Summer’s Over

1. No eggplant this year. Lousy year in general for all the hot-weather-lovers. Cabbage? Kale? Cauliflower? Happy as cruciforms!

2. Still at it with AT&T! Nine months, one Better Business Bureau report, 2 phone assurances from AT&T command that “You’ll never receive another bill from us,” and lo, a mysterious $14 with a monthly 20 cents penality for not paying. Good luck, iPhoners.

3. Niece Sarah at Northeastern (with my laptop til yesterday when hers finally got fixed).

4. Still loving Helium. How weird is that! Janice = Happy. Too much.

5. And because life is cruel: We lost Lorraine. She’d been in hospice care for about 2 weeks, so one steels one’s nerves. Which fail when the inevitable email comes.

So who was Lorraine? She was my girly-girl shopping buddy. She had a weakness for Chestnut Hill Mall, so we’d scour around shops-for-shrimps in Eileen Fisher, Sigrid Olsen and the like. Lorraine didn’t need an occasion to buy a pretty something (I don’t part with my pelf unless I know precisely when and where I’ll be required to wear new garments). So we’re wandering through one of those frightening make-up sections in some big department store. Argh, I said, the only thing I ever wear is lipstick.

“Lipstick!” Lorraine said, “I just remembered I need some. Let’s look. We’ll buy you one.”

I don’t know, I demurred, lipsticks always change color on me or look weird.

“Nonsense. I will find you something.” And Lorraine charged ahead to the Chanel counter, where she seemed to be intimately familiar with every shade and style. She tried on a few, looking perfect in each, smiling at herself in the mirror with the world’s most beautiful teeth (what can I say, her teeth were gorgeous), then plucked one out for me. “This,” she said, “will be perfect on you.”

Me being me, I looked at the price first.

“Dear god, do you know how much this costs?” I yelped.

And Lorraine explained with her unimpeachable girly-girl logic: “Janice, it’s lipstick.”

So I bought it. I don’t wear it much. I’m not sure I really like the color. But I’m really really glad I have that lipstick. And that Lorraine was my friend.

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