THE LADY OF THE HOUSE....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my husband.  The article below is from Sue's News, published in 2010.  It is still my favorite story about my husband.

   

        MY FAVORITE STORY ABOUT MY HUSBAND

When we moved into our home twenty-five years ago, my husband still had his hippie long hair.  Shortly after we had moved in, he was outside, tearing down a rotted fence.  He was dressed in shorts, muscle shirt, and flip-flops, with his hair tied in a pony-tail. Bob Mace, our back-door neighbor, was also one of our County Commissioners.

Gerald came in the house and told the following story:  Mr. Mace leaned across the fence and asked him, "How much do they pay you to do that kind of work?" Gerald answered, "Oh, they don't pay me anything, but the lady of the house lets me sleep with her."  I said, "Oh, no, do you think he believed you?  What did he say?"  Gerald said that he walked away quickly without saying another word. I was incredulous and asked, "Why on earth did you say that?  You usually have good manners."   Gerald laughed and said, "Oh, I think he was being a little condescending and I wanted to shock him!"

The next evening, Mr. Mace and his wife came to the door, with a pan of apple strudel, and I invited them to come in to visit. He had obviously checked the voter registration roll as he said, "We just wanted to welcome some good Democrats to the neighborhood." I told him that we had always voted for him. He proceeded to ask me about where we worked, etc. When he asked about my"hubby", I said, "You actually met him yesterday;  let me tell him you're here;  he'll be glad to see you again!"

Gerald was unaware that the Maces had come to welcome the "good Democrats" to the neighborhood. I went to the staircase and yelled; Gerald came bounding down the stairs with his hippie hair bouncing freely.

Whenever I tell the story, I say that it was ALMOST worth the price of the house to see the priceless expression on Bob Mace's face when he saw the one who slept with 'the lady of the house'!

Mr. Mace tried to apologize to Gerald, but Gerald stopped him by saying, "I've already told the story ten times and I'll probably tell it a hundred more times!" Gerald also told him that the quote wasn't original but that Carl Rowan had said it to a neighbor when he moved into an upscale suburb in Cleveland.

Gerald said, "If you're going to swipe something, make sure it's a good quote!"

NATIONAL GINGERBREAD DAY

June 5 is NATIONAL GINGERBREAD DAY. 











My brother Norman loved our mother's gingerbread and one of my "signature dishes" now is my mother's gingerbread with lemon sauce.  My recipe from my mother:

GINGERBREAD

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1 cup Brer Rabbit molasses   (Mother was name-brand loyal)
2 1/2 cups Gold Medal flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup hot water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour a 9-inch square pan.

Cream together sugar and butter.  Beat in egg and mix in molasses.  In separate bowl, sift together flour, soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves.  Blend into the creamed mixture. Stir in the hot water.  Pour mixture into prepared pan.  Bake for approximately an hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool completely.

LEMON SAUCE

1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons corn starch
3/4 cup water
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons butter
Mix sugar and corn starch together.  Gradually stir in the water.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture boils and thickens.  Boil for one minute.  Remove from heat.  
Stir in remaining ingredients. Serve warm over gingerbread.




                                                                            

FRUMPY

Today, at a fundraiser, a friend said, "Oh, you're always dressed up;  you never look frumpy."  I answered, "That's my goal in life;  never to look frumpy."  

Later, at home, I mentioned the conversation to my brother and he said,  "She should see you in your gardening outfit!"  I laughed and said, "Oh, that's shabby chic!"  He said, "In your alliterative dreams, maybe!"

I said, "I don't think I've heard the term 'frumpy' used in years."  He said, "What's the difference between that and dowdy?"  I said, "They're synonymous, I think."  

He asked, "How about frowzy?" I said, "I'm going to look it up!"  He said, "Look up slatternly while you're at it."

FRUMPY:       dowdy and old-fashioned

DOWDY:        unfashionable and without style

FROWZY:      scruffy and neglected in appearance

SLATTERNLY:  dirty and untidy

I commented, "Isn't it interesting that all of these derogatory terms are reserved for women?"

KEEP THOSE SKILLS HONED

At a get-together, a male friend who is my contemporary, was engaged in a lengthy, lively conversation with a much younger female friend of mine;   Later, I commented to him that I was surprised that they had so much in common.  

He chuckled and said, "Yeah, she was flirting with me."  I said, "What?  Don't you know that she's GAY?"  He answered, "I'm not so old that I don't know if someone is flirting with me!" 

Later, I told the younger friend about the conversation I'd had with my friend, by saying, "You're going to think this is hilarious; he thought that you were flirting with him." 

She laughed and said, "I WAS flirting with him!"  I replied, "I can't believe that;  he has a son your age!" 

She answered, "Hey, he's still an attractive, interesting PERSON;  always want to keep those skills honed."

DO THE RIGHT THING

My mother always said, "We do the right thing because it's the right thing to do."  When I first heard Martin Luther King say, "The time is always right to do the right thing."  I told Mother, "That sounds like you."  She said, "Well, I'm older;  he must be borrowing from me."

Yesterday, in discussing current events with my brother, I asked, "Why is doing the right thing so stunning these days?"

He answered, "Maybe it's because we aren't used to seeing integrity any more."

We admire Sally Yates, the former Acting Attorney General, who was fired because she was doing her job, but she still did the right thing when she testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee.   The Deputy Attorney General Ron Rosenstein did the right thing in appointing a Special Counsel; we wonder how long he will last.  When Senators McCain and Graham make their rare criticisms of the current Administration, we jump to praise them for doing the right thing.

Mitch Landrieu, the Mayor of New Orleans, did the right thing when he ordered that four Confederate monuments be removed, but he received criticism, protests, and death threats.  He stated, "You elected me to do the right thing and this is what it looks like.  These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy, ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement and terror that it actually stood for."

The "leakers" who are being castigated by the current White House occupant, are heroes for doing the right thing, just as Mark Felt was a hero for doing the right thing.  

"THE UGLIEST THING I EVER SAW"

It was reported that "12 noted artists" refused to paint the official White House portrait of the current resident of the White House.  My brother commented, "Too bad Peter Hurd is dead, he would have done a masterly job!" 

I was reminded of LBJ's acerbic quote when he viewed his first official White House portrait: "That's the ugliest thing I ever saw."  LBJ refused to have the portrait displayed in the White House;  the portrait is now housed at The National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.


Peter Hurd was the artist who painted that "famous/infamous" portrait.  Hurd was an accomplished American landscape and portrait painter, working mainly with subjects of the American Southwest. Hurd studied with N.C. Wyeth, along with fellow students Andrew Wyeth and Andrew's sister Henriette Wyeth. Hurd and Henriette married,

Among the artists who have refused the commission to paint the portrait of the current White House occupant are:  Liza McHenry, who painted both the official White House portraits of George W. Bush and Barack Obama and Gregory Buchman, who painted Ronald Reagan's official portrait.  In a letter, Buchman wrote:

Dear Sirs or Madams:

It is with no regret at all that I turn down your offer to paint Donald Trump to look formidable, respectable, and credible on the walls of the White House for future generations.  It is not possible for me or any other artist with integrity, to paint this con man, buffoon,and utter impostor in a way that would appear intelligent, wise, magnanimous, erudite, courageous, stable, responsible, principled, or leaderly.

He is none of those things.

I will not dishonor my fellow artists, bamboozle the American public, or deceive history by painting him to look as if he ever had the qualities to be the President of The United States, even if I could.  As an alternative, I might suggest you locate one of those $5 caricature artists on the sidewalks of New York and get them to do a clownish likeness of this presidential pretender, an astoundingly criminal, albeit horribly, dangerous commander-in-chief.

Yours respectfully,
Gregory Buchman
Not--Your--Shill Artist