Category Archives: #Baby Boomer/Happy/Remories

Pedaling Father’s Day

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card-FathersDay-BikeCTMHAging & Attitude

     The pedaling of an old man riding a wide-tire bicycle grabs my attention as I drive Acoma road. He wears red Ked shoes, the methodical around and around is mesmerizing.  I press the car brakes, slow to a crawl and drop back, to give the senior space, as we approach the corner stop.

A large droopy straw hat shades his face from the morning sun.  He sports a long sleeve plaid shirt and hazardous baggy Dockers.  The blue and chrome fender bike has no basket or hand brakes.

Behind him rides a younger man in a metallic Speedo shirt and black skin-tight shorts.  He wears a helmet and mustache, and he does not pass abruptly. Instead, he moves to coast gently beside the elder, a solid traffic barrier.  They ease the corner together, dance a Minuet synchronized to Chopin.

I stop at the corner, turn right, and follow, absorbing their relationship. It is paternal; head, back and shoulders are an older/younger version of each other.   The son peddles ahead deliberate not to look back, allows his father to ride independently while protected. The old man’s bike wheel does not wobble and the handlebars do not shake. There is an air of pride accompanying his movement. I drive by and see his wrinkled face, guess he is eighty. A full head of peppered gray hair surround a son’s face with minimal expression lines and suggest he  is sixty.

My mind conjures a past Father’s Day, the father wearing the same plaid shirt, Dockers and Ked shoes, the son, jeans and a white t-shirt, both much younger.  Imagine it is 1958, the father, teaching, leads the way with subtle protectiveness and allows the son to celebrate his newly acquired skill, riding a bike. “Daddy, look at me!” He yells with a big smile.

Today is Father’s Day 2012. I watch the pair celebrate with a simple act of being there if needed, pedaling their bicycles.

 . . . . just saying


Careful What You Wish For and George Foreman

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GE DIGITAL CAMERA

In January, Mr. Wonderful and I turned to each other and said, “Gee, I wish we could sell the house.” January 11th we sat with a dear friend, who is a realtor, and signed the papers.

No fooling, April 1st, we received and accepted an offer.  Our wish came true that fast and we scrambled to find a living place with enough space for our “stuff.”

We fell in love with a Villa apartment about 15 miles north of Halifax Plantation in Hammock Dunes.  It was everything we said we never wanted, a gated community, no garage, no attic, no recycling and because a second home for many owners, alive on the weekends.

However, there are flowers galore, and no weeding (a harmful addiction I have struggled to overcome). We would give up 1200 sq. ft. of screened lanai living area, say good-by to barbecue grilling, and empty the water-bed.

We were not, unhappy, just conflicted and now renters.

Mr. Wonderful hired Two Men and A Truck for moving day, and got a Budget rental truck to transport numerous boxes plus other stuff to Eagles Nest storage facility, while I cried and sold treasured belongings, including the gas grill, on Craigslist.

We have grilled for the past thirty-five years. Yes, with snow on the ground and in the garage protected from downpours.

We started in 1977 using a Hibachi on an apartment balcony in the Bronx.  Hibachi is what Northerners call a small charcoal table grill. You still see them in State parks. Before Mr. Wonderful came home from work, I started the charcoal briquettes in a one pound coffee can that had both ends removed. I filled the can with ten charcoal briquettes, squirted lighter fluid at them, and struck a match to ignite. In a half  hour, they were hot enough to spread out, add more briquettes, and grill a chuck steak.

After a debate about sneaking a grill on the 10 by 12 foot apartment balcony, a George Foreman grill became an option.GE DIGITAL CAMERA

I was skeptical about a cooking device designed by a man punched in the face for a living who named all six sons George, after himself. Surprise, surprise, the grill does a nice job.  Evidently, George has become an expert and there are forty or more models to choose from.  We might have to upgrade.

We have been here ten days.

While unpacking, I realized we no longer use, but are attached to some ‘stuff’.

The packed silver set is a good example. Include, three sets of stainless steel unpacked, and we have thirty-six, dinner forks, salad forks, knives, teaspoons, and soup spoons; a total of 180 eating utensils.

Well, I am still making pasta salad for eight; hoping more than two will show up.

                                                                               ….Just saying

$100,000 Harvard Pay Toilets

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Toilet_bowl : Several hundred dollar bills in a toilet bowl about to be flushed Stock Photo

Aging & Attitude

I sit in a doctor’s office waiting room. After about twenty minutes, annoyed with myself for not bringing a book, search the magazine rack and decide upon an issue of Time, dated March 12th. The news is still new to me, I have not read the magazine. In the business section, a small heading grabs my attention.

     $100,000  Pay Toilets Your Name Here

I am familiar with naming opportunities; a benefactor donates a huge chunk of change and a building is named for him.

The good news jumps across the page, millions are no longer necessary. A one hundred thousand dollar donation will get your name on something …a toilet. I continue to read looking for the punch line. It is not a joke.

The article by Josh Sanburn states, “It’s a strategy more universities are employing to raise cash in this strapped economy.”  And cites the University of Pennsylvania as an example. “Plaques saying, ‘This relief you are now experiencing is made possible by a gift from Michael Zinman’, line its bathroom walls.”

Naming toilets is deemed a win-win situation, grab extra tissue to laugh while you pee.

Sanburn explains the benefits to the benefactor, it is affordable, and for the university; necessary because “state government funding dropped nearly 8% last year nationwide”.

The genius who thought of this probably sold the Brooklyn Bridge, too. It gets better.

A recent NPR interview discusses the role of merit scholarships in raising college costs.

A merit scholarship is not awarded for brains or talent. Robert Massa, a vice president at Lafayette says. “The primary reason for awarding a non-need-based merit scholarship is to change a student’s enrollment decision from another institution to our institution. That’s why colleges do it.”

The toilet naming opportunity is not mentioned specifically, however, I speculate NPR will be interviewing Michael Zinman, his name appears on a throne.

Merit scholarships are getting bigger as each college competes for the best students.

Confused? Relax, you do not have to pay to pee at Harvard or Lafayette, yet. Peeing is still free.

Massa continues, “On top of that, the school gives need-based grants to many students. A majority of students get grants of some kind — fewer than 50 percent actually pay the full sticker price.”

The tuition increases.

Colleges pay students more than they need to come to their college and off set the cost by having  students who can pay more.

Now the need for naming toilets makes sense, it covers the difference.

Will people be impressed when you brag, Granddaddy has a bathroom named for him at Harvard Law School, or wonder, whatever?

                                                      …Just Saying

Mommy’s Jumping Jellybean

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My daughter, Janine will turn forty on May 19 and hopefully this post captures how special she is to me. . . . just saying I love you, Mom

Aging & Attitude

   My daughter phoned a few weeks ago and after a good hour-long conversation told me, holding back tears, I was on her gratitude list. It was not Mother’s Day but it was the best Mother’s Day present ever.  I hung up the phone, and put a long list of ‘if only I had’ in the trash, to reminisce about my little girl.

She was not a fussy infant and slept through the night at six weeks, never cried or climbed out of her crib, and woke with a cheery “Morning.”  By the third call, I would have her in my arms. Asked if she would give baby Donna her bottle, Janine said yes and drank from a cup. She potty trained easily wanting to wear big girl pants like Christie.

Most days, after playing in the park we lingered on the stoop outside to wait for Daddy. At two and a half years old, Janine would climb the brick steps, teeter across a cement ledge and jump to the ground holding my hands. She was long and lean, like a green bean, and called Beaner  Her incessant jumping gave birth to the rhyme, J is for Janine, Mommy’s jumping jellybean.  I struggled to match  my daughter’s  energy and enthusiasm.

The summer of 1980 we traveled to Chicago, by sleeper train, to visit Aunt Judy and Uncle George.  Independent Janine maneuvered the way from our cabin to the dining car, bouncing side to side. You could not hold her hand. The dining tables wore white linen table cloths, and the wine served in a stemmed glass.

I have a vivid picture of Janine sitting in a Winnetka ice cream parlor, her chin even with the table, ready to place her order, a chocolate cone. Uncle George, who was treating, suggested a dish of ice cream might be safer. Determined, she stately sweetly, “I want a cone,” to Uncle George’s continued feeble attempts to persuade her other wise. There was no terrible two-temper tantrum only the pointing of her pinky and index finger like devil horns saying, repeatedly, “I want a cone.” Uncle George did not comment after her pretty dress was covered in chocolate.

The first day of  kindergarten she wore a sucker of a rhinestone pin given to her by Great Granny B for dress up, and left the house saying; “Mom, I’m going to be the prettiest girl in the class.” My response, “Yes, you will.”

Early on, she wanted to know if you went to college to be a cocktail waitress, to which her father and I had no reply, amazed at her insight that attending college and waitressing somehow went together.

These days, Janine is miles away, and missed. People notice her kindness, generosity, quiet determination, and independence. She pounds the streets of New York City and a chorus joins me in cheering, J is for Janine, Mommy’s jumping jellybean.

Thank you daughter, for loving me.

                                                                                          …. Just saying

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Ha Ha Baby Boomers

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Aging & Attitude

Statistics show that as you age you laugh less. The elderly lose their sense of humor, no Shit Sherlock! What is there to laugh about?  We cannot see, cannot hear, and cannot remember.

A recent News Journal article informs us of the latest national disaster, sarcopinia, the wasting away of the elderly. Who needs a new word we cannot pronounce, and reminds us of things, we do not want to remember.  It is no surprise, the elderly feel depressed, and lose humor.

I heard that if you cannot get out of the car or off a chair, it is from muscle atrophy. So I started going to the gym, now have muscles and can get out of the car, couch or chair easily.  I just cannot straighten up once I am standing. I am stiff and cannot unbend.  I have termed the condition de-stiff-i-tiz-ing. It is not an official medical condition but most Baby Boomers suffer with it.

We were out to dinner, a table of ten, dear friends who shall remain nameless. After paying the bill, everyone stood to leave and a uniform moan ricocheted off the restaurant walls. A few of us were quick to laugh, covering the additional groans people spewed as they hung to the back of chairs, shook legs awake, and de-stiff-i-tized to reclaimed stature. There was no giggling.

Men actually laugh less and stop laughing sooner than woman, around fifty. (Mr. Wonderful sports a Grumpy tattoo, gotten on his fiftieth birthday.) That statistic may change once the numbers are in on Viagra, although after four hours a man could permanently lose all ability to chuckle.

The humiliation does not end.  A woman attending a wedding went outside to smoke, after extinguishing the cigarette with her foot, bent over to pick up the butt and toppled in her kitty cat heels. Fortunately, her dress did not blow over her head and no one was around.

This never happened to grandma. She could smoke indoors, did not worry about green and thought gym was a man’s name.

So here are my tips for Baby Boomers. (Will someone think of a better term, PLEASE)

  • Replace old toilets with new Hi-Boy’s(the taller  ones).
  • Park in the same spot at the mall everytime.
  • Write down the make, year, and plate number of both cars you own and keep the information in your wallet. (Forgetting where you parked is one thing, forgetting what you parked is another.)
  • Stop telling people you do not remember their name.  They do not remember yours either.
  • Do not smoke when wearing high heels.                                                                                             
                           …. Just saying

Betty Blasé and New Horizons

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Aging & Attitude

“I’ve become blasé,” said a woman at the New Horizons Brunch for new members, ending our conversation that threatened to become passionate. She smiled, and took a step back to distance herself from me. She wore ‘big-girl’ shoes with a large fake rhinestone separating her first two toes.

“Blasé what a wonderful word,” I respond, but fail to keep her engaged. The crowded breakfast nook engulfs her lack of interest. Soft wrinkles languish her face, her tone aloof as she snaps her neck to suggest she was not always apathetic, it is an acquired skill.

She wears it well like a sophisticated article of clothing, dance attire.  I want to be blasé. Blasé could be  equivalent to Botox or Juvederm injections and cheaper.  Her skin glows.

My mind escapes to a fantasy world and I morph into Betty Blasé, a new and improved self.  When motorists drive in my trunk during the day, I flip the rearview mirror to ‘night-vision’, instead of yelling, “wrap yourself around a tree, see if I care,” and as they speed by, adjust the air conditioning, calmly.

I feel in control of my emotions and straighten my back to stand a little taller. The room is decorated in damask lined drapes hung high upon the wall and sparkling glass tables.

Surely, I can learn indifference when the Bagger in Publix double wraps my chicken in plastic after I hand him cloth and painstakingly explained the chicken gets naked next to my eggs and butter at home in our refrigerator.

Several New Horizon members drift towards the front door ready to leave.  I promise myself the next time a group of kids covered with tattoos and reeking of profanity pass by I will NOT mumble, “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

I exchange goodbyes with the host and mosey towards my car thinking, it is conceivable to yawn at newspaper stories debating those guilty of pet abuse; Obama, who ate dog or Romney, who transported Seamus, a pet, crated on a car roof.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Just Saying

 


Tell Me What Rain Smells Like

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Photo by Nikx

The Smell of Rain

Aging & Attitude

Steel metal colored clouds consume the sky and travel my way. The sun disappears behind them, and the sky turns dark.

Lightning cracks the sky and the sound pierces my ears.

The rain falls heavily, straight down and creates a blur; like at Niagara Falls, a sheet of rain cascades off the roof gutters and I recall  standing on “The Maid of the Mist” weathering the streams of water surrounded by rock.

The pinging rain is musical and comforting.

Floridians call it “big rain,” and I pull to the side of the road, the visibility is so poor.  It is not a monsoon, a season of precipitation; although the rain in April and May seem endless.

This daytime rain smells sweet.

A smell so fragile I inhale deeply to guess its fragrance. It is clean and crisp like mountain air but not strong. It is not vanilla, nor any other spice and less subtle than an herb.

Childhood memories; searching for a four-leaf clover, cartwheels, and skipping home to snack on Wonder bread, buttered then sprinkled with sugar, permeate my mind.

Coolness surrounds my shoulders and I close my eyes to relish the moment and the smell of rain, but cannot capture words.

What do you think rain smells like?

We’ve Fallen & We Can Get Up

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   Mr. Wonderful, my husband of forty years, is wonderful, mostly.  He is my househusband, does most of the food shopping and cooking, and dusts if I ask ‘pretty please’. I’m loving it. He seems content, and has heightened status among women when they learn all he does. Although, the guys turn up the TV volume when he becomes the topic of conversation.

   I make a point of showing my appreciation. Today I sat on his lap, gave him a nice kiss. Enjoying the attention he playfully embraces me, arms behind my back. I slipped my arms under his shoulders and interconnected my fingers around his back nervous we might fall. Like Fabio on the cover of a romantic novel, he curves my back across his knee, and we topple.

“Are you okay?”

“I can’t tell. Are you okay?”

“You’re lying on my arm, I can’t move.”

“You’re lying on my chest; do you think I can move?”

 We’ve fallen and we can’t get up.

 “Claudia, you’re killing my arm, you have to move.”

 Granted his arm is underneath me, taking the bulk of the fall; his 200 lbs pressing my 135 lbs into the floor. But I am flattened like a pancake too and cannot move.

  So I quip, “Let me see if I can bench press your 200 lbs. with my nose.”

 “You’re killing my wrist, move!” He says, with a loud little boy in pain tone, to his voice.

  Wondering if I am able to take in air, I say, sweetly, “Don’t panic, yet. Where’s your other arm?”

  “What other arm?”

  “The other arm attached to your body. I’m lying on your right arm, where is your left?”

  He pauses at length to consider the possibility, and responds “You mean this one,” raising his left arm above his head.

  Relieved, I suggest he use it to lift himself, allowing me to push up so he can retrieve his right arm.

  He does. I move and guess what, we have fallen, but we can get up.

                                                                                                                                    …just saying 

Vintage Vanity

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Aging & Attitude

I never wore an itsy bitsy teeny-weeny yellow polka dot bikini. I wore a one piece swimsuit with a zipper up the back that I could swim in. I loved that pink and white plaid bathing suit. A darker pink piping set off the waist, and it was fully lined. That was during my teenage years when we swam down at Puffy’s creek or at Jones beach on Long Island.

I never owned a Rabbit fur coat. I had a fake Leopard fur coat bought on sale in Macy’s department store. The large collar and hem trimmed in black fake fur.  This Bo Derek style outer wear was stored in a clothing closet and admired when I opened the closet door, too good too be worn.

I never owned a London Fog trench coat.  I wore a navy blue raincoat with an empire waist and hood, purchased at Lerner’s.  I had black patent leather go-go rain boots and kept dry with a bubble umbrella. I have a picture, taken at the Bronx Zoo, of myself wearing this outfit, and remember feeling quite pleased with my look including the shag wig, I wore.

I never wore jeans, stirrup pants were my favorite, and proud to be the first to wear bell-bottoms, in my dorm. These orange pants coordinated with a gold and orange box plaid mini-skirt and a matching gold crepe blouse. The blouse had flounce sleeves with military buttons on the cuffs, and a wrap around neck sash that tied in a bow. I can picture the outfit in Alexander’s store window on Fordham road in the Bronx and still smile.

I never avoided looking in a mirror, til now. The reflection is unrecognizable and I hear myself saying, “Why does that woman look so familiar?” aloud, and realizing it is me, worry about Alzheimer’s.

I never thought I’d wear elastic waist pants, funny hats or moan getting up from a chair.

I never thought myself good-looking, was never boastful, conceited, or big-headed, but loved those outfits and the way they made me feel.

Damn, I guess it is too late to be vain.

                                                                                      . . . Just Saying

The Art of Saying Nothing

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                                                                                   Aging & Attitude 
Conversations at Vermillion

Conversations at Vermillion (Photo credit: JeanineAnderson)

Conversation is changing. Verbal communication is evolving and taking a new direction. The ability to converse for a significant period and say nothing is the trend. Notice that off colored jokes and heated discussions are a thing of the past. As small talk was through the 1990’s, saying nothing is an art form you are privy to if you experience these symptoms.

  1. Feelings of confusion, stupidity, or that you are old and simply do not understand.
  2. Low self-esteem after listening to a superior sounding conversationalist.
  3. Yelling “What are you freakin talking about?” in your sleep.
  4. Withdrawal from Face Book and other social media.

Please do not confuse this with the romance of saying nothing in Ronan Keating’s song “What I Hear When You Don’t Say a Thing” because that void clearly conveys passion and emotion.

Do not include the nothing, inquired of an advice expert, “What does it mean when you invite  women to date and they say nothing?”

That nothing says something, too.

The type of nothing Politicians use to avoid answering a question and turn the discussion to a character assault of opponents does not count either. Nor does the nothing created by a double negative i.e., “He didn’t say nothing,” (The double negative cancels the saying nothing out and you said something, we just do not know what.)

“He didn’t say anything,” is a legitimate form of saying nothing but not the one we are talking about of.

To acquire skill in saying nothing choose a topic, not safe and guaranteed non offensive like, weather, food, and travel, something slightly controversial, but politically correct. Create the impression that you are expressing an opinion or point of view that the listener cannot grasp, and you will say nothing successfully.

Filler words, such as; um, uh and you know, are prohibited, and considered cheating.

Now, I am practicing and far from an expert, but tell me, have I successfully talked about nothing?

. . . .Just Saying