ellenspictures

Author: Hope Never Vanishes

  • the blue-tint rinse

    the blue-tint rinse

    Just yesterday, when we were all alive, four generations of women, all related

    My grandmother – we all called her “Boo” (not in the above picture) – was one of those quintessential dignified little old ladies whose concept of appearance was rooted in looking presentable whenever she needed to look presentable. She had a process for doing everything and this included making sure that her hair was colored the “right” color of gray. Gray was okay, but it couldn’t be yellow, it had to have the “bluish” cast to it.

    Achieving this required the “blue-tint rinse”, as it was explained to me by my mother who answered my curious question: “What’s that on the pillow case – why is it dark-ish?” No doubt my mom was thinking “@#%^!! I have now a pillow case that has to be bleached or it’s ruined!!” but to me she said, “Oh, that’s probably from Boo’s hair dye – just coming off on the pillow case.” Hmmmm…? Little me didn’t really know much about hair dye at that time… Neither Mom or my other grandmother did “hair dye”. Both had dark-ish based hair color, and so they grayed naturally – kind of into a charcoal set of tones. Boo, however, had the thinnish, light brown hair color, originally, that ended up being the gray of the “yellow variety” – not what she desired – hence the need for the “blue tint rinse”.

    As a little kid I saw groups of little old ladies at lunch when I was with my grandmother (not Boo), and at times I remember thinking about the varied hues of their gray hair – some kind of went “pink”, some “lilac”, some “blue”, and some stayed yellow if they didn’t have the gift of hair that my grandmother had – the lovely charcoal, wiry, naturally highlighted gray hair…

    Here I am, and I haven’t seen my natural hair color in almost 30 years! Crazy as it is, I began to play with hair color when I was in my late 30’s. It was required because I had to do something to feel better during a reinvention period when I had discovered that I had a cheating husband. That is another story for a different day.

    But for now, I try to go with it and not stand out too much. I’ve tried going lighter, but I feel like I’m fading. One day I will gently get into my natural state, but I’m not ready yet. My grandson recently told me that I couldn’t be a grandmother because I wasn’t old. I’ll keep that remark. Out of the mouths of babes…

  • Another one bites the dust… Maybe we really weren’t friends…

    Another one bites the dust… Maybe we really weren’t friends…

    In my life, friends have come and gone – some really have gone, but that’s another subject for another day…

    When you look back on your life, you reflect on your actions, the setting, and mostly, the people, at least I do that. Who was there…what we did…the memorable conversation… And what? It ended, we moved on or we maybe still have some semblance of a relationship. We can think back and go, “Oh, that was really a great time..” Sometimes we forget about most of the bad parts of our episodes in life, thinking that things were hunky-dory, then someone else who was there brings up that thing that wasn’t so hunky-dory – and so it goes – everyone has their own perspectives.

    And then, there are the aspects of aging and the memories (the old noggin hard drive is getting packed with them) – and the memory capabilities – apparently, from about 40, it goes downhill from there – yet many people have very good capabilities of retention of certain memories, and zilch for others – selective…

    Then there’s the replay that we cannot seem to control. Over and over it plays, keeping us up at night when the sleep robbers are most active…

    When I think of a twenty-plus year relationship, and then suddenly you realize that it wasn’t what you thought it was, it’s that Winnie-the-Pooh quote:

    ” When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”

    It’s how it is when this happens… What your premise was, is not what the other person’s premise is and suddenly, you find out in a situation whereby you go, “Wow. Really?” Then you must process that, come to grips with it, like anything else, it’s a “change management” process that your mind must go through – your emotions included – to adjust. Here we go again.

    Then, there’s the ego threat – am I right, am I wrong, is it “no-fault”? Is there any peace? Yes. There might be some peace, but you have to work for it.

    Existential Thought of the Day: “If I just sit here and be quiet, will anyone call? Will anyone write? Will I just eventually disappear?”

  • the game is rigged or other excuses. as time moves on or as the old soap opera series named it “As The World Turns”

    the game is rigged or other excuses. as time moves on or as the old soap opera series named it “As The World Turns”

    Ever wonder about why things seem to go pear-shaped on a regular basis? Or why there is so much “bothering” going on?

    You might say, “Is it me? Is it my breath?” Or something like, “Am I a shit-magnet or something?”

    Whatever the reason, I think that my list is growing about these phenomena and my response(s):

    • “Mercury is in retrograde” (a favorite for explaining why one bad thing after another keeps happening)
    • “It is that this was going to happen – we just didn’t get the memo?”
    • “Gosh, I thought I knew the game plan… I must have missed the rules!”
    • (Related to radio-silence and really screwy behavior exhibited by someone) – “hmm… another alien abduction. Hope they don’t use the probes!”
    • “La chupacabra!” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra
    • “Sorry – wrong number!”
    • No, we don’t need more health insurance or automobile warranties!
    • No, Microsoft did not go out of business and we don’t need to pay you to get our data (seriously?)
    • Oh! So it’s not just me (us)! This happens to other people, too.
    • WTF? Is this happening more frequently these days, or is it me?
    • Every time you have to spend money unexpectedly: It’s a conspiracy. The rich are taking all the money. They don’t care about anyone else. They don’t care about cruelty. They just want the money. Imagine that they are well-dressed zombies that have “good behavior” in public.
    • In response to crickets, i.e., no responses from people (once you get in the room with them) – “oh, I was so busy – just slammed…” And I think, “Yeah – me, too. And I feel like slamming things because you think so little of us that you effectively ignore us. Turd.”
    • Related to being “talked down to, lectured, and ranted at: Maybe I just look like a stupid-ass. Who knows? ” ME: “Oh hello – I’m not in school today. Maybe tomorrow for the lecture?”
    • When asked a bunch of technical questions or details without being prepared that this would be discussed: “Oh! Sorry! I didn’t know that there would be a test!”
    • Related to world events: It’s a plan to condition us. Some “player” with a lot of psychological warfare experts at hand, says, “Let’s just shock the hell out of them until they are numb. At that point, do it some more! Just keep doing it. Confuse them. Fabricate both sides – just so they think that someone is investigating the situation – in the meantime, we’ll cook up something that they will not even have the energy to think about! Shock and Awe – that’s our game!”

    What happens, the repeating pattern…

    • Something breaks. No reason, it just breaks.
    • Someone acts like a complete ass-clown. You don’t know why. Experts say that it’s them, usually, not you, because EVERYONE is self-absorbed. They are not thinking about YOU.
    • The days grow shorter, the weeks grow shorter, and the event horizon nears… at least this is how it feels. There is some sort of hurry-up mechanism installed on-board that makes us aware of this.

    My 50th high-school reunion is nearing. I will not go to it. I can’t “un-see” what I would see there and I don’t want to see those things (or hear those things). It wasn’t that those were good years – they were mixed at best. If I had been wonderful friends with any of those people, I would still be having a friendship with them.

    Drama. Drama. Drama.

    It’s what’s for breakfast! It must be that someone decided we needed a tabloid world – guess it beats the tablets and scrolls – for now. Although, I am thinking that maybe we need to revive that way of documenting the world. You know the apocalypse is just around the corner…

    The end is near!

    The alternate reality where Rob played, unconstrained…