Mind the Gap

Jeggings are not a product of The Gap

My suggestion for induction into fashion's Hall of Shame: Jeggings. Not familiar with Jeggings? They are leggings that look like jeans. They are made of lycra or spandex or some unidentifiable material that fell from space. They look good on .1% of the population, but the other 99.9% will be the ones to wear them.

See, the problem with last seasons hot newcomer to the jean scene, Skinny Jeans, is they left too much to the imagination (i.e. how could anyone be sure a skinny-jean-wearer really had knees and ankles.) The other problem with skinny jeans, of course, is that not everyone was able to get them buttoned.

Not a problem with Jeggings--no buttons required.

I ran into my first Jeggings today when I went to the mall. I was kind of excited because I went down a size in pants. (Yay Game On!) Please understand, I have no illusions that this new pant size is one I will be able to maintain long term. However, it's only the second time since I was 16 that I've been this size, so I thought a new pair of jeans was deserved. Even if I only fit into them for 3 weeks.

I passed the Jeggings and went to The Gap to take advantage of their "tall" sized jeans. If' I'm going to spend $70 on a new pair of jeans I will only fit into for 3 weeks, they better not be floods. The Gap had this new sizing with strange numbers and I couldn't understand what I was looking at, so I got some help from an employee.

Boy was she helpful. She kept calling me honey and steered me away from the straight legged jeans, which is what I wanted, to the Long and Lean jeans, which give the wearer the illusion of being long and lean. (Did I not look long and lean enough already? Really. My legs are freakishly long, I don't need any help making them look longer.) I tried them on in a size SMALLER than what I wore in high school. I was not fooled by The Gap's "vanity sizing." Like a smaller number will make me feel more lean? (It did.)

Next up, the Sexy Boot jean. The helpful gal shoved 3 different sizes in my arms and a couple more pairs of Long and Lean. I tried to steer her over to the Straight jeans, but she would have none of it. "Lift up your shirt" she said so she could get a look at my waist. "Now turn around." She actually said I had no butt. "I can't sell you these jeans unless I get a good look at them on," she said.

The jeans fit fine, although they were too flared at the bottom (I wanted Straight cut jeans!), but the hips and thighs were about as tight as could be. It was like they were sprayed on. Like they were Jeggings! One cookie and these pants would no longer fit me.

"That's exactly how they are supposed to fit," she said. "If I were you, I' would buy these pants, and I'm not saying that because I work on commission. I would buy these pants and take them home and sit down and watch a movie and just see how comfortable they are. I guarantee you, you will be back next week to buy two more pair."

I just want a pair of pants that have a little room. I may be the same size I was when I was 16 (in pants, not taking into account that what once was my 16 year old size has now been vanity sized down) but I don't want to look like I'm trying to be a 16 year old. No offense to 16 year-olds.

I got two t-shirts instead.

Bizarro Portland

The Patagonian Toothfish

Tonight at dinner, one of the boys wondered where we would be if we were in the exact opposite of Portland, Oregon. We had guessed that it might be somewhere near South Africa, maybe even Madagascar. So we got the globe and found that 45 degrees S, 51 degrees E put us in the middle of the Southern Indian Ocean. Luckily there was an island in the general vicinity called Crozet and the little (Fr.) next to the name told me it was French!

How exciting! We googled.

Crozet Island is seriously in the middle of nowhere, but it's claimed by France for crying out loud. Naturally, I pictured rugged beauty set off by 5 star resorts and fine dining. Instead, I found that Crozet Island has 300 days of rain a year and that it is so windy no trees can grow. (Winds exceed 60 mph over 100 days a year.) There are no inhabitants of Crozet Island other than a few researchers and scientists. But, it has the largest bird population of any place on earth.

Even though it's remote, fur trappers and fishermen found their way to Crozet. It is said Sealers could kill up to 60 seals an hour and the fisherman's overfishing seriously threatened the Patagonian Toothfish (pictured above.)

I am a little disappointed that the global opposite of Portland isn't a bit more exciting.

That the fish are so ugly is just insult to injury.

The Two-Bite Watermelon

While most of the country was having the hottest summer on record, here in Portland, we were having the coldest summer in 17 years. Back in April, I planted melons hoping that the summer would be warm enough for them to grow. It wasn't.

My tomatoes also suffered. It was the perfect temperature to inspire the green leaves and vines to grow, but the tomatoes are just now starting to come on. Unfortunately, my huge tomato bush has toppled over despite my staking and the use of a heavy duty tomato cage (now reduced to a ball of twisted metal thanks to the monstrous plant). The tomatoes that are finally ripening are doing so under cover and I often don't find them until it's too late and they've already gone bad.

Green beans should have been a slam dunk, but they weren't. And it was totally my fault. I was the daughter of a seed salesman. Seeds were a big part of our family. From a young age, I planted seeds, worked with seeds, packaged seeds and even harvested seeds. So it was natural for me to want to save my Blue Lake green bean seeds year after year. I was saving maybe $2 on a packet of seed, but was pretty proud of my self-sufficiency.

It was my understanding that open pollinated or non-hybridized seeds, like Blue Lake green beans could have seed saved and used from year. What I learned this year, unfortunately, was that every few years, you have to bring back the new seed. Maybe Blue Lakes are a hybrid variety of green bean--I don't know. But the beans I got this year from my saved seed (which was from the previous years saved seed, which was from the previous years saved seed, etc.) were awful: fibrous, tough and completely unpalatable. The whole crop was lost.

So I didn't make any salsa fresca this year. I didn't freeze a year's worth of green beans. I didn't harvest any melons--well, not any that were edible anyway. Sometimes that's just the way it goes. Which is why I think being a farmer for a living must be the most stressful job ever.

Good thing the grocery store is right down the street.

The Shoe Thing

One of the things about being in a house full of boys is there is no one around to do The Shoe Thing for me. If you are female and had sisters, or female roommates, you know what The Shoe Thing is.

It’s the “this one or this one” question you ask while standing on one leg at a time so your girlfriend or sister can get the full effect of how different shoes work with your ensemble and give you the advice you need to make a final decision. Because sometimes you just need a trusted opinion.

This is not something I can ask my boys. Or my husband.

I’ve had minor wardrobe crises where the thought of walking over to a neighbor’s house in 2 different shoes has crossed my mind. In the end, I always end up making the difficult choice myself. It’s a very frustrating position to be in.

This morning I was getting ready to go out to lunch with Robert at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school. It's not every day I go downtown for lunch at a fancy, reasonably priced restaurant ($9.95 for a 3 course lunch!) I wanted to dress up a bit, but not too much. I had on my cute grey top with the ruffled v-neck and dark denim capris. the purple shoes were my first choice because they are fun and casual. But they had that ruffle, and I just thought it was too much with my ruffled top. However, the red shoes are shiny and have a little heel and seemed a bit too dressy.

I needed someone to do The Shoe Thing!

Again, I had to make my own choice. I chose purple and soon realized after I saw all the different people walking around downtown, that NO ONE CARES.

Still, I care. So maybe next time, I can have someone do The Shoe Thing via Skype. If I can get like 10 trusted friends on my Skype calling list, then I might always have someone to answer the question: this one, or this one?

The Ideal Day

ideal adjective existing only in the imagination; desirable or perfect, but not likely to become a reality.

Some women's idea of an ideal day is one filled with activities. Maybe lunch with girlfriends, shopping, a spa treatment, more shopping and probably chocolate. I can agree on the chocolate for sure. And the spa treatment, shopping and lunch with girlfriends is great, but those things would not be part of my ideal day.

This is my ideal day: It's raining hard enough that I can hear it on the roof and windows. I sleep until I feel like getting up, maybe 7:30 or 8. (Because it's my ideal day and I don't want to spend the whole thing in bed.) I get up to a spotlessly clean house and do my 30 Day Shred DVD work-out, eat some breakfast, drink some water, check my e-mail, and then take a shower. I get dressed in a comfy pair of jeans, long sleeve shirt and some very cozy socks. Then I grab my fuzzy blanket and some chocolate and a stack of books and start reading. Oh, did I mention there is a fire in the fireplace? After a few hours of reading, I might doze off for a nap. Or not, if the book is really exciting. Then I would read some more. I might have a salad for lunch sometime around 1 or 2, then go back to reading. I would go out to dinner with the family (just because this is ideal and going out to dinner with the family is most definitely something that exists in the imagination these days.) Then I would come home and get ready for bed and read until I fall asleep.

Doesn't that sound wonderful?

Everything I do, I do to reach that ideal. I clean, I make freezer meals, I try to be efficient, and I don't schedule too many outside activities, all in hopes that I can get closer to that ideal.

I was under the impression that when school started, I would have that ideal day, at least 2-3 times a week. (Well, not the going out to dinner part, and the rain part is pretty much just icing) I thought after the first few days of reclaiming the house from the summer chaos, I would have hours, upon hours of time to read. I even had a stack of books from the library, ready to go in anticipation.

Now, I am just finishing week 3 of the school year and so far, I have yet to find my big block of time. I just don't understand how I could be so busy? And for the life of me, I can't even tell you what I've been doing. And it hasn't been Facebook because you know I haven't been doing that for the last 2 weeks. It's just a lot of little things and they add up to me not seeming to reach my ideal.

Today, I thought, would for sure be a day of leisure. There is nothing on the calendar, except an orthodontist appointment for Ethan. But running errands became a lot more complicated than I thought it would be, and took a lot more time.

The good news is, all those errands are out of the way which leaves tomorrow as another potential ideal day. And if not, then I'll surely get one next week.

Although something tells me, it's not likely.

In Which Looking at Pictures of Baked Goods Does Not Fix My Writer's Block

I'm thinking, I'm thinking, I'm thinking.

I'm supposed to be writing--fine tuning the first 25 pages of my work in progress to submit to a contest that I've been meaning to enter since January.

I'm also supposed to be writing because it's part of my 2 hours a day for the Game On! diet. I love the Game On! diet. Love it with the heat of ten thousand burning calories, I do.

Instead, I'm looking for google images of "writer's block" and trying to see if pictures of pumpkin cheesecake brownies will inspire me to figure out some dialogue that doesn't sound completely stupid. I'm also listening to my 12 year old hum Christmas Time is Here in his bed.

He makes it so easy for me to tell when he is feeling melancholy.

But I'm not getting actual words down on the page. There is no revision happening. It's just a lot of thinking. And being stuck. But I'm pretty sure this still counts, right? I can't be expected to type 80 words per minute for 2 straight hours. (Yes, as a matter of fact, I can type 80 words per minute). Part of the "2 hours of writing" has got to be thinking. I am working on it. I'm for sure going to get my 25 pages submitted by Friday. This Friday. I mean it.

Still, I'm stuck.

Because I don't want to scrap the whole scene and come up with something different. But I might have to. So I guess I'm kind of putting off the inevitable. However, it's still possible that my inaction will fix the problem. Isn't it?

I've got about 30 more minutes of my 2 hour writing block and I'm NOT going to spend it looking at recipes for Nanaimo bars. Because that would really not be using my time wisely and, did I mention I love the Game On! diet?

I Forgot

This morning I've been watching a 9 month old little boy for a neighbor while she gets 2 hours of dental work done. I'm not sure who is in more physical pain.

OK, I'm kidding. I'm sure it's her.

He's been crying for about 90 minutes. He stopped crying long enough to poop, then started up again. He seems to cry more when I approach him or look at him. He's exhausted. I don't know why he doesn't pass out on the floor.

I've been armed with Craisins and cheerios and frozen baby yogurt in tubes. He wants nothing to do with any of it. I've shown him Hot Wheels and Rescue Heroes and books and blocks. No luck with those either. I've walked him around the kitchen-familyroom-livingroom loop like 20 times in a row, doing my special bouncy walk (registered with the Ministry of Silly Walks) and that only resulted in me getting a snotty, slobbery spot on my shoulder.

There is a mental shut down that takes place once all logic fails. Once you've tried everything, and despite it all, the baby is still screaming. For the stay-at-home mom, this mental shut down is a life saver. A happy place, so to speak where you can actually tune out the crying and find some level of peace for a few precious minutes. It's a tenuous peace, almost like a soap bubble, floating through the dog park with hundreds of snapping dog jaws vying to be the one to break it.

I forgot about that mental shut down. It's not only self-preservation at its best, it also helps preserve the species. (I'm not afraid to say it).

At first I was gratefully surprised at how, after all these years, my mind was able to so quickly shut down. That glossy look probably returned to my eyes, and I was able to answer phone calls with a cheeriness that bordered on creepy. (Because shouldn't I sound a little more harried with a screaming baby in the background?)

After a little introspection, I realized that happy place had been visited by me more recently than I'd first thought. I recalled last Sunday and the Battle For The Sticky Hand which had lasted for hours and never come to a resolution. At the end of the day Robert mentioned how awful it had been with all the fighting and arguing and crying. "Had it?" I thought. I'd spent the morning in bed, reading and quite enjoyed myself.

Maybe the mental shut down is why women live longer than men.