False Advertising

     Since my default drive is set to cheap, my idea of shopping is checking clearance racks.  I was doing this in Bozeman a couple weeks ago when I found a dress in a beautiful shade of blue.  I tried it on and it looked pretty good, but it was missing something--a waist.  What a coincidence, I am missing a waist also.  You would think a time called "middle age" would be more cooperative about whittling your middle.  Then I realized having a good figure at my age would be akin to false advertising.  From the back, my body would be writing checks my face couldn't cash.  Age is something better worn as a matching set.
     Along the same lines, I know a young woman subsisting on a deprivation diet because she is hoping to be picked up in the "Man Market".  This is wrong for several reasons, one being that she was not overweight to begin with, another that a man shopping for an emaciated woman is someone who she should pick on, not be picked up by.  The third reason is that unless she wants to stay on that deprivation diet the rest of her life, she is guilty of false advertising.  In this case, a weight-loss leader ad.  It's better to sit on the shelf than be stuck with a man who only shops in the health and beauty section. 

The Sound of Your Name

   There is a new country song I like called "Lookin' for a Woman Like You".  In the verses the singer describes his carefree bachelor days, but in the chorus he is looking for a woman like his wife.  My favorite line is "I love the sound of your name".  I wondered if my husband loved the sound of my name. He said yes, but only an idiot would have said no. Do I love the sound of his name?  Not exactly, but I love the place his name comes to rest inside me.  Deep, deep in my heart.

10 Things You Won't Hear From a BSF Discussion Leader

     I have previously admitted to being a Bible Study Fellowship addict.  I have stayed in it for 20 years because the accountability and application questions have changed my spiritual life.  I would rather be a junkie than a flunkie.  But there are rules--guidelines actually., and that is the basis for the following post. It is kind of an inside joke for my fellow addicts.  Ten things you will not hear from a BSF discussion leader:
  
1.  Would you like another cup of coffee?
2.  If you don't have an answer ready, just share off the top of your head.
3.  Don't bother giving a scripture reference.
4.  The notes were terrible this week.
5.  What church do you go to?
6.  Any last minute requests before we pray?
7.  Who is the guest you brought with you today?
8.  We'll stay here and finish while the others go to lecture.
9.  It's alright to share her name, we're discreet.
10. Text me the recipe during the lecture.

Missing Dinner

     I miss dinner most nights.  It's not that I don't eat it, of course I eat it, but it's not the same with us two middle aged mutton grazing sedately at one corner of the dinner table.  I miss the clatter of utensils, the clamor of conversation, the corruption of manners and the complaints of my children.  When the kids were growing up, we had two course meals.  My cooking efforts were followed by teaching a course called Table Manners and a course in making Pleasant Dinner Conversation.  Although my kids used passable table manners at home, my sons became afflicted with some sort of etiquette Alzheimer's after they became adults.  If I ever see a T shirt with the disclaimer "My mother tried to teach me manners", I"ll buy two for my sons (and one for my husband).  My daughter didn't forget what I taught her, but there was no way to foresee what novel ideas might occur to her after she left home--like drinking from the faucet sans glass.
    My attempts to achieve Pleasant Dinner Conversation were thwarted by my children's contrariness, my spouse's cluelessness and my own contributions from my work as a nurse aide.  When the bulk of your job involves measuring body functions and fluids, it is easy to derail decorum.  When I was a young bride, learning to cook was an adventure.  Making healthy, balanced meals on our unhealthy, unbalanced budget afforded great challenge.  Next there was the challenge of children. The challenge was not to cook for them, it was to survive them and help them survive each other.  Cooking for them was fun.  I made Easter egg nest cookies and animal shaped pancakes, although my animals looked like they came from another planet or the bacterial kingdom.  Grilled cheese sandwiches were coded, diagonal cuts meant Velveeta, straight cuts were cheddar.  Horizontal raisins meant the peanut butter on the celery was chunky, vertical for creamy.  Mealtimes were messy, but they mattered because that uncooperative flock was family.
     Though I cook the same food, my attitude is often why bother.  We still eat balanced meals, after all, it's easier to balance two things than four.  We visit about our day and no one interrupts or spills anything.  We are boring.  I'm too old to procreate, dinner guests are too polite, and random rude people are too hard to boss around.  But I have no more time for lamenting, it's time to make dinner--and miss it.