Category Archives: Life Lessons

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Dolce Zitella's Latest Post, Life Lessons, Pop Culture, Writers and Writing

The Typewriter

Looking for something to do over the weekend?  Here’s a re-post about what happened the last time I poked around at a yard sale.

Yard sales are common in my town but I seldom, if ever, take part.  For one thing, to have a crack at the really good stuff, you must arrive early and I’m not a morning person, especially on Saturdays.  Add to that my inability to shake off the old city-dweller mentality that no matter how tempting a curio might be, “there’s just no room for it.”  So, it was very out of character for me to check out the yard sale taking place in my neighborhood this past weekend.

As I approached the house, I saw the usual folding tables filled with knickknacks and gently used kitchenware.  There were books, of course, and a seemingly brand-new tennis racket.  I paused in front of the historic banker’s chair that was in need of a little TLC, and considered the antique wooden ironing board that yearned to be a piece of art displayed on a kitchen wall.

Call it serendipity, or fate, that I should spot a manual typewriter.  I couldn’t believe my good fortune that, as late as 11:00 in the morning, a vintage Royal had not yet been scooped up.  My first thought: it’s still available because it’s expensive.  My second thought: didn’t Kerouac use a Royal?  I knew about his famous Underwood – the typewriter he used to write On the Road – but I remembered reading somewhere that although he favored the Underwood, at one point, he also used a Royal.  Another literary giant had used a Royal, but I couldn’t place who it was.

On closer inspection, the putty colored typewriter was dirty, perhaps nicotine stained, and laden with the kind of dust that accumulates from years spent in an attic or basement.  The keys had long ago yellowed and the roller was splattered with white-out.  Its carrying case was even more soiled, and I couldn’t tell if it was leather or some sort of fabric that had petrified.  Still, this was a vintage Royal that, given its body’s metal construction and iconic red logo lettering, I guessed to be from the mid-1950’s.  I doubted it actually worked.  In fact, I didn’t even care.  I just knew I wanted it.  And for ten bucks, it was mine.

As soon as I got it home, I went online:

How to clean a vintage typewriter
When did Royal introduce the portable Quiet De Luxe model
Famous authors who used a Royal

Turns out a small paint brush, a soft cotton rag, a gentle hand, and the sparing use of water and rubbing alcohol have gotten me off to a good start.  I think my typewriter is a 1956 model.  And Hemingway was the other writer who used a Royal.  In fact, he had three of them.

Why have I been so fixated with this typewriter all week?  It’s the sheer romance of the whole thing.

Think about it…  In this digital age where first our PC’s, and now our laptops, become obsolete every couple of years, we don’t keep them long enough to create a history.  We don’t get attached to them.  We just discard them.  Years from now, will I even remember what version of Windows I used to write this blog post?  But I do remember the typewriter I learned on, and used to write my college papers and my first short stories – a blue Smith Corona.  It didn’t possess the mystique of an old Royal.  I don’t imagine anything could.

This Royal is going to sit on a shelf in the room where I write.  It will be more – much more – than a conversation piece.  It will be my reminder of what’s important.  My talisman.  The compass that guides me to whatever comes next.

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Life Lessons

My Dad – The Ad Man

Father’s Day is this Sunday.  Here’s a re-post about my dad.


Back in the day, my father was a G-rated version of Don Draper – one of the original “ad men” of the 1960’s.  For most of his career, he worked in the advertising department at NBC.  As a child, I didn’t understand what he did, but I surmised it was important because he worked in Rockefeller Center and had a view of the skating rink from his office windows.

Years later, I understood just what his job entailed.  His department was responsible for all the print advertising for the network.  The graphic artists and copywriters created ads and he produced them, by working closely with engravers and typesetters.  He then bought space in the various newspapers and magazines that would run the ads.  Faced with the pressure of constant deadlines, he often schmoozed and negotiated with the printers, all the while cajoling the artists to get them to turn their work in on time.  My father worked long hours.  And he suffered from migraines.

My father’s immigrant father owned a small, independent, neighborhood fruit and vegetable store in Queens, New York.  My grandfather spent his life lifting and carrying crates.

Despite how tired my father must have been from his long work week at NBC, he sometimes helped out at the family store on Saturdays, and I doubt he and my grandfather ever talked to each other about work.  I’m not sure if my grandfather understood the power of the media or saw the work my father did as meaningful.

When my father retired, he traded in his suit and briefcase for a set of golf clubs.  These days, he goes out to breakfast with the ROMEOS (Retired Old Men Eating Out), wearing the Life is Good baseball cap I gave him a few years ago.  He thought the slogan was a reference to his retirement.  But it was also meant to acknowledge how hard he worked to give our family a good life.

Thank you, Dad.  Happy Father’s Day.

 

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Girl Talk, Life Lessons

Wonder Women

Here’s a re-post for all the wonder women out there!

Girl Power has created a whole generation of wonder women.  And I am grateful that so many of these ladies have had my back in times of crisis or as I was navigating a major life event.

I didn’t plan it that way.  It just sort of happened.

It started with the medical profession.  When my primary care physician was retiring, the doctor coming in as replacement was a young woman, just starting out.  I was told she was “good with women’s issues.”  She wasn’t just good, she was great.  Over the years, she referred me to a female ob-gyn, and a female surgeon who, in turn, recommended a female oncologist.  When it was time to pick an eye doctor and I could’ve gone with the stern-looking older gentleman with the bow-tie, or the gal who was my age and dressed in smart Talbots separates, who do you think I chose?  And yes, my dentist is also a woman.  The bottom-line: I am healthy today because of the collective skill, smarts, and compassion of all these women.

Now let’s talk money.  After working with several fast-talking, young, male financial advisors who left me confused and skittish about stocks and annuities, I got lucky and luck was a lady. My new financial advisor, a single woman like me, finally demystified the whole investing process and gave me confidence to boot.  Recently, I chose a well-known and successful Boston realtor – then a family member recommended an excellent real estate attorney, who in turn connected me with an accountant.  All three of these professionals are women and their collective acumen helped me move from a small condo to a house of my own.

I hope all this doesn’t sound like I’m anti-man.  Believe me, I like ‘em and I’m still hoping to marry one someday.  All I’m saying is that there’s a profound truth in that familiar quote about the iconic dancers Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.  She did everything he did, only backwards and in high heels.

 

 

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Girl Talk, Life Lessons, Mothers and Daughers

When Mother and Daughter Become Friends

Mother’s Day is this Sunday, May 8th.  In honor of my mom, who’s also my best friend, I’d like to share a post a wrote about her a few years ago.

When I was a child, the constant dialogue I had with my mother took the form of instruction: wash your hands, eat your carrots, look both ways before you step off the school bus.  All else was in some way a teaching moment, like when I learned how to tell time, or asked what makes the leaves turn color in the fall.

The nature of our conversations shifted when I had something to offer in return.  And by the time I was a ‘tween I could tell she enjoyed my company because she’d pick me up from school and take me with her on errands she could’ve done earlier in the day without me.  I remember going shopping with her when she needed a new dress for a cousin’s wedding.  And it was fun.

Once I was in high school, I’d come to know her not only as my mother, but also as a person.  When we sat at the kitchen table sharing a pot of tea, she would tell me stories about her childhood or her courtship with my father.  We’d often discuss a movie we’d seen or a current event.  She’d want to know my opinion.  And I could make her laugh.

I knew I was an adult when she began asking me for advice. At first it was about the menu for one of her dinner parties.  Then she wanted my input on choosing new wallpaper.  But it mattered most when she, as an only child, was the sole caregiver to her aging mother.

Despite living 200 miles apart, not a day goes by that we don’t speak on the phone.  And we Skype every Sunday.  Maybe my mother and I are unusually close, but I don’t think we’re such an oddity.  Because when I look at the women I know – from every race and ethnic group, scattered across different regions of the country, spanning several generations – there’s often a common thread: the profoundly intimate relationship between mothers and daughters.  And it’s not just because they are mother and daughter – it’s because they are friends.

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Girl Talk, Life Lessons, Mothers and Daughers

A Red Swing Coat

On a recent spring shopping spree with my mom, I was reminded of another one of our shopping expeditions.  Following is a re-post about that earlier outing.

She stepped out of the taxi, so vibrant, so cute, in her hot pink woolen swing coat.  Her lipstick was a perfect match.  She opened her vintage black patent leather kiss lock purse to pay the driver.  Then she was on the move.  She clearly had places to go.   It was many years ago, but I still remember that older lady in the bubblegum pink swing coat, and how I thought: I want to be her someday.

Now let me preface this by saying that my mom has not yet reached the age of that older lady in the pink swing coat.  She has a way to go yet.  But during one of our recent shopping expeditions, the topic of dressing one’s age came up.

Me, I’m of the belief that looking fashionable has no age limit.  My mother, however, was concerned that the pair of dress pants she was trying on were not exactly age appropriate for her.  “Are they too trendy?” she wanted to know.

Forget that we were shopping in a store that caters to women of a certain age.

“No,” I asserted.  “They fit you like a glove – and you look great.”

She shrugged, “I don’t know…”

vintage-red-swing-coatJust then, the older lady in the pink swing coat came to mind.

“Do you like these pants?”  I asked, “Will you enjoy wearing them?” and before she could answer, I added, “Then who cares what anybody else thinks.”

I shouldn’t have had to convince her to buy the pants.  It’s a shame that we, as women, are always questioning ourselves, especially about our appearance.

As for me, I’m still planning to wear a lively swing coat someday.  But I’m not a pink girl.  So mine will be red.  And with it, I’ll wear lipstick that’s a perfect match.

red poppy

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Life Lessons, Writers and Writing

A Writer’s Writer – Carson McCullers

The following is a re-post from January 2018. It remains timely today.

She was a rock star.  Her first novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, brought her critical acclaim at the age of twenty-three and she made her mark on the literary scene of the 1940’s and ‘50’s at a time when the field was still overwhelmingly dominated by men.  Her body of work hauntingly echoed the themes of loneliness, unrequited love, and being different.  A southern gothic writer, she railed against racism and homophobia – and her message still resonates today.  Her name was Carson McCullers.

While living in a Brooklyn brownstone called “February House” with a menagerie of other writers and artists, she wrote The Member of the Wedding.  When she was in residence at Yaddo Artists’ Colony, she penned The Ballad of the Sad Café.  Later, as her health was failing, her home was a Victorian with a wrap-around porch and a view of the Hudson River, not far from where I grew up.  Each time I passed by that house, I imagined Carson, decades earlier, sitting on her porch, peering from her window as she sat at her typewriter, perhaps walking down South Broadway in the mornings.

When I came upon a grainy, 1958 recording of her reading from her work, I was awestruck.  There was a fragility in her voice, which quivered, as though she were about to cry.  That shakiness, along with her thick Georgia accent, conjured in my mind an elderly southern lady rather than a woman who, at the time, was only forty-one-years-old.

Carson McCullers left us a beautiful literary legacy.  Whether you’re looking for a thought-provoking book for yourself, or a good-read for your book group, her prose is lovely and her message will surely ignite great discussion.

 

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Life Lessons

Through Children’s Eyes

My cousin recently described what it’s been like to take her children, an adorable set of four-year-old twins, to the neighborhood playground.  Social distancing playtime means patient children await a turn to be gently pushed on a swing, as long as the swing to their left and to their right remain vacant.  But many times, there’s no need to wait because most of the neighborhood regulars are staying away.  This absence is not lost on the twins, as one of them recently observed, “There are no people.  Where are the people?” 

A friend of mine has two elementary school-aged daughters.  Their zoom school and homework completed, they watch television in the family room, adjacent to the kitchen where my friend is busy preparing dinner.  When a popular news magazine program featured a story about the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday,  one of the girls remarked, “Where are their masks?”  My friend had to explain that the episode was a repeat from last year, from before the pandemic.

Another friend, along with her husband and two older boys, like to end their busy work week by ordering take out from their favorite neighborhood pizza joint.  But as restaurants shuttered, in order to continue their Friday night pizza ritual, my friend began making her own pizza dough.  Even though she is by far the best baker I know, the dough has not always risen as it should, and sometimes the results were, as she put it, “flatbread.”  The boys, eager for any sort of pizza crust that could support chunks of fresh tomato and gobs of stringy, gooey mozzarella cheese, named this homemade pizza “quarantine pizza.” 

While some children are still too young to fully understand, that doesn’t mean they aren’t attuned to the ways, both big and small, that life has changed during 2020.  But clearly, children of all ages have been remarkably adaptable.  The holiday season has begun and I, more than even, will try to see things through their eyes.

 

 

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Girl Talk, Life Lessons

Eight

October is nearly over.  But it’s not too late. 

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month.  If you haven’t scheduled your mammogram – or if you’re overdue for your mammogram because of the ongoing pandemic – this is your chance to take care of yourself and to take control of your health. 

Fact: one-in-eight women will develop breast cancer during her lifetime.  Covid-19 or no Covid-19 – this staggering statistic has not changed.  I ought to know – I am one of the one-in-eight.  And so are some of my family members and friends.  That’s why I’ve written on this topic before,  https://dolcezitella.com/2016/01/14/how-i-got-to-red/ and https://dolcezitella.com/2016/10/20/inked/ and why I will continue to do so.

The number eight has another meaning for me.  August is the eighth month of the year, and this past August marked my eighth anniversary of being cancer-free.  Even though the five-year anniversary is an important milestone for breast cancer survivors, eight years is the big benchmark for women who’ve had my specific type of breast cancer.  Having reached this milestone, I feel immensely grateful and blessed.  But I take nothing for granted.  I remain diligent and timely about my check-ups and testing, knowing that if I hadn’t been so diligent and timely a little over eight years ago, I might not have benefitted from early detection nor experienced such a successful outcome.

Stay on track.  Schedule your mammogram.  No excuses.

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Life Lessons, Pop Culture, Writers and Writing

The Typewriter

Yard sales are common in my town but I seldom, if ever, take part.  For one thing, to have a crack at the really good stuff, you must arrive early and I’m not a morning person, especially on Saturdays.  Add to that my inability to shake off the old city-dweller mentality that no matter how tempting a curio might be, “there’s just no room for it.”  So, it was very out of character for me to check out the yard sale taking place in my neighborhood this past weekend.

As I approached the house, I saw the usual folding tables filled with knickknacks and gently used kitchenware.  There were books, of course, and a seemingly brand-new tennis racket.  I paused in front of the historic banker’s chair that was in need of a little TLC, and considered the antique wooden ironing board that yearned to be a piece of art displayed on a kitchen wall.

Call it serendipity, or fate, that I should spot a manual typewriter.  I couldn’t believe my good fortune that, as late as 11:00 in the morning, a vintage Royal had not yet been scooped up.  My first thought: it’s still available because it’s expensive.  My second thought: didn’t Kerouac use a Royal?  I knew about his famous Underwood – the typewriter he used to write On the Road – but I remembered reading somewhere that although he favored the Underwood, at one point, he also used a Royal.  Another literary giant had used a Royal, but I couldn’t place who it was.

On closer inspection, the putty colored typewriter was dirty, perhaps nicotine stained, and laden with the kind of dust that accumulates from years spent in an attic or basement.  The keys had long ago yellowed and the roller was splattered with white-out.  Its carrying case was even more soiled, and I couldn’t tell if it was leather or some sort of fabric that had petrified.  Still, this was a vintage Royal that, given its body’s metal construction and iconic red logo lettering, I guessed to be from the mid-1950’s.  I doubted it actually worked.  In fact, I didn’t even care.  I just knew I wanted it.  And for ten bucks, it was mine.

As soon as I got it home, I went online:

How to clean a vintage typewriter
When did Royal introduce the portable Quiet De Luxe model
Famous authors who used a Royal

Turns out a small paint brush, a soft cotton rag, a gentle hand, and the sparing use of water and rubbing alcohol have gotten me off to a good start.  I think my typewriter is a 1956 model.  And Hemingway was the other writer who used a Royal.  In fact, he had three of them.

Why have I been so fixated with this typewriter all week?  It’s the sheer romance of the whole thing.

Think about it…  In this digital age where first our PC’s, and now our laptops, become obsolete every couple of years, we don’t keep them long enough to create a history.  We don’t get attached to them.  We just discard them.  Years from now, will I even remember what version of Windows I used to write this blog post?  But I do remember the typewriter I learned on, and used to write my college papers and my first short stories – a blue Smith Corona.  It didn’t possess the mystique of an old Royal.  I don’t imagine anything could.

This Royal is going to sit on a shelf in the room where I write.  It will be more – much more – than a conversation piece.  It will be my reminder of what’s important.  My talisman.  The compass that guides me to whatever comes next.

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Home Improvements, Life Lessons

Homegrown

A few years ago, when I left the city for a house with a backyard, my brother and I started dabbling with the usual potted herbs and tomato plants.  For two summers we enjoyed tasty tomatoes and enough basil and mint to last all summer.  However, this year has been different.

My brother is a plant whisperer.  He had the vision to create a raised bed garden in our backyard.  And although we share the watering duties, I take little credit for our growing harvest.

The tomatoes have been plentiful, and we’ve grown some healthy zucchini.  Our basil, mint, rosemary, and parsley plants remain hearty. The romaine lettuce, spaghetti squash, baby carrots, and peppers red, yellow, and green are all thriving.  And just this week, our raspberries have started to bud!

Every afternoon, I delight in going out back to check on the plants, then gather a few tomatoes, maybe a zuke, and some fresh herbs for the evening’s dinner.  Now don’t go picturing a Martha Stewart-like scene where, in the late afternoon heat, I venture outside in a canvas gardening apron and straw hat, holding a big rattan basket.  The reality is far less quaint.  Clad in a paint-stained cropped T-shirt, and a Strand Bookstore baseball cap, I’ve got a gallon-size Ziplock bag in my hand.

Our abundance of tomatoes has made Caprese salads a frequent side dish.  We’ve enjoyed chicken Caesar salad using our romaine lettuce, topped pizza with our zukes, and sprinkled chopped peppers into omelets.  Beyond the fresh taste of these homegrown veggies, the satisfaction factor has been enormous.

Who knew the city folk could grow food?

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