Are You Into S&S?

SO! Have you heard what leading menswear designers like Miuccia Prada, Stefano Pilati for Yves Saint Laurent and Nicolas Ghesquiere for Balenciaga are showcasing in their current collections? Did you guess Socks & Sandals?

Not everyone is down with this hot, new trend. Sexy author and blogger, Isabella Snow, believes the S&S combo to be offensive and about as attractive as a pocket protector.

“If it’s hot enough for sandals, it’s too hot to wear socks.  If it’s cold enough to wear socks, it’s too cold for sandals, ” says she.

Ah, but it’s not that simple, is it? I, fess up  to wearing socks with my Birkenstocks sometimes because maybe it’s chilly in the morning and I’m planning to be out all day and maybe it will get really warm in the afternoon. So, I don’t want to wear shoes all day, but I also don’t want to wear naked feet on a cool morning.

There are other reasons someone might want to wear socks with sandals.  Maybe they have ugly or somehow embarrassing feet – lots of people do. (not me, of course). A thin pair of socks with sandals will still keep the feet cool, but won’t expose those hideous tootsies to the world.

Or, maybe your feet get really, really sweaty and you don’t want to be sliding around in, and smelling up your lovely sandals. So, a nice pair of cotton socks will absorb moisture and prevent your gorgeous leather sandals from getting all sweat-stinky.

Or, you don’t want to get blisters walking around in your new sandals or even your old sandals that you haven’t worn for 10 months.  Add the protective layer of a fine pair of socks and you can walk in comfort.

Okay, so there are some practical reasons for wearing socks with sandals, but is it at all attractive, even acceptable from a fashion standpoint?  There are surely many worse fashion crimes? I mean… look around! (orange hair, sweatpants, Crocs, Speedos,short shorts/old person, giant bling…)

There’s a whole website devoted to Socks & Sandals. It features lots of photos sent in by real people. And, ya, some of them look really goofy. But this guy in the kilt with his S&S look is kind of hot, dontcha think?

 

The kilt thing works, but how about S&S as business attire?

Or a beachwear?

Or as the only thing you wear?

Why is this man shopping naked?

 

Chronologically Challenged

I have 8 clocks in my home. This doesn’t include watches, or the clocks built into the TV, computer, laptop or cell phones.  They’re all sensible clocks with numbers on them (Roman or regular) and they all show the exact time.

Some people set their clocks 10 minutes or so ahead to fool themselves into getting places on time.

Guest: Oh no it’s 6:00 o’clock, we’d better go if we’re going to get there on time.

Clock Owner: Don’t worry, that clock is 10 minutes fast.  We’ve got plenty of time.

See? It doesn’t work. I also don’t get the concept of the snooze button on the alarm. I always wake up before the alarm anyway, but even if I didn’t why would I want to be woken up 10 minutes before I have to get up, if I’m not going to get up then anyway?

I like to know what the exact time it is all the time. Some of my clocks are electric and some are battery operated in case of power failures. (Oh, sorry… power outages. Failure would imply something had gone wrong. Outage, on the other hand, just sounds like something cute and quirky like a belly-button)

Anyway, we had a power outage last night, so I had to reset all the electric clocks. I’m not sure what the battery back-up is for because it never keeps the time right.

I hate being late. I can honestly say I have never been late for anything except when it was due to circumstances beyond my control (e.g.: flight delays, someone else is driving, etc.)

I’m usually early for everything (including work) and figure I’ve spent a good portion of my life just waiting for things to start or for other people to show up.

Some people are always late. They don’t understand why. They have an odd concept of the passage of time.  Here’s an example:

I’m getting a ride with a friend to a day conference.  We have to be there for 9:30. It takes approximately 20 minutes to drive there.  I get to her house at 8:45 because I know she’s always late and I’m hoping I can help hurry her along. [Please note that just because the subject of this example is a female it does not mean that males are exempt from being similarly time-challenged]

She’s still in her housecoat slurping coffee.

She: I’m almost ready, don’t worry.  I just have to get dressed.

She disappears for a while into her bedroom and emerges at 9:00 fully clothed.

She: There! All ready.

Me: Great! Lets’ go.

She: We still have 10 minutes, there’s no point in getting there too early.

Me: Getting twitchy.  Okaaaaaay. But you’re all ready, right?

 She: YES! I swear!

At 9:10 I point out it’s time to get going.  She reluctantly gets up.  Rinses her cup.  Goes to brush her teeth.  Notices her blouse has a stain. Changes her blouse.  Searches for her shoes. Remembers that she’s having them re-soled and has forgotten to pick them up at the shoe place.

She: You don’t mind if we make a quick stop to pick up my shoes, do you? It’s on the way.

Me: No. (What can I say? I’m only the passenger)

She grabs her purse.  Its’ the wrong purse.  She roots around her closet for the right purse. Switches all the stuff from purse #1 to purse#2.  Can’t find keys. We both go through the entire house twice searching for keys. I find them in the back door.

The shoe place is in a mall.  We park. We get out and walk through the mall.  She remembers she needs toothpaste and stops to buy some at the drug store. She also checks to see if the new Cosmo is in.

At the shoe place she has a nice chat with the shoe man.  They seem to have a lot of acquaintances in common.

We’re back on the road.  We pull into the Tim Horton’s drive-thru.

 She: I really need another coffee. You don’t mind stopping, do you?

Just before we get to the turn-off for the conference centre there’s a bit of a traffic snarl. We have to sit for a few minutes while things clear up.

She: (irritated) What the hell is going on up there? (Straining to see ahead of the traffic). What time is it?

Me: (having given up on punctuality long ago) 10:35

She: Oh, my god! Have we been sitting here that long?

And, I honestly believe that she honestly believes that because it was 9:10 when we decided to leave and because it takes 20 minutes to get to our destination, the only reason we didn’t get to our destination at 9:30 was because of this unexpected traffic jam.

The Future Ain’t What it Used to Be

The 1960s were so cool with all that funky music and those micro-mini skirts and the whole free love thing. And, if you’ve ever seen a sci-fi movie from the 1960s (and there were many) you’ll know they had a total fascination with the future and what the world would be like – from unisex silver jumpsuits to jetpacks to robots.

Here is an actual excerpt from the July 22, 1961, Weekend Magazine article on what the world will look like in the year 2000. What’s amazing to me is that they were only looking 40 years into the future and yet envisioned such monumental changes:

• Heating and cooling systems will be built into the furniture and rugs.
• Pressing a button to change the décor of a room.
• Garbage that would be refrigerated, and pressed into fertilizer pellets
• Rocket belts will increase a man’s stride to 30 feet, and bus-type helicopters will travel along crowded air skyways. There will be moving plastic-covered pavements, individual hoppicopters, and 200 m.p.h. monorail trains operating in all large cities.
• The family car will be soundless, vibrationless and self-propelled thermostatically. The engine will be smaller than a typewriter. Cars will travel overland on an 18 inch air cushion.
• In commercial transportation, there will be travel at 1000 m.p.h. at a penny a mile. Hypersonic passenger planes, using solid fuels, will reach any part of the world in an hour.
• By the year 2020, five per cent of the world’s population will have emigrated into space. Many will have visited the moon and beyond.

There was a lot of other stuff related to computers (electronic calendars & messaging, faxes, email, etc.) which was pretty much bang on. Then there was the one that wasn’t in the magazine, but which they used to tell us at school:

• In the future, computers will take over most of our jobs leaving us with a great deal more leisure time. The work-week will be reduced to 4 and even 3 days. (never, in their wildest dreams did they envision how much extra work computers would create. I still marvel at that bit of naïveté)

Of course, it now behooves me to make some predictions on what the world will look like in the next century:

• We’ll all have to subsist on a plant-based (and/or soylent green) diet as we continue to denude the earth’s fertile land and poison our water system. Land will become too precious to use for grazing.
• Our food will continue evolve into ready-to-eat manufactured, processed food-like products as fewer people are willing or able to cook. Real food will slowly be phased out as we are unable to grow it and/or become less and less interested in eating it.
• Reality shows will become our reality as we have a microchip implanted at birth that will contain and collect all our information from our DNA profile, to our education and job history and financial information. We will be scanned every time we enter or leave a building, every time we submit a form, every time we do a transaction. The chip will have a built-in GPS. We will be monitored 24/7 by a variety of sources. For instance, if we become out-of-sorts the microchip will transmit that information to a centralized database and the appropriate medications will be transferred to us via the microchip.
• As the earth becomes raped of resources, we will no longer be able to travel. Planes, trains and automobiles will become obsolete. People will live their lives almost entirely from their homes. Shopping, working, visiting and being entertained by their electronic computerized systems.
• Homes, as a result, will become very high-tech – self cleaning/maintaining.
• The rift between the rich and the poor will grow, eliminating middle-classes altogether.
• Increasing obesity and dependence on pharmaceuticals will decrease lifespans to 40 or 50.

Isn’t that a cheery picture? Of course, we could get smart some time in the next few years and turn the whole thing around so that the future looks a bit rosier. Who knows? What do you think our grandchildren’s world will look like?

 

The Dreadful Confession

Thank you so much for the delightful meme, Woodsy.  Once upon a time I was doing a meme a week, so I vowed never to meme again, but since it’s you asking I’ll do just this one more. I wouldn’t do this for anyone else, mind you, but your mesmerizing powers of seduction have overwhelmed me. But I’m not tagging anyone else though, because the madness has to stop somewhere.

Also, this is going to be almost impossible because…. well, the shocking truth is that I don’t listen to music.  I know. I know. You’re all thinking I must be a horrible, soulless person – inhuman even.  I just find it very difficult and even aggravating to have music playing somewhere near my ears.

I do like music.  I appreciate music and musicians.  I am in awe of people who can make music. I like all sorts of music.  I am aware of and have seen and heard a lot of fine music.  I like it when I see it performed live  and I can sit (or stand) and experience the music. At one time I worked for a symphony and I would have gladly worked there for free because I got to go to all the concerts. There are few things I like better than going to see and hear a good musician or band or orchestra.

I don’t have a CD collection. I have some CDs.  I’m not sure where they all came from – gifts, probably.  I don’t shop for music. I can’t imagine thinking about choosing music to download onto an iPod and then walking around with said iPod in my ear.

 Sometimes I’ll put a CD on if people are over for dinner or drinks or something because they seem to expect it.  But on my own, the house is quiet.  I don’t like walking or running or working with music on.  I don’t like talking over music in restaurants or pubs.  I find background music in shops and even in movies very, very annoying. Always have.

I know I’m in the minority because 90% of the people I see every day are plugged into their personal music devices. And I know most people have music on in their cars and in their homes almost all the time. Perhaps I experienced a severe musical trauma when I was a child or something, I don’t know. 

Anyway, in order to fulfill this one and only request Woodsy has ever made of me, I will think hard and come up with songs that I think I might like to hear someone play for me right now.

 The Meme

 List seven songs you are into right now. It doesn‘t matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring/summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

1.  Man of Constant Sorrow – Bob Dylan
2. So Long Marianne – Leonard Cohen
3. Hallelujah – kd lang
4. The End – Doors
5. D’yer Maker – Led Zepplin
6. Jockey Full of Bourbon – Tom Waits
7. Champagne and Reefer – Muddy Waters

Things That Creak

Most people have one or two or maybe more phobias, or irrational fears. Ever since I briefly dated a guy whose father owned a construction company that repaired apartment balconies, I’ve had, what some call an “irrational fear” of being on a balcony.

The fear developed after hours of stories from this guy (who worked with his dad over the summer) about how unsafe most apartment balconies are – at least the ones he worked on. How sometimes he could things apart on balconies with his bare hands; or how the balcony he’d been working on that day would have collapsed the next time someone set foot on it; or how landlords had been ordered to repair balconies and didn’t.

So then a couple of weeks ago this apartment balcony has collapsed in Ottawa. Six young people were hurt – two of them quite seriously. And, they were only 3 floors up.

I’m thinking of this today because I just spent a horrifying  lovely weekend with my mother. There are a lot of things I could be purging recounting about the weekend, but let’s stick to the balcony. My mother has a balcony.  She has about 900 pounds of plants, wrought iron patio furniture and garden gnomes out there. She’s six floors up and likes to mock me because I won’t go out there. We’ll see who laughs last, ma.

I feel the same way about carnival rides.  It’s not the height that worries me so much as that I’m certain none of this stuff is in good working order. You hear about roller coasters rolling off their coasters all the time. There’s a whole website devoted to carnival ride disasters.

So, really being reluctant to go on balconies or carnival rides isn’t an irrational fear at all, is it? It’s actually more rational than not being afraid of these things. Can you rationalize your phobias?

 

 

Where Are They Now?

Do you ever wonder what happened to celebrities or people in the news that you barely cared about at the time?

 John Wayne Bobbitt

Remember… the guy who got his little bobbitt hacked off by his wife? He tried to cash in on his fame by being a stand up comic, a greeter at a brothel and a carnival sideshow freak, but didn’t have much success. He has also appeared on Howard Stern and some Porno movies. Basically, he is a low-life drifter and has been in and out of jail.

Divine Brown

The hooker Hugh Grant picked up. She made $1.6 million from the fame resulting from that little encounter by selling her story to TV and the tabloid.  Of course she pissed all the money away and is back working on the same street

The Singing Nun

Sister Luc-Gabrielle (Jeanne Deckers) became an international star in 1964 with her #1 hit record Dominique. She left the convent in the late 1960s and international famedom to pursue a new life as a singer and artist along with her lover, Annie Pescher.  They weren’t very successful and went broke and committed suicide together.

Brandon Cruz

Tiny child star from everyone’s favorite 1960s TV sitcom, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father. He was lead singer for Dr. Know for a while and in 2003 became the lead singer for the punk rock band, Dead Kennedys.  At last word, Brandon was doing technical work at a Los Angeles post-production studio

Peggy Lipton

Hot Mod Squad Peggy married music mogul Quincy Jones and devoted herself to their growing family. The couple had two daughters: Kidada Jones, a fashion stylist, and the actress, Rashida Jones (The Office). Later she was in Twin Peaks.

Somewhere along the line, Peggy also dated: Paul McCartney, Sammy Davis, Jr.,
Elvis Presley, Keith Moon, Terence Stamp and his brother Christopher Stamp.

Dinner and a Dilemma

Hot on the heels of Really Dumb Stuff, I had the following conversation with my 15-year-old daughter the other night at supper.

Daughter: (nonchalantly whilst shovelling rice and lentils into her maw) Oh ya, if Carly’s[1] mother calls, Carly’s sleeping over.

Mother: (looking around for Carly who does tend to sleep over a lot unannounced) Is she?

Daughter: (rolling eyes at my apparently limitless stupidity). No-weh! Obv.! (most one-syllable words develop 2 syllables in teenagehood, while multi-syllabic words are shortened to one syllable and/or an acronym)

Mother: Well, where is she then?

Daughter: With her boyfriend.

Mother: What? (aghast). What boyfriend?

Daughter: (completely exasperated at how long this conversation is getting). You don’t know him. He doesn’t go to our school.

Mother: (freaking just a bit at thoughts of Carly having maybe  run off with an internet perv) What school does he go to?

 Daughter: How should I know?

 Mother:  Well, is he your age or what?

 Daughter: (looking at me like I’m totally insane). Yes-seh… Oh! Em! Gee!

 Mother: And his parents let her sleep over there?

 Daughter: NO-WEH! (Shovelling faster to get away from this seemingly endless interrogation)

 Mother: So, does he sneak her in or what?

 Daughter: (mumbles something)

 Mother: What?

 Daughter: They sleep outside.

 Mother: (speechless, yet somehow manages to find speech). They sleep outside? Are they crazy?

 Daughter: I told her she was crazy. But she’s done it before. They sleep in the park or under a bridge. ( she says coolly like this is a normal thing for teenagers to do.  Supper’s done. Daughter looks yearningly toward her room) Can I go? I have to study for my exam tomorrow.

 Mother: Wait a minute. What am I supposed to do with this information?

 Daughter: (wide-eyed with panic) NOTHING!

 Mother: (thinking furiously).

 Mother and Daughter have kind of a pact that she can feel free tell me anything that she’s done or her friends have done or other people have done to her or things that are troubling her —  no matter how awful she thinks it is and I promise not to freak out or do anything unless she wants me to.

 Mother and Daughter discuss the current dilemma.  If Daughter was sleeping rough with some boy – a boy no one even seems to know – I would sure want to know about it.  I explain all the possible awful things that could happen to Carly. Do I phone Carly’s mother and tell her?

 If I do, Daughter will be labelled a snitch. If you have a teenager and/or remember being a teenager, you’ll know that would pretty much put an end to her high school social life.

 Also, she’ll never tell me anything again. 

 On the other hand, if anything happens to Carly, I’ll feel responsible.

 I tell Daughter that for sure, I won’t lie for Carly.  If her mother calls, I’ll have to tell her what I know. Daughter agrees with this. But Carly’s mother has never called before. Carly has a cell phone, so that’s an unlikely scenario and easily agreed to.

 Daughter fully understands that what Carly is doing is dangerous and really dumb and has told her so, and swears she would never dream of doing anything like that herself, but Daughter is also vehemently opposed to me calling Carly’s mother.

What would you do?

---

[1] Not her real name.

Too Poor for Pets

OC Transpo is re-visiting the idea of allowing pets on buses. Again. Lots of other cities allow this. Dogs have to be on leashes and cats have to be in carriers, but the drivers can use their discretion in certain cases – if the bus is too crowded for a big dog or if a pet seems too agitated or disruptive to be on board, for instance.

People in Ottawa have been very opposed to pets on the transit system for some reason. They worry about other people’s pet allergies and vicious animals and being squeezed out of their seats by packs of giant dogs.

If you ever ride transit systems in cities that allow pets, however, you hardly ever see any on board.  People don’t normally take their pets on bus rides just for fun. Usually pets are taken on buses just when there is no other way to get them to the vet.

Some people have pets, but don’t have cars and can’t afford a taxi and a vet on the same day. Ottawa has “pet taxis“, but, in my experience they’re a disaster.  Most of the time they just don’t show up — they say they’re too swamped with calls – but they don’t tell you that when you book them. And, they cost as much, if not more than regular cabs.

Regular cabs don’t like taking pets either. You have to give them a pound-by-pound account of the animal you intend to bring when you book the cab and then you get scowled at a lot by the driver when your pet makes a noise. Pet noises seem to disrupt the drivers’ cell phone conversations.

The pets-on-Ottawa-transit issue seems to come up annually. It’s always defeated. Evidently in Ottawa, only people with cars can have a pet.

Many people believe that poor people shouldn’t even have a pet. In some countries you can’t get social assistance if you have a pet. Vets also seem to believe that unless you’re quite wealthy you shouldn’t have a pet. I know they have to make a living, too, but wow it’s expensive to give your pet all the shots, treatments, preventative procedures, tests, surgeries, therapies and medicines the vet thinks they should have. Sometimes I think vets try to guilt you into things that aren’t completely necessary.

Then there are all the other extras – licenses, insurance, toys, grooming and grooming aids, pet care when you’re away, specialized foods, leashes, carriers, clothes, etc., etc.

Are pets luxury items now? Accessories for the elite? We always had animals when I was a kid and they roamed around the farm, ate table scraps and whatever they could hunt down outside.  They were neutered or spayed, but that’s usually the only time they ever saw a vet. Surprisingly, all our animals were happy and loved, lived to a ripe old age and never got sick.

How do lower income people afford to keep pets today? People get very huffy when they see panhandlers with pets, for instance.

Pets are good for people though. They provide companionship and unconditional love. They teach children responsibility and how to care for other living creatures. They provide protection for the vulnerable. 

There are a lot of animals in shelters. More than half of them will be euthanized. Meanwhile, there are probably people out there who would love to adopt one of them, but can’t afford the high price of pet ownership. And, of course, some of the pets are in the shelters in the first place because their people could no longer afford to care for them. Is there a solution?

Really Dumb Stuff

We were talking the other night about dumb stuff our teenagers get up to and then, of course started talking about dumb stuff we did when we were younger (and even more recently). So, I thought I’d share with you the top 3 dumbest things I’ve ever done. Not that there weren’t plenty, plenty more, but these are probably the biggest in scope:

1.  At seventeen I ran away from home and joined the circus…okay, it wasn’t exactly the circus; more of a travelling road show and I was along to sell tapes (Note: Tapes were musical recording devices used in the dark ages days before we were clever enough to invent CDs). I went on tour with 6 total strangers for five months.

2.  One summer, a couple of years later, I went to Europe with a friend and neither of us had any money. We’d scraped together enough for a standby airfare and just under $100 each spending money.  We had a very small tent, sleeping bags and our backpacks.  Between us we also had 3 foreign languages and about 4 sets of distant European relatives each of whom we hit up for a meal and a night indoors.

3.  When my daughter was five, the two of us moved from southern Ontario to Halifax. I’d never been to the Maritimes in my life and I didn’t know a soul there. I sold and/or got rid of almost everything I owned and while I still had a substantive position with the government, I didn’t have an actual job in Halifax.

And, these things are relatively mild compared to some of the stories I’ve heard from friends.  It always amazes me how some of us have managed to survive more or less intact. The thing is though that these dumb things also sometimes turn out to be among the best things you’ve ever done. On the other hand, they could very easily have turned out really, really bad.  Is it worth the risk? What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever done?

Elements of Westfest Reviews

This post is in partnership with Zoom, who has, or will post some of the many photos she took that may or may not illustrate some or all of this review.

The Food:  Brunch at the Newport, home of the world famous Elvis Sighting Society. Interesting bit of trivia – Elvis has never actually been sighted at the Newport; but Elvis’ mother has been there and so has Bill Clinton’s mother. The place was packed..  The food was edible. The spoons were sticky. Our server, Yuri, was congenial.

The Music:  The cheek-pinchingly adorable, Andrea Simms-Karp did a luscious 30-minute set under sunny skies and then all hell broke loose, so we didn’t hear anyone else.  But, if you don’t already have Andrea’s CD, Sleeper, you really should get it. It’s available from her website

The Weather: An awesome sound and light show. And so totally unexpected. There we were basking under a blue, cloudless sky one minute and then suddenly it was dark. And then it rained like a mo-fu.  Thunder exploded, lightening cracked and the wind whipped  loose stuff all over the place.  Zoom and a bunch of other people screamed once at a particularly deafening thunderclap. I didn’t because I’m cool in the face of adversity or maybe because my reflexes aren’t so good.

The Dogs: There were a lot of dogs. There was an 180-lb great Dane named, Duke and a teeny little Yorkie pup whose name I didn’t catch because Mortie (Andrea’s bull-dog pup) was slobbering all over him/her. Mortie is really insanely cute. And, he very handily comes with a lot of extra skin which is fun to push up and down his body. 

The Rain Shelters:  Almost no one had umbrellas or raincoats, so they all had to make mad dashes for the nearest shelter. We sampled 3. The first was a big tent with lots of stuff to look at and buy, but since we were squished way to the back, we were forced to become overly-familiar with scented soaps. Then it sort of stopped raining so we moved on. Then it started again, so we ducked into a commercial building which turned out to be the Westboro condo sales office. We were there long enough to almost buy a condo.  Then it stopped raining a bit and we left.  Then it started again and we ended up under an awning populated by two randy old men.  They said, “Welcome to the looooove tent. Stay as long as you want. Stay all night. We have a bench.” They said some other stuff too, and we smiled and said stuff back and then we ran out into the rain to find a coffee shop.

The Companion:  Zoom was an excellent Westfest companion. She is full of amusing and astonishing anecdotes, a good source of Ottawa lore and an extremely knowledgeable groundhogist.  On parting she very excitedly told me she was attending a Pork Lunch the next day. “What?” I said, confused.  “What, what.” she answered equally confused. “What are you attending tomorrow?” I said, thinking she couldn’t possibly be that excited at the prospect of a pork lunch.  “A Book Launch,” she said. “Oooooohhhhhh,” said I.

Next time I’ll bring my ear horn.