Happy Birthday Bubbles

or "I want to be a drag queen."

Not just any old garden variety, run of the mill drag queen. I (pause) want (pause) to be (pause) a FABULOUS drag queen! I want to be a drag queen as seen in The Birdcage. I want to be a drag queen like Patrick Swayze in "Too Wong Foo." I want to be a drag queen like Terence Stamp in "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert."

To that end, my friends J&K, sometimes K is referred to as Bubbles. She's cute and bubbly and short and skinny. And . . . . . J's mother is in her 70's and was a perfect stereotype mother from the 60's (with money). J's father had a prestigious job at the time, and his mother was a somewhat Tippy Hedren look alike with the qualities that the airlines looked for at the time in stewardesses. Mainly, she was skinny and pretty and well educated.

J's father had many business events to attend, and his mother was one of those ladies who just walked into the store and picked up a dress to wear. Everyone knew who her husband was, and where to charge the dress.

Skipping ahead about 4 decades, and J's father has passed away and his mother, now in her 70's, decided it's time to get rid of a few dresses. Apparently she has kept every single dress she bought for a formal occasion. So she sent about five home with her daughter in law, Bubbles.

Here's the drag queen part: Even if there were a moment when I would of had the nerve to do drag, I probably haven't been skinny enough to wear these dresses since 9th grade. But Bubbles is - and I had fits tonight over a handful of them.

The gold lame is my drop dead favorite. As stunning as it is on Bubbles, I can only imagine what it would look like on me - and what it must have looked like on Mother of J. The dress by itself is rather simple, if you can ever consider gold lame simple. But with the shawl that ties, oh how it drops off the shoulder, accents the bosom and gently hugs the waist. And the black one - words can't describe the way the black one looks with the clasps on the shoulders to hold the matching floor length cape. It's like dark chocolate and sex poured on. (Though with the cape on, it looks a lot like Elizabeth Montgomery in Bewitched.) The one with the feathers? I'm not real sure about that, but it's a hoot.

Oh, to have been a friend to Mother of J in the 60's, to have been her "sweet friend" when she lived the life with the well heeled friends, and her husband cavorted with gentlemen like Danny Thomas. Or just to have known her when I could still fit into the gold lame dress!

Happy birthday, Bubbles.