Rethink Possible

An article in today's Wall Street Journal bemoans the fate of many older Americans who are forced to put off or even postpone retirement because of huge debts, the largest one being a home mortgage. The dilemma brings to mind two questions, both of which deserve further examination.

1. What's so great about retirement?
Doing nothing every day is not my idea of a good time. I know, I know--there's golf to be played and movies to be watched and all-you-can-eat buffet lunches to be eaten and cruises to be taken. Except for the golf, which seems like an excellent way to spend time, exercising in the great outdoors and stimulating the brain as well, the other pursuits should be kept to a minimum. Then what? Seems to me that having a reason to get up in the morning and a place to go and contribute to the world outside your own four walls is the only way to stave off dementia, sagging muscle tone and creeping ignorance of today's culture.  Yet retirement is the goal of so many, and not just old folks--we all know people who start dreaming of it in their thirties. If you have a job you enjoy, that's a leg up for sure, but really, how hard is "work" anyway? (See photo.)

2. Why do so many people buy homes?
Just like the idea that a college education will to lead to a charmed life, somewhere long ago the idea was implanted that having your own home is the realization of The American Dream. Whose dream, exactly? What's wrong with renting a nice little place, or even a nice big place if you can afford it, and letting someone else fix the plumbing and pay the property taxes and replace the roof and--well, you see where I'm going with this. Watch "The Money Pit" for the rest of the story; besides being the funniest movie Tom Hanks ever made, it puts home ownership in the proper perspective.

None of the preceding applies to the rich, for whom retirement means travel to exotic destinations, or to coal miners, who surely deserve to stop doing that and lay around as much as they want.

Happy Nine Eleven

Get ready, it's coming: That giant white cloud of smoke and ash squeezing around the corner between two skyscrapers will be filling your TV screens in just five days. It's that time of year again, when we celebrate a dark moment from the past, in part to make money for the advertisers. And the other part? I'm clueless, so please fill me in.

This year's 9/11 celebration promises to be bigger and better than ever: It's the 10th Anniversary! There's some new footage, the memorial is almost, not quite, close to being finally finished and a battery of survivors have each come out with "my story" in book form. So much to do! So much to see! Anderson Cooper is surely choosing his outfit as I write this.

Hair Gets Old Too

It's hard for me to forget I'm aging since Hillary Clinton is exactly my age---okay, so she's younger, but only by months. Anyway, lately she looks really old. Every time I see her on the news, I wonder to myself, do I look that old? Add to that my 23-year-old son, who just left after a short visit, saying,  "No offense but you're old," daily for the past week, usually as the prologue to an explanation of why whatever I just said had absolutely no merit. This was troubling, since I'd rather my ideas have no merit because I'm clueless or ignorant or just plain stupid.

He's right, of course: I really do go to bed by eleven and I really don't want to go out clubbing and I really do prefer my generation's music to all others, except for Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin who I always have time for. Not only that, but I've been known to take a stool softener--sue me. Besides, the worst thing you can do is try to fake it. Be your age, dammit! It's embarrassing when I see my peers clinging to their lost youth. I want to run up to them and shout, "It's not working!" For example, lately Hillary has been letting her hair grow long. If it's a ploy to hide the scars of an impending face lift, all is forgiven and I envy her courage, otherwise she should just take a good look in the mirror and see that her flowing blond locks just don't cut it....no pun intended.

Yesterday I had most of my hair buzzed off. Now, instead of matronly and dowdy I look trendy and maybe a tad gay. Either one is better than grasping.

The Child is Father to the Man...or Woman

My son has been visiting for the past few days, which is a treat but also sort of a downer. He is 23 and, wise in the ways of the world, has no qualms about pointing out how little I know. He loves me but makes it quite clear that I am old and nearing the end of my useful life as a teacher. That's fine with me, since I hate teaching but remain an eager student.

One thing Zack taught me yesterday is that it is simply not cool to write anything personal on Facebook; it is merely a marketing tool to sell one's art or business or what have you. This suits me fine as I rarely divulge anything there, and instead just post a link to this blog, so I guess I'm pretty sharp in that area! Another thing he is trying to teach me is the ins and outs of hip-hop. This is good, since he writes and performs hip-hop music, and I must admit I am stymied as to how to appreciate all those songs by famous and successful hip-hoppers with lyrics like "Fuck that bullshit, nigga," which I find less than melodic than say, "Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars."

It turns out my mistake was in thinking it is a genre of music, but it is not. That was yesterday's lesson, and that's all I know so far, but it certainly helped, since lowered expectations often significantly improve any situation and make it seem better, as in, "Oh, this is supposed to taste bad. Well then, it's perfect."

I May Throw Up

There is a new apartment building in New York City that has an elevator for your car, allowing you to drive to your front door even though it's in a skyscraper. The "En Suite Sky Garage" saves the wear and tear on your leg muscles caused by walking from a traditional parking garage elevator to your apartment door, adding perhaps days to your life in the long run. But perks like this don't come cheap: Units in the building are in the area of six million. Film star Nicole Kidman bought one, which is surprising since you'd think she would have exhausted her fortune on all that plastic surgery--her top lip alone could probably pay for my son's law school. (No, he's not going but I can dream, can't I?)

I wonder how people think this stuff up, then how they have the guts to share their ideas with someone, then how they all decide to go forward with the idea, when half the world is starving. Does having oodles of money totally wipe out three-quarters of your brain along with all of your conscience, or just all of your conscience?

It Takes All Kinds

This morning I stopped at the post office to get my mail and had to make my way around two people who stood talking smack dab in the middle of the doorway. They were so deep in conversation, or so rude, that they didn't budge, forcing me to literally squeeze by to get inside. The woman was telling a story about someone who had come "running down the steps and out the front door, screaming like a banshee!" They both laughed heartily at that. The man had a very large handlebar mustache, making me think he must have had a difficult childhood.

The whole experience got me thinking about how people are all so different and yet all so alike. The woman had said someone was screaming like a banshee, but before she even said "banshee" and had just said "screaming like," my own brain filled in the word banshee and out it came from her mouth, even though I am clueless as to what a banshee is and why it is always screaming. I wondered if the woman knew the answer to either question.

As for the man, I couldn't imagine what possible reason one could have for walking around looking so ridiculous, and so when I got home I searched online and found that there is a club for men with such mustaches, and a Facebook fan page, and all sorts of apparatus for taking care of them. Apparently they are very popular with a lot of men both here and abroad, although I can't imagine why since they look silly and require so much care, what with the washing and waxing and shaping and trimming. It's sort of like wearing a pet on your face.

As for the banshee, it turns out it's a female supernatural being in Irish and other Celtic folklore whose mournful wailing, screaming or lamentation at night was believed to foretell the death of a member of the family of the person who heard the spirit. Or else maybe she just saw a man with a dumb handlebar mustache.

A Different Perspective

I smoked for 40 years, give or take time off for good behavior. During that time I thought it made perfect sense to carry around a pack of little tubes of tobacco and lighters and books of matches. I didn't find it at all odd to light the end of the little tube and suck the resulting fumes into my lungs. I accepted the yellowish lump on the left side of my right middle finger as no big deal. Since I finally quit smoking five years ago, all of those things seem crazy. Sometimes, stopped momentarily at a traffic light, I'll see a woman smoking in the car next to me and wonder, "what the heck is that?"

It's the same with dogs. When I owned a dog I thought it was perfectly reasonable to walk him several times a day, watching him pee on other people's flowers, all the while carrying around a plastic bag with which to pick up his feces which I then deposited back home in the trash. I never questioned the hauling of huge bags of kibble from the grocery store, or the barking at midnight at a passing squirrel, or the begging at the table or the scaring of little children or the fighting with the other dogs in the neighborhood, all of whom run free because after all this is Maine, the way life should be, even for its animals.

But now my dog is dead and I watch all these dog shenanigans and wonder, "what the heck is that?" My friend Polly, who lives across the street, got a new puppy a few months ago. Since then her life has revolved around him, what with the training and the walking and the playing and the neutering and the invisible fence with the shock collar...good thing she's retired because raising Bailey is a full-time job. And for what? Remind me.

This morning two neighborhood dogs, big black labs that are usually innocuous, raised a violent ruckus on my back deck because my cat, an elderly gentleman who can barely walk, happened to be lying in the morning sun, as is certainly his right. I arrived in time to save Gizmo from two sets of jaws and certain death, or at least major discomfort for him and a huge vet bill for me. I told those mean old black dogs to go home, although in much stronger language. And I wondered what those dogs are for, anyway.

Will You Kindly Shut Up?

This morning I attended an orientation meeting for a volunteer position at a local hospital. Besides me there were seven other volunteers and the group leader. We were seated at a round conference table and directed to, in turn, introduce ourselves and explain why we were hoping to volunteer.  Each person spoke for about a minute. Then came the guy right before me, who told us his life story and his wife's life story and all about his wife's last days and how she was his soul mate and he's retired and she had COPD and he watched her die, but at the same time he had leukemia and was on chemotherapy and she died on the last day of his chemo and now he is in remission and it was so horrible and he's not getting any younger and then about his seven grandchildren and his fourteen grandchildren and two more in the oven, until I wanted to wring his scrawny little neck, but of course I did not and nobody else did either, and despite all the shuffling of feet and looking at watches and rolling of eyes, he went on and on. I wanted to say "This is not group therapy," but of course I did not.

Some people talk too much and don't even notice that you are not listening anymore, which is very rude if you ask me.  When this happens during a phone call you can at least be productive while the person self-indulges. My friend Nancy was one of those, and when she called I would just continue with my cooking or painting or washing the floor or even watching TV with the mute button on, every so often weighing in with an "uh-huh" or a "no kidding!" and she was quite happy. Once I hinted at the problem and never heard from her again, and that was three years ago so I think she was offended. Try as you might, there's simply no nice way to say "shut up!" But when the overly verbose natter on about this and that in the flesh, forcing innocent bystanders to witness the random thoughts spilling out of their brains onto the sidewalk, it's a different story altogether.

If you know someone who talks too much, help them stop. You could even get them an iPhone App called a Talk-o-Meter that will prove they talk too much, and avoid that nasty ending I had with Nancy. Check it out at http://www.talk-o-meter.de/e/.

Going Crackers

What with the Mormons and their underwear and the Jews with their prayer shawls and the Catholics with their crackers--that religion sure is some crazy stuff. As you can tell, I'm not buying any of it. In fact, my derision of all that mumbo-jumbo ended a friendship when my friend of 30 years felt dissed by me about communion wafers.

I last saw Richard, an increasingly devout Catholic, about two years ago in Seattle, where we both had traveled to spend several days together. Most of our time was passed reminiscing in cafes and visiting all the churches in the city. Since I'm an architecture fan I didn't mind the odd tour, but eventually our conversation turned to religion. I asked Richard if he truly believed in all that "stuff." He said yes. I asked if he believed that when he ate the little cracker the priest gave him he was actually ingesting part of the body of Christ. He thought for a long time before answering and finally said, "Yes, and please don't call it a cracker." I howled. I think it was the howling that upset him. Anyway, since millions of believers go to church and eat those little crackers thinking they are the body of Christ, along with a sip of wine that is the blood of Christ, I thought I'd see where they come from. Could it be Heaven?

It's not. Instead, a company called Almy does a thriving business, with a showroom in Connecticut and a factory right here in Maine--who knew? I was stunned to learn that besides the regular body-of-Christ wafers there are now also whole wheat body-of-Christ-wafers, as well gluten-free body-of-Christ wafers. (That Jesus, he sure does keep up with the times.) On their website, they write: "Communion Bread is the body of Christ, the bread of heaven. Almy offers a large selection of pure, simple wheat hosts and, also, gluten-free wafers for communicants with dietary restrictions." 

A box of 50 gluten-free body-of-Christ wafers costs $12.05, but the whole wheat and the plain white each are available in boxes of 1000. The whole wheat will run you around $24.00, the plain white around $18.00. Well worth it, if you ask me. Have them sent right to your door and you can sleep in on Sundays and still be saved. Such a deal!

Cats R Us

I'm thinking that come winter, I'm going to plunk my two cranky old cats down on an ice floe in the Casco Bay, give it a push and let them float out to sea like the Eskimos do, except they really don't--in fact, the last reported case of Eskimo senilicide was in 1939. (Oh no, you're thinking, not another post about her cats.)

The cats are both 16 years old. They are in excellent health thanks to my unwavering devotion all these years, and my reward is that I now have to withstand their plaintive wailing due to arthritis, excessive peeing due to kidney problems, and constant begging for snacks out of just plain boredom. They no longer even walk fast--forget the adorable cavorting, gamboling and frolicking. Their lives are all about meowing for food, making a mess in the litter boxes, and crying at the door to either go outside or come back in.  Throw in their mutual jealousy over who gets the most laptime and it's no picnic for any of us. But the very worst part is the daily reminder of where I'm heading, as if I need another one in our youth-obsessed culture.

Recently one of my columns was printed in our local paper, sparking a lively online political debate until I mentioned my age, at which point things turned nasty. I then became fodder for jokes about being an "over-the-hill granny" from the days of Herbert Hoover, and what the heck could I know about anything going on now? Once again, society's hatred of and disrespect towards "senior citizens" reared its ugly head, which now seems even uglier because I am one, and I'm not even old yet. I can still walk and feed myself; heck, I still frolic and cavort. How bad is it for those folks who can't?

Very old people, those well beyond the Botox years, do exist in our society. We rarely see them, except of course when they reach 100 and get a cake at the nursing home and maybe, if it's a slow news day, their picture in the paper blowing out the candles. The sad truth is if that if we live well and take really good care of ourselves, we'll surely end up being the butt of jokes and a burden to someone. Seems to me that should change. For starters, perhaps I'll go get some catnip and maybe even a can of real people white Albacore tuna for my darling kitties.

When Hurricanes Kill

That mean old Hurricane Irene, a killer storm that, according to reporters who all use the same thesaurus, has been churning and roaring up the East Coast for days, is now on the wane after allegedly causing the deaths of many people.

In defense of Mother Nature, I ask--how exactly does a hurricane kill? Let us count the ways:

1. A sleeping child in Virginia was crushed by a tree crashing through the roof of his house.
2. A N. Carolina passenger died in a car crash at an intersection where traffic lights were out.
3. A N. Carolina man walking about in the storm was crushed by a flying tree limb.
4. A passenger died in a car crushed by a falling tree in Virginia.
5. A S. Carolina man had a heart attack while boarding up his windows in the storm.
6. A Florida surfer drowned in heavy waves.

Not to be too nit-picky, but it seems to me that all those deaths were suicides, except for the sleeping child. As for the surfer, rescuers aren’t sure if the blow to his head that did him in was from his surfboard of if he hit the bottom of the ocean floor; either way, it clearly was not the hurricane that killed him. Just like guns don't kill people, hurricanes rarely come after you. They do blow things around and make things fall over, but since Man comes equipped with two eyes and hurricanes only have one, we can be tricky and hide from them. So what I plan to do, as I sit in the path of that oncoming killer storm, is to stay inside. (I wish my parents were alive so I could remind them of when they sent me out into Hurricane Donna. Bet they'd be sorry.)