Not my imagination.....

When I wrote yesterday, was I exaggerating how rotten the weather's been in Belgium? No.

This just posted today.

V-Grrrl

Meet Neil

Neil visited V-Grrrl in the Middle earlier this week, and  when I clicked back to view his blog, I was thrilled to discover a truly original voice.  Neil is a writer and Web producer living in LA and his site Citizen of the Month is creative, thought-provoking, and fun.  Check it out.

Happy Weekend!

V-Grrrl

The Big Chill

I’m having a flashback to the beginning of May. The warm sunny days, the blooming flowers, the smiling people wandering happily through parks and lingering over lunches in sidewalk cafes. I remember that week where we all reached for short-sleeves and traded shoes for sandals and considered how lucky we were to be living in beautiful Belgium.

My gosh, what the hell happened? What did we do after that to incur the endless wrath of the Mighty Gods of Meteorology? All I know is that several weeks ago the wind kicked up, the clouds blew in, and the rain has been blowing sideways ever since.

We’ve all retreated to our houses and offices, our smiles sliding off our faces like the water on the windowpanes.

With much grumbling and grousing, I’ve had to retrieve my turtlenecks and sweaters from storage. My heavy leather jacket has cycled back into rotation in the coat closet, and I haven’t dared to leave the house without a scarf.

In the evenings I often sidle up to the radiators to see if they’re hot so I can warm my back against them. At night I’ve been pulling on socks before I climb into bed and drawing the red fleece blanket and flannel sheets up to my chin. My desktop is littered with teacups, and there are fresh ashes in the fireplace. Hello, is it really JUNE?

I haven’t lived in Belgium long enough to know what’s typical for any given season. All I know is that I’m sick to death of spending my days swathed in layers, braced against the elements.

I want to wait for the bus without huddling in the shelter, looking for a spot untouched by blowing rain. I want to go to the market and feel the sun on my bare arms while waiting to pay for fresh lettuce and tomatoes from smiling vendors. I want to set off for a long walk without scanning the sky for banks of ominous clouds or turning up my collar against the wind. I want to leave my umbrella languishing in the dreary dark of the coat closet.

Dammit, I want to worry about getting a sunburn for a change. I want to find a thin place in the ozone layer and huddle under it. Where’s global warming when you need it most? A little UV therapy would certainly lighten and brighten our lives in Europe right now.

Bring it on!

© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

June 1, 2006

Fashion Hall of Fame

While most of the clothes I buy only stay in circulation for three to five years, a few stalwarts have earned a spot in the V-Grrrl Fashion Hall of Fame.

My Naturalizer pumps fall into this category. I bought them in 1992 to wear to a trade show—I needed something that would match all my suits and that I could stand in all day. These black leather pumps with a low tapering heel and moderately pointy toe still look fine and fit lo these many years (and pounds) later.

Ditto my charcoal gray wool rollneck sweater that I bought from J.Crew. I think I paid about $80 for it, a big splurge in the early 90s. It was more than worth the investment. Winter after winter, I’ve reached for this sweater and still absolutely love it. It’s really warm, it’s neither oversized nor tight, it hits at mid hip, and it always looks and feels perfect with a pair of jeans.

Sweaters seem to be my best investments. They’re also my weakness, so knowing that I wear them forever helps me justify the ones I continue to add to my collection. I have a pair of soft and wooly LL Bean mohair v-neck cardigans (one grey, one red) that I’ve worn since the early 1990s. LL Bean was also the place I bought a burgundy wool-lined parka that has lots of pockets and is perfect for layering over bulky sweaters (ahem, which I have a lot of). I think I’ve had it for at least 12 years.

Pants seem to have a relatively short shelf life, but I have one pair of side-zip stretch chinos that has been the exception. I think I’ve had these for about 8 years and somehow they manage to fit and flatter no matter what the scale says. They’re all-purpose miracle workers—go with everything and look fab with my loafers in winter as well as the occasional strappy sandal in summer

The only item of clothing I own that I saved for sentimental reasons is in the bottom of my cedar trunk. It’s a stretchy knit black miniskirt that I bought in 1988—cute, comfortable, and when paired with heels, sexy. I only wore it regularly for two years, but they were two GREAT years, a time when I was skinny, fit and taking charge of my life. That skirt represents the confidence that blossomed in me when I was finally finishing up college, coming into my own as writer, and planning my great escape from the Midwestl town where I'd been trapped while E launched his career.

So what fashion truths are hiding in your closet? What items are still on your play list and what do you keep to remember good times? Tell me about what’s in your Fashion Hall of Fame.

© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

May 31, 2006

By popular request: The complete bride story

Once there was a woman professional in Northern Virginia who became engaged to be married. Sporting an impressive diamond on her left hand, the executive at a well-known international management consulting firm put all her professional skills and personal passion into planning The Perfect Wedding.

It would be elegant, traditional, and showcase her social standing, affluence, and good taste. Not a religious person, she nonetheless “shopped” for an impressive church to hold the wedding in—a church with WASP credentials, soaring cathedral ceilings, and proper stained glass windows. She booked a prominent hotel for the out-of-of-town guests and the reception.

She shopped endlessly for the perfect silk gown with a royal-looking cathedral train. She went to great lengths to ensure the bridesmaids’ gowns, invitations, and flowers were understated and expensive in a way that said “East Coast” and “old money,” even though she came from a middle-class family in the Midwest. She had vellum stationery and calling cards printed with her married name: Mrs. John Doe. It made some of her feminist friends want to gag.

Still, friends are friends, and they participated in her wedding fantasy. The ever anal retentive bride insisted on inspecting the undergarments her bridesmaids planned to wear under their gowns to ensure everyone had proper support, no visible panty lines, and any and all torso flab corseted into submission. She gathered the bridesmaids for a “makeup rehearsal,” to be sure all their makeup would be flattering, set the right tone, photograph well, and be neither too much nor too little. Nothing would ruin her perfect day in the ultimate American power city: Washington, D.C.

But the hyperventilating, social-climbing bride neglected one small detail: national politics. Washington, after all, belongs to the politicians, lobbyists, and protesters, not to Midwest girls with aspirations.

And so on the weekend of her wedding, the bride discovered D.C. was hosting the largest gay-rights rally of the entire year. Parades, demonstrations, conferences—it was one stop shopping for gay activists from across the nation.

So as Bridezilla’s mom, dad, grandma, siblings and relatives were flying in from their conservative Midwest towns, they had no idea they would be sharing D.C’s planes, taxis, restaurants, and yes, hotel, with tens of thousands of gay activists.

These were people who were descending on D.C. to make a point and to force people to confront the reality of gay lifestyles, and so their behavior was rather extreme. There were drag queens, flagrant public displays of affection, simulated sex acts, banners, placards, and exaggerated lisps and struts all over the city.

And so the bride, trying to impress her family and guests by celebrating with utmost taste a completely, thoroughly traditional ritual of heterosexual love, was upstaged by preening and prancing gay men, low-maintenance lesbians with spiked hair and motocycle boots, and hundreds of people leading so-called alternative life styles.

In the elevators, the restaurants, the taxis, the streets, and even at her fancy hotel, Bridezilla learned she was neither a Princess nor the center of God’s universe. She had to share the world (and her personal space) with people who didn’t prescribe to her circumscribed world view and ideas of success. In that sense, it turned out to be a perfect wedding after all.

© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

May 30, 2006

The one where I write a lot about nothing.....

All last week I was battling a cold. Over the weekend, the cold won.

I went to bed at my usual time and slept, oh, about 11 hours. Could have slept 13 but I dragged my tired ass out of the bed and tried to reclaim some dignity.

Washed face, fluffed hair, applied makeup, and…

Ended up looking like person who had died after visiting a Clinique counter. Not bad for a dead person, but um, a little pale and abnormal.

Every time E glances at me he says, “Are you OK?”

“Hmmm I think so. I just feel weird.”

Take Tylenol, all-purpose “weird reliever.”

Go shopping with E and kids to Belgium’s version of a Mega Discount Store.

Can’t wait to get out of said Mega Discount Store, which is not like me. Clearly I’m acting as weird as I’m feeling. And oh yeah, let’s not forget I look weird too.

My son, Mr. A, needs sandals. The Mega Discount Store didn’t have any in his size. I hand E a flyer that came in our mail from a chain shoe store. There are about ten locations in the Brussels area. Can Mappy, my amazing navigator, get us to one of them?

Sure, he says.

We take off. I’m breathing through my mouth, slathering on lip balm, thinking sleepy thoughts.

We stop at a light and E says very casually, “Oh look, there’s a mall? Want to go there?”

People, I haven’t been to a mall in 15 months.

Pause and consider this fact.

I’m an over 40 middle-age woman with money to spend who has not set foot in a mall in well over a YEAR. That includes Christmas, people. No, I’m not lying.

Even in my cold-induced stupor, I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to roam the retail landscape.

E swings the car into the totally cool high-tech parking garage, we find a space, and go inside.

E-Grrrl and I are in our element. We’ve been shopping online for a year now and real shopping is a big thrill.

Still, I’m not feeling so hot.

We stop at the Belgian version of McDonald’s, which is packed to the doors, and E gets us lunch.

I feel a little better.

I move through the mall like a person from a Communist Bloc country who has never witnessed such riches. I peer into the stores, treating the shiny bright-colored displays like art in a museum. I don’t touch. I don’t get too close. I observe, admire, and cruise on by.

Man, I must be really out of it.

E has recently resumed playing soccer and needs soccer socks to cover his shinguards. We go into a big sporting goods store. On our way to “soccer socks” we stumble across a big selection of sports sandals and finally get Mr. A and little E-Grrrl outfitted for summer.

Then we find rollerblades for E-Grrrl, something we’d been unsuccessfully searching for for months now.

And Mr. A, the aspiring playground four-square champion, gets a new ball since his old one literally bit the dust.

E-Man buys ONE soccer jersey and ONE pair of socks.

I sit on a bench in the shoe department and watch my family shop. I don’t try on shoes, yoga clothes, or sweatshirts.

We walk through the whole mall, and the sporting goods store is the only place we go into and make a purchase.

I don’t go into the Macy’s-like store near the entrance and check out the sales or the costume jewelry. I’m not tempted by the lingerie shops. I don’t salivate over summer sandals in the many shoe stores. I skip the cosmetic and perfume places. We don’t’ even stop and get ice cream in the food court.

We buy what we need and we go home.

How un-American is that? 

I come home, take a nap, and then take a shower so I can wake up, re-do hair and makeup, and present a social persona for a cherished dinner invitation from E’s cousin, a fabulous cook and gracious hostess.

I take more Tylenol because my head hurts, my throat is sore, I’m getting hoarse. Did I mention my period started? I know, I know--TMI. Sorry.

We chat happily over hors d'oureves. Dinner, as always is wonderful. There's gardening and holiday talk and stories of endurance sporting events. We whine about the cold, gray rainy weather. Will it never get warm?

After  dinner,  things unravel a bit.  I tell what is supposed to be a very funny story about a bride who is obsessive about planning the perfect wedding—but books a hotel that is also hosting an ENORMOUS gay pride event that same day so that her conservative Midwest relatives are put in close quarters with flaming gays activists trying to shock people. The point of the story is that God gets even with self-centered hyperventilating brides and their sheltered, bigoted relatives in amusing ways.

Um, no one laughs.

As soon as I finish telling the story, a nice Dutch man at the table tells me his brother is gay. Hmmm, is he telling me that because I’ve offended him with this story?  I’m still wondering if I’ve offended him when the French woman seated to my left launches into a passionate treatise on why she doesn’t think gays should be able to adopt children (it’s now legal in Belgium). Oh crap--I’m thinking we’ve painted ourselves into a corner as far as dinner conversation goes.

Lots of wine has been poured, but not into my glass. Seeing as I’m living on Tylenol, I don’t want to further torture my liver with alcohol. But my brain is going, “You’d have a much better time with a bit of a buzz.”

A little wine would help grease the wheels of my light and lively conversation engine so I can get us off of hot button topics like gay rights, immigration, and whether it’s safe to vacation in Egypt and Turkey before the conversation takes a nosedive into discussions of Bush and the war in Iraq.

Oy.

Inexplicably, the table’s conversation moves into Dutch and French. People are smiling again. I have no idea why. Maybe they’re talking about me. ; ) I resolve to keep my English-speaking word hole shut.

We get to bed late.

Sunday, I sleep late.

I get up, eat a granola bar, take Tylenol, cough up musty secretions from my beleaguered lungs, blow my snout, and lay down and sleep some more.

I get up and eat lunch.

I do one load of laundry, read the book Cindy gave me, and then, um, because of all the exertion, decide to sleep some more.

It’s 6 p.m. and I’m still in my pajamas, people.

I don’t think you’ll be reading anything new on this blog until Tuesday or Wednesday…..And well, considering the quality of this entry, that's a GOOD thing.

May 28, 2006

Back tomorrow....

E-Man is home today for a Belgian holiday and  E-Grrrl is home sick. I'll be back tomorrow. 

Hip to be square

My chiropractor is out of town the latter part of this week, visiting Italy.

“Work or holiday?” I politely enquire.

“One day of work, three days of holiday,” he explains. (The man has his priorities straight.)

Further conversation reveals he’ll be working for the national Italian soccer team, evaluating the fitness of the players being considered for contracts worth millions of euros. My chiropractor is a bit like a mechanic who examines the used car you’re considering buying, looking to be sure the nice smooth exterior isn’t concealing some problem that might leave you stranded down the road.

He works with high-performance athletes on a regular basis. He even was part of Lance Armstrong’s Tour de France team and will be at the World Cup.

I can’t help but wonder what it’s like to work with highly trained athletes on one hand and softening middle-age American chicks on the other. It would be a bit like owning two cars—one a late model Ferrari, the other a used station wagon.

When I left his office today, thinking of sleek tan muscular professional soccer players, I felt slow-moving and squishy. My body is not a high-performance machine; I'm a high-mileage, high-maintenance vehicle. I'm a clunker!

Walking down the street, I smiled suddenly when I coined a new name for myself: Sponge Butt Square Pants.

The mental image of my square ass in my square pants paired with my square-toed loafers and my square glasses made me realize I am square in every sense of the word. If I were a vehicle, I'd be an old reliable pickup truck, boxy, beaten up, but still on the road.

May 24, 2006

It's spring--the world is young, but me, I'm feeling OLD

Younger than springtime--I'm not. A few observations noted in the harsh light of day.

All winter while I was tucked into turtlenecks and wrapped in scarves, the skin on my chest was quietly adopting that thin tissue paper look. I’m on my way to looking like a poorly wrapped package.

Looking at my neck, face, upper arms, I realize my flesh is steadily loosening its grip from my body. Collagen-wrecking gremlins are haunting my days and nights. Really, I try not to think that aging is dying in slow motion but it is. This is like Pirates of the Caribbean. I have this sense that my flesh is moving farther and farther from my bones! I fear I'll one day have to wrap myself in duct tape to keep everything where it belongs. 

When I cross my legs and my pants’ leg rides up, I get a glimpse of calves that look like frozen chicken parts—pale, plucked, purplish. Noooooo! I don’t want to look like a Perdue pinup. Where’s the smooth, poreless skin of yesterday? If I’m going to morph into an “old bag,” I’d prefer my aging skin have the lovely warm patina of a classic Coach purse.

All these changes are clearly visible to me because I’ve become a person with reading glasses perpetually perched halfway down my nose. I have multiple pairs scattered around the house, even a pair attached to a dorky neck chain. I have some with wire frames and some with plastic frames, including a pair with a square shape and Burberry plaid design. The former make me feel like a granny, the latter, chosen to be fun and hip, make me look like Woody Allen—a dirty old man. What was I thinking! GAH!

Maybe I should abandon my glasses and enjoy a softer, kinder view, a new outlook. Blur the edges a bit. Hide the imperfections by losing the details. Focus on the big picture and age (gulp) gracefully.

© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

May 23, 2006

SHUT THAT KID UP

Pardon me while I rant about parents that don’t believe children are capable of mastering basic social skills, the ones that are oblivious to how disruptive their kids can be, the ones who smile indulgently when their kids speak loudly or out of turn, interrupt adults, or yell or holler indoors, the ones who think it’s fine for “kids to be kids,” regardless of the setting.

Sigh. People, there’s a time and place for everything.

Contrary to popular belief, it is quite OK to tell children to lower their voices, to use conversational tones, to stop shrieking or shouting, or to be completely quiet. Every thought that runs through their cute little heads does not need to come out their cute little mouths. If they master this concept early, they’ll grow up to be fully functioning members of society who can operate in a variety of settings. They’ll also have better marriages. : )

Knowing when and how to talk has to be taught EARLY and continually reinforced. If your home is a place where kids routinely bellow at the dinner table, interrupt conversations between you and your spouse, and refuse to let you talk on the phone or to another adult, they’re going to wind up having a very difficult time adjusting to school and other group settings where people will not be hanging on their every word. Sure kids have wise and funny things to say. Yes, they deserve to be listened to respectfully, but they also need to learn to speak respectfully.

No matter how cute, smart, spirited or precocious your child is, there are times when children should be SEEN and not HEARD. When an adult is talking, kids need to shut their word holes—regardless of whether that adult is a teacher, minister, Scout leader, coach, tour guide, or dinner guest. Same applies during weddings, graduations, school assemblies, movies, plays, concerts, and church services. And let’s lower the volume on trains, planes, and in automobiles.

Yes, I know, all kids have their own personalities and issues and different ages and stages dictate in part what’s reasonable to expect from them. I’m not ranting about kids with developmental problems or talking about round cheeked babies cooing occasionally, giving a little squawk of displeasure, or laughing happily. However, fussy or crying babies need to be removed from the scene of the crime, unless you’re on a plane, and then I send all my sympathy your way. If you think sitting near a crying baby on a plane is bad, try being the parent of a crying baby on a plane. No dirty looks allowed.

However, while I may grant Airplane Amnesty for parents, let me remind you that it’s stupid to take a hungry or tired infant or toddler out in public unless it’s absolutely necessary. We all know what happens next--MELTDOWNS. Hint: when you have kids, you have to put their needs before your own—and that means working around their sleeping and feeding schedules and accepting you’re going to miss some things in the process of doing that. Is it a pain in the ass? Do you have very limited time? Do you feel squashed by the limitations of life with an infant or toddler? Of couse you do. Hon, that’s PARENTING.

As for older kids, let me be blunt: if your kid can’t sit still or shut up, then don’t take them to places where it’s expected or required. If you have to take them, find a way to quietly channel their energy. If it’s a school play or awards assembly or something similar and you don’t want to miss the part where your other child gets to shine, then have a friend take your younger child out for a few minutes. Or take turns with your spouse outside. Just please don’t ruin the event for the rest of us by ignoring your child’s needs and limitations.

Acceptable ways to deal with a kid who can’t keep still or quiet do not include: letting kids play UNATTENDED in the back of the room or just outside it, letting them continually get in and out of their chairs, crawl under or over people, or wander endlessly up and down the aisles.

Thanks for letting me rant. I’m done now. Print this out and pass it on to people that need to read it so we can all enjoy the end-of-school-year events and activities and all those June weddings and graduations.

Copyright 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

May 22, 2006