{"id":9883,"date":"2023-11-22T23:37:45","date_gmt":"2023-11-22T23:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/?p=9883"},"modified":"2023-11-22T23:37:48","modified_gmt":"2023-11-22T23:37:48","slug":"i-know-what-happened-to-baby-jane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/2023\/11\/22\/i-know-what-happened-to-baby-jane\/","title":{"rendered":"I Know What Happened to Baby Jane"},"content":{"rendered":"

Letter From America
\n<\/span><\/h1>\n

If I live to be 103, nobody will ever convince me that God does not thoroughly understand women, right down to knowing not only exactly what they\u00a0need<\/span>as they age but also what they most\u00a0desire<\/span>. \u00a0For example, as we all know, a woman\u2019s visual acuity decreases at about the same time that her hair starts to gray.\u00a0 In His infinite wisdom and mercy, I believe that God allows this diminution in eyesight to occur so that when a woman of a certain age looks into a mirror, she doesn\u2019t scare the stuffing right out of herself.<\/p>\n

The upside of this, at least in my case, is that I fail to notice the latest wrinkle or spot on my face.\u00a0 The downside is that, following the application of makeup, I often bear a striking resemblance to Bette Davis in her role of the elderly vaudeville performer in the movie\u00a0What Ever Happened to Baby Jane<\/i>? (1962).\u00a0 I noticed the transformation of my ordinary middle-aged self into Baby Jane recently after peering closely at photographic evidence.\u00a0 Wondering how I could have allowed this to happen, I retraced my steps, so to speak, by thoroughly examining my own typical \u201cbeautification\u201d regimen, performed, of necessity, without the aid of corrective lenses.<\/p>\n

As I meticulously smooth a creamy foundation on my face with a tool I picked up on sale at The Home Depot, I count the layers carefully, allowing each to \u201cset\u201d before again dipping my trowel into the gallon container of goop.\u00a0 Upon application of Layer #4 (at which point a younger woman would undoubtedly say to herself, \u201cEnough\u2019s enough!\u201d), the reflection in my lighted mirror informs me in no uncertain terms that I have only one more layer to go before I am ready to proceed to the blusher\/bronzer step in the process.A little background here:
\nYou should understand that I have been using a blush brush since the age of 14.\u00a0 In September of that year, my gifted and talented classmate, Jackie Mitchell, ushered a group of earnest young ladies into the second-floor lavatory of our school, where she instructed us in the proper use of blushers and every other kind of cosmetic you can imagine. Back then, the merest hint of color was all that we required; indeed, the merest hint was all that most of us were\u00a0permitted<\/span>(by our mothers and our school administrators).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\"Bette<\/p>\n

Bette Davis<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Bette Davis<\/span><\/span>Thus, a blush brush about the size of a cotton ball sufficed.\u00a0 This itty-bitty brush nestled neatly in the storage compartment of a petite plastic compact.\u00a0 The compact also contained both a Pepto-Bismol-pink pressed powder\u2014yes, so inexperienced were we that we all used the same shade of blush, no matter\u00a0what<\/span>our natural skin tones happened to be\u2014and a built-in mirror, used for discreet makeup repairs at any time and wherever we were.<\/p>\n

Naturally, and despite the fact that we really needed no blush at all, we whipped out our compacts to \u201cfreshen\u201d our rosy cheeks approximately every nine minutes. In a similar fashion, Jackie gave lessons in mascara and eyeliner application.\u00a0 With our compact mirrors ever at the ready for blush reapplication, we girls multi-tasked, tending to our cheeks and eyelashes more often during a typical school day than most women do in a month.\u00a0 As you might imagine, by the end of each school day, many of my classmates and I looked like a herd of parochial-school-uniformed Kewpie dolls, but we viewed ourselves as the most glamorous gals on Planet Earth.<\/p>\n

Back to my current makeup routine:
\nForty-eight years after mastering the Mitchell Method, in order to achieve that same all-over glow, I need a blush brush the size of a Swiffer\u00ae duster. While I don\u2019t refresh my blush and mascara every time I blink nowadays, I slap on coats of the war paint until I can see evidence of it in the mirror.\u00a0 In 10 minutes, I can achieve the same Kewpie-doll look that required an entire school day to achieve back in 1964.\u00a0\u00a0 You might say that, at age 14, I sometimes overdid the makeup because I didn\u2019t\u00a0know<\/i><\/span>what I was doing; I guess I occasionally overdo it now because I can\u2019t\u00a0see<\/i><\/span>what I am doing.<\/p>\n

\"alt\"alt<\/span><\/span>That, however, will not be the case for much longer.
\nYou see, I went to my eye doctor just last week because my left eye was giving me some trouble.\u00a0 In his office, I discovered that, over the past month or so, my vision had become increasingly blurred\u00a0not<\/span>because my eyesight had deteriorated but rather because my near-sightedness had improved! The contact lenses I had been wearing were \u201cover correcting\u201d my myopia.\u00a0 In other words, my lens prescriptions were too strong.\u00a0 The doctor told me that many near-sighted individuals become far-sighted as they age.\u00a0 Conversely, far-sighted folks are inclined to become more near-sighted.\u00a0 Does this mean, I asked the doctor hopefully, that when I am 103 years old I will have 20\/20 vision?\u00a0 Unfortunately, his answer was no.<\/p>\n

Wearing a nice new pair of contact lenses, I returned home from my appointment, pleased that I could read every single street sign so clearly along the way.\u00a0 The clouds in the sky were so distinctly delineated to my \u201cnew\u201d eyes that I imagined them to be giant mounds of spun-sugar candy laid out on an expanse of blue. \u00a0I was able to identify several species of birds that were perched on the branches of a winter-naked bush outside my front door.\u00a0 Still dreamily contemplating the beauty of God\u2019s creations, I opened the front door.<\/p>\n

Then, upon entering the house, I happened to glance in the hall mirror.\u00a0 Big mistake. \u00a0I could see myself more clearly than I had seen myself in a couple of years.\u00a0 Baby Jane was back in the house!\u00a0 Yes, God surely\u00a0does<\/span>know what He is doing.\u00a0 Maybe I should have skipped that eye doctor appointment altogether.\u00a0 On second thought, I have a better idea.\u00a0 Now equipped again with the eyes of my 14-year-old self, I think I\u2019ll call Jackie in the next week or so.\u00a0 We have been meaning to get together for coffee anyway.\u00a0\u00a0Surely<\/span>she will have some new and improved makeup tricks to share with me.<\/p>\n

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.<\/span>” mce_’ + path + ‘\\” + prefix + ‘:’ + addy3426 + ‘\\’>’+addy_text3426+'<\\\/a>’; \/\/–><\/p>\n

Follow us on Twitter – @DigiPrintNews<\/p>\n

Like us on Facebook\u00a0www.facebook.com\/dpnlive\u00a0<\/a>– (click the \u2018LIKED<\/span>\u2019 button\/top of page as well)<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2013, DPNLIVE \u2013 All Rights Reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Letter From America If I live to be 103, nobody will ever convince me that God does not thoroughly understand<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-and-style","category-living-in-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9883"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9885,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9883\/revisions\/9885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}