Tag Archives: Rachael O. Phillips

Sentimental about the Sixties?

Image by Vika Glitter from Pixabay.

I gave my brother a sweatshirt for his 70th birthday that read, “I survived the ’60s twice!”

I, too, grew up during that decade. Younger people believe we are close to our expiration dates. Past them, actually, but no one’s noticed yet.

I miss some aspects of the 1960s.

First, I was considered too skinny. Bread and butter sprinkled with sugar would help me grow up healthy and strong. Sigh.

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay.

The media consisted of print, radio, television and vinyl. They never eavesdropped.

Television variety show performers sang and danced without votes, masks or Simon. Cheesy sitcoms dominated, but aren’t harmless, stupid shows like Mr. Ed better than harmful, stupid ones?

Parents could rubber-stamp Disney productions as appropriate.

Gas station attendants pumped gas, cleaned windshields and fixed more than a hot dog. Plus, gas cost 25.9 cents per gallon.

Image by Falkenpost from Pixabay.

During phone calls, we spoke with other human beings.

Nobody locked doors in our small town. Schools and churches remained open. Security codes and guards? Unknown.

Recently, I visited my former school band director, now an octogenarian. We marveled that after summer practices, we often hiked through cornfields to the woods — no permission slips required.

Mr. C. didn’t lead assertion or feel-good sessions. Unlike my daughter, who said if she had to watch one more self-esteem video, she’d puke, I didn’t receive fire hose doses of you-must-believe-this.

Image by Jo Justino from Pixabay.

However, my brain hasn’t expired to the point that I don’t recall negatives during the 1960s.

I could wear slacks only at home. Girls wore dresses even to ball games.

I don’t miss bright blue eye shadow. Or white lipstick.

Smoking was restricted … nowhere. Children even “smoked” candy cigarettes.

I remember KKK recruitment signs in restaurants. A Caucasian never served an African American.

What Boomer doesn’t recall being slathered with Vicks® VapoRub™? Also, injured klutzes like me wore orange Mercurochrome like war paint. A small side note: Mercurochrome contained mercury.

I don’t miss Vietnam. And assassinations du jour.

Image by svs72 from Pixabay.
Image by AbouYassin from Pixabay.

Jell-O in flavors like tomato and celery.

Toni® home permanents and brush rollers.

Because of nuclear testing, we were forbidden to eat snowflakes. Get-under-your-desk drills for nuclear emergencies seemed odd, even then.

Finally, working out consisted of using machines to “shake off” fat.

Actually, that might be nice.

Right before a snack of bread and butter, sprinkled with sugar.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What decade makes you feel sentimental and why?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: My Goofs, His Grace

O Lord, I remembered my name today, but apparently forgot to add that final cup of flour to the cookies. Thank You that my eternal destiny does not depend on turning out a perfect recipe — of any kind. OMG, how I celebrate Your love and forgiveness through Jesus!

Thankfulness after Thanksgiving

Have you already decorated your Christmas tree(s)?

Not me. Pumpkins, fall leaves and acorns still adorn my fireplace mantels and front door.

This decorating delay doesn’t indicate inefficiency on my part — perish the thought! It does reflect autumn’s short season. Thanksgiving items are placed on clearance before kids trick-or-treat.

Given that many hate winter, why do we forget fall so fast? Why not linger in Thanksgiving Land?

It was wild and wonderful, wasn’t it?

Even if I had to shovel out spare rooms and wash sheets.

Even if wrestling the defiant turkey into the oven resembled a Friday Night SmackDown sans tights and sparkles.

Even if appliances didn’t feel blessed. Our disposal rebelled Thanksgiving morning. Worse, our oven adopted a relativistic philosophy, insisting if its controls read “350,” the actual 500-degree temperature was irrelevant.

Even if, having stocked up on dark meat because we ran out last year, I was asked if our turkey was a mutant. Ditto for yeast rolls that resembled trolls.

Even if drains and conversations occasionally clogged.

And I can’t pretend I have six months to Christmas shop. …

Still, with four generations feasting and sharing gratitude to God, our Thanksgiving was a blessed celebration.

Admittedly, the grandchildren’s sugar energy levels could have endangered not only our house, but the entire city block. Thankfully, we all defused at a large community room I’d rented.

No one sent the Monopoly game airborne when he landed on Boardwalk with hotels.

Everyone ate mutant turkey and rolls.

Not only was there enough pie for all 17 diners, plenty remained for Grandma and Grandpa’s post-host-survival celebration.

Despite that, I still can zip my jeans! — and ignore nasty online pop-ups advertising tent-sized attire for New Year’s Eve.

Bottom line: Our family arrived safely, rejoiced, loved, and gave thanks together, then returned home, grateful to again sleep in their own beds.

Can such a rich celebration be considered a mere practice run?

We can correct whatever went wrong at Thanksgiving to improve Christmas gatherings. Hosts can repair the carbonizing oven and replace air mattresses that flattened overnight. Hubby watched a YouTube video that helped him fix the disposal. I might even practice making rolls that look like … rolls.

Image by Richard Duijnstee from Pixabay.

Soon autumn decorations in our home will give way to poinsettias, evergreens and jingle bells. A Christmas tree will grace our living room window.

But thanksgiving won’t be packed away until next November.

I pray it saturates my Christmas season … and New Year’s … and Easter 2024 … and …

Image by Deborah Hudson from Pixabay.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What are your reasons for thanksgiving, even after Thanksgiving?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: C’mon, Smile, Grinch!

O Lord, on these chilly mornings, I do appreciate my snuggly, nice leather footwear. Sometimes, though, I miss the glare of the Mean Kitty slippers I bought at the Dollar Store. OMG, You’re right. If I really need to look a grouch in the eye, I can always find a mirror.  

Weird Things for Which I Am Thankful 2023

First, for all of you who require normalcy, I’ve recorded one everyday reason for thanksgiving: good weather. Here in Indiana, we expect winter, like an obnoxious relative, to blow in during November. Instead, sunshine, moderate temperatures, and glorious fall colors have prevailed. We Hoosiers are suspicious, but grateful.

Image by Leopictures from Pixabay.

Now begins the weird list. I am thankful for:

  • Tangerine peels whirring in my garbage disposal. The fragrance takes me to holidays past when my dad brought home boxes of tangerines.
  • Aisle signs in parking lots. I usually disregard them, but when I do memorize my car’s location and later find it, I experience a major rush.
  • Purple hand towels. They defy even grandchildren’s noblest efforts to stain them.
  • Piano tuners. My very bones scream when a piano tuner pounds and adjusts my keys. As tuners possess sensitive ears too, I salute their bravery in attacking enemy tones.
  • Nearly 340,000,000 Americans who prefer forks and spoons over sporks.
  • Television. Inevitably, some lunatic sports figure or pubescent program convinces me I’m actually rather sane.
  • Black olives, a time-honored family fetish. Children and grandchildren share my taste for them, though my son-in-law attempted to teach his toddler the little black things were bugs. Grandma’s DNA prevailed!
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay.
Image by Milly from Pixabay.
  • Flo, the star of the insurance circuit. If she can wear 1960s eyeliner and blue eye shadow, maybe I will star on TV too!
  • Pennies. A fistful still conjures up a vestige of my childhood Richie Rich feeling when I exchanged pennies for a sucker-bubblegum-Pixie Stix feast.
  • Hundred-calorie bags of popcorn.
  • Big, ugly rubber boots, my best buddies whether mudding through gardens or wading through slop, politely called wintry mix.
  • Rear window heaters and wipers.
Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay.

Finally, I’m thankful for hours in the Atlanta airport, surrounded by 4.72 million other travelers. As I stood in a restroom line, a janitor took charge. When her superhuman ears detected a stall lock’s jiggle, she directed the next woman to it.

Insignificant? No. When 2.36 million women wait in line, two seconds apiece add up. This janitor’s heroics comprised the difference between making our flights and dying of old age in the airport.

Even better: she touched our shoulders and said warmly, “Blessings on you today, honey.”

A little weird.

But sometimes weird blessings are the best.

Image by Prawny from Pixabay.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What weird gratitude comes to your mind?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: A WWE-Worthy Rumble

O Lord, though wrestling an uncooperative bird out of the wrapper and into the oven will resemble a Friday night smackdown, OMG, this turkey is grateful to celebrate Thanksgiving with yummy turkey! 

Classic Post: A Plunker’s Piano Lessons

This post first appeared on October 21, 2020.

I started piano lessons at five. Stopped at the ripe old age of nine.

Statistics indicate I’m not alone; 6,761,141,370 of the world’s 6,761,141,379 people have taken — and quit — piano lessons.

I blame my parents. Neither had musical training, yet Dad’s big hands overran the keyboard. Mom, though partially deaf, could listen to a song, then play a full-fledged accompaniment in any key.

At five, I also picked out tunes. Why bother with notes? Neither did I (shudder) count beats. Mixing music, God’s gift, with arithmetic (eww), appeared one more weird complication adults demanded.

Image by Davidatpoli from Pixabay.

Mom tried to explain. If only she could’ve taken lessons!

I’d have remained unconvinced — except for strong capitalistic instincts. Mrs. Snyder charged 50 cents a lesson, but she always refunded a nickel to me. With yellowed books and sheet music piled everywhere, her musty house smelled mysterious and musical. Thousands of former students’ photos adorned her walls, as Mrs. Snyder had been teaching 200 years.

I liked Mrs. Snyder, I liked nickels and I liked Mom’s shining eyes when I practiced.

Sadly, Mrs. Snyder passed away. My new teacher handed me practice sheets instead of nickels. I played songs like “Requiem for a Student Who Didn’t Practice.” Mrs. Mozart made me (choke!) play duets with my brother. We bowed and curtsied at stiff, scary recitals. The longsuffering teacher informed Mom we weren’t destined to play at Carnegie Hall.

She finally let us quit.

Not until college did I realize my loss. There, I met people whose fingers blurred over the keyboard. One blind friend played as if part instrument, part human. Her music rippled up and down my backbone, joy unleashed.

Why are mothers always right? Especially when they preach, “What goes around comes around.” My children blossomed with initial interest, but only one persisted into high school. As they plunked through first practices, I wondered if Mom had enjoyed mine as much as she’d claimed.

Still, my kids learned to read music, and piano background fueled interest in other song forms.

Our piano — the first purchase my husband made after medical school graduation — often sits silent now, though I try to play daily. My fingers itch to exchange my laptop’s tippity-taps for music. Soon, I’ll touch piano keys and listen to less-than-perfect love.

Even if nobody gives me a nickel.

Image by Piro from Pixabay.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How did you feel about piano lessons?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer

O Lord, both my candle and I are getting old and tired and blobby. Still, OMG, please help us let our lights shine!

It’s November?! No, No, No!

Image by 422737 from Pixabay.

I panicked when an entire summer passed, and I hadn’t fulfilled my dream of eating 100 sundaes at Ivanhoe’s, a local den of temptation. When I realized I hadn’t gotten up close and personal with every mosquito in Indiana. Just 97 percent of them.

But now, October is history?

A growing list of non-accomplishments assail me at 2 a.m. Having dreamed that Mr. Clean®, the Ty·D·Bol Man and my mother banished me to the Grungy Galaxy, I realize I haven’t completed even last spring’s gotta-do household list. I haven’t washed windows, whereas Mom never permitted one streak on hers. I haven’t eliminated chaos from closets or grime from the garage.

Nor have I winterized yard and garden. Hubby has mulched our leaves so far, but I haven’t shoveled compost, trimmed blackberry bushes or planted more daffodils. My bulbs and bushes still crave smelly fertilizers.

I’ve failed to keep my mums alive until Thanksgiving. Who designated them the official fall flower, anyway? Mums are scientifically timed to expire when they touch my porch, a ruse to force me to buy more.

We haven’t yet stored our lawn furniture, but rust and the distressed look are in. That works. My furniture is distressed because it belongs to me.

Image by pixel1 from Pixabay.

By now, greedy chocolate-peanut butter addicts have gobbled up 50-percent-off Reese’s pumpkins which, by divine right, should be all mine! Mine, I tell you!

Despite that sad situation, I haven’t accomplished the preholiday weight loss that I, in a fit of insanity induced by doctor’s scales, pledged months ago.

As if all that woulda-coulda-shoulda trauma isn’t sufficient, November 1 triggers nationwide panic.

In women, I mean. Men generally suffer panic attacks only if dinner’s late.

Image by 46173 from Pixabay.

I refer to pre-Christmas angst. Rumblings begin with family councils pondering who can celebrate when and where if Andy’s team doesn’t make finals, gas prices drop and nobody dies. Maybe our family can combine Christmas and Super Bowl Sunday.

In November, catalogs pile up in mailboxes. Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Tacky Tuesday ads stuff email and ping like popcorn on computer screens.

Image by Wolfgang Eckert from Pixabay.

I begin the annual search for on-sale presents I bought in January 2023 and hid in safe places.

I won’t rediscover them until hiding sales gifts from January 2024 in safe places.

It’s November.

No, no, no amount of denial will change that.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How does November affect you?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: I Already Need a Nap

O Lord, why are we Americans so suspicious of siestas? You recall that even as a young office worker, I sneaked to a back room at noon and closed the drapes to conceal my catching a few winks. Why did I have to hide as if conducting lunchtime drug deals? You’ve never considered napping a sin. OMG, You even advocated a whole day of rest! Amen, Father.

And power to the nappers!