Going, Going, Gray
Filed Under All Posts, Beauty, Carine Fabius, Humor | 7 Comments
God hates me. How else can I explain this going gray business? It’s happening all over my body. My pubic hair is going gray. I’m noticing stray grays in my eyebrows. I swear, my skin is going gray, too. Isn’t gray the color of rats? I am particularly not fond of rats, and He is turning me into one—I’m sure I noticed a whisker the other day. Guess what color it was? I’m telling you, God has it in for me. Recently I looked up at the sky, and it was slate gray, for Pete’s sake! I’m taking it personally. On an otherwise fresh Tuesday morning not long ago, I noticed these headlines on the front page of the Los Angeles Times Business section: Read more
The Other Sandwich Generation
Filed Under All Posts, Beauty, Prudence Baird, Relationships | 8 Comments
Adult children with the responsibility for care of both their own children and their elderly parents. (Definition of “sandwich generation” from Webster’s Dictionary)
Forget that stuff about diapering babies and elderly parents at the same time. Been there. Done that. Glad it’s over.
This blog is about the other sandwich generation years—when a giant, day-glo CLOSED sign hangs on one’s baby-making machinery. The years when a woman’s value is not measured by her potential to make babies, but instead by her potential to make sandwiches—lots of them.
Let me be the first to say that I never thought it would come to this. Read more
Nip and Tuck, What the…
Filed Under All Posts, Beauty, Connie Stetson | 6 Comments
Nip and Tuck, What the… (insert rhyming word here)??
In an effort to be open, I’ve conducted an unofficial survey amongst others of my kind: middle-income, middle-aged Boomers, both men and women, on the subject of discretionary cosmetic surgery. Interestingly, I seem to hold a minority opinion (I’m agin’ it), and the subject is fraught. If I come out and say how I really feel, I risk being accused of being judgmental. If I don’t say how I REALLY feel; well…then I’m just mental. Read more
Age Envy
Filed Under All Posts, Beauty, Carine Fabius, Politics | 3 Comments
Growing old gracefully just got easier for me. It happened as I was reading an opinion piece by Meghan Daum in the Los Angeles Times, in which she reflected on “society’s shallow preoccupation with physical appearance.” Like a lightning bolt, it hit me that as aging women are advised ad nauseam on how to bring back their youthful glow, the youthful glow set is acting like a bunch of middle-aged women dealing with the reality of their reflections in the morning mirror. They want to be us! Pardon me, but aren’t lines, wrinkles and sagging skin the purview of women in their fifties? Not anymore! Now women in their twenties and early thirties are running, not walking, to the swamped Botox Store to get rid of frown lines they should keep—for frowning at important things like idiotic boyfriends, vexing career moves, 650,000 civilian lives lost in Iraq and whether to spring for that sixth pair of jeans or not. As you know, once you get Botoxed and the lines disappear, so does the ability to frown. Read more
My Mother, My Shelf—Thoughts on My Boobs
Filed Under All Posts, Beauty, Connie Stetson, Family, Humor | 8 Comments
“Giant boobies, on my chest.
One points east, the other points west.”
(Sung to the tune of Don Ho’s “Tiny Bubbles”… and if you’re around my age, you know who he was.)
Sadly, the words to this little titty ditty are prophetic.
I have large breasts. Not a complaint, mind you. I have always enjoyed a very good relationship with my bodacious tata’s. They are quite nice and symmetrical; my husband describes them as soft, comfy and compelling. Everyone seems to enjoy a hug from me. Sweaters have followed me home, and, yes, men have bypassed eye contact with me all together to carry on deep conversations with them. They’ve been called fabulous. My sister says that no one has enjoyed my breasts more than I have. My sister’s breasts are those charming “champagne glass” types. (Though, they say to never drink champagne from those little bowls, flutes are better. Frankly, I’d drink champagne from a jock strap. I love the stuff). Read more
NPR Causes Wrinkles. It’s True.
Filed Under All Posts, Beauty, Humor, Parenting, Prudence Baird | 3 Comments
Botox causes brain damage. Cell phones cause brain cancer. Teenage children cause brain implosion. Okay, that last one is NOT true—but they do make you feel like your head is going to explode.
Especially when you are trying to hear on NPR a report about the link between brain damage and Botox that was just discovered by an Italian research team and your teenage son is talking about — what? I very exaggeratedly turn UP the volume on the radio and shake my head at him.
These actions are apparently universal American body language code for “Please speak louder,” because he leans into my face and says — what? Read more
