Big Pink Cabbage Roses

I woke up this morning, alone unless you count Harriet, who is very accommodating in her sleeping habits and will sleep as late as I choose (although she do draw the line at the early rising, and does not even budge when I get up at 5 to walk). I amused myself at first by checking to see how I felt about waking up alone on my birthday, and surprise!, I felt fine. Because I got the devil in me, I reminded myself of my advanced age, and my solitary status, and guess what, I still felt fine.

Better than fine, really. Last night I went to the Delfeayo Marsalis show. Those Marsali. They got it all sewn up, what with their handsomeness and sharp dressing and easy charm and smooth talking and quick wit. Then you bring in the music.

I would say that I went alone to the Marsalis show, and I did, but I did not end up alone. I put my chair down in a big empty space and went to walk around, and when I returned, I was in the bosom of a family who had come and put their chairs and blankets all around me. They had thought my chair was Cookie's chair. Cookie was a glamorous lady in her 50s with an elaborate hairstyle and glittering red sandals and a red blouse that made the most of her womanly curves. I offered to move, but they said no, and I offered again, and they said no, and then I just gave up and sat down next to D. and met her nephew C. and an older lady, B., who had a gracious warm manner. Cookie was surprised to see me when she showed up later, but she took it in stride and offered me some water. It was very funny to see the reactions of the people around us when I settled myself in my chair.

D. is 50 and newly divorced and quite alive to the charms of a chiseled calf muscle on a man (and willing to express her admiration aloud should a man with such muscle pass by), so we had a little conversation about online dating and she told me about her adventures, most lately with a man from Guyana who was claiming to be a middle-aged white guy from Bel Air. I told her to read a certain self-helpy book that may save her a world of hurt, and she asked me to repeat the title so she wouldn't forget it.

And I was reflecting on my way home with the inky sky overhead and the warm desert breeze blowing in from the sunroof, that indeed, in the immortal words of Louis Armstrong (which song Mr. Delfeayo Marsalis and his talented fellow musicians played last night), it is a wonderful world. I reflected you just never know what is going to happen.

What I've been saying is that today, I embark on what I hope will be the second half of my life. If I live to be that old, you know. Today I have looked at it from every angle, I and I do believe that the second half is rolling out in a satisfactory manner. Which isn't to say there won't be bumps in the carpet. Maybe even cigarette burns and big red wine stains. Who knows what else. Maybe even something nastier. The carpet of life never do lie completely smooth. But today, I have looked at my life and I have seen that it is good. I'm in the patch with the roses just now.

And I am studying the theme of You can't get ever enough of what you don't really want, in the immortal words of Eric Hoffer (I think, and also the Friends of Bill Dubya) concluding that the only way is to hold the line and wait it out until what you want shows up on your plate. A metaphor that we can apply to every part of our life and see how it fits.




P.S. I must mention that I dreamt of being in a big indoor hot tub place (no naked, though, and definitely nothing inspiring about it in the way that one might think it would be inspiring), and that one of my friends had tried to set me up with a solemn native American guy named Gurkhis, a nonsense word fabricated by my subconscious. What the.