Lolita Lempicka and the Tall Goony Goon

No matter how I try, she won't turn around.  Can you imagine a whole series of my old studio photos in this style?  I would then "hand" color them and who knows what else.  But if the image is not in a painterly style but is photographic in nature. . . 

"You know I told you before, no, you can't do that." 

Selavy.  I need a new hobby.  

I took my mother to the dentist early yesterday morning.  After a checkup and X-rays, she was on her way with a note that said she needed no dental work.  Now she can get started on the bone strengthening meds.  

We had gotten a lot done by mid-morning.  I was able to go to the gym and run back to my house before the maids showed up.  I got the house in order, just picking up a lot of photo equipment I had lying around, and showered.  I was out of the house minutes before they arrived.  

I went to the bank to deposit a check.  I wanted cash back.  I sat at the drive-thru window and waited for the transaction to be completed for an irritatingly long time.  Ten minutes, perhaps.  But I was fairly untroubled.  I was in no hurry.  I was out while the maids cleaned.  That's all I had to remember.  

When I was finished at the bank, it was a cool southern day, the sky beginning to go gray.  It looked like Ohio weather.  I decided a cup of cafe con leche would be nice, so I drove to the cafe.  It was a good day for a hot cup of coffee at the cafe.  

When I walked in, no one was behind the counter for a long time.  It was like the bank window.  I needed to check my horoscope.  Sitting behind me at a table was the owner's daughter.  You've seen her here before as a Lolita wearing an "It Ain't Illegal If You Don't Get Caught" t-shirt.  "C'mon, girl," I was thinking, but just then the very tall goony-goon girl came walking through the arched doorway with a handcart full of boxes.  I stepped forward to let her by, but the cart kept coming my way.  I looked up expecting to see that "fuck you" face she usually wears, but she was smiling.  She was playing with me.  

"Stop it," I said in the lilting tone of a teenage girl I knew in the '90s.  

When she came back around behind the counter, she wasn't grimacing.  

"What'll you have?"

"Do remember what I think a cafe con leche is?" I asked.  I was ready for the ensuing fight.  

"No."

"It is half and half," I said.  

"Half and half what?"

Was she fucking with me?  Was this going south?  

"Half espresso, half steamed milk," I said.  

"Oh."  But she was smiling.  

I haven't seen her all year, I'm certain, so it had been a long time since we had the conversation about what a cafe con leche was. 

"We argued about this a long time ago.  You said that is not how they made it at the fancy schmantzy coffee place you worked at before."

"Oh. . .yea. . . that place."

She brought me the coffee.  

"Has anyone complimented your top today?" 

As I say, she is VERY tall and long, maybe 6'2", and she was wearing a striped fisherman's blouse that fell just to the top of her waist.  Paired with a light blue mid-thigh skirt, it was casually sensational.  I love striped fisherman shirts.  

"No," she smiled, "but you can."

"That's a very nice top," I said.  "It looks great on you.  I can't wear them anymore."

"Sure you can."

"Nope.  I got too fat."

Indeed, fatter than Gargantuan and being in front of her, I felt I was standing in a hole.

"Vertical stripes," she said running her hand up and down her shirt.  "Wait. . . horizontal?  Which is it?"

"I'll bet you have trouble with left and right, too."

I have read studies that back this up.  Women consistently perform worse on left-right tests due to a difference in brain structure.  

"Nope," she said nodding yes and laughing.  "I'm good."

I had a camera.  She looked stunning.  Seemingly, her meds were working.  

I shyly thanked her and walked to a table.  

"You'll never be a photographer that way."

I know.  It ate at me as I sat down and took a pen and my journal out of my carrier bag.  I checked my phone.  I had a voicemail from an unknown number.  It was the lady at the bank.  

"Everything is alright, but I would like for you to call me back."

WTF?  Uh-Oh.  What was going on.  

I called and got a voice recording saying that this number did not accept voicemail.  I called and called again.  No one answered.  Same thing.  I was thinking someone had emptied my bank account.  Worried, I began to write. 

The phone rang.  It was T.  He told me that his wife had been going through their credit card reports for the past few months and that there had been a monthly $25 fee from the photo store.  

"It says it's for a service fee or something.  I didn't ask for a service fee.  Did they just add that?  I don't need that." 

"Hmm.  I don't know.  I'm going to be close to there later.  I'll stop in and ask about it.  I'm going to the art supply store.  Do you want me to ask them how much it will cost to cut your mats?"

He is mounting two of my photos, one 18x22.5 and one 15x22.5.  I told him when he took them that framing was going to be expensive and that I wouldn't give him the prints if he was going to put them in cheap frames.  He told me with alarm that the frame shop wanted $450, so he went to Michaels and found two black frames on sale.  BOGO.  He got two 24x30 frames for $100.  

"What about mats?"

"I bought mats."

"Yea, but do they fit the photos?"

He went to look.  Nope.  They didn't.  

Fucking amateur.  

"I have a mat cutter, but I don't think I can cut mats that big.  Go to the art supply store and tell them you want linen matting with a bevel cut.  It will probably cost you somewhere around $50 each."

"If you are there, can you get them?"

"I'll let you know."

It turns out that they don't keep the linen mats in stock.  The girl said she could order them and have them cut by Friday.  $75/each.  I called T to see if he wanted them.  He did.  

I took the ticket and went over to get more Lampe Berger oil.  It is barely oil.  I looked it up.  It is mostly 91% alcohol.  There is a bare minimum of oil.  The lamp, I read, is a catalytic converter and you can't use any other fuel without killing the lamp.  Now I always have 91% alcohol around for some of my art projects and so I wondered. . . if I mixed up the alcohol with just a drop of essential oil, say frangipani. . . ?  I may buy one of their cheaper lamps and try it just to see.  I could save a ton of money.  

I walked to the back of the store where the Maison Berger products lined the wall.  I was looking for a scent called "Lolita Lempicka."  Of course I was. 

But wait!  I used The Google.  Lolita Lempicka is a pseudonym for a real person.  

"Lolita Lempicka (real name Josiane Maryse Pividal in Bordeaux, 1954) is a French fashion designer and perfumer."

Holy moly.  Turns out, she is a photographer, too.  

That may be her.  I don't know.  There are a lot of photos like this on her site.  I'll go down the rabbit hole later today or tonight, I guess.  I am fairly seduced.  

But back to the story.  Drats!  They didn't have Lolita Lempicka in stock.  I picked some racy tropical oil whose name I can't remember instead and went to the counter.  The young fellow who works there was telling a woman, "Oh, yes. . . we're going to have some fun in the Gingerbread house this weekend."

He was talking about a workshop for some art stuff that they run there, I was sure, but. . . I was busting at the seams to say something, but he was working with the woman and the store manager was finished ringing up another customer and waived me over.  

"I just heard him say you were having fun in the Gingerbread house this weekend, and thought that sounded like a real good time."

The little manager's eyes lit up and he laughed.  When he rang up the mats, he looked at me.  

"These must be some really good mats."

I started feeling guilty.  I could have gotten T cardboard mats a whole lot cheaper.  Selavy.  

"I ordered them for my buddy.  He got two of my prints and I told them I wouldn't give them to him if he was going to frame them cheaply."

"What kind of work do you do?"

"They're photos."

He looked at my phone.  "Can I see some of your work?"

Uh-oh.  

"Sorry. I don't have any on my phone."

Out the door and to the photo store.  One of the brothers who owns the store was there.  I've said before, they are an old Gotham City family, generations, and members of the Kiwanis and the Rotary Club.  That kind.  But they like me and always want to talk, and I have found out they have a little bit of freak in them, too.  I told him about the charge on the credit card, and he said it wasn't them.  They didn't have any service like that and no $25 monthly fees.  He looked up the purchase.  Nope, he said, your buddy is getting scammed.  

Forty minutes later, I was out the door.  

I called T to tell him, but he didn't answer, so I left a voicemail.  Then I checked the bank message again.  Shoot.  I'd been dialing the wrong number.  I called the correct one and got the lady from the bank.  She said she just wanted to apologize for the wait time I experienced.  They had a bit of crisis going on inside, she said, and. . . sorry, sorry, sorry.  

Whew!  Weird but whew!

Now that's what happens if I get out of the house for a minute.  Things and stuff and all.  

Before I pulled out of the parking lot, I remembered something.  The Vietnamese restaurant next door reportedly sold bone stock.  I thought it would be good to eat pho that night, so I went around the corner to the restaurant.  A pretty Asian woman, middle aged and made up, greeted me.  

"Do you sell bone stock?" I asked.  

"Yes."

I had three choices, beef, chicken, or pork.  I bought a quart of beef stock for five dollars.  I was off to the grocers to get chicken, avocado, scallions, bean sprouts, tofu, and some ramen noodles.  

I wasn't sure how my mother would take to pho, but she loved it.  The stock was great.  

"Good gosh, this is healthy, ma.  Not a bad thing in it.  Do you know how good bone stock is for you?  Next time I'll put more crunchy stuff in the pho."

And so the day of great adventure ended--on a high note.  All there was left to do was clean the kitchen and watch t.v.  And when the kitchen was clean, I looked at the clock.  

"You know, I went to the grocers, got back here and began cooking at quarter 'til six.  It is after eight now."

I was making a point, but she rejoined.  

"A woman's work is never done,"

O.K. O.K. O.K.  Whatever.