Wise Ideas

Right To Bear Arms

I'm getting quite a chuckle out of the discussion on numerous "respected" blogs about the buff-ness of Michelle Obama's "rippled and gleaming" arms (that's a quote from "The Caucus," The NYTimes's political blog). 

The WaPost's Fashion guru Robin Givhan described them as “Post-Title IX arms."  And Kate Holmquist of The Irish Times writes that Mrs. Obama's arms say 'I'm too serious a woman to show off my legs or my breasts,” which prompted NPR's Peter Sagal to jokingly note on this weekend's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me that not only are the First Lady's arm buff, but they can actually talk now.

The Michelle Arm Watch was already on high-alert following her husband's speech before the Joint Session of Congress, where she wore a sleeveless dress.  "“Oh my god,” Cindi Leive, the editor of Glamour magazine, emailed The Caucus blog.  "The First Lady has bare arms in Congress, in February, at night!”  (Doesn't she ever get cold?).

Then two days later, the White House released The First Lady's official portrait -- which is stunningly beautiful and features Mrs. Obama in a sleeveless sheath dress by designer Michael Kors.  The Wonkette blog calls the portrait "the latest proof that George W. Bush is gone and Barack Obama is president and we didn’t all just imagine this, on drugs."  Among the colorful comments on Wonkette is the one from "Say It With Wookies," who comments that "Thomas Jefferson’s totally looking at her ass."

As I said, the Michelle Arm Watch is very entertaining.  

But it wasn't until I was at the check-out stand at the grocery store last night that Michelle's arms just totally jumped out at me, from the cover of Vogue.

The four-pound March issue features numerous photos of the First Lady, taken by Annie Leibovitz (who had the good sense not to ask Michelle to pose luringly with just a blanket, as she did with Miley Cirus).  "With her long, lean, athletic frame, she moves as if she could have danced with Alvin Ailey in another life," Vogue gushes.  Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton she ain't!

But get a load of those guns, poking out from beneath her magenta dress.  Michelle Obama has launched an arms race all her own.  Just thumb through Vogue to the next "profile" in the issue, and you'll find Melinda Gates in a sleeveless red sheath.  Better let Bill fix himself and the kids dinner and put some more time in the gym, there, Melinda. 

Although the much-ado-about-arms frenzy is nothing more than a break from more serious business, it IS refreshing to see a fit and healthy mother/career gal in the White House.  It makes me believe that the hours I spend at the gym weekly are not selfishly spent "me" time, but rather a reflection of the value I put on exercise to maintain physical and mental health.

And you can bet sleeveless dresses would be flying off the racks --- if anyone was actually spending any money on clothes these days.  You're better off using the $$ for a gym membership -- and just waiting for summer to pull those tank tops out of the bottom of your drawers. 

Besides, who da every thunk we'd be getting arm toning advice from CNN?

Blame It On Barbie

It's hell sharing a birthday with a legendary superstar - especially one that doesn't appear to have aged in 50 years.  No, really....she hasn't aged in 50 years!

If you haven't heard by now, Barbie, the impossibly slender doll with freakish feet and bizarre bust and waist measurements, turns 50 years old this week.  And although our birthdays are one month apart - it's still hard not to compare myself with this inconoclastic piece of plastic.

The Barbie-turns-50 celebration got off to a fabulous start last week in New York during Fashion Week, when 50 top designers including Tommy Hilfiger, Diane von Furstenburg, Kenneth Cole, Anna Shui and Baby Phat dressed blond ponytailed models up in clothes created for specifically for the doll, and pranced them out on the catwalk to Aqua's "I'm a Barbie girl, in the Barbie world, Life in plastic, it's fantastic."

The effect, shall we say, was really a little unsettling, as was the audience commentary.   "She's the first Botox bitch," America's Next Top Model judge J. Alexander tells E!Online News. "I think she looks absolutely great. [In fashion], she's proof that you can make everything look great 50 years later."

This is what we real women have to compete with?!  

Given that, as Mattel claims, 90 percent of all girls between the ages of 3 and 10 currently own a Barbie, and God know how many of us through the years had at least one Barbie -- that's a lot of image influencing on female minds and bodies.

It's no wonder that back in 1997, a San Francisco Examiner writer coined the term "Barbie Syndrome," which is defined by Wikipedia as "a term used to loosely describe the desire to have a physical appearance and lifestyle representative of the famous Barbie doll."

Barbie Syndrome most offer refers to young girls.  But since she's been around for 50 years now, there's no telling how much psychic damage Barbie has left in her wake.  And it's not just Barbie's eternally youthful skin and figure, but her out-of-this-world "accomplishments" as well.  108 careers (from doctor, to vet to presidential candidate), 50 pets, and a 43-year long on-again-off-again relationship with one man - Ken.

That's one hard doll to live up to. It's no wonder people enjoy messing with Barbie's perfect image by creating their own versions -- a past time being celebrated this week by listeners and readers of NPR's Soapbox blog, under the headline "Public Radio Barbie."

However, if you dig deep into Barbie's bio --- there is one thing all her youth, beauty, and job-getting skills have not brought her -- but which a vast majority of 50 year old women have.

A family. 

Take that, Barbie.  Who's gonna love and take care of you when you get old?  Even if you will never look a day over 23. 

Reality is the New Black

Fashion Week in New York is wrapping up today.  Paper-thin models are wiping the smudged mascara off their raccoon-like eyes, splurging on a saltine cracker, folding themselves into their carry-on suitcases and flying over the pond to London to prance on its catwalks next week.

Designers, meantime, are popping champagne and/or anti-depressants (or both) over reviews of their Fall 2009 lines put on display this past week. 

Marc Jacobs "took his wild designing ways to the limit with a procession of bold and outrageous pieces," Fox News gushes.  "Distinguishing this presentation from all the rest was the fact that each model rocked a different coif with mohawks, flips, crimps, and bouffants all configured differently but with the same underlying reference point."

Justin Timberlake made his Fashion Week debut as a designer at the William Rast collection, which as E!Online reports, "draws upon inspiration from the American Classic Movies of Rumble Fish and Thelma & Louise...Blended with sharp tailoring, featuring strong, confident shoulders and slimming silhouettes, the collection expresses a bold direction for New America."

Paris Hilton was texting in the front row, Victoria Beckham showed her second collection, and back-from-the-dead actor/proven slob Mickey Rourke eyed Domenico Vacco's show from behind sunglasses. 

But despite the typical other-worldliness of Fashion Week, it seems designers have been brought back to earth by the crashing economy and its devastating effect on retail sales.  Bottom line?  There were things actually seen on the runways at Fashion Week that you might actually buy and wear. 

"The recession has made the industry leaner. It’s put the claimers on notice, and it’s made designers more responsible," The NYTimes proclaims today.  "If all this seriousness keeps up, there may not be any more exciting fashion, but, for now, there are some very good clothes."

“Gone are frilly frocks and girly high-waists and in their place are business-like designs that give professional women plenty of wearable choices,” Reuters reports.  "There's a longevity to buying a classic piece," according to Gaby Basora, a founder of the Tucker line of patterned silk blouses. “Longevity?”  “Professional women?”  Since when are those buzz words among fashionistas? 

Since reality became the new black.

For some designers, that reality is a metallic and black look that makes the wearer look as if she’s stepping out the door to do battle with the Evil Economy.  “Tough clothes for tough times,” as The Today Show put it.  “Narciso Rodriguez was among the designers…with an urban warrior theme that featured exposed zipper details, ‘camouflage lace’ and heavily hardwared belts that looked like they were holding bullets,” according to the AP. 

Yes, Narciso Rodriquez was the designer behind Michelle Obama’s black and fireworks red dress worn the night her husband won the presidency.  Which, besides the country’s cratering economy, brings us to the other primary reason why fashion is so reality-based this season:  Michelle Obama.

“Young designers are looking to Michelle Obama for their own stimulus package” Matt Lauer reports, trying to catch the First Lady's eye and launch their own careers.  And as we all know by now – Michelle wears real clothes – even when she’s dressing for a ball.

So it takes a near-Depression for designers to discover real women.  Now - if they let those poor girls on the catwalk gain a little weight, comb their hair, and wipe off all that mascara from under their eyes – maybe we’ll actually consider buying something. 

Fashion Faux Pas

It's Fashion Week in New York!  The week where the kookiest outfits ever invented are worn by paper-thin raccoon-eyed models walking side-by-side down the runway with models wearing clothing you or I might even buy - if we didn't need to feed and cloth our families first.

The whole fashion scene seems to operate in a parallel universe.  A place where inhabitants are obsessed with setting trends and designing clothing that reflect "the times," and which are meant to - eventually - trickle down to us real folk.  But come on, people.  Are you really going to shell out a year's worth of after-school tuition to wear stuff like this?

Although there was a time in my life when I actually subscribed to Vogue and bought designer duds - I have become the epitome of anti-fashion.  Motherhood is partially, but not entirely to blame.  Age, common sense, a need for comfort, a desire to appear as who I am, not who I fantasize I want to be, and most importantly - a budget which has better things to buy - also come into play.  Besides, what woman in her right mind, mother or other, would actually wear this Spongebob mini or coyote-head hat. 

Admittedly, I get a good chuckle looking at what's on the runways at during Fashion week.  My life is so far displaced from what's being text-ed live from this week's shows.  Alerts like: "At Isaac Mizrahi, flashes of fluorescent. Loved the beetle print suit and flou lingerie peeking out under gowns."  No wonder Mizrahi left Target for Liz Claiborne last January.  I'm betting fluorescent beetle print suits would probably rot on the racks at Target. 

Meantime,Target, minus Mizrahi, is making news this week by opening four so-called "pop-up" stores around New York City.  The stores, called "Bullseye Bodegas," will be selling fall merchandise by 22 of its name designers.  "New York is the place you go to get noticed," Target executive V.P. Kathee Tesija tells The NYTimes. Incidentally, The NYTimes noticed this week that the clothing stores doing boffo business these days are thrift shops.  It seems the designs that are flying off the racks these days are doing so not because of their style, but because of their cut-rate price. 

However, it was The "Pulse" section of Sunday's NYTimes which really caught my eye with the headline:  "50 Ways to Rock the P.T.A."  Having (correctly) assumed they didn't mean bombarding the P.T.A. with fundraising ideas or suggestions on how to limit meetings to three hours --- I learned that the Times' idea of "rocking" the P.T.A. is by wearing a "military style wool jacket inspired by Francoise Hardy."

First of all, I had to look up Francoise Hardy on Wikipedia to discover she's a French singer, actress and astrologer "who is an iconic figure in fashion, music and style."  Who knew.  Second of all, the military jacket was designed by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, who has launched a clothing line called Mirror/Dash because, as Gordon puts it, "there's a need for clothes for cool moms." 

The Times' "Pulse" blurb features a photo of Gordon modeling her "cool mom" jacket.  Besides appearing like someone evil out of an old WWII movie - a look not many moms I know are after - it looks damn uncomfortable.  And wool?  You gotta be kidding me.  After wondering who made Gordon the arbiter of "cool" for moms, I learned that only a limited-edition number of 50 jackets will be sold for now.  Each costs $415 and are only available at the oh-so-hip Satine boutique in L.A. 

The jacket - along with more wonderful designer clothes for "cool moms," will also be available on a new website, mirror-dash.com, which as of post-time for this blog, wasn't online yet.  As you can probably tell, I'm not holding my breath waiting for mirror-dash.com.

However, there is another mom grabbing headlines at Fashion Week:  41-year old Olympic swimmer (and model) Dara Torres...who "modeled two looks for the Sunday afternoon presentation of Charles Nolan's spring collection at the designer's Chelsea studio," according to China Daily.

Now there's a cool mom.  I guess a faux military jacket isn't needed when you've got a couple of real medals hanging around your neck.

Have a good weekend.

Know When to Hold 'em, Know When to Fold 'em

Before summer started, I made by two kids compile a list of 10 chores they would do weekly over the break to earn their allowance.  There were three chores which appeared on both lists:  make bed, clean room and fold laundry.

Fold laundry?  The reason behind that is that both my son and my daughter love the smell and warmth of clothes just out of the dryer.  However, "fold" is waaaaaay too generous a word for what it takes them 30 seconds to do....after they've soaked all the warmth out of the clothes by hugging them.

Call me Type-A (you won't be the first), but after the kids help me "fold" the laundry....I always end up re-folding it. sorting it and putting it away -- having long since been abandoned by my two helpers who quickly find somewhere else to be.

But it turns out I'm not so anal about folding the laundry as I thought. 

A Page One story in yesterday's Wall Street Journal tells how countless Gap and other former clothing store employees - trained in the "art of folding" during the past 25+ years - are now among the "ranks of obsessive folders."  "Legions of retail grads have spent countless hours neatly folding T-shirts and jeans and stacking them on tables and shelves," says the WSJ.  "Now, their peculiar idea of perfection is straining marriages and leading to bizarre behavior ranging from buying clothes based on an item's foldability to straightening up sloppy displays while shopping."

Call it Compulsive Folding Behavior.  Apparently there could be hundreds of thousands of "retail refugees" suffering from CFB - because as The Journal reports, The Gap claims to have trained that many people over the years in the "art of folding clothes." 

Pre-Gap --- clothing stores always used to hang their merchandise on racks because it was easier to maintain.  But The Gap was the first to fill its stores with tables and begin displaying folded clothing in piles to emphasize certain styles and colors.  Thus - clerks trained in folding were needed to keep Gap stores looking neat and orderly.  Gap thrived (back then), and other stores followed suit --- training their clerks to fold just as neatly, just as quickly.

Years later - after most of those early folding clerks have left retail to pursue other careers - numerous folding products have been introduced into the marketplace by former folders who obviously believe there are millions of Americans who suffer from CFB.  Products like FlipFold (as seen on TV!) and MobileFold. 

Me?  I'd rather just off-load the chore onto my two children --- who wouldn't recognize the difference between a shirt folded at The Gap and one just shoved into a drawer.

Well - at least that's one fewer psychological disorder my kids won't have to seek treatment for.  Unless they end up getting summer jobs at The Gap.

The "Half Yearly" Blues

If this were any other year...I wouldn't be here in the waiting room of a dirty tire shop waiting for my van's bald tires to be replaced and realigned.  I would be out there running the racks at Nordstrom with the rest of shopping-kind, on the opening day of the store's Half Yearly Sale for Women and Children. 

But this is not any other year -- for me or for Nordstrom.  It's the year the economy ate my discretionary spending dollars (with "tires for the family van" not falling into the discretionary category).   And it's also the year sales at Nordstrom, as well as at other higher-end retailers, have tanked - prompting executives to do something unprecedented in Nordstrom's storied history:  start the Half Year Sale two weeks early.

Nordstrom execs tell The Seattle Times that they moved up the start date of the sale from June 4th to May 21st to "better align with the Memorial Day holiday-shopping period."  Translation:  "If you're already out there looking for bargains this coming weekend....please drop by Nordstrom and drop some dollars our way."

The Seattle-based retailer doesn't sound desperate...just yet.  President Blake Nordstrom says you won't find bargains that are beneath the dignity of a "luxury" chain.  "We have not opened up the 'friends and family, one day only, open until midnight' promotional events of some competitors," Mr. Nordstrom tells The Seattle Times. "We're staying the course."

However, anyone who has any history with Nordstrom - anyone for instance like me who goes waaaaaaay back to Nordo's humble beginnings as a shoe shop in places like Spokane, Washington - the course has never included changing the dates of one of the store's key sales periods.  And as all Nordstrom shoppers know, the store only has a handful of sales events per year. 

But as I said, this isn't just any year.

"Consumers are the most bargain-driven I've seen in 29 years of doing research," analyst Britt Beemer tells The Seattle Times. "It's just not a pretty picture out there," he says.  Nordstrom needs to be a little bit more "promotional" if it wants to survive this economy intact, Beemer adds.

And not coincidentally, the king of customer service has just announced a new customer service.  This week, Nordstrom executives unveiled a new "Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store" service, allowing online shoppers to buy merchandise at Nordstrom.com, and make arrangements online to pick up their purchases at the Nordstrom store of their choice.  According to The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the "Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store option is available only for women's and men's apparel, women's shoes and cosmetics, but all categories should be selling products online for store pickup by September."

Which means that even though I am stuck at this greasy tire shop, I could still be "virtually" shopping and finding Half Yearly bargains without actually ever having to race through the racks.

That is -- if I hadn't just spent $535 on three new tires and an alignment.

Fashion $ense

What did you wear the last time you went to the beach?  What did you wear to the gym this morning?  Or for that matter, what are you wearing right now?

Call me crazy, but I seriously doubt you lugged the kids AND a $995 bag to the beach while wearing a $420 pair of sandals as The NYTimes suggests in it's Sunday Styles "Pulse" section.  I know you didn't wear a $150 pair of drawstring pants and matching tank top to the gym, billed as "Best Workout Clothes for New Moms" on the Parenting Magazine website.  And I also can't imagine that you're currently wearing a $215 spring top with your jeans for that "laid back" look as is shown in this month's Parents Magazine.   

What are these newspaper and magazine writers and editors smoking?  Do they reallly think readers are going to buy a "Jimmy Choo silver paillette mesh bucket bag" to carry dirty sand toys and leaking tubes of sun screen in?  And Mui Mui gladiator sandals!?  You'd wouldn't even make it to the beach in those, because the walk from your car would kill you.

Admittedly, I'm sure there are some beach goers in The Hamptons or maybe even on some spots on the Jersey shore that would purchase such expensive yet foolhardy fashion items to take to the beach.  But most of us are not only a lot poorer than that, but a lot smarter, too.

And just in case the editors at the paper's Style section aren't communicating with their counterparts on the national and business desks, here's a news flash:  there's a recession going on out here, and the hot new trend sweeping the country is saving money so you can afford to fill up your gas tank and buy food.

Admittedly, thumbing through The Times Style section is an exercise in wishful thinking...just as looking through Vogue or Glamour is. 

But what's the excuse over at Parents and Parenting magazines?  Do they think that all of us are so lost in a family fog that we'd really spend that kind of money these day on gym clothes, when a T-shirt and shorts will do just fine? 

And I like to wear nice shirts along with my jeans just as much as the next person...but I have to pay the cell phone bill, too.  In fact, the latest retail figures show Nordstrom, Pennys, Gap and other middle to upper level clothing stores are struggling.  "Americans — even more affluent ones — are seeking shelter in wholesale clubs and discount apparel chains," according to this AP article. 

It seems that teenagers, who don't have to choose between paying the energy bill and a new top, are the only market segment keeping the apparel industry afloat right now.  Bloomberg reports that "Aeropostale Inc., which sells $10 polo shirts and $20 jeans, said sales surged 25 percent and increased its forecast. Abercrombie & Fitch Co. and American Eagle also increased."  However, The Motley Fool reports there's even some "angst" in the teen market.

It's obvious that a vast majority of families will be seeking to stretch their fashion dollars for the foreseeable future.  And although it's "fun" to see that "Claudio Orciani white reinforced mesh totes with leather trim" are still being sold for $430 in trendy Manhattan boutiques....the reality is that most of us will be using the same canvas totes bags at the beach, that we use now at the grocery store.

Welcome to the age of the thrift shop, a trend the NYTimes Business section noted a few weeks ago.  I'm sure this trend isn't going un-noticed by the editors at Parents and Parenting magazine, who are on the whole, pretty good about promoting affordable products, and likely adjusting future issues to reflect recessionary trends among their readers.

But the editors over at the NYTimes Business section need to stroll on over to the Styles section, and gently let those folks know that they've lost their fashion $ense.

Disney Caught with Drawers Down

It hasn't been a good week over at the House of Mouse. 

As anyone with a TV, radio, or Internet access already knows by now, Disney, which prides itself for the iron-clad control it maintains over its brands, lost control this week of its billion dollar brand known as Hannah Montana, when some questionable photos of alter-ego Miley Cyrus appeared in Vanity Fair. 

Adding insult to injury, Disney's official response to the racy photos - "Unfortunately, as the article suggests, a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines" - was universally seen as ironically laughable - coming from a company that's raking in the dough off teen stars including Cyrus, The Jonas Brothers, Raven Simone, and the entire cast of High School Musical I and II. 

What you may not have heard about yet is the brewing flap over some print ads and and giant billboards featuring Lolita-like teen and pre-teen girls modeling Disney-brand underwear.

Slate Magazine writer Daniel Brook first uncovered this story on Tuesday, amidst the heat of the Miley Cyrus photo debate.  "Reading (Disney's) comment ... I couldn't help but think of an advertisement I'd seen a few months ago while on a reporting trip to China," Brook writes.  "I was walking from my Beijing bed-and-breakfast to a nearby subway station when I was stopped in my tracks by a billboard that made the controversial 1990s Calvin Klein underwear ads look artistic by comparison."

Brooks elaborates on the billboard, featuring  "a white girl who looked all of 12, reclining in a matching bra-and-panties set adorned with Disney's signature mouse-ear design. In a particularly creepy detail, the pigtailed child was playing with a pair of Minnie Mouse hand puppets."  Brooks snapped a photo of the billboard (which you can see on Slate), and didn't think any more about it -- until the  Miley Cyrus hub-bub broke out. 

Brooks sought out Disney for a comment -- and was told that the Slate photo "caught us totally by surprise."  The Disney consumer products spokesman who pleaded ignorance, admitted that it is hard for Disney to enforce brand protection on its hundreds and hundreds of licensees.  The company behind the billboard turns out to be Shanghai Zhenxin Garment Company, which is licensed to sell Disney-brand clothes in China.  Disney insured that the billboard would be removed immediately.

But then celebrity gossip site TMZ.com entered the picture, literally, with even more pictures of teen or pre-teen girls modeling Disney brand underwear for Shanghai Zhenxin Garment Company. 

Whether or not you think the photos are just as tame as those in the old Sears catalogs (as one TMZ reader commented), or radically more suggestive.....the one thing we can probably agree on is that this is a branding mess that Disney isn't dealing with well.

And although this story hasn't hit the mainstream media yet, it's all over the Internet (Google it and you'll see).  And as we know from past experience, Disney better be prepared when the pictures eventually bubble out of the blogosphere.

Personally - Disney's troubles this week haven't impacted my family at all.  My 7-year old daughter, a big Hannah Montana fan, remains so because she should care less about Vanity Fair's pictures even if she saw them (which she hasn't).  And my 10-year old son could care less in general about Hannah Montana ("who cares?" he asked when looking at the photos)...although he does remain a fan of Zack and Cody.  And I'm not the type of mom to over-react and ban Disney from our lives. 

But Disney can't count on such a blase reaction from the mainstream media - bored as it is covering the why-isn't-this-thing-over-yet democratic slugfest, and the excessively depressing economy. 

So I close this Friday with some motherly advice for Disney:  If you aren't working to get your licensees under control right now, the House of Mouse deserves to get caught with its branding drawers down again.  And you might want to rethink your press statements - because so far, they've been positively Goofy.

Have a great weekend.

Fashion Victim

Girls' camo pants. 

While most sane people are scrambling today to get their taxes finished and mailed, I am on a much more frustrating mission - finding girls size 7 camo pants.  NOT capris...NOT shorts...PANTS!  And yes, I know how perfectly ridiculous it is for me to be tearing my hair out over finding a certain pair of pants for a 7-year old girl.  But parents often find themselves doing the silliest things, albeit for serious reasons.

The reason I'm going above and beyond the call of duty in the case of the camo pants, is that my daughter is in one of those phases in which anything that goes awry in the morning - a falling sock, her bangs out of place, or the unavailability of her favorite pair of pants - can set off a storm of shouting and crying that ruins her day before it's even begun.  And it's not so pleasant for the rest of the family, either. 

And so it is with her favorite camo pants, one of only two pairs of pants she will wear to school and which no longer button at her waist and have rips in both knees.  Had I known at the time that these pants would hold the key to family harmony, I would have bought three pairs in increasing sizes.  But I'm not psychic. 

Instead, I'm cruising the mall and surfing the web hunting for girls size 7 camo pants. 

This would all seem quite pathetic if it weren't for the fact that I know exactly how my daughter feels.  And you probably do, too.  I call it The Denim Dilemma:  when you finally find that brand and style of jeans or pants that really, really fit well...and the fickle fashion industry makes them obsolete just weeks after you buy them. 

In recent years, The Gap has been notorious for this.  It's why the "boot cut original stretch jeans" which you look great in now, don't fit at all the next time you go to The Gap searching for another pair.  They've changed the style of the style...just one of several "fashion missteps" which landed The Gap in financial trouble that it's still trying to restructure its way out of.

But so far, my search has been fruitless.  Most of the stores that sell girls camo pants - giants like Target, Mervyns, Kohl's, and children's stores like The Children's Place and Pumpkin Patch - are all "temporarily sold out."   The demand is there...but the pants are not.  And I hesitate buying a pair from TheArmyNavyShop.com, because despite sizing guides, online purchases of never-tried-before clothes tend to always go bad.

So it seems my daughter has become a fashion victim.  Perhaps it's better she learn this now, than when she's older and becomes so obsessed with finding that one pair of pants, that she'll spend hours locked in a bidding war on EBay, like this woman whose story I found at RocMom.com.

Happy Tax Day. 

Hollywood Finds Families

Alvin and the Chipmunks is most definitely NOT Oscar material.  But unlike many higher-brow, bigger budget films,it's still packin' them in at theaters across the country.

The same can be said for National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Enchanted, and any number of family-friendly movies playing right now at a theater near you.  And It doesn't take an MBA or a marketing degree to spot the trend here. 

After years of producing gorey movies like Saw I, II and III, and IIII, epics like 300 or Beowulf, or gross-out "comedies" like Jackass 2 and Beerfest --- Hollywood is finally starting to realize that it has been turning its back on a lucrative audience that's willing, even eager, to plunk down $12 a ticket to see something on the big screen.

That's right --- Hollywood is finally focusing on families.

In fact, it's entirely possible that seven PG-rated movies could end up among the top 20 grossing films of 2007, which as SFChronicle Pop Culture Critic Peter Hartlaub points out, could be the first time that's happened since Ronald Reagan left office back in 1989. 

Jim Steyer of Common Sense Media tells the Chron that he believes Hollywood might actually be listening to parents, who have been venting loudly online for years about the lack of quality children's movies.  I have a bit more cynical view of why producers are making more PG movies:  they're making money - lots of it!

Shrek 3, Hairspray and Enchanted - all big hits in my house this year - exceeded expectations at the box office with boffo grosses you can check out at BoxOfficeMojo.com.  The smaller budget Bridge to Terabithia and The Game Plan, though not big winners, each grossed more than $80 million a piece.  And according to the Chron, "the highest-profile PG-rated flop this year was the big-budget summer film "Evan Almighty," which still grossed more than $100 million in the United States."

Since my kids were born, about the only time we could count on finding a movie fit for the whole family was during the holidays.  And while this holiday season was no exception...it seems the family-friendly movies currently in the Hollywood pipeline may actually allow people like us to go to a movie when it's NOT a holiday.

In the coming months, movies like The Spiderwick Chronicles, Where the Wild Things Are, the Narnia sequel Prince Caspian, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and live action versions of Speed Racer and Horton Hears a Who.  And although I don't know what rating the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones series, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will end up with....you can bet the theater will be filled with families.

Where families go, money follows.  Other businesses and industries have known this for years.  It's nice Hollywood finally noticed.  Now - how about some decent network TV shows for families - in prime time!

BTW:  four last words for the week:  change - Iowa - voter turnout.  It's going to be a fascinating and wild ride to November.  I'm looking forward in taking part in the process!