Earlobes and other things that make me feel Old

I woke up this morning hating me earlobes. It’s like they grew overnight! All my life I’ve liked my earlobes. They were perfect for post earrings and at one time I owned 225 pair. Nothing expensive but in the year after I got my ears pierced my car automatically turned into a department store’s parking lot on the way home from work and buying ear adornments became an obsession. I was at the pinnacle of my man hunting days and it was the only time in my life when I was a fashionista. Mid-twenties, first full time job and, yes, I was THAT girl who got hung up on my newly discovered femininity---having spent time at a gym in the year before acquiring girl curves that came with a flat tummy and a tight butt. I still have an outfit from that era of my life. Size Skinny Mini for my 5’ foot 7 ½” frame, I wish I had a photo of me wearing those white pants with its red and white stripped, sleeveless tunic top that were both trimmed in black because there is no way on this side of reality that I’ll ever be able to fit back into that outfit. Just looking at it hanging in the closet gives me a jolt of pleasure, though, remembering how kick-ass fine I felt in that outfit. Most of the earrings I bought back in that era were auctioned off in a couple of lots of 25 pair two summers ago but I kept the red and white dangling (sugar-sized) cubes I wore with that outfit.

I have always hated old people’s earlobes, the kind that are like flabby disks. I can even remember as a toddler sitting on someone’s lap and playing with the man’s “elephant ears” and being scolded for saying “Dumbo?” Until yesterday the only part of my body that still looked young, perfect and perky were my earlobes. What happened seemingly overnight? I’d never, ever considering having plastic surgery to bob my ears but if there’s a cream you can use to “tighten them back up” again I’d dig deep into my pocketbook to buy it. Which gives me an idea. I wonder if hemorrhoid cream would work. Models used to use that around their eyes before cosmetic companies started compounding ingredients they could charge hundreds of dollar for to do away with wrinkles. Big sigh here. My earlobes aren’t wrinkled, they’re just droopy like an old man’s balls. And I’ll bet those droopy balls make men feel just as bad as I do about my earlobes.

I’ve been working on downsizing/reorganizing my jewelry this week which is probably why I’ve been eyeballing my earlobes more. The goal was to empty out my dad’s old, oak tool box (shown in the top photo) that I used for a jewelry box for many years and make it all fit in the new gray box below. I also had jewelry in a couple of other places, too, and I wanted it all together. Having my jewelry so accessible in that old box after I move didn’t feel smart and I wanted to ‘shop’ that box around the family to see if anyone wants it before selling it. If none of Dad’s descendants wants it, those old boxes can easily sell for over $400. Surprisingly, my new gray jewelry box, and a plastic one about the same size, held so much jewelry that I had very little left over to donate to Goodwill. I did find 10-12 things that I sold for its gold content. My husband apparently never read the memo about me preferring silver over gold. Time to let go of what I didn't like in the first place.

I should purge more jewelry than I did because I don’t really wear that stuff anymore but like those red and white dangling cubes it makes me smile and remember what it was like to be younger when I cared about getting dressed up. And who knows, once I move to the CCC where they’ll be a long list of events and activities I can take part in I just might take an interest in my appearances again. Wouldn’t that shock my system if I gave up some of my sweats in lieu of real clothes. With a gym right across the hall plus having to walk the dog around the campus maybe I’ll even start losing weight and fit into my Skinny Mini outfit from my clubbing days. Don’t hold your breath on that one unless, God forbid, I pair that exercise with getting cancer. That’s not going to happen, though, I type with a smugness that just invites the universe to smack me down. But seriously, have you ever contemplated how you’re going to die? What will actually get you in the end? I have and it will have something to do with my lungs or over dosing on chronic hives meds or a fall where I can’t get up and die of exposure or dehydration while the dog goes off to his idea of heaven on earth---peeing on every leaf, tree and rock until someone finds Levi wandering around and reads one of his six tags to help get him back home. Ya, even the dog has too much jewelry. Which leads me to ask a question: Why hasn’t it become a fad to pierce our dog and cat’s ears? No one could call it animal cruelty since we do it to ourselves and they do it to farm animals to ID them with a numbers.  ©

 

This box is only 10"x7"x7" but between it and the plastic box below it holds all the jewelry laid out in the other photo below that came out of the oak tool box and other places around the house. evidentially, I want it downsized to just one box.

Below is all the jewelry I had in the house that surprisingly fit in the two boxes above.

Post Note: Remember the antique bank safe I wrote about in a recent post? I found the combination under one of the linings in my oak jewelry box. Back in 2002 when I wanted to sell that safe I turned heaven and earth over trying to find that combination. I had emptied it out before losing the combination, so I wasn't worried about that aspect but I could have gotten more for the safe if I had a way to open it. A guy who bought it collected those old safes and he knew how to crack them. There isn't a thing in the world that someone doesn't collect.

October with Mickey Mouse

It’s October already. Cider and donuts. Cooler nights. Birds in flight, the south calling them to their winter homes. I see their flocks swooping in the sky above the river and it makes me sad. Sad that summer is ending. I hate fall. I know that’s almost sacrilegious to say and I do get the whole attraction to the colorful display of Mother Nature changing her dress from a palette of greens to a palette of rusts, oranges and yellows. But then she makes us work to get ready for winter. Those leaves that were so pretty while still attached to the trees have to be raked up. Those cool nights bringing frost to the pumpkins and killing the last of the perennials means our flower beds need to be worked to prepare them for winter. And while I no longer have to take window screens down and put up storm windows here or at the houses of the elderly people we helped in our journey through life, the idea that fall brings too much work is imprinted deeply within me. 

It occurred to me this week that I’ve got too many irons in the pot, so to speak, but as a bi-product of being too busy I haven’t had time to feel that illusive loneliness and discontent that plagues me from time to time. If you could see my calendar you’d discover every day filled in. The Handyman Connection guy filled up a couple of hours this week, here to put new seals around two exhaust vents on the roof. Now I have two ceilings that need repainting because those vents were leaking although not long enough to do any serious damage. But painting those ceilings will have to wait because: 1) I want to make sure the repairs solved the issue and those ceiling stains don’t grow over the next few months, and 2) I’m thinking of changing the wall color in my master bedroom and bath since I’ll have to hire a painter and I doubt he'll be able to match what's on my bathroom walls. In my rush to purge stuff over the past few months I got rid of the paint I could have used to touch up my bathroom and porch ceilings. Isn’t that always the way. The minute you let go of something, you need it. 

Another afternoon this past week was spent at my car’s service department because of a recall that “has to be done sooner rather than later” but no one could tell me what the recall fixed except for it involved a computer update that took an hour. Great. Computer updates at home mean changes that aren’t always welcome. Now we have to do the same with our vehicles? I like to pretend computers aren’t controlling what goes on underneath the hood of my Chevy Trax. Recalls like this give me visions of the car freezing up and the screen on the dashboard flashing a warning telling me to call a (scam) phone number. “Don’t turn off your car!”---let it sit there in traffic until you can wire us some money. 

My husband collected Mickey Mouse watches. I got them out this week to get them ready to put on e-Bay. Sounds simple but it’s not. We’re talking a dozen watches that have to have the stainless steel break-away bands removed (he worked around too many machines and heavy equipment to safely wear regular watchbands or rings) and the original bands and boxes needed to be matched up plus they’ll have to be tested to make sure the watches still work. His oldest Mickey Mouse watch is from the ‘40s but most are from the ‘70s and ‘80s. They were not the cheap, gift shop variety watches but only three will be well worth the effort to sell. Anyone who says selling on e-Bay is easy has never sold collectibles. The process goes like this: Clean an item, research it, photograph it, pack and weigh it, write up a description, list it and answer emails from people who don’t believe it when you write in the listings, “No Buy-it-Now Option!” When the auction ends you wait for payment then print a label and take the package to the post office.

I took two of the watches to a jewelry store today to get the backs off because I didn’t have the finger dexterity to do it. The closest place is a high-end store that sells Rolex’s and diamonds and they used to get robbed on a regular basis. Now, they trap you in between two doors for a photo opt before they buzz you into the store. So I put on what I call my ‘understated rich girl outfit’ because I was afraid they wouldn’t buzz me in if I was wearing my normal Kmart grade clothing. I’d been to the place a few years ago to sell some gold and before I got out of the place I spent the money they paid me on a pair of diamond studs. Those earrings were part of my rich girl outfit along with a brand-new coat I’ve dubbed my Steve Bannon hunting jacket paired with my only cashmere sweater. (Old but not much of it showed under the coat.) They let me in. They charged three times more than the local box store would have to put in new batteries, but I didn’t have to worry about some snot-nosed clerk messing up the watches by prying when they should have been twisting. While I was there I spotted a pair of white gold and pearl earrings, asked the price---nothing in the place is marked---and I made a mental note to come back and buy them after a couple of watches sell. In the meantime, Mickey Mouse and I will be spending time together this October. ©

Traditions and the Second Mourning Period

Okay, it’s a new year, a new day. The dog’s been fed, the dishes are washed. The house is clean and my day planner is blank and screaming at me to write something down. What should I do, where should I go? I know! I’ve had a burning desire to buy crystal and porcelain beads to take to a woman who makes necklaces for widows. Necklaces that incorporate your husband’s wedding band. How cool is that?

It’s amazing the number of ways we widows find to memorialize our spouses. Quilts are made of favorite shirts and teddy bears for the grandchildren, too. Christmas ornaments with photos are created along with video slide shows to play on computers. Songs and poems are written by a talented few. And let’s not forget the memorial bricks and trees that are bought for city parks, and the marble grave markers placed in cemeteries. Then there are the donations made in our spouse’s memory. Some widows even have synthetic diamonds made from cremated remains. I have an ash urn locket to wear and a glass jar containing stones, a feather, shells and sand picked up on the day we spread part of my husband’s ashes at the beach. What am I forgetting? I’m sure there are many more ways that widows---Oh, gosh, how could I forget blogging? We tell our husbands' stories mixed in with our tears.

In the 21st century we don’t make rings and pins out our deceased husband’s hair the way they did in Victorian times and we don’t wear tintype photo pins like they did in Civil War times. We don’t wear amulets bags with a token inside to touch and send prayers off to the gods like some American Indians tribes once did. But what we do today to keep a loved one close at heart serves the very same purpose. Mourning traditions that give you something to touch have survived through the centuries for a reason. We humans need to feel connected to our pasts.

At one time in history, widows wore brooches of black cameos set in gold during their ‘second mourning period’ which was defined as the next nine months after their first full year of widowhood. It was during this period when Victorian widows could add minor ornamentation to their black dresses---a ruffle, a bit of lace, a touch of gray---and they could start wearing fancy mourning jewelry. And at the beginning of the10^th month through the end of their second year of widowhood plus one month Victoria women would phase color into their wardrobes. Strict rules that I kind of wish society still followed. What can I say, I'm old fashioned.

If I was living during those times, I’d formally be starting my second mourning period on the 18^th of this month and as strange as it might sound to those who haven’t gone through losing a spouse, it seems nature and appropriate to call it that. There is a discernible shift in emotions after getting through all the ‘firsts’ that take place in the first year of wearing the widow label but you’re far from be healed inside. Sadly, our modern world no longer acknowledges this second mourning period. Get over it and move on with your life! widows are told. Well, duh! What do you think we’re trying to do? In widows’ circles, though, this second year that no longer has a formal name is still recognized instinctively by most women as a time to start rebuilding our lives. It's a nine month void in between heart-wrenching grief and finding a way to add color back into our lives. At least I hope it works that way for me. And I can't keep wondering why the Victorians picked nine months for the second mourning period and not eight, ten or twelve. All I can come up with in my musing is that it somehow ties into how long it takes to grow a life in the womb. Victorians were big on symbolism.

Shortly after my mother died in 1983 Don bought me an antique, second mourning period cameo and I’ve worn or carried it to every funeral I’ve been to since. Now that Don has passed, too, I have a dilemma in the jewelry department. If I wear all of my memorial jewelry to the next funeral I go to I’ll look like a Boy Scout with a chest full of badges. I’ll have my black cameo, my silver urn ash locket, a beaded necklace with Don’s wedding ring incorporated and my widow’s Word of the Year courage necklace. Oh, my! Take a memo, world: No one I know better die soon because this jewelry dilemma of what to wear to the funeral is not a choice I am ready to face yet.

All kidding aside, mourning jewelry has been around since the mid 1600s. So don’t let anyone make you feel that it’s weird or obsessive if you’re drawn to this kind sentimental remembrance. It might make others feel slight uncomfortable when their “crazy” old aunt, friend, mother or sister is flashing one of these widowhood traditional pieces. But one day they may sadly understand there is comfort in traditions that connect us to our recent past and to that of our ancestors. Having an object so close at hand to touch like a worry stone calms the mind, gives us strength and reminds us that a love remembered is a love we still have. ©