Category Archives: Fashion

Pretty Girls

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I turned the furnace on today; it’s been chilly and pouring rain -it even snowed in the mountains – and seems fitting, somehow, for the end of summer vacation.  Frankly, it’s a bit depressing.  But not as depressing as this:

This t-shirt was for sale at JC Penney – was, but not anymore.  Someone at JC Penney, after a public uproar, decided that girls sized 7-16 should probably not be advertising that they are too pretty for homework; something about their core values.  Regardless, the shirt was for sale, and someone, somewhere in the JC Penney corporation must have felt that it was at some point appropriate, just as someone at Old Navy decided that this shirt was appropriate for boys:

Similar idea, but without the public outcry, and also without the focus on physical appearance.  There’s the rub.  Celebration of idiocy and underachievement is socially acceptable, it seems, until we bring the cult of the pretty into the picture.

We like to at least give lip service to the idea that appearances don’t matter.  It’s what’s inside that counts – that is what I tell my children all the time, and of course it’s true – but also true is that appearances DO matter.  When I was in university studying economics, I read an academic article about how beautiful people earn more money, are promoted more often and more easily, and in general are afforded more advantages.  I was appalled, of course, I was outraged and angry, but I also knew that the restaurant in which I waitressed part-time would not hire anyone for their front-house staff who did not have a certain look.  Any applicants falling short of that would be considered for a job in the kitchen.

The ugly side to this is that pretty and smart are frequently considered to be mutually exclusive, as in the JC Penney shirt, or this one from Amazon:

If a grown, female mathematician was wearing this, I would consider it amusing in an ironic way, the same way I considered that guy wearing a Vagitarian t-shirt to be amusing in an ironic way.  But the thought of children wearing a shirt like this, children who see things in black and white and who may equate smart with ugly and therefore may be less inclined to strive for high academic achievements, the thought of that makes me ill.
There’s nothing wrong with being pretty, or striving to be pretty, but passing along the idea that pretty girls do not have to be responsible for homework, or math, or anything else requiring thought or effort, is pathetic.
The day I defended my master’s thesis, I had a celebratory lunch with several of my fellow grad students.  I had a 4.0 GPA, I studied all the time.  I prided myself on my work ethic.  As we sat in the lounge, I mentioned how exhausted I was.  A male student smirked at me and said “Why?  Did you sleep with the defence committee?  Is that how you get A’s?” 
It is possible to be pretty and do math.


T minus 7

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My husband has been away on a golf trip and yesterday I did something I haven’t done since my single-girl days: I had popcorn for dinner.  I announced it to the kids that we were going to have pancakes and popcorn for dinner, and that announcement was met with silent, nervous smiles.  “Do you mean, we’re going to have breakfast for dinner and THEN have popcorn later?” Jake ventured.  No.  I assured him that popcorn was on the menu, and there was some mild cheering, followed by “Okay, but you said we’re having pancakes too, right?  I mean, popcorn for dinner doesn’t really sound that HEALTHY.”

I’d feel much more smug about their health conscious attitudes if these weren’t the same children who would, if allowed, eat chicken fingers and fries daily for the rest of their lives.

It’s just one week until school starts and I feel somewhat compelled to cram as much fun as possible into the remaining days, and so yesterday we had a lovely day with friends at the local amusement park.  It was hot and sunny, the kids had a blast, and the day was only slightly marred by the disappointing “prize” won by Mark at the fishing game.  Instead of a hoped-for tiny, crappy stuffed animal, he won a pair of crappy, star-shaped glasses.  Much sadness followed, as well as a vow to never play the fishing game again.  Would that I could believe that.
It was unusually hot, and so the boys played in the sprinkler for hours after we got home.  I sat on the deck with a cold beer and watched them, thinking that this is truly the life.  There are times when being a stay-at-home mom can feel like some kind of sentence, but summer days like that are pure gold.

Speaking of gold, prior to my husband’s golf trip we took the boys for a day trip to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake; quite possibly the most beautiful area in the world, and one that we haven’t visited with kids before.  It was a great day, although it was much, much colder than the city.  Fortunately I had packed jackets.  I also packed my thirteen year old, heavy duty leather hiking boots.  My husband looked askance at them.  “We’re not really doing hard-core hiking”, he said “Why don’t you just pack some practical shoes?”  Um, because I have no practical shoes?  Perhaps it’s time to go shopping.

The magic is GONE

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I realize it was only a few short days ago when I was waxing melancholic about the end of summer, and how much I was going to miss the boys, and while that is still true in theory, the reality is that suddenly the children seem ready to go back to school.  Suddenly I am ready for the children to go back to school.  We have ten days left, and I plan on enjoying all of those days, but for the love of god, I am now ready for the regular school routine.  THE MAGIC IS GONE, people.  This may or may not have anything to do with my children suddenly becoming the world’s neediest children ever.  Mom, look, Mom, Mom, Mom, I drew a picture, Mom, Mom, it’s a picture of a roller coaster, Mom, Mom, Mom, do you like it?  Mom?  Mom?  Do you wish you could GO on that roller coaster?  Mom?  Mom?  Can I have a snack?  Can I have a treat?  Can I have a juice?  Mom?  Mom?  Can I play Starfall?  Can we play Go Fish?  Can we go bike riding?  Right now?  Mom?  Mom?  Are yetis and bigfoots the same exact thing?  I don’t think they are.  Do you think they are?  Mom?

Speaking of back to school, I bought the boys’ school shoes on the weekend.  Back to school shopping isn’t a big deal for me; in general I only really need to purchase shoes and pants with intact knees.  Although it’s August, and it has been an absolutely lovely summer – the best weather we’ve had for years – it is also the season to start thinking about snow pants and winter boots.  I do not like to be too far into September without snow pants and winter boots, just in case.  To that end, I have been browsing Sears online, as they have excellent snow pants and winter boots.  They also supply hours of amusement.  Did you know you can purchase machine washable bathroom carpeting?

Image from Sears.ca

Does the carpet match the (shower) curtains?  Why, yes, it does.

You can also purchase something called a Vibration Platform.

Image from Sears.ca

I don’t know what that is, but I’m sure it’s something great!

While browsing the fitness section, I discovered this:

Image from Sears.ca

I think this means the apocalypse is upon us.

Incredibly, there is an entire subsection in the women’s clothing section devoted to tunics.  Tunics, it seems, deserve a category all to themselves.  Thinking about this, it seems self-evident: a tunic, after all, is more than just a shirt.  It’s not a dress.  It’s nothing but a…tunic.  Still, does it or does it not seem amusing that there are so many tunics available for sale that they comprise an entire clothing category?

Speaking of Sears, my friend at Hodgepodge and Strawberries wrote about the Sears Wish Book.  If it seems early to be thinking about snow pants and winter boots, then it seems REALLY early to be thinking about Christmas, but her post filled me with nostalgia and happiness only obtainable through the Wish Book.  Sno-cone machines!  Gifts under $10!  Pajamas with matching slippers! 

I just wish I had a Wish Book.  Failing that, check out these images from the Wish Book published the year I was born:

This guy is bringing sexy back.  I think he grew that moustache specifically to tickle the ladies, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
Never underestimate the fashion influence that was Little House on the Prairie. 
The caption alone on this makes me feel a little insecure in my womanhood.  Sophisticated nightdressing?  I’m writing this wearing yellow pajamas with pink flowers on them.  I think I need some sophisticated nightdressing.  I think it would make me irresistable, in the sophisticated bedroom.  Perhaps I would also need a satin-like bedcover to go with the nylon nightdresses, in which case I had better do some shopping!

"That Time of the Month" Emotional Breakdown, and Cougars

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I saw Denzel Washington on a Letterman rerun, and he was talking about the difference between a house and a home, and how when your children move out it ceases to become a home and just becomes a house and at that point I teared up thinking of my empty nest that is coming in thirteen years or so.  Then I decided to watch a NYPD Blue rerun but accidentally chose an episode that featured a little boy who was abducted, sexually abused, and killed.  GAH!  Fortunately I remembered how the episode ended while I was only about fifteen minutes into it.  Eject!  Eject!  Unfortunately I remembered how the episode ended so I thought sadly about the white bird symbolically flying away at the end.  Then I had a dream in which I was infuriated with my husband, and so I woke up feeling infuriated with him, but unfortunately a) I couldn’t remember the substance of the dream so I couldn’t adequately express myself and b) it was just a stupid dream.
My esthetician is, as of this week, closing up her shop as she is changing careers.  I’m very happy for her but quite sad for myself.  It’s difficult to find a good esthetician; I have a hard time feeling comfortable lying there in my underwear for just anyone.  Probably just like everyone else on the planet, except maybe the Victoria Secret model I read about whose favourite hanging-around-the-house outfit is “panties”.  JUST PANTIES.  Imagine being the UPS guy for that house.  Is it me or does that seem totally odd?  Maybe it’s just me.  I could never be a nudist, primarily because I’m always cold and also ew.  Imagine sitting naked on a leather couch that someone else also sat on naked?  Ew.
Anyway, back to the travesty of my career-changing esthetician.  It’s difficult for me not to take this personally – she announced her decision to change careers around the same time as my varicose vein stripping.  I can’t help but wonder if my furry, post-surgery Yeti-like body drove her to it.  Intellectually, I’m fairly sure NOT, but emotionally….
I took the boys to the zoo in my endeavor to make the expensive zoo passes pay off, and I came across the following very fun “Guess What Animal I Am Based On My Paw Prints” answer:
Doesn’t it kind of make you wish you had a t-shirt with that printed on it? 

Random Complaints from a Deposed Princess

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I always knew this day would come, and here it is.  My family doctor is retiring, and for those of you who do not live in Canada, let me tell you that finding a family doctor – ANY family doctor, let alone a good family doctor – is a big problem.  My doctor has been practicing many years and so has many contacts in the medical community, he is calm and competent, not to mention that he has been my doctor for as long as I can remember.  Also, his office is five minutes from my house.  I had it so good for so long, and now I’m joining the masses of people without a physician, the people who have to go to walk-in clinics and emergency rooms.  I feel like a much pampered princess, suddenly deposed and made to live among the commoners, scrabbling for her own potatoes and whatnot.  Or like Sara in A Little Princess, one day wearing custom made frocks and enjoying a personal carriage and French-speaking maid, the next day banished to living in the attic, wearing only a too-small black dress and running errands through the rainy streets of London, being reprimanded by the cook and consuming only scraps of bread.     
Things could be worse.  The dog could have gotten skunked over the weekend, which was an actual worry of mine.  I took the kids up to my parents’ cottage and as I was relaxing on the deck with a drink, I noticed the world’s biggest squirrel walk across the driveway, only when I noticed its tail, I realized that the giant squirrel was in actuality a skunk!  Shortly after that the neighbour came by to mention that she had seen me walking the dog near the gardens on the gravel road, and that she thought she had better tell me that there was a nest of baby skunks in the aforementioned gardens.  Yikes!  Fortunately we made it home without having to give the dog a tomato juice bath, but run-ins with wildlife seemed to be on Barkley’s radar screen this weekend.  The world’s stupidest family of robins chose our yard to teach their baby birds to fly, which seems adorably precious and magical until one is faced with the fact of my gigantic fluffy dog who attacked and would have eaten our small feathered friend were it not for my frantic screaming and my husband’s collaring of the dog.  That would not have been the first bird that Barkley would have eaten.
Yesterday was a rare day in that it was hot – thirty degrees! – and sunny, with no wind.  It was the kind of day that divides the city’s population into two main groups: those who enjoy and celebrate the unusual summer temperatures, and those who complain incessantly about the unbearable heat, the heat that lasts less than two days at a time, IF THAT.  I belong to the first group and, despite my general adherence to the principle of ahimsa, I want to punch those in the second group in the face.  I took advantage of the heat to take the kids to the outdoor pool with a friend, and it was essentially the perfect afternoon, other than a couple of visuals that left me wanting to scrub out my eyes.  I’m no fashion maven.  I wear jeans and black sweaters ninety percent of the time.  I’m also all for self-expression and feeling good about yourself in your own skin.  However, the following are a plague on society: animal print speedos on anyone but especially on leathery old men, transparent-when-wet white bathing suits, especially in the middle of the afternoon in a pool filled with young children, and nipple rings.  Why?  Why?  WHY?
Maybe it’s just a mistake in judgement.  I came across the following Bob Ross “Joy of Painting” quote:
“You really cannot make a mistake here. And as you know, we don’t
make mistakes, we have happy accidents. We just have happy accidents.”
Perhaps those wearing them think that speedos, white bathing suits, and nipple rings are happy accidents, but NO.  I’m still going with plague on society here.


Yee-haw

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The rain that has been coming down since Monday has stopped, and, in the manner of mothers everywhere, I have just sighed with relief and shooed my children outside.  The noise level has been unbelievable around here.  We played Go Fish and the sounds emanating from my children were ear-shattering.  Mark dislikes “winning” games, and so we played Go Fish as a game in which we were rescuing animals; anyone getting a pair rescued the animals displayed on the cards.  It was like a cooperative, super-politically-correct version of Go Fish.  My friend asked me if saying Go Fish was verbatim from an animal-cruelty perspective, and in fact Mark DID make everyone say “Go Rescue” instead.

Jake continued to say Go Fish throughout the game.

It is not a coincidence that I am drinking a beer right now.  Not just because of the, to quote the Grinch, “Noise! Noise! Noise!”, but also because it’s Stampede week!  For those of you who are not familiar, Stampede is not just a rodeo/midway/excuse to come up with ever-more disgusting food products.  Doughnut burgers are a new thing this year, and I wish, I WISH I was joking about this.  A maple dipped doughnut is the bun.  Meat in the middle.  It makes me fear for society.

Speaking of fearing for society, I wonder if carnies still try to cop a feel while adjusting safety restraints.  Or is sexual harassment via midway entertainment so twenty years ago?  It’s hard to say. 

But Stampede is more than just that.  Stampede is ten days of drunken debauchery for a large percentage of Calgarians and those who may be visiting Calgary during this time.  Divorce lawyers are busy as bees in the weeks following Stampede, and pregnancy rates go up.  My own first born was conceived during a Stampede week, and so was almost every other baby in my prenatal class.  (My second born was conceived during the Christmas season, and September is also a busy time in the delivery room.  Was Mommy kissing Santa Claus?  Why yes, she was.)

More than that, Stampede is a time where bad fashion rears its ugly head.  This was especially apparent to me back in the days when I worked in an office.  Men with whom I had a professional relationship and who would normally be clad in khakis and golf shirts would come to work clad in tight Wrangler jeans and shirts with wolves on them.  Or sunsets.  Or eagles.  And the women!  My friend Rita wrote a brilliant piece on Stampede fashion and I cannot even attempt to replicate her accurate descriptions, and so I will just direct you to read the piece.  Hootchie Mama indeed, Rita, you hit the nail on the head.

Odds and Ends and a Royal Zoo Trip

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It has been a busy few days in the Boy House.  Last Thursday I found myself at the hair therapist’s without a book, and so I picked up People magazine to learn all about Bachelor Brad’s breakup with Emily.  Here’s the reason they broke up: Emily became jealous after watching the actual broadcast of The Bachelor – week after week she realized that Brad was romancing all the other women who were “vying for his love” and she didn’t feel special anymore – and the strain from watching her fiance get it on with other women wasn’t something Brad could “physically comfort her” about since they were not allowed to see each other in the months following the show’s taping.  Here’s a plan, people: if you want to actually have a healthy relationship, don’t go on a reality dating show.  I don’t know.  It’s just an idea.  I mean, if you want to be on the cover of People magazine talking about your failed relationship, well then, be my guest. 
The girl who shampooed my hair said, with regards to this Bachelor information, “I guess the show brought them together AND tore them apart!”  Very astute.
Speaking of breakups, I had a very awkward moment when I greeted a woman I hadn’t seen for a while by asking about her puppy.  Last I saw her she had a beautiful Lab puppy.  Wouldn’t you know, she and her boyfriend had broken up and now he has custody of the puppy.  I think next time I’m going to just stick with “Hi.”

Friday a friend and I decided to take our kids to the zoo.  The timing was not accidental – we had heard that Will and Kate were going to be visiting the zoo that day.  A chance to see the Duke and Duchess while also seeing wolves and Foggy the hippo?  Irresistible.  I have had an annual zoo pass since Mark was a baby, but I didn’t immediately renew it this year because the zoo has increased their prices considerably.  In the past four years, the price of childrens’ passes have more than doubled, and adult passes have almost doubled.  Plus, the zoo had eliminated free parking without purchase of an expensive pass.  One of the things I really hate about this city – besides the atrocious weather – is the cost of parking.  But I did eventually suck it up and purchase passes and – what do you know – we had a great day and it was well worth cost of admission.  Jake got to see Foggy and received his telepathic communication (“He said Hi Jake, I love you!” Jake informed me after staring at the hippo for some time).  Mark got to see his favourite Canadian wild animals although not, alas, a beaver.  We saw some active grizzly bears:

and some mascot grizzly bears, oddly enough.

Then we saw the royal motorcade!  Oh happy day!

And despite what it looks like, we were not creeping out in the bushes.  We were standing at the gorilla viewing area!
My husband asked why I find the royal couple so appealing, and I will tell you: they seem so HAPPY.  I really like seeing happy people, as opposed to those people who have little black clouds over their heads at all times.  Plus, I am coveting every single one of Kate’s outfits including her fabulous shoes.  Where would I wear them is another question.  The playground?  School drop-off?  THE ZOO?  Perhaps not.
This weekend I was at a yoga workshop which was both inspiring and exhausting, and so last night I found myself curled up on the couch, drinking wine and watching Sex and the City reruns.  Speaking of which, I have a recipe for cosmopolitans up at the cooking website.  Yes, the recipe of the week is a drink, but what can I say, it’s Stampede time in Calgary which is code for “a whole lot of drinking and debauchery”.  Festive AND appropriate!