Survival Tip from the Diaspora

Maybe it's because I grew up with three sisters, but I find it essential to every now and then be surrounded by my girl friends. Even though no one can make me laugh as hard as my husband, I find that the thing about men is that when you start telling them of your troubles, they'll instantly start offering you solutions, failing to get that we're not really looking for any advise, because we're all grown up and know exactly what to do, all we're really looking for is an ear where to spill our worries.

And because I'm really a girl's kind of girl, the thing that I'm finding wonderful is that regardless of nationality and regardless of language, women everywhere are the same: gifted with the ability to find deep release in what to the unperceptive observer looks like nothing but banal chichat. Today's survival tip for the Filipina moving at least an ocean away from home: Instead of staying cooped up being homesick, go out and make friends.

Plugging: Salinawit

After reading Hazel's blog, I have to make a confession: My tastes are really very base; I love reality TV shows! So the other day I was watching Nouvelle Star, a rip-off of American Idol, and I happened upon Julie, this young contestant with a slightly jologs vibe, singing Jacques Brel's "Ne Me Quitte Pas" in a kinda cool, slightly raw, very modern way and--why is this happening all the time now?--I was so touched I got all teary eyed! (Claudine Barretto, isthatchu?)

Which led to me sending an e-mail to the poet Pete Lacaba, asking him to make a salinawit of the Brel classic. Now, you have to understand that this act of e-mailing Pete shows very clearly my desire for the translation. Years ago, when he was our copy editor at The Sunday Times Magazine and I had to remind him of stuff that needed doing, I was so petrified by the idea of him catching me at a grammatical error that I'd proofread even the notes I'd leave him on Post-Its. "Hi Pete! We need the story on the kung-fu champions today. Thanks!" I'd go over that, clap a palm over my forehead, then slip the neglected comma in between the "Hi" and the "Pete!" OC, that's me.

So anyway, I was lucky. Pete had already worked on "Ne Me Quitte Pas" and sent it along with the 58 other salinawit he'd done. I fully intend on memorizing the lyrics and singing it for Pierre one of these days, in the hopes of weaning him away from his all-time favorite Tagalog song that is a good song, there's no denying it, but I've been hearing "Anak" since I was little listening to the radio with Yaya Maura as she did laundry in the afternoons so I think I deserve a change.

Pete might just do a Julie and sing "Huwag Mo Akong Iwan" on 29 May, when the Singing Writers (Pete, Charlson Ong, Marne Kilates, and Michael Coroza) belt it out at a gig at the Conspiracy Garden Cafe in Quezon City. Bien Lumbera and Becky Anonuevo will have their salinawit sung by Susan Fernandez.

And now I come to the point of this post. I'd love it if one of you can go, make a video, and post it on YouTube. Sige na, plis?

"Accident-Prone, but Great!"

Is how I just responded to Kala's "How are you?" on Yahoo.

It's that time of the year when the south transforms into a truly beautiful place. Pierre has also discovered the joys of rock-climbing, so we go together on most Sundays. To get to the site, we take the highway, the prickly-looking cystisus on the islands and borders for the moment made cheery by its early-summer yellow flowers. Whenever we turn on the minor roads, no matter how many times we've seen it, we still go "Wow!" over the spectacle of fields luminous with the red of poppies. (I like the French name better: coquelicot, the sound of a tease, or somebody tipsy, maybe even a little mad.)

Before we finally get to don those always too-tight climbing shoes, we must hike through mountain paths. I can never resist playing explorer/botanist. I identify some wildflowers, recently sweet peas and Alysse odorata. A length of sedum and an ear of cactus I pick up for replanting in my garden. Sniffing at some wispy pale green leaves, I establish that, no, this one's not a curry plant. A classic scene had the group in the parking lot, shouting my name and that of Karine's, wondering if we had gotten lost, only to see us make an appearance a few minutes later holding bouquets of wild rosemary and thyme. "Tonight I make bolognaise," I declare, waving my leaves of Thymus.

Noting my liking for plants, on more than one occasion another climber has warned, "Apol, don't touch the rue, okay." Then the concerned one would go on to say that the herb contains a chemical that can hurt me.

So it was last Sunday and we are up on some rocks again. The view at Narbonne--grape vines in the foreground, the sea beyond--is great. However, a moment comes when I can't appreciate it. I'm stuck on a wall, having difficulty finishing the last few meters of a climb. I know I'm going to fall, realize that I'm going to swing a bit. It's fine, I'm not scared, I tell myself and let go.

Deep scrapes are nasty. Epidermis gone, you're hit right at the nerve endings, making you bite your lips, stomp your feet, claw at the arms of the nearest available person, anything to keep from screaming in pain so loud they might just come, the firemen who are France's version of 911. I have various injuries running from the fingers to the elbow of my left arm to show that I know what I'm talking about. I thought I'd end up shaken, hanging in empty air but unharmed. Instead, my fall was interrupted by a rather violent grating against a protruberance.

Don't touch the rue, they keep telling me, it can hurt you. Now why did nobody warn me not to touch the rock?

P.S. Okay, we all know I'm vain, so it's no surprise that 20 minutes after the accident I was demanding that somebody take a picture of my arm. Take my word for it, close-up the limb looks like a chewed-up saucisson:

Baby Turns Two

I know blogs featuring cat pictures are awfully sappy, but what can I do. I love our Dolly. She's two years old this month. In cat years, that means she's a full-grown dalaga. She's sterilized though, so no going out with the many young garçons purring in the area. This photo makes it obvious; her birthday wish is that she needs a new basket. (And, yes, in case you're wondering, that white puffy thing peeking out next to her belly is her favorite stuffed toy.)

Why I Must Be In France, Barbecue Edition

What you get when your blogger is too busy eating she forgets to take a picture...

I must be in France because the word "barbecue" doesn't mean an old manang or a pouting bading standing in a street corner, indifferently waving anahaw fan over red-black coals smoldering inside a rusty box with a grill on top, cooking five-peso sticks of fatty pork and chicken innards marinated in Jufran ketchup, for the office worker going home and too tired to cook anything, so this is dinner, or for the kanto boys who for once have decided to not spend all their money on the gin and the beer, so this is pulutan.

Instead "barbecue" is a celebration, the beginning of warm days spent outdoors sunning on the terrace and taking quick dips in the pool when one gets too hot. Today the women are all together on the giant hammock talking about their men, who are there, gathered around the grill.

The loudest (yes, that would be Pierre) is declaring that here, in the Camargue, barbecue is a religion, prepared for as early as October, when the locals gather the twigs fallen off after the grapes have been harvested. Dried, these go in with the secret mix of other wood, to give what's cooking a special flavor. ("We never use charcoal," he declares to the visiting Parisian and the guy from Annecy. "That would be sacrilege.") There is also the seasoning with oil and herbes de Provence--rosemary, thyme, marjoram, oregano, basil, and summer savory. Think of it as an aromatic benediction.

Lunch begins with Cindy's green salad. The sauce is simple yet sublime. Olive oil, vinegar, mustard, and shallots are mixed, the strong flavors then tempered with two fresh eggs. When the meat arrives, we agree that the making of it must indeed involve something out of this world. How else can spare ribs, chicken, lamb, and various sausages induce in their diners such ecstasy? We worship with a lot of lip-smacking, the sign of our conversion the grease running down our chins.

Afterwards, everybody wants to take a nap, and not just because we all ate too much: Before lunch we have our beers and pastis, during the eating there is wine, and after there is sweet wine, some whiskey, and even a bottle of champagne. If we paid 30 euros for the meat, then double that must have gone to the beverages. Despite all the ceremony, when you think about it, we really aren't that much different from kanto boys.

Nakaka-Miss

Kakatapos ko lang basahin ang blog/blag ni Patricia, at doon nakita ko ang salinawit ni Pete Lacaba. Yung kanta ni Edith Piaf na "La Vie En Rose" isinalin ni Pete sa wikang Filipino at naging "Kulay-Rosas." Eniwey. Dahil hindi naman ako poet (malaki lang ang aking puwet--uy! rhyme!), hindi nagbunga ng makabagbag-damdaming tula ang pagbasa ko sa trabahong ito. Insteyd, bigla kong naisip ang mga salitang Tagalog na miss na miss na ng dila kong sambitin. Pruweba ay habang nagta-type ako ay sabay kong ninanamnam ang pagbuo ng mga salita at pangugusap na ito:

1. Korek! (Hindi posibleng bigyang hustisya ang salitang "korek" kung hindi ito susundan ng "!")

2. tsubibo (Puwede rin namang feyris wheel.)

3. pampa-byuti (Tamang nostalgiya ito: Madalas ko itong marinig nung nasa UP pa ako, galing sa mga kaibigang madalas ding magtanong, "Meron ba tayong wala tayo diyan?")

4. chos (Madalas ko itong marinig sa pianist/showbiz writer na si Blaiseblaiseblaise Gacoscos.)

5. salamat (Kasi, kapag nagsasabi ako ng "Merci," pakiramdam ko humihingi ako ng tawad.)

6. manong/manang (... pabili nang kendi.)

7. liempo (Puwedeng palitan ng salitang "baboy" o, kung on a diet, ng "lechong manok.")

8. Ang baho. (Kung nakatira ka sa Manila, halos araw-araw mong sasabihin ito.)

9. Ganda mo! (Huwag kalimutan ang sarcasm dito.)

10. Wala akong paki. (Hindi lang pangungusap, attitude din, na sa mundong ito, kakailanganin mo kung ayaw mong maloka na lang at maglaslas ng pulso.)

11. Sige na, plis. (Sabayan ng matamis na ngiti at flutter of the eyelashes.)

12. damdamin (Dahil OA ako.)

13. Bakit? (Kahit na kadalasan, wala talagang sagot; nangyayari na lang talaga.)

14. Putangina mo! (Malutong na malutong; salitang nung nasa Pilipinas ako ay hindi ko nasabi masyado, dahil sa tatay ko na hanggang bente anyos ako ay sinasabihan akong ibibitin niya raw akong nang patiwarik kung marinig niyang magmura ako.)

15. Hindi ba? (Sasabihin kapag naghahanap ng kakampi.)

16. chika (Expert ako dito.)

17. gimik (Kapag naririnig ko ang "soirée" nila dito, mga nakakainis na naglalandiang high school boys and girls ang naiisip ko.)

18. Aray! (Hindi kailanman kayang i-express ng "ouch" o ng "ça fait mal" ang sakit na nararamdaman!)

19. guinataan (Bilo-bilo kung puwede, pero mahilig din ako sa monggo.)

20. mahal (Ang dalawang kahulugan nito ay nagtagpo sa isang ex-boypren na walang trabaho.)

21. bukol (Dalawa din ang ibig sabihin nito...)

22. Ang galing ano? (Isa ito sa paborito ko, kasi hindi ako sophisticated eh, madali akong ma-impress.)

23. rosas (Ang dami kasi niyan dito ngayon.)

24. bumbero (Bakit slightly nababastusan ako sa salitang ito?)

Strange, But True

I adore my mother-in-law. Really, I do. And, although I think she occasionally finds me strange, I would like to think that she feels likewise. She does seem to relish my company. For example, a few weeks ago she called me into her house, and we had a one-hour chat about nothing much really. Just before I had to go, she dropped the bomb: "I'm getting a boob job."

A firm believer in everyone's right to self-improvement, I told her, "Go for it!" But as someone with a very low tolerance for pain, I had to warn her that I had read in Asia Carrerra's website that silicone implants hurt. She didn't know Asia (Me? I swear I was at the website for the makeup tips!), but told me, "Don't worry about it, I'm not getting implants. I'm just going to get them lifted, because they're sagging, you see." And then she lifted her shirt to show me the sad state of her mammaries.

Later that day, to my husband I announced, "Your mom showed me her boobies!"

"No, that can't be," he began. "She's always been a prude. Not me, not even my sister, maybe my dad. No one has ever seen her naked." It was obvious that he was only half-believing me.

We forgot all about it, until after the operation, when to my terrace mother-in-law came to show me her bandaged babies.

"Wow!" I exclaimed, genuinely impressed. "They're proud and perky."

"Touch them," she told me. "No!" Now I was feeling more than uneasy.

This time she commanded me: "Touch!" So what could I do. They were as firm as a sixteen-year-old's, I tell you.

Meanwhile, my husband still couldn't believe all this exhibitionism was happening. Then yesterday, as we were driving past his mom's, he quietly announced: "She did it to me too."

"What," I asked, looking out the window, a bit absent-mindedly.

"She showed her boobs to me."

I fumbled for my cellphone. "Should I call a psychiatrist? You're going to need therapy now, aren't you, honey." Then I began to laugh, but he only sighed and shook his head, trying to empty it of the traumatizing memory.

Suddenly, A Movie Review (well, sort of)

Yesterday, after finally finishing a project that I'd been procrastinating on, I decided that as reward I would park myself in front of the television and watch the first Filipino movie I would see in two years. Five shirts and a pair of pants have been waiting crumpled in the clean laundry pile forever, so I decided to attack those too. So there I was at six p.m., watching Milan, ironing clothes, crying during Claudine Barretto's breakdown scene, feeling absolutely OFW!

P.S. If he reads this, Raymond Lee might well give me a boink on the head while saying, "Ano ba, Apol, Milan is so old. I'm in my Maximo Olivares era na, ano!" But I do have a quibble with the script: Why is it that, a quarter of the time, the Pinoy characters speak Italian to each other?

Whenever I find myself in the company of Filipinos, I immediately switch to Tagalog, and as pure as I can manage it while still being conversational. The long periods of not being able to speak my mother tongue and the hunger to express myself in it whenever the opportunity arrives have even reduced my tendency to speak Taglish. I can't imagine myself conversing in French with Makis and Hazel, except maybe to joke around or when we're with French people, so when the Milan characters start going, "Amore" and "Pronto" to each other, it strikes me as very odd. This is terribly corny, but as a Filipino living somewhere far from home, I find incredible comfort, and sometimes even strength, in speaking the language of my heart.

Out Gardening

While all of France is caught up in the presidential elections, all I'm really concerned about are the goings-on in my garden.

I gathered wild garlic from a field in Salvetat and replanted them in a deep pot, hoping they'll thrive here in the Midi. For a good quarter-hour yesterday, I hand-picked the snails infesting my iris, then drowned the pests in vinegar, their punishment for daring harm the bearded beauties that are blooming so well this season. After much research, I've figured out what plants can survive the poor soil and the heat of where we live, so I've brought in ornamental grasses--Festuca glauca and Carex buchanani--as well as sempervivums and various sedums--acre, spectabile, monregalense, and reflexum. The Pampas grass we dug out of a nearby field and replanted here last autumn is currently testing its new home with a few tentative blades. Roses like sandy soil and lots of sun; they grow well here. So I've taken cuttings from Jeanette's profuse peach variety and pray that it's not too late for them to root. To give them a boost, I soaked the eight-inch long tips in weak tea made from split-open willow twigs. The oleander cuttings have received the same treat.

When I do wash my hands of soil and brush up on current events, I find myself drawn to the colorful first-round losing candidate José Bové, high-school kick-out, defender of sheep farmers, Roquefort cheese-maker, marijuana decriminalization adherent, one-time Rainbow Warrior passenger, organic farming proponent, genetically modified organisms enemy, and, in connection to this last and most famously, a McDonald's dismantler.

On top of all that, I have to admit, I am awfully attracted to his posters decorated with a giant coquelicot, my favorite spring flower.

Unsettling Moment

There I was, watching a documentary on a Palawan tribe, lost as to what the tribespeople were saying except for the occasional word shared with Tagalog--"babae," "lalaki," "oo"--reading the subtitles meant for the citizens of this foreign land to understand one of the languages of my own country.

Photograph, In Words

Strangely beautiful sight seen today: A half-naked young man--blue jeans holding on to a strip of brown leather belt, pale winter skin teased by spring sunshine--standing in the middle of a wide field, accompanied only by rows of grape vines just beginning to leaf, blowing on a golden trumpet, offering his music to the wind somewhere on that long, quiet road to Arles.

Scene from a Marriage

I was nagging my husband: "I've decided that I want a child. Now, I know you're not so hot on the idea of having one, but you better think about it again, because I know I want to have a baby, and I'm not going to stay with a guy who doesn't want to have one with me."

For a few days, he was being wishy-washy, trying to get me convinced that we should only consider having a child if we could be back in the Philippines the first few years of the baby's life, because then we could afford yayas, and having help really makes things easier during those difficult infant years. Then one evening he comes home, and goes all emotional on me.

"I have something to say," he began, his eyes tearing up. "Life is going well for us, and we're in love. In fact, we're the happiest couple I know. So I realized that this is really the best time for it. Yes, let's have a child. Let's have a child right now."

"Huh," went I. "Right now?"

"Yes," he affirmed.

"Uhm, you know, I didn't mean rrrrr-right now," I stuttered. "I just wanted to know that the option of having a child was open."

He only stared.

"Like, if I felt that I was ready to have one, we could. But I didn't mean right now. Maybe, in two years or four. Or maybe even later. Just so I know that the option is there, you get it?"

I know, I am an impossible wife.

Lovely Weekend

I find that the best way to recover from an injury is to pretend that it's not there. So off we went to Salvetat, to stay at a house beside the lake. (That's me, limping but up and about!)

We brought along some wine, a bottle of pastis, and food enough to see us through a night and a day spent with really cool people.

I also packed my pearls and a bias-cut skirt. It was Karine's birthday, we were having a party in the evening, and the invitation said to come all sexy and glamorous. Now familiar with the quirky sense of humor of people in these parts, I really should have known better...

Sexy was interpreted by artist Emeline as giant boobs with the perkiest nipples made out of foam and resin for the girls.

And the guys decided that glamourous meant walking around half-naked all night wearing neckties and body hair.

Or maybe the nudity we can attribute to the twenty empty bottles of various types of alcohol we were throwing into the garbage by Sunday's end?

Skiing Lesson

Before the fall...

I am ready for anything, will try everything at least once, and if I really, really want something, I won't give up until I get it. My friends will tell you that my middle name is "Game!"

For the Easter weekend we decided to go skiing. A sport I had decided I adored, despite two factors that would have made anyone else think otherwise: I come from the tropics, where if it snowed it meant that the end of the world was nigh, and I'd only done it once before, and then just for two hours. This time I had three entire days! By day number three, gung-ho creature that I am, I felt I was ready to go up the steep red slopes. I glided down nice and easy. Once on the easier blue, however, I fell badly, hit my chin with a ski and got up feeling a throbbing in my right knee. I was determined, so despite that I felt my jaw going numb and my ears ringing, I pushed off. It took my husband noticing that my chin was dripping blood to make me stop.

Trips to the first-aid station for a band-aid and to the café for a Coke Light later, I was insisting that I was okay. Convincing myself that my knee was only mildly uncomfortable, I got on the lifts again. Bad move. Doing an easy turn, I felt the knee do a double clack and fold up on me. No amount of stubborn pushing myself could do anything--the knee had had enough of skiing.

These days I'm looking like the bride of Frankenstein, with a stitch on my chin and a hideous contraption on my right leg. I’m told that if I hadn’t forced it that second time, my knee would have been okay after a good night’s sleep. Instead the doctor has forbidden me sports for ten days. Quite an unnecessary reminder, really, as right now all I can manage to do is hobble from bedroom to kitchen with much difficulty.

Eastertime lesson: While “Game!” is good, one should also have the wisdom to know when to call a Time Out.

Beefcake of the Month

Because, after many visits to the mechanic's, the secondhand motorcycle that he bought for himself last Christmas is finally in good working condition.

Because never mind that the mechanic called the Honda a "grandmother," this motorcycle is exactly of the same type he used when he was in his teens and twenties driving all around Europe being young and absolutely crazy.

Because extra insurance money let him buy a spanking new leather jacket.

Because even if he was a hardcore biker, he never did buy a motorcycle jacket ever before, the last one he was using was a hand-me-down from friend Babs, and even that was already 10 years old when he was given it.

And really just because I think he's hot.

Tsismosa, Ako

May ilan akong kakilala na ang buong akala ay sumkinda wild child ako. Sumkinda true naman. Aaminin ko, may pagka-lukaret ako. Pero dito, sa bagong bansang ito, naipamukha sa akin na meron din akong aspetong konserbatibo. Hindi ko alam kung bakit (nasa alignment kaya ng planets?) pero sa kasalukuyan ay napapaligiran ako ng mga babaeng may asawa o nobyo, pero mayroon ding pangalawang pag-ibig. Pramis, hindi makitid ang utak ko. Naniniwala ako na kailangan nating hayaan ang bawat isa na buhayin ang buhay na magpapaligaya sa kanya. Pero pag kuwentong kalaguyo na, napapanganga ako. Kapag nagsasalaysay ang mga girl friends ko tungkol sa kani-kanilang pamamangka sa dalawang ilog, sa loob-loob ay napapa-ohmygod ako. Tapos, natatawa ako sa sarili ko. Kasi kahit saanman ako dalhin, hindi ko yata talaga makakalimutan ang mga turo ng loka-loka-pero-relihiyosang nanay ko.

They're Back!

I blogged about them last March, and here they are again: a family of five flamingos (one is camera-shy) has, for the last two weeks, been coming every few days to feed in our marsh. Last Friday there I was, eating the best oysters in the world that Tonton Dedou gathers from where they grow wild in the Salins du Midi, squeezing on them drops from the lemons freshly picked from Tante Jackie's garden, in between slurping down mollusks looking out the window to admire my occasional neighbors, thinking that life rarely gets better than this.

Sigh...

Maybe because it's the first day of spring, but I really can't get any work done. Instead I'm sipping a glass of California zinfandel (Ssshhhhhh.... Don't tell my vine-growing neighbors!), looking at all the new pictures sent by a best friend in the cusp of a romance, wishing Pierre and I were back on that island in the middle of nowhere, not thinking of grownup responsibilities, instead playing footsie on the beach and watching sunsets, falling in love all over again. What can I say, today I'm 34 going on 16.

Everybody Has An Accent

My friend Garch is impossibly adorable, so every time he would nag me about how I pronounced certain English words, I would humor him. I say "chocolate" as regular Filipinos would, "cho-ko-leyt," but I think he found this insufferably pedestrian. He insisted that I say it brisk. So "choc-lit." Same with "Jesus." I say it "jee-soos," with the lips rounded off at the end; but Garch always corrected me. "It's 'jee-saz.'" He would make me say it with the lips stretched out. As I said, he's adorable otherwise, so I'd say the words like he wanted to hear them whenever he was around.

If you grew up in the Philippines, you'd be conscious of a certain snobbery--let's admit it now--a feeling of superiority amongst people who said those English words perfectly correct. There is a wrong way and a right way to pronunciation: Very wrong would be how the Visayan nanny stereotypically spoke, pronouncing pink as "penk" and tricycle as "tray-si-kol." So right would be, for example, the articulation of former ABS-CBN TV show host Cher Calvin, who grew up in the States. We try oh-so-hard to do it how it's supposed to be done, that is to say, with an American twang.

I land here and in the very beginning speak French like I'd hear in their movies, with the curt, Parisian accent. My husband and his family would have none of it; they always corrected me. It didn't take long for me to be using the deliciously robust word endings of the South. Last December, I go to language school in the nearby city of Montpellier. One of the teachers think I'm almost a real bilingual (she only knew I spoke English aside from French, as there was never any occasion to communicate with her in Filipino), another tells me to tone the accent down, try to sound like they do in Paris.

Fast forward to a few weeks later, when I introduce my southern-French husband to a couple of Swiss friends. "The Swiss really speaks French funny," Pierre said after they had left. Later on he meets my Belgian climbing buddy, who speaks French, Flemish, and English. "You're not French, right?" Pierre asked her. "You have an accent." The Belgian replied, "No, I'm not, but it's only now that I'm here in France that I find out I speak the language with an accent." Spunky girl that she is, she adds, "Hey, you're French, but you also have an accent."

The brouhaha is not limited to the Philippines, France, Switzerland, and Belgium, I tell you. In the climbing club there are three Spaniards and one Ecuadorian who always hang out together. "So it's the same kind of Spanish in both your countries?" I ask Marcos, the scientist from Ecuador. "Pretty much," he replies, "just certain words are not the same, and also the pronunciation." A pause and he adds, "The Spaniards, you know, they don't speak Spanish correctly. They don't have the right accent!"

So Garch, I know you speak Spanish and you do it like your insulares ancestors did, but I'm not going to go all Ecuadorian on you. After that long blog post all I really want to know is this: Can I just keep on saying "cho-ko-leyt"?

Love at 64

A table for two, photo by Nicky Sering.

They met at a New Year's Eve ball. She was feeling lonely, and he asked her to dance. At the end of the night, he also asked for her phone number, and while usually she doesn't do such things, this time she scribbled it down. Maybe it was his friendly blue eyes (definitely it was not the mustache that reminded her of a rat's whiskers). Soon they were dating regularly. Once they went for a wintertime walk on the beach. Often, they would have dinner at his place. He made her feel special, how he would insist that she do nothing, just sit down and listen to some music or watch TV. He, meanwhile, took care of everything else, cooked the meal and even insisted on washing the dishes. He paid attention to what she had to say, did things to please her (yes, even trimming his whiskers!). This was so different from what she had been used to, when she had first been in love many years ago.

But, no, she would tell family and friends, this was not love. She was not in love, she insisted. She just enjoyed his company, that was all. Yet given the chance she could talk about him for an hour. Also, she maintained, she had no intention of ever living with him. She was perfectly fine being a single girl, treasured the fact that she could do what she wanted when she wanted and how she wanted. She had every intention of keeping her independence, she declared. Despite the speech, in the mornings when they look out their window, her neighbors have gotten used to seeing the car of the man who is not supposed to live there still in the spot where he had parked it the night before.

My girl friends, take heart! I have recently discovered that romance can be available to women all their lives. The lead character in this story--the one who smiles all the time now, who these days is always well-coiffed and well-dressed, and who talks about her dates as effusive as if she were a teenager--the woman is my mother-in-law Jeanette who, after nine years of widowhood and at the age of 64 has, without expecting it, found Alain. Believe me when I tell you: Sexagerians still bloom!