Movie Night, Part 2

From my perch on the couch, I yesterday saw this big boy being walked down the pathway.

I hope the woman, obviously a new resident, follows the rules and scoops her pooch’s poop, because I'd hate to see his droppings nestled in amongst the painted rocks.

Long-time readers, familiar with management screwups here at the senior complex, probably won’t be much surprised to learn Movie Night never happened, though I observed at least one resident ready and waiting — having plopped down on a bench, overlooking the area, around 7:30 p.m.

After 15 minutes of seeing nothing happening, she left.

Actually, there were two residents ready and waiting.

Behind that tree, in the upstairs unit, is the patio of a resident whose placement gives her a birds eye view of the location the movie was to be shown.

A friendly woman, she has never made the blog, but caused one of the disagreements I had with Handsome Man because of his opining how others should live.

It was that day he came onto me with his, “I’m looking for a good woman” line. Since I wasn’t interested in being that woman, I deflected by pointing out other single women he might consider.

One was Next Door Neighbor, who’d invited him to dinner once or twice (he accepted) and who had indicated to me she was very much interested in him.

Handsome Man doesn’t know I know about the dinners but, when I offered her up, he’d shook his head, actually shuttered — as though shaking off a bad memory, and gave me a unequivocal NO!

I then pointed out the woman with the patio behind the tree was single, to which Handsome Man went off on a tirade about her having a relationship with an old army vet I see out walking his dog most days.

He said the man was married, his wife is an invalid and yada yada yada here he was visiting the upstairs unit, having dinner with that woman.

My position in life is that we are all doing the best we can with the cards we’ve been dealt. Consequently, nothing is right, nothing is wrong, but more it is what it is and so long as you’re not a complete arsehole, hurting and abusing and using others, in a harmful way, it’s not my place to judge.

Coming from that position of essentially live and let live, I foolishly responded to handsome man’s tirade by saying, “Well, if his wife is an invalid …” and before I could complete my sentence, Handsome Man’s voice went up several octaves. He began waiving his hands and went on a tirade starting with, “YOU CAN’T TELL ME THAT WHAT HE’S DOING IS …. yada yada yada”. So, I just shut up, let him have his say, then pretty much told Handsome Man that I wasn’t the kind of “good woman” he was looking for.

As for the woman on the upstairs patio, I don’t know, and neither does Handsome Man. For all we know, they could just be good friends, or it might be there is a relationship, the wife might know and may have given approval because why should the husband suffer needs the wife cannot fulfill.

Which, my saying “may have given approval” reminds me of years ago, when I was on a trip to Las Vegas. While others went to the casino, I was lounging at the pool, in a bathing suit, sunbathing and reading a book.

An old couple joined me at the pool, and we all got into general chitchat.

After a time, the couple left and I went back to my book

Then, the husband returned … alone.

He offered me money to have sex with him, saying his wife had given him approval —that the wife thought I was nice and looked clean.

That was not the first time I’d been propositioned, nor would it be the last (last time was just last week, when I was pumping gas at the corner station, but that's a tale for another time). Propositioned because why? ...  because a Black woman out walking for exercise or walking to work, in the mind of some guys, is selling it, a Black woman waiting for a bus at the bus stop is selling it, a Black woman sunbathing at the pool is selling it, a Black woman pumping gas is selling it.

I was calm and polite in declining the old guy's offer saying something to the effect, “I work. I have a job”, so he’d know I wasn’t a prostitute, did not need his money.

He upped the dollar amount and became so persistent that I got disgusted and ended up having to leave the pool to get away from him.

So, like I said, Handsome Man has no idea what’s going on between the old vet, his invalid wife, woman on the upstairs patio and therefore is not in a position to judge.

Along about 8:00 p.m., having seen the bench resident long gone, I walked outside to see for myself if Movie Night was happening.

Nothing.

Walking over to the woman on her patio, she said she’d seen no preparations.

Concluding, the event was another of management’s screwups, I headed back to my unit and caught Aquaman on tv.

Update: Running into Head Maintenance Guy this morning, I asked, “What happened to movie night?”

”No one RSVP’d”, said he.

I didn’t know, or see on the Monthly Calendar, that we had to RSVP. Probably no one realized that either, but it’s doubtful enough would have signed up to get it going anyway.