One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 44

#44 – “If you want to enhance your blond hair, just squeeze a little lemon juice on several strands and sit out in the sun for 20 minutes.”

When I was a teenager, this one of one hundred things my mother taught me a million times flew in the face of some of my most deeply held beliefs. First, I didn’t want to “enhance,” my blond hair, I wanted to “Kim Novak” it to Nordic white, or at least to a Sandra Dee champagne blond! Second, I didn’t know how to sit out in the sun for just 20 minutes! I wasn’t a sun worshipper. I was the Dali Lama of daylight. I was a swimmer and a twirler, two things you couldn’t do indoors – at least not in my little West Texas hometown, so I was out in the sun, a lot. And as a result, my hair was that glorious blond that only the sun, and the most expensive colorist in the world can produce.

During the summers I didn’t spend 15 minutes a day inside. Having had a fairly unsupervised childhood, I would walk the 2-3 miles to the community pool arriving about an hour before it opened, pacing and baking until the lifeguard begrudgingly opened the gate. My friends would come and go during the day, escorted by their conscientious parents. Then at 9 pm, after about 30 “Get out now!” warnings from the lifeguard, I’d drag myself out, and stumble home, exhausted. I did it every day in the summer, except Mondays, when they cleaned the pool, the most dismal day of the week for me. Click on Read More Below...

Gals Guzzle

Melissa, Mary, Kelly and Sally

Holy cats but the gals had fun last night at Jeffry’s. Martinis, champagne, wine, steak tartare, oysters, frites, fresh-made mozzarella! The evening was described as luxurious, not just the setting (which was by the way, and hopping, and everything half-priced for happy hour), but because we felt indulgent. We laughed, we gossiped, we laughed! Melissa Garnett and her husband own the Uvalde Leader News and the Pearsall newspaper. Melissa is very active in the Humane Society Uvalde, and I met her (round-about) through Paula Disbrowe (whose cookbook, Real Cajun, written with Donald Link, just won the 2010 James Beard Cookbook Award for American Cooking!). What a fun, funny gal Melissa is! Lucky me for meeting her. Mary Wilbur and her husband Bob are very involved as CEO and Marketing Director for Salient Systems, a manufacturer of Video Surveillance Management, Digital Video Recording and Network Video Recording systems. Mary is also very involved in philanthropy in Austin. She and I bonded about 10 years ago when we worked on a gala together. Mary is smart and good through and through. Kelly Jackson is a writer, yoga instructor and partner with her sister Sally as the duo, “Midlife Gals,” a fabulous comedy team, contributors to More Magazine, and much more. Check out their blog at http://www.themidlifegals.com.  Sally Jackson, in addition to being a partner with Kelly in “Midlife Gals,” is an accomplished actor, and a casting director, having cast principal actors for directors such as Stephen Spielberg, Robert Redford, Sidney Lumet, Kevin Costner, Roger Vadim and John Milius. Trust me gals. One of these days you’re going to see Sal and Kelly walk across the stage to accept an Academy Award or an Emmy, or both, and you’re going to say, “Aren’t those the gals that SueAnn told us about?” Unfortunately Linda Benjamin didn’t make it, but I’m sure she’s got some outrageous excuse and since I love her, I will forgive her.

California Dreaming - Day 1

You know you’re menopausal when you pick your vacation destinations based on the daytime highs on the weather map. Aha! My next career, a la Jeff Foxworthy,  “You know you're menopausal when...” But I digress.

Today is the first day of the rest of my vacation, and yes, you’ll have to suffer through relentless emails begging you to read my travel journal. I think I may have the Tom Cruise “Look at me!” syndrome. That’s just sad. But I digress.

So off to California I go where ocean breezes whisk away the mosquitoes, my hot flashes and any semblance of a hair do. Here’s the agenda. First, to Van Horn to have dinner with my youngest, Colt. Then to New Mexico to pick up my BFF, Deb. Then we’ll put on our Depends so we don’t even have to get out to pee as we drive through scorching hot Arizona. Then do a “Thelma and Louise” and drive straight into the Pacific (actually to the Hotel Coronado - ocean front room – yes, I’m blowing my wad)! 

My personal goal for this trip is to only eat where I can throw a fork into the ocean from my table. Actually we don’t have an itinerary per se, but the "turn-around" destination is San Francisco, by way of highway 101.

·      I want to have dinner and stare at the beautiful ocean and people at Georges at the Cove, and eat Crème Brule at La Valencia, in La Jolla.  

·      I want to go to Mr. Sushi on Cannery Row in Monterrey, where your sushi floats to you on the tummy of a little plastic otter, (there’s a little river-mote surrounding the bar).

·      I want to eat garlic ice cream at the Gilroy Garlic Festival.

·      I want to spend the night and get a massage at Ventana in Big Sur. Except that probably won’t happen since I already blew my wad in San Diego. It’ll probably be at the Motel 6, no massage, in Santa Cruz.

·      I want to drive down Lombard Street, freeze my arse off on the ferry to Sausalito, and hurt myself on Dim Sum at Yank Sing in San Francisco.

Ciao Baby!

SueAnn