When I first read that Judi Dench and Maggie Smith were in a movie about pensioners going to India I started to worry. Then a couple of discerning friends saw The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and came home raving.

Still, I needed to know how the film portrayed older people. You know, people like us? Would we want to be them? What I meant was, would you call the characters adorable (ick) or attractive (yay). Were they getting a little daft?

Were they airbrushed and stretched to the max?  Or had they stopped obsessing about their necks?

Hollywood is not known for being respectful, let alone real, about older people. It’s like movie makers want to disassociate themselves with getting old. Like, they couldn’t possibly relate.  So every time movie characters are said to be of a certain age, I expect to squirm.

I want them to be romantically inclined but not desperately randy. I don’t want them to all be Senior Olympians but I don’t want them to all  need a hand to cross the street.  And please don’t let them be timid. Or terribly cranky.

I don’t want them to wear rubber shoes and granny panties.  I want them to be hip and wise, not petted and pathetic.  I want to laugh with them, not at them.

It’s all about PR. You don’t want people in your same time zone making aging look bad.

Shortly into Marigold my friend whispered, “I like that they have their own faces.”  The actors, in their 60s and 70s, have been around for a long time. As have their faces and bodies.   You can hope that younger people might look at those creases and gray hair on the big screen and get the idea that this is what naturally happens in the normal life cycle. Not just to their grandparents but to fine and famous actors. And that’s okay.

Then you have the Marigold characters, people who’ve been disappointed in life and facing some scary unknown, but are trying to cope. Or as Judi Dench’s Evelyn says, to not just cope, but thrive.

Another good line: “If everything works out in the end and things haven’t worked out, it must not be the end.”  At least it trumps, “Life is short and then you die.”

Some call it The Big Chill for Geezers but what’s wrong with that? I’d love to have those people over for a house party.

After I turned off my ageist radar I relaxed with the story. I was particularly struck by how kind some of the characters were. Wouldn’t it be nice if you became more compassionate the longer you lived on the planet?

The big challenge in getting older, of course, is not to panic, which isn’t easy because there are a lot of things that can go wrong. But a lot that can go right, too, even without proper planning.

If the retirement savings go to hell and the pension goes bust and they kill  Social Security maybe we could move to a run-down palace in Jaipur where the locals  seem to like Americans.  And, I might add, where the fashion is far from fuddy-duddy. Those long scarves and dresses over pants are rather flattering on the mature body. And seem just made for hopping on a motorcycle.

I was in Austin to meet the new boy baby and provide emotional assistance and technical backup to the new parents. In between Derby duty (that’s his name…Derby), making up nonsense lullabies, studying the breast pump manual and stomping on Texas-sized cockroaches, I was reading Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises for our book club.

Derby is good and strong and lean and can drink long into the night and next day. But he won’t have to grow up to be a Hemingway he-man. And isn’t he a lucky fellow?

His tiny clothes are covered with trucks and tigers but he can also wear polka dots with panache. His favorite pacifier is pink. He’s a beautiful boy whose looks change daily, but I’m pretty sure he has my ex-husband’s nose.

He will likely one day read Hemingway because he comes from a family of readers.  The Hemingway stories may inspire him to go to Paris and sit in cafes and write at least one simple declarative sentence. Or he may read Hemingway and think, “Huh, what an interesting anthropological peek into the evolution of the American male.” Maybe he’ll ask his grandfathers, “Did you ever want to shoot a water buffalo to prove you had the stuff?”

Hemingway’s Lost Generation was a messed up macho one, scarred by war, distrusting, always wanting to pick a fight. Worried about losing face, being called a coward. Too tough to show feelings.  Wary and resentful of women.

I always liked the places in his stories a lot more than the people. In re-reading Hemingway I’m still unclear how, for being so worried about the rent, they still managed to spend all winter skiing.

Our new baby boy was born into a world where fathers sleep in the labor room and carry their own diaper bags. Who are more into swaddling than swagger. And while some may still wish for a return to the days when the measure of a man is the size of his gun collection, today’s boys get to grow up with more than macho to choose from.

Hemingway helped create the man of his times. The man’s man – aggressive, tough,   proud, stoic, pugnacious, domineering, loutish even. The woman of the times, of course, had her own rigorous standards. We’ve been working on these stereotypes since Derby’s grandmother became a feminist and Derby’s mother was a little girl with a toolbox and pink overalls. And we all sang It’s All Right to Cry and William Has a Doll.

We imagined this daughter having a girl baby. She did, too, although for a long time she said she didn’t want to have children. The first surprise was she was pregnant. The second was she was having a boy.

I knew she had been thinking girl and started a campaign to convince her that mothers and sons make great combos. I gave her examples of all the wonderful women I know whose boys were their sweet little buddies. And once they got past the teenage years, which are just as painful with daughters as sons (as she well knows) they grew up to be thoughtful adults who remember their mothers’ birthdays and bring home cool women to become daughters.

She said I could lay off the propaganda. She had already decided it would be fun to have a boy.

Derby blasted into life as storm clouds gathered over Austin, which caused the sky to rumble and flash and finally deliver rain to Texas after months of drought. Then came a full moon and cool breezes and those who lived in Derby’s house could finally turn off the air conditioner and listen to the night.

And it was right and it was fine and this baby didn’t have to prove another darn thing.

As a reader and writer and member of that large demographic of bookish Boomer women, I am making a plea for real women to buy real books. That is, from a real, not a virtual, book store – a bell-jingling, coffee-brewing, pet the cat and spend an hour book store. Where you and a stranger might discuss the latest Annie Dillard. And where a clerk may even know your tastes and nudge you into novel by a great new unknown. And yes, sure, where you will likely pay full price, plus tax.

So it costs a bit more to pay retail, the pleasure of reading is still a bargain. As we cut down on eating out, bar hopping and going to movies, we’ll rely even more on books to fuel us through the cold winter. And if we pay a fair price we’ll be giving back, helping to keep a community business alive, along with the greater world of publishers and authors.

With that in mind I’m making a New Year’s vow to confine my book buying to book stores, preferably independents and local. And to visit the library when my book budget needs relief. It’s not a big deal pledge, in fact very easy for me since I am lucky to live in a town with two surviving book stores and a library. But I’ve done my share of online ordering. When it’s raining. Or I’m feeling lazy. Or when I’m feeling poor and rationalizing that cheapest is best.

I decided to get firm after reading another sad commentary on the book business by New York Times writer David Streitfeld. An admitted bargain book hunter, he confessed to being the kind who buys and sells books through Internet dealers, the ones who sell from their homes and have no arrangement with an author or a publisher. In a recent score he paid 25 cents…plus shipping for a wanted book.

Recognizing that his frugal ways do nothing to support any aspect of the imperiled business that gives him pleasure, he warned, “No industry undermined by its greatest partisans will thrive long.”

By last count an estimated 20 million Americans were in book clubs. So, I’m thinking, what if all book club members made an attempt to buy local for one year? A bunch of car lovers are not going to bail out the auto industry. And all we can do about the banks is wait around and hope.

But we can do our own little bit to prop up those institutions that feed our habit.

I’ve shared my New Year’s intent with my book club and with friends in other book clubs, hoping to inspire others.

There’s been a mixed reaction. Some say they simply can’t afford to buy books full price. Some say it’s more efficient to buy online. My friend in the techie book business points out that it will take all styles of reading, be it by hand-held computer or audio to keep the book industry afloat. She defends some types of online ordering, like Amazon, which discounts books but also showcases authors and is a lifeline for book publishers. I get that. If there’s no other way to get your book, go that route. Otherwise get thee to your book store.

Some say that book stores need to try harder to woo their local readers. I don’t know. My book store gives out dog treats, has a reliable list of staff-recommended books and a nice selection of body wash and Moleskin journals.

We have to do this, I told a friend, or we’ll lose all our great hang outs. Like the smart, comfortable Cody’s, I said, down to only one store in the Bay Area. Oh no, she corrected me. The last one closed months ago.

Listen to the Real Women Buy Real Books radio segment on KRCB’S Another Voice.