I lived in California for almost a year. I was on a postdoc at USC in electron microscopy. It was a long time ago. I had completed my Ph.D. at the University of South Florida and I had driven across the country with my oldest daughter (now my British Daughter) and my youngest son (now 38) who was then 3. Our vehicle was a 12 year old Plymouth, old enough to have tail fins.
For her own reasons my daughter went on to Bakersfield, where she had various adventures and I settled down to a life of labs and freeways. From time to time my daughter came down to L. A. from Bakersfield to visit. She understood fashion and monitored my wardrobe. One day, while going through my drawers she came upon a pair of white trousers. “Oh mother!” she said, “White pants! You just can’t. NOBODY wears white pants.”
I don’t like to throw away perfectly good clothes, so I put away the white pants, and never again considered putting them on. As my late brother-in-law used to say, I’d rather be dead than out of style.
A few years later, the same daughter visited me, this time in Washington D C, before she went off to England to take up studies at Oxford University. I was working as an electron miscoscopist at the Department of Agriculture. Another life of labs and freeways. My daughter, soon to become my British Daughter, inventoried my wardrobe. “Ooooh,” she exclaimed, “Look at these lovely white pants! You never wear these, can I have them?”
Now, 35 years later, from time to time she visits me from England. She no longer says much about how I dress, except to comment that I wear my trousers too short. She herself dresses according to advice from her 26 year old daughter. But she still guides me in other ways. A couple of years ago when she visited she said, “Mother, you should have a blog.”
“What’s a blog?” I asked.
Soon I was choosing themes, starting blog rolls and trying to write weekly posts.
Again my British daughter is visiting. “Mother,” she said. “It’s time to update your blog. Would you like to change your theme?”
She showed me some themes and I liked the idea of having a banner header of a photo I had taken. We talked about widgets, some changes in the sidebar. She worked for hours fixing up my new look and taught me how to change the header. I have always been fascinated with seagulls — and other birds too. I have discovered that it is lots of fun to construct new banners for the header, so I think I’ll change them often. But there will be many seagulls.
I have a new, more recent picture in “About” and I have updated that a bit. I plan to work on it more later.
On my blogroll I have the titles and post times of most of the blogs I read. For technical reasons we couldn’t include all of them, and for this I apologize. We are working on it.
Or rather, she’s working on it. I am not very good at tech stuff.
Love the new look, especially you seagull. What an interesting life. My daughter tries to keep me current on fashion. I probably have the corner on turtlenecks, much to her horror…
🙂 I find that if I wear the same thing all the time, once a generation or so I swing vaguely towards being in fashion. I always mean to look up if it tracks with the orbit of Saturn, but then I forget.
The update looks great as does your photo, Anne. We are lucky to have daughters taking care of us, to keep us on the right track with fashions, though I think they’ve given up on me lately. It was my British son-in-law who started me on blogging but after a few years, youngest daughter has been taking care of any updates in design and any technical issues as I, too, am not good with tech stuff.
My compliments to your daughter.
I haven’t outgrown anything since I was ten years old. I had my one and only growth spurt and then just stopped growing. That and having access to three closets has allowed me to stow clothes that I really liked, but got tired of wearing. It’s fun to watch styles change and drag them out again. Most of what I own are classic styles, never quite in style, but never hopelessly out of style.
I love your banner. Gulls and crows are the birds of the Northwest, to me. This blog really looks good: elegant, one might say. Style is important, and although I have no particular style I certainly appreciate that quality in others.
This post was a real treat. Now I must explore how to change banners – yours of the seagull is wonderful! If this is how you look as an Old Woman, I can’t wait to get older than I am. It’s fun to put a face to the words 🙂
My daughter dresses like a refugee from Berkley in the 60s, for some odd reason. No fashion advice there.
LOVE the new theme, Anne. So clean and simple.
Very nice look 🙂 Great photo of you too. British Daughter did a good job, will you get a new look every time she visits? I like changing my banner photo periodically, I think I am about due. Yours is nice, I like it.
Looking good!
I don’t do white trousers as I have a hairy black dog and a grubby life. (I first typed ‘life style’ but thought that was glamorising it somewhat…)
I like the new look, but then it is very like the style of my own blog – nice, clean and crisp and easy to read. The content is guaranteed to make me think. It was a friend who encouraged me into blogging and showed me how to find kindrid bloggers to follow. Your daughter did a good job. As for fashion, well the only white trousers I had are long gone…….. anyway, I wouldn’t fit into them nowadays. Happy blogging.
My daughter and I like completely opposite fashion styles so I never buy anything to wear for her and she never comments on what I wear.
She did help me with my computer when she visited, but that was several years ago.
Hilarious post, attractive update too. Daughters! While admiring my own for her spunk and mothering, her fashion sense is so different from mine it is as if we inhabit different planets. Which we do! Yet we often find ways to compliment each other. Love the comments to this one.
I like the new look a lot. Simple, easy to read. Pleasing to the eye. 🙂
What a nice daughter.
If it weren’t for my grown daughter, I’d probably still be in maternity clothes.
You might ask your daughter to make the Comment link a bit more prominent and I would put it on a separate line – it was a bit hard to find.
I like the font a lot – easy on the eyes!
My granddaughter [one more year and she will be a hot shot lawyer] has promised to dress me this summer although she says her choices will probably “horrify you grandma”. She means the price tag on her choices and she is probably right.
Oh I can comment again after weeks of not being able to (my prob, not yours as I was travelling).
Love the new birdy look and join you in praise of elder daughters.
XO
WWW
I don’t know if the comment section is the best place to leave this but I can’t find another way to contact you.
Reading through your blog it’s obvious that you’ve had an interesting life and I was wondering if you would like to submit a story to the “It’s Never Too Late Writing Contest” that the Impowerage Magazine is sponsoring. The top prize is $500 and your story would be published in the Impowerage magazine. Please see the link below for more details
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Hi Anne – I really like the new theme the two of you chose. I see that my blog made it to your “list” – yikes has it really been 22 days since I updated it?! Your seagull makes a very nice header – I love living near the water and the gulls!
In an excess of self-love I found myself reading one of my earlier posts (about coffee making) and came upon your comment again. Since I feel obliged to respond to the precious few who take the trouble to track me down I responded in whimsical fashion as is my wont and then, no doubt, gave myself up to pleasure. In re-reading you I noticed a kindness in what you wrote and, being as governed by self-interest as anyone else, decided to look you up. Which I did before, I am sure, and yet things seem to have changed. Were you Old Woman then? Such a stark blogonym would have remained in my (admittedly leaky) frontal lobes and yet I don’t recall it. But what was new was that you are, or were, an electron microscopist. Since you are also a prose stylist of some renown I wondered if there were other posts which dwelt on your profession. Alas, you don’t appear to go in for labels or if you do I’m too incompetent to detect them. I liked your piece about fashion as a wave format but I am, as my blog proclaims, a techno-nut and would appreciate it you were able to direct me to a post where your twin skills unite. This is an extremely wordy comment given the simplicity of my request but you put me on my guard earlier and I feel it’s a better bet if my style resembles Henry James rather than, say, Russell Brand.
What I loved the most about this post was the underlying theme of mother-and-daughter relationship. It was beautiful to behold. Many thanks for sharing this lovely tale.
Greetings from London.
That’s fashion and style indeed. My clothes are years out of date, and my blog stays much the same as it always did…except for the banner. Style fer sure.