Here's a sampling of what Kansas City nightlife has to offer.
It takes a whole lot of fabulous to keep J Space going, so every month we feature guest stars for you to meet and learn about. Our July guest is Lisa Houser, an Overland Park good witch who knows how to be bad.
Bad Witch
Oh the draw of $1 flip-flops.
You would have thought Old Navy was giving gasoline away Saturday morning. By the time I arrived with five eager nieces and nephews in tow, the Olathe store had been open only 15 minutes, and already moms were leaving the store as if it was on fire, kids and Old Navy plastic bags in hand.
Clair Huxtable
Hands down, she is one of the most phenomenal women I have ever seen — even if it was only from my living room couch.
Clair Huxtable was a supermom, and week after week I hung on to her every word. How I longed to be a Cosby kid.
They may have had only five children on “The Cosby Show,” but Clair and Cliff helped raise a generation of kids.
Like that of many latchkey kids with single moms in the ’80s, my life consisted of a few things when I got home from school — homework, microwave meals and television. Two of my favorite shows: “The Cosby Show” and “A Different World.”
I was just in elementary school when I told my mom I wanted to go to college, and it wasn’t because anyone told me I should. It was because I heard Cliff and Clair discussing the importance of education with their kids. I watched in awe as Sandra, Denise and Theo embarked on their journeys through higher education.
Growing up, I had no personal relationships with college graduates, lawyers, doctors or upper-middle class professionals like the Huxtables. No one where I came from lived the Cosby life, but I knew it was something one should aspire to.
I knew Clair was the kind of woman I wanted to become one day. (I’m still working on it.) She made everything seem possible — she won court cases, kissed boo-boos, cooked dinner and did it with class and beauty in half an hour.
A wonder woman, she defied stereotypes. She bent the angry, hypersexual, welfare image of the black woman in America, molding it into something classy and iconic.
Even my mom, who is much more like the cynical and charming Roseanne, admired the strength of Clair Huxtable. To my mother, Clair represented the fact that a woman could work, raise kids and still maintain independence within a relationship.
Clair has touched so many people that when TiVo recently did a survey ranking the top 20 TV moms of all time, she won with a whopping 58 percent of the votes.
“First of all, she was a real human being,” Phylicia Rashad said in a statement from TiVo. “She was a devoted wife and mother with a great sense of humor and a definite awareness of her own self,” said Rashad, the woman behind Clair Huxtable.
“People look to the mother as the embodiment of the family. She was the mother that children love, that husbands adore and that women want to be.”
Every Tuesday and Saturday my lifestyle column runs in The Kansas City Star, and you can find the most recent ones below. For previous columns, click here.
Two years ago April Lacher was a stay-at-home mom and wife. That alone was hard work _ taking care of her son, paying bills, cleaning house, running the day-to-day errands. Still, she wanted more.
She'd discovered she had an artsy side when she was planning her wedding. To save money, she took on the task of decorating the facility, designed the floral arrangements and helped create the invitations.
"I realized I loved creating beautiful things that other people could appreciate," says April, 32.
So when a family member couldn't use a lip balm because of an allergy to almond oil, April figured she could make some.
I just don’t understand why there has to be so much T’n’A. It’s everywhere. Just take a look at our new entertainment district.
I mean, the Power & Light is sexy enough with Mosaic, the chic lounge with Miami flair.
The indoor-outdoor living room with potent martinis is the gem of the Cordish Co.’s mall of bars that have taken over downtown.
But it isn’t enough to have sultry décor and a hot staff. The P&L wants its waitresses to look as if they’re auditioning for a spot in the Pussycat Dolls.
Seriously, the servers at Angel’s Rock Bar look like extras in that old Christina Aguilera video — “Dirrty.” And pretty much every bar in the district serves up a wait staff with thighs exposed and/or breasts spilling out of their tops.
