Coffee heat rising

aging

Augh! SPARE Me, Lord!

by

Well, we’ve got about 2.5 hours before my son shows up to drag me back out to the Mayo Clinic — on the far side of Scottsdale, halfway to freakin’ Payson — for another time-wasting yack-fest.

These supposedly therapeutic sessions consist of gathering about two dozen old farts around a large conference table, where we spend three hours nattering on about how we can’t remember where we put our shoes.

No kidding! That WAS the subject of one chatterfest.

UNbelievable waste of time!

Did one person — either one of the freshly air-headed or one of the staff members — ever suggest that the way to not have to worry about forgetting where you put your shoes is simply to ALWAYS PUT THEM IN THE SAME PLACE every time you take them off?

Nope. Not one person came anywhere near suggesting that. It was all whine! whine! whine! I can’t remember my name! 

Seriously: Wouldn’t it be better simply to recognize that as you age, your memory will weaken (that’s normal…) and take steps to address that problem? How hard IS it to…

…have a to-do list. Tape it to the back door or the bathroom mirror if you can’t remember where you put it.
…set alarm clocks or timers to ring when you have an appointment or something that needs to be done at a certain time.
…put your relatives or hired help up to reminding you that you need to do X, Y, or Z.

You see the problem…  

Anyway, the last time we trudged out there for one of these get-togethers, it was two and a half or three hours of utter, COMPLETE wasted time. 

And since I personally feel my time should be mine to waste, not someone else’s, I highly resented that event. And even more highly resent having to traipse out to the east side to waste another whole goddamn afternoon.

Understand: it’s almost an hour’s drive out there from here. That doesn’t count getting parked and navigating your way, on foot, through the clinic’s maze to get to the day’s conference room.

Which is to say that by the time you’ve traipsed out to the far side of Scottsdale and come back home, you’ve blown away two hours…and that doesn’t count the three hours blown away listening to old buzzards whine about losing their shoes. So in fact, you’re going to waste a good half-day.

Thought you had something better to do with your time? Hey…don’t be silly! You’re OLD…you don’t have anything to do with your time.

Right?

Which Way to Jump? If Jump at All…

by

So this morning I’m idly thinking of walking down to the Beatitudes (since my son has kiped my car) and looking into how much it would cost to move into that old-folkerie.

A lot, I can tellya.

After my mother died, my father moved into one of those places. It cost just about everything he had — and he had a lot, for a workin’-class boy.

All the proceeds from the sale of their home in Sun City plus most of his retirement savings went to buy him into that place.

For me, that would be like paying someone else to get outta my way so I could commit suicide. But having gone to sea since he was 17 years old, he was used to institutional living. If anything, he preferred it to living on his own.

Most of the old-folkeries around here — “life-care communities,” eh? — range in quality from good to very nice, indeed. My problem with them is simply that I loathe communal living. 

No, folks. I do NOT WANT to live elbow-to-elbow with an army of other old farts. Nor do I want to be required to take at least one meal a day in a dreadful mess hall. Or to have to listen to some half-deaf soul’s TV set blaring away at all hours of the day and night.

That pretty much puts the eefus on moving into one of those places.

But I have to allow: it’s highly questionable whether I’ll be able to stay here in my home — hired help or no — until the last gasp. Or even anywhere near the last gasp.

Because Old Folks are something less than second-class citizens in American society, the only way you’re going to keep a grip on how and where you will live is to make those decisions before you need them and then to get yourself settled in acceptable accommodations before you need them. And since I’ve pretty well arrived at croak-over age, that means I need to make said decisions now and get things set up for them now. 

So…what can one do? A few possibilities do present themselves:

* Hire someone — the cleaning lady, maybe? — to come in daily:

  • Check on you
  • Take you shopping if need be
  • Gas up the car
  • Bring the groceries home and help put them away
  • Prepare at least one balanced meal in your kitchen; serve it or store it in the fridge for you
  • Clean up the kitchen
  • Clean the bathrooms as necessary
  • Water the outdoor potted plants
  • Check that the pool is working properly; note any problems observed and report them to Pool Dude
  • Negotiate with Pool Dude to be sure he knows what (if anything) needs to be fixed
  • Walk the dog
  • Drive you to appointments
  • Ride herd on Lawn Dude. Be sure he knows what needs to be done this week, and that he does it.

Yeah…sure. What fun, eh?

And what d’you suppose it costs to hire someone to cover all the details of your daily life, every day? 

* Another possibility: Put up your adult kid to ride herd on the hired help. Also put him up to doing some of the noxious household chores.

Won’t he just love that!  And realistically: Our grown offspring have their own very full, very hectic lives to manage. They can’t be spending hours taking care of our affairs.

Arrrrghhh! So I’m awfully afraid I’m not gonna be able to evade having to go into one of those old-folkeries…simply because I won’t be able to afford to hire someone to cover all those chores, nor, as I get older, will I be able to ride herd on them. Once I reach that point…well…realistically, I’ll no longer be able to stay in my home.

On the other hand:  I must say that hiring people to come in regularly and do the scutwork of homeownership is working exceptionally well. Just now, anyway.

I never have to lift a finger to keep that damn swimming pool running, for example. And it’s always sparkling clean and running perfectly. Useta be: I had to work on that thing every. single. day.

Not since I slipped on the kitchen tiles and busted myself up have I had to clean the 1800 square feet of tile flooring in this house. Or scrub the kitchen. Or scour the bathtub. Hiring someone to do that has worked exceptionally well.

While that fine someone is here, she also dusts the furniture and cleans the bathrooms.

The cost of hiring these folks comes nowhere near what it would cost to live in an old-folkerie like Orangewood or the Beatitudes.

And…well…I still get to live in my place. 

Idle Question of the Day…

by

Why, after my mother died, did my father choose to enter the Orangewood “Retirement Community” (read “prison for old folks”) rather than the Beatitudes, a larger and more established prison?

I could walk to either of these places from here. If I could afford to give this house to my son (moot: when I have to go into a “retirement community,” I most certainly will not be able to afford any such generosity), I could consign myself to either institution and be within walking distance of where he could live.

If he chose to do so.

More likely, he’d sell this place. Either bank the money and stay in his present home, or leave the proceeds from the sale to pay off his own mortgage.

Orangewood is on a single story. It’s built like…oh…I dunno…it kind of reminds you of a motel. Spread out. Grassy views outside most of the apartments. Laundry rooms down the hall from your place. A chow hall serving awful food — you’re required to show up there for at least one (bad!) meal a day, so they can count you.

The Beatitudes, another option for old-folks’ “living,” occupies a high-rise — actually, more like a mid-rise building. It’s built like a hotel, with the chow line and meeting rooms on the ground floor.

Either way, to my mind they’re depressing places. Mostly because I strongly dislike communal living — hated living the college dorms, don’t wanna wrap up my life that way.

But…it’s hard to see any way around them.

I probably could hire someone to come in and take care of me. But…who’s to oversee such a person? Unless someone were checking on me daily, how could we be sure I was being kept clean, that I was fed regularly (and decently), that the house was kept clean, that nothing was stolen…on and on and on. Expecting my son to ride herd in that way is, I fear, expecting too much. He has…you know…a life. And he can’t take half of it to devote to riding herd on my last months or (heaven forfend!) years.

Probably one of the best of the many excellent things my father did for me was to move himself into an old-folkery after my mother died. If I’d had to take care of him, I would never have finished the dissertation, never have completed the Ph.D.

But why on earth would that have mattered? Yes, I did get one (count it, 1) halfway decent job because of the doctorate. Published a book or three. But helle’s belles! I could have done as well or better without a Ph.D. in freakin’ English.

Annoying, isn’t it, to arrive at the end of life and realize you flubbed it? 😀 You wasted God only knows how many years.

Now what?

Still More Existential Agonizing

by

My poor son is freaking out because — with some reason — he thinks I drink wayyy too much booze.

And y’know…the truth is, even a glass or so a day is prob’ly too much.

My parents always had a cocktail or two before dinner. And as I reached the Drinking Age, I came to join them. Actually, my college boyfriend at the time got me started on swilling a cocktail or two a day. So it was pretty easy to just blend right in with the family custom. 😀

Has that custom grown into an exceptionally bad habit?

Hmmmm…..  One could argue so. 

Yeah, I do have a whiskey & water or a glass of wine every afternoon, before dinner. Then a glass of wine with dinner. And yeah: it makes sense to say that’s too damn much. Especially for the girlie scion of a good Christian Scientist family. 😀

So now, dammit….I’ve decided to climb on the wagon. 

Ugh, what a way spend the late afternoon, right?

😀

But truth to tell, I think we’ll all be better off if the old lady quits lapping her li’l cocktail every afternoon. How booooring!

My parents always had cocktails before (and sometimes with) dinner. The difference was that they didn’t drink wine. So they didn’t have that nightly swill of cabernet or Sauvignon blanc with dinner. Instead, they generally lapped up a whiskey and water or two beforehand. And that was it.

My son, having noticed how much wine I’ve taken to slurping down (doubt if he’s noticed the disappearing whiskey…), has asked me to knock it off. And truth to tell…I think he’s right.

So here we are, riding the wagon again. 

Matter of fact, I hadn’t noticed until recently how much booze I’ve been lapping…and y’know, I do believe he’s right. I need to quit that! 

One of the li’l problems that arise when you get in the habit of regular boozing is that you don’t realize how much you’re spending on your swilling. If you buy a bottle of wine or whiskey only when you go into the store to buy food, that cost gets blended in with the grocery bill, and unless you’re paying close attention, you simply don’t notice that the grocery bill is hovering near the stratosphere.

And in fact, that is pretty much what’s happened here. Recently I realized that holee maquerel! I’m spending an obscene amount on food. 

Well.

No.

Sorry. Cabernet is not food. Neither is Sauvignon blanc. Nope. Not food. But it sure as hell is jacking up the grocery bill.

So. No. Quit it!

As of this evening, we’re guzzling iced tea or water with dinner. Ugh.

Oh well: we’ll survive. And probably be the better for it. 

 

The Night Comes…

by

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

                                                             –Dylan Thomas

One of my favorite poems since I first read it, now “Do Not Go Gentle”  seems to speak directly to the moment. Here at the end of life, one’s impulse indeed is to fight the pending end, to quarrel with it, to sock it back, to dodge out of its way.

All futility, of course. Life begins. Life ends. We can’t evade those fundamental truths.

Is life itself futile? 

I don’t know. If there’s a God, why would that god invent such an elaborate creation, if not for some reason?

Okay, okay: Out of boredom.

Yeah, that makes some sense. It might even make more sense than the theory that God created life to satisfy some goal, to make something happen, because it mattered.

Sometimes it seems as though nothing matters. Other times, as though everything matters.

What to make of that confusion? 

Nothing, I reckon. Who, after all, are we to imagine that God — if there is a God — would have some reason for building creation? Other than boredom, that is.

What we need to contend with, on a logical and on an emotional level, is simply that none of it makes any sense. Not to the mere human mind, anyway.

If it did make sense, we would not ask these questions, would we? We would not imagine or envision a God, would we? Because we would know. If there were a Truth, we would know that truth.

We who are human may imagine we know truth. But objectively speaking: no. We cannot. Because we’re merely human. Existence is so vast, so outrageous that there’s no way for we who are humans to make sense of it.

Maybe it doesn’t make sense, hm?

Sauna City!

by

It is hotter than a two-dollar cookstove outside — as my father used to say. Feels like Ras Tanura out there. That’s Aramco’s crummy little company town, perched on the shore of the Persian Gulf, about 40 miles out of Dhahran.

Horrible place. Horrible horrible place!

Damn glad I don’t live there anymore.  But sometimes I do wonder if there’s much difference…at least, at some times of year.

This is one of those seasons: hot, still, and wet. Just walked in the house from the morning doggy-walk, drenched in sweat.

Oh well: a morning like this is short on doggy-walkers. That means fewer encounters, fewer near-fights (or full-on fights), fewer morons to ask to puh-leeeze keep their dogs back. That’s something I guess.

Something else: today is NOT a day when my son is dragging me out to the damn Mayo Clinic. Thank goodness! 

What a waste of time: An hour’s drive through nasty traffic. They put me in these stupid workshop meetings where a dozen old buzzards sit around and bitch about how they can’t remember things. Is any advice offered on how you might keep track of things that you used to be able to manage?

Nooooooo. It’s just whine whine whine wine….I can’t remember where I put my shoes…. Not one person in the room — fellow whiner or medical/psychological professional — says “Well, then: get in the habit of always putting your shoes in the same place!”

Duhhhhhh!

My patience with that clap-trap is, shall we say, long gone.

Well, anywho…that frees up the day for my favorite activity: loafing. Ruby and the human are are now well-walked, and so we can loaf without guilt.

LOL! Sentimental-journeying through websites picturing Ras Tanura, the horrid company town where I grew up on the shore of the Persian Gulf. Claustrophobic. Hot. Small-town mentality. Horrible place.

Mercifully, my father retired from Aramco when I was at the end of the 6th grade. My mother and I came back to the states six months ahead of him and settled in San Francisco…just in time for the big earthquake at the end of the 1950s.

My mother was absolutely terrorized by earthquakes. To capitalize on that, they stupidly rented a high-rise apartment — a very nice one — in a tony development called Parkmerced. He had gone back to sea, and so was floating around the ocean on a tanker most of the time.

Yeah: in a real earthquake, that swell Parkmerced building would sway back and forth! “How to terrorize your wife even more,” eh?

We hadn’t been there long when, during a school day, a major quake struck. I was in school — sixth grade. The teachers paraded us all out onto the playground, where flying debris and collapsing ceilings were unlikely to kill us.

Meanwhile, my mother totally freaked out. So much so, that she lost consciousness of her experience that day. Her first memory of it is finding herself in the middle of a street in front of our building, running around in circles! My father had gone back to sea at the time, so he wasn’t there to calm her down.

Ahhh, the good ole’ days, hm?

So…despite the gawdawful heat and the bat-brained right-wing politics, Arizona has a lot to recommend it. High on the list: no earthquakes. 

😀

I stay here because there really isn’t anyplace that I know of that’s any better. But primarily because my son is here. He stays here because his dad is here. And because he grew up here. And because he has a decent job here.

Actually, I can think of a number of better places. If M’hijito weren’t in Phoenix, where would I go?

* Berkeley, California
* San Diego, California
* San Francisco, California
* Paris (yeah: the one in France)
* Santa Fe, New Mexico
* Seattle, Washington
* Mexico City

I dunno. There really aren’t all that many places in the world that are much better than where I am. What would be the point of moving?

Except, maybe, to get away from the summer heat. Then you get…what? Winter cold?

Welp…the dog is walked. The human is hungry. Better get off my duff and fix some breakfast. Outta here!