jewelry and grandma

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

We are artfully tailored conversations. Two sisters, one heart, a gentle conversations. Welcome. Welcome. Hello. I'm Melody.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

I'm Penny. And here we are in this beautiful I want to say Saturday. I keep thinking it's Saturday. But it's not. It's Friday. And this morning, as we were gathering um and talking about what we're gonna do, what we're gonna talk about, we decided we needed to just go wandering a little bit. So we hopped into the pickup and went down the road. And lo and behold, we ran into a citywide garage sale. Garage sale.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

And we found some treasures. We did. All manner of treasures. Yeah. Jewelry, very nice jewelry, actually, very beautiful jewelry. Um a lot of frames for my artwork. Yep, a lot of frames for her artwork.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Um, let's see. Well, and a nice and a nice, really cool silver type bowl to put all my paints in. But anyway, um, in as as we were moseying down along from sale to sale, we kind of got hungry.

unknown 1:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

So we decided we would stop into a local tap house and um it's called the Nordic and try out their burgers because we like our smash burgers. And so we shared one. It was absolutely delicious. It was. It was but as we were sitting there um we thought about our podcast today, and being that it's a very Scandinavian place, and we are uh what would you say, blessed with Scandinavian heritage. Or Scandihuovians, yes, as we say. We are Swedish and Norwegian and Finnish and uh what else? What other Scandinavian? Belgian, Danish, Finnish, okay. We're just all of the above. Yeah. And so it made us think about our grandpa again, where we left off this last time. And so continuing on, um, there were some phrases on the wall that were kind of funny that um we just wanted to share with you guys. And one of them was is the word hegelig. I don't know if I'm saying it properly, but it means a cozy, warm atmosphere of togetherness in a nice setting, and that's kind of where we were, yes. Um the food was delicious, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Food was very good.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Service was very good as well. She was running around like a little I don't know what, this little girl. Whip it. Well, there's three levels. Yeah, one the top level is open to the outdoors, and then there's a kind of an upper patio and then enclosed and then the main level. And she was working all three levels. We'd watch her haul these great big trays full of food. It actually made me think of my grandma, yes, who was a waitress for over 50 years, yes, and how she would come out of the kitchen handling those huge, huge trays full of food. Oh my gosh, how she did it, I don't know. And this little girl today, little girl, she's not just a young woman, but she still was a little whippet. Tiny little thing. Strong, no. Very strong. But anyway, it was really it's a fun spot and um a lot of conversations going on around us, so it's always kind of fun. I like places like that. I I find them entertaining. Yeah, lots to look at too if you like dead animals on the wall. I guess they did have a lot of that. That was kind of a little scary, but we're not sure of the rhyme or reason for it, but anyway, uh there were a lot of uh taxidermy. There was a lot of taxidermy, taxidermy going on there, not taxi, taxi. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

We were trying to analyze it, but we just couldn't come to a conclusion as to why. I suppose we should ask. I mean, yeah. That probably would be a good thing. But you know, speaking of um grandma, our grandma, she was a fashionista. That woman knew at the time she wore the latest and greatest, and and her biggest sh um claim to fame, I think, is her jewelry. Absolutely. She had sets of jewelry, and they were rhinestones, most of them beautiful. And uh she dressed, and we have a saying, it's old, to the nines. Yes. Some of you probably have never heard it, but and I don't even know what it means. Um but she did, and she was very stylish. And she and like Penny said, she was a waitress downtown Minneapolis, I'm gonna say. It's no longer there, hasn't been for a long time. Right. Um, but she also helped my mom buy clothing for us girls. We had very fancy dresses and coats.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

We always got a special outfit for Easter and Christmas. And just one. Yeah. Well, there were five of us, so as more came along, it got a little costly. But for Easter, we got the new Easter bonnet. We always had little little handbags, little purses to go with. Oh, yes, forgot. And a pretty dress and a little coat, and of course the dresses all we all wore crinolines back then. Yes, and the white stockings and the pretty little shoes, uh, either black patent leather or saddle shoes. And also bouquets.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

They were they were fast, they weren't real, but they looked really real because they weren't made out of plastic, they were made out of fabric. The boutineers, you mean? Yes, yes, exactly. And we had those pinned onto our coats. Yes. Special. Yeah, I tell you.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

And once that once Easter came, then it was shortly after that because we could still wear those outfits, that mom would take us on the bus downtown because grandma wanted us to come to where she worked so that she could show us off. Tell everybody about her granddaughters. Yeah, yeah. It was tough. Yeah. She'd seat us at a special table, and all the other waitresses would come, and the men would come from the kitchen, and they'd have little treats for us, and they all had to come and say hi. Do you remember the one thing that we loved when we went there?

SPEAKER_02 6:26

Maple Frangle. Yes. I have the recipe. It maple frango is uh an ice cream that they made exclusively at this place. You couldn't get it anywhere else, I don't believe. No. And that was our big treat. Yes. We just were we were in hog heaven when that happened.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

And you it it is made with so much cream, heavy cream, yeah, that when you you you really only need to have like a very small scoop and be extremely satisfied. But one of the things I remember so clearly is that it stuck to the roof of your mouth, it was so creamy and thick. Oh my gosh, I haven't made that in years. I need to dig my recipe out and do it. Yeah, that was wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Yeah, you know, one of the funniest things about my grandma, she loved, you know, everything um sparkly and new and shiny and pretty. But this is so funny, you guys. She would she would she'd love to have flowers around the cabin. Yes, but she bought fake flowers and put them in the ground all the way around the cabin.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

And we didn't really know any difference when we were little, you know. We just, oh, grandma's planting flowers when she was already bloomed.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Yeah, she was only out there on the weekends, you know, except for when she took a full week's vacation. So she she wasn't gonna be out there planting and caring for them, and nobody else really was. Grandpa wasn't going to that when he was out there. The only live things I remember her planting were the lilies, petunias. Oh, petunias, yeah. Petunias, she loved petunias, but she'd stick those.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

I don't know what they were. Oh, I know what they were. Um hostage no geraniums. Oh, geraniums, yes. Because she liked them and they're kind of a pain-dah. Yeah, that's right. Geranium. You had to deadhead them all the time, and she just, oh no, she wasn't gonna do that. Oh my gosh, so funny. It just was like complete opposite of her.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

But back to the jewelry, um, her dresser in their bedroom, she had two drawers that were full of boxes of the sets of jewelry that she had bought over the years. And um, I mean, I don't think she ever bought anything single. Everything she bought she wanted as a set, which usually meant a pair of earrings and a brooch. Yeah. Um, once in a while she would buy a necklace. She wasn't into bracelets or rings. Um, she her she had a lot of arthritis in her hands, and she never really wanted to show them off, so rings weren't a thing for her. But earrings and a brooch she really loved. And so she passed a lot of those down to our mother. Besides the uh fashion sense got passed down to our mom as well. And so when um gosh, when was that melody? We each got to pick something of grandma's. We could go through her things at one point and we could choose pieces of jewelry.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Yeah, I don't remember.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Yeah, I don't remember. And mom was still alive. I think mom wanted to do it uh with us, and so we all got wonderful pieces of jewelry. I mean, some of it was not very good. It was just costume, really, really costume. A lot of the summer things were um were very inexpensive. But the winter things especially were the dressy things were really beautiful, really, really beautiful. And so we were very fortunate for each of us to get pieces of that. And I know we've all worn them uh various times. In fact, I took several pieces of hers with me to Europe and wore them. And uh um she was she knew what she was buying, she was um very aware. Um, she did have good I but I in one of her clothing pieces I remember the first time I saw it. Back in the day, 60 plus years ago, your fur little stole was actually like two fox skins that were bound together, and then they had like a clip on the end of the one of the mouths that was inside, so that you could attach it to the other one. Yeah. And um, I remember the first time I saw it, I remember being scared because I thought it was alive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

Well, it was the whole pelt, it was the head and everything. Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

So it was creepy.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

It really wasn't, it was it really wasn't very attractive. And I don't honestly, I don't remember who you're even wearing it, to be truthful. I really don't.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

I think it's I think she I think she saw we were scared of it, so she probably didn't wear it around us. Yeah, that's possible. Because we didn't like it.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Yeah. That's possible.

unknown 11:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

Ew. Yeah. Wearing a dead animal around your neck. That's cave Mandy's.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Right. Well, and yes, like Melody said, she'd buy us little outfits here and there, but we had um we went to uh Catholic school, so we had uniforms growing up. Parochial school. Parochial school, sorry. And private school. Yeah. I guess is a better way to say it. But um anyway, if we needed something, you know, until we were working and able to buy it ourselves, she would just say, I'll get it for you, and she would do it. Which was very nice because she had very good taste in our clothes too. We had lovely things, we just didn't have a lot of it because we didn't need it. Right. You know, and we had our play duds, and those were hand-me-downs from another family, a lot of them.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

Yes, we didn't require a lot of clothing back then, and I'm not exactly sure why we have so much clothing now. Um I don't know. Yeah, but I do too. Yeah, you know, I mean I have more clothes than I'm than I wear. Yes. It's kind of silly, but yeah. Anyway, maybe because our closets were about the size of a postage stamp too. Yeah, no kidding.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

And usually two or three of us were sharing one closet. Right. So there wasn't a whole lot of room.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Yes, many things have changed.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Yes, many things have changed. But we just decided that we'd have a little boondoggle today, and it was a nice day, and it was a good day to toodle around and beautiful today. And uh smell uh the trees, and they're in the process of starting their planting around here and turning the ground and getting the fertilizer in, and so we also have that wonderful earth smell, which we love. Maybe some people aren't that crazy about it, I understand, but around here you can't escape it because we are surrounded by fields, working fields, and it's a wonderful aroma, and with everything s really blooming, yes, you add that factor. There's a yellow finch right in the tree over there. It just flew in. Two of them. Wonderful. And yes, the birds were singing today when we were in town doing our garage sailing. Holy moly, it was a symphony going on, I'll tell you. It was beautiful, it was just beautiful. So it was it was a good day to have a uh just a change of pace from what we had planned. Um, we just felt led to do it and kind of, I don't know, clear our heads a little bit and try to see what we wanted to talk about.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

Yeah, and and since we ended with grandpa last time, we thought maybe we better throw grandma in there a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Give her some time. Yeah, this other one. We'll have more to say about her as time goes on. Yeah, but maybe I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

Yeah, maybe, I don't know. Well, I don't know. We're just winging it. Yeah. So we hope that you guys enjoy. Enjoy it, get a laugh or two out of it, or maybe learn a little something. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:31

One of the other words that, and this is a word we grew up with. Oh, yes, is oofta. And I'm sure some of you have heard that word. That is very I think it's Norwegian. Yes, it is, and it's really an explanation. Um, it's used to express, you know, bafflement, surprise, relief, or exhaustion or frustration. Dismay. Yeah, frustration. Dismay, that's a good word. It's I I it was used a lot around. And there's other words too, I can't remember exactly, but we'll make a list and yeah, we'll have an episode. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

They're not they're not naughty words, they're they're fun words.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Yeah, I think my daughter would like to have a whole long list. So on that note, we're just gonna keep it short again.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

And uh hope you enjoyed. Yeah. God bless you. Yeah, um, have a great week, and we'll speak next week. Alrighty then. Bye. Bye.