Holland America babes

One of the many things I enjoy about Holland America cruises is that they attract cruisers "of a certain age,"  We're the ones who know who we are and how we got here.  We no longer feel the need to impress or outshine one another.  Life is short, and we're not inclined to waste it on hours of primping.  The men we're with already know how we look and they like us just fine.  Their eyesight isn't any better than ours,  and none of them are underwear models themselves, so we can forego the       "compression capris" and the "slenderizing swimsuits." We  put on our muumuus, and enjoy the chocolate buffet.     How many women on the Titanic passed up dessert that final night?  You have to enjoy it when you can.

Every cruise has two or three trophy wives, who learned early that,"pretty pays," and have not developed any other marketable currency.  They are nipped, tucked, suctioned, siliconized, and lacqured to a high gloss.  They have abused their hair till it gave up and fell out, then they glued extensions to the few strands left.  But as the inevitable aging happens, the eyes fade and the hands become less steady, the beauties can no longer apply the makeup with the meticulous accuracy required.  False eyelashes come unstuck at the ends, twitching like crippled moths with every blink.  The foundation often reaches a low-tide mark at the jawline and that rose-petal smoothness on the cheek changes to lizard skin on the throat.  Blush might be applied on just one side (oops, did I forget my left cheek again?) or might be drawn on in defiant stripes.  The wavering black eyeliner starts to mimic raccoon eyes, and God help us, sometimes it goes on so thickly that it starts to flake off onto the cheeks.

Which is sadder - those of us who have surrendered to comfortable tolerance, or those who refuse to?  Those of us with the wash and wear gray hair, or those with the platinum polyester tresses?  The droopy and chubby gals lounging in the shade, or the lifted and sculpted ones who spend two angry hours in the gym every day?

Well, yeah, I'm an olympic class sloth, and I'm bringing self-indulgence to peaks of seldom-realized perfection,  but on the Holland America cruises, I discover that I am not alone!  As long as you can be clean and neat (or, if not neat, then at least you can be "artistic") and you are shiny on the inside, then why worry about the outside?  Wear those mommy jeans if you like them.  Wrap a sarong around your Grateful Dead t-shirt and to heck with the critics!  Be comfortable, and leave yourself room to laugh.