humor

Auld Lang Sally

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‘A very Harry New Year to you and yours’

The Dude and I rarely venture out on New Year’s Eve (‘Amateur Night’, he calls it. Though I think it’s really because it’s impossible to get a cab.) You can see from the rather undignified photo at the top of this post that this was not always the case. (If it looks a little blurry, that’s because it is. Unless, of course, you’ve already started celebrating. In which case, it’s really blurry.)

Instead, we like to stay in and drink champagne and watch movies then drink more champagne and watch more movies. Though one year we did drink champagne and build a paper model of the Empire State Building on the coffee table. I think watching the movies is marginally more exciting.

Speaking of which, the movie to watch on New Year’s Eve is, in my humble opinion, ‘When Harry Met Sally’. It’s one of Nora Ephron’s funniest scripts and a much more successful directorial effort on Rob Reiner’s part than Continue reading

The Incest Mug

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‘Aha! So that explains it’

‘Incest’, eh? You might be thinking that’s a frisky topic for Lutheranliar. But I figure now is a perfect time to get this story out of my system, since almost everybody’s away from their computers doing their Christmas shopping. And all the other people not away from their computers are probably doing their Christmas shopping too.

So, hah. I’m thinking the chances of ruining my social standing and/or becoming shunned by polite society are fairly slim since nobody’s going to read it anyway. So, here’s the story.  Continue reading

Turkey Shoot

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‘At least it’s not Christmas’

Tuesday Night: Sipping a very large Manhattan to reward myself for having made the piecrust (yes, I make my own), I’m tipsily (If that’s not a real word, then it should be) writing my post while waiting for the Big Beef to do its braising thing. (More on Big Beef later.)

Today (if it is in fact Wednesday when you’re reading this) is Thanksgiving Eve. Before I get started raving about Thanksgiving, just take a look at two of the things I like best about this particular holiday:

Fingers crossed this year’s pies are as good as last year’s: Left, apple. On the right, cranberry-apple.

Anyway, I know I promised not to rant. Nor shall I. But allow me to expound instead on the virtues of Thanksgiving. It’s not that I don’t like Christmas. But let’s compare the two festive occasions, shall we? Then, you decide.

Why, in my humble opinion, Thanksgiving beats the tinsel out of Christmas: Continue reading

De Kooning’s revenge

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‘My living room is green and gold.’

Who knew Willem de Kooning was such a merry prankster? He was known for his paintings, particularly his ‘Women’ series, but I certainly didn’t realize he had such a wicked sense of humor.

If you’re interested, you can read more about de Kooning here. And if you look here, you’ll see examples of his work (including a couple of pretty scary-looking ‘Women’) at a cool site called Artsy. But you might want to finish this post first. What happens is pretty funny.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may remember that my father-in-law, Dad of the Dude, was a famous urologist. With even-more-famous guys as patients. Urologists’ patients are almost always guys. (The Dude himself is also a doctor, but an ophthalmologist, and deals with a whole other portion of the anatomy.) Anyway, the original Dr. Whitmore dealt almost exclusively with very famous, very grateful, guys.

They were so grateful, in fact, that they often gave him gifts and/or did nice things for him. (There’s a cool example of Malcolm Forbes’ generosity in my story ‘They needed the eggs’) But back to Willem de Kooning.

You’ve probably guessed by now Continue reading

‘My head feels funny’

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‘The Suit with the Tyrolean hat’

So. Does anybody else out there get the Sunday-Night Blues? Well, I certainly do. Guess it’s a holdover from those Omigosh-I-Haven’t-Done-My-Homework-Yet Days. This particular Sunday it means my Weekly Post is staring me in the face. But I did think of a good story, just now. Whew.

It’s one from my Golden Olden Days of Advertising. And it’s about an Account Guy and his hat.

See, back then there were (basically) two kinds of people: the Creative People, who were the writers and art directors (and producers and music people and many talented others, but for the purposes of this story I am limiting this to writers and art directors), and the Account Guys, who were the men and women (though usually men) who worked with the clients in mysterious ways that involved Business.

You could tell the Creative People and the Account Guys apart easily enough. The Account Guys usually looked really serious, and wore suits. So we called them, affectionately enough, the Suits. The Creative People, both male and female varieties, wore jeans and leather and tee-shirts and much longer hair. And, (if you were female and a Creative) sometimes very short skirts with tights.

I take it back. Creatives sometimes wore suits. I once wore a Chanel Suit (thrift shop, but still) with Converse sneakers to a Big Job Interview. (I didn’t have time to change into the heels I’d stowed in my bag; I got the job. Maybe the low-tops clinched the deal.) But most of the time, if you were wearing a suit, you were the one carrying the bags and driving the car to the client meeting. (Er, conducting Important Business with the Client).

Well, back to the hat. Continue reading

The Truly Ugly Chair

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‘Left in the street, unwanted and alone’

The news that The Child had scored her very own First Apartment (with a roommate, but still) sent me down Ugly Furniture Memory Lane. Visions of the bookshelf-made-with-planks-and-bricks and the headboard-fashioned-of-an-old-quilt-thrown-over-a-piece-of-plywood flashed before my eyes.

Oh, and let’s not forget the black fake-leather sleeper sofa that was so heavy it splintered the railing while being hoisted over the balcony so it could help furnish my own First Apartment — a $105/month fourth-floor walkup on the dodgy end of the loftily-named Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri. My landlord was not amused.

I owed my collection of stuff to sit on, sleep on, and in which to store things to my Mom, various thrift shops, and certain absconded boyfriends. And I was grateful. Well, maybe not to the absconded boyfriends.

When you’re in your twenties, ‘furniture’ does not occupy a top spot in your priorities. But there does come a point when you look around and think: Continue reading

All Saints’ (Birth)Day

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‘And the years just keep on coming’

I simply must stop wearing The Child’s discarded Stuyvesant High School tee shirt. It says ‘Seniors’ on the front, and the other day a friend thought I was declaring my membership in an Age Group.

While I’m not at an age where I’d like to blurt out a number (I think you have to be either really young — “I’m 3! Going on 4!” — or really old — “I’m 97! If I make it to June!” — to want to blurt), I do feel okay telling you Continue reading

Happy Ho-Made Halloween

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‘A Simple Costume can do the trick. And get the treat.’

I blame it on The Headless Horseman. This was a Halloween costume I thought up, oh, when I was nearing the end of my trick-or-treating career. Like, when I was about 11. Appearing ‘headless’ involved poking the ends of my Mom’s yardstick through the sleeves of her ‘borrowed’ raincoat and balancing said yardstick on top of my covered-with-a-scarf head. The dangling ends of the sleeves were safety-pinned to a pair of Dad’s utility gloves, one of which was attached (somehow, the details are a bit fuzzy now) to a carved Jack-o-Lantern, so it looked like the Headless Horseman was carrying his head. I mean, if you were very young and impressionable or old and almost blind it looked like the Headless Horseman was carrying his head. But that was good enough for me.

You see, we Henrys were a family of Costume Makers. As opposed to Costume Buyers. I don’t think my parents were the type to buy, much less encase me, in a teensy infant Devil Onesie. But maybe they did, and I was just too little to know about it. If they did, Continue reading

Dad Eggs and Ham

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‘Sunday-Night Supper at the Henry House’

As some of you may know from my ubiquitous FaceBook presence, I recently spent a most glorious Family Fall Weekend with my brother Roger and his lovely wife Nobody-Doesn’t-Like-Jenn. It was my favorite kind of weekend because, basically, we really didn’t do much. Looked at slides of my nephew’s wedding. Hung out on the Porch of Ill Repute with glasses of wine. Played with the across-the-street neighbor’s baby. (Hi, Olivia! Hi, Olivia’s Mom Amanda!)

Oh, and being Henrys, we also ate a lot of food. Like Roger’s chili, which he makes in large vats then freezes into chili-sicles for emergency guests-are-here use. (He also bestows these as gifts to neighbors. Move near him, if you can.)  Roger also continues to make the Peterson Christmas-Eve Oyster Stew, but I’ll have to wait to eat it. And you’ll have to wait to hear about it.

You do get to hear about Dad Eggs, though. Dad Eggs is a dish my Dad (in photo above) concocted to Give Mom a Break on Sunday Nights. See, Sundays were the days we went to (Lutheran) Church, then stuck around after the service to eat pastries and watch Pastor Kahre smoke, then went home to the main meal of the day, usually a large roast of some kind. (Remind me to tell you about ‘heart meat’; trust me, it’s in no way similar to ‘eye of round’).

So, since Mom had gone to a lot of trouble (gravy! remember gravy?), and we were all still kind of full when suppertime rolled around, Dad would go into his act. Continue reading