I’m taking part in a 30-day writing experiment. See Kale & Cigarettes for details and the Facebook Group to read stories by other 500-words-ers.
Being a ’50s housewife is my dream. I love everything about the idea: to spend all day, every day, planning dinner; to wear a cute apron and kitten heels while I execute the perfect meatloaf and mashed potatoes; to bake, from scratch, cakes and pies every night. I want to get one of those glass cake domes that I can store the leftover cake in, for when I invite the other housewife neighbors over for coffee in the afternoon while the girls are napping. Then I’ll greet my husband at the door with a kiss and a “Welcome home, honey,” leaving just a smudge of red lipstick on his cheek.
There is this other side of me that is the exact opposite: a hippie who doesn’t really care about decorum. This is why I can often be found executing the perfect meatloaf and mashed potatoes, or cooking dessert from scratch, while wearing an old Flashdanced t-shirt and bare feet. I actually don’t even own red lipstick right now. I can’t be bothered to buy makeup anymore and sometimes have to really psych myself up to brush my hair.
I might sound depressed, but actually I’m just lazy, although I can be really motivated about certain things.
This past weekend I made wine popsicles out of fresh-squeezed organic pineapples and white wine. If that’s not the perfect amalgamation of perfect ’50s housewife and hippie I don’t know what is. When I was feeling particularly stressed about all the items on my To Do List this week, I stress-crafted a skin scrub out of sugar, honey, and matcha tea powder. And I’m currently curating homemade scrapbooks for my daughters to commemorate their first year. I ordered balsam-wood albums off Etsy with their names embossed, and used the Walgreens app to print a bunch of my Instagram pics.
In my opinion this is the perfect era in which to be a ’50s housewife: a time when you can use three different apps to make a baby scrapbook.
Being an aspiring ’50s housewife in 2015 also works well with my hippie tendency to be antiestablishment. Being a feminist is de rigueur, and meanwhile I’m still trying to perfect that meatloaf recipe and coerce everyone in my life into participating in sit-down dinners at home. It’s the new avant-garde; my grandmother would be so proud.
Martha Sewart’s bacon wrapped meatloaf recipe is the absolute best one out there. I can come over for coffee cake and espresso and share.