Friday, December 21, 2012

Day 204, December 21

I re-read my last two posts and realized I've been focusing on death.  Mine.  As seen through my sons' eyes.  It makes me wonder what else they have in store for me.  First, a home with imitation gruel, then cremation, followed by a son wanting to plant a bench on top of me and then sit on it.

Haven't I been a good mother?   Wasn't I pregnant with them for a collective total of five years?  Didn't I nurse them for another fifteen years?  Didn't I schlep them all over northern Colorado for orthodontist appointments, sports physicals, Little League, Big League, Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and scouting for my sanity? (Yes, I took them with me.  I decided since they were the cause of the loss of my sanity, that they should have to come with me in the search for it.)

So why, I ask myself, are they dwelling on my demise?  Didn't I sacrifice my girls, my figure, and my mental health for them?  Didn't I give them the best years of my life?  Didn't I suffer?

Gem for the day:  when your sons start talking about what they're going to do with you when you die, consider going into the Witness Protection Program.




Thursday, December 20, 2012

Day 203, December 20

A couple of days ago I wrote of how one son wanted to cremate The Wretch and me.  After my mouth finished hanging open, I took it with my usual good grace and humor.

Another son, Rob, has a different idea for the resting place for my bones.  Rather than have a nice monument or even a small but tasteful grave marker, he wants to put a granite bench over me.  In that way, he explained, he can sit on me whenever he wants.
This from the son, who was the start of suckling my girls into their present droopy state?  What have I done to deserve such ungrateful children?

It boogles the mind. 

When I recovered from the shock, I reminded him that I wasn't gone yet and that I may well outlast him.  Gues who will be sitting upon whose bones then?

Gem for the day:  if you have an ungrateful child, change your will.  You can always change it back later.  Maybe.



Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Day 202, December 18

As you might have noticed, the Menopause Monocler took some days off.  She pleads hot flashes and general craziness, but she's back.  At least for the day.

Our youngest son, Hyrum, (you remember him--the one who gave me a list of things not to say to his fiance and her parents) recently reassured me that he'd be there for us when it came time to put me and The Wretch in a Home.   "Don't worry.  It'll be a great place," he said.  "They serve only imitation gruel."

Needless to say, this failed to fill my sagging bosom with confidence.  Hyrum, in his inimitable fashion, continued, "And when you croak, I'm going to have you cremated.  It's cheaper."

Cremated?  This was the child who gestated in my womb for seventeen months.  )Yes, that's right.  Seventeen months.)  This was the child who sucked my girls into oblivion.  This was the child who started the arthritis in my right hip.   And he wants to have me cremated?  Really?

Is it any wonder that The Wretch and I named our cat as the executor of our wills? 

Gem for the day:  if a child wants to have you cremated, run in the other direction.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Day 201, December 11

A friend sent me an email about overachieving moms at Christmas time.  The intent of these overachievers seems to be to put the rest of us to shame.  I know some of these moms and you know what?  They make me tired.

They knit, they crochet, they sew.  There are no store-bought clothes under the tree from these supermoms.  They fashion hand-carved toys from scraps of wood and give them to the poor.  They bake 15 dozen cookies for a cookie exchange and decorate each one individually.  They cook lgourmet meals, host nineteen holiday dinners, and never gain a pound.  (That, alone, is reason to hate them.)

They serve at soup kitchens, ring bells for the Salvation Army, and are the room mothers for their children's classes, organizing food drives for the area's needy and making sure that the children have a meaningful gift for their teacher.

Gem for the day:  if you meet one of these moms, Taser her.  (She may be contagious.)

Monday, December 10, 2012

Day 200, December 10

When I was a teenager (sometime during one of those prehistoric eras of which I forget the name but it ended in ... ozic), all the girls wanted to be blond and tanned.  I qualified on the first, but I could never get that tan thing down.  My pasty white skin either freckled or burned or both.  In short, I looked like a speckled lobster.  Not a good look.

Still, that didn't prevent me from from twenty years later paying good money (that I couldn't afford)  to lie in a tanning bed and try to get that golden glow before my first trip to Hawaii.  Once again, I didn't end up tanned.  I did end up, however, with wrinkled, pruny skin.  (Now, I can do that all on my own--no need to pay money for it.)

Fast forward another twenty years and I tried a self-tanner.  I ended up orange.  The healthy golden look I wanted, something with the delicate tinge of a freshly picked peach, had turned me into a giant pumpkin.  What's more, I was streaked.  Picture pumpkin-colored zebra stripes and you will have an unwanted visual in your mind.

Gem for the day:  if you're pasty white, learn to live with it.  Two hundred years ago, pasty white was in!

 

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Day 199, December 8

I was lying on my back this morning and looked at my breasts (the view's not the best, but you get the idea).   The girls were not perky.  They were not lifted.  They were MIA.  In fact, all I could see was the middle of my chest as the girls had migrated to the nether regions.

Have you noticed that in movies and televison shows, when a woman is on her back, her breasts are right on point?  They don't wander around, looking for a bra to hold them in place.  They stay put.  So, I ask myself, what am I doing wrong?  Why can't my girls stay put?  Does it have something to do with the fact that they've been "rode hard and put away wet?"

I don't know.

Gem for the day:  if your girls tend to wander, invest in some two-sided sticky tape.  I hear it works wonders.

Friday, December 7, 2012

Day 198, December 7

The other day, I stumbled upon a "Real Housewives" episode on television.  After watching a few minutes, I decided I would never qualify as a real housewife.  Below are a few reasons why:

-  My makeup is not thick enough to cut with a knife
-  My girls do not jut forward with unnatural perkiness
-  My hair does not bounce and swing while never moving
-  My nails do not resemble five-inch scarlet talons


How do you stack up?  (And, no, I'm not talking about the girls.)

Gem for the day:  If you qualify as a real housewife, more power to you.  If not, join me in the "fake housewife" section.  I have a feeling that we have a lot more fun.


Thursday, December 6, 2012

Day 197, December 6

You may have heard about the Victoria's Secret fashion show that aired a couple of nights ago.  How could we not hear about it--with those 6 foot models strutting their stuff on every television show around, including Hawaii 50? 

I admire those women.  After all, they've starved themselves to look like wraithes dancing through life while the rest of us feel like the Goodyear Blimp plodding and plowing our way, thankful when we don't have a piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of our shoes

I've always thought I could be a VS model.  I just have to add another six inches, drop 120 pounds, let my hair grow so that I can toss it about my face in a sultry fashion, and project an aura of supreme confidence.  Of course, there's the walk.  You have to lead with your hips, stick your girls out, and then saunter your way down the runway of life on eight-inch stilettos, all the while sprouting angel wings.

Gem for the day:  VS models are great, but it's too much trouble for this old menopausal broad.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Day 196, December 5

When I complained to a friend that I was running out of ideas for this blog, she suggested the blanket syndrome.  You know the one I mean:  blanket on, blanket off, blanket on, blanket off.

For those of you who haven't yet reached the Big M, you may not understand the reference.  Hot flashes are sneaky.  They attack with shocking speed and irritating irregularlity.  The innocent victim may be fast asleep, cozied up under the covers when an HF assaults her.  Nothing will do but that she toss the blanket off.  The next moment, she's freezing, so she grabs that same blanket, that only a second earlier was offending her, and pulls it back over her.

And so it goes for the rest of the night.  Blanket on; blanket off.

Don't even get me started on what this does to her sleeping partner.

Gem for the day:  stick one foot outside the blanket.  You'd be surprised at how much this regulates things.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Day 195, December 4

There was a lot of heavy breathing, gasping, and panting going on in our bedroom the other day.

"It's too big," I said.

"Just lift it a bit more.

 A bit more?  I was already straining with every fiber of my being.  Could I be having a heart attack?  Or maybe it was a stroke.  Hadn't I heard that menopausal women were subject to heart attacks and strokes when under stress?

No.  It's not what you think.  The Wretch and I were rotating the mattress.  This mattress requires three strong men and a boy to lift,  but The Wretch decided that together, he and I, were up to it.

Not so.

We finally succeeded in turning the mattress, then collapsed upon it.  "I'm glad that's done," I panted out. 

"We could do something more on it," The Wretch suggested, a leer in his eye.

"Get real."

Gem for the day:  rotating a mattrress is all I'm good for in any given day.



Monday, December 3, 2012

Day 194, December 3

By the time a woman has reached menopause, she is on intimate terms with the word "out."  She is stretched out, stressed out, and strung out.

Let's examine these "outs" individually and perhaps shed light upon them:

Stretched out:  nurse a few children for years at a time and your girls start to look like a worn-out pair of socks.  They've lost their elasticity, their shape, their will to live.  Depending upon the size of the girls, they may resemble anklets or tube socks. 

Stressed out:  anyone ever hear of stress incontinence?  I don't want to get too up-close-and-personal with this one, but suffice it to say that put several pregnancies under your belt (and in your uterus) and you have a stressed out bladder.  It's not just the bladder but all those tiny muscles surrounding it.  Need I say more?

Strung out:  all I can say here is that if a menopausal woman isn't on drugs, she should be.  Big time.

Gem for the day: even if you're stretched, stressed, and strung out, celebrate that you're alive and still kicking.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Day 193, December 2

A line from an old televsion show goes, "I'm not one to go through life with the back of my dress tucked inside my panty hose."

I used to be that person.  Now I'm more likely than not to have the back of my dress tucked inside my panty hose.  Or a stream of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of my shoe.  Or something green in my teeth.  Or a a wad of spit gathering at the corners of my mouth.

What can I say?  I'm losing it, big time. 

The good news is that I have friends who will let me know if I have a wardrobe malfunction, a toilet paper problem, green gunk, or spittle hanging from me.  Women, especially menopausal women, need friends like that.

Gem for the day:  if you have a friend who will pull your dress out of your panty hose, you have a winner.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Day 192, December 1

With age comes wisdom.  Or so they say (whoever that mysterious 'they' is).  With silver hair and wrinkles come dignity.  Give me a break.  The only digity in silver hair and wrinkles belongs to the purveyors of hair color and face cream. 

So what does come with age?  Sore muscles and swollen joints.  Hairs growing in places you never thought to find them.  (Really.  Who knew that I'd sport a two foot hair growing from my chin.)  Cellulite that resembles the craters on the moon.  Two stomachs.  Sagging breasts.  Ears that have developed a tendency to start a second growth spurt.

Is there anything good about menopause?

I've found a few things: 

-  if you've lasted this long, you know you're a keeper
-  if your friends have stayed with you throughout the menopause journey, they're keepers as well
-  if your husband or significant other has not murdered you during a sleepless night complete with hot flashes, he's probably all right    (even if he is a wretch)

Gem for the day: count your blessings.  If they outnumber your hot flashes, you're on the right track.