Monthly Archives: August 2012

I work at a university. I have several student employees. They are fabulous — smart, technologically quick, funny, and all around great people. I’m glad I have the opportunity to get to know them and to have them as employees.

The other morning when I came to work, one of them, one of them looked like he had just thrown up. His face was pasty green. I wanted to ask him how he felt. Was he feverish, nauseated, lightheaded? I wanted to tell him to go lie down. I was about ready to suggest he go home since he looked so sick.

Then he laughed at something another co-worker said. As I watched him, I realized he was not sick. He was just wearing the wrong color. He had on a light sage green shirt. That color looked horrid on him and made him look sick.

Years and years ago when it was the ‘in’ thing to have your ‘colors’ done, my sister had a lady ‘do’ her colors. The lady determined that my sister was a ‘winter’ in coloring. This lady was just starting out and wasn’t very experienced so she didn’t charge my sister any money for the consultation.

My sister thought that she was an ‘autumn’ and not a winter. So, later, she paid good money to another lady to have her colors done. She reasoned that this lady was more experienced and knew more what she was doing. That lady, too, told my sister that she was a winter.

My sister was disgruntled. She wanted to know the colors of her sisters and her mother. She asked us if we wanted to have our colors done.

I was (and still am) a rather skeptical person. I thought the ‘colors’ thing was a bunch of hooey. My sister wheedled. She begged. She cajoled. She said she would pay for it so I didn’t have to pay for it. I acquiesced.

The lady said that my mother, all of my sisters, and I were winters. My older sister was dumbfounded. She finally accepted that she was a ‘winter’ in her coloring.

Being the skeptical person that I am, I didn’t have much faith in what the lady told us. Until she placed swatches of different colors under my face and I actually saw the effects of the different colors on my face.

I had worn a beige blouse that day and the first thing that the lady asked me was if I was recovering from Hepatitis. When she told me I should avoid wearing beige colors, I totally accepted it because I saw how it made me look jaundice. White was a much, much better color for me to wear.

My student employee probably never had his colors ‘done.’ Boys generally aren’t into that kind of stuff. But he does need someone to tell him that he looks awful in that shade of green.  (Maybe when he gets married, his wife can clue him in.)

A little bit later that day, I saw another student wearing an apple green shirt. He, too looked horrid. Then I saw another student wearing a similar green-colored shirt and looking sickly. Then, I saw a student wearing a white and grass-green striped shirt. Ta da! He looked good in that color!

I began to wonder what was going on with all of the green clothing everybody was wearing. It wasn’t St. Patrick’s Day. Green wasn’t our school color.

It did make me think of a couple of orange blouses that I have in my closet. I love the color orange. I love the style of the blouses. However, I’m really not supposed to wear that color. Now, after seeing all of those students and how awful they looked in green, I’m re-evaluating those blouses and whether or not I should continue to wear them.

Maybe I should donate them to a thrift shop. Then, I wouldn’t be tempted to wear something that would make me look green behind the gills like my student employee . . .

What do you suggest I do, Dear Reader?

Call me old-fashioned.  (I know my kids do . . .) But I do not like it when girls and women do not wear nylons when they wear dresses or skirts. Very few of them have nice enough looking legs that can get away with it.

And, I personally do not like to wear shoes sans stockings. I hate the sticky, clammy feeling.

That being said, I do wish that those companies who make nylon stockings would improve their product a wee bit. I am awfully tired of paying over six bucks for a pair of nylons only to get a hole or a run the second time that I wear them.

Can’t they make nylons so that they don’t run so easily? I mean, come on folks! We’ve put a man on the moon for goodness sakes. Can’t you make a little bit more durable pair of nylons?

But, these durable nylons should feel silky and elegant when you put them on — not like thick rubber. (There are brands out in the marketplace that feel that as supple and silky as a Big-O Tire . . . .) Is that too hard to do?

We have seen extremely sophisticated advances in technology. Why, just look at what cell phones can do nowadays. Not only can they make phone calls, they can take pictures, send e-mail, surf the Internet, show your current location on a map, and help you find good places to eat. In a blink of an eye, I’m sure they will next be able to clean your toilets and wash your windows.

So what gives, nylon industry?

About the only change that I’ve seen from you since I first started wearing nylons to the spring dance in the 8th grade is that I don’t have to use a garter belt to wear them. They come as a pantyhose instead. That’s the only changes that have really occurred over the last 40 years. Whoop, whoop. (I do hope, Dear Reader, you can hear my voice dripping in sarcasm when I say “whoop.”)

If you could make nylons that don’t run, that are silkier, cheaper, and not be so blasted hot to wear, I wouldn’t be surprised if today’ modern women wouldn’t go back to wearing nylons.

Is that so much to ask?

Today our son and son-in-law helped my husband work on the shade for our patio. I appreciate their brawny help.

Meanwhile, in the house, we had an impromptu tea part. The first time I used the delightful teacups and teapot that my son and daughter-in-law gave me. Wahoo!

Because it was impromptu, the menu was also impromptu. Nothing elegant or fancy. (Next time it will be.)

We had strawberry milk, almonds, multi-grain crackers, and cardboard-and-sawdust-taste-better-than-these animal crackers.

Notice how  my granddaughter is dressed up with a hat, boa, earrings, necklace, and bracelet. You can’t see her pink spiked high heals. They were stunning.

I offered various hats to my grandson. I offered a superman cape. He politely declined.

If you looked really close, you can tell which saucer my grandson used. Priceless.

Oatmeal boxes speak to my soul. I have no clue why. There is something about them that makes me cling to them when they are empty. It’s horrendous to throw them away. So I save, and save, and save them.

The other day I had a sewing project.  (Sewing new curtains for our tent trailer that is at least a bajillion years old.) When I opened my sewing closet, a swarm of empty oatmeal boxes tumbled out.

I counted them. One, two, three. . . eight . . . nine  . . .

My mother-in-law saved all sorts of empty plastic containers — from tubs of butter, whipped topping, cottage cheese. As I wrestled with the empty oatmeal boxes, I thought of her.

Are these oatmeal boxes to me what empty plastic containers were to her? I wondered.

I don’t think so. She mainly used those containers to store leftovers in the fridge and freezer.

Ah, but oatmeal boxes. That’s a different story. I remember making Valentine’s Day boxes in grade school. I thought I was so clever with my designs. I remember my children making Valentine’s Day boxes when they were in grade school. I thought their designs were so clever.

But empty oatmeal boxes can be used for more than just Valentine’s Day boxes. Much, much more. They can be made into tunnels for train sets. They can become doll houses for teeny dolls. They can be used as drums for a family band of homemade musical instruments. (Our family plays a mean song of Jingle Bells using empty paper towel tubes!)

An empty oatmeal box can be a parking terrace for matchbox cars. It can hold a plethora of treasured rocks. It can be a mailbox, stilts for young children, a robot, or a cast for a pretend broken arm.

Oh the things you can do with an empty oatmeal box!

That’s why I save them.

But one only has so much space for these things — especially when one needs the space to sew. (Why is it that my sewing closet is also a storage closet?  Hmm?)

So, it was with heavy heart that I threw three of them away. What a painful experience. I almost cried. But not to fear. Another box will be empty soon and I can build up my supply again.

I heart oatmeal boxes.