We Will Lie Upon the Lawn

I get frustrated.

Tata: Where have you been? I thought you'd never come back!
Siobhan: After lunch, I had to finish telling the story about the night Hannah jumped out of the truck.
Tata: Omigod, that is one of our Number 1 Hits. Hey, does it end the same every time?
Siobhan: Yup. Hannah goes to the hospital, I take amusing pictures and you go to Ecuador!
Tata: That's a lot of outcomes for one story.
Siobhan: Yeah. I could use a Tab. Good thing I have pictures or nobody would ever believe it.
Tata: Before you forget that story you'd better write it down so we can argue about it in the old folks home.

Yes, we're aging, and I can't remember half the crap we've done. I've mentioned my memory loss before, haven't I?

Siobhan: ...and then this crazy thing happened, and so-and-so did this terrifying thing and then we -
Tata: We? I was there?
Siobhan: And we thought we were going to die and you did this! After that, we drove home on the Pulaski Skyway because we no longer feared death.

Lately, I'm less interested in what we did ten years ago than in what we'll do in the future, since in all probability, in twenty years we'll be crazy cat ladies, together.

For what experts say is probably the first time, more American women are living without a husband than with one, according to a New York Times analysis of census results.

In 2005, 51 percent of women said they were living without a spouse, up from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000. Coupled with the fact that in 2005 married couples became a minority of all American households for the first time, the trend could ultimately shape social and workplace policies, including the ways government and employers distribute benefits.

Several factors are driving the statistical shift. At one end of the age spectrum, women are marrying later or living with unmarried partners more often and for longer periods. At the other end, women are living longer as widows and, after a divorce, are more likely than men to delay remarriage, sometimes delighting in their newfound freedom.

Awesome. I hope I can get support hose to go with my combat boots. In point of fact, a few weeks ago, I went to the salon of one of my most gifted, very distant cousins and said, "Carmello, I'm turning myself in. I look awful. Fix me."

Carmello: What do you want, a haircut?

He looks doubtful.

Tata: I want to close my eyes for a while and when I open them, I want to look like you think I should look now. When do you have that kind of time?
Carmello: Can you take a day off work?
Tata: I adore you, so I'll say I can take off an afternoon.
Carmello: Wednesday the 17th.
Tata: I'll bring my Uranium-242 card.

I might take pictures.