Morning Person (Judy & Ruth)

[Judith Eastman]

"That's true. I don't want to have to explain to a doctor 'oh, yeah, we got chlamydia from sitting in a tank without any pants on.' Doesn't seem too believable," Judy answered.
Max chuckled, and so Judy continued.

"You know, actually, for a couple of decades back in the 21st century, most koalas had chlamydia. Most - as in a statistical majority. Good luck looking at those little guys the same way ever again."

"Good luck looking at Judy the same way, now that you know she knows so much about chlamydia," Max added wryly.

[Ruth Sigurdsdottir]

"Actually Max there's less and less surprising me about Judy.  She's a wonderful but unusual person, as well you know.  Koalas however.... never gonna look at them the same again.  Mostly cuz well, I know how chlamydia is spread so, if they statistically have it more then you know... logic dictates we might have to change the popular saying from rabbits being the species in question to being koalas!!"  Ruth giggled.

"Anyhow, tanks, with our keks on!" she chuckled. "Though I do know someone that did themselves an injury trying to erm... well it was a bet, my friend, female, well her boyfriend now hubby had a bet with 4 mates.  they had an long document of about 100 places - some really weird and wonderful ones, where they had erm... well it's you two I can say.  Where they had to have sex, and take holophoto evidence of the act and post to their MySpace page that they set up between the 10 of them.  There was some prize going for the couple that did the most places in a designated amount of time.  They managed to dislocate Lilah's shoulder while trying to do it in a tank! So you two had better behave yourselves!" Ruth said waving a mock admonishing finger from the back seat towards the rear view mirror.

"Worst place I ever have, for I'm not totally sweet and innocent, was in the back seat of a Citroen 2CV motor car.  Never again!"

[Judith Eastman]

Max shook his head.

"You might as well try all those things while you're young, when the consequences are lower. At our age, we tend to mostly stick to the bedroom," he explained.
"Or the shower, or pool, or a nice lawn, or the sand out here, actually," Judy added, undermining Max's point and making him blush. "But the point stands - no contortionist acts for us."

Judy smoothly parallel-parked along a main street and then stepped out of the car, putting a little swing in her hips as she led her party to a nearby ice cream parlor. Max promptly put a hand around his wife's waist, a possessive discouragement to some much younger men.

[Ruth Sigurdsdottir]

Ruth noted with amusement that the other people in the street, well mostly the men, were following Judy with their eyes, not her which was generally the case.

"Still got it then Judy!" she said, chuckling as they entered the ice cream parlour.

"As for the other thing,.." the redhead commented choosing her words carefully now that they weren't in the privacy of the car.

"... there's experimentation and there's comfort and enjoyment.  A fine line has to be drawn between the two, and in the case of sand.... it can get in places you don't want it to so that is a hard NO from me!"

[Judith Eastman]

"Well, you're not wrong, but the sense of adventure sometimes triumphs over common sense," Judy answered. "Now, let's focus. Ice cream. You can go wild."

She looked over the various flavors on offer, intentionally crouching slightly in a more provocative manner.

"As for the gawkers, at my age, their process is three-fold. The first look is the usual act of checking a woman out. Then comes the 'how old is she?' look, and then the 'how does she still look like that?' look. I get more attention now than I did 40 years ago because of these awesome wrinkles."

Max gently leaned a hand on his beloved's lower back, and then refocused her attention.

"Professor showoff and I are going to share a cone with mango and pineapple sorbets, and you, Ruth, can have whatever your heart desires," he told the ladies.

[Ruth Sigurdsdottir]

Ruth laughed at Judy's comments but nodded in agreement then turned her attention to the ice cream flavours.

"Erm, are you guys familiar with the Earth Rock band of the mmmm I'd say 70s thru 90s was their peak popularity... Nineteen 70s to 90s that is, called 'Queen'.  They had a song 'I Want It All'... and I want it now!! Erm, there's such a thing as TOO...MUCH... CHOICE!!" she wailed mock-theatrically slapping a hand to her brow.

"How is a woman supposed to choose ONE, or even three... Let's see I think Pineapple, Coconut and Double choc, but just little scoops, I don't want to go hog wild.  Well, ok I do, but I still have a wedding dress to fit into!  Ooooh i have an idea, it's to do with ice cream but here isn't the place to talk about it."

The server grinned and gave her normal sized scoops of each with a wink, charging only for the double and saying "Extra scoop free for the blushing bride you be, hope you're happy and one extra scoop isn't going to affect the dress unless you try eating it with the dress on!" he smiled giving her a look that seemed to be a matter of '...wish I was the groom...' but then gave Judy a longer appraising look.  Ruth just took the ice cream gratefully and shook her head in amusement.

Ruth waited until they were away from the counter.  "And no it doesn't involve fitting a freezer into the back of the car and taking samples of all the flavours home with us, but that isn't a bad idea either!" she chuckled.

"You're making cheese in your valley, right... and cheese is made with milk, so I'm assuming you have, or have access to a dairy herd?  How about ice cream as another milk product, or fro-yos, or both.  Stop me if you've already had these ideas! Artisan ice creams... flavours you can't get anywhere else..."

[Judith Eastman]

Judy responded to the look with a confident hair flip, while Max responded by interlocking arms with her, to show that, yes, this sexagenarian blonde bombshell was his.

"Well, my dear Ruth, we'd thought about it," Judy answered to the ice cream idea, as she gave the street another little show on the way to the very close beach. "And we'd ruled it out, because of a little thing known as Alpine grazing. This is a practice in which our herds graze on lower pastures during the winter, and higher ones in summer, which gives the milk a distinct taste that's great for cheese, less great for ice cream. We actually have... many books about this stuff, if you're curious, but the short story is that it just wouldn't be the kind of quality we want to put our name on."

"As you can see, I don't put my name on just anything," Mr. Williams added as he squeezed his Mrs. Williams' thigh. She was absolutely amazing, mentally and, as some of the passers-by seemed to think, physically as well.

[Ruth Sigurdsdottir]

Ruth gave a very gallic shrug but nodded "That kinda makes sense in my layman limited understanding.  I get 'taste isn't right' and I understand about alpine grazing.  While farming in Norway isn't alpine, it is mountainous in places and I own a farm so... hey, my dairy herd only feeds on the lower pastures, if my idea for R&R for the crew comes to fruition, in that once we're done with Leyton I get them shore leave on Earth and we spend some time at Waring Manor, then of course you're both welcome, and the dogs.  They can play with Exy and Skye."

She grinned took a rather larger than prudent bite of ice cream and instantly regretted it, doing the 'Arrrrgh palate freeze' motions.

Once her mouth had warmed enough to speak again she grinned. "What I'm trying to get at is this.  I've already promised Kali that we'll take a shuttle over to my farm, and she can choose one of my Dad's vintage bikes to tinker with and get to working order.  I need to check in with my tenants anyhow, but you could try my milk fresh out of the cow and if it could be used for any of your plans, you're welcome to it!"

[OOC: The trip to Waring Manor is happening next month.  Feel free to join us or drop in as you feel you want to!]

[Judith Eastman]

"In principle, we'll try to make it work, but no promises," Judy answered. "We're not yet at the phase where we sit around the house, quietly waiting to die."

"You already died," Max reminded Judy, as he handed her their ice cream. "You've been dead for most of the time we've been married."

They found a bench and settled down on it.

"I'm not sure how useful the milk could be for our specific ventures, since Earth is a little far and milk doesn't store well, but you can probably use it to start a side hustle."

"The problem is that milk doesn't age like Max does. It ages exactly the opposite," Judy commented.

[Ruth Sigurdsdottir]

"Well offers are there... take them up when you see fit.  There's a cottage on my land too so if you want a little break on Earth I'll just let my tenants know that you're allowed to use it and I wouldn't charge the letting price!"  Ruth winked.

"And you can use anything I produce, for side hustles or whatever.  As for aging like Max, if we could all do that we'd have to bottle it and have that as a side hustle!" she said grinning.

[Judith Eastman]

Max was now very, very red. He wasn't used to bombardments of flattery towards himself, certainly his body, from anyone but Judy.

"If the trip does work out, we can perhaps take you on an excursion. We have a condo in Manhattan, which makes for a good home base to see all the history, culture, food, and traffic of the Big Apple. And, of course, Max knows a few places in Scotland."

"Judy's tour of Manhattan is an experience," Max added. "She knows little tidbits of history you wouldn't know to look for."

"Anyway, we have a tank to drive. Shall we go?"

[Ruth Sigurdsdottir]

Ruth followed and said with a shrug "That's fair, if things go the way that I suspect and want them to we'll be on Earth a month.  Quite a bit of that will be ferrying back and forth to HQ to liaise with JAG and so on about you know who..." she cast her eyes around. One could never be too careful or know who was listening.

"However, between those times I'm hoping to let the crew have as much R&R as possible and as well as some organised stuff like BBQs and a costume party, everyone can just use Waring Manor, or one of the lodges, cottages, chalets etc on the estate or one of the many rooms in the Manor itself, as a 'home base - slash - holiday destination' and do what they want within reason.  I mean if say the Briggs want to take Hollycock Cottage, for them and Elijah, there's room there to do whatever they want, they can stroll in the woods, there's a little lake with rowboats and a sailing boat... it's on a river the sailing boat not the lake, lake is only small!  Get the sail up and you'd be at the other side!" she chuckled.

"But yeah, I'm more than happy to come to Manhattan for a couple of days or if I need to be in San Fran say 2 days it's a lot quicker to get from Manhattan than it is from Yorkshire, England!  We can do Manhattan, some of Scotland potentially, my farm in Norway...but yes, tanks!!"

Ruth's face took on a grin that was seldom seen other than on the features of Wolverine in the fantasy movies.

"Let me at 'em!!"

[Judith Eastman]

"We'll just have to play that all by ear," Judy replied, sealing the topic of Earth as she stood up with a little grunt, pushing off of Max's lap with one hand. He then stood up, using Judy's arm as a support. It was a sweet little moment, made possible - and necessary - by their age.

They led Ruth back to the car, where, in preparation, the older couple put on suitable clothing (their outfits from the fish market excursion).

"Back to adulting, unfortunately. With great destructive power comes great responsibility," Judy quipped, as she buckled into the driver's seat.
"You're going to be irresponsible; I know you," Max teased, as he buckled in by his wife's side. "And since Ruth is a lot like you, we're all going to have a big, irresponsible time together."
"That's the second-highest compliment in Max's book that you just got - being compared to me. The highest, of course, is a compliment to your cooking skills," Judy narrated.

[Ruth Sigurdsdottir]

"Compliment accepted, and the importance!" Ruth grinned.  "And the way I see it We have enough to be responsible with normally, I think we can let our hair down, go wild whatever you want to call it, when we're officially off duty, otherwise we might go totally crazy..."

She looked at the older couple with an impish grin.  "OK OK don't state the obvious!"

[Judith Eastman]

"You're already totally crazy, yes. No news there, young lady," Judy replied, even as she floored the gas pedal and took off. Driving at a speed that made Max visibly uncomfortable, she took them out of the town, and onto the main road, heading inland.

"Can you slow down just a little bit?" he begged of her.
"No," she answered, continuing to drive ferociously forward, passing other cars as she did.