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Monday at the Arboretum….oh, and the BUGS!

Emily
“Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees,
then names the streets after them.”- Bill Vaughan
Today we gathered everyone up and took a trip to the Morton Arboretum in the western suburbs of Chicago. There was a special exhibition there of gynormous bugs made from wood. They were beautiful…here are some of them…
Jeff (my youngest)eats the praying mantis before it gets him! (A little photo trickery never hurt anyone, now did it?)

A bee made from wood….
Waterlillies just like the ones Monet had been inspired by…

How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!- – – Isaac Watts “Divine Songs”

“The wonder is that we can see these trees

and not wonder more.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragonfly…

Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky.”

– Dante Gabriel Rossetti “Silent Noon”

“Tree at my window, window tree,

My sash is lowered when night comes on;

But let there never be curtain drawn

Between you and me.” – Robert Frost

“As a thinker and planner, the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts, she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized!”– “What is Man? by Mark Twain



The spider’s touch, how exquisitely fine!

Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.

– – – Alexander Pope

my boys, Drew, Jeff & Scott


And see the peaceful trees extend
their myriad leaves in leisured dance—they bear
the weight of sky and cloud upon the fountain
of their veins.
– Kathleen Raine, Envoi

These photos were taken by my soon to be 16 year old daughter, Caroline. She wants to major in photography in college-Good call, don’tcha think?

bliss, Jamie Lee Curtis, retail therapy, Target

Retail Therapy Sunday

Emily

Today was one of those perfect days. I woke up early, had my fresh cup of coffee and headed out to Super Target for some groceries. As I shopped, I managed to figure out a delicious menu for today’s dinner. While I was miandering throughout the store looking for good clearance deals, I stumbled upon some beautiful melamine-style bowls in the happiest shade of sunny yellow. They even had a French print around the inside top. I was smitten and had to grab 6 of them. They were only $1.98 each. What can I say? They made my heart happy-I was a bit breathless at the site of them. This was one of those days I couldn’t rationalize myself out of a purchase. Luckily, it was a ‘cheap’ thrill! I also picked up a matching platter and one lone plate that was the same sunny yellow as the bowls. I tend to be a rescuer of orphaned dinnerware, so the fact that there weren’t any others to go with it didn’t bother me at all….I just placed it in the cart and headed for the checkout lane. After I paid on my way out, a Target associate stationed at the exit was giving away free samples-or should I say free pints of ice cream. I took two….what a great treat! The flavors were a bit exotic, they were two new ones by Archer Farms-Sea Salt Pretzel with Carmel and Espresso Chocolate. Their names might explain why they were free, but I’ll see for myself when we eventually get to taste testing them.

I got home with my lovely new dishes and promptly removed the price tags and labels and washed them. I made a spot for them in the cupboard. Do any of you have this same feeling of bliss, brought on by new kitchen stuff? There’s something about those dishes that just made me want to make an attractive, simple meal and serve it up in the new bowls. And that’s just what I did. I got my entire kitchen cleaned up, shiny happy and looking new. The sun was out today, the temperature perfect and I felt great. Goes to show you that a little retaill therapy can be an actual mood enhancer.

I hit the gym and for 1/2 hr. exercised on the elliptical. Maybe I was full of endorphins and those, mixed with the new melamine, set my heart a blaze….I don’t know. My shower felt good, I jumped into some new clearance clothes nabbed at Old Navy the other day. I just feel happy-even still. I ended my day on a cozy spot on my sofa watching my beloved Cub’s sweep the rotten Chicago White Sox 3 games…..it was a glorious end to a glorious day. Hmmm….what will tomorrow bring?
p.s. Get your MORE magazine for July. I want to write about Jamie Lee Curtis. She has totally inspired me. You have to read the article on her. She is such a cool, together and smart lady.
father's day

My Father’s Eyes…

Emily

My father and I…just the way I loved it.

…were the most incredible shade of pale blue-like ice crystals. I’ll never forget them. When my father was terminal with cancer, I remember sitting across the table from him engaged in conversation. I told myself, “Remember those beautiful eyes, Em. Never forget how they look.”

It’s been 26 years since I last saw my father. He was a short, handsome guy who was partially bald. He was the most fantastic man. Everyone loved him and he had many friends. He could fix anything, and he loved to garden. The little Chicago city lot next to our house was always abloom with the most gorgeous shades of color bursting from his rows and rows of dahlias and gladiolas. And he adored me-I was the proverbial ‘daddy’s girl.’ There were times when he was moody. For instance, I could tell how the day was going to go depending on the tone he used to say “good morning” when I greeted him in the kitchen. And when I assisted him in small jobs he always managed to lose his temper because I inadvertently didn’t do something right, but now I look back at those times with a smile. I was kind of dopey! What I do know more than anything is that he loved me and for that, I’ll be forever grateful. I don’t think I’d be the person I am today if I didn’t grow up with his love and encouragement. One thing I didn’t think would ever happen is that I’d lose him. As a little girl, I thought my dad was immortal.

There isn’t a day that has gone by since July 24th, 1982 that I don’t think of him. I was 18 when he died, and now, as a 45 year old woman there are still times when I’m sad and in a funk and long for him. I wish he were here to give me advise, hug my children or just see my accomplishments. I would have loved if he had the chance to have a wonderful relationship with my husband and it would have been interesting if we had the chance to watch each other grow older.

Dad, where ever you are, I hope you have the happiest Father’s Day. I hope you have the chance to be with us even though we can’t see you. Please, never stop looking down on me with those beautiful baby blues. I miss you more every day and love you more than a thousand sunsets-even still.

comfort box, Jennifer Louden, vacation, Woman's Comfort Book

What’s in your comfort box?

Emily

A few years back, I read somewhere about the concept of a ‘comfort box.’ I liked to think of this ‘box’ as something to bring with on vacation and it would hold a plethora of my favorite items that reminded me of home or of who I was. It would be relatively small and wouldn’t take up a lot of space. The box would contain some of my favorite things, and it didn’t matter if the items within were inexpensive or costly. What mattered is how those things made me feel when the lid opened and their contents was revealed. Did just looking at these objects-touching them and smelling or tasting them console me or send me back to a place that warmed my heart? As you can imagine, no two person’s comfort boxes would be alike. Does this sound like it would be a personal essential now that I’ve brought it up?

Here’s another thought. Could this box of items fall under the same category of the types of things you’d quickly gather if you had 3 minutes to grab as many items as you could on your way out the front door of your burning house? It could be, I suppose. But since this is vacation season, let’s think for a moment about creating a vacation comfort box. Jennifer Louden is the author of The Woman’s Comfort Book. Here she also mentions her version of a comfort box.

I believe my comfort box (or Travel Train Case) would contain the following: A favorite book, a small, handmade cloth doll, some yarn in a delicious color and feel, knitting needles, my green IPod Nano with earphones, some photographs of my kids or my cats, a candle or two and a book of matches, a box of green tea and some Splenda, some Fannie May Trinidads, a deck of cards, some lovely pens and a journal book, a fat quarter of shabby chic or Amy Butler fabric, a small vial of each of my favorite fragrances, (Lovely by Sarah Jessica Parker, Philosophy Amazing Grace and Mark Jacobs Daisy), my favorite little Tascha painting, a sachet of fresh lavender and a bottle of Valerian, a fabulous natural herb that brings on the most blissful sleep, oh, and lastly, a photo of my father.

Are you thinking about bringing a box of comfort on your next trip away? What items would you put in yours? Let us know. Leave a comment and give us some ideas of your favorite comfort items.

Uncategorized

Languid

Emily

I’m tired of:

Begging and cajolling two boys to shower (occasionally) and change their clothes and brush their teeth every day.

Mollycoddling everyone-mostly my kids. Would someone please bend over backwards for me?

Letting the dogs out.

Feeding the cats.

Answering the fugging phone for the umpteenth time, only to hear a robot on the other end trying to sell me a mortgage or warranty for my car.

Trying to lose weight.

Exercising.

Teenagers in my house on a daily basis.

Noise.

Hearing the TV run day and night.

Not being able to focus.

Feeling unfulfilled.

Doing housework-it never stays clean.

The same old vacation we take year after year. YAWN- I want something different.

The bursitis in my hip hurting.

Not seeing or hearing from my girlfriends.

Hypercritical people.

Over analyizers..

Opinionated people

Materialism.

Shitty neighbors.

Making excuses.

Being tired.

bursitis, dieting, exercising, girlfriends, Sex and the City Movie

Just a few things….

Emily

First things first. Last Friday, I went with a friend to see Sex and the City the MOVIE. I don’t think I have enough positive adjectives in my vocabulary to describe it. Fantastic. Awesome. Amazing. Fabulous-you get it by now, I’m sure. If any of you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it. I thought it was perfect, and it exceeded my expectations of what I thought this movie would be like. It was, “Like butta,” as Linda Richmond on SNL’s Coffee Talk would say. I liked it so much, I’m going to take the girls in my family-my 16 year old daughter, and my 2 sons’ girlfriends to a Saturday matinee to see it. I can’t wait!

OMG…and before I forget, remember a few posts ago when I wrote about the ridiculous price of clothing worn by models for magazine fashion spreads? Do you recall the yellow sundress worn by Christie Brinkley that I love so much? THAT dress, is in the movie! There’s a scene towards the beginning where Carrie is in a Diane Von Furstenberg store shopping and she’s talking on the phone, standing by a mannequin that is wearing that exact sundress. Wow!

*****
Today I was zinging old magazines in the garbage, but I first spent time paging through them in search of interesting blog fodder. I came upon a 12 year old women’s magazine called New Woman. Before I tossed it, I ripped out a little mini article titled “Friendship is Fattening.” The paragraph states that when women (girlfriends) gather, waistlines usually expand. Turns out when we chat we also chew-particularily sweets and other goodies high in calories. Seems women in pairs or groups consume around 700 calories-nearly twice the amount downed by women who ate alone. The research was conducted on college women at the University of Toronto. Despite the drawbacks of overconsuming, really, what’s better than food, friends and frivolities? To hell with research studies. I’m tired of denying myself!

Watch what you order girls, next time you do lunch with a friend. Stick to the salad.

Now this whole diet thing is really pissing me off. Sorry to sound so surley, but I’m beginning to feel self -defeated. I’ve had to stay off of exercise because I have a bad case of bursitis in my left hip. Wonderful. It seems like everytime I try to exercise to help myself, my body turns against me. When I finish, after a week or so my joints begin to crack, pop and hurt. Besides my throbbing hip, my left shoulder joint is really causing me some major discomfort when I workout, too. Despite my defeatest feelings (and the fact that while walking from my son’s graduation last Saturday, my husband told me my butt and my stomach were getting bigger-AACK!), I won’t give up. I am now going to focus more on the calories going in…and the bread factor. I need to give up bread. I described my level of bread-love most accurately to my daughter the other day. Here’s the order: God, family, bread & butter. There, you have it. Not one of the three would be easy to give up, hence my dilemma. I like bread more than cupcakes-and that’s saying something. I was a good girl today. I ate an Italian beef sandwich for lunch-open face an consumed only a tiny portion of the bread. I fed 3/4 of the roll to my salivating dalmation. After all, he doesn’t care about carbs, and he downs it so fast, I don’t have time to change my mind and take the bread back. I feel good watching him eat it because I know I did a good thing for myself by not swallowing that horrible, delicious bun, soggy with beef juice. What carb challenges will tomorrow bring?
To wrap this up, I have some thoughts on the Lunching With Friends Expanding Waistline Theory. Although being with my girlfriends may be bad in a sense that it will make me fatter, the trade off is that being with them is good for my heart. That, in itself is a benefit we can all stand to reap.
bicycles, gas prices, Hundai Sonata, Jodi Foster, retro bicycles, Toyota Prius

Scheming and Strategizing and trying to Cope

Emily


Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve really become bothered by the high gas prices. I know everyone else has, too, but usually when stuff in the economy like this happens, I tend to ignore it. It’s really difficult to ignore this one. We own a Chevy conversion van (with 7 of us, it’s the only thing that will hold us and all our crap when vacation time rolls around), a couple weeks ago, I went to the gas station to fill it up and it cost me $100! I paid $4.01 a gallon, and a week later, I had a 1/8th of a tank left and went by the same station and the price per gallon had gone up to $4.16. That’s a .15 increase over 7 days!

Since then, I’ve had a windfall of car repairs done on my aging jeep and then on our hand me down Lincoln. All that cost me $1600. I’m not here giving you all a rundown on money I’ve spent just to bore you, really-I’m trying to make a point here with my divulging. All I’m thinking about as I’m forking over this money to Ed, my mechanic, is “Em…you really need to buy a new, more economical car that gets waaaay more miles to the gallon.” Suddenly, I’m paying attention to car commercials, and overnight I begin to desperately want a new Hundai Sonata for $17K that gets 32 miles to the gallon. But wait! I heard just last night from a car fanatic that the best car by far to buy for the miles per gallon quality is the Toyota Prius-a hybrid. Yes, that’s what I want, a Prius! Jodi Foster has one of those. She’s a really smart cookie so that must mean I’ll be making a smart decision if I buy one of those. (No, Blondie, she’s just got a buttload more money than you!) OKAY. Deep breath here….and back to reality. It’s a fun fantasy to think I can go out and get a new car, but the reality of the situation is I’m in a partnership here and my husband just isn’t going to let me go out and offhandedly buy a new car. But when I start to add up all this money that’s flying out the window for used car repairs, I wonder if a new car for that money is what I’d rather have instead.

But, since I’m not going to get a new car anytime soon, I’m beginning to think about what I will do if gas prices go much higher. My first thought is using a bike for all my little errands to the bank, or to drop off my husband’s employee’s paychecks. His office is only about 2 miles away, and I could use the bike for that. I’m imagining if I ditched the car and took up pedalling, how thin I would be after a few short months. I could use the car for just grocery shopping and employ the bike for all the other incidental trips I usually make.

Maybe I’ll need to compartmentalize my trips into one per week where I hit the post office, library and bank in one trip instead of making the spontaneous almost daily trips I usually do, going where-ever pretty much when-ever I need to.

Yes, this gas thing really is a bit frightening to me. But, I do believe I’m capable of living much more simply than I have been, which may benefit me in the long run and will help me weather what I hope will be a temporary economic crisis. I’ll stay home more, and find pleasures within my home and neighborhood instead of seeking fun farther away. I realize how much money I will save by not driving past the stores I usually stop in and end up plunking down a wad of cash for a cartful of crap I really don’t need. I suppose this gas thing could end up being a blessing in disguise. Maybe I can get my whole family involved in cycling, not just for fun, but out of necessity. Evidently, there’s a silver lining in this whole unfortunate gas crunch-that is if you look hard enough to find it.

I love the thought of gliding through the neighborhood on one of those wonderful, retro-look bikes that are so popular now. I relish the thick tires and the wicker basket over the handle bars. I still have the vintage Schwinn Breeze bike my dad purchased from a neighbor’s garage sale back when I was in high school. It’s red and needs some work, but I’ll bet, it just might cost a whole lot less than having that Jeep repaired. And as much as I’d love to have a red Prius, for now, I think I’ll settle for the red bike instead. Maybe with all this gas money I’m saving, I’ll have enough after a couple years to buy that new car.

What will you do to overcome this gasoline price hike? I’d love to hear your thoughts….
death, girlfriends, mothers and daughters, Mr. Big, Sex and the City

Girlfriends, cherish your time together

Emily

Mr. Big to Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte: “You’re the loves of her life and a guy’s just lucky to come in fourth.”

Big, of course, understood, (even if it was ficticious), that a woman’s friends are everything to her, especially as we get older and more independent. Sometimes, in some ways, more important than our love relationships with our men. We turn to our friends when things go wrong with our love relationships, our jobs or with other friends. Our girlfriends are our confidantes. Only a few friends of mine know EVERYTHING about me-secrets that I would faint over it they became public knowledge-Things I couldn’t hold in-but just had to get out. My truest friends are like living, breathing vaults. What I tell them gets stored safely and kept from being revealed. At my age, when I get stressed about things, and just can’t take them anymore, calling my mother is not what I prefer. Instead, I think about unloading on my girlfriends because I know they will always listen and won’t be parental. We encourage eachother to talk, divulge, and lend our shoulders to cry on and in some way, we kind of enjoy it. We are eachother’s therapist. I love my friends deeply and with all my heart. They know who they are. I look forward to being with them as much as I can, and treat my monthly gatherings like religious events-they’re not to be missed. Because being with the girls is important in keeping a woman’s soul content. It’s necessary for the health of my mind and my well being. Without them I’d be forever lost.

———————————–
My mom called me in the middle of the day last Wednesday with a pleading tone in her voice. “Would you please pick me up today and take me to the hospital to see Dorothy-she’s taken a turn for the worse, and they don’t think she’ll make it through the night.” Dorothy is my mom’s friend of 30 years and she is dying of lung cancer. I knew my mom had no way to get to the hospital on her own, because she has a difficult time seeing when she drives. I had so much to do that day-a doll to make for a Mother’s Day order and I was dug in and on a roll and I didn’t want to leave because I had a strong desire to finish and get it mailed out. But, more than wanting to finish that doll, I had a knawing feeling that I was the only way my mom would get to see Dorothy while she was still alive and I didn’t want to be the reason why she was denied that right, particuliarly since I was basically available and able to do it. I knew this was important to her, so I agreed to take her to the hospital.

While in the car travelling to the hospital, my mom reflected on her years of friendship with Dorothy and, through tears, told me Dorothy is her only girlfriend and she will be so lost without her. My mom is going to be 80 in November and Dorothy just turned 71. My mom kept saying, “I never thought I’d be seeing this day-I thought she would be burying me. Why does God take the good ones?” I really didn’t know what to say, so instead, I just lent an ear to her painful memories.

We got to the hospital and didn’t know what to expect, because she hadn’t seen Dorothy since before she got diagnosed with cancer just before Easter. With trepidation, we entered the room and saw Dorothy lying in the bed, asleep with her mouth wide open and drawn in, and she was beginning the shallow type of breathing called ‘chain stoking, which is characteristic of impending death. I recognized it from going through this when my mother-in-law was dying of cancer. They can hear you, all you have to do is go up to them and say their name and they open their eyes for a few seconds and acknowledge you then go back into what seems a semi-coma.

The tears came quickly for my poor mom. She absolutely hated seeing her best friend lying there helpless and ready to die. She just kept saying, ”What am I going to do without her? She’s my only girlfriend.” It tore my heart out listening to her. I imagined the future and being in her shoes. What if it was one of my precious girlfriends lying there dying? I would be absolutely besides myself with grief. My friends are so important to me-now more than ever in my life, I have needed them like a daily dose of vitamins. What is my mom going to do?

I urged her to go by Dorothy’s side and talk to her-to let her know she’s there and that she should tell her the things she wants her to know before she passes. This was her only chance. She stood there, stunned, tears running down her wrinkled cheeks. All she could do was gently and lovingly rub her friend’s arm from elbow to wrist, incapable of saying a word. “Mom,” I encourged, “Talk to her. She can hear you.”

“Dorothy…it’s Ann. I’m here. I love you.” Dorothy very briefly awoke, nodded her head and told her, very weakly that she loved her, too. Oh, my God, it was so sad. Tears welled up in my eyes and it was all I could do to keep from crying, but I had to be strong for my mom.

We sat there for a few hours and watched her rest. I sat at the foot of her bed and watched Dorothy’s chest rise and fall, and I could see her heart beating through her hospital gown. Her poor heart was working as hard as it could, but soon, very soon, it would beat it’s last. Her breaths were distant and long, and I found myself breathing in time with her. I felt short of breath because her breathing rhythm wasn’t enough for me to sustain myself comfortably. I imagined if that’s what dying felt like. (Trust me. In a quiet room with a dying person, there’s not much to do and your imagination can run away with you.) Each breath was followed by the next in what seemed like an eternity. She appeared to be gasping for air because she was only breathing with one lung-the other was full of cancer and wasn’t functioning. As she lay there, I got fearful, and kept thinking she was going to die right in front of me. I watched her and thoughts flooded my mind of when she was healthy-she was so funny, and full of life. She and my mom were both career waitresses. Dorothy had just quit working less than a year ago. These women both worked hard their entire lives and had a real commonality. They understood eachother. They confided in eachother, cried together, and shared laughter and joys. It was all about to come to an end.

The nurse came in and asked Dorothy if she wanted her to call her daughter from Pennsylvania, and she slowly nodded her head yes, and said very stongly, “I love her!” I won’t ever forget that. I plan on telling her daughter Diana what she said. I know it will make her feel good.

My mom called me yesterday and told me Dorothy passed at 7am while her priest was praying over her. She died peacefully and with God. Now my mom is friendless and my heart truly aches for her. What is she to do? She’s almost 80, and it’s probably too late for her to make new friends, at least the the kind with deep bonds of trust that’s shared between two women that only comes after a long time of sharing and caring. After 45 years of life together, my mom and I have the same elements of a friendship, hewn from decades of familiarity, and from weathering difficult stages of life together, finally popping to the surface in one piece and still loving eachother. We see eachother as equals now. I’m still ‘the kid’ but in some ways, my mom is now seeing me as a confidante-a friend. I find myself turning to her at times of stress. I love her. I enjoy her company. It’s time for me to step up to the plate and take her under my wing. My mother needs a friend now and that friend is me.

lipstick, makeup, Revlon Colorstay

Lipstick #1 in the makeup bag…

Emily


Yes, I’ve found it to be true. Lipstick is my friend. There was a time when I never wore it-I thought it made me look older. Heck, during high school, the most attention my lips ever got was a quick slick from a big ole’ Bonnie Bell strawberry lip gloss. But never lipstick. Now, 30 years later, I can’t live without it. If I don’t have it on, my lips look pale, naked and very unkissable. And we can’t have that, now can we?
My favorite lipstick of all is Revlon Colorstay. It lasts all day, and it’s usually still on my lips the next morning when I wake up. This stuff is incredible. My favorite shades I wear all the time are Bare Maximum and Sheer Pomegranite. I have a few other shades I love, but these are the colors I like to wear most of all. This lipstick brings a pop of color to my face, makes my lips look very sensuous and helps me feel a little put together. Some lip color and a good face cream with some SPF in it does me good until later when I can put on some Bare Minerals power foundation and some blush. A little mascara and voila! I’m good to meet anyone on the street.

Is there one makeup essential you can’t live without? Let me know what it is.
Christie Brinkley, fashion, MORE Magazine

A bone to pick with fashion magazines…

Emily

Click on each photo to enlarge…



Yellow is the trendy, delicious surprise color this season. I think this sundress is fabulous, but, alas, at these prices, I may have to fashion one for my self by hand on my trusty sewing machine.

Okay. Maybe I’m being ridiculous or it’s very possible I just don’t get it. Why do fashion magazines, with the exception of Vogue or Harpers Bazar, put clothing on their models that are so outrageously expensive, most mainstream women can only dream of owning them, much less actually can go out and purchase these garments for themselves?

Here’s my beef. I am devouring my new May issue of More, (my very favorite women’s magazine) and I come upon this fabulous spread featuring Christie Brinkley in a combination interview/fashion show. She’s beautiful, we all know it, and at 56, she’s unbelievably fabulous looking. All well and good. Okay, so I am completely turned on to the yellow sundress, and immediately start coveting it for myself. Where can I find it, and how much is it? I read the small print that gives the clothing facts, and I’m floored-but not surprised. The dress is a Diane Von Furstenberg, and the price is a whopping $385! Wait, it gets better. The shoes she’s wearing with that sunny yellow number are $595! See that gorgeous yellow jacket she’s wearing in the closup on the opposite page? That is really something, isn’t it? Couldn’t you just see yourself going somewhere important in that baby? Well, you can’ t have it-and you know why? Because it’s $1715!!!

Let’s move on a bit more, shall we? Next page-see that adorable raspberry jacket that fits her like a glove? I’d give a a thick lock of my hair for that, even though it probably doesn’t come in plus sizes, and even if it did, it wouldn’t look like that on me-but hey, I’d love to have it anyway. This jacket, according to small print adjacent to the photo is a Burberry (you know it’s unobtainable already, don’t you?)Prorusm (huh?) neoprene scuba trench. Yes, you read right, it’s a scuba coat-whatever. So do you love it enough to pay $2995? No, I didn’t forget the decimal point, it’s almost 3 thousand dollars. You can have a really state of the art refrigerator for that kind of money. Oh, and underneath, peeking out is a white, Ralph Lauren tank for a bargain price of $88. Geezzzze!

You get my point, I’m sure. Of course, these prices are a pittance for really wealthy people, but I know damn well, the vast majority of women reading these magazines are mainstream, middle class gals with a few wealthy women peppered in for good measure. Why do these stylists, editors-whom ever is in charge-choose to exhibit clothing with such out of this world price tags? I mean, it’s bad enough most of us don’t look like models, now we can’t even hope to purchase the clothing they wear so we can pretend or fantasize (as some of use do) to look even an iota as fashionable as these some of these gals do. This really pisses me off. What is the purpose of this spread? To show off Christie Brinkley, I bet. Who gives a crap about her-I want the flippin’ yellow sundress!!!

As I stated a paragraph ago, I wanted that yellow sundress so much, I was ready to plunk down a fairly sizable amount of money to get it- but my budget on a dress is about $100 tops and that’s only if it’s really cool and unusual. What the heck? I’m convinced, if they put reasonably priced good clothing on these models, they would sell a whole lot more product and women would be praising these magazines for doing them such a great service in advertising such gorgeous clothing. I was lamenting on this subject last night and my husband chimed in and said in a condenscending tone, “Well, we all know if the clothing is cheap, women won’t buy it assuming it’s not good quality.” I said “Bull! I don’t think the clothing has to be extremely cheap, just ‘obtainably’ expensive.” I don’t want clothing of the quality of SJP’s Bitten line. I really think those clothes are bottom of the barrel. What I would like is something that doesn’t require me to mortgage my house or take from my childrens’ college fund in order to be able to pay for it. (Not that I would…this is just an example.)

More magazine has a target audience of wise women over 40 who have their shit together and are sensible. This is insulting to me, a wise woman of 45. I would never spend this kind of money on an article of clothing. It’s completely ridiculous. Do they think it’s entertaining for most of us readers to sit and read about beautiful Christie Brinkley and her gorgeousness, being made to feel like we are window shopping, salivating for what we can’t have or ever hope to afford?
I am by no means a fashionista, or fashion follower, for that matter. But I do know what I like and I do know what I can afford. I just wish these magazines were down to earth. Specifically, the More articles are interesting and intelligent and aren’t geared toward just the elite or twiggy models, so why should the fashion content? In fact, now that I think about it, these magazines don’t really appeal to larger women, either. Most middle-aged women generally do not fall into the slender category because with age, comes thicker middles. Why not cater to women of all sizes so we feel like we matter just as much as the thin women? Do I make sense, or am I all wet here? Feedback, please, if you have any thoughts on this.
Looks like I need to direct my letter right to the editor where there’s More room for improvement. Now, I’m off to look for some sunshiney yellow fabric and a pattern to try to make that sundress my own. Damn them for teasing me like this!