Home Decorating & The Straight Man

Mr. Middleaged has become obsessed with decorating our Beach House. I am discouraged from adding any little decorative touches around the place & quite frankly, it's giving me the craps.
The Desire to Decorate is not exactly a new thing for Mr. M. He has always been interested, but I have up until now managed to get in first & impose My Own Signature Style of Decorating, which largely consists of arranging found objects & old rotting dolls before he ever had a chance to do anything.
In a couple of posts or so, I'll tell you the Moderately Interesting Story of how we came to buy this house, which is a marvellous example of The Power of Wishing.
But for now, I just wanted to showcase some samples of Mr. M's decorative touches.

Last week, he got paid, which  is a Monthly Event. Immediately the money goes in his account, he's out the door & into the shops where it's time for a Substantial Reward. This time, Mr. M. rewarded himself & I guess, me as well with a set of three authentic apothecary jars with exotic French labels on the front. They look great on the wall next to his old Schoolboy Cricket First Eleven cap & an interesting mirror made from recycled industrial moulds. The globe is something I put there & I'm shocked that it's been allowed to stay.

Next is the bedroom. Here we have Laura Ashley Meets The Beach Boys. He's plastered the walls of our bedroom with old surfing photos to remind him of The Past That Might Have Been & completed the look with a pretty floral bedspread that shocked me when he first brought it home. 

I reluctantly admit that it all looks good. What a shame.

Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee!

One of the things I've discovered about Blogging & Me is the ever-presence of My Past.  It's not really The Elephant in the Room, but in fact, the Room itself. Everything that happens seems have some hugely evocative connection to some memory from long ago, usually some awfully traumatic event or a movie or movie star or TV series. 

Like most Only Children, I had nothing to do & no one to talk to, so  from an early age,I spent heaps of time in front of the TV. My father sold TVs & neither of my parents seemed to have ever heard of the idea that it was bad for children. So the TV was sort of the fourth member of our family, always ready to fill in the gaps & make us feel that there was company around.

I remember the Saturday night when I first saw 'A Summer Place'. It starred Sandra Dee, who went on to play another favourite of mine, 'Gidget' . But in 'A Summer Place' poor Sandra ends up being impregnated by the gorgeous Troy Donohue, whose real name was Merle Johnson, which doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?

Their sizzling teenage romance played out with the haunting theme music in the background, was a Revelation to Me.  I had no difficulty imagining that I would definitely grow into looking very much like Sandra  & considered that it wouldn't be terribly hard to find someone who looked like Troy. 

Of course, I grew up looking nothing like her & I was sadly unable to find My Troy. 

 These photos taken this past weekend on the beach near our weekend house are just an excuse for me to bang on about the movie, which I'm sure if I saw now, I'd think it was a Turgid Stinker.

   My daughter & I are frolicking around with our Pretend Chanel Quilted Handbags flying in the air. I'm so glad neither of us grew up looking as stitched up as Sandra looks. 

Mr. Middleaged doesn't quite look the Flawless Heartthrob, but at least he hasn't spent time being homeless on the streets of New York, which is what happened to Troy.

Thrifting Frenzy Blurs Judgement

My holiday is over. Back to work tomorrow. And it's a good thing. Maybe the solid routine of the classroom will restore some sanity. For the past two weeks, I've been in a Thrifting Frenzy, alternating between The Red Cross, The Salvos, The Wayside Chapel & St Vincent de Paul. The day doesn't seem complete without scoring some wonderful cast offs from one of these places. While I admit that I've picked up some mildly good stuff, I've also bought some Real Doozies, things that not even Kate Moss would look good in. You can judge for yourself in the pictures above.
The crunch came when I bought a heavily patterned pure wool dress for $12. Even though I suspected within the dark confines of the Thrift Shop dressing room that it just might be a little shapeless, I was nonetheless thrilled! But when I got it home I realised, yes, it really was shapeless, & no amount of adornment could fix it up.
But the good thing about Thrift Shop Addiction is that it's like Coffee Addiction - it's relatively guilt free. I'm addicted to two skim lattes , & a few thrift shop finds a day, which is a whole lot better than being addicted to heroin or gambling.
Now, that's a justification if ever I heard one!

'Architectural Digest' Visits.

I know it sounds really pretentious & wanky, but we've got a beach house & a city apartment. I'm not rolling in dough, & my job as a high school teacher is definitely not a Toy Job. And I'm not the sort of person who works because they've got to do something worthwhile & meaningful with their Life. Ugh! How disgusting!
We've only had the house since January so it's still a Huge Novelty. It's a modest 60s pole house on a hill with distant ocean views glimpsed through the trees on Sydney's Northern Beaches. It came with a whole lot of furniture including a huge flat-screen tv. that takes up one wall. B. insisted on decorating it. I'm hardly allowed to make any additions or changes to the decor. In fact, I'm barely allowed to put flowers in the vases. I think he's scared that I will take over & fill the place with old, rotting dolls, which is my Signature Decorating Style.
The Beach House is painted white. B. has filled the floor to ceiling bookshelves with gorgeous- looking hard cover books by zeitgeisty writers like Julian Barnes. For an English teacher, I am a lousy reader. I've only read one Booker prize-winning novel, "Atonement", & that was only after seeing the film, which I loved. On the upside, I do get to spend a real lot of time pouring over "Lear" & "Macbeth" & other weighty texts, which adds a lot to one's literary cred, although I can barely quote a line from any Shakespeare play & I always have to look at Cliff's Notes to remember the plots.
I'm sitting on the couch pretending I'm posing for an upscale decorating magazine. I can just see the Headline - "Architectural Digest Visits Middle Aged Teacher in her luxurious beach house!"