Life Without Socks

Does anyone have a spare sherpa?

I have been gone. Perhaps you've noticed. Perhaps not, in any case, I have been notably absent- at least in my own mind. It is actually more than absent, it was completely incommunicado- it didn't start out that way, no, not at all. It started out as an inconvenience and escalated to a quest. A long and arduous quest from which I am not sure that I have recovered- or ever will. But wait, I digress. Before I get too far afield, let me start at the very beginning- a very good place to start (cue Julie Andrews)

About a month ago, I had a slight mishap. I am using the term "mishap" in order to be delicate, as this was a delicate situation. It was a situation that perhaps one or two of you have found yourselves in. Perhaps those of you that have experienced childbirth or sat on cold concrete for too long. I don't have all of the details as to what brings on this "mishap" just know that my own mishap was a combination of too many potato chips, not enough fiber and well an 8 hour car ride. At least that's what the doctor said.

Why are you looking like that? Yes, I did go to a doctor. I didn't go to the doctor the minute I felt some discomfort, but I can assure you (no pun word intended) that about a week later, when it felt as though Jack The Ripper had taken up lodging in my rear orifice- yes, I DID go to the doctor! As a matter of fact, I drove at about 90 miles an hour to the doctor!

The pain was incredible. I thought I would pass out each time I had my morning constitutional. And while this may not be the type of thing that most people spend time wasting the written word on, well- I certainly wish that someone had. After all, I had no idea what was happening. None whatsoever.

Sure, I knew what Preparation H was, and I knew the little cutesy term "balloon", but to be quite frank, no one ever told me that there was a remote chance I would be chosen as the storage unit for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloons!! You know, the 50 foot Bullwinkle and Rocky balloons, the  Powerpuff girls, King Kong- those balloons.  I was shocked and appalled- but even worse- I was at a loss for what to do. Prep H just wasn't even going to touch this problem- I needed big guns and I needed them now. Hence, a trip to the doctor.

Unfortunately, my doctor turned out to be that little old man character that Tim Conway used to play. This guy took 10 minutes to get from the hand washing sink in the room to the chair in the room. The room is only 4 feet wide! I was wearing the standard gown of embarrassment (again, no pun) and just wanted some type of medicine so I could go home. Was it that easy? Not a chance.

"Assume the position," he says like this is a weekly weight watchers meeting or something.

"Do you want the V position or the coffee table position or the stretching cat position?" I ask him.

"I want the normal position," he said.

If I had known what the normal position was, I wouldn't have babbled on about letters, animals and pieces of furniture. As it turned out, the normal position was a sideways fetal position, hugging your knees and hoping that you aren't going to hear a speculum or some such nonsense in the background. Nope, only some gloved digits and a Cadillac Seville.

When I came to, Tim Conway handed me a piece of paper that had some initials on it. "You have a small tear, it happens from lack of fiber, no water or eating potato chips. Here's something that will make it feel better. You can get it over the counter" he said.

And that is how the journey began. I went to drugstore after drugstore, pharmacy after pharmacy trying to find this... this... this golden snitch of the anus so to speak. It was nowhere to be found. I went further and further afield, Paris, Rome, Athens... finally, two weeks and many sitz baths later I climbed to the top of the Himalayan Mountains to consult the Wise Man of the Mountain. He was devine and exhalted, and knew the answers to all quests. He would heal my suffering, clear my confusion and end my quest. It had been an arduous journey, but it was finally over. I would be healed as soon as I asked my question.

"Oh wise one," I began. "I have traveled many miles at great peril. I have suffered each step of the way, but my path has lead me to you. I need an answer to a question which has been burning in my mind. Will you please grant me the honor of your wisdom?"

He sat cross-legged on his small stone pillar, looking ancient and all-knowing. If he granted my request, I could possibly be a new woman by tomorrow. I held my breath and finally he spoke:

"My child, I will grant you the honor you speak of, what is your question?"

Like flood waters running out of me I poured out my tale in a huge rush, explaining the non-existent over-the-counter cream, the ancient doctor, the Macy's balloons- all of it- every last bit of it and then asked my question: "And so, great one, as you can see- what I need from you is the name and location of the thing that will heal this malady and allow me to regain my life!" There, I had said it and I would now receive the answer to my quest.

"Ya know" he began, not sounding like an ancient wise one at all, "I wish I knew what to tell you- really, for my sake as well. I mean, you can guess how bad it must be for me sitting on this cold stone slab day after day- I feel like I have a NASA weather balloon lodged in there! If ya hear of something can you email me so I can get some relief?"

And that was it. That was all he had for me and besides that, you don't have to trek the Himalayas anymore to see him- a simple email will do the trick. I came back home and sat down (no pun intended) to write this blog. Smarting from the knowledge that while, in this day and age, we can clone a sheep, store 1000 songs on something as big as my palm, and email a guru who sits high atop the Himalayan Mountains- we are still at a loss when dealing with an angry asshole. Go figure.

Till next time,

TOL

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.

The Invisible Birthday Cake

Okay, somehow without my knowing it I have reached 47 years old. "Fourty-seven years young" my mother would say- she can afford to say that, she is 88-years old, still dyes her hair cherry-red, and has her own version of Ashton Kutcher for a husband. She was graceful at 47. She was well-dressed, well-kept, and full of feminine mystique. I'm lucky if I can find a pony-tail holder to put my hair back in in the morning and a shirt that the cat hasn't slept in! To make matters worse, I came up with the brilliant idea of having children when I was "more mature and financially stable". News Flash: You are only MORE MATURE and FINANCIALLY STABLE up until the time you have children!! Immediately upon their crucial milestones (like learning how to say the word "NO") your own maturity begins to falter, and, when school supplies, dance lessons, game consoles, and braces start to show up- the financial stability you thought you had, well it begins to look like a v- formation of swiftly flying birds heading due south... not just for the winter, but for a few decades.

So, amidst the curiosity that has become my "mid-life", I found 47 staring at me and blowing out the candles on my birthday cake. Oh, wait a minute, that too, can be a vital part of 47. The invisible birthday cake. It tends to go with the invisible presents and the invisible birthday cards. They appear (or not) sometime during the time when you are answering the non-existent ringing from all of the birthday salutations. "Get a grip", I had to say to myself, after all, I was 47. People get bored after doing the same thing 47 times. Year after year calling up and singing the same song, buying the same cake, looking for blasted birthday gifts. When you're 47- it's been done.

So, somehow, between that 25 or 6 or 7 year-old that I think still lives here, and the 90 year-old that my daughter believes lives here, I am faced with the fact that I have, in fact, grown older. It's a mystery to me. I sing to all of the rap songs on the radio, own a few pair of low rider jeans, wear Sketchers as well as Crocs, and yes, still put my hair in a ponytail. It makes me sad to see my daughter and her friends become quiet and awestruck, like they are viewing the real Dead Sea Scrolls when they see my drivers license and note the birthdate.  "1961? They had cars in 1961?!" Apparently it doesn't matter that I can still "drop it like it's hot".  Forty-seven is past seventeen by..... by..... well, in the words of my daughter "only someone who is really old could do that kind of math."