The Non-Traditional Wedding Photo

When I think of all the extravagant weddings of late (especially during such financially challenging times) I can't help but appreciate the weddings of years gone by. A time when stockings were rationed along with food. A time when a world war was in progress, yet the farmer's daughters always looked well dressed and glamorous! A time when average "folk" didn't have video cameras to stupidly film their own "sexcapades" that would land on the world wide web causing them to try to fight that distribution in court and spending all their money (either inherited or riches from their reality television shows). And a time when a bride did not make a huge profit by getting married.

So, I shall step back to a time when people may have not always been so smart, but maybe just not so blatantly stupid. A different time indeed. A time when a girls form of rebellion may have been to marry a man her father did not approve of. Yes, that surely happens now, but probably not as much as stupid videos.

My maternal aunt, Patricia McPhee Dolan married a man named Frank Dolan in Canada in the 1940s. The marriage didn't last and I'm really not sure of all the details but when I was going through an old FANTASTIC photo album that belonged to my late aunt Sadie recently, I came across some wonderful pictures of the ceremony and discovered that my maternal grandfather, Dan McPhee, was not happy about this union (although he was there). I'll post more on that later.

I just love this photo and the dresses my aunts were wearing. If I recall the story correctly, someone made these for Aunt Pat's big day. Nothing fancy or extravagant, but beautiful nonetheless.

L-R Frank's uncle, Frank Dolan, Patricia McPhee Dolan, Sadie McPhee

The Big 5-0

Wow. I turned 50 today! Never in a million years did I think this would be so easy and so much fun. This past week has been just amazing. Last Saturday, my friends threw a fabulous and fun birthday party for me. I got tons of wonderful gifts and hysterical birthday cards! Lots of old and new friends came to help celebrate. Great weather, food, company! What more...



Well, since I've been searching for my grandmother, Lola, I've discovered much about her immediate family. As I've mentioned before, she had a baby brother, William, that somehow ended up in Iowa as an 8 year old, ultimately being adopted by another family. Lola and William did manage to remain in contact and when he was a young man of 19, he did live with Lola and Red (my grandfather) in Iowa in 1920. Thanks to a handy feature on Ancestry.com, I was able to establish contact with someone who was also searching for William. Wendy is the granddaughter of one of the children also adopted by the family in Iowa that adopted William. I guess that makes us second cousins or something. Well, let me tell you that Wendy is quite the detective and extremely savvy with the ancestry research.

Knowing that my sis and I were looking for information on the death of our dad's brother, Wendy reached out to the community my dad was born in via message boards. Almost immediately a stranger replied. This stranger went out and found information on my dad's brother. I was near tears. Based on what she told us, I knew it was him and so did my sister. He was buried on 8 July 1920, in a cemetery in Mason City, Iowa. There is no headstone (leads me to believe my grandparents couldn't afford one) and the section of cemetery he was buried in indicates that he was either an infant or young child. He was four years and eight months old when he died. My grandfather was listed as living relative. The interesting thing is that we were always of the impression that Raymond had drowned. The cemetery records did not indicate that, but rather mentioned something about the heart. I am truly amazed and thankful that a stranger went out to the cemetery and the genealogy library to check records for a stranger.

For my birthday, my sister and our friend Karen treated me to a fun tour of sixties homes in Brentwood, CA. It was so much fun and one home in particular was calling out to me to move in! It was fabulous. I love the ranch style homes and the four on the tour today, were just that! To me, no design can come close to the atomic ranch style home. I live in Southern California and craftsman style is huge, but ranch is still the best in my opinion!

To top off a really great week, a few of my friends bought me a special birthday gift! This is the one thing I begged for year after year as a kid in the 60s, but never got. I did, however, get the accessory kit one year. My dad thought this "toy" was a waste since we had the real thing in the house. This thought was surely typical of someone growing up during the depression. When I opened it, I looked up towards the sky and said, "Dad, I finally got it!". Woo hoo.


What a great birthday! When I was a teenager, I would have never thought this possible, nor did I imagine being 50. Back then, 50 was something ancient, polyester, bouffanted, dull and old. I think 50 must be the new 30! So, to wrap up one hell of a great birthday week, I thought I should share a favorite childhood song. To this day, I can't hear it without jumping up and doing the pony! I guess the title of this song sort of lends itself to the Easy Bake Oven (Sugar Sugar).

Bobby Shaftoe

I was out doing my regular errands a few days ago and noticed a woman wearing jeans was trying on shoes.  The shoes were pumps that were adorned with buckles.  Surely I'm not the only one that sees things and has "flashbacks".  This particular incident immediatley brought the nursery rythme, Bobby Shaftoe, to mind.

Growing up, my mom read to my little sis and I every night before bed.  She read us nursey rhythes, stories, something.  At some point she would read us Bobby Shaftoe.  I cannot find the book it was in but I do seem to remember it being in a book and not something she read to us from memory.  I recall the page with the picture of "pretty Bobby Shaftoe" who looked quite a bit like the Quaker Oats man.  Now as an adult, I find the use of "pretty" quite funny.  I was talking to my mom about this on Sunday and she found it funny too.

I can't remember if it was me or my sister that became obsessed with this nursery rythme, but we asked her to tell this one night after night.  She did and when I asked her on Sunday who would request this, she told me it was usually a request of my little sis who always had a bedtime story request.  As she read the line "He'll come back and marry me", we would then have our "no, marry me" debate.  My mom and two little girls arguing over the fictious Bobby Shaftoe and which one of us he'd marry.  We always won when we told my mom he couldn't marry her because she was already married.

Bobby Shaftoe’s gone to sea,

Silver buckles on his knees;

He’ll come back and marry me,

Pretty Bobby Shaftoe

Holiday 2009

Well, it appears I took a break from the blog. It wasn't intentional as I've developed a real love of the blog thing. It was just a very hectic and busy holiday around here.

We used to spend Christmas at my parents' house, but since my dad passed away in 2005, my mom has spent holidays at the cat house. I made the 99 mile trek to the high desert to pick up my mom so that she would be here for Christmas. She ended up getting sick. One morning she got up sounding congested and it quickly got worse. Since she is on various meds, I called her doctor's office to find out what I could get her over the counter that would be safe. I explained to the receptionist that my mom was with me (99 miles away from them), she was sick, and that I wanted to know what over the counter cold medication would be safe for her to take that would not cause problems or clash with her medication.



The receptionist asked me for the pharmacy phone number. I immediately thought that was odd, but I googled it and read the number to her. I told myself that she was going to call the pharmacy to confirm the meds and check safety issues, and she did say she'd call me back. Well she did call me back. Not with any OTC recommendations, but to let me know I gave her the wrong phone number for the pharmacy! OK. At this point I'm pretty convinced I caught them during their drinking holiday lunch party or something.

This time I googled CVS and clicked on "store locator" and gave the receptionist that number, telling her exactly how I found it (a technique that might be useful to her in the future). It was still striking me as odd that I'm looking up the pharmacy phone number for the doctor's office. The same pharmacy my mom has gone to for years to pick up the multitude of medication prescribed by the very doctor that this very receptionist works for. Needless to say, this was the last I heard from the receptionist.

I am a long time vegan, as is my younger sister. I learned to cook when I made the choice to change my diet as vegan options were slim in those days. I love cooking and sharing vegan meals with my veg and non-veg friends and family. On Christmas eve day, I left work early and began cooking my holiday food. My mom, sister and I were going to my older sister's house for Christmas dinner, and were following that up with a holiday dinner visit with close friends in Palm Springs the day after. As I didn't care to spend both days in the kitchen, I decided to prepare everything on Christmas eve. By the time I was ready to turn in for the night, my mom was not sounding good at all. The congestion was bad, her cheeks were flaming red and she was very weak. I made her a cup of hot water with lemon juice and honey (my mom is not a vegan) and she drank that and went back to sleep.

In the morning she got up and we had our gift exchange. She didn't feel that great and went back to bed. I checked on her in the early afternoon, asking her how she felt and if she wanted to get up and get ready to go for dinner. She didn't as she just felt so bad. Sadly, we had to cancel the holiday dinner and reschedule our visit with my sis and her family for this coming weekend.



I did run out to Rite Aid and Vons on Christmas day to get my mom Vicks VapoRub, juice, crackers, Vitamin C and zinc lozenges. That was all I felt safe getting since the doctor's office just blew me off. I should also add that with the stress of my mom being sick, my fear of unintentionally harming her, the busy end of year work load, and just the "hecticness" (did I just make up a word?) of the holiday, I never thought to take mom's bag of meds with me to Rite Aid so that I could ask the pharmacist what was safe to get. Ugh.

The day after Christmas, also known in the UK as Boxing Day, my mom felt better. Nowhere near 100%, but much better than the day before. She wanted to get out of the cat house and go for the holiday visit with our friends in Palm Springs. Off we went, car packed full of gifts and vegan holiday food - marinated tofu, vegan scalloped potatoes, vegan green bean casserole, tofu pumpkin pie and the world's BEST sweet potato casserole! Probably about half way into our two hour commute, she got sick to her stomach. Luckily my sister carries plastic shopping bags in her car and was able to hand one to my mom when she announced she was going to get sick.

We got to PS and had our gift exchange and my mom then went to sleep in my friend's guest room for a few hours. We did manage to have a wonderful visit and my dear friend, Kevin, got me the most FAB gift - wonderful vintage reindeer Christmas lights!



Then came the two hour trek from Palm Springs back to the cat house. We made it and began lugging all the bags of goodies, gifts and now empty Pyrex dishes from the car to the house. My sister was leading the way, loaded down with bags. My mom was in front of me carrying her beautiful wreath that Kevin made her, climbing up the steps of the concrete walkway. I was behind my mom, loaded down with bags, when she suddenly lost her balance and fell sideways! I screamed, "oh my God!" and dropped my bags. My sister came running back and we helped my mom up. She was okay and had not hurt herself, thank God! We got mom in and settled her on the couch with a glass of wine and kitties sitting with her.

I ended up taking my mom home on Monday since Sunday traffic was absolute gridlock. We had to stop at her pharmacy to pick up the two refills I called in. When we got there, the pharmacist informed us that there were four things to pick up. No, we only called in two. Turns out the doctor's office called in prescriptions for an antibiotic and some drug to break up the congestion! I hit the roof. I thought I was clear when I had called the doctor's office the week before saying she was with me in LA and asking for guidance on what OTC meds she could have. Sigh. All I can say is I love the holidays, but I'm so very glad this one is over. I'm also glad that my mom is now slowly feeling better.