41st Birthday: Fancy Underwear Edition

JEALOUS?!?!?!!?  I thought so.  These are the bedazzled sexy grannie underwear made especially for me by my dear friend, “Jessie from the Hill”.  Initially, I thought I could use them as a shade on the skylight in my bedroom, because they seemed so VAST, but alas, they fit me perfectly. Sigh.  She’s now an experienced be-dazzler, and can start producing these like crazy. Here’s a close-up of the dazzle on the front (my initials are on there, too, so they cannot be stolen):

Trannies, Grannies, and Fannies, oh my!

Do you remember the first time somebody asked if you and your friends were part of a trans-gender organization? Gosh, I sure do. It was just over a week ago when I was celebrating a friend’s 40th birthday with an 80′s flashback weekend in New York City. A whole gang of us trekked to the Big Apple to celebrate Clara’s (not her real name) fortieth birthday. Clara is significantly younger than the rest of us, and after less than a year after celebrating the last batch of 40th birthdays, we rang her in to her fourth decade with all the flair and style of the 1980′s. 

There were eight of us all together, and we were instructed by our hostess/party planner to bring our best 80′s outfits so we could go clubbin’ on Friday night.  Between the eight of us, we had leggings and high heels, leg warmers and ankle boots, acid-wash jeans and calf-high sneakers. There were big belts, big shirts, big earrings, and big hair. There were fake tattoos, tank tops, bangle bracelets, fish nets, and an actual Bermuda bag: complete with original monogramming!   The whole scene almost made me weep. Our hostess and party coordinator Magda (also not her real name) hired a pair of hair and makeup gurus to put the finishing touches on our 80′s outfits before we went out in public. These guys were great – I’ve never seen so much teased hair in all my life, and were quite good with the glitter makeup. They were gushing and giddy when they learned that one-hit-wonder Lisa Stansfield (“All Around the World” – 1989) lived right down the hall from our 80′s party central.  Now that I think about it, Stansfield also had “This is the Right Time” in 1988, making her a two-hit wonder. 

Everyone had a great look going on.  As usual, I was the ugly country cousin; I don’t have enough hair volume to do justice to the 80′s, and the dynamic duo put blue lipstick on me, and I also looked like “Duckie” from Pretty in Pink.  People kept asking me if I was cold or if I was having difficulty breathing.  I simply retorted “I had free-range Smurf for dinner, and it’s a bit messy”.   Trust me, it was pretty funny.  At one point I was sitting with Jeannie, who had gone with a super-preppy look.  I asked if I could join her sorority, when Magda interjected that I looked like the kind of girl who would have “put a dead cat in Jeannie’s mailbox”. 

We finally headed out just after eleven, prancing past Magda’s doormen in our crazy outfits. We got to the Alphabet Lounge, where they were playing a lot of ‘B’-side 80′s tunes. It was a small bar, but we circled the proverbial wagons as groups of girls dancing often do, and boogied down for a while. At one point, someone in our group was asked if we belonged to some transgender group. “Yes, and this is our annual field trip where we get released from our institutions to spend time with bitchy 20-somethings at midnight!”  There you have it. My first time.  Later, we heard another patron ask her friend, “Hey, aren’t those your Mom’s friends?”, which is actually a hysterical comment. Now we’d been implicitly and explicitly called trannies and grannies. We should really be unsurprised at the amount of attention we received, as we were calling attention to ourselves with the subtlety of an air raid siren. The greatest hit of the evening was Carly, decked out in Jennifer Beal /Flashdance perfection, as she performed a passionate dance routine to “What a Feeling”. It was flawless. I wish I had a chair and a bucket of water. I’m positive it was recorded by the bar’s younger patrons, and I’ve been searching YouTube for days, but haven’t found any evidence of her performance in the public domain.  The music turned techno at the Alphabet, so we went a couple of blocks to another bar and danced till 3am. I knew it was time to go when the birthday girl and half our group was slumped together, immobile,  in a corner of the club.  Getting into our cabs at that time of the morning was surprising because there was actually a ton of traffic.  We were the tranny/granny crew leaving early to get home to our confused and tired little beds. 

As for the’ fannies’ part of my title: things are scientifically proven to be funnier in sets of three.  I couldn’t leave the story with just trannies and grannies, so ‘fannies’ was the obvious naughty third rhyming item.  During our commemorative group photo, Magda put a hand on the butt of Molly’s 80′s jeans (while Molly was wearing them).  Molly nearly jumped out of her skin, saying Magda’s hand was hot and moist and gross. There’s the fanny for you.  Good times with good friends. Happy Birthday, Clara!

Happy Birthday, Sarah Palin!

I had coffee with a friend today, who pointed out that today was Sarah Palin’s birthday and that she’s only 45 years old (making her a mere 63 years younger than John McCain).  My friend also noted that we (the gals in our posse) are of an age that could be considered downright vice presidential (in a really good way).   Thanks Gina!