Old Women Having Fun

 

It’s easier to write when I’m all fired up mad or annoyed by something than when I’m mellowed out due to having a good time at one of the ‘laugh fests’ we have around the continuum care complex. Laugh fests can happen over the silliest things and silly things do not translate easily to the written word---at least at my keyboard. Like last night at dinner in the fine dining restaurant when I got seated with three others I know well but rarely get paired up with by the hostess. And maybe that’s because we tend to laugh a lot which grabs everyone’s attention as opposed to when conversations are strained because I’m at a table with Ms. Manners and her canary soft voice that barely makes it across that table.

Last night we ran through the usual opening question of “What did you do today” and as a reply one of the ladies was telling about how tired she was from working on a cottage that she’s putting up for sale soon and she said, “When I finally crawled into bed I yelled out “Yes! Yes! Yes! Then I worried that my neighbors heard me through the wall and they’d think I was you-know-whating.” 

“You know whating?” Lady Two asked with a confused look on her face and Lady Three answered, “Having sex, dear.” Ladies Two’s confusion slowly got replaced with a huge grin, “That’s what we used to say, isn’t it. It’s been twenty-five years.” “And we can gather you haven’t seen a x-rated movie or porn in twenty-five years either?” I added to the conversation. Lady One burst out laughing and said, “Fifteen years for me" and Lady Three shared, “Ten for me. I might be 93 but I used to have fun!” By then I was laughing so hard I was afraid I’d fall off my chair. For the rest of the night one or the other of us would say, “Yes! Yes, yes!” and we’d all burst out laugh. “Oh, this pork roast is really good,” and a chorus of ‘yeses’ answered. “Are you having dessert? “Yes, yes, yes!” “Are you going to the movie after dinner?” “Yes, yes, yes!” That’s a laugh fest at its finest.

Another night, another dinner and eight of us were around a table each taking a turn at trying to get the top on a take-out container that looked like it would fit but didn’t. I got up to get myself a cup of coffee and as usual they didn’t have the right size tops to fit the cups and I came back to the table complaining about that. “We have free coffee now but we can’t carry it anywhere because the tops never fit.” Someone else piped in with, “that’s because they buy them from the same company where they buy the take-out containers.” I kid you not these two things have been on-going problems here---not life threatening but mildly annoying and that night this issue turned into a comedy act.

If you manage to get the tops on a take-out box then when you go to take it back off it’s like trying to break into an cast-iron safe. One time I thought I’d end up in Urgent Care trying to pry one open with every conceivable tool in my kitchen drawer. Another woman ended up with the food on the floor. We swapped so many stories and laughs so hard around that table about miss-matched lids that the cafe’ manager came out and took all the coffee lids off the rack. And of course whenever the topic of coffee comes up the woman who single-handedly talked our CEO into making the coffee available all day long and for free has to re-tell the story. Big game hunters bragging couldn’t story-tell that accomplishment any better. 

Also this week at a social hour outside on our piazza the guys got started on a topic that had all us ladies scratching our heads when Guy One says, “I couldn’t decide between having pie tonight or having an affair behind my wife’s back.” Did I hear that right? Yes, I did. And Wife One was sitting right beside him and heard it too. Then Guy Two stepped into that pile of dung and said, “I’d always pick an affair over dessert.” There were 8-10 of us ladies around our outdoor fire pit and someone said, “We all know who to stay away from now on, don’t we, ladies.” And one of the women from my dinner table the night before yells out: “Yes, yes, yes!” I still don’t get in what universe a guy gets to pick between pie or an affair but three times this week my belly actually hurt from laughing too. So I knew I had to try to write about these little episodes that happen routinely around here at the CCC. I've written---probably too often---about the gossip train that goes through this place so hopefully this post gives a proper balance to what life is like around this place. ©

The Last Days Before my New Beginning

If you're reading this the day it went live---October second---I'll be out in the garage waiting with baited breath for the son-I-wish-I-had to deliver the twenty-six foot moving van he rented. He and his sons will load that sucker up on Sunday and he is confident all my stuff will fit. I’m not so sure. I’m embarrassed and a little panicked to admit that I ended up with 167 boxes. In my defense a lot of them are small boxes and some of the bigger boxes are full of the smaller boxes that I’ve condensed inside so we can make less trips back and forth to the van. And everything got tagged with a number for the inventory sheet like a jigsaw puzzle roll-up mat and the laundry cart. Fifteen boxes are full of books, ten boxes hold kitchen and laundry room items. I can’t imagine how many I’d have if I hadn’t downsized in those rooms. Two boxes holds all my shoes and boots and the way the weather turned since I packed, I’m going to need my L.L. Bean Rubber Moc boots soon. It was super hot and dry when I packed my clothes and I used my winter sweaters and sweats as packing material. Oops! I’ll freeze my balls off, if I had a pair, before I get totally settled in.

This past week has been the calm before the storm. (Note it took me four proof readings to finally see that I originally wrote “the clam before the storm” and while Google whispered in my ear that strong, storm-driven tidal waves have been known to cause a killing field of razor clams that is not what I meant to say. Damn dyslexia.) Anyway, what I was trying to say is that everything that could be done has been done and I’ve been twiddling my thumbs, hoping I haven’t forgotten anything. To paraphrase Santa, “I made a list and I’ve checked it a million times.” If I forget anything it will be my name because I’m really tired of thinking so much.  

Earlier this week with time on my hands I even obsessed about the idea of switching the location where I’ve been planning to put my media cabinet and my bookshelves which would have meant relabeling a bunch of boxes and making a new floor plan for moving day. It wouldn't be an easy job to switch them once they get loaded up with books, CDs, VCRs, DVDs and photo boxes. After playing around with idea for two days I finally decided that since the whole idea was driven by the desire to make room so my TV could go inside the media cabinet instead of on top of it---for nicer aesthetics in my main space---that a better plan would be to get rid of all my CDs and cassettes and get a radio that I can get an XM Sirius Prime Country subscription. The player and speakers I’m using are such poor quality that I don’t enjoy music in the house like I do when I’m in the car. Who said I couldn't/wouldn’t have new goals after moving? In the meantime I unlabeled the box of packed VCR movies and the player and off to Goodwill they went. I haven't played any of them in a decade so why did I think I'll do it going forward?

Speaking of obsessing, I couldn't stop thinking about that box of glassware and cups the woman I hired packed. I bought three smaller glassware boxes and unpacked what she did. I'm glad I did. She had stacked things three deep that shouldn't have been stacked and that box was so heavy its bottom wouldn't have held up. 

Tuesday I managed to get in a long lunch with two of the ladies from my old Gathering Girls group. It felt good to laugh with them again. The pandemic did a number on our group of six but instead of mourning the way it used to be I'm working on being grateful we were a cohesive group for as long as we were.

Also this week I met an old friend for lunch. He lives north of me and we met in the middle. In all honesty it could be the last time I’ll ever see Gary. I don’t like to drive and he’s getting more physically disabled every time I see him. But he promised to come visit next spring and I promised if I come up to tend my husband’s grave I’ll give him a call to meet for lunch. He was a close friend of my husband’s since their high school days, bonded together by shared good times both before and after I entered the picture and by helping each other out when one or the other went through a rough patch.

In the 52 years I've known Gary he and my husband talked weekly for more years than I can count and there was one question I was dying to ask him---in person, face-to-face. Don’t judge me for this but I wanted to know if Don ever talked about our sex life. “No!" Gray replied, "Never. Not a one word,” I've been curious about that for a while because on talk and TV shows, in books and movies young/er people seem to freely discuss details of their sex lives that I never would have ever shared with friends. I can’t decide if this is a good or bad thing for society. I mean violence, war and murders are okay to depict in vivid detail, but not sex? Doesn't make sense. 

On the other side of bed sheets shouldn't some things between a couple remain private or off limits in this age of documenting our whole existence on social media? And look who is asking this, the woman who spills her guts bi-weekly in her blog. Note I'm being bit hypocritical here, too, because I did write about our sex life once in a post titled The Love and Laughter Memories but I did at least, spare readers the graphic details. So there's that in my defense of adding to the pool of too much information. ---See, I told you I had too much time on my hands this week otherwise my mind wouldn't have wandered this far off from the gigantic task ahead of me. ©

Mr. Rogers, Sex, Racism and Aliens from Outer Space

Here I am again staring at a blank computer screen and wondering what I’m going to write about. At times like this do I call on Stephen King or Fred Rogers for inspiration? Mr. King, when people ask him how to write, he answers, “One word at a time” which seems like he blowing them off but, really, he’s not. You can’t write if all you do is think about writing. He goes on to explain that the Great Wall of China was built one brick at a time and you can see it from space. So what’s a little blog post between friends? I can do this! The trick is to figure out the right words to use in the right order and Mr. King keeps that secret close to his vest. 

I mentioned Fred Rogers  as inspiration for blog fodder because too often since the pandemic started I’ve been thinking about of one of his songs, hoping it would conjure up a magical spell or fantasy that will set my world right again.

“What do you do with the mad that you feel

When you feel so mad you could bite?

When the whole wide world seems oh, so wrong...

And nothing you do seems very right?

“What do you do? Do you punch a bag?

Do you pound some clay or some dough?

Do you round up friends for a game of tag?

Or see how fast you go?”

I’m obviously too old to bite or punch although some old people have been known to revert back to those childhood habits but I’m not going there if I can help it. “Pound some dough” though is thought-provoking considering that so many people have taken up baking during the pandemic that it’s caused a shortage of flour nation-wide. Did we learn that trick for coping with stress in Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood so long ago that we’d forgotten why kneeing dough helps calm our minds? Or is it something more primal inside us? I always found baking bread to be meditative and it didn’t hurt that making artisan breads was one of the few things I was actually good at doing in a kitchen.

Speaking of kitchens I’ll tell you a secret; I kind of wish now that my husband and I tried sex in the kitchen. (It’s all those stupid romance books I’ve been reading that’s making me type this confession.) I’m not sure if it’s a generational thing that we never did it the kitchen or we just didn’t think of it but whatever the reason that ship has sailed without me. Even if I was still interested, there aren’t men in my peer age group who could lift me up to sit on the edge of countertop so we could---shall we say---line up our ‘baking equipment’ and that might be the least of an old dude’s problems. Egads, I need a Clorox Disinfecting Wipe to get that image out of my head! Funny thing about fantasies, though, I’m always young, fun and sassy in mine. And just in case you're wondering---and who doesn't---"wham-bam thank you ma’am" is literally defined as a sexual encounter conducted quickly. It's been around since the 1950s and it was made popular by Dean Martin.

Tip for the day: We can’t play tag with our friends during social distancing because being tagged “it” could cause us to get us sick and die, and if you’re black you also can’t run as fast as you can without chancing getting killed for #runningwhileblack. There’s a list of 100 Things Not to do While Black online with links back to stories of everyday things people of color have done that caused a white person to call the police---too many of which resulted in unjustified killings. Black kids as young as seven have been shot by the police for doing normal kid stuff. And it doesn’t matter what kind of neighborhood you’re in. A former White House aid under Obama was moving into an Upper West Side Manhattan apartment and someone called 911 to report he was burglarizing the place. Some people say that racism has gotten worse since Obama became president, that he somehow caused a wider divide and I used say, "No" his getting elected just brought the racism out in the open. Then I heard Will Smith squash both those ideas on the Stephen Colbert show when he said, “Racism Is Not Getting Worse. It's Getting Filmed." Yup, the popularly of cell phones is just documenting what’s been there all along.

I've gotta end this blog post someplace and if I was writing fiction I’d have a mass invasion of purple aliens coming to earth in peace with a Covid-19 vaccinate and a way to mindwipe bigotry out of existence. And while we wait for that to happen, let's all pledge to stay safe from the virus and to not rush to judgement regarding those who are protesting in the streets (before the White Supremacists and anarchists entered the fray and turn the protests into riots). Sure, it's bad, it's shocking, it's tragic, it's terrifying and the lawlessness needs to end, but try to remember that when activists like Colin Kaepernick took a silence knee at sporting events to draw attention to the types of things that sparked this recent violence, few people listened. Let's hope something or someone can find a middle ground in between these two extreme ways of reacting to the same social injustices so that more people will demand systemic changes. God help us if we can't.  #blacklivesmatter! ©

Wham Bam...one of the things I didn't know when I was a teenager