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Boobs or hip bones? What's more attractive? C'mon, fellas. Inquiring minds want to know what y'all think. It started over the weekend with pictures of two celebs on two beaches. LeAnn Rimes in Mexico and Christina Hendricks in Italy.
LeAnn tweeted a photo of herself in a string bikini. The paparazzi caught Christina stepping out of her cover-up. Those two pictures ignited the body wars again. "She looks anorexic." "That's obese." Women can't win. Either we're too thin or too fat.
It's been reported that Christina is 5'8", approximately 154 pounds, and a size 14. When you remember that the average woman's dress size in the 1950s was an 8, you also have to remember that in the 1950s, the average woman was 5'3", 120 pounds, with a waist size of 24" to 25". Today, the average American woman is 5'4", 150 pounds, with a waist size of 34" to 35". And her dress size? 12.
Don't forget that the U.S. Department of Commerce abolished the uniform sizing system for women's clothes in 1983. A size 8 in the 1950s is a size 4 or less today. A size 12 today would be a size 16 or larger in the 1950s. For anyone who sews, we know our "true" size because the sizes on patterns didn't change to fit our vanity as our waists expanded.
My mother was plump from her early 40s onward. At her largest, back in the 1970s, she was a 16. Granted she was only 5'2". Having inherited some of her nicer vintage dresses, it's surprising that they fit me. Me? A size 16? Okay, so I'm 5'10" and don't look as plump as my mother did.
Shockingly, my secret is that my dress size is the American average. Yep, just one dress size smaller than Ms. Hendricks. Hurray for us hourglass-figured women! Other than our figures, Ms. Hendricks and I share the same hair color. But I was born this way! [WARNING! Do NOT click the last link if you are offended by over-the-top music videos. If so, click HERE instead.]
This one time, at band camp . . . Wait. Let's start again.
Last night after dropping off one daughter at a babysitting job and returning to find the other daughter and her friends prepping for the football game, it was supposed to be a relaxing night in.
The agenda was full of ideas: a quick catch-up with certain friends who were online, a really long decadent bubble bath, a cup of hot apple cider and a new book, a lap for Thing 1 and Thing 2 to take turns warming. Ah, bliss.
But Murphy's Law kicked in. Flip on the computer. Log into the various mail accounts. Suddenly all the fire alarms in the house go "beep" once then the house goes dark. Immediately, the generator next door clicks on and starts humming away. You should see the size of that generator. It's big enough to power the entire block. But no! If this was grade school, their report card would say, "Doesn't play well with other."
A quick visual check outside confirms that the whole block is without power. Lovely. Somebody has to report the outage. In the past, it's been that the neighbors assume someone else reported the outage. But what's the power company's phone number?
That's okay. My web browser is open. I'll just look it up online.
Ever have one of those blonde days even if you've got more red in your hair than blonde?
It took me a few "Why won't the page load?" before realizing that the modem, which is plugged into an electric outlet, doesn't work if the power is out.
Good thing the rest of last night's agenda could be accomplished sans electricity. Bubble bath by candlelight. Cider heated on the gas stove. Reading by candlelight. Thing 1 and Thing 2 on either side of me like anchors trapping the warmth under my blanket.
Ah, bliss, after all.
Credit card balances that automatically download to your Quicken program are both a boon and a bust. Boon because it saves so much time in keeping track of your monthly expenses. Bust because sometimes Mr. Gaelic catches me spending more money than he thinks is necessary.
Take, for example, when Deirdre and I went to the hair salon recently. The salon owner has done hair for photo shoots in New York. There’s a fierce competition among area stylists to have a chair at the salon. And the services are expensive.
So it’s not quite like a $400 haircut on Air Force One. But the pampering you get at the salon makes you think you’re the head of the free world.
What really gets me is when Mr. G is downloading the monthly reports on our Disney points credit card while sitting in another room and all of a sudden there’s a “J*sus Chr*st” exclaimed loud enough to carry throughout the whole downstairs. Busted!
