A woman I know awaited the arrival of her daughter on the wings of cotton candy dreams. Being the only female in the household was soon coming to an end! Her husband could hardly wait, yet their three sons were unsure of how they felt about it, how a little girl in the pack would change things. Were they ready to be big brothers and just exactly what did that mean? This woman recalls the thrill she felt having the nursery painted pink. She hung pink blinds and valances in the windows and pink dresses in the closet. Pink, pink, pink! It was all about the femininity this child would lend to her mother’s life. She looked forward to the days when she and “Felicity” or “Tiffany” or whoever she was, would go shopping for pink little panties with lacey back sides and anklets trimmed in eyelet. She could hardly wait to buy her delicate daughter a rosy cheeked baby doll. As it turned out, pink just wasn’t in the picture for her little girl and the boys didn’t need to adjust at all. This beautiful baby girl grew up to be a robust tom-boy. She could out bat, out…
Category: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Poor Christine!
My older sister was referred to as “Poor Christine” by Grandma from the minute she was born. Apparently she had a pointy little cone head that made dad cry the first time he saw her. Although, seventy two hours later her head was shaped just fine, the whole incident qualified her, in Grandma’s eyes, to be referred to as “Poor Christine” for eternity. When apparently malnourished “Poor Christine” grew up and went to live on campus at Gonzaga University, Grandma, who lived close by, made a habit of calling her at the dorm and insisting she come over for food. As Grandma saw it, Poor Christine was far too thin and desperately needed some help fattening up. After all, how was she ever going to attract a husband when all she was, was skin and bones? My sister would go to Grandma’s house and eat enough to hold her over for a week. “Oh! Poor Christine!” Grandma would cry at first sight of her. “Come. Sit. Mangi, mangi, mangi!” she would insist. My sister would eat, eat, eat, till she thought she would explode, then leave Grandma’s with her arms full. She would arrive back at the dorm with homemade…
Girly Girls
Powder Puff Football, 1972; need I say more? Imagine it, college freshman girls, out to have a good time and prove themselves to be tough young women of substance. Really, we just wanted to join the team because the coach was super hot as well as all of his friends who came out to “assist.” Lots of guys showed up for practices and hung out at the field, volunteering their services. They taught us how to pass and catch the ball, how to block and run, dodge and dive. We were accompanied as we ran around the track, encouraging cat calls spurring us on. It wasn’t long before we were referred to as “the cute team,” every one of us slim and fit and showing up to practice in full makeup with our long hair in sleek pony tails. They swished over our shoulders and swung back and forth as we ran, turned, and threw the ball. We didn’t have uniforms so bellbottom jeans and sweatshirts had to do. Somehow we managed to make it all a little sexy. It was fall and the air was crisp with skies crystal clear. We rose early and went to classes all day,…
As Odd Balls Go… Pt.1
I was about twelve years old the day I witnessed her tall thin frame flit past me on her way down from the cabin dressed in a bad bathing suit, beach towel flung over her narrow pail shoulders. She hit the beach running and then came to an abrupt halt, dropped her towel and looked around, a puzzled expression on her face, brow slightly scrunched. There was really nowhere to run except straight into the water. The beach was small, the water level of the lake still quite high so early in the season. When I watched her run by, I’d noticed a kind of expectation in her whole body; the way she held her head high, shoulders back, an eager excited look in her eyes as she rushed forward. I wondered what was going on, what the excitement was all about. It took no more than a few seconds to see, by the crest fallen look on her face, that thing didn’t exactly pan out the way she’d expected. For a moment she stood alone on our little stretch of beach looking ready to cry, her eyes searching for something or someone who wasn’t there. I wondered what in…
Road Trip Pt. 2
A ghost was looking down on us, tortured mouth silently crying out, empty hollow eyes. We gasped and took a good hard look at each other than looked back to the window. “Did you see what I just saw?” “Oh, yeah. What do you think it was?” “It was the ghost, of course.” Crossing the street, we entered town hall through huge wooden double door and approached what we figured was the front desk. But no one was there so after a while we started calling out a cheerful “hello” yet, to no avail. A radio could be heard playing somewhere in the building and there was a static electric hum in the air, as though frequencies were bouncing off one another and shooting around the atmosphere. “Hello,” we called out again, but still no one answered. “Hey, there’s a restroom,” I said looking down the hall. “I need to use it. Come with me.” I grabbed for Kathy’s arm. There was no way I was going anywhere in that building alone. The restroom door creaked loudly as we pushed it open and tentatively stepped inside. It was as old and original as everything else about the courthouse building, and…
Wine in a Box
It was late July or early August and we were all at the lake, hanging out at the old cabin. It was just past sunset – that time of day when everything cools off and those familiar night sounds begin to echo from the surface of still waters. There was always a damp earthiness that filled our senses reminding us that we were part of a unique environment, tied closely to nature. We could hear them talking and laughing, our mothers, the ones we were at that moment uneasy about. It was getting darker by the minute and as we paced the length of the small beach we wondered about their unusual behavior. Shadows from the thick forest of evergreens kept the little paddle boat they were in well hidden. The two sisters, paddling around the shoreline of our mountain lake, laughing and talking and drinking wine from a box they’d brought with them. They didn’t normally do these things, drink wine in a paddle boat in the dark, that is. They were normally home, waiting on all of us kids, making sure we were safe and in sight. Finally, we spotted the small boat in the moonlight heading towards…
The Neighbor Girls
When we first moved to the island our next door neighbor was probably close to ninety years old. She loved us because we sat out on our deck in the evenings with a glass of wine just as she did. We were kindred spirits, she would say. As that first summer in our little beach house fell into place, we were introduced to each of her eight children as they came to visit her and her husband on those glorious sunny days. Standing in the corner of her deck, so as to get as close as she could, Veronica would holler, “Mary Ann? Are you there?” I would step out of my little cabin and greet her. Then she would tell me, “I want you to meet Ronnie. She will be here in an hour.” “Okay,” I’d say. “Just holler when she gets here.” This is how I came to know her four daughters. Sometimes she would forget that we’d met and she would call me up from the beach or out of my cabin to meet one of them or one of her many grand-daughters, for a second or even a third time. Veronica didn’t live more than…
Sister-friends
When I was growing up, I had one sister four years older and the other one twelve years younger, therefore I looked to my neighborhood for a suitable sister-friend. I found one in my neighborhood playmate, Karen. She and I were closest during the “dress-up” years. We loved it. Karen had a “dress-up” box containing all sorts of fancy clothes her mother and older sisters no longer wanted. Best of all, of course, were the high heels. We put on anything and everything found in the box, added hats and gloves, and then the grand finale – the high heels. Now, our feet were small and the shoes were far too large so we stuffed socks in the toes in order to keep them on. Then we would stuff socks in our shirts so we could have boobs. Sometimes, she’d have a tube of lipstick from one of her sisters and we’d put it all around our mouths and smile, getting it on our teeth. Now, we didn’t want to let this all go to waste, so we’d wobble around the neighborhood to be noticed. One day we had an idea. We decided to call on a particular neighbor who…
Sisters!
Sisters! There is nothing like sisters. My heart breaks for any woman who has to make her way through life without one. Sisters are better than gold. They are magic and rich chocolate frosting piled on graham crackers, and hot fudge sundaes with nuts, whip, and a cherry on top. At least that’s how they are for me. Who else can a girl fight with, scream and yell at, pinch and punch, then run outside to swing and dance and simply say, “sorry sister,” and know you are forgiven? Who else can a girl trade bras with? No one knows a girls heart better than the one she shares parents, pets, and siblings with. And there is something about that unique relationship that bonds us together in a way nothing else ever does. Growing up with sisters is like growing up with extensions of oneself. For me, it was myself divided three ways. My older sister got the artistic gift and the brains. She could pull a four point as easily as I could make friends. In college, she was the master of charcoal on canvas. My favorites were the nudes. I was shocked by the boldness of the models.…
Me & Sue
Me & Sue Sue and I have been friends for about thirty years. It’s hard to believe since it seems only yesterday that I went to her door on a gray rainy day and introduced myself. Her sister was a mortgage broker and had done our home loan. She told me I needed to meet Sue, her younger sister, who was a stay-at-home mom and lived only two blocks from our new home. Sue was pregnant, as was I, each with our second child. It was one of those days where a good time girl looks around her gray environment and fights hard to hold back the tears. I needed a friend in the neighborhood and I was determined to get one. The walls were starting to close in and as much as I loved my baby girl, I needed to have a conversation, one that didn’t involve walking around the house pointing at things. I’m sure my toddler was tired of trying to communicate with me as well. Someone who spoke her language would be nice. So, I put my baby in the stroller, rain coat on, zipped and snapped, boots, mittens, hat, bottle, diaper changes, graham crackers…