Soup Is Not A Finger Food

Wild About Harry

BUT NOT THIS HARRY:

 
Photo originally came from here

...although his impish grin and boyish good looks are certainly charming. But, while he's the Harry of the day, I've got another Harry on my mind.

 
Photo came from here.

It's no secret that for many years now, I've had a massive bit of a crush on Harry Connick Jr. I wrote about my early crush three years ago (check it out). I once wrote him a fan letter and he wrote back!

Of course, I'm happily married, and Soup Husband Curt (bless him) patiently tolerates my ridiculous celebrity crush. Which is only fair, because he has his own celebrity crush or two that I patiently tolerate in return.

Anyway, I have been known to joke that Harry is my "other husband." And that probably isn't very nice of me. Curt chuckles along and shakes his head and doesn't say with his out-loud voice how truly pathetic I am. Why, I have a perfectly good, REAL husband! Why would I want to manufacture a fantasy one?

Well, it's time I come clean. Harry's more than a fantasy; he's been lurking around, vying for my attention. For instance, when I visited my mom in Florida in February? There's something I didn't tell you:

 

And last Christmas? Harry got a little bit peeved:

 

But that was nothing compared to the Super Bowl in January, which happened to also be Curt's birthday:

 
Yeah, he has a bit of a jealous streak.

He was pretty happy with how our family room turned out though:

 
What can I say? We were in a hurry.

I owe massive thanks to Foolery, whose recent post inspired me to such silliness, and whose mad photo editing skillz created these pictures.

I also owe a big apology to Chesapeake Bay Woman, who is no doubt going to be absolutely crushed when she views this photographic evidence that proves, once and for all, that Harry is not HER husband but mine. My other husband, I mean. Curt is still, and always will be, my husband. In real life.  Sorry, CBW. Can we still be friends?

'Cause she's still preoccupied...

"1985" by Bowling For Soup. Loved it the first time I heard it. Seems appropriate for this week, no?

A quarter to eight

I WAS DIGGING THROUGH A BOX OF MEMENTOS this evening, searching for a particular photo I remembered from June of 1985. (Stay tuned for that precious gem.) While up to my elbows in nostalgia, I found this, and wanted to post it because it's such a better shot of my treasured Gunne Sax prom frock and dyed-to-match pumps from the same year:

Look! There I am with my date, Matt. He was a sophomore! (Shut up.) That photo backdrop was set up in the lobby of the gymnasium, which is where the prom was always held at our school. (In the gym, I mean - not the lobby.)

We students tried to make the case to hold it off-site because hello, we played basketball in the gym. We perspired in there. We avoided attended Phys Ed class in there. And pep rallies and assemblies. If memory serves, our pleas were rejected on the grounds that the neighboring town's high school had theirs at some hotel all the way down in the city and there was all kinds of Trouble. Guess the moms and dads and teachers felt we'd be easier to manage if we just French-kissed groped each other danced in the gym.

I had a great time at this particular prom, and there's one story worth sharing. Matt was a HUGE fan of Rush, and one of his favorite songs was In The Mood. (Click the link to watch a video from - gah! - 1975.) Anyway, the lyrics in the chorus start:

Hey baby, it's a quarter to eight, I feel I'm in the mood...

And Matt thought it would be AWESOME if we timed our drive to the prom so that we were driving at - wait for it - 7:45. Which was good, because the prom started at 8:00. I was driving because, um, he was 15. So I rolled up to his house at like 7:30 in my giant Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Regency (the one I parallel parked and K-turned on my first - successful! - attempt at my driver's license). His folks snapped photos and oooohed and aaaahed at how nice we looked.

At the appointed time, we hopped in the car, and Matt inserted a cassette, already cued up to this song, and cranked up the volume to speaker-distortion levels. Only thing was, you could pretty much see the high school from where he lived - it was a really short drive. I'm not sure the song had gotten beyond the first verse and into the magical chorus lyrics by the time we pulled into the parking lot - we may have had to sit there for a short while. But it was fun, in a high school sort of way.

Stay tuned this week for another milestone moment from 1985...

Dance Fever

My blog pal Chesapeake Bay Woman wrote about high school dances recently and the length of my comment made it obvious that I needed to devote some space here to my memories of those fine co-ed traumatic  social events from the mid-1980s.

So many memories came rushing back as I thought about the dances in junior high and early high school. First of all, most of them were held in the school cafeteria, tables folded up and pushed against the walls, access to the cafeteria line area blocked. I remember the panicked feeling of trying to select just the right outfit. Of waiting for one particular boy to ask you to be his date, and, when that didn't happen, accepting the invitation of an altogether nice boy who wasn't your first choice.

THEN there was the dancing.

I recall the awkwardness that ensued when a slow dance song turned fast (think Behind Blue Eyes, Stairway to Heaven, Come Sail Away). Do you still dance slow-dance style, or break apart and boogie?

I experienced complete mortification when a much taller date leaned over to embrace me during a slow dance, sticking his butt out in a hideous manner, causing everyone else to stop and point and laugh at us. Pretty sure it was Stairway to Heaven, so we also had that awkward slow/fast dance thing going too.

There was the time when my date turned all Deney Terrio on me. Everyone was gathered around him as he got all Dance Fever on his bad-ass self. Alone. Like a scene out of Fame, all the kids gathered 'round while he did that disco pointing-the-finger thing and attempted to do the splits. Travolta, he wasn't.

And why was this so embarassing to me? Here was a teenaged boy, expressing himself through dance. As an adult, I look back and admire that he had the confidence to do that. I spent most of my teenage years trying so hard to blend in, to not stand out in any remarkable way. And that was hard enough, because I was The Girl Whose Dad Died, Poor Thing. So when That Girl dates a guy who makes it a point to call attention to himself in a most flambouyant way - well, it's hard to blend into the woodwork.

To this day, I can't hear a song by REO Speedwagon or Air Supply or Journey without thinking back to these dances.

And those were just the "regular" dances.  There was a Sophomore Tea each year, and the Junior/Senior Prom. The Tea (why was it still called a Tea? They weren't serving tea and canapes by the 1980s) was, like, a medium-big deal. I remember volunteering to be a "server" when I was in 8th or 9th grade. This meant standing behind the refreshment table, ladling out punch and refilling the cookie tray. I could dress up, which meant a dress, and pantyhose! (Ladies, was I the only one who remembers being super-excited to be old enough to wear pantyhose? Now I'd rather die than wear 'em.) I was a novice leg-shaver at the time, and as I was bathing I managed to shear a good chunk of epidermis right off of my calf. It bled and bled and really smarted, and then I had giant Band-Aids unsuccessfully concealed beneath my suntan-tinted nylons. Klassy.

By junior and senior year, dances were more fun. I remember one dance - was it 1983's homecoming? Where we managed to play the entire Yes 90125 album, and another - I think it was senior year homecoming, where we played most of Prince's Purple Rain (skipping Darling Nikki, of course). I'd have to devote a whole other post to the proms - I'll simply say that as a bit of a late bloomer, I felt I was hitting my stride by the spring of '85, scoring invitations to two other proms besides my own. I got good mileage out of my Gunne Sax tea-length, mint-green, water-satin dress and dyed-to-match shoes.

(Dude, where's my leg??)

So, what memories do you have of your high school dances? Share 'em in the comments!

Sum-sum-summertime

SUMMER IS IN FULL SWING Chez Soup. The school-age boys are sleeping till noon and don't go to bed until never late.  They've occupied themselves this first week of summer break by doing a whole lot of nothin'.  Well, that's not true - Seth did some chores, but only because he is a Young Capitalist. The Boss? Other than the occasional dog walk, he avoided the excessive heat by retreating to the air-conditioned comfort of the basement, playing shoot-'em-up computer and XBox games.

It is parenting by the path of least resistance up in here.

Meanwhile, we've been heading to the pool after work so Peezer can have a quick dip after his long days at daycare / camp. (You should see him swim - the child is a fish!) This has the effect pushing dinnertime back to, well, when bedtime normally is.  I was freaking out about the late dinners, but my Facebook friends told me to chill, it's summer. They're right.

But the real fun comes on Sunday, when we pack up three boys and all their stuff and drive them two hours north, into Pennsyltucky. We will rendezvous with my award-winning in-laws, trade car keys (picture "Trading Spaces", only in a McDonalds parking lot). Then Soup Husband Curt and I will run in the other direction drive their car south while they drive ours - and its contents, human and otherwise! - back to their home. For a whole week.

Oh, happy happy day of days! Oh, most joyous of occasions! I am dancing a happy jig right now!

Ahem. Sorry.

Anyway - it's not like we have anything planned for our kidless week.  We will work like normal. We still have to feed the pets. (Does anyone want to take our pets next week? Text me.) We might eat out. We probably won't go to the pool.

Actually, there is one project.  The older boys, who have been sharing a bedroom all these years (except for our six month exile in PA), have decided it's time for The Boss to move downstairs, into whichever room we can convert into a bedroom for him. This is more easily said than done... but it's on the agenda. (Stay tuned.)

Speaking of summer - and we were, weren't we? - my pal Foolery posted today about the songs that most remind her of summer. And I have a variation on this theme.  I have been thinking recently about my home town's municipal swimming pool and the fun hours I used to while away there each summer. There are certain songs that were on the jukebox there (and here I provide a helpful reference link for anyone born before Methusaleh 1980) that I swear never got removed. This being the turn of the century late '70s and early '80s, the coin-operated record machine (kids, that's a Context Clue) (go Google "record" and "coin") (shut up) featured hits from the Rolling Stones, the Cars, and lots and lots of Elton John.

In particular, I remember Life's Been Good by Joe Walsh and the B-52s' Rock Lobster... Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street, Dire Straits' Sultans of Swing...  all links go to the video on YouTube.

Those are some of the songs that scream SUMMER!!! to me. Please, tell me - what are some that you remember from when you were a carefree teenager, or make up the soundtrack of your summer memories?