Memories of the Collage (part 1)

Over a decade ago, I created a collage of some of my favourite photos of my favourite people and animals. Fastidiously gluing the scissor-sculpted photies together, I placed them on a poster board covered with tie-dye tissue paper, and I decorated my office wall in Quality Assurance and, later, my cube wall in Special Orders Services with my memories made manifest. It may be a bit redundant to take pictures of pictures, but I don't care. It's my journal and I can be redundant if I want to.

What I've done is take pictures of the collage in sections so I can write about the images featured in each picture. Over time, I plan on documenting the entire collage, starting with today's post.

Beginning on the left-hand side of the image, there’s a black and white photo of the Father Unit, circa 1978-79.  If memory serves, this was a press photo from when Dad was starting his acting career.  Mind, it was only local theatre, in the Virginia area at the time, but it grew to a pretty lucrative commercial career while he was in Japan.  The Japanese love goofy American actors, so the Father Unit fit right in.  Right above him is a picture of the Mother Unit in 1973, modeling some nifty 70s fashion.  She was quite the dish in the day.  Well, she still is but, in the 70s, the Mother Unit was definitely what you would call a hottie.  To her right is a picture of the Father Unit playing his guitar and, above that, is Granny, the Father Unit’s mother and the lady who helped Aunt Tudi raise me.  May the Goddess have mercy on her soul for having to put up with something like me.  Beside the Father Unit’s guitar photo is a picture from 1973 of Mama, Dad, and me on the Empire State Building.  Then we have two photos featuring the Units in their youth, a colour one from the 70s and a black and white one from their Beatnik days of the mid-60s.  Moving on to the right is a B&W photo of my maternal grandfather, G’Pa Irving.  Handsome devil, wasn’t he?  Below him is a picture of Mama and Granny from June of 1985, the night of my high school graduation.  Don’t they looked thrilled?  Right below that is a tiny picture of Uncle Michael, Janice, Little Michael, and Johnna.  Note that Johnna has her back to the camera.  From infancy, Johnna despised having her picture taken.  Maybe one of her past lives was that of an Amazonian tribesman who was certain that photography was tantamount to soul-stealing.  Whatever the reason, taking pictures of Johnna as a child was always an adventure.  To the left of the family of four, we have a severe B&W photie of the Mother Unit, circa 196?.  She had that “I’m so sexy I could kill you with a glance” thing going on.  Beside her are two tacky pictures of the Father Unit, who had that “I’m so goofy I could kill you with a glance” thing going on.  Not to be outdone, the Mother Unit offers up two goofy pictures of her own.  And, for good measure, and to finish up this portion of the collage, there’s a picture of the Mother Unit from a few years back, posing with two of her avian pals.

Dough Sucker: a Tale of Love

Tonight I trained with Alexa, who is heading back to Charlotte to attend her final year at the culinary academy starting Wednesday. The main thing I learnt at the bakery this evening was how to pull the bread and get it ready for baking the next day. All the dough is frozen. Hard. And so was I by the time I pulled everything I needed to pull. One of the items I had to pull was hot dog buns. I was to pull 32 buns and get them ready for tomorrow. I accidentally pulled 33. Even though the dough is frozen solid, it thaws pretty quickly, so here I was with this extra knob of bread dough and nothing to do with it. So I taste-tested it. I have this thing about raw dough of any sort. When I was a kid, Granny would always warn me that I was going to end up with worms if I didn't stop with the devouring of biscuit dough, but I think she was just trying to get me to stop eating her biscuits before she ever got them in the oven. If the whole worm thing were true, I'd have died of a severe infestation years ago.

Anyway, I really enjoyed that pre-cooked hot dog bun and expect that I'll get the reputation of resident dough sucker if I can hold down three jobs. Honestly, I'm not sure I can do it. This bakery job is pretty difficult and is playing havoc with my arthritis. I'm gonna try my level best, though. I don't go back to Ingles until Monday.

Tomorrow is Dollar General day. Yay! I really like that job. I didn't think I'd like being a cashier, but it's pretty nifty.

For now, though, I'm home and I'm watching a doco on two of my favourite human beings on Earth: Bobby and Peter Farrelly, may the Lady bless and keep them.