It's A Scary Ride

 I've worn glasses for distance vision for years now but lately I've been holding printed material farther and farther from my face. Pretty soon my arms won't be long enough.

So, I took myself off to the optometrist and he prescribed new glasses for reading and adjusted lenses for distance vision. Because I live on a very limited income, I opted to have the new distance lenses fitted to my old frames. Of course, they were the only pair I owned so I had to leave them with the good doctor overnight. J drove me to the office to leave them yesterday and back again today to pick them up. I put them on and the floor came right up to within an inch of my face. I felt suddenly very short. "It will take a few days for your eyes to adjust," the good doctor said as I tipped about like a dashboard bobble-doll. "Call me in three or four days and let me know how it's going."

It was a scary ride home. I was glad J was driving.

Old age, we decided, might creep up but it's a fast creep and it starts early. Once you hit the top of the infamous Hill,  Age stands upright and begins to gallop. Neither J nor I have hit old age full on (I consider myself middle aged as I plan to live till 120), but the signs are there. Our joints creak and ache on and off. My hearing has diminished and we both have problems with our eyesight. We both sleep less. And less soundly. We've both gotten in the car and found ourselves wondering just where we were headed, or forget, when we've arrived, what we wanted (albeit momentarily and only occasionally). I told J it's as though my house cleaning strategy (find something in one room, take it to the room it belongs only to pick something up in that room and cart it elsewhere) has leaked into my every day living.

I have always made lists but occasionally now I forget to bring them with me. Grocery shopping has become a game of too many loaves of bread but no milk, three dozen eggs but no butter, two jugs of orange juice but no toilet paper, etc. I don't always forget the list and I can always make use of what I buy, but...

J reports that she leaves things behind. Her pocketbook doesn't always go home with her, or she loops it around her neck when she needs the ladies room and forgets it's there until the strap gets caught on the door handle. I sometimes make three trips from the house to the car to the house for things like glasses, keys, or water bottle.

It's like being in an old, rusty car with failing brakes only its your kidneys, your digestive system, your recall that are wearing out. All the sanding and patching and repainting in the world isn't going to make the car new again. J jokes that she's on the 20-year plan. Me, I'm holding out for 40. It may take me that long to adjust to my new glasses!

Sometimes It's Not Funny

J and I titled this blog after our reaction to most of the ailments and experiences we've been encountering in our travels out of middle age and down the long, slippery slope of our dotage. We laugh when we fall and when we get up because falling catches us so by surprise and getting up requires such innovation. We laugh when one of us forgets to do something and again when we do remember and then find we can't do it. We laugh at each other's wrinkled knees and raggedy hair, our pudding-bag-tied-in-the-middle bodies and our baggy eyes.

But, there are things that seem to be happening with more frequency that are NOT funny. One of them is continuous pain. Over the years I've broken three toes and my collar bone, cracked the femur in my right leg, and suffered a hairline fracture in my tailbone. My body is a better weather forecaster than the folks on the Weather Channel, aching in several places whenever the atmospheric pressure changes.

Back pain has been a fairly constant companion over the last dozen years but lately it's been steadily flaring. I've tried various remedies - exercise, stretching, resting, and  medications that made me feel alternately like I could fly without wings or so sedated I could barely move. To keep my mind occupied with something besides the steady ache, I walk a couple of miles a day and do some Yoga poses first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I don't resemble anything like a supple cat or a downward facing dog but despite my awkwardness, the movements allow me movement. I have also begun using what J calls 'old lady aids' -a vibrating back saver for my computer chair, a memory foam cushion with a tailbone cutout, a magnetic wrap. I have a walking stick for helping me over uneven terrain when I go for hikes and I have a pair of spiked grips for my winter shoes so that I can maneuver over the ice without fearing one of those windmill falls that look ridiculous and end tragically.

It's hell getting old. If I had my druthers I'd have stalled at 30. That's where my mental image of myself lies. There I can still toss a 40 pound bale of hay onto the back of a truck, spend hours bent over weeds in the garden and an equal amount of time hiking or biking or meandering through meadows. I can get out of bed without groaning, get down on the floor and back up in one fluid motion, and stay up past 9 p.m. I can't stay there, though. I keep waking up at 64, wondering where my get up and go got up and went.

To Sleep, Perchance...

"It's age-related," says J. when I tell her of the last few weeks of interrupted or non-existent sleep.

I'm not ready to concede. "I'd rather blame the cat and his insistence on draping all 11 pounds of himself across my feet so that turning from one side to the other wakes us both fully. I blame the economy - who can sleep when bills loom unpaid, when my income grows ever smaller and sorrier while prices climb as high as my eyebrows at the sight of them? And how about late night snacking? The lack of conscientious exercise? Reruns of MASH and Seinfeld? The ancestors that lurk just out of reach of the long arm of Ancestry.com, necessitating hours of extra research? And people who insist on calling my telephone number after 9 p.m.?"

"It's age," sighs J. "Once you get to where we are, your body doesn't need as much sleep. It gets plenty of rest during the day. You walk more slowly, you sit down more, you nap a lot. Age."

"But," I sputter, "I'm on my feet almost all day!"

"Yeah, but when you sit down do you drop your head in your hands and take a three minute nap?"

I had to admit that happens now and then. Once last week, right in the middle of the day, I stopped into the ladies room for some relief. I sat, dropped my head in my hands and woke with a jerk a minute or two later. And I felt like a jerk, though no one had seen me.

"But," I explain to J's knowing grin, "I didn't get much sleep the night before. Because of the cat. And the bills. And..." but the rest of what I was going to say was lost in her guffaw.

I have to admit, too, that late afternoon naps are something to which I've taken a distinct liking. I curl up on the sofa, pull a throw over my shoulders, adjust the cat on my feet, and slip into a pleasant hour of unconsciousness where nothing bothers me. The world I awaken to is always a better place.

Perhaps it is age. I used to rise with the sun and run and run until well after dark. I still get up before dawn but it gets dark here in the winter at 4:30, folks. To go to bed well after dark puts me between the sheets at about 7:45.

The only thing I can think for it is to stop aging. As soon as I figure out how to do that, you'll read it right here. Meanwhile, shhhhhh... I'm napping!

Giving Me the Creaks

The alarm rings, my eyes open. So far, so good. Then I try to roll over to turn it off. I hear a strange noise from somewhere nearby, a sort of whistling, sighing, moaning followed by a grunt. I realize it's me. My body is protesting out loud. In fact, lately my body is doing a lot of things out loud that it ought to do silently, or at least surreptitiously.

I remember smirking when an older friend of my mother's apologized at the start of each visit for any graceless sounds her body might make while she was there. She creaked and crackled when she sat down, she snorted when she laughed, she farted when she stood up. "God spare me," I prayed, worried that in 30 years I'd be apologizing myself. For myself.

My prayers were not heard. You should hear the sounds with which my body entertains the world! And not only is it becoming obviously noisy, it's also behaving in other odd ways. I have to get up off the floor in stages now, rather than in one fluid movement. First a roll to one side, a push onto the knees, an obligatory grunt, then the rise to my feet, all within reaching distance of some solid object. Getting up from a sofa or a soft armchair requires a mighty push and an unladylike sound. When I try to walk after I've been sitting down for some time, I find myself taking several ungainly steps as a hunchback before I can straighten up and walk like the runway model I've always longed to be.

When I was a child my mother made me walk about with an encyclopedia balanced on my head. She said it would improve my posture. Now my head feels as heavy as that encyclopedia and lolls about on my neck when I'm tired, as though it were about to roll off to bed without me. I am subject to sudden nap jerks (especially during long and completely unnecessary staff meetings), and fall asleep well before 9 o'clock every night. I'm told I snore.

This morning I got up and looked in the mirror. I snorted when I laughed. I did not recognize the woman there and was too tired to ask her what she was doing in my bathroom mirror at 5:30 a.m. My joints creaked when I reached across the bed to straighten the quilt. I groaned while pulling on my socks. By the time I'd pulled on my boots, my coat, my hat, my mittens and picked up the shovel to clear the front path, I was huffing and puffing. I did feel more like myself once the shoveling was done and I'd returned from a brisk walk in the cold air. I ascribed the mewling noise that escaped me when I bent over to remove my boots to the cat and blamed that odd little popping sound on the neighbor's dog.

I noticed in the last few years that my hearing has diminished a tad. It's a good thing. I figure that by the time I'm 102 none of these strange bodily noises will bother me at all.

The List

We all grow older and with age come certain deficiencies. I have a very dear, much older friend with whom I spend time and as her eyesight has diminished (along with her hearing and her memory), certain aspects of her housekeeping and personal appearance have suffered. Wishing to spare my children the embarrassment of having to clean up after me or suffer for my sake, I have devised this list so that I don't forget to remember how to behave in my dotage. When I told my daughter about it she laughed. "Oh Mom," she said, "you'll forget where you put the list and then where will we be?" 

 Well, the list will be right here. I will just have to remember to read my own blogs. 

 1. I will wash the bathroom, the kitchen floor, the stove top, and the counters every day even if I don't think they are that dirty. I will pretend that vacuuming and mopping are part of daily my exercise routine. 2. Likewise, I will change my clothing every day and make sure to do the laundry often. I do not want to look that good in what I eat! 

 3. I will practice facial gestures in the mirror until I can do them automatically. One can sometimes tell what another is saying by paying close attention to body language and gestures. I will have an "uh huh" face, an "oh no!" face, and an "of course!" face all down pat. 

 4. Just to be on the safe side, I will wear my reading glasses and hearing aids (if someday I have either) when company comes even though they may be uncomfortable and I will hate admitting to needing them. I know how exasperating it is to repeat something a half dozen times with ever increasing volume. It must be equally as exasperating to have no clue what the other person is saying (despite facial gestures and body language)! 

 5. I will always wear my false teeth (if someday I need those, too) when eating in the company of others. 6. I will announce my nap times beforehand so that I won't be caught snoring open mouthed or drooling on the pillow by unexpected drop-in visitors. 

 7. I will allow (nay, even encourage) my guests to bring food rather than force them to bravely swallow whatever concoction I thought I knew how to make. 

 8. I will turn around and check to see if I did indeed turn off the lights. 

 9. I will wear three sweaters, socks, and a hat rather than keep the heat set at a comfortable 92 degrees. 10. I will write down the address of this blog post and keep it handy. I know my days are numbered.

CSFS

Lately, I've found myself reaching more and more for my magnifying glass. I've tried those drugstore glasses with the graduations of magnification but they don't help a bit. I know it's time for new glasses, possibly - gasp! - reading glasses but money is short and glasses are expensive.

This morning the kitchen drain was a bit sluggish. I hauled the bottle of Drano out from under the sink and looked at the directions. Who in the world do they think can see that tiny print? The letters crawled across the label like ants in grass. I tipped the bottle toward the light. I squinted. I held the bottle close, then far away. Finally I relented and reached for the magnifying glass. The ants stopped moving and formed letters that spelled, "Allow to work for 15 minutes then flush with hot water." Oh.

Later J brought over the Sunday paper. The headlines blared up and down the page so I know that a reporter went skydiving and lived to tell about it, there's a new police chief one town over and, look at this! a new eye wear designer has replaced a nationwide eyeglass chain at the local mall. Well, good. Now I can't afford designer frames just as much as I couldn't afford the chain store variety.

Who needs glasses anyhow? I use my magnifying glass for all sorts of things. It makes the eye of a needle look like a yawning chasm, shows me the number of ibuprofen I can safely swallow at any given time, illuminates the fine print on credit card contracts, and tells me things I don't want to know about what's in my food. I know eventually I will have to rob Peter to pay the eye doctor but until then my trusty magnifier will keep me in the know.

Life Is In the Details

(my new patio, furnished with tag sale chairs, donated slates, umbrella, and table, and decorated with transfer station finds. Cost? Free!)


It's summer! One of the joys of the season is combing the multitude of yard or tag sales that flourish on the weekends. Because both J and I are frugal Yankees by nature, have somewhat limited incomes, and take delight in using discarded things in new ways, we often join forces on a Saturday or Sunday (or both) and take advantage of someone else's urge to clean out the house, the attic, the garage etc. Every week the local penny saver is chock full of ads for sales and I religiously circle them, mapping out a route for us to take and starring those sales that list some of the myriad things for which we are always on the hunt.

This weekend was no exception. Two sales in particular caught my eye. Both were in the same town and both listed all sorts of items we had on our perpetual lists. I circled them with glee, called J and off we went. We entered town from one end, hoping there'd be a parking space somewhere in the middle of Main Street (which in the small towns around here is never more than a quarter of a mile long) so that we could walk to either sale.

"Odd that there's no traffic," remarked J. "Parking will be a cinch!" Then we saw the sign. It was nearly billboard-sized. GIANT TAG SALE it shouted in red letters. The dates were printed below. J looked at me. "What dates did the paper list?" she asked. I checked.

"Oh. Ummmm...," I muttered. "It says here that the sale is next week."

J burst out laughing. This wasn't the first time I'd gotten pre-excited about a sale. The last two times we'd gone tagging I'd made the same mistake. "I never did check the dates," I confessed. "I just assumed they were this weekend." (Never assume. You know what it makes out of u and me.)

J snatched the paper from my hands. She looked at the circles and stars and started reading the dates for herself. Not only was the giant sale next weekend, so were two others that's I'd circled with my enthusiastic pink marker.

"That's it!" she exclaimed. "Next week I'm checking the paper. You can't be trusted."

You'd think, after all these years paying attention to every little detail required of home-keeping, raising children, working, and caring for myself, I'd be able to remember to check the dates in a tag sale ad. I am attributing the lapse to the aging process, hoping that as the years go by and all that's left for me to do is check tag sale dates, my expertise will triumph.

There's never a loss without some small gain, though. Instead of tag sales, we traipsed off to the transfer station where the price is always right and the date doesn't matter.