Welcome to the Misadventures of Widowhood blog!

Welcome to my World---Woman, widow, senior citizen seeking to live out my days with a sense of whimsy as I search for inner peace and friendships. Jeez, that sounds like a profile on a dating app and I have zero interest in them, having lost my soul mate of 42 years. Life was good until it wasn't when my husband had a massive stroke and I spent the next 12 1/2 years as his caregiver. This blog has documented the pain and heartache of loss, my dark humor, my sweetest memories and, yes, even my pity parties and finally, moving past it all. And now I’m ready for a new start, in a new location---a continuum care campus in West Michigan, U.S.A. Some people say I have a quirky sense of humor that shows up from time to time in this blog. Others say I make some keen observations about life and growing older. Stick around, read a while. I'm sure we'll have things in common. Your comments are welcome and encouraged. Jean

Friday, June 13, 2014

Doctors, Cheerleaders and Mechanics, Oh, My!

 
Thursday I had an appointment at the orthopedics center on the rich side of town where I’m guessing my bone doctor could walk to work from his gated community, if he was so inclined. I got there an hour early because I didn’t run into the road construction I expected along the way so I looked for a coffee shop near-by. In my part of the world Starbucks embeds mini coffee shops in grocery stores but in this rich man’s neighborhood I discovered their grocery store has a full service/maxi Starbucks with enough chairs to seat the entire Dallas Cowboys cheerleading squad plus an extra chair for each girl to park her pompoms. Why do they need 39 or 40 sets of boobs and butt cheeks jiggling on the field at half-time? I once watched an entire episode of their training camp reality TV show to find an answer to that and other burning questions but all I got was another question that begs an answer: How do they keep from getting their private parts chafed from all that jumping around in their skin tight short-shorts?

The rich man’s grocery store also had something I’ve never seen in a public place. A deluxe family bathroom with a urinal, regular toilet and a child sized toilet. With over twelve years of experience under my belt of seeking out family bathrooms for my wheelchair bound husband, I had never seen a child’s toilet in one---nor a urinal now that I think about it. I would have taken a picture but I thought I might feel like a tourist from Kick’s Ville if I did. The grocery store also had people who took their customers’ groceries out and loaded them in their cars. That was a flash-back to a by-gone era when they quit giving that service on my side of town and now I want to be rich. Is it too late in life for that to happen short of winning the Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes? All afternoon, I kept opening the front door hoping to see their camera crew parked on the street and them unloading a giant check made out to me. Life is so full of disappointments.

Wednesday I had an appointment to get my car’s 12,000 mile maintenance done where I learned that even with my hearing aids in the numbers 16 and 60 sound the same. In addition to the other stuff, I needed new windshield wiper blades and I was begrudging the fact that they’d “gone up” so much since I last bought a pair. Boy, did I feel silly when I told the cashier she made a mistake and undercharged me for the blades from what the (female) service manager told me they would cost. They had to call the service manager over where it was determined that my next service appointment should be at the hearing aid center.

The dealership where I take my car is in a small town near-by and it has more than their fair share of female employees working in traditionally male roles. And they’d hired a new one since my last visit---a certified mechanic so tiny she could have crawled in with the engine of my car, closed the hood and still have room left over to do pushups inside. A slight stretch of the truth, but you get the idea. She was petite like a Barbie Doll if Barbie Dolls worked on pink plastic cars. The waiting room has windows allowing customers to watch the mechanics at work and it crossed my mind that if their new mechanic wore a pair of Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders’ shorts to go with her bouncy ponytail they could triple their business. (Hey, I wish I had thought to write that on a comment card.) Okay, that’s a sexist thing to say about her wearing shorts and not including the guy mechanics in on the new dress code suggestion but I’m old and I can be forgiven for poking fun.

In all seriousness, though, Betty Friedan would have been proud if she were alive and had been my side-kick at my Chevy dealership. And so am I. All that work we ladies of the Feminist Movement did in the `60s paid off for the current crop of young ladies. Girls get to be anything they want to be and as soon as my peer age group dies off there will be no one left to think it isn’t perfectly normal to have women (and men) let their talents and desire take them wherever and not be pigeon-holed by gender. Now, if we’d just break that glass ceiling in the White House before I die….. ©

8 comments:

  1. I kept telling my youngest child that she could be or do anything she wanted--even though I didn't believe it--and she did. I would much rather elect a President based on how they would govern. To elect based on race or gender is going back to the same old biases--just in a different form. Reverse discrimination, in my opinion.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, I agree that first must come the talent and ability to govern before we can consider voting for a person to sit in the White House and I think there are several woman out there who have the background, strength of character and brains to do the job. But will it happen in the next 15 years? I'm not sure that it will but I hope so.

      Delete
  2. So funny!!! The more things change, the more things change. Resistance is futile.

    I hear 13 through 19 as 30 through 90 so often that I ask "Do you mean one three or three zero?". I have perfect hearing... do they have perfect enunciation? LOL

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love that, "Do they have perfect enunciation?" Honestly, I think that is as much of a problem than our fading ability to hear.

      Delete
  3. Still chuckling. And that glass ceiling? PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! I agree with Judy that it is not OK to vote based on race and gender. But neither is it OK to automatically eliminate based on those things, as we have for so long. There are well-qualified women and people of color who deserve our votes. And voting for a well-qualified woman for President will be a thrill -- but not as huge a thrill as watching her take the oath of office. (I figure the number of election cycles left in me is dwindling -- hope I make it!)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know a lot of people think Obama only got voted in because of his race, but I honestly think that is a condensing thing to say. It assumes that the majority of voters care more about race than they do about having a smart person in office. There was a reason why he won his primary and Herman Cain didn't. If it was all about race they both would have won and gone up against each other.

      I want to vote for a woman, too, but I wouldn't vote for a Michele Bachmann based on her gender. It's insulting for people to assume that will happen. Women (and men) are smarter than that. Qualifications and what we judge their character to be will always come first. It's got to be the right woman to win the votes.

      Delete
  4. I'm pretty sure that photo up there of the spray-tanned cheerleader explains why my husband is a Cowboys' fan.

    We actually have a grocery store here that still offers to take your groceries to the car, and they employ a lot of seniors to do it.

    Love the women mechanics story. I'm looking forward to a female president. We've had a lot of qualified women for quite a while, but I think the time is right. It should happen soon. Like you, I hope I live to see it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, the football fans of the male gender...that DOES explain all the cheerleaders, doesn't it. LOL

      The female service manager is the most knowledgeable service manager I've ever dealt with. My husband was so impressed by her, too. She has an interesting story about how she go involved in fixing cars, then going to the Chevy auto school after high school.

      Delete

Thanks for taking the time to comment. If you are using ANONYMOUS please identify yourself by your first name as you might not be the only one. Comments containing links from spammers will not be published. All comments are moderated which means I might not see yours right away to publish through for public viewing as I don't sit at my computer 24/7.