, I convinced everyone I was capable of saying things like, “The tuna for me, thank you. Rare.”
Of course, not every day is a “Mary, darling, let’s do lunch” day. That’s maybe once a week, if I’m lucky. (People in my world know the strategy, so I do get to go out to lunch with some frequency; I am, as a result, very busy.)
The majority of my lunches during the week are not foofy, though. The majority of my lunches happen at a table in the school newspaper office or between classes at a cafe in the Loop near school. I like these lunches just as well. I love a bowl of soup. I like a tasty salad. I just like to pause in my day and say, “This is the time where I must eat. Everyone just hang on.”
Breakfast is nice. It’s the first thing you eat, that breakfast, and that means the day is fresh. But the day becomes instantly not fresh if you eat something not fresh for breakfast. If you eat the last piece of spelt toast in the freezer (which you heated up in the microwave because you do not own a toaster), then how fresh can the day really be? Dinner is nice, of course, except that by the time dinner comes, unless I really plan for it, I do not want to have a large meal. Why?
Because I had a nice lunch.
*My apologies for a slow week on the ol’ PG. I turned in my project. The project nearly killed me, but but I turned it in an guess what? That. Thing. Is. Fabulous! Maybe I’ll post it! It’s 23 pages long but I’m about as proud of it as anything I’ve done in school so far. Thanks for all the well-wishes, you guys.
The Steel Makers, by Mikhail Trufanov, 1956. Image: Wikipedia.
I am at a Peet’s Coffee working on the titanic research project that is due Wednesday for my (amazing) class in the Fiber and Material Studies department. This thing needs to get done no later than tomorrow morning if I am going to retain my sanity.
But I have stopped working on my project to write this — I know, I know — because a) my brain is short-circuiting from so much information gathering and organizing and b) I presently have company.
Two Russian men came in a while ago and took a seat at the table to my right. One of them is dressed in business attire (it’s Sunday — maybe church attire?); one is in sneakers, jeans, and a puffy coat. One of the guys is wearing so much cologne, I am getting a headache. (It’s good cologne; there’s just way too much of it.)
I can for sure identify four words in their conversation, but only three actually count because one of the four words is a proper noun: Sascha. Otherwise, it’s just “iPhone,” “auto,” and “super,” but when the guys say it, it sounds like this: “zu-pear.”
What’s weird — and distracting! — is that there are other, Russian words vaguely familiar to me, not because I know what they mean but because my ex-husband was Croatian and my ex-boyfriend was Russian, and that means I’ve overheard a lot of conversations with parents, siblings and friends in Balkan and Russian tongues and the two languages share a number of similar sounds. Mostly clueless to the content of these conversations until I got the post-call or post-conversation de-brief, I still know these languages when I hear them. (Sometimes Serbian is hard to distinguish from Croatian, but don’t tell any Croatians I said that.)
Here are a few of the words I am picking up from the Russians. I’ll list the word first in Cyrillic, then give the phonetic spelling of at least one of the conjugations/versions in Russian, then a Croatian version of the word (in quotations), then the English equivalent. Don’t worry! It’s fun.
Anyone who speaks any of these languages is going to laugh and laugh at how wrong I am about the equivalencies, but you can at least see what I mean when I say there are similarities:
Добрый — Dobriy — “dobro” — good Не за что — Nyez-ashta — “Nije za ništa” — that’s all right Большой — vyelik — “velika” — too big маленький — malen’kiy — “mali” — small Помогите — Pomogite — “pomoć” — help Извините — eez-veen-eete — “oprostite” — sorry
What we have learned from this is that if I landed in Russia right now, I could possibly say “I’m sorry I am so small. Please help.” But it would sound more like Croatian. Perhaps what we have actually learned is that I am glad I am not in Russia right now — or Croatia, for that matter. I think I’d better just stay right here at this Peet’s Coffee.
By the way, this Sascha person they’re talking about is really in trouble. He did something bad. I don’t think he killed anyone (Russian Guy No. 1 and Russian Guy No. 2’s tones are not hushed in that “Sascha killed somebody way”) but they’re clearly annoyed at the guy.
Okay, it’s time for me to stop procrastinating and get back to work.
Lithograph from 1918 showing Uncle Sam turning a clock to Daylight Saving time. Image: Wikipedia.
Hello Daylight Saving Time:
It’s been months since I’ve seen you. Wait, how many? Six?? No way! Really! Six months. Hmph. Well, yeah, I guess that seems about right. You look good. You look older, but aren’t we all, Daylight Saving Time? Aren’t we all.
Daylight Saving Time — can I call you DST? Thanks. DST, I know tonight’s a big night for you; it’s one of the two biggest nights of your year and I appreciate that. You’ve got a lot going on. I mean, tonight, all the clocks displayed on the cell phones and televisions and the computers of the good people of America* will read “3:00 a.m.” at the very moment they ought to read “2 a.m.”, as though they have been meddled with by some insane supercomputer arch villain who has taken control of the world’s technology in order to make the people of Earth (or “the U.S.A.”) suffer by losing an hour of sleep.
Though you are not exactly an insane supercomputer arch villain, DST, you are close. We know this because I am a person of Earth/the U.S.A., and I will suffer as a result of your little time party. And I have decided you should know.
See, I am in St. Paul, Minnesota right now because I worked all day for the vivacious and intellectually buoyant quilters of Dakota County. Yes, after a long week of school and work, I spent my weekend doing more work. It was a great day — and it’s not your fault that I’m busier than a one-armed paper-hanger, DST — but I have just spent many hours doing homework and regular work at my Fairfield Inn & Suites and now I am tired but still have more reading to do and my flight leaves Minneapolis at 6 a.m., and that means that I have to get up at 3:45 a.m. and that is horrifying but it will be more horrifying because it will feel like 2:45 a.m. because of you.
And you also need to know that I have stared at that sentence for a long time and now I don’t even know if I’ve got this thing right, DST. All I know is that I have a wake-up call for 3:45 a.m. and I have set the alarm on my phone, as well, and that my flight leaves at 6 a.m. and because it’s Daylight Saving Time, I am going to be extra sad in a few hours.
You were a good idea, dear. World War I needed you. The farmers, they still appreciate you (at least that’s what people tend to say when they’re defending you.) But I do wonder, in this modern age, if you are doing what Congress wanted you to do, initially. If so, I can keep calm and carry on.
If not, if you’re just some outmoded law on the books that for no good reason hasn’t been nixed, yet — like some old law about not hitching your horse to your cousin’s barbershop pole — I shall exercise my right to be extremely grumpy about you for the next several days and grumpy afresh six months from now.
I am glad it’s not going to be dark by 4 p.m., now, though. But it’s barely enough!
Love,
Mary
*Except for the devices of the good people of Alaska and Hawaii, who do not observe you, Daylight Saving Time.
I love absolutely everything about this picture. It was also very, very hard to pick a single image for this post. (Screenshot from “Baby Boom”.)
Awhile back, I praised one of my film heroes: the outrageously brilliant Goldie Hawn. I wrote about my family’s fierce love for the movie Overboard, Goldie, and Goldie and Kurt Russell’s love. My love was echoed by many people in the comments and on Facebook. Lots of us love Overboard and that’s why the world is gonna be okay. (Maybe.)
Someday, I will talk about my all-time favorite movie ever, on Earth, ever, ever — which would be Tootsie — but not tonight. Tonight, I need to talk about Baby Boom.
If you haven’t seen Baby Boom, allow me to summarize the plot. No spoilers, don’t worry:
A high-powered New York City executive, J.C. Wiatt — played by the incomparable Diane Keaton and more on her in a minute — gets a call in the middle of the night. She has inherited something from a long-lost cousin who has died suddenly. When she goes to pick up her inheritance, it’s a baby. She inherited her cousin’s baby Elizabeth. (More on that baby in a minute, too.)
J.C. Wiatt is like, “Are you crazy?! I’m a high-powered executive! I can’t have a baby!” and she tries to get rid of Elizabeth but guess what? J.C. Wiatt becomes attached to the lil’ peanut and can’t bring herself to give Elizabeth back. J.C. is forced to admit that she kind of hates her hectic life and her lame boyfriend and so she gets out of the game and moves herself and Elizabeth into a dream home in rural Vermont where she meets a hot, hot, hotveterinarian, played by Sam Shepard, and I’m not waiting to talk about him. Sam Shepard (the actor/playwright/mystical creature) is so incredibly handsome and charming in this movie, you will literally stomp your foot and slap your leg and go, “Oh, comeon!!” because he is just ridiculous.
Anyway, J.C. goes stir-crazy out there in rural Vermont (she’s a high-powered executive!) and her house nearly bankrupts her because it’s a lemon. Besides, it turns out she misses the hustle n’ bustle of New York. At some point during the interminable winter, J.C. starts making homemade baby food for Elizabeth. Soon, she’s selling it in farmer’s markets and country stores around New England and before you know it, J.C. Wiatt’s got a tiger by the tail! Country Baby gourmet baby food is a hit! She’s back in the game!
Will she leave Vermont, the house, her new friends, and the hot, hot, hot veterinarian and sell Country Baby for millions? Will she move back to New York City with Elizabeth and raise her daughter in the most exciting place on the planet or stay in the slow lane? You’ll have to watch the movie to find out.
So now let me tell you something fabulous that I just discovered, unless you’re already clicking over to rent the movie on Amazon, a decision I fully support. Just come back when you’re done.
Check this out: Baby Boom was made in 1987. It was directed by Charles Shyer. It was written by Charles Shyer and Nancy Meyer. Guess what other brilliant Goldie Hawn movie my family loves as much as Overboard? Why, Private Benjamin, of course. Well, guess who wrote Private Benjamin?? Nancy Meyer and Charles Shyer!! And Shyer directed it,too! And it came out the same year as Baby Boom!
It feels great to be so consistent. It’s like, “Oh, no wonder I like this thing. It’s exactly like this other thing!” I love it when that happens.
So there are many reasons why Baby Boom is so good: comedic timing, pathos communicated without schlock, and swift pacing all come to mind. But most of all, I love that movie because of the character of J.C. Wiatt, the way Diane Keaton plays her, and — wait for it — J.C. Wiatt’s clothes.
The 1980s are not often given credit for being a fashionable decade. It’s generally understood that the 1970s were worse, which is something, I guess, but people think of the 1980s and they think of neon, shoulder pads, big hair, and acid-washed jeans. But this is so not all the 1980s were in terms of clothes!
J.C. Wiatt proves this. Her thick, cable-knit sweaters. Her luscious scarves. Her swingy, belted dresses with yes, shoulderpads. (They make a waist look smaller and shoulders broad and handsome, if you ask me.) Her handbags, her shoes, her broach. Her other broach. Her big glasses! Oh, those great big glasses. I love it all. So does my younger sister. We have been known to just randomly email each other screenshots of Diane Keaton in Baby Boom with the subject line: “FASHION GOALS.”
The clothes look great on Keaton because Keaton is gorgeous (she was 41 when she made that movie, by the way) and because J.C. Wiatt is a great character. She’s a woman who wants it all — and wanting it all is complicated. She’s got a big heart and big ambitions.She’s conflicted, but she’s trying her best. She’s smart. She’s funny. When I watch that movie, I find myself wanting to either be Diane Keaton and/or J.C. Wiatt, be best friends with Diane Keaton/J.C. Wiatt, have Diane Keaton and/or J.C. Wiatt suddenly be my other mother, and also be like Diane Keaton and/or J.C. Wiatt when I grow up. And then there’s Sam Shepard in the mix, so watching Baby Boom is an intense experience.
Tonight, Baby Boom, I salute you. You really have had a huge impact on me and my sisters. We look up to you and we appreciate you. Also, J.C. Wiatt has a quilt hanging in her dining room, so that pretty much seals the deal.
The first Quilt Scout of the month of March is up today, so I’d like to send you to the fine folks at Quilts, Inc. to check it out. I have to warn you: You will probably get sad. Why?
The Monopoly game people took the thimble out of the game.
