Welcome!

I've finally decided that I am a writer - all the other things I do just pay the bills. Someone eloquent once said that if you do what you love, the money will follow. Well, let's just see about that.

RIP Aggie

RIP Aggie
Aggie was my fifteen-year-old cairn terrier - or maybe I should say I was her 55-year-old person! She was my faithful companion, spoiled rotten and I am still trying to figure out what to do without her.

Peter the Cat...

Peter the Cat...
This is Peter the gingersnap tabby! He's seven years old and has just been promoted to Peter the Very, Very Good. He is working his way up to Peter the Great...

Bee - the Cat Who Came From Somewhere Else...

Bee - the Cat Who Came From Somewhere Else...
Bee is Peter's buddy. He's eight years old and has made himself right at home. I guess cats really do come in pairs or sets of three!

And Jasper makes three!

And Jasper makes three!
Jasper is our new guy - the Cat From Another Place. He's four years old and we think he likes it here - so far, so good!

Buzz about...

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Mama and the blue bargain bras...

Ever have a memory just hit you from out of the blue (pun intended)?  I was folding laundry this morning - yes, actually folding it up! - and I remembered these awful blue bras I had when I was in high school.  It was the 1970s and I was not cool.  Not in the least.  I wasn't really a slave to fashion; all I cared about was marginally fitting in, since I really spent most of my time with my nose in a book.  Anyhow, my parents sent us to a private school with lots of rich kids and my nerdy self was pretty low on the social scale.  It didn't help that my mom, who sewed beautifully and made most of our clothes, had a fashion sense stuck in the 1950s - when she was in high school.  Mama didn't like t-shirts; therefore we were not allowed to wear t-shirts, or even like them, for that matter.  My wardrobe consisted mainly of peasant dresses, blue jeans and my mother's favorite: blouses from Grant's.  Most of these blouses were white or pastel colors.  I hated them, but it's hard to be picky when you don't buy your own clothes and you live with the queen of bargain hunters.  To make matters worse, I also come from a long line of well-endowed women.  My maternal grandmother and her sisters were all at least a 32DD - and my great-aunt who aspired to ice-skating fame was a 32F.  And so - most of my mother's lingerie purchases were based on support and durability.  God help the other women in line at a Playtex sale!  We wore Playtex 18-Hour bras until they were practically threadbare and then replaced with yet another model - always white.  My sister called them iron bras.  Well, one summer before school started, Mama took us to the JC Penney store downtown.  It was really sort of a JC Penney catalog outlet, but they had good prices on some pretty odd-lot merchandise.  Once, when shopping alone one day after school (I was supposed to be at my dad's office), I dared to spend part of my allowance on a pair of nylon hip hugger underwear with pink smiley faces; Mama was mortified and lectured me for days on how nice girls don't wear a) nylon panties, 2) hip hugger panties and D) underwear with smiley faces printed on them.  So my secretly rebellious self wore those things as often as possible - after all, it was my hard-earned dollar.  But I digress...  Hoping to find similar bargains on that back-to-school shopping trip, I couldn't wait to get to the store.  Suffice it to say that my excitement was short-lived when the only bargain to be found that day were three wretched, robin's egg blue MaidenForm bras in just my size.  Not a Playtex 18-Hour iron bra in sight.  My mother went on and on about how well these would hold up - both in terms of support and daily wear - and the die was cast.  I became the proud owner of three blue back-to-school bras.  And remember those blouses my mom was so fond of?  Well, these hideous blue bras on my pale as a ghost skin showed through everything.  Although my mother continually assured me that my unmentionables weren't noticeable, a lot of other people sure noticed them and made more than a few mentions of that fact.  I hated those damn blue bras and I prayed every day that they would just wear out and I could go back to a plain white iron bra.  Mama got her money's worth - those things lasted a whole school year and then some!   

2 comments:

  1. Oh, my. Isn't it amazing what we think of randomly?

    (You should have had a friend comment on the blue bra's visibility in your mom's presence. I bet she would have had you in a white one immediately.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Those were "lifetime" bras!!! You're still carrying them around! But, I laughed though every sentence. Mothers try so hard to do their very best, but have no idea how they are scarring us. I often wonder what stories my girl is going to someday be telling about me!!???

    ReplyDelete