CLEVELAND – For the first time this season, Fausto Carmona looked like the pitcher he was the past two years. That was bad news for him and the Indians, and great news for the Minnesota Twins. Carmona sputtered early and Cleveland’s offense followed suit. That was all the Central Division-leading Twins needed to take the series [...]

By Aisha Sultan, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Our baby sitter showed up at the door in the throes of a crisis.

It was the Bay of Dresses, and my closet was last chance at detente.

She carried in the “surprise” her mother had picked up for her at the mall the day before: a full-length fuchsia, flower-embossed silk dress with a high mandarin collar. It would have been the perfect dress if she were going as a geisha to a Halloween party, but it was less than ideal for her high school prom.

Sana, our 17-year-old sitter, and her mother had spent more than 20 hours at local malls trying to find a dress they could agree on.

“My mom wants me to dress like a nun or something,” she said.

Sana found a one-shoulder number and pleaded her case: “It’s not a big deal.”

Her mother was unmoved. “I’m sorry. I’m letting you go to the prom, but there are some rules and regulations that must be followed,” she said. Nothing strapless, off-shoulder, low-cut or too short. Basically, her mother refused to let her daughter out of the house dressed like jail bait.

They had originally found something they could agree on from a Mormon modest dress site online. It wasn’t until a week before the prom that they realized the dress would not arrive until four days after the dance. This is when the simmering feud erupted into full-blown warfare. Her mother ordered a second dress from the Mormon site that was guaranteed to arrive on time. It had many frilly layers and looked like something my 7-year-old would describe as too babyish for first grade. Even I could see it was unacceptable.

Then, her mother spent a day at the mall and brought home the traditional Chinese outfit.

Sana was skeptical. Highly skeptical.

Ask your friends what they think, her mother said.

She texted one of her friends and started describing the outfit.

“She started laughing so hard and couldn’t stop,” Sana told me.

I could see her point.

“I was desperate,” her mother said later.

I ran into the mother and daughter at a party and offered a silk off-white and black Calvin Klein dress that Sana could borrow. Her mother seemed ready to cry tears of joy. (Three dresses had been bought by this point, and prom was less than a week away). Sana, visibly relieved, asked how soon she could come over to try it on.

Certainly, it was flattering that a cool high schooler could fathom finding something worth wearing in my closet. Or maybe I’ve gotten old enough that my clothes officially can be considered retro. Regardless, that dress didn’t quite work.

But, we did find something in my closet that had potential.

I called her mother.

“We found something that fit her,” I said.

“You’re a size zero?” she asked.

“Of course not. It was a fantasy dress,” I said. Women know all about the fantasy clothes — the jeans we will wear once we finally get those six-pack abs, the dress we will rock once we lose 10 pounds. I bought this one in a moment of skinny, likely following a bout of stomach flu, which I quickly made up for in a weekend of carbs. It’s a jersey-knit, sleeveless red sheath with a boat neck collar. The hem hit below the knee, a classic tea-length. The cut was flawless but unforgiving. It magnified the slightest bulge.

I’d never worn it. For a while, it was an inspiration dress. Eventually, I realized the world’s strongest girdles couldn’t help me look the way I imagined I would wearing it. It got shoved way, way in the back of the closet.

Sana, however, is about the size of my pinky finger. It fit her like a glove.

It was too simple for prom, so I suggested we could find some way to embellish the neckline and waist. She was game.

We met at the St. Louis Galleria in the middle of a school day. I was worried about being arrested by a truancy officer.

“Don’t worry. I’m a senior,” she said. “And, I really need a dress.”

Even though her mother had granted permission, I still felt like I was contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
We found a jeweled bib necklace my seamstress could take apart and stitch to the neckline. We also discovered a simple lace and jeweled stretchy headband that could be fashioned into a thin high-waisted belt. But once Sana picked up the made-over dress and modeled it for her mother, it was cast into the inappropriate pile. She ended up wearing a black dress she already owned.

It was a fitting ending to the saga of four dresses and a prom.

Aisha Sultan is a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Contact her at asultan@post-dispatch.com.

By Christina, Ohio Moms Blog

One benefit of living in Ohio is that we get to experience all four seasons. We get the blanket of snow in the winter, wet and cool springs, the sizzling heat of summer, and the crisp dry air of fall. Just when you start to get sick of one season, another comes along to bring you all new wonders and challenges.

But there’s one aspect of all of this season-changing that I could do without: those annoying weeks where you’re stuck in-between clothing seasons. This isn’t a problem for my clothing, but it drives me mad when dealing with my kids’ outfits.

Right now we’re suffering through one of these periods. One day it’s sunny and 75, the next it’s 47 and cloudy. My daughters’ dressers are currently filled with long-sleeves, sweatshirts, and fleece. There’s no room for anything else. Until last week, stored in hard-to-reach areas were boxes full of short-sleeves, capri pants and sundresses, waiting for summer to be declared.

Then my older daughter came home from school one day with a note reminding us that her classroom gets rather warm when it’s warm outside, and can you please be a responsible parent and dress your child so she doesn’t sweat to death? It’s not like I was trying to overheat her, but how are you supposed to dress a child when it’s 38 degrees when she gets on the bus and 70 by afternoon? Send an “after-lunch” outfit? I don’t have the laundry skills to handle two outfits a day.

So I dragged out the summer clothing and pruned the winter stuff, pulling out the fleece, but keeping the lightweight knit pants, squeezing the t-shirts next to the thermals. The sandals reside next to muddy boots. The result? A mess — the drawers are still full, now with half and half clothing, the winter boxes are half-packed but not yet able to be stored, and the summer boxes are also half-empty. Which makes their rooms half-disaster-zones.

Eventually the scales will tip and warm days will become the standard for the next several months. Then I will safely store away the winter clothing and order will be restored in my daughters’ dressers. Until then, I carefully step over the boxes on the floor and swear to visitors that we’re not moving anytime soon.

Maybe living in a year-round warm climate wouldn’t be so bad? I bet parents in the south don’t have to juggle the seasonal clothing like we do.

Or maybe I just need to buy an extra dresser.

This is an original post from the Ohio Moms Blog, www.ohiomomsblog.com.

Gabrielle Garcia Medina will be a member of the cast of well distinguished Hispanic leaders that will attend the 15th Annual Hispanic Leadership Conference at the Lorain County Community College’s Spitzer Center May 1st.  To register click on the link provided on the home page.  Below is a sample of one of her poems.

I have forgotten that the world is smiling

That my dreams don’t fit through any doorway

And my spirit shines brighter than the sun

I have forgotten what it is like to love

And have adopted cynicism as my coping mechanism

I have forgotten that strangers are open

And friends are available

That poetry is therapeutic

And that prayer is healing

The spark in my heart has dimmed to a flicker

Trauma now blankets my fears

And isolation is the only place I find solace

The sky is not weeping yet I see no sunshine

The path is clear

Yet I stand stagnant, stuck, still, uncertain

waiting for something that isn’t coming

I am lost in the translation of my own identity

I am not who I believed I was

And I am not who I wanted to be

But I am human, genuine, beautiful

Authentically confused

Uniquely disturbed

And daringly open to smiling again.

Writing again.

Living again.

Maria Dominguez has exhibits in the Tri-state area and Europe. Dominguez’s’ career in public art-making, private commissions and community murals have gained her the respect of her contemporaries and art professionals in New York State.

 

In 2002 The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in New York City commissioned “El-Views”, where the Willet Stain Glass Studios of Philadelphia, PA eloquently transformed her 16 original paintings into dazzling stain glass jewels, which is now permanently installed at the Chauncey Street subway station along the J/Z lines in Brooklyn, N.Y. The mentioned design was one of 15 to have received the prestigious “Excellence in Design” award by the New York Municipal Society. In 2005, as part of Artmakers, Inc., she completed, When Women Pursue Justice a 3,300 square foot mural in Bedford/Stuyvesant Brooklyn… Also in 2006 Brooklyn Connect commissioned, Awake, Arise, Move Mural. Another work, in 2007 was Bronx Allegory for Gunhill Community Health Center in NY.

 

Solo Exhibits: 2009/10 Brooklyn College, Brooklyn Student Center, Brooklyn, NY 2008, WBGO Art Gallery, Newark, NJ, 2007 GOBA Gallery in Hoboken, NJ,  Boricua College, Bk’lyn, NYC, Center of Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College in NYC. In 2005, Brooklyn Central Library, NYC.

Group Exhibits include: 2009 Taller Latino Americano; located at Alexis Gallery N.Y. Another is 2009 Center Cultural; Brussels, Belgium, also 2009 Teatro Cesare in Volta; Pavia, Italy, 2008 Na’tl Library of Cameroon, Yaounde, Africa 2008 Brofman Art Gallery; NYU, 2007 Augusta Savage Gallery, University Mass; Arte Antilles Gallery, NYC; Tengelsen Gallery Dix Hills, NYC; Jersey City Museum in Jersey City, NJ. In 2006 St. Joseph’s College in Brooklyn, NY, the UBS Gallery in NYC.

 

 She has been the recipient of prestigious grants such as The National Endowment for Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and has garnered nominations to the prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation Award.  Dominguez is currently teaches art for young audiences of New York and has worked for The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Learning through the Arts, Studio in the School. For seven years Dominguez headed El Museo del Barrio’s Museum Education Department in New York City.

 

 

 

Here are the 2010 workshops for the  15^TH Anneal Hispanic Leadership Conference, hosted by the Coalition for Hispanic/Latino Issues and Progress.  The conference will be held at the Lorain County Community College’s Spitzer Center.  There is still time to be a part of this exiting event, click on the link on the home page to register, and view the list of sponsors.

New P.R. Birth Certificates & The Undermining of Puerto Rico’s Economy

Luis Balzac

NE Regional Director

PRFAA

Border Angels - A Tribute to Human Compasión

Enrique Morones

Executive Director

Border Angels

Identity Theft, Scams, & Vulnerable Populations

Susan Choe (Shay)

Section Chief  Consumer Protection Division

Attorney General’s Office

Danger Online - Cyberpredators and Sexual Exploitation

Kathy Nicols

Program Spec. Crime Victims Prev. & Asst. Ofc

Attorney General’s Office

Budgeting in a Recession: Waking Up Your Dreams

Allen G. Porter

Financial Advisor

Cleveland Saves

When Walls Talk: Art as a Catalyst for Change

Maria Dominguez

International Visual Artist

Brooklyn, New York

The 2010 Census: Beyond the Fear

Guadalupe Lara

Regional Migrant Partner Specialist

U.S. Dept. Of Commerce

Latín Dance - A Hands on Experience - Introduction to Tango

Adriana Salgado

Dance Instructor

Columbia

&

Orlando Reyes

Dance Instructor

Columbia

YOUTH LEADERSHIP COMPONENT

Danger Online - Cyberpredators and Sexual Exploitation - AM

Kathy Nicols

Program Spec. Crime Victims Prev. & Asst. Ofc

Attorney General’s Office

Workshop to be named - 45 minutes

Gabriela Garcia-Medina

Spoken Word Artist/Poet/Author

Choice of Workshops - 45 minutes

INDEPENDENCE — With “Elbowgate” in its third day, Cavaliers small forward LeBron James promised to be on the floor Saturday night in Game 1 of an Eastern Conference semifinal series with the Boston Celtics. “I will be ready for Game 1 and I will be a productive player,” James said Thursday following a light practice at [...]

Medina celebrated Arbor Day on Thursday by raising awareness of a tree’s value to a community and distributing saplings to third-graders. City Parks and Forestry Department employees also posted signs on trees around Public Square that show the monetary and environmental value of each tree. City arborist Jansen Wehrley said he used a program offered on www.iTreetools.org [...]

GRANGER TWP. — Andrew Ehrbar, 13, who attended Highland Middle School, died Thursday of injuries sustained in the Wednesday morning crash that claimed the life of his sister, Erin, 16. “It is with great sorrow that I must now confirm the passing of Andrew Ehrbar, a seventh-grader at Highland Middle School, who was involved in yesterday’s [...]

Charlotte J. Gagne Julianna Hudacsek Harold G. Rabjohn Read the full obituaries in The Gazette E-dition at: http://medinagazette.oh.newsmemory.com/