Family Resemblances: My Mom, My Friend

She is bundled up in one of her many robes;  this particular one is a bizarre but very thick and soft material and an even stranger color that is a cross between a brown and a tan with a pinkish hue.  She has on her pajamas underneath her comfortably tattered and worn housecoat and I shall let you, my audience, know that the time is a very early 8:00 pm, but that is just the way my mom rolls.  Sitting in the other swively desk chair next to me, her feet, like mine, just a few millimeters from the light-colored hardwood floor, she is perusing the pics on Facebook that we had taken on her birthday and on Christmas Eve.

Her smile, so much like my own, is on constant display as we chit chat while looking at the family snapshots of our recent get-togethers;  her rosy cheeks, jutting out above her gaily exposed teeth, are the same ones that adorn my face whenever I flash my own grin and her dark blue eyes are crinkled at the corners in the same manner mine do. Reminiscing and laughing over these pictures of the times we have just spent together getting all tangled up by playing Twister both at my house and hers and sharing some wonderful food either prepared by my less-than-skilled-chef hands or by her more-than-capable-after-years-of-practice hands, I am reminded of how easy it is to talk to her.  Our Frenglish banter and chatter has always been rather easy to commence when we are together, despite the fact that we sometimes go a few days without having spoken to one another, her life being just as charged and full as mine. 


I, however, have not always been completely truthful when speaking with my mom, especially when I was younger and a little more brazen, but I would more often than not end up confessing my misdemeanors to her or asking for her advice in matters of love and life in general.  Who will really blame me though for my memory slips or omissions, she IS, after all, my mother, and she might not have always agreed with what her apparently innocent daughter had done or experienced. 

On the other other hand, she has always been willing to listen, at times offering unwelcome and unwanted advice or, and this happens much more often, merely proffering an unbiased ear and wide open arms for me to sink into in the most amazing of "calins" given in the world.  Her loving and soothing murmurs of "abeille" and "cherie" when interjecting or showing me that she is following what I am expressing, or her sentences that begin with "sweet" in a rising tone when she is questioning what I am saying or when she is giving me a suggestion of some sort, whether wanted or not, are often sought out; her little affectionate nicknames for me melting into our discussions while I alernately call her "ma" in my Quebecois accent when I am questioning her supposedly sound advice by saying, "Oui, mais ma...",  my "mom" in a softer falling tone when I am trying to convince her about something or, "mother" in a much sterner voice when I absolutely do not agree with what she has said.

In these new adventures of mine, she is my indispensable yet not omnipresent sidekick who is a part of my arsenal against the snares and traps set out and ready to spring whenever I make a wrong move.  I know that I will always be able to count on her comforting hand on my calf as we sit curled up on her brown leather sofa while we discuss whatever situation I have foolishly and wholeheartedly thrown myself into.

A Few Snapshots of Great Moments with Friends

Here are some snapshots taken from the moments I have spent with a few of my girls.

6pm, December 27th, 2010
After a rather long shopping session with Manisha and Steph in order to find our jaw-dropping New Years Eve party dresses, we end up at Tokyo Sushi where we, ok, let me clarify and say Steph and I, stuff our faces with amazing sushi and sashimi.  Our, meaning Steph and I, MMMMs of appreciation ping-ponging between the two of us and punctuated by Manishas chatter and giggles.
We participate in some juicy girl talk, chatting about the men that are both in and out of our respective lives and those that we would like to have in our lives.  Steph and I being the foodies that we are, we have ordered WAY too much sushi and we have to force ourselves to finish what is left.  Even Manisha must sacrifice herself in order to help us finish the last few pieces despite the fact that she has been full for a little while.
Once our plates are empty, I look at Steph because we have both been here before and I phrase my question as a declarative sentence, "You want the green tea and red bean ice creams."
She looks at me, a twinkle in her eye yet her stomach as full to the brim as mine, while Manisha responds with an "OOOOO" of appreciation.
Suddenly our bellies are not as full anymore and we discover to our great pleasure that there is in fact ALWAYS room for ice cream!

5:30am, January 1st, 2011
Steph and I are sharing my immense king-size bed for the few hours of sleep that are remaining to us after this crazy evening.  We are talking about and giggling over our fabulous evening while Manisha is not too far away seeing as I have set her up to sleep on my rather comfy couch.
Steph and I are trying not to talk too loudly as we think Manisha has already fallen asleep, but it is hard to stifle our laughter when us two crazy chicks are together!  After I have recounted a particular detail about a beer having been spilled all over my face and head and how the offensively clumsy man had offered me his shirt to clean myself off with, there is short silence between my bed partner and I.
Manisha's disembodied yet adorable laugh breaks the silence and it is so unexpected, loud and genuine that Steph and I cannot help but fall into fits of laughter ourselves.  She had been listening to us the whole time!
The three of us giggle and laugh until we finally fall asleep with lingering smiles on all of our faces.

3:00pm, January 1st, 2011
Steph and I are on our way to meet Row, Abdy and Serge at a chalet near the Eastern Townships - we are both giddy from lack of sleep and leftover excitement from the night before.  I watch the scenery flying by while we keep a constant stream of idle chit chat going.  To my right, fog obscures most of the scenery and hugs the small clusters of trees that interrupt the otherwise flatness of the fields;  the mountains that I know to be lurking in the distance are imperceptible while only a few farms are brave enough to step out from behind the foggy veil that hides them from the intrusive view of passers-by.
Rihanna's album Good Girl Gone Bad, a fitting and suitable title for the subject of our ensuing conversations, is playing at a moderate level while our loud voices can probably be heard in the silent farms that we keep driving past.  We sing, we laugh and we joke while sharing intimate bits of information that can only be transmitted between two people during a long car ride.

10:00pm, January 1st, 2011 
Abdy, Serge, Steph and I are all twisted up on the floor together, our hands and feet desperately trying to remain in the positions that we have placed them in.  Row is sitting on the futon a little further away from us and she is calling out the colours and body parts to be placed here, there and anywhere.
She is having a blast watching us getting all tangled into pretzel like shapes: one leg over someone else's, a butt in another's face and a hand perhaps awkwardly placed between yet another's arms...  Her wholehearted laughter pierces through our series of grunts, mumbles and groans as we have to place our hand where again?
She grins like a mischievous child whenever we grumble in a particularly loud manner over any move she has called out with her refined English accent.

4:00pm, January 2nd, 2011 
We are on the very thin red magic carpet Steph has brought for the occasion.  The surface of the little hill that we have had difficulty climbing is icy and extremely bumpy and patches of grass are actually poking out more than they should be on this January day... not too promising for our tobogganing session, but Hell, we came all of this way, so we are going to slide down somewhere.
My sliding attire consists of my rather formal wool jacket, my high-heeled boots, yes, you have read correctly, my tight dark blue jeans and my hoop earrings - did I mention that I had not prepared well for this outing?
Steph and I are determined to go down this tiny hill together at least once and so she has sat behind me on this crazy carpet of hers.  I have bunched up my legs so that I am in a scrunched up bonhomme position and I am holding the handles.  We have a little bit of difficulty taking off because there is practically no snow!
The little snow that there is ends up traveling up my jacket and down the back of my pants while the bumps in the snow bruise my unprotected bottom.
We do not get very far down the hill before we both collapse on either side of the plastic carpet we have gone down on.  We had started laughing at the top of the small hill and by the time we have reached halfway down, we are both racked by giggles.
My sides are hurting, my abs are engaged and crying in pain and my eyes have filled with tears - I cannot even breath because I am laughing so hard.  I stay stretched out on the cold icy ground while my laughing has me gasping for breaths.
Finally, we are both a little calmer, but still smiling, and so we go and join our companion who had left us for a short while to warm up his frozen hands - our tobogganing day has been cut short, but we did everything that we had originally set out to do during this YAY-2010-IS-OVER-LET'S-WELCOME-2011 weekend. :) 

Size DOES Matter

Ladies and other ladies, I am so elated by my recent discovery.  Now, before you think that my head has become as inflated as a hot air balloon, let me start by saying that it has taken a lot for me to get to the point where I can say that I am looking pretty good these days.  Before, if someone would tell me that I was looking good, I would say something like, "Thank you, but I am bloated today," or, "Thank you, but my hair is behaving particularly well today," and other sorts of responses;  now, however, my response to someone telling me I look good is a very simple "Thank you" followed by a smile.  Everyone of you ladies reading this should try to do the same - just try it once and forget about looking vain or conceited.  Hey, if someone is acknowledging your hotness, why not enjoy it for a second?  We are so hard on ourselves every other minute of our lives... so take that moment and bask in it.

So, onwards with this discovery of mine... are you ready?  I, Marie-Eve Therrien, am a SIZE NINE at Stitches... and a MEDIUM dress size at Le Chateau... is that not completely wonderful, fabulous and fantastic???  Let me qualify the above statement by saying that at around this time LAST year, I could not even dream of fitting my baby toe in a size nine pair of jeans from Stitches and just this summer, for my grad, I was wearing an XL Le Chateau dress... man I have come a long way.

And do you know what feels even better than revealing my now smaller size?  Going through my closet and getting rid of all my FAT jeans... you know which ones I am talking about ladies, those jeans that you bought when you put on those extra pounds on top of those extra pounds on top of those extra pounds you had planned on losing... yeah, those.  Well, I had bought a whole slew of those jeans and also an armload of work pants... and now, more than half of my pants do not fit anymore because they are all too BIG for me...WOW.

Well now, how did I find out that I was a smaller size?  Because, up until a few days ago, I still believed that I was a size 11/12... I basically found out because a lovely salesgirl at Stitches named She-ra, of all names,  convinced me to adopt four pairs of size nine jeans.  I had stepped into that store, first of all, on BOXING DAY - yes, I know, I was crazy - and so I could not even try on any of the jeans I had picked out because that is their Boxing Day policy.  Consequently, I was taking the four pairs of jeans I wanted in what I thought was my size, especially considering the clientele Stitches caters to, but She-ra took one look at me when I asked her for a particular model and pronounced in all her jeanly wisdom, "Girl, you ain't a size 12 - take a 9 and come back if not, but you are SO small that there's no way you're a 12."

Despite my hesitation due to the fact that Stitches clothing is mostly created for girls who fit into size twos, I followed She-ra's advice and paid for four pairs of size nine jeans.  I took them home to decide their fates... and all four pairs fit me.  I even received a compliment from my 15 year old brother, which is hard to come by nowadays, that I was "Tres sexy p'tit soeur."

There is also nothing better to boost a woman's morale than trying on a bunch of sexy dresses at Le Chateau, no matter what size you are.  These wonderful dresses, for the most part, have always flattered my womanly curves so well, the material knowing exactly where to be tight and where to forgive just a little.

This week, I had a date with my two girls so that we could find jaw-dropping dresses for our fabulous evening out, but I was trying on a bunch of them myself while I was waiting for them to meet me.    I had taken all of the dresses I wanted to try on in size L, intuitively knowing that I am no longer an XL, but not picking up the M just because I did not have the audacity to do so.

Once I was in the dressing room, the pretty dresses were not fitting me as well as usual - in fact, they were floating on my now smaller frame.  I came out of the dressing and asked the cute salesman's advice since my ladies were not there yet;  he informed me, after having subtly looked me up and down, that I definitely needed a smaller size and he proceeded to go and get all of the dresses I had chosen in smaller sizes.  I went back into the cabin, performed a short happy hoppy dance and then immediately called my mom to tell her that I had gone down two dress sizes.  I then quickly tried on all of the dresses with shoes and a cute clutch provided by my very helpful half Italian, half Spanish salesclerk;  we managed to narrow my choices down to five spectacular dresses that I wish I could have just purchased without having to decide on just one.

The first one was a very tight, off one shoulder dress in a metallic gray that hugged me in all the right places, but it did not have the WOW factor I was looking for;  a short,simple and strapless black number with a few pleats in strategic places and a well-placed triangular slit to expose the girls just suggestively enough to not be slutty was my second trial, but because black does not really bring out my complexion or assets in a any particular way, both Deeter, the salesclerk and I being at that moment on a first name basis, and I discarded it; a skin-tight, sleeveless and wrinkly burgundy with black undertones dress with a boat neck was tried on after and was kept just because it was a very good color for me.

My two favorites were, of course, the dark blue and turquoise ones I had picked out before all of the others.  The turquoise one was absolutely stunning because of its bright rich color and its plunging v-neck and rouching all the way from my bust to my knees.  The other dress was made out of a lavish silky material that was cool and slippery next to my skin and it was gorgeous because of its beaded and bejeweled band that embraced the smallest part of me right underneath my breasts;  the forgiving rouching disguised any unforgivable bumps that all of us ladies like to hide around our middles and the deep v-neckline was again placing my girls in a very advantageous light.  I would have bought both dresses, but, I could only bring one home with me.
Finally, my two girls arrived on the scene and helped me pick between the two dresses: the navy one was decided upon so that my personality could shine forth instead of the color of the dress I would be wearing.
And just on a side note, it is an amazing feeling when your girlfriends tell you to get a more somber dress so that your fabulous self can be the focus of attention rather than the dress!  What fabulous friends I have!
So, ladies, trust me, on a day when you are feeling a little less than your usual sexy hot self, go to Le Chateau and try on a bunch of their beautiful dresses!!!