"Older" Women

I wish you could come with me to one of my favorite places (don't laugh), the toilet line at "our place". You may recall that I had complaints when I used the actual name of the "place" previously, in connection with a small impropriety in the ladies room, so you will just have to call or email me if you're curious or itching to visit. But I digress....So, standing in the line is always an education, especially as the evening becomes drunker. Not me of course, I have found I have more fun with a modest amount of alcohol, enough so I have no hesitation dancing to "Gonna Rock this Town Tonight", but not enough to knock over tables, a thin line I know. The young man who was waiting in the queue with me was actually fairly sober, perhaps not old enough to drink, hard to tell. He is obviously struggling to make conversation and opens with, 
"You dancing out there?" Of course he has seen me dancing so it is a rhetorical question. I consider telling him so, but he does not look like the brainy sort. Instead I guide the conversation carefully, 
"Every time I can get my husband on his feet." A light bulb comes on briefly and he says, in a disappointed voice, 
"Oh, you're married."
"Very" I reply, cutting that dogie off at the pass.
Still hopeful and still stupid he goes on, "I was looking for an older woman..." He didn't finish the sentence because another lady a few years younger than me arrived and moved between us to stand in the ladies queue.
"Is this the line?" I reply in the affirmative while still laughing. Motioning to him with my eyes I say,
"He's looking for a cougar."
Her face lights up, a gale of laughter spills out and she takes a long look at him.  Like the bad gunfighter he is he proceeds to shoot himself squarely in the foot. (think Barney from the Andy Griffith show)

"Oh, not especially a cougar, just any woman."
More laughter ensues at his expense and she says, "So it doesn't matter huh? Any woman from 12 to 80 is okay?"
He tries to recover from this conversational catastrophe, but he is so out of his league. The other lady and I chat about him like he's not there, providing a bit of "dating" advice, and then the ladies room door opens and it's over. She is still there when I come out but he is long gone. We look at each other and laugh again, shaking our heads.


I catch him eyeing me as I leave the dance floor later, still standing alone, still clueless. Since he is in the peach fuzz stage there is still some hope for him, I think, but I doubt he will ever become Mr. Suave. If he was in the same line later in the evening he might have seen the couples coming out of the facilities together and wondered where he went wrong. I can counsel him on that one however. Here is Elaine's advice to the young man looking for a booty call.
- First and foremost, Pick drunker women!
- Secondly, play it close to the vest. If you put your cards on the table from the second you start negotiations you are likely accustomed to working girls. Women who do it for fun would like to hear some compliment about their appearance or personality. Something that says, I picked you out of this crowd because I think you're special.
- Next, women who are with a partner and look like they are having fun are not your best choice. That is like looking for Easter eggs in the spot where the last person found one. Look for the girl who came in with her friends and try to lasso her out of the herd. I know this is intimidating and it may require a bit of conversation. Just do it.
Finally if all of that seems like too much work just go with the first step and Pick Drunker Women!


Now you may have noticed a bit of disdain for the age challenged in my tone, so I want to add a disclaimer. In my youth I dated 17 year olds and also 18, 19, 20 and so forth. As a grown up, after my divorce (and before my subsequent marriage), I occasionally dated very young men, but my preference was for those past the awkward stage, men who needed no education. While I admit I am flattered by the attention of a youngster, I am totally charmed by a man who knows how to flirt, knows where the lines are drawn, and tells me all the lies I love to hear. I find those men usually have a few miles on them, and have known a bit of heartache. The men who attract me are smart, funny, and sexy at any age, like the one I married. So if you're moaning about over some aches and pains, or finding a balding or grey haired stranger in the mirror, do not despair. The secret this smart older woman knows is this--a good man isn't so hard to find after all.  You just have to look with your heart.

Kits, cats, sacks, and wives..

Almost 20 years ago when I was placing French students for visits in American homes one of my friends said, "Well, I'll think about taking one after I find places for all these kittens." She gave me a sidelong look with a question mark in it. I went home with a yellow cat that lived for 17 years and she kept a smelly French student for three weeks. I have never been especially good at barter. My children were happy however as we had flirtations and short term affairs with a number of cats over the years, but at the time we were kitten-less.

I would tell you the name of the yellow tom tabby, but for the life of me I can't recall. The reason being that names for cats do not stick well in our household. My daughter gave them elaborate storybook names and my husband immediately renamed them something he felt fit their personality. I note that no cat ever comes when you call the name they have been assigned. I am most certain they have a name they call themselves, but it is unpronounceable in human language as it requires both sound and smells we cannot duplicate. Over the years I have determined that "here kitty, kitty" accompanied by the rattle of the treat bag or hum of the can opener is sufficient to draw even the most arrogant feline to my feet, so why bother?

Once you open your door to a cat you can be sure it will not be an only child. Cats draw others like furry psychic magnets. I think they have hobo signs they leave on gate posts to alert each other to a soft heart, but once again, it is written in the cat language that even the ancient Egyptians who worshiped them could not translate. The yellow kitten was not settled in well before another friend negotiated a similar cat/student exchange, but this one went for broke. "I have this rental property," she told me, "and I had to evict the tenants. They left this ugly cat and a litter of kittens behind. I have placed all the kittens but one, and of course I have to do something with the mother." You know how this is going to go, right?

The mama was a large tortoise shell queen with half a tail. She had been passed around from hand to hand through her long life and heaven only knows what trials she had endured. She was an excellent mother to the nest of adorable fluffy kittens and one pathetic little one that looked exactly like Mama must have in her youth. I will not say they were ugly cats, but their looks were perhaps an acquired taste. I gathered up the mom and the one ugly duckling and headed for home. I know you want a Disney ending for this one but frankly both the mom and child turned out to be very annoying cats. The mom, Sally, lived to groom any animal that was in range of her tongue, including humans. She taught this to her daughter so effectively that anyone whose lap either graced was doomed to enduring a cat spit bath for as long as they sat there.

I took all the animals to the vet to have them checked and set up times for neutering. The mom got her nip tuck right away, but the vet said the little ones would have to wait a bit. Of course I had French students arriving in waves over the summer and I admit I was negligent. I guess I never thought the two little ones would "play doctor" so soon. The litter of kittens was born on my daughter's 10th birthday, on her bed. They were all four grey tabby toms, but my daughter immediately dubbed them Mootsie, Cutsie, Tootsie and I forget the other, but I always want to say Cottontail for some reason. My husband did not name them as he did not expect them to be around for long. He was correct in his assumption, but before they left us everyone had their day at the vet including the teenage parents who remained with us their entire lives. 

Over the years we spent many small fortunes in vet bills on the cats. The teen mom that my daughter called "Sweetie" and my husband called "Stinky" developed an allergy to her teeth. I swear I am not making this up. The vet pulled them out in stages which cost us around $1200. Before that one of her kittens managed to jump six feet in the air and get his paw hooked on a fishing lure while playing in the garage. That happened very early on a Sunday morning right after we had returned from vacation at midnight on Saturday. We called around for emergency vets and finally ended up carrying a screaming half grown kitten wrapped in a towel 15 miles across town. On the way the cat managed to hook the sleeve of my the expensive wool jacket I had tossed on in my haste, so we arrived at the vet with the cat and I struggling on one hook. The vet took a pair of scissors and cut a quarter size hole out of my jacket to free the cat, adding additional dollars to our expenses. Upon our arrival home, a few hundred dollars in cash later, the cat seemed none the worse for wear, but from that time forth he was dubbed 'Sir Fishhook" by my husband.

Ah, good times, good memories. Not that all our cat experiences have been negative. We now have 4 cats who make their home with us but many more have come and gone over the years. The momma cat with half a tale lived out her life with us, died peacefully in our arms and lies sleeping in our little pet cemetery along with Sir Fishhook, Mr Doodle, DooWha Kitty, and assorted mice we ironically kept in cages to the eternal frustration of them all. The last of that era left us in March of this year. She was almost 20, a frail geriatric cat who had ceased grooming herself and lost all pride concerning her bodily functions. Sadly, it was a relief to us all when she went.

It is most surprising to me that I have owned cats at all. I am decidedly not a cat person. The cats I have most enjoyed have personality traits more like dogs. They are excited to see me when I come home, they are not picky eaters, and they chase things. I find them amusing and appreciate the fact that they require less maintenance than dogs. My daughter now complains when she comes to visit that everything is covered with cat hair and she has to take something for allergies as soon as she walks in the door. I patiently point out to her that they are all her cats and I am only the reluctant caretaker. I also inform her that I used my super vacuum, Scotch Fur fighter and many sticky rollers on the furniture before she arrives. The same conversation has been repeated between us ad naseum. Soon she settles down, takes a Clariton, and snuggles with the cats she rescued from the animal shelter 10 years ago.

 I only rarely mention the kitten she found in the neighbor's barn loft that lives in our garage. As sweet and soft a little thing as you will ever meet, but a consummate barn cat. A great mouser, she has never grasped the concept of the litter box. She has egress to the outdoors from her home by the slightly open window in the garage. A rescue that worked out much better was the cat at the vet's office that sat sadly in a cage and looked at us with soft blue eyes. The receptionist told us she would have to be destroyed in a few days as she had a defect in her hind legs and no one wanted her. We named her Diannah and she immediately attached herself to my middle son. When he moved away she grieved so that I purchased a special cat sack, tucked her into it one early morning and flew with her under my seat all the way to Seattle where she now makes her home with her boy.

My husband remains characteristically silent on the subject of all these cats, but every night Artie (short for Artemis) and Luna, both named for moon deities, snuggle up comfortably with him on the sofa. It is said that cats do not have owners but I will say the cats are intensely loyal to my moon child husband. They all communicate in a deeply intuitive manner, more feeling than logic. I am linear, impatient, and constantly occupied, while my husband and the felines are serpentine, forbearing, and prone to inertia. I know it is not for me that they came here or for me that they stay here. However, even though my world is covered with their hair, even though they hack up things on the oriental rugs, even though the litter box is an endless chore, they do give me a lot of joy and I am glad they decided to live here. Okay, I said it and I wrote it down, but I reserve the right to deniability in the future. Now if you will excuse me I have a (gag) litter box to clean.