Pink Hats, Politics and Pedicures

Another busy week with half of it behind me, half in front of me. Monday was haircut day followed by having to drop off a check to cover up an old person mistake I made of sending a payment in the mail to the wrong address. The senior hall has a physical address with no mailbox and an accounts receivable address with one. Thankfully I still use return address labels on my mail or I never would have known that my February/March RSVPs were in danger of getting canceled. That same day I learned on the news that a new phone scam is going around. The caller pretends to have trouble with a headset and asks, “Can you hear me?” When you reply “yes” they record it, hoping to get more information out of you so they can somehow use your own voice for credit card fraud challenge questions. “Is this Mrs. So-and-so?” “Yes.” “Did you just charge a $10,000 necklace at Tiffany’s? “Yes.” Or another one that involves them playing your voice back to you as “proof” that you ordered something you didn’t and they say, they’ll put you in collection if you don’t wire them the money RIGHT NOW! A few hours before hearing that news story I’d gotten one of those calls. I knew enough to hang up after the caller asked about a credit card but not before she got a chance to record my “yes.” Growing older is definitely a blood sport.

Decades ago I read a book set in the future. Tensions were high. Masses of people were demonstrating every day in the streets and no one went anywhere without their face masks in case the wind carried tear gas your way as you skirted around the demonstrators on your way to work. The military all wore white, metallic gear and the protagonist in the book was a specialist in crowd control. Crazy story-line for a romance book but it worked well enough for me to remember the plot all these years later. Do you think the “future” is here? This past week I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night, worried about what’s going to happen next. Already I miss having a no-drama president who I didn’t have to be concerned about blowing up the world. On the good side, I was able to find hot pink yarn to make ‘pussycat hats’ for several family and friends who are gearing up to make their opposition known when key votes come up in Congress that will hurt a multitude of issues they care deeply about. As one of my blogger friends who is also making post-Woman’s March hats wrote, “Every stitch I knit is a protest against the actions of our current President” and to that I say, “Amen, sister! I feel exactly the same way.”

Ohmygod, just when I thought I’d weaned myself off from stopping at Starbucks every time the car leaves the garage the president’s fan club is calling for another boycott of their coffee houses. This time because their CEO announced they are hiring 10,000 refugees over the next five years world-wide who have worked as interpreters and support personal to U.S. troops. The latter part of that sentence the fan club “forgets” to include in their rally cry. They just don’t like Starbucks’ CEO because he dared to criticize the Muslim ban this weekend. So instead of coming home after getting my haircut and having a sensible lunch, the boycott made me go to Starbucks for a ham and cheese stuffed croissant and cascara latte. That’s a whole day’s worth of calories consumed in one meal and if this keeps up I’ll be one of those fatties that #45 likes to insult. Who am I kidding? I haven’t had a figure that would meet with his approval since I was thirty-something, assuming he’d even look twice at anyone wearing a B-cup bra.

After my husband died I went through a pamper-the-widow phase when I got my first (and last) manicure and massage, and a year’s worth of pedicures. Then I quit the pedicures because apparently getting pampered isn’t my thing and spending $45 on something I could do myself seemed like a total waste of time and money. Things were going along fine. I don’t wear sandals so I didn’t care if my toenail maintaining skills are not what used to be when I was young and agile. But when your toenails get so long they’re snagging the carpet when you walk barefoot you know something has to give. I made an appointment and, boy, did I hit the jackpot! The young pedicurist and I had the room to ourselves and right from the start our conversation took off like a rocket. She has friends who went to the Woman’s March and she said she feels an obligation to educate herself about politics and that wasn’t just lip service. She knew her stuff. She said she’s actually excited to be a part of what she and her friends view as a new wave of feminism on a par with the Suffragettes and Woman’s Movement of my era. “I wanna be part of a history!” she said. When I told her I’m making some pink pussycat hats, she asked if she could buy one. I left that pedicure appointment energized by a sense that her generation has ‘got this’---that they aren’t going to let woman’s rights and our place in the world backslide without a damn good fight. ©