Oh My God, We're Back Again!

Let's goooooooooooo

Hello! It’s a new year! 2020-something, yes? Perhaps it will be happy! Who can say? There are no guarantees, of course, but we hope it will be happy at least a few days each month. Let’s aim that bar towards a reasonably aspirational height. Not on the floor, but hovering hopefully some 6 inches above it? Sound good? Let’s give it a go!

Anyway, hi! Your Dames have been absent from your inboxes for some time, and I, Dame Sophie, am pleased as punch to say that you can look forward to seeing us there weekly starting this very month. As in, now! This week’s issue will be a mini one, and next week’s will be a full issue.

Feeling ready to get into some cultural maximalism with you all once more!

Darling Dame Margaret is still on hiatus, and I’m delighted to say that our Darling Dame-At-Large Karen Corday will be rejoining me for the next few months as co-editor. We held our first editorial meeting a few weeks ago and have a ton of ~content ideas~ to work on together, at the classic Two Bossy Dames intersection of interesting, fun, and highly opinionated. 

As we kick back into our pre-pandemic gear, we’ll be sending you free issues weekly through  the end of January. Starting with our February 4th issue, we’ll be reactivating the payments process for all paid subscribers, and we’ll include a little reminder about it in each issue leading up to that one so that if you miss it in one issue, you’ll likely see it in another. 

I’ll leave you with a little aperitif: a quick round-up of things that helped keep me afloat since last we spoke way back in June. I haven’t written one of these for a while, so please bear with me as I dust off the old quill, oil some squeaky hinges, and take a fresh rag to the dusty surface of the writing desk of my mind.

Let’s do this!

Snacking Cakes: I’ve been baking the tasty, easy, high ROI treats from Yossy Arefi’s adorable book --  and I do adore it -- for about a year, and have only just now realized that the book itself is the size and shape (8 x 8 square) of every cake in the book! As a lifelong sucker for wit and charm, this only intensifies my love. Arefi’s recipes are easy and appealing, which has been crucial for me this year. I want nice baked goods in my house, I want to make them myself, and I absolutely do not have the capacity to make anything complicated. Some favorites: Morning Glory Cake, Espresso Chocolate Chip Cake, and Fudgy Chocolate Cake (as written, you use a fluffy chocolate frosting, but I went rogue with fluffy strawberry frosting thanks to some freeze-dried strawberries I had  in my baking stash, and WOW, cannot recommend highly enough, 18/10, will absolutely bake again). 

Loud Sweaters Are My Personality Now: A couple of years ago, I committed to only purchasing jackets and coats that bring me joy. That experiment has worked out so well, and made me so much more confident about going for it sartorially, that I decided to try it with another layer of clothing. Welcome to the Age of Loud Sweaters! I don’t just mean sweaters in saturated jewel tones, though of course they are included in Loud Sweaters, and are a great onramp to Sweaters Turned Up To 11, particularly if this is something that intrigues you, but your usual sweater volume maximum is more of a 6. I’m talking about sweaters where the arms are the bodies of large jungle cats. Ones celebrating David Bowie without quite speaking his name aloud. The Princess Diana Sweater. Sweaters with sleeves so voluminous you could stash at least one other entire human inside them. Sweaters that look like a fever dream Elizabeth Taylor once had lounging on a settee at the Pucci atelier in Milan. Best of all, Loud Sweaters are what you decide they are. Animal prints, stripes, maybe an unexpected texture or length. 

Washtub + Biosoak from Lume: it can be so easy to put off cleaning loud sweaters and other delicates of all kinds, and so daunting and annoying to figure out when you’re going to get to the items that you don’t trust with any washing machine’s delicates setting. I’ve been using this kitchen sink-sized collapsible tub for a while, and I like it so much I bought a larger one, currently drying in the shower. I don’t have to scrub out the sink & then leave it out of commission while delicates or stained items soak, and the larger tub makes it easier to wash several medium-sized items at once (3-4 sweaters, slacks, or even a coat!). The larger one does not have a drain in the bottom, but that’s not a dealbreaker for me. For delicates, I typically launder them using Soak, which is a no-rinse laundry soap, but for items that have protein stains, or smell not-great, or have hard-to-remove biofilm, the Biofilm Buster Laundry Sink Soak from Lume is a game-changer. An hour soaking, followed by laundering with Soak, and bras that were looking a little the worse for wear under the arm are now about 85% restored to their former glory. (You can buy Soak from lots of online vendors, but the best price I’ve seen recently is $12 for 12 oz. at Jo-Ann. By coincidence, Lacey is the scent I favor, and the one on sale!)

Whew, ok! Your Dame is indeed rusty, but it feels good to flex these muscles again (in no small part because I can’t mix metaphors without them). See you next week!!

Two Bossy Dames is brought to you by:

• Dame Sophie’s favorite silly thing of the week: Elmo’s longstanding and perfectly understandable loathing of his pal Zoey’s pet rock, Rocco

• A cat with a crush on Dave Grohl (same)

• And an international petition to announce where -- and more crucially, WHEN???? -- Matt Berry’s Toast of London spin-off, Toast of Tinseltown, will air in the US

We appreciate you, readers of Dames Nation!

Every time you tell a friend to subscribe, some woman, somewhere, shares some important things she’s learned with the world

Help us build Dames Nation by upgrading to a paid subscription on Substack

Share your saucy opinions with us on Twitter whether jointly as your @twobossydames, or in single size servings as @MrsFridayNext & @sophiebiblio!