Swimsuit Season and 60 Minutes

Monday night I had every intention of going to my Y ‘Resolution Solution’ class. In addition to a demo of healthy recipes, an aqua zumba workout was scheduled. I even retrieved my olive green tankini from a bin in the storage room.

But life intervened, and I stuffed the swimsuit into a drawer.

Few tasks strike fear in the hearts of women more than swimsuit shopping. Men may shudder at this chore, also. But the only swimsuits purchased by males in this household have been snatched off the rack or ordered from Lands’ End without an ounce of angst involved.

Actually my current suit and the two-piece navy and turquoise number (no exposed midriff, rest assured!) were purchased via Lands’ End.

I have an aversion to swimsuit shopping, and shopping in general. I once went swimsuit shopping with my husband’s younger sister. She needed a suit, not me. She was, and is, five foot eleven and slender. I am five foot two and ¾ on a good day and even at my thinnest, no one would call me slender, slim, or svelte.

Ironically, the time I felt most comfortable in a swimsuit was the summer I was pregnant with my second son. There’s liberation in just not caring about resembling a beached whale. I’m not exaggerating. While waiting at the doctor’s office that summer, someone asked me if I was having triplets.

The time I should have felt most uncomfortable – interviewing Don Hewitt, then-60 Minutes producer, poolside in Vegas, both of us clad in swimsuits, ironically did not faze me that much. Ah, the confidence of 20.

College classmates and I were attending a broadcasting honorary society convention during spring break. I had a story due for my print journalism class while I was gone, and somehow Don Hewitt became my story. I’m sure we both wore cover-ups. The only details that really matter, though, are the ‘A’ I got on the story and in the class (taught by the amazing Jim Wojcik) and the fact an article on Hewitt in TV Guide later that year used all the same quotes I did. It was the legendary producer’s standard spiel, but at least I knew enough to pick up on it.

We both could have been wearing Hefty garbage bags and one truth still would have resonated: I wanted to be a writer.

I returned from spring break to find out my father, a school administrator, had accepted a new job in Iowa. In the downriver Detroit suburb we lived in, school personnel were routinely ‘pink slipped’ due to the poor economy. They may or may not be rehired. With my sister and me in college and two brothers coming up, my dad wasn’t going to wait around to see.

It seemed easier to change my major from broadcast journalism to print journalism by following my family to Iowa and transferring to a different university. Yes, my idea of easy can be skewed.

I got hired at the Iowa State Daily, took a class from another amazing professor, Tom Emmerson, and met my husband.

I’m still afraid to face the 360 degree dressing room mirrors to try on swimsuits, but pulling out that tankini yesterday reminded me of the things I’ve done in my life that should have daunted me…but didn’t.

Not bad for a piece of spandex.

Momz in the Hood

I wore the following to book group last night: faded black capri pants; awesome lime green t-shirt with an orange ‘Catstronaut’ imprinted on it, (made by Alex, one of son Erik's best friends, a sophomore at Rhode Island School of Design); sandals; and a sweater ‘purloined’ this summer from my friend Karin, columnist extraordinaire for the Charleston, WV Sunday Gazette.

Note to Karin: I will return it and the adorable peasant blouse but will keep the ‘hoochie mama’ dress you gave me, which I am too chicken to wear.

Because I couldn’t find my black zip-up hooded sweatshirt (bought specifically to wear with hideous black wide-legged sweat pants on the plane for our flight to Germany three springs ago), I grabbed (gently, Karin, I promise!) the sweater.

A combination shrug/capelet garment with ¾ length sleeves, it’s adorable, and chi-chi and, sadly, not me. My book group pals agreed with me, in the kindest possible way. A friend, nearly 20 years my junior (clad in an adorable short colorful trench coat) said it was definitely the kind of thing she’d wear. Columnist Karin, several inches taller with patrician cheekbones, would look stunning in it too. If I ever get it mailed back to her.

Karin is an expert bargain hunter and a trip several years ago to a Coldwater Creek Outlet store yielded some amazing finds for me, thanks to her. And she’s similarly gifted in her surroundings. Like my dear friend Gwen (who single-handedly transformed her backyard into something out of House Beautiful, pond included), Karin has the interior design ‘touch.’ Both women are frugal, uber creative, and talented.

Me, I once had a friend tell me my design style was ‘house mediocre’ and years ago had a colleague earnestly offer to nominate me for TLC’s What Not to Wear due to my summer teaching ‘uniform’ of capris (I think the same pair I wore last night), Tevas, and polo shirts.

Yeah, yeah, yeah…I know I have other ‘talents’…well, at least one. But just once I’d like to be able to accessorize a room or an outfit, heck, even decorate a Christmas cookie with panache!

But I can’t so I’ll just bask in the glow of having wonderful friends who can…and try to remember to return articles of clothing I filch from them.

Aunt Judy

The worldwide news this week has been horrible, with chaotic storms in northern Europe and a major earthquake in Haiti. At least in my own little corner, my older son and his girlfriend are safely back in Germany. This weekend they’ll head to Berlin so she can fly home. A couple weeks after that, he’ll head home too.

He’s a restless one but going to stay put for a while, relatively speaking.

So I should be breathing easy, but I’m not. My beloved Aunt Judy, my mom’s only sister (and younger than her by five years) suffered a stroke due to soaring high blood pressure. She may have also had a small heart attack. As I write this, we’re waiting to hear when she will be moved out of ICU into a regular room.

When I was eleven years old, my grandmother took me on a trip to visit Aunt Judy in San Francisco. My aunt was married then, her son was just a toddler and she owned the biggest, scariest, laziest Doberman Pinscher in the world. She took us to the Japanese Tea Garden and a fancy restaurant where I still remember what I ordered: Chicken Cordon Bleu.

She’s a gourmet cook, expert seamstress and grandma to two blond boys she dotes on. When I was in high school, Aunt Judy made me two gorgeous silky Qiana (it was the 70s) dresses. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve worn a dress that had cleavage peeking out. Aunt Judy crafted one of those dresses, and I wore it under my high school graduation gown. Before I went off to college, I took the train to go visit her because she said she’d take me shopping for new clothes. I don’t like to shop. It was the best shopping trip ever. We must have hit the mall (they did have malls then) for eight hours or more.

In the mid-fifties, my mom and Aunt Judy went together on a school trip to Europe. They flew over the English Channel in a wobbly plane during turbulent weather, had a marvelous time visiting the British Isles and managed to look smart and sophisticated while traveling.

When we visited Erik in Germany two years ago, I wore a sweat suit that still makes poor Andrew cringe if I dare wear it around the house. Yes, it’s that ugly.

My Aunt Judy is a mother, a grandmother, a sister, a cook, a quilter, a wonderful woman who’s been special in my life since I was an errant toddler at her wedding, emptying all the near-empty champagne glasses into my mouth.

She sent me a note when I first starting writing this blog, raving about it. Of course she is biased.

“You are simply great, Pam,” she ended her note with.

You are simply great, Aunt Judy, you are too.