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protein drink tutorial

I’ve gotten back on the protein drink bandwagon, after falling off of it the other night with the, uh, infamous Creepy Eyeball Binge.

I try to do at least one a day — breakfast especially, because otherwise I won’t eat breakfast. And since working at The Beanhouse, I’ve learned some useful information on how to make a killer blended drink. My homemade protein smoothies are now truly scrumpdillyicious.

Now I know some people who just plop that protein powder in a glass of water, stir it up, and gulp it down. My friend K, for instance. These people are made of stronger stuff than I, frankly. Freaks, really. And good for them, but I can’t do that. Nope. Gotta mix mine with ice, blend it up. The whole experience must trick me into believing it involves a frosty-cool shake; otherwise, see ya, protein yuck! If I can taste the health, my palate goes into serious spasm.

So …. I hereby offer my Blended Protein Drink tips to any and all interested peeps.

1) First, make sure your blender’s not a wuss. It doesn’t have to be professional grade or some huge investment, but it needs to able to blend ICE well. This one works fine for me.

2) Next, make sure you start with proper order of ingredients in your blender. (Beanhouse taught me this.) It goes this way:

Liquid
Powder
Ice – crushed ice is best. Only have cube ice? Well, then, just what are those little kiddles for, I’d like to know? Look: a little kid + a big driveway + a bag ‘o’ cubes + a nice, sturdy meat tenderizer = well, an entertaining spectacle, if nothing else. Eh. Their joints are young. But if you end up in the ER with a kid howling and missing an eyeball, you didn’t hear this from me, ‘kay? And no, I did NOT eat your kid’s eyeball. Unless it had caramel inside. Then I did. And yes, I checked.

Now, this order of ingredients will get you the smoothest blend possible with no secret pockets of powder lurking in the depths to gross you out. And I am ALLS about avoiding protein powder gross out. I have perfected this technique precisely BECAUSE I think protein powder IS inherently gross, like so many of the things that are good for you. Like clipping your toenails. Or socializing.

3) Get yourself a decent-tasting protein powder. I’m not going to say “great” or “good,” even, because “good-tasting protein powder” and “great-tasting protein powder” are both oxymorons, frankly. Besides, I always get a vanilla-flavored powder and use it as a base. It is a BASE, people. We will build from there — do not FEAR! Do not flap your arms about in a wild-eyed protein powder panic! You will scare your kiddos and they have a job to do, do they not?? Remain calm. What you start with is NOT what you will end up with! Promise. Now buck up and tell Cubby that Tee Tee needs another bag of crushed ice, spit-spot. Yaaay for you, Cubby! Good job!!

(Oh, I actually use this powder and this one. Both quite decent as BASES. Both have about 23 grams of protein per serving. THAT is good.)

4) All right. Here comes the sugah. The creme. The part where you will loooove me. Before you blend up your “liquid-powder-ice” concoction, you simply MUST doctor it. REMEMBER: IT IS INHERENTLY GROSS OTHERWISE AND I AM ALLS ABOUT SPARING YOU THE GROSS.

So … another thing The ol’ Beanhouse has taught me is the JOY of sugar-free syrups. Lots of added flavor, NO added carbs. We get ours from Monin. BUT, I have bought from Da Vinci for my personal use, simply because they have a wider range of sugar-free flavors available. I think the Monin syrups are thicker — I mean, I use them every day — but the Da Vinci ones are delicious, too. Just listen to some of their flavors: Amaretto. Butterscotch. Creme de Menthe. Dulce de Leche. English Toffee. German Chocolate Cake. Huckleberry. Lemon. That’s just a FEW of ’em. Sounding ungross to you yet? Even good? Dare I say yummy?? And a little goes a looonng way with these syrups, so a 750 ml bottle for 8 bucks should last you for, oh, say about a month if you make one smoothie a day.

So take that syrup, drizzle it in there, and blend it up. You will thank me and say, “Tracey, this is one of the ungrossest things I’ve ever tasted!!” And I will say, “I knoooow!!”

5) But WAIT!! I recently discovered this as an option, too: Jell-o. Sugar-free Jell-o powder. Not completely carb-free like the syrups, but you can pick it up next time you’re at the store, right? Sprinkle a little Jell-o powder straight from the packet into your blender and voila! Instant creamy deliciousness. A few of THEIR sugar-free flavors: Black Cherry. Chocolate. Cranberry. Lemon. (oooh, I love this one — tastes like lemon creme pie!) Orange. (tastes like a Cremesicle!) Peach. Wild Berry. And the rest!!

6) Finally, peeps. A gentle word of caution: Do NOT stop the blending, open the lid slightly, stir things up a bit with a straw, close the lid with the straw in there and resume blending. This will have a negative effect on the taste of your smoothie.

Other than that, happy blending!!

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“1,000 places to see before you die”

Wow. Sheesh. No pressure. But “ya better get on that, Crackie,” as we say at The Beanhouse.

Um, this is the name of a book I have. I really enjoy it. So inspiring, etc.

Or I really hate it. So depressing, etc.

But I’ve decided to try to make this a (somewhat) regular feature here. I mean, just think. Whenever I’m feeling all desperate and lazy, I will randomly flip open “1000 Places … You Die,” type up whatever it lands on, and feel I’m actually supplying content — even though I may be telling you something you give not one tiny rip about. And that will feel familiar and non-threatening because, let’s face it, that’s pretty much business as usual ’round here.

And — ooh! doing the math on my handy-dandy calculator here — if I do this once a week (HA) with 1,000 places total, I will have cool, lackadaisical content for exactly 19.230769 years.

The winner in all this? Well, I’m pretty sure it’s not you. Oh, well.

Anyway … here we go. Opening the book. Hold please.

Okay. Ready?

Today’s “Place to See Before You Crump It” is-ss-s:

THE KINGDOM OF THE MUSTANG
Mustang, Nepal

Surrounded by Tibet on three sides and governed by a Tibetan royal family, Mustang — a kingdom within a kingdom — survives as one of the last remnants of ancient Tibet. Although nominally integrated into the kingdom of Nepal in the early 1950s, it remains largely autonomous, and much of its medieval cultural fabric has survived. In fact, Mustang is said to be more like Tibet before the Chinese occupation than Tibet itself, filled with ancient walled fortress-villages and monasteries hewn from rock, displaying a muted natural palette of grays and variegated rusty reds. Like much of the Tibetan plateau, the landscape is rugged and austere, a dramatic high-desert terrain flanked by towering peaks, including the snow-capped Annapurnas to the south. Though Nepal opened to tourism in the 1950s, Mustang’s sensitive position along the Tibet border kept it off-limits until 1992, when the Nepali government began admitting a trickle of foreign tourists, Ironically, Mustang was well traveled in the past, its ancient trade routes dating back more than 1,000 years. Its treeless vistas must have appeared distant and extraordinary to European travelers returning from China with their precious cargo. They would have been as hard pressed as today’s trekkers to explain the otherworldliness of it all.

WHAT: Experience. WHERE: Northwest of Kathmandu and north of Pokhara. Treks depart from Jomsom. HOW: All travel to Mustang is restricted and must be made through a licensed trekking company; all treks are accompanied by a government liaison officer. COST: 17-day land package (with 12 days of trekking) departing Jomsom $2,600. Airfare from Kathmandu to Jomsom $298. WHEN: Mustang opens to visitors Mar-Dec. BEST TIMES: Spring trip coincides with Tigi, a Tibetan festival.

Hmm. Sorry. I thought there might be horsies.

Bon Voyage!!

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dream on

Soooo ….. the Padres are the NL West Champs? And they’re in the playoffs, etc.??

No, no. No, NO. I gave up on them when I was 12.

I can’t do this. There’s only so much a girl can give.

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tasty eyeballs

(UPDATE: Okay — HERE it is! This was up for a bit on Saturday night and then, um, somehow it ended up back in my drafts. I don’t know what I was thinking ……. it seems I also just randomly press buttons when I’m bored.)

It is Saturday night and My Beloved is working.

So I’m sitting here, all alone, eating eyeballs.

Some are blue. Some are green. Some are brown. Some are even purple, so you can blurt out willy-nilly between chews, “Take THAT, Liz Taylor! I am eating your precious purple eye!”

(I mean, if you want. Oh, yeah, hers are “violet,” I know. Blah, blah, blah. Is she even still alive??)

Seems the other day, some weird client of My Beloved’s brought him this bag of eyeballs as a …. I have no idea, really. A payment? A thank you? A threat? Was I not listening to this part of his story? Hm.

Anyhoo …. he brought home this bag of eyeballs — hard little balls of something, each wrapped in white foil, with ragged bloodshot lines streaking away from a shiny colored iris in the center.

He thrust the bag towards me. I gaped at these eyeballs rolling around on top of one another, staring at me, all disembodied and creepy and foily.

“Ew.”

“It’s candy of some kind,” he said.

“‘Candy of some kind’?” I echoed. “WHAT kind?”

“I dunno.”

“You didn’t taste one?”

“NO.”

“Are you going to?”

(Read: “Are you going to” for meeee so that I may witness your reaction and/or state of health when you’re through? This will help me gauge whether I will then eat an eyeball or not. Thaanks.)

“No.”

Drat!

He left the floppy bag of eyeballs on the counter. It sat there for a day or two. I would walk by it and fondle the eyeballs, rolling them until they were all lined up and staring at me, waiting for me to say something brilliant. Then, I’d crumple under the pressure and frantically turn them all around until I saw only white.

My Beloved did not eat them. I did not eat them.

Until tonight. Because I’m bored and because I had oatmeal for dinner and because you definitely need a dessert if you’ve had a damn bowl of oatmeal for dinner and because those eyeballs were really starting to FREAK me out, looking at me from their Ziploc perch on the counter. I could swear that sometimes, after I’ve already turned them to the whites, a couple of rogue eyeballs have been staring at me …. you know, later.

“So big deal. Why don’t you just throw them away, Tracey?”

Because …. it’s “candy of some kind,” people!! PLEASE PAY ATTENTION!!

So I grab myself a small bowl, carefully select blue and green and brown and purple. Two purples, actually. One for Liz, you know. Come over to the sofa and unwrap one, a blue one. My eye. And …..turns out, it is smooth, creamy chocolate, and then — ew! EW! What’s that oozing!? ACK! I knew it! I knew it! The eyeball of death!!

I try to disengage my teeth from it, but it’s so gooey ….. oh … and caramelly. Just caramel. Not death. Caramel. And I’m an idiot having a candy-induced panic attack.

So I take revenge on my bowl of eyeballs and eat them all, smushing their white foil wrappers into tight little balls that I use for target practice with the trash can.

Eh. I’ll pick ’em up later.

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testosterone rally

I am in the middle of performing a vital Beanhouse function on the computer, when an old guy in a baseball cap strides up and barks his order at me. No greeting, just barking. In a bizarre hybrid accent that sounds simultaneously British and Southern and FAKE. He spreads his arms wide, plants his hands on the counter and really leans into it, this sad, strutty pose of his. He doesn’t look at me, just holds his little pose, thrumming his fingers all the while.

Look, dude. I can see the wiry puffs of hair sprouting from under that dirty cap of yours. I understand your hormones are attempting to stage some kind of Old Man Testosterone Rally, but I ain’t buying it. Please spare me.

Now, I can’t stop what I’m doing mid-function, because it’s vital, remember, but I did hear his barky demands and start to repeat them. Because I’m alls about the customer service, you know. In the middle of my repetition, Testosterone Rally interrupts me, angry and sighing and loudly spitting his words:

“I WAANNNT: A DOUBLE. DECAF. LATTE. ANNNND. A LARGE. EARL GREY. TEA. DO YOU. UNDER. STAND MY. ENGLISH. ….. (he stops to glance at my name tag) …. TRACEY????”

I stand there in the giant sucking void left by his words. A frightened co-worker skitters away; out of the corner of my eye, I see him skitter. I’m shaking, but it is not fear. Luckily, there is no one in line behind Testosterone Rally. It is him and me. And I am glaring, blazing. I can feel it. I don’t know what I look like in this moment, but I feel as if The Stink Eye and The Skunk Eye and The Evil Eye have all converged onto my features at once. My eyes and mouth and jaw all tighten and narrow, morphing into God knows what. But I do know it’s not pretty. And I do know it’s not “nice.” And I do know it’s not the face of “great customer service.”

Testosterone Rally still has not looked at me, not once. Glancing up to catch my name is the closest he’s come to even acknowledging me as a human being. Which is fine with me right now — in these fiery seconds when I become someone ELSE. I turn away from him to get his tea, turn back and say, in a bizarre hybrid accent that sounds simultaneously British and Southern and FAKE:

“YESSS, I. UNDER. STAND YOUR. ENGLISH. SIRRR.”

I set his tea down on the counter a little too hard. Hot drops fly out of it. He STILL does not look at me. He STILL stands there in his little pose.

I speak again, more quietly.

“I had to repeat what you said, sir. I have a hearing problem.”

It’s a lie. A blatant lie. With a purpose.

There is a long pause. Finally, he mutters, “Ohhhh …. uh … I’msorrytohearthat ….”

He grabs his tea, shuffles away, without ever having looked at me.

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your advice please ….

I desperately need some suggestions for a good blog host. The Switch will be happening soon. There is only just so much n-a-k-e-d spam a girl can take, ya know?

(Don’t even want to spell out the word anymore! IT’S IN THE NAME, FOR PETE’S SAKE!! SHEESH. WHAT IS MY PROBLEM??)

Anyone have a host they’re particularly thrilled with? Please share. Please. I am a moron when it comes to this.

BLESS you!!

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make me feel good

Our niece Button Baby — or Banshee Baby, as I like to call her now — is 2 1/2 and there are some seriously unappealing personal issues going on with her. I babysat her a few Saturdays ago and, frankly, I am still traumatized.

It started during lunch. She sat there, playing with her cup straw, waving it around, shoving the straw in and out, spilling milk, flinging milk, doing anything but drinking milk.

Ohhhh, no. Tee Tee don’t play that, Crackie.

“Button, you may drink it or not drink it. You may not play with it. I will take it away if you keep playing with it.”

She understands me quite well. She continues playing, spilling.

Second warning.

“Last chance, Button. I will take it away if you do it again.”

Continues.

“All right, Button. I’m sorry. I think you’re done with that.”

I take it away from her and she begins to waaaaiillll literally like a banshee. It is horrible. God-awful. The tone of it — the tone. It is a shiv gouging my eardrums. I wait for the spurt of blood signifying my head has exploded.

“NONONONONONOOOOONONONOOOOOOOONONONOOOOO!”

I hold my ground, put the cup in the sink. She is howling at me, hating me with her entire shaking little being.

I come back to the table, sit down.

“I’m sorry, Button. I told you what would happen.”

“NONONONONONONOOOOONOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

A pause while she actually breathes and hiccups and then discovers heretofore untapped reserves of terrible. Her tone becomes desperate, like she needs a drink or a smoke or some crack.

“I NEED A WIPE! I NEEEEEED A WIIIIIIIIIIIIPE!!”

Um, what?

“I NEEEED A WIIIIIPE ‘CAUSE I’M CRYING!!! TEEEEE TEEEEEEEEE!!!”

I grab a napkin. Dab her cheeks, her eyes. I keep my movements even, unhurried. At this moment, I am her polar opposite. A goddess of calm confronted with a yowling demon.

But …… hullo. What’s this? This itchy feeling I’m having?

Yeah. What IS that?

Why, that’s just the palm of my Spankin’ Hand, itchin’ and twitchin’ and beggin’ me to use it!

Oh, I feel it, but I ignore it. I don’t spank my nieces and nephews, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t ever wanted to, like now. I make my voice smooth, but somewhat cool.

Goddess of calm:

“There you go, Button. I’m sorry you’re upset.”

“NONONONONONOOOOOOOOOOO!! THAT’S NOT A WIIIPE!! IT’S NOT A WIIIPE!! I NEEED A SPECIAL WIIIIIPE!!!

Huh?

A “special wipe”? What in tarnation is a “special wipe”? Who made her think there’s such a thing as a “special wipe”? I begin to question my brother’s parenting, start to inventory all the ways he bugs me. This could be one of them. Meanwhile, she is still flailing and screaming.

Sheesh. Look, Banshee, the fact that I’m wiping you at all during this gross unravelling of your entire personality is special enough.

I use the sleeve of my hoodie. I mean, it’s soft, right? And special enough. Cotton is comfort, you know. The fabric of our lives and all. Dab, dab, dabbity-dabb.

She cracks apart with renewed vigor.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

Well, that’s it. I have broken my niece. She is, quite simply, ruined. Maybe ruined forever — all because of my cotton sleeved hoodie.

Goddess of calm, Trace. Goddess of calm.

“All right, Button. Let’s get you down from your chair. I don’t know what a special wipe is. Why don’t you get down and show me?”

As I reach to lift her out, she declares, insane with blubbing:

“IF MOMMY AND DADDY WERE HERE, THEY WOULD HOL’ ME AND GIMME A SPECIAL WIPE AND MAKE ME FEEL GOOOOOD!!!”

Oh, no, she dihn’t. Ohhh, ho. I am agape. I understand that she’s 2 and all, but that, right there, that thing she said — it’s everything that’s wrong with the world and it came from the mouth of a baby: “I have a right to feel good always, no matter what I do or say.” I feel that crazy itch in the Spankin’ Hand again.

For the first time in my life, I think I actually want to spank a child because I utterly disagree with her philosophy of life.

Which is insane. She is two.

What happened to the goddess of calm??

I stare at her. She glowers back. Lifting her out of her chair, I say, drily, “Uh-HUH.” The second her little feet hit the carpet, she streaks to the bathroom, shrieking from me the entire way. She cannot get away fast enough from Tee Tee, that terrible woman who makes her feel so SO BAD.

I follow at a leisurely pace. At the bathroom door, I can see her, reaching up to the counter, grabbing a sanitary wipe from its box, smushing her swollen face deep into it.

I roll my eyes. Between gulping sobs, she chides me, waving the wipe at me:

“THIS is a special wipe, Tee Tee!! THIS IS A. SPECIAL. WIIIIPE!!”

I pick her up, move toward the arm chair.

“Uh-huh. Well, you may take that special wipe and stay in this chair until you are all done crying.”

I deposit her in the chair and turn away.

Pause, heavy with doom.

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”

GOOD. LORD.

Later on, after this harrowing day of babysitting was finally over, I went home to My Beloved, damaged on a molecular level, threw myself in his lap, and yowled:

“YOU NEED TO HOL’ ME AND GIMME A SPECIAL WIPE AND MAKE ME FEEL GOOOOOD!!!”

He stroked my head for a while, then said it:

“Uh, what’s a special wipe?”

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our friday night plans

My Beloved and I have been invited to Jack’s house on Friday night. Jack, as I already mentioned, is one of my dear old queens from The Beanhouse. He’s about 75, bald-headed, flush-faced, with a body like a soggy dim-sum dumpling. He power-walks to The Beanhouse from his place, so the weather system around him is always a wee bit humid.

But I adore Jack.

And he calls me “sweetness.”

“Hello, sweetness.”

“How are you today, sweetness?”

Then he presses his moist dumpling cheek against mine and kisses me. Every time he sees me.

Every day, he sits with his “peeps” (yes, he calls them “peeps”) and sips his “small dark coffee in a ceramic mug, please.” Frequently, he nibbles a butter croissant. He has not become a weathered dumpling for no apparent reason. Sometimes I hear him randomly singing to them in his rich basso profundo voice. They always roll their eyes at him, but he loves to sing, wants to sing, asks my advice about singing lessons. And if the discussion with his peeps turns to theatre, he waves me over.

“Trace, have you seen …..?”

“Sweetness, what do you think of …..?”

“Oh, you would just DIE, Trace! That show was SO bad!!”

I adore Jack.

He loves the arts, the theatre, good books. He’s full of vim and vigor, still, and stories to tell that should be heard. The 20-somethings I work with have no idea what they’re missing by not engaging our older customers. Frankly, they’re the only ones of much interest to me.

One Sunday afternoon — a day off for me — MB and I, feeling lazy, wandered over to The Beanhouse with a bag full of books. My co-workers ribbed me for being there on my day off, but, hey, the coffee’s great and it really is an inviting place just to hang out. So we sat there, engrossed in our books, sipping our coffees, when suddenly over my shoulder, I heard, “Heeey, sweetness.”

It was Jack. Peepless.

We invited him to sit down and within a few questions, he was opening up his life, his stories.

Jack was in the Army during the Korean War. When he came home, he had no clue what he wanted to do, but he’d always liked to draw, so he started shuffling his work here and there, seeing who’d bite.

He landed a job as Art Director for Mademoiselle magazine, of all places.

“I was the only guy there, Trace,” he said. “And the whole time I worked there, everything was ‘fun.’ All these women constantly with the ‘Oooh, Jack, isn’t that FUN?’ ‘Let’s do this — won’t that be FUN?’ ‘I adore that layout, Jack. It is just SO FUN!’ Good God. I was so sick of ‘FUN’!”

We were howling with laughter. He smiled this sweet, pleased little smile. He had a rapt audience.

“Oh, and you know who ALWAYS kept coming around with his little drawings?” he said, irritated.

“No!! Who??”

“Oh, that Andy Warhol.”

Um, WHATT?? MB and I had stopped breathing now.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, rolling his eyes. “What a pain in the ass. I thought he was SUCH a hack.”

Spitting up coffee now, both of us. He regaled us with his life for two hours while we just sat, transfixed and dumbfounded.

So we’re going to Jack’s house Friday night. He has a little society he’s put together called The Norma Desmond Film Society, an eclectic group of peeps and others who gather regularly for an evening of film and noshing and conversation.

The requirements for membership?

1) You must have seen “Sunset Boulevard.”

And 2), I’m just guessing on this one, but — Jack’s gotta like you.

The other day at work, when he invited me, he spoke softly, seemed almost shy. I offered to bring something, anything, to eat. “Okay, great,” he said.

“So how many are you expecting so I know how much to bring?”

“Oh, well …. just you two. I wanted this one to be special.”

I felt tears lumping in my throat.

“Jack, that is so sweet. I can’t wait.”

“Yeah, me too. I’m making a little program for the evening!”

Can you believe that?

He’s making a little program for the evening.

May I tell you something?

I just adore Jack.

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the langhornes of virginia, plus intermittent rage

I’ve had such good luck with my recent random selection of “Over the Edge of the World,” and a few others that I thought I’d do it again — just read something based on gut reaction, instinct. Not based on anyone’s recommendation or burning personal desire. Just … because. Because the title strikes me — as it did with the Magellan book — or because I like the cover or because I say, “Hey, I don’t know anything about THIS. I’m going to read it.” It’s just my own peculiar, spontaneous experiment. Go with the gut. Even if my reason jumps in and says, “Uh, Tray, are ya SURE you want to read that one?” I mean, I thought that about Magellan and I literally cannot stop talking about it to anyone who will listen! I’ve gotten one of my dear old queens at The Beanhouse totally hooked on the book, too. We talk about it constantly. I see him and say: “Okay, Jack. Where are you now? What part are you at?” “Oh, they just had a mutiny! How can it get any worse?” “Oh. OH. You have NO idea! It’s about to get SO much worse and SO much better!” And then I have to stop myself from saying too much and giving it all away, so we just prattle on about the WONDER of the whole damn thing. That whole INSANE journey. (And I will write some more Magellan posts, but only a few more, because you really should go out and get the book yourself!!)

Okay. Hm. So that was a full-on tangent. Whatever. All that to say I’m loving my “go with the gut” choices in books these days. And it’s brought me another good’un: “Five Sisters” by James Fox.

“Five Sisters” is a biography following the insanely influential Langhorne family of Virginia during the years after the Civil War. Well, following mostly the sisters, hence the title, haha-blah … bear with me here. I’m all over the map today. SOON we’ll get to the part where I WILL JUST QUOTE FROM THE DAMN BOOK, I SWEAR!!

I’m embarrassed to admit — but see if that stops me! — that I was drawn to this book by the pictures of the five sisters on the cover, all such beautiful women, but mostly because one of them was wearing a crown. I dunno. She struck some 5-year-old girl chord in me, that beautiful woman with the crown. I looked at her and wondered who the heck she was. A woman from Virginia wearing a crown? I had to know who she was. And now I know. And I will tell you momentarily. Or I might forget because, dammit, I may have to live in a box in the canyon and I cannot think straight!!

(Why am I yelling at you fine, lovely people?? Sorry.)

Okay.

These five sisters — Lizzie, Irene, Nancy, Phyllis, and Nora — were just ALL THAT during the Reconstruction years. Belles of the ball, all of them. In the most literal, old-fashioned sense — Belles. Men flocked from all over just to get a glance of one of these sisters, so legendary was their beauty, so desirable were their hands in marriage. But by far the most beautiful, most sought-after of these Sister Belles was the second sister, Irene.

Irene Langhorne.

Who married Charles Dana Gibson.

And was his model for The Gibson Girl.

And that is she in the picture above, Miss Irene Langhorne.

Sister of Nancy Langhorne, later Lady Nancy Astor, the woman with the crown.

But for now, Irene.

The author, whose grandmother was sister Phyllis, describes the Belle culture and Irene’s rise to Super Belle-dom:

Whatever the state of their finances, the Langhornes went each summer to White Sulphur Springs, the most fashionable of the hot water spas across the Blue Ridge in the Allegheny Mountains. The spas had been the center of southern glamour and the marriage market since 1830, particularly “The White,” which to the sisters was a place of outlandish fantasy. It was their only contact with the outside world: a gigantic doll’s house dedicated to beaux and Belles, to highly organized courtly activity.

…….

The adulation of the Belles had a direct relation to Virginia’s sense of defeat, the sense of injustice that could hardly be addressed in conversation. They had an electrifying effect on Richmond society. Greatest of all, until Irene ousted her, was Miss May Handy, who undoubtedly possessed star quality. Nancy and Phyllis knew everything about her: how she was schooled and watched over like an athlete; how her diet was prescribed; how, exceptionally for Richmond, she lived alone with her maid for company; how she was too grand for any beau to approach her. That was the crucial, misleading lesson: that love could only be pure and good if unsatisfied — the Provencal romance. “Yearning” and “loyalty” were the key words. The little girls of Richmond would rush out into Franklin Street to see her pass, wearing her bunch of “May Handy violets” and “smelling delicious,” then run around the block to meet her again. They chanted a skipping rhyme:

5 cents for cake
5 cents for candy
15 cents
Kiss May Handy

……..

Irene was hurled into a regime that required immense stamina to survive. There was little opportunity for sleep. The balls ended at 3:00 a.m. Riding began at seven. There was “Treadmilling” after breakfast — trooping around four or five abreast, making dates for the “Germans” (the cotillions), which were held in the morning from eleven to one and again in the evening. No refreshments were served at these dances, and in the gaps there were “watermelon struggles,” “bowling parties,” “candy stews,” and photography sessions. The Germans, held in broad daylight in the middle of the morning in evening dress, were something new to a northern eye. One reporter wrote, “The effect produced by so many colors in perpetual motion beneath a strong light is very bewildering.”

Unlike May Handy, Irene had never been groomed for her part. She had simply emerged from Mr. Langhorne’s circus — no makeup, no attendant hairdresser — and was one day taken onto the dance floor at The White. She had been noticed by the New York papers while she was still a schoolgirl, to the annoyance of her father, who threatened to go to New York to shoot the editor. (ed.: Sorry! I’m laughing! Their father is hysterical to me.) “She is tall and fair,” wrote the New York Times in the offending passage, “and dances like a dream. Her carriage is queenly and her complexion perfect.” She was taller than her sisters, serene, upright, with a dimple on her chin and (fashionably) “violet” eyes. She had the rounded hips and the forward-weighted bosom of the classic Belle, the bosom that tapered to a twenty-inch waist, of which she would say, coyly, “The beaux were supposed to be able to put their hands around it. But my Father never let them.” She had a luminous quality. She “lit up” a room.

Next installment: Irene and Charles and what Father thinks of the whole derned thing. Hahahahahaha!!!!