Romance for Real Women

As we limp through these hot, sticky dog days of summer, not much captures my attention except the prospect of an afternoon in a pool, an air conditioner turned to an extravagant seventy degrees and never ending sources of liquid beginning in the morning with ice coffee and progressing through soda, ice tea, and water to pails of alcoholic beverages at night.

The children are off with Miss Moonbeam to a cooler climate and thank goodness as my nerves are shot. Patience may be a virtue, but one hard to cultivate in a climate where nothing is thriving, water might be rationed and giggling newscasters nightly discuss record temperatures.

However, one news item did make me pull my blouse from my sticky back and put down my fan. I understand Los Angeles is prohibiting fast food chains from opening in sections of the city. Its citizens are too obese, proclaim the presumably svelte members of the city council.

It’s hard to work up any kind of outrage in these temperatures, but this one did it and not because I object, as all real women must object, to choice being imposed by local government.

Before the children left for their holiday, I had three mouths to feed. As I am a wage slave, there was no question of nightly excursions to any kind of restaurant, healthy or otherwise. We eat at home.

I would stagger from the office into the heat and to the super market and pick up something simple for dinner, vegetables I could grill, chicken breasts, hamburger, whatever was on sale. Grilling I am told keeps the ambient temperature in the house down.

But it doesn’t do a thing for my temperature. Five minutes outside and I’m a puddle. Not pretty.

I pass several fast food restaurants on my way to work. I began to notice them. They began to loom large in my rear view mirror. One morning as I was blinking perspiration from my eyes and cursing my car’s unreliable air conditioner, I saw a large blinking sign out in front of one that said, “Lesli, stop here tonight.”

I was on to something. Despite Miss Moonbeam, who was horrified, despite my own convictions about healthy food, convenience won. That and the fact I didn’t need to light a grill, an oven or my gas top stove.

The children were delighted. Hamburgers. Tacos. Those five dollar sandwiches. And, yes, fried chicken. This summer, we’ve had them all.

As you know, Miss Moonbeam is a vegetarian and disdainful of pop culture in which she includes fast food chains. When the children, despite my admonitions, babbled to her about the nightly feasts, she pushed up the date of their vacation, swooped in and with only a telling glare at me, took them off.

Thank God for Mothers.

Thank God for fast food.

Down with the LA City Council.

Now, I gotta go and unwrap dinner.

When it comes to good looking men, we’ve already established that I’m shallow. In real life when a see a gorgeous guy I have trouble with that brain/mouth connection and my eyes just don’t behave in a lady-like fashion. Nope, brain goes blank. Mouth does that fish thing. Be honest, what would you do if this guy was in front of you in line at Starbucks? (Assume he ordered a tall coffee, not a caramel non-fat soy latte with extra foam)

I have a couple of friends with farms and  ranches of various sizes and they even invite me to visit occasionally. I can imagine how much of a fool I’d sound like if I had to ask him where the south forty were.

Not that I’d mind looking a blithering idiot if I absolutely had to gawk at those abs and shoulders. Naked. Hey, I already admitted I’m shallow.

Aloutte

Having blogged sexy underwear, I think it’s at least as important to blog the subject of British royalty. So, for real women everywhere, the question of the day: Is Camilla Parker-Jones really a dog?

I, like everyone I know, with the exception of real men, adored Princess Di. When I woke up on that dreadful day, my partner told me she’d broken her arm in an accident in Paris. (The first reports out of Paris suggested a less horrific accident.) Ignoring any other responsibility, I promptly hit the couch and wound up watching TV for an entire week.

I remember those darling boys; the miserable way the queen behaved; and, of course, Christopher Hitchens who wondered why people cared so much because she was “after all, just Euro trash.”

I didn’t disagree, but I watched.

The fascination with Diana continues more than a decade after her death. Tina Brown, the brilliant former editor of Vanity Fair, released a book last June called “The Diana Chronicles,” a major step up from the various degrees of merde released by the sleazy hangers on and former lovers who apparently surrounded Diana. And, didn’t the British High Court recently release yet another finding that really, really, really Prince Phillip had nothing to do with her death?

So, poor Camilla. She is rather long-faced and leathery and certainly those of us who remember the leaked love tape with Charles still cringe at his assertion he wanted to be “her tampon.” (I won’t dwell on what that might imply about the royal member.)

The problem with Camilla is that she’s just not relevant. She’s not gorgeous, mistreated or anorexic. However, she does put up with a guy who talks to plants, powers his car with wine and who is given to the kind of wacky assertions we might expect from a man waiting for his mother to die. So maybe she is a victim.

Nah.

I have to admit, I have a sneaking sort of sympathy for her. Remember Diana used to call her “The Rottweiler?” The tag, so apposite, gives lie, BTW, to Hitchens’s implication that Diana was brainless, unlike, say, Dodi Al Fayed.

So, maybe the question is “where do real women stand on the issue of Camilla Parker-Jones?”

That one I can answer.

We don’t care.

Most real women are far too frugal to buy books in hard back. But there are some exceptions.

Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child are one exception. For those of you who don’t know, Jack Reacher is the itinerant ex-military cop who wanders the U.S., stumbling into situations requiring his special skills of calculation mixed with a hard headed willingness to do serious violence. He carries only essentials with him, a folded toothbrush, an ATM card and an expired passport. Every couple of days he buys a new set of clothes, discarding the old one. He occasionally works the odd job, but lives mostly on his savings.

Reacher’s operating principle is forward movement. He hates to go back. In Nothing to Lose, the new Reacher novel, he’s “taken it into his head to cross the continent diagonally” from Calais, Maine to San Diego, California. As the book opens, Reacher is in Hope, Colorado where he is intrigued enough by the name of the neighboring town, Despair, to make a side trip to it.

In Despair, he is picked up by the police, tagged a “vagrant” by the town judge and driven back to the border between Hope and Despair. His decision to stick around is described this way: “Six blocks to Main Street, Reacher figured. If he turns left, takes me onward to the west, maybe I’ll let it go. But if he turns right, takes me back east to Hope, maybe I won’t.”

Reacher has been called “One of the most popular characters in contemporary thrillers, a perfect hero” (Chicago Sun-Times) and “the thinking man’s action hero.” (Denver Post).

He is intriguing. And, he is “thinking” in the sense that he is calculating and not just when he is faced with violence where the odds are against him. Here, his operating principle is “Get your retaliation in first.” And there are other odd flashes of calculation as for example when he calls upon the judge in Despair. “In Reacher’s experience the average delay when knocking at a suburban door in the middle of the evening was about twenty seconds.”

What an extraordinary thing for a character to know!

But there is more. After a woman answers the door she “stood still and said nothing. In Reacher’s experience the husband would show up if the doorstep interview lasted any longer than thirty seconds.”

Wow.

But he is not a crusader in the sense that John MacDonald’s Travis McGee was a knight in tarnished armor defending the weak or wronged. Far from it. His only motivation to investigate Despair and trigger the events of the book is the right turn made by the cop. Once the town’s ugly secrets begin to emerge, he is on the “right” side, but only by happenstance.

I once read a review where Lee Child was quoted as saying “Reacher is an animal.” (That might not be exactly the word he used, but it’s close enough.)

He is. A fascinating and brilliant animal. And Lee Child has given us a fascinating and brilliant book.

It’s number one on my summer reading list.

As I was flipping through my stash of hot guy pics, I came across one of Keanu Reeves and thought about that silly movie where Diane Keaton picks Jack Nicholson over Keanu. I said when I saw it and still believe—that just wasn’t right! Keanu’s character was gorgeous, charming, a heart surgeon, adored her, AND he took her to Paris for her birthday for dog’s sake!  Jack’s character was a jerk played by Jack. Was this woman too stupid to live or what?

Based on my vast research over many years of dating, I’ve decided handsome men can be just as wonderful people as the aesthetically challenged.  AND they look so delicious naked. Yeah, yeah, I’m shallow but there’s no way I’ll ever be so demented I think Jack is a better deal than Keanu…ever, ever, ever!

Of course, the Ultimate Perfect Man ever in cinema was Jake Brigance in A TIME TO KILL. Everything a woman could want—brilliant, loving, faithful, funny, a modern day knight in shining armor with a southern accent fighting for justice. It didn’t hurt that he looked like this:

Sigh. Off to the movies…

Aloutte

Okay, I admit I’m a little theatrical. A lot theatrical.

Real women can be theatrical.

When we were little, my sisters and I used to dress up in Miss Moonbeam’s treasured relics from the sixties. These consisted mostly of faded tye dyed caftans which she felt herself unable to discard. Mom encouraged us to play with her old things perhaps dreaming that her peace and love philosophy would rub off on us the same way dye fades in the wash. That is to say, quickly and thoroughly and all over everything else.

Although I made do with tattered caftans, I yearned for polka dots, sequins and crystals. At Halloween, I always insisted on the brightest, most sparkling costumes. My Cinderella at the ball costume wasn’t fantasy. It was the deepest expression of my personality. I spent months finding exactly the right accessories for the beaded flapper dress Granny gave me one year. A long strand of faux pearls, earrings and a real cigarette holder.

Mom was horrified. I loved it and still regret outgrowing it.

Granny never quite reconciled herself to the bohemian daughter she’d produced and, despite her deep, unwavering love for my mother, never understood her. But she understood me.

Granny insisted I take ballet classes which I did enthusiastically until it became clear even to me that I’d never be a professional. But, oh, I loved those costumes and the glittery makeup. I loved performing even if all I did was trip around the stage. Literally.

Granny also gave me dance lessons which in our town were taught at the local war memorial that had an auditorium for civic use. Mom swallowed the dance lessons, although the clouds of pink Granny and I decided were essential for waltzing were harder for her.

Along with sequins and beads, tears used to be an essential part of my theatrical repertoire.

I learned early on that I could cry just by thinking of something sad. My Cinderella costume, conveniently lost at some point in my childhood, a string of crystals Mom declined to buy, make up she made me scrub off. All could bring tears.

Shallow, I know. But we make do with what we’re given.

My tears aren’t the sobbing kind. No. At least in my fancy, I am more the pre-Raphael type, long tresses bound in a net with a few tendrils of hair attractively escaping over a willow neck; white skin emphasized by a sheer gown; disconsolately watering the plants I’m drooped over with tears that escape one by one.

God, I was good.

Unfortunately, Mom also had the gift of tears. So, when I’d go into my drooping femme act, she’d tell me to knock it off. Or when she was in the mood she’d provide a little competition and my sisters and Granny would find the two of us draped languorously on the couch, tears flowing down our cheeks between giggles.

As I got older, I admit I used the tears to great effect especially with men who didn’t know me well. My ex-husband claimed before he departed that he never knew what was up with me. (I never said the divorce was entirely his fault.)

To her credit, Mom opposed manipulation by tears. In fact, when my partner and I were just into our relationship, you know the stage where you’re committed, but everything is still sort of starry, Mom suggested we do our femme act for him. I was enjoying the hell out of it until it occurred to me that S/O was being given an important piece of intelligence.

So now when I droop, he sits down and enjoys the show. Once he even asked me to hold the action until he got the popcorn ready.

Hardly fair.

However, I got smart and now I set the mood. These days, I’ve stopped drooping and now do my performing in sexy lingerie.

So, I get the results I want: his undivided attention.

It’s all theater, ladies.

Although I adore blonds, I admit that most gorgeous men are dark haired.  A writer friend told me romances with dark haired men on their covers outsell those with blonds—which is why the ever delicious Nathan Kamp, a brunette, was her fair-haired hero.

Then I realized for the most part I like my heroes dark and dangerous.  These are fantasy men after all and I don’t have to live with them on a daily basis (the criteria for a husband/significant other has NOTHING to do with the fantasy thing). The fantasy hero is tall, dark, leanly muscular, handsome, a bit of stubble works—the alpha male with a “right here, right now, baby” attitude that sets the pulse to racing.  A masculine masterpiece like him…

Oh, yes, he looks great in jeans.

And out of them.

Time for that cold shower!

Until next week…

Aloutte

My friends, who consider themselves experts on what this blog should and should not contain, have given their opinion that Aloutte, my friend who is posting “Hot Guy Friday,” has been insufficiently introduced.

Never mind that they know her and get HGF every Friday anyway.

Nevertheless, they may have a point.

Here goes. Aloutte is a friend who is about my age. (I’ve mentioned my age once in the “Who I am” section of this blog and I’m not going to do it again.)

Like me, Aloutte is from the East Coast and grew up with hippie parents, a fact that gives us much to laugh and cry about.

She is a top professional with a financial services firm, one, by the way, which hasn’t lost money for their clients in the recent market turmoil. She is highly educated, and a wide ranging reader of both literature and romance who can dissect a book in about thirty seconds.

After a couple of false starts, she has been happily married for a decade and like me, she loves gorgeous sexy lingerie.

She started HGF” as something of a joke, but soon found all her friends loved getting the eye candy, especially on Friday after a long week at work. She describes better than I can why she does it in her first HGF post.

She’ll be posting tomorrow. Stay tuned. I always do.

My Mother, the original Miss Moonbeam from the sixties, declined to marry any of the fathers of her children. Marriage is bourgeois, an insignificant, meaningless piece of paper, an institution designed to oppress women, all according to Mom.

But real women, of which she is one, love romance-even if it involves an exchange of vows before a priest in a church and comes with all the trimmings.

We just can’t help ourselves. And, it’s fun to see her in full wedding planning mode as her sister’s grandchild gets married.

The kids are just starting out, a couple of years out of college, so the original concept was that it was to be a small, intimate wedding in my aunt’s backyard as befitting the couple’s age and current economic status.

That of course was before Mom and Auntie drew up the guest list and realized there were fully 200 people that must be, had to be invited. Leaving one, even one, off the list would result in deeply hurt, never to be mended feelings

The church had already been reserved and it can easily accommodate the anticipated rally. But it didn’t take these two matriarchs long to figure out that the backyard just wouldn’t do.

So with Mom leading the charge, a country club has been rented for the reception.

The original plan had been for the bride to wear a sweet summer dress with perhaps a floppy hat. (That was Miss Moonbeam’s suggestion.) Now the search is on for an appropriate pattern and a thoroughly vetted dress maker.

An even more vigorous search is on for a veil purportedly worn by my great grandmother which has somehow disappeared. I won’t say these two perfectly charming women are pointing fingers at each other, but…

Currently, the telephones, landlines and cells, are burning up over issues involving flowers for the church, food for the reception and the merits of a morning coat versus a tuxedo.

I honestly don’t know how much input the poor bride is having into these weighty issues, but I assume everything is fine since I’ve heard nothing to the contrary. And I would have because I’m being brought up to date every night, although my opinion is never sought.

My sisters and I were raised on the aforementioned philosophy subscribed to by Miss Moonbeam. So, we are thoroughly enjoying her absorption in every detail of her great nephew’s upcoming nuptials. Unable to help myself, I went so far as to ask Mom why she was so involved since she didn’t believe in the institution.

She gave me the thousand yard stare she reserves for really stupid questions from her children.

“Bunny,” she said using her nickname for me, “you really don’t understand?”

“No, Mom, I don’t.” No chance of letting her off the hook on this one.

“They need my help,” she said before taking a call from her sister.

Oh, of course. Right.

I have sometimes criticized relationship gurus and no doubt I’ll have other criticisms as new so-called experts pop up with boneheaded advice for gullible young men and women. But real women know good advice when they see it and the advice quoted by Maureen Dowd in Sunday’s New York Times is the best I’ve ever seen.

Prompted by news articles about Christie Brickley’s notorious divorce from Peter Cook, Maureen Dowd found a 79-year-old Catholic priest, a Father Pat Connor, who gives marvelously refreshing, common sense advice on what to look for in a husband.

I won’t quote the entire column. You can look it up easily. But I do want to emphasize one important point.

Father Connor suggests you never marry a man with no friends. That this indicates intimacy problems.

I’d go a lot further.

Talk to your friends when you’re contemplating marriage or a relationship. Then really listen. Their advice is even more important than any you may get from your parents or siblings.

Friends, unless you’re running with a totally evil group, don’t have agendas. They actually want you to be happy and want you to be happy on your own terms.

Parents, however, well meaning, can’t always see beyond their own perceptions of what’s good for you. For example, you’re a doctor. He’s a carpenter. They see the socio/economic difference without understanding the stability issue is more important to you than the economic one. Your friends will get it.

Another piece of advice. Think long and hard before you ally yourself with someone from another, vastly different culture than your own. I did not say skin color here, please note. I said culture.

The female relatives of the gorgeous Muslim man you met in college wear burkas. But he’s Americanized, you say, he doesn’t believe in burkas, the headdress worn by Muslim women.

Sorry, my child, it’s not going to work. The world is growing closer together all the time, but not that close. You’ll be in for a world of hurt.

So, listen to your friends and carefully consider his background. Throw in Father Connor’s advice about intimacy, money management, humor, ability to disagree and more and you have an excellent starting point for evaluating your relationship.

If I do say so myself.