Last night a bunch of us were engaged in that seemingly universal ritual that occurs worldwide, except for the simplest of third world nations and those in recovery, the Friday night “Cocktails for Mommies”. It’s a lovely event full of spouse bashing, children chat, anti aging options and, the older we get, increasingly purple teeth after the first glass of red. Last nights hot topic was bikinis for those over forty. It helped that it’s the last day of January and the threat of actually baring slightly saggy aging flesh is months away. The collection gathered at my kitchen counter was a particularly fit bunch so I was surprised at the lack of bikini wearers. One friend had always hated her belly and belly button (I can relate having just discovered that droop but to HATE such a sweet innocent part of your body? Feels extreme.) and thus, the tankini or the tank. Another said her husband liked a bikini but she didn’t. All in all, there was not a huge embracing of the almost bare over forty look. Well, I am a bikini wearer. I think there’s no better feeling than being slightly brown of belly at the height of summer. My friend Helga (I’ve decided to start changing names so that I don’t hurt feelings…and I’ll give everyone a very poetic name) once said, and I quote “
Are you seriously still wearing a bikini at 47? You’ve got to be kidding”. Well my response to her was this. If I were to suddenly switch to the tank suit, cover that belly and more areas of my slightly droopy bottom, shroud my post forty self in something more, er, seemly, perhaps with a little skirt, what’s it really going to do? It’s not like the twenty something studs are going to surround me on the beach like “Beach Blanket Bingo” and ask me to play volleyball and go for a beer? It’s not like I’m going to get a contract to model aging lady tank suits for JC Penny. It’s not like I’m going to look HOT. I’m going to look like me but without the brown belly. So why bother. I’m with Helen Mirren, keep that belly in the open. Although, my word she looked good.
ps I play whiffle ball in my bikini. Less wind resistance when running the bases.
Okay, so did anyone read the fabulous New York Times piece by Jane Brody (CLICK HERE )that pointed out, finally, once and for all something I’ve dared dream for years. Yes, it seem, that there is definitive, that’s right, clear definitive evidence now that houses that are too clean breed children with allergies and asthma. I KNEW IT. Or at least I prayed that it was true. My kids are like bulls. They rarely get sick, when they do it lasts for five minutes, and it’s all because I AM THE WORLDS WORST HOUSEKEEPER. And now I can say it proud. Say it loud. My house is filthy. Dust kitties, real kitties. A long haired dog that sheds. Piles of stuff in corners that I can’t bring myself to throw away, just in case I might actually need that coupon for 50% off new cabinetry even though we have new cabinetry. You never know when your cabinetry might go bad. I’m sure it can happen. So I save. My husband hates it. Every so often when work is slow and he’s around the house more, he cleans. And as he cleans, he mutters and glares at me in disgust. Just sly glances but deep with desire for a different, cleaner wife. The first time he ever went to my friend Heidi’s house, Heidi who has a shoes off policy so strict that if you walk in her door and stand in the doorway waiting to borrow a cup of sugar or, more likely, a bottle of red wine, she can not focus on what you are asking if your shoes are on. She literally can not hear you. Of course, it’s pathological of me but I get great pleasure in standing there sloooowly moving my feet just a teeny, tiny bit to terrorize her. However, only when I remove my shoes, after she points out that I am behaving like a naughty child, do I get what I want. Be it sugar or wine. Well, when Rich first went to Heidi’s house, he looked around, first in amazement and then in awe, and then, gazing at me sadly, muttered, “I want to live here”. Fine. He can move in with Heidi and they will die a slow painful death from some cleanliness plague. I’ll stay here with the kids, the cats, the dogs, the gerbils, the dust kittys and cobwebs and stacks of really important things and furniture that you might refinish one day and stuffed animals that the kids still might want and all those containers that I might need for cooking and, well, you know. We will live forever.
Okay, truth. It stinks getting older. It happens, I knew it was happening, I could see the crinkles next to my eyes, on my cheeks, on my upper lip. I told myself that they were signs of all of the good times I’d had. But this morning, the belly button. The damned belly button is drooping. I kid you not and now I’m afraid. I mean, what good times did I ever have that should result in a droopy belly button? When did my belly button ever smoke a cigarette, sleep with an inappropriate man or toss back four martinis and stumble home. My face did that. Maybe even my arms and legs. But my belly button was silent and well behaved. It never lived large. And now it’s going. This is a sign, a sign of aging gone wild, a melting of flesh, a dripping off the bones that can only end in a turkey gobble neck and strange black shoes worn with socks and sup hose because nothing else will fit over your lower legs. It will be all over when my inner wrists get fleshy.