Response

In response to a question that was asked regarding a recent post, the woman I referenced is the landlord's grandaughter and lives in the apartment below where I live. I have lived with three women in my life, each so different and each so dear to my memory.
I livd with my Mother for eighteen years and feel that I was a disappointment to her. We never became friends in the way that she and my Brother did. Our values were different.She enjoyed laughter and singing and music and I have been morose almost all of my life. I was more concerned about what my friends and peers were up to than what was going on with my family. I left when I was eighteen and bummed all around the country for three years, forever banishing my thoughts of travel. Now I would rather stay home and make a good meal and read than wander about. New vistas and horizens are an anathema to me. I spent too many days and nights in strange places, feeling like a pariah, trying to eke out a living and secure a warm place to sleep.
I was married to a wonderful woman for twenty-one years. She gave me three wonderful daughters, love that knew no bounds, companionship that was the bulwark of finally seeing that live was full of joy and tenderness, an appreciation of opera, and a taste for literature as opposed to pulp fiction. That good woman eventually got sick of my bullshit and showed me the door. She was much more intelligent than I was and eventually showed it.
I lived with a French lady for several years. I never understood how she put up with me but there were hints. Once , when I was in the kitchen making three gallons of beef broth, she asked what I was doing and I told her. She immediately went to the grocery store and purchased ten pounds of assorted onions, some gruyere, and some cognac. The next day we spent the day in the kitchen making onion soup and drinking good wine. She discovered a unique way of judging wine. We would go to the wine store where they allowed tasting of possible purchases. If I liked the wine, it was put on the NO list. If I didn't like the wine, she would purchase a case. Every March she would park on the couch to watch the basketball tournament and whenever there was a tennis tournament on she would do the same. We both enjoyed cooking and cleaning and gardening. I remember once that she was sitting watching the tennis with one of her daughters and the daughter said "Ma, you have always been tiny but now you have begun to put on weight. Why?". At that moment I came out of the kitchen with a chocolate souffle I had just made. She said to her daughter "That's the reason there, and I know why he does it. I finally have a bust worth showing. That devious pervert doesn't think that I know what he is up to!".
The French lady eventually showed me the door and later called me to return. I did and one day I asked her what she saw in me. She replied "It is your quietness and strength that draws me. Your adventurous palate is also a big plus.". She passed away and I have lived alone since, interrupted by an interval where I lived with my Brother and his wife. That lady showed marvelous restraint in not smothering me while I slept. She and my Brother moved out and left me with the apartment.
It must be apparent from this tale that I don't understand women at all. They are a mystery to me. A marvelous fascinating mystery of which I have many fond memories. There is no woman on this planet that has fond memories of me but in my mind are the wisps of the gentler, tenderer, more reasonable, other side of humanity.
The comment also gave new meaning to the phrase "Company is coming. Add another leaf to the table.".