This week's prompt is in honor of Kirsten Hubbard's book Like Mandarin.
In the book the main character, Grace Carpenter, would give anything to be like Mandarin Ramey.
I would have given anything to be like...
My Aunt Ursula. Ursula is my dad's youngest sister. Ursula is awesome. Ursula came to visit us when she was sixteen on her summer road trip. She got to travel the county by herself visiting relatives by herself. How cool is that? She had the feathered hair and blue eye shadow that all the teenagers in the movies had. Feathered hair was cool. Blue eye shadow was cool. My hair would not feather like hers with all the hairspray in the world. I'm pretty sure she was the coolest person I had ever met.
She lived in Texas. She had a cool name.
She could talk back to my dad and get away with it.
In addition to the feathered hair and eye shadow she also had her own horse.
I spent three weeks by her side. We went to the movies. We watched MTV. There were still music videos on MTV. I listened to her stories about her horse and her dogs. She came on vacation with us. She helped us build the biggest sand castle in the resort sand box. She invited all the kids who were staying at the resort that week to help with the sand castle.
Instead of swimming like my siblings and I she covered herself in tanning oil and spent her days sunning herself on a blow up air raft. I wanted to tan too but I loved swimming more.
This was the last vacation we would take as a whole family. My parents got divorced after this vacation. Being around Ursula helped me forget that my parents were fighting all the time. She was like a shield during this stressful time at the end of my parent's marriage.
Eventually my parents got divorced. A couple years later my stepsister Gail would enter my life. She was cool in my eyes for a lot of the same reasons that Urs was cool. Feathered hair, horse, awesome music, make up and cool clothes. I wanted to be like her too.
Who would you give anything to be like?
16 comments:
Having a horse is cool. I could deal with that. I cold never get my hair to feather either.
Katherine Paterson -- wise, poised, and talented.
I don't know. I, kind of, like me. Although I would really like me with more money and a published book. ;)
You have some great reasons for your Aunt Ursula. Great post.
Do you still talk to Ursula?
ah, blue eye shadow...so cool (at the time) ;)
Ooh, I wish I'd had an aunt like this. I'm dropping by from RTW. Nice to meet you!
I also wish I'd had an aunt like this! I would have wanted to be like her too.
I had an aunt like that too. She took care of animals and was a vegetarian - yeah, I haven't eaten red meat in over twenty years. :)
And the cool thing - she still lives close by. Things have changed over the years, but she definitely had an impact on my life.
AHHH feathered hair and blue eye shadow. Those girls were SO cool. I couldn't make my hair do the feather thing, and blue eye shadow just looked silly on me. It's great that you had her in your life when you needed her.
I also had an aunt kind of like this! She had holographic sparkly high heels that I coveted. I still covet them.
Hi,
Ursula Monroe
Carrie's Aunt
In my own defense, my eye shadow was purple, not blue. It matched my bikini. *Laughing*
I have lots of pictures of that summer that I shall have to dig out and share. Including several of 3 small children, ages 9, 7 and 3 and their black lab. I had at one point taken all 3 down to the water by myself only to discover that my new one piece suit was see thru from the waist down. I always liked swimming in shorts any way.
There is a great picture where we have Carrie's father buried in the sand... Might have been a good idea to have use a lot more sand.
I'm very lucky. I'm the youngest of 7 children. My oldest brothers and sisters are 20 years older than me. I have been Auntie Ursula my entire life. I've been privileged to watch all 18 of my nieces and nephews grow up. And Occasionally I got to participate.
Carrie makes the best s'mores.
Love
Auntie Ursula
Yay Aunt Ursula.
I think I have some of those pics too.
No matter what color your eye shadow you were totally cool.
What an amazing aunt! I just became an aunt, and I'd love to be that kind of role model for my niece.
ohmigosh--your aunt sounds amazing! id have loved to have an aunt like her :)
I had terrible almost curly hair that was really hard to feather. I remember thinking about ironing my hair with a clothes iron, but fearing I'd burn it off. This was before straightening irons were around. Great story, thank for sharing!
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