Is Camping a Vacation?

"Why don’t we go camping?" Every year, as we sit down to discuss summer vacation plans, my husband will inevitably ask this question. Every year the answer is the same - NO. It’s not his fault. Someone must have told him, wrongly, that persistence pays off. No matter how hard he tries to convince me that camping would make a great summer vacation for our family, the fact remains that camping is not a vacation.

In my opinion, camping is nothing more than work! I just can’t find the ‘fun’ in camping. First, you load the truck with enough gear to see you through the longest African safari. Work. Once you get to your campsite, you unload. Work again. Then, you set up everything, build a fire, and cook dinner over the fire. Work, work, work! Then you . . . what? You sit on a folding chair and stare at the fire. Finally, when the boredom is just too much to bear, you climb into your tent, and sleep in a bag! Right? Where’s the fun?

I have asked several friends, who highly recommend camping, just what do they do after they set up their campsite. The answers that I received ranged from "hiking" to "ride a bike" to "sit around, talk and drink." BORING! I don’t even own a bike, and as for ‘sit around, talk and drink’, well, I can do that at home!

And hiking, well that is just another draw back to camping. I am not a hiker! The only hiking that I like to do is around a mall. I really doubt that there is a view that I need to see, or 'nature' that is so breathtaking or obscure that I must see it no matter how far the hike. If I want to see obscure nature, I can go to the mall on Saturday night and watch the mating rituals of the local teenagers! Just going to the bathroom requires a "hike" too. And, if you need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, which is a given once you are middle-aged, you need a flashlight, a pair of shoes, and a good sense of direction! At home, the bathroom is just down the hall.

Some friends recommended swimming in the lake. Personally, I don’t like to swim in a lake. There is something about not being able to see what my feet are stepping in, or whatever those things are that brush past my legs and freak me out. I like a pool. In a pool, I can see my feet, and I don’t have to worry about unseen ‘things’ rubbing against me. Besides, I was never told to get out of the water because of a snake-sighting at a pool! I know there are campgrounds that have pools, but, as my husband would say, "that is not "roughing it." I wouldn’t get the true "camping experience" if I swam in a pool.

Don’t get me wrong, I have tried the whole camping experience. Years ago, my husband and I rented a cabin in northern Pennsylvania. It had a bathroom, refrigerator, stove, beds, and a television. Just as I thought it wouldn’t be so bad, I realized that the television was a portable, 13-inch black and white model, with no remote control. No remote control! Every time I wanted to change the channel, I had to get up and actually walk over to the television. Talk about roughing it! I don’t know how I made it through the week! That is as close to ‘roughing it’ as I ever want to be again!

My Quest for the Perfect Pair of Jeans

Have you shopped for a pair of jeans lately? There is no quicker way to make yourself feel ‘old’ than shopping for a pair of jeans. Apparently, Madison Avenue and every designer on the planet feel the only suitable jeans for women my age are the ‘mom jeans’ that I found everywhere. ‘Mom jeans’ have roomy thigh and butt areas, with a waist as high as your rib-cage. I do not need ‘mom jeans’!

My quest for the perfect pair of jeans began when I received a pair of ‘low-rise’ jeans as a Christmas present. I tried them on and wore them for about an hour before deciding they weren’t for me. I felt like I had to continually pull them up, even though they already were up, and the flared-legs flopped around my ankles with every step I took. Not only that, but that inch of middle-aged flab around my stomach hung over the top of the waist band, jiggling with my every movement. Now, I have seen younger women wearing low-rise jeans with their stomach flab hanging over the waist-band and knew this was not attractive. If it wasn’t attractive on a younger woman, it certainly wouldn’t be attractive on a woman my age. Face it, no one should be exposed to something like that!

So, I went to the store where they were purchased and naively asked to exchange them for the ‘Classic Cut’-style that I had purchased there only a year before. The twenty-something clerk, looking at me as if I were a dinosaur from the past, informed me that the ‘Classic Cut- style had been discontinued. This I didn’t understand since they were ‘Classic-cut’. I mean, doesn’t the word ‘classic’ imply that they are continually in style? I tried another approach. "Do you have any jeans that are straight-leg and have a normal waist?", I asked hopefully. "No" she replied with a slight hint of exasperation in her voice. She added "maybe you should search on-line". At that point I requested my money back and began what would turn-out to be a quest for the ‘perfect’ pair of jeans.

I went from one mall to another, spending hours looking through the racks and piles of jeans. Below the waist, low-rise, and very low-rise were all that I could find. Finally, I found a store that had Levis. I breathed a sigh of relief feeling confident that I would find the classic 501 button-fly jeans. Guess again! Even Levis had the ‘below waist’ styles! The jeans that were at the waist were all boot-cut or flare-leg. Not a single, pair of straight-leg jeans to be found! My beloved Levi Strauss had let me down!

Leaving yet another mall empty-handed, I wondered to myself if this wasn’t some kind of omen. Is someone trying to tell me something? Have I reached the age when jeans should no longer be a part of my wardrobe? Am I destined to wear ‘mom jeans’ for the rest of my life? Discouraged and disheartened, I sat down at my computer to begin my cyber-search for ‘the perfect’ pair of jeans.

First I tried all of the national chain stores with no luck. I broadened my search to include companies that bombard me with catalogs. L.L. Bean and Lands End had the ‘mom jeans.’ Other companies that I searched had jeans with elastic waistbands. This was unacceptable! I began to think that I should search Ebay under their ‘vintage’ (a.k.a. old) clothes category.

I finally tried Victoria’s Secret and, to my surprise, there they were! I found classic straight-leg, normal waist jeans. They even had a ‘touch of Lycra’ for comfort. Not only that, but they were on sale for $25! This fit-in perfectly with my 80's sensibility. My quest had ended! I quickly placed an order before the style was discontinued.

My next shopping trip will be for a swimsuit. That shouldn’t be too hard, should it? Finding one will be easy, right? I mean I’ll just go to the mall, find a style I like and I’m out the door - right? Oh who am I kidding?! Here I go again!

The Invisible Line to Middle Age

The summer of 2005 marked an important event in my daughter’s life. She turned ten. We had entered the double-digits! It also marked an important event for me. I had somehow crossed the line into ‘middle-age’.

How do I know? Well, at first there were subtle signs that I could easily explain away. Signs that I chose to ignore for what they were. For example, I became aware that I disliked driving at night. It seems the oncoming headlights were too bright for me. This, I passed off as my eyes being sensitive to the bright headlights. If I had to go anywhere, I would make sure that the sun was still shining.

Speaking of my eyesight, suddenly, I couldn’t read anything without my glasses. This too, I reasoned away with the comment that the printing on medicine bottles and the like is made smaller and smaller. It had nothing to do with my deteriorating middle-aged eyes.
It wasn’t ME!

My next hint came at the amusement park. Now, in the past, I could ride any type of amusement park ride there was. Fast rides, swinging rides, spinning rides - you name it, I could handle it. My daughter asked me to go on a spinning ride with her. I had been on this particular ride numerous times, and in fact, I considered it one of my favorites. That all changed! The ride began, and suddenly I didn’t feel so good. I wanted it to be over immediately, or at least I wanted to jump-off. Once the ride was over and my stomach caught up with me, I began to realize that something was up. I couldn’t explain this one away.

Another hint came as I was sitting on my living room floor playing a board game with my family. Normally, before I became middle-aged, I could sit on the floor through the longest marathon of ‘Monopoly’. My legs didn’t fall asleep, or stiffen up. Now, I sit there for fifteen minutes and suddenly millions of pins and needles shoot through them, and getting up is a challenge since they refuse to respond to my commands.

The final straw came as I sat minding my own business in my dentist’s office. There was a twenty-something guy there with his son, who was about two years old. The little boy walked over to where I was sitting and said casually, ‘Hi Granny!’ I immediately said, as nicely as I could muster, ‘I’m not your Granny. Do I look like your Granny?’ What happened next, I was not prepared for, nor did I welcome it. His father looked at me and said, ‘Yeah, you kinda do.’ I was shocked, speechless, and insulted. How could they think that I was old enough to be anyone’s Granny!?!

With this came the thought that perhaps I have solidly entered middle-age forever. My husband has been telling me for the past few years that I am middle-aged and I should just admit it. After all, he would ask, how old do you expect to live to? My answer was ‘probably to my mid-seventies’. ‘There you go - you are middle-aged!” Still, I fought the label refusing to be called such a thing. Never mind the fact that clerks from supermarkets to department stores called me ‘ma’am’ for the past seven years. This proved nothing in my mind. They’re just being polite.

But, as my daughter began calling me ‘Mom’ instead of ‘Mommy’, I reluctantly admitted that I had entered a new stage of life. I resigned myself to the fact that I am middle-aged! I’m not comfortable here, and I still feel that perhaps I can pass myself off as, not necessarily ‘young’, but at least as ‘non-middle-aged’.

However, as I rush out to the grocery store before the sun sets, making sure I have my eyeglasses with me in case I need to read something on a can or bottle, I have to admit that I am (gulp!) middle-aged!