We packed a lot into our recent two-day visit to Puget Sound.  We visited three museums – the LeMay Car Museum the Tacoma Art Museum and the new Museum of History and Industry in Seattle.  We took a tour of TheO’s Chocolate Factory.  We ate out three times, saw one old movie, (Jack Nicholson in “Something’s Gotta Give”) and got caught up with our friend Linda.  Plus I did a little necessary shopping.

It was all an uplifting experience.  Especially the shopping part.  My big purchase:  four new, beautiful, big bras.  Yes, big.  In my lifetime, I have gone from a padded 32-AA to an underwire, wide strap 32-DDD.  That’s what 30 pounds and 65 years of gravity does for a gal!

It also brings up a question:  Why does double-A mean the smallest cup size and triple-D (or letter besides A) means a larger cup size.  Go figure (so to speak.)  Anyway, I find the entire situation impressive, but too late.

I well remember those double-A days in high school and college.  It was the fifties.  You HAD to wear a bra.  No one would be caught dead in the gym showers or at a slumber party in an undershirt!  And, it would have been very helpful, self-esteem-wise, to have had boobs.  But, short of that, a padded bra at least made you feel that your sweaters were a little bit ‘filled out.’

The situation didn’t change much for me for about forty years.  I remember in the early sixties when my then-husband Bill and I had a swimming pool built in our backyard.  We lived in Castro Valley and could swim all year round.  It was right at the time that bikini bathing suits came in.  (Before that there had been “two-piece bathing suits” which were totally different.)  Bill asked me if I couldn’t pay less and just buy the bikini bottom since I “didn’t need the top.”

I was highly insulted, but twenty years later on the French Riviera, I did just that.  Monokinis had come into vogue and I was able to get two bottoms for the price of one entire suit.  Actually, now that I think about it, I didn’t do that at all.  I saved my money and wore a pair of Nyel’s speedos.  Well… that was awhile ago…

Anyway, on my recent shopping spree, I went to Nordstrom’s, asked for a fitter, and was sore amazed to find that my dissatisfaction with my current ‘girlish figure’ had a lot to do with an improper fit.  I came away with four (count’em…four!) gorgeous pieces of lingerie and am feeling totally uplifted in the undergarment department and flat-ass broke in the financial department.  Oh well… I look terrific in my ratty old gardening sweatshirt.  And in everything else