Where Have All The Sleeves Gone?

I made the mistake of going shopping for bigger jeans this weekend and maybe a cute “going out” shirt and I realized…someone is holding all the sleeves for ransom. Even the sweaters they make have short sleeves. For those of us not having hot flashes every 10 minutes, I’d like a winter sleeve to cover my flappy arms. Bad enough I go all summer with my arms on display. The only thing I look forward to in winter is having all my bits covered. I’ve noticed my daughter and her friends wear t-shirts all winter and are too cool for a coat. I sit next to a space heater all day bundled up like a Sherpa. So then it reminds me of this story I wrote just this summer. I was complaining about how sleeves don’t seem to fit anymore and are completely out of proportion. Did someone hear my cry and out of contempt, decided to take all sleeves away?

Bat Wings:
The excess meatiness that now dangles from your upper arms in place of the youthful muscular system that used to reside there.

After numerous conversations lately I have decided I am not the only woman obsessed with the lack of options clothing manufacturers are giving us these days. I mean what are they thinking when they make some of these atrocities? Back in the day, if you knew your shirt size you could rest assured the shirt would actually fit. Now, you have to try everything on in the store and chant “please fit” over and over again. Because let me just tell you…shirts are built with Inhuman arm sizes. I can only smash my bat wings into a maximum of 50% of the shirts I try on. So either my arms are abnormally meaty or the arms on shirts are being built for the aliens on Close Encounters. Judging by multiple conversations with women, I’m guessing it’s the latter. If you are lucky enough to be one of those ladies who have a waistline no matter what size you are, invest in a tailor. Because even if it required two people and a pulley system to hoist your jeans over your hips, you will inevitably have enough excess jean in the back of your waistband to produce a whole new set of jeans. It’s futile to buy anything off the rack without first trying it on because it’s just as depressing to try it on at home and drive back to return it than it is to just try it on in the store and see your behind in 42 different angles under a lighting system that ages you 20 years. Looking at this from a purely marketing perspective, wouldn’t a retailer want you to look fabulous in the dressing room? Not torment you and run you off sobbing uncontrollably?
To me, the perfect size is an 8. Sure, some of you may feel 4 or 6 is a better goal…or why not a 10? However, for me and my structure, it’s an 8. For an extremely short period of history I was a size 6, but that was an anomaly. Size 8 is much more attainable and I’ve been an 8 many times, but sustaining a holding pattern around size 8 is next to impossible. I hover around it for a few months and then soon size 12’s are cutting me in half.
I really do want to stop the pattern of yo-yo dieting and weight gain-weight loss and establish some consistency and most of the time I can even do the healthy eating portion of the fitness program. But the exercise is where I fail. I get motivated and swear THIS is the time I stick to it. I buy the Wii Fit and the first time it insults me I haul out a sledgehammer. I buy the Wii Active and after I lumber around next to my teenager like a mammoth it goes in the closet. I got a free treadmill…guess the last time I used that? I jogged around my neighborhood but the first judgmental stare I received I jogged right into hiding. I did water aerobics for a few months but it got cold outside and I wussed out. I’m lugging around a Coldstone Creamery monkey on my back and I’m looking for some middle ground. Healthy food that doesn’t taste like a box of ground up tissues and a form of movement that doesn’t humiliate, injure, empty my savings or take up all my free time. My sloth-like existence has to end, but where does one start during Dairy Queen season and a recession?
I implore someone with any sort of fashion sense to start up a clothing line…real clothes for real women. I want bigger armholes, I would like my coin slot covered and if the zipper is less than 4 inches…forget about it and I’m begging you please would you quit making spaghetti strapped tops for women with B cups or larger? The “built-in bra” you all tout is as useless as nutritional facts on my ice cream bar. You can call your line: Well-Rounded Wear, or Ample Apparel, or perhaps Busty Duds!
One last note…a tan does not, in fact, camouflage cellulite like some dimwit on the TV said it would. Now…who’s up for some sweet cream goodness?

Awkward Family Photo

This blog is centered around this photo here that I found while perusing through the “pictures” file on my computer. This was taken in 1979 and it’s my family. Appearances have been altered to protect the innocent and so my mom doesn’t kick my butt.
My dad still has that same Geraldo Rivera mustache and I’m pretty sure he still wears those plastic glasses too. For my parent’s 25th wedding anniversary I slaved over a family photo album for a YEAR and when my mom looked at it, all she said was “Oh my GAWD look at my HAIR!!!!” Twenty five years worth of memories and that’s all she notices? Then again, all that hair IS hard to miss. I love that my mom had a “fro”. I mean, that’s just awesome.
As you can see, my eyes are all red and puffy. Clearly, I’ve just had a fit of some kind and someone managed to get me to quit sobbing long enough to have my picture taken. I can only speculate the reason for this episode is the outfit I’m wearing. It looks like a quilt. I’m wearing a quilt! It’s that or a table cloth…exactly which cannot be determined. And is that a shiny bronze shirt my dad has on? And Mom, poor Mom. My mom is the most amazing dresser I have ever met. She’s classy and gorgeous, but to not make fun of that blazer would be a crime against humanity. I could SWEAR I had a bedspread made out of the same material as that thing! My baby brother is the only one to escape bad couture in this picture. Lucky S.O.B.
There was a white dog that was somehow cropped out of this picture. His name was Muffin. There’s this email that goes around every now and then that says to find your stripper name use your first pet’s name and the street you grew up on. My stripper name is Muffin Collins. Can’t get much better than that.
Hurry up and read this post before my mom makes me take it down. :) Still love me, Mommy?

Sunny Days…Chasing the Clouds Away

Today was the 40th anniversary of my favorite children’s show: Sesame Street. When I was little we lived in the sticks and didn’t have cable, satellite dishes, a VCR or any other such nonsense. We had an old console TV that you couldn’t watch by yourself because one person had to be inside yelling at a person outside when to stop turning this massive rooftop antenna with a vice-grip so you could see 1 of 3 stations we could make out through that Poltergeist TV snow. My grandma’s house next door had rabbit ears and you’d have to use a roll of tin foil to amplify the signal. We would talk the little neighbor boy into standing on one leg, wearing a foil hat and holding the rabbit ears because we were sure it was a little clearer that way. Hi Danny!
I always thought I was a little like Kermit the Frog because I never really fit in anywhere, didn’t feel like I ever knew my identity and was a little melancholy. It really ain’t easy being green. But according to one of those online quiz sites I’m partially obsessed with, it turns out I’m more of a Big Bird. Which makes sense because Big Bird was kind of an odd-ball asking questions about everything. The quiz result claimed I “have a wonderful imagination” and am “very creative”. Sure, I guess I do dwell in the artistic realm from time to time. It also said I can sometimes get overly excited over new things, which often leads to disappointment when things don’t turn out my way. Why the nerve! Okay so my career in wood burning never took off, but I wouldn’t say I was overly excited about it. However, it ends upbeat saying I never stay down for long and always try again. Home Tupperware sales here I come.
Do you remember one of the human characters, Bob? I loved that man like he was my own father. And there was Luis and Maria who I also adored, but the puppets were my favorite. The dog I have now looks like a mini version of Barkley and I’m sure I can hear the Sesame Street theme song when he comes running at me. Don’t we all know someone who fits a Sesame Street character though? My son is a dead-ringer for “Guy Smiley”…that game show host with the loud personality. Guy was an underappreciated and underused character, but then again maybe that way I looked forward to and appreciated him more. Those rare times he had a skit. I’ve nominated Forgetful Jones to play my husband since my husband can’t remember squat…or at least anything I’ve said to him. My daughter gets Grover as she’s shy and sweet, but confident and very likeable. I associate Cookie Monster with my little brother because he eats candy all the time. My brother used to eat it for breakfast and when he’s at my house he mows through my pantry like a pothead over a pan of brownies. My sister-in-law wants to know what Oscar’s legs look like. I think he just hovers in there limb-less, but if you have any evidence…do share.
I liked to sing “one of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong” and point at my brother just to make him paranoid he was adopted. Teeny Little Super Guy makes me laugh to this day. He’s the little dude on the plastic cup and his homies were various other cupboard knick-knacks. And if you can count to 12 and not picture a pinball machine, you’re my hero.
So to all my fellow Sesame Street die-hards, I just have one thing to say…a loaf of bread, a container of milk and a stick a butta…

Post Halloween Commentary

So it turns out crafting humorous stories with witty quips daily was more difficult than I had anticipated and I seem to have lost some inspiration. My apologies for the delay between blogs, but thank you to the many people who have emailed, texted and called to tell me they miss me and to “get off my ass” and write more. So here I am and I’ll try to whip up at least one of these per week. But that’s all I’m promising until I get my mojo back.
Halloween was this Saturday, which happens to be my all time number one favorite holiday. My family drove down and spent the weekend with us and we had a blast. I have to say, drunken Rockband on the Wii was more fun than I remembered. I had a crew of 6 kids going out together to trick-or-treat all ranging in ages from 14 to 6. When my brother and I were kids we lived in the country and my mom would drive us into town and we’d hit the major neighborhoods while my mom stayed in the warm car patiently waiting for us. Back in those days it didn’t matter how cold you were, how uncomfortable you were or how embarrassed of your cheeseball costume you were…your butt was out there for the long-haul. You didn’t quit until your mom was physically dragging your sugar sodden backside back to the car at which point you’d come down off your sugar high and complained the whole way home that if you’d only had FIVE more minutes you could have located that mythical house that gave out “whole candy bars!!” Nowadays, these kids drop like flies. The first two to come home were my nephew and my son. My nephew walked in and informed us he was “done…I’m just done!” and my son puked on the way and just wanted to sit on the floor organizing his candy and refilling his empty stomach. Shortly thereafter, we lost two more and in the end only two teenage girls were left standing. As punishment to my son for surrendering so soon, I’ve been stealing candy from his bucket instead of the teenager’s. So once everyone had petered out, the most amazing thing happened…all the kids sat on the floor, dumped out their buckets and immediately turned into used car salesmen! It was the most fascinating thing I have ever seen. My brother and I would usually dump out our buckets just to admire what we had received and to toss out all the sub-par candies like the dum-dum suckers and the tootsie rolls. But these kids…”I’ll give you 3 Butterfingers for just one of those Fun Dips!” “My Fun-Dips are not for sale! Choose again!” I learned a valuable lesson that night...candy is currency for kids and Fun Dip is more valuable than the almighty dollar.
My children were both abnormally testy the next day after their extreme sugar consumption and lack of sleep which helps alleviate some of the guilt I should have when taking candy from their stash while they’re at school. I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened to your Reeses Peanut Butter Cups…perhaps you mistakenly traded them for all of those 3 Musketeers I’m not going to touch with a 10-foot pole. Three Musketeers is a B.S. candy bar. Without at least some caramel it’s useless to me.
Hope your Halloween was as satisfying and fun as mine was.
And a sidenote to the peopleofwalmart.com folks…you made my year with this website and if you need anyone to help write those delightful captions under the pictures…I’m your girl. If you haven’t checked out this website…oh I must tell you, you’re missing out.