Raspberry Filling Women and the 40 Winks

Want to see a twinkle in the eye of a lady on the plus side of 50?
Brawny-chested men won’t put it there.
Chocolate? Possibly, but there is a more immediate craving.
Jewels? Vacations? A lifetime supply of Oil of Olay Deep Wrinkle Remover?  Is that the best you have?
Fuzzy slippers, an afghan and a recliner?
Oooooohhhh.
Now you are talking.
We don’t always want our pulses to race, our taste buds to quiver or our social status to elevate.

We want a nap.

Not a long one. Enough to release stress but not so long that we forget what year it is. Or which millennium.
Our sleep should be deep enough for little cherubs to do a happy dance in the corners of our mind, but not so deep that the cherubs metamorphasize into winged dust globules with digestive issues.

A satisfying nap will do a Raspberry Filling Woman more good than a shot of Botox, a shot of 5 Hour Energy or a Valium shot. It will give her brain a chance to clear, her creativity and energy a chance to recharge and those funny little wrinkles along her top lip a chance to relax.

We’ve been storing away missed nap opportunities for years and now, with kids a bit older, or some time off from work, we want to cash in on all the naps we pined for during our education years, our child-rearing years, our career building years.

The nap helps build stamina. It is good for our hearts. It helps make up for sleep lost at night because of demented hormones, a snoring spouse or a barking dog.

Ladies. Throw off the shackles of guilt, the fear that we’ll be labelled as lazy and libeled as slugs.
Stonewall Jackson, Ronald Reagan, Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison, JFK, and Napoleon Bonaparte all benefitted from naps. They achieved greatness. And they are all men. This, my friends, is why women our age do not get the notice we deserve. We aren’t famous because we’re behind on our naps.

Let’s change all that, starting about 1pm today. Cuddle down, cover up, and snooze. Rise up, go forth, and change the world. A grateful nation may name an airport for you. Or at the very least, a dessert.

Homogenized and Pasteurized, or Free Range

Think back to your junior high years.
Remember middle aged women? (Don’t count your mom, your aunts or teachers.)
Could you tell them apart?
I could–just barely.
Some were grayer, some were thinner, a few didn’t wear glasses, fewer were not married.
But they all had short hair, were very very good, and incredibly dull.
One was pretty much like another, and although societally they were middle aged,
I labelled them as old, and, other than loved ones, insignificant.

Middle aged meant boring and stuffy and upright and homogenized and pasteurized.

I am well into, societally speaking, middle age.
But it is so much more vibrant and colorful than decades ago, isn’t it?
My mature sisters and I are so youngish.
We have distinctive hair styles and fabulous senses of humor.
I imagine that we make middle age look delightful–almost enviable.
How could youth of today not want to know women of my age?
We are significant! We were raised by women who were raised by women who lived through the Roaring 20’s!
And (as we repeat to ourselves often) 50 is the new 40. We were cool in school, cool young moms/working women, and that coolness is showing no sign of turning tepid in these, our raspberry filling years.

We are the Free Range Middle Aged. Free to be you and me. Special. Epic!
No limits on us chicks; we scoff at boundaries and flap over fences.
We are individualistic and vibrant and strong and on Facebook. So cool that we can joke about gray hairs and skin damage from baking in the sun with only a slathering of baby oil between us and the UV rays. Even when we wake up stiff as Robot from Lost in Space, aging can’t affect the Real Us. Uncaged, wild-at-heart women who were weaned on the Monkees and Led Zeppelin and miniskirts and hot pants are still truly young. Aging effects are just a little masquerade we play.

I assure myself of the above when I’m out with my friends and we’re giggling and being super cool about our wrinkles and fiber tablets and raspy joints. And then I see a group of teens glance at us, and for a second we are reflected in their eyes: a bunch of cackling, indistinguishable hens.

I shrug, hike up my jowls, and tell another joke. Just-out-of-the-egg youngsters can’t be expected to discern the choicest of Free Range Chicks.

Missing in Lights, Camera, Action

I was a broke teenager. I mean as far as spending money. Even my friends whose parents were wealthier than mine were usually broke.
Hollywood took note.
Looking at the top movies of the 1970’s, one realizes that the movie industry assumed pocketbooks worth pursuing belonged to:
-organized crime bosses ( ‘The Godfather’, ‘The Sting’, ‘Serpico’)
-those who believed any time period was better than the 1970’s ( ‘The Way We Were’, ‘Star Wars’ ‘Blazing Saddles’)
-those who in a few years would be lining up for Valium (‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’, ‘Cries and Whispers’, ‘The Exorcist’)

Teen girls of the 21st century, imagine it. Movies of the 1970’s were not created to cater to an 11-17 demographic.
Teens appeared in ‘Carrie’, albeit usually soaked in blood.
There was a young teen in ‘Taxi Driver’ but she was engaged in a profession-that-shall-not-be-named.
I hear there were teenagers in ‘American Graffiti’ but that was on my parents’ taboo list.
The high school teens in ‘Grease’ not only looked old enough to vote, they looked old enough to run for President.

Thanks for nothing, Hollywood. Now that I actually have a little money I could spend on movies, you are aiming them all at girls who, less than a decade ago, were dressing up their Bratz dolls.

I watch movies and realize that Hollywood still assumes those of us who grew up in the 70’s are not worth pursuing.
We are missing in the movies. The few women my age who do show up onscreen are either forgettable, crazy, or trying desperately to prove they are tough, feisty, lusty broads.

I’m part of the forgotten generation, at least as far as movies are concerned.
TV Land in the 70’s, for whatever reason, liked my generation.
Teens appeared in ‘The Brady Bunch’, ‘The Partridge Family’ ‘The Waltons’, ‘Eight is Enough’  ‘Different  Strokes‘  and ‘Happy Days’. Not to mention the Osmonds popping up all over the place.

But these days TV follows the example of movies and I rarely see women my age who look or act like me.
And that is too bad. Women of my generation are pretty fabulous, and these days some of us even have pocketbooks worth pursuing.
It’s time to give us another look. 
I volunteer to star in the movie with David Cassidy.

Raspberry Filling and the Flexible Mind

Candy. One of my favorite signs.

Cranky joints and dozing metabolisms aren’t the only changing components for women in the Raspberry Filling years. Our brains teeter on the brink of atrophy. We shift attention for a second and– WHAM! we can’t remember what we were saying, where we put our car keys, what our cat’s name is. Or whether we do, indeed, own a cat.

I like to blame this, as a mom, on the 3.5 trillion to the tenth power times I said, ‘Did you wash your hands?’, ‘Hang on a second’ and ‘Don’t damage your brother’. They are grooved into my brain.
Thousands of readings of ‘Hop on Pop’ also took their toll. Furrows of ‘Say, play, we play all day’,  “No no Pat, don’t sit on that!’ and ‘That one is my other brother’ snake through my gray matter.

Our sisters whose brains weren’t strained by motherhood suffer from frontal lobe fissures incurred in the workplace:  ‘You can stay after class’ ‘Are you done with that bedpan?’ ‘Yes, boss’ or ‘Overtime AGAIN?’

Repeat a phrase or activity often enough and it gouges into your mind. Those gouges spread, crack at a time, diminishing your ability to learn. This explains why middle aged women commit violence upon new cell phones and laptops at a rate triple that of women in their 20’s and 30’s.
My mid-life friends, we must keep our minds agile to prevent fissure-spread. We don’t want to end up pointing  a menacing finger at the poor bagger at the grocery store and shouting, ‘No, no Pat, don’t sit on that!”

Brains need exercise. But one can’t hula hoop a brain. What to do?
Learn new things.
That’s right. Don’t rest on your brain laurels. Read new books. Develop a new skill.
Learn a new language.
My new language is SIGN. (Sometimes I write that I am learning ‘sing language’. Pesky consonants. Always transposing on me.)
Anyway, I chose sign because:
-it is beautiful
-I don’t have to remember male or female forms of nouns or participial forms of verbs
-My son’s parent-in-law are deaf and I want to converse past a wave and a nod of goodwill.

 In the well-over-a-year I’ve been practicing, I’ve mastered a hundred and a half nouns, a hefty chunk of adjectives and a half dozen or so verbs. Which means, when I see my daughter-in-law’s parents at Thanksgiving I will be able to say,
“Your daughter nice, my son love, have good trip here, want more candy?”
Maybe, just in case my brain falls into a groove, I should also learn to sign ‘Say, play, we play all day?”

Toilet. One of the most vital signs.

Fitness in the Raspberry Filling Years

It never ends. 
Women in the subprime of their lives are not allowed to be pleasingly plump and happy about it. We see TV interviews with great-grandmothers who run marathons. 
Actresses who were old enough to know better 20 years ago still choose to appear in the altogether. 
Diana Nyad is in her 60’s. She recently cavorted in the ocean before TV cameras in a swimming suit. For the love of Mike. Many of us would rather moonwalk past Buckingham Palace with our 80’s perm rather than wear a swimsuit in public.
 
Middle age spread has descended to the status of the bubonic plague. It must be avoided at all costs.
 
Some of us defy public scrutiny, don a one-piece swimsuit and head to the health club pool. Others lace up the walking shoes and hit the pavement. Some perch on stationary or gallivanting bikes, ignore the pain in the posteriors, and pedal their way to thinner thighs.
But what about the woman who, as detailed above, does not aspire to swimsuit exposure? How about those among us whose knees and ankles protest at the punishment of pounding and pressure? Whose hindquarters have no desire to be permanently numbed?

Two words, dear raspberry filling friends.
Hula Hoop.
Half an hour with a hula hoop and you’ll burn off 200 calories. Swivel your way through a rerun of ‘Murder, She Wrote’, and you’ll have shaken off your lunch.
Just like that. No pressure on joints, no special clothes, no expensive equipment, and only 1 caveat.
Unless you are pint-sized, chances are you can’t use your kids’ old hula hoop from the garage.
You could order an adult-sized one and pay money.
OR
You could make one. Like I did. Via my husband.
Just sweet talk someone into giving you some old flexible water line. We used 3/4”. Measure it so that, when looped, it hits between your...upper hip and upper ribcage.

Connect the 2 ends with a connector. We (as in my husband with my enthusiastic approval) used a piece of 1/2” tubing to connect the ends to each other.
Wrap it with electrical tape and
Viola.
Your own custom made hula hoop. You can get funky and decorate it, or you can keep it rustic.
Wait till everyone is out of the house, make sure the breakables are out of the spin zone, turn on the TV or the dance tunes. Sashay, shimmy, and get down with your own bad, ever-skinnier self.
Because that’s how Raspberry Filling Women roll.

Thanksgiving Prayer...

...of a Pharisee  Prude

I thank you God, that I am not as other middle aged women.

I thank you that I haven’t become one of those hypercritical, nit-picking old 50 something biddys. 

You know the ones- they wear their jeans up around their chins and they still ask for a Farrah Fawcett haircut and they think it  looks cute to wear their Izod sweaters draped over their shoulders?

I thank you that, unlike those other poor  ‘older ladies’, I am in control of my mood swigs---- what! For Pete’s Sake! Why couldn’t this crummy spellcheck catch that!!!!!! I don’t not have mood swigs! My moods don't SWING! Good grief! But to be fair, I can’t blame poor spellcheck. It’s doing the beest it ca– NOW what? ‘beest’ it can? I need to give someone a piece of my mind…

I thank you that my memory isn’t as fuzzy and unreliable as so many other women my age who thank you that my memory isn’t as fuzzy and unreliable as so many other women my age.

I thank you that I haven’t turned into one of those empty nesters with have nothing better to do than nag their husbands. Thank you that my husband is blessed with a wife who corrects his faults with sweetness and submission and restraint.

I thank you that I am not a tiresome lady who has to brag without ceasing about her grandchildren. When I finally have grandchildren I’ll show those women what brag-worthy grandchildren really look like.

I thank you that I have a full and active life, unlike those women who do nothing but watch NCIS all day Wednesday and  Monk on Thursdays and I Love Lucy starting at 5 am on channel 967 and at 2pm  on that channel I can never remember, or who have to wrestle the channel changer from their husbands when it is time for the Project Runway finale...

I thank you that I don’t have to constantly interfere in my grown children’s lives,

because I raised them right and because they know that when I call them to give advice it is truly wise and wonderful and useful, unlike the blathering advice that those ‘other’ middle aged women who have nothing better to do than interfere and inquire about their grandchildren and–

say God. that brings up my next point. How come someone as wonderful as me doesn’t have grandchildren yet?

A body in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by middle age

Something you may not have known about The Prude:

She was a cheerleader in 8^th grade. She only achieved the cartwheel and sideways split stage, nevertheless a cheerleader with pompoms is a cheerleader with pompoms.

She could, in college, do that sideways Dr. Pepper kick.

You know those fender-trashing waist high yellow concrete posts that loitered in parking lots? They dared The Prude to leapfrog them, and she did.

She could get up to a standing position from sitting cross-legged on the floor without using hands.

And–oh the bliss– she could never see a hill without a burning desire to charge up it.

Those were the glory days.

Then she had babies, and her center of gravity shifted somewhere other than her center.

She discovered this in a most ignominious fashion one day when she demonstrated how to do a cartwheel for her young sons.

“Mommy,” they asked sincerely, looking down at where she was lying on the grass, wondering why so many stars were visible in a sunlit sky. “Mommy, are you sure that’s what a cartwheel looks like?”

Next to go was the Dr. Pepper kick, (and hot on its heels, Dr. Pepper, which did odd things to her stomach and often produced an affliction that in anyone but The Prude would be called a desire to burp).

She ignores the challenge of the concrete post because her mad leapfrog skills missed the leap into ‘maturity’.

She could no longer elevate to a stand from sitting on the floor. Though until recently she could sit there for long stretches, legs crossed, and rise gracefully with a minimum of grunting.

This drew admiration from all and sundry, who would say things like, “I can’t believe you can sit like that AT YOUR AGE.’

Thank you. Thank you very much.

But sadly, even those days are gone.

The Prude can head south to the floor but the trip back north is intervaled with creaks and groans.

And those hills. Will she ever be able to charge up a hill again?

The Big Three: mild arthritis, middle age and minimal muscle tone, have done their best to convince The Prude that her hill climbing days are over.

And almost, almost, she is tempted to heed that deadly siren call and lie down on the couch.

But, doggone it, she isn’t going to listen.

Because when she climbs high places, she gets rewarded with a smooch.