Day 205, July 7

Once again, the Menopause Monocler took some days (as in 6 months) off.  But she's back.  And does she have some observations for you.

The other day I was channel surfing and came upon a talk show where the topic was turning back the hands on time on our faces.  (That's going to be a whole lot of turning in my case.)  The big news was using sheep placenta to restore youthful glow and firmness.

Really?  Sheep placenta?

The host did not say where we would get such placenta, and I had visions of my wrestling some more unsuspecting pregnant sheep to the ground, (gently) inducing labor, and then making away with her placenta.  After all, what was she going to do with it?  Bury it in the ground and plant a tree over it?

That begs the question, what do I do with said placenta?  I assume that I would slap it on my face, wait for it to do its magic, then scrub my face until it was raw to get all that blood and guck off.  Seems like that would defeat the whole purpose of restoring oils and nutrients to my prune like skin.

Gem for the day:  if someone suggests you use sheep placenta on your face, ask them who's going to go get it.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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!

 

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.