I am sad to say that my mother is dying. I flew to Northern Indiana early Wednesday morning
to be with her and help my siblings care for her in her final days.
We have spent the last few days making sure
all of Mom’s 16 grandchildren have had a chance to talk to (at, really) her on
the phone and give her their love or say their goodbyes from whatever part of
the country they happen to be in.
Mom has been unresponsive for most of the time I have been here. It is
best when she is unresponsive, because she is in so much pain when she is
semi-conscious. She rarely opens her
eyes now.
It is likely she had a significant stroke overnight between Monday and
Tuesday. She has a do-not-resuscitate directive in place. Interestingly,
terminal DNR patients are not taken to the hospital. The nursing home simply tries to make the
patient as comfortable as possible until the end.
The first couple of days she was in agony, and she was not tolerating morphine
well to combat the pain. It was awful. My brother called Hospice and a kindly team of nurses and aides came to the nursing home to take
over pain management for her. What a truly wonderful organization Hospice is. They care. Of course the nursing
home staff care, too. They have been
very sweet to all of us. They moved Mom
into a private, larger room which can accommodate the many children and grandchildren
who are stopping by. We are keeping a
constant vigil in her room, day and night.
ERB told me that on Tuesday afternoon a number of family members were in the room with her, including 3 grandchildren. She, of course, is comatose. However, in the midst of their visit she suddenly tried to sit up and open her eyes. Then she laid back down and said "God, it's beautiful!" I was happy to hear this story, and even more happy that some of her grandchildren were there when it happened. That story will stay with them as long as they live, and it will reassure them that death and dying can be a beautiful part of life.
coming out of my shell
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Friday, February 20, 2015
Old Wives and Vampire Killers
I am not biking, hiking, exploring, or being active in any meaningful way because I feel like crap. I've had the flu, and Iam not doing much of anything except laying on the couch reading trashy paranormal romance/urban fantasy novels. That sounds great, I know, and it is. But probably not for the reason you think. I no longer read each page because they all pretty much follow the same formula and they are not written particularly well. In fact, I can read one of these books in a day. I have been skipping the sex parts for years. The sex scenes are all pretty much the same.
Why do I still read this genre? Because I love reading the parts where these women beat up bad guys. They kick ass and take no prisoners. These women are not afraid of anything. Should I be ashamed to admit that is MY fantasy? And these heroines always have some kind of magical power that helps them kick bad person ass. Way fun.
I also started reading this great book on Fairy Tales (From The Beast to the Blonde, by Marina Warner). It is chock full of subversive information about what people in the Middle Ages thought of old women. Apparently we are all useless, (i.e., no longer able to conceive children), physically repulsive, scary old gossips who spread "old wives tales." The up-side is that we are also the original source of Fairy Tales.
Imagine grandmothers throughout the centuries telling their grandchildren tales the storytellers heard from their own grandmothers. These stories were dismissed by the literati of their times as the inane drivel old women used to stoke the irresponsible fantasies of young children. Still, the storytelling continued until eventually men like Hans Christian Anderson, Charles Perrault, and the Brothers Grimm decided to collect the old tales, write them down, and sell them for profit and posterity. However, the men who wrote down these stores often changed them, cleaning them up to make them more acceptable to the later Christian reading public.
It seems grandmothers in the Middle Ages used to tell it like it was: weaving and repeating tales that warned their grandchildren about the dangers of violence, greed, brutality, abuse, scam artists, and even incest. They taught children how to use their heads in a crisis and avoid becoming victims. They also taught them to be nice to old hags they might meet in the woods, because those old hags might be fairy godmothers in disguise! What great advice! THEIR grandkids were schooled in street smarts and knew who and what to avoid. Our grandkids, relying solely on Disney to tell them the watered down and revised tales, are naive at best. Our kids mistake the old hag they meet in the woods for an evil old witch who should be ridiculed, ignored, or worse. Talk about bad manners and meanness of spirit! I am surprised more young people today are not spitting out toads when they attempt to speak.
At worst, our granddaughters spend their lives obsessing over their appearance and looking for a gentleman prince who will change their lives. I think we should be telling our granddaughters to forget about getting that Princess makeover at Magic Kingdom and instead we should help them figure out how to spin straw into gold.
Plan for your retirement, my sweet! Give your future husband a break and change your own life. In the meantime, I am going to continue speed reading urban fantasy for the fight scenes. My sweet Grandma only told me Bible stories and I still have a lot to learn.
Why do I still read this genre? Because I love reading the parts where these women beat up bad guys. They kick ass and take no prisoners. These women are not afraid of anything. Should I be ashamed to admit that is MY fantasy? And these heroines always have some kind of magical power that helps them kick bad person ass. Way fun.
I also started reading this great book on Fairy Tales (From The Beast to the Blonde, by Marina Warner). It is chock full of subversive information about what people in the Middle Ages thought of old women. Apparently we are all useless, (i.e., no longer able to conceive children), physically repulsive, scary old gossips who spread "old wives tales." The up-side is that we are also the original source of Fairy Tales.
Imagine grandmothers throughout the centuries telling their grandchildren tales the storytellers heard from their own grandmothers. These stories were dismissed by the literati of their times as the inane drivel old women used to stoke the irresponsible fantasies of young children. Still, the storytelling continued until eventually men like Hans Christian Anderson, Charles Perrault, and the Brothers Grimm decided to collect the old tales, write them down, and sell them for profit and posterity. However, the men who wrote down these stores often changed them, cleaning them up to make them more acceptable to the later Christian reading public.
It seems grandmothers in the Middle Ages used to tell it like it was: weaving and repeating tales that warned their grandchildren about the dangers of violence, greed, brutality, abuse, scam artists, and even incest. They taught children how to use their heads in a crisis and avoid becoming victims. They also taught them to be nice to old hags they might meet in the woods, because those old hags might be fairy godmothers in disguise! What great advice! THEIR grandkids were schooled in street smarts and knew who and what to avoid. Our grandkids, relying solely on Disney to tell them the watered down and revised tales, are naive at best. Our kids mistake the old hag they meet in the woods for an evil old witch who should be ridiculed, ignored, or worse. Talk about bad manners and meanness of spirit! I am surprised more young people today are not spitting out toads when they attempt to speak.
At worst, our granddaughters spend their lives obsessing over their appearance and looking for a gentleman prince who will change their lives. I think we should be telling our granddaughters to forget about getting that Princess makeover at Magic Kingdom and instead we should help them figure out how to spin straw into gold.
Plan for your retirement, my sweet! Give your future husband a break and change your own life. In the meantime, I am going to continue speed reading urban fantasy for the fight scenes. My sweet Grandma only told me Bible stories and I still have a lot to learn.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Sisterhood should have been a lot more powerful
After all these years, feminism still has a long way to go before it becomes acceptable to the masses. If you do not believe me, just wait until Hillary runs for President and the wingnuts start to criticize her outfits and hairdos instead of her political message.
Back in the late 1960s, when the so-called second wave of feminism was young and vital, I was young along with it. The "first wave" was in the early days of the 20th century when the suffragettes were fighting for women to get the right to vote. Anyway, I remember going to hear Dr. Benjamin Spock speak at Notre Dame circa 1968. I am not referring to the Vulcan who was also a pop icon at the time, Dr. Benjamin Spock was the guy who published a book in 1946 originally called The Commonsense Book of Baby & Child Care. This wildly popular child care book was subsequently blamed for permissive child rearing and the resulting radicalism of the baby boomer generation. Indeed, his book was quite radical and forward thinking in the 1940s and 1950s.
Of course he was a man of his time and the gender role stereotypes he pushed in early editions of his book were deemed sexist by the late 1960s. I was a high school student and I vividly remember how exciting it was to hear the college-aged activists in the hall shout him down and call him out on his sexism. Those women were fearless powerhouses like no women I had seen before that night. They were no ladies! They were superheros. You may remember their crazy radical feminist notions, like recognizing that fathers should help out with childcare, that at least half of the children might be female, and that women had the right to work outside the home.
Spock actually listened and later changed his "message" in subsequent editions and even apologized to women for not thinking of us as fully realized human beings. In 1976 the newly enlightened Benjamin Spock divorced his old wife (the mother of his children, the one he married in 1927 and the person who helped research and write that famous book) and he married a woman 40 years younger than him. Concerning his second wife, he was quoted as saying "she gave me back my youth." Gag me with a spoon. I guess no one told him about the sins of ageism.
I attended my share of consciousness raising groups and women's writing workshops back in the day. I tried (and failed) to make my daughter play with trucks instead of dolls. I happily signed up to attend assertiveness training workshops. I wish those still existed, they were quite useful in instructing us how to be women instead of ladies. In case you did not know, second wave feminists did not want to be called or thought of as ladies. "Ladies" tottered around aimlessly on high heels never thinking deep thoughts or challenging authority. Let me be perfectly clear: Ladies have cooties. Women kick ass.
By the mid-1970s I was discouraged by the movement's subsequent focus on the rights and privileges of upper middle class women. It seemed to me that was all the women's movement came to care about in later years; enabling women of means to enter the professions alongside their equally privileged men. I am all for upper class women having the same opportunities as upper class men, of course. However, none of my friends or family members were going to become doctors, lawyers, or professors; not because they were not smart enough to become professionals, but because no one was paying for them to go to college. Let's be honest, working class people do not have parents who can buy them a future.
It would have been nice if the later women's movement had been interested in understanding and supporting the special struggles of working class women. Feminism might be more than just a tired joke in some circles today had the movement embraced all women and not just the elite few. I was not alone in feeling undervalued and ignored. Class struggle was arguably the downfall of the second wave of feminism in the 60s/70s. I would recommend an article written in 1977 by Marlene Dixon. She was a bit of a firecracker and definitely too extreme in her politics, but it is still a good read if you are interested in stepping back in time and immersing yourself in the history of feminism.
In truth, the 1960s/70s women's movement was different at first. Feminist ideology influenced and/or energized organizations that really made a difference in the lives of all women, like Planned Parenthood - an organization that was started by Margaret Sanger, a first wave feminist and onetime labor activist. Some other efforts championed in the glory days of feminism were the creation of professionalized day care centers, job training programs, battered women's shelters. Affirmative Action has its problems; however, women and African Americans would not have been hired into traditionally white male jobs or professions without it. Again, not because they were not capable of doing the jobs, but because they would never have gotten an interview without Affirmative Action stepping on the toes of the white guys in charge of Human Resources.
Second wave feminism WAS successful in altering the cultural landscape and making things a bit better for women. Don't let anyone tell you any different. Why then is the concept of feminism seemingly still a hard sell for young women, women of color, rural women, and working class women? In my opinion, the "second wave" of the women's movement simply did not finish the job, instead becoming decadent, myopic, and self-serving. The leadership failed to stay interested in or establish meaningful dialogue with these disparate groups of women. When that happened, it stopped being relevant to the majority of women. It is all about perception, after all.
Back in the late 1960s, when the so-called second wave of feminism was young and vital, I was young along with it. The "first wave" was in the early days of the 20th century when the suffragettes were fighting for women to get the right to vote. Anyway, I remember going to hear Dr. Benjamin Spock speak at Notre Dame circa 1968. I am not referring to the Vulcan who was also a pop icon at the time, Dr. Benjamin Spock was the guy who published a book in 1946 originally called The Commonsense Book of Baby & Child Care. This wildly popular child care book was subsequently blamed for permissive child rearing and the resulting radicalism of the baby boomer generation. Indeed, his book was quite radical and forward thinking in the 1940s and 1950s.
Of course he was a man of his time and the gender role stereotypes he pushed in early editions of his book were deemed sexist by the late 1960s. I was a high school student and I vividly remember how exciting it was to hear the college-aged activists in the hall shout him down and call him out on his sexism. Those women were fearless powerhouses like no women I had seen before that night. They were no ladies! They were superheros. You may remember their crazy radical feminist notions, like recognizing that fathers should help out with childcare, that at least half of the children might be female, and that women had the right to work outside the home.
Spock actually listened and later changed his "message" in subsequent editions and even apologized to women for not thinking of us as fully realized human beings. In 1976 the newly enlightened Benjamin Spock divorced his old wife (the mother of his children, the one he married in 1927 and the person who helped research and write that famous book) and he married a woman 40 years younger than him. Concerning his second wife, he was quoted as saying "she gave me back my youth." Gag me with a spoon. I guess no one told him about the sins of ageism.
I attended my share of consciousness raising groups and women's writing workshops back in the day. I tried (and failed) to make my daughter play with trucks instead of dolls. I happily signed up to attend assertiveness training workshops. I wish those still existed, they were quite useful in instructing us how to be women instead of ladies. In case you did not know, second wave feminists did not want to be called or thought of as ladies. "Ladies" tottered around aimlessly on high heels never thinking deep thoughts or challenging authority. Let me be perfectly clear: Ladies have cooties. Women kick ass.
By the mid-1970s I was discouraged by the movement's subsequent focus on the rights and privileges of upper middle class women. It seemed to me that was all the women's movement came to care about in later years; enabling women of means to enter the professions alongside their equally privileged men. I am all for upper class women having the same opportunities as upper class men, of course. However, none of my friends or family members were going to become doctors, lawyers, or professors; not because they were not smart enough to become professionals, but because no one was paying for them to go to college. Let's be honest, working class people do not have parents who can buy them a future.
It would have been nice if the later women's movement had been interested in understanding and supporting the special struggles of working class women. Feminism might be more than just a tired joke in some circles today had the movement embraced all women and not just the elite few. I was not alone in feeling undervalued and ignored. Class struggle was arguably the downfall of the second wave of feminism in the 60s/70s. I would recommend an article written in 1977 by Marlene Dixon. She was a bit of a firecracker and definitely too extreme in her politics, but it is still a good read if you are interested in stepping back in time and immersing yourself in the history of feminism.
In truth, the 1960s/70s women's movement was different at first. Feminist ideology influenced and/or energized organizations that really made a difference in the lives of all women, like Planned Parenthood - an organization that was started by Margaret Sanger, a first wave feminist and onetime labor activist. Some other efforts championed in the glory days of feminism were the creation of professionalized day care centers, job training programs, battered women's shelters. Affirmative Action has its problems; however, women and African Americans would not have been hired into traditionally white male jobs or professions without it. Again, not because they were not capable of doing the jobs, but because they would never have gotten an interview without Affirmative Action stepping on the toes of the white guys in charge of Human Resources.
Second wave feminism WAS successful in altering the cultural landscape and making things a bit better for women. Don't let anyone tell you any different. Why then is the concept of feminism seemingly still a hard sell for young women, women of color, rural women, and working class women? In my opinion, the "second wave" of the women's movement simply did not finish the job, instead becoming decadent, myopic, and self-serving. The leadership failed to stay interested in or establish meaningful dialogue with these disparate groups of women. When that happened, it stopped being relevant to the majority of women. It is all about perception, after all.
Saturday, January 24, 2015
What Next?
I
got an email the other day from a newly retired friend. It was actually her very first day of being
retired and she did not know what to do next. Ha! I told her to do
nothing. That is the hardest part of being retired, learning that you no longer have to define yourself by being productive. "Have to" being the key words. It is a totally different way of thinking, and it takes some getting used to.
At the risk of being outed as an old hippie, let me say this post reminds me of a late 1960s-era Blind Faith/Stevie Winwood song, "Do What You Like," the last verse being:
"Open your eyes, use your head,
realize that you're not dead
Take a look at an open book,
let it cook
That's what I said, do what you like"
At the risk of being outed as an old hippie, let me say this post reminds me of a late 1960s-era Blind Faith/Stevie Winwood song, "Do What You Like," the last verse being:
"Open your eyes, use your head,
realize that you're not dead
Take a look at an open book,
let it cook
That's what I said, do what you like"
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Bacon and Blockbuster Brunch
Our granddaughter, E, spent a few hours at our house today at what I hope served as our very first Bacon and Blockbuster Brunch.
She is a young "tween" at that awkward age between child and teenager. I tend to get on her nerves now, so it is hard to find ways to bond with her. Making silly faces followed by long, loud, fake burps used to enchant her. In simpler times we made up stories together, each developing the plot for a few minutes and then passing it on to the other to continue the story line. The goofier the plot, the better. It was great fun. Apparently, not anymore. Darn!
I am struggling to find ways to relate to her tween mindset. I need to find things to do with her that she likes to do. Unfortunately, playing Minecraft on the PS4 makes me car sick.
FYI, the only person who admires me unconditionally these days is my grandson, who is not yet 3. He thinks my silly faces and fake burps are hilarious. In fact, he told me the other day that when he grows up he wants to be a Gwamma. I still have a few good years left before he stops wanting to hang out with me. Then I may have to run away and join the circus. Finally.
This morning I was missing her. I decided to invite her over to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark. She was seriously considering coming to the old folks home, but I could tell she was wavering. I promised to make her brunch with bacon, eggs, AND pancakes. She was immediately in. T went to pick her up while I cooked, and we had a lovely few hours together, the three of us.
She left happy, filled with pancakes and smelling of bacon grease.
She is a young "tween" at that awkward age between child and teenager. I tend to get on her nerves now, so it is hard to find ways to bond with her. Making silly faces followed by long, loud, fake burps used to enchant her. In simpler times we made up stories together, each developing the plot for a few minutes and then passing it on to the other to continue the story line. The goofier the plot, the better. It was great fun. Apparently, not anymore. Darn!
I am struggling to find ways to relate to her tween mindset. I need to find things to do with her that she likes to do. Unfortunately, playing Minecraft on the PS4 makes me car sick.
FYI, the only person who admires me unconditionally these days is my grandson, who is not yet 3. He thinks my silly faces and fake burps are hilarious. In fact, he told me the other day that when he grows up he wants to be a Gwamma. I still have a few good years left before he stops wanting to hang out with me. Then I may have to run away and join the circus. Finally.
This morning I was missing her. I decided to invite her over to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark. She was seriously considering coming to the old folks home, but I could tell she was wavering. I promised to make her brunch with bacon, eggs, AND pancakes. She was immediately in. T went to pick her up while I cooked, and we had a lovely few hours together, the three of us.
She left happy, filled with pancakes and smelling of bacon grease.
Friday, January 9, 2015
My New Car
I did it. I am the proud
owner of a brand new car. What kind? Does it really matter? It is just a car. The
good news is I bought one, although my husband T is the real hero in this
story. He researched cars and options, shared his findings, figured out what
was holding me back, eliminated the millstone around my neck, and drove me to
the car dealership.
I am not your average new car buyer. I do not really want to buy a car, nor am I in love with cars in general. I am also unpredictable, quirky as hell, and always anxious to leave because I have a short attention span. This forces the salesmen to think on their feet. Literally. I am continually getting up and saying I will think about it and get back to them tomorrow. They then have to stand up and quickly think of ways to get me to sit back down and continue to listen to their salesman shtick. Sometimes discounts ensue as a direct result of standing up. Very interesting. Car salesmen REALLY do not like to let anyone leave without buying something. I, on the other hand, would NEVER buy something as expensive as a car without leaving first and thinking about it overnight. We got an additional “loyal customer” discount immediately after the first time I stood up and said goodbye. Honestly, I was totally not playing the guy for another discount. I just wanted to go home. I did take note of his reaction for future reference, though. Fun stuff.
On Wednesday, we went to look at cars. Almost as soon as we got out of the car a friendly car salesman came out of the building to greet us. Our friendly car salesman was an ex cop from the Bronx. Apparently he retired from the police force in his mid 50’s and moved down to Florida. He is a quick talking Italian with a loud sense of humor, and he talked about his mother a lot. Lots of strangers now tell us about their mothers, I guess because they are trying to relate to us as retirees. He also told us about his younger cousin who is still a NYPD cop who had just made a big arrest. He was very proud of his “little cousin.” We were, too. Our friendly car salesman still walked like a cop, which made me imagine we were actually starring in a TV cop show. I tried to play it cool, but you know… I am not really all that cool. T surreptitiously nudged me when I mindlessly started to tell the guy what was wrong with the old car we wanted to trade in. I changed the subject without missing a beat. Thank God for the old man!
Sometimes I develop what I can only imagine is a mild form of Tourette’s Syndrome making it impossible for me not to say everything that comes into my mind, kind of like a teenage girl. Consequently, I simply had to tell our friendly car salesman that he still walked like a cop. It made him happy to hear that! He searched through his cell phone for pictures of himself when he was in uniform. Ha! The older I get the more I enjoy people.
On Thursday we went back to test drive and then buy the new car. Yeah, we forgot to test-drive it the day before. What can I say? I actually made T test-drive it for me when we got to the dealership. I rode shotgun. Our friendly car salesman thought that was odd, and he sat in the back trying hard not to notice T’s driving. He kept talking to T while T was driving, asking him questions and telling him to look at certain things in the car. Not good. T really needs to focus when he drives. If T missed a few turns and test-drove a little too long trying to find his way back it is our friendly car salesman’s fault, not T’s. I tried to tell T when the turns were coming up, but he was listening to our friendly car salesman instead of me. Big sigh…
The financial guy was an African American from Maryland who did Obama and Bill Cosby imitations for us while we filled out paperwork. He was good at the impressions, too. The more we laughed the more impressions he did. He should have been on stage at Comedy Central instead of behind that desk. We heard stories about his son trying to get out of mowing the lawn. His wife called while we were there and he said “I love you” to her before he hung up. I liked that, but I also wondered if our friendly car salesman was actually the person on the other end of the phone and not his wife. Maybe the phone call was part of a larger plan to make them all seem more human and likeable so we would give them spectacular reviews in the follow-up survey about their customer service? Sheesh, I am so distrustful. In fact, our friendly car salesman had joke-called the financial guy from another room just after financial guy finished showing us his Obama routine. Our friendly car salesman asked to talk to the President. The financial guy said (in Obama’s voice) “Sir, NEVER call the Oval Office again!” and hung up on our friendly car salesman. The financial guy also teased our friendly car salesman when he returned by accusing him of actually having been a mall security officer instead of a NYPD cop, which made our friendly car salesman search even harder for photos to prove his street cred. These two guys obviously have fun at work. It made me wish I worked there, too.
Our friendly car salesman said he would call me the next day to follow-up on the sale. I waited all day for the call that never came. I was a little disappointed. Then I remembered he had my cell phone number. As I mentioned in my last post, I do not turn on my cell phone. Sure enough – there is a missed call from him on he cell phone. Oh well. I am not going to call him back.
I bought the exact model and make of car as I had before. This car is just 11 years newer and a different color. That is how my wise and subtle husband finally got me to the dealership to buy a new car. He seemed to understand my real problem was not that I was afraid to go to the dealership, it was that I was overwhelmed by the plethora of possibilities inherent in deciding which car to buy. How can I possibly make a decision about what car to get when I do not really care about cars in the first place? What criteria do I use to make a decision? Why do there have to be so many different kinds of cars? Why did I buy an online subscription to Consumer Reports when it only increases the variables and fills me with anxiety? T gently said to me “You seemed happy with your old car, why don’t you get another one?” Pure genius! I love that guy. Getting a new car just like my old car turned out to be the answer. After all, I just wanted my old car to be young again. Luckily there was only one car there in the configuration I desired (i.e., basic with no frills), so I did not even have to suffer over a choice of color. I took what they had. Another decision successfully avoided. In the future, I would like to be assigned an updated version of my current car every 10 years whether I need a new one or not. Surprise me with the color.
The best news is I paid almost the same amount for the 2015 model as I paid for the 2004 model purchased years ago. Why? Well, it is certainly not because I am a cool negotiator. Rather, 10 years ago I was still working. I thought nothing back then about paying extra for every option and/or feature imaginable (sunroof, leather seats, heated seats, accessories, car-top rack, trailer hitch, etc.). The one I bought yesterday is just your basic, basic, basic model. I still have air conditioning and a clock, but I do not need a sunroof, leather seats, or heated seats in Florida. As for the trailer hitch, we sold that damn boat before we moved. Advanced technology features? The car comes standard with a back-up camera that comes on automatically when you are backing up the car. This is a very cool option and now I will not back into my neighbor’s cars or fear for small animals anymore. However, if I had to pay extra I would have done without it. Other things? I would never use any feature that one has to refer to a manual to figure out, so why pay extra for complicated features? I am pretty comfortable saying no. However, the car did come with magical Bluetooth “stuff” that allows me to answer and talk on my cell phone without using my hands. Our friendly car salesman set it up for me, but I am not sure I remember how to make it work. Oh well. As the saying goes, “You can’t miss what you ain’t never had.”
I am not your average new car buyer. I do not really want to buy a car, nor am I in love with cars in general. I am also unpredictable, quirky as hell, and always anxious to leave because I have a short attention span. This forces the salesmen to think on their feet. Literally. I am continually getting up and saying I will think about it and get back to them tomorrow. They then have to stand up and quickly think of ways to get me to sit back down and continue to listen to their salesman shtick. Sometimes discounts ensue as a direct result of standing up. Very interesting. Car salesmen REALLY do not like to let anyone leave without buying something. I, on the other hand, would NEVER buy something as expensive as a car without leaving first and thinking about it overnight. We got an additional “loyal customer” discount immediately after the first time I stood up and said goodbye. Honestly, I was totally not playing the guy for another discount. I just wanted to go home. I did take note of his reaction for future reference, though. Fun stuff.
On Wednesday, we went to look at cars. Almost as soon as we got out of the car a friendly car salesman came out of the building to greet us. Our friendly car salesman was an ex cop from the Bronx. Apparently he retired from the police force in his mid 50’s and moved down to Florida. He is a quick talking Italian with a loud sense of humor, and he talked about his mother a lot. Lots of strangers now tell us about their mothers, I guess because they are trying to relate to us as retirees. He also told us about his younger cousin who is still a NYPD cop who had just made a big arrest. He was very proud of his “little cousin.” We were, too. Our friendly car salesman still walked like a cop, which made me imagine we were actually starring in a TV cop show. I tried to play it cool, but you know… I am not really all that cool. T surreptitiously nudged me when I mindlessly started to tell the guy what was wrong with the old car we wanted to trade in. I changed the subject without missing a beat. Thank God for the old man!
Sometimes I develop what I can only imagine is a mild form of Tourette’s Syndrome making it impossible for me not to say everything that comes into my mind, kind of like a teenage girl. Consequently, I simply had to tell our friendly car salesman that he still walked like a cop. It made him happy to hear that! He searched through his cell phone for pictures of himself when he was in uniform. Ha! The older I get the more I enjoy people.
On Thursday we went back to test drive and then buy the new car. Yeah, we forgot to test-drive it the day before. What can I say? I actually made T test-drive it for me when we got to the dealership. I rode shotgun. Our friendly car salesman thought that was odd, and he sat in the back trying hard not to notice T’s driving. He kept talking to T while T was driving, asking him questions and telling him to look at certain things in the car. Not good. T really needs to focus when he drives. If T missed a few turns and test-drove a little too long trying to find his way back it is our friendly car salesman’s fault, not T’s. I tried to tell T when the turns were coming up, but he was listening to our friendly car salesman instead of me. Big sigh…
The financial guy was an African American from Maryland who did Obama and Bill Cosby imitations for us while we filled out paperwork. He was good at the impressions, too. The more we laughed the more impressions he did. He should have been on stage at Comedy Central instead of behind that desk. We heard stories about his son trying to get out of mowing the lawn. His wife called while we were there and he said “I love you” to her before he hung up. I liked that, but I also wondered if our friendly car salesman was actually the person on the other end of the phone and not his wife. Maybe the phone call was part of a larger plan to make them all seem more human and likeable so we would give them spectacular reviews in the follow-up survey about their customer service? Sheesh, I am so distrustful. In fact, our friendly car salesman had joke-called the financial guy from another room just after financial guy finished showing us his Obama routine. Our friendly car salesman asked to talk to the President. The financial guy said (in Obama’s voice) “Sir, NEVER call the Oval Office again!” and hung up on our friendly car salesman. The financial guy also teased our friendly car salesman when he returned by accusing him of actually having been a mall security officer instead of a NYPD cop, which made our friendly car salesman search even harder for photos to prove his street cred. These two guys obviously have fun at work. It made me wish I worked there, too.
Our friendly car salesman said he would call me the next day to follow-up on the sale. I waited all day for the call that never came. I was a little disappointed. Then I remembered he had my cell phone number. As I mentioned in my last post, I do not turn on my cell phone. Sure enough – there is a missed call from him on he cell phone. Oh well. I am not going to call him back.
I bought the exact model and make of car as I had before. This car is just 11 years newer and a different color. That is how my wise and subtle husband finally got me to the dealership to buy a new car. He seemed to understand my real problem was not that I was afraid to go to the dealership, it was that I was overwhelmed by the plethora of possibilities inherent in deciding which car to buy. How can I possibly make a decision about what car to get when I do not really care about cars in the first place? What criteria do I use to make a decision? Why do there have to be so many different kinds of cars? Why did I buy an online subscription to Consumer Reports when it only increases the variables and fills me with anxiety? T gently said to me “You seemed happy with your old car, why don’t you get another one?” Pure genius! I love that guy. Getting a new car just like my old car turned out to be the answer. After all, I just wanted my old car to be young again. Luckily there was only one car there in the configuration I desired (i.e., basic with no frills), so I did not even have to suffer over a choice of color. I took what they had. Another decision successfully avoided. In the future, I would like to be assigned an updated version of my current car every 10 years whether I need a new one or not. Surprise me with the color.
The best news is I paid almost the same amount for the 2015 model as I paid for the 2004 model purchased years ago. Why? Well, it is certainly not because I am a cool negotiator. Rather, 10 years ago I was still working. I thought nothing back then about paying extra for every option and/or feature imaginable (sunroof, leather seats, heated seats, accessories, car-top rack, trailer hitch, etc.). The one I bought yesterday is just your basic, basic, basic model. I still have air conditioning and a clock, but I do not need a sunroof, leather seats, or heated seats in Florida. As for the trailer hitch, we sold that damn boat before we moved. Advanced technology features? The car comes standard with a back-up camera that comes on automatically when you are backing up the car. This is a very cool option and now I will not back into my neighbor’s cars or fear for small animals anymore. However, if I had to pay extra I would have done without it. Other things? I would never use any feature that one has to refer to a manual to figure out, so why pay extra for complicated features? I am pretty comfortable saying no. However, the car did come with magical Bluetooth “stuff” that allows me to answer and talk on my cell phone without using my hands. Our friendly car salesman set it up for me, but I am not sure I remember how to make it work. Oh well. As the saying goes, “You can’t miss what you ain’t never had.”
Saturday, January 3, 2015
This is what happens when I try to buy a car
I need to buy a new car. Mine is dead and has been
sitting in the driveway for a couple of months. T and I are sharing his
car. It is not an ideal situation, but I do not have the energy to devote
to buying a new car. In early December I tried to throw myself into a car buying situation,
assuming I would sink or swim. I sunk. I applied for a loan and it
was approved. Then what? Where's the car? You mean I have to
actually do some work to find one? Do I have to interact with
salespeople? Do I have to talk to
strangers? NOOOOO. The loan
officers were worried. They could not understand why I was not
buying. They called and left urgent messages. I would not pick up
the phone. I was filled with dread
whenever the phone rang or I received an email.
Finally they offered me the services of a car concierge who works for
the credit union to make things easy for buyers. I would not answer his
phone calls, either.
In fact, I ignore most phone calls because Florida is filled with scam artists who sit around every day calling retired people trying to trick us out of our money. We actually started getting these con-calls the same day we got our land line telephone installed, so I can only imagine the cable company providing our phone service is routinely selling new phone listings to scumbags. Nice. Consequently, I stopped answering the phone months ago. Sometimes, when I am in just the right mood, I pick up and tell whoever is at the other end of the line to take my name off their list and never call me again. I use my best cold-hearted bitch voice. That is always kind of fun.
In fact, I ignore most phone calls because Florida is filled with scam artists who sit around every day calling retired people trying to trick us out of our money. We actually started getting these con-calls the same day we got our land line telephone installed, so I can only imagine the cable company providing our phone service is routinely selling new phone listings to scumbags. Nice. Consequently, I stopped answering the phone months ago. Sometimes, when I am in just the right mood, I pick up and tell whoever is at the other end of the line to take my name off their list and never call me again. I use my best cold-hearted bitch voice. That is always kind of fun.
This aversive reaction is a direct result of working in an office for so many years. I OD’d on communication a long time ago. So what if I have been retired for over a year now. I still have not recovered. I may never recover. It is the principle of the thing. The thought of having to do anything that resembles office work (including answering the damn phone) makes me want to run off screaming into the night. Every time the phone rings my stomach turns. If I have an administrative, real-life issue I must suffer through, or a deadline I have to meet, I freak out. I ignore it, procrastinate; all the things I could NEVER do when I had a job. It makes me feel so good to ignore things. By the way, if you want to reach me, call my land line phone or email me. If I am home and I can see it is you, I will pick up the phone or call you back. Do not even think about calling me on my cell phone. The ringer is turned off and I rarely turn the cell phone on unless I am stuck waiting in a doctor’s office and need to play solitaire. My cell phone is purely an ornamental status symbol.
Getting back to my car buying experience, I finally emailed (note I did not use the phone) the bank, car concierge, and salespeople and let them know I changed my mind. I said I would reapply in the New Year when “things settled down for me.” Ha! I guess I showed them! Maybe if I put this off long enough T will give me his car and then he will go through the effort of buying a new car for himself. It is so crazy it might work.
Sunday, December 28, 2014
The Family Disease
There is a genetic disease in my maternal line called Adrenoleukedystrophy (also referred to as X-ALD). It is an X-linked disorder that has killed 3 of my male first cousins, at least one of my uncles, and two of my great uncles. The movie “Lorenzo’s Oil” is about a boy who had ALD. Lorenzo’s Oil is an important treatment option; however, there is no cure. Family lore instructed us that females were the carriers and males were the victims of this disease, but it turns out to be more complicated than that.
The disease presents in affected males in one
of two ways:
ALD presents in early childhood and is the most
severe form. Affected children usually develop
normally until they are about 7 years old.
If untreated before a certain age, the boy will rapidly degenerate to a
vegetative state, before which he can go blind and deaf. My Mom’s youngest brother died from the
childhood variant in 1947 at the age of 8. A cousin of mine died at age 13 in 1991.
The other variant, AMN (Adrenomyeloneuropathy) usually develops in
early adulthood, although it can develop later in life. It eventually kills the victim, but not
before they loose the use of their lower limbs. Another first cousin of mine died at 57 years
of age in 2005. Two other male cousins died from AMN in their
20’s.
My maternal grandparents, William and Veronica,
were married in 1910. Two of Veronica’s
brothers seem to have died of ALD, but the disease was not understood back
then. Unbeknownst to her, Grandma was a
carrier. Between 1912 and 1939 my
grandparents had 13 children, 5 boys and 8 girls. The odds are that 50% of these children
either had the disease or were carriers. To date, we can identify 3 of their daughters as being carriers because
they had male descendants who developed one of the two variants of the disease. My grandparents also had at least one son who
died of ALD (Jerry). It is likely that
two other sons (Edward and Wilfred) had ALD, but they died in early childhood
around the time of WWI, and the disease was not understood at that time.
Not every daughter became a carrier, and not every son got the
disease. It was a poorly understood crapshoot. My grandparents had 36 grandchildren. Since we
now know that the children of a carrier mother have a 50/50 chance of getting
the disease, and making the very broad assumption that Edward and Wilfred had
ALD, it is still possible that one more of their children carried the gene. This
is why it is so important that all my living aunts, and my cousins whose mothers
and fathers have died, get tested.
The gene for ALD can act like a terrorist
sleeper cell, hiding for years before revealing itself. For example, my Aunt Rita died in 1958 not realizing she was a carrier. She had three children, a boy who died at 4
months, and two daughters who are still living.
Both daughters had children. K
had a son and two daughters. N had two
sons. Since none of Aunt Rita’s 3 grandsons
developed ALD, no one ever suspected Aunt Rita was a carrier. However, in 2013, 55 years after she died (!)
and 3 generations out, one of her great grandsons, A, was diagnosed at 8 years old. Rita had a daughter, K, who had a daughter,
KY, who is A’s mother. It turns out Rita, K,
and KY were all carriers, but it hid in their genes until A was born.
My mother underwent genetic testing in the
1990’s, after a nephew and 2 grandnephews died from this disease. The results were negative. Now there is more up-to-date information
about the disease, including the fact that the genetic test available in the
1990’s was only 80% accurate. With some
effort I was able to convince Mom’s doctor to get her tested again with the
new (100% accurate) genetic test. The
trick was to convince the doctor to state it was “medically necessary” to
conduct the genetic tests so that insurance would pay for it. He was reluctant. He actually said, “if none of her sons had it then she probably
doesn’t carry the gene”… That is a
genetically naive statement, considering my mother had 7 children and 4 of them
could be female carriers. "Probably" does not cut it when you are dealing with the lives of your descendants. In addition,
two of my three brothers died before they were 40 years old. Remember that one of my cousins did not even
develop AMN until he was in his 40s, and some males carry the gene but do not
develop symptoms. Plus, my mother is 88
years old and living in a nursing home suffering the advanced
stages of Parkinson’s Disease – one of the diseases that can mimic ALD
symptoms. It seemed to me at least
medically necessary to make sure she was not being treated for a disease she
did not have. In fact it is medically
necessary to conduct this test simply to determine if any of her descendants
are at risk. I appealed to him on the
phone, and sent him tons of information on ALD as well as a long genealogy
showing how often it has shown up in our line. Eventually he came around, contacted the experts at Johns Hopkins and
ordered the tests. I appreciate the
fact that he listened and changed his mind when faced with the facts.
The genetic testing was administered through
Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore. Out-of-pocket it cost a little over $500
because insurance covered most of it. Once
again, her results came back negative.
We are so lucky, and considering the randomness of genetics that is all
it can be: cold, impersonal luck. Good
luck or bad luck.
The information and understanding we had for this
disease was limited prior to A’s diagnosis in 2013; however, that limited understanding
was simple and easy to ignore. We used
to think that only daughters were carriers and only males got the disease. So if none of your brothers developed the
disease it was easy to make the assumption that your family was safe, until A
got it.
A’s mother, KY, wanted the facts, the figures,
and the science in order to help her son.
What she found was disturbing. Apparently,
both men and women can be carriers, not just women. If a
man has the gene then there is 100% chance that he will pass the gene on to his
daughters and zero chance he would pass it on to his sons. If a woman is a carrier then all her
children (male and female) have a 50% chance of inheriting the gene. In addition, some male carriers NEVER show
any symptoms but still pass the gene on to their daughters, AND some female
carriers show symptoms of AMN as they age.
They can be misdiagnosed with diseases like Parkinson’s or MS. So unless modern genetic testing is done on
the oldest living relative in each of Grandma’s children’s families, we will
not know if we carry the gene into future generations or not. Most of my aunts and uncles in this
genealogical line have already passed away.
Unfortunately, that means many of my first cousins still need to be
genetically tested, except the sons of sons of Grandma… because although a
female carrier can pass it on to both her sons and daughters, a male carrier
can only pass it on to his daughters. Are your eyes crossing about now? Maybe this will help:
Males:
- Sons of female carriers have a 50/50 chance of inheriting the gene
- The sons of male carriers/victims are always safe.
- The daughters of male carriers/victims will definitely inherit the gene and are always carriers
- Here is
the kicker: Some male carriers do
not ever display signs of having the disease, but they still have it and they have
100% chance of passing the gene on to their daughters
Females:
- The sons and daughters of female carriers have a 50% chance of carrying the gene
- Almost 50% of female carriers develop some AMN related symptoms as they age
A female carrier would pass the gene on to 50%
of her children. Genetics is a crap
shoot. It could totally skip her sons,
but still be inherited by her daughters – giving the illusion in that
generation of the family being ALD free.
If the carrier daughter only has daughters, her daughters have a 50%
chance and would pass it on to 50% of their children, etc. This is exactly how A developed ALD 55 years
and 3 generations after his great-grandmother died.
I can trace the genealogy of this disease back
to a specific male carrier/victim, my great-great grandfather, Tony Mueller. He would have inherited this disease from his mother. Tony Mueller was born in 1841 and died of AMN at the age of 39 in 1870. He was one of 6 children, so he would not have been the only child who passed this gene down. Odds are that at least 2 more of their children were either carriers or carrier/victims. Anton had 2 daughters and a son with his wife, Susanna. Their son was, of course, genetically exempt. One daughter became a nun. The third child, my Great Grandmother
Catherine, married Frank.
Catherine was a carrier. Catherine
and Frank had 7 children. Two of their
sons died of what the family believes to have been AMN, one at 39 years old and
the other at 19. Her daughter Veronica
(my grandmother) was a carrier. Another
son died at age 15 from a skull fracture.
A second daughter died at age 2 from unknown reasons. Catherine and Frank’s 2 remaining sons seem
not to have inherited the disease.
It is so hard to wrap one’s mind around all
this, but these are the facts. This is
the uncomfortable and complex truth. I
wish it were not true. I wish it were
not so hard to understand or accept.
KY and her mother reached out to every cousin
and aunt who still lived, either directly or through other cousins. She sent a letter outlining the facts. She urged everyone to make sure the oldest
living relative gets tested through the two places in the U.S. who do this
specialized genetic test. She explained
that it was more complicated than we previously thought, i.e., almost no one is
safe unless the genetic testing has been done on the oldest surviving person in their direct line.
In truth, the mathematical odds are clear. Out of 13 children, we know for sure that 4
carried the gene for ALD. It is possible
that two more sons had it, but we can never know for sure if they did. There remains a 50% possibility at least one
more child of William and Veronica inherited that gene. Hopefully the other 50% won out and everyone
else is safe, but we cannot live on hope. The stakes are too high.
What testing needs to be done?
The following is paraphrased from recent updates written by KY:
In 2013, the lab tested A's ABCD1 gene to see the exact genetic change/problem that resulted in his diagnosis. He has a deletion of this gene so testing in other family members must be done by the MLPA - a deletion testing methodology. There are two labs in the USA that do deletion testing on this gene: 1) John Hopkins DNA Diagnostic Lab in Baltimore, Maryland and 2) Emory Genetics Lab in Atlanta, Georgia. A's test was done at John's Hopkins; ideally further family testing should be done in the same lab so they will have A's results as a reference.
In November 2013, A underwent a bone marrow transplant at the U. of Minnesota’s Amplatz Children’s Hospital, which is at the forefront of fighting this terrible disease. It seems to have been successful in stopping further damage. However, his hearing is completely and permanently gone and he is learning American Sign Language. Unfortunately, he has also suffered significant vision loss. The current medications he takes will hopefully stop more damage from occurring, but they cannot correct any damage that occurred prior to the bone marrow transplant. This is why it is so important to know if our children are potential victims. Otherwise, by the time the disease presents, it is too late to stop the damage. In addition, he will remain on hydrocortisone, a steroid, for adrenal insufficiency for the rest of his life. He is 9 years old. California and New York State have recently decided to include ALD testing with the routine screening done on all newborns. Let us hope other states follow suit.
What testing needs to be done?
The following is paraphrased from recent updates written by KY:
In 2013, the lab tested A's ABCD1 gene to see the exact genetic change/problem that resulted in his diagnosis. He has a deletion of this gene so testing in other family members must be done by the MLPA - a deletion testing methodology. There are two labs in the USA that do deletion testing on this gene: 1) John Hopkins DNA Diagnostic Lab in Baltimore, Maryland and 2) Emory Genetics Lab in Atlanta, Georgia. A's test was done at John's Hopkins; ideally further family testing should be done in the same lab so they will have A's results as a reference.
In November 2013, A underwent a bone marrow transplant at the U. of Minnesota’s Amplatz Children’s Hospital, which is at the forefront of fighting this terrible disease. It seems to have been successful in stopping further damage. However, his hearing is completely and permanently gone and he is learning American Sign Language. Unfortunately, he has also suffered significant vision loss. The current medications he takes will hopefully stop more damage from occurring, but they cannot correct any damage that occurred prior to the bone marrow transplant. This is why it is so important to know if our children are potential victims. Otherwise, by the time the disease presents, it is too late to stop the damage. In addition, he will remain on hydrocortisone, a steroid, for adrenal insufficiency for the rest of his life. He is 9 years old. California and New York State have recently decided to include ALD testing with the routine screening done on all newborns. Let us hope other states follow suit.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Wrapping It All Up
You should see me wrapping Christmas presents this year. I love Christmas and I really like buying presents. However, I am SO over the present wrapping thing. I distinctly remember the great joy I derived from wrapping Christmas presents when I was a teenager. I always volunteered to wrap the family presents for my Mom, to help her out at a busy time of the year. I went to great lengths to make each present a work of art. I made bows with wide ribbon. I added festive decorations. They were beautiful. It was fun. Unfortunately as I got older, each year I became a little less creative and a little less thrilled with the process. Now I do not even put bows on the presents. Seriously. No bows. They are just another expense and make for more trash fouling up the environment. Bah, humbug. Away with all bows.
I buy the cheapest wrapping paper I can find and I wrap those suckers as fast as I can. Today I was wrapping like a fiend, trying to get every present I currently have wrapped and ready for the big day. Because my wrapping paper is so cheap and crappy, when I pull the sides together to seal the package, the paper often rips open at the corners. HA! That does not bother the likes of me! I laugh (ho, ho, ho) as I apply Scotch magic tape and patch up the corners. I am NOT gonna re-wrap the damn present because of a little, wussy rip. The grandkids are going to tear open the package wrapping anyway. They will not notice. And if they do, it will be a pleasant Grandma memory they can share with their own kids someday - along the lines of "Your Great Grandma was SO cheap, she wouldn't even ...{insert your own memory}. I own it. I enjoy myself. I am a rebel at heart.
Hey, I think I got this from my own sweet Grandma. She was a sweet transplanted mountain woman from the hills of Tennessee. Do not call her a hillbilly, 'cause then I will have to hurt you. She was, without a doubt, the best person I ever met. When we moved away from Northern Indiana for a few years in my childhood, she would send us big Christmas packages filled with lots of presents. None of those presents had bows. The bows would have just gotten smooshed in the tightly packed box; however, she would not use tags, either. She would simply write the name of the kid on the wrapping paper. I wish I would have thought of that, because I also resent buying the stupid tags. Sometimes you just have to follow your heart and trust your own instincts. Do not let Hallmark run your life.
I buy the cheapest wrapping paper I can find and I wrap those suckers as fast as I can. Today I was wrapping like a fiend, trying to get every present I currently have wrapped and ready for the big day. Because my wrapping paper is so cheap and crappy, when I pull the sides together to seal the package, the paper often rips open at the corners. HA! That does not bother the likes of me! I laugh (ho, ho, ho) as I apply Scotch magic tape and patch up the corners. I am NOT gonna re-wrap the damn present because of a little, wussy rip. The grandkids are going to tear open the package wrapping anyway. They will not notice. And if they do, it will be a pleasant Grandma memory they can share with their own kids someday - along the lines of "Your Great Grandma was SO cheap, she wouldn't even ...{insert your own memory}. I own it. I enjoy myself. I am a rebel at heart.
Hey, I think I got this from my own sweet Grandma. She was a sweet transplanted mountain woman from the hills of Tennessee. Do not call her a hillbilly, 'cause then I will have to hurt you. She was, without a doubt, the best person I ever met. When we moved away from Northern Indiana for a few years in my childhood, she would send us big Christmas packages filled with lots of presents. None of those presents had bows. The bows would have just gotten smooshed in the tightly packed box; however, she would not use tags, either. She would simply write the name of the kid on the wrapping paper. I wish I would have thought of that, because I also resent buying the stupid tags. Sometimes you just have to follow your heart and trust your own instincts. Do not let Hallmark run your life.
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Real Life
Have you ever heard a retired person complain about how busy they are and how they do not know how they ever managed work and homelife when they had a full time job? Yeah, the young me was always rolling my eyes to the back of my head when I heard that. When you ARE balancing work/family/relationship/home it is too cruel to hear a non-working person complain about being busy. Imagine my surprise to discover when you stop working "real life" moves in to fill the void. Still, real life beats the hell out of working for a living. I am not gonna lie.
I sincerely do not know how I managed to conduct my personal life while working outside the home for 37 years. In fact, I think maybe I did not have a personal life then. Something had to go to make time for work. Working outside the home is all consuming. The workplace is unforgiving, demanding, and pretty much devours the majority of your daylight hours. I remember coming home from work and plopping myself on the couch just staring into space, night after night. "Shaken, not stirred" is how I felt. It inspired me to start making martinis. At least that got me up off the couch.
The last few years of working full-time I was unable to read a book because I was too stressed to focus on a page of text. Towards the end of my work years I rarely read an email word for word, skimming each one for the punchlines in order to get through them all in a timely fashion. Weekends were spent cleaning, cooking, shopping, catching up with friends and family. I guess I was lucky that we did not live near our grandkids then, because when would I have seen them? Would I have really wanted to add babysitting to that mix? There was never anytime for myself then. I ached for retirement so that I could relax and do all those things one is never able to accomplish on a measly weekend.
I went through the working mother routine, too - the years when raising children was supposed to be your top priority. And I only had one child. When do working mothers sleep? Actually, when they do lay down to sleep they are unable to relax because they are wracked with guilt for not spending enough time with their kids. But I had my kid when I was 20. I had an abundance of energy back then. I felt like I could do it all. What about the mothers who just start having children at 40? How do they keep from jumping off a cliff?
Aging is the issue. I simply do not have the energy I once had. My mind is going 100 miles per hour, but my body is meandering along at 20 mph. When I was young it was all a game, and I reveled in the challenge. Now the thought of being challenged makes me want to throw up. I want time. Lots of time. All to myself.
I sincerely do not know how I managed to conduct my personal life while working outside the home for 37 years. In fact, I think maybe I did not have a personal life then. Something had to go to make time for work. Working outside the home is all consuming. The workplace is unforgiving, demanding, and pretty much devours the majority of your daylight hours. I remember coming home from work and plopping myself on the couch just staring into space, night after night. "Shaken, not stirred" is how I felt. It inspired me to start making martinis. At least that got me up off the couch.
The last few years of working full-time I was unable to read a book because I was too stressed to focus on a page of text. Towards the end of my work years I rarely read an email word for word, skimming each one for the punchlines in order to get through them all in a timely fashion. Weekends were spent cleaning, cooking, shopping, catching up with friends and family. I guess I was lucky that we did not live near our grandkids then, because when would I have seen them? Would I have really wanted to add babysitting to that mix? There was never anytime for myself then. I ached for retirement so that I could relax and do all those things one is never able to accomplish on a measly weekend.
I went through the working mother routine, too - the years when raising children was supposed to be your top priority. And I only had one child. When do working mothers sleep? Actually, when they do lay down to sleep they are unable to relax because they are wracked with guilt for not spending enough time with their kids. But I had my kid when I was 20. I had an abundance of energy back then. I felt like I could do it all. What about the mothers who just start having children at 40? How do they keep from jumping off a cliff?
Aging is the issue. I simply do not have the energy I once had. My mind is going 100 miles per hour, but my body is meandering along at 20 mph. When I was young it was all a game, and I reveled in the challenge. Now the thought of being challenged makes me want to throw up. I want time. Lots of time. All to myself.
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