Mike 'n' Sheri, Baltimore, Md

We recently had occasion to visit Michael’s family in Tucson and decided on a place to stay nearby. We didn’t realize right away what it was; the rooms looked decent online, it was close to where his parents live, and it didn’t cost that much. Plus, it had a swimming pool.

The Voyager Resort turned out to be more than just the small motel where we stayed. It was a retirement community, complete with a huge contingent of Midwest AARPers in RVs and streets called Hummingbird or Mourning Dove or Roadrunner. Next to the RV park was a section of manufactured homes with tiny, tidy cactus gardens and wooden signs: John & Bobbi, Columbus, Neb…. Jim & Mary Ruth, Waukesha, Wisc.

But it also had not just one but three — three!!! — swimming pools and two hot good-sized hot tubs. It had a bar (yes, the bar closed at 9 or 10, but still….). And we loved it. What does that say about us? It’s no secret that some of those Midwest snowbirds were near my age (or maybe younger, truth be told). But it worries me a little that Michael grooved on the place. He’s getting so old!

Meanwhile, across the pond ...

A few weeks back we noticed a new square in our palette of followers. It wasn’t a face like this

or even a blogspot human representation like this

Instead, it was this.

Turns out that’s a paw print, and it belongs to a British blogger married to a “much younger man” and author of Beyond Cougar. On her site, Jo writes,

Beyond Cougar is for women, like me, who just happen to love a younger man, but can't stomach being branded as a 'Cougar'. … I write about relationship issues, and when I'm not doing that, I'm working in a senior marketing role - for now - the freelance world beckons! Enjoy your visit - I'd love to hear from you with comments and suggestions.

Jo xx

Jo's subjects have included Ten Reasons to Date a Younger Man and The Pressure of Looking Good When Dating a Younger Man. This week's topic is the backlash against Cougs.

We duck in to Beyond Cougar from time to time, and back when we first noticed it we added it to our blogroll. We’d follow Jo’s blog if it offered a function for following (it's WordPress, not blogspot).

But we notice that Beyond Cougar’s blogroll lacks any HimPlus17 action … Hey, Jo! How about a little love for the Yanks?

When age matters, when it doesn't

Sheri observed, when age doesn’t matter.

Talking to me when I’m in another room. • Iris cut from the yard, arranged in a delft vase. • Spooning: “You’re breathing on the back of my neck.” • One of her thumbs is shorter than the other, by a third. • The honest grin she can’t help when the dogs stare at her. • This past month, studying Solzhenitsyn, fascinated by the guy. • Today’s newspapers, with coffee. • Wanting summer. • The socks left behind the bathroom door. • Fingers deep in dirt, making a new home for petunias, pansies, lettuce, basil, hydrangeas, tulips. • Gin and tonic! • Swam three-quarters of a mile yesterday. • Balancing the check book, but why seventeen cents off! • “I’ll let you” as in “I’m finished with the dusting. I’ll let you vacuum.” • Napping, with a basketball game in the background. • Strawberries and yogurt and granola in bed. • Editing my blog post: “This doesn’t make any sense.” • The comfort of her voice in another room.

Sheri observed, when it does:

At the grocery store, without drugstore reading glasses, can’t see to work the self-checkout. It’s the first time. • Impatience with TV beer commercials because their narratives “make no sense.” • Wants to put movies on our Netflix queue from AARP’s list of “Movies for Grownups.” • Shoulder still sore, more than a year after the fall. • The future? That’s twenty good years. What do you do with that? • Cold comfort: The old person discounts at movie theaters and museums. • Bouncing her grand niece in her lap. • Last week, said, “I want to live in a comfortable house before I die.”

The Great Car Debate

Even the kind of car you buy can be an issue in a Him-plus marriage

A few years ago we were looking for a new vehicle, one that would fit both us and the dogs. We had a 1988 beater pickup truck that we dearly loved but needed replacing.

Sheri: was remembering her days traveling around the country in a Chevy van back in 1971. Yes! A van! Perfect for dogs, traveling and an aging hippie. Still a counterculture statement.

Michael: was thinking about minivans and soccer moms. A van??!! OMG! Just shoot me now, before I get any older.

Michael’s favorite car: his rag-top Jeep, which he had to leave in Arizona when he moved to New England 20 years ago. His mid-life crisis, should he ever have one, will involve, I think, a rag-top Jeep.

Sheri’s favorite: still that Chevy van, with burlap interior, a spare tire strapped to the roof, bikes strapped to the front, a bed in the back with tie-dyed sheets.

What we settled on: a Honda Element —marketed to young outdoorsy men but driven more and more by people with graying hair. The perfect choice.

Eat mor chikin

Home from work the other night, I found Sheri in the kitchen working from a book called The 35-Plus Diet Cookbook. The cookbook’s pages are so yellow they’re brown, the loopy title font looks a little too disco, and the spine has been broken so often Sheri needs a rubber band to keep the pages in place. I wasn’t excited to see the book, which we once consulted nightly but has in recent years setttled near the bottom of the recipe drawer. The book reminds me of skinless chicken breasts and rice, and a time when I – a guy in his twenties – ate like a woman in her forties.

When Sheri and I met, my habit was to eat anything. Fat was best. Pizza. Hot dogs. Kielbasi. I ate enough fast-food cheeseburgers that I still moooo in my dreams.

Then comes a woman who is a bit more careful about what she eats, and she is over 35, and she has this cookbook …

And I’m eating skinless boneless chicken breasts. Baked. With rice. And a green vegetable.

A few nights later? Same thing. Substitute broccoli for asparagus.

A few nights later? Substitute green beans.

“I can’t eat more skinless boneless chicken breasts!” I’d say. “I’ll pick up a gyro.”

But then I felt guilty. Especially when Sheri would say, “Oh, get me one, too.”

Suddenly I’m the enabler. But Sheri felt guilty, too. She knew I’d rather be eating macaroni and cheese. I sacrificed for her by eating skinless and boneless; she sacrificed for me by eating a double-cheeseburger. With bacon.

It took a decade and too many of my own extra pounds to bring our eating habits in line. I cooked more often, added spices to the chicken breasts, and I figured ways to keep them a bit juicier. Sheri agreed to eat kielbasi now and then. I’ve given up fast food hamburgers.

Still, arriving home the other night to find her with that 35-plus cookbook in hand gave me the queasies. No, Sheri assured me, this is our favorite recipe. And it was! Thin slices of steak and asparagus sautéed in a goopy brown sauce. It wasn’t boring chicken!

A few bites into dinner, we agreed pizza would have been better.

Gobsmacked

News Alert — In a surprise upset (a surprise for Esquire editors, at least), older foxy woman Helen Mirren crushes (66%-34%!!) younger foxy woman Megan Fox in Esquire's Sexiest Woman Alive contest.

Round Two of the voting starts Monday, when Mirren faces Ann Hathaway. Be there.

Older woman thinks about it all

I said to Michael today when he reminded me it’s my turn to put up a post that all of this blogging has made me think a lot more about our age gap than I used to.

Is that a good thing?

Writing this blog has given me cause to watch some really bad television (see entries on “The Cougar,” “Cougartown”), get suckered into figuring out my “Real Age,” follow the love lives of Katie Couric and Susan Sarandon, track the Twitter postings of Ashton Kutcher and ‘fess up to what I wrote in my journal almost 20 years ago.

But it’s also broadened my knowledge of the world, given me an opening for an honest chat with my mother-in-law, helped me think about his & her career issues, and given me a reason to watch a Kate Winslet movie.

We now find ourselves considering our age difference more than we used to, and confronting some issues — retirement, money, location — that we might have avoided.

The biggest advantage to thinking about our age difference so much is that I don’t hide from it anymore. Now I take it out and examine it a lot more than I might have, which makes it familiar — like wrapping up in a favorite sweater.

The bummer is that no matter how you slice it, I’m still the older one.