Filed under: Middle Age, Parenting | Tags: clothing, humor, Mammary Jack in the Box, Middle-Age, muffin top, Plato's Closet, southern, tank tops
There’s something about hitting your forties that stirs up a civil war inside your psyche, or at least it did for me. Part of me (a large part) is vain. I still strive to keep the muffin top from lopping completely over my waistband, I hide the gray streaks under a veneer of bleach, and I apply ridiculously over-priced creams to a face that I like to tell my kids shows “I had a fun life.” I go to the gym and flail around on the “I-limp-and-drool” every other day. I even have a pill tray so I can keep track of my vitamins, glucosamine, calcium and allergy meds. At least I’m not on the cholesterol/diabetes/heart medicine train just yet. And, for the most part, I’m pretty happy with how I look.
But I’m beginning to have some setbacks.
At the beginning of the summer I took my daughters to a consignment store called Plato’s Closet. This store is great, stocking name brand clothes for teenagers (and those hopeful they might still be able to wear them) at deeply discounted prices. In fact, I have gotten a few J.Crew and Banana Republic shirts there myself. This time, however, I made a grave mistake. I tried on the tank tops.
While my daughters flipped patiently among the racks, I snuck to the back of the store and spied several cute tank tops that weren’t too young, or too slutty, or splattered with Aeropostale across the front. With a gleam in my eye and a prance in my comfortable mom-approved New Balance sneakers, I dove into the changing room to try them on.
Guess what? They didn’t fit.
Shocker.
Apparently, the makers of teen-age tank tops long ago realized something I had not: Teen-age boobs are not located in the same place on your body as “I’ve had two kids” boobs. In fact, there is anywhere from a half-inch to a THREE-inch difference!
So, still innocent of this bitter pill I would soon have to swallow (right after I choke down another calcium pill because you have to take them three times a day), I tried pulling the tank tops down, only to have them ride up again until they looked like some awkward, Victorian-cut nightie. My boobs were happily bouncing beneath the seam, making me look like a dog who’s had a few too many puppies. So I tried another one that looked more forgiving. With a vague feeling of desperation I made one last try. I took each boob in hand and tried to tuck it into the empty space in the shirt where they should rest. They looked great until I moved, then out popped each one, like a crazy mammary Jack-in-the-Box.
And don’t get me started on the jeans! Thankfully I had sense enough to know they were never gonna fit my forty-year-old ass. I mean, look at how they fit on the teenagers. Low-rise waists can’t hide their hormone-in-the-chicken-and-milk muffin tops, and they certainly didn’t make the tramp stamp folded in half on their lower backs look any better, although I have to admit there is something mildly entertaining about trying to figure out what the stamp actually is when you can only see half of it. Half a butterfly or angel looks a lot like a “W”, which I assume stands for WIDE–hey, if the tattoo fits… Anyway, if fourteen-year-old girls can’t wear those jeans and look good, you know an ass that’s sunk two inches and flattened like a pancake isn’t going to fit.
But I took heart in knowing that:
a) Pretty soon I’ll be like my older brother and will just give up entirely (he admits this–this is not intended as an insult!). Then he won’t be able to make jokes about my not knowing what color my hair actually is.
b) I will never have to worry about whether I have on my good undies (you know, the ones where the elastic waistband is still covered by cotton) when I wear my mom-waisted jeans, and
c) I can afford to buy the good bras and Spanx that put everything (temporarily) where it should be. Deal with that, Teenagers Who Still Have To Bum Money Off Your Parents! I may not have your bodies, but I only have a few more years to fight the good fight. You’re just entering the ring.
Filed under: Misc. Humor | Tags: Eighty-percenter, humor, Marriage, painting
I have a new word– “redundies. ”
“Redundies–” the act of repeatedly dropping and picking up the same pair of underwear over and over when you are carrying a load of clothes to the laundry.
Apparently, I do not learn from doing things incorrectly the first time. Or the second. Not only do I repeatedly stoop and pick up the same pair of underwear when it drops over and over on the way to the laundry room (instead of shifting the pile or actually placing the load in a laundry basket), but I do the same thing with the piece of lint that the vacuum won’t pick up. I look at it, stoop down and pick it up, then place it on the floor again to see if the vacuum will work better this time. Do I bother to just toss it in the trash? Of course not.
For years I’ve been doing things like this. Cleaning the house is one giant “redundie” for me. Why else would a person vacuum, mop, wipe and dust a place that in ten minutes will look exactly the same? And yet we do it over an over and over!
But a couple of years ago I finally learned how to use this trait for good.
A friend once told me his wife said he was “an Eighty-Percenter.” That meant that whenever there was a project to be done, he was happy as long as it was eighty percent done, or done eighty percent correctly. I’m more like a Sixty-Percenter. Especially when it comes to painting. I just want color. I don’t particularly care about ceiling lines and chair rails and bannisters.
But Hubby does.
One day, it dawned on me that if I only did my usual Sixty-Percenter job on a project, he would HAVE to finish it. A Ninety- or One Hundred-Percenter cannot stand it if something is done less. So, periodically I would threaten to start a project, knowing Hubby would never be satisfied with my half-assed job, and would be compelled to finish it. Hubby never seemed to recognize this pattern.
Recently, I tried it again. I threatened to start a painting job we’d been putting off for months (ok, twelve years–we still had builder’s grade white paint on a few of the walls in the house). Hubby, the One Hundred-Percenter, panicked. He went to the fancy paint store (no Lowes or Home Depot for the One Hundred-Percenter) and purchased two gallons of paint in some flavor of “sand.”
There was nothing sand-colored about it. It was yellow. Margarine that has been sitting on the counter three days too long yellow. We stood staring up at the one painted corner unitl 7:00, then decided we should get something else. So, it being a holiday and the store already closed, we kicked back with our drinks and vowed to go back the next day. (And no, it never crossed our minds to get the little sample sizes, slap them on the wall, wait several days while we observed the light at different times like modern-day Michaelangelos. We are people of action. Watching and waiting do not become us.)
The next day, in we went back to the fancy paint store with Daughter #2, fresh from the stable and under protest in her stained and smelly jodphurs and boots. Daughter #2, never paralyzed with decision-making like some members of this family, marched over to the paint swatches, yanked one out and pronounced, “This is the one you want. Can we go now?”
Sure enough, it was pretty darn close to what we’d talked about. Victory was within my grasp. The house would be painted, Hubby would be house-bound for days to keep me company, and I wouldn’t have to do any of it!
Then my plan totally backfired.
I was not only allowed to tape the edges of our work space, but I was also allowed to actually use the roller and paint the big spaces. But despite the fact that I would have to re-wire our entire relationship in my head, my heart sang, my spirits soared, and I went to work with great gusto. Why? Because I knew a small miracle had happened in our Subourbon home.
After being together for twenty-two years, we had GROWN as a couple. There was a new level of trust in our relationship. Not only was I being allowed to paint, I was being allowed to paint the foyer, the very first place people will see when they walk in. My One Hundred-Percenter had trusted ME with such an important space. Naturally, I was on the receiving end of ample instruction on how to use the roller, how to hold it, where to start rolling, how to smooth out the globs I’d left behind, when to inhale, when to exhale, etc.
But hey, it’s a baby step.
Any miracles after twenty-two years should be celebrated. Maybe I’ll embrace the “redundies” and clean the house this weekend!
Filed under: Parenting | Tags: Cotillion, Dancing, humor, south, southern, teenagers
Could someone please explain to me why the ritual of sending Southern “tweens” on the cusp of womanhood to Cotillion still exists? Don’t get me wrong. Daughter #2 is doing it, albeit under protest. And like her fellow future debutantes (in this case, girls who will someday go to college like we did, drink the same swill and do just as many walk-of-shames as we did, and then come live at home), she will be wearing the requisite white gloves, appropriately-cut dress somewhere close to her knees, and an old wrap of mine because let’s face it–every teenager wants to look like their Great Aunt Elspeth.
Now, as I understand it, Cotillion began as a country dance in France in the 1800s, which enabled partners to flirt and socialize as they danced. So here we are, 200 years later, attempting to provide our children with the opportunity to socialize. As if school, FaceBook, Twitter, InstaGram and the four others they think I don’t know anything about, aren’t enough. Flirting and socializing? Have these people ever been to a dance these days? I’ve seen less bumping and grinding in the final two laps of a NASCAR race. I think we’re WAY beyond flirting. (Of course, my Sweet Angel would never do such a thing).
Also, according to tradition, the higher the social status, the more elegant the event used to be. Social status? Let’s see…how to address that one. Since we are, to quote comedian Louis CK, “in a suburb of Walmart,” I’m not sure how much elegance we can truly hope to have. White gloves will only cover up so many Sally Hansen nails and dirt accumulated in barns and soccer/field hockey/lacrosse dirt. And there’s also no hiding the multiple ear piercings and happy faces drawn all over their arms in pen by their friends.
Nor can we disguise the difference in attitude from our Delicate Flowers’ ancestors. Daughter #2, who is twelve years old, 5’6” and 100 pounds wet, got matched up with the shortest boy there. Of course. Short Boy’s friends, other twelve-year-old Future Fraternity Bothers practicing for pledge week, teased Short Boy, saying, “You’re so much shorter than she is!” (Duh!) Daughter #2, a delicate southern flower for sure, flipped her hair and tossed back to them, “You’re so much more annoying than he is!”
That’s my girl! Yep, the gloves are coming off.
Of course, the dresses have rules too. For example, nothing strapless, and they must come just above the knee. I would like to know, have any of the women who organize this thing ever tried to shop for dresses for a tween? The dresses available that aren’t from Lilli Pulitzer, Nordstrom or straight out of the Preppy Handbook (remember that?) look like clothing for hookers, pirates or hippies circa 1972. No spaghetti straps? Knee-length? Really? Well, I guess we better head on over to Pennsylvania and borrow some dresses from the Amish. Maybe those girls who “Broke Amish” won’t need them.
There are a couple of bright spots: on the nights you don’t have to drive, there are two or three hours of blissful peace and quiet after the Bath and Body Works brothel fog has evaporated. And, if you are the driver that night, you will probably learn an enormous amount of information (you are, however, supposed to report back to the other moms what was said), like whose kid had sweaty palms, whose kid smelled weird, and which girls managed to arrange to dance with their “boyfriends.” The flip side? Who gets to be the lucky one to tell Sally’s mom that Sally and John were seen kissing at school? Or that little Jenny put raccoon rings of eyeliner on as soon as she left the house?
On the night I have to drive, I plan on dropping off the girls, hiding out in the closest StarBucks, and turning the radio up REALLY loud on the way home.
In sweat pants.
Filed under: Middle Age | Tags: Blank Slate, humor, Katie Couric, red dress, southern, subourbonmom, The Bloggess
I was watching Katie Couric’s new show (self-named, of course), and marveling that she can still pull off wearing a super-tight, red dress. As I made snarky comments to myself about how the camera seemed to be carefully fuzzy around her face, I finally began listening to her chirpy voice. The guest Katie introduced was one of my favorite bloggers, The Bloggess (hysterically funny, when she’s not going all Oprah on us–check out the link). Apparently, The Bloggess found a way to pull herself up out of a deep depression by wearing an outrageous, fun red dress and having a photo shoot in a Texas graveyard. In the spirit of the Traveling Pants, she then decided to pay it forward and send the dress on to others who might need the lift. The dress and others like it has gone around the world, helping women get through their personal dark times.
Being loud and flamboyant, I don’t think just wearing a red dress would do it for me, no matter what the symbolism is. So I started to think about what it would take to remind me of who I am after wife, mother and teacher. In other words, when was I most, well, ME?
My immediate thought was college, because I was still all the “-uns:” un-married, un-employed, and un-taxed.The only thing I had to do was learn; everything else was gravy. So naturally, I spent an enormous amount of time playing practical jokes on people, drinking gallons of Beast and choosing the easiest Minor (women’s studies). One of the jokes we did a lot was to put an inappropriate book (i.e. Lesbian Ethics) in someone’s backpack, watch them get caught going through the detectors and have their bag searched at the front desk. So I thought maybe sending that book would be inspirational to those in their darkest times (Hey, no one said I was the brightest bulb in the bunch). I quickly discarded that idea, realizing that many, many people of all persuasions would be offended by getting a book with that title. So, I thought maybe an empty can of Beast, but declined for the same reason.
I decided to go back even farther….I think you’re the most free when you’re about 10 years old. Back in the day, you could roam the neighborhood for hours, only coming home at dusk when your mom would yell, or ring the bell, or do whatever your family’s signal was. You could build stuff and get cut, scratched and bruised without the world coming to an end. You were only dimly aware of responsibility, racism, world events and the vast future that lay before you. But what symbol to use for such freedom? My “blankie?”–too young. My Big Wheel–too bulky to mail.
Then it came to me. The answer wasn’t beer, toys or clothes–it was nothing. I know that for me to be free I need to be naked. Clothes, no matter how well-intended, always say something about you–where you’ve been (“I LOVE NY”), your job, your interests, your sense of humor, where you shop/your spending habits, etc. By shedding my clothes I could be me…and that means all the parts of me now. I want to go to a nude beach and walk around in the sun, letting it kiss the parts that are so white they look like a white bikini. I want to feel my drooping breasts bounce as I walk, and feel the muffin top I can’t get rid of jiggle. I want to feel the sand squish between my toes, and the salty air lift my hair so that the gray underneath sees the light of day. Most of all I want to feel weightless–not a mom, not a wife, not a teacher, not a daughter or sister or friend. Just me, the way I came into the world–a blank slate.
Ok, a much bigger blank slate.
So just imagine, all you soul-searchers out there just dying to be free of your life for a few minutes. It’s time to take them off. Walk around your house if you can’t go outside. Make sure the family isn’t there–this is definitely a by-yourself-thing. And you’re probably banking a lot of therapy hours for your kids already, so why add more?
Feel the air, open a window and stand just out of view–the breeze will still get you.
The best part of doing this is you can pay it forward by telling someone else about it. No post office fees, no badly-fitting dress to hem or take in.
Just you.
Naked.
Blank slate.
Subourbon Mom 