My Bra Life

 In the early days of our marriage, before I had kids, I could still wear plunging necklines. In fact, I enjoyed the sidelong glances I got walking into a party, sometimes with just pasties under my dress. The bras I bought were lacy blacks, plunging reds, or strapless florals that could be easily unhooked. Sports bras were no problem, their crisscross straps slipping easily over my head. In those days, before arthritis began its slow march into my shoulder joints, I could raise my arms over my head.

Now I walk through department stores, looking at strapless dresses I remember purchasing in a distant past.

(from Pinterest)

My favorite was a white with bright pink hydrangeas that had a built-in bra which I didn’t fall out of.

Today I shop for bras that are beige and have heavy-duty straps with underwires that lift and shape. They support the sinking boobs that have nursed nine-pound babies and hang like melons waiting to be lifted into their bra cups. My husband claims drooping boobs don’t matter to him. But they do to me. My back and shoulders have begun demanding, “Help!”

Fortunately, I have found the perfect bra that does as advertised. First I had to be measured by a consultant. No problem there, since my daughter-in-law knew the routine and this was a piece of cake for her. The bras were shipped to me, they lifted and separated, and I bought one each in black, gray, and nude. They definitely performed their advertised task, but no-one would call them sexy!

My fondest memories of bras are those that remained in the drawer, never-worn. Gone are the days when I didn’t need any…until I lose my marbles and simply throw a tee shirt over my chest!

  Mrs. Claus apron

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Girlfriends' Night Out

My sister sent me this on the internet several years ago, and it's worth another chuckle.  Unfortunately, I don't know the original author.  I'm re-posting to celebrate the wonderful holiday lunch I had with girlfriends this week.

A group of 15-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner. Finally, they agreed to meet at the Dairy Queen next to the Ocean View Restaurant because they had only $6.00 among them and Jimmy Johnson, the cute boy in Social Studies, worked at the Dairy Queen.

Ten years later, the group of 25-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner.  Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View Restaurant because the beer was cheap, the restaurant offered free appetizers, the band was good, there was no cover charge, and there were lots of cute guys.

Ten years later, the group of 35-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner.  Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View Restaurant because the cosmos were good, it was right near the gym, and if they went late enough, there wouldn't be too many whiny little kids.

Ten years later, the group of 45-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner.  Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View Restaurant because the martinis were big and the waiters had tight pants and nice buns.

Ten years later, the group of 55-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner.  Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View Restaurant because the prices were reasonable, the wine list was good, the restaurant had windows that opened (in cases of hot flashes), and fish is good for cholesterol.

Ten years later, the group of 65-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner.  Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View Restaurant because the lighting was good and the restaurant had an early bird special.

Ten years later, the group of 75-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner.  Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View Restaurant because the food was not too spicy and the restaurant was handicapped-accessible.

Ten years later, the group of 85-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner.  Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View Restaurant because they had never been there before.

Menopause: Two Points of View

Menopause from a man's point of view:

Today I wanted to talk to you all about a problem that has plagued both men and women since the dawn of well, men and women—menopause. Now lest the ladies out there take umbrage at including men in this discussion, allow me to explain.

My darling wife, who is not yet sixty, but close, has been undergoing the change for several years now. In the beginning it wasn’t so noticeable until one day we were watching a documentary about oil drilling in the arctic wildlife refuge.  Of course, no documentary on drilling for oil in the arctic would be complete without showing archival footage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The documentary was interrupted for a commercial and I turned to my wife to ask her if she wanted anything from the kitchen.  That’s when I noticed that she was crying. No one wants to see birds and otters covered in oil, and by nature my wife is a compassionate person, but tears? “What’s wrong dear?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she answered between sniffles.

“Can I get you a Kleenex?”

“OK.”  That was my first experience with how menopause wreaks havoc on a women’s emotions—and it wasn’t going to be my last.  Fortunately, the mood swings didn’t last all that long and I was able to weather even the worst of the onslaughts. 

What hasn’t changed is the problem of hot flashes. Now, I haven’t experienced a “hot flash,” but my wife has compared it to being inside a microwave oven and being cooked from the inside out.  Many is the night that I have awakened to find my wife’s side of the bed empty, only to discover that she has been up for hours, unable to sleep because her internal body temperature has reached the same temperature as a medium rare steak. She turns down the A/C and lies there uncovered while on my side of the bed, I’m lying with the blankets up to my chin, shivering like a puppy at the vet.

So dear ladies, have sympathy for your husbands - we’re suffering right along with you!  It’s called MEN-o-pause for a reason.

Menopause from a woman's point of view:

I sat down at the computer in a gray sweater to write this blog.  Two sentences into the draft, I pulled the sweater off.  I was overheating.

I don’t mean overheating as in, “Come here, honey, let’s have some fun!”  I mean overheating as in, “Turn the a.c.down to sixty degrees so I can get some relief!”  We live in Florida, don’t forget.

This bodily reaction has been going on for twenty-plus years.  It started around the time my hormones left me and took up residence I don’t know where.  I refuse to take Hormone Replacement Therapy and instead pop nightly soy supplements and drink soy milk for breakfast and dinner.  The milk tastes better than niacin tablets, which turn my face and neck into a prickly red minefield of zits resembling the rash I get when Charley’s chin scrapes me with a two-day growth. 

Time out…now getting cold and must put my sweater back on.

On any random night Charley knows that our blanket will be thrown off sometime before midnight and then yanked back up at an ungodly hour.  He tucks his side of the sheet and blanket under his body so it won’t move.  He has grown used to my saying that I’m burning up and would he please roll to the other side of the bed because his body is like a coal furnace and I feel like the burning coal.  He knows if I’m out of bed and he doesn’t hear the toilet flush it’s because I can’t sleep and have my head in the freezer to cool down.  He also knows things won’t change anytime soon – my mother passed away at ninety and was still having flashes.  Sometimes he knows during breakfast that I want to pick a fight over why he didn’t secure the cap on the orange juice, which spilled all over the table when I shook the container, so he’d better vacate to get the newspaper.

Excuse me…must take the sweater off again. 

At a dinner party Charley actually counted four times I took a jacket off and put it back on.  I reminded him that testosterone doesn’t last forever, either.

Thanks for the male version on menopause to Don Weiss, guest blogger and author of the mystery novel PICTURE PERFECT, available as an e-book through major distributors soon.

Want Teamwork? Enlist Women. Want a Caregiver? Enlist a Daughter.

Almost every decision of consequence today is made by a group.  Some groups make smart decisions and others make horrible decisions.

In an article by Woolley, Malone, and Chabris in the Sunday NY Times ("Why Some Teams Are Smarter Than Others," Jan. 18, '15), they discuss their study to find out why some groups are smarter than others. Groups in their study that did well on one task, such as logical analysis, brainstorming, group co-ordination, planning, and moral reasoning, did well on other tasks, too.

The smartest teams, they found, were distinguished by three characteristics:

     - Their members contributed more equally to the team discussions, rather than
        letting one or two people dominate the group.

     - Their members scored higher on a test called "Reading the Mind in the Eyes,"
        which measures how well people can read complex emotional states from
        facial images with only the eyes visible.

     - Teams with more WOMEN outperformed teams with more men.  Women,
        on average, were better at mind reading than men.

Tested both online and off-line, the most important ingredients for a "smart" team remained constant, whether a team was face-to-face or not.  What made a team "smart," the researchers concluded, was not just the ability to read facial expressions, but a more general ability to consider and keep track of what other people feel, know, and believe.  The women just did it better.

Draw your own conclusions!!

The NY Times published a book review on January 8, '15 by Marcia Angell titled "A Better Way Out."
Ms. Angell was reviewing a book by Atul Gawande titled Being Mortal:  Medicine and What Matters in the End.  She cited the changes in dealing with old age in this country, as a result of the ballooning geriatric population; the necessity for both husband and wife to work (resulting in fewer daughters and daughters-in-law to care for the elderly); and family members moving out-of-town or out-of-state.

Then Ms. Angell quotes Mr. Gawande:  "Your chances of avoiding the nursing home are directly related to the number of children you have, and, according to what little research has been done, having at least one daughter seems to be crucial to the amount of help you will receive."

But since daughters are now working to help support their own families, they have little time for elderly parents. Hence the growth, beginning in the 1980's, in the number of assisted living facilities. The term today describes a full range of facilities with vibrant, active communities all the way to watered-down skilled nursing facilities.

My husband and I don't have daughters.  But it sounds as though our aging population is all in the same boat.

A Ladies' Luncheon

Ladies over age fifty should hire an event planner if they want to "do" lunch.  This was my latest experience.

     Two days before the luncheon, I called three other women to carpool with me.  They weren't home, so I left messages.  I emailed two of the three who actually check their emails.  The next day, I heard from those two that they'd like to ride with me.  My SUV holds seven and I still had empty seats, so I decided to call another woman who lives close by.

     Again, I left a message.  I heard from her that night.  "I called someone else for a ride but I don't remember who it was.  I might need a ride with you, Pam."  Meanwhile, I still hadn't heard from one of my original invitees, so I left another message.

     The morning of the luncheon, I had no idea who would show up in my driveway.  Six ladies appeared.  We pulled down the jump-seats in the back that accommodated five-year-old rumps and were on our way. 

     There were the usual drinks in the lounge, where fourteen different floral scents mixed to form one giant cloud of nausea.  The wine loosened everyone up, and someone asked about the recent demise of a family pet, which led to more stories about the loss of family dogs, hamsters, and parakeets.  Eventually a waitress led us to a long table for fourteen. 

     One of the women seated across from me didn't respond to any of my inquiries.  I figured she was blowing me off.  "She's deaf in her right ear," the companion on my right said.  After that I shouted diagonally across the table at her left ear.  Each time I did, the conversation on both sides of the table stopped.

     Then the woman at the head of the table rose and clinked her wine glass with her spoon.  "I want to thank all of you for your support while I was going through treatments," she said with tears in her eyes.  More than one of us reached for a Kleenex. 

     She finished and sat down, swiping her nose with her napkin and rearranging the napkin on her lap.  "Do you remember, Janet, when you were teaching and my daughter hated your class?" she asked.

     "No, I don't remember that," Janet said.

     "Do you remember when you lived next to me, Sue, and your son was such a willful child that the other kids used to spray him with the hose?" the speechmaker said.

     "Actually, he was the easiest of my three children to raise."

     The plated meals arrived at that moment.  "Is that tuna?  I can't eat tuna," the speechmaker told the waitress.

     "No, it's chicken," the waitress said.

     "I don't eat chicken," my companion on one side said.  "Please may I have just a green salad?"

     It came time for the bill-paying and per usual, those who had not had a glass of wine didn't want to pay for those who had.  Judy, who'd organized the luncheon, had a calculator and declared that she was splitting the bill equally among us.   End of discussion.

     We each passed the appropriate money down the table to Judy.  But Judy counted twice and she was missing fifty.  That was because Cynthia, with dementia, sat in the middle and thought we were paying her for something.  The missing dollars were in her wallet.

     When we got outside.  I unlocked my car and sat waiting for the rest to come out of the ladies' room.  One of them appeared and kept going right through the parking lot and out onto the street.  "I can't find my car," she kept saying.  "Where did I park?"

     "Betty, you didn't drive," I yelled.  "You came with me!"