Studly Doright was out of town part of last week, so my meals were of the simple variety. Lean Cuisine and Smart Ones entrees were my go to dinners.
^^^^My microwave and my oven. ^^^^
On my first night alone, I extracted a frozen Smart Ones vegetable lasagna from the freezer.
I preheated the oven to 375° to cook the lasagna, and set the timer for 45 minutes.
Off I went to sort laundry, play a bit of Words with Friends, and watch a Criminal Minds rerun.
After some time passed I noted there remained five minutes of cooking time, so I poured a glass of wine and prepared a small salad.
The timer sounded and I opened the oven door to remove my entree.
Forget Jonas Salk, Eli Whitney, George Washington Carver, and Thomas Alva Edison. Sure, they were great inventors, but did a single one of them think to create this?
Finally, some enterprising genius has invented a poolside chair that will allow one to suntan one’s back without compromising comfort. No more deciding which side of the face is going to get sunshine while the other side is plastered sweatily against the chair. No more aching neck. No more abandoning one’s book while working on a complete tan.
I’m seriously considering plunking down the $99.99 (plus $10 shipping) for one of these ergonomic delights. Or, maybe my children would go in halvsies on one for my 60th birthday. (October 5, hint, hint)
I’d been dreading a doctor’s appointment for the past couple of months. Apparently my blood work from a recent physical indicated that I might be hosting a debilitating illness in my aging body, and my physician referred me to a specialist.
Of course I’m a bit of a hypochondriac, so my mind went to all the dark places: Rabies, Parvo virus, Heartworm. And then I remembered that I’m neither a dog nor a cat. But still, the mind kept straying to thoughts better left unexamined.
I also worried that the specialist would be eager to prescribe all sorts of medications that would just make me feel like an old broad. An injection here, a pill there, and soon I’d be wrestling a list of side effects longer than Kareem Abdul Jabar’s right arm. It happens.
Today I met with the specialist. He was a lovely man who visited first with me about the book I was reading before leaping into the medical stuff. The man knew how to woo me.
After a thorough exam he asked, “How old are you again?”
“Nearly 60,” I said.
“Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it. You’re just fine.”
My first pair of blue jeans, begged for and purchased in my 14th year of life, came with a double pronged tongue lashing from my mom:
1) Those #%*!@ jeans will have to be ironed, and
2) She wouldn’t be doing the #%*!@ ironing.
Apparently Mom had been traumatized after being forced to iron her elder brother’s jeans during their own teenaged years.
I didn’t care. Never mind that in 1969 the only jeans I could find that fit me were made for boys. Although Levi’s for women were marketed as early as the 1940’s, the handful of stores in my little town didn’t seem to carry them in string bean size–I was all legs, no hips, and so out of luck unless I shopped in the young men’s department.
But the moment I broke in that first pair of jeans–sitting in a bathtub filled with icy cold water while the pants shrunk to fit me–I fell in love. There was simply no going back.
For the very first time in my young life I was making a statement about who I was and what I wanted to wear, rather than what my mother thought about such things. Jeans equalled independence and freedom, well as much freedom as a 14-year-old girl in a one horse town could have.
And I never ironed the darned things, having found that an extra tumble in the dryer with a wet towel smoothed out the worst of the wrinkles. That made me feel immeasurably better at solving problems than my teenaged mother had been. You see, I didn’t realize that the clothes dryer of her youth was a line strung between two poles.
Now in the last year of my fifties I find myself still in a mad love affair with denim. I own three nearly identical pairs of cropped denim pants from Chico’s and my only clothing dilemma is which tshirt to pair with them on any given day.
Thanks to modern fabric blends, these jeans don’t even need an extra tumble in the dryer, or if they do, I have a steam setting to de-wrinkle them. We have come a mighty long way since then, and most of it was in jeans.
A brand new friend and I drove over to Thomasville, Georgia, yesterday to shop and have lunch. It was a superb day even with the rain that fell sporadically and the growing realization that my hips have grown wide enough to qualify for their own zip code.
My friend knows the area, so she was my guide as we peeked into gift shops and boutiques and even a funky taxidermy establishment.
Heavenly seafood and grits to die for!
After a lunch of Jonah’s spicy Cyclone Shrimp and a Caesar salad we wandered into the cutest little shop.
You probably can’t tell, but the table top had a layer of sand on it! Perfect for a summer beach themed display.
I should’ve taken more photos, but as we browsed I realized that after several minutes no watchful shop attendant had come out to greet us. A pair of high school aged girls stopped by the store and we learned that one of their teachers owned the business. We continued looking around and visiting for awhile and then the young ladies left.
Now, I’m a huge fan of shows like Crime Scene Investigation and Criminal Minds, so naturally I began to believe that the shop’s owner had come to some harm. Perhaps as we’d been innocently examining the goods in her shop she’d been lying in a pool of slowly congealing blood, scratching the initials of her assailant in the viscous red liquid in hopes that her murder will be solved and justice served.
With that scenario in mind, I boldly strode to the work area of the store and yelled, “Hello?!” No answer. I looked under a workbench and behind a counter. Nothing. No one. My new friend was beginning to get a bad vibe. About me. I can tell these things–it’s why I can count my friends on one hand and still have two fingers left over.
Reluctantly, we left the store, but I wasn’t through. I went to the shop next door and explained my concerns to the two ladies working there.
Specifically I said, “There’s no one in the gift shop next door. We were there for at least ten minutes and I’m worried about the shop owner.”
“Oh,” said one of the women with a smile. “She is a bit eccentric. She probably just wandered down the street to get some lunch.”
I was relieved and a bit flabbergasted. Who leaves a shop unattended in the middle of the day? Or at any time, for that matter. Granted, Thomasville isn’t a large city, but it is certainly big and busy enough for there to be ill-intentioned people lurking about.
My (still?) friend and I left feeling a measure of relief and continued shopping. She bought a couple of cute tops and I bought a natural mosquito repellent. That’s what one buys when one’s hips have become their own 90210.
I fully intended to return to the unattended shop before leaving Thomasville, but a rain storm burst from the heavens and put an end to our stroll about town. Perhaps on my next visit I’ll stop in to see who this most trusting of women is and spend a few dollars in her shop. I had a strange affinity for those wooden seagulls.
A chance to pose naked
at my age
at this size!
what a concept
an opportunity to wag
my fifty-nine
year old ass at the
Republican National
Convention.
Take that Mr. Trump.
I have a fondness for wildlife, especially when I’m safely tucked inside my home or car or indeed anywhere that the wildlife cannot possibly physically impact me. Sometimes, though, these man-made barriers don’t hold up their end of the bargain and I find myself face to face, or as the case might be, butt to face with a denizen of the Florida fauna.
In the middle of the night I awoke with the urgent need to tinkle. As usual, both cats had to accompany me. Peeing alone doesn’t happen in a household of felines. Scout Kitty was her usual business minded self: “C’mon mom, get it over with and go back to bed.”
But Patches was hyper attentive, jumping up on the back of the toilet and meowing frantically. I felt a ping of moisture on my exposed derrière, and thought she had drooled on me. Ew. Still, something felt off. I finished my business and upon turning to flush realized that it hadn’t been cat drool on my hind end, but this:
Now, I didn’t shriek, but I did giggle as I imagined this little guy pinging off of my butt and onto the toilet.
I carefully helped the little stranger climb into an empty trash can and carried him outside where he could rejoin the league of frogs serenading the night.
“Run free little guy!” I called after him.
You might wonder what Studly Doright was doing during all of this excitement. Snoring. He was snoring. At least Patches had my butt, I mean my back.
How about a little Sinatra? Appropriate in this situation.
In the latter part of my fifth decade on this earth I learn of the existence of Functional Water. I sincerely hope I haven’t fallen prey to the non-functional variety of H2O all these years.
And I don’t even want to dwell on the ramifications of New Age Beverages. Do such drinks strike yoga poses when no one’s observing them? Are they into transcendental meditation?
I must explore this grocery aisle again one day soon. The secret to inner peace undoubtedly lies on 6b somewhere between the mundane offerings of bottled tea and soft drinks. Ommmmm.
Praying for Eyebrowz 