My two favorite things I wear for all seasons are a knitted cardigan and a hairband with decorations. They are my staple wardrobe regime that does not sacrifice style for functionality and vice versa.
The temperature of Southern California, where I live, is similar to a desert climate in which days are hot and nights are cold. So, I always wear a knitted cardigan early in the morning and evening to keep me warm and cozy. And for my thick and sleek hair that tends to lush forward when I write and type, I wear a hairband, preferably decorated with a ribbon or sparkling gemstones, creating a coco Chanel-inspired look. I think a hairband with decorations is a great accessory to vamp up a woman’s look effortlessly in a chic way, regardless of age.
I want to thank James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, who is credited for creating a Modern-day cardigan modeled after the military waistcoats British Army Officers wore during the Crimean War. My thanks also extend to Coco Chanel, who adorned cardigans with feminine beauty with a finishing touch of charming hairband. ✨🌸🧚♀️
What’s the hardest decision you’ve ever had to make? Why?
I have my share of making the hardest decision that I want to divulge in the hope of making the readers see that your problems are not unique but common to all of us and, therefore, support you to do what your heart tells you to do.
Do you like Dickensian stories? So the story goes.
It happened at my workplace, where I started this past March. I landed this job through a referral of an employee who was a friend of my acquaintance. I am thankful that I got this job, which is highly competitive with decent pay and benefits here in Los Angeles, CA. But the gratitude should not exploit my dignity and vulnerability at no expense. The employee who referred me to the job became my supervising manager, but it didn’t take long for me to realize her uncontrollable temper, topped with tantrums and mistreatment of me in public. She constantly berated my performance – even if my mistakes were not fatal, resulting from her inept management and leadership skills. She caviled at my appearance, saying it’s too thin and thus pauperish and haggard. That didn’t end there. She shouted at me over the phone every Friday when she worked from home, tainting TGIF in Evil Friday. And the torture continued.
My colleagues who shared the same office space witnessed such malice and urged me to talk to HR so that they could put me on a different team. However, I was hesitant to do so, though my spirit was yearning, because I was afraid of the worst scenario of my getting discharged from the position since I was still on a probation period. So, I waited until a divine sign resulted from my prayer. Days passed, and finally, the moment arrived on a Friday. I couldn’t take her insult any longer, so I took the matter to HR in person and via email. The result was the change of my team from hell to heaven. Now, I work under an organized manager with leadership/management skills and a graceful personality as a bonus. So, in sum, my hard decision to voice out a cry of the heart was fortuitous. Happy Ending.
Pet peeves are subjective, and they say something about the personalities of the narrator. I have mine, and here they are:
1. Poor listening skills – I hate when people fidget with their bodies or smartphones when I talk to them. To see them behaving in such ways is downright disheartening. It shows they are not interested in what I am talking about or who I am. Or even if they seem to listen to what I am taking, when I check what I have told them, they don’t remember any of it.
2. Discrimination of expressing greeting – I see it very often that when you smile, the world will not smile unless you are within their cliques or type of favor. It plunges my spirit to a dismal low. For instance, in stores, you see store associates greeting and helping customers with their likes. I mean it in the context of appearance. If you are attractive, you will be treated nicely. This meritocratic tendency extends to workplaces. Most readers may disagree with this statement, but the dissenters may be of the Attractive Club.
3. Loud people – They are absolutely a disgrace of community life. From my apartment to workplace, people who disregard the quite peace of mind of others by opstrepeously bellowing, hooraying, and laughing as if they were a center of the universe should be put in a stone-made castle kept by a malicious witch in a deep forest until they cry for Mercy.
I wonder why people who have contributed to my pet peeves and thus galvanized me into writing this during my lunchtime at work continue to behave as they do. Do they think such behaviors are cool and an expression of freedom? Indeed, they are not educated well enough to learn that freedom and responsibility go hand in hand. Hence, these are my three pet peeves, and I hope you will understand me.
Rudyard Kipling described the nature of a cat as a creature that walked alone. The graceful pose, the noble demeanor, and the aristocratic solitude make the feline kind all the more mysterious and charming. Cats are so loving and, at the same time, so selfish, which makes them exuberantly human. It is no wonder the ancient Egyptians turned them into goddesses Bastet for womenkind. To make the long story short, the association of cats with women is natural and inseparable as if the two kinds are supra-natural companions.
Three years old Toro
The feline imagery has been complimentary and cautionary depending on the purpose of its application to societal conventions. For example, black cats are typically associated with devious single women practicing witchcraft (or, for God’s sake, cantankerous spinsters) because of their formidable ambiance of darkness, which significantly contrasts with their wonderfully fierce eyes and quiet solitude. While feminists would disagree with the application of such feline imagery to femininity (“How could you use such a demeaning word?!”), one can’t eradicate the visible traits that are so unlike their counterparts, including the canine. The coquettishness of feline characters and the capriciousness of behavior conjures the images of Cleopatra charming Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony, and the like. And what about Michelle Pilfer’s Cattleman? Then there were Charlotte Bronte and Lucy Maud Montgomery, whose feminine sensibilities were replete with fiercely independent creative spirits, and the fascinating power of words still mesmerized the readers of her times and ours. They were lovers of cats, and their best friends were cats who could share secrets because cats were the only true secret keepers.
Tori and Camille
Some people seem to take pride in publicly announcing their dislike of cats as if there were some virtue in doing it. They say cats are treacherous and capricious. But that is precisely why I like cats because, like us, when they are good, they are very, very good. Yet when they are bad, they are horrid. I never get bored with my two cats, Toro and Camille, because they are very responsive to my talking by vocalizing their needs when they want to play, go out to the living room, and eat. But you know what? They are also my best friends who always stay with me, even when I am blue and gray under dark spells.
If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be and why?
I would like to meet Jane Austen, George Eliot, Mary Seacole, and Francis Barber, whose backgrounds and personal aspects interest me not as celebrities but as persons from my knowledge of their extraordinary lives birthing from the ordinary milieu.
1. Jane Austen – Today, Austen is one of the most revered writers of world literature worldwide. But her novels were not regarded as a lofty tome of literature in terms of academic value in her days. Austen was not of blue stockings, but a woman attending the household cares that feminists call drudgery. She took care of her elderly father, and writing was a means of her creative outlet to express herself. Also, she was weak at spelling, just as Leo Tolstoy was. (What a relief that perfect grammarians are not necessarily great authors!) She was also unmarried, so she and I would have many things to discuss as a single woman taking care of her family with a love of writing.
2. George Eliot – a great intellectual writer, Eliot used to churn butter out of milking the cows on her family farm. But her family denied it because it would mar her image of an intellectual as if doing chores were considered unfit for a woman of her literary status. She was a strong-minded, independent-willed woman with the power of words to compensate for her lack of physical beauty.
3. Mary Seacole – I want to ask her how she upheld her confidence and determination to care for the wounded soldiers during the Crimean War after Florence Nightingale rejected her application to volunteer for her Nurse Corps. Her love of humanity and keen observation of societal norms and behaviors have impressed me, and I want to ask her for a word of advice.
4. Francis Barber – Born into slavery in Jamaica, Barber was a loyal servant of English essayist and author of A Dictionary of the English Language, who took him under his protection against racial injustice and mistreatment. Johnson even bequeathed him a small fortune after his death, so Barber set up his small business and started a family with an English woman. His descendants still live in Lichfield, England. I want to meet him and ask him about what Johnson was really like – as it is the best way to know the character of one’s boss – and how his life became after the death of his master in the time when the blacks on the British Isles were conspicuously existent in small numbers. Was he treated like his counterpart in the U.S.?
It would be best never to meet your heroes or idols in real life because you will be disappointed with their actual characters. But my list of people will not be a disappointment because they were not from the highest estate of the ether and seem approachable and relatable. Or so I should think.
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