PERI....Everything

PERI-menopause:  the period in a woman’s life shortly before the occurrence of menopause.   The average age of a woman who experiences menopause is 51.  Perimenopause can take place up to 10 years before that.  Since when is 10 years a short amount of time?  10 years is a decade.  Half the time a child lives at home, part of a career.  While my perimenopausal symptoms are not majorly life altering, they are more than mildly annoying.  They are nagging reminders that my body is aging, inside as well as out. 

PERI-vision: The time in a person’s life shortly before the reluctant adoption of bi-focals.  Even more maddening than the hormonal issues that are out of my control is the fact that my vision has completely gone to hell.  I have worn contacts to see far since my early 20’s.  No problem.  I could still read, work, and go about my day in the usual fashion while wearing contacts.  Since I started using my near vision more frequently (computer work, etc), when I am wearing my contacts, I now need reading glasses for office work, reading phone texts, menus, etc.  When I’m not wearing my contacts, I can see up to 3 feet in front of me flawlessly, but beyond that, life is a big blur.   I am in a bewildering vision purgatory where one piece of equipment no longer suffices.   Every day tasks have become laden with choosing the right looking glass for the occasion, and I never seem to have enough or the right one.   Instead of glamorous designer sunglasses gracing the crown of my head, I have glorified magnifying glasses propped on the end of my nose.  I swear that George Costanza was right when he told Jerry Seinfeld that he could improve his vision by squinting.  When I squint I really CAN read my phone, but then I need more botox.  Not a win-win.

PERI -parenting:  The time in a person’s life shortly before her child leaves home for college.   Your child feels like they don’t need a parent and often looks at you as if you don’t exist, but in reality they need you more than ever.   You are there to cook meals and otherwise serve as a domestic (unpaid) slave, but also to act at various times as a therapist, coach, tutor, confidant, chauffer, nutritionist, healthy lifestyle advocate (i.e. sex education specialist), role model, drill sergeant, translator (what your father meant to say was…), verbal punching bag, curfew enforcer, and bleary eyed worry wart.  The child that you nurtured from infancy and cooed over their every achievement has now become an awkward young adult that eats more than an elephant, wears more clothes than Barbie and Ken put together, and is involved in more activities than you are (or ever were).  You can’t control everything they do, but they still live with you, eat your food and drive your vehicle.   Their hormonal status medically places them in the “insane” category, but you have to let them go out on their own and make decisions that are sometimes bad and offer experiences for “personal growth”.   And you must do this sober, in case, God forbid you need to retrieve them from one of these personal growth incidents in the middle of the night.

Peri – Lift:  The time in a woman’s life where she contemplates having several parts of her body and face lifted surgically, but shortly before she actually goes under the knife.  Things are falling and starting to pucker i.e. eyelids, boobs, butts, knees, and jowls.  Fillers and Botox don’t last as long as they used to.  Peels and other treatments are getting expensive and less effective.  The Crepe Erase product, marketed by Jane Seymour, begins to look appealing.   The piggy banks are filling up with savings for THAT DAY, when I disappear for 2 weeks and return looking well rested and rejuvenated.

PERI– lunacy:  The time in a women’s life where all of this PERI-activity makes her feel as though she is on the brink of insanity, but not quite.  Because if you make it through the PERI parts, there is a sort of calm, aged paradise that awaits:

1.     Menopause finally arrives!  No more hot flashes or night sweats.  Hoorah!   Feminine hygiene products can be replaced with massive quantities of KY. 

2.     Your vision is completely compromised and you give in to wearing bifocals ALL the time.   However, when you and your significant other take off your bifocals for conjugal, KY filled activities, neither of you can see anything and are able to fantasize that you are 25 again!

3.     The kids are gone, supporting themselves and you are free to travel, write a novel, and invest in plastic surgery without judgment.  You will be completely lifted in body and spirit!   

4.     Enjoy this time because there are always PERI- situations lurking around the corner such as PERI grandparent, PERI caregiver, PERI – loss of bladder control, PERI erectile dysfunction, etc.   

The Psychology of a House Showing

Here I sit, deflated, like a child’s discarded balloon animal 3 days after the birthday party.  Just hours ago I was revved up on adrenaline moving a mile a minute mopping and dusting while contemplating what I would do with the dwindling profit from the potential sale of our home.   A family trip to Europe, sessions with the chiropractor to finally get my back in good health; I might even splurge on that new crown for my molar.  But alas, it is just another showing with no offer.  This one was particularly brutal as the time I spent preparing for the showing (aka performance/presentation!) was about 20 times longer than the time the clients actually spent in my home (a mere 15 minutes).    Actually – forget the earlier animal balloon analogy – picture a rotund lavender balloon floating happily higher and higher in the air and then some shithead with a blowdart gun attacks me and with a sudden POP, I flutter back down to the earth, a small heap of rubber garbage.  Yes, that is a much better description of how I feel right now.

I have bought and sold my share of living spaces during my nearly (choke) 20 years of marriage.  Two condos in Boston, a house in the Massachusetts suburbs, a ski house in Deer Valley, another condo in Old Town Park City, and finally our dream home in the vast meadows of lower PC.  As it turns out, our dream peaked early, but our wallets couldn’t sustain the long-term effects of the economic downturn.  It also turns out that dream homes require a good deal of maintenance and attention, not to mention ongoing support funds.  In real estate, as we all know, timing is everything and for 15 years our timing was damn good, the last five – not so much.  Anyway – this latest real estate endeavor has brought with it a rather long DOM (days on market) due to the recession and the mammoth size of our home – just around 2 years (give or take a few months during the off season).

While I am usually not a type A personality, the disorder must lay dormant in my system until we put our house on the market, and then it liberates itself with a vengeance. There have been a few instances where all the stars align and I have a “showing” on the actual day that the cleaning lady has been to my house.  This only happens twice a month, so I know statistics are not on my side, but I always hope for the best.  Most of the time, I AM the cleaning lady and I have to perform at record speed.  My work ethic and moral code kick in and I believe if I expect someone to pay top dollar for my home, my house should look spectacular.  Perfect.  Unlived in.  The ultimate lifestyle oxymoron – how do you make a house where you live every day, appear as if you don’t live there?  Unless you are Samantha from Bewitched, trying to maintain the “unlived in” look creates a fair amount of insanity.  Some days, I truly feel like committing myself to the asylum – I imagine that it is quite clean there and people could drop in for an impromptu showing at almost any time.  My therapist (a long time ago when I could afford therapy) told me to throw some dirty clothes on the floor before my next house showing – “just do it!” she yelled enthusiastically.  I couldn’t do it.  I failed.  What if they loved everything about my house and they didn’t buy it because they thought I was a slob?  How could I live with myself?

The natural enemies of the house showing are: kids, dogs, and the Everything Bagel.  Regardless of my constant nagging, the kids leave their stuff (affectionately called “shit” more often than not) everywhere.   Homework, clothes, pencils, glasses, food wrappers, water bottles, Wii remotes, electronic devices and their cords.  After 4 pm, it looks like the teenage sprawl has taken over my family room.  They enter the mudroom and an endless mound of goods drop from them as they make their way into our habitat – shoes, coats, backpacks, hats.  Once they hit the kitchen, their appetite -which as been unnaturally sequestered during the school day - comes completely unleashed while they open cupboards and fridges in search of the quickest high carb treat they can shove in their mouth.  In minutes, the floors and counters that were spotless and shiny are cluttered with crumbs and debris. 

The dog: Four happy dog feet are the equivalent of a nuclear bomb going off on your floors.  The dog comes in from her morning constitutional (which I agree is a moment worth celebrating no matter your species) and she can literally deposit hundreds of footprints within seconds while displaying her enthusiasm in seeing me as well as her jubilation over her recent evacuation. 

And then, there is the Everything Bagel – which at this moment, no longer has a place in my domicile.  Since I have virtually no control over my other two enemies, I can at least ban the seeded bagel beast from my kitchen.  I remove the bagel as carefully as I can from the packaging, seeds and spices fly everywhere.  I deftly hoist the bagel into the toaster, more seeds and the occasional flake of dried garlic spew forth.  After applying cream cheese to the carb-laden villain, I can’t even watch the disaster that ensues as my kids try to consume the bagel.  Seeds go from mouth to counter in slow motion, then onto the floor, where the dog tromps over with her wet feet to eat the crumbs.  The whole scenario sends me into an unrecoverable fit.

The phone rings.  I see that it is my realtor and my heart stops.  I know that whatever I had planned for the next four hours is about to get nixed.  I feign cheeriness as I agree to a showing later that day.  Everything gets put on hold as I attempt to erase the existence of my family and pet from our home.  I race home and de-clutter, make beds, clean bathrooms, vacuum, dust, mop and light a candle so it smells like I’ve been casually baking a spice cake instead of cleaning toilets.   I clear my shower of product – from the usual 12 shampoos and conditioners (see earlier blog) down to a more reasonable 2. I play subtle spa-type music in each room to evoke a feeling of peace and calm for the potential buyer (as opposed to the frenzy that preceded his arrival).  I arrange flowers, and get rid of personal photos.  Everything is perfectly staged for success.  I, on the other hand, am a wreck.  During the 4-6 hour cleaning process (depending on the level of depravity that has taken place in my house) my mind constantly oscillates, “This is it, this is the one.  I’m positive we are going to sell the house.  I’m going to research flights to Italy and potential rentals tonight…… and then this is such a waste of my time, we are never going to sell this house, why am I working so hard.”  And on it goes….

I hastily depart my residence with my dog and her four assault weapons in tow, I’m usually sweating, the floors still wet behind me.  (During a showing last year, I left her in the yard and she was playing with a potential buyer’s offspring when she inadvertently ripped the little girl’s skirt off by mistake, so now the dog has to go.  Needless to say, no offer on that showing either).  The dog and I lumber around town in the car while I try to catch my breath and calm down. As I begin to again ponder the various scenarios that might result from all my labor, the realtor calls again, “They liked it, but….”   POP! There goes that damn blow dart gun again. 

Coiffure in Crisis

I fear a hair predicament coming on.  Listed below are the telltale signs that I’m about to do something drastic:

1. As I look down in my shower, through a veil of suds, this is what I see:

At least two of these shampoo/conditioner pairs were purchased within the last two weeks.  Go ahead, count them.  There are 5 shampoos and 6 conditioners.  I would like to say that a couple of them belong to my husband, but it is simply not true.  As much as I occasionally stretch the truth about his less than redeeming qualities, it is not the case this time.  They all belong to me.  Don’t do any more math please, my own hasty monetary calculations made me feel slightly nauseous.   In my defense, I use all of them regularly except for the Paul Mitchell Awapuhi conditioner that I purchased as the result of a bad tip from a new hairdresser.   Another alarming revelation, the list of hair stylistics, colorists, and salons that I’ve visited over the last 9 years in Utah absolutely exceeds the number of hair products in my shower.

First – let’s discuss my hair.  I have thin hair, but a lot of it (or I used to have a lot of it, based on what’s sitting in the drain after my daily hygiene, I must have a lot less of it).  It is dry and frizzy and sort of curly/wavy when left to its own devices – which because it looks so hellish, I rarely do.  Instead, I blow dry and then flat iron/curling iron depending on the occasion.  I live in an excruciatingly dry climate and we have a lot of minerals in our water.  It also grows painfully slow, so if I get it cut – I’m looking at years to grow it out.  As I read this last paragraph, it is no wonder my hair is dry and “unmanageable” as they say.  With all of these factors, it just doesn’t have a chance. And so, the psychology of marketeer wins and I embrace the theory that I too can have shiny, thick, perfectly coiffed hair like Courtney Cox if I just use Pantene’s age defying products.

If I thoroughly examined all of the ingredients in these products, I would likely find that 95% of them are the same and I’m paying varying amounts of money to put the same old shit in my hair day after day.  I have made a few attempts to compare the ingredients, but honestly the words are so long and unfamiliar and put in different orders, it is impossible.  I’m fairly certain this is a deliberate effort from the hair companies to keep us confused so we continue to believe that the newest and best product will somehow transform our hair into that of the celebrity of the moment.  Honestly, what is left of my rational, intellectual brain comprehends this.  The emotional, vain, narcissistic side is compromised.  It must be all the dry hair surrounding it; it is seeping into my thought process like the wayward hormones of an unruly teenager. 

2. Ok, you think the shower looks bad?  Let’s take a look at the styling and so called “leave-in” products, not quite as bad  - my little army only numbers ten items.  Some for when I leave my hair curly (none work), others for thickening, straightening, detangling, repairing split ends, smoothing, and then there are the variety of oils I purchased in an unsuccessful effort to obtain something as effective, but less expensive than Moroccan oil.   Again – don’t undertake the math, it is depressing.

3. I’ve been ripping hairstyles out of every fashion magazine on the shelf.  I will read an entire InStyle and not even take a glance at the clothes, I’m all about the hair.    Again, I know some (most?) of these styles are not right for me at all, but a girl has to dream.  The style pictured below is the one I showed to my son, who looked at it, gave me a funny look and said, “Mom, do we need to have a little talk?  Are you having a mid life crisis?  This look is pretty goth.”  Now obviously I’m not going to sport the beat me up eyeliner, or the S&M choker so I actually think this cut is pretty cute.  Let’s not discuss the fact that this girl is a MODEL, maybe 18 years old, with thick straight hair that probably grows two inches a month.  The antithesis of my challenged locks. 

4.  The final straw in any hair crisis is when one consults the virtual hairstyler, which I paid $14.95 to do.  These four indisputable alerts indicate that I’m going to lose it very soon,  make an appointment with a new stylist who doesn’t know me,  chop it all off and immediately regret it.  This is my cycle, which takes place about every 24 months:

CHOP------à loathe new shorter hair and lack of styling options -------à proclaim to be “growing it out” ------à increasing annoyance with longer frizzy hair -----à have PMS ----à  make appointment ----à CHOP. 

Please vote now for the following styles:

Ellen Barkin's bob cut

Cameron Diaz

Courtney Cox - a definite no on the dark hair and center part

this is some disney star my daughter watches - I would need extensions obviously

Alyson Hannigan

Mrs. Claus

Every woman I encountered during the month of December was a stressed out mess.  Tasked with finding the perfect gift for not only her immediate family, but also her extended family and her husband’s family had proved overwhelming.  Wrapping, planning holiday menus, attending parties, buying hostess and teacher gifts, baking cookies, appearing at school concerts, dealing with lines at the post office have made them all dreary-eyed and exasperated.  Isn’t this the month when we are supposed to be both merry and peaceful?  Deck the halls on the Silent Night and all of those other festive oxymorons?

On the other side of the spectrum, the men I spoke with seemed rather relaxed and completely un-phased by Christ’s birthday celebration looming at the end of the month.  Granted – some of them were preoccupied with closing an end of the year deal in hopes of retaining the large bonus that would ultimately fund the gift-giving extravagance of their significant other.  But mostly I maintain that men simply don’t participate in Christmas preparations for reasons I don’t understand.

After running into female friend after friend with the same gripe, it dawned on me that along with my daughter and son, I have my doubts about Santa.  Oh - I believe Santa existed, I just don’t think he did all the work.  I believe in Mrs. Claus.  When you start to analyze the legend, it becomes obvious that – much like the bible – men wrote stories with the intent of glorifying themselves.  Behind every great man, stood a woman working her ass off to make magic happen, and it was no different in the Claus family.

Brief Santa Analysis

Fact 1: Men can’t even figure out what to get their own mothers and children, no less for millions of children all over the world that they have never met. 

Fact 2: Have you ever witnessed a man making a list?  Even a simple one that breaks things down into two categories:  naughty and nice (except for his porn collection?)

Fact 3: Have you ever seen a man wrap a present that doesn’t look like a 5 year old did it?

Fact 4: How could Santa be that fat if he was doing all the work?  It just doesn’t add up. 

Fact 5: Who else has the ability to organize and multi-task in such a way that hundreds of millions of children receive exactly the presents they requested in a mere 12-hour period?   Who could manage the cross-functional elf team, wrapping wads of presents attractively, packing the sleigh so the toys don’t fall out, feeding the reindeer twice a day, and still have time to make enough food to double Santa’s girth?  

I tell you who, it was Mrs. Claus.

I liken the sleigh ride on Christmas Eve to my own morning routine whereby I rise at 6:30 and wake the kids, make the breakfasts and lunches, pack the backpacks, feed the dog and make coffee.  My husband lumbers out of bed just before 7, breezes down the stairs at 7:10 fully dressed and says “Oh I will take the kids to school - don’t worry!” Ergo - All of the moms see him dropping the kids at the bus and exclaim “Oh what a good husband he is” while I, still in my jammies with unbrushed teeth, sit home in brazen anonymity.

I conclude that it is Mrs. Claus that performs all of the important tasks behind the scenes, and Santa dons the fancy the suit and drives the sleigh. Consequently, his name is mentioned in all of the folklore and he gets to eat the cookies while she is left behind in the kitchen, cleaning up the mess.  Remember ladies - it is He who makes the public journey that reaps the acclaim.

I imagine in present times, The Night Before Christmas goes something more like this….

Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house,

Mama was a basket case trying to cook, wrap and clean without the help of her husband, that louse.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that Santa would get his fat butt in the sleigh and the reindeer in the air.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

With false visions of Santa making toys wrongly placed in their heads.

With mama exhausted and cranky, and me feeling great after a night cap,

I asked for some Holiday nookie before our long winter’s nap.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear?

A wicked woman with a wild look in her eye saying, “go fuck yourself dear.”

Even though I was feeling quite lively and quick,

I knew in a moment, I should probably put away my prick. 

The bags under her eyes, and the droop of her head

Soon led me to believe I had everything to dread.

I back peddled and pleaded,

Apologized for my long list of not doing the things she needed.

Before I could make amends, she had left the room in a huff

My first thought was that she had more stockings to stuff.

I followed her out, trying desperately to atone

But alas, it was too late, it seemed her heart had turned to stone

She said, “Thank you Amazon, Target and Cole Sport,

My undying gratitude also goes to Apple, Wii, and Wal-Mart.”

And giving me the finger as I stood in the alcove,

Away in the Land cruiser (like a bat out of hell) she drove

But I heard her exclaim as she sped off into the night,

Good luck making Christmas happen by yourself next year and watch out – those reindeer bite!