Lunch with Auntie Mame

 

I’ve written before about a woman who usually wears velvet pantsuits who lives here at the continuum care complex and who I’ve dubbed Auntie Mame because she’s loud, funny, out-going and friendly. But the thing I find especially fun about her is that she’s got this running joke going about how she wants to start a Scandals & Gossip Newspaper here on campus and shove them under our doors at night. Little does she (or anyone else know) that I write a version of that scandals and gossip rag and I shove it out into cyberspace.

She’s been pet sitting at her son’s house and hasn’t been on campus for almost a month so when she showed up at lunch recently I knew I’d be sitting in the cafe` longer than usual. This particular day she was on a role giving beauty tips for how to put on eyeliner and how to lose magnetic eyelashes. She also said she doesn’t make plans for anything past six months because---well, because she’s 86. That’s when I found out that I’m one of the youngest people in our merry band of misfits. Everyone around the table was over the 80 mile marker and I’m just barely under it. 

Things I did not know before Lunch: That elderly women can sit around talking about how and where to get the best eyebrow tattoos and microblading in town. I don’t really want them but I was surprised that at least four women here have them. I’d be afraid that I’d get a color or shape that I didn’t like or that a tattoo artist would give me what she or he thinks is stylish and not what I’d necessarily think is the cat’s mew. How many times have we explained how we wanted our hair cut only to walk out of a salon with a head of hair that looking entirely different? Tattoos and microbladng are permanent including the infections you can get from all those little cuts that are made with microblading. Look at me, using a word I didn’t even knew existed until our lunch conversation which, by the way, came with a lot of laughter. 

The oldest lady at the table has been dubbed The Queen Bee by others but not by me. Named so because she is often be found sitting in a large wing-backed chair in front of the fireplace holding court. She has tattooed eyebrows and is going in to get them done again because, she says, they've faded over the years. Eyebrow pencil and eyebrow paint are the only cosmetic additions to my face that I won't leave my apartment without. Even though I hate having one brown eyebrow and one gray one I wouldn’t in a hundred years get them tattooed to match. Tried getting them dyed to match once but the technician got dye in my eye and I thought I’d die. Never again.

At that lunch we covered hair dying and magnetic eye lashes and we learned how to make little dots along your eye lid when applying eyeliner. If I ever used eyeliner in the past it was for about a minute and a half. I could never get that stuff on back when I had a steady hand and now with wrinkles around my eyes I can only imagine how I’d look if I tried it now. No wonder some of these women get up at six o`clock if they feel compelled to do a full face of make up before leaving their apartments. I could sure used some foundation to cover up all the blemishes I’ve picked up since masks have come into required fashion. I have worse skin now than I did when I was a teen with a face full of acne. I had even planned to start wearing some make up after I got my cataracts removed when I thought I’ve be able to trust the colors I’m seeing. But so far I haven’t bothered. I have mastered putting earrings on, though. Wearing studs every day has improved my finger dexterity. I still pull the stoppers on the sinks before I mess with my earrings though, so they don’t accidentally end up down the drain.

I might not have a face full of make up that looks like I’m airbrushed to perfection like a few ladies here but I found out I have one thing others admire. I have thick, naturally wavy hair that still needs thinning when I get it cut and it requires nothing more than a wash job twice a week. I guess paying $57 plus aincludin tip to get it cut every four weeks is worth it. Several of the ladies here use the onsite hairdresser who comes to your apartment. She does a fabulous job but I’m not ready for that yet. The first time I have to pee at the salon where I go might make me reconsider that choice though. They have a toilet that I swear was made for midgets. I don’t think I could get back up if I ever sat on it. I took one look at it and made a beeline home instead. Getting old comes with all kinds of perils like that and few pluses unless you count three hour lunches that are often better than going to a comedy club.

Well, I’ve got to go get cleaned up for lunch. Today is fire drill day and if I have to put up with listening to them testing those bells all over the campus I might was well be where I can watch the firemen and women walking back and forth through the lobby. It’s the only time when I’m glad I don’t have a dog anymore. Robbie’s mom takes him on long walks when they test or she drops him off at the groomers when we know a drill is on the schedule. ©

Wearing Masks and other Mandatory Ear Adornments

Before the pandemic April and October used to be my busiest months for yearly and bi-annual appointments for medical stuff and house and car maintenance. I liked getting it all condensed and out of the way so I wasn’t driving during winter snow storms or in the season of overheated cars and impatient drivers. With the stay-at-home orders in Michigan from March 26^th to staggered re-openings starting in June It’s been a long haul and now everyone is scrambling to get months’ worth of missed appointments back on the books. Even places that didn’t require appointments are doing so now in order to ensure social distancing. I called the eyeglass place, for example, to see if they were open and was shocked to learn I had to make an appointment a week in advance to pick out new frames.

We still have mandatory orders in place to wear masks and do our six foot social distancing when we are in public. And oh how important my ears have become to the point that I’m paranoid checking them every few minutes because I’ve discovered that taking off your mask can also send your hearing aids flying across a parking lot. Before I was able to get a haircut my ears also had to contend with a plastic headband holding my hair off my face in addition to their usual job of holding up my eyeglasses and having earrings sticking through them. It’s just too much junk coming together in one place! On the good side, I'm saving money on my Bert’s Bees Watermelon lip gloss because it hasn’t come out of my drawer much since masks became part of my wardrobe. 

I have five masks now. My first two were made by one of my Gathering Girls pals, delicate and cute floral patterns. Then I ordered two that literally came on a slow boat from China. Both have pockets for filters and one is black, the other is a black and white print. Finally my local grocery store started stocking them and I got a gray mask to match my hair and it's probably too thin to do any real good. With all those masks to choose from I still want another---one with a ventilation breathing valve which probably defends the whole purpose of wearing a mask in the first place. I’m a shallow mouth breather and I’m having trouble getting enough oxygen through any of the masks I own.

Eyelashes---I can’t find mine anymore to wear mascara and since I wear silver and black glasses with rhinestones on the bows no one looks past those to see my eyes anyway. I’ve always been obsessed, however, with my eyebrows and that obsession has been jacked up on steroids since masks became standard fare. I have one dark brown and black eyebrow and one white and brown brow and I never leave the house without painting a little color over my eyebrows to even them out. Aside from that oddity, in my teens I had a unibrow that I over plucked and am paying for now that I know the ‘rules’ for where I should have quit plucking. And have I mentioned that I have the classic thinning of the last third of my eyebrows due to my hypothyroidism? I have to pencil in an 1/8 of an inch at the center ends of my brows and fill in near the other ends or I feel naked. Eyebrows on, I'm good to go anywhere. I just wish I could wiggle them independently...learn the language of eyebrow flirting in the age of Covid-19. I just made that up but the language of eyebrows should be a thing.

I've had the prescription for new glasses for a few weeks but I was waiting until after I got my post-Covid-19 lock down haircut to pick out new frames. The frames I’m using now are nearly a decade old. The last two times I’ve needed new prescriptions I hated the frames available and I ended up getting my new prescriptions put in those old frames with the rhinestone bows. I wanted something flashy with a rainbow of colors. I still want that and if I can’t find them this time I’m going with big, horn-rimmed librarian glasses. You know the kind...the kind that hides your sexiness and when you free your hair from its ponytail and whip off your glasses guys swoon at your feet. Ya, I know, sometimes I forget I don’t have a ponytail and guys don’t swoon at the feet of septuagenarians. Who said dementia can’t be something to look forward to when you have a good imagination. And who are these goober guys in romance books who can't tell if a woman is sexy if she's wearing glasses? I'm guessing they're the sons of Clark Kent and Lois Lane?

As least I’m not as delusional as a man I saw at the grocery store this week. He was hooked up to an oxygen tank that he was pushing around in his cart. On his head was a red MAGA hat and he was wearing a t-shirt with a serpent in the middle surrounded by the words, “Don’t Tread on Me! Liberty or Death!” He was not wearing the state mandated mask and his angry resentment of his fellow shoppers who were wearing them was palatable. “Give me liberty or give me death.” He’s picking his poison and I just hope he's not spiking the punch of others like me as he invaded our six foot bubble of supposed safety. As author and columnist John Pavlovitz says, "A mask is a stupid hill to die on in America." ©

“… Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace.
The war is actually begun!
The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears
 the clash of resounding arms!
Our brethren are already in the field!
Why stand we here idle?
What is it that gentlemen wish?
What would they have?
 Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased
at the price of chains and slavery?
Forbid it, Almighty God!
I know not what course others may take;
 but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

Sir Patrick Henry 1775 in his call to arms against the British.