Sweatshirt Alert: JCP on TV

Last Wednesday, I was watching American Housewife when Taylor (Meg Donnelly) entered the Otto kitchen wearing a retro gray, purple, and turquoise color block Arizona Jeans sweatshirt from JCPenney.  "Hey, that's my shirt!" I exclaimed.  The husband looked up from his phone dubiously.  "If you don't believe me, I'll show you!" I sputtered with all the righteous indignation of a third-grader in the '90s whose Yo! MTV Raps trading card collection is being called into question.  ("You don't have LL Cool J and Dr. Dre!"  "Do too!")  Then I raced upstairs to grab the sweatshirt.  When I returned, the husband nodded, then restarted the show, paused it, and took this pic without me even having to ask.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  The husband is a prince among men.

This isn't the first time I've seen one of my garments on the small screen.  The Middle's Sue Heck had a pair of my Target pajamas, and The Goldbergs' Erica wore my L'Amour by Nannette Lepore crop top, also from JCPenney.  I guess ABC likes JCP, that mecca for middle class shoppers, even when it's on life support.  Later during the Housewife episode, Greg (Diedrich Bader) took the thread a step further when chiding wife Katie (Katy Mixon) about one of her stunts:

"I had to take all those tops back to JCPenney and explain why there were no tags and why they smelled like deodorant."

It wasn't so long ago that Mixon was doing JCP commercials with Splitting Up Together's Jenna Fischer, then after that show got cancelled, Single Parents' Leighton Meester.  Then Parents was canned too.  Will Housewife, which has bounced around timeslots for years and was, this season, forced to recast spooky and snarky youngest child Anna-Kat (easily my favorite Otto), fare better than these sacked sitcoms and their preferred yet doomed department store?

Only time and ratings will tell.  In the meantime, I'm going to wear this sweatshirt like it's 1990-something.  And reminisce about my troll collection.

Because I never owned a single Yo! MTV Raps card.  That was the neighborhood kids and my sister.

Bittersweet Treat: One Last Helping of Hecks

 Fabulous Felt Strawberry Banana Custard Barrette

Fabulous Felt Ice Cream Sundae Barrette 

 Fabulous Felt Orange Vanilla Custard Barrette

Sweater: LC Lauren Conrad, Kohl's
Shorts: Merona, Target
Bag: Modcloth
Shoes: Delicious, Zulily
Sunglasses: Michaels

"We all love ice cream.  That doesn't mean we have to wear it."  So said Sue's bestie Brad to her on "The Middle" when Sue was trying to dress more grown-up to impress Sean Donahue of the perfect-Donahue-next-door-neighbors fame.  "But I like wearing things that are a little different," Sue protested.

Me too, Sue.  Me too.

The series finale of "The Middle" aired this past Tuesday.  So, in honor of it and Sue and all things quirky and different, I made these ice cream barrettes.  The sundae one is very similar to a barrette I made years ago (see below), only better.  I guess I learned something in my nine years of working with felt.  Just like I learned something watching nine seasons of "The Middle."

What can I say about this show that I haven't already said?  That it's about a lower middle class family trying to get by in middle America?  That it never got the attention it deserved because it's about ordinary, salt-of-the-earth Midwesterners instead of shiny Californians or jaded New Yorkers?  That it's as hilarious as it is heartwarming?  All of these things are true, but none of them capture the essence of this show or how much it means to me.

So the best I can say is that it ended the way it was supposed to.

Warning: There are spoilers ahead.  Not unlike all-star appetite spoiler ice cream.

Every character's story wraps happily, although not easily, which is fitting for the hard luck Hecks.  The focus of the hour-long episode is Axl's (Charlie McDermott) move to Denver to start a new job.  Frankie (Patricia Heaton) is beside herself about losing her oldest child (we know it's serious when she breaks into her nightstand cookies) but hides behind forced cheerfulness.  And she almost makes it, even on the long family road trip to deliver Axl to the Mile High City.  But then the kids start bickering about being without their cell phones (Frankie told them to power down when she found out that they'd blown through their data plan), and Axl says that they can take him off the family plan because his new job comes with a phone.  And Frankie snaps.  She makes Mike (Neil Flynn) stop the car, they all get out, and she goes on a rant about phones and family plans and how the plans keep the families together.  Then she says that it's the end of an era and that nothing will ever be the same, all against the backdrop of Indiana's wide, open spaces and, of course, that old road less traveled.  And  Mike hugs her and says, in his simple, wise way, that that's the way it's supposed to be.

Another show might have had Axl change his mind and stay in Orson.  (I'm talking to you, "Full House," using Michelle to guilt Uncle Jesse and Aunt Becky into abandoning their newlywed move to hole up, refuge style, in the Tanner family attic).  And another, entirely different kind of show, might have had him never return to Orson at all.  But neither of these scenarios would be right for the Hecks.  Which is why the flash forward sequence that comes next seems so seamless.

Years later, Axl is living in Orson again, and he has three shirtless, wild-haired, sullen sons just like him.  Brick (Atticus Schaffer) is a famous author of young adult novels that feature a magical backpack based on the one he used to call his best friend.  It's a dream come true for every awkward, book-loving outsider out there and gently reminds us that Frankie was right a couple of episodes back when she finally made peace with not being able to fix her weird kid.  Because now he's a weird adult who makes weird kids feel less alone in their weirdness.  After several false starts, Sue (Eden Sher) finally marries Sean, literal boy next door, doctor, and Axl's Mr. Nice Guy best friend.  This is her fairy tale ending, even if she had to go through being the almost-fiance of Axl's other best friend, the well-meaning but doofusy Darrin, to get it.  Who's officiating the ceremony?  None other than guitar-strumming, it's-hard-being-a-teen-singing Reverend TimTom, of course.  And as Frankie tells us, in this way, the Hecks finally get to be Donahues.   

The episode wraps back from the future to the kids arguing in the car, nothing but blue sky and open road ahead.  It's the kind of everyday, happy white noise that slices through the sadness of a good thing coming to an end.  Finally, Brick says that this was why he didn't want to sit in the middle (seat, that is; seat pecking order was a real bone of contention earlier on), then does his echo thing and whispers "the middle" as the car rolls on into the cornfields.

So.  What did I learn from the Hecks?  That happy lives are messy lives and that the only real things are the people who love you.  And that you should always, always pack a backup snack bag in case you leave yours on the highway.  I like to think that I already knew those things, but the truth is that I know them better now.

I guess that's what they mean when they say that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Bubblegum Ball Blowout: Part 3 and a Late Merry Christmas

 Lemon Yellow Gumball Necklace

Sweater: Candie's, Kohl's

Skirt: Candie's, Kohl's

Shoes: Ami Clubwear

Bag: Betsey Johnson

Belt: Wet Seal

 Dark Green Gumball Necklace

Dress: Modcloth

Cardigan: Candie's, Kohl's

Shoes: Rocket Dog, DSW

Bag: Wet Seal

Belt: Wet Seal

Scarf: Gifted

 Pink Gumball Necklace

Top: Candie's, Kohl's

Skirt: So, Kohl's

Shoes: Ami Clubwear

Bag: Princess Vera, Kohl's

Belt: Wet Seal

Mint Green Gumball Necklace

Top: Decree, JCPenney

Tank: Worthington, JCPenney

Skirt: So, Kohl's

Shoes: Payless

Bag: Apt. 9, Kohl's

Belt: Candie's, Kohl's

At nearly zero hour, I finally embraced the holiday spirit.  I blame the Christmas episode of "The Middle," in which Frankie boycotts what she sees as a pointless holiday to gorge on fudge sans pants while watching reality TV only to spring into action at the last minute when her husband tells her that she's the reason he celebrates Christmas.  I sided with her the whole time, as I'm sure I, along with millions of other female viewers, was meant to, only to have my faith in festivities renewed by the last misty-eyed scene.  (No snickering, please; I have it on good authority that "The Middle" makes plenty of otherwise tough people sniffle.) So, I decorated my tree, wrapped my gifts, and even managed to bake some cookies.  Never mind that the husband made most of them, and that the recipe I picked out, the one for the never-before-tested-by-me orange slices, produced a big batch of awful despite my efforts with orange extract-spiked drifts of vanilla frosting made all the more disturbing (and dare I say slightly moldy) by stripes of icing in flagrant orange.  The cookies tasted like cotton-ball-and-orange-scented-car-air-freshener sandwiches, or at least what I think that would taste like, and I shuddered, fearing for the squirrels' safety as we flung them outside, the ever-irritating "Mele Kalikimaka" piping up inside my citrus-fogged head.  I don't know what it is with me and baking.  I guess I feel like it's something I should like to do and be good at, just one more seemingly errant but well-placed thread in the crazy quilt of my crafty existence.  But that's just the Martha Stewart talking.  What I should really do is back away slowly and stock up on Entenmann's.         

Anyway, this holiday hoopla and the malaise that creeps in once it all begins to unravel is the reason I'm getting around to writing my Christmas-themed post on the Johnny-come-lately date of December 28.  Not that it's all that Christmassy.  I don't know about you, but I enjoy the fetchingly retro combination of red and mint even in summer.  Maybe because it makes me think of ice cream sundaes, maraschino cherries tumbling down mountains of mint chocolate chip.  Gumballs fit in nicely with that imagery and are surely a treat (or rather, a treat teaser, unless you want to hear about gum hanging out in your colon for seven years or whatever) for all seasons. One day, I aspire to make a gumball necklace for every shade in the ice cream shop window.

 It's nice to have something to chew on.                     

Here's a Little Something to Chew On . . .

. . . while I cook up a storm of new stuff in my kitsch kitchen.  It's my latest shipment of gumball beads!  Sure, the shot's a little blurry and the arrangement of the beads is a little haphazard, but I think the promise of exciting projects to come still shines through.  I'm not ashamed to admit that gumball beads are one of my latest obsessions (another is toy tea sets -- but more on that next time).  I love how they manage to marry the cray cray and the everyday (despite my vow to never say, much less write, the word "cray cray," the siren call of that rhyme really snared me) in a look that's fun and easy but still full of flavor -- just like gumballs themselves (imaginary gumballs, that is, not the real ones that taste like wallpaper paste after five or six chews).

Speaking of crafting (and, really, when are we not speaking of it?), I couldn't help but notice some DIY references in last week's sitcoms.  First there was Monday's episode of  "Two Broke Girls," in which an exuberant if misguided yarn enthusiast is bent on beatifying Brooklyn one crocheted fire hydrant cozy at a time.  Then Tuesday had "New Girl's" Jess admitting, "I craft so hard!" upon learning that her crush boasts a yarn collection (yes, yarn again!) rivaling her own.  On Wednesday, "The Middle's" Brick brought a date to Thanksgiving dinner clad in a turkey-print dress that most definitely did not come from a factory.  And finally, on Thursday, "The Big Bang Theory" featured Sheldon shutting down his beloved Fun with Flags podcast series only to resurrect it after reading the comment of a viewer who "kind of liked it."  Although a podcast isn't exactly decoupage (not to mention that Shelly would shudder at the thought of getting Mod Podge on his fingers), the creative, off-kilter element of the flag fiesta is of the same sentiment.

And that's that.  As Turkey Day draws near, may your sweet potatoes be marshmallow studded and your cranberry sauce can-shaped instead of lumpy.  After the bird has been butchered, I'll be carving out some time to string my gumballs.   I can only hope that my apple crisp turns out half as tasty.

Springing Back into Summer and Falling for Fall TV

 Great White Necklace

Tunic: Miken, Marshalls

Tee: So, Kohl's

Skirt: Olsenboye, JCPenney

Shoes: Betseyville, Macy's

Bag: Uniquely Different, Etsy

Belt: JCPenney

Scarf: Wet Seal

Sunglasses: JCPenney

 Mister Mustache Necklace

Tunic: Miken, Marshalls

Bra top: Boscov's

Skirt: L'Amour by Nanette Lepore for JCPenney

Shoes: Worthington, JCPenney

Bag: Nordstrom

Belt: Wet Seal

Sunglasses: JCPenney

 Fruits and Flowers Necklace

Tunic: Miken, Marshalls

Tee: So, Kohl's

Skirt (a dress!): Monteau, Marshalls

Shoes: Ami Clubwear

Bag: Nine West, Boscov's

Belt: Wet Seal

Sunglasses: Rampage, Boscov's

The first summery thing about this post is the two scenic pictures.  They're both of the north end of Brigantine, and I took them during a recent bicycle ride with the husband.  As you know, I normally refrain from outdoorsy activities.  But I was glad that I came along this time, as I'd never been to this part of the island in the six plus years I've lived here.  It's beautiful, kind of wild and hidden and marshy.  I can see why people like it, despite it bearing the brunt of most hurricanes' wrath.

The second summery thing about this post is the hot pink lace cover-up.  I know; I too was surprised to find that that's what it was when I found it at Marshalls some three years ago.  Somehow, it seems too fancy to toss over a bikini.  That's probably one of the reasons why I've never worn it.  But I wanted to change that, or at least do the next best thing by having Tammy (the Torso, that is, for those of you scratching your heads) wear it.  So I challenged myself to use it in three outfits.  The middle one is my favorite, even if it does kind of scream fashion don't at the VMAs.  

And now on to the good part, which is to say, the TV.  I don't know about you, but once Labor Day hits, I'm as excited about fall premier week as a cat in a yarn store.  There's nothing to beat fall's sneaky chill like the cozy glow that is the TV screen.  I like to think of it as the modern-day fireplace.  Or maybe I should say campfire, as that's the one with the stories.  Anyway, there's a lot of programming to choose from, so I'll just give (admittedly specious) shout-outs to the lineups I follow.  I'm something of a line-up lemming, tolerating shows that I'd otherwise skip simply because they're surrounded by some of my favorites.  Still, at the end of the day (or should I say week?) I end up enjoying them all on some level, taking the same even-when-it's-bad-it's-good approach to sitcoms that people take to pizza.  Hey, whether it's entertainment or eats, the more cheese the better.    

That having been said, Fox came out of the gate running the second week in September with the ever edgy "New Girl" and "The Mindy Project."  Family-friendly ABC reclaimed its Wednesday night reign, regaling us with old favorites like "The Middle" and "Modern Family," now bookending sophomore sitcom "The Goldbergs" and wrapping up with the brand-new "Blackish," all contriving to create a downy cushion for the last-act drama of "Nashville"(which is not a sitcom, but pretty soft as dramas go, making it a-okay in my [song] book.)  Then the following Tuesday ABC introduced "Selfie" and "Manhattan Love Story," serving up stories for singles.  In the CBS camp, "The Big Bang Theory" found its way once again back to Mondays, at least until late October when it joins two of Chuck Lorre's other offspring, "Two and a Half Men" and "Mom" ("Mike and Molly" will return mid-season).  But it's NBC that remains the most barren, with the final season of "Parks and Recreation" yet to debut while newbies "Bad Judge" and "A to Z" play out as sweetly acerbic appetizers.      

Whew, that was more than a mouthful.  Which means that there's just enough room to cram in some eating (cheddar choked or whole grain healthy?  I'll never tell) before tonight's two-hour sitcom block begins.

TV Tuesday: Stuck in the Middle With Sue

Few sitcoms on TV today capture life's little embarrassments with as much humor and cringe-worthy accuracy as ABC's "The Middle."  Featuring the down-to-earth and often down-and-out Heck family, the heartwarming half-hour show serves up a slice of middle class Middle Americana that undoubtedly has viewers from coast to coast nodding in recognition.  Most often at the heart of the Heck family's upheaval is middle child Sue (Eden Sher). Constantly forgotten and overlooked, sweetly awkward Sue is the poster child for being last picked.  Nevertheless, this season has marked many milestones for the high school freshman (or as Sue likes to say, "frosh").  She got her first period, founded a motley crew of wrestling team cheerleaders called the wrestlerettes, and landed her first real boyfriend (not surprisingly, an intense and pint-sized wrestler.)  Of course, being Sue, she lost said boyfriend when his family moved.  Then she was nearly left out of the school yearbook, an injustice that sent her knocking on the unsympathetic door of every school official only to land her in the guidance counselor's office (or rather basement, a la "Office Space's" red stapler guy) of Whoopi Goldberg, a crazy sweater-wearing fellow misunderstood soul with a mutual fondness for inspirational posters ("Do you have the Believe in Yourself one with the rainbow? Me too!).  Whoopi managed to score Sue a full-page yearbook photograph - albeit beneath an "in memoriam" banner.  No stranger to adversity, Sue kept on smiling and was duly rewarded just one episode later with a prom invitation from older brother Axl's doofy but kind-hearted friend, Darrin.  "She has a sunny disposition," Darrin explained to the horrified and dumbfounded Axl, adding,  "You should get to know her." 

Well said, Darrin, well said.   

White Night: Off Their Rockers

Perhaps the only thing funnier than Betty White's newish NBC show "Off Their Rockers" is the recent "Saturday Night Live" parody of it in which Maya Rudolph impersonates Maya Angelou (a laugh in itself) and pranks "Morgan Freeman" by putting a banana cream pie on his chair.  Charging into the coveted Wednesday 8:00 pm time slot to save us from the horror that was "Whitney" and reruns of ABC's "The Middle" (my favorite show, by the way.  When will it be new again?), "Off Their Rockers" borrows from the tradition of "Candid Camera" and "Punk'd," putting a new spin on practical jokes by placing senior citizens in the role of the pranksters.  Their prey?  Unsuspecting and often sullen twentysomethings loitering around southern California hotspots and beaches.  Interspersed with blurbs of Betty herself zinging one-liners from her gorgeous estate (or maybe it's just a set; who can tell?), the effect is charming and zany and showcases the go-for-the-gusto-before-it's-gone spirit that illuminates the eldery set.  Betty, after all, is ninety!  Sometimes, when I feel tired or put upon or even just plain old discouraged, I remind myself that Ms. White appears in a weekly sitcom ("Hot in Cleveland"), makes movies (the latest of which is The Lorax), and guest stars on a host of other shows in addition to this fresh venture, all with unbeatable humor and grace.   Who knew that The Golden Girls's ditsiest dame had all that fabulousness tucked under her blond bouffant?  Well, I did.  But that's only because I have a soft spot for kooks and watch too much TV.

New TV (Otherwise Known as Fall's Consolation Prize)

Last week marked the beginning of the 2011-2012 TV season, and with it my deliverance from the surfeit of sitcom reruns and played-out movies that buzzed on my TV like so much white noise this summer.  As always, my menu of mainstays, including The Middle, Modern Family, Community, and The Office, was sprinkled with fresh new selections.  Just as when I'm presented with an updated restaurant menu, I couldn't help but wonder which newbies would become the new mac and cheese, i.e., flavorful, fulfilling, and always a treat, and which would suffer the fate of concoctions made unpalatable by too many or too few ingredients.  Here's my take on three of the series debuts I sampled (in reverse chronological order):

Show: Pan Am
Network: ABC
Time: Sunday, 10:00 pm EST

Despite the scuttlebutt that it was just a Mad Men knock-off, I had high hopes for Pan Am (pun intended).  Like lots of people, I like a good period piece.  Stories set in iconic eras can't help but be shrouded in romance, and the admittedly fluffy ABC capitalizes on this phenomenon in its drama showcasing stewardesses of the early 1960s.  To be honest, it was slow going at first.  The plot centers around four women -- each a trailblazer of sorts -- which means that there was a bit of back-story to relay.  Even so, Pan Am has all the hallmarks of a best-selling saga and will probably become more engrossing as the season unfolds.

Show: Whitney
Network: NBC
Time: Thursday, 9:30 pm EST

NBC is known for sitcoms that probe beneath life's underbelly.  Whitney, starring comedian Whitney Cummings, fits right in as the story of a cohabiting, thirty-something couple contemplating marriage.  Albeit gentler than the other social commentary-spouting shows in NBC's Thursday night lineup (Community, Parks and Recreation, and The Office), Whitney delivers some trenchant one-liners about love and relationships.  Unfortunately, most of them were in the commercials, which somewhat diluted their appeal.  Nevertheless, pilots are often iffy, so I remain optimistic.

Show: New Girl

Network: FOX

Time: Tuesday, 9:00 pm EST

New Girl is just the sort of off-beat show you'd expect to see on the network that brought us The Simpsons.  Starring queen of quirk Zooey Deschanel, it centers around Jess, a newly single teacher who finds herself living with three guys she met on Craigslist.  Fashion-challenged and in the habit of bursting into song, Jess catapults over Deschanel's resident territory of the unusual headlong into the land of just plain odd.  Indeed, her actions are often cringeworthy, particularly when she's hurling herself at prospective suitors.  Still, her eccentricities are born of a genuineness that render her as endearing and vulnerable.

* * * *

Criticisms aside, I'll continue watching all of these shows.  Sweet, salty, or tangy, stories are my favorite snack.

Heart and Humor Meet in (ABC's) The Middle

Last fall, when the new sitcom The Middle was introduced to ABC's Wednesday night line-up, I didn't like it at all. The show centered around the Hecks, a middle-class, middle American family planted firmly and unpretentiously in Indiana. You had Mike, the straight-talking quarry manager dad (Scrubs's Neil Flynn); Frankie, a frazzled used car saleswoman-slash-supermom (Patricia Heaton, Everybody Loves Raymond); Axl, their popular football playing teenage son; Sue, their awkward preteen daughter who gets cut from every team she tries out for; and Brick, their brilliant but socially hopeless second grader. Weekly plots focused on all the icky little details of work and home life: paying bills on time, shopping for suspect meat at the discount grocery store, getting the kids to do their homework, squeezing in family dinners, shopping for anniversary present carpet remnants, trying not to be late for work, etc. To be honest, it depressed me. So I stopped watching, clicking over to the vapid but more cheerful (and now cancelled) Gary Unmarried on CBS until it was time for the upper middle-class glamor of Modern Family to dazzle me as far away from reality as was possible.

Things went on like this until mid-season last year when I decided to give The Middle another chance. And you know what? I started to feel ashamed of my prematurely snobby dismissal. I started to, well, like it. Because behind all the tedium, the Hecks had something that most sitcom families didn't: heart. Their struggles became more funny than bleak, probably because they rang true. I especially liked Brick, endeared by his kooky, too-cerebral-for-his-own-good differentness and the way he repeated the things he said out loud in whispers. Before long, The Middle had eclipsed Modern Family for the top spot in my Wednesday night TV-viewing affections.

I still watch and enjoy Modern Family. But sometimes its big, perfect houses seem kind of cold compared to the Hecks's lived-in rancher with the unfinished basement and lime green living room. Similarly, "Modern Family's" three couples seem to be strained by tensions that remain unresolved even after plots are sewn up. Although Mike and Frankie Heck squabble over the usual who's-going-to-drive-the-kids-to-practice sort of issues, they never seem to resent each other as lingeringly as Phil and Claire Dunphy. Interestingly, Claire (Julie Bowen) sometimes reminds me of the high-strung stay-at-home mom that Heaton used to play on Raymond. Although considerably poorer and more heavily burdened, Heaton's character on The Middle appears happier and more grounded. Of course, that could just be because her mother-in-law isn't lurking across the street . . .