Discovering Beauty: Flashback Friday Blog Style

I still live in the dark ages and don't have a smart phone yet. I'm still rockin' the slide phone fad, <<cough, cough, birthday in October, cough cough, Kevin, cough>>, and frankly I'm too lazy to scan and upload photos, but I always find it hilarious to see old pictures of friends on ye olde facebook.

I'm one of those people who actually truly enjoys looking at family photos. Do you have a collection of 8mm films from your trip to Key West in the 1970s? Let's pop some corn and have a crazy old night.

Loving old pictures really means I love stories, memories perfectly re-lived or slightly embellished. That's the marrow I wanna get at.

So, without further adieu, I bring you, in no particular order, my first Friday Flashback.

Do you remember Miss Cleo, the ambiguously West Indies "psychic" who couldn't really hold her accent and was born Youree Dell Harris?

I could see right through that act. So could my friend Merica Mucker*.

She decided to give old Miss Cleo a call and catch her in her own trap, determined to shut. that. racket. down.

When the phone bill came, it didn't seem like such a good idea anymore.

*name changed to protect her identity.
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New Year's Eve was always a bang-up good time on Woodward Ave. Our family tradition demanded that at the stroke of midnight we must burst forth into the icy night banging pots and pans and other miscellaneous kitchenware.

Our neighbors really loved us.

One hallowed year in the early oughts (2004????), it was a meeting of epic proportions. All the greats were there. Leah of Chamberg, Quinn of house Smith, Ladies Alicia and Danielle of Humphreyland, and Dame Erica Schmucker. After many hours of cloying libations and bad celebrity interviews, the time for cacophony was near.

But that year, we upped the ante.

Though time has muddied the recollection, I believe we traipsed about in various dress-up clothes from our basement stash. Not yet satisfied that we would do homage to such an important event, we sought out the perfect accoutrements to the crazy train.

And there, down the well-worn roads of Woodward Avenue, went 5 brave women in their glorious garb, one lone clown shoe, and a bowling ball named Linda to guide the way.
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Growing up, I had a speech impediment. In fact, it still comes out now again when I try to say things like, "Rob Roy," which somehow sounds like "Wob Woy." It may have been adorable if I didn't sport a pixie cut gone wrong.

One year we happened to be at the zoo for Mother's Day, because what else would a mother want for her day than to take her 5 small girls to an enclosed area with a bunch of wild animals in 90 degree heat?

Our local news station decided on a cutesy Mother's Day verbal acronym. Adorable, right? Why not hit up the lady with a bunch of hooligans, and your job's half done? My letter was M.

So, what word did I choose?

Marvelous.

Or, as butch-cut 8 year old Danielle would say, "Mahvahlous."

Perfect.

Well, the little segment aired, and we had our 10 minutes of fame. That is until Mr. Muszik decided to make it my tag line. Mr. Muszik was our neighborhood old man who pretended to be a codger, with a sly wink and impish grin to the side.

Without fail, for several years, he would yell from his screened-in porch, "How's your day? Is it mahvahlous? There she is, just mahvahlous."

And that, my friends, is how you help a kid own. it.
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In honor of the anniversary of Mother Teresa's death, I had to include some oldies from Ceci, who used to yell, "Mother Pisa, Mother Pisa" anytime she found a blue sheet.