Old Age Day by Day November 26, 2013

There is something delightful in looking in a crammed refrigerator, knowing friends and family are coming and a lot of yummy food is about to be consumed.  I went to two grocery stores yesterday to get ingredients, today my dear friend comes, and soon the cooking begins.  Thanksgiving is a nice idea.  I'm keeping a gratitude journal, and I can't imagine a better use of time than giving thanks and appreciating all we have.  It doesn't depend on being religious, just a willingness to see ourselves as interdependent and fortunate.  Somebody tills that field and plants those potatoes and harvests and sells to market.  The back breaking labor of many souls brings us our food. 

It is also a time to think of those without food, and send that check to the Red Cross or whoever for the Phillipines.  Taking a moment to know how lucky we are and share our luck makes a difference to us and others.

Yesterday we saw the neighbors a couple of houses away take down two huge pine trees.  They are still at it today, sawing and probably making logs.  One of the trees lost a lot of branches in the wind storm, and I guess was considered unstable.  We have a lot of trees like that around here, as well as up at the cabin.  There is a pine next door to me that would crush my studio if it fell, and yet they don't do anything.  It's expensive to be preventative, and most of us don't bother to think of what might happen, only react to what has happened.  These people next door are not good neighbors, as they let the yard and house fall apart, and I have no idea what the reason would be.  But they don't feel connected to where they live or others, which is sad.

In a couple of hours, I'll be picking up my friend, and that makes me very happy.

Old Age Day by Day November 25, 2013

My friend and I went to another friend's trunk show at her home an hour's drive away.  We had fun catching up in the car.  We both like our friend's necklaces:  they are witty and fun, bright and unusual.  Since she is an artist and art teacher, she brings a high level of design to the necklaces.  However, they are pricey, and also hard to "carry off".  I'm short with no neck.  I had two necklaces already, one with silver beads and big blobs of red and turquoise "beads" almost the size of eggs, and another red and lime green necklace with interesting big beads.  But neither of us could quite decide yesterday, as we tried on necklaces, looked in the mirror, and commented on each.  The ones I really loved were way too much for little me.  I did buy one in the end, a bunch of paper mache balls on black string that is light and looks very festive, with black and red and silver.  But my friend ended up not really loving any on her, and said as she ages she gets more conservative.  We both love ethnic, but are toning it down.  With gray hair it's easy to end up looking like a bag lady. 

It was awkward as well, because two other artists were there, one with paintings, the other with charming little felt hats, but both were pricey, and the paintings were not that interesting, and the hats REALLY would have made me look like a bag lady.  Everything was too expensive to be kind and buy a hat and small painting as well.

We found a place to have lunch, after we left our friend's, and it seemed like a charming little cafe, and the menu was full of healthy and interesting things.  We both ordered the same small salad and sandwich, and she had a latte and me cafe au lait.  When the drinks came, mine was near cold, but I drank it anyway.  We talked, then talked some more.  Thirty minutes later a waitress brought us our bill.  We protested:  we'd never gotten our order!  They shuffled around, then brought out the plates.  My friend had ordered dressing on the side, but they got that wrong, so took her plate back.  It was returned with no dressing.  Needless to say, we each left a one dollar tip, and that was pure kindness.  The place wasn't crowded, and I suppose they were students and inexperienced, but it was colossally bad service.  I guess we're spoiled at home.

Old Age Day by Day November 23, 2013

Our deeply kind daughter and boyfriend are coming over this morning to walk the dogs and give my husband a break.  I think my husband has about had it being noble.  I feel so helpless.  The dogs won't chase balls or get exercise any other way. 

We had two nights of high winds and gusts:  65 mph where we are.  A ton of trees, branches and other debris has fallen, and we've been picking up stuff from our yard, but don't have any room left for more leaves or sticks.  The howling really disturbed our sleep both nights.  It's calm this morning, finally.  One amazing thing is our big glass globe light out front fell, but directly into a plant in a pot and was unbroken.  The pot was barely bigger than the globe, so it was a miracle.  Now that I said it was calm the wind has kicked up again.  There is a pine tree next door that we worry about falling on my studio, but so far, so good.  There is leafy debris on every block and lots of sawing and tree removal. 

Wind is scary.  I associate it with the Firestorm now, and that is disturbing.  And the Chinooks in Colorado were apt to pull your roof off, smash a tree or destroy anything not nailed down.  We had to make sure all our animals were in so they wouldn't blow away, except for our horse, which had a one horse barn, but it was pretty rickety.  I've seen a lot of damage from wind, and when it shakes the house and the branches screech against your bedroom window, it is not sleep inducing.  It's unsettling.

Old Age Day by Day November 22, 2013

My husband and I like to play Scrabble.  Until recently, I kept the game on the kitchen counter for easy access.  But a few weeks ago, I had such a run of bad luck playing:  having all vowels, even all "i"s, all consonants, getting the "q" at the end of the game, that I part of myself I hate to acknowledge - the BAD LOSER - arose with a vengance. I stopped in the middle of our second game in a row because my husband kept putting a word right where I was about to put it.   I put the game upstairs in the hall closet.  Last night I felt calm and mature.  I brought the game down.  We played neck and neck until on my last draw of letters, I drew the "z".  There was no place to put it, no word to make.  I also had a couple of 4 pt letters left and two "u"s.  Needless to say, the "q" had already been used long before.  I had 15 pts against me as my husband went out.  I lost.  He asked if I wanted to play again.  I refused, and marched the game back upstairs.  Does this prove we're forever young?  I'd hoped for more resilient skin, not bad sportsmanship.  I asked myself why I didn't just enjoy the process?  The answer was ugly. 

Perhaps I can excuse myself a bit because I'm stir crazy from my broken foot.  But still.  It's quite disillusioning to be as ancient as I am and still a baby.  It's not like I would win anything, or be given a plaque or be in the newspaper.  There is no reward. 

But at least I'm still fully human.  With all the issues we humans have.  Annoying as they are.

Old Age Day by Day November 21, 2013

I noticed in the paper today that Gloria Steinem was one of the Medal of Freedom recipients.  I really appreciate her inclusion, because, in my generation at least, she has been a flashpoint for how it is to be a woman in our society here.  Her voice lifted so many others, and her journey, both personal and political, mirrors what it was like to be a woman and want to use your brain and skills and heart in a way that reflected self love and dignity for all of us.  She has been fluid as well, changing when the times changed, opening to women of color, to lesbians, to the whole broad spectrum of what is female.  And like Simone de Beauvoir, she struggled with relationships, and images of beauty and how to be female and sexually active.  For both of them, the professional life was at war with the love life.  I also appreciate Steinem's honesty about her mother's mental illness, and the effect it had on her lifelong.  She spoke at a time when such topics were shrouded in secrecy and shame.  She admitted her own mother was not her source of self valuing, and that the world is much more complicated and feminism must reflect that.  Not everyone had the nurturing mother and absent father.  The struggle to know the female self is sometimes a lonely path in the dark.

Old Age Day by Day November 20, 2013

The rain has continued steadily from yesterday, so we are getting a good soaking.  I love the sound of it.  Surely this will help the vegetation around, and clean the air.  I am picking my friend up from radiation today, and then we're going out to lunch.  After that, I pick up my foster granddaughter and we will work on her gifts some more.  I bought some good iron-on decorations and feel she's going to make really nice presents.

I realize that it is not November 22, and I am already a bit sick of all the hoopla around the 50th anniversary around JFK's assassination.  Somehow, all the attention seems trivalizing not respectful.  And I am even sick of the Gettysburg Address anniversary.  I guess I don't much like the media's manipulation of us.  Maybe it is useful to younger people.  A history lesson.  But I don't really see touchy issues addressed:  like the hatred towards public figures and what that means psychologically (Gabby Giffords, for instance) or how we need our Presidents to remind us why we have government and what it would mean if we didn't (Obama has attempted this on occasion, but we need more framing of who we are, what government does for us, and that there will always be a cost to individual liberty).  Instead, we get the same stale images and cliched reactions, and then we romanticize and idealize these very human figures, and that makes us turn away from the ugliness that we ought to face, at least once in a while.

Why are we afraid to talk about hate?  That is what young people could really use some help with.  We need to admit it in ourselves, and see the causes and conditions of it's dominance over some of us.  We need to know how to counter and name it, so it does not go underground and harm.

Old Age Day by Day November 19, 2013

Well, I have at least three more weeks in my boot.  The break has not healed.  I am discouraged. 

Today it is actually raining.  Not heavily, but pretty steady.  I hope this continues for a while, so the air and trees and bushes can be washed clean.  I love the sound of it.  After seeing the podiatrist, I went to a fabric store to get stuff for my foster granddaughter's sewing projects, then to Target for a bunch of random things.  I just wanted to be out and not go home. 

My friend began radiation yesterday.  She has it five days a week for six weeks, so it will be all through the holidays.  I hope it doesn't get too wearing, and she keeps her spirits up.  I sent her a funny card yesterday.  I will be taking her sometimes for her radiation, and she knows I'm available, but I worry. 

Last night I watched two episodes of Antique Road Show with my husband.  That is how desperate I am.  Before that we watched "Holiday" again, with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn.  Who I really love in that film is Lew Ayers.  He's so funny as the drunk brother, but heartbreaking as well, and just riveting on screen.  He lived a long life and I remember seeing him in a couple of films when he was old, and loving his presence.  "Holiday" is a bubble of a film, perfect for the depression, with it's theme that the poor are so much wiser and happier than the rich.  A lot of people needed to believe that then.  Yet it glamorizes the rich at the same time.  And everybody is playing at being poor, no one really is.  But Grant and Hepburn have some real fire in their scenes.  They were great together in that, in "Bringing up Baby", and in "Philadelphia Story".  Hepburn never had half as much chemistry with Spencer Tracy.  Come to think of it, he just had no sexiness to him.  But he must have had something that attracted her.  Maybe guilt and unavailability.