Somebody should have told me...

I headed out the door this morning, a spring in my step, excited about hitting some thrift stores and finding some interesting items. My morning caffeine fix rushed through my brain and I fairly buzzed about.

I visited one store after another.  At each checkout I asked the same question.  "Do you have any discounts or specials today?"

The shocker came when I visited the last store and unwittingly asked the same question.  The cashier asked if I was a "Senior".  I laughed, shaking my head no.  Out of curiosity I questioned at what age they considered a person to be a senior.  When  asked if I was 50 I felt the blood flush through my face, searing my scalp. 

Why yes.  Yes!  I had  just turned 50.  When the cashier stated I qualified for the "Senior Discount" something inside me snapped and I wanted to yell "You take that back!  Take. It. Back.  NOW!  I'm not one of those...I'm not a senior...I'm not...I'm not... (dissolving in tears).

A quick mental picture of myself flying over the counter feet first planting one stiletto heel right between the cashiers eyes snuffed itself out before I could act.

I maintained my composure, graciously accepted my discount and scrambled to make a hasty exit, tucking my dignity between my legs.  After all, I did ask for it.  (How many times did mother warn you, be careful what you ask for?)

I sat inside my truck.  Stunned.  Surprised. In some sense even horrified. Many things ran through my mind.  I am now considered a "Senior".  I turned the key in the ignition and headed home, still in a bit of a daze.  I mean 50.  To me it was just another birthday.  No big thing.  But 50?  When the hell did this happen?

I dragged myself through the front door, shrugged my clothes off and pulled on my fluffiest bath robe. My feet found comfort in a pair of fuzzy old house slippers.

Shuffling to the bathroom I wet my hair and put it up in big metal rollers (the kind with the spiky plastic thingies in the middle-heavens only knows where those came from!), washed off my makeup and put on my anti-wrinkle cream while contemplating where I would find a donut to sit my poor old tush on.  I squeezed in a couple of kegels for good measure.

A cup of weak, watered down tea sat cooling beside me taking the place of my usual double espresso while images of "Maxine" danced in my mind.

In front of the mirror, I opened my robe and much to my surprise I didn't see a "Senior" standing there.  My breasts are still perky, my butt cheeks aren't sagging, my belly still looks pretty darned good.  I continued to stare in confusion.  My mental image of "Senior" just wasn't fitting the image reflected back at me.

I checked my teeth.  Thankfully I won't need polygrip, polident or any other denture grip because I'm blessed to still have all my own natural teeth.  I looked at my eyes.  Yes, there are a few "character" lines (I refuse to call them "crows feet") around the outer corners but my eyes don't droop and I don't have bags under them.

My mouth looks fine.  A couple of smile creases at the corner but nothing major. Definitely not any "road maps" crisscrossing my face.  Thank heavens.

With a final assessment of myself in the mirror I had to smile.  All in all, I look pretty danged "hot" and, if I'm going to be a "Senior" at least, by George, I'm a sexy Senior ;-)

                                                           

 

Last days of Summer

I lay in the warm sun-kissed grass with the wind gently stirring, the sun glaring off my lashes.  I shield my eyes with one hand as I watch the clouds dance across the sky.  Soft puffs of cotton candy.  If I stick my tongue out, surely I can taste them.

Laying here, I have one ear turned to the sound of rustling leaves.  A sure sign the deer are traveling through the pasture and a clear indicator  the season is changing.  Fall is right around the corner.  The air is more languid, life has slowed down to a slumberous crawl.  A fly buzzes lazily nearby and dogs bark in the distance.

There's not much definition to the clouds today.  No fluffy bears or puffy dragons. A jet shoots by overhead leaving white streaks in its wake.

I roll over on my belly, propping my chin in my hands.  I'd hoped to recapture a childhood memory of calling out cloud shapes.  Oh look!  There's a monster!  Over there!  It's a clown!  A boat! A kite!  Whatever tickled my fanciful imagination, if I looked hard enough, it would be there.

I remember wonderful summer days doing this very same thing with my sons when they were little.  Each of us excitedly vying to be the next to find a really cool cloud.  Laying here makes me drowsy and I let my mind float back in time.  I drift away...slowly....with a small smile curving my lips.

Out of the darkness there came a light

During the darkness, before the doctors and God recreated me, I could find no relief from the torture of my traitorous body.  Unable to walk, to wheel, to move I sank into a dark depression trying to will myself to die and failing miserably.  I was denied what I craved most.  An eternal end to the mental and physical suffering.

Thrust against my will into the world of the living, surviving, the recovering, I grew angry.  Angry with God, angry with circumstances, angry with myself.  That anger got me nowhere.  Eventually I entered a state of resignation.  I resigned myself to fighting my way back.  Apparently God wasn't done baking me yet. 

Day by day I forced myself to get up, get moving.  It was hard to do trapped in a body I didn't recognize.  My physical self had betrayed me.  It was no longer ME.  Not the me I'd known all my life.  The me that was physically fit, active 24/7, energetic...this new physical self had lost tone.  The muscles had collapsed on impact.  The bones no longer worked as they used to work.  I cried over the loss.

Unable to find relief from pain I began to experiment.  Doctors remedies weren't doing the job.  In my incapacitated state I had plenty of time to lay around and research.  Experimenting was more challenging, but it drove me, carrying through those dark days.  And then, at the edge of the darkness I saw a light.

The light came in form of a young boy.  A burn victim.  He became a candle, lighting my way, drawing me forward.  His pain became my own.  I wanted to absorb his pain, to help him find relief.  And in some small respect I did.

By the time I encountered "Christopher" I'd already experimented for quite some time and had begun marketing my own bath and body product line.  Everything I created was based on purely natural ingredients.  These creations I had used on myself and were the very things that had brought me relief.  They were my own natural therapy.  Christopher was my opportunity to share with others.

I packaged up some bath items that I thought would help soothe him and shipped them off.  Thus formed an ongoing relationship that has helped me on my own journey back.  It's truly amazing that such a huge gift could come in the form of such a small person.

I thank God for sending me Christopher.  Little Christopher became the candle that chased away the shadows cast in my darkest hours.  A beacon on storm ravaged shores...Thank you Christopher.

(Christopher's mom, Lynn, is an ebay seller, Blue Diamond Products.  It was on ebay that we first encountered one another and I am forever blessed in having met her and Christopher, albeit, it was all online.  They may never know the huge impact they have had on my life....)

Another man done gone!

I flew into the dental office like Marie Laveau, hair streaming wildly behind me, eyes flashing sparks of pain, long nailed fingers pressed harshly against my mouth.

I'm sure the dentist heard screams of "Another man done gone" as he looked at my wild appearance. I was in and out in record time! A simple replacement filling turned into a complicated extraction when said dentist shattered the tooth.

I lay writhing in the dental chair, my back arching, as two dentists pried at my tooth using my face for leverage.  My nose was skewed toward one eyebrow, my lips mashed painfully against my teeth. A passage from the song Marie Laveau flashed through my mind:

"Then Marie started mumblin', her fangs started gnashin'

Her body started tremblin', and her eyes started flashin'"

Amidst the dentists curses and mumbling I wondered if they were feeling fear...Mentally I was zapping them into hellfire.  Grrreeee!  ANOTHER MAN DONE GONE!

Now, a couple of Lortab later I sit here typing, one eye swelled shut and the entire right side of my face marching in time to native drums.  Lortab inspires inertia and my fingers drag along the keyboard.

 

I'm not Erma Bombeck

I'm not Erma Bombeck and I know as you read this, you're sitting  in stunned disbelief.  It's true though.  Sure, we have many qualities in common.  Our quirky sense of humor, our flair for writing, our disastrous and sometimes not so disastrous encounters with day to day life.  We even sport a similar hairstyle and hair color!

                                                                         

                                                                            Erma Bombeck Pictures

From childhood I would pour over her stories, each new story feeding my hunger for her to write yet more.  To me, her writing was like mind candy and I couldn't get enough. Her written escapades left me doubled over with laughter.

Whereas she found fortune in her writing, I'm yet waiting to be discovered.  Come discover me now.  As i find my personal muse again you won't be disappointed.

Chocolate milk and toast

One of my favorite breakfasts is sitting down to a frosted glass of chocolate milk and a couple of crispy slices of toast.  It's not even that I really like chocolate milk, it's the memories the chocolate milk and toast bring back.

Chocolate milk and toast take me on a journey way back in time.  To a time of self discovery. A time I was a teenager struggling to find my identity, learning how to love life, live life and how to thrive.  It was a time I was closest to my oldest sister who is no longer with us.  A simpler time.

It was a time of tanning in the back yard, using the garden hose to cool off and  moisten our bodies.  Of flipping over ever 15 minutes so we could "bake" evenly, front and back.  Of laughter and nonsense.  Of squishing our bellies together with our hands and cracking up over how it made our bellies look like a baby's butt.  There's nothing quite like a sun kissed body!

It was summer days full of Knots Landing, Dallas (we loved to hate J.R.!) and the Eagles.  Cruising around in a '64 pea green cougar, rocking out to Heart,  The Eurythmics, and Kiss.  Singing at the top of our lungs (usually off key) with the windows down, the sun streaming in and our hair blowing itself into long tangled knots. Later, during more mellow moments, digging on Lou Rawls.

Ahhh, the memories.  I say my sister is no longer with us, but that's not entirely true.  She lives on in my memories and the special moments that we shared.  She's the sound of music playing on an old radio in the front seat of a '64 cougar...she's the soft laugh that ends in a hiccup and a sigh when I hear something funny.  C'mon sister, let's go for a ride...

Feeling a little melancholy today...

I am a thrift store junkie and a dime store diva

I'm totally addicted to thrift stores and bargain stores.  I've found everything from Rolex watches to Egyptian gold rummaging through these little digs.  Today I ventured out to do a little rummaging, looking for wall hangings in a Tuscany style.

I have an eye for putting things together, for blending colors and design.  In minutes, I can have a cart filled with an unusual assortment of items that individually look unimpressive, but as a whole become something interesting and colorful.

Most often I don't really know what it is I have in mind when I set out, only a vague idea of what I want to accomplish.

Each of these items were found at different thrift stores, none of them coming from the same store and yet, each one with subtle variations of the same color schemes. 

                                                                                                 

 Two small wall hangings

I particularly LOVE this clay vase!  A bit on the primitive side but it appeals to me.  Grouped together, the colors in these items flow smoothly. 

I can't wait to get them all put up, but for now, it's time to relax, put my feet up and contemplate my next little adventure.

I only wish my friend Lindsay could have taken the photos for me.  Speaking of which, if you have a love for fine photography, check him out here  Lindsay Donald