Be Careful What You Wish For

I couldn't believe it: The cast of billionaires on ABC's "Shark Tank" all declined to invest in Instant Lifts, these nifty clear adhesives designed to lift sagging arms and thighs and smooth cellulite.  Were they out of their collective mind?  Didn't they realize how many millions of women would give anything to lift and smooth without going under the knife?  And for a fraction of the cost!  These money bags obviously didn't see dollar signs, but I saw taut, youthful arms just in time for all those capped T-shirts and summer blouses.

The day my Instant Arm Lifts arrived, I dashed into the bathroom, pulled off my sweatshirt, and quickly read the instructions.  I placed one hand behind the Lift and slowly peeled the backing off of one half of the Instant Arm.  Oops.  The adhesive stuck to itself and rendered a section more wrinkled than the arm I was trying to smooth.  One down.  Determined, I pulled out a second Lift, peeled off half of the backing, and tried to attach it to the back, underneath side of my arm about half way under my arm pit.  This time, the wind from the open bathroom window blew just strong enough to again force the adhesive to stick to itself.  I was getting nowhere fast.  I opened a third Instant Lift and somehow managed to get it into place and stuck to the underside of my arm.  I removed the second half of the backing and pulled the flabby area of my arm up and toward my shoulder, attaching the second half of the Lift over my shoulder.  But when I pulled on a T-shirt, some of the clear adhesive was sticking out, making me look like an escapee from outpatient surgery.

Frustrated and angry, I sent off an email to the owner of the company, the woman who had made all of this look so fast and easy on TV.  An assistant (probably the only one) emailed me back to say that they would be happy to send me another batch of Instant Lifts and that the owner herself would be happy to give me a personal demonstration.  Why not?  A new mailer full of lifts would be useless if I couldn't attach them correctly, if at all.

The owner and I used Skype and sat in front of our computers, each of us with a new Instant Arm Lift in hand.  She looked so much thinner than she did on "Shark Tank."  I wanted to congratulate her on losing weight but decided instead to focus on her instructions.  I followed her lead and somehow managed to make the thing work.  I thanked her profusely and returned to the bathroom mirror where I proceeded to ruin another two of the contraptions before giving up.  A real arm lift done by a reputable surgeon would set me back somewhere between $6000 and $10,000.  For a brief moment, I considered the possibility but came to my senses when  I realized I could redo my bathroom instead of my arms.

I guess I should have known.  I should have trusted the Sharks.  They knew a bad product when they saw one when all I saw was an easy way to tighten my arms.  So, now it's back to the weights.

Ooops

I've changed the name of my blog AGAIN to sixtiesSisters.blogspot.com.  Sorry about the confusion.

Modern-Day Princess (and Prince) and the Pea

Well, in Andersen's fairy tale, there was a prince who wanted to marry a real princess. He traveled the world looking for his princess but had no way of knowing if the young women who claimed to be royalty were indeed his equal. Frustrated and sad, he returned home alone.

Then one night during a terrible storm, there was a knock at the castle (I assume it was a castle) door. Standing there was a sopping wet young woman who claimed she was a princess. She sure didn't look like a princess with her stringy, wet hair and soaking wet clothes.

Okay, thought the old queen. I know just what to do to find out whether this young woman is an imposter or the real deal. The queen went to a guest bedroom (who knows how she decided which one of what must have been dozens), stripped the bed down to the frame, placed a pea on the bottom, and then piled twenty mattresses and twenty elder-down beds (whatever they are) on top. The supposed princess was instructed to relax for the night.

"And how did she sleep?" the old queen asked the next morning.
"Well, not well . . . not well at all."
There was, she said, something hard underneath her all night, and she didn't sleep a wink.

Ah, ha! She must be a princess after all, reasoned the prince and his parents.
"Nobody but a real princess could have such a delicate skin."

The princess and prince were married and, as best we know, they lived happily ever after and never had a mattress issue again.

Well, that's more than I can say for my husband and me. After almost 19 years with the same mattress, we took the plunge and bought a new one. Like Goldilocks who tested three kinds of porridge, three different chairs, and three different beds, we lay on almost every mattress in the store.

"This one's too hard," I said.

"This one's too soft," he said.

"I like the memory foam," I said.

"I hate the memory foam," he said.

And so it went. Back and forth. One mattress after the other. Finally, I laid down the gauntlet.

"Okay, either we make a decision or go someplace else," I said. "We're driving this poor salesman crazy."

"Oh, no," the young man said with limited enthusiasm. "This happens all the time."

My husband reluctantly agreed to try Serta's new memory foam mattress, a compromise between the glorified Tempurpedic and a regular firm mattress with inner springs. We were given up to 90 days to decide whether we wanted to keep it or return it for another mattress of comparable price in the store.

Well, it didn't take long for my husband to convince himself that we'd made a big mistake. He tiptoed out of bed in the middle of the first night with a sore back and slept fitfully the remainder of the night in our old bed that we'd moved to the guest bedroom.

"I'll never sleep in that bed again," he said. "So, we either return it or we're in separate beds forever."

Now, after living with this guy for more than 30 years, I've come to expect such dramatic pronouncements. So, I just nodded and went on with my day. He did sleep in the guest bedroom the next night but crawled into our new Serta on night #3.

"I can punch my fists into it," he said as he pushed his weight into his fists. "Look at the indentation. That can't be good. I need support."

So, back to the mattress store we went. At this point, I didn't care what mattress we settled on. I just wanted a decision. After spending far too much time, we (he) decided to go with a firm Tempurpedic.

Of course, a few days later he announced "I like the Serta!"

I wanted to murder him. Just like my husband to change his mind.

But change his mind he could not. So, out with the Serta and in with the Tempurpedic.

To tell the truth, I'm finding this new mattress a bit too firm, but I'll suffer through, if for nothing else to prove to my husband yet again that I'm the good sport who can roll with the punches - though will never be able to roll with ease on our new mattress.

Grateful

I'm back in the good U.S. of A. And for that I am grateful. Never mind the current crop of Republican Presidential candidates and their positions on everything from the ills of university culture to contraception. I again have unlimited hot water and took my first bath in two months.

Okay, Afghanistan is proving to be a disastrous failure just as Iraq. But I can drink the tap water without worrying about that nasty parasite giardia lemblis turning my lower intestine into a crampy, acidic, bloated mess.

Sure, I realize that the average gas price is now an outrageous $4.79 per gallon. But I can use my WiFi anywhere in the house at any time night or day without worrying that it's either going to crash or not work in the first place.

Speaking of cars and the price of gas, I'm grateful to Honda for their fuel efficient CR-X and even more thankful that I can depend on the car and not on my two aging legs for transport. Walking is great exercise, no doubt. But try walking up the hill from San Miguel de Allende town center to a casa perched way high up. The view is grand, but the schlep can take a hike.

The Congress remains gridlocked; civility is a foreign concept. Still, I can speak my native language and not worry about how to conjugate irregular Spanish verbs in the past tense.

And the quiet! No damn roosters, sheep, chickens, or whining dogs (Oh, did I mention the church bells?) to prevent me from falling asleep or being rudely awakened at dawn.

And never mind that it's only March. Mother Nature (with the help of climate change) has shown mercy on us mid westerners and brought a very early spring. It was a balmy 65 degrees here today. Early spring bloomers are up, and the promise of resurrection is in the air.

We Americans take so much for granted: good (well, sometimes) drinking water, central heating, electronic sophistication, farms in the countryside, not in the midst of cities . . . The list of conveniences goes on.

It feels good to be home, even though those three out-of-control boys two houses down have begun their screaming and fighting and tears AGAIN. But I've vowed not to complain after the daily cacophony in San Miguel de Allende.

I'm back in the U.S.A. and grateful.

Good Morning, San Miguel

I can thank El Senor de la Conquista for the festivities that woke me out of a sound sleep way too early this morning. The drumming and dancing began last night with celebrants from a host of cities in the Mexican state of Guanajuato converging here in San Miguel de Allende. And the celebration continued long into the night (for all I know, it never stopped) and began anew with gusto at the crack of dawn. Even the highest-rated earplugs were no match.

From what I gather, there are two versions of how this festivity began. One version has it that in the late 1500s two human-sized figures honoring the Lord of the Conquest were made out of corn paste (Don't ask because I don't know) and carried to San Miguel and another town. The two Franciscan friars carrying these guys were attacked and killed. The friars were goners and so were the two figures - until they were later found by a group of Chichimeca Indians.

The other version of this ruckus festivity has it that the figures were found by a Chichimeca Indian and hidden in a cave, where they ostensibly still reside. The statues revered today are said to be replicas.

Whatever the version, suffice it to say that this is a wild and wooly time in San Miguel. If I weren't on meds for the typical intestinal parasite that lays thousands of travelers low, I might consider getting dressed and walking down to the plaza where hundreds of the celebrants have assembled. Maybe I'll find the will after a healthy breakfast and another round of pills.

What I can say for certain is that after returning home next week I will NEVER complain about noise again - not about the kids two houses down who scream and yell all summer afternoon, about the neighbors on the other side who put their stereo speakers on their back porch, about the gardeners who rev up their lawn mowers and leaf blowers too early on a Sunday morning . . .

No, I will relish these sounds as sweet background noises against which I can easily fall back asleep or read a book or enjoy the peace and beauty of my sedate Midwestern town where few if any folks would dare to bring out the drums at 5 a.m.

Noah's Ark

It must have been a sign, those ornate ceramic candelabras that depicted Noah's ark. I even walked into the tienda to take a closer look. (Not exactly like the one in the photo, but you get the idea.)

A day later, the weather gods of San Miguel rumbled and roared, lit up the skies, and then wept with a deluge that has been constant now for three days and three nights.

With only one paragua (umbrella) between us, my husband and I have to take turns leaving the casa. Yes, of course, he could go out and buy one, but he has several umbrellas sitting at home.

It's easy to understand why he didn't shove one into his suitcase. Last year at this time, a cloud, a single cloud, was an event. "Oh, there goes a cloud." We'd almost forgotten what one of those fluffy white things looked like, let alone what can happen when hordes band together and let loose. So, this rain business is new to us and definitely not welcome.

Sure, the rain is good for the farmers and their crops. And all those flowers and small trees in pots that adorn the courtyards and terraces of San Miguel are much better for the wet stuff. But we tourists with limited time in what we thought was Paradise are not so thrilled. Hell, I woke up this morning, took one look out the ventanna, and was certain that we'd gone to Seattle, not sunny Mexico.

Along with the rain came cooler temperatures. I hesitate to write that it dropped to the lowers 40s because, as a Chicagoan, a thermometer reading of 40-something in February is cause to bring out the shorts and tank tops. But here there is no central heating. There is no insulation against the chilly nights. Windows barely close, doors are made of glass, and, in our casa, the center of the house is open all the way to the terrace on the third floor.

Yes, we have fireplaces - one in the living room and one in the master bedroom - but they're small and gas. If you sit practically in them, one can warm up. But they are useless for heating an entire room, let alone an entire house.

So, like my brothers and sisters up north who face the frigid weather daily, I'm dressing in layers, (two pair of pajamas at night), taking an inordinate number of showers (though the hot water either never gets really hot or runs out much too quickly), and scouring online weather sites, praying that the cloud icons with rain drops change to bright yellow suns and SOON.

SHOOT THE ROOSTERS (And while you're at it, take out the sheep and dog)

In the middle of Paradise, away from the cold and snow and dark, dark days. What else could one ask for this mid-January?

Well, I hate to complain (I know all my friends back in Chicago won't have a whit of sympathy), but the roosters, sheep, and unattended dog that live a stone's throw away from our casa have forced me to wear earplugs at night, turn up the iPod during the day, and generally curse the management company that never bothered to mention the friggin' farm next door.

Now I've lived a few blocks away from the el in Chicago but never felt like blowing up the tracks. I've had neighbors in Evanston whose hot tub gatherings late at night pushed me to call the cops. (The neighbors finally got the message and shut it down by 11 p.m.) But now, here in the "quiet" colonial town of San Miguel de Allende, I'm itching for a BB gun.

From what I'm told, roosters crowing at all hours of the day and night have started feuds, forced people to move, and sometimes led to violence like the kind I'm considering. I mean, I can handle the bah, bah, bahs of the sheep. Even the whining, barking dog is manageable. But the piercing crowing of the damn roosters reverberates through my entire body like a nightmarish audio electric shock.

The web offers all kinds of advice to rooster weary neighbors and owners: Create a "blackout" effect in the coop to trick roosters into believing it's still night; use cages that allow the rooster to sit and stand comfortably but not to stretch (apparently, roosters stretch when they crow); make sure there are plenty of interesting things for the roosters to do (yeah, right!); and my favorite, clipping the vocal cords. Alas, this is merely a temporary solution because roosters will apparently learn how to crow AGAIN. There used to be a hormone called DES that was used to stop roosters from crowing, but it produced bad side effects and is now illegal in many countries.

No offense to all you animal lovers. But if I could get my hands on this DES stuff, I'd gladly feed it --- better yet, inject it --- and stop the roosters from crowing. Anything to shut them up. In the meantime, I'm off to find a pair of Hearos Earplugs that, according to one obsessed person who conducted years of research, actually "reduced the pounding sounds of the jackhammer to a pleasant thud."

(If you call and I don't answer, you'll understand why.)





Mi dios, yo pienso que puedo tener que disparar a los bastardos