Making Up Time

 We LOLs, little old ladies for those who are unfamiliar with the term, are NDY or not dead yet. Sometimes we feel that way, but if we were, we wouldn't care anyway, but here we are alive. I neglected to say the "and well" part, because some of us are not at all completely well. We all have our little niggling physical matter that is not for public knowledge. Sometimes it's big and sometimes, small, but it's there and we know it. It can be called "my bad" something, usually a hip or a knee or fingers or toes etcetera, but we live with it. We've learned that taking pills or surgery don't always turn out well, so most of us suffer silently or have a glass of wine. The queen I understand likes a gin and tonic. When we complain to our off-springs, they tell us to get out more, exercise, join the senior's center or "I have my own problems to deal with". I happen to have the world's best son and our conversations are usually concerning world matters that neither of us can solve, but we give it a go anyway, and meet over dinner once a week and during the meal, there isn't a lot of talk due to chicken cacciatore or chili pot or steak and onions. Our kids, and we still call them "the kids", have a life of their own and hopefully a babysitter, not us. After the age of eighty, when you are a LOL, you give up on a boyfriend or any remote hopes of marrying someone because you know that means you would be back into doing laundry, making meals and listening to someone snore all night. The world at large, thinks you are a burden, a joke and invisible so here you are up in the morning looking at someone in the mirror who is you, that stranger with the white hair and droopy body. You. Telling yourself it's okay because everyone grows old, doesn't work too well. Out comes the soap and water and shower time is the day's big event. After the tedious wiping down of the shower glass, you emerge and open the make-up drawer but only after turning on the transistor radio, yes that thing that few know exist still, but that you found in a second hand shop. The daily news begins and it's not nice. There is the weekend announcer woman and her smarm but it's welcome only because the alternative weekday radio "host" has nothing but bad news and furthermore he is hoping to be awarded some kind of diploma as the keenest news investigator of the year. No fun for listeners there. The fifteen minute stretch routine happens to oofs and oohs. Next the body lotion. On goes the make-up and hopefully no LOL forgets this step. The eyebrows need picking up, a dash of colour on the cheeks works and don't forget the lip liner because otherwise you wouldn't have a mouth at all. Then it's hair time. Mine is long and the only thing about it is when  you tie it back, eschewing a bun, making the stray bits look deliberate. Scent is no longer permitted says the little elephant, so on goes a pat of that wonderful English rose dusting powder that smells heavenly for five minutes. All dressed and made up going nowhere, your day begins. Coffee, computer, crossword, jigsaw and journal and you're off. Well, not too far off.