I think I should've waited to read this until after I'd eaten lunch. Reading that bagel part made me want to toss my cookies. And my lunch. LOL But to answer your questions:
1. Did you grow up in a home with a living room that was off limits? No. fortunately. But that's because my parents entertained a lot when they worked Corp Hell Jobs.
2. Any orange chair equivalents in your life? Yes. I STILL have the blue armchair that was in my parents' house when we lived in Scottsdale (oh so many centuries, er, years, ago). Ironically, it was in the sunken (because it was a step down) dining room, an area that was only used when company came over or when we had parties. Needless to say, it was well preserved and came with me when they kicked me out of the house at age 25. LOL It had a matching ottoman, too, until Mr. Ex dented it. And our cat loved to curl up in it, so needless to say, when we got divorced, I took the chair but left the ottoman. Additionally, any time my parents get new stuff, they always ask Sis and I, and the grandkids, if they want anything before donating it all to Sojourner House.
3. Do you hoard or purge? Purge. A habit that I got from my Mom when she would do yearly spring cleaning. And now that I have my own (tiny) place, I'm more aware of what I buy. Especially when it comes to clothes: I have to do the Buy/Toss routine. However many pieces I buy, I have to toss that many from my closet. Which I'm cool with. I keep talking about buying land and building a tiny house on it, so I know I'm going to have to do a lot purging. I figure this is preparing me for that. LOL
Hi Ororo! So nice to see you here. Sorry I grossed you out. Hehe. I would love a pic of the blue arm chair. I’ll bet it’s a cozy reading chair. I purge too. I do miss a couple of clothing items that are back in style.
Nice piece, CK. I had a recliner to which I was very attached - it survived a few moves, and was eventually relegated to the garage, before being discarded - it’s a process to cut the strings entirely.
I think when something in our lives earns a moniker ala "the orange chair" is one standard for wonderful. It is even better when more than one person shares the story. Your post this time around was fantastic because you managed to take us through two inventories. One of your early live's together and one about fun furniture that was there to witness. Great the way you melded them together. A fun story.
CK ... my first read of your postings - someone pointed you to my Substack and I went exploring who this person was, so my knowledge of you is tiny but I think I'll explore to learn more. Your piece reads like a Seinfeld stand-up style piece, and a good one at that. Aside from some personal memories of my own about 'stuff' acquired over time (and mostly discarded along the way) and the difference between utilitarian scrounging and 'treasure keeping' I laughed too because of a favourite Mike Birbiglia video on Netflix - where his special's opening piece ends with .... "but first, let me tell you about my couch' which is fantastic. If you've not seen it, I highly recommend you check it out. While, like many people of my age cohort, everything in my home not already forfeited in divorce #1 or divorce #2 or discarded in garage sales or trash bins ... everything has a story, or several, within it. Walking from room to room and telling all those stories could take 18 years at least! Among my treasures are things in cupboards and drawers that would be meaningless to anyone else, but they are touchstones for me. Most of those are in my kitchen drawers - not things from my dad (died 10 years ago) or my mother (died 25 years ago) but from my grandmother's kitchen (died 59 years ago). It's odd that several items from my grandmother's homestead farm kitchen where she fed 12 children (my dad the youngest) would be in my care (she had dozens of grandchildren and dozens more great-grandchildren when she died) would be ... firstly in my dad's care, and now in mine. My children and grandchildren no nothing of these items, their history, their importance to me, so I'm thinking I should write a history of those items and put them together so they'll not be tossed out one day by someone cleaning up after my departure with 'who needs those old things? ... better toss them, but these old items 'a meat fork from a carving set, a sharpening steel from another, and meat-tenderizing hatchet/cleaver that resembles 'a shingling hatchet-meets-serious weapon' - they are treasures I would not want to lose or leave behind because the care family history going back to early 1900s, and mid 1950s from when my grandmother came to live with us for a couple of years, which is the likely reason those items stayed in my mother's kitchen until her death, and in my dad's until his death - they are my connection to their history live the provenance of an old painting and far more significant the photos of times and places I never saw or experienced.
Cheers,
Mark
p.s. I've signed up as a subscriber and very much look forward to reading your work
I loved learning about the orange chair and hairy bagel (ugh). When I moved in with Rich, his house was decorated perfectly with the 1980's gray and mauve. We continued the theme for the baby's room when I got pregnant. When grandma died, I was lucky enough to get some of her furniture. She had 2 arm chairs in sky blue velour. They've been recovered twice and now sit proudly in my bathroom. She would be thrilled!
I inherited most of my furniture from a great aunt who purchased it new in the 1920s. She and her husband had little money so the furniture is not “name brand” stuff but it was made at a time when you weren’t expected to put your furniture together yourself and is sturdy. But it is a hundred years old and has experienced some rough moves and needs more tlc then I am able to give it. I thought that by this point in my life, I would have a “real” living room and dining room set. I thought decorator designed rooms meant that one had achieved adulthood. Unfortunately, I had a kid when I was 48 and got a dog when I was 58 that combination rules out nice things for at least ten more years.
Thx for reading and sharing, GV. Furniture from the 1920’s is considered antique and probably quite charming. If pieces have bruises better yet— it’s called Shabby Chic.
You are fortunate and blessed to have a kid at any age. Same with the fur baby. I would take those over a Ralph Lauren sofa any day. 🥰❤️
I just remember that my college boyfriend (now husband) got a used mattress FREE from a hotel and I somehow didn't vomit every time we slept in it together. 😂 If he even suggested such a thing now, I would be horrified. Funny how our threshold for disgust changes over time.
We had TONS of hand-me-down furniture and Goodwill garb in our first apartment, which was over a pie kitchen at an apple orchard. Mice were rampant, but thankfully there were pies downstairs, so they didn't bother us upstairs very much. We had to run the faucet constantly in the winter to avoid the pipes freezing. We also occasionally received an electric shock on the bathroom mirror if our other hand happened to be anywhere near the running water in the sink.
It was a great place. Miss those days of being incredibly low maintenance out of necessity. And love, obviously. 🥰
OMG! What we put up with in our youth. I might have drawn the line at the electric shock. What a relief that mattress was free of bed bugs. I had to train hubby NOT to put his suitcase on the bed. Not only the airport germs but I read that's a sure way to get bed bugs.
What a fun read. Your stories always reveal a deeper angst and psychology that inform and tease your humor. Such a delight, though likely never as delightful for you until in hindsight! Especially hairy bagels. 😂
Oh, such flashbacks of early life together! Takes me back... We found the most amazing Empire style coffee table in perfect condition when we were young marrieds in the city. And I miss all the books people would leave out. In terms of the orange equivalent, my parents had a very groovy orange velvet sofa in the 70s--it was the height of my mom's decorating bravery which gave way to decades of greige, lol.
Yes, I was just looking at the same ones! Orange is the color of creativity--so was thinking of for my office. Griege is 80s but also just so Kim K... I can't even, lol. Bleck!
A lovely memoir, CK. No rooms were off-limits in my childhood home, but towels and protective plastic were in constant use, to fight dirt and grime. I would have *loved* to have had hand-me-down furniture when I moved into my first place. There are some choice pieces that I coveted, and now I see the same pieces in trendy retro furniture shops. By the time my now-husband and I moved in together, we each had a house full of stuff. We've kept all the furniture over the years (a retired shipping container was a Steel anniversary present, bought to store all the surplus! So romantic, Haha), and so we are able to help furnish each of our sons' first place with all the bits and bobs. I bet they'll have different ideas!
Thx, Ofifoto. I love getting to know you here. Thx for sharing your personal story. My grandparents had the plastic over their sofa too. It was so uncomfortable. And yes, the "contemporary" look is back in style. Great idea to put everything in a shipping container-- cheaper than with a storage company? If your kids don't appreciate the hand me downs now, they will-- it's a right of passage.
Yes! Orange chair equivalent was an orange chair that was tweedy, itchy and a hand me over from my best pal in high school. My mom was a snobby interior designer and the chair was a nightmare. I installed it in my teenage bedroom and spent hours reading there. The best story I have about that chair has to do with the chapter “In Amerika They Call Us Dykes” in Our Bodies Ourselves, and my late discovery of the benefits of pleasuring myself. My father almost caught me one night with my jeans around my ankles, my lap covered by the afghan my grandmother crocheted and said book in one hand. I hope this wasn’t too much information! We barely know each other! Thanks for the reminder. I’m writing this one up! xoxo
The orange chair! Let's just say I have had some questionable furniture over the years.
I love how Jeffrey jumped to your defense with the almost-eaten hair and the need to purge thereafter. Your descriptions of the two of you growing together throughout your young married life and beyond are a lovely and endearing addition to this Good Humor space, my friend.
I agree with Ofifoto as far as your own limits. I think as far as your readers, we’ll take whatever you’re comfortable sharing at whatever degree of personal that is! :)
Yeah. I totally trust my subscribers but beyond that our personal content is in the world. It’s easy to forget that this is online for all the world to see— unless we put something behind a paywall. Hehe.
I'm a purger married to a bit of a hoarder so sometimes the situation devolves to a contest of wills. My husband He stood on guard in front of the dumpster as I emptied out my parent's house after their deaths. His scrounging did uncover a photograph of Abraham Lincoln (without his beard) and a package of confederate money!
I thought my husband had intercepted a lucrative trove, but the Lincoln picture was worth $74 and the confederate money was a forgery - something you might get from the Franklkin Mint. But for just a moment ... I thought I had won the jackpot!
A friend of mine was buying his daughter furniture for her first apartment. I told him he was cheating her out of an amazing right of passage of furnishing her place with eclectic finds. For me it was the big utility spools - they were great end tables. Also the cinder block and board bookcases are the best.
For the "man" furniture. When my husband and I bought a house to live together for the first time 17 years ago, he brought the following: a 3000 pound metal and canvas hammock (still in the box); a super crappy lawn mower (which never worked); a piece-of-shit BBQ; a heinous plaid easy chair with an even more heinous plaid couch. Some of these sit in my garage to this day. After paying storage fees for more than a year for the couch--I'm still yelling at him for that one-- it sat in the screen house until the mice ate it. Sadly, the chair is still in my living room.
The red lamps, courtesy of an insisting aunt. They had tassels so big you could swing them to clean the lamps. Or fend off a masher in a strip club if you had to use them for that.
I think I should've waited to read this until after I'd eaten lunch. Reading that bagel part made me want to toss my cookies. And my lunch. LOL But to answer your questions:
1. Did you grow up in a home with a living room that was off limits? No. fortunately. But that's because my parents entertained a lot when they worked Corp Hell Jobs.
2. Any orange chair equivalents in your life? Yes. I STILL have the blue armchair that was in my parents' house when we lived in Scottsdale (oh so many centuries, er, years, ago). Ironically, it was in the sunken (because it was a step down) dining room, an area that was only used when company came over or when we had parties. Needless to say, it was well preserved and came with me when they kicked me out of the house at age 25. LOL It had a matching ottoman, too, until Mr. Ex dented it. And our cat loved to curl up in it, so needless to say, when we got divorced, I took the chair but left the ottoman. Additionally, any time my parents get new stuff, they always ask Sis and I, and the grandkids, if they want anything before donating it all to Sojourner House.
3. Do you hoard or purge? Purge. A habit that I got from my Mom when she would do yearly spring cleaning. And now that I have my own (tiny) place, I'm more aware of what I buy. Especially when it comes to clothes: I have to do the Buy/Toss routine. However many pieces I buy, I have to toss that many from my closet. Which I'm cool with. I keep talking about buying land and building a tiny house on it, so I know I'm going to have to do a lot purging. I figure this is preparing me for that. LOL
Hi Ororo! So nice to see you here. Sorry I grossed you out. Hehe. I would love a pic of the blue arm chair. I’ll bet it’s a cozy reading chair. I purge too. I do miss a couple of clothing items that are back in style.
Building a house sounds fab. How’s the novel?
Nice piece, CK. I had a recliner to which I was very attached - it survived a few moves, and was eventually relegated to the garage, before being discarded - it’s a process to cut the strings entirely.
Oh the infamous recliner. My how they’ve changed. My 90 year old dad has a chair that pushes him up. We go from relaxing to needing help to stand.
“Want another bagel?” So great!
Hehe. Thx, Anne.
I think when something in our lives earns a moniker ala "the orange chair" is one standard for wonderful. It is even better when more than one person shares the story. Your post this time around was fantastic because you managed to take us through two inventories. One of your early live's together and one about fun furniture that was there to witness. Great the way you melded them together. A fun story.
Thx, Mark. No furniture stories from the midwest?
None for the world of Substack alas...
CK ... my first read of your postings - someone pointed you to my Substack and I went exploring who this person was, so my knowledge of you is tiny but I think I'll explore to learn more. Your piece reads like a Seinfeld stand-up style piece, and a good one at that. Aside from some personal memories of my own about 'stuff' acquired over time (and mostly discarded along the way) and the difference between utilitarian scrounging and 'treasure keeping' I laughed too because of a favourite Mike Birbiglia video on Netflix - where his special's opening piece ends with .... "but first, let me tell you about my couch' which is fantastic. If you've not seen it, I highly recommend you check it out. While, like many people of my age cohort, everything in my home not already forfeited in divorce #1 or divorce #2 or discarded in garage sales or trash bins ... everything has a story, or several, within it. Walking from room to room and telling all those stories could take 18 years at least! Among my treasures are things in cupboards and drawers that would be meaningless to anyone else, but they are touchstones for me. Most of those are in my kitchen drawers - not things from my dad (died 10 years ago) or my mother (died 25 years ago) but from my grandmother's kitchen (died 59 years ago). It's odd that several items from my grandmother's homestead farm kitchen where she fed 12 children (my dad the youngest) would be in my care (she had dozens of grandchildren and dozens more great-grandchildren when she died) would be ... firstly in my dad's care, and now in mine. My children and grandchildren no nothing of these items, their history, their importance to me, so I'm thinking I should write a history of those items and put them together so they'll not be tossed out one day by someone cleaning up after my departure with 'who needs those old things? ... better toss them, but these old items 'a meat fork from a carving set, a sharpening steel from another, and meat-tenderizing hatchet/cleaver that resembles 'a shingling hatchet-meets-serious weapon' - they are treasures I would not want to lose or leave behind because the care family history going back to early 1900s, and mid 1950s from when my grandmother came to live with us for a couple of years, which is the likely reason those items stayed in my mother's kitchen until her death, and in my dad's until his death - they are my connection to their history live the provenance of an old painting and far more significant the photos of times and places I never saw or experienced.
Cheers,
Mark
p.s. I've signed up as a subscriber and very much look forward to reading your work
Thank you so much for subscribing and sharing this wonderful personal story.
Mike Birbilia is hilarious!
I'm honored that my writing was compared to a Seinfeld piece. (BTW, I guest starred twice on that show in my acting days. Best experience ever.)
I so resonate with the stories attached to mundane items. You should definitely write essays to go with each knife, kitchen utensil, etc.
I loved learning about the orange chair and hairy bagel (ugh). When I moved in with Rich, his house was decorated perfectly with the 1980's gray and mauve. We continued the theme for the baby's room when I got pregnant. When grandma died, I was lucky enough to get some of her furniture. She had 2 arm chairs in sky blue velour. They've been recovered twice and now sit proudly in my bathroom. She would be thrilled!
I remember Rich’s house. 80’s chic. Those chairs look gorgeous in the new fabric.
I inherited most of my furniture from a great aunt who purchased it new in the 1920s. She and her husband had little money so the furniture is not “name brand” stuff but it was made at a time when you weren’t expected to put your furniture together yourself and is sturdy. But it is a hundred years old and has experienced some rough moves and needs more tlc then I am able to give it. I thought that by this point in my life, I would have a “real” living room and dining room set. I thought decorator designed rooms meant that one had achieved adulthood. Unfortunately, I had a kid when I was 48 and got a dog when I was 58 that combination rules out nice things for at least ten more years.
Thx for reading and sharing, GV. Furniture from the 1920’s is considered antique and probably quite charming. If pieces have bruises better yet— it’s called Shabby Chic.
You are fortunate and blessed to have a kid at any age. Same with the fur baby. I would take those over a Ralph Lauren sofa any day. 🥰❤️
Good point.
I just remember that my college boyfriend (now husband) got a used mattress FREE from a hotel and I somehow didn't vomit every time we slept in it together. 😂 If he even suggested such a thing now, I would be horrified. Funny how our threshold for disgust changes over time.
We had TONS of hand-me-down furniture and Goodwill garb in our first apartment, which was over a pie kitchen at an apple orchard. Mice were rampant, but thankfully there were pies downstairs, so they didn't bother us upstairs very much. We had to run the faucet constantly in the winter to avoid the pipes freezing. We also occasionally received an electric shock on the bathroom mirror if our other hand happened to be anywhere near the running water in the sink.
It was a great place. Miss those days of being incredibly low maintenance out of necessity. And love, obviously. 🥰
OMG! What we put up with in our youth. I might have drawn the line at the electric shock. What a relief that mattress was free of bed bugs. I had to train hubby NOT to put his suitcase on the bed. Not only the airport germs but I read that's a sure way to get bed bugs.
What a fun read. Your stories always reveal a deeper angst and psychology that inform and tease your humor. Such a delight, though likely never as delightful for you until in hindsight! Especially hairy bagels. 😂
Thx, Kimberly. 🙏🏻 🥰
Oh, such flashbacks of early life together! Takes me back... We found the most amazing Empire style coffee table in perfect condition when we were young marrieds in the city. And I miss all the books people would leave out. In terms of the orange equivalent, my parents had a very groovy orange velvet sofa in the 70s--it was the height of my mom's decorating bravery which gave way to decades of greige, lol.
And orange is back! When I was looking for a pic of the chair there were many cute contemporary ones on Wayfair. Greige was the 80s, right?
Yes, I was just looking at the same ones! Orange is the color of creativity--so was thinking of for my office. Griege is 80s but also just so Kim K... I can't even, lol. Bleck!
Haha. And neutral tones are in for nurseries— babies room.
Yes! Easy sleep! :)
A lovely memoir, CK. No rooms were off-limits in my childhood home, but towels and protective plastic were in constant use, to fight dirt and grime. I would have *loved* to have had hand-me-down furniture when I moved into my first place. There are some choice pieces that I coveted, and now I see the same pieces in trendy retro furniture shops. By the time my now-husband and I moved in together, we each had a house full of stuff. We've kept all the furniture over the years (a retired shipping container was a Steel anniversary present, bought to store all the surplus! So romantic, Haha), and so we are able to help furnish each of our sons' first place with all the bits and bobs. I bet they'll have different ideas!
Thx, Ofifoto. I love getting to know you here. Thx for sharing your personal story. My grandparents had the plastic over their sofa too. It was so uncomfortable. And yes, the "contemporary" look is back in style. Great idea to put everything in a shipping container-- cheaper than with a storage company? If your kids don't appreciate the hand me downs now, they will-- it's a right of passage.
Yes! Orange chair equivalent was an orange chair that was tweedy, itchy and a hand me over from my best pal in high school. My mom was a snobby interior designer and the chair was a nightmare. I installed it in my teenage bedroom and spent hours reading there. The best story I have about that chair has to do with the chapter “In Amerika They Call Us Dykes” in Our Bodies Ourselves, and my late discovery of the benefits of pleasuring myself. My father almost caught me one night with my jeans around my ankles, my lap covered by the afghan my grandmother crocheted and said book in one hand. I hope this wasn’t too much information! We barely know each other! Thanks for the reminder. I’m writing this one up! xoxo
Great story. Never too much info for me. Thx for sharing. Definitely write about it.
The orange chair! Let's just say I have had some questionable furniture over the years.
I love how Jeffrey jumped to your defense with the almost-eaten hair and the need to purge thereafter. Your descriptions of the two of you growing together throughout your young married life and beyond are a lovely and endearing addition to this Good Humor space, my friend.
Thx, Holly. It’s tough to gage how personal I should get.
I agree with Ofifoto as far as your own limits. I think as far as your readers, we’ll take whatever you’re comfortable sharing at whatever degree of personal that is! :)
Yeah. I totally trust my subscribers but beyond that our personal content is in the world. It’s easy to forget that this is online for all the world to see— unless we put something behind a paywall. Hehe.
Good point.
Trust your limits. Share only what feels comfortable.
Thx, Ofifoto. Good point.
I'm a purger married to a bit of a hoarder so sometimes the situation devolves to a contest of wills. My husband He stood on guard in front of the dumpster as I emptied out my parent's house after their deaths. His scrounging did uncover a photograph of Abraham Lincoln (without his beard) and a package of confederate money!
Wo! The benefits of scrounging. A photo of Abe Lincoln! I didn’t know the confederates had different money from the union.
I thought my husband had intercepted a lucrative trove, but the Lincoln picture was worth $74 and the confederate money was a forgery - something you might get from the Franklkin Mint. But for just a moment ... I thought I had won the jackpot!
A friend of mine was buying his daughter furniture for her first apartment. I told him he was cheating her out of an amazing right of passage of furnishing her place with eclectic finds. For me it was the big utility spools - they were great end tables. Also the cinder block and board bookcases are the best.
For the "man" furniture. When my husband and I bought a house to live together for the first time 17 years ago, he brought the following: a 3000 pound metal and canvas hammock (still in the box); a super crappy lawn mower (which never worked); a piece-of-shit BBQ; a heinous plaid easy chair with an even more heinous plaid couch. Some of these sit in my garage to this day. After paying storage fees for more than a year for the couch--I'm still yelling at him for that one-- it sat in the screen house until the mice ate it. Sadly, the chair is still in my living room.
OMG. What is it with hubbies and saving crap? Matching furniture is bad enough but plaid? Hehe.
Cinder block book cases. Been there. But now of course there’s Wayfair or Offer Up.
I never said the plaid matched...
Haha. Even worse.
The red lamps, courtesy of an insisting aunt. They had tassels so big you could swing them to clean the lamps. Or fend off a masher in a strip club if you had to use them for that.
Haha. Lamps with tassels.