full moon in the afternoon

The moon has been starting her night shift early these days. What a keener. I noticed the other day, when we stopped at a beach on Lake Ontario with my parents, and I enjoyed the frosty view of icicles, icy water and bright moon high in the late afternoon sky.

But yesterday, the moon was full; I noticed it next to the domes of the Ukranian church, huge and hanging supernaturally low in the sky just after 4 o'clock in the afternoon, like a pregnant woman's belly just before the first contractions. It made me a little bit afraid to see the moon so huge and palely translucent; awestruck, I wondered what such a large moon may portend.

Which reminds me. My brother and his wife announced at Christmas dinner that they are expecting a new little cousin for Swee'pea in early August. Although they are still a bit shell-shocked by the surprise, I am very happy. My brother and sister are 8 and 6 years older than me, so I figured Swee'pea (or any possible siblings of Swee'pea's) would also be the youngest cousin. I didn't like being the youngest very much, so I'm very glad that Swee'pea won't be. Congratulations Big Brother!

Oh -- and I'm going to buy those shoes. Thanks for voting. Last night I went to the mall, and I saw my frumpy runners in the mirror and thought, I want those shoes. I want cute shoes to wear on little outings like this. I want to retrieve a bit of my early-twenties funkiness. This was after I realized that people I quickly categorize into older than me, are not actually. Ugh! I'm 30 now...

I also picked up a muffin top cozy, which I learned about from Metro Mama. I went into Jean Machine, and said to the anorexic but horrendously-trendy-80s-throwback teenager with skinny jeans and all (man there are A LOT of ugly clothes out there!), "Ummm. I've heard rumours on the Internet that, um, you sell something that... um [gesture to my muffin top runnething over] you have something that, um, contains the, er, muffin top."

"It extentuates you mean?" (I shit you not. She totally used the non/new word extentuates TWICE during our encounter.)

"Uh, sure." (It kind of really works, when I think about it.)

The anorexic hipster with no hips to speak of was confused. "We sell it here?"

Me, getting more and more uncomfortable, thinking about just throwing in the towel and giving up but I want one of those things, dammit: "Um, well I think so. I think it was Jean Machine... I think it's like a tank top that makes it look like you're just wearing layers?"

"Ohhhhhh." She clues in and goes over to a shelf by the cash register with bands of fabric rolled into multi-coloured cylinders. So it's not a tank top as I thought but a sort of wide elastic belt thing. So I bought one, and I'll let you know how it goes.

So with the epidemic of skinny jeans around, I realize that what little time I had as a sort of almost hipster is over. I will now be one of those old fogies who can't go with the times and give up the low-riding bell bottoms I spent my twenties in. I mean, I remember pinning the bottoms of my jeans in grade 8 and 9. I remember looking like a fatass on skinny stilts, and I don't want to go back. I can only hope that there will still be a few stores who cater to old fogies and keep the old school styles in stock (I can't be the only one, can I?).