Life Without Socks

Mirror Mirror on the wall

It always surprises me- this getting older. Sometimes I see obituaries and they show a picture of some woman, recently deceased, and they show her present day photo (well not present, present day of course) but recent photo, and they also show a photo of her in her youth. Well, if someone put my youthful me in the paper alongside of my present me, I would hope to shout that I would be dead. I know it's supposed to be a tribute and all, but time has really marched on, and in my case I am painfully aware that time is wearing army boots.

I remember the first time I startled myself in the mirror. I had been dreaming of the 80's and got out of bed to see my 20-something body passing by the mirror on the way to the bathroom. ARRGH! It was like a scene out of Freaky Friday, there was my mother! Her solid little torso, her stubby little legs, her white, undertoned, naked body! I was horrified! I knew immediately that I should get to the gym, go on a serious diet, and work that body, work that body... instead, I bought pajamas! Well, I wasn't about to get shocked like that again soon.

I know that the official word is that we all get old, and there is a grace and beauty in women of age, but, I am not a fine wine. I am not jewelry or an art collection. I am getting old. Things are wrinkling, sagging, bulging, dimpling and perhaps falling off even! This is scary business!

My family loves my new look. They say that as long as I am alive, our Great Grandmother Mabel will never be dead. Apparently I have bypassed looking like my mother or GRANDMOTHER and gone straight to our dear Great Grandmother who was as creased as a roadmap of Route 66. Thanks guys. Leave it to family.

I have tried to combat the aging process with a variety of creams and oils. Mink oil is the newest. It makes me smell like new Redwing Construction Boots- hey, what's not to love about that? At least it beats the egg white facemask, the mayonaise face mask and the avacodo face mask (well, Sig kind of liked the last one.  She said when she woke up and saw me in the middle of the night, it played on her Incredible hulk fantasies. Again, thanks so much.

Now I am reading about visualizing youth and vitality. The Secret says you can just think it and it will be so. Obviously I need to write a book like that so I could have a personal trainer and a make-up consultant as just reading someone else's book isn't working for me.

I've heard about hoodia which comes from Africa, something else which comes from South America and cryogenics which comes from the South Pole. So far, no, no and no.

I'm thinking about giving up and just being resigned to looking like my great grandmother. It's probably the best idea... still, if any of you have heard of a good anti-aging remedy...

Near, near, but not quite there.

I'm sorry I haven't written.

It's not that I have been purposely remiss.

No, where I've been, you wouldn't have wanted to experience. You see, I had my first official "near-death" experience. People talk of bright lights, choirs of angels, benign relative sightings and the like. It sounds fantastic. That, however, isn't what happened to me.... On the near-death highway, I must have taken a wrong turn.

It started with pneumonia.

I didn't know it was pneumonia, I thought it was a chest cold. So, I did what any good Irish/Italian would do... I ignored it. I drove across the state, stayed up late for days, and finally, flew to Chicago and back for the weekend. But remember-I believed it was a chest cold. While disembarking from the plane, I realized I was still sitting. I was sick, very sick, still, I was quite sure it was a chest cold. I wanted my mommy. This was strange as I had had chest colds before without wanting my mommy. Since mommy lives four hours away from my home, and since I was getting sicker by the minute, I did what mommy would tell me to do and, consulting the only medical reference book I have, the one my mother swears by, and gave me (the Farmers Almanac 1936 edition) I took their medical recommendation and stayed in bed drinking brandy. Sig did not think that this was a good idea, which I found strange as she usually thinks a drink is a good idea in any situation. She said I should see a doctor. I said "phshaw, it's just a chest cold" and preceded to open the brandy.

Let me first remind all of you, that I am not a highly experienced drinker. "She drank us under the table" has never been said about me. Comments like "I think she fell asleep after taking a Tylenol" is more my mantra. So, here I am with this snifter of brandy (okay, really it was a jelly glass), thinking I am curing the common cold the old-fashioned way (while secretly my lungs are filling up with fluid). The brandy was soothing. After a few drinks it was stupefying, then exhilarating! Maybe the farmers that wrote that almanac had something! I was feeling better! The fact that I was also rapidly becoming a famous country western singer, someone who spoke in tongues, and my own cousin had nothing to do with anything. I was curing a cold! This is what I shouted at Sig when she suggested I didn't look so good, this is what I mumbled to my daughter when she said I seemed worse and it was finally what I slurred to the emergency room nurse when she hooked up the oxygen.

By then it didn't matter. I had pneumonia. I floated. I dreamt. I met none of my dead relatives. Instead, I had a nonsensical conversation with my mother about why I never had a husband and what kind of under-eye concealer would be best with my skin coloring. Then Dr. Kavorkian joined us for tea at which time mom pointed out how I never seemed to remember to bite the cucumber sandwiches with just the first four teeth of one's mouth. The queen agreed, and I woke up with "the morphine itch" and some other nurse or angel wearing comfortable shoes, smacking me in the back to stimulate my lungs.

Recovery was slow and I am still coughing. The pain is gone, but the embarrassment of checking into the hospital completely plastered is not. No white lights. No heavenly bodies. Just a keen hangover which lasted three weeks (or so it seemed). They tell me that slowly I will regain my strength and stop coughing. This I look forward to. As for the conversation with mom...I don't know if it was real or not. I may never be healed enough to delve into that can of worms. I just hope that if I travel down any other "near death" highways, that I pay better attention to the roadsigns.