Didn't My Skin Used to Fit? (5 page)

We have to make a commitment to be kinder, gentler to our bodies. We don’t want to overwork our hearts or place any unnecessary strain on the rest of our vital organs. One way is to limit our intake of red meat. Cutting out red meat is no problem for me. Most of the meat I serve is black anyway, not red. Including more fish in our diet is a good way to become healthier, too. We should be filling our freezers with rainbow trout, mahimahi, orange roughy, and salmon. They sit nicely on top of the Ben and Jerry’s.

You see, there are plenty of ways to improve our eating habits and insure a long, healthy life. But a rutabaga-leek-broccoli-cauliflower swirl? I don’t think so. Unless they add a scoop of Rocky Road.

And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.
—Abraham Lincoln

13
I’ve Only Got Eyelids for You

My good friends Linda Aleahmad, a licensed marriage and family therapist, and Mary Scott, a poet and administrative assistant to a Southern California newspaper editor, and I celebrate our birthdays together each year. We usually go out to a nice restaurant and talk about things like life, work, children, and of course, growing older. No matter how much we don’t want to be reminded of it, the subject of aging almost always comes up, and we spend the rest of the evening comparing our latest physical changes and laughing about them as much as possible.

Tonight the physical change du jour was droopy eyelids. Each of us noted that our once perky eyelids had recently un- perked themselves, and as Joshua might have said at the wall of Jericho, ‘‘They’ve come a tumbling down!’’ Not that we’re tripping over them or anything, but they’ve drooped enough to give us that half-open, half-closed look that so many of us had through high school and college.

It seemed to happen to each of us overnight. Eyelids are sneaky that way. You go to bed with all your body parts exactly where they’re supposed to be: Chin in place?
Check
. Lips in place?
Check
. Eyelids where they’re supposed to be?
Check
. But when you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror, you notice that the rest of your body is exactly where it was eight hours ago, but your eyelids are now drooping like Deputy Dawg’s, and you’re just about as excited as he is about it.

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. Our eyelids can’t be expected to stay at attention forever. Forty or fifty years is long enough. They’re pooped. They’re ready for a break. They’ve faithfully served at their post and now they deserve a rest.

Unfortunately, though, their early retirement begins to place undo pressure on the eyelashes. They are the only things between the avalanche of flesh and our cheekbones.

A business associate of mine had her eyelids pulled back surgically. That’s one solution, I suppose. And yes, it worked, but now she has that wide-awake look, like someone just said, ‘‘Boo!’’

My friends and I spent the evening together weighing the pros and cons of getting our eyelids done but decided against it. We opted to keep the skin we’re in and let nature take its course. We would be thankful for our health, our families, and all our blessings. It seemed like the right thing to do—especially when we remembered that Thanksgiving was just around the corner.

I think there was something about my neck that reminded them.

There’s more to life than increasing its speed.
—Gandhi

14
Death Doesn’t Become Us

Since my friend Mary had recently attended a family funeral, the subject moved from fallen eyelids to funerals, wills, and last wishes. Linda was the first to share what she wanted done with her remains.

‘‘I want to be cremated,’’ she said, ‘‘and my ashes placed inside a firecracker and shot into the air in one spectacular send-off.’’

We figured it must be the cheesecake gone to her head.

Mary said she wanted to be cremated, too, but she also wanted a memorial service in which people said nice things about her. She also wanted a good picture on display, and she’d like her ashes scattered in the barranca in Ventura, California.

I opted for a more traditional funeral. I want nice things said about me at my funeral, too (I’ll write them up ahead of time), but I also want the service to be full of funny remembrances. I’ve embraced laughter my entire life. I wouldn’t want it to be missing from my funeral. I want tears, too, of course (who doesn’t want to be missed?), but I would hope there’d be lots of laughter to balance things out.

I also asked them to help my husband with the telephone calls. I know him too well. He’ll have every intention of calling all my friends listed in our telephone book, but he won’t make it past the
C
s. It’ll be wearying to keep relating the same story over and over again, reliving all the details of how I left this world—especially if I go in some bizarre way like ‘‘The manager at the skating rink said it was the first time they’d ever lost anyone during the Hokey Pokey, but they’re still going to award her the free CD posthumously for all her efforts.’’ Or ‘‘We told her not to use the computer while in the bathtub, but she just mumbled something about a deadline, plugged it in, and deleted herself. We tried to save her as a text file, but we got there too late.’’

However it happens, my husband will get tired of telling the same tale again and again and again, so he’ll just quit— right after the
C
s. My friends whose last names begin with the letters
D
through
Z
won’t find out about my demise until I’m missing from the family-photo Christmas card. I can hear the phone calls now.

‘‘Where’s Martha? I didn’t see her by the tree.’’

‘‘Oh, didn’t you know?’’ my husband will say. ‘‘She passed on six months ago.’’

‘‘Why didn’t anyone tell me?’’

‘‘I would have, but you weren’t in the front of the phone book.’’

Linda and Mary understood my dilemma (most women can) and agreed to help my husband with the phone calls.

The three of us then moved on to discuss where we wanted our remains to be buried. Living in both Los Angeles and Nashville, I wasn’t sure where I’d want my services, so I left the options open. I even entertained the idea of having a service in both places. I didn’t see a problem with that, especially since Linda, being shot off in a firecracker, would be having multiple resting places, too. Linda and Mary both opted for California since that’s where they live.

Mary wanted the songs ‘‘In My Life’’ by the Beatles and Van Morrison’s ‘‘Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?’’ played at her service, and she wanted someone to read several poems, which she has selected. Linda mentioned she wanted ‘‘Muskrat Love’’ sung at hers, but I think she was kidding. I’m still deciding on the songs I want played, but ‘‘No One Ever Cared for Me Like Jesus’’ is definitely one of them.

Next we talked about our choice of flowers. Mary wants irises or tulips. Linda’s favorites are daisies and pansies. Mine are magnolias.

We also talked about whether or not we wanted to be organ donors and what parts of our bodies we would be willing to give to science. Not liking the prospect of science returning some of these parts (as defective), we decided not to worry about making these plans right now.

In fact, we decided to change the subject altogether. It was getting way too maudlin. We each felt we had plenty of life left to live, and most of our plans still needed tweaking anyway. Especially Linda’s. She wants her funeral in Los Angeles, where fireworks are illegal. That would mean Mary and I would either have to get special clearance or get into a lot of trouble fulfilling her last wishes.

And to tell you the truth, we’re not about to get arrested for shooting off a firecracker illegally, even if our best friend is in it.

Despite the high cost of living, it remains a popular item.
—Anonymous

15
Are We Having Fun Yet?

My husband and I spent last Fourth of July doing laundry at the local all-night Laundromat. What can I say? We’re still party animals after all these years.

Actually it was my husband’s idea. I was ready to celebrate our nation’s birthday like it should be celebrated—an old-fashioned barbecue, picnic games, fireworks, a nap. But no, we had laundry to do.

My husband didn’t see any problem with doing our laundry on the Fourth of July. He’s of the impression that the older he gets the less holiday excitement he can handle. He prefers nice quiet evenings with the History Channel or curling up with a good book (the Best Buy catalog counts). If my husband had his way, New Year’s Eve would be spent getting the transmission fluid checked on our car, Valentine’s Day reseeding the lawn, and Christmas morning the perfect time to shampoo the carpets.

His main problem with holidays is he doesn’t like crowds. According to him, two’s company and three’s an unlawful assembly. So since the Fourth of July meant crowds, we did laundry.

Unbeknownst to us, though, the parking lot of the Laundromat happened to be the ideal location for local residents to watch the city’s fireworks display. While we were busy fluffing and folding, cars began filing into the parking lot one by one, staking claim on the spaces with the best views. Not that all those people were in for any more excitement than we were going to experience
inside
the Laundromat. Until you’ve watched a Maytag hit the spin cycle and start shaking in time to ‘‘God Bless America’’ being played over the Laundromat TV, you haven’t celebrated the Fourth of July. And if one of the dryers happens to develop an electrical short and the sparks start to fly, well, even Bob Hope would have a hard time beating a finale like that.

So there we were celebrating the Fourth of July in style. No, we wouldn’t be seeing the Blue Angels in a flyby (although there were a couple of wasps inside that were putting on quite a show). There wouldn’t be a marching band or rockets going off or even sparklers. It was just the two of us with a pocketful of quarters and five loads of laundry needing to be done.

Now that I look back on it, it was a pretty enjoyable evening. We actually got to see some of the fireworks through the reflections in the washing machine portholes, and my husband found a quarter behind one of the chairs. As Yakov Smirnoff would say, ‘‘What a country!’’