Today the Sassistas! feature Part One of a two-part series, "What Women Want," in which we take a closer look at products designed especially for women's needs.  Part One focuses on "That Time of Month" and how much it means and/or used to mean to all of us. Part Two, tomorrow, will focus on "That Time of Age."  To begin, check out this video:



This video is part of an ad campaign by Kotex for their new femcare product line:  U By Kotex with its accompanying tagline, "Break the Cycle." Yesterday, the Sassistas! spent some time exploring the site and became quite fascinated with the "super cute colors" and tampon instructions such as, "Go from compact to full-sized protection in one easy move.  When it clicks, it's ready to insert."  (Does it buzz when it needs to come out?)

There are also some femcare firsts such as videos on how to insert a tampon and had to apply a pad.  Perhaps what's most cool is that visitors are encouraged to sign a "Declaration of Real Talk" that addresses the code of secrecy that makes girls feel uncomfortable talking about their bodies.  Check it out.

In the meantime, let's go back to the ad above.  We love how it captured how menstrual cycles bring out all that is soft and tender in women.  You know what we mean.  Please share how that time of month transformed you into the woman you want to be.

NOTE TO THE MISTAS: Please don't feel left out.  We know you've been a witness to that time of month.  Here's your opportunity to testify to what you endured.

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY, SASSOSPHERE!  Make yourself a pot of English Breakfast tea and add a shot of Irish whiskey (a "Northern Ireland" according to half O'sista), then sit back and read this month's "Meet the Sass" from Westsista!

I can't wait for the inevitable train wreck when the Tea Party crowd collides with conservative Republicans.

Nothing unites like a common enemy, and these two groups have been united by Barack Obama.  Both groups dislike and fear him, which is a powerful recipe for common ground.  But they also dislike John McCain and aren't that wild about Mitt Romney.

These two groups have some core beliefs that are just not compatible.  I'm not sure how they will reconcile those core principles, or if that is even possible.  Although Tea Party members tend to be conservative, that doesn't necessarily mean they think that government is the solution to social issues.

Every year, the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) holds a convention, and this year the Tea Party influence was felt. CPAC's annual straw poll, asking "who would be your first choice for the Republican nominee for President?" was won in 2007, 2008 and 2009 by Mitt Romney.  This year RON PAUL, the most prominent Libertarian in the world, won the straw poll!

(By the way, do you remember who won the CPAC straw poll in 2006?  George Allen -- the Macaca guy.)

Although Libertarians are not Tea Party activists -- not exactly, anyway -- they share some of the same values: small government and low taxes.  Since the Tea Party movement is emerging, it is not always clear what policies they will embrace.  The Libertarian Party -- the party of Ron Paul -- has well-established and publicly-declared policies.  Since it is not clear exactly what policies the Tea Party will end up endorsing, I'll use the Libertarian policies to illustrate the differences.

When it comes to actually electing candidates, the Tea Party will have to get more specific about the policies which support their principles.  They already feel that Scott Brown (R-MA) has let them down by voting for the Jobs Bill.

I think the interesting fireworks will begin sometime late this summer, and I wonder how long the Tea Party energy and exuberance will last when the going gets tough. Politics is really more of a drunken brawl than a polite tea party.

By the way, I'm choosing to ignore the fringe elements of the Tea Bag movement, such as the folks who believe our president is an illegal alien who should be deported, and that states have the right to secede from the union (you might have thought that over 600,000 American deaths and a Civil War might have settled that issue, but no).  I'll even control myself and not make any snarky jokes about tea bagging.

The point is, there are serious people who are legitimately concerned about the level of taxes and the interference of big government in our lives.  The majority of them deserve respect for their passion for speaking out and for their activism.

A Pickleback is simply awesome.  Brine and whiskey make one of those mysteriously wonderful combinations, and it doesn't hurt that pickle juice is second to none in preventing dehydration (thus helping to stave off the post-St. Paddy's Day hangover).

If pickle juice works as a chaser with Irish whiskey, why not other juices and fluids?  For example, a shot of Irish Whiskey with a chaser of beet juice: a Beetback.  A shot of Irish Whiskey with a chaser of honey: a Bit O' Blarney.

Help the Sassistas! and Minho (beautifully attired for St. Paddy's below) celebrate by creating your own Shamrock cocktail featuring overlooked juices and fluids.  Don't forget to give it a special Irish name!

Sitting over words

very late I have heard a kind of whispered sighing

not far

like a night wind in pines or like the sea in the dark

the echo of everything that has ever

been spoken

still spinning in one syllable

between the earth and silence

-- "Utterance" by W.S. Merwin

January 25, 1955 - March 14, 2001

The dead are always looking down on us, they say,

while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich,

they are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven

as they row themselves slowly through eternity.

One month ago, I received a letter from my father that included the images in this post, "prints of snapshots taken over 50 years ago," he wrote in an enclosed note; snapshots that had been sent to him by the daughter of George Nick.  "Many years ago George gave you kids each a plush toy," my father revealed. "George was the best man at our wedding."  My father may have sent the same set of prints to my other sisters, but I received them as though he had reached out especially to me.  He had not heard from me for awhile.  He missed me.  He didn't want to lose me like he lost his daughter, Karen, nine years earlier on March 14, to complications from multiple sclerosis.

Pictured in the snapshots here are my oldest sister, me and Karen. I look at them and realize how little I know of Karen.  How seldom I saw her or touched her.  How much I think and dream about her, but never see her entire face. How afraid I was of her when I was growing up. 

Back then, she was the fiercest enforcer of my mother's code.  At the dining room table -- the scene of many confrontations between my mother and me and the place where I often conceded defeat in silent shame -- Karen served as both jailhouse informant and unwitting collaborator.  "Today in school, one of my friends saw Flannista with Gail. Flann's not allowed to spend time with Gail, right mom?" she would announce in front of all of us.  Or leaving the table, Karen would hiss, "How many more times do we have to hear you want to be dead?"  Then precisely parroting my mother, she would add, "Just look at yourself. You ought to be ashamed."  Though I tried to stay clear of her, Karen always had her eyes on me.

After I was asked to leave my mother's home in 1972, I saw Karen perhaps once or twice over 28 years.  We did not call each other or exchange letters.  Our relationship passed from view.

Then on Monday, October 23, 1989, I received an anonymous package in the mail.  Inside was a hand mirror.  Scrawled on the face in pink-red fingernail polish was this message:  "When was the last time you took a good hard LONG LOOK at yourself?  Shame, shame, shame on YOU!"  I immediately suspected that Karen had sent the mirror, as I recognized the condemnatory tone.  My suspicions were soon confirmed by my youngest sister who had also received an anonymous package containing a mirror scrawled with the same message.  "Is Karen my wounded child in action?" I wrote in my diary that night.

I did not see Karen again until Good Friday, April 21, 2000.  She was confined to a hospital bed in her husband's study. My diary entry that day began with:

Karen is beautiful.  She's really beautiful.  "You're so beautiful" were the first words I said to her after so long.  The second words were, "You don't bite your fingernails anymore." But of course, she can't, even if she wanted to.

Over the next 11 months, I would visit Karen when I could, determined to know and to touch the sister who for so long had watched me, but had never really seen me. 

Now that Karen has -- in Charlissta's words -- "moved through the veil," does she see me in a new way?  Does she see the top of my head as I write?  Does she see these words?  These snapshots?  Will we ever see each other again?  Or has she eternally passed from view?  I do not know.  Still, in my heart's eye, I often see her racing past me, then looking back and grinning in impish approval.  She's really beautiful.

 
They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth,

and when we lie down in a field or on a couch,

drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon,

they think we are looking back at them,

which makes them lift their oars and fall silent

and wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.

-- "The Dead" by Billy Collins

To celebrate the birthday of babysis tomorrow, half-a-sista contributed a very special post in her honor.  Thank you, half-a, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY, babysis!

WARNING:  Make sure your cabbage patch kids are out of the room.

I came across a new sport that appeals to the vegetarian in me: coleslaw wrestling.  The championships have been held in Samsula, Florida every year since 1988.*  For those of you unfamiliar with the location of this town of approximately 4,900 people, it's in Volusia County at the intersection of Watermelon (between Parsley and Lettuce) and North Samsula Drive . . . just south of Spruce Creek, Florida.

The first competition on Wednesday, March 3, attracted between 15,000 and 50,000 bikers, depending on which reports you read.  All we know for sure is that a lot of people like coleslaw wrestling.  It's so popular that additional matches were planned for the weekend.

On that cold Wednesday, several days before the Oscars (probably a smart business decision to give everyone a chance to see both shows), the competition began with a pre-show photo session with an adult erotic film star, who according to reports, bared her breast for her fans.  Maybe she did so in case a costume failure didn't occur during the wrestling matches (but many did).

After the explanation of the rules, the wrestlers began the long slaw crawl to the top.  Local contestant, Heather Spears, took the championship for the fourth year in a row.  View one of her matches here.*  Congratulations, Heather.

The crowd, mostly  men, mostly bikers, stopped at the former cabbage farm -- now Spotonick's Cabbage Patch Bar -- on their way to a bikers' weekend in Daytona Beach.  The wrestling matches break up a long trip.

To have your own coleslaw wrestling matches, take 2,000 pounds of cabbage shredded by a wood chipper, add 20-40 gallons of cooking oil, stir, throw the mixture on a blue tarp (the wrestling mat) and find people willing to participate.  NOTE:  My grandmother put sugar in her coleslaw and some milk, but apparently they don't make coleslaw that way in Samsula, Florida.

First prize was $500 and second prize was $350.  The wrestlers who came in third and fourth received a buck and quarter each.  So there's money in the sport.

The announcer did tell the crowd that should they stop for dinner somewhere, and the server asks if they want coleslaw with their order, they ought to pass.

Any great coleslaw recipes out there?  Has anyone seen the coleslaw wrestling competition?  Would anyone admit it if they had?  What unusual sports have you participated in that are suitable for Sassistas!?

* Please be advised that some of the images in the links provided are intended for adults only and may be a bit unsavory to many living, breathing human beings.