Raising Future Adults

Harley Quinn began because some actress wanted a guest spot on Batman: The Animated Series . The actress in question actually is blond and her name is  Arleen Frances Sorkin . There wasn't originally a backstory for the character. They tacked on a made up backstory and clearly named her after the actress in question:   Harley Quinn (Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel) Although later explanations for the character assume she's the victim of the Joker, the original portrayal by the actress who asked  to get a cameo appearance on the show  in no way behaves like she is his victim and unable to leave the relationship. The Joker  constantly rolls his eyes behind her back like he is some kind of beleaguered boyfriend putting up with her and not really wanting to say anything to her about his complaints. He has no affectionate nicknames for her, but she calls him Puddin. She orders his men around as if she is his equal  partner in life and in business, not his abuse...

I don't sew. My mother sewed beautifully and I've already talked a little about her sewing matching shorts to go under all my dresses so I could be a prim, proper girly girl who wore dresses and didn't show my panties while being allowed to do cartwheels and climb the monkey bars at school.  Some of the drawings in my comic November West include a little girl in purple and white striped pants. That's based on an actual pair of pants my mother sewed me as a little girl. They were my favorite pair of pants and as I got taller, they began looking like high waters but still otherwise fit me. So my mother added a few inches of the same cloth but had the stripes go horizontal instead of vertical so it looked intentionally decorative rather than like a patch job. That was an extremely memorable experience for me and really made the lesson stick that during a certain period, children tend to get taller without getting bigger around in girth. I also moved the buttons on a cute...

" Jump, Jive an' Wail" is a 1956 jazz swing song by Louis Prima . This video is for the cover of the song from the 1998 album The Dirty Boogie by The Brian Setzer Orchestra. I'm not that musical and not that knowledgeable about dance styles. The dance style is most likely swing dancing, which dates to the era of the original song, and the outfits in the video look 1950s-inspired, though likely updated rather than authentic or reproduction . I have managed to find one old black-and-white photo ( out of many ) of a female swing dancer in shorts, but most seem to have worn dresses that went below the knee. Swing dancing could be fairly athletic, though I'm guessing this video version is more athletic than was generally true for "average" people having a night on the town. I am very fond of the video because it's like a nutshell version of some aspect of my childhood. It makes me somewhat nostalgic for when I was a little girl ...