Sunshine After the Rain

Goodness Gracious, Girl! has redefined itself. Still promoting the concepts from Sunrise in a Lemon Sky, the topics categorize around Faith, Family, and the Future.

Fit IN does not mean Fit INSIDE

            The question remains, “Will skinny jeans make me skinny?”  Or to amplify, might a pair of super-skinny jeans rearrange my body, squashing the bottom portion upward, suggesting an illusion of a skinny hip and thigh with a suddenly voluptuous bosom?

            Several weeks ago, I attended a fall fashion show which showcased long sweaters, chunky jewelry, Big Budda bags, and skinny jeans. 

“She wears this festive top paired with skinny jeans,” the announcer repeated enough to cause me to ponder the skinny-jean question once again. Hmmm.

            High-fashion jewelry and a dramatic hair style move the eye from bottom to top. The eye will admire the flashy decoration, but (pun intended), the eye always travels back to the bottom, especially if the jean-wearer is about to explode from a buttoned and zippered denim fabric girdle.

            I’ve often pondered the sane person’s judgment in taking outdoor living to the extreme: why would a person want to bake a potato in the ground if a good oven is available. The same logic is beyond me when a larger-than-life diva asks, “Do y’all carry skinny jeans in my size?”

            Not only are these jeans more expensive (duh! heavy-duty material and more of it), the price is meant to discourage the purchase. In size 6, skinny jeans cost $26, but in size “Too Big,” the price is $46. The price tag screams, “You SHOULD NOT purchase these jeans.”  Someone needs to save us from ourselves and our desire to “fit in.”  "Fit in" does not mean “fit inside” the jeans that are meant for a small framed young lady who has not yet experienced the pull of gravity.

I prefer Chico’s size chart.  When in my life did I wear a 1 or a 2? 

As a toddler, maybe!  “What size, Honey?”  “Oh, I wear a ONE!” Whoo-hoo! Chico’s has a line of slimming jeans that is cut for the older diva. They sell sweaters and tops that are not meant to be dresses. They do not sell leggings.

When I am tempted to buy a pair of skinny jeans, I look into the Magic Mirror and a vision chants the alarming truth, “Dearie, You might have the fairest front in all the land, but have you looked behind you lately?”

Too Young For My Own Good

Today I was glancing through a Southern Living magazine and happened upon a beautiful ad for Grove Park Inn.

A group of friends and I plus our "keepers" spent one night there when we were too young to know where we were and they were too old to realize we would not appreciate it at all.
We were too busy playing tricks on friends, like folding them up in the roll-away bed or making crank wake up calls.

That chuckle called to mind the wonderful tour of the White House during the Camelot era when Mrs. Kennedy had refurbished it.  The Blue Room and all the other great places we rushed through like we had dinner reservations with Troy Donahue.

 We were too occupied with the new guys we were standing in line with.  That and hurrying back to the bus to get the best seats in the back.

Then, there was that wonderful trip to Annapolis, the home of the Naval Academy. My group made beauty shop appointments and had our hair done because we might see some midshipmen who would be over the moon for us when they took one look at our glamorous "make-overs." One of them might turn out to be "an officer and a gentleman."

Oh, yes, I was far too young to appreciate the real value of this trip. But I was just the right age to make great teenage memories.

House Blend

This week many accomplished writers inspired me. We gathered at Hemingway-Pfieffer Educational Center in Piggott, AR.  From Maryland to California, from Louisiana through the corners of Arkansas, we came together for a marvelous adventure with Dr. Pat Carr, our mentor. Not only did I have the pleasure of meeting these other writers, but I heard them read their initial workings for books they plan to publish. Only 2-3% of writers ever make a living doing what they love, but the creative process is beyond measure.

In fact, a new book came to mind listening to Pat explain various strategies for writing point of view. I've learned much lately about the Gordon-Ritchie family and I've discovered things I never knew.  It's very difficult to know a person's story from a set of dates and random newspaper reprints.

I can write this story from a the point of view of each of the women:  Jane Elizabeth Tooke Gordon (Thomas Bullock Gordon), Jane McBride Campbell Ritchie (John Calhoun Ritchie),

Ella Jane Ritchie Gordon (Charles Thomas Gordon).

 I have learned much through research and remember stories Mother told about these women and their children. The mentor, Pat Carr, encouraged me to start.

                                                          Ella Jane Ritchie:  Age 14

Gratitude in a Trailer, Down By the River

Disclaimer:  Gratitude.  Every day.  Every moment. I’m grateful for my life and the lives of those I love. I’m grateful for friends through writing, like Dorothy Johnson and her Blog “Reflections from the Ridge.”  I’m also grateful for my peculiar sense of humor that borders on sarcasm, the lowest form of humor.

Down by the river.  In a field. In a trailer that was behind the Tastee-Freeze in Married Student Housing. There I learned gratitude in a peculiar kind of way.

I’m grateful for mouse-traps.

Gratitude blossomed in a tiny trailer and came to me on little mice feet.  Not little cat feet.  Not as Carl Sandburg wrote, but as I heard.  Every night, above our double bed sandwiched between two walls and topped with a drop ceiling.  There between the roof and the ceiling they scampered, danced and pranced, sounding like a herd of steroid filled lab rats. Upon hearing the last act of what would eventually become River Dance, I decreed that husband was not to return to said domicile without traps.  I would remain encamped in the green sofa chair, feet raised, until the hero returned.

I’m grateful for green electrical tape.

We had a dog.  Duke.  As in Duke. Duke. Duke. Duke of Earl. Duke’s tail, which wagged constantly, could knock open the bathroom door and clear the coffee table with one swoop.  A growing puppy, he was ravenous, all the time. He teethed on lamp wires when he was not eating the arms off the sofa.  Which was green. I reupholstered the arms of that green sofa with matching electrical tape, and no one could ever tell the difference in green tape and green pleather that covered the luxury sofa in a trailer, in a field, in Married Student Housing.

I’m grateful, most of all, for a dose of Nyquil and The Wash House.

Illness.  Deep, dark, nameless illness.  “Here, drink some of this.” Rational thought goes out the window with high fever. Like “here, Dearie, eat this apple.” She took a bite; I drank. It was a vile, disgusting concoction of venom. Named NyQuil, it’s deep, dark green and causes black outs, if not death. Before I passed out, I mumbled something about needing to do the laundry.

In a trailer, in a field, down by the river, in Married Student Housing, there are no washer-dryer combos.

The mice-killer said, “I’ll do the laundry because I’m out of underwear. How do I do that?” In my last conscious words, I said, “Go to the Wash House.  They’ll help you.”  That’s all I remember.

After what must have been a half-day, when I came to lucid thought and it was dark outside, I heard the following words mumbled through clenched teeth with raw exasperation, “The first things we’re buying when we get a house is a washer and dryer.”

And that’s why I’m grateful for NyQuil and The Wash House in a town where I lived in Married Student Housing in a trailer in a field down by the river.