Old Age Day by Day May 8, 2012

We're having summer right here, right now.  I am wearing - get this - a SLEEVELESS shirt, and sandals.  Yes, I'm wearing pants also.  Summer here is fleeting and goes in and out with the tides, so I have to assess the weather quickly and adjust at lightning speed.  This I have done.  And when it's foggy and cold tomorrow I will pull out my fleece and don socks.  But right now my toes are wiggling free, exposed to the elements, tanning ever so gently.

Sitting out in our backyard is a great way to appreciate the weather, the birds, the squirrels, and the flowers.  I see that our roses have begun to bloom, and there are yellow roses in full throttle, plus the lavender rhrododendrons.  What a great time of year.  I'm all over the bulb thing and on to the next phrase.  I'm thinking dreamily of how celebratory the garden will look for our daughter's grad party on Saturday, and pleased, as if I'd had something to do with the seasons.  These delusions of grandeur are pleasing if false, and I believe I'll just sit here a while longer with them before I come back to reality.

Old Age Day by Day May 7, 2012

My husband's concert was quite stirring.  It was a newly discovered mass by Dvorzak,  and quite dramatic and energetic.  If it hadn't of been for the merciless pew seating, and the heat, it would have been sublime.  I'm sore this morning, from sitting meditation, dharma talk and the concert.  Our son made us a fabulous meal when we got home with halibut, a fritata, mushrooms and leeks, and a salad stuffed with seafood.  I'm still full.  Then we watched the BBC Sherlock, the miniseries with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freedman.  This episode was dazzling and funny and brilliant.  I can't wait to see the other two shows.  So we ended the day pretty delighted.

This morning I'm going to talk to my foster granddaughter's mom about her upcoming labor.  Then I have an eye appointment.  It's heavenly weather, so I hope to sit out in the garden when my eyes stop being dialated.  My bad eye takes many hours to get back to what passes as normal for me.  But hopefully it's holding and not getting worse.  I'll find out today. 

Old Age Day by Day May 5, 2012

Cinco de Mayo!  Beautiful day, the biggest moon of the year tonight, and our younger daughter did an elegant job of her thesis defense!  We were so proud of her and delighted with her research project.  Next week she does the graduation shebang, and we'll be celebrating big time!  My husband, our older son and I spent time afterward analyzing objectively how hers was the best project and presentation.  We dared not do it in front of anyone else, but privately, we gloated.  I'm sure she feels so relieved, and now just the joyous part.  It's going to be a great week.

Old Age Day by Day May 4, 2012

Today I'm having lunch with a friend and my husband and I are going to see Dianne Reeves sing this evening.  We're just wild social butterflies this week.  Tomorrow our daughter presents her thesis defense, and we are looking forward to that.  We're so proud of her.  My husband has concerts he's singing in this weekend and I'm going to attend one of those.  So we have a full few days and at the end a graduation celebration.  A week of joy. 

Well, not all joy.  There is the cleaning, and picking up stuff and shopping and toilet scrubbing, and most difficult of all:  choosing something to wear for these events.  The pressure is on.  I do have some recruits at my disposal.  last year whenever I happened to be shopping I looked for dresses with sleeves.  If they were on sale and in my color and size, I tried them on and bought one.  This occurred several times, so that I actually have four new dresses that I could wear, and they are all comfortable and yet, and yet, decisions are hard when you are an elderly butterball who still would like to look attractive.  Females!  We never give up our vanities. 

So in the middle of this email I picked up a call from my friend, and she has a cold, so the lunch is out and I can instead go order the cake for the graduation and find flowers for tomorrow.  I am nothing if not fluid. 

Old Age Day by Day May 3, 2012

This morning I walked the dogs, usually my husband's task, but it's rainy and his back is bothering him.  I had a whirling vision of blue flowers, as I tugged and guided the dogs on their haphazard way.  Many people are planting blue, or blue is taking over the gardens, or I'm becoming colorblind.  The blue forget-me-nots have volunteered themselves all over our yard and the neighbors, but there seemed to be delphiniums and many other bluenesses everywhere we went.  I like that.  Though if asked, I say I like white flowers best, my favorite flower is the daffodil.  I think I don't like pink flowers, but then there are peonies up the street, a hot pink, that I covet every time I walk by.  And a pale pink hyacinth or baby rose - they've got me at hello.  I used to adore the sterling silver rose, but now I have a fondness for the red/black rose, and one bush grows in my front yard.  Purple is good, and any color of pansy sends me back to childhood, and my mother's vase, clear glass, dome shaped, with holes for each pansy.  I did think they were faces and connected with fairies.  We have two volunteer foxgloves in the front, pink with freckles, and though their leaves are hairy and not lovely, the tallness and dignity of the plants have won me over.  My grandmother had hollyhocks and sunflowers, and these tall strangers remind me of them.

So, I guess I like just about every single flower and color.  A field of daffodils is a definite heartstopper, but barring that sight, I'm happy with the neighbors' offerings, and if it's blue du jour, then bleu it is.

Old Age Day by Day May 2, 2012

My husband and I went to the symphony last night, and had a lovely experience listening to Handel's "Water Music" and "Fireworks" and four of Bach's Brandenberg Concertos.  Gorgeous music, musicianship and the conductor, Jane Glover, was amazing.  We were high in the balcony, but it mattered not at all.  Baroque rules!

Today is another glorious sunny day, and I plan to do a bunch of errands, organize my photos on my computer, and be out as much as I can.  I have a sense of spaciousness, and for that I am grateful.  My foster granddaughter and I sewed yesterday and her fascination with it, and her impatience, are very endearing to me.  She was thrilled that I had a blanket I'd knitted for her.  She thinks I'm a magician.  That is how very young she is.  But she's also right.  There is a magic to sewing and knitting.  I was sewing felt birds for a mobile, and she picked out again her material for pillows for her room, and they will be a representation of how something flat becomes fat, soft and from a distance, alive.  I love seeing the world through her young eyes.

Old Age Day by Day May 1, 2012

May Day!  No, this is not a distress call.  When I was a child, in the dark ages, we actually danced around a May Pole, and in Virginia, there was a huge celebration for May Day, with a May Queen, skits and dances and singing from every class, and general overabundance of joyousness.  Spring had sprung, school was almost out, and the whole town turned out for the festivities.  Our younger daughter went to an all women's college, and they did the May Day thing there.  It's a lovely, gift free chance to feel exuberant for no real reason. 

Today I have my foster granddaughter, so I think we will look at our favorite plant nursery and celebrate spring that way.  She's turning into an ardent gardener, and I love that about her.  Well, I love everything, but especially her interest in flowers.  And if there is a pole, I may swing around it once or twice, just for the heck of it.