Johanna is a bartender in a pricey downtown dinner club. It is my last night in Norfolk so I agree to go have drinks and hors d’oeuvres with my other daughter Rhea at Jo’s work. Johanna has worked at this club for a while and so the staff are very friendly to us. The bar is packed; we wait a few minutes for a seat and end up next to friends of Johanna’s for a little while. This is a how I learn what a “pub crawl” is. Customers give a generous donation (which goes to charity) to get a plastic bracelet and then proceed to drink in as many downtown establishments as possible in one evening. It’s fascinating how many ways and means folks can dream up as an excuse to drink themselves silly.
I am used to getting a lot of attention when I am with my daughters, they are both beautiful and today is the same as any other, lots of folks stare. We came for Johanna and the hors d’oeurvres which are 1/2 off Monday through Friday:) Well Rhea is pregnant, but not obviously so, and for some darn reason, my weight has been stable for months. We splurge on onion rings, fried shrimp, french fries and salad. It was all delicious with exotic sauces and we had a lovely time. We focus on each other and on the fabulous food and soon it is time to go. As we leave Rhea says “Mom those women sitting next to us were obnoxious.” I say, “Really?” I didn’t hear anything except at some point, one of the women made a comment about not eating at all that day. “Rhea, what did they say that was obnoxious?” Normally, I just don’t notice other people and normally, I will not expend the energy it takes to judge them, but apparently these women had plenty of spare time and energy. Rhea said “Mom, didn’t you hear they were making comments about what we were eating, they said it had a lot of cholesterol, and were questioning how we could eat french fries and onion rings.” I was stunned by my daughter’s statement, the women she was referring to were all “women of a certain age” all women with spreading middle sections and all women who should know better. If they knew that my daughter was pregnant they would have been urging her to eat anything – and of course – they had no way to know what my health is. Why do people make derogatory comments into this world without factual information? I am aware that fried food has cholesteral – who in America is not aware of this fact? Why criticize our splurge?
Back to making your own world – and creating the experience that you wish within it: it can be done! Even though normally I miss derogatory comments, sometimes those comments do make it into my awareness – and they will get no attention in my world. That’s probably a good thing, because if my daughter had reported those comments at the time they were being made, I would have answered promptly with a few comments of my own.
