Grayson was up and ready to go at 7 a.m. today, knowing that it is the last day of school before Spring Break and he is leaving with his Big Mama and Papa for the lake right after school. This will be his longest stay there without us: Three nights. In the past he has been ready to come home after two, so we're all hoping he will not start missing us on Sunday and have to come back.
Gray and I are looking forward to some serious laziness.
Now that the sun is out and my skin has to see the light of day again, I decided to take the plunge and sign up for Mystic Tan. I'm way too sun-shy to do real tanning, but I am about the same color as a fish's belly right now, and rub-on tanner is a pain. So I signed up and went and had myself sprayed this morning. I'm definitely darker. We'll see if my husband notices.
I've been on a campaign to try to be more girly. I'm not naturally a girly-girl, so I'm a bit out of my depth, here. But I figure as I get older I should probably start putting more effort into not looking like I fell out of bed into my clothes. I'm also trying to get into better shape.
So I had my nails done last week, and I spend some time in the morning actually putting my makeup on in front of a stationary mirror (not in the rear-view mirror of my car as I drive to work, as I have done it hitherto), and now I'm tan...er. And (here's the point of all this), I bought a pair of high-heeled sandals to wear with jeans.
I've never been one for wearing heels with jeans. My heels are all of the lady-like, sensible wear-to-work variety. Not a stilletto in the bunch. And I never wear them if I don't have to. Certainly not with jeans. But I see everyone and their fat aunt doing it these days so I finally crumbled to peer pressure and bought a suitable pair. Now, I know how to walk in heels, I've been doing it every weekday for more than 20 years. But walking in high-heeled slides is a different game, and I feel self-conscious about wearing jeans with heels because I know, if no-one else does, that I'm totally faking it.
So I'm at the tanning place this morning, in my heels, and the very brown college girl behind the counter takes me back to see the tanning booth and give me the low-down, and as we're walking out of the booth, I turn my heel wrong and WHOOOMP! I'm on the floor. My purse spills and my phone, my checkbook, a handful of beads from a broken necklace, and a Happy Meal toy go skittering across the floor.
Very cool.
Hell, after that performance I had to buy a membership, just to save face. The college girl was very kind – worried over me, asked if I was okay, handed me my Happy Meal toy and said "well, I can tell you're a mom."
I took off my heels and tiptoed gingerly to the front desk to pay.
Do other women fall down in heels? Do they have Happy Meal toys in their chic little designer bags? Do they have spilled coffee in their car consoles and a back seat full of receipts and crumbs and plastic bags and soup cans carried home from work to recycle? Do they have to tear off pencil erasers to use in place of the earring backs they lose? Why is it so hard just to keep it all together? Much less make it look like you know what you're doing and did it deliberately. I feel like I always look like an accident, either about to happen or the terrible aftermath.
It's also expensive to look girly. Between the nails, the tan and the gym membership, I'm up to nearly $100 a month just for maintenance. I haven't broken into the pedicure market yet. I'm just not up to it. Besides, I'm way too ticklish.
But, maybe it will become a habit and by the time I'm 50 I'll be used to working a little harder at it. Course by then I probably won't give a damn. I hope so, anyway.
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