The Time Traveler's Granddaughter

My mom and dad had their 50th anniversary this year, and I was in charge of the party.  (It was awesome. More on that another day.)  The night before the party I was baking the cake and ironing mom's dress and packing stuff up, when I got a call from Grandma Wehrmacher.  She said she'd been going through some boxes (it's never disappointing when Grandma goes through boxes) and she'd found some photos of the wedding she didn't know she had.  She said she'd bring them to the party, and then afterwards, that I could keep them.  There was obviously a secret message involved, because YOU GUYS!!! Look at this...

Oh.  My.  Gosh.  My mind is blown on so many levels.  First, I'm fairly positive that this is the first time I have ever seen both of my Grandmas in the same place.  Secondly, who doesn't like horses?  But thirdly, and probably most importantly, this picture is proof of something I have long suspected.  Do you see what I'm seeing here?  Here are Grandpa and Grandma Peters and Grandma Wehrmacher, three people I know for a fact live in the present, who have CLEARLY TIME-TRAVELED TO THE PAST.  That's the only possible explanation.  And look!  Grandpa Wehrmacher can do it too!

Now, the Grandpas have an obvious edge over the Grandmas in the blending-in department, because the clothes they wear in the present-day are sort of indistinguishable from these.  But the Grandmas really went all out, and even did a whole city-mouse, country-mouse thing.  They must have planned it together.  I'm beyond impressed.  No worries that they're going to disturb the space-time continuum; they blend in seamlessly.  Now, lest you doubt the veracity of my theory, look at this picture.

This photo from the wedding captures the ACTUAL MOMENT OF TIME TRAVEL.   Look at my cousins Tammi and Brenda, the flower girls.  You can see them sliding Back to the Future!  And Uncle Arlan, over on the left? He's practically gone already!  (Presumably because he needs to get back to the 21st century and water his plants.)  This is no mere photographic trickery.  This is indisputable proof that I come from an entire family of time travelers. 

I imagine you're skeptical.  As was I, friends.  As was I.  But further research proved this wasn't an isolated incident.  Take a moment, if you will, to observe this photo of Grandma Peters and Great-Aunt Helen, pausing briefly to admire the kitchen wallpaper and wonder what's in those sandwiches.  

Now, I know Aunt Helen.  This is how she dresses.  (Which was coincidentally why our Barbies dressed like that too.  Lots of polyester jumpsuits.)  

You can tell this photo is from Modern Times because it is in color, and also, I am in it, and I am not time-traveler.  So what's with the dress and pearls in the kitchen?  AUNT HELEN IS AN EXPERT OF DISGUISE.  And this isn't the only time she's done it.  Look!

There she is, on her mom's lap.  This is for-real Olden Times!  People that I know have traveled to Olden Times!  Lucky sons of guns.  Now, I know it's hard to see faces and prove that's Aunt Helen, but look here...

There they are, all four of the great-aunts!  They're young, but you can tell it's them.  I'm mean, look at the one on the right!  That is DEFINITELY Aunt Gertrude.  They really outdid themselves with the disguises on this trip.  I can just see them:  four old ladies gathered around Aunt Leota's card table with the oil cloth cover, eating Aunt Frieda's apple pie and homemade ice cream; Aunt Gert crocheting and trying to get Aunt Helen to focus while they plan their trip to the past; and they decide they'll all wear absolutely giant hair bows so they can keep track of one another until they travel back to the present (in plenty of time for church.)

And what about Grandma, seen here in modern times?  She's the source of all these pictures.  Was the wedding her only trip to the past?  Absolutely not, exempli gratia:

This last one is perhaps the most important.  This one where she time-traveled to an elementary school circa 1933.  Look at Grandma, third from the right in the front row.  What is she holding in her hand?  IS THAT THE PORTAL???  DOES SHE STILL HAVE IT IN ONE OF HER BOXES???  Oh my gosh, you guys.  Grandma and I share everything...we have the same pale skin, thin hair, crooked tooth, hyper-extending elbows, and if you ask her, the same webbed feet.  (I really don't think our feet are webbed.)  Will she also share with me the secret to Time Travel?  I  hope so!  She clearly brought the pictures to the party so I'd figure out my family's secret.  And once I figure out how to work it, I won't bother with seeing the Gettysburg Address or signing of the Constitution or any of that jazz.  What I will go see are true historic events, such as:

• Dad and Crazy Uncle Jimmy exploding the picnic table with their homemade gunpowder
• Mom going to high school with jingle bells stitched to her crinoline at Christmastime
• Grandpa Peters going to his first movie, the one starring Tom Mix
• Grandpa and Grandma Wehrmacher seeing those hula dancers in Hawaii during the war
• And first and foremost, Grandma Wehrmacher doing her hair in the 40s, so I can figure out how to make our fine, thin hair do this...

When you see me with this hair, you'll know I've come Back...to the Future.  

The Lazy Cheapskate's Guide to Bathroom Renovation

I think my house looks pretty good.  I mean, not ladies-magazine-good or anything, but in general I think I have a pleasant aesthetic and I'm relatively tidy, so what I'm saying is: it could be worse.  But I see my house every day, and familiarity breeds, if not contempt, at least complaisance, so once in a while it behooves one to look at one's home through the eyes of, say, the boiler guy who needs to use one's bathroom. 

Now, Johnny would never have said anything negative about my bathroom because, One: He's too nice of a guy; Two: As a boiler guy I imagine he's seen a lot worse; and Three: He's seen my bathroom enough times to be complaisant as well (which should give you an indication of the reliability of my heating system.)  But after he left, I thought, hmm... Is my bathroom a relaxing, spa-like get-away?  Or does it conjure images of a crime scene in a dilapidated hotel?  And before you say "Oh Melanie, it's not that bad", look at it in black and white.

Gah!  You can practically hear the violins shrieking.  I decided it was time for a major bathroom renovation, which is not a step to be undertaken lightly.  But since I had 5 free hours, which is obviously plenty of time for a complete overhaul, I decided to do this the Right Way, which meant Googling "bathroom renovation" and following the recommended steps scrupulously.  This is a complete journal of my redo.

• ASSESS YOUR BUDGET.  The internet suggested an average bathroom renovation costs between $9000-15,000.  But I'm a freelance artist, so I'm hoping to get it done for somewhere in the 20 dollar range.  Step one, complete.
• COMPILE INSPIRATION IMAGES.  Okay.  This makes sense.  You should have a sense of what you're going for.  But with my 5 hour deadline I don't really have time to scroll through countless images of bathrooms on the internet, so I just try to call to mind bathrooms I remember liking.

The only one I can think of is the bathtub my sister and I had for our Barbies.  I think you can see that it is fabulous.  But it's really all about the windows, and putting those in is going to be well outside of the 5 hour/$20 limitation I have set.  And anyway, it's Minnesota in January.  There's no way I'm going to have verdant trees and vulture-sized butterflies outside my windows.  So I scratch that and decide that the sort of bathroom I want is probably very similar to the sort of bathroom I already have. Step two, done.  This is going swimmingly!

• LIST ALL DESIRED CHANGES.  Okay, I can do that.  By trying to look at my bathroom with Johnny the Boiler Guy's eyes, here are the things I note:

1. The plastic shower curtain isn't great.  I have a thing about light when bathing and the clear curtain seemed like a great idea when I got it 5 years ago.  But though I really do keep it clean, I have hard water, so it's hopelessly covered with spots.  This shower curtain is probably the main thing making my bathroom look like a terrific spot to dispatch an enemy, so a new curtain will be first on my list.
2. The paint on the moldings and chair rails and medicine cabinet and doors has been painted over a zillion times since the building was built in 1907, and it has clearly not always been sanded first, so it's kind of a mess.  I could remove all the old paint and redo it and it would look stunning.  Except that it's almost impossible to get sandpaper into crevices like that, and paint remover is super-toxic, and also I'm lazy and cheap, so the layered-paint thing is probably an example of Vintage Charm, and I'd be nuts to mess with it.  Right?  Great!  Done!
3. The tub doesn't actually slant towards the plumbing, so water pools up after a shower and has to be kick-splashed towards the drain.  I've tried to fix it before, but a cast iron tub is just as heavy as you think it would be, so maybe I just keep kick-splashing?  It's probably also great for your adductor muscles, so my bathroom is now a spa AND a fitness room!  This renovation is flying!
4. There are a few hairline cracks in the ceiling and the floor tiles.  But  what of it?  Great!  Done!
5. Okay.  The list is complete.

• SOURCE YOUR MATERIALS.  At this point, it was really just the shower curtain.  I had looked at store-bought options in the past, but they were always too dark or opaque.  So I decided to buy some fabric and make one myself.  But on the way to the fabric store I stopped at the Institution of Finer Shopping known as Har Mar Mall to exchange a Christmas gift from Dress Barn.  Funny story: there isn't a Dress Barn in Har Mar Mall anymore.   But I was already in the parking lot, so I decided on a whim to stop into Home Goods, and I found these curtain panels that were just sheer enough and had these jolly tufts all over them.  I figured if I stitched them together they'd be the right size for the shower, and I'd save myself a ton of work, since the hems and grommets were already there.  Plus, they were only $17 plus tax!  Har Mar Mall for the Win!

Before I stitched them together I hung one on the rod to mark the hem, and that's when I saw it: the glaring disaster I'd missed with both my and Johnny the Boiler Guy's eyes.  Do you see what I'm looking at?

The inner window frame looks AWFUL.  It's never been painted, so it looks dingy and has screws sticking out, and a sticker I can't read way up high.  THIS WILL NOT STAND.  My renovation just got a lot more intense:  It's time to paint.

Fortunately, this didn't put me over budget, as I had white paint in the basement.  Now, a lot of folks might have said "But Melanie!  That's ceiling paint!  For a bathroom window right next to a shower you probably want high gloss or at least eggshell."  And to those people, I would say "Hush.  I'm a maverick."  (I am also lazy and cheap.) The real problem came when I realized I couldn't reach the top pane, and the tub and radiator were conspiring to keep out a ladder.  So I put a stool in the tub, which was SUPER safe, because it was pretty wobbly, and also still wet in the bottom (due to laziness on my part with the kick-splashing that morning.)  But all's well that ends well.  I even managed to get the weird sticker off by jabbing at it with an X-Acto knife, which is clearly the right tool to use on a wobbly slippery stool.  (Turns out the sticker said "Do not paint or stain."  Whatever.  Maverick.)

So again, ende gut, alles gut, as lazy-cheap Germans say.   I came in both under budget and under time, didn't paint the window shut, didn't fall off the stool, didn't even break the stool, didn't cut myself with the knife, and completed a full renovation for 18 bucks (although that renovation turns out to be just a homemade shower curtain and a barely-discernibly-differently colored window frame.)  But I love it.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go renovate my kitchen by emptying the dishwasher.  Toodle-oo!

...with every Christmas card I hot-glue

I come from a card-sending family; on my mom's side in particular. I always know the first week in December will bring a flurry of mail from the Peters, a trait that seems to be sharpening in the younger generations.  This year I got a card from my cousin's daughter two days after Thanksgiving. STOP MAKING ME LOOK BAD WITH YOUR SUPER-TIMELY PICTURES OF YOUR ADORABLE KID!  UGH! (No, I'm just kidding, Emily, you're awesome.)  My dad's side of the family is, as in most things, more... relaxed about it.  I remember once, in college, getting a card in the mail from my grandparents on my actual birthday, the first week in May.  I was shocked because historically Grandma was very late with cards.  But when I opened it, it was my Christmas card, and my universe fell happily back into place.  

I fall somewhere in between.  My cards get sent before Christmas, but they certainly do not go out December 1st.  And here's my semi-reasonable excuse: I make my own cards.  Every year, somewhere around December 15th I find myself sweaty and frazzled, surrounded by schnitzels of paper and rubber cement cobwebs; cutting, pasting, gluing, addressing, stamping, and licking around 90 cards to my innermost circle of friends and family.  And there's always at least another 90 people I'd like to include, but by that point I'm wishing I'd just sent a Facebook message, and you'd pretty much have to be my long-lost identical twin and/or an actual potentate to get added to the list.

I made my first cards in 2004.  I know this because I dated them on the back, like they'd be archived as collectibles in some catalogue instead of tossed into recycling bins across the nation on December 26.  I don't remember exactly why I started.  Probably a combination of my Germanic-Midwestern frugality (cheapness) and my need for my cards to speak to my soul and represent my true self to the recipients (hippie-dippie-ness.).  Anyway, I found some K-mart wrapping paper with terrifically jolly vintage-looking snowmen on a red background, cut them out with a crinkly-edged scissors so they looked almost on-purpose, hot-glued on some rick-rack (mankind's greatest invention) and sent them off.  Looking back, I see that nothing was straight, but crooked gluing has become a treasured holiday tradition for me, like burning the first batch of caramels and forgetting to water the tree.

Here's another one I made.  See that stitching?  Cute, right?  Not straight.

And this one, from the year I moved to St. Paul.  Very appropriate.  Also not straight.

And this is one of my all-time favorites.  A illustration from a 1960s holiday cookbook, with a message from a 1950s 7-Up ad, and more rick-rack.  I mean, come on!  IT'S ADORABLE!  And totally not straight.   I imagine by now you are noticing the theme.  And bear in mind, these are the ones I kept for my archive.  Meaning, these were the neat ones.  There were plenty of them that turned out worse.  I remember once sending off a particularly messy card to Great-Aunt Frieda with the justification that she couldn't see very well anyway.  I'M A MONSTER!!!

Oh, and then there was this year.  I somehow convinced my artist boyfriend to cut out 90 of these silhouettes (if I'd done them myself there'd have been, like, two stumps and a garbage can.)  So at least it's straight.  But I was in charge of glitter and glue, and apparently I was a little lackadaisical about making sure the glitter stuck, and everyone got a glitter shower when they opened the envelopes. I got a Christmas card from my good friend Jesse saying "Thanks for making our apartment look like a gay disco."  (Sorry, everybody.)

So why do I do it?  It would certainly be, as my dad sad, easier to just go to Walmart.  I'd free up a good 15-20 hours, send out cards my friends would actually want to display, and be far less likely to superglue my eyelid shut.  (Don't ask.)  Why can't I just by a $15 box of cards and be done with it?  Maybe it's because I'm cheap.  Maybe it's because I'm hippie-dippie.  Maybe it's because I just really like the smell of rubber cement.  But I think the true answer lies, as most answers do, in the Better Homes and Garden 1967 Christmas Ideas Book.

The photo isn't straight (shocker)  but you can see that it's an article about homemade cards.  And here's what they have to say.

“Make a special card, yourself, and you’re sure it will get a second glance, probably more. Personalize it with a special message, a snapshot, or an amusing cutout. A special paste-on, an added seal or ribbon, make a card more personal than the nicest one you can buy.”

— Christmas Ideas for 1967

I guess that's what I want; I want it to be personal.  I mean, let's face it.  Christmas is the one time of the year most of us send mail at all.  And a lot of the people I send cards to haven't seen me in years.  Now, the second glance I get may be my relatives saying "Wait, when did Melanie have kids?  Because surely no adult made this."  The amusing cutout may be surrounded by hateful, insidious glitter.  And the special message may look suspiciously like someone went on auto-pilot and started writing "Melanie" where it should have said "Merry Christmas" and tried to scribble a design over it to make it look on purpose.  (Sorry, Aunt Delores.)  But it's personal.  It's a bit of me that I can send and say, "you might not see me very often, but here's who I am. I'm a person who likes glitter, and rick-rack, and 7-up ads from the 1950s, and whose glue-gun can't keep up with her crafting excitement.  I'm a person who really, truly wants you to have a merry Christmas, and wishes she saw you more often, because she really likes who you are too."  My cards, like me, are not perfect, but we mean really well.  And honestly, if you look closely at that red-and-white stamped card in the magazine?  That's not straight either.  AND IT'S IN BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS!!!!

So here it is.  The 2017 Melanie Christmas card.  If you get one in the mail, please know that your tree may be raggedy because my scissors are dull, your zip code may be scribbled over because I forgot to buy extra envelopes, and your candy-striped ribbon will almost certainly not be straight.  But you'll think about me for a second, and that's really nice to know.  So Merry Christmas everyone...from 7-up.

Adulting...with crayons

My grandparents on my dad's side were hoarders.  Not "gosh, they like to collect things, so we're using this popular phrase jokingly" hoarders, but "there's barely a path from the door to the couch" hoarders.  Or so I hear.  I haven't been in their house since I was a baby.  They sort of stopped inviting people over, so I've only had it described to me.  But even when my dad describes it as a place where there's nowhere to sit and there are oatmeal containers of egg shells in the kitchen, in my imagination it is a wonderland filled with treasure.  Partly that's because since my Grandma moved into an assisted living facility, I've been gifted with amazing delights like matchbooks from Chicago restaurants in the 60s, and Grandpas's purple velvet tux.  I mean, who WOULDN'T want those things?  (Sidenote:  Apparently Grandma always justified her keeping ways by saying "But someone might want it some day."  And now I am proving her right.  Sorry Dad!  You're welcome, Grandma!)

But this isn't a new feeling; that of an adult receiving mementos of her family's life.  Even as I kid, I had the sneaking suspicion that anything I really wanted was probably somewhere in the house in Morton Grove.  Case in Point:  When I was around 9 or 10 years old, I was really interested in the 1950s. (I played alone a lot.)  I told Mom I wished I had some magazines from the 50s so I could see pictures of the clothes and houses and things, and Mom said "I'm sure Grandma has some."  And sure enough, I was given a handful of magazines that shaped my aesthetic for the rest of eternity, and cemented my absolute devotion to old-timey ladies magazines.  I've amassed quite a collection in the last 30 years, and I've always got room for more, but these five are my favorites.  I know every picture, every ad, every story in each, and they are all PERFECT.

And one of the magazines was a double jackpot, because it was the DECEMBER ISSUE!!!  CHRISTMAS!!!!!! Oh my gosh.  The greatest.  It's a fabulous magazine called "Living for Young Homemakers."  I don't know much about this magazine, as it doesn't make the cut on the "List of Defunct Ladies' Magazines" page on Wikipedia, which is about as far as my research has gone.  But it's awesome.  (Do you have issues of it, sitting around and making your family think you're a hoarder?  SEND THEM TO ME!)  It's definitely aimed at the young and perhaps would-be urbane set.  But young urbane people have kids, so there's a spread about dolls and dollhouses.  LOOK AT THIS, PEOPLE.  

Did I lose my 9-year-old mind?  Of COURSE I did.  It's everything.  Toys, party dresses, playing house, and that weird 3-D/2-D combination art that I've always loved (I know that's very specific, but thanks, Living for Young Homemakers December 1960.) In any case, I pulled this magazine out again this Christmas, and as I was flipping through it, I had a revelation.  I never wanted those dolls.  I wanted to BE those dolls!  I still want to be them, and the good thing is that now I am an adult, and I can do or be whatever I want.

In particular, I want to be this little minx in the kitchen.  Look at this!  She's got everything: the ruffled dress with the crinoline, the weird mechanical cardboard clock, the appliances (man, the appliances!), the wide variety of cereals from which to choose, the dog and cat that get along and will never pee on your bed, and that pink carpet sweeper.  (Dear lord, it's almost too much to bear.)  Well, a lot of those things are out of my reach, at least just sitting around the house on a Monday night.  But you know what I CAN have?  That swell 2-D drawing of a candy shop, because I have a box of crayons and a can-do attitude!

So here it is!  I certainly couldn't be bothered to buy anything (or put on pants and leave the house), so I took the paper I'd used to make a photo backdrop for Mom and Dad's golden wedding anniversary, taped it around my protest sign from the Women's March, pulled out my box of 64 Crayolas, and went to work.  It's not too bad, right?  Especially there on the mantel with the candles and the Santa mug and pitcher set. 

Look, I know it's dumb. But isn't that part of being an adult?  Getting to have those things you've always wanted?  And honestly, all it cost me was a trip to the basement and an hour or two (I'm sure you could do it in 30 minutes, but I am, frankly, a lousy drawer.  My first attempt at the jars looked like someone had run over a horny toad.) And it makes me happy every time I walk past it, so now I'm the proud owner of something I've coveted since I was 9.  ADULTING!  (...with crayons...)