The Cougar Pack

Brenda and I are standing on the edge of the dance floor, close to the band.  Our friends are gathered in a knot around a table, off to the side of the bar.  They’re the senior citizen contingent in The Rec Room, this group of 55 – 70-year-olds eating the cake Ellen brought to celebrate her husband Gary’s  birthday.  They want to chat with each other, rehash the old days and catch up on the new.  We’re all here because Gary
loves music, especially the blues, and a good local blues band is playing.

 But Brenda and I want to dance.  We always want to dance.  I’m thinking opportunities tonight are bleak.  None of our old codger friends want to do anything more active than move their mouths to talk and lift their plastic cups to their lips to drink beer.

Everyone else in the place looks to be well under 30.  They’re playing drinking games that involve flipping empty plastic cups or passing full ones boy to girl, girl to boy, without using any hands.

So here we stand, nodding our heads and shaking our hips to the rhythms of these young musicians.  I can’t read Brenda’s mind, but I’m guessing she expects some young blade to ask her to dance.  After all, she’s light-bulb-bright charismatic, confidant and has a history of affairs with younger men.  Guess that makes her a cougar.

How I hate that word.  Makes her sound like a predator.  She’s not.  She’s attractive, successful and fun.

Brenda and me, just hanging out around the dance floor.

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Vixen Divorcee’s First Blind Date

My friend, Marlys, set me up on my first blind date.  Her description of the guy sounded intriguing and I was ripe to test the waters of the dating world, so I said, “Give him my phone number.”

Our first contact should have prepared me for what followed.

He suggested dinner and a movie.  Okay by me.

He suggested The King’s Speech.  Again, okay by me.

Then he suggested that we meet at the theater and go out to dinner afterwards.

Not okay by me.

I suggested, tactfully as I could, that since we’d never met, I’d be more comfortable dining first, then going to the movie.

He wouldn’t budge.

That’s how I found myself in the lobby of a movie theater, walking up to a strange man, hoping he was my date.

Try finding your blind date in this crowd

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Solace for a Grieving Heart

The Last Day of Our  Acquaintance

By
Sinead O’Connor from her album I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got

 

 

 

 

Alan kept this CD in his car. When we drove long distances, he’d slip  it in the  player.  We’d sing along,  loudly and off key, glorying in the passionate imagery of the lyrics and the  pain and purity of Sinead O’Connor’s voice.   We’d sing happily, united in our love of the song.  Her pain wasn’t ours and would never touch  us.  Or so we thought.

Until the day arrived when we sat together in  the office of a marriage counselor.  The
day when I knew our marriage was beyond repair.  The day when he was still in denial.

We were living apart, hadn’t seen each other  for a week.  I turned to him and said,
“This is the last day of our acquaintance.  I’ll meet you later in somebody’s office.”

That was it.  We met later in somebody’s office to finalize the details, but those two
sentences marked the death of our marriage.

I never imagined until that afternoon how  perfectly Sinead O’Connor expressed the end of my love, or what solace I would  get from blasting out those lyrics in the home where I now live alone.

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