The Christmas Party and the Widow's Heart

We’ve been in a weather pattern that leaves our Michigan roads void of snow and ice and what a treat that is, says the lady who is thrilled to be able to report this. It improves my social life not to have to factor weather into my winter decisions to leave the house. Over the weekend, for example, there was a Christmas party for my neighborhood association where we can pay our dues, do a little business meeting, eat pizza and get to know each other. I’ve lived within the domain of the association for thirteen years and have never gone to their twice a year parties. When Don as alive, his wheelchair kept us from going---we’ve got the only wheelchair friendly house in the entire 100 house association. Whatever possesses someone to open up their home to 100 potential families for a party, is something I don’t possess and don’t understand, but this chit-chat is side-tracking me from the Christmas party.

I know a few people by sight from walking Levi around the neighborhood and, of course, the people on my short cul-de-sac but when I walked into the party not a single one of them was in attendance. I had a flash back to when I was in my twenties and walked into a party that didn’t take me long to figure out was a party full of gay couples. What a shock! I had no idea the girl who had invited me to meet her at that party was gay but she obviously thought I might me. I didn’t stay, of course---it was the 60s and I barely understood what being gay meant but I knew there wasn’t a chance of me meeting my future husband at that party. And then there was an ugly scene with the girl the next time I saw her. God, I’m getting side-tracked again but at least this one was a funny side-track. Back tracking to when I walked into the neighborhood party and I saw a living room with wall-to-wall women and a kitchen full of guys. After a few, “who are you” and “where do you live” questions in the living room I moved to the line in the kitchen to pick up some pizza. That’s where I met the only other person at the party over forty. He was my age, not bad looking, a smart dresser and he talked too much. That last observation is a strange criticism coming from a woman whose husband was affectionately called “motor mouth.”

He was talking to another man when I walked up, asking if the younger guy knew where the UAW union hall is moving to. He didn’t. I did and so I chimed in the information and after a while the younger guy backed off and let us old duffers entertain each other. I stayed a little longer than I did at the gay party decades ago and by the time I left I had a better understand of why phrase II people, where I live, don’t attend these parties. It was full of phrase I people who live on the lake and learning about how our dues money is spent made me feel like little orphan Annie. Phrase II people couldn’t even get an entrance sign put up on our section while phrase I gets docks, fire pits and boat storage racks built on the lake. And it’s not like we can quit paying our yearly dues. If we do, they double every month for six months then a lean gets put on our houses. In two years we get to vote on dissolving the association as per the by-laws of the builder who who set up the association and since phrase I people are in the majority, I can guess how it will go. Bottom line: A phrase I-er would never date a phrase II-er I’m quite sure. And even if they did, I’d find something wrong with the party guy---like he isn’t Don.

Changing topics: I finally finished reading the Hunger Games series and now I want to see the last two movies. I don’t know why, they’re far from my favorite genre of books or movies. The writing style in the books isn’t all that lyric and I didn't even have to look up a single word in the entire series. But, boy, can Suzanne Collins ever do chapter cliffhangers that leave you wanting more. I’m hoping against hope that my movie and lunch club, this month, will pick Mockingjay Part I. They won’t, but if it’s running at the same time as whatever they pick, I may go on my own. Anyway, this whole paragraph is just a lead-up to me sharing my favorite line from all three Hunger Games books and it came near the end of the trilogy: “What I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred, I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again….”  That speaks to my widow’s heart. ©

Twerking and Other Things...

My Red Hat Society chapter, this week, packed holiday decorated bags full of goodies for 48 residents in the nursing home we adopted ten years ago. Hand cream, lip gloss, pads of paper, pens, chocolate, Kleenex, bookmarks, gripper socks, cookies, Christmas ornaments and candy canes along with  greeting cards. Just passing 48 cards around the table to sign took forever, but we talked as we work and we got our gift project done without needing our sleeping bags.

They say the turnover of residents at the home is so great that only a few have been there as long as we’ve been doing our ‘do-good’ project. Looking around the table as we worked, I couldn’t help wondering which lady will be the first in our group to live there---getting rather than packing our goodie bags. One Red Hatter has breast cancer, another carries an oxygen tank and a few others have major health issues I can’t name. We’re not much younger than the people in the nursing home and as much as I hate this ‘do good’ reminder of the future that could be mine, I’m happy there are a few in our group who gleefully keep it going. If I was in a nursing home I’d like to get one of those holiday bags on Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter and Halloween. I’d probably be “that one” who tries to steal a second bag and gets caught every time. Maybe I should start practicing how to be sneaky so I can perfect my technique before I need it?

I read a comment on another blog, As Time Goes By, saying that attitudes about aging falls in two categories: Denial and Fear and I thought, it’s easy to figure out where I stand. I’m certainly not in denial about growing older. But fear? I can’t exactly say I fear it so much as I regret it has to happen. If anything I fear it happening before I’ve made my mark on the world. People with children have something important to leave behind. People who were educators, inventors, gifted entertainers or artists have a body of work to leave behind. But if I’m going to leave anything important behind I’d better start creating it. Hey, I’ll bet I’ve already set a world record for starting the most sentences with “and” and “but.” That used to be such a big no-no when I was first learning how to write. Maybe it still is but I can’t seem to get through a blog without doing it. I tell myself it’s because a personal blog should be more like we talk than when we write formal articles or fiction. So I excuse myself and isn’t it clever how I managed to divert this paragraph from the topic of fearing the aging process to talking about writing styles? Damn, I’m good. (Please insert a laugh tract in here if my wildest dream comes true and this blog entry goes viral.)

Another frequent commenter on the same blog mentioned above asks: “Is there a store that specializes in stereotypical clothes for the elderly?” And he goes on to make an excellent point about how we people of a certain age stereotype ourselves by the way we dress. He’s right, of course, but after so many years of trying to keep up with the fashion trends coming out of Paris (or K-mart) I think we get to a point where we realize that we are more than our wardrobes. Not to mention keeping up gets too darn expensive and for what purpose? I don't wear out clothes like I used to do when I worked. And can you image an eighty year old with declining agility and shaky legs having a skirt so short that you’d think she’s twerking every time she picks something off the floor or bends over to tie her shoes?

I, for one, also don’t want to show off my varicose veins and cellulite in the name of keeping up with fashion trends. Ya, I know, young people would probably have that stuff surgically removed but aren’t we old duffers more cerebral than that? That’s my excuse for my lumpy, “colorful” thighs and I’m sticking to it. It’s also laughable to think we could even keep dressing in the current fashion trends. I don’t have the boobs or butt anymore to look like Kim Kardashian or the Pirelli calendar girls who were obviously dressed some place where there's a fabric shortage. And I don’t know any woman in my peer group who hasn’t seen her boobs and butt drop like a bird with an arrow in its heart. (Jeez, that's the kind of simile that comes from reading The Hunger Games trilogy back-to-back. Where is my book of Robert Frost poetry when I need it for inspiration?” Boobs and butts that drop like lead balloons makes more sense.)

The bottom line: Many/most elderly people have learned how to not take ourselves so seriously. We’ve finally figured out that we can, indeed, follow the beat of a different drummer and the sky doesn’t fall---and that includes our fashion (or lack of fashion) choices. On the other hand, if we want to follow Mr. Normal and Mrs. Average down the street, we old people know that's perfectly okay too. But please, no twerking should be allowed for anyone over the age of---heck!---if I were King of the world I would ban it completely! ©

The 'To Do' LIst

I had only two things on my ‘To Do’ list yesterday and I thought, Oh boy! I can spend the rest of the day reading ‘Catching Fire’. (Yes, I got bit by the Hunger Games series.) Anyway, all I had to do was change the filter on the furnace and go to the post office. Tops, I could complete my list in a half hour and play lazy bones the rest of the day.

Changing the filter on the furnace requires a trip down to the basement which requires a pocket in my clothing because I like to take my phone with me when I go in case I fall down the stairs and I’m still holding on to life long enough to call 911. The sweatpants I was wearing didn’t have any pockets and just holding the phone in my hand wouldn’t do because I’d probably drop it in the fall and it would slide across the cement floor, landing in the sump pump. I hate that sump pump so retrieving my phone from within just wouldn’t happen. I’m always afraid I’ll find a snake inside. You guessed it, I had to change my clothes to go down to the basement to avoid all that happening.

Changing my clothes had already cut into the half hour I had allotted for my ‘To Do’ list but while I was in the basement I checked on my “trap line” of d-con and I breathed a sigh of relief when it looked like nothing had eaten any of the poison pellets. Next I decided I might as well bring some stuff upstairs to decorate for Christmas but color me disappointed when I found all the Christmas things are in boxes up high. With my shoulder still under restrictions from my surgeon there was no way I could get them down without breaking his rule about raising my arm above shoulder height. Briefly, I thought about getting a ladder to take my shoulder up higher off the floor but I nixed that idea because I’d probably fall off the ladder, smashing the phone in my pocket, and lay there until my body was mummified.

Finally, I got on the road to go to the post office but on the way home I saw some Christmas trees tied to the tops of cars and that remained me of all the years Don and I would take Starbucks coffees up to Christmas Tree Corners on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and we’d count trees coming from the tree farms in all four directions. That memory made me sad that I’d have to forgo any holiday decorations this year… until I remembered the Dollar General near-by where I could pick up SOMETHING. Something was better than nothing, I told myself. Nearly an hour later I walked out of the place with a small, pre-lighted Christmas tree and some small stuff to decorate the cheap little thing. It took so long because I had trouble deciding on the size tree I wanted. I kept resisting that little one because it looked too much like what people bring their grandmas in nursing homes but on the other hand, I didn’t want to waste money on something larger when I had nicer stuff down in the basement. I had several size trees in and out of my cart and various ornaments to fit each one’s scale, and I’d made a mess of Dollar General's stock before I settled on the nursing home special. That left me with no other choice but to spend more time straightening up their shelves.

The tree was a 14” wide by 24” high fake pine that came in a box that measured 5” square by 18” high so as you can imagine it needed serious plumping up and being an x-florist I was up for the task. In days gone by I would have dipped the branches in a tub of very warm water but these branches weren’t plastic and whatever they were made of didn’t look like they could survive a bath, and since they were pre-wired with lights I didn’t think a fire marshal would approve of the bath idea either. I could electrocute myself lighting a wet tree. So I fused over the branches, plumping each one up before I plugged it in to see the lights. They didn’t work. In the box was a paper instructing the purchaser not to return the tree to the Dollar General. If the lights didn’t work, it said, I should email for replacement parts. I ignored the paper, stuffed the tree back in the box and took it back to the store where I was prepared with a story about not having a computer. I didn’t need it. The clerk probably remembered me from the security cameras as the customer who tidied up after herself, so she did me a favor. Or maybe she just didn't know about the note inside the box.

I got the new tree home and started the plumping process all over again. The lights, of course, worked on that one---we tested them in the store---but whoever strung them didn’t do a very good job and of the twenty lights five of them were bunched in one large clump at the bottom. So I restrung the pre-wired tree while I thought about popping some corn to string on the branches. Then I remembered the potential for mice coming into my basement and I knew I couldn’t store that tree down there after Christmas if it was decorated with eatables. And no way was I going  un-decorate it and go through the stuff-it-in-the-box trauma again. I could almost hear that first, damn little tree crying!

By the time I got my ‘To Do’ list done that half hour I predicted it would take had turned into this afternoon-long saga and I was tired and running out of daylight. And that’s when I discovered how short the cord is coming out from my little nursing home special. There was only two places in the entire house where I could set that tree and still plug it in: on the kitchen counter where I’d been working or on the exercise bike. Neither place would do which meant I would have to take another trip down to the basement to find an extension cord, but by then I’d changed back to my sweatpants without pockets, oh crap! "What do you think?" I asked the dog. "It's not so bad sitting there on the bike, is it?" And I'm quite sure I heard him reply, "Go change your clothes." ©