What's on your Bathroom Vanity and in Your Medicine Cabinet?

Have you ever noticed how many creams and lotions come with old age? I just had an appointment with my foot doctor to get---I thought---some custom-made shoe inserts. I've had them many times over my life but not in the last 6-7 years and lately I've felt like I am walking on a bed of marbles. But it turns out custom-made inserts, now, sell for $499 and the doctor said no insurance company will pay for them. Instead, she sold me some inserts you can only buy from foot doctor's offices and for $45.00. Best money I've spent in a long time. She also told me to get some Diclofenac Sodium topical gel to put on my feet twice a day (for pain relief) because I have so much arthritis, especially in one foot where I broke a lot of bones back in my 40s. I don't know why I put off going into see her for so long. These two little tweaks have made a big difference.

The addition of one more cream to apply to my body got me looking around to see how many others I've added in this past year. There's the Asutra Melt Pain Away Body Butter I use at night for restless legs that was recommended at a lecture about the holistic approach to getting a better night's sleep. And the Biotene Dry Mouth Moisturizing Gel the dentist just this month recommended that I'm to put on my tongue following the use of a tongue scraper. Dry mouth can keep me from falling back to sleep when I get up to pee. (I'm not a good sleeper.) I have deep groves in the surface of my tongue and the dentist said a tongue scraper prevents bacteria from building up down in the groves and causing sores that act up when dry. (The dryness comes from being a mouth breather at night.) I've tried Biolene spray in the past but it never lasted all night like the gel does.

Then there is the Aveeno Products:

- Radically Radiate Brightening Scrub

- Moisturizing Body Cream

- Calm & Restorative Oat Gel Moisturizer

- Protective Hydrate Sunscreen

 

And the Burt's Bee Products:

- Firming Serum

- Moisturizer

- Lip Scrub

- 3 colors of lip Simmer

- 3 colors of Tinted Balm (my latest obsession)

- Hydrating Sheet Mask

- Purifying White Tea Facial towelettes 

If it seems like I over-dose on moisturizers it's because my pedicurist and dermatologist harp on me, scold me and lecture me about my dry skin. They all but hold me down and lather me up with oils but come to think of it, my pedicurist does do exactly that. And speaking of her, she is responsible for me adding Tea Tree Oil to my "products." I started out using it on a toenail fungus that is finally gone but now I also use it on a fungus-based rash that comes and goes on my stomach and has been for over fifty years. It works as good if not better than all the creams and powers that various skin doctors have prescribed over the decades. Foot power for athletics feet, baby power and prescription creams are also in my arsenal of products for the damn itchy rash, depending on what phase it's in. During hot summer days its at its worst. The smell of Tea Tree Oil is over whelming when I open the drawer where I keep the closed bottle. I can only image what I smell like with products in various combinations all over my freshly bathed body. 

Different topic but age related: The continuum care complex where I live gave a presentation about preventing falls and they introduced a phone app called OneStep. It's billed as: "Every step tells a story. We help you hear it. From the fear of falling to the hope of recovery, from early signs of cognitive decline to life after cancer --- movement reveals what people often can’t say. With just a smartphone in your pocket, OneStep turns real-world motion into insight that guides care, protects independence, and changes lives." It's free and comes with physical therapist sessions to help improve anything that we can work on to help prevent falls. I'm getting a little paranoid about how much information I want the "overlords" to be able to track about my heath while I still live in independent living, but after doing the Check List for assessing my fall risk, I am pretty high on the chart. So I'm guessing I should get over myself and sign up to get with the program.

 

One of the risk factors for falling is taking sleep aids and, boy, do I have them lined up in my bathroom. There's a prescription for 5 mg Ambien that I promise my doctor I only use 5-6 times a month. Melatonin 12 mg which is safe to take with Ambien but not with the other sleep meds in my line up. Tylenol PM that I will not buy again because I don't like the way it makes me feel when I get up to pee and I just bought a bottle of Amazon's NightTime Syrup that I won't buy again either after discovering it contains 50 mg of dephenhydramine! It works great for sleep but that's the same as taking two Benedryls. My doctor think using Benedryl for sleep is safer for seniors that Ambien but I've had a lot of serious bouts with hives during my lifetime where Benedryl is the main line of defense and I don't want to build up a tolerance for it just to sleep. Hives are beyond miserable spelled with a capital M.

The top two drawers in the photo to the left is where most of the Aveeno and Burt's products are and next photo below shows the bottom drawer where I keep the rest of my cosmetics... mostly eye brow stuff. I'm in love with the Gimme Brow+ and the eye brow glue. I have one brown brow and one mostly gray brow and the Gimme Brow+ does a nice job evening them out. The eye brow glue keeps those long hairs from going 'cave dweller' on me. No matter how often I trim them they seem to grow like weeds.

Anyway, I've told you all my vanity and medicine cabinet secrets. Believe it or not, I check the expiration dates on everything in my medicine cabinet (photoed up above) every fall so all that stuff in there is still good even though much of it is there 'just in case I need it.' Is anyone still reading this post? I'm guessing I lost a few readers half way through.  

Until Next Wednesday. 

The Savannah Bananas and other Sports in my World

Is it ever going to warm up enough here West Michigan for me to set aside my bulky winter clothes? I doubt it. Right now, it's raining, and if you can believe the weather report Alex gives out upon request, it's 47 degrees outside. Inside, I'm still in my long flannel nightgown and bathrobe made out of sweatshirt material and I'm still cold. It's almost time to take my morning pills (10:00) and get my day officially started with what Victorian era women called their "morning absolutions." aka time spent on a chamber pot, taking a sponge bath, or in our time taking a shower, and getting dressed. Being a slave to routines, while on the 'chamber pot'---yes, I just went there, no pun intended---I play three games on my Kindle: one each of solitaire, the New York Times' Wordle and the Daily Quiddler at setgame. I judge my entire day's mental acuity by how well I play those games and I'm happy when I win all three games on the first try.

I've been up since 8:00 drinking coffee and stalking cyberspace for some pop culture of interest. Currently, Savannah Banana Baseball clips keep popping up on my Facebook Shorts.

Dad's team 

Of all the sports in the world, baseball (and golf to a lesser extend) are the only ones I have a passing interest in watching, but even with them I watch more for the memories that connect me to my dad and the fact that I can multi-task while they are on TV. Dad played on a baseball team of adults that was sponsored by local businesses in a city-wide league.

Dad is holding flag

 

 

 

 

 

And with golf, Dad caddied as a kid and it was a life-long passion of his to play and watch. Fast forward to a time when Dad was dying of cancer and Tiger Woods just broke the color barrier in professional golf to go on to win the 1999 PGA Championship. Dad was so proud that he had lived long enough to see America’s race relationships change that much. I read him every magazine article I could find on the Tiger. To this day I can't see Tiger without being grateful that he became a catalyst for the stories my dad shared about his childhood living in the south. Some were hair raising like the time he was a kid hiding in the woods watching the Klu Klux Klan hang a black man. He also saw cross burnings and the Klan raid houses in the Italian neighborhood where he lived, stealing anything of value they could find. His pride in what his generation accomplished is one of those things that makes me so upset with our current president who is set on destroying all the accomplishments I felt my generation was leaving behind.

Back in my early twenties which I call my Chameleon Days because I would change my likes and dislikes to match which ever guy I was dating at the time. I didn't do it on purpose, but it was the early sixties and I must have felt like that was the way the world worked. Wives (or those of us auditioning for the parts) followed the man's lead. Anyway, back then I took eighteen golf lessons and learned that I didn’t like following a little ball around but it earned me a few dates with a guy I liked. Just like it did when I took downhill skiing lessons. Tennis was also a lessons obsession of mine. That relationship lasted a year but my game never improved enough to give the guy a good enough partner on the court. He was an all-round jock and in hindsight I'm glad I didn't end up with him. I would not have liked a life of making game night snacks and having a living room designed entirely around a big screen and puffy furniture. I took the breakup hard. But now I can see the wisdom the universe dispensed when we didn't end up together.

The Savannah Bananas and their archival, the Party Animals, have brought a different kind of energy to the game of baseball and they are fun to watch. Don't pass up watching the 20/20 YouTube video below. It will explain the popularity, vision and history of the Bananas better than I can. But if I have to describe them, I'd say they are like the Globe Trotters are in basketball only the Bananas play baseball.

I once mentioned the Bananas here at the continuum care campus and no one knew what I was talking about. I was not surprised. My fellow residents are crazy about college basketball and football and will talk endlessly about coaches and players to the point I'd like to gag myself with a spoon. They wear their favorite team colors and have flags and memorabilia decorating their doors. Once in a while I'll sign up for a viewing party but will leave right after the food is served. I just don't get it but I'm sure they don't understand how I can spend an hour every morning looking at Facebook Shorts. 

We all like what we like...unless you're stuck in Chameleon mode and I suspect a woman that just moved in with husband is stuck. He taught theology in a Christian college and was also a minister for a couple of decades. She looks at him like Lady and the Tramp looked at one another in their famous spaghetti and meatball scene. I do not think I'm going to like this couple---they seem phony---but she has demoted me from the 2nd to the 3rd fattest person living here so I'm happy about that turn of events. ©

 

Bad Luck, Magical Places and and More Tariff Shopping

Never declare yourself to be on the top of world because that's a long way to fall if something goes wrong. That's what happened to my youngest niece this past weekend. She called me on her way up to her 'happy place' to tell me she'd paid off her mortgage and her husband just got clean blood work from an infectious disease clinic where they'd been dealing with for several years. At one point, after multiple knee surgeries and bad infections, they were told his lower leg might need to be amputated, but it's finally free of infection after a doctor from a foreign country took a different approach that worked, and my nephew-in-law just got cleared to start driving again. During the phone call my niece listed all the positive things going on in her life and they were celebrating with a long weekend in Traverse City, Michigan. 

I've grown up thinking of Traverse City as a small tourist town and I'd been to their famous Cherry Festival many times since I was a kid and before my husband's stroke in 2000.. It's also famous for its artist shops, gorgeous views of Lake Michigan along a peninsula drive and rows of Victorian era houses built during the lumber baron era. But while I wasn't looking it became a place for millionaires to own homes. The things you learn with a Google search such as, "More American millennial millionaires live in Traverse City, Michigan, than in any other ZIP code in the US." In recent decades many of the rolling hills that produced the sweetest cherries in The States have been replaced with wine vineyards. 

I went on a day-long a wine-tasting bus tour five-six years ago that was organized by our senior hall and I was shocked at how the Traverse City area has grown and changed since it was a regular summer destination for us. And if you like history this place is steeping with it between its eighty year old coast guard station, the lumber baron era, and a state hospital that housed everything from the mental ill to polio, tuberculosis and typhoid patients. It closed in 1903 and today you can go on a two hour tour of just the hospital featuring its Victorian Style buildings, underground tunnels and places that are supposed to haunted. Recently they've developed one of the buildings into artists' work spaces and local shops and boutiques. I bet most Michiganders would list Traverse City in their top five places to go locally and my niece even has a favorite hotel where they stay when they go up north and walking along a sidewalk she got her toe caught on something and down she went. 

Fortunately, the emergency rescue squad saw her go down so she only had to wait seconds for help to arrive. The bottom line is on Saturday she had a total hip replacement in the hospital up there and was sent home on Sunday. I can't imagine having a surgery while on vacation, in a strange hospital with doctors and surgeons you don't know. She says the nurses were all super nice and professional, and all males---didn't see a female nurse the entire time she was there. I'd love to know why and I have my theories. At least she was only two and a half hours from home and not in some third world country where she doesn't speak the language. (That's my dad's philosophy being channeled through me. No matter what went wrong he could always come up with something worse that could have happened. I'm quite proud that I took that feature of his character and made it my own.) 

Change of topic: I went to the Dollar Tree store to do some more tariff shopping before the 145% tariff kicks in for good made in China. I figure it won't hurt to have six months worth of stuff I use all the time stocked up. I came home with 5 bags of stuff for only $34.00. Stuff like, post-a-notes, and envelopes (from Canada), paper clips and a organizer for my bathroom countertop from China and bunch of fake flowers to decorate a hat for a Kentucky Derby Hat decorating contest we're having on campus in May. I kind of resent spending money on that hat decor but it was only five dollars and I plan on adding some vintage horses that came from my youth. I found a straw hat at Goodwill for ninety-nine cents. It won't be a 'pretty hat' per say, but it will match a new blouse I bought before all the tariff talks. It may be that last piece of new clothing I get in 2025. I also bought cookie and banana bread mixes, trash can liners, olives and mayo. I love those petite sized mayo jars they sell at Dollar Tree. I don’t use enough in a year to buy the larger sizes. I also bought a bag of potting soil the same size and brand as I bought at the grocery store last week only for $2 cheaper. 

I don't know why I was such a snob about not wanting to shop at dollars stores back twenty-five years ago when my dad was alive and I'd have to drive him and his girlfriend to a dollar store on their weekly dates, but if they can see my now I'll bet they're laughing at my changing attitude and Dad's girlfriend would say, "I told you so." Dad would be kinder and tell me that the Dollar Store gene is given with our with our Social Security Cards. Truth be told maybe I was banishing myself from the dollar stores because the only thing I ever shopped lifted in my entire life was from a Dime Store back when I was 10 or 11 years old. It was a cross cut out of a sea shell---or all things---and I still have it today. Every time I see it I'm reminded of my short-lived life of crime. I don't know, maybe I expected the Ghost of Woolworth's to descend upon me as the reason why it took me twenty-five years to get over my fear of going inside a dollar store aka modern-day dime store but it's as good of an excuse as any.

Until next Wednesday.©

 

The old Traverse City State Hospital

Accomplishing Projects, Horrific Mistakes, Tariffs and Disappearing Pain

It's two-thirty in the afternoon and I sat down at one to write my weekly blog post but these are the first words I've written on the topic. I got distracted working on a project that I started back in 2021 and just now I'm ready to push it over the finish line. It's a soft-cover, self-published (of course) book of twenty poems I've written about growing old and living on a continuum care campus. I'm only one click away from ordering my proofing copy using the Book Wright app at Blurb Publishing. The back cover content reads like this:

"_____ __ _____  is a continuum care community that sets on 40 acres in Kent County, Michigan. I was fortunate enough to move into the independent living building when it first opened in October of 2021. Those early days were very much like moving into a college dorm as we learned our way around, attended orientation classes and got to know our neighbors. The uniqueness of all of us moving in at once helped foster a close knit community that remains today and along the way I wrote poems…

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt. ~ Erma Bombeck"

I'm at that antsy time when I want to pull the trigger to get the book published but I know myself well enough to know there is probably a dyslexic-driven mistake in there somewhere and I need to let the content set a few days before proofing it again. Just yesterday I was showing my youngest niece a hardcover book I wrote about my husband back in 2012 and I was shocked and horrified when she read the title of one of the stories within and asked: "What's a Barstood Ranger?" I can't tell you how many times over the years I've looked at that mistake and saw what I meant to type rather than what I did type---Barstood Rancher. Thankfully, there is only one copy of that book in print so I only embarrassed myself in from of one person---well, in front of all cyberspace now that I've confessed it here. ('Confessed' originally spelled 'confused' until Alex did an intervention.) So I'll take the time to let the poetry book set before I click 'place my order'. One of my reading/writing disability comes from a place where I memorized spelling words rather than coming from a place where I learned phonetics. Writing Hell comes in the form of Alex not working on Saturdays when I write my posts but I just learned that she does not answer to Alexis. So whose got egg on her face this time?

Side-note: the idiom 'to have egg on your face' as a creative way to say you are embarrassed came from the theatrical tradition of throwing eggs at performers that the audience didn't like. Obviously, this comes from a century when eggs didn't cost as much as they do now. 

Speaking of the price of goods have you done any tariff shopping? I have. I ordered a new coffee pot. I've needed one for a couple of months when I tried to clean my old one with vinegar and it took the paint off on the heating pad and it turned to rust. The pot works but it looks horrible. And my Waterpik infusion electric toothbrush and flosser had the good graces to spring a leak the day the tariffs went on. I did shop for a replacement part and they have them for other models which would have saved a ton of money. The replacements parts are under $20 while the new Infusion Waterpik is $173. I really didn't want to pay that much but I don't have room for two separate units and my gums have improved since I got my Waterpik. Once they add the 50% tariff onto the $173 it will be out of reach. I also stocked up on Burt Bee's products because they import the bee wax from a third world country that made the tariff list. 

A 45/47 supporter---just after I was bemoaning the outcome of the election---told me, "You'll see, the minute he takes office the prices will come down and the stock market will go up." I know it's petty of me but I recently sat across from her at the farm table and asked the group at large, "Did you see how far the stock market fell today?" She didn't say a word and I was enjoying the fact that she was probably biting her tongue while staring at her bellybutton as a conversation about tariffs broke out.

Other news on the home front: I saw my orthopedic doctor yesterday and he gave me a shot of lubricating gel in my wrist. Since it's given off label, there is no way of knowing if it will last 3 months or 3 years---no statistics are being compiled. And it's private pay because no insurance company will reimburse you for off label treatments. My doctor says the insurance companies don't care how much success is reported in the field because they don't want to start paying for joints other than the knees which the gel was first designed for. I've had great luck with the gel in both knees and in my shoulders so I had no hesitation getting it in my wrist. Private pay was $183 and if I only get a year out of the gel, it will be worth it as I couldn't do anything without pain or dropping things. I suspect I will get more than a year but with all typing I do, who knows. The gel shot adds a padding in where the arthritis has destroyed bone.

 Until Next Wednesday!

The Art Project Part Two and my Whiny Week

 

My lunch today consisted of a double serving of mashed potatoes and gravy from Kentucky Fried Chicken and it felt decadent to indulge in a classic comfort food. Don't judge. I deserved it after the week I've had since my last post. I got rid of all the pain in my arm and hand and replaced it with a nasty head cold and a hacking cough that makes my insides feel so sore that I've considered the possibility I broke a rib with all the non-stop coughing I've been doing to bring up green, chunky mucus and phlegm. Too my information? That's what someone told me here at my continuum care complex. And I didn't even say it during a meal time. I live with a bunch of wimps! 

I got a haircut today and my hairdresser says they're calling it the 100 day cough and, god, I hope it doesn't last that long. I've managed to avoid getting sick all winter long and with 72 residents plus staff all around me passing the flu, colds and Covid back and forth it hasn't been easy. I'm really careful not to touch elevator buttons with my finger tips (I use my knocks) and I wash my hands the minute I enter my apartment. I keep my fingers out of my eyes and mouth and use the hand sanitizer stations whenever I walk by them. I also don't eat food offered off other people's plates which bothers me all the time but grosses me out during cold and flu season! But when my bone doctor put me on the 20 mg of prednisone as part of his diagnostic process it must have lower my immunity system (as the package insert warns can happen) because I finally got the crud with side serving of a UTI. Thankfully, the UTI got resolved with a $24 E-Visit at the doctor's website and a three day round of magic pills. 

Still, it was a successful week in terms of the art project---the Artist Handmade Book I finished it up today, on the last day of class. One person was missing because she had a "cold." Oops! and I really felt bad because she probably got it from me but she's always trading food off other people's plates so who really knows for sure? So far she's the only one I had close contact with who has gotten sick. This week I did eat my meals as take-outs or just soup in my room and didn't go to a couple of lectures but I can't keep that up for 100 days so I'll official join the choir of "cougher" who walk around with a pocket full of cough drops and X-Kleenex. Ya, I would avoid sitting next to me too. Logic might tell you that I'm past the contagious stage but the eyes sometimes overrule what logic has to say about whatever.

Art project: Since I moved to this continuum care complex I've written a bunch of poems about life here and I've been wanting to put them in a book form. But I had no idea that a class advertised as "learn to experiment with different materials" would turn in a serendipitous marriage of art and writing. A couple of my sick days were spent playing around with fonts sizes and fonts styles, then printing all my poems out on good paper. As I explained in another post, we started with a large sheet of rag paper and acted like kindergartners slopping watercolors every which way, then turning it over and doing the same thing on the back side. Our next class we be learned how to cut and fold the sheet of paper to form a book that opens up accordion-style. I made a little sampler since then just so I'd remember how to do the folding and cutting because it's so simple, its complicated and if you don't cut in the right place the accordion doesn't work. 

Between the second and the third class I cheated and went ahead and cut my poems up and pasted them on the pages and fell in love with the stupid little five by six inch book that came together. The professor liked it enough that she asked me if I'd make her a photocopy of the book so she can share it in her European workshops this summer. I don't know how I feel about having a random photocopy floating around when I'm still trying to figure out how to make it into a real book. I know, I'm a control freak. But is it so wrong to want to be the one who decides where and who gets to see my poems? And I choose you guys for this bird's eye preview. ©

 

Showing how the book opens

 

A couple of my poems:

 

The Side Table 

 

It’s a billboard screaming

an old person lives here ---

nail clippers, a forgotten mug,

a big button remote

with a crossword puzzle

next to a magnifying glass,

a shoe horn, eye drops and

and a potato chip

that lost its bag a week ago.

Cluttered chair-side tables

talk and tell stories

to our La-Z-Boys

who don’t care if they’re

partners in this classic

display of old people gear.  © JR

 

 

At Eighty

 

In the so-called Golden Years

It takes a long time to stay alive

with all the specialists to see

and pills to count.

Then there’s the memories

that want to escape

while we’re still trying

to build new ones with

classes and books

and friends old and new.

 

In the so-called Golden Years

we try not to linger on the losses

and there are many---

careers

good friends and family,

skill sets and bodily functions.

We laugh, we cry and compare

old people thrills and chills

while counting

each day we wake up as a bonus. © JR