aging

6:40 in the morning, and Ruby drags her human back in the house from the morning doggy-walk. The human is glad to get back indoors. It is overcast out there, and literally, the air IS so wet as to be soggy. 

We managed to avoid the park, which is the “long way” walk for us, and to dodge into the rarified environs of Upper Richistan. Gosh, but it’s swell up there!

Swell…windy…and wet…

The yards are irrigated, not sprinklered. So the swaths of grass in those parts (grass! can you imagine the extravagance??!?) are often ponds full of dirty water.

Thinking about my relatives — in particular my mother’s paternal grandmother, who raised my mother into her early teens. The grandmother had diabetes, back in the day when there was no such thing as insulin. Ultimately, after years of insane dieting, she died of it. Out in the country. On a dirt farm, WAY out in the sticks of upstate New York.

After she croaked over, her husband — my mother’s grandfather — shipped his grand-daughter to the California relatives, since it was thought inappropriate for a young girl to be living alone with a male relative, out in the middle of nowhere.

The Californians, who were relatively affluent (certainly compared to the poverty-stricken New Yorkers), lived in San Francisco’s East Bay. Berkeley, I believe, even at that early date.

My mother was just awed and astonished by her new lifestyle.

One of the things she talked about was riding to school on a school bus. She had — get this! — never seen a bus before! In the sticks of New York, the kiddies rode to school on the back of a horse-drawn wagon. To hear her talk, she was beyond amazed at the affluence of the East Bay lifestyle.

Heh. Think of that!

Now here I am, her daughter, pushing old age in the Fancy-Dan environs of North Central Phoenix, living amidst million-dollar homes.

No, my house is no million-dollar shack: our neighborhood is the low-rent section. But still, it’s as nice or nicer than anyplace she and my father could afford, even on his pretty substantial (for a workingman) salary. Still…

Every time I walk around here, I’m amazed (and grateful) that the Realtor I hired when I looked for my first post-marital house brought me to this neighborhood. Who even knew it was here? I sure didn’t.

It’s part of a downscale district to the north of Fancy-Dan North Central, along that district’s southern border. Yet in the time since I bought my first house here, our parts have caught the plague of Fancy-Danitude from the swell areas around us.

My mother was once again awed and astonished when she saw my new digs.

Truth to tell, this tract was built by the same developer that built out Sun City, where, by the time I moved here, she and my father were established. The houses are well built, on decent-sized lots with actual WALLS running along the alleys behind the backyard. Block construction. Decent roofs. So…even though we’re officially in the ill-favored Sunnyslope suburb, our area looks like it’s part of North Central.

And that jacks up the property values. WAY up. 😀 Even though — truth to tell — the houses are basically the same as the ones in Sun City.

I’d dearly love to stay here until I die.

That’s an unlikely proposition. Even though I hire a cleaning lady (bless her!!!) and a pool dude and Gerardo the miraculous yard dude, eventually the place no doubt will get beyond my ability to care for. Then it will be off to the dreaded Beatitudes for me: an overpriced prison for old folks.

I do hope I die well before I reach the Beatitudes stage!

Not likely, though: longevity runs in my family. And so…Old Folks’ Prison is indeed my most likely final life stage.

Ugh! Sincerely, I do hope I die before that point. But don’t (heh!!) hold your breath. A typical life span on my mother’s side is upwards of 90.

But she died in her mid-60s, primarily (I believe) because she was a walking smokestack. And because she caught amoebic dysentery in lovely Araby, which damn near killed her then. My father and his brothers lived into their 80s, and they all had hard lives. And both of my parents smoked. My mother was never conscious when she didn’t have a cigarette in her mouth.

Literally true: you knew when she was awake in the middle of the night or in the morning by the stink of her fukkin’ cigarette emanating from her room.

The cigarettes killed her. But…maybe they gave her enough pleasure to make it worth the peculiarly grim exit she got from them.

Think my father was 84 when he died. But he indeed was one of the smokers, and he never really recovered from the depression brought on by my mother’s death. Plus spending most of your adult life going to sea on an oil tanker couldn’t do much for your longevity. His brother, a good Baptist boy who did not smoke, lived into his 90s…and he died because he fell off a ladder while trying to change a ceiling lightbulb. Busted himself up good!

None of these family deaths, I think, were caused by hereditary disease. They were mostly caused by stupidity: smoking, risking your life for a household chore. How you avoid stupidity escapes me…just have to take your chances, I reckon.

But my great-aunt and my great-grandmother managed it. Maybe I can, too. 

😀