Aging – Page 2 – 365 Days of 60

National Clerihew Day

I am a tad disappointed in myself. I am a writer and did not know the word clerihew. Shameful!

Perhaps I was out sick the day of school when my creative writing class teacher taught about clerihews. Or maybe I was distracted by trying to impress the handsome poet that sat three seats behind me. Either way, I missed the lesson.

A clerihew is a whimsical, four-line biographical poem invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. The first line is the name of the poem’s subject, usually a famous person put in an absurd light, or revealing something unknown or misleading about them. The rhyme sequence is AABB, and the rhymes are often forced. The line length and metre are irregular. Bentley invented the clerihew in school and then popularized it in books. One of his best known is this, written in 1905:

Sir Christoper Wren

Said, “I am going to dine with some men.

If anyone calls

Say I am designing St. Paul’s”

Not earth-shattering. Not soul-search provoking. Not heart-crushing or heart-lifting. But cute, clever, and obviously it “took” since I am here, 113 years later, writing about National Clerihew Day. Go figure.

I decided to give it a shot.

Rebecca, nearing sixty-one

believes that she may still be cool and fun

But little does she know

It may all be quite a big show

These clerihews are for the birds! I’m going back to Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Elbows and Pantyhose

When I was a little girl visiting my grandmother, I remember thinking that she was so very old. My earliest memory of her is cooking at the stove, apron over her dress, singing church hymns. She was probably in her mid-60s.

Just last night, I was telling a friend that I never saw my grandmother’s elbows. She always wore dresses and they were always the same style—a shirtwaist style that buttoned up the front with a belt, fullish skirt and three-quarter length sleeves, meaning they hit between her elbows and her wrists.

This sleeve length made sense because she was always working; cooking, washing dishes, gardening, doing laundry. And, she always wore hosiery, which involved wearing either a girdle or a garter belt. This was before the (brilliant) invention of pantyhose.

Here is a little trivia tidbit. Pantyhose were invented in 1959 by a MAN. Yep, it’s true. The story goes that the inventor, Allen Gant Sr., was on a train trip with his then pregnant wife, Ethel, when she told him she could no longer travel with him until after the birth of their baby. Managing her stockings and garter belt over her expanding belly had become too difficult.

Like all good husbands, Allen got to thinking about a way to make her more comfortable. He was, at that time, running textile company Glen Raven Mills and was inspired by his wife’s lament. “How would it be if we made a pair of panties and fastened the stockings to it?” He asked Ethel. She stitched some garments together and handed a crude mockup to her husband. “You have to figure out how to do this,” she said.

Allen brought his wife’s experiment into his office and with the help of his colleagues, developed what they later called “Panti-Legs”. Their product, the world’s first pantyhose, began lining department store shelves in 1959. Ethel loved them.

Interestingly, the panty-stocking combo did not completely skyrocket until the mid-1960s with the rise (literally) of the miniskirt. For the fashion-conscious woman wanting to wear a skirt shorter than the length of her stockings, pantyhose were the perfect choice.

Pantyhose have now fallen out of fashion. Today it is bare legs in the summer (with a little help from sunless tanners) and dark tights in the winter. It has been many years, probably at least 15, since I have purchased a pair of pantyhose. As designer, Coco Chanel once said, “Fashion is made to become unfashionable.”

I actually remember wearing a girdle, (carefully) pulling on individual stockings and clumsily attaching them to the garters. That happened only a couple of times before I began wearing pantyhose. I was probably about 14 years of age, so that was circa 1971-72. What a great invention! It ranks right up there with the telephone, small pox vaccine, and air-conditioning.

I am not yet a grandmother, though I am certainly old enough to be (hint, hint). I wear yoga pants and sneakers and a baseball cap with my pony tail pulled through the hole. A far cry from Grandma’s daily dresses, hose and sturdy shoes.

But I do so very much appreciate Grandma’s values. She chose what she thought was right and best, in spite of discomfort. I guess that makes wearing an occasional Spanx seem not quite so dreadful.

Shooting your Age

I have heard my doctor-husband speak of seeing a healthy patient in his late 60s or 70s or even 80s and say “He is in great shape. He is a golfer who shoots his age.” Explain, I say.

To “shoot your age” refers to good golfers over the age of 65ish. Obviously, a 25 year-old can’t “shoot his age”, but if a 65, 70 or 75 year-old can shoot his age, that is a major accomplishment in golf. Ah, okay. Now I get it. “So then, if a 90 year-old can shoot his age, that is really good, right?” “Yes!” He exclaimed, “really good.”

That got me thinking.

What other sports or activities might we want to “shoot our age”? Maybe tennis ~ love, 15, 30, 40. That could work. I would like to shoot (score) my age in tennis.

How about basketball? From what I know, a player who scores between 40-60 shots per game is a superstar. Only four players have scored 60 or more points on more than one occasion. Those are Wilt Chamberlain (32 times), Kobe Bryant (6 times), Michael Jordan (5 times), and Elgin Baylor (4 times).

I will most likely never shoot my age in any sport, except perhaps bowling.

There are certainly moments I would love to (literally) shoot my age. I would blow a hole right through the year on my birth certificate and then create a new one. Perhaps I would replace 1957 with 1967, easy enough to do. Yes, 50 could be nicer to say than 60.

Those moments, however, are truly just that, momentary. I am trying very hard to do exactly what my blog description states “face 60 with style and grace”. For the record, I did not come up with that phrase. My graphic-designer, brilliant son (one of three), Christopher, added that little quip to the card when he designed it.

I may have not come up with it, but I am 100% on board with living it out.

Scrunchies and Hair Ribbons

Two things. This morning I was carrying my overnight bag, my computer bag, my purse and another small box to my car from Mama’s apartment. A gentleman stepped onto the elevator with me and he asked if I was moving in. Wait, what?

He thought I was MOVING IN!! “Do I look old enough to live here?” I was dying to ask! I’m sure a part of me was afraid to ask, fearing his answer. Though, the truth is, the minimum age to live in this retirement village is 55. So, technically I could move in…but still, c’mon on.

Next, I stopped in the café on my way out the door to sit at a table and send a few work emails before I headed out. An 80ish year-old lady walked briskly past me (presumably a resident). She had her blond-trying-to-hide-gray neck-length hair pulled into two little ponytails, with patriotic scrunchies on both.

I said to myself: “Girl, that is you in 20 years.” Yep. I will be the one still trying to fool everyone with my non-gray hair pulled into festive little ponytails with the closest holiday print scrunchies or ribbons tied around them. I will think I look cute bouncing down the hall in my saggy yoga pants and Easy Spirit white sneakers.

And the man in the elevator, well, I’m guessing he is a soothsayer and already envisioned me doing that very thing.

Sigh.

Endless Questions

I spent the afternoon, evening and now overnight with Mama.

We have made a change in her living situation and moved her into a lovely apartment in a retirement village. She is not in assisted living or a memory unit. She is living independently but with full-time care from one of her children, a dear niece, JK, and her faithful daytime caregiver, Sherry. We’ve got a pretty good schedule going and it is working. At least it is working for us.

Mama is definitely not happy. I arrived at 3:45 today. We chatted then took a short walk outside. That did not go well. Once we were outside, she looked at the building and asked if we had to go back inside that ‘big building’. “Yes, Mama.”

We saw a couple of other residents who were friendly and asked Mama how things are going. She looked befuddled and said “I don’t know what I am doing.” I took her arm, smiled it off and mumbled something about taking a while to adapt. They nodded, understandingly.

Later we made dinner together. Well, I made it and she sat and asked me questions. “How long have I been here?” “Where is my family?” “Do I have to sleep here tonight?” “What is happening to my head?” “Who is paying for this?” “Don’t you think your pants are a little tight?” She has to throw in a couple of personal jabs once in a while. And those questions are on a continual loop for three, four, five hours at a time.

After we cleaned up the kitchen, we chatted a bit more. I then suggested we dip some ice-cream into bowls and eat it on her balcony, she is on the second floor. And that is this photo ~ Mama enjoying her favorite, butter pecan ice-cream, with a side of scowl.

Mama has a large flowering planter on her balcony. After I finished my ice-cream, I began to ‘deadhead’ the flower, pull off brown leaves and in general, give it a cleanup. Of course, that made a bit of a mess on the porch so I asked Mama if she would like to sweep it up. Bingo! Give her a job to do and there is, at least momentarily, a reprieve.

We came back inside and the loop of questions began to play again.

I so wish she could understand that everything we do for her is FOR her. We want her to feel safe, secure, content. It, however, does not shake out that way.

At 8:30, I got out the church hymnal and asked her to sing with me. She usually loves that. Tonight I was singing solos. Every time I ended a song and flipped the page, she began with the loop of questions. I kept singing and sang till my throat ached.

At bedtime, she was mad at me because I did not want her to sleep on the loveseat in her living room. I asked her to put on her pajamas. She said “I guess I have to. I don’t have a say about anything.”

Mama is at the heart-wrenching in-between stage. She is confused and has nearly no short term memory. Yet, she is sharp enough to know us and blame us for…everything.

She is so very lost. Once this evening, she told me that her mind is floating away and she does not know how to catch it. I bit my lip to keep from crying and assured her that no matter what she feels, she will never be alone.

And now she sleeps. I hear her heavy, burdened, weary, bewildered breathing and I pray that she is at least dreaming in peace.

And I pray I do the same.

Number Ten

We all know that The Ten Commandments are a set of biblical principles God gave to the people of Israel, through his servant, Moses. These beneficial laws given to us by a loving father are meant to show us how to live a better life now and to be in communion with Him.

’Thou shalt not covet’ is number ten of The Ten Commandments. To covet what another has comes from a sense that something is lacking. Coveting and stealing often go hand-in-hand. To steal is to take something that has not been freely given. This can include anything from the casual taking of a flower from a neighbor’s yard, or a grape at the grocery store. The grape mention is a story on its own. My sisters and I discuss this often. They taste one for sweetness assurance, I don’t. That certainly does not make me a saint, it’s just something I don’t do.

Oh my goodness, though, how many temptations to covet can there be in one day?!

I find myself occasionally coveting another person’s house or car or outfit. I often covet a woman’s hair that does not get fussy in humidity the way mine does.

The problem with coveting is this. Coveting means we want to take or possess something another person has. We want theirs. This is where things get tricky.

If I wish I had another woman’s head of hair but am okay with her having it, too, is that coveting? I am not wishing ill upon her and that she instantly goes bald or suddenly has thin, wiry, stingy, oily or dry hair. No, I don’t want that. She can keep her beautiful hair. I just want an identical reproduction on top of my head. I simply want it, too.

Though the guideline is to not covet. Period. And commandment number two is quite clear about “graven” and “carved” images. I’m pretty sure that also includes houses, cars, clothes, and hair. I will work on this.

Of course, I occasionally covet youth. Most 60 year-olds would be breaking commandment number nine if they told you otherwise.

Phun and Games

We all hear of lies and fake offers and tricks aimed at older people. First of all, those meanies need a good paddling. Most likely, they didn’t get it when they were growing up and needed it and now they are just punks.

“Phishing” involves email messages pretending to be from legitimate companies, trying to get account fractions, passwords, and other personal information.

Several years ago, my mama received numerous phone calls informing her that she had won a million dollars. The caller claimed to be from the national clearing house. She was informed that she needed to send a check for $499 for taxes and fees before her money could be sent. The other option was to send her bank routing number for an automatic withdrawal.

At one point, I was at her house and answered the phone. I informed the caller that they we would happily meet them with a check in the Kroger parking lot and that we would bring the police along just to insure validity. We never received another call.

We were all a little disappointed in one, that she didn’t truly win a million dollars, and two, that they did not agree to meet us. We really were hoping for a showdown.

Mama was very upset about the whole thing. She was (and still is) smart enough to not give any personal information but it certainly unnerved her. She became afraid to leave her house, thinking someone was watching her and would make their way inside while she was away. It began a flurry of fear issues that lasted a long time.

The word phishing is a neologism created as a homophone of fishing due to the similarity of using a bait in an attempt to catch a victim. According to the Microsoft Computing Safety Index published in 2014, the annual worldwide impact of phishing could be as high as $5 billion. That is a whole lot of phishing.

Another type of this debauchery is called evil twins, a phishing technique that is hard to detect. A phisher creates a fake wireless network that looks similar to a legitimate public network found in places like airports, hotels, or coffee shops. When someone logs on to the bogus network, fraudsters try to capture their passwords and/or credit information.

Lastly, a phishing attack that is directed specifically at senior executives and other high-profile targets, is called whaling. The content of a whaling attack is often written as a legal subpoena, customer complaint, or executive issue.

I wish that people could keep with real fishing. It is so much fun to pull in a big, fat walleye and grill it up for dinner. It may not make you billions, but the feeling is indeed priceless.

National Sunglasses Day

I believe I may have always been a bit star-struck, even though, I cannot stress strongly enough that being star-struck was not a part of my growing up environment or mentality.

We were a very humble family; not poor, not rich. We knew we had adequate housing and clothing. I have never known what it is like to go hungry. For that, I am thankful.

There were never fashion magazines sitting around my house. Magazine subscriptions were indeed not on the family budget. So perhaps, growing up, I noticed some Good Housekeeping or Vogue magazines in the grocery checkout line. I’m not really sure, but somewhere along the way, I fell hard into loving accessories; bracelets and rings, earrings, hair bands and bows and barrettes, purses and shoes, makeup, and sunglasses.

I have mentioned in previous posts, that my mother was a seamstress. She made most of my high school wardrobe. I so enjoyed going with her to the fabric store and choosing material for my clothes. One of my favorite parts of those trips, though, was looking through the giant books of patterns—so many dresses and hairstyles and sunglasses wearing models.

Family members reading this blog, you may remember Aunt Lois Anne always wearing sunglasses to the family picnics. I remember thinking she must be cool. My mama never wore sunglasses when I was a girl or teen or even adult. She will wear them now, in the car to shield the brightness, when I find an extra pair in the console.

I am rarely without sunglasses. In fact, I probably own about six pair. I have my daily faves plus a couple sports types for walking/running.

With some certainty, I can state that in my younger years I may have worn sunglasses for the ‘cool’ affect but within the last five to 10 years, I have worn sunglasses for cosmetic reasons. I do not want to keep squinting at the sun and creating deeper crows feet than I have already.

I have a few sunglasses-looks that I love. One is Kelly McGillis in Top Gun. Totally cool. Also, Trinity in The Matrix, donning the Blinde brand. What a stud. And of course Audrey Hepburn flaunting her black Manhattan wayfarer-style in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The coolest of cool.

An additional benefit to sunglasses-wearing is that others can’t see how old you really are. Not to sound vain, but I have had a few ‘glances’ from guys passing me in a car while wearing my Tom Cruise aviators. It makes me smile because in a three second car pass-by, they cannot know that beneath these sunglasses are significant laugh lines and dark circles from too little sleep, and that my baseball cap is worn simply to cover up my way-overdue hair “conditioning” appointment.

Yep, sunglasses are the bomb.

An evening of Pondering

I zipped through a resale store today to look for some sturdy bar stools that may need a coat of paint. For fun, I breezed through the home decor section, as I am always on the lookout for a glass bird or a China tea cup or some other unique treasure.

This little vase caught my eye. “Life whispers, listen closely.” This seemed like a secret message meant just for me. Perhaps the other 100 or so people who meandered through this store today thought the same thing.

I am with Mama tonight. Her confusion and hopelessness bring a sadness to me. There are several reasons.

First, I am sad for her. She does not smile. She is not lighthearted. She does not verbally express trust in her Lord, though I know in her heart, she trusts.

She has no confidence. She worries that others know her business and are out to get her. She is afraid.

Dementia is like a devious snake that winds its way through her mind, hissing and slithering into areas of inherent darkness.

Second, I am sad for me. Am I looking into a mirror at my future self? How many healthy years do I have left? Will my children become frustrated with me? Feel pity for me? Will I be alone and afraid?

If life is whispering to me, am I listening?

Flying Hotdogs

I read in USA TODAY about a woman who is recovering from facial injuries she suffered when she was hit by a flying hot dog. The woman was sitting behind home plate at a Philadelphia Phillies game on Monday night.

For years, the team’s mascot, Phillie Phanatic, has been launching a giant hot dog at the home games. Unfortunately, this time the errant hot dog hit Kathy McVay of Plymouth Meeting, PA. “It just came out of nowhere, and hard” McVay told Philadelphia TV station WPVI.

The woman was unable to catch or deflect the projectile because of an injured shoulder. She was struck just below her right eye with enough force to knock off her glasses. She was sent for a CT scan to make sure she didn’t have a concussion. She told the station that she was not planning to take any legal action.

The Phillies apologized and offered her free tickets when she is ready to come back to the ballpark.

The funniest part of this story is the headline in the newspaper:

Phillie Phanatic’s wayward weiner hits woman in the face, causes injuries

Sometimes the older you get, the funnier things are. Perhaps it was not so funny to Kathy McVay, but hopefully she was a good sport about it and simply asked for a side of sauerkraut. Done.