Two good things happened Tuesday.
First good thing: I got a vaccine appointment for Thursday, without having to lie, even a little bit, although I admit some confusion at the scheduling end may have worked in my favor. Word got around that the state had decided “media” were essential workers, and I saw my opening. My opening, I should add, was only three days ahead of another opening, i.e., the 55+ with no complications opening. But man, the days are lengthening and getting warmer, and I need to get this over with.
When I called, I was able to get an appointment in 48 hours. I don’t think I’m taking a spot from someone more deserving. But the guy who booked the appointment seemed confused about whether I was essential, and couldn’t find it in the most recent guidance.
“I’ll put you under….’other,'” he said. Good enough.
So that’s great. The other good thing is, Kate has a lead on a job — running the board at a local jazz club. Which is a gig, granted, but the first gig actually related to her field that she’s had since the pandemic started. So maybe, in small baby steps, we’re getting there.
What a concept: The AfterTimes, within reach. It’s been so long.
More Kate news: Last month, she and her band did a very fast trip to Los Angeles, not to perform but to be, get this, models. Long story short, when she was living there in late 2019, the other two came out to visit and on their perambulations around town met a woman there with a vintage clothing store. That woman was branching out into something a lot of vintage people seem to be doing these days — buying deadstock fabrics, i.e., odd lots no longer in production, and designing their own clothes using them.
So they did a quick photo shoot then, it went well, and this year she has a new line coming out, and hired them back. They spent three days striking poses around Oceanside, California, and now the pix are rolling out on the ‘gram:
I lived through the ’70s once, and none of this stuff is for me. But I guess the kids like it. Here’s Kerri, the drummer, and the one with the longest stems in the group, showin’ ’em off:
They’re doing it for many reasons, but raising their profile on social media is a big one. I told her hey, Rihanna sells a lot more lipsticks and bras than records these days. More power to ya.
Time to get Wednesday under way. Have a good one.
Dorothy said on March 17, 2021 at 8:38 am
I love those pics! They look amazing. The fabrics are making me hyperventilate. Love them, too.
95 chars
Alan Stamm said on March 17, 2021 at 9:00 am
Groovy side hustle for Shadow Show. Trips me back.
50 chars
Deborah said on March 17, 2021 at 9:07 am
Maybe this will be corrected before I finish typing this, but Nancy, your autocorrect seems to have changed appointment to apartment in your post.
147 chars
nancy said on March 17, 2021 at 9:27 am
You are correct. Fixed.
23 chars
Suzanne said on March 17, 2021 at 9:12 am
Those dresses bring back such memories! I had a dress of similar fabric in 8th grade in 1972 and wore it with hot pink fishnet hose and I LOVED it! I look at old photos and I am a glasses wearing skinny knock-kneed nerdy looking kid, but in that dress, I felt super chic.
271 chars
Jeff Borden said on March 17, 2021 at 10:02 am
Congrats on scoring a vaccination. Johanna will receive her second Pfizer shot on Saturday at Swedish Covenant High School. I’ll get the second on March 29 at the Walgreen’s a block from my house. My best friend since high school who got his second shot a couple of weeks ago said it felt like he’d hit the lottery. . .a genuine relief.
Meanwhile, our stimulus money showed up overnight. Quite honestly, we do not need this. I’d much rather it go to a family in dire straits, but I’m getting two new sets of glasses –my prescription really worsened over the past couple of years– and they will set me back more than half that amount. The rest we’ll donate to the Greater Chicago Food Depository.
Not a fan of those outfits modeled by Shadow Show, but if it brings the ladies some additional income, well done.
A question for the NN.C hive mind. Have any of you found an alternative to Geek Squad for solving tech issues? I wasted more than 10 hours over two days on the phone with their “specialists” as we attempted to get my wireless printer to accept a new modem. Zero help. Nada. Zilch. Very, very polite workers reading from cards, but no help.
1160 chars
David C said on March 17, 2021 at 10:03 am
Good things are starting to happen. I got a phone call from my Doctor’s office and I’m now scheduled for my vaccine on April 8 at my normal annual med check. At work I was told I probably will be allowed to move back home to Michigan and work remotely. So it’s only probably right now, but that’s better than no. All our parents are in their 80s and we feel bad not being able to help our sibs with them. It also means work to get our house ready to sell but you have to take the sour with the sweet.
500 chars
Julie Robinson said on March 17, 2021 at 10:12 am
Wonderful pictures of Shadow Show, and I would buy those outfits I was the right age; they’re cuuuute. I hope they help move the needle for the band, and that Kate’s gig comes through too.
Suzanne, I had those fishnets too. I wasn’t allowed to wear hose, but for some reason fishnets were okay. So I got them in a rainbow of colors, and like you, thought I belonged in the pages of Seventeen magazine.
BTW, in junior high they were still hose that you had to attach to a garter belt or girdle. Twelve year olds wearing girdles, I ask you.
Edit: good news all around on the vaccine front! Jeff B, how about one of your college students? We’ve found young people seem to understand tech intuitively.
701 chars
Connie said on March 17, 2021 at 10:16 am
Fishnets for me too. Often with my pleather jumper. With that garter belt girdle.
81 chars
basset said on March 17, 2021 at 10:29 am
Great to hear that things are starting to fall Kate’s way.
Mrs B and I have both had our shots for awhile. She was in the first group due to her health issues, and I do some gig work at a medical school which apparently wanted everyone in the hospital vaxed; Jr. will get his Saturday, one of ten thousand in a mass event at the NFL stadium downtown.
As I understand it that shot will be a drive-through. I had a mental picture of everyone on the field at once like a Moonie wedding, on cue they all yell “HAI!” and plunge the needle in. Guess not, though, must not be room for all of em.
595 chars
Deborah said on March 17, 2021 at 10:46 am
We get our second shots a week from tomorrow, I hope I don’t cry again, I’ll be so relieved. LB still hasn’t gotten her first one, and no appointment yet either. The guy who lives upstairs from her, in his late twenties and medical issues has an appointment, so maybe she’ll be soon. A lot of her friends have gotten them. She does get texts from the NM dept of health so apparently she hasn’t fallen through the cracks and she’s signed up at a local pharmacy too, but nothing yet.
481 chars
LAMary said on March 17, 2021 at 11:37 am
Jeff, the in house brit has a masters in information systems. He does excellent phone tech support, really. I dm’d his phone number to you on facebook. He’s free in both the no charge and not doing anything else sense.
218 chars
Suzanne said on March 17, 2021 at 11:45 am
Ah, yes, the garter belt for the hose. My daughter has no idea…
Although, there have been times that I missed the old garter belt when I have struggled with panty hose that are a bit too tight so that it nearly takes an act of God and a few Twister-like contortions to get them all the way up over the hips. And then they aren’t comfortable.
346 chars
LAMary said on March 17, 2021 at 11:58 am
My problem with panty hose was related to my height, as many clothing issues are. That waistband sitting five inches below my waist was not good. I hated panty hose. Only expensive brands worked and they got runs in them just as easily as the brand that came in a plastic egg that I could buy at the supermarket. Tights were easier. They stretched more easily, didn’t run as easily, and most brands offered a tall option. Now I just wear pants.
444 chars
Deborah said on March 17, 2021 at 12:04 pm
My freshman year in college I had a date for the homecoming dance, I had a cute outfit, I made a short, black velvet fluffy skirt that I wore with a ruffly white blouse, I wore sheer white stockings held up with a garter belt. At some point in the evening the garter belt snapped open and everything started to fall, I managed to dash to the restroom to fix it. That guy never asked me out again, and that was the last time I ever wore a garter belt, I couldn’t find sheer white panty hose, that’s why I wore stockings instead.
531 chars
Julie Robinson said on March 17, 2021 at 12:13 pm
LA Mary, Dorothy, and I have the same tall girl problems. I have never, ever owned a coat with sleeves that cover my wrists. Over the years I’ve gotten adept at stitching in a piece of fabric or crocheting to cover those last four inches.
It’s been so many years since I wore pantyhose that we ran out of old ones to tie up garden plants.
341 chars
Scout said on March 17, 2021 at 12:50 pm
Happy St Patty’s Day! Blarney is legal, my spouse and I have our second Pfizer shots scheduled and our stim money hit the bank today. A real pot of gold day!
Back in the 60s I had several dresses similar to those the girls are modeling. If memory serves, I think my mom and I had matchy ones. I’ll have to ask her.
315 chars
Sherri said on March 17, 2021 at 12:52 pm
Still no sign that Washington will open up eligibility enough that I can get a shot anytime soon. We’re still at 65+.
119 chars
Connie said on March 17, 2021 at 2:08 pm
I am normal height but am very short from the waist down. I buy petite (short!) sized pants, and learned early in my sewing days that I needed to shorten the crotch an inch or two. OTOH I can wear tall sized shirts and coats. I am 5’ 6” and my wrists stick out too.
I will also note that my mother came from a very tall family. She was six feet tall. Both of my brothers were a couple of inches over six feet. I say were because John, due to medical issues related to a calcium deficiency syndrome, has lost several inches, most recently due to back issues which put his lifetime count of broken bones over sixty. Of which I witnessed two, both broken arms.
I had my first shot a week ago, so three more weeks for the Moderna second shot. I was on the local hospital list, the county senior list and Meijer store list since mid Jan. I finally found a not so far out of town Rite Aid appointment. Just before my apptment day I was offered a spot on another hospital list.
Your region probably has a vaccine finder group on Facebook. People post regularly on the Detroit page about getting appointments in Toledo. It is my impression that the recent addition of Kroger locations has made a big difference.
1217 chars
LAMary said on March 17, 2021 at 2:32 pm
Cold wrists, annoying tight elastic cuffs that hit mid forearm, knee socks that are calf socks and too tight because that top cuff is meant to hit close to your knee. I used to make a lot of my own clothes in high school and college. I also learned hem stitch so I could rip out the existing hem and lengthen the skirt/dress/coat/pant leg/sleeve as much as possible. I bet Dorothy and Julie also looked at hems while shopping to see how much leeway there was.
459 chars
Sherri said on March 17, 2021 at 3:42 pm
It’s not received a lot of attention yet, but Washington’s state Supreme Court, which was far from conservative to begin with, became considerably more progressive and the results are starting to show.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/03/washington-supreme-court-drug-possession-police-biden.html
https://theappeal.org/politicalreport/state-courts-advance-civil-rights/
387 chars
Dorothy said on March 17, 2021 at 5:03 pm
I was going to offer my husband’s help, too, Jeff Borden. He has set up wireless printers for us a few times. If you want his help we live in Dayton so we’re in the same time zone. I will try to find you via Mary’s friends list.
234 chars
LAMary said on March 17, 2021 at 5:37 pm
James Levine died. He lived somewhere near me in NYC. I know that because he used to come into the little gourmet shop I managed on Broadway and 104th street. I used to chat with him and ask him to give me a job carrying his briefcase when he did European tours. He would always laugh but never hired me.
304 chars
Suzanne said on March 17, 2021 at 6:33 pm
Just got a phone call from the Young Republicans. LOL!
I am neither.
70 chars
beb said on March 17, 2021 at 8:11 pm
You mean garter belts weren’t just an item of fetish ware? I am so out of date!
79 chars
Sherri said on March 17, 2021 at 10:21 pm
Maria Cantwell, the junior senator from Washington, hasn’t taken a public position on the filibuster, which is typical for her. I was on a campaign Zoom call tonight with her (for Dow Constantine, running for re-election as King County Executive), and while I didn’t ask her about the filibuster, I asked her if the Senate would protect voting rights. I noted what the states were up to, that the Supreme Court hadn’t gotten more supportive of voting rights since Shelby County, and that there weren’t 60 votes to protect voting rights in the Senate nor could it be accomplished in reconciliation.
She assured me that the Senate would not let the states trample voting rights. As she left the call, she repeated that the Senate would protect voting rights. I hope so.
779 chars
alex said on March 17, 2021 at 10:51 pm
beb, girdles and garters were all about making it harder to be easy. I’ve heard them described as “artillery.” They were the last line of defense until the pill came along.
172 chars
Sherri said on March 17, 2021 at 11:21 pm
I have no doubt that the man who bought a gun and killed 8 people in Georgia yesterday got a steady diet of pro life messaging at the Baptist church he attended with his family. Yet when he decided that he needed to address his sex addiction, the women he killed were merely temptations to be removed, not human beings worthy of life.
No, his church didn’t teach him that it was okay to murder people. But it also didn’t teach him that women were as important as men, especially not if they were foreign, other. It didn’t teach him not to make himself the center of his world, to consider the world from the viewpoint of others.
And the pro life movement never asks anyone to do that, because a fetus isn’t a person with a viewpoint to be considered.
765 chars
Dexter Friend said on March 17, 2021 at 11:28 pm
I had an excellent Jiggs Dinner , carryout, from the restaurant here run by Greeks. They did it right. I am 6.25% Irish, as a great great grandmother was from near a rural area south of Cork, in County Cork.
I don’t have any idea what exactly went on in the spas around Atlanta on a nightly basis, I keep hearing the victims were spa workers, some are calling them sex workers, the killer is calling himself a sex addict, one report said the dead are 7 women, one man, next report , 2 men, 6 women, then it was all 8 are women. I know for sure this man shot 8 dead for some damn reason, one probably Asian hate, the whole thing sorry as hell. I know positively that Asian hate all over the USA is rampant, and those people are scared and shaken, shocked at what is going on. It’s building and building again, just like post-Pearl Harbor. So the killer is saying he killed all 8 to eliminate his cravings for fucking for money.
930 chars
alex said on March 18, 2021 at 7:09 am
The media have been circumspect about what sort of business goes on in the spas/massage parlors, but it’s plainly obvious this was a big red light district. One of the shooting victims was a white woman who was there with her husband for a “date night” and “couples massage,” which sounds so innocent until you consider that her husband was probably in the habit of forcing her into threesomes. What an embarrassing way to die.
What strikes me about this moment is how much the right-wingers have been obsessed with “white slavery” and “sex trafficking” of late yet the media don’t dare to question whether the women working in these places in Georgia were there of their own free will, and I’m guessing there’s a lot more to it than any media outlet cares to address. Isn’t the sexual exploitation of foreign women a hate crime in its own right?
850 chars
Dorothy said on March 18, 2021 at 7:47 am
Ugh, I’d sort of forgotten that I had worn a garter belt and stockings a few times before pantyhose became more ubiquitous. None of the other gals here have mentioned the stockings themselves, which were usually formed in some specific leg shape that likely excluded a large percentage of the population. There wasn’t a lot of ‘give’ to them – they were shapely but what if you had really skinny calfs, or very short or very long legs? They sagged in several places or were too short to reach the garter belt snaps comfortably, thereby threatening to PING and let go (like Deborah experienced on that date). I haven’t worn pantyhose in years and don’t miss them at all.
681 chars
basset said on March 18, 2021 at 8:38 am
Our conversation puts me in mind of this classic tune:
https://youtu.be/lDazpe2qDkc
84 chars
Suzanne said on March 18, 2021 at 9:07 am
The fact that this mass murderer is said to be very religious and also killed these women does not surprise me. In evangelical church circles, it is accepted as truth that men have raging sexual desires and no means to control that so it is women’s job to keep them from temptation. These women, in his mind, weren’t victims of sex trafficking but temptresses. Evangelicals also teach that everything in the Bible is to be taken literally so this young murderer had, no doubt, taken to heart passages like Matthew 5:30: “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”
He cut these women off and threw them away to rid himself of the temptation.
763 chars
Julie Robinson said on March 18, 2021 at 9:42 am
Wrong member.
13 chars
Beth Backus said on March 18, 2021 at 10:03 am
I remember girdles, garter belts, shaped stockings, etc. By my senior year in HS (1968), my hemlines were short enough that I was in danger of exposing the garter belts. I was thrilled (at the time) that panty hose came into my orbit by the summer after my freshman year in college. I wore them for years–not the same pair:)–until I was wearing slacks often or my skirts so long that by the time I retired in 2008, I was wearing knee highs. No more panty hose tugging!
474 chars
alex said on March 18, 2021 at 10:23 am
So they’re framing the problem as “hypersexualization of Asian women” while tiptoeing around the hyperexploitation that seems to be the crux here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/18/atlanta-shooting-live-updates
225 chars
Deborah said on March 18, 2021 at 11:15 am
When I was in high school, none of the girls wore stockings or pantyhose, we kept our legs tan, this was Miami FL, so easy to do. It wasn’t until I went to college in Nebraska that I became familiar with pantyhose, and that one time garter belts. I don’t remember if my mother wore stockings, but she must have. We probably didn’t wear pantyhose in Miami because they’re hot and uncomfortable. I wore pantyhose throughout my earlier work in studios and offices, but I didn’t wear skirts and dresses that often, and towards the end of my career if I did I wore them with opaque black tights. If I couldn’t find dense opaque black tights, I wore two pair, especially in winter.
675 chars
LAMary said on March 18, 2021 at 12:15 pm
I thought of the massage parlor story about Trump’s good friend, owner of the NE Patriots, visiting that Asian massage parlor in Palm Beach. Creepy white guys have a thing for Asian women as sex providers.
Los Angeles has the largest Asian community in the country and I honestly have not seen a lot of Asian massage places here. I’ve seen Thai foot massage places but everyone I know who goes to those places is going there for foot massages. Most of them are women.Those places all have the same neon sign of a foot in the window.
Lots of Vietnamese nail salons, everywhere. Not a lot of massaging going on there. Maybe here the Asian community has such a long history and is a solid part of the culture and economy so Asian women aren’t exploited as much. I hope so. I have two Asian daughters in law in my future (tentatively. I shared that story a while ago) and they are both formidable women. My sons grew up with Asian and Asian Pacific friends. Where I live is about ten minutes from old Chinatown, five minutes from Eagle Rock which has a large Filipino poplulation, Koreatown is about five miles away, and Monterrey Park is five miles in the other direction and is the new Chinatown and Vietnamese enclave. The street signs are in English and Chinese there. Little Tokyo is next to Chinatown in downtown LA. Thai Town is maybe five miles west of here.
There have been a lot of attacks on Asians here, nothing deadly but certainly vicious harassment, some beatings. Mostly against elderly people,which is particularly hideous. Not just Chinese, but all Asians.
I won’t repeat the stupid things that orange turd has said, even very recently, about China. But it’s clear his words are causing that violence the same way they caused the insurrection. Why is this guy given any air time?
1800 chars
Deborah said on March 18, 2021 at 1:44 pm
Chicago has a Chinatown and a Koreatown, on opposite sides of the city. I’ve been to a couple of restaurants in Chinatown but I’ve never been to Koreatown here. LB used to go to an Asian grocery store in KT. I would love to find a Japanese grocery store nearby, I used to go to one in St. Louis. I haven’t heard of specific violence toward Asians in Chicago, but it wouldn’t surprise me. It is sickening. I read about the badass grandmother in San Francisco who beat the guy who assaulted her to the point where he had to be taken away in an ambulance. But she is completely traumatized now, understandably.
615 chars
Sherri said on March 18, 2021 at 2:11 pm
There have been a lot of similar attack on Asian elders in the Bay Area, including on one 76 year old woman who fought back: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/asian-woman-attacked-san-francisco-fights-back/
202 chars
Sherri said on March 18, 2021 at 3:26 pm
Jeff Sharlett makes an important point about the young murderer’s so-called sex addiction: https://twitter.com/JeffSharlet/status/1372608977624793090
Obviously, most evangelical young men don’t commit mass murder. They just make it easier to buy a gun and kill people than to get an abortion, or vote. They treat women and non-white people as less than.
361 chars
Jeff Borden said on March 18, 2021 at 3:56 pm
Many thanks to those who offered help with my technology issues. A buddy from my dog group is coming by after work to guide me through the process.
Meanwhile, I’m including a link to a story that speaks volumes about how much our skin color plays a part in how we are treated. There’s is a nutty old white woman in Chicago who enjoys sneaking onto airplanes without a ticket. She has been caught numerous times. Judges have had fits trying to get her to stop, but she keeps at it. African-American columnist Mary Mitchell of the Chicago Sun-Times is just a trifle angry at how gently this Caucasian is treated by authorities when compared to people of color. It’s a good read.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2021/3/17/22336773/serial-stowaway-marilyn-hartman-spotlight-implicit-bias-race-prejudice
812 chars
Deborah said on March 18, 2021 at 5:24 pm
When I lived in Dallas many moons ago, a 14 year old black kid broke into our house. When they caught him it came out that he had hitched rides on flights by following a black family on board. When he’d get to the destination he’d turn himself in. He did this multiple times. He stole a boom box type radio from us that my husband used, he was carrying the radio when they nabbed him, we still had the box for it because it was brand new, so the police knew exactly what to look for. I felt sorry for him, he obviously didn’t have much supervision by parents. He was also a neighbor.
583 chars
Julie Robinson said on March 18, 2021 at 5:40 pm
Nutty old white woman sneaks on planes repeatedly without consequence. White man committing hate crime is arrested without even being roughed up. Innocent black men are killed. Ron Johnson sees no problems.
206 chars
Deborah said on March 18, 2021 at 6:18 pm
It’s extremely windy in Chicago right now, at least it is by the lake. Waves are crashing onto LSD and our building is swaying. The sun has come out after a day of dismal clouds and the lake whitecaps are spectacularly lit. One of the nice things about sitting in your place all day peering out at the world beyond. Which I have to say is unfortunately becoming more and more preferable.
389 chars
alex said on March 18, 2021 at 6:30 pm
Here’s a bit of snark to leaven the day’s grim news:
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/editorial-template-for-every-time-a-white-person-commits-an-atrocious-crime
167 chars