Slumber Parties, Pedicures and Widows

Back when I was teenager in the ‘50s Slumber Parties were a common teenager activity at my school and presumably in the greater realm of the pop culture of the era. If you’re too young to know what a Slumber Party was, today they go by the names Sleepovers, Sweet Dreams Parties and Sleepover Glamping Parties. And judging by the party planner websites these modern day parties are a lot fancier than the ones of my youth. Did you know you can rent white party tents for your back yard then fill them with individual pup tents with matching bedding for the little princesses in your household? (I’m assuming based on what I saw on these website, Sleepovers are not something the opposite sex is engaged in hosting for their guy friends.) The party planners can even provide you with professionals to teach your preteens and teens all about make up. They also set up tables for catered food and fill up swag bags for the little guests to take home. 

Back when I was going to Slumber Parties we just showed up with our sleeping bags and  pajamas or nightgowns but prepared to stay up all night. We’d make Chef Boyardee pizzas from a box, pop popcorn or heap ice cream up for banana splits. We’d give each other pedicures and manicures or we’d wash and set each other’s hair. We might even puck a few uni-brows. If we were lucky, a few boys would come by and the hosting parents wouldn’t catch us sneaking out to the backyard to play a little kissy-face. Even better was when the girl had an older brother like I did. That always got you a better turn out for your party. Jerry was on the football team so he was a major draw, even though he had a steady girlfriend from out of town. Some girls at my school probably though she was a mythical girlfriend and some probably though they could charm their way past the absent girlfriend’s claim. But usually my mom made sure my brother was otherwise occupied when I had my Slumber Party.

What made me think about the Slumber Parties of my youth was the fact that I got a pedicure today, only the sixth professional pedicure in my life. I have a feeling a person either loves getting their fingers and toes pampered or they don’t. I’m in the latter category. I don’t like sitting that long and I really don’t like paying money for some thing I could do for myself before I got too old to be able to reach my toes without throwing my leg and hips bones out of alignment. I still do my own finger nails---only had two professional manicures in my life---and I get compliments on them, especially if I take the time to do the French style manicures. One of the professional manicures never made it home before one nail was ruined and I removed the rest of the polish when I got there. 

I thought about trying to organize a glam party here at the continuum care campus so we could do each others toes, but I don’t hear anyone complaining about getting them done professionally the way I grumbler about the indignity of someone other than a male in the heat of passion playing with their toes. Quite the opposite. The women here seem to enjoy going to nail and spa salons. Most of them go once a month. I’ve gone six times in ten years and most of them before an annual appointment with the dermatologist or foot doctor. I was never a girly-girly I guess. Or I’m just a cheap-skate.

And have I complained enough about the cost at FULL VOLUME yet? I’m still not over the sticker shock of paying up to $50 plus tips. I’ve paid $35, $40 twice, $42 and $50 twice plus tips. If the technicians get half of that I suppose that would be a fair amount for an hour’s work for a job requiring very little training. The last place I went was the cheapest place (for the basic, express) and it was mind-blowingly big with its sixteen pedicure chairs, twelve nail stations and eight drying chairs and most of them were in use. But my appointment was at 11:30 so I don’t know how many of the other women in there were on a lunch hour. The only person working in the whole place who spoke English was the cashier, greeter and person answering the phone. He also spoke what ever language it is that they speak in the Philippines. This is the place I will go in the future because not only is it the cheapest, its also the closest but I got the best pedicure there.

The only English speaking pedicurist ever had started out by telling me one of her clients was late for her appointment which is why she was late getting me in for mine. According to the pedicurist, who knew the woman’s family, the client was widow who had become a recluse widow and has done nothing but drink beer and get drunk in the year since her husband died. “Her family is worried.” Blah, blah, blah. Ten years into my widowhood and am I losing my ability to sympathize? At lunch here at the CCC a widow was complaining because no one at the Widow’s Support Group hugged her! This was last year when everyone was jumpy about getting Covid and I offered that as a possible reason why. And I added that everyone has different ideas of what they need in the way of support. “Well, I needed hugs,” she said, “and no one gave me one!” Several women then got up from the table and hugged her and she burst out crying and left. After she was gone, another woman said, “She just went to that group too early. She wasn’t ready for it yet.” I agreed. But I should start reading my blog from the beginning and see what kind of widow I was back at the beginning of the process, in a effort to refill my empathy and sympathy wells. As the years go by we humans---at least most of us---are equipped with a wonderful gift for minimizing the pain we've gone through and only remember with perfect clarity the good times.

Until Next Wednesday….  ©

 *The photo at the top is from the slumber party in the movie Grease which was set in the '50. And the photos below were napped off party websites that offer sleepover rentals. I just can't imagine my parents ever going to these extremes for little girls or teen parties.

 

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. ©

Lost in Time, Memories and Other Things

This week ushered in an eclectic collection of activities. One day I saw the foot doctor and went to a luncheon at the senior hall---the band was great---and the next day I attended a class on genealogy research and went to a Red Hat tea. It’s always feast or famine with my social life. I wish I could schedule my day planner out so my activities are spread out more evenly but I can’t, so you’ll have to listen to me complain. I know, you’re thinking I had control of when I made an appointment with the podiatrist; I didn’t have to pencil him in around all those re-occurring events. Originally I had him scheduled for two weeks from now but they called with a cancellation and I took it because it was a no snow, easy driving day and who knows if I’ll be able to say the same in February. 

When I wasn’t out and about I was glued to my computer emerged in researching the military records of an ancestor who fought in the Civil War. Wow, I can’t believe how thorough the records are for the era. He got shot in the head with a Minie Ball, was given 150 acres of homestead land as payment for his service and in 1900 he was still around to collect a $16.00 pension. I also built family trees back to where my mom’s family first set foot in America. On her dad’s side that tree took me back to Dungannon, Ireland (1832) and on her mom’s side my tree goes back to Glastonbury, England, 1581. For my entire life I’ve claimed I was half Italian and half English. Now, I have to pay homage to the one quarter Irish part of my roots. When you have famous people in your English roots—and I have three---I guess it’s natural for families to ignore the rest. Sunday I got so wrapped up in research that I didn’t get dressed or have breakfast until 3:00 in the afternoon! At one point I fed my own name into a genealogy search engine and was surprised to learn I that “lived” six years at an address of a friend. I certainly never claimed that address as my residence. How in the heck did that misinformation get recorded for all of eternity? Unraveling the mysteries genealogy research turns up might seem boring to a lot of people, but others will understand the thrill of digging up the family bones. 

Speaking of misinformation, never get medical advice from your pedicurist. Mine has been nagging me to see a doctor because she was convinced I have circulation problems caused by heart issues. I have some brown spots on my toenails and on top of my feet, near my toes. I thought it was a fungus and, guess what, I was right. For three pedicures in a row, she said it wasn’t a fungus. I finally went to the foot doctor because the toes on one foot have a needles and pins feeling at night and just like I thought, the nerve he killed off four years ago with a series of shots is regenerating and if it starts back up with the hot, stabling pain on the bottom of my foot, he’ll do the injections again. For now, I’ll be the woman painting anti-fungus stuff on my toes twice a day and, the doctor said, it will never go away but I can keep it under control so it doesn’t spread. Oh, goodie. What gets me is the pedicurist charged the same $35 plus tip for a pedicure even though I skipped the polish this last time. I wish I could still reach my toes to do them myself. Oh, to be young again! I shouldn’t admit this, but when I was a teenager I could and did bite my toe nails. Not my fingernails, lord no! They showed. Now, I can barely see my toenails through my tri-folds much less get them up to my mouth even if---yuck!---I even wanted to be that pretzel kid again.

At the senior hall luncheon I won my first door prize ever at one of these events, a tin of shortbread cookies. Just what I need. As I sat there during the entertainment portion I counted up all the women I’ve come to know by name and personality. About two dozen that I enjoy having little chit-chats with when I run into them at the hall or at the Movie and Lunch Club. I was trying to decide if I’d feel cut off from all civilization if I move to the other end of town, leaving behind my senior hall and Red Hat acquaintances---no more shallow (but pleasant) little conversations, no more friendly smiles when I run into one of them out shopping. The answer is 'yes' I would miss the human contact. I decided I need to research the heck out of what’s available down in my target moving area in the way of entertainment. I’ve done some research without finding much. Surely there must be a book club, a Red Hat Chapter, something I can join for interaction and, no, my days of volunteering on a regular basis are over. Thank you very much. Cross that off the list, been there, done that. I want to be selfish if you want to look at it that way.

The more invested I get into condo and house shopping the more the uncertainties come to the surface. When I was coming home from the Red Hat tea I was driving on country roads that I’ve been on many times with my husband before he lost his speech. It was his old stomping grounds and he could tell great stories about half the places along the route. That’s when it hit me that when/if I move closer to my family I’ll also be moving farther away from so many memory making queues in my daily environment. Ohmygod, am I really ready to do that? Am I really ready not to have those warm, fuzzy thoughts pop in my head as I travel around my days, going to and by places where Don and I spent time together? ©