Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Plus-sized Barbie?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/23/plus-size-barbie_n_4492487.html

This link will take you to an article on the Huffington Post, with an illustration that was done when it was suggested that Barbie is not the norm (duh!) and maybe there should be a plus-sized Barbie.  If you read the article you will see that it started with a Facebook post and that several readers thought that there should be a "regular" sized Barbie--but what is regular-sized?  And at what age should these measurements be taken?  19 years old was suggested.  What do you think?  When I was 19, I weighted 120 pounds and had perfect measurements.  "Perfect" at that time meant hips and bust the same measurement and waist 10 inches smaller.  Shortly thereafter, at age 20, after my first baby was born, I was considerably bigger all over.  I'm wondering why little girls would play with a doll who is 19.  But then I was not in the era of Barbie and my daughters were barely in that era.  My dolls were baby dolls and theirs were Chatty Cathy's.  This goes to the question of how quickly do we want our girls to grow up, what do we want their images of a grown woman to be, and where in Hell did Barbie come from????


Saturday, December 28, 2013

Hug




From USA Weekend supplement in the CK Reporter:

"You want to:  Reduce stress?
Try this:  Hug a loved one

That simple act can ease fear and anxiety, lower blood pressure and even boost memory, according to research from the Medical University of Vienna.  Experts believe the "love hormone" oxytocin, gets a boost when you embrace family or friends."

So go for it, my friends. HUG!


Friday, December 27, 2013

Thinking....



My Grandma's Card Tree





What do you think about at this time of year, before Christmas and between Christmas and the New Year beginning?  Do you think of the past?  Do you think of people who aren’t here anymore?  Do you remember sounds and smells?  Do you make resolutions?  Do you reflect on your life or your children’s lives or the future?

This year, especially, I’ve been thinking about the past and those people we’ve lost and those that are still here.  I think of my mother, who, as my brother put it the other day, was our Mrs. Christmas.  She loved Christmas, the presents, the colors, the smell of bourbon in eggnog, Spritz cookies with sprinkles. She always wore red and green during the holidays.  She loved the parties, getting dressed up, wearing a red velvet top with sparkles on it, her black velvet pants, her adored ankle boots.  She always sang in church, from my earliest memories and that was a huge part of the holiday for her.  Choir rehearsals, carols, performances.  Her clear soprano voice soared up to the highest notes with ease and joy.  She loved the acclaim and she loved the music.  And Christmas was the pinnacle for her voice and her joy.

I remember Christmas Eve’s at my Grandma Ammon’s house in Charleston, south of the Navy Yard in Bremerton.  She had a house that seemed big, until you got all the daughters and their kids and their kids’ children in the living room.  We were packed in there, and the piano rang constantly with Christmas music played by Grandma, my Mom and my Aunt Carol.  Grandma bustled around with her housedress and white apron on and the butcher knife in her hand, laughing and running back and forth.  She made fudge with raisins in it.  Who does that?  She made pretty tarts from pie dough; round circles of dough with currant jelly, using a thimble to cut a hole in a circle for the top of each tart.  My daughter remembers the “Neapolitan” candy, pink, white and chocolate striped, she kept in a jar.  I don’t know what she was cutting with the knife, but it was waved for emphasis and sometimes we had to duck.  When she was really laughing hard, she’d throw herself down in a chair and fling her apron up over her head, her wild, white hair flying around her face.  The cacophony was wonderful, laughter, piano, singing, little kids playing, trying to get all the little ones on the couch together for a picture, in their velvet dresses, blue and red, lace and ribbons.  There was a tree, but it was small and on a buffet.  You couldn’t get all of us in there with a big tree in the room.

Stuffed into Grandma's House
my Dad hiding behind pillow
Grandpa Ammons with tie and Mom in pink, singing
Cousins and their kids on couch
1967

From Left:  Cousin Dave's 3 redheads, my Erin and Carolyn and Cousin Gail's Janie and Paula
1967

I think of later years, when Grandma and Grandpa were gone, musicales at Mom’s house.  It was Mom's dream to have her children perform at Christmas, and Dad and her, too.  We resisted at first, for a year or two, but finally gave in.  Dad would sing “Oh Holy Night” in his baritone—you could see he was nervous—Mom would play for him and sometimes they’d have to start over, but it always brought a lump to my throat.  Mom, in red or green, would play by ear, swaying back and forth on the piano bench, and sing something popular, an old standard like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”.  I have so many pictures of her with her back to us, at the piano, obviously in her glory.  I would practice for weeks to sing something unusual, a Spanish folk tune maybe.  One year, after a divorce I performed a Tai Chi routine and my brother accompanied it on the guitar.  I was too fragile to sing that year.  My brothers usually played their guitars; Dan played his sax, too.  Eventually, to Mom’s delight, we got the grandchildren involved.  Erin played her flute, her husband, Kent, played the piano and Christopher, his recorder or the guitar.  Throat lump time again for me.

Lump in throat time: Dad and I singing
Dad, Mom and Dan are all gone now.  There is no more musicale.  There is sometimes a celebration at my house now, with my children here, but that’s rare.  Mostly, it’s gotten quiet.  This year even my brother, Stanley, was absent; he was in jail.  Mom would have been so sad and I was.  We had our Christmas Eve with "Miracle on 34th Street", the 1939 version, coconut nog for me, bourbon and Coke for my husband, cookies that his Mom had sent in the mail and some gluten free ginger cookies I’d made for me.  My grandchildren were in Oklahoma, Maine, San Diego and London.  My husband’s nieces, nephews, sister and mom were in Utah and his cousins in Greece and England.   It wasn’t sad so much as it was quiet.  Our little chuckles at the hundreds of letters to Santa piling up on the judge’s dais were nearly silent compared to the Christmas din of years past.

Now that Christmas is over for 2013, it’s time for the New Year to come.  No matter what has been going on at Christmas, whether it’s wild and wonderful as in the “old days”, or quiet as it is now, we have been filling out New Year’s Papers since Christopher was about nine—25 or 26 years.  It’s a time to think about the bests of the year, the surprises, the concerns, the goals for the brand new year coming.  I made a sort of a form all those years ago, that with only minor tweaks, we’ve used since then.  Best movie, best book, favorite TV shows, biggest surprise, worry, best present at Christmas, stuff like that.  And always at the end:  hopes for the New Year.  Each of these papers is a tiny time capsule—I love the ones from Christopher in those young, innocent years.  One year he hoped “to reach the place of strong”.  There has always been a worry, sometimes about the health of a loved one, sometimes about a loved one’s lack of wealth, very rarely about ourselves.  I think this year my hope will be that we can make a different Christmas next year, one that is less about old memories, but more about making new ones.  A trip?  A new volunteer activity? A place we can be around more people?  Something that takes us out of our too quiet home.

My last blog post worried a couple of friends enough that they called me on Christmas.  What they don’t know about me is that I think and I think—that’s part of what makes a writer—and then I write and sometimes I’m in a mood when I think and write.  And that mood came across on the page.  But I’m okay.  I’m just thinking on the page.  And those phone calls were wonderful to get, too.  Thank you for thinking and remembering---me.  Happy New Year!



Friday, December 20, 2013

I Don't Care


I think I’ll become a drunk.  My brother got his sentence, his stalking sentence, today.  20 more days in jail after serving 6 months—not out for Christmas.  Michael had his Visa card number stolen and found out about it this morning.  Some scumbag charged an airline ticket on it.  He also fell down while scraping snow off the portable garage roof, and strained his already injured shoulder muscles.  By lunchtime I was ready for a drink, so I added rum to my tea.

Booze is better than drugs or more pills.  I already take an anti-depressant, and even if my brother wasn’t crazy and in jail, while I pay his rent so he can keep his tiny apartment with the low rent, I’d still have to take the pills to keep being married.  My husband’s ranting makes me stiffen my neck muscles, as if each and every word of his rant is a blow to my back.  So the pills have to continue, but I could add liquor.


Liquor makes me mellow, relaxed, and devil-may-care.  The devil cares, I don’t.  My husband is yelling because Obama said something he and Fox News considers stupid?  I don’t care.  My brother stalked a girl for months and then got arrested?  I don’t care.  My Mom died and left me with my brother?  I really don’t care.  My daughter in San Diego is on the edge of being homeless several times a year?  I kind of don’t care.  My dearest grandchildren live in a foreign country that costs $1000 to fly to, a minimum of $25 to send anything to, and $1 to send a card to?  I don’t care.  I’ll be going to a memorial service on Saturday because a woman I’ve known since high school has just died?  And the three old classmates who I’ll see there all have or have had cancer?  If I put brandy in my eggnog when I get home, a lot of brandy, maybe I won’t care.