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Where’s a
Blinking Bathroom when you need one, Gol-darn-it!
You know you’re old
when you have to plan your day around bathrooms. One of these
days I’m going to get rich after writing a book called,
Every Secret Pot and Pit Stop in Monterey County.
Kegal exercises
aren’t enough. And don’t expect sympathy from men who can whip
out their privates and write their names on a tree, sidewalk,
wall or bramble bush at whim. It’s a vile and disgusting habit
that repulses women, although the fraternity of men seems to
approve of it.
But I have news for
you men; we menopausal women are learning sly ways to get back
at you.
Take, for instance,
the time I was out on a nature walk and nature called. (It never
fails, when I’m miles from my car or home.) I tried using mind
control for the first 10 minutes or so.
“It’s just like
laughter, or a belly ache, or delivering a baby,” I told myself,
although I’ve never delivered anything more than a letter. “It
comes in waves. Just suck it up, get through the next one, and
after you’ve done it long enough, it’ll pass.”
Sorry, but my bladder wasn’t listening. I bit my lip, hummed
silly songs, counted backwards from “a thousand bottles of beer
on the wall.” Of course, thinking of liquid was foolhardy. And,
then, every house I passed seemed to have its sprinkler on or a
babbling fountain out front.
It got so bad I was
honestly thinking of knocking on a stranger’s door.
However, just in the
nick of time, my car was in sight. And, like a child dancing
from one foot to the other, I danced my way to the door handle
and – well, you know how much worse it gets when relief is on
the horizon? I barely landed my seat on the seat and Niagara
blew.
That was many years
ago, and it hasn’t happened since. But the humiliation of it all
is branded into my shame core.
So, here’s the part about getting even with a man who, in
precisely the same predicament, would expect a woman to forgive
him if she happened upon him while he was facing a wall looking
at her over his shoulder: I eventually sold the car to a man!
Ha! Ha! Ha!
Did I give full
disclosure? Heck no! And I’m not about to tell you the model of
car it was or to whom I sold it.
Maybe it’s an
oedipal fantasy, but it’s my private occasional giggle to know
that I unwittingly “marked” my territory just like a dog,
unbeknownst to the male driver . . .
Musings: Two
Brown Sparrows
Purrsnikitty plunges into the plush leopard tube I have bought
for her and her sibling, Tabitha, and slides onto home base – a
crinkly Mervyn’s bag at the opposite end.
I adopted these
Tabbies to entertain one another. Not happening. My “lazy
bones,” as I now call them, will no longer play unless I, Alpha
cat, not only join them, but mechanize their toys.
Strewn from rooms to
hallways, my house resembles a disheveled Toys R Us. At the old
age of 11 months, do they appreciate my purchases? Hardly.
They’ve figured out how the ball goes around in the circular
plastic tube, so that one is a sleeper. And feathered toys?
They’re all bald. How about plastic balls with jingle bells
inside? Ho-hum.
Aside from playing
bounce-off-the-walls (they do, occasionally, get a wild burr up
their butts and challenge each other to see who can throw
themselves higher up the wall), I have tied two shoestrings
together and they will only chase them if I run around the house
pulling them. The second I stop, they stop.
They are giving me a
second workout and I’m developing a healthy grudge. I need
Cat-Anon.
When I adopted them,
I had just lost another cat. Truffle was the yummiest,
long-haired, part-Siamese, part-Rag Doll, part-Heinz 57 cat that
I’d ever had the good fortune to adopt. So, when I saw these two
plain brown sparrows curled up together in a cage at the pet
supply store, I was chagrined. I wanted a pair of long hairs in
some delectable color.
Problem is, even
though I told myself to keep looking, I’d already named them
that day.
Long story short:
they are the loves of my life. At 8.5 pounds, Tabby has stayed
short and cobby, with a golden belly just like a squirrel’s.
Purr is a “whomper,” as I call her, at 12 pounds. She’s my
jungle cat.
And as I roll onto
my back with feet in the air, or charge around the house
trailing a pair of shoelaces behind me, I wouldn’t trade them
for a pair of Persians. They look more beautiful to me each day
. . .
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