A Treatise on Panties

You have the title of this post. If you, like me, think there is a point at which you do not need to know so much personal information about a person, then you will stop reading. But I'm not reading it, I'm writing it, and I'm out of fresh, witty insightful material. I have dug to the very bottom of my barrel, so here you go. If you turn back now, there might be hope for you.

There is an old family story about me. When I was about three, we had a house full of relatives visiting, and my mom, up to her elbows in Lutheran hospitality, decided it would be okay if I dressed myself for church. As my uncle carried me down the aisle of Our Saviors Lutheran Church, a smile broke across his face. As he handed me to my mother, her face grew red, and hot, and she marched me back out of the pew, down the aisle and back out to the car, where she had my father drive us home so she could put a pair of proper cotton panties on my bare bum. Apparently, we made it back for the sermon just in the nick. We were late for the opening hymn, but I'm sure mom didn't mind, because of the show off who always sat behind us and insisted on singing harmony, which cheesed her no end. Besides, better late than immodest.

When I was just out of college, I stayed for a couple months with my college roommates at the home of one of their moms, a single divorcee, who gave us all garter belts for Christmas. It was my first gift of that type - I've been given lingerie by a few men in my time since then, most notably my husband, but it seemed like a very loving, cosmopolitan, grown-up gift. I used it once or twice, but mostly I just liked the idea of it.

When I was in my late thirties, I shared a dressing room with a bunch of younger women, one of whom had just started wearing a thong, and swore by it, and so darn it, I had to get one too. It made me feel sexy.... when I looked at it in my drawer. But as soon as I put it on, I felt, well, like I had kitchen twine caught up my ass. I couldn't shake the feeling that I needed to pick something out of there.

I've tried, since then, to wear a thong, trying on different styles of thongs, different fabrics, but it all feels like a nasty joke that I'm not in on. It feels kind of mean, like whoever designed them was someone who never intended to wear one. I fully admit that the IDEA of them is sexy, and that granted, they are not meant to be worn for long. And unfortunately, I will resort to them on occasion, having run out of clean, comfy, normal panties. But all day? Oy, it puts me in a bad mood. I need to take an extra dose of lexapro just to make it to lunch. Someone once gave me a very good piece of advice when I was shopping for lingerie for my honeymoon. They said "see how it looks around your ankles, because that's pretty much where it'll be most of the time." Honestly, that's where it's most comfortable.

I buy my undies in bulk now, from Costco, like a lot of other women in America. It makes me kind of sad, lumping them in my cart with cases of soup and nose spray and giant bags of coffee. I would love a sexier alternative.

If only sexy was comfortable.

Mother's Day

This weekend began on Friday evening when our friends Anne and Anita arrived from Seattle with their beautiful children, Hazel and Gabriel. Hazel is two months older than Joe-Henry and the two of them get on like gangbusters. Gabe is ten weeks old, and really, there oughta be a law against babies so cute.


He is turning my shriveled old ovaries into dance halls, where I picture my beat up old eggs in faded flapper costumes, with cigarettes hanging out of their painted, wrinkled mouths saying in a gravelly, whiskey soaked voice "Hey, Sweetheart! Ten cents a dance! Ya can't beat that with a stick, know what i mean?!" All that to say - he's just a little lovebug.



Saturday morning we woke and Joe-Henry and Hazel played Cadoo while I fixed us breakfast, and Charley made coffee. We sat around in pj's gabbing, catching up, and talking about how amazing it is that we were all friends before we married, before we had kids, and here were our offspring, these gorgeous, smart and kind-hearted children of ours, playing together like the best pals they are.

We then wandered into "the 'Couve" for the Farmer's Market and got a few extra goodies for dinner that night, and I got some tomato plants for the garden. The kids played at the park with Charley, while the girls, and Gabe (by virtue of the fact that he can't walk yet and was fast asleep in the snuggly next to his mommy's heart) wandered in the market, looking at jewelry, plants, purses and people, free from sleeve tugging and whining. Saturday afternoon took them into Portland, and Joe-Henry and I attended a birthday party for a little girl in his class. He went swimming, they ate cake, and he got to get his face painted like an endangered grey wolf.


Saturday night they came back with their lovely friend Stephanie and Charley made us all pizza and we had adult conversation, interrupted only occasionally by short superhero spys.


Then came Sunday morning, Mother's Day Morning. Hazel and her Mom's had picked out a book for Joe-Henry called The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip (which is now my favorite book of all time), and I read to the kids while my husband, my amazing, talented, handsome, funny husband made us the brunch to end all brunches. There was bacon and potatoes and coffee and a fruit salad as tasty as it was beautiful and the most amazing baked French toast I've ever eaten. I gained 10 lbs just looking at it. Joe-Henry and I had painted coffee cups at the glazing studio in town for Anne & Anita for Mother's Day, and the kids all gave their moms gifts they'd made.



My husband, who didn't let me in the kitchen for twenty four hours, (which really was all the gift I needed), also got me a gift certificate to an amazing garden store in Portland called Garden Fever. After brunch we all drove over there, where we shopped around a bit, and then had to bid our houseguests adieu, as they were going to meet Gabe's father's mom for the first time. Joe-Henry and Hazel hugged and kissed and cried, and my little boy was kind of sad for the rest of the day, but he still gave me lots of love and hugs, and tried his very best to mind his mom for one whole day. When we got home, we did an iChat with Charley's Mom, and got to say "hi" to the family that we miss so much.

The day ended perfectly, with a snuggle from my boy, and something even better from my husband. Let's just hope those ol' dance hall girls don't get any big ideas.

tmi & an angel named Doris

I learned too late in my life that T.M.I. stands for "too much information", and as you now know, in my world there apparently is no such thing.

Honestly though, since our meltdown, life has been seriously lovely. There were the bubbles, of course, and working in our garden, digging in the rich earth and marvelling at the brilliance of everylivingthing out my window. I'm actually really looking forward to this week with spring break. We've been snuggling a lot, reading books and talking about everything from the upcoming wedding to math problems to Joe-Henry's Halloween Costume. He's going to be Dwight Shrute.

We also got him fitted for a custom compression stocking. I can't tell you how frustrating it's been since our move to try to find ANYONE who is willing to learn about Joe-Henry's syndrome. His pediatrician is very hand's off, but mostly I think it's just the way his office works and not necessarily him. Everything seems to take longer than it should, and be more complicated and people have just been kind of, well, not helpful. But I finally found the fount of knowledge for all things vascular and lymphatic, and it was in a little dress shop that specializes in mastectomy wear and compression garments. I found them through another local kt mom. I've never met her, but we've exchanged lots of emails. She directed me to this store, where we were met by Doris. Doris is now, officially, our angel.

She's probably in her 60's, she's very tan with dark curly hair, and she has a very exact speech pattern. On the phone I pictured her to be completely humorless and librarian like, and I couldn't have been more wrong. She was a riot, a great listener (Joe-Henry had LOTS of stories to tell - more on that in a moment), and an absolute expert in all things compression: lymph flow, vascularity, types of materials, different styles of stockings, etc. She had more information and more compassion than anyone else I've met here. And if all goes as planned, Joe-Henry will have his bright orange compression stocking in about 10 days.

Anyway, she had Joe-Henry take off his pants so she could measure him, and he immediately said he had to go to the bathroom. So I told him we should probably put his pants back on so we wouldn't shock the ladies, and he said, "Yeah, I don't want to be like Daddy that one time when he forgot his robe, running naked through the house grabbing his penis yelling 'Nudiedaddynudiedaddynudiedaddy'!"

Um. No. Probably not.

I guess the whole "oversharing" thing runs in the family.