The tattoo is a little larger than I wanted, but the artist said that it was the smallest he could do and still make it recognizable as a fleur-de-lis. It measures approximately two inches high by two inches wide. The procedure took about half an hour and hurt like needles stuck in my leg, but it wasn't really that bad. My nephew said, "Do you think Gayle (his mother and my sister, now deceased) is here? What is she thinking?" I was visiting in Kansas City when he showed his mother his first tattoo. She was not amused. I said that she was likely thinking I had gone completely over the edge.
So there. I came back from Kansas City a changed woman. We shall see. I'm not calling attention to the tattoo around here. I'll let folks notice on their and see what the reactions are.
UPDATE: My niece called the motel Thursday evening, and said, "Is this my idol?" I said, "You must have the wrong number." She said, "This is your niece. You are my idol! You got the tattoo!" She thought it was the coolest thing. She had just turned 50 the day before, which was a bit of a blow to her, and she was still feeling a little blue the day after, so I hope that I cheered her up. My brother-in-law had taken a picture and emailed it to her, so she had seen the finished product.
UPDATE 2: Here is THE TATTOO, still a little bloodied. Eew! My brother-in-law took this same-day picture. I'll post a better picture later, once it is healed.
UPDATE 3: Too good to stay hidden in the comments:
The Wayward Episcopalian said...
If the body is a temple, are tatoos the stained glass windows?
You are Da Bomb, Mimi.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm not telling my children about this... ;-)
I'm certainly not telling my grandchildren.
ReplyDeleteMy grandchildren will have to know, because they will see it. My daughter was going to rush to tell her boys, because she said they the would think their old Mimi was cool.
ReplyDeleteEvery now and then, I think, "What have I done!" I almost got cold feet overnight, but everyone in KC said, "Go, go!" so I went.
wow!
ReplyDeleteI got one at age 50 - something about claiming my body as my own! A shooting star - but not where most can see it unless I am in a swim suit.
ReplyDeleteDiane, your response will likely be that of the polite folks around here. As for the others, I can't even imagine. GP said I will have to stop going to church or wear long slacks when I go. No more dresses.
ReplyDeleteAnn, we can form a club. Aging (or in my case aged) Women Claiming Their Bodies As Their Own By Getting Tattoos. AWCTBATOBGT. Add THAT to the alphabet soup!
Holy crap Mimi, that is GREAT!
ReplyDeleteYou are now my idol too Grandmere! And you should wear skirts to show off your tatoo--short ones!
ReplyDeletemany blessings, --it's margaret
Lordy!!! Guess I will have to go ahead and get mine. (I sort of want to in order to remember Naomi who had two.) Mine idea is of a dove drawn in brushstrokes, very simple but elegant... and the other would be the scallop shell to remember my Camino walks. I haven't decided on the dove but the shell would be on my left foot because that is the one that suffered the most.
ReplyDeletephotos! photos! we want to see a photo!
ReplyDeleteWow, that is great.
ReplyDeleteI've thought about tattoos in a desultory sort of way, but I don't think I could face that many needles. And Michael would definitely not be cool with it. But I just love the idea of doing something to shatter everyone's image of me.
BTW, what's wrong with being a diehard football fan? You and I could have a friendly rivalry whenever the Bears and Saints play. Maybe that can be your next stereotype busting project--learning to love football.
All right! All right! Here's the bloody photo! I tried red-eye fix on the red spots, but they turned green.
ReplyDeleteFran, Caminante, Ruth, what are you waiting for? You can join our club. We're inclusive, just so you have a tattoo, any tattoo.
ReplyDeleteFor some of you, we may have to adjust our name and leave out the "aging", although even you youngsters are not getting any younger. Admit it. You're aging.
Whoops, Margaret! I left you out. Come on. Join us.
ReplyDeleteOrmonde, you couldn't. If you've had chemo, that rules you out. How are you feeling, now that the treatments are done?
Mimi
ReplyDeleteYou Rock!!
My girls have been telling me in no uncertain terms that I'm too old to have my ears pierced (I'm 46!).
I'll ignore them now!
Cool! Wow! You Rock!!
It's lovely, as are you.
ReplyDeleteWow, Mimi, you are a fashionista statement-making trendsetter! Shattering preconceptions! And Ann,too!
ReplyDeleteErika, I was in my 50s when I had my ears pierced. Go ahead and do it. Indeed! Don't listen to your girls on this one. They're your ears.
ReplyDeletePablito, you are such a dear.
St. Pat, me a fashionista! A trendsetter!
Grandpère just told me that my ankle looks fat in the picture. How's that for a put-down? See the difference in the gallantry of a gay man (Paul) versus a straight man (GP). The straights just ain't got it.
I am waiting for the brother of a parishioner to come east from California. He did Naomi's tattoos as well as all the others in her family and he is really, really good. Someday I will have to tell Compa... ahem.
ReplyDeleteYours looks awesome.
I have the original piano legs so, if you'd like, I can photograph them and send them to Grandpère if he really wants to see ankles. Right now the shins are very bruised from two weeks ago landing on tree roots.
Caminante, what will you get? I hope it won't take you ten to twelve years to decide. Your man may be gone by then. You think Compa won't like the idea?
ReplyDeleteSend me a pic of your ankles and I'll show GP a side-by-side. Mine once were quite slim in another life.
Mimi, you go girl! My daughter got her fleur de lis on her thigh (she tells me) several years ago. I was scandalized. I'm over it:-)
ReplyDeleteJim, you can't know what it means to have affirmation from a fellow Louisianian. And me a girl! I blush.
ReplyDeleteWaving from California ...
ReplyDeleteWaykewl, Mimi
Thanks, Mike. What are you doing in California? Get back to Texas where you belong.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations, Mimi.
ReplyDelete"Caminante, what will you get?"
ReplyDeleteSee upstream -- a scallop shell for the Camino on the top of my left foot which the Camino wrecked and a beautiful but simple brush stroke dove of peace to go????
Susan, thanks.
ReplyDeleteCaminante, those sound lovely. We'll want pictures.
Mimi, I love it!
ReplyDeleteTell Grandpère he has breached etiquette. Southern good manners dictate that, if you can't say anything nice, you shouldn't say anything at all...
What can I say, Doxy? GP was never big on etiquette. If my ego was so fragile that I depended on southern gallantry from him, I'd be a broken woman.
ReplyDeleteMy fleur-de-lis really will look better in a week or so. I'll post the "after" picture then.
Mimi, congratulations! Fantastic. I've always wanted one, too. My wife is really opposed, but we've been married for 41 years . . . I don't think she'll kick me out of the bed at this stage, do you? I just might use you as explanation for my sudden impulse to get inked.
ReplyDelete--N'awlins guy in Oklahoma
Wow -- you rock! I thought I'd got over the ambition to get a tattoo because of advancing age and indecisiveness, but maybe I'll have to think again...
ReplyDeleteBaysage, welcome. Tell your wife about me. Maybe she'll give a little. Don't worry. She won't throw you out of the bed. How's life in exile? You have some fine teeth there.
ReplyDeleteJan, think again. Why not? The choice of what to get is what held me up for so long. That and fear of the needles, but the pain is over quickly.
Welcome Home Grandmère.
ReplyDeleteWelcome Home.
Thanks, Ladder. It's good to be home. I see from your blog that the Rising Tide Conference is coming up next month. I plan to be there, God willin' and the bayou don't flood. I'll do a post on it soon.
ReplyDeleteI musta not scrolled down far enough; I missed this thread earlier.
ReplyDeleteI can only echo Paolo, Mimi; it is meet and right, as befits your beauty.
Johnieb, it was my fault. I should have linked to the original story. I added the link later.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the kind words. I just talked to my granddaughter, and she asked if it was true that I had gotten a tattoo. I said that it was. She said, "Well, do I have a story to tell!" I said, "Yes. Tell the story of your crazy Mimi."
If the body is a temple, are tatoos the stained glass windows?
ReplyDeleteKirstin, thanks.
ReplyDeleteWE, you've been promoted.
You can't get a tattoo if you've had chemo? Really?
ReplyDelete(How ironic is it that when you get radiation they tattoo these little blue dots on you--to get the exact right orientation. So I can tell my students--if I wanted to--that I have three tattoos.)
Even though I personally would not get one (too inhibited) I full-on celebrate your new artwork!
Just a word of caution, though. Resist the rush. I don't want to see in a year's time your entire body turned into a canvas for body art.
(Let me re-rephrase that. I don't ever want to see your entire body...I mean..oh, never mind. I've buttered my bread and now I have to lie in it....)
Agha, that's what the tat artist said. Maybe he just won't do it. I had the radiation tats, too, and pills, but not the kind that destroy the immune system.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry. I am a one-tattoo woman. I have no desire for another. And I will never, ever subject you to a nudie of my full body on the blog. Horrors!
Hi, Mimi ... We went to California to visit my sister in San Francisco. Got to see a wonderful Chihuly exhibit at the DeYoung among other fun SF things. Then we took the Coast Starlight (Amtrak) down to SoCal to visit my mom in Camarillo, We got to see the old Air Force One exhibited in the Ronald Reagan Library ... a very beautiful place and very interesting to visit. Back home in Texas this evening.
ReplyDeleteMike, welcome home. Not that I'm there to be a welcoming committee or anything. Sounds as though you had a lovely time.
ReplyDeletePerhaps our new president will give attention to upgrading train travel in the country.
Mimi, we were delightfully surprised by our Amtrak experience. It greatly exceeded our expectations. We decided to treat ourself to a small "roomette"
ReplyDeletefor the trip and found that the three rather good meals we had on the trip during the day were included in the extra charge for the room. I do believe that if we added up the prices of what we ate, we came out ahead of the game! We also had access to a lovely parlor car with the "dome" windows with sofas and arm chairs.
It compared very favorably to the Eurostar between Rome and Italy last winter, although it is not a high-speed train ... and probably could not ever be a high-speed train because of the tight turns in the mountainous areas of the trip.
If this is the current state of Amtrak, I approve. I hope they are planning to expand their service.
WOW.
ReplyDeleteYou rock, Mimi.
As for Amtrak, they were nearly two hours late getting my mother into Washington, DC from Boston, and this on their alleged high-speed train. And it wasn't the first time. Don't get me started. Glad you had a good time, though, Mike. When I was out West the trains were often late too. Sigh. So I'll take Europe. And try to remember to lobby for more rail funding here, because it's all about political and economic will. It's not like we can't figure out the technology.
Mimi, you are amazing.
Mike, I fear that your positive experience on Amtrak may be rarer than we'd hope. I've heard quite a few stories similar to Jane's of trains running late.
ReplyDeleteJane, thank you. I never knew there'd be such a fuss over a small tattoo.
I showed the picture to David and he asked, "Was she drinking?"
ReplyDeleteI said, "But of course - She's from New Orleans!"
We both decided that you are much braver than either of us.
Dennis, it was not booze; it was Karma. Everything came together. I did have a glass of wine to calm me before the procedure, and I did tell a white lie on the form in answer to the question, "Have you been drinking?" but the decision was already made. I'm surprised at myself, but I'm not sorry. I could not have done it without the support and encouragement of my nephew - and that hard shove in the back as I slowed down in my approach to the door.
ReplyDeleteTell David that I have his card, if he wants to contact The Illustrated Man the next time he has business in Kansas City.
Oh, I want one too!! I have since I got my nose pierced, and I have what I want and where picked out, and I'm just waiting for the financial horizons to get a little clearer.
ReplyDeleteBrave Grandmere! I'm so proud of you!
Kate, go for it. You're right; the good artists don't come cheap.
ReplyDeleteI'm so annoyed! I've been so frickin' busy, I missed this!!
ReplyDelete(((((((((((Mimi))))))))))))
You rule. You do.
Eileen, thanks. I have not been visiting at your place as I would like to. I'm having a terrible time keeping up with the blogs I want to read, and I don't know how to solve the problem. I do have a shred of an off-line life left that I must attend to occasionally. I need to organize my time on the intertubes and establish some sort of discipline. Help!
ReplyDeleteMimi---do you use a feed reader?
ReplyDeleteThat's how I keep up with who's published---though it doesn't always help me find the time to read what they've published!
Doxy, so much was coming in that I was overwhelmed with what I didn't have time to read. I stopped them. Now I make my way around as best I can and follow certain comment threads.
ReplyDeleteMimi..I knows you luf me; you knows I luf you.
ReplyDeleteEventually, we met up. don't worry about me - I know where ta find ya!
And I can't WAIT to hear about how Grandpere is gonna kick Crazy Ass's Ass! Hee hee!
Eileen, I hope we've come to the point that we both know we love each other, even if we don't visit one another's blogs that often
ReplyDeleteImagine! The mad one said he "probably" deserves an ass-kicking for making fun of me.