A slightly different tangent for my blog....NO, a VERY different tangent for my blog

So, Mr. and Mrs. Z had a bit of trouble sleeping Saturday night because Condo #4 was having a party. That's fine, he's single, he has friends........A LITTLE loud, but not too bad. We finally slept.

2:30 in the morning, I wake up to a sound in the condo pool. I get up and cross the hallway to look out my window here by my computer (it's like a lighthouse window here, I can see a lot) and I peer down at the brightly lit turquoise rectangle of water below. In it is a girl of about 25. Said girl is completely nude. "Well," Z thinks, "THAT's a new one around here!" I look a little to the left and there's Ben, from #4, sitting in a pool chair. Next to him is another man. They are clothed. Ben has a camera. The girl is, shall we say, not shy. Okay, I think......that's ...different! I go back to bed.

Ten minutes later, my curiosity's getting the best of me (come ON, yours would have, too.....). Ben has gone inside (he soon came back out with wine coolers) and la femme fatale is asking the other man, now also naked and in the pool, some questions. "Oops," I think, "this is REALLY ..........different!"

"What do you do?" The man says he's worked some film production, driven some truck, and is now staying with Ben for a few weeks, until he "gets his *()^& together. " Charming. I go back to bed. But, (come ON, you would have been curious, too) I get up five minutes later because it's awfully quiet now "maybe they've gone inside?"

Let's just say "Oh, no.....they HADN'T...they were quietly........................... ya." Well, after all, she'd now known him for probably a couple of hours (if they'd met and talked during the large party?) and had now known what he does for a living for all of ten minutes.

Okay, well.....they are adults. But, I think about this girl and I think how little it took for her to have sex with this guy. Then, I'm torn. Am I being a PRIG? Am I feeling a little creepy because I swam in the pool that afternoon and would swim in it again Sunday? Stay with me here...I do have a point. Would I care if I knew she'd had sex in Ben's extra bedroom with this complete stranger after the party, I ask myself? The answer is "for me, no, what do I care? For her, OH yes, I do care." Is sex THIS casual these days, is it THIS meaningless, THIS ....well.......PETA-esque, let's say? (I think you get my drift?) Aren't humans better than this? Will things improve or what do we expect for little girls who're now, say, ten years old?

I wake up in the morning and I have a gloom I can't shake, and I think of last night. I think how our society's different than it was and I wonder if it can be good and uplifting and honorable again? Sure, behavior like this isn't rare and never has been, but has it been rarER over the years? Yes. I think of today's 4 yr old little girls what things will be like when they're 18, and I think that this young girl reveres sex so lightly that she hasn't anything really wonderful and exciting to fantasize about, to look forward to. Does she know the feeling of sex with LOVE, I ask myself? Can she ever know, is she so desensitized that she'd do this with a stranger in front of someone else? Gloom hung over me most of Sunday. Until about 3:00. Here I was (as usual) sitting at my computer next to the aforementioned window. I hear voices and my mind goes to last night and that young girl. I look down.

John from condo #9 has brought 2 1/2 yr old Lisa, his firstborn of 2 adorable Asian/American daughters down to the pool. I mention her ethnicity because her mother's Chinese and I think mixed race children are SO beautiful, and OH, is she!! Lisa LOVES the water and comes down with Mommy from time to time and chats with Z while she's in the pool or on a chaise reading another Martha Grimes mystery. But, I have never seen Daddy with Lisa like this. Her hair is in pig tails with pink barrettes and she's wearing those little arm things that keep children afloat. She's wearing a ruffly pink bathing suit and she is giggling in her daddy's arms. He is clearly besot with love for her. "You hang onto me, sweetie, Daddy's taking you in the water." "Wait for Daddy, Lisa..." "Hold on now, sweetheart". He glides her around the pool and she laughs and laughs. It's such a delight to see this. He holds her under her arms and glides her right through the water where last night's scene had happened........giggling, happiness, purity and goodness erase the area for me. The white splash of sunlit water seems to clean the night.

I think how good, how very sweet, this is. I feel like this was a gift to me and that's why I'm giving it to you, corny and priggish as this whole silly account probably seems to you. I felt uplifted and have felt better since. In the reality of daily life, in the midst of a harshness and coarseness, can come beauty and optimism. I felt it was a message. I was uplifted.

that's all.

z