I have our morning responsibilities choreographed down to the very last second. This marks my fifth year operating under the delusion that I can get everything and everyone ready for school in less time than it actually takes.
That is why I still press snooze on my alarm.
In five years I have yet to morph into the creature who emerges from bed ten minutes before the music begins, so that I can linger over a cup of coffee and soak in the silence of the dawn. I am still the woman I was five years ago, who groans in parallel with the chirp of the alarm and chooses the snooze button instead.
If nothing else I am consistent.
An article I read recently said that those who struggle getting out of bed in the morning are more intelligent. It specifically states, “being able to hit snooze and adapting to this new way of living and sleeping means you’re more intellectual.”
Well. I will take it where I can get it! 😉
Despite the snoozes, the music always begins and the morning dance must commence. And, in spite of the consistency of the routine, the music always seems to stop before the dance steps are complete. Every single morning we find ourselves crowded by the door, dog included, looking for socks and shoes. Our song is over! The time allotment has expired!
If our song has six minutes left to put on socks and shoes, it will take eight. If we have ten minutes it will take fifteen.
So there I stand, every single weekday, with three children who have yet to put their shoes on, urging them to grab their backpacks and get into the car, so we can rush to school and then sit cloaked in irony as we wait in the car line for fifteen minutes.
A couple of weeks ago, I had to walk my children in to school because they needed help carrying their Math Expo presentations.
If what my youngest calculates is true, in 100 years the population of the United States will be 503,625,452. This is based on the current population growth stats at census.gov, which state there is a gain of one person every 18 seconds. This takes into account births, deaths, and immigration.
And, did you know that according to my oldest son’s calculations, the McGuire nuclear station could power 1,807,481 houses in a year, based on the station’s annual output and the average annual house electricity usage?
After we had carefully placed their presentation boards in the room, I sent them on their way to classes and headed out to my car.
As I walked past the office I saw her. She was standing at the front desk. I had seen her several times before, through the office window and even out on the sidewalk, but this time was the closest I had ever been to her.
She stood there, worn posture, in her pink bathrobe with green frogs on it. Her hair was tossed into a bun that looked slept in. One hand casually rested in her robe pocket. She wore no make-up. She may have been wielding a cup presumably filled with coffee.
When I got out to the sidewalk I stood and paused at the crosswalk. As I waited, I looked through the windshields of the cars as they drove slowly by. And while the bathrobes weren’t visible, I saw the slept in buns, the tired eyes and I could almost count every wrinkle masked by smudges of mascara that didn’t get erased in the haste to get to bed the night before.
All these years, I have driven through the car rider line in my little capsule, thinking I was invisible to the world! I have leaned forward and hunkered as the car door opened, so the woman greeting the kids wouldn’t get a full view of me.
Who knew she had already seen me clearly as I approached?!
This morning I saw her again. She was standing, waiting to cross back to the parking lot. Today, she had on an emerald green bathrobe. I think it was velour. I wondered what happened to the pink one with the frogs. As I drove by in my capsule, feeling a little less invisible than I once did, I looked at her with great admiration.
And I thought to myself: she must be very intelligent, for she obviously has hit her share of snooze buttons over the years.
I know if she looked through my windshield, she would have seen me in my sweatshirt with the paint stain on it. She would have noticed my face with the mascara smudged in the wrinkles, my messy bun, and my overall snooze-apparent, yet intelligent, appearance. 😉
It is possible we could become friends.
Fashion and Karl Lagerfeld
While I am no fashion expert, I am going to venture to say bathrobes are not the epitome of fashion. Although, I am sure that a fashion runway somewhere has legitimized this in-house garb as cutting edge fashion for city streets.
Because, let’s face it, fashion runways push the envelope.
Last week, the world lost a fashion icon, Karl Lagerfeld.
Lagerfeld was born in Germany in 1933.
As a young child, Lagerfeld was known to sketch and draw during lessons at school and apparently only continued his education, so that he could learn French and eventually move to France.
Lagerfeld met his goal and moved to Paris in 1953 and after two years there he won a coat designing contest. He proceeded to work in various capacities in the fashion industry and within a decade was freelancing for a variety of brands, including Chloe and Valentino.
In 1967 Lagerfeld was hired by Fendi and then in the 1980s by Chanel. He turned the latter dying company around after it struggled for a decade after the loss of its matriarch Coco Chanel.
He also created his own brand, dabbled in partnerships with other designers and remained employed by Chanel until his death.
Despite his respect within the fashion industry and renowned accomplishments therein, Lagerfeld’s life was not without controversy. He had a kill-or-be-killed mentality and as such featured furs in fashion lines, sparking protest and criticism of PETA. He also, criticized several well-known women for their weight or overall looks, to include Heidi Klum, Adele and Pippa Middleton.
Lagerfeld’s net worth at the time of his death is estimated to between 195 million and 300 million dollars. The likely heiress for a chunk of that change? Choupette, Lagerfeld’s Birman cat.
