At Least They're Committed

I hadn’t heard that word in years, but now Ken uses it on occasion and I have always rather liked it and thus it seems an appropriate headline. I thought of it last night as we sat in the beer garden outside Rock Bottom for the first concert of the season at The Orchards.

I was tickled pink that there was plenty of room in there to plop our lawn chairs and be able to have a beer or a glass of wine while we listened to a transient and talented funk band.

Bzzzzt! Wrong!

First of all, you can’t hear as well in the beer garden. To make it worse, the beer garden is evidently not where people sit and have a drink and listen to good music, it’s a spontaneous singles bar.

On the left:

“I LOVE YOUR HAIR!”

“WHAT?”

“YOUR HAIR, I LOVE IT!”

“OH, THANK YOU! MY EX-HUSBAND NEVER COMPLIMENTED ME!!”

“I’LL COMPLIMENT YOU ALL NIGHT IF YOU LET ME FUCK YOU!”

“WHAT?”

“I SAID YOU ARE VERY PRETTY!”

*giggle* “THANK YOU!”

What was even more amusing was the middle-aged peacocks strutting around. And, yes, that means the men. There were at least three of them, my age or older, trolling with their shades on, neck bobbing back and forth in front of the garden, the dance floor and the stage begging to be seen, standin’ tall and feelin’ all silver and sexy and shit. To their credit, they did seem to be gearing their show to age-appropriate women. Hey, guys, when you keep your face forward, I can still see you checking me out from the side when your eyes roll my direction. The sunglasses only hide you when you’re looking straight on.

From in front:

“ALL THE PROBLEMS TODAY (holier-than-thou-hair-flip) ARE BECAUSE PARENTS DON’T SPANK THEIR CHILDREN.”

“YES, I PLAN TO SPEND A YEAR IN CHINA, JUST WANDERING THE STREETS, HIDING AMONG THE MASSES SO AS TO FIND WHO I REALLY AM.”

“EXACTLY, SOME PEOPLE SHOULD JUST NOT HAVE KIDS.”

“I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO EXPLORING THE  GUANDONG PROVINCE.”

“THEY SHOULD PASS A LAW THAT SAYS YOU CAN’T BREED UNLESS YOU PASS A TEST.” (She was a good case-in-point for that.)

“YUP! 23 PROVINCES!”

That aside, watching the diverse mix of people, dancing babies (we want to get you there, Dez, you’ll love it), teens feeling their first flickers of freedom (I remember that oh, so well), extended families hangin’ together (the hippie parents with hippie teens were priceless), the old gals who barely squeezed into their lawn chairs standing to do a couple of twists when moved by the music, groups of friends, all colors, all backgrounds, laughing, hugging, nudging and pointing, well it was and has always been way wicked cool and a little slice of my kind of utopia.

From behind:

“I’m A LEO! AND YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT LEO WOMEN!?”

We didn’t wait around to find out. It was a good experiment, and we’d always wanted to give it a try, but it was time to go.

Hells yeah we’ll be back again next Friday! You can find us near the fire pit . . . . not in the beer garden.