Welcome Back To The Cocktail Party!

Welcome to Willoughby's Blog Style Cocktail Party. I hope you will find some new blogs to follow and expand your circle of blog friends. I know you're all anxious to mingle, so I'll get right to it.

I'd like to introduce Christine from the blog Marvelously Mundane. I know you'll enjoy her blog as much as I do.

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About Me


ChristineM

I'm forty-something working mom (yes, I know that's redundant!) trying to get it all done while still appreciating the little things in life, stopping to smell the roses and making the mundane interesting. My kitchen is my kingdom, my daughter my faithful assistant and my two giant dogs are the clean up crew. And a husband who's always asking why I never make any "REAL" food! (He's not into the fancy stuff! I may have to do a "Bologna Sandwich" post in honor of him...)


Gebenezer Scroomons


I don't know why I thought of this today....

Well, actually I do...but I'll save that explanation until the end.

Latecomer that I am, I never got around to posting my "25 Things You Wish You Never Knew" about me, so I never got to tell you my Gene Simmons/Ebenezer Scrooge story. So here we go!

Picture this: I was a chubby, pimply-faced 14 year old girl, with my parents and sister at Logan Airport in Boston, wearing a fake leather jacket, my beloved KISS t-shirt, green denim bell-bottoms, and ridiculous high-heeled clogs, and this tall, weird, bushy-haired guy wearing (probably real) leather pants and platform heels was standing ten feet away, smiling at me....but not in a weird way, like a really friendly smile. Like he expected me to come over and say hello. I ignored him and hid behind my (truck-driver) father, pretending I did not see this person. Just minding my own business, waiting until my sister and her friend had to board their plane.

Flash forward to several years later, after KISS went sans make-up. My cousin and I, members of the KISS Army for several years, were hanging out at the beach, browsing through magazines and came across some pics of KISS without makeup.

She said: "Remember how crazy we were about them? I can't wait to see what they really look like...THAT'S PAUL STANLEY?!?!? Ha Ha! You had such a crush on him..."

To which I retorted: "Look at Peter Criss, 'Beth' !!"(not her real name, she only pretended she was Beth)...

"Don't call me Beth," she replied.

Then she added "Wow. Gene Simmons looks just like that guy who played Ebenezer Scrooge in that old Christmas movie..."

We laughed. Then realized, she was right.

"Yeah, he kind looks like this weirdo I once saw...at...Logan...Air...OH MY GOSH!!!"

Was it? Who knows. I think it was...I keep remembering that weird smile, and those somewhat droopy, hooded eyes, the 5-inch platform shoes are what keeps bring me back to saying "Yes, it was Gene Simmons". Plus, I catch "Simmons Family Jewels" often, and every scene of him brings me right back to that day at the airport. When STUPID ME hid.

Or maybe it makes me think of Christmas Eve.

Anyway, the thing that reminded me of this abandoned post was something I saw on television recently - Gene Simmons was talking about his mother. Of course, I don't know the lady (because STUPID ME hid? Well, I probably would still not know here had I not hidden!) but he said something that I found very interesting. Turns out, she survived a concentration camp during World War II...my husband and I just watched "Schindler's List" recently, and while we've seen that and many other films set in that time, this time it hit us different because this time we're parents.

"Can you imagine?...." he said. "I mean, what if we were alive back then and you were sent to one of those places with her?", pointing to the picture of our daughter.

The answer...No. I can't imagine.

So, the coolest thing about Gene Simmons to me is not that I idolized him and his bandmates when I was a kid, not that he's a bazillionaire, not that he has the coolest family (I think I watch the show because I love his kids), and not that he was able to come up with a reality show that a reality-show hater like myself actually enjoys...No, the coolest thing to me is when his mother recites her motto, "Any day above ground is a good day", she sure as hell knows what she's talking about. And he seemed pretty darn proud of her telling that story.



And he does bear a striking resemblance to Ebenezer!

Now just try watching "A Christmas Carol" without thinking of Gene.

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Thank you Christine for being a guest on my blog.

The cocktail party will continue on Tuesday with a new guest blogger. It's not too late to RSVP if you haven't already. You can send your submission to me at thisstopwilloughby@yahoo.com. I would appreciate it if you could send me your post in html format. If you are submitting a new post, create it on Blogger as you would any post. Save, but don't publish it. From there you can click "edit html" and copy and paste your blog into the body of an email. If you are submitting a previously published post, go into "edit" and follow the same instructions. This makes it much easier for me to display your blog post the way you have written it and saves me a lot of editing. If you have any questions, feel free to email me.