sticking my neck out (m)

New England championships today for crew.  My husband drops me off at the entrance to the regatta, laden with a large box of 36 sandwiches, a huge tote bag with my camera and oversized lens, and a beach chair.  He went to park the car.

I looked like a sherpa with all the crap I was carrying.  Passing me along the promenade were women sporting lovely hats like Princess Diana used to wear at the Ascot Race...large brims, flowers.  Because I was unceremoniously dumped along the sidewalk, I left the car without my cell phone.  I had no idea where our school's tent was.  I walked half a mile left and then turned around and walked 3/4 mile right until I found the other parents.  By then, I thought I was having heatstroke.

One of the skating mothers who lives in the area stopped by to watch the race.  When I stood to say goodbye to her afterwards, she looked at me and said "M...you look so good.  Wow."  Up until that point, I was eyeing the chocolate chip cookies on the table under the tent, but that little bit of positive reinforcement was all I needed to get my focus back.  Amazing how that works.

A few minutes after that, one of the mothers from school came up to thank me for taking her son home the other night.  I've only met her once before but she said, "I love your whole outfit...everything."  I didn't even remember what I had on until I looked down...red v-neck t shirt, black capris, long coral beads.  Nothing special.  My husband said maybe it was her way of thanking me for letting her go home to her incontinent mother "just in time" as she said. 

We had a 3-hour gap before the final races and my husband wanted to look for a new car.  He's finally getting rid of his two-seater convertible.  We went to a dealership owned by another skater's family and checked out some sedans and larger convertibles.  The wife was there and looked at me and said. "your face looks entirely different...like another person's."  I told my husband: she didn't say whether she liked this face better than the old face.  He looked at me and shook his head.

Finally, we got back to the races.  Every major New England prep school was represented there.  I saw a tent for Groton at the same time as I heard someone yell, "It's the C's!"  I look up and a good friend and her husband were waving to us.  Their daughter goes to Groton and their son went to high school with Sam and is in college with him as well.  The husband and I went to college together.  Abby introduced us.  The husband is from a very distinguished family (his great-grandfather founded Groton) and the wife is a New York sophisticate.  She hugged me, pushed me away and said "Oh...you can really see how much weight you've lost."  Really? I said, fishing for more compliments.  You know, this will teach me a lesson about being greedy.  When someone says "you look great, you've lost weight, etc." just take the compliment and run.  No, I needed to hear more.  Here's what I got:

"Yes...you can see your neck now."