In which I got the fever
March 24, 2011I had the fever, anyway, or a fever. I think it’s gone, now, due to the healing effects of six episodes of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena that I watched on Netflix. Have you seen that show? Damn, there is a lot of flying blood! (I am your 87-year-old Aunt Hazel. “Never seen the likes o’ that! What will they come up with next?”)
As I lay there in my bed last night, shivering and watching blood fly, I noticed that the weight of the numerous comforters piled atop me was hurting my feet. I remembered seeing, at my grandparents’ house, in a Lillian Vernon catalog, a product meant to alleviate the feet-crushed-by-blankets syndrome. You could purchase a pair of roughly C-shaped brackets designed to fit between mattress and box spring, which would bear the weight of the blankets and keep you from writing long blog posts about the problem. “What a great idea,” I thought, in my fevered state, at 4:30 in the morning.
And then I realized what a total motherfucking drag it is that I had just coveted something I’d seen in a Lillian Vernon catalog, targeted to senior citizens. True, there were extenuating circumstances, but this is how it starts, isn’t it? One moment you’re giving in to reading glasses in order to see the menu at your favorite restaurant, and the next, you’re paging through a cheaply printed catalogue in which half the merchandise is represented via poorly executed watercolor drawings, thinking, “If I don’t order them suction-cup-backed rubber daisies, someone’s gonna take a tumble in the shower! My liability don’t cover that.”
And I’m not totally sure why, in this example, aging necessitates poor grammar, but there are many things we just aren’t meant to know.
On an unrelated note, here are some words and phrases that I tend to overuse:
Litany
Melancholy
As regards
Ok, so, two words and a phrase. I just want to point out that despite encroaching senility, I am not wholly unself-aware.
still life with idiots 
Ahhh.. the famous Lillian Vernon catalog. My grandmother, too, had that darn thing. I remember the various products that seem kind of neat at the time, but really strange. I remember those brackets to keep the blankets off your feet. I also remember the bras that had built in stiff stuff so you would stand up straight. Or egg separators. And things of that nature. Out of curiosity, I just looked them up online. Looks like they’ve upgraded. A lot. http://www.lillianvernon.com/
Feel better soon! xoxo
You’re right. They are not nearly as podunk as I remember. Am I thinking of the right catalogue? There were other, similar ones, but the names escape me.
I do recall the Vermont Country Store, also a catalogue, that sells Lanz nightgowns, color-changing lipstick that adjusts to one’s own skin tone, Gee! Your Hair Smells Terrific! shampoo (last time I looked, maybe a year ago, they still sold it, although at a high price), and discreet “personal” vibrators. I think that’s what they called them. Lots of watercolor illustrations in that catalogue.
I found myself thinking a couple of days ago that being of petite stature at a modest 5’0″ that at some point I should consider getting one of those “grabber” things that reach items on high shelves … and then I wondered whether I’d even be able to squeeze the handles since I already have tendonitis and no doubt will slip rapidly into arthritis after all the years of repetitive motion such as high-speed typing.
Oh, and the reading glasses? I have a pair in every room and a pair in every bag! … and yet, I can be standing a foot away from a pair and still holding a piece of paper away and angling it around to try to read it without the glasses. Denial, sometimes it’s just necessary!
You know, I hadn’t even considered the arthritis angle. That is a new wonder to consider.
I use ‘melancholy’ all the time!! “I had such a melancholy day.” Also I have to wear gloves almost every day lately when I walk Guapo. “My poor old hands!” Ugh.
I’m with ya sister. xoxoxo
Even in your extreme old age, you still manage to crack me up.
Eh? What’s that you say, young’un?