Flops and the Halloween Meatballs

 

What do you do when it's 7:30 on Halloween night and there's a line of hundreds of kids in costumes at the door and you've run out of candy?

If you're my grandfather, Dick Tramonti, circa 1963, in a neighborhood full of trick-or-treating kids in Rhode Island, you take a small meatball that you've made for dinner, wrap it in a napkin, and put it inside a kid's candy bag while surreptitiously grabbing a handful of the kid's candy from their bag to give away to the next few kids. 

Once you've run out of stolen candy, you simply put another meatball in a child's candy bag and steal some more candy out for the next trick-or-treaters.

My mom estimates at least 12 kids went home with meatballs in napkins that Halloween.

WTF Wednesday: Aerobics Record, Shot Put Bribe

Hi Wednesday! Hi WTF!

Every koala bear needs a doll, and every old lady needs a figurine to commemorate them. 

 High heel sequin piggy bank? 

Appalachian spring...looks pretty depressing. 

I love 80s workout records, and I love the name Joanie. 

Last but not least, with all the Olympic fever going on, I was reminded of the time that I threw the shot put for the high school winter track team.  As I recall, my teacher was the coach and they had no girl shot putters that season and I was offered a 100 on a math test in exchange for competing - if I could huck it even 10 feet, our team might get a point or two in the meet, better than zero.  In retrospect, it was a corrupt bribe, and I am no better than crooked shillary, but it makes a WTF picture. 

As with all wtf wednesdays, there are no answers, only questions leading to more questions.

For more vintage wtf wonders (for sale), click here: vintage wtf

New WTF this week:

• 80s Teddy Bears Better than Men T-shirt 

my friend is on TV!

(technically my friend's sister, but she's my friend, too dammit!)

odd mom out is a new show on monday nights on bravo. written by and starring jill kargman, it's quirky, funny, smart and co-stars the (scene-stealing) newcomer KK Glick.

when i knew KK, she was called kristen. she is the 4 years younger sister of my best friend beth. the first time beth slept over my house in 7th grade, we made an Iroquois longhouse diorama and took screwdrivers around the house tightening all the screws on the light switchplates.

i slept in KK's bed dozens of times from 7th through 12th grade. she and beth shared a room and KK would often weekend nights sleep over a friend's house, leaving a free bed for me to poach. beth and KK have a cool older sister and brother, their brother in particular was himself a friendly allstar athlete and had lots of friendly allstar athlete friends who were always hanging around their house - it was basically heaven for a 15 year old girl, and i slept over there a lot.

back to KK - she was quite a bit younger, but still funny and not annoying - she was into sports and did her own thing with the acting - i remember seeing her do summer music as a little 10 year old kid, singing "Go to Timbuktu!" (Oliver, I'd Do Anything) and 'summer nights' from Grease. 

we went on many vacations with her family - woodloch pines in the summer and killington in the winter. i wish i had some pictures that include KK with me here in NC, but instead here's my mom and beth riding in their maroon woody minivan to the poconos.

the only other KK-related photo i have here is this, and this is a sad story which might end up on odd mom out someday - it's KK's christmas present bunny, named Oreo, we kept him overnight at our house for a day or two beforehand to help with the christmas surprise, here he is with my rabbit Barney. i think Oreo lasted about 1 day before he tragically died somehow of natural causes in his hutch. it was probably traumatic for KK.  pretty soon thereafter, they ended up getting Murphy, a small white ball of tail wagging fluff who loved to lick.

anyway, i am so proud of KK for following her dreams and landing this amazing role on major Big Time TV.  she plays dr. vanessa and is calm and hilarious. she is so much like her real self, it's hard to believe she is acting.

in last week's episode, they said my name! kind of.  jill is telling her husband to find love and remarry if she should die first, and she suggests he remarry 'lolly mctammany' - haha!  see the 30 second video here: Odd Mom Out

see KK saying funny things:
KK tours Jill's Bedroom

check out
KK Glick on Bravo

KK Glick's personal website. 

KK Glick's twitter.

KK Glick's instagram.


so maybe check out the show if you like to laugh. i'd like to nominate KK Glick for an emmy.  

in her honor, here is a video of van halen "dreams." 



and also one of extreme 'more than words.' 

happy halloween from 1983

ah the good old days! the floor was linoleum and plaid.

the ashtrays were on every table.

the toaster was full of muffins.

i was strawberry shortcake.

my breath was condensing inside this mask.

my brother was "a warlock."

complete with broom.



happy halloween everybody!

my vintage t-shirt addiction

i was born in 1976, the heydey of the t-shirt.

in those days, t-shirts were soft, made in the USA, and the graphics were hand-drawn, bold and colorful.

5th birthday party in an apple schnapps t-shirt

my grandfather, flops, was a liquor salesman in providence, rhode island. he would get boxes of booze-related promotional giveaways to pass on to bar owners. he passed a lot of those t-shirts onto my brother and me. lucky!

poured in the USA boss berry schnapps raglan tee

 our nightshirts were schnapps t-shirts.

happy birthday yukon jack whiskey

we wore a "pott & coke" shirt until it disintegrated. (pott is a brand of rum) (we were 5 years old)

one of my first t-shirt memories is this cruzan rum shirt. so simple! so soft! so beautiful! we also had the matching beach towel.

a good 3/4 of my wardrobe is now and has always been designed for men or boys. i don't like being 'dressed up' and value comfort and texture over everything.

10 years old in a men's surfers alliance t-shirt

i continued loving t-shirts as i got older. i got them as souvenirs. i started going thrifting in high school looking for old t-shirts.

budweiser ringer and a bichon

over the years, i have amassed a closetful of about 100 soft, thin vintage t-shirts that i wear every day. i still have and wear a handful of the original t-shirts flops gave to us in the 80's. yukon jack is a clear winner.

in the coming months, i will highlight a few of my favorites here.  stay tuned!

party crasher

my brother is 2 years younger than i am. he is also much more social than i am. when we were growing up, many times i wanted him to disappear.  the more i wanted him to disappear, the more he wanted to do what i was doing.

when i left home and went to college and looked back with some perspective for the first time, i felt a little guilty for being mean to him. he has a big heart and he never meant any harm. i should have been more patient. but damn he was annoying!

i found these pictures of my 7th birthday party and all these feelings became crystal clear.

fine. okay. he can come to the sleepover. it's 6 girls and...chris. fine. okay. whatever. his sleeping bag goes in the corner.



great. everybody is singing and having a pillow fight. he can stay over there. inside his crayons sleeping bag.

 

 NO! no. no. no. what the???? NOOOO! how did this happen. i hate my life. i hate this party.

happy birthday big popi!

happy birthday to my DAD!

My dad is the greatest!

Here is one small example. Not only did he go to every single one of my Saturday soccer games from age 8 to 12, but he would then spend a lot of his Sunday writing articles about the games, which he then mailed into the Long Islander weekly newspaper to be published. He had legal pads full of notes. Checklists of every girl's name so nobody would feel left out, even the girls who were not so great got their name in print.

He has a fantastic sense of humor and is endlessly patient and rational. What an excellent dad!

reading is FUNdamental

i have always loved reading. i remember being 3 and reading about a gem-encrusted crown in the childcraft encyclopedia. i read all the nancy drew books before 3rd grade. i would check out the maximum allowed on my library card and my mom's at the same time and chain-read them until i was done. same with anne of green gables, the baby sitter's club, and sweet valley high.

the textbooks in school when i was growing up had incredible covers. they inspired curiosity!  compared to the bland computer-generated covers of today, they are vibrant and interesting. all hand done.

these are all houghton mifflin reading book covers from the late 70's. my earliest classroom shelves were full of these. i was transfixed!

 this 'secrets' one i particularly remember because they were left over on a back shelf from an earlier year and i had to ask my teacher if i could take one home with me and read it. she said yes. i mean who wouldn't want to read 'secrets' with a cover like that?!

all this started when i saw this "windchimes" book at a second-hand store today and my mind was awash in a flood of cedar hill elementary school book covers.

the covers today do not hold a candle.

From Houghton Mifflin

happy birthday MOM!

happy birthday to my wonderful MOM! 

i hope you are wearing your hair in a bouffant today, owing allegiance to no crown, and somebody gives you a ceramic boot full of matchsticks!

celebration time!

fresh mullet

had a great time at the beach last week!  we went to the outer banks, where i lived for a summer 15 years ago.

i lived in a house with 3 guys and 3 girls. the guys were lifeguards. the girls worked in restaurants. the restaurant where i worked had a 6 foot iguana in an aquarium. the iguana was named frisco, the restaurant was named frisco's. i was not great at waiting tables. i had nightly nightmares about forgetting food. i think i took it too seriously.

anyway the outer banks are about the same. not much has been built in the past 15 years around nags head, and a lot that i remember has been been left to seed or torn down. some of the awesome old signs from the 50's are still up on hotels.

tortugas is still there. phew.

we tried to catch fish. even used bloodworms.

no luck.

we had more luck flying a kite

and boogie boarding



and touching the eyes of tunas 

it was a great trip!

happy mother's day!

thanks for cutting my pancakes at mcdonald's!

easter bunny

catcher's butt

this is something my brother drew as a present for my mother in about the 4th grade, age 8-10.

favorite colors

it's a landslide of blue!

this is from 4th grade - 1986. 

why does everybody hate yellow?

first grade diary

this was my first diary. i was 7 years old. seems so cute and innocent, right? where a girl who could barely write would write about bunnies and rainbows. 

but no, instead i filled it with the names of every kid in my class and graded their appearance, intelligence, and niceness. also added their phone numbers. 

what a little witch i was! as much as i'd like to be an INFP, there's no denying i am an INFJ. i probably should have channeled this judginess into becoming a college admissions officer. 

boys impeticular

this is what happens when you make third graders do current events reports

this is what halloween in the 70s looked like

happy 40th anniversary

40 years!

that's longer than i've been alive!

what are they drinking here? bourbon? cranberry juice?

my dad's tuxedo is brown.

my mom is barely 21 years old. 

this is what weddings looked like in 1972. patterns, accordions.

 here's wishing the lovely couple 40 more years of wedded bliss!