Old Age Day by Day July 23, 2013

I liked World War Z, it was a fun summer movie with heart, wit, and a pretty plausible plot.  I like Brad Pitt more and more as he matures as an actor.  It kept twisting and turning and surprising.  And we ran into our niece and nephew by my first marriage, and had a great time talking to them afterward.  Then we had beer and salads and went home to feed the dogs.  It was a good escape from my sore jaw from the crown.  Today I'm taking my granddaughter to a movie late afternoon, and will do some yard work beforehand. 

I've begun a new book, a mystery, and can plunk away on that as well.  I need to do some research for it, but that won't happen until the fall at this rate.  But it gives me purpose, and a puzzle to work out.  I love the process of writing, but am hopeless at selling it.

Old Age Day by Day July 22, 2013

Back from the cabin, and I'm actually enjoying the cooler weather here, as it was quite hot up there.  Still, I'd rather be there.  I have my crown put in my mouth this morning, then hopefully, a movie this afternoon.  I feel a bit disoriented, as I always doing going back and forth in the summer.  We had two friends up this weekend, and we got along so well and easily.  They looked at a couple of cabins for sale, but neither was a good bargain or really exciting.  Both had the usual accumulation of junk so that you could barely walk through them.  I had the urge to hire a dump truck and start ripping.  When a piece of furniture or a book gets up to the cabin it gets buried there.  We've spent the last 26 years trying to get rid of the previous owner's junk.  The kind of stuff no one would buy, and no one even wants to be given to them.  Every time we've had work done, a new deck, etc, we've had the workers cart away stuff.  But there is still some junk under part of the cabin, and our bureaus in the bedrooms are the previous owners.  I could paint them or something, but I wouldn't bet on it. 

Off to the dentist, my home away from home.

Old Age Day by Day July 19, 2013

I've been back from the cabin for five days, but it has been a whirlwind since I returned, with taking my granddaughter to puppy training camp, doing errands, appointments, the power going out yesterday for three hours.  I couldn't get the car out of the garage, and took a taxi to an appointment and back.  Then, when the power came back on, the garage door still wouldn't work, I had to call my husband at the cabin and get instructions on how to re-hook up the door so it would open.  When I realized I could call a taxi, I looked in my wallet and had only a dollar, so I speed walked to the bank and back.  But I made the appointment.  Today, I'm getting ready to go to the cabin for the weekend,  as my friend is looking at a cabin to buy up there.  I'll ride up with her and her partner, then ride back Sunday night with my husband.  But even a brief stay requires shopping and gathering together a pair of pants for my husband, picking up his prescription and bringing it.  I've been organizing two households for 26 years.  I know how fortunate I am to have the cabin, but stocking and caring for two places takes a lot of work.  We clean both places, repair, buy what's needed, rake, etc.  But it has been worth it, as the whole family has experienced such joy and pleasure from being in the mountains.  It's one of the best decisions I've ever made to take my Dad's insurance money and buy the cabin.  He's given me a wonderful, spiritual, profound place to retreat to.  Thanks, Dad.

Old Age Day by Day July 7, 2013

My Buddhist teacher gave a dharma talk that was mostly him being silent and looking around at each of us again and again.  It's a delightful lesson in expectation and that the dharma cannot be taught through words but only felt with the heart in a place beyond words.  It's disorienting, even so, because, oh dear, the pressure is on us to do the work.  Our minds and focus are all ours to control, and we're basically not ready for that.  Point taken.

This weekend we spent a lot of time gardening, and then we dragged out two iron plant stands that were my parents', and somehow have survived 27 years, set them up on our patio, filled them with plants, and they look terrific and really cheer up the outside.  One is filled with geraniums, since we are basically the black thumbs of Kolcut, and the other has succulents and roses and geraniums.  The color of the geraniums really punches up the place.  It's mighty gratifying.

We hit Trader Joe's after lunch, because I'm going up to the cabin tomorrow for a week, for a little private retreat.  I haven't done it in years, and I'm really looking forward to being alone, writing, and just relaxing.  I also have mysteries I bought yesterday, just in case.  I even have a new bathing suit, bought Friday with my daughter.  I'm all set!

Old Age Day by Day July 6, 2013

When I was a kid, I found in the library Alexandre Dumas.  I adored "The Count of Monte Cristo" and "The Man in the Iron Mask" as well as "The Three Muskateers".  I loved the melodrama, the preoccupation with justice and moral integrity and the the romance.  But maybe the fact that these stories were set in France, at the time of "Tale of Two Cities" was a factor.  I went on to take Latin and French in high school.  Ultimately, I adored Victor Hugo, and "Les Miserables" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame".  There were comic books of all these tales as well, and I read and reread them all.  I tried Tolstoy, but he was too adult for my proclivities at the time, so with his books I skipped the war parts and tried to winnow out the romances.  But it was also France.  Russia wasn't France, though the aristocrats tried to be in that era.  I liked the misfits, outsiders and rejects of Hugo and Dumas.  The fact that Dumas was biracial gave him a particular sensitivity to the unseen masses, and Hugo understood poverty like no one but Dickens. 

Last night we watched a film of "The Count of Monte Cristo", and I found it just about perfect for stirring the blood, and then cleansing it of revenge and bitterness and greed.  Dumas' characters are deeply human, and they are redeemed when they understand that the world of black and white is false, and are forced to live with the dark side of themselves instead of just condemning it in others.  Their compassion must be aroused by their own transgressions.  And, of course, a few villains have to be punished, as God intended, which is gratifying for the reader. 

I have, supposedly, grown up, but I continue to find these authors great.  Great because they take us through the adolescent passions and obsessions, and out the other side into adulthood.  And since we all have our regressions, it's good to be reminded of how peace in the mind is won, not by detachment, but by struggle and engagement.

Old Age Day by Day July 5m 2013

I'm beginning to feel like we live in the Bermuda Triangle, more or less.  Last night at 2:30 am, two huge fire trucks and about twenty police pulled up outside our house.  My husband went outside to see what was happening, us both thinking a firework had set fire to the garage, or yet another person had had a car wreck in our territory.  No, it turned out a person up the street had called in that his wife was missing, and the police were searching everywhere for her.  She was said to be very drunk.  They found her asleep on the dirt under our trees next to our garage.  She was taken away by ambulance, and after half an hour the majority of our city's task force departed.  I could not get back to sleep, and tears rolled down my face for the next four hours.  Maybe it was the image of her, the thought of the distress in the family, the contrast between celebrating the 4th and private sorrow.  I don't know.  I feel pretty wiped this morning and as if our house is a magnet for grief.  I think of my mother's drinking and the agony it caused all of us.  I think of her pain that caused the drinking, and wish she'd had a chance to get help. 

Old Age Day by Day July 1, 2013

Good lord, it's July.  Time is speeding right up.  We had a good time at the baseball game yesterday, and our team won, with lots of backwards and forwards and good catches and bad.  It was exciting every minute of the game.  Then we had a nice dinner on the patio with pizza and salads and key lime pie.  The weather had been hot at the game, so the cooler evening air felt terrific.

I'm up to the cabin for three days, and looking forward to it.  It's somehow so hard to get away, even though neither of us has a job or much responsibilities.  How is that?  I'm ready for the lake, the mosquitoes, the sunburn, the iced tea, the reading on the deck.