:: The Wendy House ::

Comments on the fragrant wearing of non-specific-animal-print velvet trousers (NSAPVT) in a built-up area.

US:  Awesome pants!

UK: Top trousers!

Asian: (points at the NSAPVT, looks me in the eye and smiles)

Reasons why I love Reading 257:  innovative mall decorations

This display made me smile and envy the people who constructed it for the obvious fun in both conceiving of the idea and implementing it.  Very creative and entertaining.  Excellent job. I wonder what their christmas decorations will be like?  I will certainly be returning to the Broad Street mall…

When spottydog visited the Wendy House I gave her a full 1 minute tour.  The full 1 mintue tour is the executive version of the 30 second tour.  It is akin to the 15 minute Hamlet only quicker and with less literary credibility.  As audience, spottydog’s role was to provide her unique insight into potential lifestyle developments.  Half way through the tour,  near the end:

Wendy:  this is my wardrobe (US = closet.  A closet is a place where you keep skeletons, hence the title of this post)

Spottydog: that’s orderly

Wendy: its half empty

Spottydog:  its organised by colour and size,  even the shoes

Wendy:  Errrrrmmmmmmm…….   …is that bad?

Spottydog:  its not scatty

Lifestyle development suggestions involved, ‘open the beers’ and ‘you need more plants’.  Spottydog, spot-on again.

According to the Gaurdian summer music festivals are popular events but there are too many festivals chasing too few ’star’ acts.  The Observer lists ‘Boutique festivals’ as small-is-beautiful with reportedly shorter queues, higher quality food,  and more child-friendly facilities than large such as Reading, Glastonbury and t in the park.

On the August Bank Holiday weekend over 80,000 people visited the town of Reading town for the festival.  I snuck out on the train heading west for the smaller Bristol Jazz festival.  Wandering towards the train station I passed many Reading festival attendees in the de rigeur style that involved:

• denim shorts.
• personaised wellies.
• a British variation on the grunge theme. 
• NO suntan
• sunglasses cunningly repurposed as hair-bands. 
• bum bags (US = fanny-packs)

Padding removed from swimsuit bra's (flickr photoshare)

I reached my teens in the late 1970’s before the introduction of the ‘wonder-bra’.  Now,  bra’s without inbuilt padding, often called ‘push-up’ bras, are the smaller portion of the brazier market.  Luckily some designs do enable you to easily remove the default-provided padding and some celebrities are plucky enough to not-wear this generally unnecessary accessory and deal with the publicity that makes an issue out of their choice (e.g. Charlie Dimmock).

I can also verify that Jacksons stocks some fabulous bras without padding or underwiring,  Jacksons is a fashion rebel,  I love it!

Since leaving my parents’ home in the early 1980’s I’ve hankered after a classic wool dressing gown bordered with coloured-chord. Over the years I’ve compromised with fluffy-cotton dressing gowns, Kimonos and stylish smoking jackets.  Finally,  the exceptional Jackson’s summer sale delivered the real thing.  Extra-large mens’ was the smallest size available.  The shop assistant said that they had ordered the ‘Lloyd Attree and Smith’ (Gentlemans outfitters since 1857) dressing gowns based on regular requests from customers.  Unfortunately, when the dressing gowns arrived the customers were not prepared to pay the full retail price.  

Jacksons will not be restocking these Lloyd Attree and Smith 100% wool dressing gowns. 

Much to the mature, mens department, shop assistant’s amusement I tried-on the XL dressing gown.  It did not trail on the floor though I will have to roll the sleeves up by about 6 inches to keep them out of my breakfast. 

I treated myself to the warm stylish, oversized, high quality gown and a couple of white hankerchiefs in readiness for the impending onset of winter…  …it really is a wonderful experience in the early dawn, wrapped in wool beneath the dew-covered conservatory with a hot mug of tea.

As you know,  I don’t need the help of heels to fall-over and scrape my knee, uppity curbs are sufficient, it is a wendy-way of being…

Sophie King received £7,200 compensation for ‘pain, suffering and loss of amenity’ due to a broken ankle resulting from a fall when the heel of her newly purchased shoe broke.  The Guardian’s Ariane Sherine thinks Sophie deserved a broken ankle and should repay the damages.  At least one fledgeling member of the UK caring(?), medical, profession agrees with Ariane’s view that women should expect to suffer pain for conforming to patriarchal, consumerist, pressures to wear sub-standard dangerous products,  in this case,  high-heeled shoes.  Both the Guardian and medical blog point out that Sophie, the victim, was 5 ft 9.  The sheer audacity to be a girl AND tall without recognising that she expected to suffer substandard, dangerous goods, while maintaining her social obligation to conform to patriarchal ’sexy’ values. 

This is a classic example of the patriarchal approach to dealing with systematic abuse against women by requiring an adjustment to the behaviour of the victim rather than the perpetrator of the crime.  Legally referred to as ‘contributory negligence’ , infamously called-out in 1980’s UK when a man convicted of rape was not given even a custodial sentence by Judge pickles because the woman (victim) was negligent in her behaviour by wearing a mini-skirt.  Huh?! 

I’m glad that this time, the legal system protected the victim, Sophie King. 

Shoe manufacturers systematically target physically-dangerous (high-heeled) shoes at women, not men. It is a clear case of female-gender abuse.  A trap targeted only at female health.  On planet Wendy an insightful, talented, lawyer would bring a class action against the shoe industry for being the instrument of perpetrating systematic violence against women.

The travel company has provided a trip dossier that includes a very specific pre-holiday check-list on what to pack!  Useful and appealing to my listophilia:   

I’m a tad concerned about the lack of underwear and nightwear worn by my fellow passengers, self, and the skipper. Publically displayed jiggly-bits can put one off one’s beer or book.  The lack of ’dressing’ requirements for evenings in the Taverna, or Temple visiting, is also a tiny disappointment.  Luckily for the male guests there are no requirements to bring skirts or dresses. All the listed gear fits into this holdall with space to spare, for an unlisted skirt, underwear, binoculars and possibly a pretty dress.   I’m still waiting for my promised paper airline ticket to arrive…

While packing a day-bag to attend a local water-festival I noticed that my Oakley prescription sunglasses were not,  as expected, nestled amongst my collection of spectacles dating back to 1979,  in my spectacle drawer. 

There was a minor panic outbreak  because I will need these glasses for my rapidly impending Greek Sailing Holiday.  I quickly searched all sensible places where I may have put a pair of sunglasses.  They weren’t anywhere sensible.  The following morning I double-checked all the sensible places,  the following morning I looked in a few down-right silly places to put sun glasses (e.g. spare tea caddy).

3 days later,  my morning random search for the oakleys included my winter-jumper draw. There they were,  between two wool jumpers…..  

The passport under the sink and the sunglasses between the woolly-jumpers are two of the Wendy House mysteries that may never be explained…

A noticable style difference between UK and US males is that UK males have embraced the shoulder bag.  This store shows a range fairly representative of what I see slung over young dudes arms,  dudes in suits,  dudes in jeans,  dudes in khaki cargo pants, and none-dudes in all sorts of bizarreness. 

With one notable exception I have managed to avoid shops that sell unnecessary things at bargain prices that help you save money, by spending money, during the January sales.  This is the story of my notable exception.

While exploring the small Olympic Penisula town of Sequim,  pronounced ’squwim’, I found a clothes shop with more than 4 interesting hats in the window.  Drawn in for the fun of trying on hats.  Strewn all around the shop were more, more, MORE hats.  Hand-made,  innovative hats.  I asked one of the 3 shop assistants if they had a card of the milliner.  No.  Do they know if the milliner has a website?  no. 

Sigh.  I may never find hats by this Milliner again.  After an hour or so experimenting with 30 plus hats while the 3 shop assistants left me to my game,  I realised that I would be uable to leave the without making a purchase.  I selected 3 hats that filled niche’s in my current collection and carried them over to the counter where the assistants were merrily chatting and solicted their expert advice. 

Which of these 3 hats should I buy?

The youngest assistant,  possibly in her late teens liked they way I looked in the powder-blue closh.  I liked the softness of the wool, orginality of the 1920’s style inspired design.  The middle-aged assistant liked the aubergine (US = eggplant) velvet floppy affair.  The colour is that of my PhD university gown.  The elderly assistant liked the black-white-grey fluffy pillbox.  As the three ladies argued amongst themselves about the relative benefits of each hat I listended intently.  I asked myself

• will this hat blow-off in a high wind?  No, all fitted well.
• can I washing this hat?   Yes, all were washable.
• Do I have a hat like this one? No powder-blue hats. No aubergine hats. My grey fluffy hat has a fabulously large brim.  

In a rare moment of wreckless purchasing I whipped out my credit card and bought all three for under $60.00 (approximately thirty quid).  The assistants were all happy that I had valued each of their advice and favoured none.

Later I discovered that Parkhurst (Blue closh Milliner) hat’s are sold online.  Dangerous knowledge for a Wendy to have…..

There is a trend amongst the young adult girls of Seattle.  I’ve not noticed boys indulging in this fluffy passtime.  The trend is wearing your pyjamma pants as everyday wear.  What does this dressing choice say?

Possibly it’s a variation on the notion of ‘come to bed eyes’,  ‘come to bed pants’?  Maybe it’s a way of expressing how ‘laid back’ you are “I’m so laid back I didn’t even bother getting dressed this morning“.  Could it be that these girl’s objected to the storyline of ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ and they’re making a point about the fashion industry,  they’re awake in Seattle and not following the store-based clothing classifications.  A wee rebellion against the fashion industry.  Hoorah! 

Here’s a couple of girls sporting the look in a local Coffee House:

The folded arms, ankles-crossed, pony-tails, multiple uncoordinated colours, jacket shorter than t-shirt and trainers (US = sneakers) are all optional extra’s but definitely part of the core ‘look’ I see the local girls stylin’ in.  I may have to try this out to get the full experience of the fashion-rebellious pyjamma’s as outer-wear thing. Like wearing other people’s clothes, but not quite since I will have to purchase my own Hello Kitty Pyjamma pants. 

I’ll report back on the experience.  Wish me luck

Use of the ’size’ system in US stores is inconsistent.  It’s not a single, transarent, system.  Not a system?  You have to look at the clothes and ‘guess’ based on your knowledge of your own body-shape. 

See examples of three ‘fitted’ items that all fit me:

• Medium - American Eagle smallest top
• Small - REI (US Co-op) middle-sized top 
• Extra Small - Mountain equipment (Canadian Co-op) largest top

I recently risked buying a t-shirt online.  Ordered  ‘Medium’ to be ’safe’.  Its an American Eagle type ‘Medium’ size only just big enough for the dudes.    Maybe American Eagle is implying that only really slim people shop here. 

American Eagle:  “Wendy,  you are a medium on the really thin scales“   

You’ve got to look right to be a customer at some Amercian shops.  The Nitwit points out Abercombie and Fitch has this discriminatory (targeting marketing?) behaviour when recruiting sales staff.

W out-of-wack

Here’s my new XS poodle-knit cardigan masquerading as trendy ‘outdoor gear’.  It even fits over my boob-insulatory layers. The Dollar is to give an idea of scale.  Similar to a UK fiver  I plan to live-up to my new classification by trying another US BEER. 

A cunning design feature is the placement of the pockets directly under the booby-dudes.  This means I can prop-up Bill and Ben with pocket contents.  An excellent new use for my camera,  wallet and phone.

Wendy In-XS

Are all stunning,  scenery and animation are also top-notch.

But these excellent parts do not gestalt to a good film.

The Disney Narnia film storyline didn’t really work for me.  It covered the second book of seven in the Chronicals.  Why not start at the beginning?  

Tilda Swinton was outstanding as Queen Jadis. Jim Broadbent’s cameo role is also exquisite though not used effectively for plot development.  Tilda’s performance held my interest in the film. The other female characters were stereotypical ‘healing’, ’supportive’ and did all the blubbing in the film.  Yuck.  Somewhat uninspiring.  Even the two lead ‘boy’ characters appeared shallow and poorly developed thoughout the film.  James McAvoy who is often cast as a loveable rogue played a convincingly trustable Mr. Tumnus.  The sets and graphics (snow, animals) were extremely impressive but didn’t sufficiently make up for the lack of good quality character development.  Thankfully, these children do not feature in the other books.  I haven’t seen the BBC version of 4 of the books.

I wouldn’t recommend this film.  

Here’s a picture of my vintage (between 1 and 2 hundred years old) French Wardrobe instead.  It’s cheaper and almost as entertaining.  It slots together, no ’screws’ and I can climb in it with both my kitties.  It’s the only piece of furniture that I care about.  Care about furniture?  Not normally,  but a wardrobe that once contained other people’s clothes,  a doorway,  Norman arches,  Barley-twist, beautiful oak and quality craftsmanship.  Golly gosh,  it even SMELLS good!  Must have a cup of tea before I get toooooooo excited about my wardrobe….

W Wardrobe-Worshiper