Cheryl

It was earlier in the week. I met Mrs. Brazil again. She said she had been looking for me. "Where were you?", she asked. I had apparently told her my office hours. She has a memory like an elephant. I said Lil bought me a box of groceries. I had to walk back to her car with her. She is around eighty - "eighty-four", Mrs Brazil interjected, and she wore me out walking so fast. It was a death march. Then I had to get my car and bring it over to transfer the box. It was heavy. So it was a very late start. I flirted with her shamlessly. We spent about an hour together. Amazingly she did almost all the talking. I love that. I could flirt all I wanted with her. She didn't seem to mind. She is safe. She is happily married and so all is play acting. But it feels so good. Used to do it all the time with various woman back in the hippie days, without it leading to anything more. There are so many woman one can love. I get to say things to her that I would not otherwise. I get to express my feelings. If I cannot have it all, I am one lucky man to have what I have. Thank you Mrs Brazil - I love you.

Well I was flirting with another man's wife. Mrs. Brazil had invited me to a BBQ on Labor Day. I said I don't think so. She said it would be just her and her husband. I said that is the problem. I am afraid I would not be able to keep from flirting with you and he would get jealous. Would be very rude of me. So I couldn't help revisiting the problem of the properness of flirting with another man's wife. My rule has always been that it is up to the woman. Personally if it is me I don't care. I am secure in myself. I can't give a woman everything. If she wants to get something elsewhere, what I do not have or cannot give, that is better for her. I do not have to feel responsible for the inadequacy. I am only one person. I can't be everybody. The first rule of good manners is the consideration of others. Of course there might be rules so as to keep offense to a minimum. In any case it certainly should be a matter between the woman and husband.

Near a week later I was sitting on a bench in the shade. An East-Indian woman came and sat down, because it was the only bench in the shade, she said. We were having a good discussion. She was educated, intelligent, urbane, a great sense of humor and somewhat fashionable. She was with a fisherman who was more walking around with a pole than fishing. We had some conversation. She yelled at the fisherman to be careful. I said, is that your husband. She said yes, she was looking out for him.

He came over shortly and introduced himself, and started to completely dominate the conversation. He was a physician and apparently thought he was the only guy that knew anything. He asked me what I did. I said, "I am an intergalactic psychologist, psychiatrist and philosopher. I am here to find out why this place is so messed up. When I am done, they will take me out, and after I hope a goodly vacation, they will send me to some other intergalactic planet. When I am leaving someone will say, 'is your destination business or pleasure?' And I will say, 'business always business'". I told him I was a know-it-all and there was nothing he could tell me that I did not know, so he should give someone else a chance to talk. But he proceeded anyway to tell me how to stay healthy and I told him I already knew everything he was telling me. Then he said alright I will sit down and you can stand up and do all the talking. I said the way it works is you say something stop, then she or I will say something - stop - take turns like that. Seemed like with him she didn't come into it.

He was five years younger than me, on all kinds of medications and not all that healthy apparently, since that was why she was watching him. He was generous though and shared some chips to eat. But any further conversation on his arrival, that would not be strictly about himself was essentially at an end. I asked him how he had gotten such a great wife. "Oh you are a physician must have been the money", I kidded. He said no, her family was richer than his family.

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