January 17, 2008

Confessions from the Carpool

Vine-ripened realities

By Shana McLean Moore
Special to the Times

I am constantly perplexed by how the inner me can feel like a plump, delicious Napa grape still flourishing on the vine while the outer me looks not only post-harvest, but ready to be cast past the Chardonnay barrel and straight into the raisin bucket.

Though my delusions don’t go so far as to make me expect an invitation to the next school dance or slumber party, I do feel as though I have scads of time to become the next best-selling author, start my own event-planning business or turn down Matthew McConaughey’s offer to shack up with him in his trailer because I’m already happily married.

Occasionally, though, there are dings to my sense of denial. And, God willing, these dings will eventually join together inside my brain to chime like a church bell, whoop like a siren or blare like a code-red evacuation drill until I come to terms with the fact that my youth has not just passed—it has passed out cold.

One recent ding was so big that it was more like a dong. Last month, as I strove to regain the blonde highlights that used to come as naturally to me as they now do my daughters, I ran into the delightful Mrs. C who, like me, has been having her hair done at the same salon for the past 26 years. Though our appointments have only coincided about five times over all these years, the woman is memorable to me because she is the mother of a high school acquaintance.

I eyed her in the mirror for a while as she sat under the hairdryer before deciding that she had to be an older version of the woman who was my ol’ pal’s mom. It was a quiet and gentle realization that was in no way deserving of any sort of cruel karmic payback. Please make a note of this.

My ego insists that what happened next must be prefaced with a few disclaimers:

#1 My hair was in full highlight mode, meaning that the aluminum sheets separating the strands gave me a foil mane that made me look like the love child of the Wizard of Oz’s Cowardly Lion and Tin Man.

#2 I was down to the last few drops of foundation in my make-up drawer. I stretched it that morning by adding a few drops of water, hoping that thin coverage was better than none at all. This was apparently as effective as adding water to your gas tank to tide you over until your next fill-up.

#3 The salon lighting is as harsh and unforgiving as that of an operating room. I refer to it as for-your-own-good lighting because it allows the professionals to have a clear view of what ails you, whether it be a split chin in need of stitches or split ends in need of trim.

#4 Mrs. C could be suffering from vision or cognitive problems. While I, personally, do not wish these problems upon her, my evil little ego, in fact, does.

I gave Mrs. C a friendly hello by saying, “Are you Debbie’s mom?” “I know her from Homestead High School. I’m Shana Moore, previously Shana McLean.”

And then? The kind of pause that my brain should have interpreted as a sign to cue the first few notes of the “Jaws” soundtrack to signal the impending doom.

“Wait a minute. Are you Shana or Shana’s mom?”

Remember the for-your-own-good lighting I described earlier? I might point out that it does a splendid job of spotlighting a face that looks like it has just seen the second rising of a vampire who somehow survived the garlic-dipped iron cross you just pierced through his heart.

I say this, of course, with no disrespect to my mom, who is a lovely woman both inside and out. But until I am 90 and she is 115, this kind of question is going to leave me sailing past the raisin bucket and right into the pile of sour grapes.

Shana McLean Moore is a resident of Almaden Valley. She invites you to listen to her free podcast and read more of her columns by visiting www.caffeiantedponderings.com.