I used to love making my Halloween costumes when I was teaching but this year I had no thought of even doing a costume for myself. Then a friend invited me to a Halloween gathering at my Dad’s old apartment. Oops, I had already lent out my box of potential costume parts, thinking I wasn’t going to need them. What the heck was I going to do? There was no time to fantasize about what persona I wanted to adopt. I jumped at the offer of a neon green wig while visiting a friend. I put it on, looked in the mirror, and saw Katy Perry.
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![]() I bought an older style table on craigslist and also some fancy modern chairs. Now that I have forked out the bucks and they are sitting in my living/dining room I wonder if this look is really me? It changes the look of my home dramatically which is what I wanted. I was sick of the pseudo hippy oak table and chairs that I bought in the 70’s. It was more “little old lady with cats” and less little old lady with taste. Now I have a more elegant mahogany Duncan Phyfe dining table and modern black chairs. Even though I cobbled this dining arrangement together on the cheap, it is much more stylsih than the old table and chairs. I want my home to be the me I am now, not the me I was in 1979, but I think I’m having a hard time deciding who the new me is. ![]() When I saw the chairs on craigslist my heart gave a little pitter patter. They had beautiful curves and a simple design. I had been looking at chairs on line and the ones I was thinking about getting were more like kitchen chairs, painted a light soft green. These chairs were black and sexy, and much more formal. Although I do wear black occasionally, I’m not exactly formal or sexy. I like to be casual and comfortable. I want my home to feel warm and welcoming. Does this table say come on in and sit a spell? Will I want to sit here and eat my bowl of yogurt in the morning, or will I just walk by it admiring how fancy it looks? Can I live with it, not just stare at it? It does make me want to invite people over which is something I have let slide in the years I was caring for my Dad. I do want to do that again. I like the fact that the table can expand and that I now have enough chairs for ten people. I have invited some friends for Thanksgiving. I can imagine everyone sitting around this table. I see myself breaking bread with people I care about and entertaining in a way I haven’t done for a while. I think that is the best part of this dining furniture. In that sense it doesn’t matter how formal or informal it is if it makes me feel like having friends gather ‘round. Maybe I’ll even feel like treating just myself with an elegant dinner sometimes. I can hear the table telling me it's OK to experiment with a new image of myself and my home. Like the commercial for hair coloring says, “I’m worth it.”
Doing the play as reader’s theater was an inspired decision. I loved the way it made the performance work for senior actors. They were seated at tables with their scripts in front of them dressed in costumes so the characters came to life even though the play wasn’t staged with scenery and movement. They didn’t have to memorize lines or work out staging but they were able to capture the essence of the play. They used a narrator and sound effects to set the scene in somewhat the same way as an old time radio play.
One of the best moments of the play was when the person playing the Marilyn Monroe part broke character for just a second when she and the cowboy character who was in love with her were supposed to kiss. You could tell they weren’t quite sure if they were going to actually act out the kiss when she turned to the cowboy and said “Should we do it?” He reached over and gave her a sweet peck on the lips. It fit the moment and the play perfectly. Being in the audience watching the live actors fed my soul in a way no TV show could ever do. For me it was a true Hollywood moment. ![]() The sound of acorns falling from the tree that overhangs my kitchen makes me think I am under attack. An army of squirrels have been patrolling the neighborhood. They have discovered the acorn stockpile that has been collecting on the flat kitchen roof and now they are moving in to gather the spoils. I can hear their feet skitter around overhead. They have been sending out scouts who use the window still of the picture window in my living room as a runway across the front of my house. I don’t think they can see me sitting in my recliner enjoying the show. Sometimes I just catch a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. They are fast little devils. At other times they skitter in short bursts pausing several times to peer inside. I’ve tried to take a picture of one of their little puffy faces as they grab a quick peek, but as soon as they catch a glimpse of any movement they disappear. I know squirrels are basically rats with fuzzy tails but the look works for me. I would never feel as warm and toasty if it was a rat instead of a squirrel looking in on my world. _______________________________________________________ Am I this desperate for ideas on what to blog about that I have been driven to writing about squirrels and using army metaphors? Yes. I apologize to my small but dedicated group of readers that I couldn’t come up with anything more interesting and mind expanding than writing about rodents.
I wish I had some thought provoking insight about retirement to share but the most exciting thing I’ve done lately is buy a table. I had to drive an hour with it sticking out of the back of my hatchback. I couldn’t see out of the rear view mirror. It was semi-terrifying but not exactly blog material. Even Mario is not very interested in squirrels. He barely bats an eye when he sees one and he never tries to catch one. He has never been much of a guard cat. So there you have it. Squirrels. They’re running across my window sill. They’re cute. That’s it for now. ![]() I originally wrote this on the anniversary of my Mom’s birthday. She would have been 102 in 2015. I edited and updated it in 2021 in honor of Mother’s Day. I used to dread going card shopping for my Mom. She was a hard person to please and there was always the possibility that she would reject any gift or card I got for her. I now realize that the job of choosing a card paled in comparison to the job she faced being a Mom. None of those sentimental poetic cards really fit our relationship. As I got older I would look for a card that simply said “I love you” because that said what I really meant. I loved my Mom. I am so grateful that I had an opportunity in my adult life to know and understand her as a human being and not just as a Mom. She was a very unique person. ![]() She could actually be very funny, although we didn’t often see that side of her. This morning I started thinking about the stories she used to tell that made me laugh. The very best one was about Lifebuoy soap. I can’t even imagine my Mom doing this, but evidently when she was a young woman, she got a job handing out soap samples door to door. She had a brief memorized pitch to say when she handed over the sample. In the spiel was the line “Men and women everywhere use Lifebuoy.” Unfortunately when she tried to deliver her speech she got so nervous that she mixed up the phrase and said “Men and women use Lifebuoy everywhere.” This still makes me laugh out loud. No matter how many times she told us this story we were practically rolling on the floor imagining exactly where those men and women were using Lifebuoy. If I bought a card for my Mom today it would be a “Thank You” card. I would thank her for always encouraging me to do well in school and to go to college. I would thank her for passing on her love of sewing and doing crafty things. I still look at pinecones, milkweed pods, and cattails when I am out in nature and I’m tempted to drag them home and make some kind of “arrangement” out of them like my Mom used to do. I would thank her for nursing me when I was sick by putting Vicks Vapo Rub on my chest. I would thank her for all the adorable dresses she made for me and my twin sister that matched exactly so that we wouldn’t fight over who would wear what. I would especially thank her just for surviving raising twin babies and a five-year-old at the same time. That alone took unbelievable strength and determination. So today I feel very grateful I had the Mom I had. Happy Birthday and Happy Mother’s Day Mom! I love you. One of Mom’s other stories was about her pet chicken. In the good old days it was not uncommon for people in her neighborhood to have chickens. I think Mom’s family sold some of the eggs. They got the chickens as little chicks and Mom picked one out as her favorite. She thought it was a rooster so she named it Billy. Billy evidently greeted Mom when she came home from school and followed her around like a dog. One day Billy surprised everyone by laying an egg. Billy was a girl! She was so attached to Billy that she never could eat chicken.
Many of her stories were about her own Mom. Although my grandfather was serious and stern, my grandmother was remembered by both of my parents as a wonderfully sympathetic and loving person. I wish I had had an opportunity to meet her but unfortunately she died a year before my sister and I were born. My Mom told us that her mother loved playing the guitar and whistling, something my grandfather considered very unladylike. Mom also told us that her mother would tell her father that she was taking the kids to church and instead she took them to the movies. I imagine my grandmother as a dutiful wife with the spark of a rebel inside. I hope I have a little of my grandma in me. I know I have a lot of my mother in me. I’m trying to accept the fact that I look a lot like her, even though I vowed as a kid that would never happen. I am learning to love myself as I am and to love my Mom just as she was. ![]() I am in a mood to redecorate and I have been considering getting rid of my old dining room table. I looked on Craigslist to see what was out there and I found a table that I liked but I wasn’t sure why. Then I realized it was a lot like the dining room table we had when I was a kid. The words “Duncan Phyfe” bubbled up out of the depths of my memory. I think that’s what my Mom called the style of our old dining room table. There was something about the way that she said it that made me think it was something exotic and special.
I really don’t want to spend any more time telling myself negative things. I want to follow in the footsteps of those who believe it is possible to change your destiny by changing your thoughts. These are some examples of the black hole thoughts I have been having lately and how I can change these thoughts into positive ones: It don’t have time to do everything I need to do vs . I am making time to do the things I love I’m overweight and I don’t like myself vs. I love my body and I’m treating it in a loving way by exercising and making healthy food choices I’m afraid to even think about dating vs. I am open to the possibility of dating I only have 20-25 years left of my life vs. I have a whole new life ahead of me and I want to embrace every minute. “Thoughts are things; they have tremendous power. Thoughts of doubt and fear are pathways to failure. When you conquer negative attitudes of doubt and fear you conquer failure. Thoughts crystallize into habit and habit solidifies into circumstances.” -Bryan Adams, Canadian singer songwriter, musician, producer, actor, social activist |
Leslie Masona woman in search of her post-retirement future Guess what! By subscribing, you get notices about the latest Little Old Lady with Cats posts sent to your mailbox!
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(from an entry posted on 5/1/2015) “I definitely fit some of the characteristics of a little old lady with cats: Retired - check, Single - check, Like to knit - check, Have cats - check. . .I do not want to get stuck in my Little Old Lady persona, however. In fact, this blog is a risk taking experiment in exploring and redefining what I want my retired life to look like.” Categories
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