Step !b: Sit with Your Curiosity

I knew C71585 meant that I needed to style my hair and put on a little make-up. The last time I'd had my cosmetics out was when my great-granddaughter was over playing and wanted to decorate me. She carefully applied layer upon layer of powders, blushes, and shadows until finally, when she offered me the mirror, I first asked her, "Do I look beautiful now?" She pressed her lips together solemnly and shook her head no. I looked in the mirror.

Indeed! I did not resemble beautiful. She had streaky sparkling jet black eye shadow striping my face like a zebra hooker. Between the stripes were blotches of slick pink lip gloss and shimmery purple eye liner. I looked like a Zebra floozy who'd been on a weekend binge.

Tonight I applied a little moisturizer, eye shadow and picked a mild blush that wouldn't detract from the popping the Nordstrom clerk promised would occur between my C71585 tank top and gray jacket. I carefully stroked the brush along my cheekbone (or where my cheekbone should be under the dollops of fat that rest upon my cheekbone) and what the fuck? I had dark black war stripes from cheekbone to ear. Obviously I'd not taught my great-granddaughter the art of cleaning one's cosmetic brushes.

After removing the war paint, spraying fluff-magic spray on my hair and getting dressed, I considered the results  with  a skeptical eye. See that little picnic table on my right shoulder? For the gremlins who are going to list my transgressions on the way home.

I even managed to slip out of my uber comfy Birkenstocks and into a pair of inexpensive, reasonably comfy, definitely not pissy-with-attitude, but not dull either flats. So flat I could count rocks through the thin footbed on the way to the car.

You can see my basket of skipping rocks that my son Brady Spicer gave me, and my grandkids Kenny and Mariah refilled with rocks once. I'm almost out of rocks. I need a stone fairy to come and leave me some more round thin rocks for skipping on the lake.

Dinner was great. I had salmon with lime essence jasmine rice and fresh asparagus. Delish!

I won't bore you with the details, but I did my best to listen more attentively and ask questions. I'd give myself a C+ on the listening...I learned something new about each of these friends even though I've known them some years. And I asked each of them a question or two that afforded them time to talk, but I didn't put much effort into follow up questions or even creative questions to start with, so I'd say that was about C-.

I earned an F for interrupting because I interrupted several times (SEVeral times, my gremlin says with the affect of an asshole) and I used the F bomb six or seven times when I was telling a story, which isn't the greatest table talk, but the F bomb was the story--I was recounting one of Cheryl Strayed's stories from Tiny Beautiful Things and in that particular story there is no story without the bomb because the story is WTF, WTF, WTF. So maybe I should have just picked a different dinner time story.

Especially because when I start to tell a story it's way too easy to forget the don't-talk-longer-than-thirty-seconds-at-a-streak rule I adapted from friend Jack's recommendation on making chitchat. So I'd say a D for appropriate conversations (appropriateness of topic, narrative duration, relevance to preceding conversation.) My gremlins really hammered me all the way home for the Fuck issue. But one of the two friends had lost her job, so fuck seems appropriate  even if the tables and candles and servers there weren't accustomed to it in that milieu.                                                                                                               

I came home and had a little throne time to reflect on what I might have done differently. Several things occurred to me:

1. Don't go. Simple. Easy. Can't fuck it up.
2. Practice more. Practice with my husband (oh...boy....) Practice with my kids. (Aiyiyi.)
3. Wear duct tape as an accessory. Or better, in place of lip gloss. Remove with discretion.
4. Shoot the gremlin on the picnic table. This is not funny because there have been too many shootings lately that hurt people. One today just a few miles from where we ate. Disregard this idea.
5. Let the gremlin wear duct tape.
6. Ask Merry & Marcy for feedback; contrast & compare with Gremlin's disgust. Rectify.

That's it for tonight!  Next up, a Celebration of Life coming up on Saturday with lots of family members I hardly ever see and people I won't know. This will be a four-hour chitchat session. I'll be exhausted. With a three hour drive home afterward my Gremlin with have a field day, don't you think?