WTF-Beta

It's amazing. I don't have magazines but need to bookmark this site.

My grandmother was born to a rich family in Brooklyn.

The family lived in a Georgian mansion in the '20's.

They had a chauffeur, a gardener, maids, all of that.

My grandmother grew up this way.

I don't know how her father made his fortune.

Then the Great Depression hit.

The family lost almost everything.

Then the father moved his family Upstate.

The family narrative was always that they imigrated from Russia, came through Ellis Island, lived in tenements, and bought the Upstate homestead with money from illegal import/ export during WWI and bootlegging in the '20's.

I was told this story. It made perfect sense to me. I had no reason to question it

In actual fact, the family narrative was an inverse mirror of the truth.

Upstate was not the plateau. It was the bottom.

It gets worse.

The father made a bad investment in a small business he knew little about, not enough apparently, and then almost immediately became lame.

So, my grandmother's sister was able to stay in school because she was too young to work, but my grandmother, still a child, had to drop out of school and go to work.

She went to work for institution for the developmentally disabled, in the next county. This was was a group of NYS institutions that ran in parallel to the NYS mental asylums.

It was the same institution where my mother worked.

My grandmother was already traumatized as a person would be, and then she went to work at the institution, where the working conditions were deplorable, and where the residents would beat her up. That was always known to happen- it didn't stop until well into the '70's.

So, she had married, and finally, she was able to quit working. Her husband bought the homestead, and they raised their family, my father, uncle, and aunt.

My uncle bought the homestead in a backroom deal among my grandmother and her two sons, in which she received an amount of money to be paid in payments by my uncle (he never paid them- that's who he was), she had an attached apartment built (and it was) with an entry door to the main house, and finally the agreement that if my aunt in California were to become sick, the brothers would bring her home to die (and that happened). In addition the brothers agreed to buy her a Buick and cover its costs (they did that).

Looking back on it now, some things make sense that even at the time didn't seem "normal".

My grandmother commissioned bespoke furniture made in NY. Everything made to measure for the living room, an entire suite of furniture make for the master bedroom from the same company, extraordinary furniture was the formal dining room, the porcelain lamps, the cabinets with objets d'art, the tapestries, and in general, every aspect of the house was formal, and the interior design was nothing I had seen or will see again in a middle class house.

Now I can see all of this was a reflection of her childhood.

What gets me about this story is the stone cold secrecy.

I think my father must have known. He was the eldest. Knowing him as I did, I'm almost certain he knew all of it. I'm not sure my uncle knew it. I wouldn't be surprised if my aunt didn't know it.

I have no reason at all to think my mother or my aunt, my uncle's wife knew it.

I still miss her. They say you get over grief.

I don't believe it. I think the way you process it certainly evolves, but I think the grief stays with you.

RIP, Nanny.

@bernard There be dragons! Lol!

1971 FTW!

It's the same today!

You can read the "body language" of the royal family at any public event and "see" the narrative that's in play. People scoffed when I said the Queen's demeanor and facial glances toward Meghan during Harry's wedding told a story. Well, they most certainly did so. The Queen knew who Meghan was, what her agenda was, about her lies, about her sordid history, all of it before the big day. And actually you can look at footage of all the other members' interactions (I don't recall but Anne was probably stoic) and they were clearly incredulous and amused. None of it was subtle.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program.

So it's not for me? Lol.

Beautiful work.

County Clerk is a serious job. One she had no business holding.

THE County Clerk is the impartial keeper of records.

Of course her personal life is messed up.

How could it be any other way?

Sade

My friends and I loved her music.

Link to video

Many Saturday nights began with listening to her and drinking gin and tonics.

Good times.

https://www.countrylife.co.uk/lifestyle/jewellery/ive-sought-out-cleopatras-lost-emerald-mines-in-search-of-the-gemstone-thats-100-times-rarer-than-diamonds

Eugenie's moment in the sun.

Greville Emerald Kokoshnik Tiara

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewels_of_Elizabeth_II

What a fun site.

https://www.countrylife.co.uk/lifestyle/jewellery/shakespeare-james-i-and-britains-golden-age-of-mens-jewellery

He's playing King Henry VIII (loved this series).

He's wearing an Earl's coronet.

Hat tip, @wtg for the link.

https://www.countrylife.co.uk/property/cotswolds

I knew it was nice. I didn't know it was this nice.

https://www.knightfrank.co.uk/properties/residential/for-sale/wood-stanway-cheltenham-gloucestershire-gl54/che012672476

I'll take this one. No doubt.

My idea of perfection.

Very nice! Agreed!

Oh no. Please don't remind me about needing to repeat insipid sentences all day to "verify my identity".

The best however is "prove it's really you" 30 seconds after using a fingerprint as biometric identification.

@AndyD said:

You guys never watched Baywatch?
As seen on Friends, Joey & Chandler watching the girls running along the beach. The Hof was head lifeguard.

Yes. I watched it. Yes, I did know that. I was trying to forget it. Painful.

Friends was no better. A show about a group of young narcissists, living a life they clearly not only could not afford, but didn't- that aspect of the narrative was like a fictional black hole.

The Hawaiian guy Jason what's his name was much better in the role.

And that version was just as dumb.

Typical.

Link to video

Play on words.

If you know you know.

@dolmansaxlil said:

I had one pretty much annually as a kid (in the 80s). It was made of cardboard and filled with terrible waxy chocolate in vaguely Christmassy shapes, and I loved it.

I don't know if anyone remembers this, or if they're still around, but we had a chocolate maker called Palmer, that made Christmas candy. It was the lowest of the low. I mean you could tell it was the worst quality imaginable 50 years ago, when candy was "real" and not a chemical spill. My guess is they're still here, and that the chocolate is actually some kind processed "food product" colored to look like chocolate. I really wouldn't be surprised after seeing how Nabisco Ritz crackers are made, how fast food is made now, how processed food is made. Even "luxury" chocolate brands are crap.

I wish I could have chocolate from Perugia or Belgium or from anywhere artisans truly care about what they're making.

FTR, I'm no Christmas Grinch, just Halloween.

More interesting? Well, yeah.

But decidedly more commercialized.

That's my objection to them becoming "a thing", actually.

Your old one is gorgeous.

I'm for freedom of religion 100%, truly.

But, for me, spiritual practice and humility compliment each other, and as much as I like it (and I do; I'd be lying if I said I didn't), there isn't much humility is commercialism.

Also, how strange it is that we're seeing products that are expensive, along with inflation in real time, presented to us as "normal" and "aspirational" at the exact time the middle classes are in severe decline, and the working class has a minimum wage of $7 (in 2026).

What's up with that?

Tricycle

@Bernard said:

I can give a review: It's all crap. The tech industry's diarrhea.

Bernard FTW!