Don't Let the Clothes Wear You!!

So let's talk about one of my favorite topics, fashion!!!! I am inspired by the Emmy Awards to discuss some iconic trends and looks in fashion. I am so enjoying the return of 80's fashion as some of us have lived through it the first time!!! Those were the days of acid washed jeans that were tight rolled up with scrunchy socks to boot!! The tighter the rolls the better!! Then we had those big, bulky sweaters and the girls ones were placed over a pairs of leggings or stirrup pants. Shoes were either plain flats, or high top tennies. But the best part was the hair!!! The boys were enjoying the mullet complete with curls in the back!! My younger brother rocked this look for quite sometime until with the help of the Buckle girls, we were able to talk him into cutting them!! The girls hair was BIG, BIG, BIG!!! BIG bangs in the front that were hairsprayed up like a large brick wall!! BIG side wings that were blown out by the hairdryer and then hairsprayed out for even more width!! Then the rest of the hair was ratted out with a fashion comb and hairsprayed out every which way. BIG I say!! Those were the days..

In the 90's I went through a serious International Male phase that really wasn't all that flattering. This looks included lots of synthetic fabrics and polyblends, vests, and pleated pants. GROSS, GROSS, and GROSS!! The best detail about the vests is they usually had a tapestry like design on them like a world map or a musical tableau. Classy I know! The shirts were that pirate style with puffy sleeves, pleats, and sometimes ruffles!! I know, I know!! Then there were the matching shoes, complete with details like buckles or a coin on the top! Silk and rayon really were my best friends!! I will say, I still love a good vest no matter what anyone says!

My next phase started when I began working at the Buckle at the age of 6. The Buckle does have the best fitting jeans (we can fit 85% of all body types!). I got rid of the International Male look and morphed into my Buckle look. I have to tell you though that the Buckle has had it's share of interesting looks through the years. In my early Buckle years Tommy Hilfiger was very big including the jeans with the Tommy Tommy Tommy sidetaping down the side of the leg. Then there were the JNCO jeans which ranged from a 30 inch bottom opening to a King Kong 60 inch bottom opening. Those were so big they were too heavy to hang on a hanger!! Those trends passed as they all should and now the trend seems to be glitz, glam, and bling!! All the jeans have very glitzy pocket detail and are definitely fashion pieces.

I would like to end by saluting some classic looks throughout the years (some that were even worn by lots of my favorite people!!) My friend Liza has been known to rock the bolero wrap jacket and sometimes his famous deep V t shirt that is quite a conversation starter. My Buckle manager friend Angela was known to wear a very trendy barrette in her hair!! That is until our crazy Buckle friend Heather Wolf told her they weren't in style anymore!! Rude I know!! My Buckle friend Rex usually rocks a pair of black socks pulled up to his mid-calf with carpenter shorts. In the words of Tim Gunn, "that's a lot of look!" Our dear friend Heather Wolf also rocked an outfit consisting of a black top, black capri pants, a pink bolero wrap, and black chunky shoes! The sad part is she had to ride the bus to work and then wear that outfit to boot!! Her comment was "sometimes you gotta go places where you shouldn't be seen, wearing things you shouldn't be wearing!" Heather!! The Buckle has seen it's share of fashion disasters walk thrtough our doors that we try to rescue. Everything from jeans that are too tight (and I mean tight!), to the jeans that are too loose and sag (boxer shorts included!). We see plenty of 80's hair still alive and well in the Midwest, too much make up, people who need make up, Bosnian girls who look like a Eurotrash version of Madonna, too much cologne!, jeans that are too high on the ankle, jeans that are dragging on the ground, t shirts that are way too tight!, ghetto sweat suits, bad piercings, goth, t shirts with vulgar messages, ponchos, and finally fanny packs. We decided a long time ago at the Buckle that we are not only selling clothes, but we are changing people's lives by selling them a complete new look to replace the tired one they walked in with!!

I love fashion both do's and don'ts. Be true to yourself and be careful out there!!

That's Not My Name!!

As I posted on faceplace earlier, my week started off with the usual bang. I drove to Coralville on Sunday to pick up handchimes as part of my duties on the state handbell committee. I stopped into the Banana Republic store to say hi to one of my oldest and dearest friends, Liza. Liza (Bryant) is also known as Lucille 2 for you Arrested Development fans. That makes me Lucille Bluth!! Anyway, Liza was not working so I asked the manager to just tell him that Aaron, or Sass, stopped by to say hello. Liza called me on Monday to follow up and it went like this. The manager told Liza that a friend had stopped in named Sally??? Sally?? Who's Sally?? Liza said he had no friends named Sally and she insisted that was my name. Liza asked her to describe the mystery person and she said he was short, blonde, and had a real "swish" to his walk. Liza immediately said, "Oh, Sass!" In all my years on this earth I've never been told my walk had a "swish". Whatever Banana Republic manager. I do feel very akin to that hit song by the Ting Ting's "That's Not My Name." They call me Sally, they call me Jane. That's not my name...... You get the picture.

Speaking of names, let me just share some great, classic moments involving my name. One of my favorite words to use at school is fiddlesticks. I use it in place of other words we cannot use at school even though we want to badly. It's a great fill in word!! Anywhoo, a student came to school one day and I was at my other building. He proceeded to ask the band director "Where is Fiddlesticks?? Is Fiddlesticks here??" The band director responded saying she didn't know who that was. He said, that crazy music teacher and all was solved. Fiddlesticks!! I do, however, enjoy my young students who cannot always pronounce full words correctly and call me Mr. Handsome at school! I'll take it wherever I can get it!!

After many years of dedicated service at The Buckle, my name has also been an issue there as well! One of my favorite customers at the store is an older gentleman named Rex. Rex and I go way back as he used to come visit me at Hy-Vee in college and many times bring me "gifts" like a half-eaten candy bar, or a soda that has been refilled!! I know, gross!! Needless to say, I always had to throw his "gifts" away!! Rex has a classic look, usually a t shirt, long denim shorts, black socks pulled up to his mid-calf, and big shoes. Rex also walks with a slight limp so you can spot him a mile away! In all the years I've known Rex, he still calls me Eric, even though in all of my many jobs I've always worn a nametag that clearly says Aaron!! People just don't care!! They're going to do whatever they want to do.. Then there is our Buckle district manager PAT WRIGHT, who didn't know my real name for almost 7 years!! I was hired back as seasonal help (no comments are necessary!) and the manager, Angela told PAT WRIGHT that she had hired Aaron back to the store and he responded who?? Angela proceeded to say my name again, try to describe me, and so on.. No luck, PAT WRIGHT did not know who I was. Angela finally said she was hiring Sass back as seasonal and PAT WRIGHT said "Oh yes, definitely hire Sass back. I don't know about this Aaron person." Ding Dong!! That's my name!! They call me girl.. That's not my name.. I really like that song. By the way, I type PAT WRIGHT's name in all caps because when you call his Buckle voicemail, his name is yelled at a very loud level compared to the rest of the recorded message. You know what I'm talking about. It says, "you have reached the voicemail of PAT WRIGHT!" It's really obnoxious, but it happens.

I have also been mistakenly called Spaz, amongst other things that I will not get into at this point. And then if we want to go way old school, there's always Attitudes. That goes all the way back to my college days. I still hear it now and again and it literally stops me in my tracks!! So, I'm sort of rambling today, but it really is all in the name. Sass.. Kiki.. Attitudes.. Kim.. Paris.. Sorceress.. Lucille.. Steel Princess.. Alexis.. You can see, I answer to many callings.. Tootles!!

Sin Cities, Warren, and Friends

What a week it has been!! I spent Sunday and Monday with the parents in Okoboji. The weather was horrible, but we made the best of things and had a great time, including a rowdy game of miniature golf (my mother can drop some swear words geez)! It is amazing to me the amount of money that is up at Okoboji. The lakefront homes are outrageously oversized and expensive!!! My parents have a place about two blocks off of the lake and it is nice enough, but the lake homes.....out of control I tell ya!! I returned to Cedar Falls on Tuesday and then off to the Sin Cities aka Minneapolis/St. Paul to visit two of my college besties, Stephen Sporer (Blanche) and Todd Slack (Rose). I hope you got those Drop Dead Gorgeous and Golden Girls references!!

Todd, Stephen, and I have been friends for many years dating all the way back to marching band camp at UNI and yes, things really do happen at band camp!! Good times.. Needless to say, when friendships run this deep, everyone knows everything about everyone!! The fourth person in this group is Peter Adamson who lives in New York City. Stephen and I ran up north of the city to visit our friends Brett and David who have recently bought a house in the burbs. The house was beautiful and we had a great visit! Next stop was the Chatterbox in St. Paul to eat and meet Todd and his roomate Lynn. Little did we know it was kareoke night at the Chatterbox. We ordered our drinks and were soon distracted by bad, out of tune, or as they say on American Idol "pitchy" singing. However, in Minnesota people applaud loudly for bad singing, and even cheer! We were soon mesmorized by a certain singer performing Lady Gaga's Bad Romance complete with Gaga-esque choreography. This was the type of person that our group would usually attract into our space FYI. Later in the evening Gaga actually approached our table and introduced himself to me as Warren and we hit it off. While Warren and I were chatting he shared with me his id and I soon discovered that he was a ripe 22 years old. This is always a comical topic in our group of friends as I seem to attract the younger generation (mostly they approach me for the record and does this make me a cougar??!) As Warren and I were chatting, everyone else at the table had what I would call the church giggles. I assumed that the laughter was just because of the age thing, but it got much juicier!! The giggling was actually due to the fact that Stephen had been chatting earlier with Warren on Grinder and neither one of them recognized the other!! Grinder is a phone app that allows you to check in and see who else is close to you in proximity. It also allows you to chat, etc.. What's more interesting is that Stephen didn't realize that Warren was at our table, until Lynn pointed out that the picture on Grinder and the person at our table were indeed one and the same!! I was over the giggling and called everyone out and then the Grinder details came out which left an awkward silence at the table. There were so many classic elements at work during this encounter. The young caller comes over to me. I get all the attention and not my friend (we both like attention!), and the online chitter chatter (which my friend is famous for!) Needless to say, Todd and Lynn were still laughing! Warren and I stepped outside for a bit to break the silence. According to Warren, he was intimidated by our table and wasn't going to approach at all. His plan was to hand me a beverage napkin with his name, number, and note that simply said "text me". I told him if he was bold enough to try that Gaga performance, why on earth would he be scared of our table!!

The Minnesota trip continued with a trip up to Duluth with Stephen and then back to the Cities for one more night out! Oh, and by the way we saw the movie Eat Pray Love with Julia Roberts! Great movie about life and love.. Go see it if you get a chance! Oh, and I also had the chance to run over to the University of St. Thomas and see the Orff share for the teacher training courses. It was so awesome to see my teachers and see what the Orff students created during their two weeks! I finished my Twin Cities time with a night out at Toast wine bar where Todd works and then the Saloon.

Back in Cedar Falls on Saturday and off to a bbq with good friends from Cedar Falls. I've decided that when people ask me what year I graduated from CF (I graduated from Humboldt High School, Go Wildcats!!), I'm just going to say I was the foreign exchange student, maybe from Finland?.. Anyway, the bbq was awesome with lots of food, beverages, and children!! Just what we teachers need right before school starts! I did, however, hold my first baby! I'll be honest, I'm not about babies and certainly don't hold them! I have to say, holding that little Milo was great and he was so wonderful!! Maybe I'll adopt one from Africa like Brad & Angelina or Madonna!? Hmmm?? Food for thought..

I'd like to close with some final thoughts. First of all, I'm irritated that Rachel was voted out of the Big Brother house. As annoying as she was with her hair extensions, bad outfits, and ridiculous laugh; she did bring a great amount of drama to the show. Rachel, you'll be missed. Next, I can't get enough of the Kardashian drama! I so enjoy Kourtney's lazy boyfriend Scott, and then there's Kris, the mom and those sunglasses!! Good thing the new season starts this week! I will also openly admit that I have to watch Jersey Shore. It's so tragic on so many levels, but also so juicy!! Go get em Snooki!! More blogging to come, but until then teacher friends good luck with the start of the school year!! Tootles

The Reunion!!

I will preface this blog by stating that I was out tonight with friends and had two gin and sevens and one liquid cocaine shot. Should make things nice and juicy!!

So the weekend highlight was my class reunion. I always wonder what makes people anxious about their class reunions?? Could it be the people that you never talked to in high school and still don't talk to staring at you across the room? Could it be the physical changes that happen as time goes by i.e. loss of hair, weight gain, sagging? Could it be the judging people that judged you all during high school and continue to judge? Or the judging people from high school who are now janitors at Hardees. Or the really geeky kid who now works for the FBI or NASA or some other organization that has an acronym? Could it be wondering who will show up at all? Could it be seeing who has turned into the biggest trainwreck? Could it be seeing who has the cutest spouse/significant other? So many questions. I admit, I was a little self conscious about going to the reunion myself. I am not the same size that I was in high school and time does change things. I think we all reflect a bit before a class reunion.

When we got to the class reunion (we meaning my high school bestie Lisa and her husband Steve) we were pleasantly greeted by two alums, Stacy Heim Kraft and Annee Hood. Both ladies are bubbly and fun (just like in hs) and were great greeters! We walked in with another alum, Robin Perry who now has striking blonde hair (physical change), but also looked great! We immediately started chatting with various classmates and catching up with their lives. It was really great to see classmates mingling all night, and never seeing high school cliques!! What a new idea!! I think I was able to talk to almost every one of my classmates and I truly enjoyed that! It was a great reunion!

So let's start the breakdown. It was clear from the get go that my dear friends Melissa and Tammy had started drinking before the rest of us and were clearly lit by the start of the reunion. I would not judge as I've been that person a million times over believe me!! They were great fun and we all did a shot in honor of our classmate Moose and even took a picture as she requested exactly who was to do the shots. Miss ya Moose!! Other absent classmates included Andy Lenning (in Okoboji), Kent Clendenen (in Humboldt), Trista Kleve (in Florida), and many others. All in all we had a great turn out! So who was the trainwreck?? That title goes to my friend Erik Falck. Erik had clearly had enough and was having fun come hell or highwater! This included lots of fabulous comments and lots of grabbing asses. There's gotta be one right?? At least there was no throwing up or passing out, slapping or punching (like the 5 year) which is more than I can say for Friday night when a crew went out to the Knotty Pine (non-Humboldt folks you heard me right, the Knotty Pine)!! Erik had two unforgettable moments for me during the evening. During the class picture he kept reaching across me to grab onto Paula Eackoff and I scolded him and placed his hands on his lap and later he was trying to grab the ass of DeDee Merris and I scolded him then as well.

I brought all three of my high school yearbooks to peruse throughout the evening. It was great to see lots of very ratted out hair, sweaters, and very interesting senior picture backgrounds. Remember, the tall wicker chair, the directors chair, the laser lights, the always classic outdoors shot, and various other back drops which is what they were. And don't forget shoulder pads!! Thank God we have all evolved and I have no real fashion blunders to report!! I was actually amazed at how wonderful everyone really looked!! There were plenty of glitzy jeans, fashion tops, cleavage, and wedge shoes to go on forever, but the favorites of the night: Traci Torkelson's pink shoes, Lisa David's gold sequins purse, Annee Hood's black skirt, and Amy Peterson's semi-glitzy top. Cute! Cute! Cute!

So after hours of talking, drinking, eating, and gossiping, we were ready to have a nightcap including the famous Pasquales pizza made to order at the famous Knotty Pine! We soon found out from a classmate that there was no one at the Pine and they decided to close down for the night!! On a Saturday! Only in a small town! So the pizza idea was shot, what do we do?? Traci Torkelson suggests we visit the new bar/dance club (which is still hard to believe in Humboldt) called The Prowler! I had no longer heard the name and knew we had to go! The "club" had a semi-dance floor and very little space. As we walked in they had Kareoke. As I went to get a songbook, the bartender informed me that too many people were here now so both workers had to be behind the bar and the Kareoke was shut down. Fine, we'll dance!! The dance floor was priceless! As we started dancing, the bubble and light machines started up! They were actually fantastic! We had proceeded to have a dance-off with another class reunion group.. The evening ended with the sound of an air horn (not kidding!). That means last call. We kept talking of course, and again the air horn. We continued chatting and the air horn happened a third time! At this point, Lisa's husband has had it and says we will leave before that ******* horn sounds again. We leave.

I just want to say to my classmates that I had the best time seeing everyone and catching up! I feel that our class is very special and everyone is a valuable part of the entire picture! Can't wait until the next reunion! Thanks for the memories! Read the blog!

Like Sands Through the Hourglass

So I am currently at home watching a little Days of Our Lives because it is so HOT outside, and in classic Days fashion Hope is trying to murder Bo with a big knife!! She is behaving like a raving lunatic as a side effect of her "sleeping pills". Is that the usual side effect when taking sleeping pills??? I've never taken those so I don't know, but it is not one of the side effects they share on the commercials! Why can't she do what everyone does on the soaps and just become an addict and hide the pills in a piano bench like Nikki did on The Young and The Restless!! Oh wait, Nikki's addiction was both pain killers and vodka!! Whatever! This shouldn't surprise me in the least as Days has played out such famous plotlines as Marlena possessed by the devil, Carly buried alive by Vivian ("paradise to hell, paradise to hell!!"), Hope is blown away over a vat of acid only to return years later at Maison Blanche as "Gina", Marlena becomes a serial killer and kills various cast members only they aren't really dead, but on a remote island I suppose owned by Stefano. Speaking of, Stefano has come back from the dead too many times to count!! Well anyway, the soaps certainly are entertaining.

Since summertime is winding down and school is on the horizon, my friend Aaron "Power Ranger" and I walked downtown last night for summertime cocktails. In case you are wondering, he is called "Power Ranger" because he used to wear a Power Ranger suit to school which I am still trying to picture. Anywhoo, as we walked down Main Street, some runners blew past us in those disgusting onion skin shorts. I assume those shorts are like good for runners for some reason, but seriously they are gross. Any shorts or pants that can breeze open to expose things are not a good thing. It reminds me of watching my Level III movement teacher demonstrate a catlike motion while rolling on the ground. She was wearing pants that were like those onion skin shorts and the pants opened as she rolled. It was a near peesh sighting!!

As we enjoyed our cocktails, I spotted some of my former students also out for the evening. This is becoming a more frequent event as I get older and so do they. However, as I thought about it I decided that just because they are old enough to go out around town doesn't mean I have to stay home.. Teachers don't have to be boring folks with no fashion sense to boot!! We can be fun and hip as well as educated people. The point is, it was very nice to chat with my students and know that they are doing well.

Time to close as Bo has now handcuffed Hope to a chair and is figuring out the pills are the cause of her erratic behavior. Genius!! Oh, and the fact that she has mugged bunches of men in Salem also because of the pills!! Where can we get these pills!!?? Tootles!