A few days ago, I was despairing over my realization that I would never get into a pair of Spanx. Any Spanx. Ever. I have bought four pairs, over Spanx history. One pair I naively bought in the size indicated for me on the package. I couldn't even get to the event at which I was hoping to look elegant. I very inelegantly removed them while still in the car, sitting behind the wheel, stuffed them in a plastic bag and tossed them when I got home. Couldn't breathe. Blue lips are not elegant.
Ever hopeful, I bought the remaining three pair, in ascending sizes, as my real size descended over the years. The last was three sizes larger than my dress size and too painful to even contemplate wearing. And then today, in the New York Times, I have been vindicated! The day of Spanx is over! The stock is steadily dropping. Sick of being in excruciating pain, the advent new fabrics, and the awareness that comfort is more important than fantasy slimness, not to mention the blinding revelation that everyone else out there looks like you, a new day is upon us.
I have always been ahead of the curve. It is such a relief.
This brings me to why I am wearing sweat pant shorts. Is it "pant?". As ugly as sweat pants only more so, I am wearing them because I am facing a challenge. A few days ago, my ever optimistic trainer said, "It about time to go up the mountain again." Something didn't immediately click in my brain to hear the implied "you" in that sentence. He was saying it was time for me to walk up Kennesaw Mountain again. A mile and a half, sharp forty-five degree incline. I did that almost exactly six months ago and have rested on my laurels ever since. But somehow, I thought that was a "once and done" kind of thing. I never expected to have to do it twice. Of course he walks with me, and we talk constantly, which makes it somewhat less painful, but still, what I am going to wear?
I have decided on my staple of a gray t-shirt, roomy enough for a troop of small Brownie scouts to pitch as a tent, and knee length shorts. Hence the above referenced abbreviated sweat pants.
I wore ankle length spandex last time, but the heck with that. It gets hot this time of year.
I have a couple of weeks to stew over this. And I need to get out and hike to get ready. Although I do a lot of exercising with resistance bands and weights, that doesn't prepare me emotionally to show a span of pale leg. So I am addressing that with a daily slathering of self tanning moisturizer, which should assure me of a cheery citrus tone from the knees down in a couple of weeks or less. I'll let you know.
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Easter Shoes and a Wayward Muse
Its sort a twofer. BOGO. Write a piece for CCWC and publish it in my blog as well. Win win.
The assignment: to write about shoes. Usually I ignore assignments. but there was a sort of siren’s song about the topic. Granted, it is a little gender stereotypical, female-centric, but I could ignore that. S-h-o-e-s, it whispered. A biological imperative? Maybe.
After all, did Plato see shadows of Manolos on the cave wall? Did Proust flash back to a lifetime of memories upon slipping his feet into a pair of strappy heels? Interesting to contemplate, but the answer is no.
But I digress.
Its 1959. My mother and I are in Block and Kuhl’s shoe department. I stare at the high heels. (That’s what we called them them, back then) I am fourteen and it’s almost Easter. I get to buy high heels to go with my very grown-up blue tweed suit, a narrow dark blue leather belt riding just above a snappy peplum flaring over my non-existent hips.
A pair of shoes catches my eye, standing out like neon against all the rounded toes and low heels. The perfect shade of blue. Stilletto heels, maybe 3”. At least 3”. Pointed toes. And the piece de resistance: a tiny, ornamental, brass trimmed blue leather change purse right at the toe cleavage. My heart races. The smell of new shoes. The smell of fresh leather. I ask to try them on.
My mother laughs, Not in a mean way, but in surprise, or more likely shock. I am such a mousey little thing, and those are bad-girl shoes. The salesman detects my lust, and hopes for the power of a daughter who has fallen in love to loosen a mother’s purse. I slip them on. I turn my feet this way and that, gazing at them. Those shoes are so much better than I am. I want to know those feet. I want to do what those feet do.
Easter morning, I slip blue leather pumps on my slick, nylon-stockinged feet. Modest two inch heels. Self effacing rounded toes. Mousey girl shoes, confirmation of who I am, and who I am not.
More than half a century later. The world in a pair of shoes.
********
And now to current concerns. A lady whom I greatly admire does not admire herself enough. That, I think, is a common condition among seriously talented people. Much of what I will say is hypothetical, because she is also very private, and not given to confiding, which can be an admirable trait when the world is filled with those who overshare.
She is leaving our little writers cohort because she feels she has no more to offer. There are times when the gift, the muse if you will, leaves us all, or most of us, at least. It is a scary moment. The artist, and she is a real artist, fears the art will never return. It's like youth, gone forever.
I hope I can assure her, if by chance she reads this, and I am pretty sure she won't, that it doesn't work like that. A field cannot flourish if it doesn't lie fallow. True, there are some who create year after year, a prodigious outpouring without break, but who is to say they would not have profited from the nourishment a pause would give. For some, the pause is long, lasting months or years, and then one day, the muse is back, ringing the door bell, barging in with cheese and crackers and a bottle of wine and demanding to be heard. She will then keep you up late, just as she once did, and you will feel yourself racing to keep up with yourself. And, dear friend, it will happen to you.
The assignment: to write about shoes. Usually I ignore assignments. but there was a sort of siren’s song about the topic. Granted, it is a little gender stereotypical, female-centric, but I could ignore that. S-h-o-e-s, it whispered. A biological imperative? Maybe.
After all, did Plato see shadows of Manolos on the cave wall? Did Proust flash back to a lifetime of memories upon slipping his feet into a pair of strappy heels? Interesting to contemplate, but the answer is no.
But I digress.
Its 1959. My mother and I are in Block and Kuhl’s shoe department. I stare at the high heels. (That’s what we called them them, back then) I am fourteen and it’s almost Easter. I get to buy high heels to go with my very grown-up blue tweed suit, a narrow dark blue leather belt riding just above a snappy peplum flaring over my non-existent hips.
A pair of shoes catches my eye, standing out like neon against all the rounded toes and low heels. The perfect shade of blue. Stilletto heels, maybe 3”. At least 3”. Pointed toes. And the piece de resistance: a tiny, ornamental, brass trimmed blue leather change purse right at the toe cleavage. My heart races. The smell of new shoes. The smell of fresh leather. I ask to try them on.
My mother laughs, Not in a mean way, but in surprise, or more likely shock. I am such a mousey little thing, and those are bad-girl shoes. The salesman detects my lust, and hopes for the power of a daughter who has fallen in love to loosen a mother’s purse. I slip them on. I turn my feet this way and that, gazing at them. Those shoes are so much better than I am. I want to know those feet. I want to do what those feet do.
Easter morning, I slip blue leather pumps on my slick, nylon-stockinged feet. Modest two inch heels. Self effacing rounded toes. Mousey girl shoes, confirmation of who I am, and who I am not.
More than half a century later. The world in a pair of shoes.
********
And now to current concerns. A lady whom I greatly admire does not admire herself enough. That, I think, is a common condition among seriously talented people. Much of what I will say is hypothetical, because she is also very private, and not given to confiding, which can be an admirable trait when the world is filled with those who overshare.
She is leaving our little writers cohort because she feels she has no more to offer. There are times when the gift, the muse if you will, leaves us all, or most of us, at least. It is a scary moment. The artist, and she is a real artist, fears the art will never return. It's like youth, gone forever.
I hope I can assure her, if by chance she reads this, and I am pretty sure she won't, that it doesn't work like that. A field cannot flourish if it doesn't lie fallow. True, there are some who create year after year, a prodigious outpouring without break, but who is to say they would not have profited from the nourishment a pause would give. For some, the pause is long, lasting months or years, and then one day, the muse is back, ringing the door bell, barging in with cheese and crackers and a bottle of wine and demanding to be heard. She will then keep you up late, just as she once did, and you will feel yourself racing to keep up with yourself. And, dear friend, it will happen to you.
Sunday, January 4, 2015
"Noah," don't do it!
At about 8:45 this morning, I was in the produce department of the Fairway grocery, Broadway at 73rd, playing softball with Sarah Jessica Parker and talking shoes. I have very colorful dreams. I can understand the Fairway Grocery part. Next month we are going to New York and staying at the Beacon Hotel. That is right across the street from Fairway on the upper west side. And shoes make sense, too. I just wrote a little piece on shoes for an assignment for my writer's group. (It will appear here in the middle of the month. Two birds, one stone) And softball makes a kind of sense because we are going to baseball games in Peoria and Chicago this summer.
My question is, what was Darren Aronofsky (he of "Black Swan") dreaming when he not only came up with "Noah"but managed to get actors, funding, and actually put it on the screen? How did presumably bright people (that may be overreaching) go along with this, nod, and say" Oh boy, that's a great idea. " I think it was the stone angels, transformer-like quasi-Biblical digital creations, that pretty much stopped me dead in my tracks. (Not tracks, really. I was sprawled in a recliner in the den, stupified from Christmas dinner and just waiting to eat again. But, same thing.) The angels plus Russell Crowe's magically changing haircut and his "What in the hell am I doing here?" expression made up an accident I couldn't take my eyes off of, (except for a short nap,) an accident revealing careers sinking faster then the Marie Celeste.
I'm with you, Russell. This is undoubtedly the worst movie of all time. You know it it and I know it; let's not pussyfoot around. It ranks as most awful because of it's pretentiousness, its huge budget, its veering off into wildly insane territory unrelated to the story it purports to tell, and much more.
There other "worst," movies, of course, and they will pop up on any Google list. Take "Plan 9 from Outer Space." It almost always tops the list, and it is truly deserving. But it has charm. It's cheap, full of unintentional blunders and is reminiscent of kids making a movie in their back yard. You can't hate that. You can really and in good conscience hate "Noah."
If you want a couple of great movies, find "Assassination Tango " or "Ghost Dog." I'll say no more. Not everyone's taste, but great just the same. Stay away from "Noah," a plague all by itself.
Thursday, January 1, 2015
It's a Sprint with Mother Time
Today is New Years Day. Fraught with so much meaning, so many implied demands. Screw it. I am watching the Rose Bowl Parade on HGTV with the Property Brothers. The have such soporific voices, which makes the Kitsch Parade almost bearable. Like George Clooney but more nasal. The best sleep-to movie of all time is The Perfect Storm. Wind, rain, churning sea, and Clooney's unanimated voice - knocks me out cold every time.
So, as I was saying, too many roses, not enough thorns. Corporate America disguised as a chintz sofa. I bite every time.
Best winter sporting event takes place today: The Winter Classic. Hockey as it was intended to be played. Outdoors. Snow. Ice. Fans freezing in the stands. Except it's being played In Washington D.C. They should ditch the idea of playing on team turf, so to speak, although one team is Chicago and could no doubt have offered up a suitable climate. Just say its going to be played in Detroit or Calgary every year and be done with it. We have two ice sport people in our family: one plays hockey and one curls. Before you laugh, curling is not for the faint of heart, although it is played predominantly by Canadians, and the opposing teams applaud one another. Curling just proves that Canadians have a sense of humor, previously unsuspected. For instance, they have a big curling get together where everyone plays in pajamas. I can relate to that.
So, how do I know that the holiday season is truly over? (Please God, let it be over.) Not because it the New Year, but because the peppermint bark is finally gone. I love that stuff. But I digress, as usual. I was going to talk about my nose. Do you ever look in your car's visor mirror and see things that completely shock you? There you are, sitting in the Kroger parking lot, and you pull the mirror down to make sure you don't have anything disgusting in your teeth before you go inside, and dear God, what is that ? The clear, unforgiving afternoon light illuminates every blemish and flaw. The driver's seat of your car is the best place to pluck your eyebrows, by the way, as long as the car is not moving. But this time it was not my Sean Connery-esqe eyebrows. It was the tip of my nose. A maze, a florid street map of the greater Los Angeles area ! W.C. Fields, Rudolph. Call the Butcher of Church Street! Pronto!
The Butcher, as you may recall, is my dermatologist. I have him on speed dial. A chirpy female voice answers his office phone. He's not in, won't be for another month. Business has apparently been good, and he is in the Caribbean tanning his bald pate. I have always wondered why the guy who preaches the "no suntan" mantra ways has that golden glow.
Anyway, I called my go-to font of information, Kay.
"Not to worry. It's broken blood vessels. You are just falling apart with age," Kay said reassuringly. "Slap some make-up on it."
Wait, this is a trend. A couple of weeks ago my trainer gazed into my eyes as I was sweating through a set of flies and said, "Your left eye is filling up with blood.
Bad news in anybody's book. By the time I got to my eye doctor a week later ( I was busy. It was the holidays) the flaming red of my eyeball was gone.
"Don't worry," he said. "Broken blood vessels aren't uncommon at your age. Don't even have to exert yourself much. "
So there is a theme here. One day you are dandy and the next, ppffft! Body parts start falling off, you start leaking various things. This is not good. I hit the wall of 70 a couple of weeks ago, and let's just say, I suspect it's downhill from here. Of course I am still going to the gym several times a week, and I watch every morsel that passes my lips (watching is the operative word here. I watch it, but I still eat it) It's a sprint with Mother Time. I need new Adidas! Shoe shopping cures almost anything, even if its for gym shoes.
So, as I was saying, too many roses, not enough thorns. Corporate America disguised as a chintz sofa. I bite every time.
Best winter sporting event takes place today: The Winter Classic. Hockey as it was intended to be played. Outdoors. Snow. Ice. Fans freezing in the stands. Except it's being played In Washington D.C. They should ditch the idea of playing on team turf, so to speak, although one team is Chicago and could no doubt have offered up a suitable climate. Just say its going to be played in Detroit or Calgary every year and be done with it. We have two ice sport people in our family: one plays hockey and one curls. Before you laugh, curling is not for the faint of heart, although it is played predominantly by Canadians, and the opposing teams applaud one another. Curling just proves that Canadians have a sense of humor, previously unsuspected. For instance, they have a big curling get together where everyone plays in pajamas. I can relate to that.
So, how do I know that the holiday season is truly over? (Please God, let it be over.) Not because it the New Year, but because the peppermint bark is finally gone. I love that stuff. But I digress, as usual. I was going to talk about my nose. Do you ever look in your car's visor mirror and see things that completely shock you? There you are, sitting in the Kroger parking lot, and you pull the mirror down to make sure you don't have anything disgusting in your teeth before you go inside, and dear God, what is that ? The clear, unforgiving afternoon light illuminates every blemish and flaw. The driver's seat of your car is the best place to pluck your eyebrows, by the way, as long as the car is not moving. But this time it was not my Sean Connery-esqe eyebrows. It was the tip of my nose. A maze, a florid street map of the greater Los Angeles area ! W.C. Fields, Rudolph. Call the Butcher of Church Street! Pronto!
The Butcher, as you may recall, is my dermatologist. I have him on speed dial. A chirpy female voice answers his office phone. He's not in, won't be for another month. Business has apparently been good, and he is in the Caribbean tanning his bald pate. I have always wondered why the guy who preaches the "no suntan" mantra ways has that golden glow.
Anyway, I called my go-to font of information, Kay.
"Not to worry. It's broken blood vessels. You are just falling apart with age," Kay said reassuringly. "Slap some make-up on it."
Wait, this is a trend. A couple of weeks ago my trainer gazed into my eyes as I was sweating through a set of flies and said, "Your left eye is filling up with blood.
Bad news in anybody's book. By the time I got to my eye doctor a week later ( I was busy. It was the holidays) the flaming red of my eyeball was gone.
"Don't worry," he said. "Broken blood vessels aren't uncommon at your age. Don't even have to exert yourself much. "
So there is a theme here. One day you are dandy and the next, ppffft! Body parts start falling off, you start leaking various things. This is not good. I hit the wall of 70 a couple of weeks ago, and let's just say, I suspect it's downhill from here. Of course I am still going to the gym several times a week, and I watch every morsel that passes my lips (watching is the operative word here. I watch it, but I still eat it) It's a sprint with Mother Time. I need new Adidas! Shoe shopping cures almost anything, even if its for gym shoes.
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Normcore. You heard it here first (probably.)
Recently I was weeding out my closet when I came across a like-new pair of black suede Birkinstocks. They must have been 10 years old, although I would like to think that they haven't been lurking on my closet floor that long. I put them on an sighed with the pleasure of the familiar. For many years I wore only Birks, summer and winter.(with other suitable coverage, of course.) I have difficult feet and there is something so-out-they-are- in about Birks. In recent years I have migrated to Tom's, but the siren song of a good, ugly pair of Birks began trilling to me on that closet floor, and in no time, I was wearing them to the grocery store, Home Depot and all my usual high-life spots.
My daughter commented, "Nice shoes. Very normcore of you."
What?
Yes, boys and girls. I am a trendsetter. If you don't believe me, just read the Style section of today's New York Times.
Now there seems to be little or no agreement about what this word means, but if you are trending, as I obviously am, you'll know it when you see it. One view says it is pragmatism wedded to feminism. Another refers to it as a suburban sensibility(not any suburb I know around Atlanta. Must be a NY suburb.) It includes: no makeup - I mean intentionally; a return to the 90's. (What were the 90's like anyway? I don't remember.) Sort of a cut-to -the-chase attitude, as I read it.
That's me all over the place! I have this trend covered, and I didn't even know it. As long as "no make-up" doesn't cover Burt's Bees Lip Balm, without which the sun will not rise tomorrow.
I am headed to NY soon for a little ballet immersion therapy and I am thinking of wearing my Birks. Due to the general filthyness of the city, I'll pair them with some clever sox, such as leopard print, one-fish-two-fish-red-fish-blue-fish patterned, and so forth. I expect to be the darling of the fashion world in no time. Of course everything else I plan to wear is black, to be assured of not being mistaken for a tourist. I'll let you know how it goes.
My daughter commented, "Nice shoes. Very normcore of you."
What?
Yes, boys and girls. I am a trendsetter. If you don't believe me, just read the Style section of today's New York Times.
Now there seems to be little or no agreement about what this word means, but if you are trending, as I obviously am, you'll know it when you see it. One view says it is pragmatism wedded to feminism. Another refers to it as a suburban sensibility(not any suburb I know around Atlanta. Must be a NY suburb.) It includes: no makeup - I mean intentionally; a return to the 90's. (What were the 90's like anyway? I don't remember.) Sort of a cut-to -the-chase attitude, as I read it.
That's me all over the place! I have this trend covered, and I didn't even know it. As long as "no make-up" doesn't cover Burt's Bees Lip Balm, without which the sun will not rise tomorrow.
I am headed to NY soon for a little ballet immersion therapy and I am thinking of wearing my Birks. Due to the general filthyness of the city, I'll pair them with some clever sox, such as leopard print, one-fish-two-fish-red-fish-blue-fish patterned, and so forth. I expect to be the darling of the fashion world in no time. Of course everything else I plan to wear is black, to be assured of not being mistaken for a tourist. I'll let you know how it goes.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Ignominious ends... sent my balance wheel tumbling into unachored eternity....and other stuff
I have spent my morning cleaning the space at the end of the hallway to nowhere. Well, not really nowhere. It leads to two bedrooms and then ends abruptly with nowhere else to go. I think of it as an ignominious end, one of my favorite descriptives of Victorian literature, as in, "she (or he) came to an ignominious end." There old suitcases go to die, when they seem too tattered to travel again, and certainly too shabby to give away, and yet.... oh, the places they have seen (with thanks to Patrick Dennis and his Auntie Mame.) But today, everybody out! I discovered a wonderful box of charcoals, a long sleeved t-shirt I could have used this awful winter, boxes that I could definitely use to mail things, if, indeed, I had anything to mail, and a lovely scented sachet which accounts for the faint, ghostly perfume emanating from that unlovely heap, among other things. Very satisfying.
Speaking of ignominious ends, and I realize that that snarky comments are inappropriate when speaking of the dead, two long ago loves of mine passed away recently, within a few days of one another, and sent my balance wheel tumbling into unanchored eternity. The first was Jack, whom I have written of before. Jack was a love of the mind, a soul mate, someone who was there every day until he was not, and I didn't know how much I missed him until I did.
I found Jack again not long ago, when grief and illness had transformed him into a man who didn't want to be found, who isolated himself even from the breezes outside his back door, and who stayed huddled under blankets in the beautiful library he designed. He looked old though he was younger than I, and he leaned heavily on a walker when he made it to the front door to greet me. I think the smile of greeting on his face was put on for the occasion, not really felt, as I wanted it to be.
A friend sent me his obituary not long ago. So four months after we sat in the library and talked through lunch time, which he had forgotten and my stomach hadn't, he slipped away, without regret, I think, to join his late wife, presumably in that place which is architecturally perfect and would meet with his approval.
The other recently deceased friend from long ago was quite another story. I met him when I was seventeen, and thought he was - let's just say, wonderful. He most certainly was not, at least to anyone who was not teenage-blind. Handsome and rich, yadda yadda, and fun. Lots of fun. All the time. Endless conversation. Dancing the twist at The Peppermint Lounge across the river and, later, to the Beatles at frat parties in the desert. He was no stranger to alcohol, but he was to drugs. Just not for long. Our relationship ended with him grabbing my hair at a party and banging my face into a jagged stone wall. Before that black eye, eleven years had elapsed. I'm a slow learner. No love like teenage love, I guess.
He had the money to indulge his vices, which he did with a vengeance. Trips to jet set social scenes across the world, a couple of totaled Rolls Royce convertibles, a string of lovers male and female, and looking like Dorian Grey himself, his life ended in a nursing home specializing in dementia a few months after his sixty-ninth birthday. He was given everything and he took everything. No thank you's to life. He had a favorite line. When someone departing said, "Take care," he would always reply "I take it any way I can get it." Funny how we so often write out own epitaphs.
So after those two exits, I couldn't write for a while. I had to put the people, or at least a couple of them, in some order that made sense, and take the time to be sad for the right reasons. And to find the heart to be funny again, which is quite a lot more work than you might think. And, I had to wait for some of the cold to go away because my office is unheated! and to work out there, even with a space heater, can be misery. I work in a sweet, little sun room, windows on three sides and with no registers for the furnace or air conditioning vents. It houses the only computer I can compose on, a desk top that seems ungainly now but was quite the hot stuff in its day. Otherwise I use my smart phone for everything.
I read somewhere that most books today are written on smart phones. How? I want to know.
Speaking of ignominious ends, and I realize that that snarky comments are inappropriate when speaking of the dead, two long ago loves of mine passed away recently, within a few days of one another, and sent my balance wheel tumbling into unanchored eternity. The first was Jack, whom I have written of before. Jack was a love of the mind, a soul mate, someone who was there every day until he was not, and I didn't know how much I missed him until I did.
I found Jack again not long ago, when grief and illness had transformed him into a man who didn't want to be found, who isolated himself even from the breezes outside his back door, and who stayed huddled under blankets in the beautiful library he designed. He looked old though he was younger than I, and he leaned heavily on a walker when he made it to the front door to greet me. I think the smile of greeting on his face was put on for the occasion, not really felt, as I wanted it to be.
A friend sent me his obituary not long ago. So four months after we sat in the library and talked through lunch time, which he had forgotten and my stomach hadn't, he slipped away, without regret, I think, to join his late wife, presumably in that place which is architecturally perfect and would meet with his approval.
The other recently deceased friend from long ago was quite another story. I met him when I was seventeen, and thought he was - let's just say, wonderful. He most certainly was not, at least to anyone who was not teenage-blind. Handsome and rich, yadda yadda, and fun. Lots of fun. All the time. Endless conversation. Dancing the twist at The Peppermint Lounge across the river and, later, to the Beatles at frat parties in the desert. He was no stranger to alcohol, but he was to drugs. Just not for long. Our relationship ended with him grabbing my hair at a party and banging my face into a jagged stone wall. Before that black eye, eleven years had elapsed. I'm a slow learner. No love like teenage love, I guess.
He had the money to indulge his vices, which he did with a vengeance. Trips to jet set social scenes across the world, a couple of totaled Rolls Royce convertibles, a string of lovers male and female, and looking like Dorian Grey himself, his life ended in a nursing home specializing in dementia a few months after his sixty-ninth birthday. He was given everything and he took everything. No thank you's to life. He had a favorite line. When someone departing said, "Take care," he would always reply "I take it any way I can get it." Funny how we so often write out own epitaphs.
So after those two exits, I couldn't write for a while. I had to put the people, or at least a couple of them, in some order that made sense, and take the time to be sad for the right reasons. And to find the heart to be funny again, which is quite a lot more work than you might think. And, I had to wait for some of the cold to go away because my office is unheated! and to work out there, even with a space heater, can be misery. I work in a sweet, little sun room, windows on three sides and with no registers for the furnace or air conditioning vents. It houses the only computer I can compose on, a desk top that seems ungainly now but was quite the hot stuff in its day. Otherwise I use my smart phone for everything.
I read somewhere that most books today are written on smart phones. How? I want to know.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Kay said, " I just love the little [cream cheese] carrot on top."
I met my old friend Kay for lunch today at her favorite deli. Redolent of brisket and pastrami, it is a cardiologists dream or nightmare, and so conveniently located near several major hospitals. In fact, I suspect it is the loss leader of a certain LLC, providing a steady revenue flow in otherwise lean times.
Kay came through the front door, panting a little, and sat down opposite me. I had arrived a bit early, almost early enough to get started on a cup of coffee, served by, if that is the correct term, the most casual of wait persons.
"How's the cardio therapy?" I asked.
"Had to get off the bike," she panted. "Blood pressure spiked. Off the chart. Wouldn't go down."
This sums up her most recent problem: runaway blood pressure.
She looked at me. "When are you going to get a face lift? It'd take off fifteen - no, twenty - years. Get rid of the jowly look, the wattles."
Funny. I was feeling pretty chipper when I started, but now, I don't know, I was feeling all jowly and wattily.
"Dr. Fassbinder could do wonders for you. Just the jaw line, maybe the neck. Not the eyes. Leave the eyes alone."
Good. I am glad that there is some part of my face that is passable.
Kay scribbled The Fass's (that's what I call him) name and location on a scrap of paper from her hand bag.
"He'll give you a free estimate," she said
Hmmm. Just like a Chevy or a Toyota that needs a few dents pounded out.
"If I looked twenty years younger, what about my gray hair" I asked? "Am I supposed to be prematurely gray? Or would forty-nine not be premature. Would I have to go blonde? Maybe blue. Not little-old-lady purple or blue, but a nice clear cerulean, or robin's egg. I dreamed I had blue hair once. And would people think I married a much older man? What would he think of that? I don't think he is the trophy-wife kind of guy or he would have made his move a long time ago."
The waitress, taking a break in her busy day, dropped by our table to take our order. Kay, keeping with her heart healthy regimen, ordered chopped liver on an egg bagel and carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.
"I just love the cute little carrot on top ."
"Perfect!" I said. "That's what I'll put on your tombstone. By the way, do you have to be somewhere?" I noticed Kay kept checking her watch.
"Nope, just checking my blood pressure. " Right, she did have two fingers on her pulse. "Could you pass the salt please?"
I showed Kay the calorie checker app on my phone. This little wonder not only gives the calories in just about anything you can think of, - restaurant food, grocery brands, your own cooking - Calorie King it's called and it's free- but it breaks food down to values of carbs, protein, fats, sugars etc.
Kay was fascinated. "Look, I've eaten my full load of calories for today, and it isn't even 1 PM! I guess there is nothing to do but go home and go to bed."
Oops, I just got a message on my phone. As you could have predicted from my previous blog entry, I bought the fast-becoming ubiquitous FitBit and I just met my daily walking goal.( And while sitting at the computer, no less!) I have purposely set the goal low so I can feel cheered by little rewards once in a while. If I set it at 10,000 steps, the amount these programming clowns recommend, I would never hear from my FitBit at all, unless it is programmed to snicker derisively.
So, I am going to take my wattles and jowls to the stove and heat up some very low cal. minestrone soup, and wish you warmth and a good bowl of soup on this ridiculously cold night.
Kay came through the front door, panting a little, and sat down opposite me. I had arrived a bit early, almost early enough to get started on a cup of coffee, served by, if that is the correct term, the most casual of wait persons.
"How's the cardio therapy?" I asked.
"Had to get off the bike," she panted. "Blood pressure spiked. Off the chart. Wouldn't go down."
This sums up her most recent problem: runaway blood pressure.
She looked at me. "When are you going to get a face lift? It'd take off fifteen - no, twenty - years. Get rid of the jowly look, the wattles."
Funny. I was feeling pretty chipper when I started, but now, I don't know, I was feeling all jowly and wattily.
"Dr. Fassbinder could do wonders for you. Just the jaw line, maybe the neck. Not the eyes. Leave the eyes alone."
Good. I am glad that there is some part of my face that is passable.
Kay scribbled The Fass's (that's what I call him) name and location on a scrap of paper from her hand bag.
"He'll give you a free estimate," she said
Hmmm. Just like a Chevy or a Toyota that needs a few dents pounded out.
"If I looked twenty years younger, what about my gray hair" I asked? "Am I supposed to be prematurely gray? Or would forty-nine not be premature. Would I have to go blonde? Maybe blue. Not little-old-lady purple or blue, but a nice clear cerulean, or robin's egg. I dreamed I had blue hair once. And would people think I married a much older man? What would he think of that? I don't think he is the trophy-wife kind of guy or he would have made his move a long time ago."
The waitress, taking a break in her busy day, dropped by our table to take our order. Kay, keeping with her heart healthy regimen, ordered chopped liver on an egg bagel and carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.
"I just love the cute little carrot on top ."
"Perfect!" I said. "That's what I'll put on your tombstone. By the way, do you have to be somewhere?" I noticed Kay kept checking her watch.
"Nope, just checking my blood pressure. " Right, she did have two fingers on her pulse. "Could you pass the salt please?"
I showed Kay the calorie checker app on my phone. This little wonder not only gives the calories in just about anything you can think of, - restaurant food, grocery brands, your own cooking - Calorie King it's called and it's free- but it breaks food down to values of carbs, protein, fats, sugars etc.
Kay was fascinated. "Look, I've eaten my full load of calories for today, and it isn't even 1 PM! I guess there is nothing to do but go home and go to bed."
Oops, I just got a message on my phone. As you could have predicted from my previous blog entry, I bought the fast-becoming ubiquitous FitBit and I just met my daily walking goal.( And while sitting at the computer, no less!) I have purposely set the goal low so I can feel cheered by little rewards once in a while. If I set it at 10,000 steps, the amount these programming clowns recommend, I would never hear from my FitBit at all, unless it is programmed to snicker derisively.
So, I am going to take my wattles and jowls to the stove and heat up some very low cal. minestrone soup, and wish you warmth and a good bowl of soup on this ridiculously cold night.
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