Tag Archives: New York Times

Women, Do You Know Your Size?

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Foundation

A New Step in Wrestling With the Bra – NYTimes.com.

They are the measurements that many American women (and not a few American men) know so well: 32A, 34B, 36C.

On they go, the canonical brassiere sizes, up to at least a 50N. They have been around since the 1930s, maddeningly unconventional standards, varying from brand to brand, from demi-cup to strapless — a kaleidoscopic vision, in lace and elastic, of fashion, culture and the enduring power of marketing.

But is anyone ready for measurements like 1-30, 7-36 and 9-42?

I thought about not posting this but then again….

The other day, while walking through Nordstrom, I decided that I needed something new so I went to Lingerie…specifically “foundations” as they are sometimes called.

While browsing the sale rack… a lovely sales women around my age asked if I needed assistance.

It had been awhile since I had any assistance when it came to “foundation fit” so I said, “yes, please”.

I have to admit that I find it funny to need assistance in “foundations”…to me it is like not knowing your own shoe size!

I explained to her that I was interested in something that fit properly and did not make me look like my mother or an “earth mother” nor was I trying to look like my daughter.

Did they have bras that were called, “Not Your Daughter’s Bras”…to go along with NYDJ…”Not Your Daughter’s Jeans“?

She assured me she could help with my dilemma…I also told her that I appreciated the fact that as age takes its toll, proper foundation is important.

I purposely forgot to tell her about the young stylist on Kathie Lee and Hoda the day before…who was showing women how to “push-up” and try to make themselves look like a Victoria Secret model.

Needless to say, I was wearing the wrong size and style.

After she was done helping me ….I felt like I had been exercising and in top shape from the waist up.

What a relief to have new fancy, fitted foundations!

Then, this morning I came upon this article in the New York Times.

I then realized that I was not alone in being baffled by bras and the new sizing in the “foundation” department.

With us, baby boomers wanting to look our best, what better place to start than with our bras to make us feel like we are just getting better with age…

So much better,

that they had to redesign the “foundation” sizes

to confuse us even more.

Related:

Bra Fit Guide.

Weekend Reading…

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Comfort Food

This week there was a very sad and shocking incident on a plane….it involved a child and a racial slur in addition to a slap across the face…unbelievable??? not really…. when you read the account below about how it is to travel as a “minority”.

 

Recently I got into a Twitter conversation with a friend who lives on the West Coast of the United States and is planning a cross-country road trip with her boyfriend.

 

While I was hit by the headline of this article, I am not sure that I agree with it but what I know for sure is that there definitely is too much information out there for parents. Some of the information is just opinion and other is factual while some internet conversations among moms on various sites are full of personal attacks about parenting styles including breast or bottle feeding.

What do you think?

 

In part, my mother is right: moms of my generation are more neurotic than moms of her generation. According to Ann Hulbert, the author of “Raising America: Experts, Parents and a Century of Advice About Children,”  “with every generation (over the past century at least), parenting norms have become more obsessive and anxiety inducing.” On the web, there are more outlets for parenting expertise than ever before, and the proliferation of doctors, midwives and lay folks telling you the “right” way to parent is profoundly anxiety producing.

Recently, I have been watching Mario Batali and admiring his cooking skills. I guess my favorite cuisine is Italian so I share his taste buds for the foods of Italy.

Here is what sounds like a delicious recipe for “gnocchi” and squash with a kick of heat.

BFF’s…

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As external conditions change, it becomes tougher to meet the three conditions that sociologists since the 1950s have considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other, said Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sociology and gerontology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. This is why so many people meet their lifelong friends in college, she added.

via The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult – NYTimes.com.

Today is my longtime friend’s birthday…it is one of those milestone birthdays that you celebrate with good friends because they understand how it is to mark another birthday that ends in a zero.

It has been a week long celebration, which I am thrilled to have been able to spend at her side.

You see, we met close to 30 years ago now…it was a chance meeting of sorts at a Country Club that both our families had joined so that our husbands could play golf and our kids could swim and play tennis.

From the start, our husbands hit it off, both were physicians and from the East Coast, both played at golf and looked forward to an early Sunday tee-off so that they could spend the rest of the day with their families.

My friend and I are both nurses married to physicians, I think this is a bond that is special because as a physician’s wife, you spend a lot of time with the kids sans without your husband because of his extra long work days and on-call schedules. You also have to learn to live with men who are very intense and under the stress of make life and death decisions on a daily basis.

We knew that our day to day activities did not nearly measure up to the stress and intensity as those of our husbands. Nevertheless at times, we needed each other’s shoulders to get through motherhood.

We also understood our days were not all that easy as young moms of four girls under the age of five.

Although we lived in different suburbs of Chicago, we managed to keep in touch throughout the long winters as we looked forward to spending almost every day during the summer in each other’s company watching our kids learn to swim and play tennis. Those were great years and we knew it then and look back fondly on them now.

A little over four years ago, we both became grandmothers…and yes, we dote on our granddaughters.

I am so thrilled that we are now grandmothers together, just as we were moms together. Because, becoming a grandparent is a very special life milestone, that one cannot truly appreciate until it happens.

Over the years as friends, we have shared many  holidays, family celebrations and life events together… as well as some of our happiest moments and some of our very saddest moments.  All of us are now adult orphans and my friend’s husband and I have tragically lost our only siblings as well. Together, all four of us have laughed, cried and solved each other’s problems at dinner every Friday night for almost 20 years.

Traveling as couples has taken a back seat only recently because of our grandparent statuses. Fortunately, we had the opportunity to travel for many years as families and then as empty nesters.

We made a yearly pilgrimage to the Bahamas, a place that we enjoyed with our children at one time, then as couples… hopefully we will travel there again with our grandchildren.

A standout special trip is one, the four of us made to Ireland years back. Our sides hurt from laughter as we drove the verdant countryside, white knuckled at times on curvy narrow roads (left-sided of course). Simply put, unforgettable, especially the sunrises and sunsets, along with the sips of Irish whisky and the tastes of Irish humor.

This morning as I drank my coffee and perused the New York Times, I came upon this piece “The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult”. It brought home many thoughts of past and present friends.

It made me happy to think about a weekend many years ago, when I spotted this young mom and her two daughters sitting at the pool, as my husband and I with our two daughters in tow were making our way to the car after a long day of swimming.

I turned and told my husband to “wait a minute,”  while I went over and introduced myself  to a woman that would become my trusted friend for the next 30 years and beyond…we would grow up together…and grow old together at the same time.

So, Happy Birthday, Kathy and here’s to sharing many more years together as friends and family.

xo…your grateful friend,

Lorette

Parents and Happiness are they mutually exclusive?

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Did becoming parents make you unhappy???

I inadvertently published this link on my old website…So I am re-posting here.

This is such an interesting question to me. I will be discussing this in my head totally from a  hindsight perspective.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post when I post my own answer.

I hope you will join me with your comments!

Parenting…’Hunger Games’ style…

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Although ‘Hunger Games‘ is a movie…in my opinion, it is much more than a big box office hit.

It is a commentary on the fierceness with which we approach certain parts of our lives.

It is very popular with our teenagers…why?

Why is it that they love the type of competition that ‘Hunger Games’ portrays?

At dinner with friends the other night, I tried to initiate a discussion about ‘Hunger Games’…I asked what they thought of the violence in the movie?

Now, I have to admit that none of us have even seen the movie. So I probably had no business even starting a discussion in the the first place.

But my friend popped up and said …”it really isn’t that violent”…which is what she had heard somewhere in a review…she did not get a chance to go on, because the men at the table changed the subject.

So I am turning to you …to see what you think about this Op-ed piece in the New York Times?

What is this movie saying to kids and parents?…

Are some kids being raised with a ‘Hunger Games’ mentality?

To answer all my questions, I may even have to go see ‘Hunger Games’ in the theatre instead of waiting for the DVD  …but then haven’t I just fallen into the media hype pit?

Please click the link and read the cartoon segments that precede this quote in the ‘OP-ED’ New York Times. 

‘Hunger Games’ Parenting – NYTimes.com.

Amy Chua’s best-seller, “The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” trumpeted the benefits of raising children with draconian strictness in the Chinese fashion (or allegedly so). Pamela Druckerman’s “Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting” made the case for a more casual, laissez-faire approach. But each mode has something to offer! Thus, cruelty and indifference combine to perfect effect in the philosophies of the “Hunger Games” Mother. Who better to help parents navigate the brutal, futuristic dystopia that is contemporary childhood? A primer, above.

Uncooked Cookie Dough …

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NOTEWORTHY WEDNESDAY  THURSDAY!

This is a season of cookie baking…and the verdict is in…eat cookie dough at the risk of getting sick.

Yes, sick…really sick from e-coli (bacteria found in feces) and salmonella.

Salmonella can be traced to eating raw eggs.

E-coli, it turns out has been found in flour.

Just a few days ago, I was baking chocolate chip cookies from a prepared Betty Crocker cookie mix, that happens to be one of my favorites. On the package I noticed a warning “Do Not Eat Raw Dough”. Now, I suspected that it was due to the salmonella risk but after reading the NYT article I believe it was also related to the e-coli risk as well.

I hope that you all enjoy whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year and that if tempted by the delicious smell of cookie dough you resist “tasting” it or giving it to your kids.

One study that looked at commercial wheat flour samples found almost 13 percent contaminated with E. coli. The investigators also pointed out that wheat flour can also be contaminated with Salmonella, and that flour-based mixes have previously been implicated in outbreaks of food-borne illness.

via Beware of Raw Cookie Dough – NYTimes.com.

When is it too old for the Men’s Locker Room???

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Noteworthy Wednesday!

via: Flickr: Heather Poole

I went swimming at the Y.M.C.A. Later, in the men’s locker room, a father walked in with his daughter. Occasionally, this happens with babies or toddlers, but the girl was 7 or 8. He put her in a shower stall while he showered, and left her there while he shaved and flossed. Then he brought her to the lockers, where they changed. I was appalled. What do you make of this?

via Too Old for the Men’s Locker Room – Social Q’s – NYTimes.com.

This question appeared in the Sunday NYTimes and it truly raised questions for me.

I have often thought about this dilemma especially when I see kids out for the day with their dads.

Interestingly, I don’t always think about this when I see kids with their moms!

But  back to dad and the “Y” locker room. This scene raises concerns for me…granted, I have not visited a men’s locker room but the women’s locker room is certainly an experience. Some women walk around naked, others cover-up as best they can…they usually do not spend any unnecessary time in the locker room…shower, change, pack up and leave. When young children are with their moms, from my observations, they get changed and leave in fairly short order most of the time.

For me, it seems this dad took entirely too much time while his daughter was hanging out in the men’s locker room.

My own “yuk” feeling is coming to the surface here. Exposing children to other naked adults, personally, makes me uncomfortable. I would have to think of another way of doing my toilette if I were in a similar situation.

  • What do you do when your opposite-sex child has to use a public restroom?
  • At what age should children be allowed to use the public restroom by themselves?
  • What public restrooms would make you think twice about letting your child use it without accompaniment?
  • More importantly…what do you teach them ahead of time to “protect” them.?
  • Do you teach your boys the same as you teach your girls?
  • Is this more of a “Dad Dilemma” than a “Mom Moment”?

Like I said, I used the “YUK” feeling factor to help me in these situations.

My feeling is by 7 or 8 years of age many kids have been in some type of locker room situation at school but “Y” locker rooms of the opposite sex seem to be an altogether different story.

It would be interesting to hear other responses to this issue and how parents deal with this common life situation.