The Unfortunate Consequences of Selfless Acts of Kindness
 |
| Gee, mom, you're swell! And these coordinating hand-sewn appliqued aprons razz my berries! |
As you know, I am a terrible cook. Which only means that what others might ordinarily treat as a small triumph in the kitchen I, instead, magnify ten-fold into something akin to a glorious conquering of immense obstacles, which must be celebrated with jubilant and repeated exultation until everyone in the house is sick of me and my victory. When I tire of proclaiming my success to my immediate family (or, rather, when they stop even pretending to listen anymore), I turn to this blog: hence my numerous posts on, for instance, my bread, my piecrust, and my jelly.
My extreme satisfaction over having dominated these culinary challenges has done wonders to my self-esteem. Every time I make a loaf of bread, I feel ridiculously good. It is a feeling I wish others could experience, which is why I decided to create The June Cleaver No-Frills Homebaked Goodness Cooking Course. The object is to give people the know-how and confidence to make their own bread, pie and jelly. (Unfortunately for my loyal spammers in Malaysia, it is not a correspondence course, so you’ll have to bake vicariously through blog posts.)
To attract more participants, I decided to create a website about the course. And that’s where my downfall began.
It all started because I wanted some good 1950’s-era ads to use on the site. You know, something very June Cleaver-ish, with the radiant housewife displaying her freshly baked wares in sparkling Technicolor. However, I am a little wary of using a lot of images from off the web, since I’m not sure about copyright infringement laws (and you know this blog is big enough to be noticed by the image owners).
I decided to get most of my images from books instead, which meant I had to go to the library and actually ask a reference librarian for help. We spent nearly an hour trotting amongst the shelves to find books on 1950’s culture, advertisements throughout the century, and post WWII, pre-hippy ladies’ fashions. Which means I’ve spent every evening of the last week immersed in images from the 1950s. I’m now totally in love with Sanforized circle skirts from Sears, and I wish I had a GE Garbage Disposall (which even takes care of bones!!) instead of my puny and ineffective garbage disposal.
Even more distressing, the charm of these images from the 50’s prompted me to wonder about certain social-etiquette questions. And so I got sucked into obsession with my Miss Manners' Guide To Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, a book I was thrilled to get as a wedding present (I think) from my parents (I think), but which I had yet to sit down and read from cover to cover.
I am now in the process of reading it from cover to cover. So, should you ever need to know how to properly eat snails, you may inquire within. I’ll know just where to direct you.
Moreover, Miss Manners has had the alarming side effect of reminding me about politeness: specifically, how rudeness should never be countered with more rudeness, and how sarcasm really has no place in public. As rudeness and sarcasm are two of my favorite conversation styles, I have had to resolve (yet again) to be nicer to people. Sigh.
My biggest distraction of the week, however, came via my initial online image search, which led me to the excellent blog Jen But Never Jenn and her 1950’s Housewife Experiment. In the experiment, the author strived for two weeks to live as did a 1950’s housewife, according to the books and magazines from that era. This meant doing such things as getting up with her husband to make him a full breakfast, wearing heels and makeup whilst cleaning house, actually cleaning house (including scrubbing the oven weekly), ‘gayly’ greeting her spouse upon his triumphant return home, and having a full dinner-and-dessert prepared for his arrival. Among other things.
I stayed up until two a.m. several nights in a row in my quest to read all of Jen’s fascinating and hilarious blog posts on the subject. I highly recommend them. (She also, apparently, did a Modern Housewife version of the experiment, and I am very much looking forward to reading all those posts . . . just as soon as I catch up on my sleep.) I am in total awe of this woman, her ideas, and her excellent writing style. I wish I had the confidence and charm to run up to her, blubbering and quivering, and plead to be her new best friend.
Maybe Miss Manners has a section on how to politely do that.
At any rate, my total sudden immersion in 50’s style, culture, manners, and housewifery has led to my shocking resolution over the last few days to take greater care of my appearance and the appearance of my home. I’ve actually applied foundation to my skin and mascara to my eyes every day this last week. Worse yet, I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed the bathroom floor, then took apart the sink drain and cleaned out the black, gelatinous slime that was growing within. The next day, I used baking soda and lemon juice to scour my stove top, then removed all the burner cover-thingies to scrub underneath. Yesterday, I took out all my cds, dusted each, replaced those I wanted to keep and imported selected songs from others onto my computer so I could make one mass mixed cd and get rid of the 20 leftover ones.
And, shockingly, I feel good. I feel put-together and organized. Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m still lazy as all get-out and totally bitchy about inconsequential things . . . but just a teensy, tiny bit less-so.
I’ve yet to treat Bee with the total respect and reverence that a successful 1950’s housewife employed, but that’s only because I didn’t want him to totally keel over from the shock of having a clean(er) house, an absolutely stunning model manning the kitchen, and a pleasant wife.
That’ll come next week.
Happy New Year!
Comments
Post a Comment