Misguided youth.

That's the nifty phrase I have always used to describe my times in the 70's as a teenager...less than stellar student, experimenting with drugs, shoplifting makeup...etc.

Eventually I straightened up and smelled the Starbucks. So,  now I'm a grumpy tax payer with a penchant for leather (handbags that is) and fresh kale salads.

Good grief.

Now it seems that besides being the name of an all girl rock band, misguided youth is a phrase being bandied about by an astonishing adjective challenged media to describe the Boston bombers and their accomplices.

I won't use their names, because I refuse to give them that respect.

Since when did we refer to terrorists as misguided youth? Is that a throw back to Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground? Is this is an attempt to lesson their heinous history (which begs comparisons and raises all sorts of itchy questions)  and in effect, lesson the Marathon bomber's responsibility of their own calculated actions?

What is happening?

When did we lose our ability to actually process thoughts?

Invisi-Gal finds herself happy to be invisible around such idiots, and so, will not to be counted among them.

Carry on.



....

Cards, The Carpenters and the Creation of My Cool.

It was the summer of 1971, I was poolside, cross-legged on a blue and white quilt on the grass. We were getting ready for the daily after-swim-team-practice round of Hearts.

My radio was next to me, as always, blaring music interspersed with loud car commercials and the weather (81 and sunny).
I was shuffling the deck and wondering how I was so fortunate to be sitting and playing cards with the OLDER GIRLS. I was wondering if my jean shirt cover-up was faded enough to be cool and if my hoop earrings were the right size. Did the older girls like me, or was I just being tolerated because I could swim the IM ? Does this ponytail make me look immature? Immature, big Junior High word.

Should I squeeze a lemon or Sun-In on my hair to lighten it like the OLDER GIRLS were doing?  My sandals are definitely not cool, I need to ask my mom to go shopping later for some cool sandals.

Should I shoot the moon on this hand , I'm holding Aces and a ton of hearts or will the OLDER GIRLS think I'm a brat?

OLDER GIRL #1 is talking about make up and how Bonne Bell is the best and how she wants to break up with her boyfriend.
OLDER GIRL#2 concurs flashing her braces, he's a jerk because he stole one of her notes to OLDER GIRL #3 and told someone about, something about someone  who thinks someone is stuck up in her Villager clothes ...and I'm desperately trying to keep up with who is who and am I smiling too much, should I put my hair in braids, and I wish I had OLDER GIRL #2's blue eyes and braces and I'm a little annoyed that they won't use names and only use the word SOMEONE in front of me, I must not be cool, yet ... and then, there's a slight stillness...

dead air...

and like a Voice from Heaven....

straight out of my

little

black

radio...

I hear...


"Long ago, and oh, so far away...."



OLDER GIRL#1 butts in , "Hey, your turn, play a card..."

The Voice from Heaven "I fell in love with you, before the second show"

OLDER GIRL #3 , "Hell-loooo, your turn, water in your ears?"

The Voice from Heaven "Your guitar... sounded so sweet and clear, but you're not really here..."

I am transfixed on the radio, I have never heard a voice like that before, so smooth and warm and silky, everything about the whole song was lush and blue as the sky above me. The lyrics standing out against all the juvenile jargon. It's like the world stopped spinning for a moment and all I can hear or WANT to hear is this song. I wish these OLDER GIRLS would cut the chatter, I can't hear the song...maybe if I stare at the radio harder...

In a most voluntary direct action, I interrupt,(defying all OLDER GIRL, YOUNGER GIRL protocol) ...

still holding my unplayed cards, asking pointedly, "Who, who is that singing?"

OLDER GIRL#1,  " Someone Carpenter, something, I dunno, (looking me up and down) is that your shirt or your sister's shirt ?".

I can't get up fast enough,

everything
has
changed

"Mine and who cares? I gotta go see SOMEONE about something, bye...".

I lay my Aces and trump filled hand down on the quilt and start gathering my towel and bags and jump on my bike.

I'm gone.

Outta Dodge.

The road from the pool is long and winding and a slow downhill grade with newly installed things called speed bumps ...I take my time and roll the song over and over in my head. Each bump starts a new "Long ago , and oh so far away".. I can't wait to get home to ask my mom to go shopping, not for sandals, but for a new record by this band called Someone Carpenters something...

I want to play this on my stereo and learn in on guitar and sing it over and over again. This is where I am at home with myself. I have no worries about looking, acting or dressing cool ,or who dates who or anything...I am free. This is my day, I have figured it out.

This song, Superstar, would become one of my all time favorites, and really my favorite Carpenters song. It also opened me up the world of Leon Russell, who penned this perfect song of love and longing. This song made me want to write songs.

Years later we would all joke about the Carpenters and how many times we had to hear "We've Only Just Begun " at weddings, and "Close to You " became a running gag in movies when introducing stalker characters...This group with it's brilliant arrangements by Richard Carpenter and the unsurpassed  voice of his sister, unfairly became a symbol of uncool. The 70's turned raw and irreverent and The Carpenters with all their love songs of sweetness, innocence and flat out happiness became persona -non -cool-a.  Karen Carpenter's untimely death from a then new disorder called anorexia, just skimmed the news.

Now sitting here, as I type away, so many many years beyond that sunny August day, that Voice from Heaven and that Song still transfix me. It was a gift that has filled my heart and all it's empty spaces for years.

I can only say "Thank you", and I'm sure that 's not enough.

Dear Weather Channel....

Thanks for the creepy heads up on this massive storm you have named Magnus..which means 'Great" in Latin...which translates to oh, Great, here comes a massive wind storm and I have massive trees in my yard.
Magnus is also a popular name in Scandinavia, don't ask me why...it also was the name of a third century Roman usurper...I was a usurper once, but I got better.
Anyhoo, again, thanks for scaring the snot out of me, as I go to my unfinished basement to hide.

Yours truly forewarned,
Invisi-Gal

In defense of unfinished basements...

For the most part, I grew up in a 1920's Beaux Arts stone home. You did your living upstairs, a big living room, separate dining room, sun porch and roomy kitchen...and there were servants quarters for back when servants quartered.
It was a civilized home and the basement was a basement. Not a game room, or family room, it was a basement.

The close it ever would come to being "finished" was painted block walls and a tiled floor.

It was a great place for winter storage of sports gear, patio furniture,  and tons of canned tomatoes. There were crates and boxes in our basement that I  never looked into until my mother passed away, and to my surprise, lots of orphaned Christmas decorations that didn't look at all familiar, had my mother been hoarding Christmas decorations? ...we really didn't know much about the basement and it's contents...

Most people my age (somewhere lingering in the 50 range) grew up with that kind of basement. The basement was the laundry room, the freezer room, the work bench room. It was the garage's wealthy cousin... the best place to store wine.
The laundry room was large enough to hang unmentionables up to dry on a line,  put a big freezer up against the wall and there was room to do a cartwheel if so inclined. Hell, rollerskating in the basement was a time honored tradition among baby boomers.

Sometimes while I was waiting for the last minute or so of the dryer cycle, I would sneak over to explore the mysteries of the work bench....

Ahhh, the work bench. The one place in the house, where you could rightly create a mess and use a hammer and make loud noise without censorship...the best attempt of organization was a judicious use of peg board and there was always a faint smell of turpentine. The sharpest most deadly things in the house laid casually on the work bench, and the saw dust on the floor meant something had been fixed at some point dontcha know.

We had a cat once that lived in the basement and would never come out, the only evidence that it was alive, was a full kitty litter and food that was eaten and most important of all, the absence of rodents.

Today, the thought of not having a finished basement is harrowing to young home buyers...where do we put the kids, where do we put the bar, where do we hang the Steelers banner? They want drywall, carpeting, granite on something, recessed lighting and wainscoting somewhere next to builtin shelves plus a full bath. Well in my house, we call that "upstairs".

In our home now, we have an unfinished basement...much to the chagrin of our real estate agent who is  chomping at the bit to put our house on the market....maybe it's because we live in an old 1930's Craftsman and the basement feels like it should be A BASEMENT... I love the high wood rafters and the cinder block. I love the coolness of it in the summer and the behemoth soapstone 600 lb laundry sink, and the steps that open to big Bombay doors.

There is no rec room, no Rumpus room, no man cave, no game room, no wainscoting ...just a work bench, laundry room, a freezer and canned tomatoes.

Sound familiar? Okay Dr.Freud, yes, I have re-created the basement of my childhood into my adulthood, and I'm not sure what that means other than, heck yeah, I liked the basement of my childhood....and  maybe one of these days, I'll find that cat.