Osaka Castle Cat is hunting fish and grasshoppers, and with your very presence, you are probably ruining everything.

Koya-san Burmese Cat just wants to be left alone. Can a cat spend some private time in a damn alley way these days?!

Hiroshima Peace Park Cat will burn your soul out with his eyes. Burn it.

Although, if that is tuna on your onigiri then he may be amenable to some kind of truce.

Hiroshima Tram Stop Cats have some really important grooming and shit to get down to in these bushes.

And you are interrupting.

Lake Ashi Cat is not even remotely interested in whatever you have to offer. Is that a noodle. Really?

Lake Ashi Cat is far too good to eat some shitty soba off the ground.

Nikko Window Cat just wants to go back to sleep.

It's enough putting up with those two bitches over in the corner all day without some idiot interrupting nap time with a fucking camera. They call it a CAT NAP for a reason.

Nikko Window Cat aside, how do the Japanese stray cats remain so glossy and plump??


❤

Some weeks months ago now, I found myself in Armidale (it has, in fact, been many months since I first drafted this post). I was there to visit my Mel, who is was elderly and frail, and who had lately been knocked over by another big mean dog, and I was worried that this was beginning of her end.

Lochiel, South Australia Photo by Martin Mischkulnig Image copyright of Martin Mischkulnig

As is our routine, the Mothership and I went to have coffee and a snack on Sunday mid-morning, and found ourselves at the New England Regional Art Museum, where a new exhibition by Tim Winton and photographer Martin Mischkulnig had just opened.

The cafe at NERAM has gone through various incarnations since it first opened following a major extension of the gallery in 1997. I'm pretty sure that it was the first place in Armidale to offer sourdough on its menu. In 2003, we had our Year 12 formal there. I mean... basically, at various important points in time, it has been hottest place in town.

Maybe we were shunned because I was using Hipstamatic instead of Instagram?

In its latest life, the cafe has become NERAM Harvest. Harvest "endeavour[s] to use local, organic, produce wherever possible."

Following an enquiry from the Mothership about catering for a function she was attempting to organise (since NERAM do not permit outside catering), Harvest waited a month before responding with an emailed sneer that, "we don't do sandwiches." Yawn.


Anyway, on a sunny Sunday morning we found ourselves waiting at the point of the cafe that used to say "Please wait to be seated". A number of waiters studiously avoided eye contact until we gave up and seated ourselves at an unoccupied table near the window. After attempting to get the attention of anyone for about 5 minutes, a hipster waiter (a haiter?) stalked up to our table and told us unceremoniously that it was reserved and we had to move.

Um wow, I hope that glassware is organic.

We were shunted outside, and then waited another couple of minutes for our haiter to re-approach with the menu. On ordering coffee and toast, we were informed that breakfast finished at 11am. No alternative was offered. It was 11.05am.

Our coffees took 13 minutes to arrive at the table. I timed it because I was pissy by then and sick of being treated with haughty disdain by someone who was most likely bitter to be working as a waiter. I mean, really: on a Sunday, no normal person even leaves the house before 11am, let alone has breakfast, and, if a table has no indication of being reserved, then as far as I'm concerned, it isn't reserved. Also, if toasted brioche with dragonfly wings is available on the lunch menu (not, of course, an organic, local wing sandwich), then there is a toaster in use in the kitchen, which means that toast can be made.





Oh, and the coffee? The coffee tasted like shit.

Disdain? Two can play at that game.




❤

Even though girdles and the like are tools of repression etc.. Here are several reasons why one might wear fat pants, apart from, obviously, to be repressed and reinforce the gender divide:

1. They make you look smooth. Not skinny, but smooth. Nothing will take away the extra piece of cake, glass of wine and three snack packs of rice crackers, but their edges can be softened. Maybe this is to fail at feminism, but I’m not convinced that I am vain because men hate imperfect women. Or something. I don’t know. Basically, fat pants make clothes sit better by smoothing things out, and I don’t think that’s a terrible thing.
2.  They hold your tummy firmly when it is bloated and sore. Firm wrapping is panacea to cramping and other lady problems, and many things associated with an irritable set of pipes. (I almost wrote pancetta up there…Freudian??)
3.  They prevent chub rub. This is most important for me. Chub rub is an evil pestilence visited upon me. If you don’t know what it is then you cannot understand. Various other cures have been put forward, including AstroGlide (but I don’t think that could be comfortable in summer, when humidity is king), talcum powder (pffft, powder is all gone within three minutes of walking out the doors), and Monistat anti-chafing gel (I don’t want the people in the store to think I have a yeast problem…or that I chafe...)

A sample of fat pants currently in my knickers drawer:

Nina Shaping Shortie by Yummie Tummie $18.95 AUD. Amazingly, this is only marginally different to the US price, but the colours are more limited compared to those that I've seen on US websites.

These help smoothing-wise for me, but don't really suck it all in. This is perhaps because I have them in  M/L which isn't really that snug around the belly. Ditto for firmness; the fabric is that nice soft superstretch knit that seamless tank tops are made from, so it's really...quite stretchy. Conversely, the great thing about them is that they don't dig in at all on the waist, so you don't end up with a big obvious indent.

The major failing of Nina is that the leg length is too short, because although they'll sit as they do in the picture when you first put them on, after about 10 minutes, they ravel up my thighs, heading far north,  and I spend the rest of the day with my hand up my skirt trying to roll them back down. 

If only they were a bit longer I would buy more. The colours are so nice and the fabric so comfortable. Comfortable, that is, until it rides up my ass. There is a longer style, but it is polyester rather than polyamide, and so I suspect that the waist would indent. Sigh.

Smoothing power ★★★✩✩
Firmness ★★✩✩✩
Indentation avoidance ★★★★✩
Chub rub prevention ★✩✩✩✩

Triumph Shape Sensation Long Leg Short $44.95 AUD. I'm pretty sure I bought them on sale because I'm very cheap, and I resent the high prices placed on shapewear. It's all synthetic and mostly hideous!


Ehhhh see how they're sitting in the picture? Up high like that? Hah. It doesn't last. They're smooth and firm alright, as long as you don't mind the waistband inching itself down to line up perfectly with some important internal organs.

The legs on these gradually creep up too, and then you get an indent in your thighs. But they are long enough to prevent rubbing (and to make me paranoid that they're visible when I walk up stairs). 

Triumph has a line of circular knit shapewear now that looks quite nice. I like the little bows. I imagine it's much less likely to cause indents, with a fit much like Yummie Tummie. I'll wait and see if they go on sale...

Smoothing power ★★★✩✩ 
Firmness ★★★★✩
Indentation avoidance ★★✩✩✩
Chub rub prevention ★★★★✩



Uniqlo Women Body Shaper High Rise Half Shorts ~$15 AUD. Otherwise known as my holy grail of fat pants. Holy. Grail.

They are comfortable, not completely hideous (colours!), don't roll up badly, and don't dig in at the waist. I could go on.

BUT, I bought them at UNIGLO in Japan last year, and am now unable to obtain more because UNIGLO doesn't do online shopping. Horreur!  At this point, I am ready to go on a weekend trip to Singapore/Hong Kong/Some other place with UNIGLO to buy out their stock. In every colour. Fat pant shopping trip!

I was browsing online earlier and saw what appeared to be an analogous pair from the ASSETS®By Sarah Blakely line at Target. I just don't understand how they can cost $44 AUD. Nor do I really understand how ASSETS can be a registered trademark. Maybe it's actually just part of the name...



Smoothing power ★★★★✩ 
Firmness ★★★✩✩
Indentation avoidance ★★★★★
Chub rub prevention ★★★★✩


Vedette Total Compression Body Shaper $41 USD.


As if the name isn't terrifying enough, this thing comes in a packet the size of your average postage stamp, and upon first glance, appears to be sized to fit a toy poodle. I've managed to get these on twice, both times with assistance. There is no dignity in a full body suit.

Due to their compressive nature, they have an emergency chute for bodily functions, but again, due to their compressive nature, there is an alarming degree of labial extrusion. There's just no dignity.

Smoothing power ★★★★✩ 
Firmness ★★★★✩
Indentation avoidance ★★★★✩
Chub rub prevention..unkown
Blood supply to important extremities ✩✩✩✩✩





 I also have myriad pairs of similar pants to the Triumphs above, however they are slightly shorter in the leg, and lower in the waist.  Since they're a brand called Clio from Big W, they are significantly cheaper than anything made by Triumph (or Maidenform, who also make a similar pair to the above), but they're not ideal because they get some indentation and rolling issues. They do the job as far as preventing the rub, though. I also just really love shopping at Big Dub! It's so cheap, I get Frequent Flier points, and they actually sell some nice work clothes!!

Once I did make the mistake of buying some granny-style fat pants, made from shiny polyester sateen and with a bonded lace panel. You know the ones I mean.  I was in a bind, so to speak. I'll just say that it was a really, really terrible idea because the waistband on those things was tighter than an oyster at low tide. I hope you can learn from my mistake.

❤