Grandma's little...um, mustache problem....

....and then, gradually, Grandma's little...um, mustache problem began to get worse and worse. But with Grandpa gone these many years, she didn't feel any need to be vain about it, although her canasta friends all giggled behind her back! .....And eventually children began sending her letters at Christmas time.... asking for toys… something she could never quite understand....

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"OH, SANTA!"...... decisions! ...decisions!

....."Oh, Santa! I just can't make up my mind! Which present do I want MOST of all???....a tin truck? ...a rolling lamb?...or a human baby?.... Can I play with all three for a while and decide then?"....

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Sybil Bruncheon’s THANKSGIVINGS PAST... Franklin & Eleanor... "the hungry years!"....

Hello, Friends. It is a little-known fact that during the hardest years of the Great Depression, even the White House had to budget...even during Holiday time!! It would not have been politic to have been seen feasting on sumptuous dishes and reveling in the plenty that America had been known for only a few years earlier when much of the country was now dragging through bank collapses, farm foreclosures, and dust bowl droughts. The clever chefs in the White House came up with an alternative. They prepared nutritious and fairly flavorful entrees out of an unlikely source... strange sea-life from the deepest parts of the ocean.

Oceanographer William Beebe in the famous Bathysphere designed by Otis Barton dived to a depth of nearly a mile and found the most bizarre and somewhat frightening wildlife down in the darkest regions where no sunlight ever reached. Carrying creatures back for the Smithsonian Institute and the National Geographic Society, it was soon determined that these new fish species were edible during a misunderstanding in a museum cafeteria when rare specimens were mistaken for a grocery delivery to the cooking staff. The cooks were alarmed when they first took the animals from the loading dock, but assumed that the Roosevelts had brought some exotic delicacies back from foreign dignitaries.

Sadly, the odd dishes they improvised were immediately valued at nearly $1.5 million dollars when the cost of the deep-sea technology, trial-and-error device testing, military and scientific staff salaries, college and research grants, and special materials and instrumentation manufacture were all tallied. That would make the cost of every forkful of the "roasted turkey" about $5800. Both the White House and the scientific community were mortified... But the public only read in the papers that the First Family were exploring other, more economically responsible Thanksgiving dinner choices during hard times... and, after all, Mrs. Roosevelt, after the first few bites declared... "Why, Franklin!... it tastes just like tuna fish!"

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Sybil Bruncheon’s “OUR THANKSGIVING HERITAGE.... HALLELUJAH!!”…

OUR THANKSGIVING HERITAGE!!!..... Our history books all say that when the Pilgrim forefathers first sailed into Cape Cod, they were stunned by the abundance of the New World. This quote from Miles Standish is from a missive to Goody Simplicity Rumplebum; "Yay verily, Mistress, it was owr great goode fortune for wich we prayed our harty thankings, that wen wee landed on the sanddee shor, we did see cuttle fish, clambagoes, winkles, erster shellabones, tunettes, crinkletoes, crays, bombottoms, toozly-toos, and all manour of eatables in vast-yee numbers so that every Christ-ian sole might eet his fill, man, woman and childe!... why even the crabbes and lobsters seemed to walk ashore to greet us when we showed them our poles.... Hallelujah! We all have yowled our gratefull Hallelujah!"...

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Sybil Bruncheon’s THANKSGIVINGS PAST.... Thérèse Farcie...

THANKSGIVINGS PAST......Thérèse Farcie had always been known as a respected arbiter of fashion, perfectly groomed, and accessorized, and always at the cutting edge of style and haute couture! Envied and ogled whenever she strutted about town hobnobbing with others of her class and tastes, she made quite a fuss when she would shop at Saks, Bergdorf's, and Bendel's... and oh, what a clucking there would be at Van Cleef, Cartier, or Tiffany when she'd drop in with girlfriends to choose a new brooch, necklace, ..or possibly an ankle bracelet. Who would have thought on that particular Thanksgiving when she'd been invited to the Harkinsons on Park Avenue for their Holiday dinner that things could go so terribly, terribly wrong?..... of course, silly creature that she was, she should have known something was strange when she was asked to go to the servants' entrance... leading directly to the kitchen…wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string.

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Sybil Bruncheon’s “OUR THANKSGIVING HERITAGE!!”.... TO BE? ..OR NOT TO BE?...

Facebook Friends!!... so many of you have heard about the Pilgrims who landed in Plymouth in 1620 and how somber, sober, and serious they were.... humorless, colorless, dour, judgemental. But what everyone forgets is that the Mayflower first landed on the tip of Cape Cod at what later became Provincetown. And the pilgrims who decided to stay THERE and NOT go on to Plymouth were a very different mindset! Fun, funny, capricious, stylish, lovers of fine food and fashion, music, dancing, parties, practical jokes, dirty limericks about candle-makers and farmers' daughters!...well, you get the idea. I mean, you HAVE heard about Provincetown, right?

Well, maybe you're a descendant of one of those two different Pilgrim groups?? ....at Thanksgiving time, ask yourself, which kind of person are YOU? Do you drown your sorrows at the dinner table in yam casserole with baby marshmallows while Uncle Fred tells his stupid knock-knock jokes for the umpteenth time? Do you nod politely and take Cousin Edith's hand over the Cheez-Whiz appetizers while she tearfully recalls being stood up for her junior prom 37 years ago? Do you fall asleep on the sofa with a bowl of stuffing sitting on your belly waiting for you to snack on later "aftah da game"?

...OR, Do you make your dinner guests play fun party games like spin the bottle, strip poker, and pin the tail on the donkey with Mrs. Ferguson from next door as "the Donkey"? Do the mince, and pumpkin pies end up being the ammo in a giant pie-fight with your boss and his wife... and your housepets? Do you fantasize about shopping on Black Friday at Van Cleef and Arpels for a diamond brooch shaped like a turkey, a teepee, or the state of Massachusetts??...

It's a choice folks... Are you a PILL and very GRIM??... or do you drop water balloons on Rihanna in the Macy's parade as it goes by your apartment building?? Guess which branch of the pilgrims Mummie is a descendant of, and why she calls herself a Pil-CHEERFUL!.... and why I love Provincetown so! YAHOO!!!!

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Sybil Bruncheon’s THANKSGIVINGS PAST.... BULLWINKLE THE MOOSE!...

THANKSGIVING PARADES Past!!... Bullwinkle the Moose was invited back into the parade line-up for the Macy's Annual Holiday Celebration. In an effort to rehabilitate the beloved creature, he was paroled from Cartoon Prison where he was to serve a 13-year sentence for impersonating a magician and attempting to saw Mr. Peabody in half... He was released on good behavior provided that he would continue to wear his prison stripes in all public appearances. Although still badly scarred from dog and squirrel bites (his left leg is notably shorter than his right!) he seems to be getting along just fine with his parole officers. All 43 of them are seen here escorting him down the avenue.

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My first words...

Apparently my first words as a baby were spoken to my nanny in the nursery. According to witnesses, I turned to her and the butler and said clearly, “Either that wallpaper goes or I do!”… I was sent to bed without supper for sassing! …but Yale offered me a special “Toddler’s Scholarship”…. 

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Remembering Jerry Orbach.... Oct. 20th, 1935....

Just remembering one of my favorite actors..and one of my favorite people in "show business"! Jerome Bernard "Jerry" Orbach (October 20, 1935 – December 28, 2004) I used to see him walking all through the city even when he WASN'T filming something or the other on every street corner!... He was always friendly, chatting with the cab driver, the hot dog seller, the mom with her baby stroller... And I saw him just a few months before he passed away, as friendly as ever. And then, when we all heard the news, I realized he must have known that last time that he was terribly ill, but was still as gracious, funny, dare I say "radiant" as ever.

What a career! One of those extraordinary people who "did it all"... like Angela Lansbury... dramas, musical comedies, television, film, stage, heroes, villains....instantly recognizable by millions and unlike anyone else. You could never get a "Jerry-Orbach-type". You either had him...or you went without. And now we all go without. Has it really been seventeen years??

If you ever want to hear the magic of Jerry Orbach, listen to him in THE FANTASTICKS (1960) singing the original "Try To Remember", CHICAGO (1975) singing the original "Razzle Dazzle", in the original 42ND STREET (1980) singing the title song, or (speaking of Lansbury!) in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991) singing the original "Be Our Guest" as Lumière!... a candelabra!! Talk about casting!!

And what about his other appearances in PRINCE OF THE CITY (1981), DIRTY DANCING (1987), CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (1989), or the other plays, films, and television shows that he did before he became an American icon on the LAW & ORDER franchises... Nominated and winner of awards, including a Tony for PROMISES, PROMISES (1968), he was memorialized on his street corner (West 53rd and 8th Avenue), and remembered throughout the city by the people he loved and who loved him right back.

...On Fall afternoons, I still see him idling down Broadway, chatting at a newspaper stand...stopping to pat a dog on the head... smiling and nodding to a well-wisher... To me, he'll always be the perfect "New Yorker"... Damon Runyon couldn't have written him better.

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Sybil's "TALES & TAILS!"... Tinky...

.....Tinky had always been fond of his humans, (well, as fond as cats ever are about the staff that maintains the house and provides food on command!) but then came the weekend when one of their relatives brought the guitar-thing. Tinky was shocked at all the shouted stories about kaftans, and love beads, and sandals, and folk music, or whatever that barking was that each of them did as they cradled the guitar-thing in its hands. They took out funny sticks made of weeds or stuff they they found on the lawn and set them on fire and put them in their mouths! "That's a stupid snack!" Tinky thought! "Why not find a mouse, or kill a sparrow? You're big fat idiots!" ...and the house started smelling like the burning leaf piles in the Fall, and the humans began eating lots of stuff and drinking water.

Then the humans got louder, and some even had water come out of their eyes while they showed their teeth in what had been described to him by neighbor-cats as a "smile". Some of the humans then made the yarns on the front of the funny-hole make noises which sounded like meowing....or growling. Tinky rather liked that, and he sort of danced around his living room while the humans made their laughing/barking sounds and pointed at him. Like most cats, Tinky was quite pleased that he had an audience, but of course, he would have danced around whether they watched or not. "Cats are uninterested in admiration from fools!!!", he huffed to himself, and did a clever little side-step followed by a caprice!...

Then the evening took a terrible turn! One of the humans who was plucking the yarns very loudly began to yowl! THAT'S RIGHT! YOU HEARD CORRECTLY!!! YOWL!!!...and then all the other humans joined in and YOWLED at the top of their lungs!! "Dear God!" Tinky thought. "They all sound like cats burning to death!! ...and doing it at the SAME TIME!" They swayed and clapped their hairless paws and began dancing around in his space!! ....and as Tinky scampered off to hide under his sofa while they hoo-hawed, and clod-pranced, and yee-yayed, and paw-clapped, and boo-hooed, and acted like dogs, Tinky remembered stories about humans who had been dressed in love beads and kaftans and sandals who had come into a house and KILLED other people!...It was a long time ago, but kitties liked to tell each other stories of bad stuff sometimes ...and snicker. Dogs always told each other stories about chasing round things and licking human faces and eating off the floor and rolling in dirt... then cats would saunter by and tell them they were idiots. Even big dogs would usually shut the Hell up...or even run off. Cowards and louts!

But kitties would tell darker stories with strange punchlines or morals at the end...and everyone would nod their heads and blink slowly. Big glowing eyes by candle light. And Tinky sat watching and thinking about the human family that had been very bad to other humans. He watched the yowl-dancing-banging-crashing-laughing-barking-drinking-stupids. Why can't the bad-family come here and do bad things in here? ....and make it quiet...and leave out some nice food for me? He blinked slowly ....and licked one of his handsome paws...with the razors hidden....for now.....

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