The Passe Posse

I was thoroughly amused and amazed by the all the guest book responses to the Toilet Paper Stand Off. You guys have made me feel so much better as you have reminded me that I'm not the only person living with children who have "selective vision."

By the way, I keep on forgetting to mention that if you would like to advertise on this new site (your blog, your business, or your newest book about "How To Get Children To Pick Up Toilet Paper Rolls," etc.) please e-mail me at beckysmith62@aol.com. (Or else have your people call my people. )

Okay, moving on today's random topic: sunglasses.

I'm sure most of you have noticed that the latest trend in sunglasses (for women at least) seems to be the over sized lens look. I first noticed this when I looked at the pictures that Nathan took in Jerusalem earlier in the year; all of his female college classmates were saucily sporting The Latest Look.

As I continued to peruse the pictures of the impeccably turned out Collegiate Women, I felt a small tremor of discontentment. I thought, "Oh no. The sunglasses that I currently possess are much smaller. They are non-stylish. They are out-of-style, outdated, and outmoded.

What is a girl to do when her sunglasses have become old hat? Can she continue to hold her head high when going out to Wal-Mart or does she have to hang her head low, ashamed of her absurd archaic appearance?

Well, those are the questions. And you can find how I answered those questions in these pictures taken at last week's Blue Angels Air Show.

Sarah and I have decided that we are going to be on the cutting edge of non-stylishness.

We are going to wear our small rimmed spectacles with pride.

We are going to be the Passe Posse!

And just in case you would like to see us striking some other poses with our non-fashionable eyewear, here's a picture of Sarah. (The guy in the picture behind her is sporting some overly over sized glasses. I think he may need some fashion lessons.)

In this picture, I just wanted to stand next to something that would make me look and feel petite and this airplane certainly did the trick!

To be quite honest with you, I DID have one moment of temptation last week when I saw some newfangled sunglasses on display. The shiny lenses beckoned to me with their lovely largess and cooed, "Come and buy me! Then you too, can be one of the cool people!"

I stood for a moment and listened to their seductive siren song. And then I looked into my (empty) wallet and quite amazingly, that ol' siren sung just faded off into the distance. Isn't it incredible what empty wallets do to temptation? I figured I didn't really need those new glasses after all!

As I've been thinking about this subject over the last couple of days, I was reminded of an incident about ten years ago when I was going to visit a friend who was very lovely and self confident. Before the visit, I started putting all this ridiculous pressure on myself that I needed to get all my fashion ducks in a row before seeing her and that included purchasing some new and impressive sunglasses.

The first day of our visit, she and I got in the car to go somewhere. I reached into my purse and smoothly donned my glamorous glasses, so happy that I was going to be able to keep up with my sophisticated colleague.

She saw me with my glasses and said, "Oh yes. I need to put on my sunglasses, too."

To my great surprise, she reached into her purse and proceeded to don a pair of incredibly tacky glasses saying, "I got these at the zoo last week for a dollar."

Suddenly my glasses seemed just a bit overdone. Over cool. Over eager.

It was such a small thing, but that moment has stuck with me for years. My friend was perfectly comfortable in her own skin, perfectly comfortable with who she was, not at all reliant on the latest fashion gizmo's and gadgets to make her anything else. She just was.

And so Sarah and I just are. We're two gals who don't have the money for the latest fashion colors and styles and shapes. But we can do some rip roarin' shopping at Goodwill and come out of there wearing smiles, happiness and unfashionable sunglasses.

And you know what?

That's okay.