December 20, 2017 – Picture straightener

         A phrase popped into my head this morning - you are probably a picture straightener. It took me a little while to remember where that thought came from. I have a few pictures that need straightening often.  One near the front door. When you close it, the air movement shifts a framed landscape. Then there is the one I always notice as I have an armload of just-from-the-dryer warm laundry to fold.  I usually dump the laundry on the bed, return to the hall, and straighten the picture.  I really don’t mind all this straightening, it gives me a moment to admire them.

         Here is food for thought:  Does anyone actually see everything they own when they sweep the room with a glance on a daily basis?  Do we hang a picture and then forget about it for days, weeks or months?  Do we need to remind ourselves to look at our treasures more often?  Or, do we only notice something when a picture is crooked on the wall or there is dust on a bibelot.

         The picture straightener phrase came from the movie, Mother Goose (1964) where Cary Grant plays the part of Walter Eckland.  It is a cute little comedy where Cary Grant is scruffy for 95% of the movie, and Leslie Caron [as Catherine Freneau] is the pain-in-the-neck who turns into the love interest. [How is that for a mini-recap?]

         The scene from the movie is as follows:

Catherine Freneau: I'm a... a picture straightener.

Walter Eckland: You're a what?

Catherine Freneau: A picture straightener.

Walter Eckland: Oh.

Catherine Freneau: When I see a picture on a wall that doesn't hang straightly, I straighten it.

         I jotted the phrase down on the edge of a Sudoku I was working. Why had it suddenly swirled to the surface of my brain? Then I smiled because it triggered a little incident, which I will share with you.

One day in a client’s office while I was delivering a title report during the heyday of my St. John Title years, I was quietly waiting while the attorney took a call.   I was sitting in a wonderfully comfortable wing chair and I didn’t mind waiting for her to finish her call as I’d felt I’d been rushing around chasing my tail all day.

Behind the attorney’s desk were her various diplomas and as I was sitting there I noticed her framed law degree was not straight.  I am not sure if the chair was so comfortable that I felt like I was in my own home, but something possessed me to get up – while she was talking on the telephone – and go around her desk and behind her chair and straighten the diploma and another framed item on her wall, then return to my seat. 

         Yes, I did invade her personal space as she was talking on the telephone and she glanced up and watched me do it.  When I sat down again I tried my best to keep a straight face because I felt I was a total idiot on several levels.  The urge to straighten her frames just came over me and I didn’t curb it. Then the thought she might have felt threatened occurred to me and I dismissed it as I had once worked with her as her secretary in a prior law firm.  Thinking back, I don’t believe she made any comment about my “picture straightening”. 

         I considered her a “professional friend” as one of those professional woman you admire and try to emulate and on rare occasions relay an amusing anecdote or story.  Often we would discuss our Mom’s and their varying mothering styles.

         Just now, as I am typing this, my husband stops at my desk and says,

“When are you going to clean your desk . . . it is a mess.”

         Funny that – I don’t hesitate to straighten a picture that isn’t level – in my home, in public or in someone else’s office or house . . . but, I can’t seem to keep my desk neat and tidy for more than a few hours now that I am no longer working out in the “real world” as a friend calls it.

         This is a serious flaw I should fix. Hmmmmm. . . .this is New Year’s Resolution material . . . . it’s never too early to start my 2018 New Year’s resolution list:

1.    Straighten my desk and make my to-do list daily.

2.    Continue to picture straighten