I don't turn 55 until next month

I'm at my mother's
she lives at
in East Bridgewater
Massachusetts
where she and a hundred other
over 55-ers
enjoy
- one level living
except for the flight of stairs to the basement
(who missed that?)
- adequate, sometimes, snow and lawn care
- a club house
where my aunt,
my mother's roommate,
plays cards with the Ladies
on Monday nights
(the guys, she tells me,
play poker
at the other end of the
vast round table filled space)
- and
through the grapevine
a long list
of handymen
(yes, they are all men)
who are husbands
sons and cousins, maybe,
of the others
who will shovel the short walkway
from driveway (already plowed, like I told you)
to front door
for $20
or fix a leaky faucet
or put up a shelf in the laundry nook

My mother has been in Florida
for two weeks
visiting her best friend
met in Brockton, 1969
when we moved there
from Dorchester
While she's been away
her mail has piled up
I steal a glance:
Roseanne Bar and John Goodman
on the cover of
AARP - the magazine!
an exclusive
They are over 50?
the subtitle promises
"tougher again - wiser, happier and more
outrageous than ever"
Of course
Why am I surprised?
Next up
Lifestyle - inside Hingham's premier senior living community
Linden Ponds
wow!
the competition arrives
in hard copy old style mail
dueling senior living options
they have a pool,
and yoga,
and communal breakfasting
if you want!
grown up dorm living
but better!
Why didn't she pick this place?
Well, cost, I'm sure
and you know
blatant God's Waiting Room warning signs!
I turn the pages...
the georgetown,
one bedroom, bath with den
nice layout
the kewick, larger
with family room and bay window,
I'm sold!
the fairmont, large two bedroom
for couples that sleep apart and rendezvous?
sisters?
friends?
the paxton, two bed, two bath
somehow not as exciting
as that bay window...
If I was looking...

I'm not.

I don't turn 55

until next month.

So shut up.

I'm not looking.

Really.

Stop.

(I didn't even look at my mother's mail.
No, I didn't.
That would be illegal.
And I am a rule following woman of 54!)

((I'll tell you about R&J later;
I can't wait to watch the show!)

Artwork:

Mary Cassatt, of course

Woman Bathing, (La Toilette)

from the MMA: "The American painter and printmaker Mary Cassatt spent her professional life in Paris, where she was a member of the Impressionist group. Woman Bathing belongs to a group of ten color prints that Cassatt showed at her first independent exhibition (at the Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris) in 1891. The abstract, linear quality of the nude's back drew the attention of Cassatt's colleague and sometime collaborator, Edgar Degas (1834–1917), who exclaimed, "I do not admit that a woman can draw like that.""