Being Naughty

Recently someone very close to me mentioned to me thay he had been "naughty" and unfortunately I knew exactly what he meant by those words. I asked if he had shared this revelation with his girlfriend of 3 years and naturally he had not. This is where my moral/ethics barometer kicked in and I found myself telling him that although what he does is his own business, the minute he forms a secret alliance with another woman who is aware of the existance of his girlfriend yet the girlfriend is totally in the dark about the OTHER woman, he is on the wrong path, no matter how you slice it. I think anyone can handle infidelity if and when they have to, and while it is always painful and never easy to deal with, at least the sense of betrayal would be somewhat less devastating when you are not a double recipient of deceit. There is no reason to add insult to injury by choosing to confide in the NEW (or sometimes rediscovered) paramour especially when you know deep down that there is only one person who deserves your total honesty, and that is ALWAYS the person who afforded you theirs, NEVER the one you have been "naughty" with.

The Letter

You receive a letter from someone you have not heard from in 37 years and the first thing you think is how odd that your address has not changed in these many years thus making it possible for that letter to reach you, what are the odds? Then you wonder why this person is SUDDENLY trying to get in touch. You have a return address but do not immediately sit down to pen a response; instead you ruminate a bit and try to locate the memories that are still somewhere in your head although truth be told you have not given this person so much as a thought in 37 years. You organize the memories and decide that it would be ok to write a brief note but you are cognizant of the fact that you do not feel like doing the big reveal so you compose a friendly but vague letter of your own. You really have no reason to suspect that the "letter" you received has any ulterior motives attached to it yet you are for some reason still reticent to say too much and I think that you are also not that curious to find out too much either. When is it that we get to be secretive with those who were once privy to our innermost thoughts? Is it self protection/preservation that impels us or something else entirely? When the memories are 95% good, perhaps the veil of secrecy should be pulled aside and if that is possible. then it just might be ok to re-find a long lost friend.

Friday Night Oudoor Jazz In The City

The plan is for the Three Amigos to take advantage of the free musical feast available downtown tonight. In theory, these seem like fine arrangements until we acknowledge the fatigue factor, that weekly mega dose of bone tiredness that nearly overwhelms us come the end of every work week. Add to that our intense dislike of crowds, a temperature of 32 degrees (without the humidex!) and you have the perfect blueprint for failed plans or....you could try the following. Go directly home to your A/C and after you've showered, settle down for a mini rest or a power nap. You'd be surprised at how well you can revive, and it may even be just enough to allow you to put your plans into effect after all. If you do it right not only will you be able to get out on a Friday night, but you will not spend the entire evening yawning and wondering how you allowed yourself to be lured away from home and comfy bed. The only problem that may arise is how to get back to sleep when you finally roll in in the wee wee hours after having had an amazing night with awesome friends. No cure for that as yet....

The Afterthought Phonecall

When you have been the victim of an uncermonious "kiss off" which was executed in a less than mannerly fashion, do you honestly think that the perpetrator deserves to have her case reopened and heard simply because she has phoned in a semi quasi remorseful toned "explanation"? What could the kissoffer possibly have to say that you might want to hear? It should be of no concern to you at all if the guilty party acted in haste and now that no one is knocking on her door, is rethinking? her actions. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to decide whether or not you will grant her so much as the time of day. You have a myriad of options available to you, and none of them include rehashing a lousy and less than honest goodbye. You might consider revisiting Number 2 who you lost in the winnowing process, but whose honesty quotient is just where you'd like it to be, or you may choose to become the consummate fisherman which just may be the best way to go. This would entail forgetting about everyone who was a part of this "fishing" expedition, going to a sporting goods store to buy the latest fishing gear, making sure the bait is in its prime, renting a seaworthy craft and going fishing again!

Home On The Range

After having been part of a family and living with parents, siblings, children, husbands and/or wives FOREVER, if you suddenly find yourself on your own you will most likely fall into one of the following two categories; you will either be pretty comfortable with yourself and therefore happy on your own, or you will no longer know who you are and this will result in your never wanting to go "home" because you do not think that you are great company for yourself. Instead of connecting all your inner dots you become a master procrastinator. You may go out to a pub near where you work and end up staying until last call, you might go to a dance club and and before the night is over you're enrolling in a weekly class, perhaps you attend innumerable baseball games and don't leave till the clean up crew comes in to "sweep" the diamond or worst of all you turn into a digruntled then disillusioned serial dater. Instead of all this frenzied activity and too many late nights, why not just bite the bullet and spend some time solo, start getting to know the person that you have become . You might be surprised to discover that you are excellent company for yourself and when you do, you will come to understand that contrary to what you thought, being alone does not have to mean being lonely. You will see why living on your own in a cozy happy nest that you have feathered, is an awesome place to be because it's your home, whether or not it's on the range!

Don't Be Led Down The Garden Path By The Wrong Person

Just when you figure that you have a handle on the dating thing and you believe that you are on the verge of a new relationship, you find that you are in reality on the precipice of a break up even before you get out of the gate. I am not certain, but I suspect that you would have avoided this unsavoury episode had you mastered your "guide" and taken from it all that you needed. It is probably true that as a proactive measure, the guide should never leave your side in order for you to reap its full benefits for those 'just in case moments' that have a way of appearing when we least expect them. For now, you can only wonder how it is that you missed the tangling vines and weeds as you strolled down the path and perhaps question how you missed the lessons demonstrated by Alice when she followed the Mad Hatter!

Yoga For Seniors At Night (DMN)

Long ago I was introduced to yoga and while initially the thought of becoming the requisite contortionist did not appeal much, I did manage to stick with it for about a year and always assumed that at some point later on, I'd return to once again twist myself into various versions of a pretzel because it was after all good exercise. Now, many moons later I went to see a class demonstration for seniors fully expecting a room full of peppy over 60 yoga wannabes in any number of ackward positions but I was way off the mark. The room was calm and quiet, radiating a low low low energy which was actually just a step above comatose. Nobody had broken a sweat (a total anomaly in a "regular" yoga class) and there was absolutely no moaning and groaning (another yoga anomaly). This is perhaps due to the fact that there was barely any movement at all unless you count the airy wide circled waving in the air of 48 arms. Each of the 24 people had their little yoga mats and hand towels but the hand towels were being used as pillows strategically placed under graying heads as their owners tried first to bend their knees (post replacement?) then extend their legs. (this looked nothing like the leg extensions I have known but did look a lot like stretching out and preparing to go to sleep) Eyes were closed and once the waving and knee bending stopped, and if the faint chanting in the background could be ignored, the room took on the definite appearance of a retirement home dormitory in the middle of the night. Yoga for seniors at night is just like a hot toddy!