Bieber Fever

Wait, wait, come back!!! It's not contagious, and we don't have a documented full blown case of it in our house, although there has been some possible exposure. You're pretty safe, I think. It's all good.

My girls are not really into his music, so my familiarity had been limited. I saw him on The View flirting with Barbara Walters, so my first impression was that he was a sycophantic little jackass with a silly haircut.

A couple weeks ago, while enjoying a nice frosty drink at Sonic and listening to Sonic radio, One Less Lonely Girl came over the airwaves. My eldest groaned and covered her ears.

"Make it stop!"

"Who is this?"

"Justin Bieber. He SUCKS!"

"Don't say that, he does not." This declaration came, very surprisingly, from our youngest - whose tastes tend to run even harder stronger and faster than Tom's and mine.

"Do you LIKE him?"

"I don't know. Probably not. Maybe. I don't know. But I do know that he makes some of my friends very happy. And anything that makes my friends happy can't suck. Even if I don't like it myself."

"You like Justin Bieber!" my eldest sang, tauntingly.

"I'm a twelve year old girl! I'm supposed to!"

"Do you want his CD?" continued the taunting song, "because you LO-O-OVE him?"

"NO!" a pause, "maybe..."

That Sunday morning we didn't fast forward through his stint as musical guest on SNL when he appeared with Tina Fey. It wasn't my cup of tea, but I'm not exactly his target demographic. He was in a couple sketches. He was tolerable. Cute, even. He looked - safe. He looked like every shaggy haired boy with dreamy eyes I idolized in my own youth. I got it.

But more than that - and possibly the reason I was able to step back and get it - was that my daughter's words rang true: Anything that makes my friends that happy can't suck.

I remember being very happy in the mid-nineties when boy bands made a comeback. I was well into adulthood at the time, so - again - it wasn't my cup of tea - but it was so nice to glance at the covers of '16' and Tiger Beat on the news stands and see these cute, young, safe boys. The eighties saw bands like Van Halen, KISS and Motley Crue gracing their covers. Now I liked me some DLR in the eighties. Oh yes I did. The following is from a story about my first apartment that I posted at Portable Magic:

We bought ourselves a poster of David Lee Roth – 1984 was when he was arguably at the height of his hotness – stepping out of a swimming pool. The poster cut off just below the hollow beneath his hip bones. We knew he probably wasn’t naked, but it was provocative enough that we were free to imagine that he was. It was – distracting, all right.

Little girls shouldn't be reading Tiger Beat and '16' for that sort of distraction. I just read Nikki Sixx's autobiographical The Heroin Diaries. Little girls DEFINITELY shouldn't have been looking for THAT sort of distraction. Nope. As a twenty-something, Van Halen and the Crue were perfectly acceptable fantasy fodder. Early teens needed 'N Sync. They needed NKOTB.

They need Justin Bieber.

Rock on with your not-so-bad-little self, Justin.

If you make scores of little girls happy, I don't think you suck.

Let's Hear It For The Girls!

As October is breast cancer awareness month, I felt I would be remiss if I didn't write a little something about the girls. Don't worry - I'm, not going to get sappy on you. You know what to do. Do your self-exams monthly. Have your mammograms annually. Take care of the girls. That's as close as I'm going to get to a PSA, I promise.

I was thinking more about that wonderful invention of Otto Titzling (inventor and kraut as per the Divine Miss M.) - or was it Philippe de Brassiere? Snopes says neither, but it's a fun story, anyway. Stupid Snopes - ruining everything with logic and truth. At any rate. I bought a couple bras today.

Yep. 45 minutes in the dressing room and $70 later, I'm the proud owner of two new bras. Oh, you're welcome, I'm sure. I've sworn to keep you abreast of every little detail of my mundane little life. (See what I did there? Abreast? Oh man - it's gonna be one of those days...) Tom was quite surprised by the price tag. And he didn't even know they were buy one, get one half off. $70 would keep him in undergarments for about - oh, I don't know - a decade? I'll need a couple more in three or four months. I used to be able to go a year, but the older I get and the harder they have to work, the more expensive they become and the less long they last. If I were so inclined I could draw you a graph of the inverse relationship at work here. There might already be one at that graph site Tom likes to go to, but I'm too lazy to look.

Anyway.

Many of you know - and some of you don't - and if you're one of those that don't (yet - muahahahaha), then that phrase "ignorance is bliss" was coined just for you, and you go ahead and enjoy that - don't let me burst your bubble - all about shopping for the girls as you and, consequently, they, get older. It becomes much less fun. I see girls shopping for bras and saying, "Oooooh! That's cute!" I shop for bras and say, "Hmmmm. That appears to be sturdy." Then they buy the bras AND the cute matching undies and STILL spend less than I did. What a drag it is getting old, huh?

The bra shopping expedition came about because of the laundry. I still have a lifting restriction, so my eldest is supposed to do the laundry. The other day at dinner, she exclaimed (and none too quietly, I might add), "Mom! Are you wearing a SPORTS BRA?"

"Yes."

"Nice uni-boob."

"If you don't like it you could, oh, I don't know, maybe DO THE DAMN LAUNDRY?" (I didn't really say that) Yes I did. No I didn't...

So she did the laundry, and two days later I'm down to a drawer full of sports bras and one lace bra. So, yeah, in THIS case, the problem wasn't that she wasn't being prompt with her chores, it was that one by one my strappy little soldiers had lost their battle without being replaced. It was time for new recruits.

So I donned the lace bra under a T-shirt, so you know I looked very classy. Seriously - lace bras - who the HELL came up with that? I mean, sure. They're pretty. I get that. But they don't look good under T-shirts. Or blouses for that matter. Or most dresses. I generally wear them under bulky sweaters or sweatshirts. Which sort of goes against the whole 'wearing them 'cause they're sexy' thing, no? Lace is not exactly the most comfy fabric to wear next to your tender girly bits, either, and I know I'm not the only one who thinks so. Oh, but they sure are pretty! Now I wonder if it was a man or a woman who came up with THAT brilliant idea? Sheesh.

But I've digressed.

Sorry.

I donned the lace bra under the T-shirt - threw on a jacket to cover as much of the dimpling effect as it could - and headed to the dressing room, where this story began. Good thing, too, because the underwire in this lace number is starting to feel a little wonky (as opposed to the usual level of comfort and freedom an underwire provides). I don't think it's long for this world.

Hoist 'em high, ladies.

And, um, gentlemen? I'm truly sorry. I know boobies are, like, totally your favorite and I've made them all mundane and utilitarian. Actually, I didn't even discuss the utilitarian parts - just the mundane parts. Sheesh. Sorry. Would it help if I said "boobies" again? Ok. Boobies.

Mother Nature Can Be Like That

This Thursday's Trip down Memory Lane takes us back to one of my favorite eras. The era in which I rocked a bikini. Booya.

One summer, we planned to spend three weeks at the beach. I was very excited about this. This was gonna be my year. It was the first year I really filled out my bikini in any sort of respectable way, and my intent was to take full advantage of that.

The first week it was pretty rainy and overcast. Not perfect beach weather. No worries. It was the first week and we still had two more to go. We’d just do indoor things. Shopping, game rooms, movies. Restaurants. We generally spread these things out over the course of a vacation, but Mother Nature can be a little controlling like that.

Near the end of that first rainy week we went out for seafood. My parents aren’t particularly fond of seafood, but it’s my favorite, so they always took us out for some at least once when we were by the shore. The seafood, in other words, was a sort of rare treat. For me.

A few hours later I didn’t feel so well.

“You just ate too much.”

A few hours later still I had sweats and chills and unmentionable – indescribable things were going on in my belly. If I’d eaten too much that would no longer be a problem, as I was pretty sure there was nothing left in my stomach after a couple hours on the little camper porta-potty with a bucket between my knees.

My parents exchanged worried looks.

This was not a child who had over-indulged.

This was a child who needed to go to the ER.

I’m not sure what I looked like just then – I couldn’t lift my head from the bucket long enough to see myself in the mirror – but I could see what my parents looked like. And they didn’t look good.

I’m sure it will come as no great surprise to anyone that the diagnosis was food poisoning. Or that the prescription was hydration. And time.

Mother Nature can be a little nasty like that.

Week two of our beach vacation opened with bright sunshine. It found me too weak to squeeze toothpaste onto my toothbrush independently. My mother stayed with me that first day, while everyone else suited up and headed for the beach. The next day she was still willing to stay, but doing so was sort of tinged with martyrdom. The third day brought a little full-out resentment. The fourth, one of the other parents we were camping with offered to stay with me. She wanted to clean her camper anyway, so didn’t really want to go to the beach. It would be no trouble. Really.

I’m not sure, but I think my mom may have kissed her full on the lips. If she didn’t, I bet she wanted to.

The next day I made it to the beach. I was still a little weak, but no worries. We still had a few more days.

The very next day I got my period.

And my awesome new UNWORN bikini was white.

You have got to be kidding me with this.

Mother Nature can be a real bitch like that.

Greetings From the House of Hormones

My youngest daughter became very angry at me last spring when I suggested we take down our swing set. We don't have a huge yard and it takes up a nice sized chunk of it and Tom hates mowing around it. I was ready to see it go. She was not. She loves swinging and still swings quite often. I actually do love reading on the deck to the steady squeak of the swing set. No rush to grow up, Liv. Swing on!

And boy, does she.

Jumping off, she says, is the best part...

Yesterday we met friends for coffee at Barnes and Noble. When it was time to go, it was no small feat gathering everyone together. My friend and I had found our younger daughters but were still in search of our elder daughters. We asked the younger if they'd seen them. Liv responded, "Well I was with Lea and I gave her a playful little push..." at this, my friend and I sort of - well, in retrospect I guess we did sort of laugh at her.

"That cannot have ended well..."

We looked behind us and Liv was not keeping up. She had stopped in her tracks. Her face had gone full red and her left eye was twitching a little bit. "I SAID," she said, clearly working very hard to maintain reasonable modulation, "I was being PLAYFUL." Child was seriously angry at - us? her sister? the world?

Not ten minutes later, she informs me we've run dangerously low on feminine products. OH! Ok. She wasn't angry at us, or her sister, or the world. She was angry at Mother Nature. That made sense. Mother Nature can be a real bitch. (just ask Kathy B.)

So off we go to Walgreen's, where we face the huge aisle of monthly decisions. The Theme From A Summer Place was playing on the Muzak - or whatever we're supposed to call it these days. We agreed that it was a pretty song. Then Liv, my angry little Liv who, not an hour earlier had only just managed to suppress steam from coming out of her ears, burst into dance in the feminine product aisle at Walgreen's. It was a very expressive, arms out, leaping sort of dance. She did not hold back. Still dancing, and going into a little twirl, she said, "I feel like I want to be barefoot wearing a Sleeping Beauty gown and dancing in a meadow with a boy dressed up like a prince." There's a child firmly grounded in reality. She's not waiting for a prince. Just someone who dresses up like one. And what is it about feminine products and meadows, anyway?

I've told you about the paradox that is Liv, before. I've told you that she is a gentle vegetarian, tree-hugging speed-metal drummer. Ask anyone who was in Walgreen's yesterday afternoon and they might tell you, based on appearance only, about a skate punk ballerina.

I don't think we'll be getting rid of the swing anytime soon.