Men-No-Pause

When four menopausal women go camping in a remote, rustic cabin in the Black Hills of South Dakota, certain fundamental precepts of polite society are bound to be trampled. There’s just no way around it.

Too many cooks spoil the broth. This no longer applies when four women, all used to complete control of the kitchen, come together. However cramped the quarters, all four women will attempt to occupy even the tiniest kitchen space simultaneously. There is an occasional brandishing of knives and other sharp instruments one must watch out for. Collisions are inevitable and are best turned into impromptu dances.

Always keep the comfort of others in mind. Poo, I say. A woman plagued by daily hot flashes and/or night sweats will open windows, leave doors ajar (ignoring the threat of renegade bats or coyotes), crowd in front of an open refrigerator, stick her feet in a nearby stream or (if no stream is available) cold toilet water, hog fans, throw blankets across the room or steal them from compadres, or strip down to indecency with total disregard for anyone else, as her haywire internal thermostat demands.

Be patient, compassionate, considerate. This sounds great in theory, but when HELL hits (hormone-enhanced lethargy or lunacy), manners go bye-bye. Expect a woman under this hellish influence to rant one minute and weep the next, drone on with a litany of complaints, eat something high-fat and salty, then fall into a deep, stuporous nap. Wake and repeat. Wake and repeat.

Be mindful of proper modesty and decorum. Nope, won’t happen. In fact, menopausal women will sometimes test the effectiveness of kegels and the weakness of bladders by intentionally making each other laugh until semi-hysterical, with seemingly innocuous pantomimes in their underwear and/or incredibly lame puns. NM’s (non-menopausers) would not understand what’s so funny. This raucous and often baseless laughter can be counted as one’s daily aerobic exercise.

Leave the driver alone. Impossible. The laws of physics suggest that four women in an enclosed moving space will each attempt to direct the timing and direction of movement until navigational volume reaches the limits of human comfort, when the four must stop in Rochford and split a beer. Drive and repeat. Drive and repeat.

All life in balance. This is the prime directive in menopausal camping and, in spite of HELL, is eventually observed. The lunacy and lethargy are counterbalanced by blissful moments of solitary reflection, peaceful conversational examination of spiritual ideals, generous sharing of relationship and/or parenting observations, quiet perusing of self-help books or trashy novels, collective identification of native flora & fauna, and an open expression of gratitude for one another’s continuing friendship & company.

Down from the Mountains

We’re back from the Black Hills, and one almost needs a vacation after a vacation. Ray, his son Jasper, Yogi and I drove out last Thursday, pausing to meander through the Badlands. With the unusually heavy snow last winter and rain this spring, the Badlands are the greenest they’ll be for another 100 years, according to park rangers. We saw prairie dogs bob up and down in their holes like an arcade game, turkey vultures and maybe an eagle circling the cliffs, and a couple of antelope rams squaring off for a round of head butting.

There were 15 of us in Ray’s extended family group, staying in two cabins near Silver City. It was an ideal vacation, where we either hung out together or split into groups to wander the Hills. Ray and I got to visit friends in Deadwood and Spearfish, and various groups fished, golfed, did horseback trail rides, hiked, or went sight-seeing. We checked out the progress at Crazy Horse monument, and we wandered through Hill City. Yogi obsessively stalked Ray’s one-year-old great niece, and we had to maneuver to keep Yogi away from Ray’s niece’s Shiba Inu, Presley, who’s not so fond of pesky pups.

Ray dropped me off in Spearfish Sunday evening, where I met up with Deirdre, Gloria, and Millie. Then on Monday morning as Ray and his family all headed home, the four of us women drove up to a cabin near O’Neill Pass. The cabin sits at the end of a long drive, in the middle of a meadow at around 6500 feet. No TV, no phone service, no computers—just elk, deer, and at night, bats & coyotes. We walked, read books, talked, played guitars & sang, and toured old haunts in the Hills. One night we aimed a flashlight at a treeline at the edge of the meadow and discovered glowing coyote eyes blinking back at us. It makes one wonder, who are the watchers and who are the watched?

It’s good to be home. It took me a couple days of driving in the Hills to shed my flatlander equilibrium and get over my up-turn-down-turn queasiness. And although I could get used to the spectacular topography of the Hills, I know I would miss the magical peace & the perspective--the sheer vastness of earth & sky--I marvel at here on the prairie.

More rain while we were gone, so things are looking a little tropical, including the foot-high lawn. In peacock news, now we are thirteen—Debbie’s only child is still around, but Wanda’s down from 6 babies to 4. The big boys have dropped most of their train feathers, which are now woven into our wire fence like fringe. No sign of the cats lately. My brother and his family from KS are coming through tonight on their way to MN for the reunion of my dad's side of the family, so we’ll go for dinner at Mom’s. Mom’s having minor surgery on Tuesday, so we’ll miss my family’s reunion this year. I’ll have to start working in earnest soon, getting ready for a new, busy semester, but it is still summer, and Ray calls me the Queen of Procrastination, so for today at least, I’m planning to uphold my office…