Be Mine to the Nines: One Enchanted Eating

A frilly, heart-shaped box of chocolates is like a girl gussied up for the prom.  So in other words, a bundle of nerves and expectations wrapped in ribbons.  (Did I mention that this particular prom takes place in the '50s?)  Will the quarterback ask Susie Q. to dance?  Or is she doomed to have her satin pumps stomped on by the hall monitor?  It's a gamble, and that box of chocolates, as Forrest so wisely told us, is no different.  Sometimes you score a strawberry center; other times you get stuck with a maple.

That said, here's my collection of Valentine's candy boxes.  I've shown off most of them over the years but thought it'd be fun to photograph them together.  They store accessories and serve as décor in my closet.  Which means that whenever I reach for a ring or brooch, I think of happy times and sweet treats.  Both of which are tastier than quarterbacks.

But never running backs named Forrest.

Women's March Madness

Just before the pandemic, I read and loved Meg & Jo, Virginia Kantra's modern take on Little Women.  And this week I had the pleasure of reading Kantra's follow-up, Beth & Amy.  Set in twenty-first century North Carolina instead of 1860s Massachusetts, Kantra's story takes an in-depth look into the hearts and minds of the four March sisters.  It's an emotional exploration that wouldn't have happened when Louisa May Alcott wrote the original.  Because back when horse and buggies roamed the earth, people -- even authors -- didn't really talk about their feelings.  

Beth is a singer-songwriter touring with -- and dating -- a huge country music star.  But although she's alive in Kantra's version, she's far from well.  Still painfully shy and self-effacing, she keeps a dark secret from everyone, including her sisters.  As for Amy, she remains a go-getting fashionista.  A rising handbag designer -- she cheekily calls her business Baggage --, part of her is still out to prove that Jo isn't the only creative genius in the March matriarchy.  Also, that Jo isn't the only one who has Laurie's -- or, as he's called, here, Trey's -- heart.  So, Beth is a mouse and Amy a peacock.  But despite their opposite personalities, they have one key thing in common; no matter how far they roam, they always long for and return to the comfort of home:

Amy: "All my life I'd dreamed of Paris.  The light, the food, the art, the fashion.  Turned out it was just like high school, a bunch of assholes following me around saying horrible things." (52)

Beth: "It felt so good to be home, to fade into my familiar supporting role.  Not the princess or the fairy or the star.  Just . . . me, one of the March girls, the quiet one who brought home strays and sometimes played guitar." (68)

I love how Kantra crafts the voices of the youngest March sisters.  Amy's is witty and bold yet betrays scars from her past.  Beth's reveals that she doesn't want the spotlight, just the music she plays for herself.

It's also cool how Amy challenges the idea that each of the four sisters is only one thing:

Amy: ' "Ugh.  Why do we do that?  . . . Pigeonhole ourselves.  The responsible one, the smart one, the good one, the pretty one." ' (180)  

Little Women is famous for creating the premise that each of its heroines inhabits a box.  Which in some ways is fun, like a Seventeen quiz.  As in, ooh, am a Jo or an Amy?  A Meg or a Beth?  But once you get past the thrill of that slumber party impulse, you realize it's not realistic.  Because no one is just one thing.  Plenty of women can be responsible and smart and good and pretty and a zillion other things all at once.  Alcott knew this and told us so in subtle ways, but the constraints of her time clouded her message.  That's why it's so compelling -- and important -- when Kantra challenges the one-adjective-per-March-sister rule and, by extension, the limits for all women.  In this way, she expands upon Alcott's classic feminist tale while staying true to the characters we grew up with.  And I dare say that her books, while imbued with the emotional intelligence of adult, of-the-minute women, are as fun as the frothiest teen magazine.   

So, thanks, Kantra.  Keep marching on.  

Swan Con: Romance on the Pun

Dress: Modcloth; Top: Candie's, Kohl's

Red Hot Candy Necklace

White Swan Barrette Brooch

Top: Bisou Bisou, JCPenney

Top: Candie's, Kohl's

Candy Chrysalis Necklace

Black Swan Barrette Brooch

It's finally February, and you know what that means.  No, I'm not talking about that perennially pessimistic, Pennsylvanian, shadow-spying rodent.  I'm talking about Valentine's Day, that magical time when love isn't only in the air, but the hair.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I heart the hearts and flowers aesthetic.  That's why I ripped into the proverbial box of chocolates early to make a couple of candy necklaces and a pair of barrette brooches featuring those most OG of lovebirds: swans 

Swans are so beautiful, it's no wonder they drop their feathers everywhere.  There are swan boats, swan songs, and swan-like necks.  There's Black Swan and Swan Lake and Bella Swan.  There are Swanson frozen dinners (cue Jimmy Fallon's "Idiot Boyfriend": "I've got a Swanson's dinner in the freezer, with your name on it."), Ron Swanson, and even the swan on the Schwan frozen food truck.  There are graceful swans and swans that'll peck your eyes out.  And, then of course, there's the romantic ideal that swans  -- and only swans -- mate for life.  

What other avian could a Hallmark junkie want?

Don't say doves.  I don't care how many weddings you've been to where they've been released.  Doves are for peace treaties.  And Prince.  And anyway, they lack swans' drama.  

Because if you're not in danger of losing an eye, then you might as well stay in Punxsutawney.  

Animal Print Stint: A Very Merry Unbirthday to Me

Tights: Xhilaration, Target

As you know, I hit the big 4-Oh in the beginning of the month.  But the family party (okay, get-together, as there were a pod-approved nine of us) took place last weekend -- which gave me an excuse to celebrate all over again.  And if Alice and animal print don't say happy birthday month -- or merry unbirthday, to quote that wonderfully wacky Alice in Wonderland ditty -- then I don't know what does.

Socks, ? (they were a Christmas gift :) 

Skirt: Bubblegum, Macy's

Boots: Jessica Simpson Collection, Amazon

Sweater: Bar III, Macy's

Bag: Betsey Johnson, Macy's

My parents pulled out all the stops, decking their house with pink decorations.  It was the best bash I could've hoped for, with all of my favorite people.  At one point we were covered in streamers, but I decided not to post any pictures of that.  I respect the privacy of others, if not my own.  

Anyway, it's a good thing we partied down last weekend, because this is what it's like out today:

There's fifteen inches of the white stuff here at the Jersey shore.  As always, I took it in from inside my window.  And then promptly hit the couch to watch TV, this time the pilot of ABC's new vineyard-set drama, Promised Land.  It's good; I raise a glass to it.

Even if what's in my glass is cinnamon apple tea.

Of Clowns and Cacti

Another Upside Down Clown Necklace

Top: Crown of Hearts, Alloy

So Many Succulents Necklace

Top: Collectif X, Modcloth

So, Guthrie and Elmer.  I introduced these two a while back, and they're still out there, roaming the desert.  Only now they've picked up a protégé.  His name is Ollie, and his claim to fame is that he can stand on his head.  Why don't we make his acquaintance? 

Ollie didn't know what he'd gotten himself into.  When Guthrie and Elmer picked him up hitchhiking on the outskirts of Twin Terrors, he thought they were just another couple of oldsters.  Sure, they were crotchety as all get out and looked like they'd seen more than their share of bad road.  But it wasn't until they started talking about themselves in the third person that he started to worry.  It was as if they had split personalities.  One half was the geezers who hated clowns; the other half was the clowns.  Ollie almost asked them about it.  But it wasn't the kind of thing he could bring up after trading war stories about Route 66 or commenting on a cactus-shaped cloud.  Especially not after they'd been kind enough to share their chili, even if it was vegetarian and smelled like a compost pile.  No, weird as they were, he was in no position to make waves with these gents.  So when Guthrie asked if he'd join their act at the Sidewinder Saloon, he burped up some chili and said, "Sure."  Now he was onstage -- or on the overturned washtub that passed for a stage -- doing a headstand as the Friday night crowd jeered and catcalled.  He didn't know how women stood it, having their body parts reduced to overripe fruit, their every movement turned into something suggestive.  But he told himself to ignore the drunks and concentrate on what he was doing.  Every time he stood on his head, he did it for a few seconds longer than he had the time before.  It made him feel like he had something to work toward and that he was getting somewhere.  Plus, being ridiculed up there alongside Guthrie and Elmer bonded them more closely and quickly than any campfire or cold one ever could.  Even when, hours later as they made their way home in the stark, inky night, Guthrie and Elmer unleashed a fresh verbal assault on their alter egos.  Ollie considered telling them about his own demons.  His parents had thrown him out when he was ten because they had too many mouths to feed.  But also because they were sick of explaining why their son was such a dreamer and had a head where his feet should be.  Then Guthrie started playing his banjo, disrupting Ollie's thoughts.  When Guthrie broke the banjo over Elmer's head, Ollie knew it would be a long night.         

And that's Ollie!  You can see his likeness taking center stage in the form of a plastic noisemaker in my Another Upside Down Clown Necklace:

The two things that you need to know about this necklace are: 1) The noisemaker was the prize inside a New Year's Eve cracker, and 2) it's called "another" because there was an Upside Down Clown Necklace that came before it.

Noisy is as noisy does.  But nothing's as noisy as Guthrie's banjo.     

The Bad Old Cays: Another Maine Murder

The puffins on this book cover are adorable, the bright blue backdrop serene.  Even the girl clinging to the cliff edge for dear life has a comfortingly cartoonish quality.  But Leslie Meier's Invitation Only Murder, the 2019 installment in her popular Lucy Stone series, is more creepy than cozy.  

Reporter-slash-sleuth Lucy is at it again.  But this time she's ventured from the relative safety of Tinker's Cove to an island frozen in the nineteenth century.  Peculiar patriarch and billionaire Scott Newman has plunged his family, which includes his second wife, two sets of twins, and a skeleton crew of salt-of-the-earth staff, into the ultimate eco-warrior experiment: modern life minus modern conveniences.  No cell phones, TVs, or electricity.  Or, as they said on Gilligan's Island, not a single luxury (although even the Professor had a coconut radio).  Just miles and miles of pristine Maine countryside -- where no one can hear you scream.  

And you thought your family was crazy.

Scott claims it's all in the name of protecting Mother Earth, but his controlling ways suggest that something far more sinister is afoot.  And then someone turns up dead, with two more lost in the fog-shrouded forest.  I couldn't help but think that this setup of a strange, wealthy family marooned in the boonies had an air of Agatha Christie.  And when I got to the part where Lucy tries to talk herself off the ledge, my hunch was confirmed:

"Get a grip, she told herself, determined to resist the paranoia that seemed to be infecting the house.  This isn't an Agatha Christie story; people aren't going to disappear one by one, slain by a killer intent on avenging a past wrong." (167-168)

But rattled or not, Lucy isn't one to throw in the towel.  So, like Hercule Poirot, she puts her little gray cells to the test.  She's not a journalist for nothing; her ease with people and observational skills prove invaluable as she works to unmask the killer.  

Invitation Only Murder wasn't what I expected.  It's grimmer than the average Lucy Stone caper, going so far as to include a description of Scott's faithful servant laying out a dead body.  Nevertheless, I found it intriguing, spellbound by the eerie vibe and fog to find out if the good guys -- whoever they were -- would survive.

And also, at the very least, it made me appreciate Wi-Fi. 

Two Plaids, Four Fads, and a Rag Bag Revisited

Coat: So, Kohl's

I'm kicking off this post with a very cheesy -- but very necessary! -- line: so many plaids, so little time.  Because I was so excited about my new pair of plaid minis that I decided to build not one but two looks around each.  

First up is this purple skirt in an outfit we'll call "funky fur."  The skirt is preppy, but the color is kooky, and that's the part I decided to run with.  More mushrooms and My Little Ponies, please!

Yellow Garden Necklace

Top: Delia's, Dolls Kill

Barrettes: Dolls Kill

Bag: Amazon

Next is the same skirt styled in a more scholarly yet fairy kei way.  Looks like "pastel prep" to me!    

Sweater: So, Kohl's

Ring: (old school) Delia's; Barrettes: Dolls Kill; Mint bangle: Decree, JCPenney; Yellow bangle: B Fabulous

Skirt: Almost Famous, Kohl's

Teddy Confetti Necklace

Sweater: Pink Republic, Macy's

And that brings us to my second skirt, this colorful flared affair from Delia's for Dolls Kill.

But first, a little tangent. 

A year or so ago, I bagged up some clothes to donate, shoved them in a closet, and promptly forgot about them.  I wasn't about to haul them off to Goodwill with COVID still surging.  But I recently went into that closet to get something else, saw the bag there, and thought, I wonder . . . 

I don't have to tell you that I was soon surrounded by a colorful sea of my so-called castoffs.  Rifling through those garments -- even the hideous ones -- gave me a lot of joy.  There were even a few pieces that were still kind of nice.  This is how hoarders get started, I thought, examining an almost brand-new pair of chocolate flats I'd once deemed too small.  I set them aside; I could make them work with pantyhose.  I also rescued a cutout black sweater that I could probably get away with over a tee shirt, a floral red button-down perfect for Zoom meetings, and, finally, the maroon, blue, and mustard sweater I'm sporting in this ensemble.  At the time, I thought the colors were too drab or collegiate.  But after fishing it out of the bag, I remembered how much I liked the fit and considered reinventing it with a bright bottom.  Enter this sunshiney plaid number!  When the husband snapped my pic in it, he said I looked like I was ready to head to Riverdale, which I loved.  Even though to me the vibe was more Mean Girls.  

Green bracelet: Parade of Shoes; Blue bracelet: Cloud Nine, Ocean City; Ring: Making Waves, Ocean City

Skirt: Delia's, Dolls Kill

Suzy Snapshot Necklace

Tights: Isadora, Zulily

Finally, I curated the same skirt in a different way, with an oversized pastel sweater and eclectic accessories.  The leopard pumps were another near-discard; they're a little big, which is why I'm rocking socks.  And then there are my crooked cobalt tights.  What is it about vertical-striped stockings, anyway?!  Sometimes the stars align and everything falls where it's supposed to.  But more often than not, no amount of twisting and untwisting can correct a configuration that's woefully catawampus, and I feel as uncoordinated as a kid who can't tie her shoes.  That's why I'm dubbing this outfit "unkempt kitsch."  It's a not-so-subtle reminder that things don't have to be perfect to be pretty.

Which is as good a mantra as any for this recovering perfectionist.

Bag: Betsey Johnson, Macy's

Flower barrette: Etsy; Bow barrette: Carole, JCPenney

Shoes: Journeys, Kohl's

Spider necklace: SHEIN; Love bangle: Boscov's; Choker: Mixit, JCPenney; Small bracelet: Cloud Nine, Ocean City; Large bracelet: Mixit, JCPenney; Barrettes: SHEIN