Feeling excluded

With the increased sophistication of individual websites, and improved technology I now actually have less access to some webpages than I did eight or nine years ago.

When I was an internet virgin, back in about 1999, I was only just beginning to learn how to send email. It was late in 2000 when we got 'proper' unlimited internet access via cable and I was finally able to search and find things on the internet in which I was interested. I started with the BBC (I guessed at the url) and immediately found a long wished-for window to my home and all that was familiar - or had been when I left eight years earlier. To my delight, with the installation of a "Real"player I was able to watch snippets of loved telelvision programmes, bits of the BBC news and even watch the Queen's Speech once again on Christmas Day.

The more I found I could do and see on the internet, the more copyright and licence holders wanted to protect their property. So it was that one day my beloved BBC denied me access to snippets and full episodes of their wonderful programmes simply because I lived outside the United Kingdom and didn't possess a television licence. I even wrote to thm and said I would wilingly pay for the privilege of watching programmes online, but they stood firm and continue to guard their property jealously.

Ironically, in more recent years I've discovered more about what British people are watching by way of entertainment, through the [possibly] illegal uploadings of comedy snippets to YouTube. By this means I have learned to love Catherine Tate's "Lauren", Armstrong and Miller and enjoyed some of the better adverts. It's unfortunate though, that the BBC likes to exclude people from outside the country. Once when I wanted to order something from the BBC shop, I was directed to the BBC America shop. What's the good of that? BBC America isn't worthy of its name - read their schedule if you don't believe me. It's easy enough to find.

That actually brings me to iTunes. I am a fan of all things Apple and Mac so it annoys me that this is an issue which I can't seem to resolve. Being British and having spent my first 35 years in Britain, on receipt of my first iPod and on first opening my iTunes account, I eagerly sought all those songs of my youth which I no longer heard on the radio because they were not played in America. But what? iTunes didn't have a lot of them. iTunes UK had them but every time I tried even to look, I was redirected back to iTunes USA. When I had the audacity to try to buy a song in the UK, I was told I could only buy from iTunes USA. Would this happen if I was in the UK with my laptop I wonder? So according to iTunes USA, Status Quo hasn't recorded any songs since about 1969 so I can't buy one single Quo song from the 70s and 80s. Admittedly, their listings have vastly increased over the past couple of years so I am able to get hold of a few relatively obscure song titles from Europe now, but still no Quo! What's a girl to do?

I hate feeling far from home (even after 16 years, marriage and three children, England is still home to me) but even more, I hate being excluded in this way. There ought to be a way around this that's better than pirated clips on YouTube and flying to the UK to buy CDs.

More on clothes

I've been going to Weight Watchers for a few months and have successfully lost about 28lbs. This brings me far from my ideal weight or my ultimate goal (which is actually a good bit more than the "ideal") but it's enough to make me feel and look better than I have in quite a long time. My clothes have been falling off me so it's time for some replacements.

It's one thing to wear baggy tops when the weather is still chilly, but it's really uncomfortable to wear baggy flappy trousers. I can't imagine how those young chaps go around with their pants hanging down to their knees - they've probably forgotten how comfortable it is to wear clothes that fit! I've been thinking about moving out of trousers, but that's a big step for me. No I'm not a transvestite or seeking gender reassignment; it's just that I haven't worn a skirt or dress in years because I find that they are too uncomfortable to deal with and I can never find shoes to look good with them. It's really the stuff you have to wear underneath that's horrible. If you are a woman with lumps and bumps and are forced to wear not one or two, but three or four waistbands (eg skirt, slip, tights and possibly underwear) and then a bra and shirt above, it's not that comfortable. Waistbands and bras cause bulges in the middle (unless you want to wear some other foundation garment to squash it all up to your boobs or down to your thighs!). We've all seen the doughnuts that some people carry above their low-rise pants but in my case there are at least four of them and it's really not a pretty sight. So a dress might help.... if not for the stupid undergarments.

Gripe 1. Why are slips/petticoats made of clingy sticky nylon? If they aren't nylon, they're something else which sticks to the fabric of the skirt or dress and impedes free movement of the wearer and the dress.
Gripe 2. Why don't they make more bra-slips of assorted sizes?
Gripe 3. Why is there no viable alternative to nylon tights (aka panty-hose)?
Gripe 4. Why do American women tolerate the ill-fitting tights that seem to be all that are available over here? Perhaps they've never had the pleasure of a comfy pair from Marks and Sparks.

Anyway. I prefer to wear natural fibres all over when possible, but it's very hard to find stylish, well-fitting undergarments in anything but man-made materials. I can't be alone in finding many man-made fabrics hot and uncomfortable, can I?

For now I'm sticking to trousers - long thick ones in the winter and thin cropped ones in the summer. My days of wearing shorts were limited to a few brief years in the early 1990s when I felt slim enough to wear them and before my legs started to resemble English road maps. I am seriously never going to expose my legs ever again but it would be nice to be able to wear something long and light in the way of a cotton skirt in the summer without the need for nylon to hide my modesty.

Perhaps this is all too much information for the faint-hearted reader, but hopefully someone will be able to relate to it and maybe someone out there will know of a place where I can buy what I'm looking for. But getting back to trousers for a moment... as I mentioned the other day, I tend to shop in Target for the sake of cost and convenience. I won't spend a lot on clothes when I'm heavy because I want my 'heaviness' to be temporary and therefore an investment in 'good' clothes would be a waste. So on Saturday I invested a princely $15 (about £10) in a pair of black chinos. They were two and a half sizes smaller than the ones I was wearing before and I thought they would be fine. They felt fine when I tried them on so I ripped off the paper labels and wore them for a day. BUT cotton being cotton, the trousers 'relaxed' in the wearing and loosened up to the extent that by the end of the day they were feeling distinctly too big and flappier than in the morning. Now instead of gaining a pair of nicely fitting trousers to get me through the rest of the winter, I have another pair of baggy pants to annoy me.

The only solution is to lose a few more pounds and try again in April, before I go to England. Watch this space....

Another snow day in New England

View from the back. 7:19am



View from the side. 7:22am



View of front window. 7:25am


It's now 8:45 am on Monday morning and a time at which I would normally be getting ready for work but today is another "snow day" so the whole family is home and another day is added to the end of the school year. There isn't the same excitement in March as there is when the first snowfall of winter comes and even that doesn't compare to people's reaction in my homeland to a few flakes of snow. At this point we are all thinking about Spring, especially after the milder weather we've had recently.

The Reader

I've just been to see "The Reader" which was a trly excellent film. There was as much not in the film as was in it, which made it both entertaining and thought-provoking. I feared seeing it, having recently seen "Defiance" and not wanting to come home depressed or disturbed, but this film was neither of those things. It moved along gently and quietly - it could have evoked a great deal more emotion than it did - but I don't know that we always want to experience intense emotion at every film. Sometimes it's enough to remain on the sidelines as an observer, rather than become one with the characters.

I think the direction and the acting were spot on and Kate Winslet absolutely deserved her Oscar. I was also impressed by the actor David Kross who played the part of the young Michael Berg and I am surprised not to have heard even his name mentioned anywhere - ot that I read much about films - I just get a glimpse of this and that on tv. Did Kate Winslet mention him in her Oscar speech I wonder?

I highly recommend this film.

When did I go out of fashion?

Somewhere between getting married at thirty-five and my eventual emergence out of nappy-changing and pre-school runs I lost my sense of style. When I started rediscovering myself after the children were all at school and I was looking to move out of the sweats and jeans, I found myself drawn back to the fashions that I had been wearing in the early 90s - except that by that time the rest of the world was in the mid- 2000's. Even then I didn't recognise that there was a problem because I naturally steered clear of the obvious teenager clothes, but being by that time a 'plus-size' lady I was definitely looking at more matronly styles, although I didn't realise it.

I've been in America for sixteen years now and I can tell you that there is a big difference between American and British fashions. At first, when I thought I was doing all right with my clothing choices I favoured Alfred Dunner. The styles fit me, the colours suited me. But why could I only find a few places to sell them? Then a couple of years ago it hit me - those fashions are made for the more 'mature' woman and of course, I wasn't ready to be relegated to those ranks. But wait - is the 'mature' woman old enough to be my mother or young enough to be my friend? Or either? Or both?

My dilemma continues. I am not, nor ever have been a fashionista - fashionable styles have usually been too 'skinny' for me, but without having to try too hard on the occasions when I've wanted to dress up I've usually been able to find something to wear that hasn't made me look frumpy. If I'm honest, the only places I look for clothes are Target and Walmart because both stores are within a couple of miles of home, and because my budget and fluctuating weight will not allow me to buy anything more expensive or of better quality. That, coupled with the 'plus size' limitations means that the clothes I wear have become very boring. What's a fifty-something to do in this situation? I have two sets of contemporaries to look to for fashion guidance: those who have children the same ages as mine, and my friends who range between ten years younger and ten years older than me. But do I like their clothes? Would their styles suit me? Do they even wear fashionable clothes? What's in fashion anyway?

Yesterday I did a big clean-out of my closet and removed all clothes which were:
* too big (yea!)
* too old
* too shabby
* too ugly
It didn't leave me with too many clothes, actually, but it did prove a point. I had one sweater that I've worn faithfully for seventeen years which I didn't notice had become faded and a little frayed. It must have been of superior quality to what I've been buying in recent years though. However, now I need to shop again and I am uninspired.

I've spent the past few years wearing nothing but trousers, and the past two or three years wearing mostly black. A typical outfit for me consists of black trousers, a Black T shirt or turtle-neck sweater with something of colour over the top, or a coloured T shirt or sweater with something black over the top. Never more than one colour and always two items in black, or occasionally another neutral. All this with sensible shoes, of course. I admit I'm now getting tired of this look and I am looking for a change, which is where I came in at the top of this page. I've lost my sense of fashion.

I can't and won't compete with my teenage daughter (heck I don't even understand the names of the garments she wears and I certainly wouldn't be seen attempting to wear them), I can't afford to buy anything but sale items from J. Jill, Coldwater Creek, Talbot or Chico (which doesn't even do plus sizes, no no idea why I even mention it). Even when I look there, I can't seem to find much to excite me to make me wish to add it to my wardrobe.

I am getting older, no doubt, but I'm not dead or retired yet. I have a young family and I want to be active and up to date for as long as I can. Reducing my size from Plus to Normal will certainly help - perhaps that alone will open up some fashion possibilities for me, but until then, it's flappy trousers and tops until I can find something new and refreshing to invest in.

Living it

The best way to write an interesting blog is to live outside cyberspace for a while and write about your experiences. This is called "Living in the Real World". I know many people who do this all the time; remarkably, some do it all the time and for those people, cyberspace is still unexplored territory. Other people are relatively inexperienced in the Real World lifestyle, so they and those who have yet to try it at all, may take today's blog entry as a primer as to What to Do and How to Cope.

This morning, my first excursion into the Real World required me to put on a coat over my pyjamas and take out all the rubbish and recycling. I soon realised that I was a little under-dressed because my fingers began to feel like icicles, and about as flexible. So the first lesson of the day was: Before venturing out into the Real World, always remember to wear appropriate clothing because those little flakes of snow can feel pretty cold. It took another hour online to recover and so I decided to take things a little easier for the next task. This required the use of Special Equipment, but could safely be accomplished in pyjamas. I left the comfort of my kitchen to Clean the Bathroom. Usually I spend only a few minutes at a time in that room, away from the Internet, but this visit required me to spend the better part of half an hour in there. Admittedly this can bring on panic in the inexperienced adventurer but I have done this many times before, so apart from needing a little routine recovery time afterwards, I completed the task unscathed.

In the early afternoon I was required to "chat" with three-dimensional humanoids half my size and one-fifth my age. They are a remarkable invention, requiring no batteries or chargers. They walk and talk, interact with each other and occasionally with other, bigger models. Often their communications make little sense, but from time to time a word or two can be distinguished by which they express their need for recharging, or "feeding". The creatures are called Boys and this afternoon they wished to be entertained by being conveyed to a Movie Theatre and thence placed in seats for two hours whilst watching the activities of other humanoids whose likenesses have been captured on film. This does not require interaction so if you decide to participate in such an activity yourself you might be well-advised to take some kind of communication device with you to avoid "Idleness of the Fingers". Portable keyboards can be purchased for those who must blog everything they do as they do it. The movie today was "Paul Blart Mall Cop" which tells the unlikely tale of the existence of human life forms visiting a giant "Real Life" Amazon store with little sub-stores within it. Rather than pictures of items to be purchased and placed in virtual shopping carts, people may actually handle the merchandise before buying and with no shipping costs incurred! Purchased items are then placed in bags to be taken home by the customer in her own vehicle. This proves that all goods do not have to arrive in a UPS truck. Anyway, the movie was OK - lived up to the critics' reviews but fell below the expectations I had, based on reports from people I know.

My return to virtual reality didn't occur until after dinner at Friendly's, but I was able to remain calm throughout the meal by playing video games on my iPod. Now at last I'm back in my cyberhome, having had some small adventures in the Real World, and hopefully will be prepared to meet the challenges of Laundry and Grocery Shopping tomorrow.

Logging off ;-)

In a bit of a tiz

I began this morning in a horizontal position, reading email on my iPod. I thought of the nice long vacation day and the rest of the week stretching out before me as a huge open expanse of Nothing-Planned but reality hit me and within the hour I remembered that I have Responsibilities. Why was I in such a hurry to grow up?

The first thing to hit me was the church newsletter. I'm not sure why I do this to myself, but I have painted myself into a corner for the love of technology and the desire not to go to the office and freeze my fingers off. For the duration of my tenure as the church secretary, the monthly newsletter has been prepared in the form of a Word document and due to its having a mind of its own it has become a difficult and time-consuming chore to keep the document formatted the way it needs to be, while changing the content. I've tried many times to start a new document in the hope of obliterating the gremlins but I only have to copy and paste a single element from the old document to cause all the gremlins to abandon ship and settle into a new home.

Since we work exclusively on Macs, the question arose as to whether it would be a worthwhile investment to purchase iWork 09, for $79. Before asking the church to make this investment, we played around with a thirty-day trial version of '08' to produce last month's newsletter, which, I must say, came out rather well. I used a set template and filled in and replaced the elements with our own information. This month, however, the thirty-day trial period on '08' had expired so another one - this time '09' - had to be opened on a different computer. To cut a long story short, I did manage to do much of the newsletter in under an hour and then sent it off to church for approval. I hope that we'll soon be able to have it on the church computer!

I'm sorting out a movie outing for sunny-boy's birthday this Friday, monitoring the activities of dd1 and bf, cleaning the house, doing the laundry and dealing with the upsets of dd2. I'm not too chuffed at having to listen to Nintendo games in the other room while I'm writing but I have at least had my morning coffee now, so the bear with a sore head has quietened down somewhat.

Next major task on the agenda, aside from house and church work, is continuing the plans for the trip to England in April and apart from that, I'd like a little time to paint.