Well, HELLOOOO all you glorious people out there that have stuck with me while I nursed my hands back to health. That’s why I haven’t posted in a while, I had a rare hand disease that prohibited me from blogging. It’s called IALWE, otherwise known as, I Am Lazy Without an Excuse. It’s very rare. I almost died. I’m okay now. I was actually cured by Dr. Sonia Taitz. Okay, she’s not a doctor, but a remarkably talented and successful author. I was given the opportunity to collaborate with her which immediately brought me back from the blogging dead.

ENOUGH about me.  I am truly excited about today’s post. I want to thank, Sonia Taitz, for this beautifully written description of how most of us once felt about our parents. We have all been embarrassed by our parents at one time or another, but as we grow older, we realize the importance and true beauty of their being. Sonia has recently come out with a new book, IN THE KING’S ARMS, and if you haven’t bought a copy yet, click on the book title or come back tomorrow for a chance to win one! I won’t keep you with my ramble any longer, read on for Sonia’s story!

I think I know a thing or two about embarrassment. I was born into a small and peculiar class of people: children of immigrants from war-torn Europe. My parents were Holocaust survivors, and I guess by the time they came here, they had many more things to think about than fitting in – things like learning the language and making a living from scratch. Things like forgetting everything about where they came from and starting life anew.

Still, their style spoke of nothing more than where they came from. My father wore a suit every day, in an age where most Dads sported “leisure wear” – T-shirts, polo shirts, khakis, jeans and sneakers.  He wore a starched white shirt under his suit, and a tie which was tacked to the shirt with a bar or circular pin. On his head, whenever he left the house, was perched a hat – straw in for the summer, felt in the winter. A real hat, the kind that Frank Sinatra would wear. With a ribbon band, and often a little feather.

When I went off to camp, I thought other kids would have parents like mine. After all, it was a Jewish camp, and I’d thought that most Jews had parents who had survived the Holocaust. They did, in my poor immigrant’s neighborhood, but my parents had splurged so that I could have a season of fresh mountain air, and among the middle class parents on Visiting Day, they were the only ones who looked different. My father in his suit. The feather on his grey straw hat. My mother in sandals, with socks. Socks!! That look was stylish where she had grown up, in Kaunas, Lithuania. It was not as stylish that summer at camp, in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.

Years later, due to my parents’ constant nurturance and support, I was able to go to Yale Law School.  Graduation day was bittersweet. It was, of course, a huge and unique accomplishment for my family (due to the war, neither of my parents had even been able to finish high school), but a source of ambivalence for me. On the outside, I fit in with the other graduates. We were all smart and savvy, newly-hatched professionals.  But on the inside, I was different.  When I looked at their parents, I saw tall men with full heads of silver hair (my father, though well-built and handsome, was 5’7”, and bald under his hat).  The mothers were elegant, soigne women, with blond, smooth hair and hairbands.  I saw grosgrain hairbands. Plaid hairbands. Velvet hairbands. My mother’s hair, unbanded, blew around in the wind. She was not wearing sandals and socks that day, but her dress was flowery in a way that only the late Queen Mother would understand. And she was talking to me:

“Sonia’le!” I saw her hand waving a little cotton handkerchief. She always had these in her purse; they were always white, with little embroidered flowers on the corners. “Yoo hoo! Sonia’le!” She was using an old endearment for me, the “le” on the end of my name a caress.

From amidst my peers, I answered, “what, Ma?” We were about to march forward and receive our degrees. I wanted to blend in with the others.

“Are you hungry, Sonia’le? I brought you a nice banana!”

Reaching into her bag, she brought out and flourished a soft, sad fruit. She had probably carried it from home and brought it on the train trip to New Haven. In her past, people had died of starvation. Here, at the Yale Law graduation, no one was starving. Everyone, graduates and their parents, seemed rich and complete and sophisticated. The banana did not fit in, nor did my doting, unself-conscious mother.

I spotted a Kennedy kid, one who would later become a reporter, filming us graduates. Her brother was in my class, and as her camera panned the crowd it must have captured me, looking at my parents, caught between shame and love.

Years later, it is the love that remains. The realization that these people – with their tie-pins, hats, and hankies – were the richest treasures I’d ever have. Better than an Ivy league degree. Better than a million dollars or being famous. Better than anyone, or anything I’ve ever known in our status-conscious, style-conscious world.  And I am nothing but proud.

Sonia Taitz

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Photo by Pescatello CC, courtesy http://www.formerlyhot.com/

The hunt for flattering gymwear is never-ending, and I know you know what I’m talking about. Few women look good in those capri-length workout bottoms that are everywhere–they make a woman look like a peg leg pirate with stubby, wide thighs–and you have to be Gwen Stefani with her rock-hard abs to pull off track pants rolled down at the waist. No one, male or female, has everlooked good in elastic-waist sweats (think overstuffed sock puppet) and those of us who have had children generally cannot pull off the low-riding Juicy Couture-style terry bottoms without an excess of abdomen splooging over the top and sides. Don’t even get me started on the roll-waist yoga pants. Let’s just say they’re only look good on women without actual rolls at their waist.

Mind you, this is not the fault of our bodies. Our bodies are fine. It is due to lack of imagination or quite possibly sadism on the part of the designers of workout wear, who simply refuse to come up with workout bottoms that keep things smooth and tucked in, so you can go exercise without feeling like a lumbering buffalo on a treadmill.

Still, hope springs eternal, and the other day, it appeared that my faith and patience would be rewarded. I was in Filene’s Basement and rummaging through the racks. Suddenly, I spotted what appeared to be the perfect pair of black workout bottoms. My heart started to pound, not unlike when I spotted the man who is now my husband across the room at a friend’s wedding. I pulled the hanger off the rack to examine them. Simple, straight cut, highish waist to contain the wayward midriff, moisture wicking material….could these be the one? Finally, after all this time, just when I’d given up hope? Maybe, just maybe, I thought, tamping down any cynical instincts that bubbled up through my optimism. I’m going to try them on.

Quickly, as if they might evaporate in my arms, I ran to the dressing room, and tore off my clothes. Sliding my feet into the pants and then standing to hop them up over my butt, I had reason for optimism. The pants went over the sometime obstacle of my rear end without too much struggle, and hit me right at the waist, so there was no overhang. They were long enough so as not to flare out unflatteringly above my anklebone, and tight only where they should be. There were no rhinestones or sequins that would clog up my dryer’s lint filter, and the price was right. SOLD, I thought, and was already planning on swinging by the rack where I’d found them to see if there were any more in my size, so I could stock up. I slid them off and folded them, and prepared to put my own clothes back on.

And that’s when I saw it: The word CUTIE, in big turquoise felt block capital letters across the heinie. NOOOOOOOO!! I shouted in my mind. If I were in a sitcom (which at that moment I felt as if I was) the word would have had that drawn-out slow-mo distorted sound, as if I was being engulfed in abject horror  (which it was!) How had I missed that? Why would anyone sew the word CUTIE on someone’s ass, even if the ass in question might be cute, which, let’s be honest, mine is not, and really never was?!? I’m not putting my ass down–it’s fine, but no one would ever sew the word FINE on the back of a pair of sweatpants, and if they did, I wouldn’t buy them. Would you? Besides, if one has a cute ass, one doesn’t need the word CUTIE on it to call attention to its cuteness, and if one doesn’t, any writing whatsoever on the butt calls attention to what is probably better left unremarked upon.

I was so annoyed I didn’t even put the sweatpants back on the hanger, and left without even the socks I’d gone to Filene’s for in the first place. I think I’m going to start working out in a skirt, like the orthodox Jewish women in my building do. They do it for the sake of modesty. I’ll be doing it as a protest.

Thanks, Stephanie!

I was very young and naive. My first serious boyfriend (i.e. first, wink wink) and I were a sheltered pair. We both spent all our time in the dance studio among the same group of friends equally focused throughout our teenaged years. At the time, I had short, cropped, very curly hair. Think Shirley Temple; only all corkscrew and tighter. People called me sheep-head, poodle-head and various versions.
My boyfriend heard a cute term and thought it described me well. “Muff-burger, so soft and furry, you could just eat it all up.” his words. He took to calling me “Muff-Burger,” as often as he could. It got to the point, that when we would meet on the street, he would yell down the block, “HERE COMES MY LITTLE MUFF-BURGER!!!!!” Picture Michigan Avenue, rush hour, two teenagers a block apart:

“TWEETY BIRD!!!!”
“MUFF-BURGER!!!!!”
Run, run, hug, kiss

After a few YEARS, a friend asked both of us if we knew what a muff diver was. NO, what is that? She told us what the general population defines as a “Muff,” and what my boyfriend’s little pet name really meant. OMG!!!!!! HOLY SH*T!!!!

Lynn
Chicago, IL

Hello GYNA Ladies! Heather here.

This week’s topic is Nicknames. I’ll jump right in. Now for whatever reason, I’m a person with a lot of nicknames, most of them cute and endearing. One very embarrassing – guess which one I’m going to share with you?! GYNA-mite

I was living in an apartment with five other dancers. This was in the age of answering machines and we had only one machine that was shared between the six of us. One night my mom called and left a message saying “Hi Heathie, it’s Mom…” I like it when my parents call me Heathie, however, this has always been a name reserved for them alone. My roommates, on the other hand, decided that they would also call me Heathie. I figured that if I didn’t make a big deal of it, they would grow tired of calling me Heathie and soon go back to calling me Heather.
After a couple of weeks, all but one of my roomies went back to calling me Heather, but, Murphy’s Law, the one person that still called me Heathie said it in front of my boss. My headshot was hanging in his office along with headshots of all of the other employees that were in the arts. She pointed to it and said: “There’s Heathie”.
If you are not a dancer, singer or actor, you most likely will not know what a headshot is. It is a photo of yourself, a really big photo, 8×10 to be exact, that you are required to bring to any audition that you attend. Your headshot is also printed in the program for a performance next to your biography so the audience members can put a name to your face. Or, your headshot can be hung on the wall of a restaurant, bar, or office of your boss.

My boss misunderstood my roommate and thought she said, “There’s Heavy.” He thought it was a little weird and kind of mean that she was calling me Heavy, especially considering that my roommates and I were all dancer, but hey, if that’s my nickname, that’s what he’d call me too! To this day, he still calls me Heavy, which I gotta say is pretty embarassing considering I work full time at a health club.