Giving a cold shoulder to the latest fad

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Spring catalogs are being crammed into my mailbox lately. I opened the most recent one, and saw page upon page of blouses and dresses with cut-out shoulders.

I thought, dang! For just a couple dollars more they could have bought enough fabric to make the whole top!

Apparently this is the latest trend, and it’s called the “cold shoulder.” The cold shoulder usually starts at the neckline, skips the shoulder area, and picks up again at mid-arm ending in a short or long sleeve. One can even buy sweaters made in this fashion, but I can’t imagine them being very warm. One would probably have to wear a T-shirt under it.

Like most fads, this is one embraced by younger women. According to an article in the Daily Mail online, the fashion statement being made is to expose a little skin. Be a little flirty. Give the cleavage a rest and focus on the shoulders – most women don’t mind showing a little shoulder. And f you’re over 40 and have a little flab on the underside of the arm, no one will know. 

But if a woman is lavishly endowed and over 40, there’s the issue of how to hide the bra strap. It would seem to me though that you might see this problem only on women at Walmart, where the cold shoulder would blend in with so many other fashion mistakes.

Some over-40 women like the cold shoulder. All women want to look their best, and the cold shoulder kicks it up a notch without being ridiculous. Fashion writer Sarah Rutson said, “The shoulder is the only part of a woman’s body that doesn’t age. Shoulders don’t make us feel fat or get bloated after a pasta dinner.”

Some people who like to speculate think the current trend is a throwback to the off-the-shoulder look of Brigette Bardot, updated a little. Others point out that when Hillary Clinton was First Lady, she was photographed in a formal, black cold-shoulder dress. It has been around a while, but only recently has it been so aggressively marketed.

Fashion experts advise not wearing a big statement necklace with the cold shoulder. “The glimpse of the shoulder is the focus,” they say.

I wonder if it would be appropriate to wear a cold shoulder T-shirt with my comfortable baggy sweatpants.

Making a good spoken impression

Recently a staff member of one a federal office holder called to find out if I’d received a news release the office had sent out. The conversation went something like this:

“I’m calling to find out if you guys got the news release we sent you.”

We did.

“Awesome.”

After hanging up, I suddenly had a vision of my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Curnutt. A formidable woman, at least to a 7-year old, Mrs. Curnutt was determined that her class would learn to be civilized, if not well-versed in arithmetic and language rules.

If she were alive today, I’m pretty certain Mrs. Curnutt would have sent to the cloakroom any student of hers who said “you guys” and “awesome.” When she was holding forth in her classroom, she waged war on kids who said “huh?”

“What do you mean, ‘huh’?” she would say. “There’s no such word as huh. Pull a pig’s tail and it says uh-huh.”

She once asked if anyone in the class knew how to spell that word she insisted didn’t exist. By age 7, I’d begun to devour such comic books as Little Iodine and Nancy and Sluggo, and I’d seen the word used in those books. But I also knew it was safer to pull that pig’s tail than it would be to tell Mrs. Curnutt I could spell the word.

As her students advanced out of her classroom, other teachers in higher grades also tackled the use of ain’t. We retaliated with “we ain’t supposed to say ain’t.”

The teachers reinforced their grammar drillings with the notion that anyone who spoke those words would always come across in public as uneducated, foolish. We’d never amount to much in life if we used those words.

I imagine that besides being a party faithful, or the offspring of one, it takes a certain amount of smarts to get a job in a government official’s office in Washington, D.C.  I imagined the young lady on the other end of the phone as a gum-snapping Millennial in yoga pants whose phone is smarter than she is. But maybe Mrs. Curnutt was wrong. Maybe how one speaks doesn’t make one appear less than awesome.

So, what do you guys think, huh?

Don’t mess with the time!

People in Alaska and Hawaii don’t do it, and people in Montana and Texas are thinking about not doing it. I don’t want to do it.

Do what? Set the clocks ahead an hour on Sunday. Daylight Saving Time is just flat out dumb!

Someone once said a Native American considered moving the clocks up an hour in the summer — when days get longer on their own without any help — is kind of like cutting off one end of a blanket, and then sewing the cut part back on the other end of the blanket to make it longer.

According to the International Business Times, we kick the clocks up an hour because: “In addition to the benefits of energy savings, fewer traffic fatalities, more recreation time and increased economic activity, Daylight Saving Time helps clear away the winter blues a little earlier,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement in 2014. “Government analysis has proven that extra sunshine provides more than just smiles. . . . We all just feel sunnier after we set the clocks ahead.”

That’s ridiculous! I get downright mean after losing an hour’s sleep. And how much did that government analysis cost? I don’t feel sunnier after setting the clocks ahead, and I certainly don’t feel sunnier knowing the government spent money studying the effects of depriving me of an hour’s rest.

Texans want to do away with Daylight Saving Time because, from NEXSTAR Media Group: “There’s really no good reason why we should spring our clocks forward an hour,” State Rep. Jason Isaac, R-Dripping Springs said. “It doesn’t change the amount of daylight, it doesn’t change the amount of daytime….”

Studies have found daylight saving time can lead to workplace accidents, suicide and headaches, likely due to disruption in workers’ sleep cycles.

“For a lot of people, that one week when they lose that extra hour of sleep causes some physical issues,” State Sen. Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio, said. “Obviously we have all heard of the people getting late to work, getting late to school, but I think it also adds stress unnecessarily.”

It’s spring. The sun is at its strongest and the days get longer anyway. Cows don’t care about daylight saving time; they know when it’s time to be milked and don’t care what number you give it. Pets and farm animals want to be fed at the same time of day – when they’re hungry and are accustomed to being fed.

According to USA Today, For people who eat meals at a certain time, Daylight Saving Time can throw things out of whack. If you're used to eating lunch at noon for a few days your stomach will think, "What? It's only 11."

Think about parents of toddlers trying to put their children to bed while sun streams through their windows. Besides, there's something a little creepy about the fact the sun doesn't set until after 9 p.m. on the western edge of the Eastern Time zone. We're not the Arctic Circle.

Studies suggest any energy or cost savings are minimal at best. Yes, people wind up using less electricity in the evenings but that's offset by heavier usage in the early mornings – the blanket analogy kicks in here.

Like everyone else I’ll spend part of Sunday resetting the clocks at home and the one in my car, and I’ll drag out all my watches and reset them. I’ll go along with it because there’s no choice.

But I ain’t gonna feel sunnier about it.