I had a really tough day today. I’m exhausted. Spent three hours trying to shave my legs. I know, you’re saying, “Hey, old lady, why you doin’ that? Nobody’s looking at your legs. Get real.”
Gotta tell ya, that kinda hurts my feelings a little, cause I know my legs are still pretty okay, well at least what I can see of them. My eyesight is good most of the time. And while I am old enough to have been part of the furrier generation – peace, love, body hair – common sense did finally prevail. We got things trimmed up, shaved, harnessed.
So, nobody’s looking at my legs, I know, but I’m not doing this for you, you self-absorbed, son-of-a— Wait, where was I going? Right, exhausted because of deforestation efforts, ya da ya da ya da…
Okay. You said, “Get real…” I was feeling pretty real, as in I feel really hairy.
I haven’t “had” to shave my lower extremities for probably 15 years now. And that’s a good thing, as I can no longer comfortably reach said extremities without major body contortions, and focusing on the target can be a little iffy. Another reason this exercise in self-care has gone the way of the woolly mammoth. I can’t cut down what I don’t see, and if I can’t see ’em, hopefully no one else can.
Note: we won’t be discussing body parts in that vast (what I believe to be hairless) region stretching between just above the knee and below the…um…navel. Yeah, let’s go with navel. Anyway, I have shaved hundreds of dollars off my personal care expenses over the last dozen or so years by not needing to buy the latest sleek computerized fancy aloe infused 16 bladed hair mowers, replacement blades for said mowers, creams, depilatories, Band-Aids, Neosporin…you get the idea.
But every once in a while, when the atmospheric conditions are just right…Like the first day of “spring” when the wind is out of the southwest like it was this morning…
I love Spokane. I do. Spokane has broadened my meteorological experiences range with its four seasons, well, three and a half. There’s fall, winter, winter/spring/winter, spring/winter/spring, and summer.
Winter starts anywhere from mid-October to the late-blooming November 5th…this leaves (my favorite part of my favorite season) autumn short-sheeted.
Then spring, ah yes when many a young men’s minds turn to… Uh oh, those aren’t baseballs or golf balls! That’s hail! And sleet! pelting the ground like BB guns on steroids. Then the wind, and then the sun, and hail, wind, sun, tulips, snow, and wait, are those trumpets I hear? Oh, no, just thunder; as the clouds part a choir of birds breaks into a rousing Hallelujah Chorus and – bam! It’s 90 degrees. For a week, then…who knows. Like they say, if you don’t like the weather, stick around for 5 minutes, it will change.
Picture a herd of eight-year-olds (some of these rascals hanging out on my legs are probably close to that old…it’s been awhile) riding the infamous Log Ride at Knott’s Berry Farm (this reference should clue you in on my current space in the time continuum), all excited, eyes closed, arms in the air, screaming wildly. Who knew hairs could scream, or could have so much fun??? Like a bunch of insurrectionists set free. Or sailors on their first shore leave after months at sea. I wax poetic, but I will NEVER be…a waxer of anything.
Back to blowing in the wind…part of the explanation is that there is weather in Spokane, it is experiential, or maybe that’s just because my brain was hard wired to San Diego climes, California Dreamin’ and all that hippy stuff.
Hah! There I go again. Silly me, San Diego has no “weather,” there are only two seasons – Summer and Summer-like.
My legs have been hibernating and growing the new crop for months unbothered. Finally freed from their warm protective fleece coats (another good reason not to bother with the ritual – people don’t generally see through fleece) they are released into the wild to tentatively experience fresh air…and now, Whoa, Nelly! I am pasty-white under all that fleece! Get your sunglasses, the glare is brutal.
Where was I…let’s see… exhausted, hairs, Knott’s Berry Farm, winter, spring, winter-spring, summer, Autumnal celebration of free and fair elections… Let’s face it. Politicians can leave us all a little cold, and those elections are what bring on the winter of my soul…which lasts and lasts, with the fortitude and longevity of the hard shelled tortoise. Even with all that, winter is still my second favorite season. Does that mean I am an ice queen? I don’t care.
What a difference a day makes. After three or four false alarms complete with the opening and closing of windows, the real spring arrives with green spikes peeking through the freshly thawed ground promising the imminent arrival of colorful tulips and irises. Lasts two minutes, then before I can blink, BOOM, it’s the 90 degrees mentioned above, and I’m sweating as I run around the house pulling down comforters off the bed, opening windows to freshen stagnant air, turning the furnace off (did I mention the new, $7,000 furnace that couldn’t wait till April to die), pondering if it is too early to just shove the button over to AC and be done with it.
It’s Summer and brutal, and too hot to care if any part of your hair or body has the audacity and courage to grow in this swelter.
Wow, I do wander when I wonder. Enough of the weather report, back to my hairy story. I’m standing here in the breeze and I just can’t stand it. I can’t stand that feeling of all six (maybe as many as 13 this year) wispy translucent fibers with no sense of propriety, just wafting to and fro in the air currents, all willy-nilly, heads held high without a care in the world. I can feel each one of them, taunting me, thumbing their hairy noses at me…Insolent basta—
It’s at times like this I go in search of my special stash of girlie stuff – Venus blades, coconut oil (really the best at soothing the skin), and my readers (sorry, not you guys, but thanks for representing!) I’m talking about my glasses which spend 75% of their life on top of another hairy spot, which is also not what it used to be – but that’s another tale for another moment of senior digression) –So, not the 150s – those are my poker playing glasses, not that it really matters whether or not I can see the flop, turn or river. No, I need the 250s, even 275s for fine fiber detection.
I am geared up and ready for battle. Glasses come down from their lofty perch and remove more of the decreasing population of my top knot. Then comes those contortions I mentioned earlier…somewhere way back in this saga. I should have trained for this gymnastic competition. Should I sit on the floor? Hell no, I’ll never get back up again…Turns out the patio’s dining table (rarely used for the activity after which it was named) is the perfect height to prop the first victim, um patien—, my left leg which always the first to go under the knife cause my right leg is my favorite. I know we’re not supposed to have favorites, but I can’t help it. I’m a goofy foot, I always want to put my right foot forward, you know, to make the best impression and such, so I practice up on the left. Get my technique grooved in, the long light-handed stroke, angled just right. It’s all in the wrist…oops, where did I put those Band Aids?
Operation Search and Destroy ends in success. I think it was successful; I can no longer “see” the little basta…um, let’s just declare victory because the breeze has stopped blowing and I am no longer plagued with the creepy sensation of 13 invisible cats brushing past my legs. I return to my cave, shake the fallen fur from my slipper tops, toss the one-use only razor (I will have lost it before this activity needs repeating), and I add “get a new Venus” and “get a tetanus shot” to my list of things to do. My eyes, seared by the bright sun bouncing off my skin, need to recover, and like I said 10 minutes ago, or 15 minutes if you are a slow reader (or maybe got distracted mid-read by the funny dog reel), I’m exhausted. I hear a nap calling my name.
Never at a loss for words... 