These days, I do not lavish money on personal upkeep professionals. I go to a hairdresser once a year, max, and if I am not getting an updo for some formal event, I ask her just to chop off the dead ends.
Some years I am tempted also to obtain eyebrows through artificial means. My youngest sister, who has dark hair, takes excellent care of her eyebrows. They are terribly elegant, whereas mine are all but invisible and ...
"Even your eyebrows are curly," said the beautician yesterday.
"Yes," I said dolefully.
My leg hair is curly, too. If I believed in former lives, I would hypothesize I was once a poodle. A ginger poodle. Back when I had short hair, it curled like a poodle's. A puffy poodle's.
I had been at the hairdresser the day before, having hurried there a bit late, thinking about the A.S. Byatt story of the woman who looks at herself in the hairdresser's mirror and blurts out in disappointment, "I look like a middle-aged woman with a hairdo." Nobody around says anything, but it is obvious to both narrator and reader what they are thinking. The heroine of "Medusa's Ankles" had been (or will be--I forget) thinking of herself in her twenties, having an amorous adventure in Italy. Naturally, we are most of us still 25 inside. Some, I regret to say, are still 12. Watch out for those women. Eeek.
These rare beauty treatments are in honour of my mother, who is coming to the U.K. for a walking tour in the South of England. My mother either usually or used to go to the beauty parlour before going on holiday. Also in honour of my mother, I have given up sugar, white bread, potatoes, prepared foods, and snacking in preparing for this walking tour, for I am going on her adventure. I have practised walking long distances, too--well, five miles at a stretch. I have lost half a stone (i.e. 7 lbs).
"You may be wondering why I am getting my eyebrows done for a walking tour," I said to the beautician. "I am wondering myself."
I have also been wondering if I am strong enough to carry my mother, should she turn her ankle or suffer some other calamity. At the gym yesterday, I pondered a dumbbell her weight and thought I wouldn't be able to get her very far. Still, I could drag her out of quicksand, etc. More importantly, and not relying on physical strength, I can protect her from women who are still 12 inside.
Taking two weeks off work, housework and wheelchair pushing is not a petit but a grand soin. Since according to officialdom, I am officially an Unpaid Carer, I thought I would be able to get the district nurse (if there is such a person) to come around and check on B.A. every day I was away. (Needless to say, we had no idea B.A. would lose his ability to walk when I promised to go on the trip.) However, none of the various local agencies I have consulted have produced an Alternate Carer, so we have all had another lesson about the Welfare State and the continuing necessity, however high one's taxes, of relying on friends, priests, parishioners, neighbours and, above all, family. Thank the heavens, my mother-in-law is coming to stay.
"And now you have eyebrows," said the beautician triumphantly.
I have a ginger poodle. He’s loyal and smart and friendly to all—human and canine alike. If I believed in reincarnation, I’d want to be a poodle in a former life.
ReplyDeleteNow that my husband has recovered from his illness, I’ve started putting a little more effort into my appearance, which required re-learning how to do makeup in middle age without looking garish. I like the “no makeup makeup” that makes me look healthy and glowy—but very much like myself. The no makeup makeup people would say that filling in your eyebrows a bit with a natural looking pencil is a cheap and quick way to look more put-together.
On a more serious note, caregiver burnout is a real thing and I’m so glad you get to go on holiday with your mother. I’m even gladder that BA’s family is stepping up to help. I find it very odd that he’s been so ill and his family is nowhere to be seen. My family has a lot of drama, resentments, ill-feelings and grudges, but people do put in an appearance during serious illnesses among us.
That’s easily answered! He has outlived everyone except his mother & childless uncle, who is himself in poor health.
DeleteI shall only make the perfectly sensible if banal comment that I hope you and your mother both have fun. But be careful. The sad story of Dr Mosley is haunting me a little.
ReplyDeleteThank you! Yes, I was gutted (as we say here) when the news of his disappearance --and then of his death--reached me. He was so important to so many, and I too have followed his advice. And I had some trouble getting to sleep the night before yesterday's solo hike! But the weather here is temperate, I had a map & phone and had done proper preparations, and I returned to our hotel in one piece.
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