Dirty Linen

The dude and I left the house this weekend and went to a birthday party for Sissy's friend, Marebear. She had given me this apron a while back to stitch up for her. I thought I couldn't get to it in time, but then I just sat down and did it. When I studied the apron carefully, I realized it was linen. I know what to do with linen!

The dude helped with the layout of the daisies. That's why there are so many. Lots of miscommunication. "Here?" "Yeah, two there." {stitches two daisies} "I kind of meant more over there." Until we ended up with what you see here.

So anyway, I've been thinking about opening a little shop with "dirty linens." Now I just have to come up with some sayings for bed sheets, pillows, kitchen towels, etc. Of course, when I suggested this at the party Sissy and Marebare told me not to worry about that end of the business--they have it covered.

I tucked a little something inside the box with the apron:

I was at Wegman's in the international food aisle, looking for some "tastes of home" to stick in the dude's Christmas stocking. Suddenly, I found myself in Jamaica where "Cock flavoured soup mix" was on offer. There are so many reasons to giggle over that. Fortunately, everyone did. Even though we were among the youngest people at the party, the dude and I were the only ones who didn't look at our handhelds even once during the party. We're just so unimportant. But frankly, far more interesting.

In Earnest

The cover of the new Piecework magazine features an apron. Aprons are Hot. Oprah featured these aprons recently. Daily Candy features these aprons. Is it a new domesticity? A longing to return to the "simpler" June Cleaver lifestyle? (That bitch was so swallowing valium!) How far back will we go?

With any luck, we will not turn back the clocks so far as to revive the apron "style show." There is a report in Piecework on the "style shows" of Evelina Grimes. She had a collection of aprons that audience members would model while she read poetry or history. For example, she would read the poem from the Statue of Liberty ("Give me your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...") while someone modeled her New York apron. She had aprons for all 50 states, several foreign countries, all stages of the lifecycle, and even one for Father's Day for dear old Dad. As I understand it, this was supposed to be some sort of entertainment. While you may think that these shows flourished in, say, the nineteenth century, people--I'm guessing women--attended these shows as late as 1988.

The only thing I can really compare them to are Charles Phoenix's slide shows--a sort of live cultural anthropology show. Only he's loving the kitsch factor. Grimes was earnest. And that is even more difficult for me to understand. (Even when I was a kid and I used to go tap-dance in the old folks homes (really) I used to think, "this is entertainment?") Her collection of handmade aprons now resides at the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Iowa. May they rest in peace.