It occurred to me this morning as I was walking in and out of the rain several times that my high maintenance days are long gone. I may or may not use an umbrella, I don't care if my hair gets a bit wet, I don't dash from car to building unless it's pouring out. The only consideration is shoes. Which ones take puddles in stride? 98% of my clothing is wash and wear and so am I.
My first trip in the rain was to take the dogs out. The second: I had an appointment for my annual physical today. I must have thought I'd be working by now, because I made the appointment for 8:45. A.M. Well I'm not working, and it was a huge inconvenience to have to roll out of bed before 9:00, but I made it on time. Doctor Santos is wonderful, thorough, and makes excellent suggestions about my health and well being. She doesn't raise her eyebrows or roll her eyes when I answer her questions. I appreciate that. If she doesn't play poker, she should. I, when left to my own resources, check to see if I am breathing in and out each morning. If I am, I'm good to go. I dust off my exercise equipment every few months, rearrange the fiber cereal to the back of the pantry, give a fleeting thought to leading a healthier lifestyle and then go out on the lanai in my robe and fuzzy slippers and do a crossword puzzle.
Dr. Santos, on the other hand sees to my health AND my social life by handing me a fistful of fun things to do. Dr. notes to pin to my shirt. This time I have 3 social opportunities: blood test - but that's not until October. Mammie -o- grammio (you better get one too!) and Stress Test. The last two are no longer left for me to schedule some time in the next century. Mease Medical Arts calls me and tells me when to show up. Apparently some of us are not to be trusted to do this on our own. That would be me. She also wrote out a prescription to me - not the pharmacy reminding me that I should be eating more than a half gram of fiber per week. I have yet again resolved to lead a healthier lifestyle, maybe exercise. At least get in shape for my stress test so it doesn't kill me.
So anyway, back to the rain. Remember the days of the plastic rain bonnet? Remember walking into church on a rainy Sunday and the entire church smelled like wet hair and Aqua Net? I was 
afraid that between the candles and the Aqua Net fumes we'd would have a flash fire. Might melt our rain bonnets. We'd have to go to yet another bridal shower to get another free one. Or the Dime Store."Back in the day", if it even looked like rain we wore our rain bonnet, nylon rain coat, clear plastic rain deer boots and carried an umbrella. What did we think was going to happen? It's water from the sky! Well, for sure something really bad was going to happen to our hair. Teased coiffed, curled and sprayed with 8 oz. of spray. Our hair was more likely to fall off than to blow in the wind, but pour a little water on it and we all walked around looking like we were wearing drowned cats on our heads. Charming.
Times have changed, hair is easier to manage, clothes stand up to a bit of excessive moisture and I have a come as you are attitude that works well for me!
More about the dogs, and chocolate dog pictures tomorrow - gotta go get dog supplies. Thanks for stopping by!
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6 comments:
Fun memories of the rain bonnet. I used to love them, and how they folded up into itty bitty things. I would find them in my spring coat pocket every....spring. Where they had been since the previous winter.
I also remember the 'pre-blowdryer' days when we had this contraption that was like a plastic hair net that you put over your head then a vacuum tube device blew hot air into it. It expanded and you looked like a cross between an alien and a mushroom. How I wish I still had it...at least your arms didn't get sore from blowdrying! You just sat there and it did all the work.
Those were the days...
Lavinia, I had one of those contraptions as well. It was sooo inefficient! But you're right, my arms were free for the hour(s) it took to dry my hair.
Hi everybody, I'm 50 and I have worn those plastic rain hats for as long as I can remember. Quite often even today I still wear one under an umbrella, and in sports crowds, where umbrellas are a nuisance, I always make sure I have a nylon raincoat and a rainhat with me and they keep me much drier than those pathetic ugly plastic ponchos you can buy on-site at huge expense.
Helena! Thank you for stopping by! It's good to know that at least one of us takes proper care of themselves. You reminded me that not only do I have one of those pathetic ugly plastic ponchos in the trunk of my car - it's got a picture of Mickey Mouse on it! I hope it never rains hard enough that I feel I have to wear it. Better I should melt.
Hi again and thanks for your kind welcome!
In Australia 'Mickey Mouse' is kind of a slang term for anything that's more noise than action, or doesn;t match up with the claims it makes about itself. So it's absolutely appropriate that MM is on the front of your plastic poncho. If it rains hard it's the last thing you should wear - it would be only slightly less use as a bullet-proof vest than a raincoat.
Your fears about the candles in church melting all the rain bonnets reminded me of an incident I had forgotten for years. At my high school plastic rain hats were part of the school uniform (with a blue plastic or nylon raincoat) for the first three years, after that we were allowed to use umbrellas. Most of the other girls hated tham (which happens to anything you make compulsory for girls that age) and we all made a big bonfire of our rainhats last day of school. It stank to high Heaven and probably increased our chances of catching about 88 different types of cancer from the fumes and there were some serious questions asked about it, but it was still a hoot, seemed like a great idea at the time.
I was one of the few to keep one for 'just in case' after that and I was quite often asked for the loan of one. These days my daughter who is 16 says not many of her friends even use an umbrella these days, kids today think they're anal and boring. But she does, and seems to like using it, and even borrowed a rain hat from me a while ago. She's quite belligerently 'uncool' in a lot of ways but that still amazed me.
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