Under-eye Baggage

No, I'm not tired, hungover nor have I been crying.  And I don't have any allergies to speak of.  However, I have discovered that excessive salt causes my under eye skin to swell up to balloon proportions even taking on multiple waves of bags down to my cheeks.  Redness and itching are also unfortunate symptoms lasting up to 3 days before it all calms down.  I suspected the salt link when I had gorged on salted almonds the previous night.  However, maybe it was the almonds?  So after the "episode" subsided half a week later, I tried almonds again, this time without salt.  I woke up the next day with no reaction.  Yup, it was the salt, excessive salt.

I went to the doctor and she had some helpful recommendations, but no quick fix.  The treatment for this predicament is complicated.  First, I ice my face with a bag of peas.  Then I apply a steroid cream to the whole affected area for day.  At night I have to undo the drying effects of the steroid with soothing Aquafor or Polysporin.  Plus allergy eye drops twice a day.  The ridiculous thing is that my dog has itchy allergy eyes and he needs TLC, too - eyedrops and allergy pills which he will only take if given with a little peanut butter.  I don't think peanut butter is going to help me.

I have always had under-eye circles, aka "raccoon eyes" which are easily and daily hidden by gobs of thick goopy concealer, but this reaction to salt is just icing on the poop cake.  I read an article in the October 2012 Marie Claire issue in which Dr. David Colbert, dermatologist and founder of Colbert M.D. Skincare, explained because I have little fat or collagen below my eyes, the purple facial muscle is visible beneath the skin.  And there is a remedy - the filler called Restylane.  Just 10 or so pricks from a needle underneath the eyes and I could look refreshed, awake and possibly even glowing.  Good to know, but probably not, thank you very much.

Many times I've been told I have pretty eyes.  Even with the dark circles.  And incidentally, I have really nice hands, slender fingers and always a pretty manicure.  But at 43 with everything else sagging and turning grey, I need to hold on to something I can feel good about.  Physically, anyway.

I'm definitely going to rethink eating half a pound of Smokehouse almonds or smothering my Sesame Inn beef & broccoli with soy sauce from now on.  Unless I just enjoy waking up with the face of an alien!

Unflattering, but descriptive picture.

The Reunion

Headed to the airport!

My 25 year high school reunion.  How can it be 25 years already?  I must be old!  In fact, the whole class of 1987 must be old!  Plus I got to see my daughter.   It was the trip of a lifetime!

I flew back to my home state of Minnesota for the big event.  The baby behind me only cried for the last 45 minutes of the flight so I didn't want to stab my eyeballs out too bad.  My parents picked me up from the airport.  Riding in the back seat of their car, I became suddenly flooded with the feeling of being squished between my brothers while sitting on the hump of the bench seat.  All the while hoping my chauffeur Dad would stay awake for the 20 minute ride home - it was 10:30 p.m. - way past his bed time.

We stayed up past midnight chatting and watching their cats in a battle royale, then called it a night.  Their poor cat, Susie, by the way.  She has been tormented, tortured and beat up by their new cat, Eeyore, since day one.  Eeyore is a bully.  And since October is Anti-Bullying month, I just have to say that this is NOT OKAY!  Even for cats.  Susie didn't ask for this nuisance and I'm sure she has a serious case of post, present and future traumatic stress disorder.

In the morning, we had crossword and bacon time.  There is no moving forward until the puzzle has been solved.  It's a ritual you don't mess with.  And my mom has bacon and oatmeal every morning.  I don't eat carbs so I cooked eggs to go with the bacon and unfortunately I broke the yolk for my Dad's portion.  He forgave me.

The other morning ritual is to have a long speaker-phone conversation with my uncle and aunt.  My mom loves this and though I am highly averse to speaker-phone chatting, I went along with it and I must admit, it was pretty fun.  My dad seemed to disappear in the middle of this, so I think he's not a speaker-phone fan, either.  I don't see my aunts and unkies very often so I'll take'em how I get'em, speakerphone or otherwise.

By the way, it's beautiful in Minnesota this time of year.  The changing leaves are my one of my favorite things ever.  I brought one in the house, but ended up having to hide it in the closet so the cats wouldn't eat it and throw up.

Maple Leaf

Moving on, we loaded into the car, me in the back seat again, for the drive to see my daughter at her college residence.  The first stop was Caribou Coffee.  Oh, how I've missed my Lite White Berry with sugar-free raspberry syrup.  Starbucks take note - get the syrup!  An unexpected  highlight of the drive was the Big Lake water tower.  My mom and I got lost there years ago and it's been an ongoing laughing point of our inability to follow a map.

Caribou, I love you.

Where am I?  Big Lake.  What?!

I finally got to hug my daughter, Maddie.  She is my dolly and we live too far away from each other.  But her house is a rat trap.  I didn't want to touch anything in it with a 10-foot pole.  Couches that look like they were pulled out of a dumpster, duct tape holding the condiments to the fridge door, a plugged bathroom sink, dirty floors, etc.  I took some pictures of the "situation" to share with her dad later then we got the heck out of there.

A college kid's dream home.

Seriously, duct tape?

We went to the Olive Garden for lunch - soup, salad and breadsticks for all, y'all!  You know the S,S&B is the bomb!  However, I ordered the veggie soup and unfortunately it was loaded with shells and beans.  As I said before, I don't eat carbs, so I pretty much had broth.  I'll live.

Restaurant photo op pre S,S&B feast.

Let's go to the mall, y'all!  How could I not spoil my child with some shopping while Grandma and Papa took naps?  It was a win-win, really.  A little Vickie's Secret, some American Eagle and a bit of Wet Seal.  Enough said.

The Crossroads Mall

Sleepy time in the Food Court.

After that, I said good-bye to my dolly.  My parents and I headed back to the old homestead.  I had about a half hour to get ready for the reunion before my ride, one of my besties, Suz, arrived to pick me up.  We've known each other since we were four years old.  She was looking gorgeous as ever coming from her Aveda makeover.  

Suddenly, two Harley Davidson's rumble up to the driveway and I see that it's two of my unkies who were out on a fall bike cruise.  How cool is that?  I will pose by a motorcycle, but I will not ever ride one.

My unkies on the left and right, my dad next to the chic in the leather jacket.  Suz pointing out the coolness.

The story now takes a sad turn.  But it ends well, I promise!  Another one of my childhood besties, Tara, suddenly became ill, was stuck in the hospital and not able to attend the reunion.  Suz, Peejay (and yet another childhood bestie) and I dropped by to visit and spent about an hour with her hopefully bringing her cheer and not exhausting her too much.  She ended up having surgery three days later and is now on her way to a full recovery.  See I told you it ended well!

Hospital crashing.

On to the reunion.  Suz, Peejay and I all walked in to Jimmy's Event Center together hoping for the best.  We started greeting our classmates immediately, some who have changed a lot and others who didn't look any different than they did all those years ago.  We hurried to the food table to grab a plate just as it was being put away.  I don't think I ate more than a half a piece of cheese the whole night even though I was starving.  There was way too much catching up to do!  And I started frantically taking photos of everybody so that poor Tara could at least see what she was missing.

A particular highlight of my night was meeting someone who my mom, for some reason, kept referring to over and over.  I don't know how many times (maybe 14) she told me that her friend's brother had his 1977 reunion at Jimmy's the same night as mine.  To protect the identity of the innocent, I'll call him Barry Lalsimo.  My mom has the tendency to tell and retell things and I like to rib her about it.

Peejay and I decided to crash the class of 1977 and find the infamous Barry Lalsimo.  We only needed to ask two people if they knew him and sure enough, Barry Lalsimo was in my sights.  I confidently approached him and asked to see his name tag.  "Well hello Barry!  My mom wanted to make sure I met you!"  Barry was a good sport and even remembered my mom, thank goodness.  I told him my name and that I was actually named after his sister, Sandy.  Peejay took our photo together so my mom could put it in her photo album.  Then Barry asked me my name again.........I think he may have been beveraging.

The famous Barry Lalsimo.

The reunion was so much fun.  Everyone talked, laughed and caught up like no time had passed at all.  I wish more classmates had come, but there were 106 out of our class of 350.  Not too shabby!  Below are some other awesome moments I captured.

Mingling and catching up with old friends...........

Bustin' out the 80's moves to Bananarama or something.....

This guy was very unusual and entertaining........

Then there was this guy.........

And then this happened..........time to go!

And so ended the evening.  We said good-bye until the 30th then Suz brought me back to my parent's house.  It was really hard to sleep after all that excitement.

The next day, my mom and I took a sightseeing drive through our old stomping grounds.  I saw my old house, my elementary and high schools, the beach and playground, the old pizza place, etc.  Then my mom wanted to go see her childhood home.  Big mistake.  Gone was the apple pie and baseball neighborhood she remembered.  The hair on the back of my neck started standing up the closer we got to her house.  Things were run-down and poverty ridden.  Surly looking people were loitering about doing who knows what.

My mom stopped the car directly in front of her old house and an ornery man was scowling from his porch at us.  I said, "Mom let's go, that guy doesn't like us looking at him."  She said "Oh, he'll just think we're lost."  Really, lost?  I said "Mom, drive the car and get us out of here before we get robbed or worse."   Then we got honked at and yelled at by another scowly troll who didn't like us on his street, lost or not.  I started to feel like one of the 3 Billy Goat's Gruff trip trapping on a bridge or worse, a delicious chicken leg.  By this point, I was yelling at my mom to "step on the gas, NOW!"  I don't know why she didn't see the severity of the situation, but I wasn't having any part of being some troll's chicken/goat dinner.

Somehow we made it back to "the other side of town" and I could breathe again.  We went back home and I could barely choke down my no-carb cottage cheese and turkey.

My trip had come to a close, but not without one more stop to see my aunt.  I was lucky enough that my cousin's two kids were there at the moment and I could see those two cuties who are growing up so fast.  My aunt was gracious and offered us lunch, but I was still full from my cottage cheese/turkey platter.  I was highly entertained by my cousin's son who was nuking himself a bowl of pork'n beans.  He sat down and chowed the whole thing down.  It was awesome.

Off to the airport we went.  I said goodbye to the greatest parents on Earth who went above and beyond for me and I can't thank them enough.  (Though I'd like to forget that hair-raising drive through my mom's old neighborhood.)

After I got settled in at the gate for my flight, I looked at my watch.  And by looked, I mean I held my cell phone at arm's length to be able to see clearly.   I was two hours early.  I really am getting old when I start arriving for things unnecessarily early.

I deserved this 25 year reunion.