Whoever Invented Stretch Jeans Should Get a Nobel Prize

Senator Chew Toy

So the Republicans triumphed; Mitch McConnell, who my friend Val thinks looks like a chew toy, trumpeted; and the horrible conservative columnist for the SF Chronicle, Debra Saunders, said, "it was a beauteous night."

Wretched

Oh, to hell with her.  It's just one more election.  There will be another one in two years, and Hillary might even win.

I don't think I'm in denial about the election--I just went micro.  There are definitely some things to be glad about around here, such as the new cabinet that just got installed in my studio closet:

 Even without drawers, it's thrilling.

And a rose bloomed on a plant I thought had had it:

 Of course, we still have a toilet in the hall.

* * * * *

This morning in the dressing room at the pool, I overheard a couple of women talking. The first said that her mother died two weeks ago.  Then she said some things I couldn't hear, and the other woman responded, "Oh, you mean she chose to leave."

She chose to leave.  Which is how I've been thinking about Brittany Maynard, who ended her life last weekend at the age of 29,  because she had terminal brain cancer.

I went over and asked the woman who'd said that, a regal African American lady (I wondered if it was a  very wise cultural saying) if I'd heard her correctly.

"Yes," she said.  "My mother chose to leave a few years ago."

"Did she use drugs to do it?"  I asked.

"No," said the woman.  "She just gave up.  Too much cancer pain.  She didn't want to live anymore."

"I like that saying," I said.

"People can choose to leave, however they do it," she said.  "It's fine."  She said this in such a deeply grounded, gentle way that I felt she was giving all of us permission to choose to leave, if we find ourselves in the state her mother or Brittany Maynard were in.

(Of course, Debra Saunders railed against Brittany Maynard.)

* * * * *



 Yeah, right

 Claudia M. and I went to buy some clothes in Walnut Creek.  She's employed, so she needed some outfits that look pulled together, and she found a couple of shirts, blouses, and sweaters.  I bought two pairs of jeans and a t-shirt.

What on earth did we do before stretch jeans?  That's about as foreign to me now as wearing a garter belt every day of high school (or rolling my hair each night, for that matter.  Every. Single. Night.  From 1964 to 1968.).  So uncomfortable.

Clothes sizes now are so insane that I'm wearing a size or two smaller than I did in high school, and I weigh 15 pounds more (or 20,  let's be honest). When I pointed this out, the saleswoman nodded and said "It's American sizing."   I said, "What do you mean, obese?"  She said, "You're funny."  Politely.


She kept urging us into smaller sizes, because--guess what?--stretch fabric stretches out.  I thought, So what? They'll be comfortable.

Afterward, we went to Starbuck's for a drink and a couple of chocolate-coated graham crackers, since we were we were smaller than we thought.  Why not?