Bless the Dress

When I was eighteen, my mother went ballistic at me for going braless on a date. Hey, it was the early 70s and that was the style for hippie-wannabes like me. Mom and I didn’t have too many fights. I mostly behaved until about 17, and then usually snuck my bad behavior out of the house without discovery. But this time Mom caught me and got Dad involved. They said some things parents shouldn’t say to their daughter, and I’m sure I said things a daughter shouldn’t say to her parents. Not a night we talk about when we reminisce around the dinner table.

And I am over it.

But I was reminded of the event Sunday as a pretty, young girl, maybe 15-16 years old, sat in the church pew ahead of me. She had a knockout figure—a trifle full for today’s bone-thin standards, filling out her Jessica Rabbit sheath dress and then some. The dress was skimpy on both ends—strapless and mid-thigh, with ruching (a kind of gathering/tucking) at the hips, in case your eyes needed help noticing that part. I assume the conservatively-dressed woman sitting beside her was her mother. As I told my Facebook friends, I didn’t know who to slap first.

I’m not a fan of strapless or even spaghetti straps in church. I think many males have trouble following a sermon if the female in front of them is sticking her thumbs in the bodice of her dress to yank it up over her boobs again and again. Or if lingerie straps are peeking out. Or missing. Actually, I have a whole list of church no-nos: see-through clothes, mini skirts, skimpy shorts, tight tops. Also, if your full skirt has a tendency to get stuck where the sun don’t shine, wear a slip! The people behind your behind don’t want that image stuck in their heads as they rise up to sing to God.

I know short, tight and sexy is the style, but just like back in the early 70s, just because it’s in style doesn’t mean your parents should let you wear it. Especially to church.

So, gentle readers, tell me how you feel. And if my parents somehow see this, I swear I don’t go braless in public anymore.

Public Toilet Dreams

I have deeply paranoid dreams about public toilets and huge, maze-like hotels. Recently, the two combined forces in a dream that had me trying to find my room, racing against a deadline, and dealing with terrible public toilets, as well. That’s just not fair! If one of those nefarious squirrels from another bad dream had made an appearance, I probably would not have survived to whine about it all.

I used to ask people if they have public toilet dreams. Too many people drew away as if to escape the fearful darkness that they must have thought emanated from my being, so I quit asking. But I know I’m not the only one. Just Google “toilet dreams” and see what I mean.

Some of my classics? A row of stalls with the doors cut so high that as you sit, you’re exposed from the waist down. An outhouse lying on its back, so you have to lie on your back to go. (Think about that for a second. Gross, eh?) A huge bathroom built like a stadium, with toilets in ascending rows, and no privacy anywhere.

The literature on the subject (and by literature I mean Google hits) says that toilet dreams indicate feelings of embarrassment and vulnerability. Thank you, Captain Obvious.

The maze of hotel rooms stems, I’m certain, from my inability to find my way around in the world. Coming out of a restaurant bathroom I’ll turn the wrong direction every time. Before the invention of GPS I knew only one way to get somewhere. Or maybe not even that. One memorable time prior to cell phones I was trying to drive from one mall to another without going to “home base” first. No matter what I did, I’d end up where, instead of the road I swear showed on my map, I’d be facing a lake. After three tries, I found a payphone, called John and said, “You’re going to have to move the house. I can’t find you.”

Any recurring dreams in your life? And all you public-toilet-dreamers, I know you’re out there!

Hell on Wheels

Recently we took our annual 700-mile, life-sucking, everlasting car trip to visit family Up North. We stayed in a hotel two nights at my insistence—once on the way up and again on the way back. If my husband was still the boss of me, we’d drive the 12-hour trip in one go, with infrequent pit stops for fast food and to stumble, stiff-legged and blinking, to nasty rest area toilets as necessary. We stop overnight now, because I have learned the hard way that after eight hours in the car, one of us is going to be exceedingly not happy.

For years John ably filled that role while I hunched my shoulders and plugged my ears to the cursing and huffing emanating from the driver’s seat. We’d swerve and slam through heavy traffic, brakes and gas pedal stomped abundantly, all the other cars manned by, ahem, orifices of the anal kind. Eventually I got older and meaner, and quit tolerating his behind-the-wheel transformation from The Quiet Man into The Hulk. Now he tries to keep it in check (“You won’t like me when I’m angry,”) because he knows if he doesn’t he’s going to hear about it from The Hulkess. You’re welcome.

Lately, though, the exceedingly not happy person in the car is me.

No, I don’t cuss and swerve and huff and puff. I squirm. And writhe. And try in vain to find some position that doesn’t hurt my behind. You’d think with all this padding I’d have the most comfortable seat in the car, but that’s what you’d get for doing your own thinking. Something happens after eight-plus hours on those leather seats and I cannot sit there one minute longer. My bottom hurts and the arm rests make my hands fall slap asleep. If only my behind would do the same.

How about you? Do you love the open road, embrace long trips with much enthusiasm and a bag full of snacks? Or rest in the comfort of your La-Z-Boy and never leave home?

That’s Another Thing I’m Never Going to Do

What movie/TV show was that from? Two guys making all these elaborate plans, and then they start laughing: “That’s another d___ thing I’m never going to do!” The line makes me laugh but I don’t know what it was from. Anyone?

I’ve gotten to a point where I realize there are some things I’m just never going to do. I’m never going to walk the Appalachian Trail. I’m never going to finish that quilt. I’m never going to fit into my skinny jeans.

Some things are just not meant to happen.

I’ve decided to embrace this time in my life. Okay, I haven’t completely given up on the quilt. I still hope to finish it before the fabric disintegrates. It probably would go faster if I ever actually worked on it.

But organize the photos into albums? Live in a big city? Buy a small farm to grow my own food and raise my own meat?

Honestly, did anyone ever see me as Farmer Valerie? I dig in the dirt about as much as the Queen of England does. And I kind of hate animals. (Don’t judge me. I have very good reasons. They stink and you have to clean up their poop.) But I’ve always had this image of me with a big braid of thick gray hair down my back, dressed in long skirts and shawls. “Little House on the Prairie”—but with central heat and good plumbing. And I’m finally, officially, letting that go.

Anything you’re jettisoning from your life-plans? Some wishful-thinking kinds of things that you finally accept that you're never going to accomplish or experience? Add it to the comments below and free yourself. Say it with me; "That's another d___ thing I'm never going to do!"

World Enough and Time

I never thought I would say this, but there’s too freakin’ much out there to read! And not nearly enough time.



For Christmas, I was the thrilled recipient of a Kindle e-reader, and promptly loaded it up with books. I also received several bookstore gift certificates, and a 26-volume set of Time-Life “The Old West” books, which I love, and am on the second volume. I can’t read just one book at a time, so I’m reading a nonfiction book on writing and a novel set in Georgia in the 1960s, too. When I’m walking (okay, I’ll get back to it soon, I promise), cooking, or sewing, I listen to a novel or memoir on an MP3 player from the library—currently, Ape House, by the author of Water for Elephants.


I am on a lot of email lists: cooking, writing, health, church committees, and several people’s “forward” lists. (Gotta admit, one person’s mass forwards get almost automatically deleted. Bless her heart.) Occasionally, I get an actual personal email. For my writing’s sake, I follow many agents on Twitter, and when they’re not tweeting about the weather/kids/pets/sushi, they’re linking to articles on writing and publishing. Which I feel compelled to read.


And somewhere in all that reading, I’m supposed to write, volunteer, do laundry, clean house, shop for groceries, cook, be a good wife, mom, and grandmother, floss my teeth, and, oh yeah, search for a part time job.


I know of some people who actually look for things to do. Things seem to find me. Okay, I admit, I volunteer for some. But others appear on my doorstep like orphans, with arms reaching out and “Please help me!” scrawled across their little buntings. And I love to help—I am kind of a do-bee. I know myself well enough to know that if I don’t factor in down time, time to write, read, plan, and ponder, I will turn into someone else, someone I don’t like. The not-happy Valerie.

I’ve never yet found the perfect balance. How do you balance your life? Do you leave enough time for you to be you? Are you in a phase of your life that simply doesn’t allow much time for that? What can you do about it?

The Cutting Edge

I cut myself on the face while shaving.

And no, smart-alecks, I wasn’t shaving my face.

I was shaving the hair on the back of my neck—sometimes it gets a little scruffy between haircuts and I have to clean it up. I do it while in the shower so the hairs don’t stick to my neck and itch. Got it?

So, as I was transferring the razor from my left hand to my right, somehow my chin got in the way (?), and slash! Splashes of blood hit the shower floor and spattered like a horror movie. I rushed, worried that I might run out of blood and faint, naked. in the shower, and EMS would be called. That’s my idea of a horror story. Probably the EMS squad’s, too.

I stuck toilet paper to the cut and tried to get dressed, but one wad of toilet paper didn’t begin to staunch the flow. I had to press toilet paper against my chin for, oh, fifteen minutes before the flow slowed to a trickle. 

I've had other bad experiences with sharp objects. Last year when the whole family gathered, I dressed the three granddaughters in pillowcase dresses (handmade by yours truly, thank you very much) and took pictures out front on the wicker rockers. I’d cut my hand with a paring knife just prior to the photo session and stuck several bandages over the cut. A few minutes into the photo session I guided one of the girls into position and a bright red stain showed up on the dress’ shoulder. Oops. Son-in-law Jeremy did some quick first aid, taping and binding my hand into immobility, and I lived.

On Thanksgiving Day I was chopping up turkey thighs to roast (makes a gravy to die for—literally) and wham, another slip of the knife. John wanted to take me to Emergency for stitches but I refused—the work-intensive gravy would never get done, and I didn’t have a Plan B. He cleaned and bound the nasty cut, making dire predictions about poultry diseases, and took over the gravy preparations. The following Tuesday at the dermatologist’s I was told, “Your husband was right. You needed stitches. Too late now.” It hurt until February.

So when I cut my chin recently, five-year-old granddaughter Ella asked, “What did you do to your face?” 

“I accidentally cut it. I have a little trouble with sharp things.”

“Yeah, because you always cut yourself with them!”

The next time she saw me she greeted me with, “So, did you cut yourself again?”

What about you? Are you known for something as stupid as impaired knife-handling? And if you ever want a blood-brother (or sister), I always stand ready.

The Booby Prize

I like to think the best of people. I’m not suspicious, and kind of take people at face value until they prove themselves unworthy of my respect.

John says I’m gullible.

Last week I got a phone call—I’d won a chef for a night! Woo-hoo! Chef Ray reminded me that I’d filled out a card at a Taste of Home Cooking Show (lots of vendor tables and I’d filled out lots of cards) and my name had been drawn! The show was a few months back, so my BS-O-Meter should have twanged, but no. He told me to invite a few other couples and he’d bring his own cookware and food, and would see me on Friday night. I often haul my own cookware along when I rent a beach house, so again, the BS-O-Meter remained in hiding.

When Chef Ray began hauling in, unpacking and arranging pots, pans and other equipment, the truth began to sink in. This was a salesman demonstrating cookware. Now, I love to cook and at least one of the other guests loves to, also, so I thought, okay, so he demonstrates his cookware. Unethical to represent it as a chef-for-a-night prize, and I was hideously embarrassed that I’d invited friends without warning them this was a sales pitch, but I’m basically a kind person who doesn’t throw people out of her house even when the situation warrants it, and I hoped my friends would accept my sincere apologies afterward.

He’d promised we eat about an hour after the guests arrived at six. After an hour of oohing and ahhing, still no food cooked in his fancy-shmancy cookware. Lunch was a distant memory. I dealt with my creeping annoyance by plotting ways to mock the whole night on my blog.

Finally he started cooking. At eight I was getting a little light-headed but the food was ready—and then he held it hostage in those heat-holding pans of his while he witnessed to us about what Jesus had done for him. Finally the BS-O-Meter sets off alarms.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a Christian. I have been known to tell someone my faith story. But I’ve never told someone she won a prize as a way to get into someone’s house to sell them something. I’ve never used a sales call as a vehicle to witness to someone else’s guests.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me in front of my friends, shame on you even more! Bad enough I was clueless, but I invited friends to my home to be held hostage by this guy and his outrageously overpriced cookware (electric skillet $580, small set of cookware $1400). Seriously. Want the big set? $2300.

To my friends who politely sat through that evening, please forgive me! I’ll cook for you soon and will not try to sell you anything, I promise.

And to everyone else, tune up the BS-O-Meter. Chef Ray is out there.