Buenos dias, Puerto Vallerta

Once again, I have left the country. It is what I do when all else fails, particularly when the days in New York are ever briefer, and I am in need of more sunlight than I can find at that latitude.

This post finds me in Mexico, where the sun sets two hours later in the day than it does at home. My traveling companions are my next-door neighbor, with whom I travel well, and a friend of hers, a 68-year-old boy-crazy retired singing judge, whose retirement was, I believe, not of her own accord.

Between the two of them, it seems I am not making use of my most visible assets, namely my figure, which has been critiqued and praised from head to toe. It has also been suggested that I don't leave the apartment without my mascara on.

The consensus is, I should wear tighter, V-necked dresses that show off my cleavage, higher heels, and bikini swim suits to accentuate my figure. I don't need tips on how to do anything approximating the Sluts R Us wardrobe of my youth. I know I still have the body; these days, I prefer to dress for comfort. And not necessarily for a man's eyes.

I especially am not on the prowl for a week-long fling, which I presume would be mine if I showed the slightest interest. I went to college in the 1970s; I know how to dress to get laid, and I have long been convinced that if that's my goal, it doesn't matter what I am wearing. Sex isn't about clothes -- it's about a mood, and that mood is not one I find intriguing at the moment.

Once again, I am at a time share, complete with non-stop activities for the entertainment challenged. Personally, I can sit at the beach all day and read a book, shifting positions with the sun. I do not need water aerobics, bingo, dance lessons, water volleyball, cable TV, and an all-you-can-eat theme buffet dinner.

This menu of events, I am finding, is the way of all tourists American in this century, at least in every tropical locale I have visited of late. I suspect my choice of companions has something to do with it, although my next-door neighbor and I agree that the Caribbean island we visit later in the winter, one that sees a dozen tourists a week, max, is more our speed.

But it is December, and this is the invitation that has come my way. Far be it from me to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth. However, the next one that comes accompanied by a thrice-married singer who is trying to decide if sleeping with her septuagenarian boyfriend will bring her the kind of ready cash to be her companion and fellow traveler, may be one that I sacrifice.

I don't think she's on an estrogen-fueled sexual mission -- she is too calculating, has such large dollar signs in her eyes that, I find her distressing and disturbing. From an oh-so-slightly different perspective, it appears to me that her interest is in the world's oldest profession, and I cannot understand how a woman who became a lawyer in the 1960s has the mind of a 1950s teenager trying to figure out what she has to give of herself to get her boyfriend to go "steady."

Meanwhile, out in the sunshine, my tan is progressing and I'm swimming a mile a day. So the finer things in my life are winning out. Pass me the SPF #30 and another iced tea.