Sixty

Shades

Of

Red

Faced

Elderly

Embarrassment

I was just picking up a bag full of fertilizer, standing in queue, patiently waiting my turn, fishing in my purse for my dowager discount card, when I noticed a woman in front of me clutching a packet of twine. Behind me, another woman, looking like a cowgirl readying for a round up, loops of rope slung over her shoulder, under her arm, around her neck and piled high in her cart. She glanced over my shoulder at the customer by the till and stage whispered, "No, no, no...not that flimsy stuff. Did you EVEN read the book?"

Being the gardener that I am, and a radio talk show host extraordinaire who prides herself on interpersonal communication, being in the know, staying abreast of current events, and possessed of the ability to make friends in the midst of a check-out line, I stuck my nose right in the middle of a none-of-my-business-busyness. What book, I asked, with innocence and a smile.

To say that the two thirty-something women smirked, would be an understatement. In fact, the electricity that crackled, make that cackled, in the air, made my hair stand on end. These two were up to no good.

Setting a trap, for the sucker born every minute,

all dressed up in yellow wellies and a bag of compost.

The book. They told me the name of THE BOOK. They tee hee hee heed and ho ho ho hoed all the way out of the store. I figured it must be a VERY good book. A side splitter. A just for women rib tickler. An inside joke.

So, off to the bookstore. Standing at the information desk. In another queue with more thirty-somethings. I did what I always do. Informed the uninformed of my most sincere intentions. My hippest hip replacement hipness. Told them I was about to buy the BOOK. A book about a whole range of just one color. A colorful book. A book that would keep me in the loop, just like the women in the hardware store.

The woman, approximately the same age as me, poised behind the information counter had to shout to be heard over the cacophony of chuckling. She could have warned me. She could have prepared me. She should have SAVED me. Instead, she tried desperately to straighten up, to get enough breath between wheezing heaving snorts, and pointed her finger over her exploding head, to the shelf beside the counter.

Something. A siren. A warning bell. An alarm. A red flag.

I smiled my gratitude and ignored the woman being fitted with an oxygen mask, lying on the floor clutching her ribs in obvious pain. Something didn't match up. I think she was grinning.

Found it.

THE BOOK.

Oh.

Oh my.

Chapter after chapter after chapter...of um, er, well, geez, instructions.

Lots of instructions, VERY CLEAR instructions, but not one word about gardening. Well, maybe a few words about home maintenance, repair and upkeep...but...slightly more frisky.

Frisky.

A blast from the past.

Euphemisms.

I miss 'em.

I am a gardener. A fan of the birds and the bees.

To be honest, my face was red, sixty shades of red to be precise. Not because I was shocked. The only thing that shocks me these days is the nasty nagging nerve behind my right knee. My trick knee.

I was tricked.

And slightly ticked. To be the punch at the end of the line.

The truth is simple.

Feelin' frisky does not go out of style as we ripen on the vine.

Closeness.

Tenderness.

Being near and dear to our near and dear. 

It is still a fashionable accessory to sensible shoes and silver tresses.

That I find all those chapters and verse a bit exhausting,
doesn't mean I've forgotten how much fun it is to be wooed.

Rope?

Nope.

But a cuddle and a kiss. Mmmmm....

One of the best parts of growing up and growing older,
is the realization, that my capacity to blush is still gracefully intact.

  "I Love You"

Perennial love. 

First it sleeps

Then it creeps

And finally it leaps

Living, growing...

Across the seasons

Weathered and

True. 

love, Love, LOve, LOVe, LOVE.