Sinner's Alley Happy Hour (Part 1)

Parent Cafe
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<p>Everybody shift to the right. Now that we are drinking on into the bleary morning I’m crowding back into the booth with a single malt in hand. Inhale that peat. Feel the love.</p>

<p>Congrats again to the SluggBoy! And to the rest of us and our friends, as Jonathan Swift said on one of my birthday cards, May You Live All the Days of Your Life. </p>

<p>I will live all the days, but unclear if I will then remember them… I can only say, moot, if you are losing none of your smarts you are one lucky lucky girliekins. I am not sure if I have yet reached the age where I have forgotten more than I learned but I’m getting there.</p>

<p>Knocking one back. Maybe I’ll have two or three. Drink to momusics departed friend. Drink to SBMom’s book. Drink to jmmom’s whatever she wishes for. Smooches to all.</p>

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<p>L’chaim! (Did I spell that right?)</p>

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<p>Lots to catch up on…</p>

<p>HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALUMOTHER!!! :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile: Champagne time! (Goes very well with fried chicken, so I’m told. :wink: ) Lovely post re: turning 50, although please consider that death is (at least statistically) quite far off. </p>

<p>Hugs all around.</p>

<p>Re: being “pretty.” Sadly, our culture does not recognize the beauty of older women. We seem to think that the first wrinkle makes one less than stunning, which really isn’t true. Meander over to Europe, where women are considered sexy well into their 50s. :wink: Watch “The Thomas Crowne Affair” and take your cues from Renee Russo.</p>

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<p>Moot, you got it. I agree with Alu, I am definitely less a smart girl than I once was. I used to crackle! Now I mostly hum. Good for you that your brain is going strong.</p>

<p>For all of us 40-55 year olds:</p>

<p>“In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost. Ah, how hard it is to tell of that wood, savage and harsh and dense, the thought of which renews my fear.”</p>

<p>-Dante Alighieri, “The Divine Comedy” :wink: Yep midlife crisis, c. 1300</p>

<p>I’ll have one of those scotches… at least one. This is the right place to be when the straight way is lost!</p>

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<p>Alu,</p>

<p>Girl, </p>

<p>just throw on Chanel shades better yet, pull em up on the top of your head like a head band and say hey I am having another birthday and it’s a beautiful thing!</p>

<p>Don’t even worry about no longer being the pretty girl, because we’re now WOMEN who with each passing year look forward to growing even more into our womanhood and feel truly feel blessed for all that life had given us (the good and the bad) thus far. </p>

<p>So while we look in the mirror and see few grey hairs, age spots, stretch marks, and crow’s feet, let’s be grateful and embrace every single one of them because we’ve earned them. </p>

<p>As pretty girls, we did not know things like unconditional love for another person. We did not know a thing about mother wit or how conflicted we’d feel about watching our babies embark on their new adventures. </p>

<p>As pretty girls we would have never gotten out of the way to let someone else have their moment to shine, but we look at that little part of us walking around and become amazed at the fact that we have done some pretty good work despite all of our Ooops moments.</p>

<p>As pretty girls, we would not have been able to handle all of this wisdom and grace that we’ve garnered over the years. And the last people we would have ever laughed at now supplies us with the most laughs- ourselves (yeah, slugg makes us lol too :wink: ). </p>

<p>As pretty girls, we would have never thought about coming to a place like SA, where we see the beauty there is in sharing a moment with our cyber friends as she marks a milestone in her life. </p>

<p>So here’s to you Alu, because you have gown from a pretty girl to a beautiful woman who knows that there is more to beauty that just what’s on the surface and a toast to all of our beautiful friends won’t fail to remind us:D</p>

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<p>My mother was a Pretty Girl so I didn’t dare compete in that category even though we look and sound alike. Also, as the Sexy Girl* in a 95% male environment, hubba hubba, I found it was best to minimize Pretty. </p>

<p>Recently, I sent a photo of mum to a friend. Friend (who hasn’t seen me in 15 years) wrote back: “You look great.”</p>

<p>Rest assured Alum, the perks of Pretty Girl extend well into your 70’s. ;)</p>

<p>*My mother’s definition of Sexy Girl: “A girl with a big chest who likes to laugh a lot.”</p>

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<p>OK Sybbie now I’m crying. Well, it’s about that time of the drinking session, isn’t it. Aries, once an engineer always an engineer so I am glad to hear that death is statistically far off:). Cheers, can a Sexy Girl have a small chest and like to laugh a lot:)?</p>

<p>It did occur to me when I was writing that another good thing about having the prettiness fairy take off is that she leaves you in the company of women. At a certain point, the perks of prettiness pale in comparison to the joys of friends. And, of course, to those guys who just insist on finding us still hot…Funny how there’s always someone, isn’t it?</p>

<p>Now if I could just silence the odd phrase that seems to be the impetus for my needing to muse in the first place. Why do I keep thinking, “I’ve seen my blood on enough sheets and I’m ready to move on.” <em>any male who peeks in runs away vowing not to return</em> Is that from a song or something? Or have I just GONE TOTALLY OFF MY ROCKER:)!</p>

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<p>"It did occur to me when I was writing that another good thing about having the prettiness fairy take off is that she leaves you in the company of women.</p>

<p><em>any male who peeks in runs away vowing not to return</em>"</p>

<p>No, you need to get back to more menopause/hot flash material for that.</p>

<p>Seriously though, prettiness fades. Beauty is ageless and timeless: Catherine Deneuve. Charlotte Rampling. Sela Ward. And attitude is FAR sexier that prettiness.</p>

<p>I can honestly say I think I am better looking now than in my teens. Not that I am good looking, just better. I have grown into my face, and though my hair is salt and pepper, it is still all there, with a mind of its own.</p>

<p>Fourties have been tough, and I am only half through. But I am looking forward to fifty. All things remaining the same, I will celebrate my 25 year anniversary with a wonderful “sexy girl”, using the operational definition from above. Quirky individualistic S will be starting college, leaving the mortgage free house to W and I, and whatever dogs we have at the time. </p>

<p>Crossing my fingers, sounds like fun.</p>

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<p>Pardon me, but weren’t we all smart and cute, despite the double, triple, and quadruple lobotomies we had when we decided to have children? And now, we’re still pretty smart, with so much intelligence that we can waste some of it in Sinner’s Alley. We’ve acquired that thing that made our grandparents cool: experience and the ability to really laugh at all of the dumbass things we did in our youth. </p>

<p>In college, I smoked hash oil off of a soldering iron and stood mesmerized in front of a taffy-making machine at the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk so stoned I couldn’t form the words to order a bag of fresh taffy, for which I would have sold my gray-haired, perpetually pi**ed-off, chain-smoking mother. :D</p>

<p>Hahahahahaha! Dumbass youth. I’ll be in the hot tub with my hooka. :cool:</p>

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<p>Slugg, so funny!!</p>

<p>In college my friend and I went to Martha’s Vineyard, got drunk at a party, left that party, and somehow wound up being the only females at yet another party in a warehouse with 25 male Hell’s Angels and all their drugs (amounts sufficient to require bales). Who knew they even had Hell’s Angels (or warehouses, for that matter) on Martha’s Vineyard, among all the catamarans, the whale belts, the salt marshes and the skrimshaw? I would have thought the worst that could happen on the Vineyard would be bad clams. </p>

<p>Anyway, luckily, these Hell’s Angels were perfect gentlemen (other than the contraband part). They actually drove us home and made us flick the porch light to indicate that we got inside okay. </p>

<p>Thinking back it is clear that I must have had a guardian angel.</p>

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<p>Ladies and gentlemen,</p>

<p>This is some serious friendship we have going on here in the Alley. Serious. Not so sure how much longer I can hold out in the “virtual only” mode. Nor wait for NYABM.</p>

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<p>AHEM. At least five of us have AHEM already met AHEM. That would be just about a FREAKING YEAR AGO on Hallowe’en as I recall, in a restaurant that was closed but not really. Kinda bites when getting together with friends is an “annual tradition”… sigh. It’s just too big a continent, I’m afraid.</p>

<p>Hey, we could start YouTube video blogs and share with each other! I know! I’ll be “lonelygirl52”! (And if you get that current cultural literacy reference, I’ll buy you a drink, just name it.)</p>

<p>I remember the time I woke up in my dorm bed with music playing, several candles lit, and a half-eaten roll of Pillsbury chocolate chip cookie dough on the desk, having no clue how I’d gotten there. (And of all the aspects of that memory, it’s the lit candles that disturbs me the most after all this time…)</p>

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<p>mootie I’ll take another Laphroaig because I got the reference! </p>

<p>I may be in Nor Cal over the weekend of Oct 6,7,8-- so I could be game for a meetup. :)</p>

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<p>Well, yes, I know mootie. But we were missing some folks, weren’t we? Hope you guys meet in NorCal and report in. Then we’ll cook something up when I arrive south of the border, come winter. Then we’ll cook up another something in Baltimore, maybe, huh m&sdad? Then… and then… and then, well then it will be NYAMB. :)</p>

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<p>MB, BM. Whatever.</p>

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<p>I barely got out alive of six separate situations, one when I was 12, two when I was 18, two when I was 22 and one when I was 34. Merely adventurous and slightly naive, I was neither drunk nor stoned during any of those journeys to the abyss but I know my guardian angel. She is my mother’s sister, my namesake. She died at 31, leaving five children under 6 years old. She was a code breaker during World War II. Luckily, she’s had my number on speed dial.</p>

<p>My soon-to-be ex-brother-in-law’s father was a founding member of the original Hell’s Angels in California. One of his girlfriends stabbed him 51 times. He lived to be 80-something.</p>

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<p>How I can relate to the choco chip cookie dough–a mainstay in college eating. Its hard being in 50’s, and realizing how others don’t see me as the smart, pretty, adventurous person that i once was. I wish i could let my hair go gray and not listen to talk of face lifts and peels. Life still holds so many paths, so many people to meet, so many more challenges…</p>

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<p>Indeed it does, bookworm, indeed it does. Pull up a chair next to my bench back here and let’s share a roll of Pillsbury chocolate chip cookie dough, shall we? (Hint: it’s still delicious! But in smaller portions than 30+ years ago… heh.)</p>

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<p>BAY AREA RUCKUS! BAY AREA RUCKUS! </p>

<p>I’m in SF until Friday and, of course, completely game for meeting up. I think (if sufficiently fortified) I can handle being around Slugg. :wink: </p>

<p>Alu - hey, I considered looking up the acturial tables but decided against it. :stuck_out_tongue: Once you make it to 50, you have about 30 years left. </p>

<p>Sybbie, what a lovely post. I’m going to save it and read it when I’m “middle aged,” whatever on earth that means. </p>

<p>On a somewhat serious note, I do not mind getting older. Sure, it freaks me out a bit when my friends get married and buy houses, but I do not mind aging - nor do I fear 30 or anything that people my age are supposed to worry about. Some of it is because I honestly feel like I earned my age - having been through a lot (maybe too much), it no longer feels like a joke to be so young, which is a relief of sorts. Having known people who have died young, I feel selfish complaining about advancing age - there is no reason to worry about that which happens to (almost) everyone, let alone complain about the inevitable. </p>

<p>That’s just me. I’m young, I’ll joke around about being freaked out about college having been “so long ago” already, or 30 being so close, or my siblings being so old (okay, the last one is weird - they do grow up so fast). But I’m still young. I remember talking to a friend who is in his 50s. I mentioned holding a bridal shower for one of my best friends, whom I had known for twelve years, which is why I traveled 1000 miles round-trip to hostess the event. He sort of laughed and said, “Only 12 years… well, that is almost half your life. Twelve years for me isn’t very much at all.” This all makes me realise that there’s a lot of things I’m missing out on - like having friends with whom I’ve grown up with, seen weddings, births, their kids growing up, etc. Too young for it. </p>

<p>No reason to fear fifty - you’ve earned it. :slight_smile: Bring out the confetti, the champagne (Veuve Cliquot, anyone?), the chocolate, and celebrate having made it this far, soul intact, kids intact, and an aging beauty. (Katherine Hepburn, by the way, was smoking hot for years. Don’t let “signs of age” stop you. Heck, look to Berurah for inspiration!)</p>

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<p>On the dumbass youth front, I can’t summon up any Hell’s Angels or soldering irons but one time in my teens I ingested psychedelic substances with a group of people I didn’t know - down in LA for heaven’s sake - and wound up driving with said substances still running through our veins (!!!) to a grunion running event at 2am and then wildly hopping barefoot amongst a school of fish slapping silver on the beach. Once the night burnt out we found our way to an IHOP and ate pancakes and made toast in a toaster that was embedded in a formica table. Another time I was hitchiking with a friend from Walnut Creek to Berkeley and some people picked us up and took us back to their house in what was then rural East Bay and brought us to a party where everyone was inhaling laughing gas. I remember wondering how on earth I was going to get back to my boarding school before curfew ran out.</p>

<p>Good god.</p>

<p>Teenagehood in the '70s almost makes Burning Man look regular.</p>