Titillating Conversation

I am very proud to say that I have long been considered an expert in the field of bras. This is both a point of pride and a curse all at the same time. No matter what I do or where I go, I look at women's breasts. I have to do it discreetly, of course, but I can't help it. So many women wear bras that are the wrong size, the wrong type for their body or too old to do their bustlines any good. Often times it is all the above.

For decades, I have been involved in changing all that, one set of boobies at a time. Once women know what I do, they tell me their bra woes no matter where we are having the conversation. Often they will pull their blouses up to their neck so I can get a first hand look at the problem. I have done bra critiques in elevators, hotel hallways and hundreds of Ladies' Rooms. I carry a tape measure always so I can do my bra missionary work at a moment's notice. Women are so grateful for my advice and recommendations.

I often will hear from them afterwards when they have followed my instructions as to the right bra and the right SIZE. I have been told that the experience was "life changing". It feels so good every time I add a new girl to my Fifi flock. The work I do is not extraordinary. It's what I do and I do it well, but I am not the Mother Theresa of my field, by any means. I am more of the Richard Simmons of bras. I get my followers motivated to find the support and shape they need to feel prettier and much of the time look thinner. I give women confidence and comfort with their bodies and that makes me very happy.

It is estimated that 75% of females are buying the wrong size bra. It's at least that much. I see it every day and I just want to go up to these poor ladies and whisk them away to the nearest broom closet and see what monstrosity they are wearing under their clothes.

I can't do that, of course, but I can certainly make sure that all my Fifi readers get educated. You see, my sweethearts, this is not your fault. The way stores merchandise bras these days is an atrocity. If you are not buying your bras from me, you have to "wing it" in the lingerie department. You must struggle through rack after congested rack of bras, all the while wrestling with those nasty little plastic hangers to look for what you think is your size. It's not fun.

Back in the Stone Age when I got my first bra,the Bra Department was a beautiful place with walls of built -in drawers that kept all the stock neatly nested in tissue, organized by size. A lovely and knowledgeable woman probably named Helen or Beatrice measured you, assessed your frame and then opened up each drawer with your size in it and made suggestions as to style. Then you tried them on and she came in and adjusted the back and the straps. When was the last time you tried on a bra in a department store? If you answered never, you are not alone. You'd try on a dress or a pair of shoes before you bought it, but rarely a bra. Here's where the problem lies and here's what we are going to do.

I am sending you all to Miss Fifi's Bra Academy. I want you all to meet me back here next week wearing your best fitting unpadded bra. You will need to bring something to write with and some paper. I am going to educate you, measure you, fit you and teach you the warning signs of an ill-fitting bra. After you learn the ins, outs, ups and downs of finding the right bra you will be forever looking at other women and noticing every bad bra in town. I told you it was a curse, but then you can help your circle of "sisters" get into a bra that does their body a big favor. And there is a BONUS to attending my short course next week. I will give you my personal contact information so we can talk. You give me the numbers and I will figure out your figure personally.

Next Saturday... same time, same place. Don't forget the tape measure! You need the cloth "seamstress" type, not the one from the garage.

Hello, My Darlings...

By the time you read this, Christmas Day will be over and the last of the Hanukkah candles will have been lit. I hope your holiday was joyful and that you are enjoying these days leading up to the New Year.

I'm writing on this Christmas Eve Eve and the last of my expected Christmas purchases has arrived at the office. I will wrap it and get it under the tree tonight. I definitely have visions of sugar plums dancing in my head. I am pretty proud of myself for having such a good attitude. Yesterday, I drove my oldest daughter, her husband and my 2 1/2 year old granddaughter to the airport so they can spend Christmas in New York with my son-in-law's family. I was upbeat all the way and only cried when I got back in the car. I came back to work only to learn that Joe Cocker had died. Very sad for one of his biggest fans. When I got home, I got a bill in the mail that threw me for loop. I could have let all this get to me, but I didn't. I reflected on the fact that I will indeed have Christmas with my children and grandchildren when my oldest one returns. We have postponed our Christmas, present opening and all, to the day after New Year's Day. It just won't be on the 25th, but it will be Christmas. I also remembered that I got to see Joe Cocker in concert about 7 years ago. He couldn't have been more amazing. And the bill? I will take a big girl pill and pay it.

As I get older, it takes more and more to make me distressed. One of the gifts of maturity is knowing how to manage and sort out things that don't feel good. At the same time, I have come to appreciate things that elevate my good nature and make me smile. A sweet friend of mine gave me the best present recently. She had given the same gift, a special handmade pair of earrings, to another one of our friends and I admired the gift greatly. I may have even whined a bit. I absolutely loved these earrings, so before long I had my own pair. They make me so damn happy. There is something about them that makes me forget when I am feeling sad or bad or conflicted. They are magical. I wore them today because I needed to and since they are really Christmas earrings, I am probably going to have to stop wearing them at some point and go cold turkey. I will find some more magic somewhere else. I always do. That's the trick to staying happy.

I will certainly wear my special earrings on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, which will be very different for me this year. Because one child was away, I encouraged the others to spend time with the husbands/boyfriends family. Whatever happens, it is all good. I think I have this grown up thing down pretty well. It gets easier all the time.

Be happy, healthy and full of love.

My Darlings

It's the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and I am all mushy and squishy with thoughts of tomorrow. I am not cooking this year, so it will be a relaxing day for me. I am looking so forward to it. I decided to write you a letter instead of an article this week. You all are so busy with stuffing turkeys and eating and shopping, you wouldn't even have time to read it.

It's that most wonderful time of the year when Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the bookends to 4 great days of shopping for crazy good bargains. I used to be out there at O Dark Thirty with all the other crazies, but I am an online girl for the most part these days. I never want these love letters of mine to sound like a commercial for LoveFifi.com, but I will say we have some great stuff at some stupid cheap prices. I guarantee you will have fun when you are not at the mall shopping for bargain undies IN your undies. Good times!

I wish you everything wonderful tomorrow and always. We should always give thanks for our gifts in this life and there is nothing that brings that home more than being with family and friends. It doesn't get better than being with the ones you love. I will get up when I wake up which is a luxury in itself. I will brew a perfect cup of coffee and sit with my doggies and watch the Macy's parade. It's corny, but it's tradition... and I love tradition.

We are going to a fine restaurant. We started doing this about 5 years ago and it has been great. It's not home cooking, but it is really good. There is no getting up at dawn to stuff a bird, no worries about timing all the side dishes perfectly, no dishes and no mess. There are also no leftovers, so I always cook a turkey breast and dressing at home. I don't buy a pumpkin pie for my house because that would not be wise. I would eat it all and never confess. Only my hips and bottom would tell the truth. I will buy the cranberry sauce with the whole cranberries in it. Nobody else in my family likes that one so now I can be a rebel and NOT buy the jellied one. So I will have turkey sandwiches, which is the best part of Thanksgiving food, if you ask me.

Have a beautiful holiday and get your shopping done. I will be decorating this weekend. I like my Christmas wonderland to be up for as long as possible. It takes me forever to put it up and it takes me even longer to take it all down. It really shoots the hell out of February.

Before I say goodbye for now, I think I will tell you a big secret about me. I may have mentioned it before, but it is certainly in keeping with the spirit of this holiday. When I was 6, my first grade teacher asked each one of us what we wanted to be when we grew up. Without hesitation, I answered "a pilgrim". My teacher smiled and never let on that my dream was pretty impossible. She then asked me why. Again, with great conviction, I told her it was because I liked their outfits with the stiff hats and the big buckles on their shoes. Isn't it ironic that I wanted to wear clothes that covered every inch of skin, yet I ended up designing and selling apparel that doesn't cover up much? My sister has always cracked up every time she thinks about me wanting to be a pilgrim. OK, so I wasn't a big thinker at 6 and it never occurred to me that this wasn't a real job. Still, my sister finds my early aspirations hilarious. This from a woman who wanted to be a mermaid.

Junk For Joy

The big garage sale extravaganza is over. After 3 weekends of hard labor to prepare the merchandise and stage all of our glorious crap, the big day finally arrived. Sister and I took a vacation day on Friday so we would be completely ready to face the crowds of bargain hunters on Saturday.

We advertised this as "the garage sale of the century" and the bargain hunters arrived in droves. Sister and I were dressed in proper attire for the event. You have to be easily identifiable as the bosses if you're going to make the best deals and the most money. Sissy and I exuded an "in charge" vibe with a touch badass thrown in, if I do say so myself. We were decked out in jeans, old concert t-shirts, cowboy hats and fanny packs. Ok, maybe we looked more like tourists from Texas, but people got it that we were running the show.

The customers dove into our merchandise and had arm loads of goodies in no time. It was amazing. You'd think we were giving it away for free. Actually, that is a pretty close to what they wanted to pay. One of the hottest items were the dozens of extra-plush, nearly new, (freshly washed) terry cloth bath towels. These weren't ours. We have a friend who's aunts neighbor died and she had a closet full of really deluxe towels in different color palettes that she would change around to suit her mood. We agreed to sell her stuff and take a cut of the proceeds. Every two minutes someone would hold up a towel and ask "how much?". "Two dollars each", I would reply thinking about what a great deal that was for such nice towels. Anyway, the reply from the prospective towel purchasers was always the same. "One dollar" and it was a statement, not a question. I was advised by many customers that they sell bath towels at Wal-Mart for only $2.50, so our towels were overpriced. I have watch too much QVC to let them get away comparing those towels with our fabulous, luxurious, dead-lady towels. I sprung into action and held up one of our towels then wrapped it around me to show how large they were. I then challenged them to feel the sumptuous thickness. I had to do this demo a bunch of times during the day, but we got two bucks for every one of those damn towels.

Garage sale customers are a breed of their own. One thing you can be sure of when you have one of these sales is that you will go through a laundry list of emotions. You will feel charmed, annoyed, sentimental, pissed off and amused. The folks that come to these things range from those who truly need basic household items, to the swap meeters who resell your junk, to recyclers who love other peoples used stuff to nut cases who don't need anything but love bargains. It is that latter philosophy that got sister and I into our current situation. Oh yeah, there's also the scrap gold guys who come around, look at your costume jewelry through a loop and leave in a huff. Love those jerks. One man even asked me if there was any real gold on the table. He was too lazy to look! I couldn't resist; I told him, in my best blonde "Clueless" voice, that I had just sold the bag of stuff that had 14k on it to someone who was just here. He left in a double huff.

Then there are the people who pretend they don't speak English. I had one lady who brought me a pile of clothes, many still brand new, and wanted to know the price for all. I counted out 25 hangers that I took from her. I was calculating in my head and trying to be fair. Even though the tags were still hanging off much of it, this stuff doesn't fit us and neither sister nor I are going to slim down 10 lbs to be able to wear any of it. That was the original plan. "Twenty dollars for everything," I said with a smile, thinking that she would be over the moon excited about all those new clothes for so little money. "Too much," she said with a scowl. She then flashed all the money she had, $15, and tried to get me to take it. I could see that she was playing me, so I made her take out some items and I took her money. She came back later and bought the other stuff. I felt triumphant as a business person. Then she pulled out a bag with two items from the first round that she wanted to exchange. Who does that? I let her. By then I was exhausted. She won.

There were so many neighborhood residents who came and told us how amazing our sale was. We sold lots of things to locals who will give our treasures a good home. We made a lot of people happy and all in all it was a very fun day. We got rid of so much stuff. Was it worth it? Was it a success?

Well, we made an impressive four figures. The pile of garage sale inventory is infinitely smaller, covered up and ready to go for when we do it one more time next month. My sister has her garage back and her car is happy. I need to mention that the friend that was going to help us bailed on us and we had to hire a helper. Also, after three weekends of manual labor our old bodies were in pretty bad shape, so we each had a long massage on Sunday. We were too tired to cook, so we ended up eating out most of the time for the last three weeks. So, was it a success? Hell yes! We made a little money and got rid of a ton of things we don't use. Best of all was that the two sisters got spend time together. We didn't whistle while we worked, but we yakked up a storm. We talked about everything and everyone and planned out all the great fun we're going to have in this life. And don't tell anyone, but each of us got to buy some fantastic things that we couldn't live without. The dead lady didn't just leave nice towels.

Garage Sale 101

My sister and I have been piling up unwanted items for the past year and planning the granddaddy of all garage sales. We usually do this a couple of times a year, but this time is different because we are seriously downsizing. We both have so much stuff that we don't use or need, it's time to let a lot of it go. Sister has a nice sized garage for storage and she also lives on the perfect street. It's a bit of a thoroughfare, so people naturally stop when they see the fabulous array of crap that we have for sale.

Last weekend we began the preparation. For two solid days we pulled down the stacks of boxes, sorted out the treasures by category, moved the furniture to key locations and set up a million folding tables. We know how to do this, because we got into this situation because we love to go to garage sales. We both are very pleased with the abundance of great stuff that we own and use that came from garage sales, flea markets and auctions, but right now we just have too much. My poor sister's garage was so full that there was barely room for her car, a Volkswagen bug. Need I say more? We've been waiting for summer to pass, because it's harder to run a good sale when it's too hot. Buyers don't like to shop for long when it's hot and this girl hates to be hot, so fall is perfect The big event is scheduled for two weekends from now.

“You want to grab the drive-by shoppers who are on the way to somewhere else and can't resist stopping.”

The goal is to slim down what we own, make some money for our upcoming vacation and give my sister her garage back. We will do all of that and then some. I am a merchant and I am determined to make this sale the "event extraordinaire". It is important that you stage these sales so that everything looks appetizing to the buyers. There is a way to categorize the clutter so it is irresistible. The trick is to make it look random, but organize it cleverly. You don't want your customers knocking into each other, so you create "departments" without being obvious. The front lawn is like the showroom floor of a car dealership. You want to grab the drive-by shoppers who are on the way to somewhere else and can't resist stopping. The lawn is where we will put some furniture, the bicycle, the outdoor tea cart with the yellow striped umbrella and the "art gallery" of framed pictures that will line the walls... everything big and flashy. We will put a long table of china, pretty glassware, lamps, picture frames, candlesticks, etc. to be sure to attract the women. I think we have at least one of everything in the world and we plan to show it off and bring in the buyers. We even have a brand new professional barber pole to sell... don't ask. I will be the cashier and checkout will be on the front lawn as well. There's MORE treasures beyond the lawn in the patio area and the garage. They can enter, but they can only get out by going by me and my security man, Andy. He's our dear friend and Sister's next door neighbor. He will be there to keep a watchful eye on the customers and make sure everyone pays. He is also in charge of feeding us, so his presence is invaluable.

The patio area is where we keep all the "pretties". The vintage stuff, the linens, the purses, the cute kitchen accessories, decorator items and basically stuff that woman love to buy. My sister and I couldn't not buy this stuff, so we brought it home but now it has to go! The last stop is the garage. This we call the "testosterone department". Men come looking for tools, etc., or get dragged along to these sales. We are setting up an area to keep them organized and out of the way while the ladies shop to their hearts' content. The garage is staged with everything utilitarian from tools, to basketballs to sleeping bags, electronics, poker equipment, a Shop Vac and a 1990s boom box just to name some of the goodies in our man trap. Sis and I have gathered everything up from past projects, past boyfriends and ex-husbands and created a garage sale "man cave" that should wow the guys and keep them busy.

There's still a lot of work to be done but it's coming along great. Wanna hear a funny story? We had to run out last Saturday to get some things we needed. On the way to Target, we ran into of all things... a big Garage Sale. It would have been ridiculous to stop, so we did. Sister and I came to the realization a long time ago that we are indeed ridiculous. We both spotted these two great pieces of older furniture, a French Provincial desk and an adorable dresser. We don't need either one for ourselves, but they would sure add some panache to OUR sale. The owners were obviously eager to unload these pieces, so Sis and I offered them $40 for both and talked them into delivering them to us later in the day. Sister has a VW bug, remember. Furniture sells really well if you know what you're doing, and we do. The truth is that their crap makes our crap look even better. I'll post photos next week. You'll see that buying two large pieces of furniture when you're trying to unload a lifetime of junk makes perfect sense.

This weekend is more of the same. We clean and dust and fold and make our goods look nice. The more you prepare what you're selling, the more money you will make. If you take a stack of freshly laundered gently used bath towels, tie them up with satin ribbon and a bow and slap a price on them that is fair, they will be gone in a flash. We make everything look as nearly new as we can. I know that's not what most people do, but that's how Sister and I roll.

I'll keep you posted on our progress. We are so excited about getting all this stuff out of our lives and turning it into cash. But I think what we are looking forward to the most is making some space in our garages and houses. How else are we going to be able to go out to garage sales on Saturdays again? Out with the old stuff and in with the NEW old stuff! Yeah!