Podunk Greetings

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Home for the Holidaze...

This was our first Christmas tree - circa 1981 or 82 (Lisa?). We had to hide it my sister's bedroom so that my grandmother wouldn't see it, and so the cats wouldn't eat (and then poop) tinsel. Even the little Star of David wouldn't have made her any happier about our decision to try out this "tree" thing.

It's funny to see Rappaport's wrapping paper - and even some Paper Moon (whatever happened to that company? They made the BEST paper products!)

Oh, and that vase to the left? Let's just say we were a liberal (or maybe "parentally clueless"?) household... and for any future employers who may see this photo, just remember that it was taken about 30 years ago! See the 8-track tapes to the right? They were probably "TV Theme Songs of the 70's" and "A Jackson 5 Christmas".

Yeah, we knew how to celebrate the holidays- with or without that vase.

"Whatever colors you have in your mind...
I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine." - Bob Dylan (duh)

These are some of the newer earrings for Podunk Princess Designs' highly anticipated 2008 holiday season shopping frenzy! I know we're in a recession - I just like making pretty things - and they happen to be locally made AND affordable too!

These earrings, a whole lot of gorgeous necklaces, and other similar designs (meaning made by ME) are now available at Sundrees in Trumansburg (OMG - if you have never been there, go! It is so worth the visit!) and at the Julie Stone Salon in Downtown Ithaca and soon to be Ithaca's favorite contemporary clothing and gift emporium, Fibers and Fantasy (on the Commons).

Thank you. Come again!

Facebook - ya mean I was kinda cool???

I seriously think Facebook could save the world. Or at least our souls.

It's created a psychologically pleasant phenomenon- a energetic wave of "wow, this is amazing" across the planet as millions of people reconnect after years of "whatever happened to...?"

An indescribable sense of self-validation unites those who grew up thinking that they were uncool (am I getting too personal here?) - that maybe high school didn't really suck as much as I thought it did, that I wasn't such a misfit - that I may really have 209 (so far) friends in the world.

Okay, so maybe there are a few relatives in there, but I've learned more about my 18 year old niece in the last year than I have her first 17. (And may I just say that she is way cooler niece than any aunt could have ever hoped for. Just her and her best friend's Halloween "Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson" costume was enough to make me scream with delight.)

I'm 42 and since I have been on Facebook I have reconnected with hundreds of people - from nursery school to high school to first loves, to worst enemies (in third grade "enemy" is a tangible being), old crushes, neighborhood hangout buds, summer camp bunkmates, college suitemates, relatives of close friends, and even some people that I didn't really want to friend - but knew they'd have friends I would love to find.

It has been a trip. No more "I wonder whatever happened to..." now it can take me days just to digest the reconnection as memory plays me back some of the greatest times of my past.
The word "friend" carries much more value than it did way back when we were choosing friends like we now choose our cars - what do they say about us? How do we want to perceived?

One thing that strikes me is how much other people remember that I don't - and vice versa. Most everyone remembers me as a Who freak (and actually thank me for turning them on to them) and of course as having enormous breasts... but the well wishes and adulation for surviving cancer - and from people you swore would steal your boyfriend in a minute - has helped make my entry into adulthood just a little more comfortable.

We are adults now - with lives and tragedies, and miracles - and it's nice to reconnect with so many people who are part of my story. Because when these stories collide, new names are searched to help complete the memories. And then - BAM- you have a reunion - maybe not in the literal "book the band and photographers" sense, but the group's memories can be shared together.

Ahhhh... fact to face group reunions... they can be interesting!

A few weeks ago, three of my best friends (Abby, Heather and Sean) and I attended a summer camp reunion in the city - well on Long Island - but my friends live in the city and that's where we hung - and I should just tell you now it was a fat camp reunion. Camp Colang, formerly a Weight Watchers Camp in the Poconos. It was where stoners went to lose their winter weight. And it is exactly where these best friends and I met in the first place - about 25 years ago.

We've stayed in touch and the idea of us all going to this camp reunion just got us hysterical. It was actually two of my campers that found me... and then the "attending" list just kept on growing! We all posted "embarrassing bathing suit Before photos" and horrible 80's "banquet night" photos on the group sites and counted the days until until we could see who got fat(ter) and who didn't. And we had a blast!

The photo to the left is one of the great ones from the evening. It's Heather looking at a picture of herself from 1983 - with a mohawk (you can tell why I loved Heather from the:down by the river" joint-sharing moment I met her) in someone else's photo album.

So what did we get out of the reunion - aside from buzzed and in Abby's case, some tongue...
We learned that nothing had changed too much. We were still still the stoners, the misfits, but in a good way. While everyone else was getting drunk (in between nose jobs and cat fights - granted they were a few years younger than us), our group had a secret society meeting of cool people. And Abby, wearing a slinky red dress and a wayward wedding guest from the party downstairs, held court signing copies of her Colang-inspired book Teenage Waistland while Sean, Heather, Susan and I just giggled. But that's not the point. The point is that this evening would have never been possible - or even dared - without the power of Facebook...

...and Abby's red dress!

But she would have never had a fat camp reunion to wear it to!

Nor would I have been able to catch up with a dear friend from my hoodlum days, Dave Brooks, one of the people I credit with having taught me to skateboard well enough to win a trophy in 1978! Now he's the sound engineer at the Nokia Theatre in NYC, so we had dinner before the Phil and Friends show - a a few nights before the reunion. I love Dave's comments under the photo on Facebook "The last time we saw each other, we were the type of kids they wrote movies about" - he's not kidding... the names we batted over those 10th Avenue cheeseburgers blew my mind. (Refer back to the Fire Island or Rykers Island post for clarity.) And it's all because I found Liam, who happened to be friends with Dave - and the "OMG - I've been thinking about you for years" was mutual and long overdue!

So thank you Facebook Easter Bunny!
Thank you for validating me as more than just a tubby little tomboy on a ten-speed.

I was kinda cool.

Whoulda thunk it?