Hair Clips

My life is infinitely easier in warm weather, especially in summertime, due in large part to the hair clip. Not the 1980s banana clip (which I am proud to say I NEVER owned, although I did have quite a collection of barrettes and hair bows) that creates a Mohawk-like mane down the back of the head, but a basic claw clip that holds your hair back and up—peacock ends optional. When I can put my hair up, wet or dry, in a clip and go without my hair freezing or my ears risking frost bite (which is not to say I don’t wear ponytails in winter), I can get places on time. Of course it helps when I don't have to decide whether or not to wear tights and which gloves and scarf to wear with which coat and leave enough time to defrost my windows or clear off my car. Still, I like to credit the hair clip.

It makes having long hair in summertime low maintenance, and my blow dryer obsolete. I can go from pool to party in a half-hour or less. I can more easily heed hair care advice and not wash it every day. I can skip hair cuts in the summer because I rarely wear it down. It’s one less thing to worry about.

Sure, I suppose I could cut my hair short, but I wore it short for the first half of my life. When girls in high school, the ones with all the boyfriends, wore Farrah Fawcett hair (Rest in Peace), I had short hair that combed back to a D.A. I cut my hair off in third grade—why did my mother allow me to cut off those thick blond braids?—and wore it short through college. So after wearing my hair short (and sometimes permed—ew!) the first twenty or so years of my life, I have worn my hair in long (straight) styles for the last twenty—including the broadcaster’s bob and the Rachel shag. (In fact, not to brag, but I was the first client my former stylist in Boston coiffed ala Rachel.)

I will continue to wear my hair long because I like it. Because I have nice hair. Because it’s easy.

Oh, how I heart hair clips.

Karma

So the other day I carried on about the Instant Gratification Generation, teens with cell phones and computers and instant access to everything and anyone, while I had to write letters when I was in college. Well, wouldn’t you know…

On Saturday I was by the pool (of course I was, the sun was shining) and decided to tan my back a little. Putting a towel on the concrete and getting in a prone position is not an option, so I usually stand in the pool, waist high in water, while resting my book on a towel on the edge of the pool. I stand there and read and let the sun kiss my back. Sometimes I bring my cell phone with me. Yes, I admit, even I have stood in the pool and talked on the phone.

Well, John Lennon sang in my ear again, when instant karma came and got me as I picked up my towel, forgetting that my technology treasure trove was tucked inside and it decided to go for a swim. SH*T!!!! My reflexes were good; I went under water for it as quickly as I would for a drowning infant, and caught it before it hit bottom. Did I save it?

I took the battery out and let it dry in the sun, while gathering tips from fellow pool goers. Put it on the fridge. Put it in the oven overnight on low. Put it in a bowl of dry rice. It’ll come back in a few hours. It’ll take a day. I listened. I went on line and Googled the topic (oops, technology dependence again!). I was not extremely optimistic. I thought [insert favorite expletive!,] how I am going to live without it? What do I do?!

Alas, my reflexes were no match for chlorine and water. All the advice was for naught.

For forty-eight hours I prayed for my phone to dry out and work again. In that time I visited the Verizon store twice, where on my first trip found out I am not eligible for an upgrade until December 10. (That would be too easy!) After my second visit to the Verizon store today, I left with a new battery for my old phone.

It’s not my favorite phone. But it works. At least I can text and talk. I feel whole again. [shhh]

Spa Lunch

at my favorite resort...

Folklore

A generation of us grew up hearing stories about our parents who walked uphill both ways to school, with cardboard tucked into their shoes that had holes in the soles. The uphill both ways part was obviously fable, but there was truth to the stories too. At least I know my parents didn’t exaggerate about much in their stories from the old country, which of course I am more interested in hearing now that I am an adult. When I was a teenager, getting ready to hop in a Jill's green Gran Torino instead of stand in the cold at the bus stop, I wasn’t as interested in hearing them. They made me feel bad. Regardless, I wondered, when they told their stories, what our stories would be for the next generation.

Though not for the first time, I began crafting my I-remember-when story yesterday as I passed an eighteen year old on the highway who was texting. Yes. In the right lane. Text messaging as she drove. On the highway yesterday I feared for my safety. In the classroom, I get annoyed. Texts are no longer hardcover books. Rather, they are messages students send while I am teaching because they think I won’t notice their heads dropped while their hands disappear under their desks--because they can’t wait another 42 minutes to talk to their friends during hall passing time, perhaps just another 5 or 10 minutes if the friends are in the same class. The Instant Gratification Generation, I call them.

This is my story from us--who had to wait more than an instant for everything--to them, who grew up in the high tech communication age.

When I was in high school, even in college, we didn’t have cell phones. In college, many of us shared a phone that hung on a wall with a cord attached because paying a monthly phone bill was out of our budget range. We’d wait for people to call us. Those of us who did choose to have a phone in our rooms shared the bill with a roommate and, because we paid by the minute to talk long distance, we had to exercise some restraint. Many of us scheduled weekly check-ins. I spoke to my parents on Sundays.

We also didn’t have email. So you couldn’t text, you couldn’t call without watching the clock, and you couldn’t email either! We wrote letters. With paper and pens. And envelopes and stamps. I remember when I was a senior in high school being excited about getting letters from my sister Liz and a couple of neighborhood friends (Paula and Sue) who were freshman in college. One Friday afternoon in particular, early in September, I remember hearing from one of them for the first time since they left, reading the letter as Jill drove us around town in said Gran Torino. When I got to college the following year, getting letters was even more exciting. I always loved writing letters as much as I loved finding them in my mailbox.

I have given in to technology and now enjoy the convenience of cell phones. I even text message. But I saved many of the letters and cards and postcards I received and every once in a while I will go through a memory box and read a few. Holding them in my hands, without hitting any buttons or clicking any keys, brings me back in time…

To when I walked uphill to school. Both ways.

Slow and Steady Decline

I have had prescription glasses for distance and an astigmatism (note it is not a stigmatism; it's an astigmatism) (ugh. I am so irascible! How do I even have any friends?) since 3rd grade. My vision has never been that bad though, so my glasses have sometimes been more about accessorizing than seeing perfectly. Accordingly, I can still see well enough without glasses, which comes in handy when vanity gets the best of me and they don't match my outfit--even though my current prescription is for...[wait for it]...progressive bifocals. Yes. I became firmly ensconced in my 40s when at 42 my arm was no longer long enough to read nutrition labels and fine print.

Hence, added to my list of rites of passage and hallmark life events--which includes first diet, first menstrual period, driver's license, high school graduation, college graduation, and masters degree (in that order) (and maybe another one or two, not in order)--is failing vision, taking me right from my twenties and thirties (which in my case does not include marriage and childbirth) into middle age.

Following right behind failing vision are stiff joints when I sit for longer than a half hour, the occasional unexpected rumble of thunder while walking (better thunder than hail), waking in the middle of the night to pee, eating Tums like candy, and getting cankles when I fly. I've never seen anything like it. It was frightening, really. I had to sleep with my feet elevated on pillows and take a steady dose of Advil for days after I got back from San Diego!

But it's all good. As I mentioned, better thunder than hail, and what a gift that I still wake before peeing! And maybe most I thank God that I can laugh at this, and for having people in my life who will laugh too...not just at my self-deprecation but because they know what I'm talking about--or someday will.

Feet

My feet are not pretty by any stretch. My third, fourth, and fifth toes on both feet are misshapen structures that belie the fact that there are bones inside them. On my right foot, my second toe is larger than my big toe; on my left they’re about equal. Asymmetrical and gnarly. Lucky me!

After carefree summers as a child spent in flip flops and barefoot, stubbing toes daily, like countless other kids, I grew into a self-conscious teenager. And I made efforts to hide my feet, as I did other parts of me that aren’t, weren’t and never will be magazine ready. Even during summer. I’d wear closed-toe sling backs to work or for dress and I'd spend leisure time in Keds, taking them off when I got to the beach and could bury my toes in the sand or be reasonably sure it wasn’t my feet that would be garnering second glances.

Eventually two things happened that made me change my attitude about my feet permanently. (Maybe three, if I want to throw my pre-surgical, former chronic foot pain in the mix.) The first was my discovery of the pedicure, that half-hour spent in an elevated chair with moving and pulsating parts hidden in the Naugahyde that starts with a good soak and takes miles off the tootsies. How cleverly and easily a pedicure—conditioned cuticles and shiny, bright pink toenail polish at the tips of my toes—distracted from the anatomy of my phalanges. Hmmm…

Then, when I started teaching, I noticed all the students (like my friend Joanne) wore sandals in warm weather—girls and boys—like it was the most natural thing to do. I also noticed that some of them had toes even gnarlier than mine. Yet they wore sandals. Teenagers had more confidence than I did! I, who had been walking around this earth on my feet for decades longer than they had and who therefore had more reason to have ugly feet (flawed logic, I know), kept mine hidden. Kids cared less what people thought of their feet and wore shoes that felt comfortable and cool. And I was supposed to be one of their role models?

And so, with my friend Joanne’s help and support, I went to Parade of Shoes with her to try on sandals and experiment with different types to begin The Great Reveal. It took a few years to get all the way there, but eventually I embraced Joanne’s philosophy that sometimes letting them all hang out (rather than get all caught up on toe lines and what’s most flattering) is the best. “Just let them all be out there,” she said. Thus I was finally liberated and began wearing—along with strappies and sandals of all types—thongs, too. (Sandals, that is.) No more partial hiding of toes. These are my feet. They get me from point A to point B. Deal with it.

On second thought, they are kind of cute, aren't they?

My Own Resort

thoughts I wrote by the pool today (in my journal...that matches my pool accoutrement), transcribed at 5:30 pm, when I finally knew enough to come in lest I end up looking like my favorite handbag by summer's end...

On days like today I feel like I live at a resort. My pool is nothing fancy, mind you; it doesn't even have chairs and tables with umbrellas. Rather, it's a bare bones, bring-your-own-chair variety of pool deck. It's just that on a day like today, which just screams VACATION, I don't want to be anywhere else but outside. As a result, I end up spending an inordinate amount of time here--outside--as one normally would if on a high-priced resort vacation. Does that make sense? Like, who in their right mind would go inside after an hour or two on a day like today in the islands? No one, or no one who shouldn't be admonished. So, that's how I approach these rare days. Act like it's your last day away, or like it could rain for the rest of the week.

I reapplied sunscreen after 2 hours, and went in after 4 to refresh my beverage, grab some ice and another iced water, and ate leftovers quickly while standing at the stove. (Which generally is so not like me.) But now I am back outside. I've almost had enough sun, so in a few minutes I'll probably don my sheer white (reflective of rays/matches with everything) cover-up and turn my chair so that my back is toward the sun, but I will stay a while longer by the pool, reading my new book, sipping my spritzer, enjoying what I consider a banner/top 10 (Thank you, God!)/San Diego kind of day. And I'd do it again tomorrow. In fact I will. Weather permitting and God willing I will take advantage of every ray of sunshine this summer.

Now I just need a name for my resort of a sort...