Little Patty and the pronoun

I dropped my son off at the Y this evening for his taekwondo class and decided to kill time with a visit to Target.

(Work out at the Y myself while he’s in class? Who, me? Not tonight, dear.)

Going to Target is like going home. I love that place. In fact, since it’s started selling food and booze, there’s no compelling reason for me to ever actually leave Target.

I was on the hunt for a photo album. Remember photo albums? You know, you peeled back the clear cover film and pressed your pic on the sticky page and then sealed it over? Forever. I'm not talking about a scrapbook (not a fan); I want a peel-and-stick method of capturing memories. Boxes and boxes of memories.  And so I was looking at Target’s selection of photo albums and refill pages.

There was a little girl and her mother across the aisle. The girl was 4, maybe 5 years old and happily chattering away, all “Mommy this” and “Mommy that” in a sing-song voice. I heard, “Mommy I love this Hello Kitty backpack, it’s beautiful!” She was modeling it, spinning and swaying. Very cute.  I tuned her out, much like her mother already had if the uh-huh-uh-huh response was any indication, in order to focus on my search.

Score! Found an album (not scrapbook) and refill pages.

Spoiler alert: I bought this!

 

How much? I stepped out into the main aisle in search of a price scanner and the little girl said, “Mommy, she looks like my friend’s mommy … she’s beautiful.”

Aw, what a little cutie. And such a keen eye for the obvious.

I smiled, pressing the corners of my mouth so my dimples were extra adorable, and tilted my head at this little sweetie and cooed, “Are you talking about me?”

That curly-headed, doe-eyed little angel blinked once and, looking up at me through feathery lashes, bluntly declared with a twinge of exasperation, “No. My friend is beautiful.”

You know, Patty,* you’re kind of a little bitch.

And your Hello Kitty backpack is dumb.

(Thought it. Didn’t say it.)

*Not her real name. I knew a kid named Patty once and she was horrid. Seemed to fit.

So literally, in the blink of little brown eyes, I went from Hello Kitty-level beautiful to just a sad old lady at Target fishing for compliments from a preschooler.

Her mother was open-mouthed and aghast and, sensing this (and it’s possible, catching on to the steely gaze I had on her), little Patty explained, taking big pauses to ensure my understanding, “My friend is beautiful. … you look like my friend’s mommy … my friend’s mommy is beautiful …"

[big pause]

“… And so are you.”

Sweet Patty, thank you for the clarification. I’m so sorry to have interrupted you mid-declaration of all the beautiful things you see.

So we should all take a cue from Patty – this one, not the awful kid I used to know – and notice out loud all the beauty around us. A sunny Monday after a gloomy weekend. The huge, inviting red concrete balls at Target’s entrance. An $8.49 photo album (beautiful bargain!). A delish to-go cup of creamy tomato soup from Panera Bread enjoyed in the parking lot of the Y while waiting for my son.

Beats working out.

And precious Patty, who looks positively smashing in her brand-new Hello Kitty backpack.

 

 

For the love of capes and cakes

I mentioned in yesterday’s post my love of capes, and so here’s a pic of my girlfriends and me all decked out in them to greet trick-or-treaters for Halloween. We do Halloween BIG at my house and I’ll tell you more about it another time.

High fashion on Halloween. That's me on the right end with my mouth hanging open.

 

Another thing I love is cake. I reaaallly love cake. Really. Really. So here are a few gratuitous cake shots, courtesy of my dear friend Lisa Easton.  She's the tallest redhead in the photo above, second from left, and these are her designs below. 

Wedding cake.

 

Baby shower cake.

 

Birthday cake.

 

Adorable cake.

 

Beautiful, fun, creative? Yes. Best part? You can EAT them ... and they taste delish.

Because they are cakes. And that's what cakes do, my friends: they bring the yum.

You should like Lisa's Facebook page - Cakes By Lisa E. - to really see the art and magic of her cake designs. Not only is she talented, she’s also a lovely, cool person with a touching personal story that I will share another time (with her permission).

And she has buckets of icing in her bakery. Icing by the bucket? Yes, please! Plus her bakery smells incredible. And since she spends so much time there, she smells incredible.

So tonight I offer a couple of my favorite things - and one of my favorite people - with promises of more rambling about them to come.

What are just a couple of your favorite things?

My side of the store

I wear a dress and hat ensemble twice a year.

Here

And here

I prefer the latter to the former.  It reflects my favorite holiday and my personality, to an extent (a big extent).  Plus, I have a matching cape that's not pictured above – a cape! – and who doesn’t love a cape? Amiright?

However, it is spring in the Greater Louisville area and so I indulge the former in order to support Kentucky Derby-related festivities. Once a year, I dress like a proper lady to attend a brunch and fundraiser for charity.

Which entails springtime dress shopping. [Note: black capes never go out of style, yet another plus for Halloween]  I picked up the dress in the top photo and another on my latest excursion. Two pretty, summery, sleeveless things in pastel colors. Girly stuff.  I picked up little coordinating cardigans for each so I can have some coverage for my big-girl arms and also because I am utterly addicted to cardigans (Seriously, it's an issue with me. I am cardigan crazy. It's my uniform. I feel nekkid without a cardi).

[Note: much as I love a cardi, it is still not as a cool as a cape]

I am over-the-moon happy to have purchased these dresses because I rarely buy dresses … because I do not generally look good in them. Dresses tend to look like maternity clothes on me. I am 44 and decidedly not pregnant, so maternity? That's not the look I am going for.

So I found what I wanted. And they fit. And I could afford them – and matching cardis (addict!).

I went on this lunchtime shopping excursion a couple of weeks ago, accompanied by two other ladies. When the three of us walked in the dress shop together, two of us headed over to the left (plus-sized department) and the other, to the right (regular sizes). My plus-sized companion playfully made the comment to our regular-sized cohort along the lines of, "Oh look at you getting to shop on that side of the store." As in, I wish I could shop on that side of the store.

Her words hit me in a way that I know she didn't intend when she said them. I told her, "I am happy to shop on this side of the store." I meant it as encouragement, as in, Please like and accept yourself and know that it’s OK to shop on this side of the store because beautiful clothes are here and you are beautiful.  

I am a large woman. I have weighed much more and I have weighed much, much less. But my weight - dress size, side of the store I shop on, number of chins - has nothing to do with my intelligence, talent, wit, confidence, happiness, satisfaction, relationships, or beauty. My health is good and I am always striving to do better for myself and set a good example for my son. I have a healthy sense of humor about my weight, but please understand that to know me is to know that I do not pine to be smaller. Skinny is not an aspiration for me. Healthy, yes. Thin? Not necessarily. I am comfortable in this skin, no matter how much of it there is.

I realize that not all women feel that way about themselves or about large women, and that is their burden to bear. I once sat in a group session where a woman confessed her greatest fear in life was getting fat.

Me?

... in no particular order ... Being buried alive. Fiery death. Falling into a pit of snakes. A spider laying eggs in my ear. Finding an alligator under my bed. That the odd smell in my car has an organic origin.

You get the idea.

All of us - large, small and in between - have insecurities. We can change our appearance, but doing so won’t change who we are on the inside. So, no, I’m not afraid of being fat. But I am afraid of being consumed by insecurity to the point that I don’t appreciate the love and acceptance others have for me. Just as I am.

So I will wear my new dresses with confidence. Even though they came from the plus-sized side of the store.

And even if they didn’t come with capes.

Some days you spin

Oh, sweet nectar

There’s something about a Diet Coke from McDonalds.  I don’t know exactly what it is … the impeccably frozen ice (not watery/not freezer burned)? The perfect carbonation (fizzy instead of bubbly/never flat)? I don’t know what it is, but I loves me some DC from McD.

And if loving it is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

Bonus: where I live, a large soda or tea is only $1. Seriously.

So I picked up a DC for me and a couple of teas for my co-workers this morning and headed to the office. I made sure the drinks were secure in the cardboard-like carrier (what is that thing made of?), turned off the radio, put the car in park, dropped my keys in my purse, and unfastened my seatbelt, ready to step out of the car and into my day.

Only I wasn’t in the parking lot at my office.

I was sitting at a stoplight … about a block and half away from my office.

And the light was green.

I noticed just a split second before the horns started blaring. Horrified, I quickly fished my keys out of my purse, re-started the engine and threw it in drive … scooting through the light just in time to leave a line of cars stuck behind me as it turned red again. I wrestled the seat belt on, and - about four seconds later - arrived safely at my destination.

For real this time.

It’s possible that I might need to consider a higher level of caffeine in the morning than my DC from McD provides.

[Note: the Mom in me thinks this is a very bad idea.]

I have no idea why I spaced like that. Maybe I time-traveled into the very near future for a sec, but snapped back to the present prematurely, thus causing myself confusion in the paradox of the space/time continuum.

[Note: the Nerd in me says, “Hells yeah!” even if I didn’t state that with any level of scifi authority.]

I shrugged it off and went on with my day.  At lunch, I left to do some banking and grab a bite to eat.  I pulled into the bank’s drive-through, signed the checks I was having cashed, and reaching for the sucky tube thing … realized the bank was gone.

It moved.

Last week.

I mean the building is still there, but the bank is closed; the building is empty. And I knew this because my office faces the abandoned bank. In fact, my desk faces the window with a full view of the abandoned bank.  I’ve noticed. This was not news to me today.

What gives? I’m preoccupied this week with several personal and professional projects. I’m task-centered, checking off this and that from my list of demands-on-me and trying to move on to the next big thing. And so I am not noticing what’s going on around me at any particular moment.

Or maybe I need an MRI.

[Note: the Hypochondriac in me says, “I knew it. Sigh …”]

Anyway, the rest of my day went off without a hitch once I put away the to-do list. I just did what needed to be done in the present without worrying about what was waiting. Funny thing is, it all got done. And I didn’t get lost, confused or cause anyone to sit through two red lights.

Some days are like that: you spin until you spiral. Stop the wheel. Step back, right yourself, shake the dizziness and take a look around.

There’s always some sweetness to be savored if you take the time to taste.

Especially if it’s in the form of a DC from McD.

Getting started

I am starting a blog tonight. I’m not entirely sure why I am doing this, to be honest. I just know that I want to.

Who knows what I'll discover when I take a closer look

I am inspired by other bloggers. I enjoy reading about their lives - recipes, photos, decorating - the minutia, the mundane. It’s a connection of our shared hopes and experiences that I enjoy. I thought I might join the conversation.

I am also seeking a kinda/sorta creative outlet wherein I actually do some writing. See, I used to make a living writing. And I was a pretty good writer. I’m still one heck of a storyteller, as evidenced by the yarns I like to spin over a glass of wine with friends, or even the small, but important, bits of perspective or history shared with my teenage son on the short drive to school in the morning. But nowadays, I make my living as more of an editor. Still a good gig, but I spend so much time scrutinizing others’ works, I rarely get a chance to put pen to paper myself – though obviously, there is neither pen, nor any paper going on here. And when I do actually write something original, I have a hard time getting the editor to stop interrupting the writer. Editor Chick is all, “You really should use a semi-colon, not a dash.” And the Writer Chick is all, “Whatever. Never mind.”

And the Word doc disappears (no, she doesn’t want to to save this document) and the laptop goes dark.

Here’s the thing: I want to tell stories, be they my own or others, and I hope this blog will allow me to do so. It would be nice to tell them to somebody. But if nobody shows up, that’s ok. The show will still go on. The story will be told. Not sure how frequently. But it will go on.

Angel of the Lake, Mount St. Francis

And so I will try to quiet the editor, though she be a bossy broad, and let the writer say her peace. Or is say her piece? The editor would look it up. This writer isn’t going to.

Until next time – Lorri

PS: I looked it up, but found definitive grammatical preference of piece vs. peace in the phrasing above. Though I think I mean it more like piece. But I didn’t change it. Progress comes in little bits.

PS+: And yes, I need a better design. I am still figuring Blogger out. It's not what it will be, but it is what it is ... for now.

About me

Welcome to my blog, ROAR, the Ramblings Of A Redhead!

I’m Lorri and I’m your host for rambling, musings, observations and general nuttiness.

A little about me: I’m in my 50s and I've been married since 1993 to Mr. Malone. We're the parents of an adult, married son, which makes us empty nesters. We live in a modest little cottage in the southern part of Indiana (neighboring Louisville, Ky. is just across the Ohio River). We are Hoosiers through and through – there’s a cornfield across the road (not a street; a road) from our house and a basketball goal in the driveway … it doesn’t get any more Indiana than that, folks.

The view from our driveway.

And even though we can see (and smell) a working farm from our living room and live (and smell) about a block away from a horse farm, we are also part of a large suburban neighborhood. So we enjoy all the benefits of the country, the suburbs and a large metro close by.

I work full-time in the communications field (think, writer and editor). I love to hang with my family and our pets – a dog and cat – both rescues.  I enjoy baking, antiquing, flea markets and auctions, decorating, gardening, reading, napping and entertaining. I am blessed with good friends and we enjoy a big extended family.

I'm using this space to share a little about being at home with life at this age and this stage. Thanks for joining me at home.