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March 23, 1958
Dear Mother,
Enclosed is your duplicate sales copy of the Avon order that I made out for you. Stunning Pink was as close as I was able to come to Paint the Town Pink. If you don't like it, the next closest is Pink Tinge, but I think that is a little more flat. I thought light brown cake mascara would suit your coloring best, but if you want the darker brown or the cream mascara, just let me know and if it is too late to change the order, I can exchange it. I consulted the charts again and came up with Turquoise Mist as your shade of eye shadow. I hope that it works out. Loads of eye make-up is supposed to be the big thing this season with the return of the all-concealing cloche, the idea being that one's eyes must assume a neon quality to be seen, but one can always go hatless. Enclosed is a description of the Rich Moisture Suds, which is on a 98cents special this time. It is designed for people who prefer soap and water, but it supposed to be more penetrating and less drying than soap. Avon puts out a terrific facial soap, if you ever want any, really hard-milled and with a nice subtle smell. The Nail beauty is a cream that comes in a little tube and is one of the biggest sellers, because it really works on cuticle and nail problems. With the hand cream, it's on an 89cents special this time, regularly they would be 1.18 together. I threw in the Persian Wood talc because it is a new smell and they are pushing it to get it started. Regularly it is 79cents, but with any order it's only 39 cents, and if you don't like it, it should make a nice little gift. It is kind of a heavy smell, and is better on some people than others. I'll send you some sachet samples and you can pick out the Avon smell that you like the best. There are six major scents and you can get just about every cream, liquid, or power cosmetic that exists, in each one, then there is a Persian Wood and Here is My Heart, kind of new, that just come in sachet and talcum powder, also sachet lotion. I'll send one scent at a time, so that you and the sachets won't get mixed up. Also, I'll send you a Pink Tinge and a Stunning Pink lipstick sample. Avon has some pretty good lipstick shades in the orange tones, if you have any outfits with orange in them. I'll send you a specials catalog on the next sales campaign, as all my extra ones are out on loan right now.
Just had a great new idea to make varnish scraping easier. I'm going to swab the wood with rubbing alcohol, and maybe it will break down the varnish so it will scrape easier. It can make such a mess of a furniture by accident, why not use it on purpose for a change. Yesterday Jim overhauled the bathroom. It all began when he tried to fix a leaky faucet and found the fitting rusted because the boob who installed the washbowl didn't use putty. He wound up installing a whole new washbowl, much nicer and deeper than the old one, and he met a fellow who is in the plumbing business, new and used fixtures, but would just as soon give the stuff away if it didn't louse up his bookkeeping. He has a tie-in with a house wrecker, and has a whole lot full of fascinating miscellaneous stuff. To do a complete job, Jim caulked all the tile around the tub, toilet, and bowl, and all the faucets, with putty, and removed the toilet for a while, to see how the pipe was underneath. Fortunately, it was fine, and we learned quite a bit about plumbing of the powder-room variety. It was a perfect day for indoor plumbing, since it rained all day and promises to do the same today. We were lucky to get the bookcases down from SF during a lull in the weather, but shortly before we got home, we had to stop and put a tarp over them.
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3-27-58 2
Tues. Thank you for thinking of us and the baby, for the sweater you are knitting and the other things you mentioned. He is going to be a wealthy little kid, since, slowly but surely his earthly goods are piling up. Yesterday, Jim's boss gave him a gumwood cabinet that is perfectly suited for baby goodies. It is as sturdy as the rock of Gibralter, and I can't imagine what it was originally intended for. Bob used it to store tools and parts in, but it is in nice condition and completely unfinished. We are having trouble deciding whether to stain it and bring out the grain or paint it and put some of Jim's Dennis the Menace-type sketches on it. In the meantime we are scraping the varnish and dust off of our oak bookcases. Currently, I have it sitting on papers in the kitchen and every time we go by the section we are working on, we take a couple of scrapes at it. The rubbing alcohol works nicely to loosen the top layer of shellac, varnish, airplane dope, or whatever it is. It looks as though everytime it needed dusting, they slapped another coat on to make it shine.
The rain is still coming down, off and on, and the clouds piled up in the East and West do not promise a permanent respite, even though the man on the radio hinted at it a few hours ago. Last night when he got home, Jim mowed the back lawn and picked up Jeff's elephantine efforts, rain or no rain. It was getting pretty hard to walk out there.
Chick was over last night, to see our bookcases, and compare furnishing notes, as they are moving into another house that they are buying, in a week or do. She got a fabulous deal on a rug, and her successes in the bargain dept. are really a temptation, but we are going to hold off a little on the furtniture dept. for a while, until we acquire some woodworking tools and a little more room for the finished fruits of our effort and inspiration. Jeff is evidently having one of his attacks of insecurity, because he is currently trying to crawl up into my lap. He has psychological problems, since he seems to have been so badly mistreated by his former owners. We are bringing him out of it, slowly but surely, but he has his moods, and since yesterday, something seems to have disturbed him. He has forgotten that he is not allowed in the kitchen except for meals, and this morning, he did the completely unexpected, refusing his breakfast. He's too much like a little horse to consider it, but I think he wants to be cuddled. He's funny, if I sit down, he doesn't want to lie at my feet, rather on them. His feelings are hurt if Jim doesn't greet him right away when he gets home. We wonder just how he is going to feel about No-Name, but we are plotting a pretty good plot to make him feel like No-Name belongs to him, too. He definitely thinks that we belong to him.
Now I haveto go Avon-ing and tempt the ladies with the latest in Smell-wells. Yesterday I went to beauty conference and learned how to preserve the complexion and keep the bloom of youth forever. With the other ladies, I put 50 weight Avon on and wiped it off, and learned what the complete collection of preservatives consists of. I will gladly offer it to my hopeful customers, but I notice that Avon sells several superior forms of soap, and I think that I will stick to that and not hope for miracles of preservation, since the lady who conducted the conference has a suspiciously crepey chin. Mummies, after all are the most advanced examples of what they lady was hopinh to achieve.
Love, Marcia
