Love is in the air

(plus: (hold yourself really tight) a lot of religious talk)

Well, here they are. The valentine version of the apron. Notice those theme oriented pockets? Normally I wouldn't use a hokey detail like heart pockets, but the truth is, that's one of the things that made the aprons of the thirties and forties cool. The use of pockets as decorative detail. Flower, tea pot, and apple shaped pockets gave that extra something to the aprons that prevented them from being too utilitarian. So what the hell, heart pockets.

Oh heck, I didn't use a close up of this fabric. Maybe I'll do that in the next post. I like this fabric better than the other valentine fabric because it isn't so obviously hearts. Except for the pockets, of course. The fabric is sweet without making me feel like I just ate a pound of milk chocolate. The red is exquisite (I'm a connoisseur of the color red in all its wild permutations).

I've been adding things to the big window as we've been getting them in the store. I am completely in love with these strawberry flour sack dish towels. We just got them in last week and they make me happy.

I had to show you BBQ Sue in her new Valentine apron. Good God! Would someone please give her some fettuccine alfredo? Still, in spite of her appalling thinness I realize that some people out there will think she's the ideal size, but I'm not going to point you out to the mob, OK? If you think BBQ Sue is the ideal size, keep it to yourself. She achieved that size by practically starving to death in the former U.S.S.R. where life is still pretty tough for anyone without gang connections.

Like Audrey Hepburn, she feels sensitive about the fact that she is so skinny and would genuinely like to gain a few pounds. If she could have a figure more like Sophia Loren, believe me, she would have hips and thighs. Oh, and speaking of her look, it's been suggested that perhaps she should be wearing a bra to cover her nipples which are visible through her shirt. It never occurred to me to put a bra on a mannequin unless they are modelling bras. Should I insist on Sue being a wee bit more modest? I mean, it's true that I personally would never let my nipples show in public on purpose like Jennifer Anniston does. But I'm a prude who would willingly dress in Amish clothes if I didn't worry that Amish people would think I was making fun of them.

You can ask almost any friend of mine who knows me really well, I have a thing for religious cultish clothes. I love those little starched caps that some religious women wear to cover their hair in public. Once my friend Lucille took me on a wonderful outing in Berkeley (California) to look at shops and we saw a small herd of women wearing modest dresses (meaning they were mid calf and weren't constructed to showcase breasts) and each one of them had one of those caps on their heads to cover their hair which each one had pulled into a tidy little bun. They all had coats on because it was a chilly day and somehow their coats seemed fashionable. A couple of them had quite fitted ones in nice colors. I couldn't take my eyes off of them. Seriously, I came very close to embarrassing Lucille with my uncouth behavior. Sometimes I act as though I've never been out in public before.

There's a difference between modest and frumpy. I disapprove of all clothes intended to remove any ounce of attraction from the wearer. I refuse to believe that God prefers all his people to hide any possible visible physical beauty. It seems to me like purposely being as frumpy as possible is like spitting on the gifts "he" gave us. Every creature on earth that "he" made preens themselves. If "he" found it so offensive, why on earth would he have given all of us the instinct to clean ourselves, to adorn ourselves, to roll in mud to smell oh-so-earthy? That would just make "him" into a really mean and somewhat stupid all powerful being.

I keep putting "him" in quotations because I don't actually believe in God as a gendered individual. I respect that others do.

I have been exposed to enough hardcore Christians, the real fire and brimstone type, to know that there are lots of them out there who think awareness of any kind of physical beauty is evil. Which is just about the saddest thing on earth. I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but why is it that many Baptist* and Born Again women look pale and colorless, wear shapeless flavorless garments, and look supremely unhappy all the time? One need not apply as much make up as Tammy Faye, or dress as provocatively as Anna Nicole Smith, but one can dress attractively, in a way that enhances the beauty nature gave you without instantly becoming an irredeemable whore. And anyway, isn't God all about forgiveness?

I don't particularly hero worship the Amish, because I suspect there's a lot of badness hidden in their midst, but their women manage to dress modestly while maintaining a certain kind of panache. Black and white are always in style because who doesn't look good in black? Aprons have a way of making women look all at once nurturing yet alluring, useful, strong, purposeful, and yes: feminine. They may cover their whole bodies up, but their garments show off their waists. A classic silhouette. Don't tell the Amish I think they're fashionable though because it might alarm them into dressing like your most earnest born again.

Plus the Amish don't drive cars which I think is just about as fabulous as it gets! I would so much love to drive to and from Portland in a horse drawn wagon!

I'm going to try very hard here not to say anything objectionable about Mormons, but I think they've got everything all wrong what with this secret underwear gig. As far as I can tell, their underwear is made of hair. OK, I know it's not. But how can Mormons expect me to take them seriously when they wear "secret" underwear which sounds like an adolescent pajama club? Another thing I find disturbing might not even be true, but I heard that husbands get a secret name for their wives which even the wives don't know and the husbands can denounce them with this name and keep the ladies out of heaven.

It is continually amazing to me that any women go for this Mormon stuff. While everyone is getting all freaked out about Islam and throwing bombs at Islam's women and children as well as its men, we have, here in this country, a rapidly spreading religion in which women have very few rights as well. Who's objecting to that here in the homeland? There is very little difference to me between Islam and Mormonism. Both have this whole no alcohol deal going on, both are extremely patriarchal religions in which the men may have more than one wife, the wives have very few rights and are only taken seriously as slaveswives and mothers.

I'm not saying that I think we should get rid of Mormons here, this is, after all a country who supposedly respects our right to practice whatever religion we want. I completely support freedom of religion. Even though we fiercely object to other people's religions in other countries. That is a gross hypocrisy on our part. Well, I guess it's just part and parcel of this whole democracy hypocrisy in which we go to other countries, bomb the crap out of them and force them to adopt our "democracy" at gun point and let us put our own stooge in charge of them, like the good little dictators we Americans are.

Oh dear, I got a little off the track there. Speaking of cool clothes, Islamic women dress beautifully. I know I'm not supposed to think so, because the veil represents the evil of the Islamic patriarchal stranglehold, yet even so... the veil and the head dresses they wear, the long gowns, they are so gorgeous and strangely provocative to me. The best fashions I ever saw were not in Paris, as you would expect (I think the French dress horribly actually, don't smack me for not worshiping them), but in Old Jerusalem. I'm serious. We stood on the top of the Tower of David, Philip and I, and looked down at everyone walking around. It's as though all times had meshed together and then stood still. Processions of nuns dressed exactly as they have always dressed in this spot walking solemnly by; the Arab women in their wonderful scarves wrapped snugly around their chins with gorgeous dark eyes and beautiful skin going about their everyday business; all mixed in with soldiers in crisp Khakis carrying machine guns as casually as if they carried bundles of daisies on their shoulders; hunched over old Jewish men in black suits shuffling past us. It was the most beautiful sea of people I have ever seen in my entire life. It made me wonder how any person on earth could truly wish for a monoculture when such beauty and richness can be achieved with everyone mixing together.

Before anyone gets irate at the things I have said, please realize that every day I strive to allow every one who is different than me to occupy their own space in this world we share. SHARE is the operative word. Unlike many people, I actually do believe in freedom of religion and I don't at all object to sharing this world with all kinds of people who believe things that, to me, seem strange and cockeyed, and sometimes just plain unfathomable. What I don't believe in is refusing to notice the quirkiness of both myself and others. I am an equal opportunist when it comes to making fun of human beings.


*I must say that African American Baptist women don't seem so restrictive in dress and wear some pretty amazing hats to church, they also tend to seem less frumpy and unhappy. Plus they sing about ten million times better.