Where the hell are your pants?

Why is everything I try on way too short? I'm not talking about va-jay-jay skimming minis. I'm talking average dresses and skirts. It's like designers think we have all transformed into Mad Men's coltish Jessica Pare singing Zou Bizou Bizou.

Me with the photoshopped legs needed for this dress...

The above purple thingy is my latest purchase - a consumate "where-the-fuck-are-your-pants?" number.

Please don't look at the following photos if you are pregnant or you have a heart condition. This is how exposed it left my legs when I sat down...

No, please, please...

My eyes! My eyes!

This is how short it is in the back...

Jody: I beg you not to bend over.

I know some of you are young - or have great legs - but my 50-year-old ones are no longer for public consumption. And no amount of exercise (and I do no amount) will exorcise the jiggly pink bits.

And even if the celebs are doing it, it doesn't look right on them either.

Girls! Get back inside and put your pants on! 1. 2. 3 .4.

I don't know how I was talked into buying the purple DVF tunic.  "It's not a tunic" said the sales ass. "It's a proper dress. You wear it with this belt -  it looks great on you!" No it didn't, but I loved the colour so I suggested white jeans underneath. "If you have to wear pants - white leggings or jeggings" replied the sales ass.

No I don't do those - they just make my cellulite look white. And the next sales ass. who suggests leggings or jeggings to me (or worse - bicycle shorts!) will get a jolly good clip around the ear. Or at least a challenge to a dance-off. (No one bests my Dougy)

The DVF tunic-dress is going back. Usually Diane Von Furstenberg is reliable for a comfortable but sassy look for all ages. Et tu Diane?

Cy, 8, took a look at me sitting down. "Mum, that's brutal." Of course "brutal" is his new favourite word, but fair dues, this was a good use of it.

So the truth was spoken. And if even one designer reconsiders their hemlines, my work on this earth is done.

Angie and Me: The Joie of Basement Parenting

Lately I've been reminded of "revelations" by one of the nannies for the Brangie Bunch. Apparently Angelina disappears down to basement for two hours to work out while the nanny has to look after the kids. Oh fer fecks sake! 

Angie and me doing some Basement Parenting. Collage: The High Schooler

Give the woman a break! So now Angelina not only makes loadsa movies, looks fab (albeit skin a bit waxy and skinny a bit scary) keeps Brad happy (okay, okay... a problem we'd all like to have) and mothers six small kids - but now she has to be with them all the time? I only have four kids and sometimes I feel like disappearing to the basement for the whole day and just rocking back and forth -  never mind working out!

I'm no blind fan of Angelina Jolie but I'm so tired of the omnipresent whirring of the helicopter parents. Who feel that when we become parents we have to suffer, become martrys. Who perpetuate this new delusion that all hours with your precious ones are necessary hours and quality hours.

The truth is just the opposite: the time you have to yourself is even more precious and satisfying than before you had kids. There is never a more grateful and giddy moment for me than, reservations made, best frock on, I wave good night to my children as we drive away.

Surely kids are better off knowing their parents are three-dimensional beings with a life beyond them. Surely it's better to have a (slightly) rested parent who is (slightly) fresher from time away -  than an exhausted and irritable one who is there for every minute?

The fact is: there are many hours in the day when you have children. Even if you're working, even if you work out the whole day long, even if you go out every evening.

As wee mites they rise like larks at 6.30am. When mine were tiny, I would get to 10.30am and ruminate: "Golly, it's only been four hours - so why does it feel like a fucking century?"

So I don't feel any guilt in taking breaks - and yes, I get the "Slacker Mom" comments, even in jest.

A small pat on the back for me recently, though....My High Schooler was recently asked to write an essay about how he was close to his siblings.  Initially he was stumped - then inspiration! He wrote how his mother went out every night leaving him to babysit and thus bond with his younger siblings.

'That's not true - I don't go out every night" I protested (though fair dues, sometimes I do go out a lot) What did the teacher say?
My High Schooler  replied: "She said: I would love to meet your mother."

Ha! A veritable triumph of Basement Parenting!

At the end of the day...

The truth is as simple as a cliche. And this weekend skiing in Tahoe I learned the end of the day is what it's all about. Because a dreadful snow-less season is forgotten with one really, really good snow day topped off with an apres Margarita. (Not that all my best memories involve alcohol, but kind of...)

Snow shorts, Squaw

Margarita o'clock, me at Squaw

At this point you might be wanting to remind me at the end of the day is an expression, not a cliche.

Agreed. Friends, you are talking to a malapropism-spoonerism-eggcorn-loathing madwoman. One who is rendered catatonic by the lyrics of Alanis Morissette's song "Ironic" on the three-hour car ride up to Tahoe.  Alanis! I am heard to say: "rain on your wedding day" is not ironic, it's just bad luck! Oh you silly sausage, I sense you thinking, why don't you just switch the radio channel when she comes on?
*At the end of the day, no I couldn't do that, I love winding myself up.

We arrived at our rental cabin to find the heating broken again. Spent another night shivering in our beds.
*At the end of the day, said my husband Kevin, cold burns energy. Think how much weight we lost!

Kevin and I worried about how privileged our kids are and lectured them on how they will have to pay for their own skiing one day. "Don't worry, I'm going to be a point guard in the NBA, I can pay."said Cy, eight.  "Don't worry" said Harley, 14, our ever-insouciant boy "I have awesomely smart friends who'll make loads of money, they'll take care of me."
*At the end of the day, when did we lose that invincible belief in ourselves - and our friends?

Jackson, 12, and friends Cole, Mia and Will

I was anxious too about having paid for a rental cabin and season ski passes when we may only see one week's decent skiing.
*At the end of the day, it's a Sunk Cost said Kevin. (Sometimes it's comforting to be married to an economist...)

End of the day at Alpine.... Kevin, Tallulah and Jackson

Better sign off now...I'm starting to sound madder than a flabby meataxe.
*At the end of the day...isn't it ironic?

SuperSlagging Bowl Model

Uh-oh Gisele. Slagging off your husband's teammates? I wouldn't want to be in your Jimmy Choos at the next after-match function. Best grab your half-shandy and head to the table in the corner, chook.

Gisele consoles her husband, Tom Brady. Getty Images

Super Bowl shenanigans yesterday arvo. Sorry, I'm using up all my alliteration allowances for the year, but it's worth it. Gisele Bundchen was caught slagging off teammates of her husband, Patriot star Tom Brady, after the 21-17 loss. (First read on JMW's A Place to Dwell who dubbed her Yoko.)

“You [have] to catch the ball when you’re supposed to catch the ball,” Gisele said in a video posted by TheInsider.com, via TBL. “My husband cannot f–king throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time. I can’t believe they dropped the ball so many times.”

Gisele may have already won a place in your hearts when she revealed herself as an exemplary parent: "When my son eats broccoli, he thinks it's dessert." "There should be a worldwide law...that mothers should breast feed their babies for six months." "I do everything for them...When I'm home, I'm extremely 100 percent present."

You don't have to be steeped in a life-time of sideline sports watching (and I'm not) to know that it might not be a brilliant idea to slag off your bloke's team-mates. Even if they were being a bit butter fingers

I would do a lot for my husband. I even strolled our kids halfway across London every Sunday to a dog-poop syringe-filled field in Barnes to watch him play baseball for hours...and hours.  Afterwards at the Ciggy Butt & Grubby Grub pub would I have suggested that others might not be as fabulous a player as he?  No, ho ho. I just drank my bad chardonnay, crunched on my stale crisps and kept my counsel. Even if, in fact, I had so little interest in sport, I had no counsel to keep.

Kevin and Harley at the baseball fields in Barnes, London, 14 years ago

Sorry, you're not home free...More rants today - this time it's me over at BritMums. Our lives have gone from contented babies to chaos. Just as we thought we might have the baby thing sort-of sorted, they turned into tweeny teens. It's a sh*t show, people! Our piano teacher just fired us. Apparently my kids' lack of talent and poor attitudes are unprecedented. Help! What to do? ( I know... I'll ask Gisele.)

Guess what? We're selling the piano!

On a positive note, there's still time to enter our Valentine giveaway.

Dotcom Travel Drama

The first rule of driving to Tahoe is to pretend you're living in the 1800's. This doesn't mean you have to freeze, starve and then eat your fellow travelers. This a fate that befell the Donner Party in 1846, when a group of American Pioneers set out in a wagon train for California and endured a winter snowbound in the Sierras, forcing them into cannibalism.

1-80 coast is clear Rubber Ducky

No, what I mean is to ignore all our 2010 technology. No matter how much info you get from your TV, phones and computers - endlessly checking Traffic.com and Weather.com and all the traffic and weather apps on I-Phone for crashes, road closures, queues to get over the pass, queues for chains - when you're on the road it's all so different.

What about simply setting off very early in the morning in a four-wheel drive with snow tires, carrying food and sleeping bags and hoping for the best. Because after years of driving up to Tahoe my only certainty is that you cannot predict how anything will go.

We were supposed to leave for Tahoe (from our home in Oakland) last Sunday. But red code storm alert and a late start made us question whether we should delay our departure until the next day. We had organised to rent a ski house in Tahoe Donner for the entire winter so we had a whole season's packing in the car; six sets of skis and boots, six sets of snowboards and boots, cross country skis for Kevin and all the bedding and ski clothes for six people.

'Just take off, you're all packed' our friend Ken advised over the phone. But we hesitated, further debating. "If we don't go today but there turns out to be no storm, I don't want you to take it out on me." said Kevin. And me: "If we go today and we're stuck in traffic for eight hours don't take it out on me". The first option sounded the least antagonistic so we waited the day. Neither of us mentioned the absence of storms that day. Monday we headed off to an earful of more storm warnings.

As my husband Kevin and son Harley, 13, are what you would call 'early adopters' we were being barraged from every I-hoodacky you could imagine. If Kindle started sending out weather warnings from Charles Dickens and J.K. Rowling we would be reading them.

On the road, Harley in the back seat keeps Kevin constantly updated from his I-Phone. Kevin gasps at Harley's every report of weather and traffic "accident at 6-32 intersection", "snarl-up at 59-657 crossing" "chains needed on the 1-3000", "congestion at Auburn Level 8 and building"....and so on.

Yet every accident had been swept up by the time we arrived, there were no queues or delays or even blinding snow, rain or winds. What next to freak us out?  I-Phone updates on burger queues at IN-N-OUT? Hmm...

Harley takes a break from Simpsons to check Traffic.com. 

In the end we reached our ski lease in Tahoe Donner in a record three hours without even going the speed limit. Just one Simpsons and one Harry Potter and no eating, certainly not each other. Three uneventful hours buffeted not by winds but by six duvets and five bags of ski clothes.

We drew up and saw our ski lease for the first time and it was good. A simple modern-ish three bedroom with a hot tub. All you could want. This will be our home most weekends in the winter.

H-factor, Cy-clone, J-dog, T-star

And ever being the good wife, natch, there was no "I told you so".  The myriad of dotcom reports were silenced ...until the 20min drive up to Alpine skislope tomorrow.

Bah Humbug Kids

I love the holidays. Santa, jingling bells, toasty scarves, twinkly lights, baubles, choral singing.  So it was with huge excitement that we received a beautiful brochure of all the festivities at the Club we had just joined. I'm a sucker for all that Ye Olde romance and so is Kevin. Pity our kids are not the same. (Pic below features smiling parents and pouty children)

It was all there in the brochure. Kevin and I sat ooh-ing and aah-ing over page after page of Christmas festivities illustrated with perfectly nostalgic pictures dating from the 1890's to 1950's. All the special events: Tree Lighting, Teddy Bear Tea, Candlelight Supper, Jingle Bell Lounge, Caroling Buffet and "Sleigh Rides" over the golf course.

You could lose yourself in those pages: a gracious Edwardian mother with her brood at the Tree Lighting; cherubic angels singing for The Caroling Buffet. Then there was the 1950's goofy adults swinging from chandeliers for the Jingle Bell Lounge and a chic St-Moritz cafe scene for the Ladies' Holiday Luncheon. Now this is Christmas.

So it was with great excitement that Kevin and I found ourselves one morning dressing for the Teddy Bear Tea at our Club. Should we go bright party festive or warm sweater dressy? What fun!

Meanwhile I asked my two eldest two boys ages 13 and 11:  "Coming to the Teddy Bear Tea?" Their raised eyebrows were the decline. Wow, so cynical at such a young age.

Harley,13, added: "Are we getting a tree this year?...I wouldn't bother".  In a way this made sense as we would be up in Tahoe skiing over Christmas Day but I had delusions that somehow our tree-getting tradition was something they too had treasured. Like that madcap scenario in "When Harry Met Sally" when Meg Ryan tumbles adorably home with her tree, arms over legs over tree.

Cy, six, voluntarily put on his tuxedo as he loves to be "fancy" and Tallulah, nine, wore her holiday dress with an un-matching cardigan and scraggy hair. As soon as we arrived in the tea room, Kevin and I found ourselves marvelling at the flawlessness of the setting; the huge white bows on the chair, silver sparkles galore, flowers, shining silverware and white linens on tables with cake stands of teeny scones, cakes and chocolates.   Even the teapots were wonderful little fairytale characters.

"Look at this teapot!" Kevin and I laughed as the waiter poured the hot chocolate for the children. My kids slumped into their chairs: "There's nothing here we really like" they grumbled. Cy doesn't eat sweet things except donuts. He is allergic to eggs and can't have real mayonaise. Tallulah just doesn't eat much of anything.They picked at their plates while I marvelled at the Fairy's beautifully embroidered purple dress.

It was their turn to meet the Fairy and they shuffled up to her with arms crossed. No thanks, don't want a balloon they said.

She charmed them enough for a peek of pleasantness from them.

Then back to the table. "We're the oldest kids here" they whined. It turned out we had booked the baby and toddler session and the older kids usually came in the afternoon, but still - is there anything more delightful than seeing a baby's tiny white shoes tumble off and handing them back to the mother?

"I'm so bloody bored!" said Cy "Can we go now?"
And then: "What's for lunch?"
I almost cried. I was thinking of motioning the waiter for a glass of champers but it was 11am and noone else was imbibing so I thought better of it.

We got the kids to briefly pause by the tree for a grumpy photo after which they raced for the door.
"Cy! No! Stop that" I called after him as he started pulling at the back of his trousers.
"I've got an atomic wedgie!" he called back.

"Quick - out!" I hissed.

A couple of nights later, Kevin came back from the Club after playing tennis. "I saw the sleigh ride on the golf course" he said to me sadly. "It looked so much fun..." We bowed our heads, silently picturing bumping round the golf course in a sleigh with our imaginary children squealing with delight, their eyes sparkling... then racing back inside for hot chocolates. And we sighed -  for those memories would never be ours.

"Bad news, guys!" called Cy from his bedroom "I've got another wedgie."

Sweaty Emma gets on Jack's Gold List.

You may be wondering why the weird title. I had intended to do a liltingly domestic post on how I hadn't done any Christmas decorating save for my door wreath, pictured below. But then I realised what people really want to read about. Sweat. And lists.

Yesterday I came across some blogging information which indicated that my scribblings about the paucity of my Christmas decorations may not get as many "hit's" as perhaps they deserves. Not unless I was sweating while I was putting up the wreath. Or muttering to myself about "Jack Gold's List". Or crushing on Emma Pillsbury nude-coloured pumps. Or even better, all three.

To explain: it all started when my husband and I found ourselves a bit mystified by how a couple of my posts are always amongst the most popular.

Firstly the "Sweaty Secret Stairs of Santa Monica" which is about the phenom of hundreds of hot, sweaty (albeit surgically-altered) bodies who run up and down a certain flight of stairs off a busy main road. It's an interesting Zeitgeisty piece for sure, but why is it always at the top? I kept imagining planeloads of Eastern European travel journalists happening on the in-famous Stairs and using my piece as a useful guide.

Another curiously popular post is about Emma Pillbury, the clean freak guidance counsellor from Glee! and her adorable outfits. For sure she is cute, but she is not really even one of the main characters in Glee.

And Letterman Lines -  Give Us a Sign! which I had somehow attributed to the fact that David Letterman was so chuffed with my account of his live show, he keeps on sending it out on hyperlinks (whatever those are).

Then yesterday I got a call from Kevin: "I know why some posts are more popular than others." I had a sense of forboding.

When he got home he showed me a "Stats" tool that displays some of the words and phrases people Google that incidentally bring up my blog.  Strangely enough, they did not include "fabulous writer" or "exemplary mother-types".

Included in those many words and phrases were "sweaty" and "nude Emma Pillsbury" and "Jack's Gold List" which is part of the process of getting tickets to the Letterman live show.

I am often heard espousing the simple pleasures of sharing my thoughts for the edification of anyone who is kind enough to read. Who cares how many people read my blog? -  the writing itself is the reward, I will say. Or -  maybe I could get loads of "hits" and go "viral" (whatever that is). So you might notice the presence of "sweaty" persons rather bit more often than before. And random acts of someone called Jack Gold. I'll leave poor Emma out of it.

going forward, where we're at is out of the box

What sayings are nails on the chalkboard to you?
Sorry, wasn't listening to your reply, was just repeating "Right, right right, right.."over the top of you.

This is the new art of not listening. Like people who reply "it's aaall good" irrespective of what you've just said. No, it's not all good because I was just complaining about kids-life-school-skin-injured knee-third world debt and diseases. Weren't you listening?

Then there is the mash-up of street and fashion front row sayings, which have been Disney-fied and now they're coming out of the mouth of your nine year old. I didn't know how best to illustrate this post, so I dressed (above) pretending to be a stylish blogger at my computer, crushing on yummy skirts. Love, love, love it.  With a pulled together, day to night look that will take me anywhere.

And then as I really am, (below, real pic by Tallulah) Keeping it real.  Chillaxing amid the debris of the fridge. Wearing my sick UGGs. And just mixing it up with my husband's trackie pants. Big shout out to girlfriend Anne - props babe, you rock! Anne emailed me loads of loathsome sayings last night.

Don't get me wrong, j'adore  silly sayings -  remember my Franglais lessons? But please feel free to give me a punch buggy punch if I ever say: 24-7, With all due respect, I personally, Absolutely (oops I say that all the time), and It's not rocket science.

Another heinous business phrase is "just add some zeros". According to afore-mentioned recruiter friend Anne, some accountant job hunters play loosey goosey with the zeros. For example, in their past job they managed $10,000 in cash, but say: "Oh just add some zeros...bring it up to $100,000,000".

When people take it to the next level, does that still mean they're thinking out of the box or  AAARRRRGGGHH! (sorry for yelling in this blog, but this one's the worst) will they leverage it? There should be a law allowing you to spit at anyone who uses the word "leverage". Unless they are an engineer and they are talking about levers.

This post was inspired by a vintage clothing blog called Dear Golden Vintage. One of the posts talked about expressions she hated and readers responded with theirs. The comments were so funny I snorted with laughter into my latte. Sorry I know that's a bad visual. I agreed with one reader about the new passive way of asking.  Such as "I'm going to go ahead and...", "I'm going to need you to..." , "I'm going to ask you..."  Just do it. Just ask it. Command it. Yell it. Any kind of asking is better than this not asking.

"Going forward" warrants extended discussion. It has become the "at the end of the day" of the business world.  Lucy Kellaway in the Financial Times wrote three years ago about her personal crusade against it, but admitted: "Going forward is with us on a go-forward basis, like it or not."

She points out the phrase is almost always redundant and is simply jargon: ' "If, on occasion, there is a need to spell out the idea of the future, we have some perfectly good words already. For pompous people there is “henceforth” and, for the rest of us, there is “in the future”

Where we're at is another business-speak redundancy. We're all here, we know where we are. Don't say at, please don't say at..

I  do laugh when people find quotes from new movies. But do you know people who are still quoting Austin Powers-Terminator-Kindergarten Cop-Forrest Gump. (still peeps? still?)

 My own particular bugbear (what does bugbear mean, stop saying it Jody) is when people say "I could care less".   Really what you mean is "I couldn't care less". What you are saying is the opposite of what you are trying to say.

Are there any sayings you hate? Reach out below. Write inside the box. The comment box.

chaise bandits

We're at our pool club on Sat. All members somehow understand that there are two padded chaise lounges paired with every table. As we claimed one of the last tables, the woman next to us grabbed our two chaises, plus one more from another table. So now she and her husband - two people - had a total of five chaises at a crowded pool.

"Are you actually using those?" I asked. Sweetly. Natch.
"Our friends will be here any minute" she sniffed, "can't you get some others?"

"I'll go and ask the office if they have anymore" I replied.

Once I walked away, my kids heard the women snarl: "Do whatever you want you want, I don't care". I was pretty keen to take on the chaise bandit, but then I would be sitting next to her all afternoon being bitter. It wasn't worth it.

Some people are Darth Vaders, sucking the air and joy out your life. This was one such woman. She and her husband sat there for three long hours with those three empty chaises. Waiting for their "friends".

I once read that the best revenge is living your life well, so I just soaked up the sunshine, reading my mags and eating my papaya. Chaise bandit must have been seething with envy - I had a blue and yellow thing going on that was completely serendipitous. Blue swimsuit, blue chaise, yellow towel and yellow papaya. And of course sunscreen in a yellow and blue tube.

So burn, bandit, burn.

independence, indulgence, indignation

I know it is very late to talk about 4th July, Independence Day, but I've been resting brain and bod after an indelicate amount of indulgence over the weekend.

Being a Kiwi, celebrating Independence Day was not so much about separation from the British, but separation from my kids. 

Friday night I saw Harley, 12 and Jax, 11, off at the San Fran Airport as they were flying out to their grandparents in Pennsylvania.

Independent also were Cy, six, and Tallulah, nine, who had a sleepover at our friends, Kenny'n'Mike and their ailing boxers, Athena and Bacchus.  Athena used to be very independent of her brother Bacchus, until she became ill with seizures. She is still able to climb into her own bedroom - named Cancun because it is made of real cans of dog food. A small indulgence.

So that takes care of the first two concepts -independence and indulgence. And now for "indignation". One friend says this blog fails to fully reflect the stroppy New Zealand cow that is moi. So here's a glimpse into the paddock.

Technically the eldest boys were flying by themselves, as "unaccompanied minors" for which we had to pay an extra $200.

I expected some sort of entourage for the kids because of the extra $200 charge. But instead I had to walk though customs and stay with them until they boarded,  extending the drop off by another couple of hours.  Once they had gone through the gate hissing 'no pictures Mum!' I naturally felt free to go.

Later at home, we got a call from the boys.  After I left, the plane disembarked because of electrical problems. The airline people were furious that I was not there to sit with the boys until the plane re-embarked and a staff member had to do it. By that time I was sipping a margarita at home and, some would say, getting my $200 worth.

Two days later we were  at the Lake Chalet, on Lake Merritt in Oakland. A wonderful watery setting, a gleaming steel interior and a stellar day. I fancied oysters and asked the waitress which she recommended. "I can't make that decision for you!' she answered indignantly.  That's like waiters who say "it's all good" when asked what is good today. Just have an answer. Of course my question was stupid but what about answering; this oyster's creamy, this one's briney, this one's sweet... And then you're expected to tip 20%. So indulge me!

Phew! Consider this theme tortured.