Preview of Coming Attractions

February 01, 2006

1/28/06
So, I've been having some women's health problems and my doctor loaned me a book to review so that I could be aware of my treatment options. The book was encyclopedic. Where do I start? So many ways a girl could go wrong...how about the chapter on menopause? Why isn't it called womenopause?
Peter Pan doesn't mind reading about premenopause, but Peter Pan doesn't want to read about plain old menopause. Peter Pan wants to be surprised by menopause. I won't grow old, I won't grow old. If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one to hear it, did it make a sound? And then if it is made into a book about menopause and the book isn't read, will menopause still happen?
I read the chapter on menopause, anyway, and now I get it. I am just about out of eggs. Time for the hen to be cast out of the chicken coop and into the stew pot. I am an almost empty egg carton with an expired date. I'm still in the refrigerator, but I'm about to be recycled into a chidren's craft, maybe one of those caterpillars with pipecleaner antennae, metamorphosis in reverse. Bye, bye butterfly.
I remember a day from my childhood in my backyard by the pussy willow bushes in early spring. I watch a ladybug and know that its lifespan will be only a handful of days. I'm pretty sure the ladybug will miss the Fourth of July and Christmas. At the end of her brief appointed time, the ladybug will be all grown up, lay its eggs and then that's it. Poor ladybug: eat, drink your aphids and be merry for tomorrow you die. Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire and your eggs are all gone. Ladybugs will come and go, while I have many summers to play.
Which reminds me of bookclub: we are discussing Tuck Everlasting. Tuck drank from the magic stream and will never age though all his friends and family do and he is left all alone. He cannot grow old along with anyone. Someone asks, "Who wants to live forever, anyway?" I do, I do, I DO!
How many of Solomon's wives were menopausal when he wrote, "It is a wonderful thing to be alive! If a person lives to be very old let him rejoice in every day of life, but let him also remember that eternity is far longer, and that everything down here is futile in comparison...the day one dies is better than the day he is born! It is better to spend your time at funerals than at festivals. For you are going to die and it is a good thing to think about it while there is still time. Finishing is better than starting."?
Here I am, with my summer coming to a close. The swordfight scene from Princess Bride flashes across my mind and a little voice whispers to me, "I am Inigo Menopause Montoya. Prepare to die."

Posted by cindy at February 1, 2006 06:33 PM

Comments
Hey, Mama, it's me. The image of you as a cardboard caterpillar is pretty funny.
Posted by: Momo at February 1, 2006 08:08 PM
Another re-laugh over "I am Inigo Menopause Montoya"
Posted by: john at June 25, 2006 04:59 PM