Over Pre-Occupied with Occupy, Wall Street, and Tea Parties

Posted on November 9, 2011 by This Woman Writes

My poor Norwegian Artist.

Painting, that's what the Norwegian Artist needs to be doing, not glaring at the computer. Curios by Steve Henderson Fine Art

The man spent the entire afternoon downloading a graphic design and photo software program to his computer, only to find that, in order to open the program and actually use it, he needed another download.

But that’s okay, because the second download was free, according to the big button alongside its picture that said FREE.

Only it wasn’t free; it just sort of looked that way. I’m sure there’s more to it, but the Norwegian wasn’t in one of his evocative, expressive moods.

“I should have ordered the box with the disks,” he muttered. “But the shipping was $14.95. For a  box.”

You know the quote that says, “Beware the ire of a patient man”?

Well let me assure you that the Norwegian, normally the most patient of men, was plenty ired.

But you know, a lot of people are irritated these days; I can’t open the newspaper without seeing that yet another town is occupied by Occupiers, and when the movement reaches My Little Hometown (there was one student, with a megaphone), then I put on a pot of tea and turn to the Sudoku puzzle. It occupies me.

I like tea parties -- real ones with teapots and teacups and cookies and all. Tea by the Sea by Steve Henderson Fine Art

It’s not that I’m not irritated with the way that businesses are run these days; it’s just that I question the numbers – 1 percent – and the people being splattered with all the blame – CEOs and billionaires. Of course they’re greedy, insensitive, grasping, disingenuous, and deceptive – but let’s not limit these qualities to 1 percent of our population.

Our whole society is so infused with manipulation and deceit that it seems normal to us; there’s a reason that we distrust used car dealers, politicians, auto mechanics, lawyers, social workers, bankers and traveling salesmen who peddle miracle cures in brown glass bottles – enough of them have lied to us enough times that we label them all the same. It makes it hard for the honest ones.

But lots of people lie to us, manipulate us, deceive us. Try these:

“With price check guarantee, if the item rings up wrong, you’ll get it for free.” This is how we were assured, years ago, that replacing price tags on items with computerized scanning would not result in our being overcharged, ever. When’s the last time you received an item for free when it rang up the wrong price?

“This particular chemical in your bananas/milk/tomato/meat/shampoo/flour/bugspray is absolutely harmless and anyone who says otherwise is an alarmist.”

“The new tax will be used only for street repair.”

At grocery stores, we are prodded gently to the right, past the impulse items; young parents are scared into buying flash cards for their toddlers; seminar speakers and writers sell the “secrets” to how they made their money; even a simple country church increased its Sunday School attendance by flip flopping the unpopular program with the main service and funneling congregants, like sheep, into classes.

People nudge us to the right, to the left, but we really need to sail our craft true to who we are. Al Fresco by Steve Henderson Fine Art

These are the obvious examples; worse, are the subtle things we accept as normal: sophisticated peer pressure in slick advertisements; skinny supermodels in skinny jeans that regular women stuff themselves into; charts and graphs and statistics prompting us to make the “right” decision; dire headlines and dour talking heads; sympathetic characters in television shows that cause us to question deep set beliefs – manipulation, deception, dishonesty, duplicity, fraudulence, wending our way around and about the truth – these are becoming all too common in the way we do business with one another in the 21st century.

We are Occupied with the wrong things.

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The Jane Austen Driving School

Posted on November 3, 2011 by This Woman Writes

If Jane Austen were alive today, she would add a few more universal truths to the observation she’s known for – you know, the one about a wealthy man being in dire need of a wife.

Jane Austen's world: one of color, life, vivacity, and contemplation. Contemplation by Steve Henderson

A driving Jane Austen – not an Empress-style power suit clad maiden, but a Jane Austen in the car – would observe the universal truth that, if you are the only vehicle for miles and just in front of you, on the right, hesitating about entering the highway, is one of those broad butt SUVs, the deer-in-the-headlights driver, just before it’s too late, will swing the vehicle’s mass, slowly, in your path.

(Wasn’t that last paragraph, which was one complete sentence, Jane-like?)

Jane brakes, articulates a 75-word discourse on the distressing inefficacy of the human condition and the state of mind of the human ahead in particular, and with a gentlewoman’s sigh, awaits acceleration because, naturally, the SUV turned just as the passing lane ended and the double yellow line began.

But the SUV doesn’t recognizably accelerate. Ponderously, to the point that Jane hears its joints creaking, the vehicle increases speed in one mile per hour increments until it settles, exhaling, to five miles per hour below the speed limit.

And there it stays.

And there Jane, or you, stays, logically recognizing that while this cretin hasn’t committed a felonious misdeed, you tremble with the desire to do something drastic, like gently shake your index finger in their direction and tightly purse your lips.

So calm, so controlled and gracious, Jane Austen continues to speak to us today. Emerald Dreams by Steve Henderson

Only when a passing lane opens up does the vehicle accelerate, exceeding the speed limit by 20 percent, maintaining this velocity until the lane ends.

If we still traveled about in phaetons and stagecoaches, one could amuse onself by unleashing the Mastiff slavering in the back, and simpering as the beast nipped the heels of the horses ahead. At the very least, since we’re all out in the open air (or at least the driver is), we could vociferously convey our views to the individual ahead of us, something we do all the time in the car, or at least I do.

I am on child number three out of four in the “teaching how to drive” stage, and one of the first lessons learned, after “You do everything I say, INSTANTLY, without question or argument,” is this truism:

“Ninety-five percent of the other drivers are idiots.”

I know that this doesn’t offend you, gentle reader, because I left a generous five percent to represent us, and I certainly won’t offend the tomfool twitty simpletons, because they don’t know where they are or what they’re doing, much less how they come across.

She wrote about life and tea and ordinary things in such an extraordinary way. Tropical Medley by Steve Henderson

Jane did such an exemplary job of articulating her observations: so delightfully, discreetly, agreeably waspish – how I wish that she were alive today, engaging us with her opinions on the upcoming election, say, or the Occupy movement, or even the furious mêlée on whether or not the potato is good for us.

Such sense the woman had. And sensibility.

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The Rise of the Feminist Revolution and the Fall of Old Fashioned Courtesy

Posted on October 27, 2011 by This Woman Writes

Before we progress further on this discussion, allow me to clarify an important point: I do know how to open doors.

Yup. I know how to open a variety of doors. Bayside by Steve Henderson Fine Art.

Okay, now that’s past us, let’s talk about men opening doors for women, or not opening doors for women, and whether or not they should, because it’s a civilized gesture of respect, one of those male/female chivalry things; or they shouldn’t, because women aren’t fragile, shrinking violets who stand, quivering, on the sidewalk until some big strapping male strides up and grips that handle with his massive, muscular hands, wrenching the recalcitrant door off its hinges with a rippled flexing of his biceps so that the pathetic weakling quaking at his feet can totter feebly through.

Back in the 1970s and the 80s, at the height of the modern upheaval of male/female relations, many a young man whose mother had spent hours drilling him on the fine points of opening doors for ladies was reviled as a bigoted, sexist Neanderthal pig — this addressed to a clean-shaven 18-year-old in a plaid, button down shirt, or a 40-year-old father of three.

Yes, I realize that a point was being made, and in protesting this seemingly small gesture the feminists of my generation asserted their right to march out of their I Love Lucy dresses into the boardroom and the fire station and the Pentagon and the halls of Congress – as well as into the modern office rat cubicle and the night crew of the box store – but in doing so, they definitely lost the concept of “ladies” and “gentlemen.”

I was at the feed store the other day, and the clerk helping me, a woman, pushed the handcart with my 50-pounds of grain to the end of the loading dock and sang out,

“Here you go!” leaving me to unload the bag and shove it into the car myself. None of the men at this establishment do this. Granted, I personally can handle a feed sack, but what if I couldn’t? Would I have to beg this woman to do her job? Is this equal work for the equal pay?

Another time, I was leaving a repair shop with a 35-pound chain saw in one hand; my purse, paperwork, and a bag full of oil and old chain saw blades in the other. While I fumbled with the door (which opened toward me, of course), the female associate 15 feet behind me watched. Her male co-workers never let me out of that store carrying heavy, greasy machinery things. They never even let me open the door.

I have approached many a building behind a man who stops, opens the door, and ushers me through with a smile. I have also approached behind too many women who sail ahead, obliviously not looking back as the door shuts in my face, leaving me to think that, as many good things came out of the feminist revolution, common courtesy wasn’t one of them.

In protesting the offense of men opening doors for women, is the solution for nobody to open doors for anybody?

The solution to any problem begins by becoming aware of the world, and the people, around us. Descent into Bryce by Steve Henderson Fine Art

Automated doors aren’t the answer. Being aware of one another, male or female, and extending small gestures of courtesy in each other’s direction – a smile, a thank you, stepping back so another can go first, expressing gratitude to someone who invites you to do so – is forward movement. It is the small gestures that say big things about who we are.

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Zombies, Vampires, Vulcans, and Aliens — They May Be Make Believe, But We See Them Everyday

Posted on October 21, 2011 by This Woman Writes

What is it with zombies already?

College Girl and her friends toss everything else aside, including homework, when The Walking Dead comes on, and they sprawl about chomping popcorn while grisly ashen, ratty tatty skinned Frankenstein things lurch on screen, making the same sounds little kids make when they’re playing cars.

Does she look like she's studying for her anatomy and physiology final? Emerald Dreams by Steve Henderson

Of course, college students would chuck homework for Barney the Purple Dinosaur or re-runs of Gilligan’s Island, both of which sound better than memorizing tendons and ligaments around the elbow, but they rhapsodize about imaginary ambulatory dead people.

“They’re so sexy!”

Hmmm.

Tired of Being Youngest’s generation swoons over vampires, more dead things, white instead of grey, emaciated and wan.

“You’ve got to see the Twilight movies, mom,” Tired insisted. “Robert Patterson is so hot!”

Personally I find vampires cold blooded, about as sexy as Vulcans.

This fascination with alien life forms is, well, alien to me, because I like human beings – real, ordinary, gregarious, open minded, regular, everyday people who don’t think they’re Donald Trump or that nasty British bloke on America’s Got Talent, but this week at an art festival we ran into a few undercover zombies – on the outside, they looked like humanoids, but inside, where the heart beats, they were dead people.

Not the ones who smiled, commented on the rain outside, asked a question about a painting, diffidently mentioned that they tried watercolors years ago but really weren’t very good – these people were alive.

Alive and well, active and moving, real people living real lives. Harbor Faire by Steve Henderson

The zombies avoided eye contact, grunted when we said hello, turned their backs to us, left the booth without a word, made us feel small and insignificant. And no, it’s not because they were shy.

“That person’s a collector,” our neighbor in the next booth murmured.

“That person’s rude,” I murmured back. The two qualities do not have to go together.

I see variations of this theme at the grocers, the box store, the office mart, the fast food joint – people whose living depends upon serving the needs of others frequently find themselves talking to zombies who don’t smile, don’t answer a greeting, fail to engage because they eschew trying.

College Girl remembers her stint as a grocery bagger, “the lowest life form on the planet,” she describes it, and the zombies who looked through her when she smiled at them and said hello. One woman stared at her for 10 seconds, then drew out her cell phone and began a call.

I’m not sure where these people are coming from. This is America, where we do not have royalty, not even the Kennedys, and we ordinary folk consider ourselves equal to our betters, because we all breathe through our noses and our mouths, crumple into little pieces when we’re hit head on by semi-trucks, love, laugh, choose soft toilet paper over scratchy, and exclaim something or other when we step on a plastic Lego block with our bare feet.

Color, depth, movement, grace, beauty -- the good things of life encompass much. Evening on the Willamette by Steve Henderson

There is something wrong, something dead inside, when we honestly think that, because of the car we drive, the way we pronounce “apricot,” the letters after our name, our antecedents, our political persuasion, IQ score, French manicured nails, or ability to down a neat whiskey without snorting that we are somehow inherently superior to another human being.

Reality is, one day we’ll all be dead, outside and in, and it will matter more how we lived than where, and as what.

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The Golden Compass in My Head Is Made of Plastic

Posted on October 13, 2011 by This Woman Writes

Like any married couple, the Norwegian Artist and I have divvied the duties through the years – you know, cooking, laundry, mucking out the goat pen. I’ll happily fold socks.

Given a choice between dirty socks and goat pellets, I'll rock for the socks. "Fenceline Encounter," Steve Henderson

On long car trips, our duties have been set in stone since he put the rock on my finger: He Drives; I Navigate.

This latter is odd since the directional compass points of North, South, East and West only make sense when I’m looking at a globe, which isn’t something you carry around in the car. To the Norwegian’s silent frustration, at 70 m.p.h. I rely less on the crumpled swathe of paper map on my lap than I do on bright green road signs.

For my part, I get disagreeable when we pass some indeterminate road and the Norwegian wants to know where it goes– not so that we can drive on it, but merely because the man is curious.

“It leads into a green shaded area somewhere around a large lake,” I tell him curtly.

“What large lake?”

I. Don’t. Care.

Over the years, Eldest Supreme trained her siblings in the back of the car to maintain death silence while the Norwegian and I, having mistakenly taken the wrong exit, drifted aimlessly through urban streets — all one way, all the wrong direction — in fruitless attempts to find the freeway, which was generally overhead.

When the Norwegian Artist and I get lost, the freeway we need to be on is generally in some inaccessible place. "Canyon Silhouettes," by Steve Henderson

Regionally, as I clock hours of my own transporting the Norwegian Artist’s paintings from one venue to another, I rely upon Tired of Being Youngest to assume navigational duties, and I am struck by the realization that I am a good navigator indeed, finding it easier to memorize multiple MapQuest directions to my destination rather than argue with the Person on My Right.

It is best, however, not to trust MapQuest implicitly.

Outside of a mid-sized mass of metropolitan mayhem, I was looking for Lewis Street when the exit for Commercial Avenue rapidly approached. According to MapQuest, this was the exit I was to take. A half-mile away, however, was an exit for Lewis Street.

My 15-year-old navigator was busy with her iPod, not looking up directions, incidentally. The car was hurtling forward. Since I have a disturbingly innate tendency to do what I am told, we exited at Commercial Avenue, winding up in the middle of, not surprisingly, commercial enterprise.

I backtracked, eventually winding up behind a truck driving school, the supreme spot for asking directions.

And it would have been a grand place indeed were it not for three large, incredibly lifelike-because-they-were-actually-alive Rottweilers, guarding a seemingly empty building. We stayed in the car.

You’ll be relieved to know that I eventually got to our destination, without the assistance of MapQuest, my “navigator,” or the Rottweilers.

Returning home from across state lines the other day, I pulled over to a safe spot while I did some quick mental calculations: East or west? Atlantic Ocean or Pacific? Good thing I stopped to figure it out, or I would have eaten dinner in Canada.

Years ago I read the quotation, “Whichever way I’m heading feels North.”

This is so true in the same way that my first two kids, both daughters, felt like boys when I was pregnant with them. Or the third one, the son, felt like a girl. After having the fourth one, I announced to my husband and midwife — “Oh, it’s a boy!”

Seriously, how did I mistake this one for a boy? "Contemplation," by Steve Henderson

“She is?” they asked.

(“She,” by the way, is my recently unemployed navigator.)

Given my lack of instincts in the matter, I really shouldn’t depend upon my feelings when it comes to predicting the gender of a child or determining the direction in which I’m heading.

Because it always feels like North.

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Home Decor for the Rest of Us Who Aren’t Martha Stewart

Posted on October 5, 2011 by This Woman Writes

Godlen Beach by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

I saw the most amazing home decor accessory this weekend — a strip of gold cloth artfully laid across the coffee table.

It’s not that draping fabric is so unusual, at least not in my place. I mean, there are jackets on the floor, socks stuffed in corners, t-shirts lolling languorously wherever a person still claimed as a dependent on the IRS form spontaneously disrobes.

But these are accidental occurrences, not deliberate acts of artful embellishment. Only in a place where there are no children can one arrange textiles, and books, dishes, even toys, as if they had been indifferently set down by an actual fun-sized human — it gives the place that dynamic, vibrant, lived-in touch.

Except that in an actual dynamo-infested, lived-in place, a strip of gold cloth will not remain where you spent ten-minutes arranging it, immediately being snatched to wrap around the cat as a bow, or balled up as an emergency pot holder, or wiped across the floor when someone kicks the dog’s water dish.

Interestingly, the jackets, the t-shirts, the socks, the towels on the floor — these never move. They increase, like fruit flies, but they never move.

Actually, I’m really not that into making my home look like something you’d see in a magazine, and you know perfectly well what I mean  — not the news mags with their post-disaster shots of weather phenomena, although it feels that way sometimes, doesn’t it?

Polish Pottery by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

One time, I spent an hour or so dusting off the sofa table and arranging my Polish pottery teapot and tea cups and plates (we’re talking 10 items here) in an informal, pleasing display suggesting that we had just offhandedly set the pieces down. Ten minutes later Eldest Supreme walks in with Toddler and drops a magazine, two diapers, package of wipes, leather purse and a plastic drinkie cup, all over my carefully constructed informal exhibit.

It didn’t look casual, artistic, or deliberately unstructured. It looked messy. And, as the day went by and additional people walked in and out the door, it grew with that day’s mail, a half-consumed can of pop, the dog’s leash, a couple pairs of sunglasses that nobody claimed (must be the dog’s), and the newspaper.

And that’s just the sofa table.

It reminds me of something a friend who works in retail said,

“This job would be so much easier if it weren’t for the customers.”

So true.

Not only keeping the house clean, but life in general, would be so much easier if it weren’t for the people involved.

Messy, insensitive, thoughtless, sock-dropping persona who clutter our lives with their joys and sorrows, leaving behind unwashed bowls in the sink from the birthday cake they just baked for our special day, these people are the reason that our houses do not look like something out of a magazine or a movie set, but rather, like the interior of our kitchen cupboards.

Or at least, like the interior of my kitchen cupboards, which are not modular, tidy, organized, or alphabetized, a state of dis-being I lamented about aloud in College Girl’s presence.

“Seriously, Mom — when people start talking about organizing their kitchen cupboards, they’ve either broken up with a boyfriend or lost their job or totaled their car or something. Surely you’re not at that state?”

Not quite. Close.

But I can cope — I’m thinking that a strip of gold cloth, artfully stuffed in the interior of the cabinet, will add just the touch needed. That, and closing the door.

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It’s a Good Hair Day and I Can Do Anything!

Posted on September 27, 2011 by This Woman Writes

I am so ready to tackle the world today.

Tackling the world on a good hairday, Canyon Silhouettes by Steve Henderson

I just got back from getting my hair cut, and for this one day, my hair will be perfect, and, as you know, when your hair is perfect, you can do anything.

Theoretically, I should be able to repeat the “do” tomorrow, since I showed my hairdresser my styling routine and asked her to shape my locks into a design that fits my morning ablutionary practice:

I look around for a brush, which, if it’s not in the sink, congealing, is non-existent. I then grab handfuls of hair, squeeze, and shake. Copious quantities of hairspray keep every follicle exactly where it falls.

That’s it.

I know that some people spend hours to get this messy look, but seriously, it only takes seconds. Of course, it doesn’t look stylistically messy, the same way true minimal makeup doesn’t look like artistically applied minimal makeup, but either you have time for breakfast or you have deliberately premeditated, artlessly unstructured hair.

Do you males in the room even think about these things?

Do you men think about your hair? Boy Scout, by Steve Henderson

Obviously not, since you just shove a baseball cap over whatever’s left on your head and call it James Bond undercover as a farmer. Come on, boys, is that how you dressed on the first date with your girl?

Hats – real ones – aren’t such a bad idea though. In the winter I have a series of fetching, knitted berets and fedoras that extend the regular six-week recommended trip to the hairdresser to a quarterly visit – after 10 years, this blessed woman is accustomed to my panicked phone calls:

“I’ve got to do something NOW! I know your schedule’s full and I don’t expect to get in right away, but do you have anything before noon?”

Sometimes, you can still see the teenaged girl in all of us.

This last time I was proud of myself, having given my remarkably patient and easygoing salon specialist a good week’s notice, via Facebook. And it’s fortunate I got in, because the weather’s not cold enough yet for cerebral knitwear.

The Norwegian Artist – who keeps his hair short and sexy – is not a baseball cap sort of guy, but more of an Australian outback floppy safari man. When he goes out to chop wood, I know that he’ll be able to tackle any black mambas or berserk kangaroos or cleverly concealed crocs out there. He’d look great in one of those 1940s style felt fedoras – actually, any man does – but until we can figure out a way to pair this fashion with t-shirts, and NOT stray into the pretend world of  big boys bad boy ganstas, we girls are out of luck.

The Crocodile Hunter look isn’t a bad compromise though – rugged, tough, confident, a little bit sweaty and disheveled – sounds like a good definition of a man to me.

So I’m on this one-woman crusade to bring back stylish headwear, and living deep in the depth of forgotten rural country, it’s unlikely that anyone will hear me, much less listen.

It's time for action, not thought! Rumination by Steve Henderson

Except for today – when my hair is perfect and I can do anything. So what am I waiting for? It’s mid-afternoon, and I’ve got a world to change!

Check this out:

How to Get the Haircut You Love

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Baby Boomer Grandparents — We do it our way

Posted on September 21, 2011 by This Woman Writes

There’s dried fettuccini on the bathroom floor, which is a variation from the usual wet towels, but this time it’s not the teenagers’ fault. Toddler has been rummaging around the cupboards, plunging fat sticky hands in the oatmeal, tossing raisins at the dog, and now playing pick up sticks with the pasta. I think I turned my back to remove a sock from the plant pot or something.

Summer Breeze, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

Like a lot of people our age, the Norwegian Artist and I are on the tail end of raising one set of kids when we find ourselves presented with the next generation, with which we interact on a deeper level than a weekly play date at the park.

And so we find ourselves getting to know Toddler very well, providing deluxe babysitting services while we run a business, helping a teenager with Spanish homework in almost the same breath that we read “Hands, Hands, Fingers, Thumb,” for the thirteenth time, cheering as vigorously for the product in the pink potty as for College Girl’s Associate in Arts degree.

But not watching Barney. We missed the purple dinosaur the first time through, and the kids turned out just fine. Isn’t Barney old enough to get a job or something, and leave the house?

Bayside, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

I had forgotten just how dirty Toddlers get in the course of the day. There’s pretty much a five-minute period – after getting dressed and before breakfast – when their face isn’t smeared with food, spit, dirt, or viscous nose product. I am reminded of chocolate covered bananas rolled in coconut and nuts – everything sticks.

The house is echoes the chocolate banana thing as well, although with teenagers present, this isn’t as unusual. In addition to the earlier mentioned towels, jackets draped over chairs, and books and notebooks flung from sofa to dining room table, we now have plastic princess tea cups, ratty blankies, and partially eaten graham crackers that the dog hasn’t found.

We also have staff – four or five of us working in tandem so that no one person is responsible for story time, block building time, nature walk time, snack time, bath time – I honestly don’t know how the Norwegian Artist and I did it initially, with two of us responsible for a pack of four.

But somehow we did, and somehow we’re doing it again, with the added benefit of remembering Toddler’s mother at this same age, and seeing the similarities and the differences between the two. I’m also enjoying watching my husband of nearly 30 years falling in love with another female – a chunky, noisy, invasive, busy, prattling troll with whom the Norwegian Artist is absolutely besotted.

Becalmed, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

I remember the melancholy day, years ago, when Son and Heir and Tired of Being Youngest were long past the stage of two babies in the bath tub, and I reluctantly admitted to myself that they had not played with the Winnie the Pooh tubby toys for a long, long time. Sadly I scooped up Piglet, Eeyore, Pooh, Tigger, and a series of little sailboats and dropped them into a Tupperware box.

“That part of my life is over,” I told myself.

And so it was. But in this new stage of my life, Pooh and his friends are back, and bathtime is wet and splashy again.

I just make sure to pick up the fettuccini off of the bathroom floor first, or things would get really messy.

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The Dog Ate My (extremely expensive, Italian leather, got them on sale) Sandals

Posted on September 15, 2011 by This Woman Writes

Emerald Dreams, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

For the longest time, I’ve wanted to write about my $129 leather sandals.

Now that I’ve launched my image of chic chick who shimmies through Macy’s, picking up accessories with my recently French manicured, slim fingers and carelessly tossing the goods back to the servant following in my wake, perhaps I should mention that I bought the sandals on sale for $14.95 at Sierra Trading Post.

I might also add that Ruby the Repulsive Rat Dog exhibits a literal taste for expensive footwear as well, and thanks to her sharp teeth, has reduced my $14.95 find of the century to masticated pulp.

Honestly, considering that we live in the country and are surrounded by bovines, couldn’t she have chewed on leather before it was manufactured into an Italian masterpiece that actually fits comfortably on my flat, fat, unstructured Polish feet? Like I care about the neighbor’s cows?

Rumination, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

I was dozing in the hammock, Ruby below me making those soft slurpy wet mouth noises associated with canines and 10-month old babies with colds when I thought,

“What is she doing?”

By that time it was more of an issue of what had she done, and my beloved leatherwear smiled, gap toothed, wanly while Ruby slunk away.

Duct tape won’t fix it; I asked the Norwegian Artist and he gave me one of those looks. You know, the Desi/Lucy ones.

So I’ve got this expensive chew toy that used to be the one and only fashionable pair of footwear in my closet and this totally unrepentant dog that doesn’t belong to me but to College Girl, who never lives anyplace that accepts pets.

The intriguing thing about the sandals is that they remind me of bikinis — just what is it about a minimalist quantity of material that justifies the price? Yeah, I know, my shoes are cute, they’re kicky (at least they were), and — unusually — they’re comfortable, but they have half the amount of leather on them as the Norwegian Artist’s wallet.

Living on acreage surrounded by animals and dusty wheat fields, I generally forgo expensive clothing purchases; working at home there’s no one to see the stiletto heels (which sink into chicken droppings, by the way), sassy skirts (not with my knees), or tailored jackets (do you know what happens to wool when you take a break from the keyboard to swish the toilet with bleach and the bleach splatters?).

So the sandals were an especially exciting accessory to my usual wardrobe of jeans and knit top, catapulting my image from 21st century June Cleaver to Paris Hilton, in her 40s, a few pounds heavier and on a budget. I felt blonde and daring and expensive.

Now I just feel irritated, bereft of the one item of luxuriant frippery I have ever owned, and stuck with the Ratdog, too many pairs of jeans, and a toilet with mineral stains.

Ruby, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

Oh, but I’ve got these new sunglasses — prescription, because with my eyesight you don’t want me driving with a pair I pick up off the rack — that actually look like sunglasses you get off the rack.

They’re sassy, they’re flirty, they’re Brittany-Spears-in-20-Years (Paris Hilton didn’t fit the rhyme), and when they’re not on my face they’re securely nestled in a locking case so that you-know-what can’t pretend they’re whatever disgusting thing she was thinking she was slobbering on when she eviscerated my sandals.

Evisceration.

Hmm.

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Dating Richard Gere

Posted on September 8, 2011 by This Woman Writes

Steve Henderson, Artist, who looks to me like Richard Gere, Actor

Lately the folks at Pandora Radio, through one of their pop up windows, have been trying to set me up on a date with hot guys in the 50s, all of whom look like Richard Gere.

You’d think that, nailing my age more accurately than most of my friends, these cyber match makers would know that I already have a 50s model, who, incidentally, also looks like Richard Gere, and I’m not in the mood for a trade in.

But every morning they’re there, a roster of silver foxed studs with full heads of hair unbesmirched by baseball caps.

“Men in their 50s!”

It’s an interesting way to start the work day.

One time, still in the morning daze and the caffeine from the tea not yet kicked in, I watched the faces floating by, all 12 of them, and counted how many truly did look like Richard Gere:

Richard Gere with tortoise shell glasses.

Richard Gere with contacts.

Richard Gere with hair parted to the left.

Close of Day, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

Richard Gere with the hint of a 5 o’clock shadow.

One hundred percent resemblance to the actor, which led me to wonder, just how many men in their 50s actually look like Richard Gere?

So I did an experiment, wandering through our village with eyes open for sightings of Richard, the real one or substitutes, and discovered that, at least in our little town, most men in their 50s do not look like Richard Gere.

There’s the hair issue, for one, or lack of it — a lot of seasoned males exhibit a gleam that does not stem from their eyes. This probably explains the preponderance of baseball caps, and while we’re talking fashion here, could I put in a vote for those 1940s style fedoras so devastatingly worn by Cary Grant and Humphrey Bogart?

The latter didn’t have much hair by the way and he looked like a frog, but that didn’t stop him from being sexy, which gives hope guys, to those of you who do not look like Richard Gere.

The Pine Grove, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

Back to my experiment: a number of men appear to extract a major portion of their recommended daily nutritional needs from malt products, not necessarily ovaltine, and their chest muscles seem a little low.

Five o’clock shadows are way overrated, those extending to the third or fourth day not qualifying as beards or goatees, not unless you want the latter term to be applied in a non-complimentary fashion.

A clean t-shirt does not have spots, especially around the armpits.

Am I being critical? Judging good men by their physical flaws as opposed to the content of their character?

Not really, I’m just wandering the streets, comparing ordinary people to a multi-millionaire who has the time, money and incentive to keep in shape, a state of thought no different than that invoked by all women when we look at Beyonce or Gwyneth Paltrow or Julia Roberts and wonder why we have wrinkles and they don’t, or our thighs are bigger, or we look pregnant even when we’re not.

We forget that we are ordinary people, with ordinary incomes, not professional actors whose job description demands that, especially if we are female, we subsist on lettuce, endive, edamame and the occasional dry, white chicken breast, all so that we can meet a fantasy industry’s interpretation of perfect.

Forget it. Accept yourself, love your mate, look beyond the sweaty t-shirt to the person underneath and get to know him or her by their funny sense of humor, a quick response to a need, the way they look in your eyes when you talk.

That’s star quality, and we’ve all got it.

Last Light in Zion, by the Norwegian Artist

 

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