The G20 Summit and Garden Parties

The Washington Post, this week ran an article that began: “President Trump and key global leaders are on a collision course ahead of the Group of 20 summit in Germany this week, with Trump's unapologetic ‘America First’ mantra on trade and climate change running into emboldened, and increasingly united, opposition overseas.” The article goes to make a case for and concludes that, “Trump is attempting to leverage the United States' economic power to negotiate new deals in the country's favor, while foreign leaders appear increasingly ready to bypass the United States in favor of stronger ties elsewhere.” Trump’s self-centered attitude may have worked while he was building his gold-leafed empire where he spent his entire life sorting people into winner/loser columns. But others in the global community are seeking ways to make everyone into winners, where ‘compromise’ has not become a dirty word. The bottom line is we are no longer the leader of the free world---a direct bi-product of his nationalism---and that’s not just my opinion. 

The leader of North Korea and Trump have their nationalism in common. Sweet. Two bullies at the O.K. Corral each thinking the more phallic symbols they flash in public the more likely they can get the other to run and hide like a scared little girl peeking out from behind her mother’s skirt. I saw a nuclear physicist this week on TV and he said North Korea is two years away from being able to put an intercontinental missile over the U.S.A. that could take out all our electrical grids and even less time until they can reach Alaska and Seattle with a nuclear war head. I swear to God my first thought was, I need to get some survival gear! As if I could survive without electricity---especially in the winter---with just a camp stove to heat up a can of soup and a toilet composting bucket kit to pee in. Without the sewer pumping stations operating, our bathrooms would be a yucky mess with all that raw sewage backing up. Can you tell I took a tour of our sewage processing plant and know their emergency backup system can only run so long?

Worse yet, if North Korea hit certain places in Alaska with a nuclear war head, the heat from that could melt ice masses starting a chain reaction that would flood many of the coastal countries in the northern hemisphere. And having all that salt-free water from the melting ice dumped into the salt-water seas all at once would intensify our gulf streams where our weather patterns are born bringing on another ice age at a highly accelerated rate measured in months, not years. Hey, Mexico, can you take in some refugees from your neighbors to the north? During the TV discussion someone on the panel of intellects was asked why North Korea hates us so much and the answer was because they’ve seen us involved in our endless wars in the Middle East, toppling leaders, and they believe we want to do the same with them and that’s why Trump’s tough rhetoric is escalating tensions. Just today in Warsaw he said, “I don’t want to talk about what I have planned for North Korea but I have some pretty severe things we’re thinking about.” That makes me feel so much better, Mr. President of the Pissing Contest Society. 

In a surreal twisting of my inner thoughts and my outward activities, I went to a lovely garden party this week where my Red Hat Society chapter partied on sangria and more desserts than salads. We sat around in our red hats like the old woman in the poem who ate “only bread and pickles for a week and hoards pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.” That poem inspired the birth of the Red Hat Society, a global organization with over 20,000 chapters so don’t let anyone tell you our creative and earnest voices don’t have power. (If we care about something, we need to speak up! Thus the political rant up above.) When Jenny Joseph wrote, “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple with a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me” she had no idea she was inspiring a segment of society to free themselves from the roles and constrains assigned to us by the era in which we came of age.

As much as I like the concept of the Red Hat society I don’t see it as having sustainability beyond my generation. Younger women who didn’t spend their entire lives as homemakers, who have opportunities for self-fulfillment that were denied to their grandmothers, don’t have the same incentives to cut loose from rules and party on wearing colors that don’t go together and don’t suit them. Though I dearly wish we had some younger women wanting to join, preferably younger women who love to drive and have SUVs for carpooling. I was going to add a self-deprecating remark here about my self-centered wish putting me in the same kiddie pool as our president but I changed my mind because only one of us could have a senior moment and launch the nuclear codes, thinking it’s just a super-sized tweet. ©

Flea Markets and Cardio Drumming

Since the first Monday in July was smack dab in the middle of a four day holiday, I was surprised that all six of us Gathering Girls showed up for our monthly brunch. But it no longer surprises me that we never seem to run out of things to gab about. Our modus operandi is fully developed now which means we’ve mastered the art of laughing at ourselves in that way only a bunch of gal pals can do. 

That was the 3^rd of July, on the 4^th two of us Gathering Girls went to a huge flea market thirty minutes north of town. It’s a mecca for antique collectors who are willing to pay $20.00 to get admitted before the general public comes through the gate for $3.00. We got there closer to noon, avoiding the long lines that are reported close to opening time but my husband was a fan of paying the Early Buyer fees at places like that. Back in those days I usually had to work on market days but we’d meet for lunch and his show-and-tell. After I gave up the wedding floral business we even rented vendor space a few times at that same market where B.L. and I went yesterday. Don and I was selling to downsize my husband’s growing collections but I’m guessing half those vendors pack up at the end of each market and do it all over again in another town the following weekend. That would be a hard life and some of the full timers have hard luck stories to tell. 

At this market, vendor tents and tables are set up under giant white pine trees and seeing them yesterday reminded me of camping overnight with the other vendors. A lot of 'horse trading' goes on that night before the markets open and I still have an Indian blanket acquired in a swap. It’s hard to explain how excited I was about having the opportunity to go back to that market after so many years. I don’t collect anything anymore thus I wasn’t anticipating the thrill of the hunt. The heat, the sun, the dirt, the Porta-Potties---none of which are particularly endearing at my age (or any other) but still it felt like a part of my past was inviting me back for a sentimental visit. I’ve been on both sides of the vendor tables: at low quality markets and at high quality markets where buyers peeled off a stack of hundred dollar bills to pay for what they were buying. Our biggest outdoor market sale was $7,000 and the guy who bought the glass gas globe swore us to secrecy because he didn’t want other globe collectors to know how much he was willing to spend on pieces he wanted. I broke one of those pricey globes once, dropped it on the cement and can you believe it, all my husband said was, “Oops.” 

On the 4^th this year, all I bought was a down-under style hat to keep the sun off my head, a loaf of bread from an Amish vendor---they are growing in numbers in that part of Michigan---a slice of spinach pie and a small wedge of polished, purple and gray stone. B.L. is the only other person I’ve ever known who loves stones and she bought three or four. 

Change of topic: Last week I stopped by the nutrition store where they have the cardio drumming classes, fully intent on signing up. But their instructor is in the hospital with a serious medical issue so they’ve suspended the classes until they can find another certified teacher. Cardio drumming, in case you’ve never heard of it involves using weighed drum sticks on large exercise balls. It combines dance moves, rhythm and it’s a fairly high-energy work out. I was disappointment! What am I going to do without a new class to challenge me this summer? Classes are not that easy to find when you don’t drive downtown (art classes), or you’re bored with hand projects (quilting or knitting classes), or you don’t want to gain weight (cooking classes) or you don’t want your brain “coached” at the Thought Studio although their Mindfulness class would probably do me a lot of good. The Sculpture Park has some great classes but they’re mostly for kids this time of the year and all the Olli classes require a morning rush hour trip through a congested part of town. I don’t do rush hour.

Henry Ford was quoted as saying, “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young,” but good old Henry didn’t mention how much harder that is when you don’t have a chauffeur to cart you around in your old age like he had back in his day. Ya, I know, there are books, documentaries on TV and the internet but, for me, nothing holds a candle to learning in groups. ©

Bones and Ballsy Old Men

On June 29^th, 2016 I wrote in this blog, “I got some great news this week from my orthopedic doctor. The results of my bone density scans show that I’ve lowered my risk factor for a major osteoporotic fracture down from last year’s 20% to this year’s 15%. The Reclast infusion did its job---far better than the Forteo injections did after two years of doing them daily which only lowered the risk factor down by 1.3%.” Guess what, this year’s bone density scans show my risk factor for a major osteoporotic fracture is up to 16% which means my second Reclast infusion didn’t repeat its magic on my bones. It’s disappointing, especially considering I’ve also been doing intense weight bearing exercises that are recommended for building bones. The only thing left to do that is supposed to help to keep osteoporosis at bay is to give up coffee. Would life be worth living without it? I gave up soda pop several years ago and lived to tell about it. Some people don’t realize it, but there’s a correlation between having a high intake of pop and having an elevated risk of fractures. Experts aren’t sure why but some say it could be just the fact that if you’re drinking a lot of pop you aren’t drinking enough milk.

My doctor does full body scans from three different angles, not the one wrist test that a lot of women get and, he says, if my insurance doesn’t cover the cost of doing those scans every year, he will. Many companies only cover a bone density test every two years. But I have bad bones---four broken since menopause plus I’ve had two badly needed knee replacements---a by-product of taking thyroid medication since I was a kid. It leeches the calcium out of your bones. That’s the trouble with a lot of medications, they cure one thing while causing another problem in your body. I did learn something new regarding calcium. I’m taking calcium carbonate which needs to be taken with food, 600 mg taken twice a day but sometimes that second pill doesn’t get taken because I either ate away from home or I was doing a two-shakes-one-meal day. If I pick up some calcium citrate it can be taken with or without food and there’s a better chance I’ll get my full 1,200 mg in every single day.

The next day I decided to take myself out to lunch and while following another car on a five lane road, both of us going about 50 miles an hour, a tall, lean figure on a skateboard swooped out of a condo driveway, crossing closely in front of the other car and into the center lane. The other driver slammed on his breaks and so did I, thankful that he didn’t hit the skateboarder and I didn’t end up in the backseat of the other car. As the skateboarder got within six feet of my driver’s side window it hit me: The damn fool was my age! No helmet or other safety gear, gray hair, white beard and he was wearing a pair of leather goggles like drivers of early automobiles did to keep the bugs and dust out of their eyes. I wondered briefly if it was the same pair of goggles I sold in my antique booth after my husband died. As I watched the ballsy old guy in my rear view mirror I had no doubt he planned on staying in the center lane all the way to the baseball park over a mile down the road where skateboarders are known to congregate.

After I placed my order for a tuna melt on rye at the Guy-Land Cafeteria I thought about Mr. Ballsy who was probably at the park by then, matching his skateboarding skills up against kids young enough to be his great grandchildren. And I didn’t know whether to admire his careless disregard for his personal safety or to scorn him for scaring the stuffing out of drivers. But he did get me thinking. Why is it that some people, like him, don’t give up their younger self’s passion while others, like me, are afraid to even rekindle ours? Case in point: In 2016 I re-purposed my guest room into a multipurpose hobby room/guest room with a whole side devoted to painting. I hauled my oak easel out of storage, unpacked my old supplies, bought some new ones, prepared some canvases and I fully planned on picking up where I left off in the mid-1980s, before family obligations and caregiving took over my life. I still have not mixed my first palette of paints. Will my old talent come back? Will my cataracts dull my color sense too much? Will I still enjoy the process of honing a craft that takes more years than I've got left to become famous like my younger self dreamed of being? I’m afraid---afraid of the answers to those questions. Why can’t I be like that ballsy old man and say to myself: Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead! A phrase that’s come to mean, of course, that despite the known risks continue forward with gusto. I think I’ll google that old Civil War Naval battle cry and see if I can find it cross-stitched on a throw pillow. That might help inspire me to overcome my fear of failure in an area where I once excelled. ©

 Link to the re-purposed room with photos