The Varicose Vein Generation

My family has a history of deep venous thrombosis (dvt), so when I had a pain in my left calf that wouldn't go away, my doctor sent me to the emergency room for an ultrasound. I didn't have a clot, and with time and hot compresses, my leg is much better, thank you, but I had an interesting conversation with the triage nurse.

Because I was there to rule out DVT, I mentioned that I have varicose veins. You must understand that only a fairly close examination of my left leg will confirm this, but I do have a small area of blue spiderweb in the bend of my left knee. The nurse immediately attributed my varicose veins to the high heels women of my generation wore; women of her generation never wore high heels.

In the first place, I was a little amused at her assigning me to a different generation than herself - if she is as much as ten years younger than I am, she's going to look like an old sun-dried cowboy boot by the time she is my age. In the second place, I don't think high-heels contributed as much to varicose veins as girdles did.

I wore panty girdles all through junior high and high school until my senior year, when the school dress code finally allowed girls to wear pants to school. Many of the slenderer girls wore garter belts to hold up their stockings, but I was a Big Girl (I have a better figure now than I did then - who'da thunk?), so for me, it was girdles with elastic tourniquette legbands and hosiery clips.

As for high heels, I wore 3" heels briefly in the early eighties, but when I got pregnant, that was the end of that. Heels are back in fashion, but they can do it without me this time. Fortunately they were unfashionable when I was in junior high, high school and college, even if some of the old ladies (in their thirties) were still wearing them. Perhaps the nurse saw that I was born in the fifties and assumed I was old enough to wear those killer pointy-toed stilletto pumps that my mother suffered with in the early sixties. Nope. At that time, although I yearned after patent-leather Mary Janes, I wore brown lace-up boys' shoes. I was too active to wear girls' shoes, because even a good pair would only last me a month.

So now I belong to a gym (granted, it's a "girlie gym," one of those thirty-minute pneumatic machine circuit things) and not only don't wear girdles, I don't even have to wear control top pantihose. My sexy high heels measure 2" in height. I wear cute little teeny-bopper clothes ... as pajamas, to get it out of my system. I also wear sunblock virtually all the time, Ms. Triage Nurse.

However. After being assigned to the Varicose Vein Generation, I did what I always do when someone gives me a senior discount or thinks I'm my son's grandmother (that hasn't happened in twenty years, but when you aren't even thirty-five yet, that's a shock): I colored my hair. Now it's a lovely platinum blonde. I should go put on my black silk cocktail dress from Nordstrom's (Rack), my moderate black heels, a little bling, a modicum of makeup and go sing "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend," in front of my double-wide full-length mirror.

Queen of the Extra Special Mamas

I posted the above gif image once, or so I thought, but it gave me 58 of the damned things, and I had to scroll waaaaay down the page to delete 57 of them. If it's supposed to be one for every year of age, it's off by a few, and I resent the implication. I'm still not old enough for senior discounts, and if I get carded when I try to order off the senior menu, I grin sheepishly and order something else.

I have now taken the step of starting my own Red Hat Chapter. So far, I'm the only one in it, but we'll see what happens. I'm basically re-starting the special mother's group I ran for so many years. We met for coffee, breakfast or lunch once a week, depending on our kids' school schedules, and informally traded sympathy, advice and funny stories about our kids. The group kind of fell apart when a couple of key women moved away and another (my best friend) became so ill with breast cancer she seldom had the time or energy to make it. When she died two years ago, that spelled the end of the group.

It's time for a resurgence of The Extra Special Mamas of the West Valley, which is a more "Red Hat" name than "Special Parents Network of the West Valley," even if our function will be similar. We'll appeal to an older group of mothers, too. We started out with preschool-age children, and as we and our children aged, so did the membership of the group. With the Red Hat Chapter, our moms will have adult special needs kids who still depend on them.

I intend to remain active (As Chancellor of the Exchequer) in the Classy Ladies Chapter I joined last year, since its aim and purpose is entirely different from that of my new chapter. Women who join Special Mamas should also join a chapter that engages in activities that appeal to their interests, assuming they aren't already in such a chapter.

Essentially, I want a group of ladies with whom I can enjoy theater, museums and nice restaurants on a monthly basis (Classy Ladies), but I'd also like my weekly informal gatherings with other special moms. There are things special moms talk about - and laugh about - with each other that absolutely horrify parents of normies, and I miss that.