Name this Blog Entry…I Can’t!

Have you ever seen a possum up close, nasty mouth wide open and growling…or hissing? (I’m not sure how to describe the sound it was making.) It’s a scary sight I hope I never see again but I suspect I will. Last night Levi was in his dog pen when he started barking like his world was on fire and I ran out to see what was going on. Usually it’s just a rabbit on the other side of the fence but this time I found him barking at a possum he had cornered and all that separated them was two feet of ground and a couple of empty flower pots. I tried to grab Levi’s collar but he dodged me and darted around to my other side and took up the turf war again. Finally---after a lot of chasing and me worrying that the possum would bite me or the dog---I was able to latch on to Levi and herd him into the garage. I didn’t know I could move that fast! The rest of the night Levi begged at least ten times to go outside only instead of me letting him out the back door to his pen, I hooked him up on his leash and took him out the front door which, of course, wasn’t what he wanted. I didn’t dare say “no” because that would be the time he’d actually have to poop and he’d punish the carpeting for my refusal to let him out. 

From scary creatures in nature to gentle creatures. This week I went to the Butterflies in Bloom Exhibit at the sculpture garden. It’s the third time I’ve been invited to join my youngest niece, her two daughter-in-law’s and her four grand babies. One of the babies is five-six months old and I was surprised she was able to focus on a dozen butterflies at a feeding station. Her eyes were huge, her tiny mouth formed a perfect “O” and her little legs were kicking a mile a minute. She was strapped into one of those carriers on her mom’s belly and it was too bad her mom couldn’t see the baby’s face. They don’t allow strollers into the tropical conservatory where the butterflies are and the two with our group were the first two parked in the stroller area. When we came back out there were easily two dozen. These young moms in my family sure were impressive as they juggled the needs of babies and toddlers. Diaper changes and nursing for the babies and potty breaks and healthy snack times for the toddlers. 

From babies to old ladies. Sorry if calling myself and others in my age bracket “old” offends anyone. Well, actually I’m not sorry but I have been told by several people that the word “old” is an insult and referring to myself as old or elderly doesn’t fit a septuagenarian. Ya, sure. Accepting our ages and the stereotypes that go with whatever age bracket we’re going through at the time can be ego deflating. But be honest here, many of those stereotypes are based on facts. 

When Don turned 50 he was dreading his birthday and he got on a kick where he’d tell waitresses that he just turned 60 and he’d ask them if that qualified for a senior discount. These waitresses knew us as regular customers and they would reply variations of, “Wow, you sure don’t look your age!” After joking back and forth Don would admit the truth and we’d all have a good laugh. This went on for several weeks around his birthday until one day we went to a state park where the girl taking the money at the entrance didn’t know us. After Don pulled this fishing-for-compliments routine, the girl looked Don squarely in the eyes, gave him the senior discount day pass and handed him his change. The look on his face as we drove away was priceless and that was the very last time he pulled that joke. (If you think you’ve heard this story before, you did. Back in 2013 I wrote about it. See, I’m living up to the stereotype of old people repeating themselves.) 

Boy, did I get off track from writing about having brunch with my Gathering Girls pals at the Guy-Land Cafeteria. I was there by myself a few days before, early in the morning, and I was reminded of why I coined that name for the place. I was outnumbered thirty to one. It would be impossible to figure the ratio of men vs. women at our brunch, though, because we were there 3 ½ hours (!) while others came and went. (Don’t worry, there were always plenty of tables free. Two of us worry about things like that and about not taking up tables that are bigger than our needs...while one lady in our group thinks we’re crazy for caring about stuff like that.) And get this: we ate twice and joked about staying a few more hours and having dinner, too. In our defense, we had to stay that long because we got off to a slow, doom-and-gloom start before for we got to the silly, belly laughter banter that is our signature, get-together mode. All’s well that ends well. Now, if only I could come up for a name for this blog entry! Can you? ©

Aging Like Fine Wine or Stale Crackers

I’ve told this story before so I’ll give you the abbreviated version today. When my husband turned fifty he told everyone he’d just turned sixty. I think that birthday bothered him more than he let on but that didn’t stop him from enjoying the comments people would make about him looking so much younger than his (fake) age. This went on for several weeks until he tried it on a girl taking money at state park and she looked him square in the face then gave him the senior discount. That was the end of his telling anyone he was sixty until he had actually achieved that distinction. I re-tell this story not because I’m old and people my age have been known to repeat themselves but because I find myself doing the same thing. Sometimes I present myself as being eighty when I’m far closer to seventy. And I use the “I’m old” line all the time. Why do I do that? I must get a kick out of being told, “No, you’re not!” Or maybe I need the affirmation that follows when they tell me words to the effect that I’m too sharp "to be old." Note: no one ever tells me I don’t look my (fake) age which probably is a silent condemnation of my choice of going full-out gray on top. I tried doing the low lights during my Pamper Myself Period after Don passed away and people actually did think it made me look younger. So did I, but I got sick of the ever present process of keeping it up. I’m old, why can’t I be proud of that fact? Old people get gray hair and wrinkles and need hearing aids. So what.

One of my favorite bloggers (also named Jean) is a recently retired sociologist with a thirty year history of teaching college courses. She’s responsible for me thinking about this topic today. She had commented on her blog, Step into the Future, that: “It seems to me that if organizers of events like this one worry that ‘only the old’ are attending, they have fallen victim to the widespread denigration of aging and elders in our society.” Oh, my gosh, I thought when I read that, am I adding to the denigration of the elderly when I play games with my own age? After thinking about it awhile I wondered if it isn’t more of defense mechanism for me---joke about being old before someone else dismisses me because of my age. Growing old and irrelevant is my biggest fear in life. There, I said it out loud. Darn it, I think I've written that before in my blog! I really am starting to repeat myself.

My determination to stay home alone this Thanksgiving was part of an experiment. (On aging, on widowhood? Does it really matter which?) The point was: 1) I didn’t want to be someone’s charity case, an old person/widow only invited because others felt sorry for me being all alone on a holiday; 2) I actually wanted to see what it felt like to be alone on a holiday. And you know what, it turned out fine. I didn’t wallow in loneliness, self-pity or memories of happier times. I didn’t go hungry as an elderly relative predicted I would, forced to eat stale crackers for dinner and I didn’t treat Thanksgiving like any other day on the calendar. I planned a big meal with a few comfort foods from holidays past. I cooked, cleaned up and froze my leftovers for Christmas dinner. I also realized that I do have a post-Don Thanksgiving tradition---watching the annual National Dog Show with Levi. We saw it last year and this and that dog actually watches the TV, barking and whining at his favorite canines on the screen. He is my core family now that my husband is gone.  

Even though my experiment turned out fine, that’s not to say I will stop accepting invitations for future holiday dinners. There are nieces and nephews on both sides of my family where I can go and not feel like a fifth wheel. But what I won’t do in the future is go to a place on a holiday just because I dread being alone. Been there, done that since Don died. There’s a reason why the phrase, “lonely in a crowd” sticks around. What my experiment reminded me of is that 'alone' does not translate to being lonely. I also realized for an old lady with no kids or grand-kids I fared pretty well in the invitation department. I got two formal invitations, and I got three you’re-always-welcome invitations that I would have gladly accepted if not for the unpredictability of winter roads.

Oh, cripe, I got side-tracked from the topic I intended to write about—aging like fine wine or stale crackers. Although I guess facing our vulnerabilities as we grow older could be a sub-topic under a stale crackers umbrella. I wanted to write about is how the older I get the more I value myself in terms of how my brain works. I know stuff. Good stuff. Jeez, for a would-be writer you’d think I could express myself better than that. What I meant to say is the older I get the better my world view gets, the better I get at being a well-rounded human being, and I don’t waste time cluttering up my brain with stupid stuff. Stupid stuff like wondering why big butts have gone from women loathing having them to desiring big butts so much that people are willing to enhance theirs surgically. Okay, maybe I’m not the age-induced “intellect” I'm painting myself out to be because I really do want to know how that astounding butt evolution happened and seemingly overnight when measured in old people time. Light bulb moment here: If that transformation in attitude about big butts can happen maybe we can apply the same formula to making old people a cool commodity. Are you with me? Can we start a movement? ©

Ageism, the Widow and Robin Williams

 

This week I got the second annual ‘shine and buff’ on my car as part of the “free” package the dealership gives you when you buy a new car. I say “free” but you gotta know the cost of that five year program is built into the initial cost of the vehicle. I tried to get them to take if off the car price, but they wouldn’t do it. So I dutifully got my annual shine and buff, otherwise I’d feel like I was throwing money away. The Malibu looked great when they got done…everywhere but on one wheel. I called it a hub cap but evidently cars don’t have hub caps anymore. It’s a whole tire mount and costs a royal fortune to replace. It was gouged deeply the entire way around the hub cap that isn’t a hub cap. On the way home I remembered hearing a terrible grinding metal sound when I went to a car wash recently, but as I was inspecting the car at the detail shop, I thought they had done the gouging. I was upset. They were upset. My word against theirs and I was out numbered. And in hindsight I was apparently on the worry side of the truth.

When I left the detail shop I drove straight to the dealership where they have a body shop. No matter how the wheel mount got damaged, there was no point in putting off getting a new hub cap that isn’t a hub cap. (Out of sight, out of mind.) And that’s where I discovered I can be prejudice against elderly people working in service departments. The guy was my age---maybe older---and working alone, trying to do ten things at one time, writing himself notes, having trouble file papers, typed with two fingers and to top it off, he sounded like Mr. Magoo. He was so slow and foggy acting I was afraid I'd have to do CPR at some point. I was there an entire hour but eventually he got a price on a new wheel mount---$495 new plus labor or $250 installed for a reconditioned model. I went for door number two and vowed not to go back to the same car wash where I think the damage occurred. You have to make a shape turn before getting your tires lined up in the track that takes you through the car wash and that’s not easy to do. The day I heard the grinding sounds my back tire was on top of the track before it dropped down in it.

The next day I found out I’m prejudice against people who seem to be too young to be doing certain jobs. I had my first ever appointment with an investment broker. I swear I have slips older than the kid who sat across from me in his expensive suit, in a building with polished marble floors and frosted glass walls. His teeth were so white and perfect I couldn’t quit looking at them. Saturday Night Live once did a skit where they used a black light in the dark and all that showed up were sets of teeth talking to one another and gloved hands gesturing. That’s what his teeth reminded me of. He’d obviously put a ton of money into dental work, probably a graduation gift for completing his degree. He told me he majored in the psychology of investors which I’m sure impresses young ladies during Happy Hour but happy hour for me is an afternoon nap.

Anyway, I went in there wanting to open up a brokerage account to dump the required disbursements that the government makes you take out of your 401K when you reach a certain age and he, of course, wanted me to roll over the entire 401K into a brokerage account instead. Makes sense on paper to do that and it's what most people do, he said, but I wasn’t going to take Mr. Bright Smile’s advice without doing my own research because once you roll over a 401K like that, you can’t undo it. At one point in his "pitch" he stood in front of a white board with his colored markers, drawing pie charts and graphs until my head was spinning but in the end we did it my way. My 401K is with the same investment company. I can still go to one website to see my old and new account and I am comfortable with that. At the end he said, they are so geared to try to simplify a client’s finances that he wasn’t listening to me. I wondered if his psychology of investors class forgot to cover old ladies who get bull-headed.

And last but not least, I am heartbroken over Robin Williams' death. It’s so hard to accept that someone who brought so much joy to so many people couldn’t find a way to keep some of that joy for himself. Over the years he was open about his struggles with depression and with drug and alcohol abuse, which all goes to prove that money and fame can’t save a person from mental illness or the demons that come with addiction. From all accounts, he was a caring individual in his personal life, a good friend, and a genuinely nice and compassion human being. His work with Relief Comic, the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, the Live Strong Foundation, and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is proof of the latter. The many testimonials on TV and social media the past few days are proof of the former.

I have loved Robin since his Mork and Mindy days, so did my husband. Five of Robin’s movies are in my top twenty all-time favorite films: The Dead Poet Society, Good Morning Vietnam, What Dreams May Come, The Bird Cage, and Good Will Hunting. He shared his enormous talent with the world and he will always be remembered for being a gifted comedian and talented actor. I hope he finds the kind of heaven his character in Dreams May Come found. (See it the video below. It's my favorite after-death scene from any movie.) ©

P.S. I was the recipient of a random act of kindness this week. A woman in the car in front of me at Starbucks paid for my drink. When I got up to the window they handed me the paid receipt and said she does it quite often when she comes through. It sure put a smile on my face!