Author: Susie (Page 43 of 48)

Most people either saw, or heard about, Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction during a halftime show at a Super Bowl. As it turns out, a lot of celebrities have had various body parts exposed or “fall out,” so those of us who have suffered this indignity totally understand the instant embarrassment. Let me digress here to say that I researched photos on the internet of famous wardrobe malfunctions (there are a lot of them!) and they are all on women. Don’t men ever have problems with zippers, buttons, or shirts?  Apparently not, at least not the famous men.

               At any rate, I have been thinking about these kinds of mishaps because of what happened to me today. I was in town for the downtown shops’ trick-or-treating event, sporting a large pumpkin costume complete with pumpkin hat. After the festivities, I returned home to quickly change clothes and run a few errands. I threw on a flannel shirt over my t-shirt, changed from leggings to jeans, and swapped my boots for sneakers. Then I headed out to do all the normal Saturday stuff.

               I went to the gas station and filled the car. I bopped into the grocery for a few last-minute, game-night treats. I got a coffee at the local coffee shop. I went to the bookstore to buy a book on tape. I sauntered into the hardware store to have a key made for a friend. Then I met that friend at a designated spot to give her the key.

When we were talking, a breeze stirred up and I tried to button my shirt. That’s when I noticed that I had my flannel shirt on inside out for the entire afternoon! Though my pal said she “didn’t notice,” I had to wonder how many others had!

This reminded me of the day, years ago, when I was dressing for work. I had an array of high-heeled shoes, all in the same style (comfortable), but different colors. I was dressing in the dark and easily found a black shell to wear with my deep purple business suit. I had these cool purple heels that matched, and I slipped them on and happily went to work. You know where this is going, don’t you?

               It was in my second meeting of the day when I looked down at my crossed legs and noticed the pretty purple heel on my right foot…and the non-matching brown heel on my left foot!  Geez.

               Years before that, my mother-in-law had a near mishap with her sunglasses. She had just purchased new ones with rose-tinted lenses before the family went on vacation. While there, the women went to a mall and ran into a woman at one of those kiosks selling jewelry cleaner. She cleaned my rings, my sister-in-law’s rings, and mom’s rings. They sparkled and each of us purchased a jar of the cleaner from her.

               On the way back to the condo, mom exclaimed, “oh dear, that jewelry cleaner discolored my ring!  It’s turning red!”  She was very upset and insisting that we turn around and go back to the mall. I kept looking at her ring, but saw nothing amiss. Finally, my sister-in-law looked at mom and said, “Mom, take off your sunglasses!”  Her rose-colored lenses had almost caused an inter-state incident!

               Wardrobe mishaps are funny – after the fact. Have you had one?

First, let me say that October 26 is  National Pumpkin Day. I thank the Lord every day (at least in the fall) for fruit and veggie farms, because there we can still see and purchase lovely huge pumpkins!  They are usually artfully displayed, as well, around hay bales, scarecrows and the like. It reminds me of the wonders of fall, and driving by or walking around these areas is a sensory delight!  The brilliant colors of the pumpkins and gourds and the leaves on the trees, the scents of apple cider in the barns, and the taste of pumpkin pie…all these just make me feel cozy and happy.

               Meanwhile, in the land of retail, it’s hard to find a pumpkin or gourd. There may be some in a discount bin, but the mainline stores are all about something that’s still 62 days away. That’s two months!  Yep, it’s all about Christmas. Now, normally that would be fine with me, as I love Christmas time. I typically know how many days until the big event months in advance. Even in March, I can tell you how many days until Santa arrives.

               But shopping-wise, this is annoying to me. I want to find pumpkins and apple cider and masks (MASKS!) in the stores in October. I do not feel the need to purchase candy canes, stockings, inflatable snowmen, or fake greenery. And let me digress to say that the stores have – for years, now – completely ignored a major holiday that happens in November. Try to find an autumn centerpiece, or a turkey sculpture, or some pilgrim candles for your Thanksgiving table. Ha! Too busy trying to sell tinsel, ornaments and snowflakes.

Seriously, marketing plans are just not in sync with the weather, the season, or my mood. It’s like sleeping in someone else’s bed. I know this feeling well, because I’ve done it. You’ve done it. We’ve all that experience!  Some are better than others, of course, but sleeping in a different bed almost always leaves you restless and a bit tired. Even if you think you slept pretty well, it’s just not the same.

Recently we celebrated our annual Friendsgiving. This is when we take  our dog and go with friends and their dogs to a cabin in the woods. We cook a big Thanksgiving dinner and have all the fun of the food and the laughter of good friends, but none of the stress of family. This year was especially poignant for us, as we will not be hosting or attending a large dinner filled with extended family. Hopefully, next year, but not 2020.

At any rate, we slept in a queen-sized bed with very comfortable sheets and pillows. The sheets were soft, but rustled like paper. It felt good, but sounded odd.  The mattress was firm and I should have slept well. I did, too, but awoke feeling “off,” and with a little twinge in my neck. Truth be told, I do that at home, too, but it was just different.

               I know our faithful pet, Forest, felt the same way. He missed his regular bed. He missed it so much that he fit his 100-pound, muscled frame into the Russell terrier’s little portable bed. He seemed comfortable enough, but I’m not sure he slept well!  Take a look at the photo and you decide.  Anyway, Christmas retail in October is okay. It’s a little like sleeping in someone else’s bed. It’s just not quite right.

My husband has, for the past four years, dedicated himself to a work-out routine in order to get fit (or in his case, more fit) and stay healthy. He gets up very early every day and completes various exercises, usually employing videos from YouTube. Often, I sleep through these videos, but during the covid months, I have also gotten up many a day to complete my own rigorous routine. My routine includes feeding the cats, brushing my teeth, starting a pot of coffee to brew, and posting an Instagram picture for my volunteer work.

               Okay, so it’s not rigorous, but I am faithful in completing the tasks. Meanwhile, my dearest one is out in the family room becoming even more gorgeous and using a number of techniques to achieve this purpose. As it turns out, I find that we have more in common than I thought.

               I mean, I never totally watched all the exercises that he did, but I can hear him and the video instructors from my perch. While the coffee brews and I surf the Instragram world, I get to sit in a big easy chair in the corner of our kitchen. This is how I heard some of the terms and it began to occur to me that he and I share many common interests.

               For example, I never hear “sit up,” “push up,” or “jumping jacks.” These dreaded things I know all too well from my school years as exercises I never want to repeat. But he doesn’t seem to do these.

               Last week, I heard the instructors telling him to do something at the bar club. Bar club? I’m all about that!  I meet my girlfriends once a month at a local emporium to enjoy half-priced drinks!  We’re not an official club, but it sounds right to me!

               Sunday night I cooked a big feast of mostly Mexican delights. It was tasty, but I totally understood Monday when I heard the television talking about “burpees.” Of course, it’s not the right season for the famous seeds, so I knew he must have tuned in to a specific video that would help relieve that bloated feeling from just one spoonful too many of refried beans.

               Then the next day, the video man was talking all about “dips.” I love dips. Bean dip, deviled ham dip, horseradish dip, guacamole…they’re all good. Technically, a cheese ball is a dip, right?  I could not believe that Matt’s fitness program included tips on such wonderful things!  The same day, I heard him do something called crunches. I can only assume these are the things that go with the dips – chips, crackers, pita pockets and the like. Yum!  Who knew that exercising could be so delightful?

               I heard the voice on the tape today talking about Romanian dead lifts and Bulgarian dead lifts. I am not really sure what these are, but they sounded an awful lot like the exchange students at my high school. I had a date with the guy from Bulgaria, and it pretty much was a dead lift.

Then I heard the voice say “Bulgarian split squat.”  That’s when I left my comfortable chair and walked into the family room to see what in the world they were doing with a banana split. Turns out – it had no ice cream, no banana, and no chocolate sauce. It had squat. So I guess that’s how they named it. And it did make me hungry, just thinking about a banana split.

               So I muscled up to the freezer, squatted down to the bottom shelf, and pulled out a Nestlé’s crunch bar.

               It’s gratifying to know we have so much in common in our retirement years!

               In  high school, we read the play “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett.  (Note:  I didn’t like it, no action at all and boring). Discussions raged (well, okay, they were forced by our teacher), but have raged throughout literary circles about this play and its deep meanings. Was it philosophical? Existential? Spiritual? Political? Psychological?  Even Beckett was vague, though I do remember reading once that he said something to the effect of “people like to make simple things complicated.”

               I remembered this all vividly when, about ten years ago, we remodeled our kitchen. We ordered all new appliances – a once-in-a-lifetime dream. The remodeling was done in about four weeks and we had everything but the stove. Let me digress to say that I don’t understand why it takes 4 to 6 weeks to move a stove from one state to another. Are they moving it via a horse and wagon?  But at any rate, two weeks after the remodeling was complete, the stove arrived. The wrong stove.

               We sent it back and waited another three weeks. (The store rushed it!). So for nine weeks we ate meals we cooked in the crock pot or microwave, waiting for our new stove. It finally arrived and when we went out with the installer to the garage to move it into the kitchen, we heard a lot of what appeared to be broken glass tinkling sounds. Sure enough, the oven door had been cracked and was broken to bits.

               Geez.  I recalled and identified with how bored and stupid the two main characters (Didi and Gogo) were in the play while they waited for a man who was never going to arrive. The store re-ordered the stove and we enjoyed another three weeks of soups and stews. I waited for that stove like I was giving birth, but it finally (finally!) arrived. Intact and the correct stove.

               It was a twelve-week wait, but that stove still works and I still like it.

               Why am I reminiscing about waiting for the stove? Because this year, the year of the pandemic, the year of finding new things to do, I have spent about that same time framing waiting. Waiting for blinds.

               We ordered new blinds for the windows in our family room. The old ones still work, but we’ve never really loved them and they are over 20 years old. So we masked up and went to the store and had them send a professional to measure the windows. That was August 6.

               We were told they would be cut in the store and ready in a “couple of days.” That should have been my first clue. On August 19, they told us they didn’t have enough of the right size and were getting two of the blinds from another store. Since these were “scheduled” to arrive on Labor Day, I presumed this store was in Antarctica and the blinds were being brought here by carrier penguins.

               They did arrive, a little after Labor Day. That was September 7.  On September 11, they called us and left a message to pick up our blinds. We called back, because when we ordered them and the installation, we had been told the installer would bring them. So we wanted to double check and sure enough the nice and, apparently incompetent, voice on the phone said, “no, no, the installer will bring them.”

               The installer company called and said they could work us in – in October. They were simply inundated!  Apparently, a lot of people were bored with their homes and ordering window treatments to be installed. I mean, it is a pandemic.

               So I waited another month, tracking the days on our mostly empty calendar until the installer came. He arrived yesterday.

               He did not have the blinds with him. He stated, very emphatically, that we were to pick up the blinds. It’s actually in the contract we signed. And we would have been happy –ecstatic, really, for an excuse to go somewhere – to pick up the blinds had the lady not told us he would.

               So anyway, we called and the manager actually delivered the blinds to us. In part, I’m sure to not lose our business, but at any rate, now, just a mere ten weeks after ordering them, we have the blinds in our house.

               No, no, not on the windows. I am sitting here now, waiting for the installer’s company to call to schedule us again. I’m sure they’ll work us in…sometime before Thanksgiving.

               Waiting for Godot was really not complicated at all. I’m sure Beckett must have ordered something to be delivered sometime in his life. He got an entire play out of his experience! We write what we know, right?