Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall; Who's the Fairest?

Early yesterday I met two friends for breakfast at our local IHOP. I won’t mention their names because I wouldn’t embarrass them for the world. However, one of them looked especially pretty; her hair was washed and styled and her make-up was perfect. And she’d just had a colonoscopy minutes before. I’m not kidding. She’d been up all night, flushing her insides down the toilet, thanks to the bottles of laxative she’d been made to drink. She had probably wiped her bottom raw, but she looked fabulous! Why do we women do that?

We wouldn’t dream of heading to the gynecologist without first shaving our legs and armpits, getting a pedicure, and slathering a moisturizer from head to toe for an all-over radiant glow. Is that glow supposed to create a more pleasant working environment for the doctor? Then, of course, we do our best to present an attractive outer appearance with perfect make-up, hair and wardrobe. I’ve probably spent more time getting ready for the OB-GYN doc than I did for some dates when I was young and single.

When you consider what it takes to prep for a colonoscopy, shouldn’t we make the gastroenterologist suffer some also? We’ve had nothing to eat except clear broth, plain Jell-O, and water for twenty-four hours. Our bottoms have a permanent toilet-ring-shaped crease from the hours we spent sitting “on the throne” the night before. If we’re lucky and smart, we scheduled the appointment for first thing in the morning. Regardless of the time, we’re exhausted because we really didn’t sleep a wink all night. So why go to the trouble of making ourselves beautiful?

It’s my theory that we don’t want the gastroenterologist or the gynecologist to remember us just from the waist down. There’s nothing attractive, feminine or ladylike about the exam at the doctor for feminine and ladylike issues. And we certainly don’t want to be remembered as the polyp or hemorrhoid from last Tuesday. So we, just like women do, try to pretty things up.

My friend had threatened to draw a smiley face or the word “hi” on her bottom right before her exam, to put the doctor in a good mood. In the end. . .she decided to leave well enough alone.

Donna

Our Olympic Beauties

Has anyone else noticed how attractive the 2010 Winter Olympic athletes are? Skiers Julia Mancuso and Lindsey Vonn, along with speedskaters Katherine Reutter and Chad Hedrick, are just a few of the best-looking Olympians I’ve ever seen. And Apolo Anton Ohno and Shaun White are about as cute as it gets. When the US team entered the arena during the opening ceremony in Vancouver, I couldn’t help but say right out loud, “Look at them! They’re beautiful!

Hopefully these young people will behave as beautifully as they appear physically. Let’s have no more Mike Modano’s. You may recall after the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, he verbally trashed his US hockey team and the USA Hockey organization. And worse—in the 1998 Nagano, Japan Winter Olympics, he and some of his teammates trashed their rooms in the Olympic Village. They embarrassed our entire nation in front of the whole world. Modano was already a highly-paid professional hockey player in 1998 when he behaved like an out-of-control teenager.

Athletes work their tails off to get on a US Olympic team, and no doubt their successes and disappointments are greater than any I ever experienced in one of my high school girls’ basketball tournaments. So I can understand a downhill racer pounding the snow with her ski poles after landing in a heap at the bottom of the mountain. And I can understand an athlete blowing off a little steam at a bar or party.

Well, 2010 Team USA has had at least one embarrassing moment. US snowboarder and Olympic bronze medalist, 22 year-old Scotty Lago left Vancouver early after “suggestive” photos of a young woman kissing his medal surfaced. So what’s wrong with kissing a medal, you ask? In at least one photo, the lady was kissing the medal as it hung over his groin. Scotty? What were you thinking?

We all can guess what he was probably thinking: “This medal is babe bait!” I’m not saying what he did was OK; timing-wise, it was pretty foolish. No one would care about those “suggestive” photos if Lago hadn’t just won that bronze medal in the winter Olympics. That’s the old “price of glory” pickle. But compared to Mike Modano’s behavior, Lago’s falls more into the “boys will be boys” category.

Since 1984, the US Olympic Committee has paid prize money to its winning Olympians. Gold medal winners receive $25,000, silver medalists receive $15,000, and winners take home $10,000 for a bronze. A few very lucky individuals receive large bonuses from sponsors and have big endorsement contracts. The prize money from the USOC probably doesn’t begin to cover the cost of getting there because nobody gets to the Olympics without great sacrifice. And that sacrifice is shared by whole families: wives, husbands, kids, moms, and dads.

I love the whole, “thanks, Mom” theme of this year’s Olympic advertisers, and I can’t help but wonder how Scotty Lago’s mom feels. But then I tend to think like a mom.

Donna

What Are You Doing Next, Sandy?

For as long as I’ve known her, Sandy has been something of a big sister to me. You know the kind of friend I’m talking about—she seems to have already done what you’re trying to do, and is always there to help you out when you need her.

After initial “stewardess” training in 1966, Sandy went to Buffalo, New York. I went to Chicago in 1968, and we both transferred to San Diego in 1972. We didn’t really get to know each other until we transferred to our international base in Los Angeles in 1980. Our only “international” trip at that time was between L.A. and Honolulu, so Sandy and I found ourselves working the same trip many, many times. Yes, I do realize that Hawaii is our 50th state and not really an international destination, but that’s what we called it because to get there we flew over one of the really big ponds.

Sandy was always busy doing something new and creative—and she was quite the entrepreneur. When we flight attendants began wearing silk flowers in our hair to complement our Hawaiian muu muus, (uniforms designed to make us look like a cross between a geisha and a room divider), Sandy set to work making and selling “made to order” tropical floral hair accessories and called her business “Petal Pusher.” She later added cloth tote bags and beaded jewelry to her inventory and became the “go to girl” for hand-made travel accessories.

Over the years, Sandy tried macramé, knitting, needlepoint, crochet and cross stitch, but she always loved to sew. Her first sewing machine purchase was a Singer Golden Touch and Sew, costing around three hundred dollars—and that included the wood cabinet it was in. With it, Sandy said she made “loving hands at home” projects.

“What are ‘loving hands at home’ projects?” I asked, thinking she was referring to some kind of charitable work.

“You know. . . the kind of stuff that when someone sees it for the first time, they think: ‘Oh, my God!’”

The death of her mother in 1994 left Sandy floundering for a while. During this period, she began watching Sewing with Nancy, the long-running sewing series on public television, and was motivated to sharpen her sewing skills. In 1995 a friend showed her a home embroidery machine and Sandy decided she had to own one. That was just the beginning. For much of the next fifteen years, she continued to upgrade her machines and her skills, but for some reason she resisted quilting until just a few years ago. Now she can’t get enough of it.

Recently Sandy welcomed me at one of her sewing group gatherings to meet her friends and take a few pictures. I met her at Quilter’s Dream, a popular quilter’s supply store and sewing center in Colleyville, Texas. I felt like a rat in a maze as one of the employees led me through the multi-roomed building to the area where Sandy’s group was sewing. It reminded me of those photos of the sweatshops with all the women sitting at sewing machines in every room amidst the stacks of brightly colored fabric. But these women were doing what they love to do!

Sandy invited me to join her sewing group, the “Bag Ladies,” for lunch at a local deli. The ladies at the table talked about sewing machines the way guys talk about cars—or computers. In fact, their sewing machines are computers these days. And just as with PCs and Macs, they no sooner buy a machine than a newer, faster, more powerful model is on the market in a short time.

While Sandy’s definitely taken to retirement, in many ways she’s busier than ever. She attends sewing retreats around the state, with three planned for this year. She’s a member of four local sewing groups: Raveled Thread, Bag Ladies, I Love to Sew, and a serger club. She’s a member of a Red Hat Society group and the American Sewing Guild national organization. She also continues to sign up for sewing classes.

Now when she asks her many nieces and nephews what they’d like for wedding or Christmas gifts, it’s one of her quilts they request. Her quilts draw high-dollar bids at the American Airlines Wings Foundation benefits. “Wings” is the tax exempt, non-profit organization created, funded and managed by American Airlines Flight Attendants for the benefit of seriously ill or disabled colleagues.

April 1st will be the second anniversary of her retirement from American Airlines. Happy Anniversary, Sandy. Glad to see you’re taking it easy.

Donna