Chick Wit

• Column Classic: It’s Not The Heat July 21, 2024

  By Lisa Scottoline

  

  Hot enough for ya?

  That’s right.  I like to talk about the weather.  More accurately, I’m fascinated by the weather.  We begin where I begin every day, on weather.com.

  For me, weather.com is online porn.

  I don’t know if it’s because I’m in the middle of writing a book, and I’m not sure where the plot is going or what the characters will do, but I love that if I log onto weather.com, I get answers. 

  Answers, answers, and more answers.  

  I click to weather.com, then click again to Hourly, to break down the weather for the coming day, complete with adorable pictures of shiny suns or thumbnail thunderbolts.  At a glance, first thing in the morning, I can find out that it will be 92 degrees at 11:15 a.m. today. 

  Wow! 

  Where else can you get someone to foretell your future, humidity index included?    

  Come to think of it, that’s what I love most about weather.com.  It can tell all sorts of information about the future with precision, and I want to know everything I can about the future, especially if it includes when my hair will frizz.

  For example, once I find out that the sunshine today will morph to light rain at 3:17 p.m., I click over to the Mosquito Index.  Yes, on weather.com, you can click to find out when you’re most likely to get bitten by a mosquito, which turns out to be between 5:06 p.m. and 6:37 a.m., tomorrow morning.  And tonight, if you want to know, the Mosquito Activity will be between None and Limited, as opposed to the top of the scale, which is Very High.  You don’t want to plan your picnic for when the mosquitoes are at their worst, which is Really Frigging Annoying.

  And on the Mosquito Index page, there’s even a sidebar asking, Want To Know When The Fish Are Biting?

  And suddenly, I do! 

  I want to know when the fish are biting, even though I don’t fish.  In fact, I didn’t even know they bite.

  I click my way to the Fishing Forecast, where you can search by zip code or by lake, and this astounds me.  Weather.com can tell you when the fish will be biting in a particular lake? 

  How great is that? 

  It bodes well for our country, if we can foretell when fish will be biting in Lake Whatever, and at what time.  If we can do that, we can put a man on the moon. 

  Or back on the moon. 

  Or at least make my hair not frizz.

  The first lake that pops into my mind is Lake Winnipesaukee, because it’s mentioned in a movie I love, What About Bob?  Of course, Lake Winnipesaukee is impossible to spell, which is a joke in the movie, so to get the right spelling, I have to navigate to google.com, where I plug in the wrong spelling and it asks me, DID YOU MEAN….and supplies the right spelling.

  Yes, Google, I did mean that.  What you said.  Thanks for saving my face, online.  Google.com is almost as smart as weather.com.  It can’t tell the future, but it can read your mind.   

  Anyway, I go back to the Fishing Forecast, plug Lake Winnipesaukee into the lake search, and am rewarded with a multicolored wiggly line showing that today, the Lake Winnipesaukee fish will be biting the most between 12:01 p.m. and 2:06 p.m.

  Ouch. 

  If I were you, I’d stay away.

  And the same webpage also informs me that the Moon Phase tonight will be Waxing Gibbous.

  See? Toldja!  Answers, answers, and more answers.   

  I’m so happy to know this about the moon, though I have no idea what Waxing Gibbous means.  I could find out, but I don’t need to to marvel at how great it is to know it, precisely. 

  And I’m not talking about horoscope-level precision.  I’m talking, real, no-joke, scientific-type precision.  In my experience, weather.com is never wrong.  Or if it’s wrong, it changes its forecast right away, which is still kosher. 

  Politicians do it all the time.

  Copyright © Lisa Scottoline

• Fun With Aging July 14, 2024

  by Lisa Scottoline

  

  This week, everybody’s talking about aging.

  But don’t worry, this column isn’t political.

  I never write about politics.

  Agita is Italian for politics.

  And this is an agita-free zone.

  So we’re going to talk about age, but the lighter side.

  There’s only one lighter side.

  You’re still alive.

  Like if you’re aging, you’re lucky.

  It’s good to talk about aging, in a funny way.

  Because as every woman who’s getting older knows, somebody has to be kidding.

  Like, I find signs of age on my own body and they’re the worst joke ever.

  I had one this week.

  I looked down and my arm hair was gone.

  I swear to God I don’t know what happened to it.

  I can never find my cell phone, but I used to know where my arm hair was.

  The trick is in the name.

  Now you see why I’m a mystery writer.

  I cracked the case.

  I’m Nancy Drew in The Case of the Missing Body Hair.

  But it’s true, suddenly I looked down and I didn’t have any arm hair.

  The last time this happened, I looked up and didn’t have any eyebrows.

  I didn’t know what happened then, either.

  I used to pluck my eyebrows.

  Now I need to paste them back in.

  And then I realized, I can’t remember the last time I shaved my legs.

  And it’s summer.

  Wait, what?

  If you’re a woman of a certain age, you might remember when shaving your legs was a big thing.

  I used to shave my legs every morning.

  I even shaved my legs again, before a Big Date, if you follow.

  Because God forbid a man run his hand up my legs the wrong way.

  Women grow up thinking there is a Right Way to run your hands over a leg and a Wrong Way, like a one-way street.

  By the way, while we’re in the TMI category, no man has ever run his hand over my legs in bed, whether the Right Way or the Wrong Way.

  In my experience, men are not interested in legs in bed.

  They forget you have them.

  You’re lucky if you can get them to run their hands over anything.

  They don’t like to waste time.

  They find something else to do.

  I’m not complaining.

  There’s lots to do.

  To return to point, when I was a teenager, I used to do the hairy-legs check several times a day.

  I was way too intense about the whole thing.

  I even remember chasing razors with frequency.

  Now I don’t even know where my razor is.

  I ain’t crying.

  Now that I don’t have to pluck or shave anything, I’m saving time.

  Which I immediately put to good use searching for things on Netflix.

  Note that I didn’t say watching Netflix, but searching for things on Netflix.

  Because if you’ve ever used the search function on Netflix, you know it’s a treat.

  You’re confronted with a square of letters and symbols that looks like a puzzle you never wanted to do.

  You’re just trying to find some old movie, but you will find yourself using a TV remote in a way God never intended.

  You will plug in a single letter and wait two minutes before it registers on the screen, then find out you plugged in the wrong letter and forgot the space bar.

  That’s twenty minutes, right there.

  That would have been prime plucking-and-shaving time.

  Now you’re playing with your TV remote, vainly searching for something you barely wanted to watch in the first place.

  What do you do next?

  Give up.

  Live without it.

  You don’t need to keep searching.

  Same thing with arm hair, leg hair, and eyebrows.

  Don’t even bother looking.

  You’re better off.

  You’re not getting older.

  You’re getting aerodynamic.

  © Copyright Lisa Scottoline 2024

• Vroom, Vroom July 7, 2024

  By Lisa Scottoline

  

  It was a busy week, news-wise.

  But there’s one story that didn’t make the headlines.

  It was my birthday! And I had a great one!

  Why?

  Because I’m loving getting older.

  First, I’m alive.

  Like what number birthday was it?

  Who cares?

  Here’s all that matters:

  It was Another Birthday!

  Yay!

  The second reason I love getting older is that I’ve lost my mind, but in a good way.

  It all started with Netflix.

  Like everybody, I love Netflix and I watch tons of shows, but somehow I stumbled onto Drive to Survive. If you’re not familiar, it’s real-life series about Formula One race-car drivers, and the bottom line is they’re hot drivers who drive even hotter cars.

  Maybe in my younger days I would’ve watched the guys.

  But I found myself looking at cars.

  Their bodies.

  Their muscularity.

  Their passion.

  The cars, mind you.

  And before I go further, I have to tell you that I am the world’s slowest driver.

  I not only drive in the slow lane, I live there.

  I go seventy only if I’m on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and there’s a big truck behind me, flashing lights and threatening to kill me.

  Especially if it has big teeth on the grille.

  I love truckers, but really, with the teeth?

  Do you need to scare us more than we already are?

  Sometimes I see truck grilles that have a teddy bear tied to the front.

  Those guys, I love.

  Except sometimes it looks like the teddy bear is being throttled.

  Anyway, you get the idea, I’m a timid driver.

  It’s the only thing I’m timid at in my life, almost. I’ve grown into a mouthy broad and since I run my own company, I’ve learned to try to get what I want.

  It’s not easy, and the world will try and stop you.

  But as soon as I realized that, I stopped stopping myself.

  In other words, I started not stopping myself.

  If you follow.

  So bottom line, I don’t obey and I try to get what I want.

  This is probably why I’m divorced twice, but the good news is I had Another Birthday, I’m happier than ever, and I bought a sports car.

  Yes, that was my birthday present to myself.

  It has only two seats because I’m only one person. I was tired of driving around in a sedan that felt like an empty warehouse.

  That’s the practical reason.

  The real reason is I got excited about sports cars from Netflix and then I saw one in a dealership window and I bought it.

  It’s also a convertible, and I’ve never driven a convertible in my life.

  My roots are too gray for a convertible.

  I was too shy to lower the top, then one time I was on the phone with Daughter Francesca, who loves her ancient VW convertible, and she said, “Mom, please, pull over right now and lower that top.”

  Every mother knows that when her daughter tells her to do something, we do it.

  In fact, Francesca is the only person I obey.

  So I did, and it was fun, even though my gray roots showed.

  And then my best friend Franca gave me a baseball hat for my birthday, so when I lower my top, I also cover my top.

  Plus for my birthday, my best friend Laura gave me a Formula One video game.

  This is the first video game of my life.

  I can’t wait to play it and drive around fictionally!

  I might even put the fictional top down!

  My best friend Nan said, “It’s never too late to reinvent yourself.”

  And I am reinventing like crazy.

  So now I have a sports car that I drive in the slow lane, having the time of my life.

  People will say I’m having a midlife crisis, but they’re totally wrong.

  I’m having an end-of-life crisis.

  My midlife crisis was late.

  It drives slow, too.

  Besides, it’s not a crisis, it’s my own personal Italian Renaissance.

  Bottom line, I’m not sure if I’m going in a good direction or bad one.

  All I know is I’m going forward.

  And I’m in the driver’s seat.

  Yay! And I’m not going anywhere without my daughter and my besties.

  Copyright © Lisa Scottoline 2024

• Raggedy June 30, 2024

  By Lisa Scottoline

  

  I just got a fabulous new haircut.

  By me.

  Do you understand what I’m saying?

  Please tell me you have felt this way:

  When your hair is bothering you and you can’t stand it another minute, so you grab a scissors and you start hacking away, so impatient that you don’t even put your glasses on first.

  This is not a hypothetical.

  This is exactly what just happened an hour ago, and you know what?

  I’m fine with it.

  I don’t know what came over me.

  I know you’re supposed to get more patient as you get older, but I am more impatient than ever.

  I’m on borrowed time, after all.

  I could go at any minute.

  And the past few weeks, my hair has been getting longer, but I’m on deadline and I can’t take time to get it cut. So the ends of my hair, which is only fictionally blonde, start to look like hay.

  It’s a good look, to attract a horse.

  And at the same time, my roots are growing in and they’re gray.

  What drove me to the scissors is that I had gray on the top and hay on the bottom.

  I remember I used to be horrified at black roots, and then they got cool so I didn’t sweat black roots so much. But when my roots turned gray, I sweated it. I would go with the gray totally, but I don’t have uniform gray, I have skunk.

  I’m not looking to attract skunks.

  Especially not since Thing Two.

  In any event, I was so fed up that I got out of the shower, grabbed the scissors, and started cutting.

  I think of it as a rough draft.

  As for the gray roots, I’m looking funny at my drawer of Sharpies.

  Or maybe I should be looking funny at my drawer of Highlighters.

  I could highlight my hair, literally.

  Then I could attract office supplies.

  My favorite!

  I remember a time when my hair really mattered to me, like at sixteen. I would cut pictures out of magazines, which is something that used to exist back then. They even had haircut magazines.

  Also, dinosaurs.

  In any event, I would bring pictures of haircuts to the salon, then discuss my haircut endlessly, and hold my breath the entire time she cut my hair.

  I remember one time my hair came out so short that I wanted to cry, but I didn’t want to make the stylist feel bad. So I fled to the car and went full Italian opera.

  Over a haircut.

  What was I thinking?

  And this was before you could blame social media. There was no Instagram back then to tell girls they should look perfect.

  We had to rely on the world for that.

  Of course, it came through.

  And so what happens in a woman’s life is that she begins to think that all of the things that matter don’t matter as she gets older, she starts to understand that none of it matters.

  That she gets to decide what matters.

  Haircuts don’t even make the list.

  I look like Raggedy Ann on Medicare.

  I may look worse than ever, but I feel the best ever. That’s what matters.

  © Copyright 2024 Lisa Scottoline.

• Column Classic: Ho for the Burn June 23, 2024

  by Lisa Scottoline

  

  I couldn’t be more excited about two new fitness crazes — exercising in high heels and/or on a stripper pole.

  I can’t think of a better message for young girls than exercising is important, but only if you look pornographic.

  Obviously, whoever said women couldn’t achieve equality in athletics had no idea what they were talking about.

  Or maybe it’s called a craze because it’s crazy.

  We begin with Heel Hop, which is an hour-long workout, including sit-ups, stretches, and lunges, but you do all the exercises wearing high heels.

  Don’t forget your stilettos — and Blue Cross card.

  The instructor is a backup dancer named Kamilah, who says, “I came straight out of the womb with some high-heeled pumps.”

  I have one word for Kamilah:

  Ouch.

  I wish I knew Kamilah’s mother, so I could give her a big hug – and a Bronze Star.

  I’m hoping Kamilah doesn’t start a new craze among fetuses, who will begin demanding high-heeled pumps in the womb. Because we don’t need babies making their exit — or their entrance, depending on how you look at it — in even an infant-size pair of heels.

  Unless you want to save the doctor fees on your episiotomy.

  But that’s not where I’d cut costs.

  No pun.

  I read online that Heel Hop is taught in classes held in Los Angeles.

  I know, it makes you want to move to Los Angeles.

  And if you do, you should. Move there. And stay there. Go away and never come back. I don’t want to run into you in the market.

  I’ll be the one in muddy clogs.

  The article I read about Heel Hop contained an interview with a podiatrist. They asked him about working out in high heels, and he said, “Exercising in them just doesn’t make sense in any way, shape, or form.”

  But what does he know?

  He’s only a doctor, not a dancer, and therefore unqualified to give an opinion.

  I bet he can’t even walk in heels.

  In fact, I challenge him to pronounce Louboutin.

  Hint: Louboutin is French for you’re-gonna-break-your-ankle.

  But an even better fitness craze is exercising on a stripper pole, which I saw on one of the Real Housewives reality shows, where the housewives were taking lessons, spinning around the pole.

  I’m sure this is exactly your reality, spending your free time spinning around poles with your girlfriends.

  Of course that’s not reality.

  Real women don’t have free time.

  In any event, you’ll be happy to know that you can find lots of DVDs online that will teach you how to work out on a stripper pole. I like the website called FlirtyGirlFitness, which says, “Treadmills, bench presses, and stair climbers have been replaced with dance poles, kitchen chairs, and pink feather boas.”

  This may be news to Nike.

  I bet right now they’re figuring out a way to paste a swish onto a boa.

  Maybe they should just paste it onto a pastie.

  Buy two.

  Also I’m wondering what FlirtyGirlFitness is doing with their kitchen chairs. I need mine for sitting on while I eat chocolate cake.

  The problem with exercising on a pole is that you need to install a pole in your house, which could be embarrassing when it comes time to sell. Unless you convince potential buyers that you’re a fireman.

  And think about what happens when you abandon your pole exercises, as you inevitably will. A pole isn’t like a treadmill, in that you can’t leave your dirty clothes on it. They’ll fall right off.

  I don’t buy exercise equipment that I can’t use for a hamper.

  But amazingly, FlirtyGirlFitness has an answer for what to do with your abandoned pole. The website says that their poles come with “a special hook that will allow you to use this space to hang a plant.”

  How’s that for a sales pitch?

  Ladies, now you can combine your love of gardening with your need to look like a hooker!

  I’m sure there’s a market for that, and it’s born every minute.

  I just hope it wears flats.

  Copyright © Lisa Scottoline