My timing is a bit late, but I must mention this, as I do every fall.

NEVER DRIVE THROUGH A PILE OF LEAVES AT THE EDGE OF A STREET OR ANYWHERE ELSE!

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HOUSEHOLD HINTS

I am a minimalist at heart.

I mean, you don’t need half a dozen watermelon ballers.

Declutter is my mantra, and I proclaim it proudly.

At the same time, people often make life difficult by having too few of some things. You do need:

1. Boxes of tissues (at least one in every room and every vehicle)
2. Postage stamps (never buy just one, for pete’s sake)
3. Reliable ink pens within easy reach (and NO unreliable ones)
4. Lint rollers (near your grooming areas, wherever pets hang out indoors, and a small one in your purse or car). If, like me, you are grossed out by hair, lint, thread, and other detritis the vacuum cleaner fails to pick up, buy a floor model lint roller–yes, a 10- or 12-inch one with a long handle like a mop. Run it over carpets and throw rugs AFTER you’ve vaccumed them, and prepare to be shocked at the yuckiness that adheres to that sticky roller.

Also, save yourself some grief! Expose the chargers for your electronics so they are easy to find and connect to your devices. I wish I could reclaim the hours I’ve spent on my hands and knees, feeling blindly under furniture to grasp that tiny metal tip of my phone charger. NO MORE!

I charge my phone in three places inside my house: at my PC; near my TV-watching, needle working chair; and at my bedside. I have no trouble finding the charger attached to my PC, but I formerly did have trouble finding the ones by my chair and by my bedside. Now, I don’t.

Look at these genius adaptations I have made.

After being a homemaking executive for almost 50 years, I have learned a few things.

ONE MORE THING

Allow me to recommend a website for you students of the Bible. I was introduced to it while taking an online Bible Boot Camp course offered through my church. It is http://www.bibleproject.com.

Here is the official description of the site.

BibleProject is a nonprofit ed-tech organization and animation studio that produces 100% free Bible videos, podcasts, blogs, classes, and educational Bible resources to help make the biblical story accessible to everyone, everywhere.

From page one to the final word, we believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. This diverse collection of ancient books overflows with wisdom for our modern world. As we let the biblical story speak for itself, we believe the message of Jesus will transform individuals and entire communities.

Many people have misunderstood the Bible as a collection of inspirational quotes or a divine instruction manual dropped from heaven. Most of us gravitate toward sections we enjoy while avoiding parts that are confusing or even disturbing.

Our Bible resources help people experience the Bible in a way that is approachable, engaging, and transformative. We do this by showcasing the literary art of the Scriptures and tracing the themes found in them from beginning to end. Rather than taking the stance of a specific tradition or denomination, we create materials to elevate the Bible for all people and draw our eyes to its unified message.

CHECK IT OUT!

(P.S. If you are not a student of the Bible but want to learn about God’s message to us, this is a fantastic place to start.)

I have become an avid weeder.

My husband does 99% of the yard work, and all the heavy labor.

I have taken on the responsibility of removing weeds.

Below are photos and descriptions of weeds I tackle, along with some life applications related to these weeds.

These V-shaped, light green weeds spring up within the yard and grow faster than the lawn grass.

As weeds go, these are fairly unoffensive. I could pull them up, but I look at them and say, “Meh.” (My preteen granddaughter taught me saying meh to those weeds indicates  my indifference to their existence.)

I compare these weeds to other things I choose to accept: the clutter that accumulates on my kitchen island, my grandkids’ habit of using the word butt, and the saggy skin on the underside of my arms.

I may not like these things, but I will tolerate them.

Our yard is a hotbed of these weeds. They crop up everywhere: in cracks in the driveway, between the bricks around flower beds, in sunny spots and shady spots, and everywhere else.

The one good thing about them (if weeds can have a good thing) is their ease of removal. Their spindly, pink-white roots lift out of the ground on my first tug. I rarely walk to the mailbox without stooping to feel the thrill of doing away with one.

These weeds represent my ever-present and annoying bad habits:

• Leaving the dishwasher lid down and banging my shin at least once a day
• Pulling on loose cuticles until I make my fingers sore
• Having to unload the dryer before I can put in a load of wet clothes
• Throwing the empty muffin mix box in the trash and then having to get it out three times to check and recheck how long I’m supposed to bake the muffins
• Forgetting to take my 9:00 a.m. dose of medicine until 11:00 a.m., which means I can’t take my 1:00 p.m. dose until 3:00 p.m., my 5:00 p.m. dose until 7:00 p.m., and my 9:00 p.m. dose until 11:00 p.m.

It is an ongoing job to purge both spurge and bad habits from my life.

Ah, the dandelion!

It first shows up with a colorful yellow flower the grandkids pick and bring in as a gift for grandma. Then it develops a feathery puffball the grandkids pick and swing through the air, planting more dandelions.

Finally it spreads its thick green arms across the surface of the ground and dares me to try to pull out its long, white root.

I go after these monsters with a heavy-duty, metal digging stick, and still I don’t always remove the whole root.

These embedded weeds are like ongoing irritations that keep me aggravated but are beyond my ability to eradicate: pop-up ads on my computer; goose poop on sidewalks; political wrangling; dust; loud pick-up trucks; squeaky, wobbly shopping carts; and houseflies that never sit long enough to be swatted.

Dandelions will never be eliminated. Neither will the frustrations of daily life. I should accept that fact and stop letting them make me miserable.

See the discussion of the dandelion above. Different weed, same vexation.

The thistles in my yard are like dandelions or crabgrass, but with thorns. Several times I have reached to uproot a thistle with my bare hands. I always regret it.

Thistles represent my significant troubles, the things that keep me awake at night. They are prickly on the surface and deeply rooted. sicknesses and heartaches among the people I love, COVID-19 and its aftermath, the pitiful condition of the world my grandchildren will inherit, and irredeemable personal regrets.

Setting my mind on these things is as painful as wrapping my fingers around a thistle plant. My only protection from the anguish they bring is prayer.

Did weeds exist in Eden? I think not. Will they exist in the New World we call Eternity? No, neither the literal nor the figurative ones.

For now, both my yard and my life are weedy.

Have you noticed, as I have, that once you encounter an item or a word, that same thing crops up again and again?

Sometimes a Bible verse enters my mind, and the next thing I know the preacher mentions it in the sermon, or I see it displayed on a church marquee.

Why does that happen?

Lately, I have pondered terms common in today’s world that my grandparents never heard: email; bandwidth; bytes; unlimited talk, text, and data, etc.

If Grandma had ever heard me say dot com, she would have feared I had developed a speech impediment.

I wondered about new terms added to my grandparents’ vocabularies when electricity and telephones entered their lives.

For certain, they were quickly introduced to the terms electric bill and telephone bill.

Electricity brought to light (notice the pun) words like socket, light switch, meter reading, shock, outage, and plug and unplug.

Telephones made common such phrases as busy signal, party line, person-to-person, hang up, and please hold.

Such thoughts spiraled through my brain for several days as I vacuumed, pulled weeds, folded laundry, and waited for traffic lights to turn green.

Then, wouldn’t you know it? While reading a novel set in the 1920s, I found the following paragraph.

Life has all at once grown exponentially larger than I could have ever dreamed. Electricity, the automobile and now the telephone have made it clear that possibility is endless for an enterprising mind. I can only imagine what it  must have felt like to navigate a flat earth only to discover its roundness. (Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera)

How is it that I happened to read a book that dealt with the exact thoughts I had been having?

My thinking about electricity and telephone terminology could not have inspired me to head to the library and check out a book that featured the introduction of electricity and telephones into American life.

Could it?

I mean, the title, Call Your Daughter Home, does not scream, “Electricity and telephones!”

I borrowed that library book because my sister Pam recommended it to me.

Pam and I are linked, genetically, of course, but also by a preference for the same kinds of books. And our minds do tend to run along the same paths.

For example, I can be thinking about Aunt Betty, and Pam will call me and say, “I talked to Aunt Betty this morning.”

Maybe Pam had been thinking about electricity and telephones, then read Call Your Daughter Home, figured I too had been thinking about electricity and telephones, and gave me a call to recommend that book.

I don’t know.

How do these things work?

Like everyone else, Dan and I bide our time as we wait for the Covid-19 pandemic to end. We look forward to our lives returning to normal, whatever that means.

We have appointments to get our first Covid-19 vaccinations later this month.

On October 27, Dan had an aortic valve replacement.

Then, on February 1, he had spinal surgery, a laminectomy. This procedure is intended to relieve the nerve pressure that caused pain in his back, hips, and legs.

Therefore, Dan has spent much of the winter convalescing.

His back surgery restricted him from heavy lifting, and, until yesterday, I did all the driving.

During our 47-year marriage, Dan has done 99% of the driving when both of us are in the car. I don’t like to drive, and I appreciate Dan’s willingness to take the wheel.

Dan and I have differing approaches to driving. Dan’s goal is to arrive at his destination as quickly as possible. He takes the most direct route, gets angry at traffic lights that slow his progress, and critiques other drivers.

My goal, when I drive, is to arrive at my destination with as little stress as possible. This means I often take non-direct routes to avoid confusing roundabouts and the necessity of making left-hand turns in heavy traffic. I pay little attention to other drivers and don’t mind stopping at red lights. Those pauses give me a chance to put in the next CD in the audiobook I’m enjoying.

When I must act as Dan’s chauffeur, the patience of both of us is tested, but we persevere.

During our long marriage, we have learned to work out differences, work through conflicts, and work with each other, in general.

The operative word in that paragraph is work.

We enjoy watching birds eat from two feeders that hang off our back porch. Cardinals, sparrows, doves, and woodpeckers have entertained us during our forced semi-hibernation.

The birds ate together peacefully until yesterday when a flock of starlings descended upon our backyard. These big birds are aggressive and greedy. All other birds were driven away while these rude pigs of the bird world emptied both feeders before noon.

Today we bought a new feeder designed to discourage starlings. We also bought safflower seed, which starlings supposedly don’t like to eat.

We’ll see.

We haven’t returned to church on the weekends but are happy we can stream services.

I read a daily devotional from Mornings With Jesus. (I regularly get this book as a Christmas gift from my friend, Jan, and give it as a gift too.)

Dan has returned to his old hobby of creating string designs, and I am embroidering.

We read and watch a little television.

I do a bit of writing. (I will have an article published in the Boomers section of The Daily Journal on Saturday, March 6.)

Dan naps and waits for his back to heal.

The highlights of each week are visits from the kids and grandkids.

This is life, as we know it, during the winter of 2020/2021.

Many years ago I had a friend I’ll call Dottie.

Dottie and I shared several similarities.

I loved her sense of humor.

One day, Dottie said to me, “Well, I’m ready to die now.”

“How’s that?” I said.

“I pulled out my kitchen stove and cleaned behind it,” she said. “And I finally dealt with some underwear I had been soaking in a bucket in my garage for weeks. I hated the thought that anyone who came to clean my house after my death would think I was a slob.”

I laughed.

Dottie and I discussed recipes and our kids, and we talked a lot about the number one topic of women: losing weight.

I shared with Dottie that I had held onto a black skirt I had worn in the past but had “outgrown.” I was trying to eat reasonably and exercise so I could again wear that skirt.

Happily, I reached that goal and wore the skirt to work one day. I stopped by Dottie’s desk to share my success with her.

“Congratulations!” Dottie said. “Now that you’ve lost weight, you just need to do something with that hair of yours and you’ll be looking good!”

Dottie had a way of doing that. She would utter what sounded like a compliment and then turn around and slap you with her next comment.

I’m sure my hand flew to my hair when she said what she said.

“I think you should get a perm,” Dottie said.

“No!” I said. “I hate perms! My hair soaks up perm solution like a dry sponge absorbs water. I always wind up looking like Richard Simmons.”

“You need to see my hairdresser,” said Dottie. “She is fantastic. Let me make you an appointment for a perm. You’ll love it.”

The appointment was made, and Dottie and I planned to meet for lunch afterward.

I visited Dottie’s hairdresser.

My hair soaked up that perm solution like a dry sponge absorbs water. I looked like a curvy Richard Simmons.

I met Dottie at the restaurant right after my hair appointment. Her mouth dropped open when she saw me.

“Oh, Debbie!” she said. “That’s awful.”

She laughed her loudest laugh. I tried to laugh but couldn’t.

Encounters with Dottie often ended that way. She would be laughing, and I would be failing to see the humor in the situation.

I haven’t seen Dottie for years, and I don’t want to see her.

Before you judge me too harshly, allow me to say if I did see her, I would be kind. I’d ask about her kids and grandkids. I might even ask if she had pulled her kitchen stove out for a good cleaning lately.

But I would NOT suggest we get together and renew our friendship.

The middle knuckle of the middle finger of my right hand has a knot on it. The knot resulted from a wasp sting I suffered back in the summer while I was working in the yard.

It was a particularly painful sting, and it left me with that knotted knuckle.

I plan to be more careful as I do yard work this summer.

I hate being stung.

I walk a pretty straight line.

I don’t mean I’m perfect. I am as flawed as the next person.

In fact, I dwell so much on how flawed I am that dwelling on my flaws has become one of my chief flaws.

But, back to my walking a straight line.

If I see a sign that reads, “Keep Off The Grass,” I keep off the grass.

If the speed limit sign reads, “Speed Limit 30,” I drive 30 MPH.

I may be the only person in this state who tries always to drive the posted speed limit.

Most people fudge a bit. I’m not judging. I’m just saying.

My husband Dan has been wearing an orthopedic boot on his right foot because of a sprained ankle tendon.

Therefore, his driving is limited.

For the first time in over 45 years of marriage, I am the chief driver.

And it isn’t easy.

For either of us.

Like you, I have established driving habits:

• How and when I change lanes
• Where I park on big department store lots
• How closely I follow another vehicle
• The route I take when entering and exiting our neighborhood
• How I judge whether a yellow light leaves me time to continue

I have the luxury these days of rarely being in a hurry. I don’t have a job or kids to shuttle to events. I am, I guess you could say, a leisurely driver.

The kind of driver non-leisurely drivers hate.

I plan my car trips to make my stops in a prescribed order, trying to avoid making left-hand turns on busy highways.

And I get along just fine.

But now that I’m chauffeuring Dan, I have forgotten how to drive.

That’s because I’m trying to drive the way he drives.

And, I’m trying to drive the way he drives because I am a . . . wait for it.

I am a people-pleaser.

On about our second outing after I began driving, Dan asked, “Why do you take this street out of the neighborhood when you’re planning to turn south onto Sawmill Road?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I just do.”

“If you go down one more street, you’ll avoid a stop sign.”

“Oh . . . well,” I said.

Now, at this point, a string of questions starts running through my brain. My thoughts go something like this.

Why does this matter to Dan? And, if it does matter to him, why can’t he just tolerate the way I choose to exit the neighborhood? Why does he have to comment? Why can’t he keep his mouth shut and let me drive?

You may be shocked at the route my thoughts took (not at the route I took exiting the neighborhood) because you think I’m a nice person.

I am a nice person. Most of the time.

Can you make a higher claim? Hmmm?

But, and this won’t surprise you, when Dan is in the car, I now take his route when I leave the neighborhood, intending to turn left onto Sawmill Road.

And why is that?

Because I am a people pleaser.

I also choose my parking spots based upon his recommendations.

I change lanes or don’t change lanes, stop at yellow lights or proceed through yellow lights, cross a double yellow line to go around a mail delivery vehicle or don’t cross a double yellow line to go around a mail delivery vehicle based upon what I think HE thinks I should do.

I try to do every driving-thing the way HE believes every driving-thing should be done.

I might as well wear a bracelet engraved with “WWDD?”

Not only do I do things his way, I—heaven help me—ask his advice as I drive.

“Do you think I should go around this truck?”

“Is this the best place for me to park?”

“Should I have stopped at that yellow light instead of going on through?”

“What would YOU have done?”

And, I hate myself for it.

Hate, hate, hate myself for this people-pleasing approach to life I have chosen.

On the first Sunday I drove us to church, the inevitable happened.

We were running late. That is not the inevitable thing. Well, it sort of is, but it isn’t THE inevitable thing for the telling of this story.

As I said, we were running late. I won’t go into whose fault it was that we ran late. That subject is for another day and another blog.

We were running late. Dan was checking his watch, sighing heavily, squirming in the passenger seat, looking at the speedometer, and showing other signs of discomfort.

We approached a traffic light. The light was at not a major intersection but not a minor intersection either. I would rate it a Class Two intersection. Moderately busy.

The light was yellow. It had been yellow for a prolonged time. No way I could make my way through the intersection before the light turned red.

Muhammad had met the mountain.

Should I break the law and proceed through the intersection, knowing the light would turn red as I was halfway through, or should I stop and wait for the next green light, knowing that would cause Dan more discomfort?

WHAT SHOULD I DO???

I gunned the engine and raced through the yellow/red light.

And then I was mad!

Mad at Dan!

In my mind I vowed, “That is the LAST red light I’m running for you, Mister!”

Now, if I had uttered that vow aloud, Dan would have been shocked.

“What are you talking about?” he would have asked. “I didn’t ask you to run that red light!”

“Yes, you did!” I would have countered. “I wouldn’t have run that light if you hadn’t been in the car! It’s your fault!”

“You’re crazy!” he would have said.

“Oh, yeah?” I would have said. “If I’m crazy, you MADE me crazy. When are you going to be finished wearing that blasted boot?”

I check our mailbox every day as soon as I hear the mail truck go by.

I anticipate receiving a traffic violation notice. Certainly, that traffic light at that intersection had a camera attached. It is probably the ONLY traffic light in the county with a camera snapping away all day every day to catch lawbreakers like me.

Me. A lawbreaker.

I can’t take it.

When that traffic violation notice arrives in our mailbox, I will tell you this.

Dan is the one who is going to traffic court.

He ran that red light.

I don’t run red lights.

I walk a straight line.

Lean in closely while I whisper something in your ear.

Please don’t overreact, and don’t SAY anything.

Wait for it.

Here it is.

“I don’t like to travel.”

“WHAT?? YOU DON’T LIKE TO TRAVEL?!!!”

Go ahead. Grab your phone and fire up your computer. Broadcast that blasphemous statement, and be sure to credit it to me.

To some people, my saying, “I don’t like to travel” is equivalent to saying:

• “I’m glad Bambi’s mother got shot.”
• “I dump my trash in the Ohio River, and I’m proud of it.”
• “Bring on higher taxes and fewer benefits.”

In her wonderful piece at https://www.huffpost.com/entry/i-dont-want-to-travel, Jenna Woginrich writes:

Somehow getting on a plane and going far away became the highest form of purchasable enlightenment. To experience real life is to experience it somewhere else.

If travel is being recreationally uncomfortable in a controlled environment ― I chose the opposite.

(Jenna lives as a homesteader and hasn’t left her farm for a single night in over five years.)

I’m with Jenna.

Leave me at home. Go. Have fun. Bring back pretty photos and funny stories.

I’ll look. I’ll listen. I’ll be pleasant, but I won’t envy you the trip.

Maybe I will receive less condemnation if I say, “I like being at home.”

At home I take comfort in knowing:

1. Where my nail clippers are.
2. Which restaurants I like.
3. Where I can park.
4. That I can savor a beautiful garden tomorrow if I skip it today.
5. That I’m not interfering with other people’s plans if I decide to take a nap.
6. That I can lay my book down and pick it up from the same place tomorrow.

My husband would travel 26 weeks of the year if he could. And, he could, with some limitations.

But he likes to travel with me. And I like to make him happy.

There, as the British say, is the rub.

The rub can chafe. The chafe can fester into a wound. The wound can become infected and kill the relationship.

Neither of us wants that.

So, sometimes I travel with him.

Here are my suggestions for non-travelers who vacation with avid travelers.

• Be honest: Say, “I don’t want to make that two-mile hike to the waterfall.”
• Compromise: “If I rest in the condo today, I’ll enjoy the luau tonight.”
• Ask questions: “How disappointed will you be if I don’t go on the boat ride?”
• Volunteer your preferences: “I would rather not attend the lecture on lava types.”

Dan and I are two different people. We are glad we are.

He will not convince me to enjoy war movies. I will not persuade him to read The Woman in White.

But I will not tell him that watching war movies is wrong, ignorant, stupid or a waste of time.

He will not tell me that reading The Woman in White is a moronic indulgence and I should be doing something else.

If I harp on Dan about watching war movies, I diminish his enjoyment of them. I take from him something that is not mine to take.

If he ridicules my enjoyment of British literature, he belittles my choice of reading material. He robs me of some of the pleasure that reading gives me.

He likes to travel. I like to be at home.

We live and let live.

That is because more than liking things, we love each other.

 

 

 

 

When I learned I was to become a grandmother, I celebrated. My mind swirled with thoughts of booties, bibs and bassinets.

My daughter involved me in the pre-birth excitement. I helped decorate the nursery and discussed potential names for baby girls and boys.

News from every prenatal doctor visit thrilled me. I framed photos of ultrasound images.

My every plan for the upcoming year was made contingent upon my responsibilities as a grandmother.

And grand parenting has been every bit as wonderful as I expected. Each of my four grandchildren is a unique blessing.

Grand parenting is God’s way of compensating us for the things time takes away.

My goal was to be the best grandmother in the universe.

Ten years later, that is still my goal, but time has revealed misconceptions I once held about grand parenting.

Here are three.

I underestimated the limitations aging brings.

When my first granddaughter was born, I offered to babysit every workday for my daughter and her husband. Driving the 20 miles between their house and mine twice a day would be no problem.

In addition to nurturing my compliant infant granddaughter, I would also do the family’s laundry, clean their house and have dinner ready when her parents got home from work.

I would do this five days a week, every week.

And that is what I did.

For about three weeks.

Then, sanity returned, and I realized I could not keep up that pace.

Housework and laundry at my house went undone.  Takeout food and pizza for dinner three times a week wasn’t cutting it for my husband.

My back ached.

Worse, I didn’t look forward to seeing my granddaughter.

What gives? I wondered.

When my own kids were babies, I retrieved them from car seats, cribs or baby swings without grabbing my lower back.

When I knelt on the floor to wipe up strained peas, I stood up with no effort.

I survived on four hours of sleep a night.

Why was this so much harder?

Childcare is harder now because I am older.

When my kids were babies, I had to show my driver’s license to sit in Applebee’s bar. Now I show my driver’s license to get senior-citizen discounts at restaurants.

My body reminded me I was not the same woman at 56 I had been at 26.

I thought if my grandkids were with me, I needed to entertain them.

When my cooing infant grandbabies grew into speaking, playful toddlers, I recognized how much fun it was to play with them.

So, we played. In fact, I played whatever the grandkids wanted to play. When they were at my house, they owned me.

Peek-a-Boo, gave way to Ring-Around-the-Rosie and Duck-Duck-Goose. We graduated to board games and Play-Doh. We pinned towels to our backs and had Superhero exploits in the backyard.

We went on tricycle trips around the block. Many times, I carried the tricycle three-fourths of the way home.

Later I carried home a Big Wheel and then a scooter.

Finally, I had to call Grandpa to rescue me from carrying home a small bicycle with training wheels.

Every time the grandkids visited, I gave 100% of myself to their entertainment.

Then I collapsed on the couch before they and their parents left my driveway.

Grand parenting experts cautioned me against this. My kids urged me to “just say no.” My husband told me I was being ridiculous.

They were correct.

Retraining the grandkids to entertain themselves at Grandma’s house proved to be a gargantuan task.

This leads me to my third mistake.

I thought I would want my grandkids with me all the time.

Some of my long-time favorite activities are:

• Reading and writing
• Browsing bookstores
• Doing Bible studies
• Going to lunch and dinner with friends
• Spending time alone with my husband

I can’t do those things with my grandchildren.

So, I need time without them.

Accepting that truth is hard.

I mean, what kind of grandmother doesn’t want her grandchildren 24/7?

Answer: The realistic kind.

Conclusion

I entered grandmother-hood with starry eyes and unrealistic expectations.

And being a grandmother is great!

But it turns out life is a long line of reality checks.

Almost every activity I undertake turns out to be harder than I expected. I don’t meet every goal I set. Often, I settle for Plan B.

That doesn’t mean I failed. It means some of my ideas and goals were unrealistic.

I am not the best grandmother in the world.

I can accept that, and my grandkids aren’t complaining.

It is what it is.

 

Visit these websites to read more articles about grandparenting.

https://www.aarp.org/relationships/grandparenting/info-11-2010/goyer_grandparenting_advice.html

https://www.scarymommy.com/10-tips-reasonable-%C2%ADlaw/

https://thestir.cafemom.com/being_a_mom/214038/parentsshare-worst-grandparent-mistakes

When I was young, women and girls wore slips.

If you are not familiar with this female undergarment, Google the term.

Or, better still, watch Cat on a Hot Tin Roof starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. Liz wears only a slip for much of the movie.

Women did not violate the slip etiquette of the day. We wore “full slips” with most dresses. (The slip Liz is wearing is a full slip.)

Half-slips (just a skirt slip) could be worn if the bodice (top) of the dress was not made of see-through fabric.

We wore crinolines (cancans) to make skirts flair

Slip wearers followed two inviolable rules.

1. We never allowed our slips to show beneath the hem of our skirts. One woman would approach a woman to whisper, “Your slip is showing.” The grateful woman would scuttle off to fix the problem.

 

2. Never did we allow our slip’s straps to show. To prevent this, we used a single, unsecured stitch (made with a needle and thread) and tacked the slip’s strap to the inside shoulder seam of the blouse. When we undressed, we removed the stitches. Some women, instead of stitching the strap to the blouse, used a tiny gold pin to accomplish the same thing.

In the 1960s, we did not slip up in our wearing of undergarments.

The rules governing women’s underwear today confuse me.

Young women wear tops designed to show off multiple straps of different colors. They probably don’t own slips.

On the Saturday afternoon before Easter Sunday, my daughter called.

“Mom,” she asked, “can Sparkle borrow one of your slips to wear with her Easter dress? When she walks in front of a window or door, I can see right through her dress.”

Sparkle is the pet name for my 10-year-old granddaughter.

By the time I was Sparkle’s age, I had outgrown several slips and passed them down to my younger sister. Never was I without a suitable slip.

“She doesn’t own a slip?” I asked.

“No,” said my daughter, “and I don’t either. Can she borrow one of yours?”

“Yes,” I said, “but my slips won’t fit Sparkle.”

“That’s okay. We can use stitches to tack up the hem and cinch in the waist.”

At least I taught her how to use tacking stitches.

But how had my daughter, who lived with me for 18 years and watched me wear a slip every time I wore a dress, grown into a woman who didn’t even own one?

Maybe I hadn’t preached what I practiced.

Sparkle wore my slip underneath her Easter dress and looked beautiful.

When my daughter handed my slip back after Easter, she said, “I haven’t taken out the stitching. Do you mind doing that?”

That slip was contorted, stitched and cinched top, bottom and sides. It looked like a fifth-grader’s botched-up sewing project.

I removed the stitches and placed the slip back into the drawer with its nylon companions.

I no longer understand the guidelines regarding women’s lingerie.

When and how did this change take place?

I don’t know.

I must be slipping.