aging

It’s not that hot out there, really. At a few minutes to 8:00 a.m., the thermometer reads a mild 98 degrees. But it’s WET. High, filmy white clouds lurk overhead. Apparently they’re ushering in a ground-level cloud of sickening humidity. So…what we have is hot…wet…and miserable. 

Dawg and I are back from the morning park circumnavigation. As usual, anyone who spots Ruby  has to fall in love with her. But…for a change and probably because of the miserable climate, nobody stopped us to coo and simper over her ineffable cuteness.

For reasons unknown, I spent most of the hike speculating on the character of my long-late grandmother, a chippie whom I never knew. Well before I came on the scene, she died of a uterine cancer supposedly induced by the many abortions she had, around the time my mother came on the scene.

So, as a little girl my mother was sent from New York State (where the surprised paternal grandparents most decidedly did NOT want to raise her) to California, where the maternal grandmother absolutely did want her. So we’re told. Truth to tell, apparently the poor child was about as unwanted as any bastard child could be. But because the California grandmother was willing to bring her up, she landed on the West Coast. So that made the California grandmother my great-grandmother, whom I rarely saw until we came back to the States after spending ten years in Saudi Arabia.

Strange people, those. The grandparents were Christian Scientists, a sect that, from what I’m told, was regarded as extravagant crack-pottery at the time. I do know that my great-grandmother lived well into her 90s, believing she could pray herself well whenever she got ill. Same applied to her daughter: my great-aunt. They thrived…whether because of innate constitutional strength or because Christian Scientists really can talk to God is unknown.

😀

All of which is hardly here nor there. Except for the weather. Today it feels surprisingly like Saudi Arabia out there — where I grew up while my father worked for ARAMCO (Arabian-American Oil Company). Hot. Stuffy. Wet.

Not as wet as lovely Rasty Nasty (my father’s sobriquet for Ras Tanura, the American camp where we lived). There, you can see the condensing humidity literally drip off the roof like rain. Clear blue sky, and water is drizzling off the eaves!

Ugh! WHAT a place!

Oh well: thank the Gods we’re not there.

****

Sometime today — or at least this week — I want to make my way over to The Terraces, the old-folkerie where my father retreated after my mother died. At that time, it was known as “Orangewood.” Why they changed the name, I dunno. But it looks like rather little else has changed over there.

Unlike the daunting Beatitudes, most of the apartments at The Terraces are at ground level. Or, at the worst, in buildings that are no more than three stories high.

As a practical matter, I don’t wanna live in either one. But my mother and I lived in a high-rise in San Francisco right after we came back from Saudi Arabia. So yea verily: I indeed do know I don’t want to be cooped up in a high-rise again.

Don’t want to live in either of the Terraces’ places, to tell the truth. But it looks like pretty quick, I’ll have no choice…

Honestly, any day I’d rather be dead than locked up in some institution. I just HATED living in the dorms back in college. And now it looks like…yeah…we’re headed that way again.

The prospect makes me cringe! Surely, there MUST be a better way to spend the last few years of your life.

But…well, my son is in no position to babysit me through that final period. Nor would I want him to do so.

It just feels like there must be some better way. Maybe hire someone like Luz, our Wonder-Cleaning Lady — to come in and stay at night?

Like she has nothing better to do, either….

Hmmmmm….  I wonder if it would be possible to keep one’s house and stay in it during the day, but rent space in one of those old-folkeries for the evenings and nights.

Then you could go over to the old-person’s prison for, say, dinner and then for the night. Have breakfast there, if breakfast is your thing. And then come back to your home to loaf for the daytime hours.

This at least would give you a little privacy, a little peace and quiet. You would have your own space for at least some part of your last days. But you could get a couple of (yucky…) meals and safety for the night-time hours for the other part of the day.

At one point, the problem would be getting back and forth between the prison and your home. My son has ordered that I may not drive anymore — and in fact has engineered that legally. I could walk to the old-folkerie nearest to my house. Besides, an Uber driver lives catty-corner across the street from me: probably I could hire him to come pick me up every afternoon or evening. But then he’d have to deliver me back and forth to jail…and that’s asking a lot. He probably wouldn’t be willing to commit to that on a regular basis.

One other huge problem with those baby-sit-you-thru-your-last-days institutions is that they literally do take everything you’ve got. So…little or nothing will be left for my son. And that also is NOT what I want.

No. I want him to get what remains of the money my father left to me, plus whatever is in my own savings accounts by the time I croak over. HIM…not some baby-sitting business.

But just now, it’s not real clear how to make that happen.

Ever ask yourself that? Why DO you have a kid? 

Welp, I’ll tellya: Its because your kid is smarter than you.

Yep. That’s it: no question. Chances are your kid started out smarter than you. But as time passed, the brat got smarter and smarter…the brat figured out more things…the brat adapted to the changing times… And by golly! The kid’s a grown man or a grown woman, and about ten times smarter than you!

Meanwhile, all that time, your own marbles have been rolling out your ears.

😀

Seriously: you would not believe how amazing Mi’jito is…because I can’t believe it myself. Not just because he knows so much more than I do (that’s to be expected, as our culture evolves over a couple of decades), but because he knows what to do with that so much more stuff. 

Computers, especially. Of course. Money: investments, real estate.

All this moonie admiration brings us around to the question of how to handle my estate...which includes everything my father left me, plus real estate, plus more money, plus…plus…plus…on and freakin’ on.

I plan to leave him my house…but DO I want to do that? A house is not 100% asset. It also has drawbacks. It has expenses. It may have loans against its equity. It may be falling down in its old age. It has taxes. And depreciation. And ever-growing costs of upkeep. Questions of neighborhood stability — or instability. Crackpot neighbors. Bat-brained city projects…augh!

Lately I’ve been thinking maybe I should look at the type of old-folkerie my father consigned himself to, after my mother died. The one he went into is actually within (lengthy) walking distance of the Funny Farm: once called Orangewood, it’s now dubbed The Terraces.

It has as its benefit some halfway decent apartments and a skilled, experienced staff who look after you. But the place is much changed today from what it was in my father’s heyday. So…I have no idea, really, what I’d be getting into.

My house is very comfortable and in a moderately safe district. Hiring someone to come in and take care of me surely wouldn’t cost any MORE than parking me in some institution. It might not cost as much. And you can be sure it wouldn’t make me anywhere near as miserable.

What I would need to do, though — something I’ve neglected! — is get back in with the church, show up down there at least once a week and preferably more, and cultivate friendships and activities.

Without a job, it must be admitted: I’ve let my social life lapse. Just now I don’t know anyone and don’t do anything. But really…how hard would it be to get back into some activities to let me rub elbows with other old bats?

Hmmm….  So, I guess starting in the next couple of weeks, I should get off my duff and go JOIN a few things.

Let’s see how that goes. If it revives “a life,” then I can basically rebuild what I had before I slid into the present lethargy.

But if it has no positive effect, then I’ll need to think a whole lot more seriously about moving into an old-folkerie, where staff can ride herd on me 24/7.

Ugh.