Growing old ain't for sissies

As much as I rejoiced when menopause finally arrived, I'm starting to notice signs of aging that had not previously appeared. My eyebrows--which I thought would thin down to a skinny gray line, like my mother's--are instead sprouting wild white hairs. The previously dark hairs are also getting longer, coarser, and wilder. Instead of growing eyebrow-less, I'm beginning to resemble Andy Rooney.

We won't talk wrinkles. We fat ladies aren't plagued by wrinkles as much as by other aging indicators. But this weird little mustache has got to go. I've never had a so-called "pretty" mouth, but no one's mouth is enhanced by the gradual addition of tiny bristly hairs of varying colors. Occasionally I get catfish whiskers--one long white whisker on either side of my mouth. I've asked the esteemed one to tell me when those whiskers appear, but without his reading glasses, he can't find the nose on my face. So occasionally in the mirror, I'll notice this drifting white image and know it is either a whisker or one of the cat's long hairs that has attached itself to me. It's a relief when it's the cat hair--that doesn't hurt to get rid of. I've gone through a couple of pairs of tweezers trying to find a pair that works well. (Of course, if I weren't so cheap, I'd buy a pair that cost more than five bucks.) A tip for anyone tweezer-shopping: bypass those lighted ones. All the light does is get between your eyes and the object to be tweezed, so you're just blinder than before.

Fortunately, I haven't yet developed turkey neck. If I weren't so chubby, I'm sure I'd be busy admiring the many folds and drapes of skin beneath my chin. However, the Esteemed One is growing quite a nice turkey neck. His beard does help disguise it, but unless he plans to look like Ted Kaczynski or a homeless-man street-corner Santa, his beard won't be long enough to hide the insidious flaps of an aging neck.

Both of us have realized that gravity has won the war on our bodies. He has Chest-of-Drawers syndrome--his chest has fallen into his drawers. I'm not even going to start on the things that have drooped on my pathetic figure. The image of mud flaps on a semi might suggest the body part that comes most readily to mind. Let's put it this way: Joan Rivers' joke about getting carpet burns on her butt when she jumped out of the bathtub to run answer the phone--well, it's not so funny anymore.

I've got a doctor's appointment Friday. My youthful physician will no doubt chastise me for all the things that I'm not doing right--I've probably gained a pound or two or three. Then he'll shake his head in amazement that my blood pressure is low, my blood sugar is normal, my thyroid is normal, etc. I keep defying the predictions, that fat people die young. Maybe it's not that we die young--we just don't have the wrinkles that skinny people have, so we look younger. Unless, that is, you look at our whiskers. Dr. S.