Le maudit Mo D.

no more privacy

I installed Sitemeter today after three years of respecting the privacy of my viewers and not using technology to spy on them. Damn, this thing is thorough! I didn't realize that Bob's name appears on the logs every time I log onto my own blog as well as the blogs of others. So be warned: I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

A recent update on Joolz's blog revealed that she is installing her mother in an "affordable luxury senior residence" this week. Joolz mentions that a resident octogenarian totally hit on her, and frankly, I wasn't surprised. That dude's probably hitting half the widows in the place and wanted to test his moves on someone younger and less wrinkled then the pickings at the home.

The first thing that came to mind was a NYTimes article from about a year ago about a senior residence in Florida that had a huge problem with the transmission of geriatric VD. People don't realize that when they put their aging parents into these places that they're really no different than the Pearl St. Co-op in terms of lifestyle: bad food, questionable hygiene practices, drugs, and rampant fucking! Maybe the floors are cleaner and they drink better beer than Natty Light in a keg, but most retirement communities have a 4:1 female/male ratio and at least one hot shot old man whose kid got him a Viagra prescription that likes to lay it on smooth for all the ladies in the house.

My dad (1910-1992) lived at one of these places the last three years of his life. Let me tell you, when those old widows see a man with most of his teeth who can carry a conversation without getting hoarse, they start flocking! My dad had several female suitors, most notably a Mormon widow with five kids who were always trying to get my stalwart pinko dad to come to church with them. He always declined, but his godlessness did nothing to sway Mormon Widow. Every Friday night the home held dances. They'd remove the tables and chairs from the dining room and put on some Big Band music and the ladies would knock themselves out trying to get ol' George to spin them around the floor a few times. Mormon Widow tried to lay claim, but once you hit 80, commitment is a thing of the past.

My dad didn't particularly care for people his own age, especially when he got old, but he liked the attention. I remember asking him once why he went around calling his old folks home friends "old fuddy-duds" or "old coots" or telling some old lady "move it, grandma!" when some of them were even a few years younger than he was. "I'm not old. Those people are old up here," he'd say, pointing to his head. "Never get old up here."

My dad was a superlatively cool dude: he married a woman 35 years his junior and managed to stay interesting to her for a long time. He liked Simon and Garfunkel and Dylan, he hated fuddy-duds, and remained foxy to the ladies until the very end. He may have missed seeing me grow up and even more regrettably, the Clinton administration, but the old man had a very interesting life.

Posted by Zerd at July 16, 2007 05:11 PM