Miss Cougar

Miss Cougar

Miss Cougar America has been crowned - and her name is Gloria Navarro! Gloria Navarro, who attended the National Single Cougars Convention at Dinah's Garden Hotel in Palo Alto, California, on Friday August 28, was the first to be crowned Miss Cougar America. The 'cougar' event was filled with cocktails and excited women past their prime. The convention was sponsored by Rich Gosse's Society of Single Professionals. The two best parts of the night included the crowning of Gloria Navarro from Redwood Shores - and the arrival of 100 young male 'cubs' to chat with the cougars. When I saw an ad for the National Cougar Convention in Palo Alto, I knew I had to go. I certainly don't consider myself a cougar. I'm a mere 31 years old, thank you very much. And I can assure you, I have no interest in awkward conversations over Jack and Cokes with a 22 year old named Trey who likes complex handshakes.

I wanted to go to observe, mock, appreciate and report back to you fine people that I attended the Cougar Convention and lived to tell about it. Cougars, for those of you who don't regularly watch E!, are sultry older women who enjoy and seek out the company of younger men. Held at Dinah's Garden Hotel in Palo Alto, I actually booked myself a $99 room and ventured down early on Saturday afternoon, with hopes of lounging by the pool to watch oiled-up cougars work on their tan lines in preparation for the crowning of Miss Cougar USA. The hotel is what my mother would call "a trip." Polynesian-themed, Dinah's Garden Hotel appears to be a fake tropical oasis in the middle of stucco strip malls and the kind of condos favored by serial rapists. My little lanai overlooked the pool, which was filled with a few families and no one else. It was all very shy, middle aged men. If anyone was there for the Cougar Convention, they weren't screaming it from the chandeliers. The only dude in there shooting me shifty glances was a dead ringer for the one-armed man in The Fugitive.

I had plans to meet Beth Hondl, my frequent collaborator on videos for VidSF and the SFAppeal once the party got started, at around 9:30. We figured we could skip the keynote speaker, a woman named Francesca who was going to tell what I imagined to be an empty room all about whatever "Cougarliscious" means. But by 7 o'clock, I'd gotten bored with watching "Locked Up Abroad" in my hotel room and headed to the bar of the adjoining restaurant, Trader Vic's. I took the one empty seat at the bar and ordered a Shirley Temple. I got up and retreated to my room to apply too much mascara and don my animal-print cardigan, a sartorial selection that seemed like a good idea when packing for my trip to the Cougar Convention. But standing in the hotel room, adjusting my skirt and poofing my hair, I started to realize I was looking too much like one of them. What if my little, bitchy joke backfired and I was mistaken for a tacky, desperate, older woman?!?!