Shades of Red in the Face

Shades of red. I love red. This photo would be drab without splashes of red, don't you think?

The other day I thought, Gee, my available cash balance before the end of the month paycheck is $180. Extra cash! What will I do with it? My hair needs a cut and color, I need fitness shoes, some new workout clothes, and I could stock up on food for the birds. It was as if someone clunked me on the head and warned: You need to pay that $140 speeding ticket. How could you possibly forget about THAT? Dammit! The officer gave me a break and wrote the ticket for 40 in a 35 when I was really traveling along at 49. I’m thankful. I’m also busted and red in the face about it.

This all happened a week ago on my way to the auto dealership to trade in the good old black Honda Accord I’ve had for two years. It’s a wonderful vehicle and I would recommend a Honda to everyone I know if their buttocks can deal with its fit into a plywood driver’s seat for an eight-hour drive. Good-bye Honda. There is a pattern to this madness here. We trade our cars before the original windshield wipers wear out. I prefer vehicles in white, black, or red. Classic.

Water hibiscus is a shade of pink but it'll do. I can’t keep my eyes off red. Ever.

Fits nicely in there with hula hoops that decorate the garage walls, doesn’t it? Michael found this gem for me in Barcelona Red Metallic.

Parked at the grocery store pond. Is that cute, or what? It’s a Venza - a new crossover from Toyota with cargo space in the back.

Ya’ll are thinking: Hmmm. That car... Mary’s in a mid-life crisis. She joined a fitness center, too, and man, she has it bad. Well, guess what, folks? Mary is well beyond her mid-life and has already owned and driven an impractical two-seater a long time ago, just before she turned forty. Forty... sa-WEET!

Gina thinks I’m funny. My daughter has been laughing at me before she could talk, twenty-seven years ago. I don’t think there’s anything that brings more joy to a mother than hearing your baby, toddler, or young child in fits of laughter at something you did or said.

Early eighties, in the kitchen together after dinnertime on a regular day, there was Gina in her high chair and I at the sink. My wild search for a missing lid to a Tupperware bowl (lids flying like Frisbees across the kitchen counter) kept me so busy that it took a minute or two before I heard her explosive giggles at me on my mission. A pretty one-year-old with huge blue eyes and thick, wavy, golden brown hair rested her head on her dinner plate of sweet peas, as the entertainment was just too much for her little self to handle. When I found a mirror she cackled louder at the sight of her own reddened funny face speckled with sweet peas. That’s a day I’ll always remember. One of many.

A few days ago I took her for a ride in my new, red car. I felt brave enough to comment, “Gina, I think people are looking at this car. Or, are they looking at me?” She threw her head back with a belly laugh and I joined her until we were red in the face.

I was thinking of Christy in that Ferrari...

We took a Hip Hop class and a Zumba class together this week. At the end of the classes, there is a very good cool down exercise when you bend at the waist with knees slightly bent and feel the floor with the palms of your hands. Hold it for five seconds and feel the cool music. It’s a welcomed, feel-good stretch but I teetered a bit when it was time to lunge – oh lawd, humpty might tumble and bounce and how embarrassing that would be. When I look around during that nice stretch, I see buttocks facing the moon, sweaty heads and hair and red faces …and then there was Gina with her upside-down ponytail across the way and our eyes met. I knew immediately why she was laughing so hard. It’s that damned gravity. My facial skin was being pulled towards the floor. The force was pulling my cheeks over my eyes! I felt a strong urge to stand upright, put my face back where it belonged, and I laughed out loud.

Moments in time. Sweet memories.

Oh, well. Not Christy - but a girl can dream, can’t she?