Wedding Update: A Dress and a Fox

In the last post, I bemoaned my missing waist.

But in terms of a rehearsal dinner dress, the story has a happy ending.

You know the feeling. You already love something. You pray your shopping consultant agrees.

Time freezes as you wait for the pronouncement.

“I like it!” the bride-to-be said.

Yes!

(Point here being that sheath dresses work well on women of a certain age.)

The dress fits much better than any I tried on.

But…

What pleases me most are the polka dots!

I’m pretending they’re champagne bubbles.

We’ll toast our guests and  the bride and groom and the groom’s lovely parents, who are hosting the party.

To love!

To life!

To families!

Back to the dress.

Yes, it disguises my lack of a waist.

But no, I don’t look as foxy as the model in the picture.

I don’t need to.

Bald Head Island, setting for the wedding, has real foxes!

Cliff and I sometimes spot one on the road that runs the length of the island.

A lucky camera person spotted the fox below right on the beach.

(Give the video about eight seconds for the fox to appear; until then, listen to the swooshing of the waves.)

To the waves!

To the sand!

To the fox!

And once again, as always, to life!

From the Muck of Menopause

Menopause is mucky. Periods so weird they would scare a lady swamp monster.  Breasts that feel like water balloons ready to pop.   Sleep?  In a bed all night long?  Impossible!

The emotional stuff is even more mucky.  Muck . Muck.  Muck.

When I walk on the marsh boardwalk at Bald Head Island, I get really close to the muck.  The muddy swampy squishy kind of  muck.  I like to lean down and study it.

Then I look up again and see the expanse of marsh in front of me.  What beautiful grasses rise from the muck!

I’m not as lovely as the  marsh, and  I’m certainly not that fresh and green, but from the muck of menopause grows me.

And from the muck of menopause grows you.  Wiser.  Tougher.   Braver.  Smarter.  And even though my kids (or yours) might not agree, we’re cooler too in our own way, despite any hot flashes.

When my daughter Laura was in first grade, she loved a book in which the barnyard critters proclaim, “O lovely mud!”

I won’t go so far as to say, “O lovely menopausal muck,” but I take heart when I think about the green swaying grasses of the marsh.