Old Seattle TV: King 5 brings teh sexeh

I got a kick out of this old King 5 news promo clip.

First, Jean Enerson could wear that orange blouse and and chunky necklace and still be in style today. Wow. Not sure what that says about today's fashion. And Jean Enerson, still on King 5, doesn't look much different.

Then later, about the obviously named Seattle Tonight Tonite (yes, it was really named that. Seattle hipster irony did not exist in the 70s, apparently)….uh…is it me or is Dick Klinger trying to be sexy? Keep watching and listen for the music, which is also trying to be sexy. It somehow manages to be funny, though, rather than sexy, but that could be my inner snarkstress rearing her snarky head.

My mom will kill me for telling you this, but she thought Dick Klinger was hot.

Watch it here.

You may celebrate in slow motion

Join me in a joyous dorkdance and order your Bionic Woman Season 1 on DVD today.

What, your memory is hazy about this splendid series about a 70s chick with the coolest mid-mod house ever, great hair, and a bionic dog named Max? Let me refresh your memory.

Amazingly not departed: Tri-chem "paint"

One of the dorkiest craft ideas ever is amazingly still around: Tri-chem. I bet your mom had a case of these little metal tubes of "paint" that she used to create spectacularly stupid dish towels with streaky drawings of owls or puppy dogs. I bet she tried to make you do Tri-chem, too, insisting that you Need a Hobby and it's a Fun Thing We Can Do Together. Or maybe that was just my mom. (I love you, Mom, but even you did this crafty stuff reluctantly.)

I get acutely uncomfortable on the rare occassions I need to visit a craft store. I think it's the smell of middle age dorkdom that wafts past the silk flowers and cheap candles. Or possibly it's that craft stores remind me of my own inadequacies as a crafter, an anxiety which can perhaps be traced to childhood Tri-chem frustration. It's all your fault, Tri-chem! 

The little metal tubes with their ball-point tips never seemed to give much paint, and what little paint you squeezed out never seemed to go on smoothly. Tri-chem was marketed as liquid embroidery; you used a metal frame to hold the material while you filled in pre-stamped pictures. I remember feeling frustrated and annoyed and not even liking the finished product, which did not resemble embroidery at all.

Check out this awesome picture of a Trichem party--like a Tupperware party, but even more lame. Trust me when I say our finished creations didn't look nearly as good as those in the picture.

Tri-chem has been rebranded for today's hip craftsters (are there really hip craftsters?): listen to the plucky little score and watch the video on their website. The paints are probably better formulated now and I'm sure the patterns are less cheesy. But I'd still probably create only streaky craftbarrassments.

Not dearly departed: flocked wallpaper

Those crazy kids at Retro Renovation were praising mid-century wallpaper this week. (Just kidding about the "crazy kids" thing. I love them, even if I don't always share their tastes.)  Which got me to thinking about the truly hideous wallpaper in the 60s rambler I grew up in. I remember helping my parents pull off little tiny bits of a dark olive green flocked wallpaper on what would be my baby brother's bedroom. And by "flocked," I mean a raised felt-y pattern. I think it was only on one wall, an "accent wall, " if you will.

The wallpaper was awful. Just...awful. Even the LBHG doesn't like everything from the 70s.

Click here for more 70s wallpaper ideas. If you must.

Back-to-school bags: old skool backpacks

Every year around Labor Day, I was excited to get a new plasticy vinyl bag to start school. Below is one I managed to save. The little girl with the flowers in her hair is just too cute. Would this qualify as ephemera, even if it's not really paper? I can't imagine many of these survived 35 years--I couldn't find any on ebay or anywhere else on the 'net. Anyone find any?

Lesson: fail. But the book was great

You know how parents like to give you lessons disguised as things you actually like? I think that was the point of this book, which I read over and over and memorized. I can still recite some of the lines today.

Being neat and tidy has never been my thing (except for the canopy bed; see below for details.) This book didn't help.

How cool and 70s-esque are the colors and artwork?

And so goes the fusty dusty musty mess she made of her nice pink room.

My (almost) first cake: Stir'n Frost

In my evolution as a baker, sometime after saucer-sized, hockey puck-like Easy Bake Oven cakes came Betty Crocker Stir'n Frost Cakes. The cardboard-y pan, cake mix, and frosting all came in the box--you were even supposed to mix the cake batter in the pan (no need to dirty a bowl!) After the cake was done, you squeezed the frosting out of the foil packet. You didn't even need a knife to spread the sticky frosting--you just dragged the foil packet around the top of the cake.

Kid-sized, kit-ized, and sugar-ized. Anyone remember the other flavors? I remember only the chocolate.

And there's no truth to the rumor my hair looked exactly like that little girl's hair, or that I repeatedly combed it throughout the day so that it would flip back just like hers.