The Widow on Icy Lane

West Michigan is encapsulated in a blanket of ice with another ice storm headed our way tomorrow. The tree branches and evergreens are beautiful covered with sparkling icicles but every flat surface is an accident waiting to happen both on foot and in a vehicle. Can you believe it, another social event in my life got canceled because of the weather! That makes three in a row. From the looks of the weather forecast I won’t be going anywhere for at least four days which means I’ll be missing my family’s out-of-town Christmas Eve party as well. Worse than missing the tree display at the sculpture park tomorrow and the party is the fact that I don’t have enough sidewalk salt on hand to melt the ice skating rink that used to be my driveway. On the good side, I have heat, electricity and enough food in the house to last a month. And I’m not sitting in an airport waiting for maintenance to de-ice an airplane.

With too much time on my hands this morning I got myself in trouble at Face Book over the Duck Dynasty controversy. There’s a lesson here for me---stick to my long-ago decision not to get drawn into talking politics, money or religion at the site! But it’s so hard, sometimes, for me to sit on my hands when people agree with things like Phil Robertson’s red neck logic. “Blacks were happier before the Civil Rights Movement,” he said in the same article where he condemned gays. Ya, sure. Living in fear of being lynched for looking at a white woman or being beaten for wanting to vote must have been a lovely way to live back in Jim Crow days. How can so many people actually know so little about American history? The popularity of TV reality shows like Honey Boo Boo, Dance Moms, Duck Dynasty, Jersey Shore and the Kardashians makes me fear for America. Or maybe I really am just “an elitist snob who had been brainwashed by the liberal media.” "Okay. Merry Christmas to you, Face Book friend of a friend," and with that said I went back to my favorite political site where anonymous posting makes it so much easier.

Have you ever clicked on the website called ‘Advanced Style’ in my list of Blogs I Follow (right hand column)? The guy who created the site is from New York City and he goes around photographing women in my peer age group who, in his eyes, are “stylish and creative older folks.” I enjoy looking at the often outlandish and always arty farty outfits some of these women put together. A few outfits I wish I had enough guts to wear while one or two I think border on clownish, especially if you tried to wear them around here in conservative West Michigan. But mainly I’m inspired by the fact that these ladies project confidence and aren’t afraid to show their own personal style. I also like the guy's mission statement of showcasing older women. My style, if you want to call it 'style', is solid colors---mostly black with purple, red, rose or teal blue and a minimum of accessories, if any. I couldn’t afford to dress in their manner with clothing that is so memorable, but since I discovered the site I find myself being inspired to accessorize more often and paying attention to details in a way I haven't down for decades. Tomorrow I’m going to overdose on the site in the morning, then pull everything out of my walk-in closet and rethink what I have, what to purge and what to keep. If I’m going to be iced in for a few days I might as well put the time to good use mining a closet that badly needs to be de-cluttered. I have things in there from 1960, for crying out loud, and more sweatpants and sweatshirts than a professional athlete.  ©