Yes, the 6″ tan teddy bear who frequents this blog turned 26 on Wednesday. Back in September 1988, he winked at me from a booth at the Fall Teddy Bear Show in Timonium, Maryland.
He promised to be good so I brought him home. Mr. Cornelius turned out to be an avid reader and a good baker but has quite the knack for mischief. You may have noticed that he loves to have his picture taken (he’s not happy unless he has at least one blog close-up every week). I must say he keeps me very busy answering all his fan mail. 🙂
Just for Poetry Friday, he selected three favorite poems from Bears∙Bears∙Bears: A Treasury of Stories, Songs and Poems About Bears compiled by Mary Pope Osborne (Parachute Press, 1990). He had fun finding just the right vintage photos to go with them.
And just to make sure you don’t go hungry, he’s whipped up a batch of Lemon-Glazed Tea Cookiesfrom Winnie-the-Pooh’s Cookie Book. Wrap your lips around a few while you enjoy the poems. 🙂
The other day I stumbled upon these wonderful old photos while I was researching vintage kitchens. I love seeing some of my favorite stars and celebrities cookin’ up somethin’ tasty.
How many of them can you identify? Answers at the end of the post. 🙂
photo by Earl Theisen (1953)
by Martha Holmes (1944)
by Gene Lester
♦ ANSWER KEY ♦
Sophia Loren
Shirley Temple
Walt Disney
Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward
Marlon Brando
Lucille Ball
Liza Minnelli
Judy Garland
Robert Mitchum
Billie Holiday
Betty White
Ann Blyth
Audrey Hepburn
Colonel Sanders
Desi Arnaz
Doris Day
Ginger Rogers
Joan Crawford
Jean Harlow
Gloria Vanderbilt
Jayne Mansfield
Barbara Billingsley (June Cleaver)
Lena Horne
Natalie Wood
Margaret Thatcher
Lucille Ball
Groucho Marx
* Â * Â *
Wouldn’t it be fun to taste Betty White’s cake, Lucy’s pot roast or Joan Crawford’s pie? I especially love the pics of Shirley Temple, Audrey Hepburn and Natalie Wood (didn’t realize Shirley was a leftie). And I love the old stoves.
Paul and Joanne look so “normal,” and who would have thought a former Prime Minister did her own washing up?  Hmm, Robert Mitchum can wash my dishes any time. 🙂
I had a little tea party, this afternoon at three. ‘Twas very small, three guests in all, I, Myself, and Me. Myself ate up the sandwiches, while I drank up the tea. ‘Twas also I who ate the pie and passed the cake to Me!
(Traditional)
Children have been enjoying their own little tea parties since at least the early 19th century. They know a good thing when they see it. Shall we join them?
Please help yourself to Emily’s rice cakes and a cup of green tea.
Hello Spring, is that really you? 🙂
Today we’re greeting the somewhat reluctant, much-awaited season of renewal, rebirth, and regrowth with a little help from esteemed poet Emily Dickinson.
I’m sure you know she was fond of sending friends and acquaintances fragrant bouquets with notes or verses tucked in them, sometimes with a gift of food.
What could be sweeter than homemade gingerbread or coconut cake, nasturtiums and peonies from her garden, and a heartfelt verse she’d penned just for you?
from the New York Botanical Gardens Emily Dickinson Exhibit (2010)
Though she may have eschewed personal contact with people outside the family, Emily was able to sustain longstanding friendships and express romantic inclinations on her own terms. She cultivated and excelled in all three of these pursuits — gardening, baking, writing — as a normal course of each day, all of them requiring practiced skill, time and devotion.
You’ve been here almost three seconds and you still haven’t complimented me. Does silky grey fur mean nothing to you? Ill manners are terribly middle class.
*tail swish*
Mr. Cornelius humors Jellylorum.
Oops, how did Jellylorum get hold of my laptop? Mr. Cornelius invited him over for a kitTea so we could discuss Chris Kelly’s Downton Tabby (Simon & Schuster, 2013).
I hate tea. Give me milk.
We had fun noshing on this whisker-twitching 80-page parody about the upper clawst Clowder family and the downstairs cats who work like dogs waiting on them.
Everyone knows cats are the aristocrats of the animal kingdom. Downton Tabby offers us the privilege of seeing them in all their stately splendor, doing what they do best — looking good, ambling around, being fed, setting a fine example, being admired.
But alas! Their traditional role in society — providing work for others — is being threatened by the “tides of history.” Yes, fur will fly.
Wait, I’ll take tea. No, milk. No, tea. Tea with Milk!
Check out these feisty felines: Robert, Earl of Grimalkin; his beautiful Chat-elaine, Korat; their three daughters, Minxy (the pretty one), Serval (the prettier one) and Lady Etcetera (the other one); heir presumptive Matthmew; and of course, the one and only Dowager Catness, Vibrissa. Let’s not forget Catson the Butler, Mrs. Mughes the Housecreeper, Thomas Farel (Evil Foot Cat), Tom the Chau-fur, Laisy (Kitchen Maid) and Mrs. Catmore the Cook.
Got bacon?
It’s all here, every joy and catastrophe:
Their lives, loves, births, deaths, marriages, affairs, prides, prejudices, senses, sensibilities, mills, flosses, cakes, ales, high teas and fun fairs, car accidents, scandals, bouts of Spanish influenza, and war with Germany.
I will now proceed to languidly shred your upholstery.
We daintily nibbled on our tuna sandwiches as we chuckled over the whole kitten caboodle: the non-stop tom foolery, witticisms, sight gags, revised “history,” bon mots — all essential advice for preserving the gentry’s “Golden Age.” After all, any one of us may someday find ourselves among “Those Who Have Things Done for Them,” and we must follow a solid Code of Conduct. What is the proper way to sleep, feed, groom, feed, loaf (“in a decorative and highly charming manner”), feed, cast a withering glare (to communicate both affection and disapproval)?
Jama's Alphabet Soup 