Another Walk in the Woods

My head felt like a Forth of July sparkler with ideas shooting in all directions then burning out one after another. Nothing lasted long enough to ignite the fire of my imagination. Usually on Saturdays I pop out of bed with an idea or two to write about for my Wednesday blog post, but yesterday I had nothing. So I loaded my dishwasher, another Saturday chore---I'm nothing if not predictable---then I headed down to breakfast which others here call 'lunch' hoping the table conversation would spark a topic for me to write about.

Two people living here in my continuum care complex get up at 4:30 in the morning and they were at the lunch table. Guess who gets pressed into service when someone needs an early morning ride to the airport. These two couldn't be any more different from one another. The woman used to be a kindergarten teacher and she's never left that mindset behind of being like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music in charge of entertaining and taking care of the Van Tripp family children. She's our little Miss Mary Sunshine, always ready to lead us in song when it's someone's birthday or pop out of her chair to grab something for a fellow diner. And she seems to enjoy her self-appointed Cheerleader role here in Old People Land.

The guy who is the early riser comes off like the iconic old duffer who yells "Get off my lawn!" at kids and dogs alike. A surly-acting man who pretends he doesn't like anything or anybody. I suspected and his wife confirmed that he's a jokester and his surliness is just an act. But there's certain kinds of humor that works when we're young and have a brighter sparkle in our eyes that doesn't work as well when we're old and have been delivering the same jokes for decades. God bless the spouses who can still laugh and cue the rest of us in on how to react at times like that. But he will do anything for anyone and he has appointed himself the package delivery guy and that's no small favor if you get a box that needs a dolly retrieved from the parking garage to move that package from the mail room to our apartments.

For lunch I had an omelette and ordered a taco salad as a take-out for Sunday and then I got out of Dodge---speaking of tired jokes---because the conversation was nothing to write home about. (Oh, no, please tell me that my brain is not getting stuck on trite phrases!) As writers we're supposed to avoid things like 'back in a flash', 'easier said than done', 'busy as a bee' and my personal favorite ' better late than never'. That last one was put into action when after leaving our cafe and I checked out our newly paved trail in the woods. The trail takes us past beautiful sugar maples and other trees I can't name and it's wide enough that our golf cart can take people from the assisted living and memory care building into the woods. My brother would have loved that. The trail also allows me to by-pass walking by the building where he lived which has been hard to do this summer.

Today it was so quiet in the woods that I pulled my walker over and sat awhile to pretend I was out in the real wildness instead of our tiny oasis smack dab in the middle of a busy city. You would not believe some of the heated debates a few of the residents here have had at the lunch table about getting this trail repaved. It was so broken up that it wasn't safe and it was narrow but several people thought the money spend wasn't worth it. It wasn't even our money. It came from a private foundation whose sole mission is to support this non-profit campus. That didn't stop the complainers who thought we residents should have a say in all improvements made. The debates are endless. "We need the lawn to go down to the lake's shoreline!" "No, we need to keep the natural grasses and weeds for the birds, bees and the butterflies!" By the way, I don't use a walker full-time. Only when I walk outside. I've seen too many black and blue and stitched up faces and other body parts on people who've tripped on the sidewalks around our campus.

Have you read Bill Bryson's book, A Walk in the Woods? It was also made into a movie starting Robert Redford. It's a true story about walking the Appalachian Trail which runs 2,193 miles starting in New Hampshire down through Georgia. It takes a whole summer to hike its wooded, mountainous terrain. I didn't even know it existed back when I might have dreamed of doing it. By the time I learned about it the best my aging body could do was to get on a reading binge about hiking the Triple Crown. "The Triple Crown," according to FKT.com, "consists of the Big Three National Scenic Trails: The Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail. Completing the Triple Crown requires about 7,900 miles of hiking through 22 US States." The culture of the long distance hikers who take on challenges like these trails is fascinating as is any hobby-turned-into-a-passion when you take the time to look under the hood. 

When one of the best known hikers, Heather Anderson, was asked about what she thought about while long-distance hiking she said, "I think about a lot of things. I think about food, macaroni and cheese, hot coffee, ice cream, milkshakes, hamburgers... pretty much anything that's not in my backpack. I think about how bad I smell. And how much I'm looking forward to the next time I get to do laundry and take a shower. Even though it's rather pointless since I'll smell again within 24 hours. I think about the way the sun plays on the water, on the trees, and creates shadows. I think about the birds of prey that swoop overhead. I think about the sound my feet make as they rhythmically strike the trail. I think about how far I have to go and how far I've gone...I think about how absolutely beautiful it is to be out here. And how very lucky I am. I think about what I want to do with my life when I grow up. And I think about how I am already grown up and still haven't figured out what I want to do with my life....And sometimes, I think about absolutely nothing."

Until my husband's stroke when I was 58 years old I never felt like a grownup and I still don't know what I want to do with my life. Maybe that's because we didn't have any kids to force the issue? Being responsible for someone else's life does change you. (Please don't tell JD Vance I said that. He already thinks childless women are to society like barnacles are to sea turtles that can slow them down so the they can't swim anymore and die.) Or maybe I was just too self absorbed to realize I had grown up and that no one has all the answers as to why we're here on earth. I just know I'd like to be like our Cheerleader or Package Delivery Guy who both seem content with the niches they've made for themselves in our small pond of players. Many residents here have taken on self-appointed roles---social director, mayor, florist, management suck-up, food critic, complainer-in-chief and so on.

Whatever the reason I was late in growing up that drive to find oneself is why the hiking genre of books appeals to me. Hikers all seem to be looking for themselves. That's me in a nutshell, looking for myself while living avariciously through the lives of the doers which---come to think of it---is not unlike many of my peers who take (too much?) pride in the accomplishments of their kids and grandkids as if they themselves had gotten the full-ride scholarship or the fancy-ass job title or are on the verge of reinventing the wheel. One day when this kind of brag-fest was the featured conversation at a lunch table I added that I once had a poodle who could do circus tricks. Everyone laughed. Could this be my purpose, to make people laugh when they start taking themselves too seriously? Maybe. One time the Art Professor sat down at the table and said, "Oh, good, Jean is here! I know we're going to laugh when she's here."

Until Next Wednesday.  

 

Lost the Netflix Series, Card Making and Other Summertime Activities

 Summer has been busy here in the land of old people living in harmony on a lake where we can't swim or put a boat or canoe in the shallow water. The only time we see a canoe on the water is when students from a near-by college are taking samples as part of a water quality study or when the DNR is trapping and tagging geese or ducks. The latter is stressful because one time they accidentally trapped one of our swans as well and it got injured trying to get out of the wire cage. People with views of the lake had to watch it suffer for days while trying to get it help but because they are mute swans, that supposedly compete with native waterfowl for food, wildlife preservation organizations aren't allowed to help them. We had two pair and now we're down to one pair and their two juvenile off-springs.

I can't believe summer is almost over! It's been so busy around here between lectures, book club, mahjong, music-in-our-park events, various parties on campus and I don't even do the exercise classes. Last night it was a 'Blues and Brews' night and soon we're having a Hoe-Down---whatever that is.  Plus I've had a lot of off campus doctor appointments---mostly routine check ups by the various specialists we seem to acquire as we age.

Speaking of which I acquired a hand specialist this summer and by the time this post goes live I will have had surgery on a 'myxiod cyst' on my dominant hand index finger. My dermatologist didn't want to touch it because they have deep roots and it takes an expert not to do nerve damage to get it all out, or so he said. The way it was explained to me is that all the fluid that is normally in the joint of the finger finds it was up to skin level and forms the cyst. It looks awful, can burst and get infected and it can effect the shape of the nail-bed if it's not removed. Typing is no fun either. By the time this post goes live I'll be 12 hours into a 72 hours recovery protocol. That entails doing 50 fist pumps an hour while awake, keeping my surgical arm elevated above my heart and keeping an ice pack in my armpit. I also have to keep it dressed for five days. The biggest problem is going to be wiping myself with my other hand. An 80-something year old habit is hard to break.

New topic: I took a card making class here on campus. Not that I wanted to learn how or will even use the three cards I made. I just like being around people who do crafts. It's fun and it brings out my competitive nature as I strive to be the best which is kind of easy to do around here. But when I can't be the best I fangirl the person who is and I try harder the next time a creative project presents itself. I will fit right in when I have to move on down to assisted living or memory care where the activity directors put on their happy faces and help you color or paint or glue pop-cycle sticks together and feel ever so useful when they get you out of your room.

The cards we made didn't take much creativity. It was mostly gluing and cutting paper. My biggest take-away was a fascination with the paper cutter. I have been missing my old paper cutter that I bought back in the 1960s and I didn't know you can buy smaller cutters that don't take up much room and for dirt cheap. Mine was the old school guillotine style that could cut art paper up to two foot wide. After class I typed my way over to Amazon and bought one that will suit my current needs. I'm going to sleep with it under my pillow so my family will know it's important to me, should they have to move me on down the road. My paper cutter was one of the few things I'd

downsized out of my life that I wish I hadn't let go of. 

All kidding aside, I think my creative side is coming back and that's because the Life Enrichment Director scheduled a twice a month gathering of people wanting to do handcrafts together. So far, not many of us show up but I've decided that I'll use the time and space for a big project. For a long time I've thought that I have another quilt in me bursting to get out before I died. Yesterday at the 'gathering' I was able to use one of the large tables to plan and cut out quilt pieces. Last night I started hand-piecing them together while binge watching Lost on Netflix.

I loved the first three seasons of Lost---the eclectic cast of characters and the flashbacks to their lives before the plane crash that put them on an island was brilliant writing. But once they got into the time travel stuff it just seemed like the writers were trying too hard to keep the series going and they'd already exhausted all the good stuff in their writers tool boxes. Now that I'm on the sixth (and last season) I want it to end sooner rather than later.

While searching for an image to go with this post I found a review of Lost in The National Catholic Report, of all places. The author of the review---John Dougherty---put a whole new spin on what I've been watching when he called the series 'spiritual' and most of the examples he used I didn't process the same way he did. I could, however, see his point once it was pointed out. His main take-away is worth sharing and it sums up the premise of the series and our lives in general: "Life is mysterious and frightening. We don't have all the answers, and we never will. It seems reasonable to hold ourselves apart, every person for themselves. But if we want to make it through this life at all, the only way is together." If you are a fan of the series his review is well worth reading. ©

 Until Next Wednesday. 

Sayid aka Naveen Andrews, my favorite character and actor in Lost. The range of emotion he can achieve without saying a word is amazing. He plays an x-soldier from Iraq whose job it was to torture prisons to extract information from---a complex, multi-sided character to say the least and not bad eye candy either.

 

 

Collecting Political Pinback Buttons

It's back again! Those old feelings of excitement I used to feel when presidential campaigns were in full swing. (Thank you, Joe!) My husband and I were political junkies, and that was before cable TV that makes it easy to binge-watch what's going on in that world and before Facebook memes were born. I'll get to those later, maybe even in a separate post because I love the humor in many of the memes going around. Right now I want to write about campaign buttons or pinbacks as we used to call what are officially labeled pinback buttons.

My husband never drove past a garage sale or flea market that he didn't stop and shop. He needed one of those bumper stickers that read "I Break for Garage Sales." And going to antique malls, auctions and estate sales was to him like going to corner bars are to heavy beer drinkers. I should know. The first seven months we knew each other (but wasn't dating) he was a heavy drinker, but he quit cold turkey and never looked back. Fact checking myself here: It's not quite that simple. He did quit cool turkey but that was a result of him getting drunk, hitting a parked car and spending the night in jail. Long story short he traded one addiction for another and I was the one who introduced him to getting up early on Saturdays to go to the flea market to look for hidden treasures from the past. The rest is history. If you've been following my blog for awhile you know how hard and long I worked at selling off all the stuff that he and I---mostly Don---had collected over the decades. He was a workaholic---another addiction---and he had a good income to spend on collectibles and it didn't take him long to become a knowledgeable collector. 

I collected Cracker Jack Toys back then---still have them all---and would often find them in button jars, junk drawers and cigar boxes. The first time Don found a 'Teddy Roosevelt for President' pinback while I was looking for Cracker Jack toys he was hooked on tiny collectibles like pinbacks and other smalls like Tom Mix or Roy Rogers toys that kids got from sending cereal box tops in to the companies that sponsored serialized stories on the radio. I still have his Captain Midnight decoder ring, signal mirror ring and bomb rings---at one time highly prized by boys. Don was one of those boys. His childhood collection got lost in the tornado but he managed to buy most of them back as an adult. I really should sell those cereal premium toys because they are worth several hundred dollars and I'd hate to see them get dumped as junk if I have to move out of independent living and into the building down the road where Amazon delivers cartons of Depends on a daily basis. 

Back to vintage political pinbacks: By the time Don died we had them coming out of our ears, most of them neatly organized and mounted in black, velvet lined collector boxes that we stacked on library shelves. It didn't matter what party the pinbacks where from or which candidate---winners and losers both. We loved them all. Plus we bought new ones both before and after the political seasons were over. We bought them before from the candidate's official websites to help support their campaigns. We bought them by the mixed bags full after the elections when vendors would unload them for deep price cuts to people like us who mistakenly thought we'd live long enough for them to be good investments. Hint: Fifteen years isn't long enough.

We had fun amassing political memorabilia so I don't regret the hobby. But even things that only measure between one and three inches like pinbacks if you get enough of them they take up a lot of space. So they got sold off before my move. Now, I only have a dozen or so in mason jar because by the time I thought I should save a few I'd already listed or sold all our political memorabilia on e-Bay. The political buttons in my jar are just random, misplaced political pins mixed in with other advertising pinbacks that I found while sorting other stuff. By the way, I sold several of Don's Teddy Roosevelt pinbacks for over a hundred dollars each, but there are so many fake ones around don't even think about buying one unless you know how to tell the difference.

As I started to say before, when Joe dropped out I got bit by the bug again when I saw a 'Thank You, Joe!' pinback on Facebook and I decided, Why Not! I don't shop for shoes or clothing like most my neighbors do. I don't go off campus to eat at fancy restaurants like many of my neighbors. I don't order wine with my meals here. So I spent the afternoon shopping at campaign head quarters, e-Bay, Amazon and Esty and bought some Harris - Walz pinbacks. Not that I'll necessarily have the guts to wear them here on campus but I might try the 'Cat Lady' one or the 'comma' one (see below photos). I wanted the 'Thank You, Joe!' pin but it was pricey and too big to fit in my jar. I shopped my little heart out looking for a 'Make America Joyful Again' pinback but I can only find those words on hats, t-sheets and socks. There must be a licensing issue with that phrase or it would be on pinbacks, but I'll keep looking just in case one turns up.

God, it feels good not to worry so much about the outcome of the November fifth election. It's still a worry, though, when Trump repeatedly tells his fan base that they "only have to vote one more time and they'll never have to vote again." Do his fans think that's a harmless joke or worse yet, do they fully understand and embrace those goals set out in Project 2025 to do away with the cornerstones of our Democracy? A lot is riding on this next election but at least I'm back to enjoying the campaign cycle again. ©

Until next Wednesday!

I got this one to give to my oldest niece. She and her husband are both teachers and they are thrilled with the ticket.

The childless cat lady thing is going to be iconic to this election which is why I wanted this one. I might not have a cat but I'm one of those childless women that J.D. Vance insults and places no value on our existence.

I love this one because I think Trump fans here won't get it and I can wear like a I'm in a secret club.

I bought an 8 pack of these one inch pinbacks to offer to others who I think might like one. Note the pin on the back that gives these buttons their official name.

The Mad Honey Book Club Discussion and DNA Testing

In May of 2023 I wrote the following paragraph in this blog. "I also read Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan. Wow, is all can say other than it deserves its own post and I’ll bet it’s on the top of the Banned Books list in Florida. I learned a lot about bees from the book as well as about a topic I dare not name because none of the reviewers I've read have named it. Doing so would be like telling the who-done-it in a murder mystery. The surprise element is part of what makes the book such a great read and knowing it might keep some from reading the book thus missing a compelling learning opportunity." 

If you've guessed that this is going to be that 'other post' where the book gets more space and attention, you'd be right. After reading the book last year I recommended it for a book club selection and this month it finally cycled up to the top of our 'read and discuss' time. If you've got the book on your "To Read" list you might want to stop reading this post because I'm about to reveal the surprise element that made it a controversial choice for a place where every now and then at a lunch table here at the Continuum Care Complex you might hear someone mention the 'evil woke teachers' who want to indoctrinate school children to change their sexual origination. 

IMDb sums up the plot this way: "The novel focuses on the themes of young love, teenage angst and parental grief interwoven with murder and high intensity courtroom drama. The story follows a mother who relocates to her sleepy hometown in New Hampshire to take over the family beekeeping business and whose son is suspected of murder." The Washington Post called the book, "Heart pounding and Heartbreaking." And that is so true. 

I got a preview of how the book club discussion would go at a dinner table a few days before our meeting when someone asked if anyone knew who recommended the book for the club and I owned up to it. And I did so without hesitation. Then she said and I quote, "You! I never would have guessed it was you and I've been trying to figure it out all week." 

"Why wouldn't you think it was me?" I asked. "I'm open minded." Then a couple of people who aren't in the club asked what the book is about. None of the three of us who'd read it told them about the young transgender character who went through the sex change surgery and whose death led to a murder trial. One woman said there are three shocking elements in the book. It wasn't until a few days later at club before I found out what three things she meant because, to me, there was only the one shocker. (I feel so 'worldly' around some/most of my neighbors.) And I knew it was coming because I'd listened to the authors being interviewed before I read the book so I knew that Jennifer Finney Boylan, was a transgender activist. Picoult needs no introduction having authored 28 books, many of which have made the New York Time's list. She's known for writing about complex human relationships and controversial issues. 

DNA and our Chromosomes: For those who don't know what 23 and Me is, it's a place that does genetic DNA testing. You send in a chunk of money and some spit and they can tell you things like if you're predisposed to various types of diseases, what part of the world your ancestors are from and if you have an inny or outy belly button or if your second toe is longer than your big toe and what color eyes you have. There were enough of the sillier markers that my DNA test revealed that I could verify just by checking out my body that I have no doubt about the accuracy of 23 and Me testing. There are lots of research articles on the site that are way too complex for me to understand. But one day after listening to how "left wing teachers are trying to turn boys into girls and girls into boys"---I need an eye rolling emoji here---I did a deep dive at 23 and Me on the topic of sexual origination.

The thumbnail version is it all has to do with something that happens or doesn’t happen in the first 12 weeks fetal development. All fetal brains begins in the 'female' state and by the 12th week if the Y-chromosome puts out enough testosterone it overrides the circulating estrogen a typical heterosexual male is formed. But if not enough testosterone is received it causes same-sex attraction in males---brain chemistry that doesn't match the plumbing. In other words, while my generation was brought up to believe that there are only males and females science is proving that sexual origination can be one of seven distinctions on a sliding scale of sorts. I printed out one of the research papers and took it to book club to refute anyone who still buys into the theory that same sex attraction is a choice.

Surprisingly---or maybe not considering the club is mostly made up of the liberals at my CCC---eleven of the twelve in the group liked or at least found the book interesting or enlightening. One woman---a member of the Trump Cult---quit reading at the chapter where a doctor was on the witness stand describing what is involved in a reassignment surgery and how even on close inspection a penis turned into a vagina would not look any different than a normal one. It also can have the same sensations and fluids during sex that a naturally formed vagina has.

Another thing I learned on my deep dive is that there is a debate going on about where the research should or could lead us to. Some look at the ongoing research as leading to a way to detect and correct babies in the womb whose brain chemistry doe not match their genitalia, while there are others who advocate for the research helping to change society from thinking of gender as two polar opposites---to accepting that a spectrum of sexuality is part of nature's (or God's) plan. Not something that needs correcting. The fact that the same percentage of humans on the spectrum is the same percentage as what can be found in the animal kingdom puts a thumb of the scale, in my opinion. But does it really matter if gayness or being transgender is a kind of birth defect or a normal part of nature's/God's plan? Either way, isn't it time that we all learn how to unconditionally accept the LGBTQ community?

 Until Next Wednesday!