Hubris in heels

I woke up about 4:30 this morning. That's not unusual. At my age, I rarely sleep through the night uninterrupted. But it was less about a need to use the facilities than it was about my left ankle. It hurt! What the heck? Then I remembered.

Yesterday afternoon, a store where I buy Jane Iredale cosmetics was having a first anniversary event. I had booked myself a slot. First up upon my arrival—wine and a mini cupcake! It was a good quality Pinot Noir too, and the cupcake was from Cupcakes (by Heather and Lori). Om nom nom nom! But I had just the one.

First up was an interactive demonstration by a representative from Dermalogica. I'd known about their products for years, but I had never tried any. Four of us (the other three women about half my age) had our skin checked and then went through a particular series of cleansing, exfoliating, and moisturizing. My skin is in pretty good shape for my age (and the demo guy said so), but I do have sun damage, so I was particularly interested in a product that helps reduce that over time. At the end of the demo, We each took away a sheet of recommendations. There was no hard sell. It was all quite nice.

After that, we had our makeup reapplied—with Jane Iredale products, of course! I'm pretty good at evening looks, so even though it was late, I asked the makeup artist to show me a daytime look. I wasn't going anywhere but home anyway. So he worked with some nice neutral shades and achieved a result I was generally happy with. He was especially good with my eyebrows, which are in pretty good shape but thinner toward the outside. He used a good pencil first, then did a very cool thing—brushed in just a hint of red, enough to create a subtle match to my hair. I'm definitely going to try that myself!

I did think the lips were a bit too dark. It's a known fact—the older you are, the less you should go for dark lip colour. You want makeup to make you look younger and better, but dark lip colour on me makes me look, horrors, older! It was still a nice colour, but I don't think I would repeat it. Play up the eyes, keep the lips subtle. I will need to look for something in a kind of faded red, not pink, not purple (my usual shades), but not too intense. I also don't like lip liner outside the actual lip line. I've never seen that look good. Sure, I'd love fuller lips, but lip colour isn't the way to make that happen! At least not to my mind.

One reason I had gone to the event was that I needed to buy a bunch of stuff anyway. Normally I order from this store online and have the order shipped, but I figured the makeup session might help me make adjustments in tones, as indeed it did. I held off on the Dermalogica for now. I didn't want to run up that large a bill.

I headed home on transit. At the Skytrain station, there is a long escalator. Now, I was dressed in shopping clothes—top, skirt, tights, scarf, and my new favourite booties with the four-inch stiletto heel. They're very easy to walk in. So I did what I should not have done and walked down the escalator. I was being careful and sure-footed. I was almost at the bottom, and I remember thinking specifically that I was being careful and sure-footed and getting away with walking down. Just a hint of gloating. All of a sudden, I lost concentration. My left ankle came down wrong or caught something, and I twisted it. I almost had a spectacular wipeout, but I caught myself and managed to get off the escalator and continue walking toward the train with at least a shred of my dignity intact. It did not seem that I had hurt anything.

But in the wee hours, my ankle let me know that it wasn't just my dignity that was bruised. The gods always punish hubris. A classical Greek theme! It's great to be confident, but it also takes unfailing concentration, and probably not even a hint of gloating. Better and smarter to ride down the escalator without trying to hurry things, especially in heels.

Since I didn't know anything was hurt until just a few hours ago, I hadn't iced. We'll just have to see if this ankle is up for Zumba tonight!