WARNING! RHS Member on the Loose!

My back is killing me! I think I over did it with the shovelling and now I’m paying the price. A trip to the chiropractor would be nice, but at $50 a crack (pardon the pun), it’s just not in the budget. So I’m suffering.



To cheer myself up, I joined the Red Hat Society. That wasn’t, strictly speaking, in the budget either, but I had promised myself that when I turned 49 I would become a RHS member and now I have. Sometime within the next couple of weeks, I will receive my RHS membership welcome kit, which consists of: one membership card, one key chain, one RHS membership hand book, one getting started guide, one sheet of RHS logo stickers and one large, red, floppy-brimmed hat (though, technically, I can’t wear it until my 50th birthday.) I’m also entitled to 10% off at the RHS store where I’ve found several red and purple hats that I rather fancy and have added to my RHS wish list. (Can be viewed on Amazon.ca)




Plum Caribbean hat



The Red Hat Society was inspired by the poem Warning, by Jenny Joseph. In the late 90’s a few middle-aged women decided to form a social club with the idea of having fun in their middle-age and beyond. The RHS has mushroomed into the largest social networking club for women in the world with over 40,000 chapters world-wide.

Red Tophat

The poem takes a silly and whimsical poke at aging. It’s not very well written and I’m almost positive that Ms. Joseph never intended it to launch a society for women who, quite frankly, were fed up with the expectations of society to be proper and sedate and... Well, boring!




Plum Newsboy



As a newly single woman, looking for some adventure and excitement in her life, I think that the RHS is a good start to expressing myself. I’m not sure if I want to start a chapter in Houston yet, but I have a year to save up for some red and purple hats. Then we’ll see what being a card-carrying RHS member will bring. The way my back hurts, maybe one of those sticks to run along public railings...



Red Fedora



Warning



When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves



And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired


And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells


And run my stick along the public railings


And make up for the sobriety of my youth.


I shall go out in my slippers in the rain


And pick flowers in other people's gardens


And learn to spit.






You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat


And eat three pounds of sausages at a go


Or only bread and pickle for a week


And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.






But now we must have clothes that keep us dry


And pay our rent and not swear in the street


And set a good example for the children.


We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.






But maybe I ought to practice a little now?


So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised


When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.