Happy Sunday!
Today we’re going to take a wee break from talking about a daily practice, and I’m going to share with you an annual practice or ritual that I take part in.
Every year, between July 29 and August 1, I celebrate Patty and Pammy. To be more specific, I observe the “birthdays” of a cheeseburger and a Twinkie.
Let me explain.
In 2007, I was working towards my Masters of Fine Arts degree. Focusing on hand embroidery, I stitched anything I could get in my stabby fingers: melons, lemons, saltines, softballs, beef jerky, and yes, cheeseburgers.
On the day of an open house in my studio, I festooned two McDonald’s cheeseburgers: on one I stitched a skirt of vintage purple lace, the other was dotted with sequins and seed beads. That evening, after the event closed, I went off for some drinks. Returning to my studio two days later, I saw the burgers sitting there still intact.
Eeeeeeew! I thought, before wrapping them up and throwing them in a crate of supplies under my workstation. I promptly forgot about them again until three months later when I had to vacate my studio. The burgers had just been sitting there, in their original wrappers, not doing anything, not getting moldy or eaten by anything.
Captain Handsome Husband and I accepted a job running a large motor yacht. We were tasked with finishing a stalled refit before taking the boat, with the owner, his girlfriend and our crew aboard from Ft Lauderdale, Florida to Phuket, Thailand. We’d be gone for at least a year.
I won’t bore you with the details of crossing the Atlantic in a tropical storm or of dodging pirates in the Red Sea, I’ll jump straight to the interesting bit. The very first thing I did when I returned home was to head straight to the kitchen cupboard where I’d stored my cheeseburgers. I couldn’t wait to see what they looked like after a year.
But they were gone.
No, they didn’t walk away. They weren’t munched on by any animal (there was zero evidence of any animal activity). They simply were not there. Where they had been, was merely space.
During our absence, four people—two couples— had access to our home. All parties claim no knowledge of cheeseburgers or discarding them. One couple lives around the corner. They stopped by regularly to check on the house. At no point did they invest any time in cleaning, and if they did—which they didn’t, it would not have involved emptying cupboards. The other couple was visiting from overseas. They stayed for a week or two. They are vegans.
I was crushed. I so wanted to see what would have become of them.
Back home, back in my life, back in my studio coursework, I couldn’t let the cheeseburgers go. I mean, I had to let them go, they were gone. But, I was still into the idea of them.
So I started over.
This time, instead of stitching into the bun and burger, which could compromise the integrity of the materials —if a mass-produced cheeseburger has any integrity— I opted for rhinestones and glue. Because time can be elusive, I determined the best decor was to memorialize her “birthdate,” making me less likely to forget.
I christened her Patty. I had no future plans for her except to see how long we could be together.
Three days later, I felt she may get lonely, so I procured a companion in the form of a Twinkie. Her name is Pammy.
They live together in my wine rack. For a while they stayed in an old Kashi granola bar box, then they moved to an old Staples bag. I live in the South. We have critters and creatures. In the past 14 years, I’ve had mice, weevils and other assorted interlopers. None of them are interested in snacking on Patty or Pammy. No mold. No rot. No nothing, except desiccation.
Over the years, I was ignorantly cavalier with the pair, sometimes taking them on work yachting trips to places like the Bahamas or forgetting they were in my handbag, thus subject to inhospitable and downright violent conditions. They got roughed up. Patty’s bun is a bit chunked up around the edges. As a result of age, her meaty part has dried out and her cheese has gone brown, but she is still very much a cheeseburger. Pammy is very much a snack cake. I cannot speak of her creamy insides.
Every year for their birthday, we have a little celebration and a photo shoot. At first it was just a picture with the front page of the newspaper or my datebook. Slowly it evolved into more elaborate displays with flowers and cake or cupcakes. Last year I’d been invited to present at an event on the actual birthday. I made cupcakes. We turned it into a game by hiding Patty in a box and asking the audience to “Guess What’s in Rubi’s Box.”
Their tenth birthday in 2018 was commemorated with a group art show at Location Gallery in which the theme was fast food. Award-winning filmmakers Pat and Anne Longstreth made a documentary short about Patty and the birthday party we threw for her at McDonalds.
This year, Patty was suffering from a bit of cabin—err, wine rack— fever, so I took her out for a day on the town. We went to yoga, a sound bath; we had ice cream and a tarot reading. We hit up a qi gong class in one of Savannah’s historic squares and teh Jepson Center for Contemporary Art. She got a Happy Meal for lunch and kindly shared her fries with me. We met lots of people and saw a lovely sunset.
It was a hot day (98° F or 37°C, not counting heat index), and we walked almost 8 miles. We were exhausted, but still managed to make a video of our escapades.
It was the best fourteenth birthday a cheeseburger could hope for.
In honor of this landmark birthday, I’m offering a crazy, super-discounted paid subscription rate of $14.04 for an entire year. That’s a savings of 61%. But you must redeem by August 2.
Thank you for supporting the arts.
A Big Weekend