Weird Fashion and Life Style Choices

Remember Pebbles, the baby of Fred and Wilma Flintstone? I think I saw her grandmother at the dentist office last week. She was wearing orange knee-highs, an orange mini skirt, a white blouse with orange dots the size of tea cups and she had a short tuft of gray hair on the top of her head that stood straight up and was tied with an orange bow as big as the bone in Pebbles’ do. At first glance I thought the circus must be in town. On second glance I had to snap my mouth shut because my jaw had dropped. Even if I didn’t hate the color orange I would have hated that outfit on sheer principle alone. It belonged on a six year old. What would possess a woman clearly over sixty-five to dress that way? She had on our state required mask, though, so she at least got that right.

Everyone who worked at the dentist’s office was wearing pink plastic gowns and pink masks. Actually they were each wearing two masks plus the plastic “bug shields” that covered their whole faces--whatever they call them. If I had to pick one of them out in a lineup I wouldn’t be able to ID the perp. I don’t think I would have been able to ID Orange Lady either if she was wearing normal clothing but she should have gotten a ticket for hurting my eyes with those neon knee socks and her Mary-Jane shoes firmly planted on the floor as she tried to kept her knees pressed tightly together so those of us sitting on the other side of the room couldn’t see her yahoo. Her skirt was so short you couldn’t help looking to see if it was playing peak-boo. 

My dentist is located in a small town 45 minutes away from where I live. Ten years ago it was listed on the Southern Poverty Law Centers’ Hate Map, but I just looked at the map again and the town has been removed. Must be the local branches of the White Nationalists and Michigan Militia had moved or died out. After one of our dental appointments my husband and I had lunch in a place near-by that had hate group posters all over the walls that we didn’t notice until after we’d placed our orders, so we made the best of it and did some seriously scary eavesdropping before we got the heck out of there. It gave us great pleasure a year later when we learned they'd gone out of business. Its owner is probably still scratching his head, trying to figure out why he didn't get any repeat business.

Close to the dentist office last week, I stumbled into a gas station that reminded me of that group of misfits at the closed-up restaurant. I’m quite sure the owners were hard core anti-maskers which means they’d also be anti-science and members of the Looking for Trouble Club. The four adults working there were not wearing masks and looked ready to tear you apart with their bare teeth if anyone dared to point out that our state just toughen up the mandated mask law to now include a $500 fine for not wearing one in public places. The law also requires businesses’ to refuse to do business with anyone not wearing a mask and if they blatantly ignore the law they can lose their license to operate. We’re already had two people killed over mask fights so it was tense standing in a line behind seven masked people waiting to pay for our purchases. Thankfully, no one challenged the workers in their ‘bull pen’ taking money for gas and making pizza that they sell by the slice. And ignorance of the new changes in the laws won’t wash either. We all got Civil Defense warnings on our phones, radios and TVs and on your phone you couldn’t use it again without clicking the message off your screen with an acknowledgement had you read it.

I get the whole “I live in a free country” argument. I get that masks are uncomfortable. I get that some people don’t like to be told what to do. What I don’t get is why people don’t comply with taking commonsense measures for the greater good of humanity. Wear a damn mask! Health experts all over the whole world say they help to keep the virus from spreading and no matter what our president says, those health experts from the other side of the world aren’t factoring in his chances of re-election into their medical advice. We wear seat belts to save lives. Window washers on high rises wear safety harnesses. Race car drives wear flame-retardant suits, and plenty of jobs requires safety helmets and gloves. We wear clothes to protect our privates from getting injured or from burning out other people’s eyeballs. And in case you’re still wondering, Orange Lady was not wearing panties under her mini skirt. ©

Judging People by their Appearance

My Red Hat Society chapter had our Christmas party last weekend at a restaurant out in the boondocks that looks like it would be right at home in the Alps next to a ski run. There’s a giant, fieldstone fireplace in the middle of the dining room that effectively divides the space into two semiprivate areas and the twenty-two of us took up one side with a horse-shoe shape of tables and chairs. The log walls and vaulted ceiling went high, chalet style and on one wall was a huge TV screen that was showing a slide show of winter mountain scenes. I had a good time despite the fact that I was woefully underdressed in black sweatpants, a red sweater, purple L.L. Bean vest and a red hat while everyone else was wearing purple and red party garb with spangles, bangles and beads. The night before the event I realized I’d either need to loss 5-6 pounds over the next ten hours or shop at midnight and my good sense ruled out those two things. I hate wearing things that are too tight and I’d eaten myself out of my party clothes. I feel a New Year’s Resolution forming.

I’m also not good at buying $10 gifts for these parties where you don’t know who will get the gift via the pass-it-right-left game we play. I only had this one real gift to buy for Christmas so you’d think I could get it right. While everyone else brought things like ceramic cookie jars (two ladies did), jewelry, scarves, candles, tree ornaments, bird houses and elves, I brought skin care products and breathed a sigh of relief that I didn’t have to lug home a Christmas themed cookie jar. In my defense, we’re all old! We should have the same rule they have at the senior hall where only consumable gifts are allowed. If not that, I wish my Red Hat sisters would switch games and do the one where you get to pick a gift from the pile under the tree or steal one that someone else is holding. I’ll admit that I’ve taken home the gift I brought playing that game, knowing it won’t end up in a donation box. Is that cynical or pragmatic, I can’t decide. Either way, can you guess the second New Year’s Resolution forming in my head? I’m starting to obsess about my skin again. Recently I found the switch that fell off my “complexion machine” last summer (think mini sander for your face) so I can use it again. I found it in a drawer with hair clips I rarely use. 

So many people judge others by their appearances, I actually felt ashamed of my under dressed party attire though I’m sure my Red Hat sisters were not the ones judging. But going back and forth to the bathroom made me feel conspicuous in my easy wash-and-dry caregiver fashions (and I don’t know how much longer I can use that excuse for not putting more effort into updating my wardrobe. It will be five years come January when my caregiving days died with my husband). Walking through the restaurant with eyes following in my wake reminded me of the summer when my husband had contracted to asphalt-patch holes in parking lots across the city. Dirty, terribly hot work and at the end of the day you’d end up stripping naked in the garage and you’d still manage to track tar into the house. But the thing I remember the most is how people walking by our work crew seemed to be judging our characters by our appearance not unlike how Julie Roberts in Pretty Woman was looked down upon by store clerks when she was wearing her hooker clothes. Thankfully, for my self-esteem it was in the same time frame when I was going back to college in my 40s and I’d have to drive my husband’s Corvette back and forth. Talk about people judging you by the car you drive, I experienced that first hand on campus and I also discovered early on that if I wore a skirt to college the other students treated me like I was a professor---greeting me with smiles and opening doors but when I wore jeans and a t-shirt like they did I didn’t get a second glance.

If asked most of us would say, “Oh, no! It’s not right to judge others by the clothes they wear” but most of us would also agree that we all do it in varying degrees. But here’s the thing: Making snap judgements about our environment and other humans in it is actually a primal act inherent to our very survival, a skill honed by Early Man when staying alive meant being good at reading the sensory messages coming into their brains. Although modern man no longer needs the same level of sensory messages coming in to be safe judging each other by appearances remains a strong, primal instinct. It’s in our DNA. Since I’m as guilty as the next guy of making snap judgements about others I feel an urge to attempt the Tarzon yell as I swing away from writing this blog entry to go search for a website besides L.L. Bean to shop for a new outfit.  “Ooo-wa-ooo-aaooaaooaa-ooo!" ©

Fashions, Hormones and Farmers Markets

I don’t know why it took me until the middle of July before going to the farmers market for the first time this summer. Where else can you pay $7.00 for four Lemon Dream cookies and feel good about it because all the proceeds go to charity or see people with their dogs impatiently waiting for them to pay for homemade beef jerky sticks or watch kettle corn being made next to a vendor selling goats cheese? I bought more cut flowers than healthy eatable’s but that’s okay. I gave up on having a Twiggy-like figure the first time I had the stomach flu and if you understand that statement, you probably came-of-age in the 1960s. Thunder-thighs that I was back in those days (and still am) I both hated and loved Twiggy for the impossible standard of anorexia induced beauty she set. Who didn’t want to look that skinning in a polyester knit A-line dress? Raise your hand. I really want to know.

On the way home from the farmers market the prime country radio station was playing a song by Billy Currington and I was smitten with his ability to tell a sweet, boy-meets-girl story. If I had a pinky’s worth of musical talent I’d try my hand at writing songs but I spent so many years trying to learn how to flesh out my written thoughts that it would be difficult to condense my words down to the just the important ones to carry a story along. But mostly songs like Billy’s Good Directions have me reminiscing about what it felt like to experience sexual attraction like I did back in my husband hunting days when I wore A-line dresses and go-go boots. I can’t even remember the last time that actually happened. Even George Clooney and Matthew McConaughey have lost their power to make my heart skip a beat. Raise your hand if they still have power over your hormones. I really want to know.

“I was sittin' there sellin' turnips on a flatbed truck

Crunchin' on a pork rind when she pulled up

She had to be thinkin' this is where rednecks come from

She had Hollywood written on her license plate

She was lost and lookin' for the interstate

Needin' directions, and I was the man for the job.

“I told her way up yonder past the caution light

There's a little country store with an old Coke sign

You gotta stop in and ask Miss Bell for some of her sweet tea

Then a left will take you to the interstate

But a right will bring you right back here to me.”

It’s not hard to guess that after a few more verses Billy Currington wrote the girl “of his dreams” coming back to the flatbed truck with the last line of the song saying, “Thank God for good directions...and turnip greens.”

Recently I went to a fashion trunk show. Yes, you read that right. Me, the woman who’d gladly live in a bathrobe all day long if society wouldn’t judge that as an indicator of poor mental health or senior depression. But it’s true; I’ve gone from the A-line dresses of my best fashion plate years to a look that says if-my-breasts-and-tushie-are-covered-up-good-enough. I didn’t actually sign up for this trunk show. An acquaintance was offering the ticket to anyone who was available on short notice. I spoke up with no more forethought than I had the afternoon open.

I’d been to a couple of trunk shows in my past but this one was different. It was a like Tupperware party for what they called ‘investment pieces’---blouses, jackets and gauze vests one supposedly can wear for decades. They were all bright, floral and geometric prints that---to me---were so memorable I’d have trouble wearing them two seasons, no matter how many different basic, solid colors you can wear underneath. They also showed a line of ‘investment’ bling. “A woman should never leave the house without her bling” and if you bought into their spiel you’d be stacking bracelets up your arm like cord wood on an Amish farm. They talked about earrings and keeping them in scale but I stopped listening when they brought out the chunky hubcaps "for our bigger gals" that would elongate even a young person’s earlobes under their weight. Flabby, Golda Meir earlobes makes a person look older than gray hair and I fear them more than liver spots and arthritic knuckles. I did have fun at the trunk show, though, resisting the temptation to laugh in all the wrong places. Raise your hand if keeping up with fashion still matters to you. I really want to know.  ©

Sweet Words

“If ever there is a tomorrow when we're not together... there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart...
I'll always be with you.”

Christopher Robin to Winnie-the-Pooh

Being that I’m on a half-hearted campaign to indoctrinate myself back into normal society after so many years of identifying myself as a caregiver/wife, I signed up to go out to lunch with a bunch of strangers from the local senior citizen hall. How hard could it be? If I get stuck for conversation, I told myself, I can pretend an inordinate interest in the way the carrots in my salad are cut like little eight sided stars, assuming the destination restaurant is still doing them the same way they did back in the dark ages when I was there last. If not, I’m screwed. Or I could talk about the weather that is setting records for high temperatures in March---anything but Don. I must remember that my life and all conversations no long revolves around answering questions like, “How is Don doing?” No one ever asks caregivers how they’re doing, but that’s old news and I have a new life to explore.

What I didn’t count on is being seated next to the director of the program and having the very first question out of her mouth being, “How are you doing? It’s good to see you’re getting out.”

“I have my good days and my bad days,” I answered back, trying not to pucker up and cry all over the fancy-do menu.

As it turned out, with the exception of the director, all twelve of the other women at the table were widows, like me, and they had a lively conservation about all the events and travel they’d been doing since their last meet-up a month ago. Could this be me a year from now? I’m not sure but I am sure I’ve got to up date my wardrobe if I’m going to start hang out with these ladies. Quite a few of them were teachers or office workers in their pre-retirement days and not a one of them was wearing pants with stretchable waistbands and easy-care tops---the typical “caregiver uniform” And colors! Between caring for Don and the dog I’ve gotten away from wearing anything lighter than black pants with jewel colored knit tops and these ladies looked like fashion plates----well, fashion plates from the year 1998, but colorful fashion plates if not a bit out of style. It’s a look that old ladies can get away with wearing with pizzazz. “By God, I paid good money for this outfit and I’m going to wear it out if it takes me thirty years!” Shoulders back, head high, walk in like you own the place and no one will care if the label you’re wearing went out of business the during the Clinton administration. Remind me tomorrow to check the back of my closet for old ‘date night’ clothes.

Near the end of the luncheon a vivacious lady across the table said to me, “Well, does anything of this stuff sound interesting to you? If I can do anything to help you get started, just give me a call.” They were sweet words from a sweet lady designed to show me a path for moving forward. Now all I have to do is remember what Christopher Robin said to Winnie-the-Pooh: I am braver than I believe, stronger than I feel and smarter than I think….I can do this. Maybe not this month or the one after but in time I can do this. ©