The Golden Bachelor, the CheerLeader and the Art Class

 

I’ve been so busy I hardly noticed that September turned into October. My first clue that it was happening is that I got a phone call from one of the guys living in my continuum care complex asking me how my dining dollars are holding up, and if I ran out would I like to have dinner with him and his wife. He’s in my writing group and I’m in book club with his wife. They always have extra dining dollars at the end of the month because she eats gluten free and this place cooks with too many things that makes her sick. She’s on the food committee and is responsible for getting a kale salad put on the menu and salt-less butter served with our bread. I'd vote 'Yuck' on both of those if they put them on a ballot. Salt-less butter has no flavor what so ever and the kale has a bitter taste I don’t like. Why can’t healthy food taste like our favorite flavors of ice cream? Life is so unfair! 

The Golden Bachelor

One of the reasons this week flew by was because the management threw several evening events at us which is not common if you’re not a card player: One was a cheese and crackers get-together by our fireplace which is new while playing Quibbler at night is only new to me. (The third night event was a Paint and Sip party, more about that later.) This was my third time playing Quibbler and I can honestly say it’s eating kale---good for my brain, but I don’t enjoy putting myself into situations that makes me feel stupid. One of my goals in playing, though, is to push myself outside of my comfort zone.

The side benefit of playing is you can’t sit next to someone for two hours playing a card game without picking up details about their interests and personal history. For example our resident Cheerleader who, they say, never misses Quibbler and is their ‘rules’ go-to-person didn’t show up this week because she wanted to watch the first episode of the Golden Bachelor. She’s been married three times and is one of only three people here who, gossips say, has tried dating since moving in. Two are guys who lost their wives and they didn’t waste any time shopping for a replacement companion…one with success though he only looked as far as the widow of one of his friends, and the other guy is still looking but gets teased because he’s only dating women from off our campus, found and vetted for him by his daughter. The Cheerleader dated a guy a couple of times who comes to our campus to give massages but that didn’t work out. She's got money. He doesn't, and she's ten years older than him, but I don't know if either of those facts was the reason she didn't continue dating the guy. She says he's "a nice person."

The Golden Bachelor, so named because the bachelor is 72 years old, is the first season of the Bachelor franchise for senior citizens. Since the parent franchise has been going for 27 seasons and this week's show was their 286 episode I’d say it’s about time. It's a popular series and I’ll admit to watching an episode here and there but I've haven’t felt compelled to follow an entire season. Yet.

We got finished with Quibbler early enough for me to catch the last half hour of the show and the Rose Ceremony. For those of you who don’t know how a Rose Ceremony works the bachelor spent two hours drooling over 22 women (in this season they are ages 60 to 75) and at the end of the evening he gave all but six women a rose. And those six are essentially voted off the island or to be more accurate, they are kicked out of the mansion where they all live together during the season’s filming. Each week the show ends with another Rose Ceremony until the bachelor is down to three women and at that point he gets overnight dates with each. The final Rose Ceremony ends in an engagement. Already I'm disappointed in this season because the Golden Bachelor boy kicked out the only woman who had short, white/gray hair and he opted to keep all the women who had dyed and bleached hair with lots of extensions. Only one other woman dared to leave a streak of gray hair in her otherwise black mane of hair. Well, two actually but I don’t know what to call a haircut that is showing the woman's gray roots standing straight up ending in an half inch of black hair on top and close-shaved sides and back. Both of these women are the token women of color in the cast and will probably get kicked out at the end of the 3rd or 4th show. I hate that a standard of beauty is perpetuated by shows like this that women can't be attractive without expensive and time-consuming hair treatments and isn't necessity all your own. Especially for older women. I thought there was a movement to accept gray hair in the beauty industry. And I’d bet money these candidates "looking for love again” kicked off their sky high heels the minute the cameras quit rolling.

One of the fan favorites of all the contestants, I read, put in her bio that she "loves to play ping pong, reading and body glitter." Body glitter? In your sixties? What will they think of next! Another woman loves to swim with the sharks. Other contestants listed as their 'fun fact' things like: Christmas enthusiast, makes hand-crafted greeting cards, enjoys 100 year old brandy, loves horseback riding, wants to have lunch with Kris Jenner and my personal favorite answer was the contestant who said she has three master degrees. She'll be kicked off the show early on because she's also the one who dared to leave two streaks of gray hair framing her face. Still, I had hoped that this senior season they'd place more value on brains and less on looks but I'm guessing the producers will stick to their not-so-secret formula that has kept the show in production for so many years.

Every season has a so-called bombshell like two women falling for each other or a former boyfriend shows up at the mansion and wants his woman back. I suspect one of the women from this season is transgender. If I'm right I hope The Cheerleader has set up a few viewing parties and a pool to see who is still standing at the end like she doesn't for fans of football and basketball. It would be fun to watch a few of my fellow residents react, knowing they think Trans people are a threat to society and all children everywhere.

Enough on that topic. Also this week was our ‘Paint and Sip’ evening which only costs $10 plus $5 for wine if we wanted a glass. I didn’t but those who did barely touched their glasses over the two hours of painting. One guy accidentally used his wine to clean his brush in so my hint to any who goes to a ‘Paint and Sip’ party is to only order red wine so you can tell if from the brush cleaning water. 

When the instructor first came in I was kind of insulted by the simplicity of the picture she wanted us to paint. By day she teaches kindergarten and she must have assumed we were like the people on campus who reside in the memory care building. She gave us little pools of the primary colors on a paper plate and I asked for some white so I could mix colors. I also teased the guy next to me that I was going to steal his brush because I didn’t like mine. So the instructor gave three more and loudly announced, “There’s always one in every class.” At the end, though, the consensus was that my painting turned out the best of the twelve. I had fun but the painting I came home with is nothing to write home about. (It's below.) And thank goodness it was done with the same paint that her kindergarten kids use because I managed to get white paint all over my favorite pair of jeans.

 Until Next Wednesday… ©

It's supposed to be the lake we live on but

 I didn't get the swans on it like everyone else did.