Spoilt for choice

Spoilt for choice
But Then Again

By MARY SCHNEIDER

Can’t stomach it: Too much variety can result in indigestion.

It’s great to have choices – in moderation.

VARIETY is not always the spice of life, because too much of it can result in indigestion and regret. Choice is a good thing, but only in moderation. When I’m presented with too many choices, I usually end up in a confused state of indecision that either causes me to make all the wrong choices or renders me paralysed and incapable of making a decision.

I mean to say, there’s nothing worse than paying for the latest iPhone while having the features of the latest Samsung phone dancing tantalisingly around the inside of your head. Or lying on a beach in Turkey while wondering if the ski holiday you considered might have been a better option. Or looking at facelift packages when your butt is sliding down the back of your thighs and could be made perky for the same price.

And don’t get me started on food choices. I try to avoid restaurants that have a menu the size of a telephone directory. Any decent restaurant, in my opinion, shouldn’t diversify to the extent that its options take up more than three pages.

I once had dinner at a restaurant where I was presented with a complimentary bread basket containing 20 different types of bread. This baked abundance came with five different types of butter, resulting in a whopping 100 possible bread/butter combinations. I felt an ulcer coming on just thinking about it.

Restaurants should really confine themselves to only two choices of bread: Brown and white. I’m not a big fan of white bread, so I’d be laughing all the way through my first course. Of course, that’s assuming I could decide whether to have the pate de foie gras, or the barbecued prawns, or the fresh air-flown oysters, or the grilled peppers…

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I feel that first courses should be outlawed altogether. We should just cut to the T-bone, or the pork loin chop, or the rack of lamb … And while we’re at it, let’s confine menu options to just a few dishes made from each type of meat.

Whenever my son comes home to visit, he loves to go to a certain restaurant that boasts about 50 different steak options. We can study the menu until our eyes glaze over, and our waiter considers ejecting us from the premises because no order is forthcoming after half an hour, and we still won’t be any closer to making up our minds. After much hemming and hawing, we usually end up ordering two different steaks, so we can try each other’s meal, declare the other’s more superior, and switch plates before we’re done – proving that indecisiveness must be genetic.

I think my indecisiveness stems from a childhood that was lacking in choice. My mother was an excellent cook, but she had a limited repertoire. Indeed, if someone had bashed me on the head with a blunt instrument way back then, causing me to fall into a coma for several days, upon regaining consciousness I would have been able to tell you which day of the week it was just by asking my mother what we were going to have for dinner.

You see, although we had something different for dinner every day of the week during the latter more affluent days of my childhood, the day on which a particular dish was presented never varied. There was beef stew on Monday, haggis on Tuesday, Shepherds Pie on Wednesday, bangers and mash on Thursday, fish on Friday, a fry-up on Saturday, and a roast on Sunday.

There are some people who might regard this as culinary boredom, but I never tire of this predictable diet. Indeed, if it wasn’t for my need to watch both my cholesterol and my waistline, I’m sure I could easily revert to this weekly dinner menu.

Even on those special occasions when my parents took my siblings and me to a restaurant to eat, we would always order the same thing. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it did leave me ill-prepared for the myriad choices that would confront me in my adult life.

Now, just in case you’re thinking otherwise, my indecisiveness doesn’t mean that I’m not adventurous when it comes to food; quite the opposite, in fact.

If there are deep-fried octopus hearts on the menu, I might be persuaded to give them a try. So long as the restaurant doesn’t also offer stuffed sea slugs au gratin and pickled ostrich beaks under the same section, I’ll be fine.

The 50 somethings are people, not cadavers!

Monday September 17, 2012

Fashion not only the domain of the young

BUT THEN AGAIN
By MARY SCHNEIDER
star2@thestar.com.my

Who says fashion is the exclusive domain of the young?

MY mum wears my T-shirts,” said a teenager during a call to a local radio station. “She’s 50. That shouldn’t be allowed.”

“I recently saw another woman about the same age wearing a pair of tight shorts and high heels,” responded the deejay, who was inviting callers to talk about the issue. “That shouldn’t be allowed either.”

Had I not been driving at the time, I might have phoned the radio station and asked them what all the fuss was about. Living in a world that is facing global warming, starvation, human rights violations, land degradation and racial tensions, surely there are more important things to worry about than the clothes that the over-fifties are wearing.

My choice: A woman should have the freedom to wear whatever she wants, no matter what her age.

As I continued to listen, I realised that the majority of people calling the radio station felt that older folks should dress in an age-appropriate manner. For example, it seems that some young people are traumatised, or so they would have you believe, by the sight of their middle-aged mother wearing a short dress, or showing cleavage, or sporting loud designs.

“She looks like mutton dressed up as lamb,” some of them said.

As if it’s okay for anyone to refer to their mother as an old sheep.

It seems to me that if a woman raises someone to have opinions of their own, and instills in them the confidence necessary to call a radio station to express those opinions, the least her offspring can do is respect her and her fashion choices.

I’m not sure who came up with the idea that fashion is the exclusive domain of the young, but I feel we should all have the freedom to wear whatever we want, no matter what age. Why are women of a certain age expected to become invisible, to blend into the background with their middle-aged uniforms? Since when did middle age diminish a woman’s right to be noticed?

I’m not a fashion slave, but I do know what I like and what I think looks good on me. And that’s all that matters to me.

When I look in the mirror, I can see that I’m in my fifties, but I still smile at my reflection on those days when I think I look good – something that much younger person might find difficult to understand.

Many years ago, when I was in my early 20s, I remember walking into a Scottish pub behind two old ladies. I’m not sure how old they really were, because anyone over the age of 40 was immediately thrown into the “old” category, but I do remember they had grey hair and were a little overweight.

As I walked through the front door of the pub, they stopped in front of a large mirror on the wall, removed their coats and studied themselves. One of them patted her hair and examined her lipstick, while the other smoothed down her dress, a bright red number that seemed out of place on someone of her years.

“Is that a new dress?” asked the lipstick lady.

“Yes,” said her friend. “Do you like it?”

“It’s lovely. You look gorgeous in it.”

“Thanks. You look gorgeous yourself.”

With a final pat of their hair they both disappeared into the bar, confident that they did indeed look gorgeous.

“What does it matter?” I said to myself. “It’s not as if anything is going to happen. There will be no admiring glances, eyes making contact over a crowded room, offers of drinks, telephone numbers being exchanged, possibilities of romance …”

How naive of me. These things do matter, but I just didn’t have the wisdom to realise it at the time.

I think more and more women of a certain age are defying stereotypes in a way that makes some people feel uncomfortable. However, the more women go against societal norms, the more expectations will change.

We will surely become more accepting of our aging bodies, which will surely benefit everyone. Because let’s face it, none of us can escape the effects of gravity and the lines that time and life’s experiences leave on our bodies.

But we can choose what we put on our bodies, and how we want to express our personality through clothes.

If I want to wear a sunshine yellow mini skirt and crimson tank top, because they make me feel bright and happy, don’t spoil my day by telling me that I’m looking like an old sheep pretending to be a lamb.

Baaaaaaaa!