Kiwi Crones - A virtual kitchen table for the Farms' grannies and aunties

[Commander Suzdal]

Does the phrase "mid to late 1900s" make you shudder? Do you remember when phones had curly cords, TV had three networks, and free speech was a liberal value? This thread is for you, older women of the Farms!

Talk about lolcows of the dial-up era; your grandkids (just don't phonebook them, or yourself); the change of life; what really was better in the good old days, and what you're glad you lived to see in the 21st century. Reminisce about what you wish you'd known forty or fifty or sixty years go. Share your accumulated wisdom (if any) with the Beauty Parlor.

Just the other day someone featured @Aunt Carol's post about everything you need to know about bras and no one ever told you. Dear reader, do you have advice you would like to pass on to the younger generation? Post it here! Who knows, one of them might even read it! She might even take it!

(If you're a younger Kiwi woman who'd like to hear the perspective of another generation, you can ask here. Kiwi men can also ask for advice, but they MUST take it.)

Speaking of advice, Mary Schmich - now 72, and definitely a crone - said "Inside every adult lurks a graduation speaker dying to get out, some world-weary pundit eager to pontificate on life to young people who’d rather be Rollerblading." The essay is a classic, so I'll just add "be mindful of your opsec and don't powerlevel ITT." (Older Kiwis can't help our dated pop culture references, stale slang, and knowledge of the pre-Internet world, but let's not get ourselves phonebooked.)

 

[Valstrax]

To any meemaw farmers here, what was it like before 2000?

 

[Aunt Carol]

To any meemaw farmers here, what was it like before 2000?

You gotta be more specific than that; that's a lot of time, and there was a lot going on.

There were bath oil beads you'd get for the holidays, or you'd pick out by the each wherever your mom bought fancy soap.

After a while they were available in cool shapes.

 

[Valstrax]

You gotta be more specific than that; that's a lot of time, and there was a lot going on.

There were bath oil beads you'd get for the holidays, or you'd pick out by the each wherever your mom bought fancy soap.
View attachment 9073354
After a while they were available in cool shapes.

Oohhh... so you put the soap into those little balls?

 

[Aunt Carol]

Oohhh... so you put the soap into those little balls?

No, they were full of scented oil, so when you tried to get out of the bathtub it (and you) would be slippery. But smell nice.

However, they'd be displayed in a dish or something on the counter by the soap, getting damp from the bathroom humidity and incorporating dust into their water-permeable skins as they got sticky and dried over and over. Because how often do you take a soaking bath, vs. how often does someone with no original ideas have to give you something for your birthday?

Honestly, I think that if your small child bit squeezed a few of the bath beads until they popped, just to see what they were like, she was doing you a favor.

 

[Doxmatix]

After a while they were available in cool shapes.

This unlocked a core memory of having one of those blue metallic dolphin shaped ones, I remember the very weird texture of that thing as it aged and the smell. Somehow I thought it was quite the treasure as a young girl.

For the wise Kiwisisters out there - what advice do you have for married peeps on things you wish you knew when you were young?

 

[NoReturn]

To any meemaw farmers here, what was it like before 2000?

We were rich, even the poor were "rich". By that I mean, for example: I could spend entire days in a nice, clean, air-conditioned library and be safe. Now, you can't do that, because the library is full of meth-heads and there aren't even as many books as there used to be. We don't have nice, cheap/free public spaces anymore, and you have to spend money just to stay safe and clean no matter where you go.
The amount of money and purchasing power that people had in general is also kind of incomprehensible compared to now, and you really could get a job with a handshake.

Oohhh... so you put the soap into those little balls?

No, they were full of scented oil, so when you tried to get out of the bathtub it (and you) would be slippery. But smell nice

This unlocked a core memory of having one of those blue metallic dolphin shaped ones, I remember the very weird texture of that thing as it aged and the smell. Somehow I thought it was quite the treasure as a young girl.

They left a skin that floated around the bath, too. It was weird-feeling.

 

[Lentil Soup]

You gotta be more specific than that; that's a lot of time, and there was a lot going on.

There were bath oil beads you'd get for the holidays, or you'd pick out by the each wherever your mom bought fancy soap.
View attachment 9073354
After a while they were available in cool shapes.

You cannot begin the comprehend the amount of nostalgia I got from this.

Anyways I am pleased to share that I found some on Amazon. They even have the fun shapes.

 

[Valstrax]

You cannot begin the comprehend the amount of nostalgia I got from this.

Anyways I am pleased to share that I found some on Amazon. They even have the fun shapes.
View attachment 9085940

So who's gonna get that bag and see what it's like?

 

[Aunt Carol]

Now, you can't do that, because the library is full of meth-heads

When I was a girl we had a higher caliber of bums and layabouts. Mostly alcoholics, still recognizable as human. Some of them would come around and mow your lawn for cash.

I'm not saying the virtue of the homeless is to keep out of sight, just that they shared in the understanding that they were part of society and didn't set as much stuff on fire.

 

[Cherry Milk]

When I was a girl we had a higher caliber of bums and layabouts. Mostly alcoholics, still recognizable as human. Some of them would come around and mow your lawn for cash.

I'm not saying the virtue of the homeless is to keep out of sight, just that they shared in the understanding that they were part of society and didn't set as much stuff on fire.

There wasn't as many, either. I remember in the 80s & 90s there were three rough sleepers in our small town. They didn't seem to beg and kept to themselves.

Now there are so many homeless people, begging and openly doing drugs everywhere. Sucks.

 

[Sperghetti]

To any meemaw farmers here, what was it like before 2000?

The first thing that comes to mind is that it's crazy thinking back to how different the phone system was. You typically had one phone line for the whole household, and phone calls cost money, per call. They cost more depending on distance. People absolutely hated the phone company for a lot of the 20th century.

Similarly, not everybody had a computer. Those that did typically had one desktop computer that was located in the living room or dining room and used by the whole family. Surfing the internet was something you intentionally sat down and did, like watching a movie.

Oh, and all those people that huff their own farts about how they don’t have a smartphone used to huff their own farts about not having a TV.

You gotta be more specific than that; that's a lot of time, and there was a lot going on.

There were bath oil beads you'd get for the holidays, or you'd pick out by the each wherever your mom bought fancy soap.
View attachment 9073354
After a while they were available in cool shapes.

Probably the most late 90’s anecdote ever: There was a store in my local mall that had a little bath bead display where you could pick out an assortment for like 4/$1 or something. They had tons of shaped ones, too, including little green frogs. The same store also sold incense, a lot of tie-dye clothes for those wiccan/hippie types, and Beanie Babies.

 

[Dick The Birthday Boy]

What ever happened to my rainstick or my hit clips? I'm so confused.

 

[Aunt Carol]

The first thing that comes to mind is that it's crazy thinking back to how different the phone system was. You typically had one phone line for the whole household, and phone calls cost money, per call. They cost more depending on distance.

Or night and weekend calling, where it was cheaper to make phone calls after a certain time of night.

Phone cards for prepaid long distance. So many numbers to enter, every time you used it (until the credit ran out), but that way you could make long distance calls without a long distance plan, or from a dorm phone or something.


I remember when my parents had a long debate about getting an answering machine. It wasn't that one was pro- and one was con-, just that they were aware it would change a lot about how they used the phone.

I thought it was cool, read the manual, and showed my mom how you could call our home number, enter the PIN (from underneath the answering machine) and listen to the messages even out of the house. Which came in handy for her, because she worked late and my father quickly warmed to the answering machine when he realized he never had to answer the phone again.



Speaking of answering machines and landlines: anyone here take on-call shifts, or am I outing myself as a blue collar peon? If you absolutely had to get groceries or something, you could call the supervisor and ask if the coast was clear, then run your errand with an eye on the time to get back to being near the phone. You couldn't even be out mowing the lawn unless you had a kid to answer the line. You might think, sure, I could run an errand, call work from a payphone and check, run another errand, call work and check, but your supervisor has an actual job to do; that's not cool.

I mean, transplant candidates (and their surgeons) had beepers, but if you get sent home on-call once a month, that's not worth paying for a beeper.

 

[VisceraNexus]

There were bath oil beads you'd get for the holidays, or you'd pick out by the each wherever your mom bought fancy soap.

A precious relic. It reminds me of those silly gel candles that were usually seashell or beach themed and kept in the bathroom. I don't think I have ever seen one lit. I remember them being absolute dust magnets though because that gel was a bit sticky.

I do not miss seashell themed bathrooms, personally.

 

[NoReturn]

What ever happened to my rainstick or my hit clips? I'm so confused.

The goblins took them, just like they take anything else you think you won't miss.
The goblins now have ocean-themed bathrooms like @VisceraNexus mentioned, and their bedrooms have tie-dye shirts and moon-and-star tapestries.

 

[Valstrax]

A precious relic. It reminds me of those silly gel candles that were usually seashell or beach themed and kept in the bathroom. I don't think I have ever seen one lit. I remember them being absolute dust magnets though because that gel was a bit sticky.
View attachment 9089399
I do not miss seashell themed bathrooms, personally.

Oh, I remember these! I used to poke my fingers in the jelly.

 

[ApeBass]

In my youth I wasn't even close to being a minority in my hometown; now I can walk up and down the highstreet and not hear a word of English. But I don't consider myself old enough to be a crone, I'm not even menopausal yet.

 

[Tablet County]

I'm sorry whenever I see the word "Crone" anymore I think of that Wheel of the Worst episode where they watched that "Croning Ceremony" video.

 

[Dick The Birthday Boy]

I'm sorry whenever I see the word "Crone" anymore I think of that Wheel of the Worst episode where they watched that "Croning Ceremony" video.

Wise woman wise woman