I was talking to my five year old granddaughter when she suddenly grabbed the soft (okay, flabby) underneath part of my arm and informed me I had “bingo wings.”

I asked her where she had heard that term. “I don’t know,” she said and ran off to play.

I decided to do some in-depth research (Google) and this is what I found:

Wikipedia said

The anthropometry of the upper arm is a set of measurements of the shape of the upper arms. Large, saggy flaps of skin under the arm are colloquially known as bingo wings,^[1] after the phrase was popularised by the comedy television program Bo’ Selecta!.^[2]edia-

Urban Dictionary said

bingo wing

Loose, flabby upper-arm flesh of (usually) fat women in cap-sleeved rayon blouses who attend bingo halls. Bingo wing development can be accelerated by consuming vast quantities of C.Cola and burgers. See also bingo flaps

Used in a sentence….

Check the bingo wing on that! If she flapped those arms, she’d take off!

Doesn’t sound too good, does it?

Now I felt even worse. I thought back to my grade school years and all the teachers I had whose skin wiggled and jiggled when they wrote on the board. Lucky women, They never knew they had bingo wings.  They existed before Google, YouTube, Wikipedia, or Urban Dictionary.  There are no “bingo wings” in Webster’s Dictionary.

While doing my “wing research” I also learned that famous people can have famous wings. According to a British publication Madonna works out six days a week but when she waved to her fans her wings were showing. The article said, “Dressed in a sleeveless leopard print Dolce and Gabbana number for an evening with boyfriend Jesus Luz and designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, the flapping undercarriage of her arms was on show for all to see.”

Flapping undercarriage? Eeeek!

Every woman (even Madonna) will eventually have to fight gravity. Basically we have two choices. We can wear long sleeves or exercise.

If you opt for the latter, here’s one that you can try at home. As for me, I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do, but I do know this. Bingo wings don’t hinder me from hugging my granddaughter…in fact, they may even help.

P.S. I have found one way to exercise those Bingo wings that I can work into my schedule. Buy two gallons of milk at the store and as you are walking to the car and carrying them into the house, place one in each hand and lift out to your sides and lower slowly…repeat.  Yes, you look weird and people may stare at you but it works!

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And, thanks to my wonderful husband, Bill, for being a great dad to our five children. Bill, you are so loved!

It is much easier to become a father than to be one.  ~Kent Nerburn, Letters to My Son: Reflections on Becoming a Man, 1994

Any man can be a father.  It takes someone special to be a dad.  ~Author Unknown

The greatest gift I ever had
Came from God; I call him Dad!
~Author Unknown

I love my father as the stars – he’s a bright shining example and a happy twinkling in my heart.  ~Terri Guillemets

Two little girls, on their way home from Sunday school, were solemnly discussing the lesson.  “Do you believe there is a devil?” asked one.  “No,” said the other promptly.  “It’s like Santa Claus:  it’s your father.”  ~Ladies’ Home Journal, quoted in 2,715 One-Line Quotations for Speakers, Writers & Raconteurs by Edward F. Murphy

Dad, your guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever.  ~Author Unknown

Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes.  ~Gloria Naylor

Why are men reluctant to become fathers?  They aren’t through being children.  ~Cindy Garner

There are three stages of a man’s life:  He believes in Santa Claus, he doesn’t believe in Santa Clus, he is Santa Claus.  ~Author Unknown

Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope.  ~Bill Cosby

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around.  But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.  ~Author unknown, commonly attributed to Mark Twain but no evidence has yet been found for this (Thanks, Garson O’Toole!)

If you have never heard Black Stone Cherry (or even if you have) listen to the following song. These young men are from my hometown and they are an awesome group of musically talented guys!

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First I read….

“Doctors were told they are on the edge of a new era,” and that several of the latest breakthroughs could bring about the most significant changes to cancer survival, Dr. Lynn Schucter, a cancer researcher at the University of Pennsylvania said.

And then I read….

Two new drugs for metastatic melanoma – the deadliest form of skin cancer – are being hailed as the biggest breakthrough therapies  for cancer in the last 30 years. The drugs reduce tumour size, significantly increasing survival rates.

Today I’m giving thanks to those who work tirelessly to find a cure for cancer. Thank you God for these men and women. Bless them and bless their work so that they may continue to help others!

PS. I love you, Martha! Praying your chemo goes well this week.

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