Tortilla Chicks

   I love to wear dresses in the spring and summer…to be outside in, feeling the breeze on flip flop feet…I prefer dresses over shorts if the weather is warm. I either make or buy second hand bright, ridiculous flowy little things to wear. Then, I’ll plop a hat…I’ve got  two or three  to choose from..either a straw summer hat with a rolled brim or a floppy big hat to keep the sun off my face and shoulders or one of those ridiculous fake cowboy hats that the young girls wear to try to look cute. I’ve noticed that if a 40 something year old woman puts on something that a young girl would wear to be cute, the 40 something woman comes off as CRAZY. Not like “oh, my mom! she is SO crazy!” but “we the jury find this woman…” crazy.  The issue of my hair is settled with two braids, often done while still wet from the shower. On a farm, it is ludicrous to wear makeup or fix your hair on a hot day. It’s a complete waste of time AND makeup. I’ll catch a glimpse of myself sometimes in the reflection of a window while puttering outside and think “who IS that crazy old lady?” then I’ll realize it’s ME and chortle.

  My daughter Tara makes fun of me for this and was with me once at a second hand store where I came upon a loud, turquoise dress with brightly colored embroidered flowers all over it. It looked like those dresses that you see Hispanic women on the cooking shows wear, the shows that the host goes to Mexico to check out the street food and comes upon a woman wearing just this type of dress. I saw this dress and held it up to me and hollered at Tara. She looked at me sternly and said “NO. You are NOT getting that dress. Where would you wear it?” I thought for a second. “umm…the grocery store?” “NO. You are NOT wearing THAT to the grocery store.” she repeated. “ummm…over my swimsuit? maybe out in the yard?” I wheedled. “NO. Not in the yard. Not out of the house. Only IN the house. Good Lord.” she said. Good Lord is what Tara says to me when I’m acting like myself. If I’m REALLY acting like myself, she adds “Mother” to it. So if I came in from mowing and I had on a dress and flip flops and braids and an old cowboy hat, that’s what I would hear. “Good Lord, Mother” and then she’d tell whoever she was talking to on the phone “my mom’s just being a crazy.” She does this with love and affection. I know that she does this with love and affection  because she will still hang out with me even though once we were at Fuji’s ( a Japanese restaurant in Fort Smith) and I thought that the green glob on my plate was avocado and just as I exclaimed “YUM! avocado!” and plopped the whole walnut size chunk of it into my mouth just as she said “GOOD LORD MOM THAT’S NOT AVOCADO!!” and it was WASABI and I swear I felt FLAMES come out of my EYES and NOSTRILS and I spit it out and SCREAMED and drank water and scraped my tongue with the napkin and CRIED and wolfed down my rice. She just stared at me, holding her chopsticks. She waited until I calmed down my thrashing in the booth, looking like a flopping perch on a boat floor, gasping for air. She said three words. “Good Lord, Mother.” and calmly ate her hibachi chicken.

        A few days after I bought my beautiful turquoise dress, Tara was eating lunch and watching “What Not to Wear”. Tara yelled at me to come and look at something on the TV. I had just gotten out of the shower and put on my comfy new/used dress, had braided my hair and plopped on a hat. I walked into the living room and Tara said “Sit down, ya crazy. You gotta see this.” and there was a woman, wearing my EXACT dress, only it was white (and not nearly as cute) as mine. The hosts were making fun of her and told her she looked like one of those ladies you see selling tortillas in the street. So Tara pronounced me wearing a “Tortilla dress” and the name stuck.

  I went to where Tara works a week or so ago. She works in a second hand store, of course, which is our natural habitat. I was walking around with her, just looking, when I spied a beautiful, black, flowy dress with embroidered flowers all over the front. “OH MY!” I exclaimed and held it up to me. Tara looked. “Good Lord, Mother… you do NOT need another Tortilla dress.”

  But I DID need another Tortilla Dress and I bought it and it looks SMASHING when I’m puttering out in the yard with a nice, broad brimmed hat.

  So, yesterday afternoon, after my sunshine, after my shower…I put on my old Tortilla Dress and went fishing, the hat shading my face from the sun. I caught two crappie, unhooking them and throwing them back in after admiring their scales and beautiful fins.

  I texted Tara, who is now married and lives in Fort Smith and not able to gaze daily upon the sight that is her chubby 41 year old mother in a ridiculous dress  and said “hey, guess what, I’m wearing that turquoise Tortilla Dress and a big hat. It looks as good as it  ever did!”

  Her response? “Good Lord.”

 I read that and smiled and thought “yes, He is. Most certainly, He is good. All the time.”