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The Vine

The Tomato Nation advice column addresses your questions on etiquette, grammar, romance, and pet misbehavior. Ask The Readers about books or fashion today!

Home » Baseball, The Vine

The Vine, Anniversary Edition: April 29, 2010

Submitted by on April 29, 2010 – 3:41 PM80 Comments

Dear Sars,

Would love a little help figuring out what the heck I am remembering here.

It’s something I saw as a kid in the mid-to-late eighties on a children’s program. I’m pretty sure it was a televised short of the type often included in shows like Sesame Street. But I don’t think it was Sesame Street, in fact I think it was most likely a British show. This was in Australia, I should add, and I think I might even have watched it in class rather than at home on regular TV, just to make it even more difficult to pin down.

I seem to remember it being live-action with stop-motion/claymation elements, though I’m not entirely sure on that, it could have been regular animation. Also, the story might have been narrated via voice-over rather than playing out on its own.

The short was about a girl who goes to a supermarket with her mother, and while peering into the deep freezer she discovers a little person — a girl or young woman, I think — living in amongst the boxes of frozen peas and fish fingers. I can’t remember whether she actually talks to the freezer girl or not, but she worries about how cold it must be living in the freezer, and so when she goes home she makes (possibly with her mother’s help) a set of tiny knitted clothes, a hat, scarf, gloves, etc. The next time they go shopping she gives them to the freezer girl who puts them on and is very happy.

I remember being completely fascinated by this story, the girl living in the freezer, and especially the teeny tiny clothes, and I’ve never forgotten it. I just have no idea where it came from. I’ve tried Googling, but have found that searching the internet with the terms “girl,” “in,” and “freezer” is a bad idea if you ever want to sleep again. YouTube similarly turned up nothing (that wasn’t horrifying in some way).

At this point just a little validation that I didn’t completely imagine this would be appreciated, as no one I’ve ever mentioned it to has had a clue.

Mum Probably Had To Drag Me Out Of The Freezer Section For Weeks

*****

Hi Sars,

I am hoping some well-endowed readers can help me with this one. I am a 38I or 36J depending on the brand, and I am trying to find a sports bra that will let me run, do aerobics, do jumping jacks, etc. without extreme discomfort and mortification.

Specialty bra shops in NYC like Town Shop are great for regular bras, but have not been much help with the sport variety. I am currently wearing a Goddess sports bra that hooks in the back, in the correct size, under a Nike pullover T-back that’s a size too small to keep things, shall we say, compressed. It’s the best solution I’ve found so far but it’s not great. Any ideas? Thanks!

Melissa

Dear Melissa,

Try Bare Necessities; they have a good number of sports bras, and if you see a type you like, you can Google from there to find it in your size if BN doesn’t have it.

Readers, can you suggest a similar site or sites where it’s easier to search by sport or impact level? Athleta’s site lets you do that, but their bras only go up to DD.

*****

Dear Sars,

I’m going crazy trying to remember the name of a book I recall from my childhood, and I think the readers can help. The book was about two little girls, sisters, who were Jewish. If I recall correctly, their mother was very sick and had been hospitalized or was in an institution, but I can’t recall why. I think they were living with their father and maybe an aunt, and that the mom returned at the end of the book. I also think they might have lived in Brooklyn or some other part of the city, or maybe in your home state of New Jersey?

As a Catholic kid, the book made a huge impression on me because it taught me something of Jewish culture, which I didn’t know anything about at the time. The family kept kosher and I’m pretty sure there were descriptions of “meat meals” and “milk meals” as well as the separate plates they used. I think I recall a description of fruit — maybe sliced bananas — eaten with sour cream and sugar. I also recall the girls skating around and singing that song that goes, “Oh you can’t get to heaven / on roller skates / ’cause you’ll roll right by / those pearly gates.”

Please, please, I implore you to ask the readers if they can figure this one out, because it’s driving me insane and Google is not helping. Instead I’m compulsively reading Jezebel’s “Fine Lines” archive and reading about all the other children’s/YA books I’ve forgotten I once loved.

Thanks so much! I love TN and you once published a letter of mine, years and years ago, about my jackass ex-boyfriend. (And I should have taken your advice then, and didn’t, and boy was that ever a mistake! Take heed, readers!)

C

Dear C,

Can’t help with the book, but I’d love to know what I said about your jack-ex. Feel free to throw us a link.

Readers, any thoughts on the book?

*****

Hi Sars and Nation —

I am going nuts trying to track down a short story I heard some years ago. It was read out loud for a group to discuss, so I never saw which book it was in (anthology or whatever) and can’t remember the author or title. It creeped me out but good and I’d love to read it again.

The best I can recall the story, it was told as if we are listening to a single voice speaking pleasantly almost through to the end, when we get a brief glimpse of the speaker’s thoughts just as the story closes.

The setting appears to be a primary-school classroom and the teacher is talking to her new students. She leads them, little by little, into doing something awful, maybe turning their parents in to the state or something of that nature. At the very end, the teacher looks over her class of little students innocently selling out their families, and observes that the entire process had taken only ten minutes.

Still gives me chills (and makes me angry) to this day, and I’m just dying to know what it was! Does this ring bells for anyone?

Just write me off as a Google failure

*****

Hi Sars —

This might possibly be the dumbest Ask The Readers question ever, but here goes.

Many years ago — let’s say, mid-to-late ’80s, I read a poem that was, essentially, an extended pun based on tree names. It began:

I pine fir yew, and also balsam

and continued in that vein for a dozen or so lines. Other snippets I recall include:

and evergreen it stays, when once cypress yew to my heart.

(A-hem)locked is that heart, only yew hold the key…

Please say…in April, May, or Juniper ’twill be.

So obviously this isn’t great literature, and I suppose it’s not terribly clever either, but when I was 12 I thought it was awfully charming. I remembered it a year or two ago and tried Googling it, but if it’s out there in its entirety, I haven’t been able to find it.

And while we’re at it, wasn’t there, in that same time period, some punny song about fish? In the ocean? With some line about “just for the halibut” and “Not now, I have a haddock”? (Which is how my daughter says “headache,” which is what brought this to mind.) This song got regular play on the Top 40 radio station in my hometown…which admittedly was out in the middle of nowhere (West Texas) and may have had little relation to what the rest of the country was listening to.

Thanks for everyone’s assistance.

Groan

*****

Hi Sars,

I’ve decided to finally ask you and the readers two questions I’ve had for quite a while.

1) I really miss the Fire Joe Morgan blog. Really miss it. Could you recommend a good, smart baseball blog? Preferably one that does not hate the Red Sox?

2) A very long time ago, as pre-teen, I read my way through my library’s collection of early-twentieth-century British mysteries (mostly Christie). I remember one particular short story about a detective who is asked to figure out which of four sons gets an inheritance, based on the clues in the father’s will. The answer was (spoiler!) the only son without a mustache, referred to in the will as the King of Hearts.

Many years later, I have tried to find this short story to no avail. I’ve searched all the short-story collections of Christie and Sayers, and a couple others, with no luck. I’ve tried Googling, but Google’s stupid popularity matrix made it impossible (I love Google, but I really wish they’d let me do complex Boolean searches). So perhaps you or your readers could help?

Beadgirl

Dear Bead,

The non-partisan baseball blogs I read include Circling the Bases, the Hardball Times, Rob Neyer’s Sweet Spot blog, and It’s About The Money, Stupid. I think you can subscribe to all of these on Twitter; follow their headlines, see which ones you like, and unfollow the ones you don’t end up reading much. I also subscribe to Bill James’s site, which is a bargain at $3 a quarter, and I don’t read their site that often but I like the Pitchers & Poets podcast.

I haven’t found a worthy replacement for FJM on the humor side, although following Ken Tremendous on Twitter helps…but only a little.

Readers — any general baseball blogs to recommend? or Bosox-centric ones?

*****

Hi Sars!

Congrats on the Vine-iversary! I have a Mystery Book that’s been bugging me for over 20 years now, and I’m hoping that the good folk of the Nation can help me put this one to rest.

It was a hardcover book my grandmother found at the library. This would have been in the mid-to-late 1980s, but what I remember of the cover (or perhaps the condition of the book) made me think it may have been slightly older. For what it’s worth, the cover had a picture of a girl, but done with a really lurid color palette (fluorescent pink, electric blue, bright mustard-y yellow. Oh, the ’80s!).

It was somewhere between a chapter book and a young adult novel. I must have been 7 or 8 years old at the time, possibly as young as 6. (It was clearly NOT a book for a 6-year-old — in fact, I was so disturbed by it that I made my grandmother return it to the library — but I was reading on a crazy-advanced level, so I can understand the miscalculation.) I doubt I was any older, because I could handle more mature/adult books at age 9, and at age 10, I was happily reading Tom Clancy novels and ashamed at my younger self for being horrified by something as prosaic as this.

From what I remember of the book, it was about two girls. The first was a modern-day girl, about age 14, complicated family life, bitchy streak a mile wide, etc. The second girl was probably around the same age, but some sort of prehistoric, Cro-Magnon type. Her story started out with a fairly graphic (to me, at the time) description of her giving birth in a cave. Afterward, one of the people attending the delivery pushed down on her stomach to bring out the afterbirth, and instead pushed out a second baby. As I recall, there was something horribly wrong with Baby #2, and the tribe elder was going to leave it outside to die of exposure.

The kicker is: THAT’S NOT WHAT BOTHERED ME. What wigged me out was that the first girl, the modern-day one, said the word “fuck.” Yes, “fuck.” I think she even wrote it in her diary: “I say ‘fuck.'” With that, I gave it back to my grandmother and told her it was too old for me and that I shouldn’t be reading it. Something I promptly regretted, because I never found out what happened. Did the cavewoman meet up with her future counterpart? Was there time travel involved? Were they related somehow? It’s been more than 20 years and I still want to know.

Does this ring a bell to anyone?

Little Did I Know It Would Become My Favorite Word

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80 Comments »

  • Duana says:

    C,

    Not sure if this is totally right but could it be something from the “All-of-a-kind-family” series? There were I think five girls, but the two youngest often had chapters to themselves, and there was definitely a plotline where Mama was sick and had to go to the hospital.

    It springs to mind because the stuff about living in New York and being Jewish was a revelation to me, too.

  • LauraBeth says:

    @Google Fail: I’m pretty sure the book you’re looking for is The Children’s Story by James Clavell.

  • Matthias says:

    Groan,

    Let me be one of the first of no doubt thousands to tell you that the fish song you’re thinking of is almost certainly “Wet Dream” by Kip Adotta. It was a big Dr. Demento hit as I recall.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l1GvDWtccI

    That’s the easy one. No help from me on the tree poem.

  • Kriesa says:

    @C: I’m 99% sure that you’re thinking of a trilogy by Marilyn Sachs: Amy Moves In, Laura’s Luck, and Amy & Laura.

    Their mother was hit by a car in the first book (told from Amy, the younger sister’s, perspective), and their strict aunt came to live with the family.

    The second book is mostly from the older sister, Laura’s, perspective, when the sisters are sent to summer camp. They sing the song you remember on the bus ride to the camp.

    In the third book, their mother comes home from the hospital, but she’s still not completely recovered, and both sisters have a tough time adjusting.

    I reread this series (and a lot of Sach’s other books) many, many times!

  • Kriesa says:

    @Freezer Section: I remember that story, and have tried more than once to Google it, to no avail. I never saw the film, though. I’m remembering a book with very neat looking line art.

    I seem to remember a scene that involved throwing frozen peas like snowballs.

    I hope that someone knows the name of the story, because not being able to remember it has bugged me for years!

  • Blank says:

    Freezer: you didn’t make it up. I remember the teeny-tiny freezer dweller from school too (I’m 26 now, and British). And, heh, I can’t remember what the source material was called either. The only thing’s that I thought it was a book rather than a TV programme. If it was filmed, I think there must have been a narrator, because some of the phrasing in your letter – the boxes of fish-fingers and peas – really jolted my memory. Also, I thought the person in the freezer was an adult woman rather than another girl, but maybe I’m wrong on that.

    Have you tried looking for books as well as TV? Failing all else, I’ll ask my mum :)

  • Val says:

    @Melissa: You’ve got me beat in that I’m “only” a 36DDD but I have to say even I employ the exact strategy you are using, i.e. the sports bra + too small top strategy. It’s the only thing that lets me go running without..we’ll go with extreme discomfort. That’s using sports bras that are definitely the correct size, or even a tad tight. Sadly, one sports bras is just not going to cut it alone.

    That being said, I’ve used the sites for Title Nine and Moving Comfort to find items. Moving Comfort is a brand that Title Nine carries, but Title Nine ranks bras based on # of barbells of support needed. It’s gimicky but it might help you identify some other good brands to check out. Good luck!

  • Melina says:

    @Google failure – yours reminds me of a story we read in English in junior high, where the teacher gets the kids to cut up the classroom flag and to agree that god doesn’t exist when she gets them to pray for candy, but lets one of the kids see her putting the candy on their desks (instead of God, I guess). I am pretty sure it was James Clavell’s “The Children’s Story” which sounds even creepier than I remember it being. Who would read that shit to CHILDREN? I’m not sure that’s the one you’re looking for, though.

    @Beadgirl – I miss FJM too. For Boston-centric you might like Surviving Grady, which is crass but hilarious, and not really an adequate replacement at all. It’s down right now, but you might check it out when it comes back up. I’m off to go find Ken Tremendous’s twitter feed…

  • FavoriteWord: It’s not Saturday, the Twelfth of October, is it? That’s definitely got a deformed child who’s supposed to be left outside to die, and a near-adolescent, moody modern girl transported to the past, and the cover is terrible.

  • TashiAnn says:

    I feel like an expert on bras for big breasts. Go with what you know, I guess…

    For the sports bras: http://www.titlenine.com

    Has a good selection on larger sized sports bras. I like the write-ups they give their bras in the catalog (I’ve never used their website.) They give bras a different number of barbells for reducing bounce: 1 barbell = no support, 5 barbells = you are not moving no matter what.

    Also, I like the name of the company.

  • Kriesa says:

    I can’t believe this, but I just found the book on Amazon: The Little Girl and the Tiny Doll by Aingelda Ardizzone and Edward Ardizzone:
    http://www.amazon.com/Little-Girl-Young-Puffin-Books/dp/0140311912/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1272571641&sr=1-2-fkmr0

    Is this the story you remember? I also found someone else trying to locate the film version:
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/tag/childrens%20tv/forum?cdThread=TxHD7TWKZZIURN

  • Linda says:

    Enell! Enell bras! These things may change your life, if you are anything like me. You have to get used to how they go on — they feel REALLY tight at first and basically come with a tag that’s like, “It will feel like it doesn’t fit. If you measured, then it fits. Put it on, even though you will suspect it’s the wrong size. You will be fine.” All true. It’s tight and slick like a wetsuit, but NOTHING MOVES. NO-THING.

    http://www.enell.com/index.php

  • liz says:

    C,

    I used to sing that roller skating song in Girl Scouts! It was call & response & now I can’t get it out of my head! Sorry I can’t help with the book, though.

  • attica says:

    Beadgirl, you might like Pete Abraham’s blog at the Boston Globe. He used to be hysterical when he wrote about the Yankees for a different paper. The Globe gig is a new one for him, and he seems to still be taking the temperature of the room, but he’s a smart reporter with a snarky streak.

    Groan, your fish pun song is “Wet Dream” by Kip Adotta. It was a mainstay of Dr. Demento’s syndicated radio show, which probably accounts for your hearing it on Top 40.

  • Linda says:

    Well, damn. I see they say they only go up to people currently wearing DDD, so maybe not for this particular user. But for lots of other people. I’m just saying.

  • Caitlin says:

    Melissa– sports are, indeed, a challenge. My 34Fs have finally found a brilliant bra, though, which might work for you. It’s Freya, model 4001. Goes up to UK cup size H, which is a K in US sizes, I think. So you’d need a G or GG, I think. (Bra size converting hurts my brain–I live in Canada and about half the bras I can find use one size system, and half another. I never really know what damn size to try!)

    I can now run and jump and do all sorts of stuff with minimal bouncing and pain. I do also wear a tight shirt over top just for extra support, but this bra has really changed my exercising life!

    Here’s a link to it on a UK site that specializes in D cups and above–there might be something else on there that would be a possibility! http://tinyurl.com/33nnc8o

  • Caitlin says:

    Oy- I meant “sports bras” are a challenge, not sports themselves! Heh.

  • Ericato says:

    @beadgirl I read over a dozen Red Sox centric sites a day, I’m a bit obsessed. Along with Surviving Grady, mentioned above, I would suggest Basegirl and Boston Dirt Dogs. Although I too have yet to find anything that comes close to the awesomeness that was FJM.

  • mrs f says:

    @Google Fail … did they muck with the Pledge of Allegiance and cut up the flag so they could each have a piece? If so … you’re thinking of The Children’s Story by James Clavell. (Seems to be available here: http://tinyurl.com/3ztypd)

  • Kriesa says:

    I’m sorry. I’m a crummy poster. I was so excited to find the Freezer story that I forgot to say which query I was responding to.

    So, lets try this again… the story is The Little Girl and the Tiny Doll by Aingelda Ardizzone and Edward Ardizzone:
    http://www.amazon.com/Little-Girl-Young-Puffin-Books/dp/0140311912/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1272571641&sr=1-2-fkmr0

    The little person actually a doll, who was thrown in the freezer by a mean little girl.

    I didn’t locate the film version, but found a post by someone else who remember it:
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/tag/childrens%20tv/forum?cdThread=TxHD7TWKZZIURN

    Sorry about the double post.

  • Kimberley says:

    @Melissa: Figleaves.com only carries up to a HH; however, they do have the Shockabsorber Level 4 bra in a 38HH. Normally, I wouldn’t recommend going up a strap size to fit in the cup, but Shockabsorber fits _really_ small in the band, so the larger band size would be necessary to begin with. The level 4 takes some getting used to with a second clasp between the shoulder blades, but it’s comfortable and controlling.

    Good luck!

  • Jane says:

    @Melissa: http://www.titlenine.com for sports bras. I’m a 34G and wear the what they call the Last Resort bra (it’s made by Enell). It’s the only bra I can wear while jogging without risking giving myself a concussion from the bouncing. Also good for bras in general and allows searching by size, though less sports-bra focused, is http://www.herroom.com.

  • Meri says:

    @C: I agree with Kriesa- it sounds like you want the Amy and Laura books.

  • Annie says:

    @Melissa – Title 9 for sure. They have sports bras that changed my D-cup life. I’ve known women who have worn 2 sports bras, the outer one a bit bigger.

  • Renee says:

    Google Fail – it is Clavell’s The Children’s Story – great links above. I read it last year with my 9th graders and it always makes a huge impact on their brains. Our version was reader’s theatre with a script, but still a good story. Thanks to TN for pointing me to the short story. It’s even creepier.

  • mctwin says:

    Melissa, Oh boy do I feel your pain! I tell people that I haven’t “jogged” since I grew into a C cup at 16! I love your current solution, though! Quite genius! Good luck finding an answer, I’m interested too!

  • Hannah says:

    @Melissa: Try Enell (www.enell.com). I myself have tiny tatas, but these bras were recently praised by someone who coaches novice runners for a living. (Looks like they do custom orders and everything.)

  • Margaret in CO says:

    C, you didn’t date….JACK, did you? He’s infamous around here! :) (Thanks for the entertainment!)

    Groan, you might have better luck searching
    “Fir yew I pine, fir yew I balsam”
    That’s what I remember…sadly, it’s all I remember, though. I was taught the poem as a way to identify different types of trees…

  • Debi says:

    I know an answer, I know an answer!!

    Ahem.

    Bras from Enell are the VERY best for sports. Pay close attention to the fitting instructions-if/when the bra fits correctly, it’s like a ‘vaccuum seal’ for your breasts, and you get ZERO bounce.

    http://www.enell.com/index.php

  • JessS says:

    @Melissa – I was in NYC a couple of weeks ago and went to Linda’s Bra Shop (www.lindasonline.com)on 64th and Lex, and bought 3 sports bras that have been really good. They’re not cute, but they keep me (36D) secure. I just went to the website and narrowed selections down to “sports bras” and “36I” and got two selections; maybe there are other options with 38J. Good luck!

  • steph says:

    Holy crap.

    Sars, I’ve been wanting to write you about a mystery book from my youth for years but kept putting it off, being a compulsive lurker. Well, that book was almost certainly the Twelfth of October and I think I might cry a little. Thank you Favorite Word for asking, and thank you gabbiana for answering and THANK YOU Sars for keeping me reading. You all just made my day. :)

  • Kari says:

    @Kriesa I am going to be mortified if it turns out to be those Marilyn Sachs books because I know I had a copy of Amy and Laura and I definitely had no idea they were Jewish. But the rest of it I do remember, especially the mom coming home. Maybe I never read the other two, because their descriptions aren’t familiar. I read Amy and Laura over and over. I loved the hall monitor and bicycle story lines.

  • RJ says:

    I remember my mother telling me a story that sounds just like “The Children’s Story” some of the Vine readers have mentioned above. My mother used to elaborate on how – it was something along these lines – how the teacher told the children to pray to God for candy, and nothing happened, but then she told the children to pray to their leader for candy and when their heads were down, she went around putting candy on their desks. And the one little boy who didn’t buy into it saw her do it, and challenged her, but in the end she turned him too.

    Is that part of the story? Sounds interesting…

  • Tisha_ says:

    Melissa,

    I know a few women who swear by Enell sports bras. I’ve never tried one myself, but I’ve only heard good things. Their regular sizes only go up to DD, but they do custom orders.

    http://www.enell.com/custom_sizes.php

    I hope this helps!

  • Jennifer says:

    I’m dying to know about the jack-ex too. LW, please post a link!

  • 50 is the new 35 (formerly 45 is the new 30 - birthdays happen!) says:

    @Beadgirl: You have no idea how ironic is is that I’m responding to a baseball-themed query of all things, but here I go …

    I follow a blog by Ken Levine. He wrote for such shows as MASH, Cheers, and Frasier (among many others), and created the show Almost Perfect; he’s also a former radio guy and MLB announcer. He is a really funny, talented (obviously!) guy, and he posts something new virtually every day, which is pretty cool. Great group of regular commenters on his blog, as well.

    ANYhow, to get to the point: Ken’s son, Matt Levine, has a Red Sox-centric blog that Ken occasionally plugs: http://www.dirtywatah.com/. I totally can’t vouch for the quality or Matt’s proficiency (in either the baseball or blogging realms) but you won’t lose anything by checking it out. I’ve surfed over there a couple of times – the biggest negative I can see is that Matt posts in a white font on a black screem. ICK.

    (Ken’s blog is “By Ken Levine” at http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/. He writes about a multitude of topics, including AI, current movies, the tv biz, and, of course, baseball … and the fact that I read and usually enjoy his baseball-focused posts speaks to how much I think he and his blog rocks)

    Enjoy!

  • Clairezilla says:

    Melissa – I second the Title Nine love. They’ve got a bra called “The Last Resort Bra” and I love it! I could run, actually run, for the first time in my life.

    Worth every penny of the $50-something dollars.

  • 50 is the new 35 (formerly 45 is the new 30 - birthdays happen!) says:

    “… the fact that I read and usually enjoy his baseball-focused posts speaks to how much I think he and his blog rocks”

    Aaand … of course, that last word should be “ROCK”. Yes, I am a native-English language speaker; why do you ask?? Damn trigger finger on the “submit” button! *blush*

    Oh, and in case it wasn’t clear (which it might not have been): Ken Levine currently does the MLB announcer gig and travels with the team (Los Angeles) throughout the season. When he’s not writing his most recent book. Or working to get his play mounted. What a myriad of cool career gigs he’s had!

  • Megan in Seattle says:

    @Melissa: As Val said, Title 9 does rate bras by number of barbells, and type of activitiy per cup size, which helps. There aren’t a ton of options for larger cup sizes, though. The other site you might try is Decent Exposures, which makes custom bras without underwire (they call them their un-bras). If you order the velour option, lined, they may have enough support. Be sure to take note of how they measure, which is a little different from how Nordstrom does it.

  • Sarah says:

    Groan,

    All I could find on the tree poem was this:

    “Holiday guests may recline on beds in guestrooms that have small balsam pillows strategically located, some with the classic rhyme:

    I miss you in the summer
    I miss you in the fall, some
    But Ă¢â‚¬Ëœspecially at Christmas time,
    I pine fir yew and balsam.”

    from http://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2009/12/balsam-fir-adirondack-classic.html

    Maybe they would know the rest of it?

  • Jessamyn says:

    Oh my god, I totally remember The Tiny Doll! That was the sweetest story and I had completely forgotten about it. Awesome.

  • Amanda says:

    There isn’t another sports blog that makes me laugh and think like FJM, so we all have to settle, I fear.

    Along with Surviving Grady, I’d recommend Over the Monster, Chad Finn’s Touching All the Bases, and Rob Bradford’s blog Full Count. I feel like the quality of Red Sox blogs as a whole is pretty low. There are a lot of them, but I don’t like the attitude of most of them. So this is basically all I read.

    If you’re a Twitter user, the Red Sox writers are numerous, occasionally funny, and of course informative: Dan Barbarisi (ProJo), Amalie Benjamin (Globe), Ian Browne (MLB.com), Sean McAdam (CSNNE.com), and Gordon Edes (ESPN Boston). You can also follow Peter Gammons if you want, but he kind of annoys me. I will now be stoned for such heresy.

  • Amanda says:

    Awesome, I forgot to paste Bradford’s link in. Here we go.

  • Krissa says:

    Groan – Could you possibly be thinking of this fish song?
    If not, it is full of fish puns and might tickle your fancy anyway…and it is also a little more West Texas than the one Matthias linked.

    Wish I could help with the tree poem.

  • Colette says:

    @Melissa Add me to the list recommending the enell bras. I’m a 38F and I’ve been wearing them for at least 4 or 5 years. I do boxing training, which includes a lot of skipping, and they’re awesome. They do feel snug at first (and it takes forever to do them up when they’re new), but they are incredible. You can buy them online, but I’d recommend finding a shop that sells them and trying one on first – and any place that sells them probably can recommend other options if they don’t work for you.

  • mimi says:

    Melissa,

    I wear a 34H (or 34GG depending on the brand), and I swear by the Freya 4002 I got from Bare Necessities. I can jog in it without any jiggling at all. Bare Necessities doesn’t seem to carry it in your size, but they do have it up to an H, so it’s not impossible that someone carries it somewhere.

  • Stephanie says:

    Melissa –
    You will have noticed that Enell only goes up to DDD. That is pretty much the largest cup size of anything on Title 9’s site too. Ugh.

    We’re the same bra size. I haven’t tried Enell’s custom bras because that seems very pricey to me and I can’t just get one good sports bra, I need at least 3 or 4 to rotate through. But I have used the Hallelujah Bra (from Title9 – no idea why they rename the bras but it’s Glamorize brand) in 38F. It does not actually fit by any stretch of the imagination, but it is the best I have found without breaking the bank and I manage to do gymnastics in it. My sister, who is 32G or 32H, double-bras it when she runs (regular bra that fits, sports bra that is too small cup-wise) so that is another option. I have also liked the Wired and Ready for Action bra (again the Title9 name) in the past – but that was 20 pounds ago when I was a mere 36G/H. They worked very well and did not rely entirely on smooshage to control bounce.

    One of the things I am most looking forward to for my trip to London this summer? A chance to shop at Bravissimo in person. I may just spend my entire travel budget on bras. (http://www.bravissimo.com/products/lingerie/sports-bras)

  • Phoneix_B says:

    I’ll be about the fourth or fifth to suggest this, but Enell. Is. Awesome.

  • jael says:

    Oh crap, now I’m going to have that Wet Dream song in my head, a place it has not lodged in lo these many years.

    “Think I had a wet dream/ Cruising down the Gulf Stream/ wooo, ooh ooh”…

    (and thanks for the link because there’s no way I’d google it)

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