i got 99 problems and PEACH is no. 1

tip(s) of the day: if you’re going somewhere close to the equator, take bug spray. and always, always take bug spray when you go into the jungle. any jungle. even if you are wearing long sleeves. even if you tight-roll your jeans like 1991. even if a guy named hey-seuss offers you his bug spray. take. your. own.

well, no jerky mishaps like angie, but i did gather plenty of bloggable stuff during our cruise. there were lots of “characters” on the ship. in fact, biscuit started a simple naming system in which to identify these characters—all male characters, by the way. i will save this jewel for another blog.

since this was a “love” cruise, i lovingly decided to leave my laptop at home. this decision made my eye twitch for most of the cruise and leaving it at home in the barb room was almost as sad as leaving my two young sons (my dogs) at their lavish canine resort. nonetheless, i was excited to read a new book. i really enjoyed the first book in this series; you guys probably remember me questioning the white jumpsuit thing, but aside from that, i loved the story. well, the second book … not so much. the author obviously did a lot of research and i learned lots of new things, which I always appreciate—but, because there was so much “research,” i felt like the story suffered. the dialogue was just not up to the caliber as the research and because of that, the whole story seemed off-balance.

then there was the issue i always have issues with: the characters’ fashion.

disclaimer(s): blogger is not a fashionista. blogger is simply opinionated and confused based on the author’s fashion choices for her characters based on the current date and time in which we live—2008.

… O. M. G. biscuit and i would be sitting there in our cabin—yes, on a love cruise and not on the lido deck playing shuffleboard, but him watching the UK vs. Alabama game on TV and me reading this book—and i’d read biscuit the outfit causing confusion and he’d shrug his shoulders and say, “i don’t even know what that is.”

let me back the bus up for a minute. while on this cruise, i saw things i’d never seen before. “characters” that made me stop, analyze, and reflect. characters that wore the things i have serious issues with. let me break this down even further—girls, i saw leather deck shoes in person!!!! in real-time. even when i poked biscuit on the arm and said, “oh my gah, look, LDS,” and he said, “huh?” and i clarified, “leather deck shoes,” and he was like, again, “i don’t even know what that is,” and i was like, “LOAFERS. LEATHER LOAFERS. ON THE LIDO DECK! WHAT IS WRONG WITH FREAKING FLIP FLOPS!”

then he got it.

but back to the book. this author didn’t just dress the heroine in peach, she dressed ALL the female characters in peach. i kid you not. every outfit was peach—for every freaking female character. peach, peach, peach. even their nail polish was peach. first of all, i have nothing against peach. as in the fruit. but the color, as in the peach crayon found in a 64-count box of crayolas, nope. not working in 2008. when i go to stonebriar, i do not see lots of peach-colored attire on the racks. this story was set in a certain large U.S. city that is not located near a beach where one might potentially spot peach-colored attire. and the female characters were all in their early 30s. hello? at least there were no peach-colored sarongs or thongs.

now, it would have been different if the heroine or another female character wore a cute, peach-colored babydoll shirt or maybe a peach-colored sundress or even a peach-colored sweater from ann taylor. but no. we're talking blouses. what is a blouse anyway? that word sounds suspicious to me. i call them shirts. short-sleeve shirts, long-sleeve shirts, sweatshirts. some are dressy shirts, some are T-shirts. some are tank tops. blouse is like using the word caftan instead of a lounge chair or chignon instead of bun.

there was one exception to peach … when the hero was wearing navy slacks (when i say “slacks” out loud it sounds as if i have a crouton lodged in my larynx) AND a navy SILK T-shirt. yes, a SILK T-shirt. when i think of “T-shirts” i think of 100 percent cotton with screen-printed lettering on it, like one tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.

anyway, it’s not that big of a deal, but the fashion distracted me throughout the story. maybe the author wasn’t even aware that she was using the same color over and over and over and over, but I noticed. i know, i know, i pick up on anal things, but that’s what i do. writers are supposed to be detail-oriented.

let’s look at some acceptable ways to work peach into a story:

she was a lightweight and ordered a dekuyper peach tree schnapps, but when a hot guy walked in, she needed something stronger. like tequila. “hey, bartender, make it a peach margarita instead.”

after working out, jill stopped at the gym’s café and ordered a peach smoothie.

jeremy was clueless. what the hell had he been thinking, offering to cook dinner for natalie. that was easy. he hadn’t been thinking jack—he’d been staring at her body. damn, she had a body. the woman clearly spent a lot of time in the gym. fruit. yeah, he bet she liked healthy stuff, like fruit. strawberries, grapes, peaches. and probably something tropical like papaya or kiwi. maybe he could pull this off after all. jeremy slipped on his nike flip flops, grabbed his keys, and headed to whole foods.

melanie squeezed her eyes after her mother stepped out of her 1991 coupe deville. what in the hell is my mother wearing? a peach moo-moo with kitty cats? i gave her a generous gift card to talbots. why, mother? why? you're meeting my boyfriend for the first time today and now he'll assume this is what i will look like in 30 years! ugh.

my great-grandmother loved that movie, a league of their own. back in the day, she was a rockford peach.

kate turned up the volume on her ipod when prince came on. peach. awesome song. the next song that came on had her rocking out to the steve miller band … you’re the cutest thing that i ever did see, i really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree …

i rest my case.

next time you go to victoria’s secret, i challenge you to ask an associate to show you a bra or teddy (not a bear) in peach. if she whips one out of the drawer in zero to three seconds, i stand corrected on peach being a universally accepted, fashionable color in 2008. however, if the associate cocks her head and looks confused, FACE!