Slippery Slope

My mommy and me, 1962

Forty plus years ago my mother said that “a lady” did not leave the house without a full face of makeup, especially lipstick, and her hair curled and styled, whether she was going to work, to religious services, or to any kind of social event.

Back then, my mom loved very feminine pretty dresses, under which she wore an industrial-strength pointy bra, a girdle, stockings, and a half or full slip, depending on the dress.

The slip served two related purposes: first, it prevented the outer garment from being clingy or see-through; and second, it provided a layer of modesty while sipping tea on Grandma’s sofa or standing over a subway grate in NYC. 

Nowadays, some women prefer their skirts to be see-through, and they may wear a bra by itself as a top with no blouse over it or a full slip as a dress.

One thing never changes throughout history, which is women being constantly subjected to criticism for their physical appearance ~ too fat, too thin, dowdy, slutty, mousy, matronly, trashy, not dressing “her age,” wrong color lipstick, overdressed, underdressed, on and on and on.

The saddest thing of all (imo) is that it’s almost always other women doing the judging and making the hurtful comments.

~*~

Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story (slip).

Reggae Hodgepodge

 

Image from Pixabay

I'm participating in this week's Hodgepodge, which is hosted by Joyce @ From This Side of the Pond. Before I start responding to the questions, since it's Memorial Day here in the USA, I want to take a moment to express gratitude toward anyone who has served our country. RIP. I am also grateful for the local fire departments and California statewide response to the toxic chemical tank situation in Garden Grove (about 5 miles from my place). The latest update is that, due to a crack in the tank, some of the pressure has been relieved, and the temperature of the methyl methacrylate has dropped. They said that the danger of a massive explosion has been eliminated, but there still could be a smaller one, so the evacuation order remains in place. Thankfully, I am outside that zone.

1. Do you like your name? Are you named after someone (grandparent, etc.)? If you have children how did you choose their names? 

I do not like my name. I don't care for girls' names that are boys' names with an A stuck on the end. It has always annoyed me, but least it's short and easy to spell. My parents were considering Pamela as well as Paula, and I wish they'd chosen Pamela. As far as my daughters' names, Diane was always my favorite, and Sharon was my ex's pick, which I liked. My big "thing" with them was to avoid the super-popular names and also anything weird. The names we went with were slightly out of fashion, yet everyone has heard of them (and can spell them).

2.  A piece of red velvet cake, a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a slice of blueberry pie? You can only have one...which will you choose? If you could pick any red, white, or blue dessert other than those listed here, what would you choose? 

Right now, it's pretty warm, so I'll go with the vanilla ice cream. Normally, I'm cold and would choose the RV cake and hot tea. I do love blueberry pie too. If I could choose my own patriotic-themed dessert, I'd pick strawberries and whipped cream.

3.  What's a job you'd like to try for just one day? 

None. I'm just waiting to retire from the one I have so I can blissfully ignore Outlook emails.

4. Any patriotic decor in your home currently or coming up this summer? 

No. My housemate and I don't decorate for any holidays. 

5. It's the end of May, so let's exercise our brains. Sum up your month with an acrostic using the word MAY. We can do it!!  

Migraines plagued me as usual; I've had better months, and I've had worse.
Anxiety dropped rapidly at the beginning of the month and returned for month-end work issues.
Yummy meals included a high tea luncheon in San Juan Capistrano with my friend Lisa and a veggie quesadilla in Dana Point with my daughter Diane and her husband Sam.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Today I'm going to a reggae concert with friends and am wearing reggae colors because I like themes: a long yellow tee-shirt top and beaded/ flower bracelets in yellow, black, green, and red. I'm also wearing a beaded necklace in those colors with a "queen" pendant that I fashioned out of one of the earrings that came with the accessories package. I can't wear long dangling earrings because of my paper thin earlobes, so I improvised. I saved the other earring for Lisa, but I don't know if she'll want it. 

Yellow (April A2Z ~ Misty Memories)

 

My mom, my daughters, and me, around 1996

Welcome to my April A2Z posts! This time, I am officially signed up on the challenge sheet and will be visiting other bloggers on the list. My theme is "misty memories," which will include a bunch of rambling about old stuff in my life, and hopefully some of it will be accurate, but if not, there's no one around to contradict me. Today we continue with Y for Yellow on the penultimate day of the challenge!

When I was little, I didn't like yellow, orange, red, or pink. I loved blues, greens, and purples, in all their various shades. I liked to combine blues with browns, as this reminded me of the earth and sky, the sand and sea. I even had light blue glasses frames for a while. My first serious office job at age 18 required an update to my wardrobe, but I didn't have much cash, so I bought all mix-matched items in blues and browns, with coordinating shoes. Of course, this was February in Chicago, so it was all covered up in a big huge coat, scarf, and boots until Spring. 

Fast-forward to (a) California and (b) motherhood. I discovered leggings... in a rainbow of colors! It was fun to match with my girls sometimes, and also I began a hobby of painting tee shirts. For a while, I thought I could turn it into a business, but it would have been like Lucy's salad dressing, if you know what I mean (supplies costing more than the product price). Luckily, before that happened, I ended up with carpal tunnel syndrome from painting all day because I became a wee bit obsessed. Anyway, it was fun for several months, and we all ended up with a bunch of unique shirts in vivid colors. Even my mom got into the act.

The main takeaway here is that I discovered I loved all the colors, especially lime green, hot pink, and sunflower yellow. I even did my kitchen over in a sunflower theme because they were so cheerful and pretty. As the 1990s came to a close, and I started working at a law office, my daughters convinced me that perhaps it was time to retire the lime green leggings and hot pink tees. (Not to mention all the boots and shoes in kooky colors.) That made sense at the time. I rediscovered blue and brown, added in black and beige, a smidge of cheetah, and that was my admin “uniform.” 

Sometimes I sneak in a pop of yellow or pink to liven things up though. And on weekends, anything goes!

Fashion (April A2Z ~ Misty Memories)

Party dress?

Welcome to my April A2Z posts! This time, I am officially signed up on the challenge sheet and will be visiting other bloggers on the list. My theme is "misty memories," which will include a bunch of rambling about old stuff in my life, and hopefully some of it will be accurate, but if not, there's no one around to contradict me. Today we continue with F for Fashion.

I have never been fashionable, but things were even worse when I was a child. First, I had to get glasses at age six, which made me look like a total dork (I grew to like them eventually, but that's beside the point). Second, I was chubby until age 11 or so back when kids were skinny. Third, my mom liked to make clothes for me on her sewing machine, and they were certainly nothing like what other kids wore. Everyone wore jeans, but my mom called them "dungarees" and said they were suitable only for working on a farm or doing other manual labor (she came from a farm in Ohio originally). I had bunches of homemade dresses and elastic waist pants like an old lady. It's no wonder I was mocked relentlessly. Besides the weird clothes my mother made, I was partial to purple tights and white "go go" boots. OMG.

One series of outfits I remember very well. My mom found a pattern for this one-piece shorts thingie, with a skirt on top. Sort of like "culottes," I guess, but the skirt wasn't attached. I guess that was too advanced? Not to knock my mom's sewing; she was very good. Anyway, we'd pick out fabrics, and for some reason, we liked "seersucker," this oddly textured cotton material. So, I would end up in a striped one-piece with a skirt in a complementary color tied around my waist. 

I have a clear recollection of going to the circus on a fifth grade school trip (New Jersey) wearing a light blue striped seersucker jumper overlaid with a red skirt. Horrible! Anyway, I remember eating cotton candy for the first time and hating it. I also recall having feelings about the animals and thinking it was wrong that they were made to perform. I didn't say anything though. I usually avoided communicating deep feelings because no one understood me, and I felt weird enough already.

Around age 11 (strange how so many life-changing events happened at this age), I grew taller and began watching my calories. I wouldn't say "counting" at this point, but I became aware of which foods items were particularly fattening, and I was increasingly aghast at my parents' terrible eating habits (they were both very overweight). Now I could wear "normal" clothes like other kids and look good in them, so my mom relented and bought jeans for me. I ditched the boots in favor of Converse sneakers. Unfortunately, I had been in the habit of wearing "blazers" (suit type jackets) as opposed to normal sweaters and jackets for kids, and I continued doing this for a while. When I moved to Illinois, I was completely harassed for the blazers, so I quit wearing them.

Throughout high school, I mostly wore jeans and normal tops, and no one bothered me.

Today's TToT

I'm participating in Ten Things of Thankful today. Thanks to Missy for hosting and also to Di for making me aware of the challenge. This will probably be my last post before the A2Z challenge, which will begin on Wednesday, as I am expecting to be super busy at work tomorrow and Tuesday.

1. My daughter and SIL drove up for lunch yesterday.

2. I finally got to try Slice House pizza, which was delicious.

3. I did some office work at home over the weekend so Monday won't be as crazy.

4. My weirdly chapped lips are finally getting a little better.

5. This weekend my migraines abated to a tolerable level without sumatriptan.

6. Inky (my cat) has been extra cuddly.

7. We had a fun book club Teams meeting this afternoon.

8. DSW sent a $5 coupon for my birthday month (April).

9. My friends are planning a birthday party for me later next month.

10. I have written and scheduled the A2Z challenge posts through R.

"I Don't Like New Things"

The title is a self-quote from my Happy Hearts post. I'm allowed to quote myself, am I not? That line sounded a bit petulant on a reread, not to mention less than true. I like new clothes. I like new books. I like new... um, hmm, there must be a third thing. Rule of threes! Do shoes count as clothes? Yesterday I ordered new ankle boots for spring, in blush. (That's light pink for any guys reading.) I also bought a blush purse and matching wallet because I'm tired of black. Actually, I've only just returned to my black purse after using a mini turquoise backpack ~ I was going to the fair or the beach or something, switched to the backpack, and was too lazy to switch back. Every day as I grabbed the backpack on my way out the door to work, I thought, ugh, I should go back to a purse, but then at night I was too tired to deal with it. This situation went on for months. Welp, now it's over, and the black purse has returned... until it's time to change over to blush. When will that be? Idk. May or June, I suppose.

When I said I didn't like new things, I was referring mainly to new movies and television shows, most of which I do not enjoy. There are exceptions, of course. I loved the Bob Dylan movie A Complete Unknown, and, as I mentioned last post, the Anatomy of a Scandal six-episode show on Netflix was great. Mostly though, I start new (to me) movies and quickly lose interest. This weekend I was sick ~ at first I thought it was the stomach "flu" (one of the viruses that's going around), but my symptoms didn't really fit those profiles, so now I think my tummy is simply going through one of its periodic rebellions against high fat food and NSAIDs. I stayed home from work Friday, and since then have been bingeing on old favorites, such as the Mamma Mia movies, You've Got Mail, Miss Congeniality, etc. Soon I'll probably rewatch 27 Dresses and When Harry Met Sally too. And the musicals!

I also read two Victoria Holt romance novels over the weekend: The Return of the Gypsy and Midsummer's Eve. These are part of the "Daughters of England" series, and if I had been smarter, I would have begun with the first one, not in the middle, but it's too late now, so I will keep reading them at random. I remembered Gypsy as being one of my VH favorites, and it definitely was enjoyable but not as great as I thought it was 30+ years ago. I am pickier now, I guess. I gave it four stars for excellent character development and pacing, and I gave three to Midsummer, which had a great plot twist but otherwise was a bit tedious. One of the things that irks me just a tiny bit about the VH books now is that the protagonist will spend page after page obsessing over every nuance of a relationship, conversation, or situation, but the endings are very abrupt. It's like, OK, I've decided on this guy, boom. Hey, wait a sec! There were other things going on!

The VH stories excel at showing the many facets of human nature however ~ usually no one is all good or all bad but a mix of traits, which makes them seem more real than the characters in contemporary romance novels. This complexity also drives the plot in ways that are both surprising and earned. The protagonists’ moments of epiphany are universally relatable even 200 years later. Technology may have advanced, but human nature remains the same.

I'm feeling better tonight, so hopefully my week will go well. Work is very busy. More soon!