"Through the looking glasses... Alice had a rough day"

Our dear Alice, falling down into that weird Wonderland. Bet she wished she had something stronger in that teacup! Well, I venture to say that many women today, after a long, hard day in their wonderlands of work, need a couple of glasses to drink through. And depending on how many, looking through them could be like beer goggling, a little askew but soothing too. A once-in-a-while form of relaxation for the next work day. Let's see what my beautifl, talented writer/designer/cheese goddess friend Julianne has to say about this Alice:

You can't see your reflection in a glass of wine. You see distortions, like fun-house mirrors, your fingers large and bloated and nearly floating in a pool of white bordeaux. So it's not a glass to look into and see yourself, it merely holds the elixir to see the world differently.

Alice in Wonderland was my favorite story growing up. I was attracted to the weirdness of it, the strange caterpillars and white hare who was always running late, the grinning cat whose smile would remain after he was gone. The Queen of Hearts was an evil librarian who would cut off my head if I kept a book too long, sending her soldier deck of cards after me. And then there was the food-- the cakes that begged to be eaten, the drinks that commanded you to imbibe, the strange tea party that was better than any birthday I was invited to (we, after all, were forced to play croquet with wooden mallets, not flamingoes, and that was dependent on if my friend even owned a croquette set). I imagined that this was how England was, all the time, only King Arthur and Robin Hood would make appearances as well.

Alice wasn't a princess. She was a girl who fell down a hole and had adventures. She didn't sleep in a glass coffin built by dwarves, she didn't lose a glass shoe, she didn't need a prince to be her alarm clock or return her fancy footwear. She was a little girl with a father and a sister, not so removed from myself. Her story seemed real to me because I could relate to her much more than I could the other Disney leading ladies. As I grew up, so did those leading ladies -- Ariel took more control of her destiny than her predecessors, and Belle went so far as to tame that mean ol' Beast. But it was always Alice that I wanted to be, following the unknown into a world that was topsy-turvy, where she had to rely on her own wits when surrounded by strangeness, and who managed to get herself home at the end of it all. And she got to eat all the cake she wanted.

Cheers to the looking glass, the one that I use as a grown-up Alice, to show me the oddity of the world whenever it says "Drink Me."

Cheers Julianne! Until we drink again!!