What To Do With Your Pumpkin

I used to feel bad about discarding decorative pumpkins after Halloween. This year I pondered an alternative fate -- and found one.

Pumpkins are vegetables. You can eat them! They're safe to eat raw but taste much better cooked. And cooking them couldn't be easier. Just bake them at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. They taste like juicy zucchini.

Before popping them into the oven coat them with some olive oil and salt. I experimented and made two batches. The ones on the right are plain and the ones on the left were tossed with Tamari soy sauce and spicy hot sauce. Both were nice; I prefer the spicy ones.

Once cooked you can throw pumpkin chunks into any dish. They're also good topped with salad dressing. Pumpkin is healthy with practically no calories.

Have you ever eaten pumpkin?

Happy Halloween!

Putting On Female Clothes

I want to make an observation about women's clothing. It's something you guys all know already but is valuable to discuss. Your thoughts are invited.

My new dress from Aimee is amazing. It fits my body perfectly. But! And this isn't a bad "but," just a fact-of-life situation. The dress is very hard to put on. Its top is snug, fitted to my exact measurements and made of non-elastic material. There's a side-zipper that allows you to snake into the dress but, to pull the zipper up, you need two hands and leverage which, when inside the dress, you don't have. Thus, it's hard, almost impossible for me to put the dress on by myself. I really need a spouse/aide to zip me up.

I've faced this before with other female clothing, especially fancy gowns and form-fitted items. That's why I usually choose elastic material for stretch allowing easier manipulation. But I have no regrets about choosing the material used in this dress; it is amazingly beautiful. Luxurious and chic. 

To wear attractive feminine clothes often involves effort and sacrifice. I've never had discomfort wearing any article of male clothing; even neckties aren't a big deal. But frequently when I put on a tight dress I face physical struggles so intense and prolonged there are almost tears. Also -- and I'm not kidding -- I always keep a pair of scissors within reach because I have (more than once) actually gotten trapped inside clothes. My shoulders and torso are unnaturally large for most women's clothing. I've gotten halfway into some pieces, unable to complete the journey and unable to back out.

You've faced difficulty wearing tight clothes, right? How do you deal with it? With stoicism? Scissors? A handy husband to zip you up?

Please give me the benefit of your experiences.

Project of the Year

Life, for most of us, is hard and boring. If we wait for the world to offer us excitement, we're usually disappointed. I've found that you need to act on your own initiative to grab joy in life.

At least once a year I try to do a major project whose aim is pure fun. No business purpose, no social or other obligation. Just fun.

Last year I visited my friend Aimee in upstate New York (Potsdam). Aimee is a talented seamstress who makes clothes and costumes for friends and customers. Hearing her stories put an idea in my head -- maybe I could ask Aimee to make me a dress. A real dress. The perfect dress. So I did and she said yes. We've spent an entire year working on it and the dress was just completed. Squee!!

Due to my large size and odd shape for a girl, most women's clothes don't fit me. If they're right in one spot, they're not in another. That's just a difficulty I've gotten used to. But if I could design a dress from scratch, maybe I could have one that fits everywhere.

So Aimee and I brainstormed this. What is my favorite color? What era and style appeal to me? What silhouette and shape suit my cylindrical body? We spent a good deal of time working on these questions and found the right answers.

Aimee sourced beautiful fabrics, sew-ed her little fingers off and, in July, we met again for a fitting. Aimee put a rough-draft on my body and made adjustments. Then she retired to her laboratory for a few months of further work.

Today, the finished dress arrived in a big box. It's done!

I want to do this dress justice -- which means I want to have quality photos taken by someone more skilled in photography than me. And I hope to have better makeup applied than my usual hatchet job. So, I'm not going to show you the final result yet. I'll arrange a photoshoot and reveal the culmination soon. Until then, here's a peek!

Fashion History

There's no doubt that the 1970's were my time. During that decade I grew up, sensed the world and started engaging with society. I was 13 to 23 years old.

Among developments of that era was my close attention to female fashion. I coveted it with aching passion. So when any clothing from the Seventies crosses my path today, my heart melts and my judgment disappears.

Some styles from that turbulent time have revived, some not. I saw an authentic vintage dress at Rosie's Vintage store and immediately recognized it as something many women wore back then. But it's an odd style that (to my knowledge) has never re-surfaced. But... pink! Need I say more?

This is a strange dress but it appeals to me. What do you think?

P.S., Thank goodness for Spanx! A tight-fitting dress like this requires shapewear.

P.P.S., I felt happy wearing this dress. I think its femininity created that joy in my heart.

New Shirt

Last week when I brought my motorcycle in for service, I spotted a t-shirt celebrating the exact model of my motorcycle. I had to have one so I bought it. Of course, the shirt is made by BMW.

My bike (the sportbike, not the tourer) is a 2016 BMW S1000R. It's faster than a speeding bullet and more fun than a bag of monkeys.

Do you have any clothes with emblems that mean something to you?

New York City

It was beautiful in New York today. After riding my motorcycle into Manhattan for service, I walked around under a sunny sky. I went to Columbus Circle where I ate a delicious Cobb salad and then wandered into Central Park. Although I wasn't planning to take any pictures, I found it impossible not to. The city is so photogenic.