A LOVELY TEA-TIME FROCK

If you guessed that I was presently wearing a lovely pale summer frock and reclining in the deep soft grass enjoying a long warm twilight, you were wrong. Twilight in the Bay Area takes only ten minutes, it's a bit chilly outside and the grass is cold and wet, and this is not the climate for lovely summer frocks.
I would want to do all those things, but circumstances conspire against me. Oh, and I'm a middle-aged man. Not quite the demographic for lovely summer frocks.

I AM NOT A GIRL

If I were female, I might enjoy all that. I would be a very nice woman, and wear pearls while doing so. And perhaps have a nice porcelain cup and saucer on a tray next to me, with a spot of Oolong or Earl Grey.
And it would, necessarily, be much further north.
Where it's warm and gentle in summer.
And twilights are longer.

I do not regret not being a woman, for several reasons. Women are softer and nicer than men, and those are characteristics that I really like. For another thing, as a man I get to smoke a pipe -- presently filled with a charming aged Virginia compound -- and drink Bourbon while thinking of women, or lovely frocks, or lovely women smoking pipes while wearing frocks. And enjoying cups of tea.
Women get all kinds of negative comments when they smoke a pipe, and Bourbon-drinking is not considered precisely a feminine thing either.
I cannot understand why this is so, as exceptional tobacco may only be enjoyed in a pipe, and Bourbon with a splash of branch water is a very pleasant and civilized beverage. On summer evenings.
Good women do NOT drink fruity cocktails.
Is that perfectly clear?

NOR DO I HAVE A CAT

When I was growing up, my favourite cat would probably not have been a good woman. As felines go, she was the neighborhood fireball, always out partying with the tomcats. I fondly imagine that her love life was rambunctious and multi-faceted, and that her good mother was probably horrified over her kitten's behavior. If she had been human, she would have been swilling wine-coolers and dancing on tables.
So it was probably a good thing she was a cat.
Hardly any inclination to sweet liquors.
Cats can't hold glasses.
No thumbs.

But she did like the smell of pipe-tobacco. Whenever I was in a long chair out under the cherry tree, she would come over and doze on my stomach. Many of my favourite books are consequently remembered as involving a warm furry presence making a low rumbling noise on my abdomen, and occasionally stretching, repositioning, and digging in the claws. When it got too dark to read, I would get up and go inside, she would roll off and go look up a yowling Don Juan.
It seemed for both of us the right thing to do.
I am a little jealous of her love life.
Human dates are never so noisy.
More complicated, too.

I've been drinking tea and smoking a pipe since early adolescence. The taste for Bourbon came much later, and consequently has always been somewhat modest and restrained. Bourbon (as well as Scotch and Irish) have always played second-fiddle to the caffeine and briars. Nice, but not essential, and nowhere near as important.
There are no cats in my life nowadays.
But I can always imagine them.
Really, I know cats.
Miao.



In case you were wondering, I never wore a summer frock, even then. Nor was I ever tempted, despite their gay appeal. Though quite utterly fascinated by feminine clothing, my interests were more abstract, and involved consideration of the actual people wearing such things. They were far better suited to floral prints and fluttery fabrics; softer, nicer, and altogether much more suitable. That made a world of difference.
But I've always liked the freshness and innocence frocks evoke.
One really does need a girlish figure to carry it off.
Which is something I never had.


The cat could have done it very well.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================