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Tag Archives: Orange

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 168: Lipstick

14 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by duckykoren in Beauty, Colour, Makeup

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Beauty, lipstick, Makeup, Orange, revlon

I cannot understate the way lipstick was an ongoing theme in the relationship between my Mother and myself, much like sports would be an ongoing theme between a Father and son.

At the very least, this subject gave Mother and me something to pleasantly bicker over.

In my young life, I never knew my Mother to wear any lipstick other than Revlon’s salmon ice. It was her signature.

Several decades ago, when Revlon announced that they would be discontinuing that colour she immediately bought three cases.

That’s forty-eight tubes of lipstick.

There could have been more, but that’s all she would admit too.

After that, her next shade of preference became 24 carat orange, also from Revlon.

Lipstick was her constant companion. A tube would never be more than an arms length from her side. She applied it every half hour, whether she needed it or not.

Further, Mother made it her self appointed life long quest to convert me from my usual red lipstick to her 24 carat orange.

“No dice…” I told her.

The harder she tried, the more adamant I became.

“Just try it on to see how it looks,” she kept insisting, as she held her lipstick out for me to take.

Occasionally, I’d have to give in when I thought I saw tears about to well up in her eyes, but that didn’t happen often…

Then came the day that I was walking to the punch clock at the end of my shift. Some of my friends and coworkers were already there waiting to punch out and go home.

“That’s a really nice top you’ve got on,” Miss P. Said to me as I walked by her.

“Did your Mother give you that?”

“Yes,” I told her.

Miss P. Instinctively knew whenever I was wearing one of Mother’s tops. Probably because that was the only time I didn’t come to work wearing t-shirts.

It was then that she said to me:

“I really like that colour on you…what would you call that, salmon?”

There was an unavoidable truth in that statement.

Looking down at my shirt, I realized that Miss P. was right.

I was indeed wearing salmon orange.

All at once, oxygen escaped me as momentarily I found myself unable to breathe.

I must admit…

I never saw that one coming.

Game-Set-Match.

Mother wins again.

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 13: Orange

13 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by duckykoren in Colour, fashion, Shoes

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Cars, Colour, fashion, Orange, Shoes

Several years ago, I bought myself a brand new pair of running shoes.

They looked comfy and sturdy enough, and I thought that they’d do the trick. I even liked the orange trim which I thought added a glint of something different.

A ‘Joie de Vivre’ of sorts.

You see, for a decade or two, the colour orange had been given a bad rap.

People rarely wore orange anymore.

Anyway…

I didn’t give my choice of sneaker apparel any further thought until a co-worker friend of mine made a comment as she walk by me one morning as she arrived for her day shift.

Staring at my feet as she walked past she said:

“What’s with the orange shoes?”

Then as she walked away, she added…

“Must be some mid-life crisis!”

Hmm…

Did I reply with a nasty or hurtful comeback?

No.

Did I show the least bit or anger?

No.

Instead, I took it all in stride.

There is a saying that my father taught me, and I invoked it as I turned the other cheek:

“The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they do grind.”

Now, I am very pleased to tell you that this story has a very happy ending. (At least for me it does, as I cannot speak for my anti-orange co-worker.)

Three months later, as I am walking to my car after a long shift at work I observe Ms. “Must Be Mid-Life Crisis” pulling into work.

And look, she is driving a brand new S.U.V.

Make that a brand new ORANGE S.U.V.

And in the distance, I could hear the noise of the god’s mills beautifully grinding away.

It had a groove and great “Mid-life Crisis” kinda beat.

And I could even dance to it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Memories Of Mother… Post 47: Lipstick Red

20 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by duckykoren in Uncategorized

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Tags

Airport, blogs, Breast Cancer, Family, grief, loss, love, Orange, Red, Travel, Vermont

image

This blog post was originally posted in September 2012 when I flew to Vermont to celebrate Mother’s 71st birthday.

Out of the hundred or so pictures that I took while visiting my Mother for her birthday this past weekend, I unfortunately missed my chance to take what would have been a very proud moment for me.

As you may or may not know, all my life, Mother has been trying to convert me from my usual red lipstick to wearing her shade of 24 carat ORANGE lipstick.

She was not successful.

Imagine then, my pleasant surprise when she met me at the airport on Saturday wearing RED lipstick.

I didn’t really notice at first as I got in the passenger side of her car where she was waiting. However, I did notice that there was something more vibrant about her, more fun.  As as I bent over to give her a kiss, she asked me a question that caught me quite by surprise.

“Didn’t you notice?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied after taking a better look at her face.

“You’re wearing red lipstick, how wonderful!”

She then began to reach for the kleenex that was already waiting in her purse.

“Good,” she said, “now that you’ve seen it I can take it off.”

And so she did.  Thirty seconds later, she was back to her former self, clad in orange and all.

I let out a sad sigh.  So close, I thought.

Now that was one picture that I would have cherished… Mother wearing bright red lipstick.

I had my chance and missed it.

Maybe it’s just as well that I didn’t take a picture.

Mother would not have been impressed.

She did after all, put in on just to humour me…

…if only for 10 seconds.

However, the sweet memory of her in red lipstick will stay with me always.

Always.

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