a week of funny while i enjoy the sunny ... kirb appeal

I'm trying to remember when and how and why I first crossed paths with today's guest blogger.


 I'm wracking my brain but my brain is feeling a bit like mush ...


... and all I know is the first time I crossed her path, I was hooked.  She was bookmarked.  I signed up to get her delivered by email.  Because I didn't want to miss a single word that Kirby at Kirb Appeal has to say ...

 

...and I get Kirby.  And she gets me.  Each and every deliciously sarcastic word worth of getting ...


Oh, and don't get her started on words and grammar.  She's a teacher.  And I'm guessing a favorite teacher among the students at her school ...




Take it away Kirby ...

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Hi! I'm Kirby, and normally I blog at Kirb Appeal, but today I'm here at Linda's awesome blog. I am really happy to be here, because I rarely get asked to guest post...mostly because I'm a loose cannon and folks are scared I will totally hijack their blogs. Which may or may not happen.


The end of summer can mean many things: trimming back the hydrangeas, changing from the sunshine flag to the apple flag, and quickly finishing the gin because it's tacky to drink it after Labor Day.  But most importantly (and most fun, except maybe for the whole gin thing) is back-to-school shopping.


First of all, a little history.


Do you remember magazines?  I know that seems like a dumb question, but they disappear almost daily.  I remember my mother getting McCall's, and I cut out the Betsy McCall paper doll in the back, solidifying my love of magazines forever.


Over the years, I subscribed to a variety of magazines, mostly fashion (like Mademoiselle, now defunct) and home decor (like Mary Englebreit's Home Companion *little sob*) and lifestyle (like Victoria, which disappeared and then reappeared, like a magician).  But this isn't a history of magazine publishing in the US, so I'll get back to business.


The very first magazine my mother ever bought me.


Seventeen.


The back-to-school issue.


Back when I first started getting Seventeen, it was a large-format magazine, like the old Life and Look.  The full-page photos of back-to-school clothes were stunning (even though it was the '70s, and clothes were basically hideous), and I devoured every one.  (Here's an explanation of why this was important: my fashion sense up to this point was "who cares?")  Thanks to my mother and Seventeen, all of a sudden I cared about how I looked when I went back-to-school.


From then on, I paid careful attention to back-to-school fashion.  And in one issue of Seventeen:

I saw them.  The object of my desire.  My fantasies revolved around them.  I wanted them so badly I could taste it.

Frye Boots.


The choice of fashionably-shod teens everywhere.


But being a small-town girl where employment was limited to babysitting for 75 cents an hour, Frye boots would remain outside my grasp.


Like so many of my favorite magazines, Frye Boots disappeared for awhile.  Oh, I'm sure that they were around somewhere, hiding beneath the jeans of motorcyle boys, but Frye Boots as fashion were no more.  But when they reappeared (in Belk, a local department store) when I was fifty, I was no longer babysitting for 75 cents an hour.  I was babysitting for a salary!  And I took a whole bunch of that salary and bought myself some Frye Boots.   After a love affair that lasted more than thirty years, they were mine.


Guess what I'm wearing when I go back to school?

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Oh, I have to chime in on this one!  Frye boots ... yikes ... I'm having flashbacks of Matt Dillon (back in the day when he was all dark and moody and oh so cool) and the movie Little Darlings ... I don't know if he wore Frye boots in that movie.  But I envision him wearing them. As he leans against his motor bike.  With arms crossed.  Giving the camera a smouldering bad boy look ...

Let's keep in touch ...