Not So Rose-Colored Glasses

I’m not sure now if I was so much blessed with perfect vision as I was blessed with a mother who wouldn’t allow her children to have anything less than perfect vision. Regardless, I didn’t wear glasses until my mid-forties.

The way my self-delusion came crashing home is recounted in my story, “Dare to Enter” in the hilarious book, Your Glasses Are on Top of Your Head: Tales of Life, Longevity, and Laughter, now available.

The good news is I have developed such a smooth routine with my glasses that I no longer give them—or my aging vision—a second thought. That is, until the other day when I pulled them from their customary storage place (the unused cup holder), put them on...and they just didn’t improve my vision any. As in at all.

My doctor always asks me if I’ve experienced any sudden vision changes. I’d never given it much thought before, but now I did. What do sudden vision changes mean? I ran down the whole list—at least the list within my knowledge. Diabetes? Glaucoma? Retinal detachment? Probably a whole bunch of other horrible ones I don't even know about! My breathing grew more rapid with each one.

I’m Facebook friends with a woman who seems to have all sorts of weird medical disasters befalling her. One of them was when she experienced sudden detachment of her retinas. The way she told it, she was just hanging out and her retinas suddenly decided to depart, introducing for me the alarming possibility that body parts can just randomly flee. She always describes all of her health issues in detail, complete with pictures. It seems to me she was left in the hospital for the longest time, suspended facedown and immobile, in order to help preserve her vision.

It was so horrifying, hundreds of people “liked” it.

So I started to panic there in my car. I can’t afford a night in the hospital, let alone weeks! And dangling face-down! What would I do?! And worse—my vision was not only blurred, but dimmed! What did dimmed vision mean? I thought of movies where dying people coughed and whispered melodramatically, “It’s…it’s getting dark.” It was almost like….

Oh. I said it aloud in my car because I also talk to myself these days. Then I started laughing—something I’m afraid I also do by myself sometimes these days. Sunglasses, is what it was like. Non-prescription ones. The ones I’d accidentally put into my cupholder where the driving glasses go. So technically the glasses were on my face and everything, but they were just the wrong ones.

Who knew old age was so entertaining? Don’t forget: Your Glasses Are on Top of Your Head, edited by Brenda Elsagher. You might even find yourself randomly laughing for a long time afterward.

I learned at fifty I had joined the army of unwanted men. ~Ray Brandbury, Farewell Summer

The Delightful Layers of Momdom

Many thanks to Sioux for making me think of a memory. I read her wonderful Mother’s Day post while eating my grandmother’s soup out of a bowl I bought because it reminded me of my grandmother’s dishes.

Those dishes really captured her because we usually sat at her kitchen table. My grandmother was the kind of woman who was always doing for others. That is how I remember her—bustling. Cooking, tidying, moving. Always moving.

And then advanced age forced her to sit still. Forced others to do for her for once. It was hard for her, I’m sure, but that, too, she handled with grace. Even though it would be easy to say she’d earned the right to be waited on, I never got the impression that sitting still was any kind of reward for her.

Instead, the reward was mine. My grandmother had a live-in caregiver then, but when the caregiver was off on Sundays, my grandmother needed someone to sit with her. I lived out of town at the time, but when I came to visit, I’d sit with her on Sundays.

That was how I got to know my grandmother—really got to know her—after she’d turned 100 years old.

Because for the first time ever, we really talked. Not only did I get to ask her what she needed, I got to know her as a human being and not merely as a caretaker. I was surprised to learn just how smart and funny and wise she truly was. We chatted and conversed and giggled and gossiped a little. We reminisced. We debated and discussed. And when she did pass at 102, I felt those last two years had been the most precious. For me, anyway.

Here’s hoping you, too, have good memories or make good memories that last through the centuries and beyond. Happy Mother’s Day.

Who else but a grandmother ever fried bologna?  ~Cynthia Kaplan, Leave the Building Quickly

Doubly Dyed in the Wool: Book Signing and Succinctly Yours #174

This is one of the few times I can say to anyone living in an exotic location: Too bad you don’t live in St. Louis, Missouri, because you really missed out on a great event last Tuesday. The Not Your Mother’s Books combination book signing event (NYMB…On Being a Mom and NYMB…On Family) was about as perfect as these things get. We were graced with uncharacteristically cool weather for July—which was a gift all its own because of the way the crowds spilled out of the independent and community-minded bookstore, STL Books, and onto the sidewalks of quaint, historical Kirkwood.

Wine and the most delightful little nibbles and noshes were served while NYMB...On Family coeditor Linda O'Connell circulated around exclaiming, "Eat! Eat!" Several contributors read their humorous stories. If that weren’t awesome enough, owner Robin Theiss donated 10% of all sales proceeds to Family Resources Center in support of their work to reduce childhood abuse and neglect. I admired the selection of books offered in that lovely store: classics, popular, children’s, local. Perfect. And as luck would have it, they ship books! Check it out if you’re so inclined.

Thank you again to NYMB coeditors Linda O’Connell and Dianna Graveman!

Succinctly Yours #174: Baa Wow

Many thanks to Grandma’s Goulash for herding us together once a week for Succinctly Yours, where willing participants are called to spin yarns of photo-inspired microfiction that is sheered down to 140 words or 140 characters. The bonus word this week was “quantify:”

After Granny’s eyesight went, it was hard to quantify the joy she received from her dog, Wolfie. So no one told her that he was, in a sense, a sheep in Wolfie’s clothing.  138

I find I have…a tendency to overwrite, to use two or three words where one will do better. I have to go back and cut and cut. ~John Steinbeck

Improper Poll: Dis-Tressed

Recently I was having a deep discussion with a friend, and she revealed—get this—she doesn’t shampoo, rinse, and repeat. She only shampoos and rinses! I’m pretty sure that “shampoo, rinse and repeat” was originally found etched into Middle Eastern papyrus scrolls thousands of years ago, so I was stunned that my friend was flouting the sacred rules. Since then I discovered that the shampoo rules have changed. Changed! I didn’t know this because I can no longer hope to read shampoo instructions, plus I figure that since I’ve probably washed my hair some 17,000+ times (I did valuable research on this one by consulting my calculator), I possibly had it down by now. Not so.

In fact, thanks to other valuable research, this time implementing my trusty Old-People-Magnifier-Plus-Light-Apparatus-Sold-in-Drugstores-to-Keep-People-Like-Me-From-Overdosing, I discovered fully half of my shampoos do not require the repeat. The madness!

I also discovered another interesting fact: some of my shampoos have clothing in them. One, for example, claims it has silk in it, and the other has pearls. One is wearing cashmere. I find it depressing that my shampoo dresses way better than I do. Where is the shampoo wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a taco sauce stain, or maybe with fleece and scuffed Reeboks in it?

I also discovered I have a lot of shampoos. There’s the one that makes my hair smell like my grandma’s house, if my grandma had lived in a spa in the South of France. Never mind that it makes my hair look like Grandmamma Addams and is insanely expensive—it gives a whole new component to the idea of personal fragrance, so I am willing to make the trade-off at times. Then there’s the one I got using a coupon. I don’t like it very much, but I’m so proud that I managed to remember the coupon—an actual unexpired one—that I just can’t throw it out. Then there’s the one I bought because it was supposed to do something wonderful for me, but since I can’t remember what that was, I hang onto it in case it comes to me. And then of course there’s the one I really use.

How many shampoos are in your shower? And The Most Important Valuable Research Question of all: do you still repeat?

Improper Poll: Frozen in Time

Last week Kay said something interesting. She said that in her mind, she is 32 again.

I thought that was an interesting number. A few years ago, when my son read The Picture of Dorian Gray, and vampire books were all the rage, my children and I had a discussion about staying one age forever. My son made the assumption that, if we all had the choice to be frozen at one age for eternity, we would not only automatically snap up the chance, but we would all choose to be 18. He was shocked when I told him I adhere more to the wisdom of the beloved little Tuck Everlasting, and if forced, I wouldn't pick 18. I would choose something older, like around 32. Actually I was in my best shape ever at 37, but I did have a few Ugly Skin Things by then.

In dreams (the literal kind), I am always somewhere between about 25 and 35. How old are you in dreams? What age would you pick to stay forever if you could?

Do not fear death, but rather the unlived life. You don't have to live forever. You just have to live. And she did. ~Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

Sub Notes: Seen ‘Em All

I was standing in the high school library, subbing for the librarian. “Lookin’ good!” exclaimed the high school boy as he strode by. “Nice hair!”

I looked behind me. There was no one there. “No, the person behind you,” he laughed.

I was sort of horrified. Was he being sarcastic?

He seemed like a sweet, affable kid. Even though most people my age assume teenagers say horrible things about us, I don’t think they really do that much. At least not to our faces. In fact, I'm pretty sure most of them just don’t think of us much at all. Still, it was weird to have some high school kid tell me he liked my I-have-to-be-at-work-by-6:30 AM-hair.

Yet there was something so genuine about this kid. He will be a P.R. guy someday, this one. Or an amazing salesman. I shrugged and thanked him.

It wasn’t till later that I realized it: he thought I was the woman I was subbing for! Because to a kid that age, we really do all look alike. The woman I was subbing for is about my age, and we both have brown hair. That is where the similarities stop. In fact, her hair is much longer than mine. Which explains it. He thought she’d had it cut! I wonder what he thought when “I” showed up at work with long hair again?
 

I once had a high school girl mistake me for a teacher who is about five inches taller than I am and has short, poufy, red hair. Mine is droopy, shoulder length, and brown. But to a teenager, we were both female and have the same number of limbs. Close enough! After all, we old people are pretty much interchangeable.

So I’ve thought of a new job. Whenever parents of teenagers want to run away (which I’m sure happens often), I will hire myself out (for big bucks, of course) to fill in.  I won’t have to disguise myself at all because the kids will never notice I’m a different person. 

Middle school paper that proves spelling counts: "The man fell off a 
 hor   ." 

Improper Poll: Get the Tact, Jack

Tact is a foreign language to me. As someone who grew up in a family which spoke the more harsh Brutal Honesty, I admire the beauty of that other language even if I’m not fluent enough to fully understand it.I learned at a young age that the less I know a person, the more likely they are to speak that other nice language or its even more flowery relative, Bold Faced White Lies.

For example, here are the various responses to the question, “Does this make me look fat?”

Total stranger:  “Are you kidding? You are so emaciated, I think you should gain twenty pounds!  And I really mean it!”

Acquaintance: “Nooo! You‘re so skinny, nothing could make you look fat.”

Friend:  “I’m just not sure it’s really ‘you.’”

Relative:  “No, it doesn‘t make you look fat. You ARE fat. And what you‘re wearing doesn‘t help any, either.”

I sometimes see a dermatologist. I do this because I come from a long line of people who not only speak Brutal Honesty, but also get Skin Things. Some of the Skin Things are merely ugly, but some are dangerous and ugly, too.  So my dermatologist has the dubious job of telling me which is which.

There is something special about my dermatologist, besides his admirable ability to differentiate ugly Skin Things all day. Whereas Tact is clearly not a course requirement in many medical school programs, this doctor has a minor in it.This particular Ugly Skin Thing was on my back, so I waved over my shoulder in its general direction. “See it?” I asked.

Several seconds passed before he replied, “Can you find it in the mirror and point to it?” As I fumbled in the mirror, the translation came to me: Which Ugly Skin Thing are you talking about? They’re all over the place back here!

When I finally managed to identify the correct Thing, my dermatologist hesitated only a moment before giving me the name. They always have a long, official sounding name that means, essentially, “Ugly Skin Thing.” Then he told me they’re hereditary. No surprise there. At this point he spoke one of my favorite lines of Tact, ever. “They’re associated with having lived a nice amount of life.”

Don’t you love it? “A nice amount of life.”  I blinked while the translation sank in. “You mean it’s an Old Age Skin Thing?” I asked. He smiled kindly. I was stunned. At the time I was only in my mid-thirties. Mid-thirties!

He told me it could be removed, then gave a shrug which meant, “But why bother? Who would miss one in this giant field of Ugly Skin Things, anyway?” He handed me a pamphlet which I numbly stuck into my purse, and I slunk out of there.

When I got home, I took it out of my purse and was horrified. The model on the front, in spite of being quite fit and handsome, had lived a much nicer amount of life than I have lived. I would say his amount of life was twice as nice as mine. I was stunned. So I did what any normal person would do. I called my sister. This is because she’s lived a nicer amount of life than I’ve lived, and she’s generally had all of the Ugly Skin Things I’ve had. I described the Skin Thing and gave her the name.

“Oh, I have those,” she said. She told me which relatives had them, too. “Welcome to old age.”

This reminded me. Never ask a medical question of a relative. I will be asking my dermatologist from now on. Maybe I’ll even ask him if my pants make me look fat, too.

Do you have a euphemism that you love?