Sunday, January 9, 2011
Do I Ever Get a Break?
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Little Thoughts
Hi, fifi again, or almost. You will see I do not have the energy to present myself with initial caps. It is strictly lower case fifi today. And the reason? As usual, perfidy in other places. Someone has launched a rumor, only rumor, mind you, that I am the instigator, the perpetrator, of ghastly bodily sounds. Rumblings, so to speak. As we know by now, to be accused is to be found guilty. That is, after all, the basis for the Dreyfus Affair, non? My code of etiquette would not permit it. Possibly a small sneeze may be acceptable, but even that has become an obsolete possibility since the disappearance of handkerchiefs. A sneeze and a glimpse of a tissue is not the same thing at all.
I will recover my spirits, but it will take a little time. Which gives me the opportunity to share some tiny thoughts with you. I want to define what I see as my role in this interchange. It’s up to me (self-appointed, admittedly) to carry the flag for those on the more mature side of the population. You will note I shy away from using the word “older.” That’s because unless you were born this week, everyone is older than someone. I don’t approve of any of the words or phrases coined so far: elder, senior, who knows what? Therefore I had to improvise, to come up with a word that carries no historical baggage. No negativity at all. I have decreed that the word is Agents. I am the speaker for the Agents. Notice how subtly “age” is incorporated in it, but no one really knows what it means in this context, except me, and you if you have been paying really close attention. So the battle cry is Dignity to the Agents. Their time has come to show a little muscle. A little resilience if that image suits better. Enough cringing. I am feeling so empowered I can almost ignore the canards whistling round me. So Fifi and the Agents feeling the wind at their back. An historical moment, non?
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Cat Pee?
It Takes Two to Tango
And So It Begins...
My name is FiFi. It isn’t really, but FiFi gives more of the impression I am trying to project.
Realism is not my friend, because reality does not do justice to the image that I want to establish. Realism would give you a totally false picture of what is going on here.
I need to tell you about my roommate; this is a new situation for me. Not counting husbands, I have not had a roommate since approximately 1952; so I come to this whole situation with a fresh outlook and few prejudices. My present roommate is approximately 65 years younger than I am, so I do not expect her to bring to our arrangement the depth of experience and knowledge of people, places and things that come so naturally to me. I also did not expect her to bring the worldly goods—in terms of clothing, toys and accessories—that would be more appropriate in terms of volume for an entire sorority house.
Let us agree: in terms of worldly goods, she is over-endowed. In terms of normal self-esteem, she is similarly over-endowed. Or maybe not, maybe this is her defense against what she perceives to be my decided advantage in this situation.
To be fair: I offered her a room, without thinking that I would have to denude it of my own possessions, that have been filling every inch, prior to her arrival. And she arrived in stages, so I was not initially overwhelmed by the THINGS that accompanied her. Over a six month period these THINGS never stopped coming. It was a relentless onslaught and one that I assumed would stop when all available storage space was filled.
In retrospect I should acknowledge that I am probably better off now without the household files I thought so essential to modern life, with the wallpaper samples that spanned the duration of my tenancy, perhaps fifty years, without the clothing for a variety of places and temperatures that I will probably never again experience.
It was something like the pouring of cement into the foundation of a new home: THINGS and THINGS and THINGS into every crevice until it was a solid mass of accumulation.