This has no date but it does have an illustration. While there was some creative license taken, the bit about talking to my reflection is true, but that was a different mirror.
A Mirror on my Dresser
The old mirror on my dresser is a shadowbox. I talk to my reflection whenever I am alone in the house. Sometimes my reflection and I get upset with one another because we are always trying to say the same things at the same time. We gave up saying “jinks, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten you owe me a bottle of pop” whenever we say the same thing because, as I told you earlier, we always say the same thing at the same time and we always end up leaving angry as we owe each other 22,500 bottles of pop so far.
There are shelves on the mirror and I have knickknacks all over it. Here is a picture of it:
The mirror itself does not talk too much, except to the wall when the wall complains about the mirror being too heavy, or it talks to the dresser, warning it to watch out below because it feels its screws getting loose. Sometimes it gossips to the floor or the door about things happening around the room, as it can’t see or hear farther than the door.
Here is a real picture of part of it. And it was above my bed, not part of my dresser, however the room may have been rearranged after this photo was taken. I am sure I wasn’t eleven when I wrote this, despite the childish drawing above. I was probably more likely thirteen or fourteen. I also just noticed that I gave the drawing too many shelves.
Young Dona and cousin Pam talking on toy phones in Dona’s childhood bedroom
I don’t know why Frances gave me the partial set of lithographs from the Old South, but she did. I expect they were something she’d gotten after writing about home design in The Washington Evening Star. I don’t know what happened to the other prints in the set, perhaps they adorned her walls.
These prints have sat in the attic for years, first in the knee wall where generations of silverfish feasted on the outside cover of the prints, then in my electronics/stuff-to-blog-about/junk closet. I pulled it out the other day and was reminded how lovely the prints were — for some reason the silverfish left the prints inside the set alone.
The cover describes the contents:
“A series of six colorful subjects, reproduced in full color lithography, inspired by a way of living — of ease and slow-paced leisure — which has become an integral part of the American tradition. Their joyous composition and gayety of color make these bright watercolors ideal for any decorating scheme.”
New Orleans Promenade, Charleston Flower Merchants, Savannah Cat Walk, New Orleans Hurdy Gurdy, Doorstep Flower Venders, Charleston, and Savannah Green Grocer.
The prints are all signed “Sikat” and were published and copyrighted in 1953 by J. B. Fischer and Co. in NY City.
I am not sure what I am going to do with the prints. I’d like to have them framed and hang them, but I don’t think Dean really likes them. I don’t want to sell them or give them away unless the person I am giving them to knew Frances.
I will ask my kids if they want them, but I suspect the answer is no so they will likely go (protected this time) back into the knee wall.
Several years ago my mother’s friend, Wendy, learned I was interested in edible wild foods. I may have told her that I owned Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons or else we were just talking about wildflowers. Her mother had a wonderful yard full of lovely wildflowers and maybe it was when I visited it. Regardless of how Wendy learned about my interest, she gave me a small pamphlet that her father wrote about edible wild foods, Live Off the Land and Like It. It has been lying around my house for years and I finally scanned it so I could share it. I hope Wendy doesn’t mind. I’m planning on giving the original pamphlet to my daughter who actually makes things out of wild plants.
I’ve not tried any of the recipes, but maybe you will find something intriguing. Here’s the PDF so you can actually read the recipes: Live off the Land and Like It
Clutch Cargo Lips 