Thursday, October 27, 2011

BOOK THREE (3) Mrs. Partridge, Mrs. Cunningham,TV mothers, Etsy




Mrs. Partridge was a rockstar--

but still felt compelled to have "Caution: Nervous Mother Driving" painted on the back of her groovy bus.


On Happy Days, Mrs. Cunningham's occasional domestic rebellions confirmed the end of involuntary housewifery, but (like dancing with the Fonz), they were pretty tame.





Alice ("straight to da moon") Kramden,Wilma Flintstone, and Edith Bunker--who put up with Archie's bunk--

"and you know where you were then, goils were goils and men were men..."


were popular for their devotion to cavemen--before giving way to the harmonious sitcom marriages with work/life balance such as that of Claire Huxtable, or the "you've come a long way baby" lives of Mary Tyler Moore, or Anne Romano.


(But it was too many knitted hats and this kind of hair which eventually killed these shows off.)

My point?

You decided to be a housewife...(and thankfully not a TV one, unless you're one of those wildly plastic Real Housewives of Somewhere...) You've got tremendous kids, as well as a killer collection of vintage dishes. Time to let go of feeling like you're missing something! If it's for a 9-5 job with XEROX machines, and bad coffee, well, you'd better pack gum and hand lotion...

If not, then don't pine for the path not taken, like a latter day Erma Bombeck.

One path is homemade jelly, contract work, and Etsy; the other: steady paycheques, and traffic jams.


BOOK THREE (2) heroism, Henry Cavill, hot glue


Therefore, to a housewife sensitive enough to blush (on behalf of those lacking in talent), while she watches auditions for the Christmas Panto from the back of a dark theatre, almost everything:





and even this:



can be pleasurable to contemplate.


Such a woman will view nature





...as warmly as she would view a yummy interpretation of it:




Her insight allows her to recognize mature heroism:




and the tastiness of this imitation hero:

Not every housewife has this understanding. She alone who has burned her finger with the hot glue gun while transforming an umbrella into batwings for her son's Halloween costume will be struck by nature's clever design, worthwhile efforts to imitate it, and degrees of hotness.