Faking It: Christmas 2009

I bought a PINK faux Christmas tree.  Details and photos forthcoming. 

I’m off to Florida for Thanksgiving.  Hope my plane doesn’t go down in a ball of flames, as Husban-dito is predicting.  Enjoy the turkey (sandwiches on the beach at my parents’ house) and I’ll check in on you all from warmer temps–if I make it there alive.  Cheers, kiddies!!!

XOXO

Let Me Call You Sweetheart

My nephew is quite the chatterbox and I really love hanging out with him.  He’s almost three and his vocabulary has grown exponentially in the last few months.  He can understand questions and respond appropriately.  One of my favorite conversations involves asking what nicknames we have for him.  It goes like this:

• Auntie CWG: Hey, Matt.  What does Nanny call you?
• Matt:  (with affected French accent) Bebe!
• Auntie CWG:  And what does Pop-Pop call you?
• Matt:  Weezer!
• Auntie CWG:  What do I call you?
• Matt:  Sugar Booger…

And it goes on like this for several more minutes, with my nephew answering my inane questions.  I love hearing him tell me all the nicknames we have for him; it’s all snuggly puppies and sparkly unicorns for me.  (No, I’m not having any maternal stirrings, so don’t be alarmed.)

But doesn’t everyone have a nickname– a name that only your significant other calls you?  Maybe your grandmother or parent had a nickname for you?  Well, I want to hear about it!  Of course, first I’ll bore you with my nicknames, though.

All my life, I’ve been ’Nat’, ‘Natty’, ‘Gnat’, or other variations.  My uncle calls me ‘Naturally’ and my dad used to call my sister and me ‘Kapusta Pek’ (kapusta pekinska is Polish for Chinese cabbage: We are neither Polish nor Chinese.) or he’d call us “Mon Petit Chou” (French for My Little Cabbage [We aren't French either]).  Both names lead me to believe that my father has some type of preoccupation with leafy green veggies.  Dad also called us “Sug-Sug” (pronounced “shug-shug”), short for Sugar.  And he called my sister Weezer or The Wheeze, though I was the one with bronchial asthma. 

My mom has recently taken to calling me “Rat-A-Lee”.  Nice, right?  It has a certain charm. 

Husban-dito has, over the last 17 years, called me Froggy, Frogzy, Frogger, or Frog, suggesting some type of amphibian obsession.   When I’m in trouble, he calls me SWEETLE (pronounced Sweet-UHL) and I typically run and hide when I hear him use this name.

Do you have a nickname that you just can’t shake?  What does your significant other call you?  Did your parents or grandparents have special names for you?  Inquiring minds want to know (I want to know!).

Makin’ a list…and checkin’ it twice!

Sunday afternoon found me clad in flannel pajama pants and YANKEES t-shirt, parked at my kitchen table flipping through catalogs for my annual Christmas Wish List.  Listen, I’m no fool; it took only one holiday of bad (read: utilitarian) gifts from Husban-dito for me to wise up and ask for what I wanted to avoid receiving vacuums or blenders.  After a few years, I learned that photos or links to websites help score exactly the loot I covet.

And so, as I flipped through the Pottery Barn TEEN catalog (from which I selected a jewelry organizer and photo collage frame), I was transported back in time to my childhood.  Each holiday season, Sears would publish a Wish Book–hundreds of pages of toys, clothes, and sugar plum fairies.  My sister and I poured over that catalog as if reading some ancient scroll.  To be honest, we genuflected at the Holy Grail that was the Wish Book. 

We made Christmas Lists that ran several (legal-sized) pages and dog-eared one page after another: Cabbage Patch dolls, rock tumblers, Barbie heads with hair you could style and makeup you could apply, doll houses, cash registers, baby doll strollers, and car seats.  It was an orgy of toys and we wanted them ALL. 

The best part is that the Sears Wish Book list-making tradition wasn’t restricted to my family alone.  Husban-dito has similar memories of the Wish Book that involved reverential treatment usually reserved for high-ranking Papal officials.   He made scores of lists and worked himself into a frothy lather over the Star Wars toys, including the Death Star play set which he owns to this day.

But was the Wish Book limited in its distribution or was it a country-wide phenomenon?  Did children across the country get whipped into a frenzy by the 4 pound catalog just as we did?  Was there a girl my age in Des Moines drooling over the Holly Hobby oven just as I was?  Did she also rejoice on Christmas Day (or Chanukah night) when she opened the box and revealed the navy blue cook stove? 

  

How about YOU?  Did you get the Wish Book by mail?  Were you reduced to tears by the sheer volume of toys that you did NOT own (or even know about!)???  Spill the beans, gang!

Hey, Columbus! How did you get here?!

I love scrolling through the search terms that people use to find their way to Curly Wurly Gurly.  Some terms make me laugh while others make me want to drawn the blinds and never leave my house again!  There are some strange people in the world and search terms can attest to that.

Here are a few of the most popular terms that bring people to CWG.  For your reviewing pleasure, I linked the search terms to my original posts, in case you missed them the first time around.

• CHEETOS: Years after posting a photo of a girl in a bathtub filled with Cheetos, this post continues to be a perennial hit.
• GRUNGE: I wrote a post discussing ‘fashion’ of the 80s and 90s.  Lots of flannel, boxer shorts, and Doc Marten’s…
• BOB ROSS: Bob Ross inspires a zen-like state for me.  Apparently, I’m not alone!
• WALMART:  This is a fluke.  A few months ago, I wrote about the weirdos that lurk at my local Crudmart and recently, a site called People of Walmart went up.  That site gets insane hits and I’m getting some by default.
• WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE: Oh, I rue the day that I learned that ANCHOVIES are in this yummy sauce. 
• I WANT A CAST: Listen, I wanted a cast WHEN I WAS 8!  Thanks to everyone who emailed (and continue to email) me with offers to do ‘recreational casting.’ 

Honorable mentions go to:

hot furry cat suit, Scrappy Doo death, mohair suit, what is that smell, fake it, candy, Curly Wurly bar

So, what search terms are trending on your blog?

Wanderlust or Mid-life Crisis: You decide.

I was born in New Jersey and have lived here for all my 35 years.  Several of my friends have, at some point, lived thousands of miles from home.  But not me.  Even Husban-dito lived in Vermont for a year!  We often talk about moving away, escaping the huge expense that is life in New Jersey.  The state does have proximity to New York and Philly, beaches, and farms, but it’s hard to get around the fact that it’s really crowded and very expensive. 

A move to New York State or Vermont is what we contemplate most, but the idea seems so daunting that I usually pack it up and tuck it in the back of my brain.  My family!  My job!  No OCEAN!  It’s COLD!  I won’t know anyone!  No one will visit us!  What if we hate it?  How can we buy a house if we don’t have jobs to get a mortgage?  What if we can’t find jobs?  What if we end up living in a bus depot?!

Ant and I live about an hour from our respective childhood homes.  96% of our family members live within a 90-mile radius.  This makes for convenient holidays and non-holiday visiting.   But it does nothing for my niggling desire to try living somewhere else for a while.  (Ant is only interested in living somewhere in Vermont or upstate NY.)  We have friends who are about to move to London for a year for work.  My oldest friend up and moved to San Francisco almost ten years ago to go to school.  She met a man, got married, had a baby, and bought a house in the city.  Other friends traveled with the military, moving where the Navy stationed them.

Every summer, when Husban-dito and I travel America by car, I find myself imagining life in the small towns or big cities we visit.  I see us living in an Arts and Crafts bungalow in downtown Bozeman, MT, a loft in San Francisco, a historic home in the Garden District of New Orleans, an old farmhouse on 100 acres in upstate New York, a Victorian in Burlington or Woodstock, VT.  When I feel really daring, I imagine life abroad–an apartment in Venice or a villa in Tuscany.

But the reality is that I’d be the same person I am in all of these places but wouldn’t have a job I love or the family that means so much to me (even if they drive me a bit crazy sometimes!).  It’s a catch-22.  I know I could visit my family if I moved away, but I couldn’t drop by on the spur of the moment for pizza and a game of Scrabble.   

Have you moved away from home?  How far are you from your family and do you wish you were closer?  If you’re still local, WHY haven’t you left?  Am I romanticizing moving away?  Help!  I’m having a mid-life crisis or something!!!