Memorial Day (Cheesily) Remembered

After getting my parenting panties in the proverbial wad (and alliteration vortex, apparently) last week, I was in serious need of distraction. Sometimes a girl needs to escape her own head for a second, be it by leaving town, national holiday, or a glass of wine on the patio with her favorite armed services member.

As a believer in "Everything in moderation, including moderation" - stitch *that* on a pillow, Martha - I up and did all three, trotting off with the Pretty Family to San Antonio to see friends and family, then returning here to Austin to spend Memorial Day with my visiting bachelor brother (a handsome Naval aviator, for any single ladies out there). I wined, I dined, I slept in while the truly wonderful Anonymous Husband got up early with Master P. Yes.

Sometimes a day that isn't about you gives you exactly what you need. As my brother & I sat on the patio, ignoring the sweltering death Hell Texas heat & mosquitoes, we got to reminiscing about our late grandparents & appreciating their World War II service, amongst other things:

 
I only felt a smidge sorry for myself as I watched Master P toddle around & remembered once again that my grandparents aren't here to meet him. 

And, yes, then the inevitable Hallmark Moment du Fromage came when I happily recalled the important things they taught me that I get to pass along to my little guy. Frank Sinatra. The importance of family, even when family's not fun. The importance of Good Shoes (Grandmother, never "Grandma"); the importance of saving up to properly afford Good Shoes (Grandpa). School. Service.

Of course my grandparents weren't perfect, but yesterday today isn't the day to harp on that. Besides, I perfected my ability to icily ignore any problem on their watch, so in their honor my brother & I raised our glasses (spiked with a splash of Pink Elephant) anyways.

Fear not, dolls - we'll get back to the business of being Prettier Than Everyone Else tomorrow, complete with Our Lady of Perpetual Girl Crush, HRH Grace. Pinky swear. But for yesterday today, I simply remember.

You Only Do It Once - In Memoriam

"You only do it once," intoned my late grandpa time and again whenever I, nosy child that I was (am), asked about that whole getting married thing.*  

*And you saucy readers (my favorite kind) thought that title meant something naughty. 

One week ago today, on St. Patrick's Day no less, would have been my late grandparent's fifty-bazillionth anniversary.  Since I've been terribly busy expanding my, um, cultural & musical horizons going to too many concerts and staying up too late, I neglected to mention this at the time, but it has been weaving in and out of my thoughts over the last few weeks.  

Given the incredibly private people they were - Betty & Don Draper have nothing on them in the Keeping Up Appearances department - I won't dishonor them by delving into their private affairs here;  suffice it to say, theirs was not a perfect marriage. I often mused over why two people who were virtual strangers in some aspects remained married.  I also wondered how I was lucky enough to be related to & raised by two such exceptional, if exceptionally different, people.

However, whenever I am mentally meandering and remembering them, I go back to my grandfather's timeworn saying.  My grandparents came from a time, generation, and socio-economic stratum that perhaps expected different things in a partner - not necessarily better, I hasten to add, just different.  Grandpa would be wildly amused, for example, that I expect the AH to chip in with the household chores & be my best friend**.

** AND cook dinner sometimes & keep me in Good Jewelry, but I won't push my luck in case Grandpa is listening in via Heavenly WiFi.

When I'm sitting here, missing them, almost smelling his pipe tobacco and seeing her lurid blue eyeshadow in all of its Estee Lauder glory, I take comfort in remembering their marriage.  Not that I'd want to emulate parts of it; this Gen X child of divorced parents still doesn't wholeheartedly understand the dynamic.  But. The devotion, the integrity, the quiet love - that I can only hope and pray the AH & I achieve someday.

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On a lighter note, many thanks to those two lovelies and blog favorites, the Misses Bama Belle and Preppy Princess, for respectively honoring us (We utilize the random third person for such formal occasions) with blog awards.  I, ahem, We only wish we could adequately express how much we enjoy reading your each & every post.  Thank you.

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On a lighter, lighter note, pretty shoe post, complete with a photo, coming up next.  We'll liven things up here shortly.  Pinky swear!

A Grinch's Confession - Holiday Decor

Tonight I must confess something to you . . . I do not maintain this icily cool and elegant exterior year round. Come the day after Thanksgiving, my cold, unfeeling heart cracks just enough to get demonstrably excited about buying gifts, decorating the Pretty HQ, and spiking the eggnog. I outright adore midnight service on Christmas Eve and sending those Christmas cards you all helped me with a while back. Yes, for the month of December, I've known on occasion to be positively . . . cheerful.

However, as I emerged from my turkey coma this year, I struggled to get in the spirit of things, this being my first Christmas season without that late lover of LV herself, my dear grandmother. So this morning I decided to daintily grab this Christmas by the bells and, well, fake it till I make it. Shopping being one of Grandmother's approved hobbies, I set to adorning Pretty HQ with some much needed holiday decor, and slowly the caffeine that old, familiar excitement started to creep in.

So let's take a peek at my Christmas bounty so far - surely the first in a series of boring you with holiday Prettiness - but first, my Rules of Holiday Decorating:

(1) My decorating style is random, er, fun. Colorful. Whatever strikes my festive fancy and seems like it can withstand children and champagne (not together, mind you. Gaah). More Clark Griswold, less Martha Stewart.

(2) As I e-commented to HRH Sippycups today - your chesticles may be fake and your hair color may be fake, but your Christmas tree may not. I will bear no opposition about this - if the tree does not shed and smell fabulous and entice your cat to climb up it at 3 am, I want no part of it.

Without further fuss, I bring you the best of today's Operation Christmas goodies:

(credit: Macy's)

(credit: Macy's)

Macy's! On sale! Exclamation point!!

Please forgive the splendiferous iPhone photography with this next Target find . . .


As ever, our friends at the big T have a delightful holiday setup; worth wading through to find the looks-expensive-but-aren't pieces like these.

(Credit: Barnes & Noble. Heaven.)

Because if I can't have Harry Connick Jr. gift wrapped under my mistletoe um, I mean, crooning to me in my living room, I may as well have this excellent Christmas CD on my iPod. Speaking of HCJ in the flesh - love you, Anonymous Husband! - he is on tour, and all swoon-age aside, is one of the best live acts I've ever seen. Incredibly talented, funny, and even more, er, charming live . . . what was I talking about again?

What am I missing on the Christmas cheer list, pets?

"Living Well . . ."

". . . is the best revenge," or so my grandmother's maxim went, one of many sayings she loved to incite. The point wasn't so much the literal meaning of the words - I never could figure out who exactly I was supposed to be getting revenge against, for example - but rather, what I took from them was the joy and complete conviction in her voice as she spoke.

One of the many reasons this week has been such a champagne bubble up and Mean Red down at the Pretty is the would-be birthday of Grandmother - under pain of certain death, she was known as "Grandmother", never "Grandma" - this Saturday, when she would have turned 84. Grandmother, who was very much a mother in all the meaningful ways to me, maintained that she was 29 and holding up until the day of her passing earlier this year, so that 84 is an educated guess, but it's telling about both her marvelously stubborn nature and adherence to appearances.

And yet she was not just full of pithy sayings and respect for formal traditions. Without complaint, she marched me to theater productions, special museum exhibits, and lunch at Neiman Marcus, where I first learned to appreciate outrageously scrumptious Monkey Bread with strawberry butter. She bought me my first set of engraved Good Paper & demanded/taught me to write the "bread and butter" note. She wasn't the cookie-baking type of grandmother - oh, was she ever an awful cook - nor was she the type to offer a decent hug, but she ensured that my brother and I had a top-quality education, and made many, many personal sacrifices to ensure that it happened. No library trip or book was denied, nor any other learning or cultural opportunity. Through her obvious eccentricities - and there were many, the lurid blue eyeshadow being just the frosting on the Estee Lauder caked foundation - and flaws and private demons, I always knew that she prioritized family in her funny, odd way above all else - and isn't that all that we can ask of a parent, really?

As any good daughter / granddaughter is prone to do, I spent my adolescence fighting all of this, my melodramatic exit from Cotillion in sixth grade being the first of my many Crimes Against Feminine Tradition. Because no sixth grader, particularly a painfully awkward one entirely afraid of actual boys, should be forced to learn the Pattycake Polka, but that's a subject for a different post. In any event, I struggled mightily against her teaching until I hit age 21 or so, when the feminine graces started to sneak in somehow.

It was then that I realized that I really did, and do, love Good Paper, and taking a stab at being nice to other people even when every fiber of my being doesn't feel like it (most of the time, that is), and appreciating the arts and incredible writing and all the other things that make each day a little more beautiful. I began the path to redemption in her eyes by joining the Junior League, and greatly advanced my cause back into grace by marrying the Grandmother-endorsed Doctor / Laywer/ and-or Respectable Businessman (any of the above being equally desirable), but I've come to suspect this lady business is a bit of a lifelong learning process.

So in Grandmother's honor, I raise my symbolic flute of Veuve - a love of champagne being a family tradition and all - and share with you my formal china and sterling silver patterns. Yes, my china and silver patterns. While this might strike some of you as odd or irreverent, it is the very highest form of tribute I can conceive of for this very special, independent lady. Because second to my becoming a well-educated, well-rounded woman of substance, or at least effectuating the appearance of same, the subjects most discussed over our NM or Four Seasons brunches since I've reached the age of majority were - formal china and silver patterns. And so I bring you:

(credit: Michael C. Fina)

"Imperial Scroll" by Miss Vera Wang & Wedgwood. Should you find yourself in Austin, please drop by Chez Pretty - both because I'd love to meet you all and because I look for any excuse whatsoever to whip out my beloved china.

(Credit: Affordable Dinnerware)

"Chippendale" by Towle. Again, really looking for opportunities to use these more often. Barbeque, superdelicious cupcakes, Twinkies, whatever - my sparkly sterling is depending on you.

Grandmother, we never said the mushy "love" stuff, so I'll leave it at this - thank you for the china. There isn't Good Paper enough to say all that you mean to me, but don't worry - I'll keep up with the thank-you notes.