Women Over Forty

Since my original posting of this blog a few weeks ago, I've been informed (thank you, Pamela) that the writer of the following piece is NOT Andy Rooney, but a syndicated columnist named Frank Kaiser. Please see the following snopes URL for full disclosure (not to mention the both hilarious and horrifying letter of similar tone written by Benjamin Franklin).

http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/rooney2.asp

Massive disclaimer here: I DID NOT WRITE THIS. But I do love it and had to share. Though I'm not yet even close to my forties, I support this point of view wholeheartedly.

In case you missed it on 60 Minutes, this is what Andy Rooney thinks about women over 40:


As I grow in age, I value women over 40 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:

A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night and ask, "What are you thinking?" She doesn't care what you think.

If a woman over 40 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do, and it's usually more interesting.

Women over 40 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot you if they think they can get away with it.

Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it's like to be unappreciated.

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 40.

Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 40 is far sexier than her younger counterpart.

Older women are forthright and honest. They'll tell you right off if you are a jerk if you are acting like one. You don't ever have to wonder where you stand with her.

Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman over 40, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress.

Ladies, I apologize.

For all those men who say, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?", here's an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it's not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!

Somnambulism as French Drama

Hello all, and please help me welcome back my lost sarcastic self. I've missed her so! She arrived back in the form of a dream last night as I tossed and turned my way across the bed. (Rich is gone again. Sigh. Three and a half weeks now.)

In my dream I was a new mother again, terrifying in itself. (I'm not pregnant, Mom. Stop it.) But I dreamt that I woke up to the sound of my baby crying next to me from the crib. I stood and looked around for the crib but couldn't find it. The crying intensified and then changed into laughter, cackly insidious laughter that sent a chill down my spine and caused me to jump back into the bed looking for Rich. Who, of course, wasn't there.

I wrestled my way around the bed, shoving pillows aside, looking this way and that for my poor baby, finding nothing. I began to grow more and more panicky, knowing something was wrong, something was wrong, something was wrong. I turned on my bedside lamp and saw myself standing in front of me (wearing Rich's robe, for some reason. Was I perhaps standing in for him while he's gone, being my own voice of reason? Who knows?)

In a French accent I told myself to snap out of it. I don't have a baby anymore and I'm going to be tired all day long tomorrow if I don't stop having this dream. Oh, and let Marlo back in the room. She's out in the hall whining.

Huh.

At which point I woke up (kind of) and let Marlo back into the room where she hopped up on Rich's side of the bed and stretched out all the way to go back to sleep. My bed was wrecked, pillows in the floor and one corner of the sheet pulled off the mattress, so I fixed that and put myself back to bed, turning off the lamp and being grateful that my "baby" is a super-long dachshund.

I woke up tired this morning. After all that sleepwalking, I can't imagine why. But my sarcastic self is back with me again and I'm going to need her help with my manuscript revisions. My heroine is refusing to get happy.

But that's another story entirely.

Currently listening : Siamese Dream By Smashing Pumpkins Release date: 27 July, 1993

How Hot Was It?

So hot I gave up wearing mascara by day two.

So hot everyone was carrying cloths to wipe off the sweat.

So hot.... well, you get the idea. And if you don't, I'm too busy being thankful for air conditioning to illuminate you further on this point.

The church I used to attend in WV, before we moved so far away, sends its kids (from 2nd-12th grades) to camp every summer for a week. This year they were short on staff and since I hadn't gone up in several years, I was eager to volunteer.





This year's group was pretty small, only forty-seven kids in all and maybe twelve to fifteen counselors. On top of that, I knew most of the adults (though some of those adults were kids I used to counsel who grew up in my absense! Always a shock when that happens, isn't it?) but almost none of the kids knew who I was. Not that it made them shy around a camera.









So, did I get any work done last week? Um, no, not much. Did I have a nice, cool, relaxing vacation? (Hang on while the hysterical laughter abates) Not so much of that either. What I did have, by the end of the week anyway, was a deep love for these kids so many of whom were smart and funny and so caring of each other.

I realize this blog isn't of my typical voice, but it's what you get for rushing me (Phil!!!) and I think some of what I experienced this past week cannot be put into words.

Granted, the part where Kev and I left camp at the end and drove to Mom and Dad's where my brother came in from Nashville and all of us went and played laser tag and raced go-carts together? Yep, that part you could put into words, all right. That was so great that I'm scouting out laser tag facilities here in Raleigh so I can take visitors there instead of to all the historic sites! Who wants to visit Civil War battlegrounds and plantations anyway? Bah! Laser tag is where it's at!

Obviously I'm still loopy and catching up on sleep (and coolness... again, thank you Lord, for air conditioning). I need to get back to work, back into the swing of things in the current books. Book two revisions look promising. It's always funny how much you can surprise yourself with what you've written.


So I'll leave you now with a few more pictures and a promise of more and better blogging in the next few days. Big smooch to you all who kept looking in on me while I was away in the woods! Enjoy the photos. And check out the new ones in my photo section on the main page, too.




These are two girls from my cabin. One of them told me a long ghost story about a woman who hung herself from the ceiling fan in her kitchen during the big war of the mid-fifties. Someone found her hanging there and turned the ceiling fan on sending blood splattering all over the walls. All this to explain a fresh paint job in the uppermost cabin on the hill. I still haven't stopped laughing about all that. Nor could I bring myself to explain the relative newness of ceiling fans or to ask WHAT war in the mid-fifties. She's got a great career in theater ahead of her.






Wading in the river was a MUCH better idea than playing kickball on the last full day of camp.



Two of the sweetest kids you'll ever meet.




My new teenage son, soundly asleep on a ping-pong table. This is about what everyone looked like by then.