Saturday morning fever.

So...if Sunday meant Church and all-day-dinner, Saturday meant:

CARTOONS.

In the late ’70’s we did not have the luxury of entire networks and channels devoted to cartoons. We did not have small discs showing up in the mail with animated goodness for us to watch. Nope. Our asses had to wait in footie pajamas for Saturday morning to roll around so we could get in a few hours of cartoon satisfaction.

My brother Mike is four-years-younger than me. On Saturday morning we would wake up at the crack of dawn like it was a school day, throw on our bathrobes and tip toe down the plush avocado staircase for our favorite time of the week.

Footies! Robes!

We knew we had to keep quiet and keep the volume looow as not to wake a sleeping mom and dad. Dad would be up in a few hours to make us a weekend feast of cheesy-eggs, pancakes and toast with butter and jelly. Mom would sleep in, sometimes until like ten or eleven as this was her only day of rest. Remember we have church and a full day of eating to get to tomorrow.

Mike and I had our morning cartoon ritual that ran like clockwork every Saturday starting around 6-something-a.m.

Turn TV on.

 

Go into kitchen and use a stool on top of a chair to climb up onto the counter to reach where the cereal was.

 

Use same extremely unsafe method to grab two ceramic coffee mugs from another cupboard.
(Mike spotted me. He was like only four-years-old but he was all I had.)

 

Pour Apple Jacks into said mugs, jump down off counter, kind of hurt ankle but shake it off.

 

PLANT OURSELVES IN LIVING ROOM CROSSLEGGED IN FRONT OF BIG GLOWING BOX.

This is a picture I took of our television. No shit.
It's an RCA, you got up and turned that dial to change the channels.

Once we were settled in, mugs of sugar in hand the cartoons could begin.

Here are a few of my favorite shows Mike and I watched together:

Super Friends.
By far my most memorable, most important cartoon. Other girls who didn't have brothers didn't have the pleasure of being big Super Friends fans, but I think I would have watched it even without Mike. They were saving the world from the Legion of Doom and Aquaman was teaching me magic tricks and sometimes a craft project. Wonder Woman was of course my favorite, I had the set of Underoos that paid homage to her, they were way better than my Betty and Veronica ones. The little actor in me loved the drama of the Super Friends, the over-the-top narration, the mad scientists and space alien villains, and the fantastic bright capes and costumes. As a little girl I didn't even need that Wonder Dog or a space monkey named Gleek. The theme song still makes me misty whenever I hear it. And if I hear Ted Knight doing the voice over I'm a goner. That's not weird, is it?




Tom and Jerry.
I LOVED and still love Tom and Jerry. Very little talking, some cool jazz music, clever/weird one liners (DOOON'T YOOOU BELIEVE IIIIT) and humans shown only from the waist down. Tom and Jerry was like watching a silent film. A silent film where a cat and mouse are constantly trying to dismember, disembowel and be-head each other. Ahhh, so funny. I gotta admit, I always rooted for poor Tom, even though I knew he'd never outsmart that cute little mouse. He'd end up with the crap beat out of him, face flattened by an iron, beat up by Killer the bulldog or kicked out on the back porch for the night while Jerry sat inside by a warm fire doing that little laugh that sounded like a violin.
 



School House Rock!
Holy crap, don't get me started on School House Rock! - it's kind of hard for me not to devote like 900 blog posts to School House Rock! I learned all about adjectives from a girl and a turtle who went on a pretty weeeird camping trip. A fat little train conductor with no eyeballs taught me about conjunctions and their functions. And that superhero movie Verb! looked pretty happenin'. Thanks to School House Rock! I can also recite The Preamble to our US Constitution, I know what the hell an adverb is and of course I know that a little bill can someday become a law.
OH YEAH!

Knowledge is power!

Between my Saturday morning cartoons these three-minute-long gems snuck their way into my brain and stuck through adulthood. I can still recite the Preamble, but I have to sing it to you, if that's ok.

Years later Mom nixed the whole mugs of cereal unsupervised in the living room thing.

Mike and I were forced to sit on a plastic tarp, with tray tables while wearing
old backwards work shirts of our Dads if we wanted to eat anything in there.



Seriously.
I wish there was a picture of me in my shirt. It was the worst shade of red,
like canned tomato soup when you make it with milk instead of water.

Back in the here and now, we just finished dinner and the boys are in the living room watching
SpongeBob SquarePants. They have that instant cartoon gratification Mike and I never had.

But doesn't it make it more fun if you have to wait for it? The anticipation?

Like if everyday was Christmas that would kind of suck. Right?

They are in there eating their toast or "night bread" as they call it, which is basically bread, eaten at nighttime.

No yellow tarp or backward shirts. Yet.

Macaroni and gravy.

Growing up I associated Sunday with two things:

Church
Dinner

We were Catholic so church was an hour on the dot - bing, bang, boom - sometimes a little more sometimes a little less depending on which priest was giving the sermon.

Sunday dinner followed mass and was pretty much an all day event.

After church we would drive to Eastchester to Grandma and Papa’s house for "THE MEAL" which started around 2:00.

My brother Mike and I would fly out of the big brown bomber car, where Grandma was waiting on “the deck” or as Papa jokingly called it “the lanai” that overlooked their driveway. We were greeted with lung crushing hugs and loving hard kisses before throwing the screen door back and running inside.

Grandma, Papa, Aunt Carrie, Aunt Phyllis.

The smell inside Grandma and Papa’s house on a Sunday was nothing short of Heaven.

Aunt Rita, my brother Mike getting a smooch from me, cousin Valerie.

The stars of the show were the gravy (tomato sauce) that had been cooking all morning in a giant pot on the stove, and meatballs frying in olive oil that came in a giant square tin container that was as big as my head. Papa was famous for sneaking me one of his meatballs on a piece of white bread before anyone else got to try one, I was the “tester.” It was all sneaky, so I kind of became an expert in wolfing down a just-out-of-the-frying-pan-scalding-hot-meatball. I think I got second-degree burns in my mouth but it was worth it. I had to do my job.
I was the tester.

My other job was “macaroni picker.” All varieties of pasta was called macaroni or 'ronis for short. In the cupboard there sat nine-hundred different boxes of Ronzoni – ziti, bow ties, gemelli, spaghetti, rotini and my fave – rigatoni. Rigatoni is still my favorite of the pasta shapes – the gravy and parmesan fall into the little grooves on the sides of the ‘roni perfectly.


 We were usually the first to arrive followed by an onslaught of aunts, uncles, and cousins. There was my favorite aunt in the world, my dads sister Barbara. We never called her Aunt Barbara, she was and still is simply known as “Auntie” because no other aunt could ever come close (sorry all other aunts.) There were my grandmothers sisters, Rita, Ray and Carrie, My Aunt Phyllis, her daughter, my cousin Valerie and a variety of Johns who all required nicknames to identify them: Johnny Sigh, Johnny Blue, John-John Uncle Johnny, and Johnny Boy - who was not a boy at all - he was an old man so, I always thought it was weird that we called him that.

Grandma and Auntie.

My mom was the only non-Italian of the bunch, blonde haired and fair skinned. My grandma used to joke that my dad had “broken the bloodline” with her. I think she was joking. Mom’s contribution to the meal was dessert – she was taking a cake decorating class (didn’t everyones mom do that back then?) and could make a rose out of frosting like nobody’s business.

I was also the "frosting rose tester."

Supporting roles in the meal included a platter of deli cold-cuts, a bakery tray of cookies and salad, or as my grandma called it, "lettuce." A sad bowl of iceberg swimming in olive oil straight from the giant square tin can from earlier, garnished with lots of salt. You had to have a vegetable, right?

Post-meal activities included watching the Yankee game, yelling at the TV, laying on the couch reading the Sunday comics, getting spare change from uncles pockets, eating salami and cheese slices from the deli tray and lots of loud talking about a variety of topics which included how good the gravy was today.

Gathered around my great-grandma, who I nicknamed
"Walkie" because she used one of those walkers to get around. 

As I neared my pre-teen years making the all-day trek out to Grandma and Pops house kind of lost its appeal. I remember sitting in the parked car in the driveway by myself so I could finish listening to American Top 40 on the radio while Grandma waited and waved from the lanai. I wanted to hang out with my friends, not my family. And I didn’t understand why we had to hang out there ALL DAY. I would eat and reluctantly sprawl out on the couch with my comics asking when would it be time to go – thank goodness there was no texting or cell phones back then or I would have been an even bigger anti-social jerk.



I'd like to send a long distance dedication to my young self saying,
"stop being an asshole, get out of the car."

Today of course, I would give anything to spend this Sunday with Grandma, Papa, Auntie, and a roomful of John’s.

When the discussion comes up regarding a “last meal” it a no-brainer for me, my answer has never changed.

It would be Sunday Dinner from Grandma and Papa’s house. And as the official macaroni picker, I choose rigatoni.

Ronzoni sono buoni.

You are an obsession.

At work today as I headed off to my lunch break I said to my friend Tracie, "I'm off to get my latest obsession."

"Make-up-related or food-related?" she asked, knowing that if I am obsessing about anything it would fall under one of those two categories.

Yup.

Here are a few of my latest obsessions.
Fun. Spring-y. Must have now obsessions.

Trésor perfume by Lancôme.
Certain fragrances swoop me back in time. Like Paris always makes me think of my mom, Charlie makes me think of my grandma, and Drakkar makes me think of making out with boys who were bathing in the stuff back in eighth grade. When I caught a whiff of my old luv-ah Trésor on someone the other day I knew I had to have a bottle of that on my dresser and on my bod - STAT. I went through several bottles of this lovely Lancôme perfume back in the nineties before I ditched it for all things vanilla. But when that woman passed me, mmmmm...apricot-y, peach-y, a little spicy and a little floral. I went out with a gift card I had and got myself that pretty little bottle again. People ask, "What's that you're wearing?" and I can't stop smelling my arm so, I think that's a sign of a good purchase.
 

Little treasure.

Silk Crepe pink polish by Essie.
I don't usually wear hot pink polish, I tend to gravitate toward either a vampy deep red or a ballet-slipper-barely-there pink.  My bestie Laura writes an awesome blog called Finding Lagom which is all about paring down the "stuff" in her life. Lucky me, sometimes I reap the benefits of Laura's paring down - I get first dibs on any beauty products she's unloading. Recently I acquired some of her nail polish collection. I've worn this color by essie a bunch lately and have finally discovered a nail color with just the right amount of "hot" and just the right amount of "pink" that work for me. All thanks to Laura and her lagom. 

 
Cheap-ass dresses from Old Navy.
Okay, I know these are neither cosmetic or food, but I am kind of obsessed with them. I bought these three in one swoop a few weekends ago - for under twenty bucks. FOR ALL THREE WITH A COUPON. I thought they would be great weekend dresses but guess what? I'm wearing them to work too. Since I've gone part-time I'm trying really, really hard not to shop for clothes but come on, these were so cheap! And cute! I've spent hours admiring the receipt, silently praising myself while reflecting on my great deal.

Patriotic! Jailbird! Warholesque!

And the black and white one has pockets! I loooove pockets on a dress. Today, I made up a little "pockets on a dress" rap song at work and sang it from the lunch room to the reception area. As you can imagine no one was annoyed with that at all.

The "Pockets on a Dress" single hits the clubs this summer.

"Bowl of the Gods" acai bowl from kure juice bar.
I'll be honest, I have no idea what the hell this even is.
I do know that it is a true obsession from kure juice bar. I also know that it is like eating a giant bowl of ice cream in the middle of the day, which I am totally good with. Here is the deal - I saw a girl order this and immediately had total food envy after ordering a smoothie that tasted like a lawn. The next day I ordered this Bowl of the Gods  like I knew what the hell I was talking about, hoping it tasted as good as it looked when the girl got it. I don't want to sound dumb, I mean I know what bananas are but I'm not sure what "happy berries" or "Sambazon Acai" is.
I sure as hell know I like it though, whatever it  is. I'm eating it a lot and I think that it's healthy. I think. I hope it's healthy. It's from a juice bar.

The ingredients are listed above, and I still don't understand.

Bowl of goodness on my lap.

Looks revolting, tastes great!

Ummm, yeah...I didn't like that at all.

 

When I love something a lot I want everyone else to try it/love it as much as I do.

So please go to Old Navy this weekend. These dresses are on the clearance rack, they won't be there forever.

I'm trying to help you.

When I run into you on the street I expect to see stripes. Yes, even the horizontal ones, it's okay.

Wear your dress and meet me at the juice bar for a gigantic bowl of whatever.

Who's your mama?

With Mothers Day approaching (it’s May 12th - don't panic - everything's fine)

I’ve been thinking a lot about my mom and what to get her.

My mom is pretty awesome.

She was and continues to be a great role model of the type of mom I want to be.

She's just a great person.

The queen is pleased.

When I was younger I would write poems for my mom, draw her pictures, make her macaroni art, ceramic ashtrays, tissue paper corsages, and a clay necklace that weighs around thirty pounds that she still wears around her neck every Mother’s Day like a medal of honor. We did and still do a lot of stuff together.


Matching hair? Check.
Matching dress? Check.

Wear red, dry hair, be annoyed.

Workin' it out.

At a parade - again, not amused.

Bizarre Grey Gardens-style portrait of the two of us.



 This year, I want to get her something that she will totally love.
I know it will be hard to top the thirty-pound-1979-medallion, but I’m going to try.

Since I love mine so much, I think I’m gonna give her a Birchbox.

Chock full of goodness.

Last months haul included some of my favorites yet:

Super fancy eye-cream that I have totally been wanting to try.

Sicilian Body Gel, because I want to
smell like oranges and olive oil.

I was wary of the gluten-free/vegan thing,
but these were good.

How could she not love it? Who wouldn’t? She'll get it for three months!
I didn't have to go to the mall! Which kind of sucks, because I love going to the mall.

Click here to find out more about sending a box of beauty-love in the mail to yo' mama.

Mom is totally worth it - every year she still hauls out that medallion and wears it out to brunch.
She can barely walk by the end of the day.
That's love.

Soap gets in your eyes.

Right along with the rest of the planet, here is what I've been sharing this week :




At the end of the week maybe this Dove Soap beauty campaign has completely exhausted you; maybe you haven't seen it yet. But it hit close to home for me. 

Like seriously close to home.

Like in my living room sitting next to me on the couch while I eat my sixteenth Ritz with peanut butter and jelly close to home.

I remember shopping with my bestie Laura several years ago, trying on pants that I thought fit me perfectly.
I came out of the dressing room to show Laura, and the conversation went something like this:

“They’re cute, but they’re waaay too big on you Lori, do you want me to get you the next size down?”

“No, this is my size.”

“No it’s not. It might be the size you wear but it sure as hell isn't your size.”

This wasn’t following some big weight loss where I was still seeing myself a certain way, or a PMS day, or the day after Thanksgiving - this was just an average day with me hiding behind some giant pants - this was how I saw myself.

Now I’m no sketch-artist, but please enjoy a few self-portraits courtesy of my diaries from back in the day:

My first loathing self portrait, age 8.
Linda Lotts looked the prettiest and I looked like a monster - A MONSTER.



Thigh anxiety, age 16.

 

 

Nose and chin - much too pointy, age 18.

And now, this drawing I made of myself at work last week.

Still on my desk buried under some boring notes this lovely self-portrait was created first thing in the morning, like at 7:00 a.m.

Before I even had a full cup of coffee I was happy to have a lively discussion with two female co-workers about things we don't like about our faces and bodies. Seems like a good start to the day. 

I told them I could better explain if I drew how I see myself:

 

Good hair at least? Age 40-something.

All these years later and this is pretty much the same picture I drew of myself in high school - the one in the bathing suit with the big thighs.

And yes I know I probably should work on this.

A lot.

I really am going to try to.

In fact I'm pretty mad/sad/annoyed by the whole thing.

That I'm still drawing that same picture.

Master of illusion.

I'm pretty good at covering things up.

Like I can arrange candy in a half-eaten candy bowl juuuust right so it still looks full.

I can put on a variety of spandex "body shaping" undergarments that will make you ask our friends, "Do you think Lori's getting too skinny?"

And acne, you better watch out. I am the queen of concealor.

I use a special mix of foundation, brush strokes, high lights and low lights that trick you into thinking I have the clearest skin on the planet. Your eyes dart around and your head starts to spin, confused with the feeling that I'm hiding something from you - because I am.

After covering up all these years - since around junior high - I've kind of become an expert.
Sad, being an expert in something you have no desire to be an expert in.

I know, waaah, waaah, waaah, everybody gets zits.
What I currently have on my face is not in the same league as zits.
It's cystic acne that comes in and out of my life in waves.

Horrible, horrible not fun waves.

I know when it's coming. I feel a big 'ol knot under my skin, usually around my chin area and most times there's more than one monster.

So today I am surrendering and doing something that I have to do. I know that all of the over-the-counter zit creams in the world can't begin to touch what is on my face. I'm going into my dermatologist for cortisone injections.

When I first started getting shots in my face I was young and pretty freaked out about it. Then it became routine, with the relief I would feel afterwards knowing how quickly the spots would disappear.

In high school it was a huge vanity thing but today it's more of a painful annoyance, I don't like not being able to sleep on my left side because I have a pimple that hurts like the devil. Plus...yeah...the vanity thing is still there too.

So I'm spending my lunch hour today as a human pin cushion. I'm a junkie who needs her fix and my dealer is my lovely dermatologist who I have been seeing here in Portland for years.

This afternoon we are dealing with three main offenders on my chin, and a straggler on my cheek that has taken up residence for a month or so. Since my hair is so long and curly it's been covering up that puppy but while I'm here of course it will be dealt with. And I've missed wearing a ponytail.


This picture doesn't do these evil bumps justice.

LUNCHTIME!
It hurts to be beautiful.
For reals.

A memory that leaves my stomach, as well as my face a little sore is one of going to get injections when I was around fifteen. My mom drove me to my weird little dermatologist (who you can read more about here) in the morning before school when face was in one of its worst states, a minefield, all painful and hot.

I had around twenty pokes that day to which the doctor commented was probably the most he had ever done in one sitting. Awesome.

On the verge of a breakdown I got into the car and slumped down in the seat. Mom noticed how extra-quiet I was, she knew things weren’t good. How could I go to school today looking like this? How??? I was a mess. She then did one of the nicest things ever, asking if I would like to take a day off from school and stay home. I burst into tears, “YES!” I cried, letting it all out in an big, ugly, crying mess. She probably doesn’t remember that day but I sure do.

I also remember that she took me to a really nice shopping center where I bought a belt and we got TCBY frozen yogurt – I was so happy I didn’t care what the store clerks or the yogurt people thought of my face. We had a nice, unexpected day together.

Today I do have to go back to the office for two more hours.

Bandaged up and back to work.

 

One of the guys asked me if I was ok, noticing my band aid.
I told him, “I cut myself shaving” which seemed like the natural thing to say.
He looked confused.

I’d much rather be shopping with Mom, licking a giant fro-yo.

But at least today wasn't a twenty-poke-day.

Sucker for a spokesman.

I’m an ad junkie.

 

I love a commercial with a snappy song, slogan or jingle. I can’t remember how old I am or what year my car is, but I can sing the song from the Charlie perfume commercial that aired back in 1979, no problem.

A good spokesman is hard to come by. It takes real talent to implant a product in your brain for life. He has to have the voice, the look, the personality, the finesse and the crazy gleam in his eye. He must possess all this and more to be the complete spokes-package.

Below are my three favorite spokesmen ever.
They could sell sand in the desert, fish in the ocean, babies to an octomom...
You get the idea - they're good.

Tom Carvel.
My friends all know of my Carvel obsession - before Mick Jagger there was Tom Carvel.

My first spokes-boyfriend coincided beautifully with my love of really, really good soft serve ice cream and cakes shaped like whales, Santa Claus heads, and Cookie Pusses.



That gravelly voice, that unrehearsed delivery, that smoky sounding grandpa – that’s my Tom Carvel.

Crazy Eddie.
Here is what you need to know about Crazy Eddie:

1. He is crazy.

2. He has quality electronics and audio video component systems to unload at discount prices.

3. His prices are INSANE.

 

As a child I went to a Crazy Eddie store once, to purchase a radio with my dad. I was disappointed that Crazy Eddie himself wasn’t manning the cash register or trying to sell me component systems, whatever they are. I was also disappointed to learn that Crazy Eddie was just a crazy character played by a radio DJ named Jerry Carroll. To this day anytime I refer to anything as “insane” Crazy Eddie pops into my head. And I feel a little, well, you know…INSANE.

Sam Behr.
Time for a southern gentleman to join the group. Our move down south introduced us to Sam Behr, the face and voice for Allied Discount Tires who had locations throughout central Florida. My family and I loved these commercials - when they would come on we would call each other into the room so at the end we could all yell, "That's Allied Discount Tahhhhhrrrrrrrs!"

My favorite by old Sam was this gem where he seems so earnest yet also exhausted by the whole production.
Just buy the damn tires already.

Now who today is selling anything out there with this much passion?

Nobody.

So how could you resist buying ice cream/electronics/tires from these guys?

I couldn’t.

And I still can’t - even though I live thousands of miles away from a Carvel.

Thank you Safeway freezer section.
It's no Fudgie, but it'll do.



Oh, one last thing. I just tried calling the phone number on the Carvel commercial for old times sake to say hello, see if by chance some relative of Tom Carvel answered so I could tell them how much I love their product

and guess what?

 

It’s now an adult chat line. "America’s Hottest Chat Line."

No shit.

They’re serving up something different now – it’s gone from cold and innocent to hot and steamy.

The “spokeswoman” on the line had nothing on Tom Carvel.