Category Archives: Seniors

Zingo-Netty

Posted on by

5

Zingo Netty it’s raining cats and dogs in Florida. The locals call it big rain. The down pour is fast and furious. Drain pipes on the sides of the house empty with the intensity of a water hydrant being flushed. The wet and windy August days are accompanied by lightning and thunder so severe, the clap sounded like a gun shot, and I jumped off the couch.

Our phone has not rung, unless you count nuisance calls. Nobody has anything new to say. How many times can we complain; the Democrats hate Republicans and vice versa, or bemoan fake news?

  I watched a PBS program, Searching for the Truth in the Age of Misinformation. They concluded fake news is real but previously labeled propaganda because a twist is added to convince the audience to adapt a specific view.

Then there is the pandemic. Today’s newspaper included a police report about two eighty-year-old men who got into a physical altercation in the grocery store. Someone was going the wrong way in the aisle. The article didn’t mention social distancing or if face masks were ripped off.

I am taking solace in watching TV, although there is not much to watch. Martha Knows Best is enjoyable. Martha Stewart has an 150 acre farm, with horses, goats, chickens and peacocks. She is missing one of her 17 peacocks and offering a $500 reward to find the bird. Martha is committed to gardening and offers many how to tips. I’m not much of a gardener. The weather is too hot, the deer too numerous, and the soil is sand, all sand. The best I can do is grow celery in water. Once it has roots I will plant in a pot.

. . . .Just saying

You don’t need a WordPress account to comment.

You can comment in the comment box below or above the top picture and to the right of the title there’s an icon that will change color. Click on and comment. Ignore request for a name or username, write your comment. Press post or save.

Take The D Train

Posted on by

23

The D Train is part of the New York City Subway System and runs from Coney Island in Brooklyn to 205th Street in the Bronx. When my friend and I discussed a meeting place The Bronx Botanical Gardens was ideal, there was an Orchid Exhibition. The pictures below show the beautiful flowers and perfect sunny day we enjoyed. We decide, she would drive in from New Jersey. I was visiting my daughter in Brooklyn and would take the D Train.

It was a ride down memory lane for me; I was born in the Bronx.

20160311_111237

There are five boroughs comprising New York City; Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and The Bronx. Jerry Seinfeld uses humor to emphasize the mystery of why The Bronx is the only borough with that prefix, and the truth is no one knows, you simply say, The Bronx.

20160311_112654My Friend, Betsy

I was born in The Bronx,  moved to Long Island at a young age, and spent my teenage years in Hensonville, New York, but returned as a newlywed to a fifth floor walk-up apartment across the street from where I was born, on Hull Avenue in The Bronx.

20160311_112740

I miss The Bronx.

20160311_110759

The D Train leaves Brooklyn by crossing the East River via the Manhattan bridge; travels along Sixth Ave on the east side of Central Park stops at 59th Street and Columbus Circle, next stop Harlem at 125th Street, and down the Grand Concourse; Yankee Stadium at 161st, Kingsbridge Avenue, then Fordham Road, next to the last stop 203rd  is on the Concourse, then the train crosses Bedford Park to the final stop; 205th & Bainbridge Avenue. It is a short walk from there to the entrance to the Botanical Gardens.

20160311_110923

Bainbridge Avenue is  where my grandmother lived and when visiting her we would take the D Train to Radio City Music Hall wearing a green winter coat with a black velvet collar, a white fur rabbit muff to keep my hands warm and Mary Jane shoes.

20160311_112549

My Aunt lived at 3042 Grand Concourse the 203rd Street stop. The street was Grand not only for its size ( four lanes with a divide) but for its elegance. Aunt Carol had a Baby Grand Piano in her apartment. We traveled down town to Broadway Theatre Shows wearing cardigan sweaters and white kid gloves. Now the Concourse is not so grand with bedding hanging out apartment windows, I  guess to dry.

20160311_111305

I  miss The Bronx and wearing mini- skirts to work at the Plaza Hotel, before Trump owned the landmark hotel. The year was 1968 and I took the D Train to 59th Street then walked five blocks to the Plaza to work as a file clerk, earning sixty dollars a week. Subway tokens were twenty cents each. On pay day, I would buy a roll of ten and save the rest to return to college, which I did after purchasing a gold crepe blouse and matching bell bottom pants at Alexander’s on Fordham Road.

20160311_110854

I still miss The Bronx and our fifth floor walk-up apartment. We took our kids on the D Train to Radio City Music Hall, the Bronx Zoo every Tuesday, the free day and of course a Sunday walk through the Botanical Gardens.

. . . . just saying

 

 

Gray Hair and Feeling Maudlin

Posted on by

5

pictures-with-quotes-96.jpg

Now that the Christmas tree is back in the box it came in, and the furniture in its proper place, I am excited to start the New Year. Our grand-kids will be visiting this week and my husband, Bob, and I plan to visit Italy in the Spring. The temperature today is sixty-five, and its sunny. Life seems good when Bob mumbles something from the living room.

After forty-seven years of marriage, I am not certain if the mumbling is to annoy me, or he has forgotten I cannot hear with the water running and question what he said, “Really? Alex Trebek is going off the air because he shaved his mustache?”

Bob is watching Jeopardy, and raises his voice to shout, “No I don’t like Alex Trebek with or without his mustache.”

There is something discerning about his tone. I turn off the water, grab a dishtowel, and join him on the couch. “I thought you liked Jeopardy.”

He continues grumbling that if the show had more categories about sports, he would know every answer, and that Alex Trebek is cheap, not giving every contestant all their earnings. I agree, second and third place contestants receive $2,000 and $1,000 respectively not their final Jeopardy winnings.

Understand, Bob can be grumpy. He sports a tattoo; one of Disney’s Seven Dwarfs, Grumpy, however this seems unusual, and I ask, “Are you feeling maudlin?”

He replies emphatically, “Yes! I just don’t know what else can go wrong!”

Surprised by his reaction, I am concerned and say, “Has something happened?”

Now, Bob has had numerous medical challenges and I joke, “He has no pancreas, no spleen, no gallbladder, no thyroid and no appendix but a full head of hair and all his own teeth.” He is a healthy man. So I ask again, “What is it?”

Hesitantly he says, “Today after golf, I showered, and like I always do, combed my hair, head down over the sink, but when I stood up the sink was full of gray hair. I am losing my hair! I can’t believe something else is wrong.”

No wonder he is feeling maudlin, the salt and pepper hair makes him look younger. However, I laugh and through uncontrollable chuckles explain the gray hair is mine, combed into the sink while cleaning my hairbrush that morning, and evidently forgot to wipe up.

“So I’m not losing my hair,” he says and relieved joins me in laughter.

I am reminded of a Betty Davis quote, “Old age is not for sissies.” She is right.

                                                                        . . . . just saying

Happy As A Clam

Posted on by

12

th

Happy as a Clam

It is 7:52 AM; I am in the kitchen having a first cup of coffee when a ding-dong alerts me a door has been opened.

In walks Mr. Wonderful, my husband of 47 years carrying an empty McDonald’s brown bag, showered, shaved, and dressed returning from lab work. I say, “Good Morning Husband” and stretch to kiss his cheek as he whizzes by dumping his cell phone and car keys on the counter exclaiming a need “to PEE.”

As the toilet flushes, he returns calmer to greet me, I ask, “How are you today?”

His reply, “Happy as a clam.”

I ponder how happy a clam might be and why . . . . then ask, “Happy as a clam because you remembered where you parked the car?”

“No,” he states emphatically and drains a dribble of coffee from an empty paper cup before tossing the used paper product in a recycling bin under the sink.

My curiosity is mounting, “Happy as a clam because you didn’t leave the engine running while you were inside Lab-Core?”

“No . . . . Happy as a clam because I didn’t have to wait.”

“Really, you had the first appointment, 6:30AM.”

“Right, but when I arrived at 6:20 the doors weren’t open, so I decided to hunt for that loose golf ball that rumbles around the car and drives you crazy.”

“You said you didn’t know what caused the sound, the car might need brakes.”

Ignoring my comment and concern, he exhales heavily, “My head was under the front seat searching, before I knew it, a van pulls up, and this aid is helping some grey hair pony tailed old goat into a wheel chair. Other people are getting out of parked cars and headed toward the door, you know tinted windows make it near impossible to see who is waiting in their cars, a line was about to form. ”

“What difference would it make if you had an appointment?”

“Claudia, be serious, if the old goat in the wheel chair is first in line they are going to take him! So I fast walked, got ahead of everyone, and when the doors opened said, Good Morning, I have the first appointment at 6:30. The nurse asked if I was fasting, I said yes, but first I had to PEE! That’s why I’m happy as a clam; I was out of there and having breakfast at McDonald’s, lickidy split”

My Mr. Wonderful is wearing a look of glee as I recap the situation, “So you are feeling happy as a clam because at the crack of dawn, you beat out an older than you senior in a wheel chair to have blood work.”

His good mood is alluringly infectious, but I question, “Can a clam be happy, really?”

Mr. Wonderful’s response . . . . “Sure at high tide, with their shell closed they’re smiling,” and proceeds to demonstrate his own delight with a tight lipped grin.

.  .  .  . just saying