Fall Thoughts....

Smiley’s rant on women and the stuff they keep in their handbags had me lashing back on the usefulness of the odds and ends I stash away in mine: moisturizers, Tylenol and all the other essentials that I’m sure my smarter readers are well aware of. It also had me smiling at a recollection. Mr.Gabby has extremely dry skin. Skin that had maybe imagined it would remain in humid old India has never done too well in Boston and these harsh winters. Also, hot showers followed by hurried shaves are supposed to be followed up with liberal moisturizing, something a man who takes 40 minutes to down a single cup of coffee and then 40 mins again to revisit the loo and think on the throne has, funnily enough, no time for.

So two winters ago, the dryness had reached some intense heights. His hands were so rough, I cringed at contact. He was my lint-remover. If my coat or sweater was covered in lint, I would ask him to run his palms all over me and LO-no lint! Convenient but weird, passer-bys admired how we had found some use for the predicament, but at the same time I’m sure, made a mental note never to shake hands with that tall and lanky Indian man.

I don’t know what or who I had to thank for (maybe the dwindling number of handshakes or an “Ouch” from some pretty female colleague) but the man did come to me for help, finally. You can only lead a horse to the river and my pleas had always gone unnoticed till then. Afterwards the nightly treatments began in earnest. We would soap those hands in the richest of lathers and then follow up with inches of cocoa butter cream enriched with hemp (from the rainforests, of course, no less) and follow that up with pulling on these breathable moisturizing gloves! Yes gloves. So he slept with these skin-tight, very Mime-like white gloves on throughout winter and believe you me, the way those hands healed and the resulting smoothness was well worth the creepiness of a white gloved hand reaching out in the middle of the night. It was startling at first especially considering the dark hairiness of the remainder of the arm but I quickly got used to it.

It’s fall here and already I felt a distinct roughness yesterday, so as we pull out the sweaters, jackets, scarves and boots this weekend, the white gloves will be retrieved and left on his nightstand – a gentle reminder of rougher times to come.