TCBY - The Colossal Bucket of Yogurt

Pinkberry, Red Mango, Berrywild – you can’t swing a cat without hitting a frozen yogurt joint named after both a fruit and a color these days.  My personal favorite though, a non-chromatic produce name, is Sixteen Handles.  Just like Howie Mandel, and other things we thought were passe, frozen yogurt is back.  Everyone is raving about the variety of flavors and toppings and “OMG! It’s YOGURT”, but all I can think is….Are we really doing this again?

You young’uns out there might think these chains are the newest thing.  No, along with neon and layering brightly colored tube socks, frozen yogurt is a recycled trend of the 80s.  And can we talk about what a disaster neon and three layers of tube socks are on a Irish complected girl with heavier legs?  My neon pink sweatshirt added to the day-glo quality of my white skin, which I did not think was humanly possible, and the socks obscured the only thin part of my legs.   I clomped around the halls of my middle school, a blinding, be-cankle-ed spectacle.  Beating them off with a stick, I was.

But back to the frozen confections.

Frozen yogurt fell out of favor when we all started eating protein and fat again in 2000.  Fro-yo was a foolish mistake from the past you thought was good for you, like the guy you dated who was really successful, but super-boring. And like many regretful choices, with some time and distance, we wondered if we shouldn’t give it another shot.  Pinkberry started us all back on the road to low-fat nirvana.  I, for one, was intrigued by the fact they used actual fruit as toppings, instead of the overly processed “froot toppings” of yore.  Maybe this stuff could actually be healthy.  Maybe these new places had it right - fresh ingredients and portion control.  Then one of the two execs still working for TCBY accidentally left her Susan Powter autobiography at home and, forced to read an US Weekly at the dentist office, saw celebrities pairing frozen yogurt with paparazzi.  “We’re baaaack!!!!”, she screamed into her Motorola StarTAC while simultaneously wondering if she could still get her Palm Pilot out of hock.  

TCBY, or The Country’s Best Yogurt, for the uniformed, was the Mecca of low-fat dairy.  Please kind sir, give me thirty-two ounces of reduced fat, frozen dairy with sprinkles, graham crackers crumbs, and those chocolate crunchy things.  All also low-fat – BONUS!  Back in the day, I smugly looked over my bucket of virtuousness at H eating his two scoops of, GASP!, real ice cream, knowing I had made the wiser choice.  The fact that my pants were tight was clearly the fault of the dry cleaner.

So now TCBY, and other chains like it, are riding the coattails of modern places like Pinkberry, using their popularity to try and recapture their market.  Kind of how Glee made Journey think they should tour with that creepy Filipino singer.  Except now, it's even worse (kind of like Journey).  Not only can customers fool themselves into believing what they are eating is healthy, and therefore practically calorie fere, but now they can serve themselves buckets of this stuff and pay by weight.  Buying desserts by the pound seems sad and wrong. Like buying hemorrhoid cream in bulk.

So here we go again.  Women in hoards, denying themselves real frozen dairy products, in favor of buckets of crap.  If you are on a diet, and this gets you by on your way to your goal weight, knock yourself out.  But if the cross section of people I'm seeing at my local mall's TCBY is an accurate representation, there are going to be a lot of women who were at their healthy weight who need new pants.

And let's be honest, this is what you go in ready to order:

But, 99% of the time, this is what you walk out with:

I've been there, sister.

A Weighty Matter

"Just stop talking."

This was H's reaction, literally, with his fingers in his ears as I mentioned to him I thought #1 might need a training bra.

Some might see this reaction as unenlightened, as the modern father is supposed to be involved and comfortable with every stage of his daughter's development, but I gotta say, I understand it.  I don't even want to think about this and I have to.  Nobody really wants to think about their kid's sexual development. The only thing worse than imagining your parents having sex, is imagining your child doing it some day.*

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.  I dread the idea of entering this phase of development, not because of my own discomfort, but because it means my daughter is quickly changing from a girl into a young woman and the body image bullies are lurking, ready to change her opinion of her body from powerful tool to disappointing, yet maleable, showpiece.  It's time to go into war mode.

I have already been on the defensive.  Once my eldest was around the age of three, tabloid magazines were banned from our house.  No small task, given my mother in-law so graciously passed them down to me gratis, and celebrity gossip is such a guilty pleasure of mine.  I'm sure I drove said mother in-law crazy, as I ran around her house during visits, ensuring the Us Weekly was on the bottom of the coffee table magazine pile and shoving the InStyle in the back of the bathroom magazine rack when I peed.  I have , for years, been pushing Everyday with Rachel Ray and Martha Stewart Living in my girls' faces at the checkout line since they were old enough to be out of the grocery cart to distract them from the covers passing judgement on which celebrity is too fat or too thin.  But I can not be with them every day, every moment, policing the images they are presented with, and now that my eldest is approaching the age when she may begin comparing her own body to the images around her, I am afraid.

And the clothes.  Dear God, the clothes.  It seems once girls stop being the size and shape of a loaf of bread, they can easily find mini-skirts, midriff tops and inappropriate bathing suits galore.  This was not an issue when I was selecting all the clothes, but now the girls are taking an active interest in what they wear, and want to go shopping instead of just trying on whatever I picked up at Target.  I have had to use the words "inappropriate" and "mature" so often, it might be easier for me to have flash cards printed to hold up like an Olympic judge (am I dating myself - do they even do that anymore?).  One store in particular, Justice, draws the girls in like moths to a neon-hued, besequined flame.  Here are examples of two items sold there:

Now where the hell is my ten year old wearing this?  Out on the town with a pair of skinny jeans and heels carrying one of those wristlet bags all the young'uns use now?  Btw, back in my day, our pants were loose enough we could fit a credit card, driver's license and some cash in our back pocket, making carrying a bag unnecessary.  But then again, our generation had no cell phones and spent half the night out wandering from bar to bar looking for our current crush, so you have us there.  Back to this shirt though.  Over my dead, stinking, JCrew-wearing carcass is my child wearing this top before she is old enough to vote.

But then there's this top:

Cute, is it not?  This is why I even set foot in this store.  It's got some bling, and is long enough for her to follow Commandment #1 of Dressing in my house.  "Thou shalt fully cover thy ass when wearing leggings".  A rule made hard to enforce with those goddamn "jeggings".  Made of stretchy jean material, they even have back pockets, but are as tight as slutty Olivia Newton-John's trousers at the end of Grease.  "But they're jeans", I am told by a confused #1 when she attempts, innocently, to wear them with a t-shirt.  Not when they're so tight I can see every contour of your kneecaps.  But shirts like I can deal with.  They satisfy her sense of style - bright, loud and preferably with a cute phrase or graphic done in sequins or rhinestones - without making her look like a hooker in training.

I am trying to desperately to teach her to dress functionally.  That being able to run during recess is more important than looking cute.  Like her mother, she is drawn to totally impractical clothes.  My latest obsession below:

Where the hell am I wearing a Tory Burch boucle blazer?  I'd be super pissed if Little Man got peanut butter on it, or it got snagged on the fence at the park.  That's why I wear yoga pants and a fleece vest.  When she picks out skirts and flats that will surely prevent her from killing it during a round of Knock Out come lunchtime,  I tell her "Mommy wants a closet full of cocktail dresses, but I can't wear those to go grocery shopping, can I?", and she opts for the leggings and Converse.  With top #2 above.

It's not just the clothes though.  I worry about all of this body shit coming my girls' way and ask myself, am I good enough example?  I sure try to be.  I try very hard, because I have not always been the healthiest in this department.  But, if recent surveys are to be believed, more than half of women are "disordered" in some way when it comes to food and body image.  I wouldn't say I was clinical, but I "dabbled" with an eating disorder around the time of my wedding and lurking in the back of my head is the fear my daughters will figure out I'm a fraud.  That all my "eat what you enjoy in moderation" and "exercise to be healthy" yammering will be for naught if they figure out one day I really do care about how big or small my butt is just like most women, despite my never having once complained about my own body in front of them, and they will stop believing anything I say.  It's like being a closet smoker.  Can I get away with it forever?  So I guess I won't ever be letting them read this blog.

This passage from the novel One True Thing, is my dream.  I want my daughters to be Ellen and have this conversation one day.

Jules:  She sounds like the only half-way decent mother in the world. Has she ever told you you needed to lose weight?

Ellen:  I'm a good weight.

Jules: You see, there you go.  The fact that you can say you are a good weight is a measure of what  a sane upbringing you had.

Please God, let it happen.  Let my girls pass through the confidence-slaying fire of adolescence unscathed.  Let them float through this self-improvement obsessed, comparison-driven modern world inside a bubble of healthy self-assurance.  May their pants size not be a measure of their self-worth. May they laugh in the face of anyone who tells them how they should look, then proudly give them the finger.

And may they convince their father to buy me that blazer for my next birthday for all my efforts past, present and future.

Amen.

*Or having your parents talk to your child about their sexual development.  Grandparents, you have been warned, there will be no Sixteen Candles moment.  In fact, don't talk to me about it either. 

Help me out...

I miss you guys!!!!

I am as desperate to get back to writing as I am for that Friday glass of wine, but the reams of paper pouring out of my children's backpacks requiring signatures and the names of ten people who can be contacted in case of emergency, requests for checks for Bagel Day, Pizza Day and Subway Day (I think I have found the source of the childhood obesity epidemic - school fundraisers), and demands for things like flutes for instrument lessons, tap shoes for dance lessons and a paper towel roll for a "getting to know our classmates" project, have had me tap dancing my way to the loony bin since September 6th.

You know what else is keeping me busy?  Fundraising for the Avon Three Day walk in NYC in October.

This involves my walking 39 miles over two days (the first day is just registration, or shopping in NYC in my case).  I'm hoping my running a few miles most days will serve as training, since all I've managed to do so far is make plans to meet my walking partner early Sunday morning, then cancel, via text, at eleven o'clock Saturday night as I'm pouring another glass of wine.

It does involve an overnight stay, which is nice.  H is grouching how this event is going to wind up costing us way more than my enrollment fee, and the price of my kicky new walking sneakers, since I refuse to sleep in a tent somewhere in the New York metro area and booked a hotel room.  Did he really expect I was going to sleep on the ground after walking 20 miles the first day?  Have we met?  I told him to not be all that shocked when the bill from the hotel includes a massage - and wine.

In all seriousness though, this is a really great cause.  I recently had my first mammogram and, in addition to having my breasts squashed to pancake-level thinness, I experienced the panic and terror of the doctor requesting "more views", then even "more views".  As the technician manipulated my breasts in ways not even the most inexperienced high school boy can manage, I thought to myself, "I can't have cancer.  I have kids!!!"  How many mothers say the same thing to themselves and their outcome is not as positive as mine?  How many women don't even have the resources to get this test and have no chance of survival once the diagnosis is made?

So dear readers, do me a solid.  Please visit my Avon Walk Page and donate.  Avon is making a specific push this year toward funding testing and treatment for under-privileged women.  I've pledged to raise $1800 and it would be great if I could exceed that goal.

Here's the link: Mary's Avon Page.  

I'll be back later this week with tales of training bras, Jennifer Garner movies and frozen yogurt.  Really workin' that male fan base....