My Mad Mentality

 

First off, Gentle Reader, I'll just tell you now that I'm a season behind on Mad Men.  We're slow like that.  So this commentary is only valid up to Season 2, Episode 6.  If there is something relevant that has happened since then DO NOT TELL ME.  Or I will hunt you down.  With vengeance.   I have access to stat counters.  I can find out where you live (uh... within, you know, 150 miles--- BUT THAT'S ALL IT TAKES FOR SOMEONE WITH A GRUDGE TO BEAR.  Remember this.)   If you haven’t watched Mad Men, then this may be really boring.  But I (being a good person) won’t tell you anything that will ruin it for you if you do start watching it.  Just saying.

I mention all this because I just spent fifteen minutes scouring the interwebs for a specific screen shot from Season 2, Episode 1.  I actually thought about taking a picture off my own TV.  (Seriously.  How pathetic is that?)  Because I saw something in it that made me think, "Aha!!  SEWING."  To be honest, this isn't my reaction very often when I watch TV.  So it was memorable.

"And what did you see?” you ask.  Well, Gentle Reader, it was a shot of Peggy sitting in church with her sister.  The sister is holding a toddler and when she stands up to go to communion, she hands him to Peggy.  And I realize, the sister and the baby have on matching clothes.  He's wearing pants made out of the same fabric as the sister's dress.

"And your point being?" you ask in a sardonic voice.  (You, Gentle Reader, can be somewhat snide.  Or at least, that’s how it comes across in my head.) 

My point is simply that despite my habitual lack of thinking about sewing while watching TV, I have once or twice mulled over the fact that so far none of the women in the show seem to sew.  Which is interesting, given the period and context.  Is it that none of the women are in a position to need to sew, so they don't?  Joan is not the sewing type, granted.  Betsy could be, but she's wealthy.  Peggy is relatively poor, she could certainly do well to sew for herself but doesn't seem to.  Is it because she's a working girl (not in the, you know, prostitutional sense... unless you count copywriting, which in fact I think you could be forgiven for doing)?  She maybe doesn't have time to sew.

But clearly the sister does.  That makes me happy.  Because I think sewing is a pretty substantial part of being a woman in 1962.  Take the following story, as related to me by my mother last week:

In the summer 1968 my parents - 18 years old, freshly married and toting a 6 week old baby (that's me) -  moved from South Dakota to Minneapolis.  They possessed virtually nothing, just enough to fit into a tiny little U-Haul trailer that could be pulled behind their crappy old car.  Shortly after moving into their new apartment, my dad announced to my mom than his work pants needed hemming (at this point I could already see where this story was headed, but then I know my mother).

Dad: "My work pants need hemming."

Mom: "And..."

Dad: "Uh."

Mom: "----"

Dad: "Well, get out your sewing machine...."

Mom: "What the (deleted expletive-deleted expletive)?  I do not own a sewing machine!"

Dad: "-----"

Mom: "You helped pack up everything we own in a 4 foot by 4 foot trailer.  Did you see a (deleted expletive) sewing machine?!"

Dad: "----"

I may have paraphrased.  My point is, in 1968 my dad could not conceive of a girl who did not own a sewing machine.  Or at least know how to hem up pants.  (Now granted, my mom probably did know how to hem up pants, but she would not have volunteered that piece of information willingly and probably didn't own a needle or thread.  I do know my mother.)

To my mind his assumption isn't so surprising, as every other woman around me from that time period did know how to sew and my mom’s mother and several of my parents' aunts made their own clothes.  It was what you did if you didn't have a lot of money or you had a difficult body-type to fit (or possibly, although it wasn't readily apparent to me in any of these instances, if you just enjoyed it).

So while my view of Mad Men is skewed by my own personal recollection of people who wandered around in the 60's, I'm glad to see that somewhere buried in there amongst the stylish clothes and drama are some sewing women. 

Props to Peggy's Sister and the Matching Toddler Pants.

I Suppose Your House Could Use A Little Paint, Dontcha Know?

 

Recently Joy at 21 Wale mentioned that someone had made a "Minnesota Nice" comment.  This sort of made me homesick.  One of the hardest parts of moving away from Minnesota (and her up-tight, even-more-nice sister, North Dakota) is the lack of Minnesota Nice that seems to pervade the rest of the world.

The wiki article linked above made me laugh:

“Sometimes area residents who move away, or otherwise come in contact with others who don't subscribe to the ideal, say that they have to shed their ‘Minnesota nice’ in order to interact properly with others or get out of troublesome situations.”

I do have trouble in other cultures (for example New Zealand or Texas) getting my point across sometimes.  Apparently people there don't perceive a gently spoken, "Well, I suppose the lawn could use a little trimming..." to mean "Your lawn is a disaster.  Don't you ever mow that thing?  Your neighbors must hang their heads in shame. As should you."

People in other places also apparently don't take three hours standing on the front driveway to say goodbye to people they're going to see again in four days (this, by the way, is known as the "Minnesota Goodbye").

And people in other places (at least the ones I've been to, which is quite a few) don't seem to be quite so obsessively concerned with The Greater Good (theeee grreeeeaater goood....).

 

-snort-

You have got to watch "Hot Fuzz" if you've never seen it.  GOT to.  It is hilarious.  It’s for the Greater Good.

I heart Simon Pegg (and-to-a-lesser-extent-Nick-Frost). 

 

Annnyway…. Sorry I'm waxing nostalgic and random.  Autumn always makes me homesick here, with it's 90 degree heat and utter lack of frosty mornings or cozy sweaters or colorful leaves. 

Huh.  My husband is a British citizen.  We could still emigrate to Canada, right?  They totally get Minnesota Nice (although I’m sure they’d tell you they invented it and it’s called “Canadian Nice”… if they weren’t too nice to say so.)

 

Bonus Joke: 
Q:  How do you know when you step on a Minnesotan's* foot?
A:  She apologizes.

*You can put “Canadian” in there if you prefer.

Old Timey Goodness Or Progressive Modernity? Neither, I’m afraid.

Did I ever mention that I'm a genius?  I've mentioned that once or twice, right?  I'm sure I must have.  Well, just in case: I'm a genius.

Um.  Sort of.

We live in north Texas.  Which is basically to say, "We live in a high-plains, desert-like hell the likes of which could inspire Dante to further greatness."  Er.  Or something.  My point being, in summer it is hot.  Really really hot.  And windy.  Really really windy.  It's also, not coincidentally, sunny 342 days of the year (I made that up, but it's fairly accurate). This perpetual sunshine is, in fact, one of the reasons we have the only joint NATO air training base in the country.  Lots of flying days.  Which is great if you're a Turkish pilot.  Or my laundry.

See, when we moved here from New Zealand, I swore as God as my witness, I would never dry laundry outside again!  (You have to imagine, y’know, big sweeping music and me ripping laundry off the line like so many curtains from the decrepit home of Scarlett O'Hara.)  And of course in Texas, nobody expects you to hang your laundry outside so it was oh-so-easy to comply with this heart-rending goal.

Except, there's all that fabric.  Soooo much fabric.  And it's been sitting in yard bags while I get around to washing it all.  You remember the whole my-cat-has-fleas-from-our-neighbor-kid scenario, right?  Well, when I realized the cat was sleeping in my fabric closet, out it all came into yard bags.   And there it all sat until I could get around to washing it.

Because that's allotta fabric to dry, people.

Enter the Husband, a power drill and three retractable clothes lines.  Up go the yards of fabric as they come out of the washer.  And, people!  Do you know how fast laundry dries in hell??  Super fast!  Like, if it's sunny and breezy, in about 15 minutes (as opposed to, oh let's say, six days in NZ). 

Good grief!  Why didn't I ever think of this before?!   Of course, new fabric I still have to machine-dry, because there’s always the possibility that I’ll machine-dry a garment I make from it.  And we don’t wash in hot water.  Although, if we’re going to start hanging the laundry, I guess we could start washing in hot water… hmm… so many laundry conundrums…  hot or cold water?…  To bleach or not to bleach?… What about the liquid fabric softener?!  Oh, the pressure.

Anyway.  Hanging the laundry.  I like it.

And here's a bonus: It makes an awesome design board.  This is what I pulled out of the bag randomly and yet look how pretty all that looks together.

A total fluke that it all coordinates (that floral has orange and purple in it exactly the colors of the knit and denim hanging next to it).  You get such a better overall picture when the fabric's extended full-length, don't you?   Of course, if I had my way, the entire world would just be one backyard strung with clothes lines and hung with pretty fabric.

I should get my way more often.

I know, it's really dumb to be proud of thinking to hang up the laundry.  But honestly I don't know one person in this town who would even consider such a thing.  And in all fairness, hanging laundry here can pose some difficulties.  For one thing, all that sunshine and wind does produce a lot of dust and dirt blowing around.  So you wouldn't want to leave your clean clothes out for too long or they wouldn't be clean anymore.  But for 20 minutes?  Brilliant.

It also makes a great backdrop for backyard silliness.