How to Find Women's Shorts

Last year a middle-aged lady seeking summer shorts found in the stores only shorts with 3-inch inseams--or 2-inch, or 1-inch--meant to show a lot of leg. A lot of thigh. This being unacceptable, she inquired of the Old Navy clerk, who said that was the only kind they had. On the way out, Middle-Aged Lady saw the men's shorts and grabbed her size (30) and tried them on. They fit very well (not perfectly; they don't have the same cut) and had 7-inch inseams. She bought khaki and navy blue--furthermore, made with serious pockets, and CHEAPER and BETTER SEWN than the women's, which were flimsy.

This year, Middle-Aged Lady sought summertime sport shorts, Dri-Fits, for hikes, forays, spin class, and days just too plain warm for cotton shorts, and the dozens of styles and brands of colorful women's sport shorts at Dick's Sporting Goods all had 3-inch or 2-inch inseams. The clerk said that was the only kind they had. Guess you're not supposed to be athletic and middle-aged. Lightbulb goes on and Lady locates the men's shorts: Basketball-type with very long inseams; compression shorts; running shorts with male briefs inside (would require that Lady use her sewing skills to remove the brief). She picked up and tried on a weightless, well-vented pair of Dri-Fits from Nike, 7-inch inseam, called the "Freedom" model, made without the inner brief, featuring two front pockets and a zippered key pocket, comfortably wide-legged so on her body they look like culottes (who remembers culottes?!?). She couldn't find the pricetag so she asked a clerk and he found it and said, "Forty-five dollars," and the Lady blanched, but purchased men's size Medium, which accommodated her curves, along with inflation needles for her basketball. At home she put the shorts on and has now taken them off only to sleep. The next morning before spin class she ordered a second pair online, exact same, same price, and hopes they last.

Lazy Vegetable Planting

Collards, one of my favorite greens, thrive in extreme weather, especially the extreme Missouri summer heat, and I bought what I thought was four plugs of them but it was six and I let them sit in their tray for a week not knowing how I was going to get the muscle and vertebrae to weed and turn over a patch of soil big enough to plant them 18 to 24 inches apart. It seemed impossible. The little plants' leaves began turning yellow. I had to act or throw them away. I asked the powers that be to solve my problem.

It so happens there are two eight-foot boards left in the lawn from a coldframe that was built around 2001, which I dismantled in 2011 except for those two boards I couldn't move and let lie there. Where the coldframe's vegetables were is now a tangle of wildflowers and weeds (see top left of photo). Yet over the years the boards rotted and weakened a bit and I jostled  one around, pulling it backward; and behold, beneath it was an eight-foot strip of fresh, rich, worm-happy, almost-weed-free, sun-facing soil just right for planting my collards 18 to 24 inches apart. No weeding, no digging, simply planting. How lucky! How great! How lazy! Divinely inspired.