Purligurli's · Journal

For those of you who know me, I'm the holiday lady.  I love decorating the house for the holidays -- any holiday.  I collect music and movies to get us into the holiday mood too.  This weekend we strung the cobwebs and hung the spiders, taped the paper pumpkins to the windows, stabbed the scarecrow stakes into the front flower beds.  Yes we've kicked off the Halloween season, folks!

We christened Halloween with a movie too.  Our first pick of the season was YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, a 1974 satire written by Gene Wilder and directed by Mel Brooks.  Everyone knows the classic tale of Frankenstein: a mad-but-genius scientist in Transylvania decides to play God by way of piecing together choice parts of several human cadavers and electrifying it into life.  Wilder gets it into his head to give this story his own twist, and is it twisted!

Gene Wilder plays the great-grandson of Baron Victor Von Frankenstein.  Young Fredric Frankenstein is a neurological scientist teaching at a medical school.  He wants no association with his "crack-pot" ancestry.  In fact, he wants his name pronounced differently.  Instead of Frank-en-stine, he wants it pronounced Fronk-en-steen.   Fredric Frankenstein is happily living his life instructing would-be doctors about neurological impulses, and correcting pronunciations until the will of his ancestor is brought to his attention.  He has inherited Castle Von Frankenstein.

Fredric leaves his prissy prima donna fiancee (Madeline Kahn) at the train station as he shoves off on the trail of his fortune. He's met at the Transylvania station by Igor (Marty Feldman), who, upon hearing the crazy new pronunciation of an old surname, declares that his own name is not pronounced Ee-gor, it's pronounced Eye-gor!  Puns, miscommunications, and general slapstick ensues as Fredric is taken to Castle Von Frankenstein.  He's given a beautiful laboratory assistant (Teri Garr), and a creepy housekeeper (Cloris Leachman) whose very name, Frau Blücher, frightens the horses.

It doesn't take long for Fredric to follow in the footsteps of his ancestors.  Before long he's compelled to duplicate his great-grandfather's work.  The only problem with the plan is that they use an abnormal brain to motor the monster (Peter Boyle).  What happens next?  If you don't remember, then you probably should see the movie.

I give it two-thumbs-up!

Necessity is the inspiring mother of invention.  Some of my most favorite arts and crafts projects were products of need.  Yes, there were the times when I thought we required a painting over the fireplace, or a bathroom tissue cozy.  But then there was the time we could really have used a bulletin board.

Finding an old large ugly oil painting in a thrift store I decided to turn it into a bulletin board by gluing wine corks to the canvas.  Being a long-standing wino family, we had saved up quite a quantity of corks.  Not only was it a great recycling project, it was an attractive way to show the world how much wine we've consumed.  The garrish frame made our little pin-ups look so much more important too.

Yeast.

It's not just an infection!

Walk past a brewery.  The aroma of yeast clings to one's nostrils like a pheromone.

Rising bread on a window sill sits like a contented cat.  I want to lick the butter off the top of the loaf.

Early this month, my mom and her boyfriend were slunked into their loveseat/rocker/recliner.  Mom and Ray have been living together in his dreary, out-dated, tattered house for over eight years.  They've been in a relationship for sixteen years.  Mom doesn't remember exactly what she said.  It could have been a grumbling comment about the volume on the TV set.  It could have been a comment about Ray's poor eyesight, or his general inattentiveness.  It could have been a question about when some piece of home improvement would be conceived/begun/finished.  She could have been musing over what they should have for dinner that evening.  Whatever she said, it set Ray off.

"Dammit, why do you grumble so much?  I've never met another person who complains as much as you do. "

I expect Mom was a little startled by Ray's reaction.  She picked up her novel and left the room to read by herself.  While attempting to read the same paragraph over and over for quite a time, she thought about it.  Did she complain a lot?  Yes, she admitted, she complains quite a bit.  Why does she do it, she wondered, and then it hit her like a ton of bricks: she groused about in large quantities because she wasn't happy with Ray.  All these years living with him, she tried to make a go of it.  She realized, now, that the relationship never went in a direction she was content with.

She looked around.  The bedroom curtains were hanging by a thread and a prayer.  These drapes had never been cleaned, and probably came with the house back in the 60s.  The master bathroom was in the middle of a years long reconstruction involving plastic sheeting covering the walls and mold/mildew thriving.  She thought about the kitchen.  The grout had been crumbling long before she moved into the place.  The heater and filter on the hot tub/swimming pool combination haven't been working for a number of years.  Mom realized that the house was unhealthy.  Ray had the funds to fix up the house, but he didn't see the urgency. 

I guess her dissatisfaction with Ray became evident in a conversation, and my sister and her husband reminded Mom that they have been saving the guest room for her to live in.  Mom took them up on their offer.  Over the past few weeks she's been downsizing her possessions and taking bags and boxes of stuff to donation stations.  Without telling Ray, she made a couple of trips to my sister's house with her carloads full of stuff she would be taking.  He didn't even notice.

Last Friday Mom declared her intention to move, with the move date being the very next day.  Ray thought she was making a big mistake.  The next morning, Saturday, my sister and her husband drove over in separate cars.  While Ray slept, they piled up the remainder of Mom's things into the three cars.  Mom woke Ray to say goodbye, and they they drove her belongings to my sister's house. 

I'm so proud of her for finding her truth and taking action on it.  We kids never felt it was a good match for Mom, and I'm glad she's starting a new chapter in her life.

When I was five, and my sister was three, we lived in a part of the U.S. that boasted snow in the winter.  Those winter days were spent indoors with our noses pressed to the windows pining for better weather.  It was usually difficult to see through the glass given that Jack Frost painted ice forests at our eye level.

It was on one of those cold days that Michelle and I managed to pick out two rabbits in the back yard going at it.  Of course, we didn't know they were mating.  We were very excited to see rabbits in the back yard at all.  Our excited voices must have piqued our mother's interest.  Although she didn't join the conversation, she hovered in the kitchen listening to our appreciative outbursts.  She looked out the window too, and noticed that the bunnies were doing what bunnies do best, but said nothing.

In a knowing voice I told my sister, "Yeah, the one on top is a boy". 

Michelle responded, "How you know?"

My mother wondered how I knew too.  She moved in closer to hear my explanation. 

"Boys are always climbing on things."

If you could travel back in time to spend a day with someone, who would it
be and why?

I would spend the day with my dad.  He passed away in 2000.  I think I'd just like to sit in his living room with him and watch old movies.  We could swap corny jokes and punny comments.  I'd warn him that the smoking would give him a fatal heart attack.  I know he won't heed, but I'd feel obligated to let him know anyhow.

If you could be another person for a day, who would it be and why?

I think I'd like to be my husband for a day, just so I can see what my bum really looks like.

I'd also like to know if he really has all those aches and pains or if they're just psychosomatic.  If they're real, then perhaps I'll develop a bigger case of empathy for him.  If not, then at least I know that the old fart he claims to be is only in his head.