4 posts tagged “bras”

I haven't had time to blog ages...here's a summary of recent highlights:

We spent a month in  Maine this summer, which I won't do again until I have my own house/hotel there, survived, and started the oldest in first grade. She's also started soccer, which officially makes me a soccer mom, much to the amusement of some of my friends. I find soccer-momming unduly stressful, what with team snacks, and 2 trips a week to the field, picture day, awards ceremonies, and wet grass.  Queenie's fast, and really seems to like it. There's also a couple other toddlers and some pups around to entertain the little one. Luckily, it's only an 8 week season and we're already half way through.

The kids are obsessed with Annie. Spit-spot spends her days singing "Tomorrow" to everyone's amusement. I miss the days when Queenie used to sing "Moonraker."

I got rear-ended in the supermarket parking lot and am in negotiations with the Insurance folk. Just a fender bender, but I intend to get justice.

Spit-Spot woke me up a couple weeks ago proudly yelping, "Look Mommy, I ate it all! I ate it all!" and holding open an empty bottle of thyroid medication. Let me just say that the Poison Control people are the nicest folks on earth and deserve a big raise. She's fine, I just about had a nervous breakdown. Because I learned that the one thing worse than thinking your kid is about to die, is that you just killed your kid.

I've apparently become asthmatic. Technically, it's EIA, or Exercise Induced Asthma. Either way it's kind of bumming me out as I'm now on 2 additional medications and feel alternately that my body is failing me, or that LA is killing me. Fire Season here is not helping my opinion on the latter.

Mentally preparing to go back to work. Sad but true, I fear the time has come. Now my goal is to find a well-paying, low stress job with super-flexible hours and convenience to home and day care and easy parking.

Counting down the days to when Clive finishes grad school and we can get some semblance of a normal household back and I can stop feeling like a single mom (which is kind of unfair as Clive really does help a lot but still I want a man with regular hours).

It's been shoe month here as I've been shopping for an outfit to wear to a  cocktail/dinner event for a friend. My friend Maryann came down from SF to help and is lending me some fabulous jewelry to ensure I don't look like the poor cousin at the party. We bought a gorgeous pair of ruby red patent leather peep toe pumps with 4 inch heels that I have been petting like a new kitten. Too expensive for our current situation, however, so I asked Clive to return them for me, as I did not have the heart to do it myself. 10 bonus points for Clive! I did, however, buy a lovely pair of every day peep toes with a short heel for me for my upcoming birthday in an attempt to class up, a bit, and an agreeable  pair of black patent peep toe pumps for 1/3rd the price of the original ruby red pair. Also, some new makeup and bras. Just need some new hosiery and a compact and I'm done. I may even skip the hose. I mean, it's LA, right?

When sweet Maryann came down to help me shop, we also went out to a movie (The Darjeeling Limited) and drank a bit too much. All in the same day. Wooo!

I've taken up yoga, finally, in an attempt to become a more flexible and balanced human being. I think it' s going well, although I'm a bit squirmmish with the chanting. One of the teachers calls us "Oh Great Ones" and I'm finding myself jonesing for that every once in a while.

I've also taken up drinking macha, thanks to MA, and have given up half and half in hopes of fitting back into my favorite jeans.

I'm trying to finish some felting projects and it's not going well at all as I keep falling asleep when I put the girls down to sleep.

To that point, I'm going to sign off now and go back to sleep.

If I ever get to the Oscars, I, Pom, wife of Clive, promise not to wear:

1. Something that does odd things to my breasts -- smoosh, smash, misshape, droop or just make look kooky (see Gwynneth Paltrow and Little Miss Volver)
2. Botox my face to death (ahem, Miss Kidman)
3. Dress like the Puerto Rican Cleopatra (J. Lo in the house!)
4. Ruin my dress with some big, whopping, clashing piece of bling, fabric, feathers or amulet (again, Miss K, Jennifer Hudson, Meryl Streep, Rachel Weis, Anne Hathaway, Cameron Diaz, Kirsten Dunst)
5. Iron my hair to death (Gwynnie, Nic, and Sassypants)
   

All in all I gotta say, the dresses last night for the most part were just awful. The few I did like, really, were mostly boring (Jessica Biel, Emily Blunt), or in a funky color that -- at least on TV - did not really flatter the stars. I get upset when Kate Winslet and Cate Blanchet look oddly washed out and / or Goth.

And while I thank the fashion gods for Helen Mirren, even her breasts looked a little droopy (and yes, I know how old she is, but come on, the woman surely knows where to find good sturdy undergarments). Sigh. May I have such troubles.

Aaaargh! The blue tee!

Tomorrow we go on our annual pumpkin farm trip and I need a good night's sleep to survive the onslaught of allergies, heat, and babyfussing.

But I can't sleep.

I bought the wrong bra. Bought black. Need nude. For the blue tee.  I stood at the checkout counter, staring at the black bra, thinking, "Should I switch?" But thought I was just being silly. Better to keep the black.

Actually, I need both black and nude, but the expense is too much.

So, I have to chose: return the black for the nude so I can wear my blue tee, or keep the black to wear with all my other shirts? And when, exactly, would I ever get back to even do returning? Do I order another online and pay the extra $5 shipping?

Aaaargh. I hate returning things.

And no wonder it didn't fit the same as my last favorite bra. That was a Chantelle. This is a Le Mystiere. I didn't even see Chantelles. Maybe they would fit better?

But if I go back and get the nude I could get the other style that was comfier.

And what if I don't actually have the right size? The clasp is at the end already. I think you're supposed to clasp at the beginning so it can stretch out. They stretch. Used to be the middle clasp, but now they say the first (I think). It's a lot of money to spend on something that's not perfect.

Aaaargh. I messed up.

And I still don't have my backings. Or my jeans. And now Jeanslady isn't answering my emails.

I think bananas help you sleep. But I'm out.

Baby up.

My big outing tonight was to the mall. I haven't been out for as much as a cup of coffee by myself in about two months, so this was a big break. Wooo! My own private jailbreak. I had some bras to return to Nordstrom that I bought online because I was desperate for new underthings and the thought of going into the bra department with a busy toddler and a drooly cup of Oatios in between naptimes and mealtimes filled me with dread.

I don't do well with shopping to begin with. I don' t like malls, the lights or the crowds. I hate the overly loud piped in music. My husband thinks it triggers some mild form of autism that I have. He's probably right, but I think it's now called Sensory Integration Disorder. So thre's that, and then the knowledge that my bank account is horribly deficient fills me with a sickly sweet dread every time I use my charge card. So, really, I shouldn't be there to begin with. All that creates a sludgy undercurrent of tension no matter what else is going on.

And usually, what else is going on is my inept attempt to wrangle one or two kids in tow. My sweet baby likes to tear apart the displays with her grimy hands while I frantically sort through the neatly stacked piles of undies arranged in flat, little rainbows of colored and patterned cotton, hoping I can find what I need (Medium! I need medium! Regular! Not Hi-Cut!) before a saleswoman comes over and scolds me for messing up their morning's work and littering half-eaten toddler snacks on the merchandise.

Baby also likes to run underneath the dressing room doors and out into the main sales floor. It's hard to chase a kid in public when you've got no shirt on, especially when you're covered in flopsweat and half your brain is figuring a way out of debtor's prison, so, you know, thank god for the online.

So, at 7:15 I let my husband put the baby to sleep and I escaped in my stationwagon the whole 2.1 miles to the mall. I took Laurie Berkner off the CD player and put on Wolfmother. I was rockin' out! I called a friend on the way there. "Woooo!" I told her, "I'm alone in my car! After dark!" She understood, the dear friend that she is, and wished me well.

I returned the bras, and then I got roped into trying on a few more. Man, those salesgirls are good. And the expensive french bras make you look so cute and sexy that you forget to look at that sagging elephant pouch just above the waist of your jeans, you know? So anyway, I returned three, bought one, and then was sad to hear that all the stores in the mall close at 8 pm. It was 7:53. I had 7 minutes before the proverbial prison bloodhounds would be on my tail, kicking my sad house-arrest butt back home.

Sure, sure, my bra business was done, and I should be grateful. I had had a whole half hour of relative quiet and absolutely no Oatios. But I was at the mall, alone and awake on a Saturday night! I wanted to roam and languish in my aloneness. Oh, I knew I couldn't spend any real time shopping at Nordstrom (Girl, you just bought a bra for godsakes, you can't look at shoes, too!) but there were practical things to be done that could at least be done with a mnimal amount of stress, without sippy cup spills and lost shoes. I had Halloween accessories to shop for (rumor had it that the Disney store had some sparkly fairy shoes 50% off) and Christmas gifts to seek out.

In those seven minutes, I made it to the Disney store for a quick peak (found shoes, wrong size), cruised BabyGap for a winter beanie for my Kindergardner, and managed to look at some things in The Right Start window before taking the elevator back up to the roof, climbing in my car and heading home.

The sad thing is, although I wasn't expected back, it didn't even occur to me -- until now -- to go anywhere else. To a movie, or a coffeeshop. Hell, not even another mall. And that was a crucial mistake.

Because you see, Christmas is only 50-something days away. And at this rate, I won' t make it back that 2.1 miles before New Year's.