My mother recently tasked me with helping to put together a scrap book for my father’s upcoming memorial service. Delightful. Let the record show that I want to attend a memorial service as much as I want to babysit Jon and Kate’s 8, given 1) my fear of communicating with other carbon life forms, particularly those with whom I share the slightest blood relation, and 2) the fact that I might be called upon to tell a witty or heart rending story to encapsulate a 34-year relationship in seven sentences. I do not do forced togetherness well. I also don’t do manual creativity with any skill, including but not limited to dioramas, intricate Christmas cookies, and impromptu maxi pads fashioned from office toilet paper.
I also have lived for 35 years with the belief that scrap bookers are worthy of my snark. They are notoriously lame, women who collect Disney DVDs like it’s their job and go to bed with stuffed animals they’ve owned since they were three. I’m always amazed that there are craft store rows (and rows and rows) devoted to stickers and stamps and paper with tiny footballs on it, as the hobby seems a surefire way to get your Spinster card not only issued but stamped for life. As far as I’m concerned, ribbons and bows belong on the heads of babies of questionable gender, not on the volumes of acid free paper that document one’s existence.
The act of combing through photos was a nice one, surprisingly. Mom and I took the task on together, pulling bankers boxes of photos and familial paraphernalia up to the kitchen table for examination. We found marvelous pictures. Their wedding day, my mother in her A line dress, holding a bouquet of cascading mums almost the length of her dress. My father as a boy no more than 10, wearing some sort of odd shirt with extensive piping that screamed his love for all things cowboy. Pictures of Dad holding my sister as a wee, wee babe, looking very much the comfortable father with only one week’s experience under his now outdated belt. I was reminded why I force the unwilling into frames despite their humphing and frowning. Pictures of landscape mean very little in the long run.
I was slightly surprised that there were absolutely no photos of both my father and me before I was two, but I only went on for twenty minutes or so about that parental failure. “All those pictures are in slides,” my mother said somewhat apologetically. Dad apparently jumped on the technology train sometime in the 70s, putting everything on inch-wide negatives that modern day folk enjoy courtesy of accent lighting or CB2 oil lamps. It was disheartening to say the least. Still, there are some baby photos of me, mostly me playing with matches and sitting in the freezer, so there is proof that I was loved. As a baby, I also looked disturbingly like my father in his later years, so I’m pretty sure I’m still of the Likey clan. Bygones.
The whole process was pretty damn glorious. I at no time had the urge to break out the die cutting machine, but at some point the words “Let’s go to Michael’s!” slipped from my lips. I indeed meant Michael’s, wonderland of flowers that never quite lived and mecca of soul sucking, and I wanted with all my tannined heart to go to there. I won’t lie to you; it was pretty damn cool. Mom and I walked the aisles and picked out sticker books with quotes about family and travel, still others with little paw prints on them. If I’m honest, it was slightly intoxicating despite my Unibomber disguise. If I’m really honest, Mom and I then took our goods to Outback Steakhouse and for two hours assembled the whole damn scrapbook at the table. Which I suspect was the absolute delight of our server’s day.
So dear scrap bookers of America, I apologize from the bottom of my blog. While I still picture you canning preserves on weekend nights, I so totally get your hotness for those cute little labels.
22 Comments
I was once dragged to a Creative Memories party against my will, a scrapbookers version of what I can only relate to from an evening spent embarrasingly checking out adult toys and a friend’s “Passion Party”. Whatever happened to just selling Tupperware?
I sat for hours in stunned silence as I watched a horde of women ooh and ahh over puppy stickers and scissors with wavy edges. I was most definately in the wrong place. Why I left with a leather photo album with acid free paper, a complimentary set of decorative hole punches and a bill over $150 I still don’t know. They slipped something into my Pinot Grigio, I swear!
I kind of love that you guys put the scrapbook together at Outback.
I wish nothing for you so much as that in a year or a few you find yourself preserving cherries or strawbs or rhubarb and look over at your co-preserverist and say “Shit, another damn thing I have to retract.”
Cheers to all things overlooked or quickly judged bringing you to joy again and again, K.
you are forgiven for your scrapbook bashing and your dear dad is missed. every time i pass the place where your call was received, my eyes tear up just as they are now.
Oh Kris, I am laughing so hard tears are running down my cheeks. I have a family member who is the Epitome of what you just described: a Creative Memories acolyte with hordes of doilyed paper and a coffee can full of fantastical scissors that frighten me. Many conversations have been had about why I don’t get into Creative Memories…whY I don’t (read: WON’T) host parties or try to sell frames in my spare time…I’m simply going to let her read your post the next time she asks.
And, under the circumstances, I have to admit that it seems as if perhaps an extra bow or two might be warranted with this scrapbook. But rest easy: what happens at Michael’s, stays at Michaels. ;-)
God, you’re good. Very very good….
Write a book. I will be at your book signing. And I won’t accept the ubiquitous “Sincerely, Kris Wino” for my salutation on a first edition Kris that I will be shocked to learn is worth 6 figures at an Antique Roadshow in the not too distant future.
“impromptu maxi pads fashioned from office toilet paper” hahahahahahaa OMG u crack me up.
I miss you. I am also happy to come to your father’s memorial service with you, if you would like more company!
Oh, Kris, as always you have such a way with words!
I’m glad you’ve come over to the scrapbooking side. Now if only I can convince you that I’m not a freak for still having my stuffed animals from when I was three…
i love when you post. because not only do you make me laugh, you always slip in something that makes me think or (even more shocking) feel. to reiterate what everyone’s already said, you’re awesome.
and congratulations on your first scrapbooking steps down a long, slippery road to crazy-old-cat-lady-lane.
Once you give in to the craft store monster, it’s nothing but relaxing, giddy numbness. This made me giggle.
You are incredible. I, too, loathe the scrap booking hordes, but I can sympathize with what you faced. Somehow, the memories with your mom and the presence of Outback make it even more charming to read about, Kris.
Well done, as always. My condolences go out to you, still.
Helpful Bit: You know, you can take those slides to just about any real photography store and get them scanned and returned to you in digital form. Or if you know somebody with such a scanner (know any professional visual artists?), you could bribe them to do it.
Unhelpful Bits: 1) Don’t offer too much for the bribe, because they’re probably going to turn around and blackmail you with the very same photos (how much do you think those early nudes would fetch on Antiques Roadshow? — no, wait, that’s not what I meant).
2) Head over to the other side of Michael’s and you might be able to create some jewelry for you and your sibs to wear to the memorial.
Helpful Redux: No one who feels like you do about your Dad could be good at the brief memorial remark and be true to their own truth. Meander, digress, tear up, blubber, break down — and appreciate that your very nature and presence speaks more about him than words ever could.
Oh Kris, I so agree with you on the scrapbooking!!! My dear friend is so into this creative crapola that she turned her son’s old bedroom into Scrapbook City. *throwing up in mouth*
And this is a smart, talented woman who is a writer! Why why why this crappy nonsense I’ll never know. She’s married so we can rule out spinster but still.
I’d like to commend your father for getting out of slides in the 1970s. I am well-documented on slides through the mid-eighties.
If you still have the slides of you with your dad and would just love to see the photos in a scrapbook, get one of those scanners made to do slides. My dad set my mom doing that with all of ours one summer and guess what? The scans turned out so well that she decided to make a scrapbook.
I don’t get it at ALL, still – but I’m glad you had fun with your Mom!
i started a scrapbook with my oldest, I only got around to month three and stopped. Baby books? I haven’t a clue if they have one or not.
i suck at parenting.
See, I don’t think of scrapbooking as a spinster thing; I think of it as a hobby for stay-at-home moms–especially those of the Navy variety (those are mostly all I know). At any rate, it’s a hobby like anything else. The thing about scrapbooking is that it doesn’t actually take a lot of artistic flair (sorry, ladies), so it’s easy to get sucked into because you can make pretty stuff relatively inexpensively and easily. This is how knitting sucked me in as well.
At any rate, I’m glad it was a positive experience for you. I think there is a lesson to be learned here. Scrapbooking is less about the product and more about the time spent looking at and talking about the photos with family.
If you are scrap booking, I’m going to get right with the Lord.
I kind of love that you guys put the scrapbook together at Outback.
Once you give in to the craft store monster, it’s nothing but relaxing, giddy numbness.
One the best post I have read keep up the work.
I want to get a Tattoo some day.
I think as long as you don’t make a scrapbook for your seven-legs-of-love cats, all’s good. If you do? I’m disowning you.