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10 Lessons Learned in Switzerland

1)  Buy a first-class rail pass. That was Handy's idea. I would've gone for the cheap seats, but as we quickly learned, the first-class cars were much more comfortable, cleaner, less crowded, and had panoramic windows to better view the countryside, which was the whole point. And we got great photos from inside the train..like these!

2) If you don't read German, you're pretty much screwed. The translator app on your American iphone is useful only in America. Although "Toi Toi" is self-explanatory!


3)  The transportation system in Europe is FAR superior to anything I have experienced in the U.S. However, it's best to figure out and agree on a schedule before boarding a train. There isn't much time to make a decision, as the trains stop at the station for just a couple minutes and then off they go. In Bern, I had learned enough German vocabulary to figure that the train we wanted was delayed, but we were at the right gate, so when the whistle blew Handy hopped on the train, pulling me in after him. The door clipped me on the heel...that's how close I came to plunging to my death under the wheels of the wrong stinkin' train!

4)  If you get on the wrong train, don't panic. There's always another train to where you really want to go.

5)  Life without a constant barrage of advertising is blissful. No billboards, no neon signs, no McDonald's, no Walmart. Love.


6)  You don't have to pay $2 for a clean bathroom. All the bathrooms in Switzerland are clean. In fact, everything in Switzerland is clean. We saw a park employee scrubbing an ashtray in a bucket of soapy water; an ashtray that in the U.S. would never be cleaned...ever.


7)  Speaking of ashtrays, everyone smokes. Everywhere.

8)  If you're the kind of person who wouldn't be caught dead in a pair of sturdy, "sensible" shoes, you need to rethink that position. Even cute flats don't cut it. Take your hiking boots.








9)  The Swiss are reserved, much like Yoopers. But if you make the effort of communicate, you will find them to be charming and fascinating. Even the children, who speak several languages.






10) Don't approach a police officer with a machine gun. Just trust me on this one.

Too Much Information!

Sitting in the waiting room at the chiropractor's office this morning, a man about my age sits down next to me and says, "You ever have the shingles?" My first thought was the $20,000 we spent last year to have a new roof put on our house, but while I was dismissing that thought, the guy pulls up his shirt, and pointing to the far side of his ample belly, says, "See? Right here. Shingles!" I practically had to sit on his lap to see what he was pointing at, but sure enough, he had a nasty rash going on.

I should mention that I am currently in South Carolina where everyone talks to everyone about everything, unlike what I'm accustomed to in the U.P., where no one talks to anyone about anything. So a stranger insisting that you check out his hairy, rashy belly would not be weird if you were from here, but I'm not, so I was startled if not downright freaked out.

"I have a mild case," the guy says, "but sometimes I get an outbreak that likes to put me down for a good while." OK, so he's going to keep talking. I asked him if the chiropractor is treating him for shingles. No, he's just there waiting for his wife. I hope she hurries.

After he told me all about his shingles, he moved on to infections he's had from swamp water, different snakes he's killed, every fish he ever caught, and why he hates paying taxes. Then one of my little granddaughters showed me her My Little Pony and while I was inwardly thanking her for interrupting shingles guy, he launches into a whole dissertation on the many horses he has "broke" in his day.

Finally his wife comes out and he gets up to leave.  But first he stops at the front desk and asks, the receptionist, "You ever have the shingles?"

On Being an Ant

Today's blog entry is brought to you by Princess 2, who is in the 1st grade and wrote this Pulitzer Prize winner for school.

65 Is My Age, Not the Speed Limit!

I learned how to drive when I was 14, so you'd think by now I'd have the hang of it. But my driving skills have not developed in any significant way over the years. In fact, I've gone from pretty bad to "Jesus! You almost hit that guy!" I recently drove from Gulf Shores, AL to Collinsville, MS with my daughter and 3 of her children in the car....at night.  I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that my oldest grandson said, "I don't know what happened, but every time I woke up we were about to die." I will say that I didn't see any deer at all, so when my daughter said that I nearly plowed over about five of them, I believe she may have exaggerated.  There were plenty of other near misses, but it's a 3 hour trip, so stuff is bound to happen. When it was over, I wrote myself a note to avoid driving at night. That should fix everything.

But how in the heck did I manage to do this?

It happened while backing out of my own darn garage! Which I've done thousands of times!!  I was pretty mad at myself that day. Of course, it was largely Handy's fault, as many things are around here. He put the snow blower in the garage a little right of center, so when I pulled in I had to inch over a little bit. Then pulling out, I forgot I had inched over and WHAM!!  $400 in less than a second.

The Right Tool for the Job

This was my first toolkit. I bought it a couple years ago so I could do little things around the house, like hang pictures and tighten loose door pulls.

And look at the cute case!

My husband, aka "Handy" called it my "nail kit," as in manicure.  In retirement, the more time I have on my hands, the more I want to do things I don't know how to do. When that happens, I either figure it out or break something. But without a doubt, the most aggravating part of tackling a "home improvement" project is finding the right tools.

There's a balcony off our master bedroom, a nice little spot to sit in the sun on the rare occasion that we actually see the sun up here on Lake Superior. We used to have a bird feeder out there, which Handy had mounted on top of this post.

I have no idea why he thought he needed a log 15" around to secure a bird feeder, but there it was, sticking six feet in the air for no apparent reason. I decided to remove it, thinking all I needed was a screw driver. Upon closer inspection, as you can see from the photo below, a screwdriver wasn't going to help. I had no idea what the hell would remove whatever that thing is, and there were two of them holding the post to the balcony.  I took this photo and went down to our local True Value Hardware store, where I said I needed a tool to remove two of these things. "Oh!" the guy said. "You need a torque bit." Of course...why didn't I think of that!

 He walks me to an entire aisle of these things:

 

There were hundreds, maybe thousands of them. And he says, "What size do you need?" as if I would know. He says why don't I bring one of those bolts down and he can get me the right size. And I'm thinking if I could get one of the goddam bolts out of the post to bring it down, I wouldn't be here! I kindly informed him that the only two bolts I had were tightly screwed into the post I was trying to remove.  "Hmmm..." he says, "Well, we have these key sets to determine the size."

I had never seen anything like it. They were definitely not keys. Folded up it looked more like a Swiss army knife, but after staring at it for about a half hour I said, "OK, but after I figure out the size I need, how do I get it in the drill?" Seriously. I asked him that.  I'm sure he was thinking, lady, just leave the post alone. But he was patient and explained. The key set was $18. I bought it, went back home, figured out the size bit I needed, went back to the hardware store, and purchased the correct bit for $2.27.

In the end, it took me all of about 30 seconds to remove the post. But I spent 20 bucks and an entire morning finding the right tool.

Words, Words, Words

I used to teach Hamlet to my AP English classes. I liked to consider myself a wizard of words and emphasized to my students how inadequate popular American lingo is.

I guess when you live long enough, everything is a cliche. Even saying that is a cliche! But since it's been bugging me, here are some words and phrases that I am SICK of hearing:

Starting a sentence with, "SO...." or "Look...."

VENUE.  Nothing happens at  place or a location anymore.  It's always at a venue.

Wrapping one's brain or head around an idea.  The first time I heard that one, I thought it was sort of clever, but hearing it several times a day is just stupid, especially when someone gets it wrong and says they can't wrap their arms around it.

SURREAL seems to be the only word people can think of these days to describe something unusual, fantastic, unbelievable, awesome, dreamlike, or weird.

People saying they are "blessed" when something good happens.  Blessings come from God.  If your house survived a tornado, but your neighbor's house did not, why would you think you were "blessed" and your neighbor was not?  You were lucky, or maybe your house was better built, but thinking you were "blessed" is the height of arrogance.

IMPACTFUL.  This makes me cringe!  I noticed about 5 or 6 years ago that people were using the word "impact" as a verb, as in "The snow will impact the whole city."   Over time, it has actually become a verb.  I can live with that, but "The storm had many impacts on people," "The storm impacted many people," or "The storm was extremely impactful?"......Unacceptable!

ON THE GROUND.  It was probably CNN that started "boots on the ground" to signify soldiers in combat, but now everyone says it for everything, like the local weather guy saying, "I'm here on the ground in upper Michigan where it is snowing heavily." I guess it's better to be on the ground than up in the air, especially when it's snowing.

The other night Handy asked me, "which is correct, disburse or disperse?" What I saw in my head was "Disburse" (as in the disbursement of funds) and "Dis purse" (as in this handbag)...and you'd only get that if you live in "da U.P." So I said, "Dis purse isn't even a word." Imagine my chagrin as he checked the dictionary to prove me wrong. I'm hardly ever wrong about words, but, like Hamlet, some of them drive me nuts.

Shit Happens

One of Handy’s business colleagues gave him a bag of exotic coffee from her recent trip to Vietnam.  It’s called Con Soc and has a picture of a squirrel eating beans on the bag.  According to Handy, who looked into what makes this coffee so unique, the coffee beans are hand-picked and sorted by specially trained Vietnamese workers.  Then the best beans are fed to squirrels.  After the beans go through the squirrel’s digestive system, they are again sorted by the workers, and the best ones are ground into this coffee, which is supposed to be, like, the best in the world.  So while he’s telling me all this, I can hardly keep from gagging while he’s slurping squirrel poop.

You would have to know how many times he’s gotten on my case about washing fresh fruits and vegetables because “the last person to touch that lettuce probably picked his nose first” to understand why I’m delighted to have squirrel shit to fall back on.

The Fancy Perspective

It seems like my first grandchild (aka “Fancy”) was born about five minutes ago, but, in fact, she turned 18 this year.  Unbelievable!  One day not too long ago, we were talking about armpit hair.  OK, that seems like a strange topic of discussion, but Fancy has opinions on everything.  Remember, she’s 18!  Anyway, she noticed that my pits needed a shave, and I said I’d try to do a better job of it, but that it’s harder to do as you get older.  She said, oh, that’s probably because when you get old, you’ve got a lot of hanging skin to deal with.  I said, well, smartass, that’s true, but it’s mostly because you can’t actually see what you’re doing.  In my case, I can’t even turn my head far enough to look, never mind see if there’s any hair under there!  And Fancy, in her sarcastic 18 year old way, said, “Well, I guess that’s just one more thing I have to look forward to.”  

Actually, I’ve taught her a lot of stuff about what to expect as she gets older.  I hope she’s been taking notes.  When she was about 10  or 11, we were spending a lazy, hot, Mississippi summer day floating in the pool, when she said, “Let’s talk about puberty.”  OK, I said, and I gave her the whole talk about how the body changes and what menstruation is all about, even though I was pretty sure she had heard it all before from her mother, my daughter, who probably understood the whole process by the time she was five.  I asked Fancy if she had any questions.  She said, “No, I got it.  But I’m not going through all that mess.  I just want to pop out some boobs and get on with my life.”  If only!

These memories came to me this morning in the shower when I realized that I had been “shaving” with the plastic thingy still on the razor!  I guess it's time for me to start taking notes on the things I learn from Fancy!

Road Rage

I don't need to be driving to experience road rage.  Today I got it just walking.  In the mile or so stretch of Mississippi country road I walked today, I saw empty soda cans, cigarette packs, candy wrappers, chip bags, milk jugs, all kinds of unidentifiable styrofoam, plastic, and metal, a bungee cord, the top of a cooler, an empty deer feed bag, some pvc pipe, countless beer bottles, baby food jars, and, strangely, a TV antenna stuck in the ground next to a plastic chair and an old iron stove.

If you're the guy who throws beer bottles out your window, I guess that makes sense.  You're drinking and driving, and when you get pulled over, there won't be any evidence in your car and, of course, the police officer will never notice that you're acting like a total dick-wad.

If the plastic littering my walking route can be recycled for plastic surgery, there's enough of it for every woman in Kemper County to get a boob job.  That stuff does not break down, people!  It will still be on the side of the road next month, next week, next year, and probably 100 years from now.  Granted, it's all junk.  The morons who throw crap out their car window didn't want it and will never want it.  I'm pretty sure no one will be collecting styrofoam Sonic cups for their sentimental value anytime soon.

I'm particularly peeved at the baby food jars.  Might as well teach them young how to properly dispose of garbage.  "Look, son, you just throw it out the car window.  Isn't that clever?"

As for the TV antenna, chair, and stove.  I suppose that could be somebody's deer blind.  That would also explain the deer feed bag.  After all, this IS Mississippi.

Driving Miss Crazy

It's been slowly dawning on me that I am becoming the person on the road that I used to hate when I was working and always in a hurry.  Those other drivers that are wildly waving their arms at me are not being friendly, no sir, they are evidently signaling for me to get the hell out of the way.  Ah yes, I remember doing that to people.

I feel bad now for the old lady who waited in a cold and snowy parking lot for me to come out of Econo Foods one day because the front end of my car was too close to the back end of hers, and she couldn't open her trunk to load up the groceries.  Being in a hurry at the time, I said, "Well, geez, didn't you think about getting in your car and pulling up a little?!" and I drove off in a huff.

The other day as I was meandering around the back roads of South Carolina with nothing but time on my hands, I came to an intersection and, of course, stopped for the red light.  It seemed like a very long red light and the line of cars behind me was so long I couldn't see the end of it.  It crossed my mind that the light could be malfunctioning, but I wanted to make a left turn and there was no possible way to see if there was anything coming from the right.  So I settled in and waited…and waited.  There were a few people honking behind me, but I'm thinking, look, you can honk all day, but the light is red and I'm waiting.  I checked my email, found a better radio station, filed my nails….and still the light was red.  I cleaned out my purse, dusted off the dash and polished the mirrors….still red.  By then the guy behind me was having a coronary trying to make his horn louder by pounding on it, but I thought, you can blow that horn up your ass….THE LIGHT IS RED!!!!!!!!  As I was watching a video on YouTube, I hear a knock on my window and see a red-faced man yelling something at me.  I slowly roll down the window…."What?" I said.  "You need to pull up to the sensor.  There's a goddam sensor!!!"

Oh….a sensor.  I pulled up.  Sure enough….a sensor.  Never heard of such a thing.  Well, the rest of the world is just going to have to chill.  I've got all the time in the world.

Please Don't "Leave" Me

I have a huge yard....HUGE...and it's a hill...a steep hill.  I used to more or less ignore my beautiful yard,  there not being nearly enough hours in a day to tend it properly.  But now that I'm retired, I have tackled all kinds of things I didn't used to do, and one of those things is yard work.  At about the time I got everything cleaned up last spring, the dandelions came in, and about the time I had a good start on the dandelion problem, it was autumn and the leaves started falling off the trees.  As you can see by the photo, we do not have a shortage of trees or leaves.  But I have a pretty good rake, so I went for it.  About the time I would get one section raked up, there'd be another tree shedding and I'd have to start all over again.  So my handy hubby bought a leaf blower and spent one whole Saturday out there blowing leaves around.  The yard looked pretty good that Saturday, but by Sunday more leaves had fallen, along with a dusting of snow.  After almost a week of wind and rain and a little snow, the sun came out today and, of course, the yard is again about a foot deep in leaves.  So I had me one of my brilliant ideas.  I got out the leaf blower about a half hour before Handy was due home from work.  I figured he'd freak out if he saw me using his newest gas-powered toy.  He'd be thinking, what the hell is she doing?  She's gonna break that thing!  And he'd take it away from me and finish the job.  I heard his truck coming down the road and thought thank god he's home...my arms are getting tired.  He drove slowly up the driveway, surveying what I had done so far, gave me a big smile and a thumbs up and went in the house!  Oh, he's just going in to change his clothes, I thought.  He came back out appropriately dressed for yard work and said, "I see you have this under control so I'm going to check my bait pile."  And off he went.  My plan backfired.  I blew leaves until dark.  I'm still vibrating, and I'm sure the neighbors hate me.

MOP YOUR WAY TO FREEDOM?!

I was in Shopko on the first Wednesday of August, and I mention this because I only just recently learned that the first Wednesday of every month is Senior Citizen Discount Day.  Since I don't consider myself a Senior Citizen, I didn't think their ads announcing the Wednesday thing applied to me.  But it turns out that, according to Shopko, I've been a Senior Citizen for 7 years!  So it kind of irks me to think of all the money I squandered shopping on Tuesdays and Thursdays, not to mention Saturdays, for pete's sake! 

I also discovered that Econo Foods offers a senior discount every Wednesday.  This I learned when the check-out girl, who couldn't have been older than 12, said, "Do you qualify for the senior discount?"  I said I probably did since I did at Shopko, and I told her my age.  "Wow, I didn't think you were THAT old!" she said, as she applied an apple sticker to my More card so I won't have to announce my age every time I buy groceries.

That's how the first Wednesday of the month became my shopping day. 

So, as I said, I was in Shopko on Wednesday and something called a "Freedom Mop" caught my eye.  Logic would preclude putting the words "freedom" and "mop" in the same sentence, so I was intrigued.  Here's what it said:

"Freedom from disposable pads!"  Right away I knew this was a brainchild of a brainless man.  For women, "pads," and particularly "disposable pads," means something altogether unrelated to mopping.

"Free to choose your cleaning solution!"  I guess so, but I fail to see how this mop would offer more freedom to choose my cleaning solution than would any other mop.

"Freedom from batteries!"  Well, thank god, because I hate having to replace the batteries in all my other mops.

I may be old, but I know what freedom feels like, and mopping won't get you there.

SO, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE?

I've been retired from my life in public schools for almost a year now. One night at dinner, Handy asked me the above question, and I thought, What?!  You mean I have to DO something?!!  Of course, he has no idea what I do all day and naturally thinks I sit on my butt watching TV 24/7.  I'm not afraid to admit that I asked myself that question for the first 15 minutes of my retirement.  And then I just started doing exactly what I felt like doing....all the time!  I feel pretty good about what I've accomplished during this first year of retirement.  I spent loads of time with my kids and grandkids, which is always number one on my list. I cleaned and organized my entire house.  I found things I've been looking for for 15 years and things I didn't even know I had.  I hauled everything out of the attic and went through it box by box, pitching everything we don't need.  I worked on the yard!  I pulled weeds!  I watered plants!  I lunched with friends instead of 500 kids!  I shopped in the middle of the day!  I slept in!  I cooked!  It's been a grand and glorious year. 

The answer to Handy's question?  "Whatever I want!"

Now excuse me while I go watch me some TV.

What's in YOUR Fridge?

After spending six weeks hanging with the kids and grandkids down south, I was happy to come home to Handy for awhile. Long periods of time away from each other has kept our marriage strong. I was pleasantly surprised to find that he had kept the house sort of clean (if you don't count the foot-high pile of junk mail on the kitchen table), but when I took inventory for a grocery list, the thing in this picture is what was in the fridge. There was also the same carton of o.j. that was there when I left (remember, we're talking six weeks here!), a package of green bacon, and a shelf full of N/A beer. This is a guy who not only knows HOW to cook, but is really good at it. In fact, also in the fridge was a tasty looking casserole of chicken and rice, but when I learned he had made it over a week earlier, that, too, went in the trash.  In retrospect, I have to give him kudos for making me feel like it was a good thing I came home.  How ironic that a dead spud in the fridge can make a wife feel wanted.

Through Their Eyes

There's nothing as humbling or as gratifying as seeing yourself through the eyes of a child. The above drawing was done by four-year old granddaughter, Princess 2. (She has two sisters, Princess 1 and Princess 3.)  She got the hair exactly right...and the freckles...I have lots of those.  It's brilliant that she drew me with a brown crayon. I almost always wear brown or black.  I wondered about the unibrow since I barely have eyebrows at all, but she has seen me draw them on in the morning, so I guess she was making sure they stood out.  While she was drawing this, she asked me if yellow and brown make green and now I know why she asked. She gave me brown eyes and tried to change them to green, but adding yellow didn't work so she quit after one.  I love that she gave me a great big smile.  I asked her why she didn't give me arms and she said because my heart was too big.  The smaller heart, she said, is hers.  This will be on my fridge for a long time.

It's Just an Empty Container, But Still....

 

Four of my seven grandchildren live in what I would call the Deep South....the really, really Deep South. Visiting them is always an adventure. Like now, for instance. I'm sitting on the back deck with my ipad while the children play in the woods behind their house. Freckles is on the four-wheeler, zooming around and around and around the yard while Fancy hollers at her to come and help with the construction of a "fort" in the woods. A verbal war ensues.

"La,la,la,la....I can't hear you!"

"You can't ever, ever, ever play in here because you didn't help!"

"So what? I don't want to play in there anyway!"

"Shut up, Freckles!"

"YOU shut up!"

Wise Guy, the official ADHD member of the family, has been working on the building project for about an hour now. That's gotta be a record. Oops, spoke too soon. He is now flinging acorns at Freckles every time she zooms by, tearing up the yard and coming dangerously close to tipping over at each turn, not to mention that she's doing her best to run over Bigfoot and make it look like justifiable homicide by provoking him to throw sticks at her.

Bigfoot just ran in the house to show his mother where the stuff is to get started on his English class project, which is due tomorrow and which he has known about for two weeks. I guess he got her squared away, because he's running back to the woods to work on the fort. Freckles was just ordered to get off the four-wheeler for reckless driving and she went stomping into the house. Fancy, the oldest child of the clan, is uncharacteristically focused on the construction of the fort, probably more to avoid studying for the geometry test she has tomorrow than to spend quality time cooperating with her brothers. Wise Guy, aka, self-proclaimed 'Defender of Evil' announces that he has to poop and goes inside, stopping on the way to show me where he got a giant splinter in his hand.

Earlier today, this blended family of crazy kids was getting along just fine playing Guitar Hero; and by getting along, I mean they were laughing at each other's farts without rolling on the floor gagging and making throw up noises, and singing the "One Pound Fish" song in unison until their mother is ready to strangle them all.

There is something oddly appropriate about the whole 'grenade as part of the decor' in this household.

Where Not To Retire

I can't say that I understand the allure of Arizona to so many retirees. It's a great place to go to get out of the cold, but how people can actually live there is beyond me. Anyway, I just returned from a week of basking in the relentless Arizona sun where I definitely did NOT purchase the above property. And guess what's still sitting on the back of the downstairs toilet? The replacement parts I bought several weeks ago...still in their packages, waiting for "someone" to install them. To be fair, it IS bow season in Michigan. That means Handy spends his weekends precariously perched in a tree somewhere, waiting for a deer to help himself to the feast of apples and corn piled nearby. The way this works is, many weeks before it's legal to shoot a deer, the baiting begins. That gets the deer accustomed to visiting the bait pile on a regular basis, unaware that they're being set up. Although, you'd think after awhile they'd get the hint that if it's not a corn field, don't eat the corn! Also during this time, Handy washes all his hunting clothes in a detergent that smells like dirt and sprays them with a cologne that smells like deer pee. Go figure. At that point, I try to get as far away from here as possible until it's safe to come back. If I do happen to come home for a few days (like now), I'm not allowed to touch anything related to hunting for fear of getting something that smells nice all over it. For example, if I applied hand lotion after showering and happened to retrieve a pair of dirt-washed socks from the floor, I would contaminate them and Handy would have to start over with the laundry routine. The horror. For a long time, I used to believe that hunters walked out into the woods, shot a deer, dragged it to the camp, and day was done. But I have since discovered that a large part of the deer hunting ritual is that you have to get up in your tree early in the morning and hold still, barely breathing, for many hours and then MAYBE a deer will accept your invitation to dinner so you can shoot it upon its arrival, which, come to think of it, hardly seems fair.
So back to the issue of the downstairs toilet. Since it is highly unlikely that hubby is going to even think about fixing it while he's so intently focused on being quiet in that tree, I thought I might just go ahead and do it myself. I mean, right on the box it says, "Install with confidence! Installs in 15 minutes!"  So I get out the instructions, and I swear to god, here they are:  "1. Adjust Height.  2. Install.  3. Connect."  Huh?!  Adjust height of what? First of all, how do you get the water out of the tank? Isn't that a prerequisite?
I guess the toilet will have to wait. I'm off to see my grandkids. They would never have the patience to sit in a tree for more than five minutes.

Branching Out

  An acquaintance told me I needed to be careful not to "isolate" during retirement. Another said I should never turn down an opportunity to do something different. Still, when I was invited to spend a weekend with a group of women I hadn't seen or spoken to since about the 4th grade, my first impulse was to politely decline. I had a bunch of nifty excuses, such as it was too far to drive, the weather was turning bad, I wasn't sure I would recognize any of them, but truthfully, I'm just not good at socializing. I don't like parties or making small talk. So I'm not sure why I took the plunge, but it was so worth it! There was sand dune climbing, a little shopping, a couple good restaurants, and even a parade complete with a clown band, but the best part was just being in the company of women whose friendships were forged in the formative years. It was akin to putting on your most comfy sweatshirt and fuzzy slippers and sitting by the fire with nothing to worry about. It's easy for me to say no. This experience has taught me to say yes. It WAS too far to drive and the weather was pretty bad. But recognition of childhood friends was not an issue, and my cheeks still hurt from laughing. 

What Not To Wear

I live in a climate where socks and sandals make sense. In fact, much of what people wear in my town makes sense....just not fashion sense. I totally understand why a person would go out in public looking like she just rolled out of bed and threw on the rattiest jacket in the closet, but I don't want to be one of those people. One of my school pet peeves was teachers who wore blue jeans and sneakers to class. I always thought their message to students was, "My number one concern is to be comfortable, and to hell with trying to be a good role model."  It really bugged me that teachers who themselves didn't know how to dress appropriately were the first to demand that I do something about what students wore to school. For the most part, students are given a free pass in the fashion department. They are experimenting, trying to find what works and what doesn't, and they have the added pressure of living in fear of being ridiculed by their peers while not getting in trouble with the adults in their lives. But I did have more than a few discussions with girls in my office about why they shouldn't expose various body parts in the classroom. Girls at school often told me that they thought I looked nice or they liked my shoes, etc. One time, while I was giving a girl a ride home to change, she said, "You always look so well put together. I hope I look that good when I get old." (OK, the word "old" bothered me, but when you're 16, everyone over 20 is old.)

So now that I'm retired, I have to think about what to put on in the morning. I have a closet full of pencil skirts and heels which aren't really called for when cleaning the bathroom or raking the yard. But if I'm in the middle of an art project and run out of Mod Podge, I want to be presentable enough to run to Walmart without ending up on someone's Facebook page wearing flourescent orange sweat pants and a hockey jersey.  I need to build a casual wardrobe that says I might be retired, but I'm not a slob. I still care about how I look, but I really don't know what to wear. It's like I'm back in high school experimenting and hoping people aren't laughing at me behind my back. Yesterday, I was reorganizing my pantry and ran out of shelf paper, so the dreaded Walmart run in a bad outfit became a reality. I did change out of the blue jeans that are a little too short (need to get rid of those) in favor of a pair that fit, but I had on a pull-over sweatshirt and a pair of old navy blue Keds. This is not a good look for a woman my age. I felt self-conscious. While I was worrying about it, I saw a woman my age walking across the parking lot. She had on floral pajama bottoms that hit her about mid calf, a long baggy t-shirt under a dirty brown quilted jacket and bright turquoise moon boots. The thing is, where I live, the only person who will be laughing at me and my blue Keds will be me.