The old lady in the mirror

Mushroom soup

Routine mammogram the other day. As usual, they sat me in  tiny dressing room to wait my turn, and the tech gave me the simple instructions all ladies have heard countless times. After she left, I turned to Jordan who was with me and said, “There’s an old lady in that mirror.” She laughed and said, “You were staring at the mirror the whole time that woman was talking to you.”

Indeed I was—staring in horror. I have always prided myself, vainly perhaps, on neither looking nor feeling my advanced age. But there I was staring at this woman with thinning gray hair plastered to her head—where was my comb and what happened to blond me? I had great bags under my eyes and sort of sallow skin. Plus of course, those wrinkles.

“I look like my Aunt Alice,” I wailed, which set Jordan to giggling again.

“It’s a fake mirror, designed to make you look old. Maybe I should see how I look.” She stood up, back to me, and stared in the mirror for a long time. Then, with an impish grin, she turned around and said, “I look pretty good.”

Thereafter ever time she caught me looking, she’d giggle and offer to change seats with me. Truly, there was no other place for me to look. The blasted mirror was about four feet in front of me in that small room.

I swore I didn’t look like that when I left the cottage, and I vowed to go home and check my mirror. At home, I did look better, but the lighting is different, softer. Now I worry about how I really look to others in the daylight. Maybe I’ll just wear dark glasses all the time. The pouches truly are hereditary from my dad’s side of the family.

To top it off, the tech was too solicitous. In truth, she was pleasant, talkative, and concerned. But she repeated things in a deliberate loud, slow voice and kept reassuring me I did fine. What’s to do wrong in a mammogram? Maybe she took a clue from the receptionist who checked us in and talked almost exclusively to Jordan after I confessed that I didn’t remember to bring my insurance card. And some money fell out of my purse, which led Jordan to ask why I had loose money in my purse, and I replied I didn’t have a clue. Guess I was marked as doddering right then and there.

Tonight I redeemed myself, I hope, by fixing dinner for a friend—a goat cheese/pesto appetizer, homemade mushroom soup, small dinner salads. So good. The soup was an experiment and involved both my small food processor and my immersion blender, but I finally got it close to the velvety texture the recipe specified. For dessert, I offered Trader Joe’s cookie butter. When I read about it, I asked Jordan what you ate it with, and she replied, “A spoon.” Tonight my friend tried it on a baguette slice and said it was much like peanut butter. I gave the rest of the jar to Jordan.

It’s a joy to me to prepare such a meal for a friend, and even the fixing is a joy—okay, maybe not chopping the onion and garlic—but the rest of it, making it come out right even if I have to use blender and processor (I have hand washed a lot of dishes tonight), planning the menu, finding I had hearts of palm to add to the salad, deciding to add a dollop of sour cream to the soup when serving. It’s all fun and gives me a sense of accomplishment.

Tonight I cooked for a friend of over forty years. Our ex-husbands were colleagues in medicine, and we stayed in touch, sporadically, over the years after our respective divorces. Though she’s recently had major surgery, she remains a person of happy disposition with a good sense of humor, and I thoroughly enjoy her company. We differ on our opinions about trump, but I tried to soft-peddle it when it came up tonight. That means I was not my usual vociferous self. Where, I wonder, do I draw the line between passionate loyalty to our beleaguered country and friendship of long standing.

This old lady in the mirror is signing off. Sweet dreams, everyone.