Top: Macy's
Skirt: Modcloth
Shoes: Cape Robin, Ami Clubwear
Bag: Xhilaration, Target
Belt: Belt is Cool, Amazon
Purse charm: Staples
Red bangle: XOXO, ROSS
Orange bangle: Mixit, JCPenney
Yellow bangle: Silver Linings
Green bangle: B Fabulous
Turquoise bracelet: Cloud Nine
Purple bracelet: Etsy
Shooting Star Earrings
Blouse: Candie's, Kohl's
Top: Candie's, Kohl's
Shoes: Betsey Johnson, DSW
Bag: Luv Betsey, Boscov's
Orange belt: Marshalls
Chartreuse belt: Izod, Marshalls
Top: Vylette, Kohl's
Skirt (a dress!): Ruby Rox, JCPenney
Shoes: Worthington, JCPenney
Bag: Dancing Days by Banned, Modcloth
Belt: Belt is Cool, Amazon
Turquoise bracelet: Cloud Nine
Royal blue bracelet: So, Kohl's
Frosted blue bracelet: Burlington Coat Factory
I just finished reading JELL-O Girls, by Allie Rowbottom, and it was not at all what I expected.
JELL-O Girls is partly a history of the product, partly a biography of Rowbottom's mother, Mary. Mary was the heiress to the JELL-O fortune, a distinction that ruined her life. Not because she went around spending all the money and ending up bankrupt like MC Hammer. But because, for her, JELL-O and its slimy, far-reaching tentacles equaled the evils of patriarchy. (Damn you, books -- destroying everything that we love.) Apparently, the JELL-O corporation (like all domestic enterprises) was run by men to profit from keeping women in the kitchen. Rowbottom explores JELL-O's beginnings, starting with how her ancestor swindled the formula from its inventor at the end of the 1800s, then following its wiggly way through the twentieth century, from its multi-tiered reign in the 1950s to its sad slump into the current Wholefoods gilded age. (To be fair, although most people now think of Jell-O as retro at best, tacky at worst, it wasn't always that way. Back in the days of kings and queens, the dessert was considered a delicacy. Kind of like white bread. Which is also now pantry persona non grata.) According to Rowbottom, not only is the stuff not nutritious, it's a symbol of women's oppression, and of the way they were forced to conform to the mold of the American housewife. Who knew that something so sweet could be so deadly? The horses, that's who. JELL-O being made from -- among other things -- hooves.
Speaking of which (oppression, not hooves), back to Mary. Mary is deeply troubled. She loses her mother as a girl and spends her twenties in rehab. She's violated by various men in her life and has her heart broken, and then, when it finally seems like she's found peace, she gets sick and never really recovers. Curiously, she attributes this misfortune to the family curse. Her cousin (not a good dude) once told her that the curse affects only the men. But as the years unveil one dark chapter after another, Mary begins to see that he was wrong and that it's the women who suffer. Rowbottom draws parallels between Mary and the women who endured the Salem witch trials. She also notes similarities between her mom and the girls of LeRoy. LeRoy, New York is Mary's and JELL-O's hometown, and around 2010, many of the girls who lived there began to report unusual body tics. It's a mystery that not even science can solve. Rather, the source of the girls' "hysteria" is the trauma of being female. Of having to prove themselves day after day, of having to show that they're more than less than.
It's heavy stuff, an irony that Rowbottom is quick to point out in contrast to JELL-O's light, near-weightlessness. It's also a little like this year's "Simpsons" Thanksgiving episode in which an amorphous cranberry sauce monster hunts children to satisfy its blood lust for bones. Because it's, you know, made of them (see the above reference to hooves). I found this disturbing, especially because I look forward to Turkey Day as a time to eat gobs of the sugary stuff shaped just like its ridged, cylindrical can. No wonder that my parents once blacklisted Bart.
Cranberry sauce monster or not, Rowbottom tells Mary's story with sensitivity, courage, and love. Her writing is beautiful and serves as a tribute to her unbreakable bond with her mother. It must have been very difficult -- yet cathartic -- for her to write it.
But enough gloom and doom. Bring on the crafts.
Never one to judge my self worth from something I took from the oven (or, in this case, fridge), I made this Fabulous Felt Gelatin Bowl Barrette instead of something edible. Although, if you're a goat, then that might not be true.
So, am I going to stop eating JELL-O because it's a tool of The Man? No, sirree -- I mean, ma'am. If its alleged carcinogenic properties haven't scared me off, then a little misguided testosterone doesn't stand a chance. Because JELL-O, like everything else in this world, is what you make it. One person's sadness can be another's salvation. Or at the very least, another's sorry-not-sorry guilty pleasure snack.
No bones about it -- JELL-O is my jam.