Comfortable Skin

After a flight delay Paul and I returned to Chicago from Colorado in the wee hours of Sunday morning and after a few hours of sleep I was off to the mall with my son to buy his back to school wardrobe. In just over a week his Dad and I will be driving him to Missouri and moving him into his dorm room.  Over the summer I've been organizing his baby pictures and school art work and in an old box of memories I found pictures of myself from 1990 when I was the same age my son is now.

In 1990 I was 20 years old and working a job from 7-9 in the morning, then I went to classes at a local college then it was back to work from 3-6 pm and then I went clubbing at dance clubs in Chicago with my friends until 2-3 am. It was a crazy life until I transferred to Ohio University in tiny Athens Ohio in the fall of 1990. I went from being a Chicago club kid to a small town sorority girl literally over night. My son will also be moving from Chicago to a small college town and I hope he has as much fun having dual lives as I did.

As I donate his old high school wardrobe and buy him new clothes more appropriate for college including dress clothes for rushing a fraternity and sportswear for playing college lacrosse, it reminded me of how much you can feel changed by just changing what you wear. During our shopping spree my son was more interested in quality clothing from Polo Ralph Lauren and Banana Republic than he was in t-shirts and shorts from the Gap. He's not interested in dressing like a high school student anymore. Similarly when I packed to move away to college I left my "city club clothes" at home and brought clothes more fitting for social events in college. It was the start of my adult life and I have a feeling my son is having that moment right now.

The pictures were both taken in 1990, one is me as a club kid in Chicago (I'm in the middle) and the other was taken a few months later when I joined a sorority at Ohio University. 23 years later I still prefer pearls over stomach baring tops.

Follow Up Read-Worth Fighting For by Lisa Niemi Swayze

Back on March 1, 2010 I blogged a book review for the audio recording of Patrick Swayze's autobiography, The Time of My Life. I was very  moved listening to Patrick's story, especially knowing that he had recorded his memoirs in the final weeks of his life.

Two years later and almost 3 years after Patrick's death from pancreatic cancer, his wife Lisa has written her story of Patrick's fight against cancer and their life together. Once I started reading Worth Fighting For: Love, Loss, and Moving Forward, I couldn't put it down and finished it within a few days. Lisa's honest and emotional retelling of Patrick's diagnosis, his strength during the brutal treatments, his final TV series (The Beast, filmed here in Chicago in 2008) and his last days is inspiring but very sad.

Lisa was Patrick's wife of over 30 years, his business partner and in the end, his full time caregiver. Upon Patrick's diagnosis, he was given weeks to live but lived for 20 months, largely in part to the sheer will of his spirit and the dedication to his medical care from doctors in California and Chicago. But it was Lisa who learned how to care for him, how to research new treatments, and how to keep him comfortable. One of the most interesting aspects of this book is the evolution of their marriage from lovers and partners to fighters, their only goal was to keep him alive.

What I wanted more of...the Moving Forward portion of the book. There is only one chapter written after Patrick's death and a short Epilogue, not nearly enough on how Lisa is doing or in fact how she is coping without her partner of 34 years. Maybe it's too soon. Maybe that will be in yet another book. Until she is ready to share those stories, this book tells of the 2 years they fought cancer together and like their first book is a true love story.

The "Ladies" are Back

In 1994 I began watching a British TV series, Absolutely Fabulous. At the time I was living in a little flat near Chicago, my son was a year old and a friend from college and I would watch every episode we could find on TV (in the days before internet, DVR, HULU and streaming series it was hard to find). Ab Fab as it was nicknamed by its fans, was brilliant in its comedy, its complete disregard for taste and the flamboyant fashions. Years before the girls on Sex and the City, Absolutely Fabulous broke all the rules on TV with sex, designer clothes, drinking and outrageous behavior.

The series revolves around middle aged best friends Edina and Patsy who as a result of disposable incomes from their jobs in PR and fashion as well as alimony from Edina's 2 ex husbands indulge in drugs, drinking, sex, shopping and bizarre schemes to stay young and party in London. Edina's long suffering daughter Saffron, her mother, ex husbands and assistant Bubble are regularly involved in their crazy antics.

Jennifer Saunders as Edina and Joanna Lumley as Patsy are hysterical in their physical comedy, regularly falling out of cars, submitting themselves to insane hair and makeup and wearing outrageous fashions. Every other word is "Sweetie" or "Darling", they swill champagne and red wine all day and smoke incessantly. And no matter what they do, it's fall down funny.

2012 will be the 20th anniversary of the series and Edina and Patsy are back for 3 episodes. Whether you are a fan of the series from the 90's or a new watcher, it's not to be missed.

Below is a minute of a favorite episode of mine, "Poor". Tricked by daughter Saffy into thinking she is poor in order to reduce her spending, Edina and Patsy attempt to drive to the supermarket (they usually only have hired cars), try to figure out how to grocery shop, shoplift champagne, have the car booted after parking on the sidewalk in front of Harvey Nichols and get arrested for drunk driving. This episode has me in tears every time I watch it I laugh so hard, hysterical!