Laughing is doing too (Do-Vember #5)

Do-Vember

This guide to Furby-speak popped up on Pinterest for me today. It was suggested for my '60's and '70's Kids nostalgia board.

Which is pretty weird, because Furby wasn't introduced until 1998. The closest thing to a Furby that I have on my board is the late-60's Rat Fink.

But the guide to Furby-speak was very entertaining. Apparently the Furby can communicate such concepts as:

"Boh-bay" = "Worry"

and

"Dah lee-koo wah!" = "Big sound!"

and

"Kah-toh-loo-may-tay" = "Me like kisses."

I told Lydia we need one of those guides for guinea-pig squeals and chirps.

Sharper than your average bear: a vintage Star Trek funny

At his first meeting with Mr. Spock's mother, Dr. McCoy hears a deep, dark childhood secret. Finally, something he can one-up Spock with. Or not.

Strictly nostalgia: for a dollar and two labels...

1967 advertisement:
"Kids! Now you can play in the Green Giant's house 30" square, 27" high, made of tough polyethylene to fit over a standard card table! The Giant's jolly new playhouse is a cozy place for kids to play, it looks just like the leaf covered cottages you might find in the Valley. And it's made of heavy-duty polyethylene, with real see-thru windows on all four sides. It's compact, too--slips right over a standard 30"x30"x27" card table--so you can put it up easily indoors or out."

Sheer nostalgia, last post: Three vintage toys with fun names

Fuzzy Felt

Tog'L Blocks

Colourforms (Colorforms if you're American)

Sheer nostalgia #4: Tupperware toys

Tupperware toys were everywhere when I was a kid.  At our house, at friends' houses, in doctors' waiting rooms.  I was invited to a Tupperware party recently and noticed that they still have some of the same toys.  Too bad our kids are too old for them.

 Our kids' dentist had a vintage set of these animal toys in his waiting room.

 We had Pop-a-lot toys like this pair, but ours had a sort of snap-action instead of a squishy bulb.

Shape Sorter:  still in the catalogue!

Sheer nostalgia #3: Mis-named dolls

Sometimes tracking down childhood toys, especially dolls, can be stymied by the names we gave them; we know that we named a favourite doll after a friend or someone in a book, but we don't remember what it really said on the box.  Usually the box is long, long gone anyway.  I had a drink-and-wet doll that always went by "Bat Baby," named not after the superhero but because I had pointed at her in a store just before Christmas, when I was almost two, and asked for "bat baby."  I think she was a Horsman doll, but it's hard to tell because, like a lot of inexpensive dolls of that era, her pretty blonde hair quickly acquired the texture of a pot scrubber.

The doll with the red-and-white stripes was called Rosemary.  I have no idea if that was her real name.  (That's a visiting friend holding Rosemary and wearing the luffly hat.  I'm the one in the fedora.)

The doll in the photo below was always called "Kimmie."  I assumed that I'd named her...or someone had...after my cousin Kim.

Turns out the doll actually was a "Kimmie."  She was one of a line of very popular Native-costumed dolls sold by Regal Imports in the early 1960's.  Well, once in awhile you get lucky.

Sheer nostalgia #2: toys from our past

Found on Ebay here.

I had forgotten about this toy for about forty years.  When I started searching for "plastic steam roller," I wasn't sure I'd even remember what it looked like...and I think my grandpa might have had more than one.

But this was one of them.  Almost for sure, unless my mind is completely playing tricks and I'm thinking of my aunt's grey-and-red roller skates.

My grandpa?  He loved steam trains and steam farm equipment.  He drove a vintage steam tractor at an annual Labour Day steam fair.  Somebody probably gave him this for a joke present...and it became something for the grandchildren to play with.  Being the oldest grandchild, that would have been me, until the others came along.  On the floor, from the dining room into Grandma's kitchen, and back again.  Over the heating grate.  Back to the kitchen again.

I'd forgotten.  Sometimes it takes a picture to drag things up.

Sheer nostalgia: a toy from my past

I didn't own this push-toy.  It resided in a tiny bookcase in the dining room of a great-aunt and uncle, along with a tub of kindergarten beads and a fake book with a snake that popped out.  These were their "toys to amuse visiting children," and we pushed those piggies, strung those beads, and popped that snake many times over the years, while the adults visited.

(It's not my photo either--I found it online.)

Mama Squirrel settles into her personal productivity station

50 or so things about Mama Squirrel

A friend requested a "list of fifty," so I obliged. Last updated December 2014, to get rid of the dead You-tube links.

Early Life

1. I have not stayed in a hospital since 1969 (tonsillectomy).
2. I have not been in an airplane since 1969 (Bahamas).2010 update: I have now slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.
3. I got my first Barbie in 1969.
4. She was a 1968 Talking Barbie who said, "I love being a fashion model."
5. I also had a talking Stacey who said, "I think miniskirts are smashing."

6. I watched the first season of Sesame Street in 1969.
7. I watched Maria and Luis's first date on Sesame Street in 1988. (Think I must have been babysitting. Yep, that was it.)
8. I watched Mr. Rogers, Mr. Dressup, The Friendly Giant, and Chez Hélène.
9. I watched way too much TV.
10. I still liked reading better.

Musical Talents

11. At one time or another I played piano, guitar, viola, clarinet, and recorder.
12. I never took guitar lessons but I strummed at a lot of campfires.
13. I went through more clarinet reeds than anyone else in ninth grade music (braces chew up reeds).

14. I took piano lessons for eight years.
15. I played keyboard in the school jazz band. We all wore black football jerseys (it was a choice of that or tomato-coloured cardigans).
16. I also played keyboard and sang in a trio with two other friends (we sang at church).
17. I also played the piano for Sunday evening hymn sings. I used to hyperventilate at anything with more than three flats.
18. I don't own a piano now. 2011 update: we now have an electronic piano, so that's good.

Positions Held

21. I used to do temporary office work.
22. I was fired from my first assignment because I couldn't keep the employers' names straight (most of them had the same last name. Was that Irv, or Herb, or...)
23. I would do just about anything as long as it was legal.
24. I once got paid nine dollars an hour to sharpen pencils.
25. Once I retyped a whole newsletter because the guy who hired me ran out of real work for me, and he needed me to look busy when they brought clients through.
26. I typed hours of transcripts about mental institutions and manic depression. By the time I finished I could discuss Lithium with the best of them.
27. I also typed transcripts for close-captioned TV. Fraggle Rock and The Beachcombers, Just Like Mom and The Edison Twins. (Finally got paid to watch TV.)

Computers

28. My first computer was a used KayProII. It had two floppy drives, and had no graphics at all. (Even its games were made out of x's and o's.) It came with a lot of CP/M software like WordStar. I bought a dot-matrix printer to grind out my essays...slowly.)

29. We sold it to a little kid down the street the year we got married.
30. Then we had a small laptop for awhile--good enough to type minutes of meetings. (In WordPerfect--without Windows.) And we could dial up the library with it and put books on hold.
31. Then came the Internet and also Mr. Fixit's expanding ability to cobble computers together. We're now running a setup that can switch from XP back to Milennium if we ask it to, plus we have a "virtual PC" so the kids can run their Windows 95 software. And I finally learned how to use Word...

From Toronto to Here

32. I lived in Toronto during most of my university years.
33. The Kaypro and I lived everywhere from a university residence to an elegant Forest Hill mansion (that lasted two weeks: the landlady turned out to be senile), to a cockroach-infested highrise (one summer), and half of a dark, depressing basement (one year), two doors down from Bea Lillie's birthplace.
34. I loved the subway, BookCity, cheap movies, Toronto Island, and being able to go to the museum any old time.

35. I didn't love the high rents, the cockroaches, and when the sewer backed up all over the basement.
36. I moved out of Toronto and found an upstairs apartment with a window and no vermin. It also had no bedroom and no bathtub, but I figured it was a small price to pay.
37. Besides, that's where I met Mr. Fixit. (No, not in my apartment, but after I moved.)
38. We met in July, were engaged in September, and got married the next June.
39. Our first real date was playing mini golf. We also went to a Three Stooges film festival, an antique show, out for Chinese food, and just sat by the river and talked.
40. Some things never change.
41. We moved into our first house and found out for sure that we were going to have an Apprentice the same week that I graduated. I was a bit too busy to go to commencement.

This and That

42. Mr. Fixit and I both like old movies: anything from the '30's through the '60's, occasionally the '70's. Orson Welles, Peter Lorre, Veronica Lake. (But no musicals. One song per movie is about Mr. Fixit's limit.)
43. We also like '70's cop shows with lots of big cars and groovy clothes.
44. We don't have cable TV or satellite, but we have an antenna in the attic that gets the Canadian stations. 2014 update: we went on to free satellite channels for awhile, but now we are back to the basic few.
45. I am no good with machines. I don't even like noisy vacuum cleaners, and I never have figured out all the TV/VCR/DVD controls. That's why it's a good thing Mr. Fixit is around.
46. I hate cold weather.
47. Malls give me headaches.
48. At one time or another I took French, German, Latin, Italian and sign language. (Can you tell I'm running a bit low here...)
49. I am probably the only person who's had both Krakovianka and Coffeemamma over for a visit. But not both at the same time.
50. And...when I was eight years old I collected hockey cards. I knew the names of all the NHL teams. I saved up hockey card wrappers and sent away for a Hockey Card Locker to keep the cards in. I also had a 1975 Bobby Orr doll. (I still have the clothes, but the doll broke. We let Ken wear the clothes because they were cooler than his '70's fancy pants.)

51. But...I never watched hockey. (Sorry, Coffeemamma!)