“Something More Serious”
I remember clearly the first time I ever felt old.
I had discovered a Lancome product, Renergie, that I loved. I have always been good at trying to keep my face “moisturized,” and had graduated up to Lancome from good old Oil of Olay. We were living in Germany once more, our son was about eight years old, and I think they formulate Oil of Olay differently for different customer bases; the smell was different in Germany (and even more different in Qatar! I think it has a sort of cumin undertone!) but I had found this Renergie stuff that glided on and smelled good and wasn’t oily or sticky, so I liked it. It was expensive, but we had a little more money now and I felt it was a splurge.
My Renergie was running out; I needed a replacement. I happened to stop by the Lancome counter at a time when there was a Lancome representative there who asked what I needed. I told her I was looking for the Renergie that I loved.
Simple question, right?
The Lancome representive stops, and looks at me closely. There is this long, uncomfortable pause as she continues to look at me. I’m frankly annoyed.
“My dear,” she starts, “You need something more serious.”
Something more serious? I’m thirty-five years old! I have not yet got any wrinkles to speak of! My skin is in great shape!
All these thoughts rush into my head as the saleslady continues to look at me seriously, and to move toward some heavier creams, which I HATE. I’m still dealing with that one word – “serious.”
I need something “serious.”
It was so devastating to me that my reaction was almost physical revulsion. I think my legs went week and shakey. Looking back, I suspect that it is part of a sales pitch, a script devised to move the customer up the scale to more and more expensive products. I think I even sensed it then, but the truth is, when someone says something like that to you, it damages a vanity that you didn’t even know you had.
I don’t think I bought anything that day. I think I stumbled out of the store and went to pick up my son from his karate lesson and sneaked back at a time when there was no Lancome lady there and bought what I really wanted – the Renergie.
But the damage had been done. Now, when I put the cream on my face I was looking in the mirror for whatever the saleslady had seen that indicated I needed something more “serious.”
It wasn’t long before I humbled myself and went back and asked what the representative thought I really needed, and we agreed on the light form – the lotion – which also went on nicely and smelled good, because how it smells really matters to me. I don’t care how good it is; if it doesn’t smell good – to me – I can’t wear it.
She moved me up to Primordiale, which I wore for years until the next Lancome representative looked at me and said brightly “I bet you would love Absolue! It will get rid of those little crow’s feet in no time!”
We all have weak spots that we don’t even know we have. If you are a man and you have read this far, you will laugh in your superior way, thinking this is just a piece of fluff. To you I say wait until your son beats you in those family wrestling matches for the first time, beats you fairly. When our son would wrestle with his Dad, I would say “I hear the antlers clanging in the forest!” as they fought for who would be the king. To you I say that the sad day will come when you are no longer the biggest bull moose in the forest, and you, too, will have that sad, humbled feeling I got when I was told I needed something more “serious.”
The advertisers of this world know our weaknesses. I am willing to bet the Lancome ladies have a script they use, to press our buttons, to expose weaknesses we don’t even know we have. My husband brings home a Men’s Health occasionally – have you ever noticed, every one of them is the same? There are articles about making your abs flat, taking vitamins and reviving your sex life – in every issue! They know where we feel bad about ourselves before we even know it, and they are making a lot of money off of our inadequacies!
And no, my friends, I don’t have any answers. Even while I know that these things are the vain, inconsequential things of this world, even while I know that this is all passing vanity, even while I try to resist, I succumb. Sometimes the temptations is too great and my spirit is too weak to stand up to their insistence that I need something “more serious.” This blog entry is merely my meager attempt to fight back.
Mixed Message Hummmmmmm?
OK, tell me what you think. What do you think when you think Hummer? Like big huge blocky tank-like car, kind of the macho car of all macho cars? Can’t see that well, so you just run over things? Big civilianized macho military vehical, right? Very masculine, right?
Now. . . think Raspberry Lipstick Pink Hummer. I mean, like, what is the message? Honest to God, I saw this Pink-Purple Hummer this morning, too fast for me to take a photo to PROVE it to you, but I saw it, I swear I saw it.
So is it some girl’s Hummer? Or is it a guy saying “I’m so macho I can even drive a pink Hummer and no one is going to question my masculinity?”
(Yeh, this is the kind of triviality I ponder in my spare time.)
UPDATE: OMG, I googled it and there are more! It’s an official car, it’s called the Barbie Hummer. Holy Smokes!
I think the one I saw was more raspberry pink than this one, and a full sized Hummer.
Accident Management
Thunk!
The sound is unmistakable. I hear it now and then. I look out and a truck has hit a bus, on a busy corner, near a busier turn-off.
I sigh. I dial 777. Thanks be to God, they answer promptly these days and within 30 seconds, there is someone on who can speak English. She asks good questions, she is efficient, and 1 minute later I am off the phone.
34 minutes later the police show up. I am guessing they are kind of busy, it is rush hour time.
Here is my question. In the US, in the EU and in many countries where I have lived, we are required to carry warning triangles, flares, etc. and if you are in an accident, you are required to put the warnings out, like 20 meters back from the accident, to prevent further problems.
I never see that happen. Honestly, I can’t even watch, it’s too heart stopping, because an accident is just an invitation to another accident until the police come and get the accidentees out of the road.
What are the official requirements in Kuwait if you are involved in an accident, other than waiting for the police to arrive?
Second question: at the same intersection we frequently have those traffic stops where the police block traffic to a narrow flow and check papers. I see people all the time talking to police and there is a body-language thing I don’t understand. Arms held straight, raised up, elbows bent and then brought down, straight, both at the same time. It might be supplication, begging for pity, throwing themselves on the mercy of the police because they don’t have papers, but it is not a gesture I know. I never see anyone cry (a favorite ploy of speeding girls in the US) and I am wondering if crying would work here?
Yemeni Star
I give up.
I am throwing myself on your mercy.
A week ago, Adventure Man heard a morning radio show on 99.7, “Superstation”, in which a meteorologist at the Kuwait Airport mentioned a particular star, which when it appears above the horizon in Kuwait, the ancient inhabitants would know that cooler temperatures were on the way.
Adventure Man is sure he called it The Yemeni Star, because it appeared over the horizon in the general direction of Yemen.
I’ve google’d it to death and can’t find anything. I called in the superstar Googler, Little Diamond and even she had to admit defeat.
Kuwaiti friends and bloggers – please, ask your elders if they know of the Yemeni Star. I think the weatherman said it was the nomadic peoples who would watch for it. I am guessing that in Kuwait, there are few nomads left, but a great number of descendants of nomadic peoples. Or, if you have an astronomer, or weather person in your family, could you ask them?
I don’t know why it matters to me, but it does.
Big Red
Adventure Man and I have an agreement. We leave each other’s lives alone. Like I don’t try to tell him how he should work (I do try to tell him how to drive, or how not to drive, he hates it and I can’t help it; I don’t want to die!) and he doesn’t tell me how to run the house (but he does make “helpful suggestions”, he can’t help it.) We cut each other a lot of slack – it’s the only way you can stay married for a long time.
He monitors my blog closely. I don’t mind, he is like my personal security agency, making sure I don’t tell you too much about myself. I know he is protecting us and I honor that. It also helps me to think about what I am writing as I write – he has never asked me to change anything, but the awareness that he is watching helps me remember to be careful.
But I draw the line at him telling me what to blog. Here is what I say:
GET YOUR OWN BLOG, ADVENTURE MAN!
Yesterday he brought me some Big Red, with a complaint and with a compliment. Many of us in our family are addicted to Big Red, a cinnamon chewing gum. I like it because I drink coffee, and coffee can make your breath bad. Adventure Man just likes it because he likes it.
“This Big Red is not the same!” he complained. “It tastes wrong!”
I tasted it and I thought it tasted normal, but I have been buying Big Red here for a while and maybe my “normal” has gotten skewed.
“And look!” he said, triumphantly “Big Red is supposed to be RED!”
And he was right – this Big Red is WHITE?? How can that be??
But here is the compliment – look what is printed on each individual gum wrapper. (You have to read it from left to right!)
Pretty cool, huh? And this blog entry is for you, Adventure Man.
Big Girls Don’t Cry?
Listening to SUPERSTATION 99.7 as I am working, I find myself exasperated, from time to time, by the lyrics to some of the songs.
Today, it is Big Girls Don’t Cry. I remember a totally different song with the same name from back a while ago, and actually I like this one better, because she talks about cutting it off and just moving on – and I agree. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses.
But I think big girls – and guys – do cry.
(Picasso’s Weeping Woman)
A researcher actually explored why we cry:
Frey investigated a question his mother had asked him: “Why is it that people cry tears?” He would pursue the answer, alongside his Alzheimer’s work, for many years. He took a scientific approach to her inquiry, and he discovered emotional tears were chemically different from other tears. That research resulted in interviews with People magazine, the Today Show, Good Morning America, and others, as well as a book, Crying: The Mystery of Tears (Harper and Row). “Perhaps the reason people feel better after crying is that they’re removing chemicals that build up during stress,” Frey suggests, adding that the question remains open to further research.
This is from a Washington University Alumni magazine.
I don’t know if there has been any further research on crying, but originally, I remember him stating that emotional tears carried away poisons that stress build in the body. It makes sense to me. I don’t cry all that often, but when I do, when I cry and it’s one of those blow-it-all-out cries, the kind that give you a headache if you carry on for too long – afterwards, you just feel wonderful!
And you wonder why you even let her/him/it assume so much importance in your life?
And you wonder “What was I thinking???”
Sometimes a good cry just puts everything back in proportion and you really CAN move on.
Or that’s how I see it. I don’t mean to go all drama-queen, I am just talking about a good old fashioned lock-yourself-in-the-bedroom-and-cry kind of cry.
But maybe you see it differently. I think big girls DO cry, and for good reasons, and then we move on. But this might be a cultural thing, and I am willing to entertain other ways of looking at it. What do YOU think?
. . . And then there was light
There are times – not too often, but it happens – when I want to have a whole crowd of people in, and I regret not having a larger place. Every morning when I get up, the view takes my breath away. You would think it is the same old/same old, but every day is different. One day, the sea may be like glass, another day with white caps. One day the sky is crystal clear, the next, there may be a sandstorm, and I am surrounded by orange light. One day, we even saw dolphins lazily swimming by.
Our window on the world is a never ending thrill.
99.9% of the time, I am content – even more than content. This morning, circumstances once again conspired to have me up before sunrise. Wooo Hooooo! I can always take a nap later.
You might get tired of my sunrise photos, but I never get tired of taking them!
The still, quiet world just before dawn – wouldn’t you like to be out in these boats while the fish are biting?
And then . . . a miracle happens!
I think that band that gives the photo the darkness is actually a low lying cloud of pollution, but it makes for more dramatic photos. This is the actual photo. There is no retouching, resizing . . . It is the photo just as it appeared.
WeatherUnderground for Kuwait tells me the temperatures are dropping! Only 113° F. /45°C today! And dropping down to 82°F/28°C tonight! Feel the frost in the air! 😉
The Wrong Kind of Attention
Yep. If I wanted people to notice me, I would buy a yellow – orange car. Statistically, they are the easiest to see, and the color people most notice. Think fire trucks (in many countries, not here) and taxis – yellow grabs the eye.
Maybe that’s not enough. Maybe we want to be really really really sure people see us. Aha! Let’s put “Terrorist” on the spare cover, in big letters!
It got my attention.
I am guessing it is some band or something.
I am also guessing that it could get a lot of the wrong kind of attention. Yeh, some people just don’t have any sense of humor. Go figure.
Against the Law?
From today’s Arab Times of course, because the Kuwait Times can’t find a way to get themselves back on line (!)
Woman in fireman’s outfit: Police are looking for an unidentified young woman who was reportedly seen dressed in a fireman’s outfit and driving a vehicle similar to the one used by firemen, reports Al-Watan daily. An unidentified person informed the police when he saw the woman parking her vehicle outside the Al-Sabah Maternity Hospital and walking inside the hospital. Police waited for the woman to return to the car but she did not show up. It has been reported this is not the first time the woman was seen riding the vehicle and wearing a fireman’s uniform.
I suppose it might be suspicious to be wearing fireman clothes and driving a vehicle that might appear to be an official fire vehicle . . . but a crime? I’m sorry, I can’t help it, I love stories like this and wish I knew the rest of the story!
“Alien Babies!”
“Whaja think of the storm?” the young man asked me, as he dusted the magazines with a feather duster.
“Oh, wow!” I said. “I thought it would go on forever! How long did it last?”
“I don’t know,” he responded, “but it WAS a long time, and it was right overhead! Hey, this can’t be right. . . it says George Bush is involved in some kind of divorce!” He was dusting one of the tabloids.
“Naaahhh.” I said, waiting for my turn in line. “Sometimes they even write about alien babies being born. You know that can’t be right.”
He stood, transfixed.
“Alien babies?” he half whispered in astonishment. “No! Not really!”
“Yes! really!” I said, “and you know that can’t be true.”
“No!” he said. “No alien babies!” and then under his breath “alien babies!” half in wonder. He followed me around the store, from time to time saying in wonder “alien babies!”
Albertson’s supermarket hires mildly retarded adults to work as baggers and cleaners. These young people are trained to greet the customers, to accompany them to the cars if they have a basket, to unload groceries and generally to make the customer feel welcome.
I always feel welcome. These young people love their jobs, love being a part of the community, and they take great pride in doing their jobs well. God bless Albertsons for this enlightened hiring and training policy.
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