Aging Gracefully – Page 2 – The Monica Chronicles

June 20, 2014

How Do You Know When It’s Time to Step Down?

Frustration As a child I was always taught to respect my elders. I learned to listen carefully to those older than myself and not question their decisions or ideas. The seeds of deference were sown, fertilized and carefully cultivated; wild shoots were “nipped in the bud.” This was the way I was until two points of history converged: my becoming a teenager and 1968. Practically overnight, as if a switch had been turned in my brain, I began to question everything. The world had turned from the homey black and white world of “Father Knows Best” and “The Donna Reed Show” into the ugly “living color” of the Vietnam war, the Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy assassinations and Watts riots on the evening news. There was a lot to think about and come to terms with.

Looking back at my life, I can see that I have learned to combine the two concepts. I approach life from the standpoint of questioning the status quo but in doing so, I always try to respect my elders. I am just not one to accept the concept of “we’ve always done it this way” because just as never is a long time, always can be gone in the blink of an eye.

Recently I have found myself conflicted on the question of when one becomes an elder. Although my heart and mind are still the same as they were when I was a young adult, albeit a much wiser version of my other self, the reality is that I will turn 59 in a couple of months. Does that make me old enough to be a peer of the other elders or will I be perpetually deferring to those older than myself?

I’ve discovered that sometimes the older a person gets, the harder they clamp on to placement in their community. If they chair a committee, they won’t step down. If they perform a specific task in an office, school or church, they do not welcome outside help. It can be very frustrating to us younger-elders, still waiting for a chance to step up like Prince Charles, wondering if he’ll very become king! The sad thing is that if people my age won’t be given the opportunity to step up, is it any wonder that our young people aren’t even bothering to try? They probably look at us and figure they have a good twenty to thirty years to go before anyone will ever want them to become involved.

At a time when folks are living longer and more productive lives, there should be more intergenerational sharing of roles. We elders need to make sure we are including those younger folk in all of our activities and let them carry some of the load. We also need to remember the fact that if we’re doing a job that we think nobody else will do, it may be because we’re standing in their way.

May 7, 2014

It Isn’t Easy Being My Father’s Daughter

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I’ve never been the kind of woman who has waited for their husband to come home to install curtain rods or handle common home repairs.

Growing up in the Farner household meant there was little distinction between who could learn to use tools if the interest was there. My parents very handy and as I’ve proclaimed on more than one occasion, could fix anything. My father was gifted with pliers, coat hangers and black electrical tape while my mother’s talents lay in cloth and yarn. As children, watching the two of them work their magic and then later assisting them, it would have been inconceivable that we could have fledged our nest without better than average mechanical skills. While I enjoyed playing house with my dollies, I was just as happy building with the Tinker Toys, Lego’s, Lincoln Logs and my brothers’ Erector sets.

By the time I moved out on my own, I knew what most common tools were by name and what they were used for. Whenever I encountered hardware that needed replacement or adjustment; from door knobs to hinges, I would simply grab a screwdriver and take it apart. Most of the time I was successful.

My husband, Dave, did not have the same type of childhood experience as I did. His father was born with cerebral palsy and his mother was a business professional. Whenever a repair needed to be done around their home, a handy-man was called in. Today he claims that everything he’s learned about home repair he’s learned from me. It’s a sweet accolade but also a tiresome burden.

My mechanical skills, coupled with our early married life as a Navy family have resulted in my being the “go-to” person for my home repair items that many women would have simply reserved for their husbands. If I’d had to wait for Dave to come home to have some tasks completed, I would have waited months. Besides, I liked doing most little jobs like painting and wall papering. Installing curtain rods were hardly a challenge.

Fast forward almost forty years and despite his retirement from military service, I am still pretty much the go-to gal for most of the little repairs around the house. For the most part, I still enjoy the work with one major exception, plumbing.

A couple of weeks ago I took it upon myself to switch out the flow valve from our downstairs powder room. I don’t know why but there seems to be correlation between toilet gut failure and the space in which the toilet sits: the tighter the space, the more apt the guts will need replacing. And so it was with the powder room.

With only ten inches or so of working space, I contorted myself around the side of the tank, twisting my spine in ways it really doesn’t like to go anymore. The process itself was pretty straightforward. Despite the fact this was a high-tech flow valve designed to provide dual flushing modes, in the end, all guts are pretty much installed the same way and all instructions say the same thing, “hand tighten only, do not over tighten.”

This is the biggest challenge with toilet valve replacement, finding the proper amount of tightness between not enough and too much. In the past, I have positioned a folded paper towel under the tank under the water cut off to check for drips. I don’t know why I didn’t this time, but I didn’t. I just walked away and forgot about it until the other day when I reached for the last roll of toilet paper it the stand in the corner and was surprised to find it swollen and damp on the bottom. Further investigation revealed a puddle of water around the toilet and surrounding hardwood floor stained and slightly buckled. Crap!

I turned off the water supply, mopped up the floor, set up a fan and walked away. Dave knew I didn’t want to do my contortionist act again and said he’d take a look at it “later” and then headed for the backyard, where his passion really lies. After several hours I realized “later” was going to be a lot later than I’d hoped for so I decided to just get it done myself. An hour or so later, having repeating the steps I’ve done many times before, the valve was re-seated, tightened and a paper towel tucked under the water cut off valve. Five days later there are no signs of drips. Yeah!

It isn’t always easy being my father’s daughter, ready to take on household repairs when most women would defer to their husbands, sons or handyen. I was raised to believe that women able to anything a man can, where physical strength will allow and I take pride in the jobs I do. As I age though, and some jobs seem more of an annoyance than challenge, I think I will let Dave take care of it; by calling a plumber and writing a check . Then maybe I can get some time to play in the yard as well.

January 3, 2014

Oh, To See My Grandma Dance!

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A couple of days ago my cousin Rick posted this short video clip on Facebook taken twenty-six years ago at his wedding reception featuring my Grandma Farner on the dance floor. As it begins, Grandma is dancing with my Dad to the song, “Misty”. Soon my Uncle Ronnie came up and tapped him on the shoulder to cut in, followed by their brother Bob then my cousin, Rob and his brothers, our cousins, etc., etc., etc. as if they were lined up of screen to dance with Grandma; each taking a few turns with her before being tapped on the shoulder by the next.

It is such a sweet scene and to say I was enchanted by it would be an understatement. Aside from the fact Grandma’s been gone for many years, I’d never seen her dance before! Mesmerized, I tapped the start arrow over and over again to catch a glimpse of the family gathering one more time with Grandma gliding across the dance floor in the arms of some of the men in her life who loved her very much.

More than a few times this week, I’ve sat here at my desk, blank screen before me, attempting to wax poetically about the experience of seeing these people so dear to me in a way that fully expressed my feelings and emotions but it’s been tough. Since Rick’s wedding, we’ve said goodbye to several of the featured “stars”. Grandma, my uncles, Bob, Ronnie and Bruce and my Beautiful Aunt Dorothy, Rick’s mother, have all passed on to the next life. Being able to see them for even a few seconds, to recharge my memories was a Christmas miracle to me and a priceless gift.

It was like peeking into heaven; a grainy vision of family celebrating family, smiling and dancing, and mostly, loving. I’ve always imagined heaven to be something like that. In my mind’s eye, I see my grandparents sitting at their kitchen table, with Grandpa in his chair at the head and Grandma at his side, in close proximity to the stove. As each family member passes on, I see them entering the kitchen from the side porch door, grabbing the coffee mug with their name on it from the shelves on the wall and then joining Grandma and Grandpa at the table for some coffee. The room is warm, everyone is happy. What could be more perfect?

Thanks Rick for sharing that little glimpse of your special day. I can’t really say I miss the people in the video who have passed, because I feel them with me all the time; we are all woven from the same cloth. But to see them, to be reminded again was so precious. There just aren’t words.

November 18, 2013

Did I Play Football? I Can’t Remember….

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This morning in an interview on Today, Brett Favre spoke to Matt Lauer about some of the symptoms he’s experienced that may be a result of the head trauma received during his time as a football player, both as a professional as well as in his earlier years. A couple of the symptoms he mentioned were the loss of memory, the inability to finish a sentence or to locate a word in his mind while speaking. These are all very vexing symptoms, and I certainly don’t mean to make light of his condition or that of scores of other former professional football players. Head injuries are nothing to joke about, but hearing these symptoms, it makes me wonder about my own brain.

I have never been sacked. In fact, I’ve only ever played football about a handful of times. That was more like goofing around in the yard with my brother and some other neighborhood boys in my tween years. Then it was fun to be tackled, but I don’t remember any head injuries, just tumbling and giggling. In fact, the only real head injury I can recall was when I ran into the clothesline pole head-on during a game of tag resulting in an impressive “goose egg” on my forehead. Nevertheless, I too have experienced gaps in my memory, the inability to finish sentences and the frequent grope for the right word in conversation. Writing comes much easier to me.

Word groping is not new for me. In high school I was tasked with introducing a state official to a school assembly who was an advocate of lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 (yes, believe it or not, back in the day you had to be 21 in order to vote). Unfortunately, as I stood at the podium, the word “advocate” fled my brain and the only replacement I could come up with was “pusher”. Consequently, I introduced the poor man as a pusher. Believe me, in the ’70s, no respectable person wanted to be referred to as a pusher. He joked about it and got a laugh, but I disappeared off stage with a very red face.

My daughter, Maggie can attest to the fact that I sometimes drift of mid-though and mid-sentence. Usually it’s because my ADD has kicked in and I’ve been distracted; the needle playing the record in my brain has skipped a couple of tracks. Although it is a part of who I am, I find the whole thing irritating.

The lost memories are the worse. Occasionally one of the kids will tell a story from their childhood about something I said or did and I draw a complete blank. I hate it when that happens because I worry that I wasn’t fully present to them. I’d like to think I was fully aware of my life as a young mother, but I honestly can’t remember much except I was very busy and slept really well – when everyone was healthy.

I suppose my real question is what has caused my symptoms? Did my collision with the clothesline pole alter my brain in such a way that I suffer a similar brain condition as pro football players? Probably not. In fact, if you were to gather a group of women my age; give or take a few years, you’d most like hear the same complaints. Many of us drift, we forget and none of us can find the right word.

So, if this is the case, are these repeated head injuries turning these big, burly men into middle-aged women? Maybe that’s where the expression “knocking sense” into someone came from. Now that’s something to ponder!

October 24, 2013

It’s Been a Hard A’s Plight!

Several weeks ago while I was out buying my fall pansies, the gal tallying my bill looked at me and asked, “Michigan or Wisconsin?” At first I thought she was asking if I was rooting for a particular college football team. Then it hit me, she was inquiring about my accent. “Neither,” I replied, “it’s Western New York.” “Really,” she asked, “I didn’t know it went that far east. I thought it stopped at Chicago.” Having assured her that the accent indeed went at least as far east as Syracuse and paying for my pansies, I began to contemplate the wonders of language and linguistics. I hadn’t quite reached my car when it struck me; the accent hadn’t travelled east, it actually went west with the pioneers. At least that’s my theory.

Because I spent my ea’drly years in the Niagara Frontier of western New York State, I wasn’t aware that we had an accent. Everyone around me sounded the same. Occasionally on TV I’d hear a foreign accent, usually German, English or French (there were lots of programs set in the second world war) or a Southern drawl as the Centennial of American Civil War coincided with my childhood. Then of course, there was JFK’s New England accent. But as far as I was concerned, unless you lived in the south or New England, all Americans spoke English and sounded pretty much the same as I did.

Then, in the middle of sixth grade, my family pioneered down south to New Jersey, moving not far from Philadelphia. Again, it was television that made me aware that other people sounded different from the way we did. One local commercial in particular that my tickled my brothers and sisters and I for a business called, “Jerry Green’s Mirror World”. Jerry promised he could “beeeuuuuteeefi any room in your home” with wall to wall mirrors. We found the way Jerry said beautify so amusing that we would try to imitate him at the dinner table, the perfect stage for that kind of family entertainment.

Of course, the flip side of this experience was when I became aware that my peers were aware that I had not only had an accent but used funny words for things. The most noticeable was that I used the word “pop” for “soda”. Believe me, age twelve is not the time in life to be singled out as different from the kids in your class. No one wanted to be singled out as “queer”, which in those days still referred to being a bit odd.

It was easy to begin substituting words into the correct vernacular, but losing my hard a’s was not so easy. I had great incentive too. My best friend Patty Diamond had an older brother, Joe, who perversely delighted every time I called her and he answered the phone. I would politely ask, “Is Pat there?” and he would respond by shouting through their house, “Payaaaat, telephone!” mocking my hard “a” pronunciation. No twelve-year-old girl on the brink of puberty wants to be taunted by her best friend’s cute older brother. A change had to be made to help me stay under the radar. So, I spent hours practicing saying Pat’s name with a softer “a”, repeating, “Is Pat there? Is Pat there? Is Pat there?” over and over until I was sure I had it right.

Map of Hard A After my latest encounter with the sales girl at the garden center, I thought I’d do some minimal research into my accent. I discovered that it actually has a name; Inland Northern American English. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Northern_American_English). The map* to the left illustrates the area of the US where people who sound like me come from. I come from a land up over, where lake effect snow is a winter reality, where we drink pop, get water from the faucet and pronounce, “Mary, merry and marry” all the same. The hard “a’s” are our way of maintaining our heritage, our link to our starting points.

Over the years, my “a’s” have softened. Having now lived most of my life in Virginia with short stints in Rhode Island and Hawaii, I’m sure other words and sounds have snuck into my accent. That is until of course, I find myself in a room full of relatives and other INAE speakers. Then my “a’s” harden and sharpen and I delight in hearing the familiar vowels of my childhood. As always, it’s a good thing to remember where I came from.

*map copied from Wikipedia.org

October 15, 2013

Adjusting

Debbie (left) and me (right) in the days when it was okay to put baby in a corner!

My cousin Debbie is a treasure. We were born just a couple of weeks apart, lived in the same town and went to the same school for most of our elementary days. Here you see us sharing the same playpen. When we were little, we’d have great fun at our Grandma Farner’s house when the clan was gathered together. When we weren’t sampling Grandma’s talcum powder in the upstairs bathroom, we’d investigate her drawers, closets and attics for interesting stuff. No one seemed to mind our snooping. The one thing that generally yielded a shout up the stairwell to “KNOCK IT OFF!!” was when we practiced our “tap dancing” on the linoleum floor covering in Grandma’s front bedroom which sat above the living room. Our Sunday patent leather maryjanes made such a lovely sound on that hard linoleum, but there is no accounting for taste, is there?

Just before my tenth birthday, my family moved away from our hometown and only returned for vacations in the summer. I didn’t see Debbie as much after that and when we did, my awkward shyness held me back from seeking her out. (Yes, I was shy!)

It’s only been in recent years and through the wonders of Facebook that we’ve picked up where we started. As I get to know her again, as a grown-up, I am amazed at how much we have in common. Lately we’ve both been dealing with our husbands’ health and she’s been sending weekly letters to friends and family sharing her thoughts and experiences as she and her husband Bill travel an uncertain road. She writes so well that I asked her if I could share her words with you. (I think she should begin her own blog.)

So, without further ado, let me introduce you to my wonderful cousin, Debra Farner Hughes:

We all make adjustments all the time. We put a sweater on, then take it off, turn the radio up then down, open the window, then shut it. We switch channels, we turn the mirrors on the car, move the seat, all to fit our requirements. We do things without even thinking to make adjustments.

In the past 3 months, we have made lots of adjustments. Some of the time, they were ones that made us very happy, some not so much, but all were necessary.

Bill and I never had a set of “jobs” we do at home, there are no tasks either of us would not do. Well, I would rather not clean the cat boxes but I have done it when I had to. He has also written a check or two to pay a bill, but other than those things, jobs were just that, something someone needs to get done. He just as easily would vacuum or do the dishes as I would. Mowing the lawn is a favorite of mine and he never made me feel like it was his job.

But lately, we have had to make adjustments. This time of year we always have lot of branches and twigs that need to be broken into kindling for the wood burning stove that makes our family room a cozy place to be. We have always loved autumn with the changing colors that surround us and we never looked at the kindling as a chore.

Bill loves music so he had always routinely added one of his favorite cd’s to our tasks, making it a much more pleasurable experience, no matter what it was. Ever since the first of July, our tasks, no matter what they were, driving in the car to chemo or doctors, cleaning the house, walking the cats (yes, he walks the cats) there has been no music. I miss it. He only plays music when he is happy. I learned to live with the quietness in the car, in the house, in the yard. I adjusted, it was something that was taken from us when cancer came to stay. Evil cancer, evil, evil cancer.

So Saturday when we went to do our yearly breaking of the branches, Bill only was able to sit on a bench break a few, but I was thrilled he was with me trying his best. I was not surprised when he was tired and needed to retire, leaving me with a huge mound of branches to handle alone. I looked at the pile and thought how he must have felt about leaving me to do it myself, but I refused to give in to my fatigue so I lived up to his funny nickname he gave me, Little Mighty. That day, I produced 4 barrels of kindling. I am learning to do things alone. It is not how I want it to be but I am adjusting.

Just when I start getting used to the new normal, he does it again. He started singing! He put music on and started to sing, powerfully sing and it is from his soul. If you never really heard him sing, you have missed a great set of vocals. His gruffly voice is something that you would not expect to produce such a beautiful sound, but it does, and when he feels the emotion the song is meant for, now that is amazing. So he spent part of today putting together a cd that he could sing his heart out to when we had yet another adjustment. He is currently sitting in the infusion center and getting 2 units of blood, something he has not had to do before. I just glanced at him, reading his book on a high school football team and listening to a soccer game simultaneously, so Bill.

He has learned to live with cancer. He has learned to walk outside with his chemo pump on and not feel like he has to sit indoors for the 48 hours it takes to administer the drugs that are going to let him live with this. He has learned to smile again and to talk to people. He played 9 holes of golf, came home exhausted but oh so happy. He has adjusted to being a cancer patient, but it is not who he is anymore. He is Bill, who happens to have cancer but has chosen to live again. And now, He sings, thank you God for letting him sing and letting me see him again.

Debbie and I at our First Holy Communion

I told you she could write! Must be in the genes; something else I’m so very glad we share! Love you cuz.

October 1, 2013

Men (and Women) of An Uncertain Age

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Yesterday, in the wee hours of the morning, Dave and I drove into town. It was still very dark. With no street lights in our neighborhood, we had only the light of our headlights to guide us to the highway. At the very last bend in the road, a doe and two young fawns stood in the shadows of the shoulder; a peaceful reminder of God’s presence in our lives on our early morning drive. We rode quietly through the dark, there were no words to say, only silent prayers.

For the past several weeks, since our day in the emergency room before Maggie and Jan’s wedding, Dave has been seeing a cardiologist almost weekly; being wired and monitored, X-rayed and trotted on a treadmill to more clearly determine the source of his chest pain. It was finally decided that there was an improper firing in the left ventricle of his heart most likely caused by poor blood flow. Yesterday morning we drove to Martha Jefferson Hospital, the “most beautiful hospital in America” for a heart catheterization and possible implanting of stents to correct the problem.

Although this procedure is routine to the doctors and staff at the hospital, wires threaded through arteries and up to the heart are definitely not routine for Dave and me. Friday morning we had an appointment with the head catheterization nurse to go over the procedure and answer any questions we might have. Mel provided a blow-by-blow, step-by-step explanation of what would happen the day of the “cath” and even let us handle some of the tools the surgeon would use. I think Dave entered the “TMI” zone a bit and left a little more uneasy than we arrived. We spent the weekend quietly contemplating “what ifs” and praying.

We’ve held this information pretty quiet since it started, sharing only on a “need to know basis”. It’s been a lot for us to take in. Dave is otherwise in really good health; we eat well and get regular exercise. But, apparently, no matter how young we feel or look, the truth is that we are indeed getting older and our bodies are feeling it. Which is what brought us to Martha Jefferson Hospital so early in the morning.

Not long after we checked in with the information station, a nurse came out and called Dave’s name. I went back with him for a few moments as the prep began but soon excused myself and left him in their hands. My prep was over; I had come armed with my I Pad, knitting and a Sudoku book. All that was left for me was wait and pray.

Fortunately, I wasn’t alone. Last week my friend Carol called and asked if I’d like her to sit with me. My first thought was to politely decline her generous offer; I could handle it on my own. Then I thought, what if something goes wrong, would I want to handle that alone? Definitely not. I accepted Carol’s offer and true to her word, she arrived not long after Dave went in for his procedure.

We didn’t have long to wait. In less than an hour, an alert and smiling Dave was wheeled out of the treatment area and past the table where we were sitting. He saw Carol first. “Hi Carol!” he said. We were both surprised and relieved to see him so soon and looking so good. Carol gave me a hug goodbye and I followed Dave and his entourage down the corridor.

Not long after settling into the room, his surgeon arrived. Using the back of piece of paper on the bedside table, he drew a diagram of Dave’s heart and showed us where the blockages were. He implanted two stents in Dave’s Right Coronary Artery to improve blood flow to the heart. There were two smaller vessels that were completely blocked but his body had taken action by creating new blood vessels to keep blood flowing into the left side of his heart. Isn’t that amazing? With proper diet and exercise as well as medication, he said Dave could return to normal activities very soon.

The rest of yesterday was pretty unremarkable. As hospitals go, Martha Jefferson in a gem. All the rooms are private and the accommodations include pull-out beds so that family members can stay if they choose. I had planned on staying but Dave was doing so well and I felt he was in good hands so I decided to come home and sleep in my own bed. After all, no one gets a good night’s sleep in the hospital. So shortly after dinner, I headed home to my girls.

When I arrived this morning, Dave was chomping on the bit to be released. It was only a couple of hours, but it seemed like an eternity until his cardiologist stopped by to give him his marching orders. In the meantime, we walked the halls and watched reruns of “The Dick VanDyke Show” and “I Love Lucy” on TV Land. Eventually she came and gave him the green light. After grabbing a quick-lunch in the cafeteria, we were on the way home.

Here at home little seems to have changed in our lives. The cats are still here, the kitchen still needs tidying and the mail was waiting in the box at the end of the drive. The place hasn’t changed, but we have been changed in a fundamental way. No longer can we claim our youth by our reflections in the mirror. We are certainly aging and we’ve been reminded in a tangible way that out lives are finite. It is a bitter pill to swallow, and not one that most of us willingly embrace. Oh yeah, getting older is great when you’re waiting to get your driver’s license, buy your first legal drink or go off to college but add a few decades of age onto that same person and it’s not so much fun anymore. The life milestones we’re waiting for are not as much fun and no so certain.

I don’t mean to sound morbid. I’m not really going to make many changes in my life other than to take a little better care of the machinery that is my body. If anything, I want to live each day more fully. I don’t necessarily want to do more, but instead be more aware of what I am doing, and who I’m doing it with. As Ferris Bueller said, “Life comes at you pretty fast. If you’re not careful, you could miss it.” And I don’t want to miss any of it!

September 4, 2013

Falling Through the Cracks

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For the past several weeks Dave has been burning the candle at both ends, working on a proposal for a contract. It’s the same old drill we’ve gone through every September as the DOD scrambles to allot the remaining budgeted dollars for the current fiscal year before it ends on October 1st. So, our traditional Labor Day celebration consists of Dave working the entire weekend while I hang around the house not doing much of anything.

This year, he is really under the gun because this proposal is due this coming Monday and Maggie’s wedding is in three days. Even though his workmates are ready and willing to give him a hand, he wants to ensure the proposal is in good shape before he hands it over to them. Combine that with our extra vigilance in regards to his health, and the stress level increases exponentially. I’ve been pitching in to carry his load of household chores but occasionally some things do fall through the cracks.

Yesterday when he came home from work, he was pooped. He said he wanted to close his eyes for a few minutes and then eat a quick meal before heading back to the office. When I called him to the table he announced that he was done for the day and had decided that we should go for a walk this evening and he’d go in early in the morning to make up lost time.

True to his word, the alarm went off a little after 5:00 this morning. Per his custom, he hit the snooze button a couple of times and finally crawled off to the shower. I decided I would get him off to a good start by actually cooking him a breakfast – something I almost never do.

To the tune of Izzie’s whining to go out, I got the sausage and toast going before cracking the eggs into a bowl for scrambling. In short order I had set the table with nice cloth napkins, poured the juice and had two plates of scrambled eggs and sausage ready when Dave came down the stairs. I even had his coffee poured and mixed to his personal specifications of sugar and hazelnut creamer.

There was little conversation as we ate; Dave isn’t a morning person and he was a bit grumpy. He apologized for his dark mood and said he hadn’t slept well; so many thoughts were running through his mind. I felt badly for him and told him I had something important to tell him. He looked at me unconvinced that I actually had something important to say. I said, “Honey, I just wanted to tell you that today is my birthday.” He cringed and put his hand over his face. “I didn’t want you to get to work and look at the calendar and realize that you forgot and I don’t want you to feel like you have to run and get me a card. I’m okay with it, really.” And I was.

He said he was sorry and kissed me. I knew he was sorry as well as I knew that he hadn’t forgotten my birthday because he doesn’t care about me. Heck, with all the wedding stuff going on, I’d practically forgotten about it myself! It felt so good to let him off easy, like I was finally a big girl; mature and thoughtful. Being able to give him that gift was about the best gift I could have received for my birthday.

September 2, 2013

Girls Gone Not-So-Wild

With my fears of being to old to hang with younger gals set aside, I packed my bags, loaded the car, adjusted my mirrors and seat and headed off to Richmond. To set the mood for my trip, God comically chose The Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues” as the first tune to play from the multitude of melodies that could have popped out the XM queue. The mellow voice of Jim Morrison telling me to “keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel” seemed like good advice and I laughed at the appropriateness of the lyrics. To my surprise on this holiday weekend, the heaviest traffic I encountered was at the intersection of the road that leads into our neighborhood and US 29 where two lanes of cars were backed up a good two miles in a southern crawl into Charlottesville for UVA’s first home football game of the season. Fortunately I was turning north, so once I made my left turn, it was just me and the open road on a beautiful late summers day.

I arrived just in time to take Maggie to her hair appointment in Carytown. While she was getting her trim, I popped across the street to Penzeys Spices to stock up on a few essentials (if you don’t have a store near you, check out their website: http://www.penzeys.com; their stuff is great! ). Half an hour later I returned with my bag of goodies to find Maggie still in “the” chair. As always, I had my knitting with me and enjoyed listing to her stylist chatter about everything from pregnancy to Miley Cyrus’ performance at last week’s VMA awards as I continued working on a pair of socks for Dave. Later rather than sooner, she was ready and we rushed home to change for the party.

I’d never been to Isolde’s home before. Jan had told me she was renting a room in some guy’s house and I had imagined her living out of some cramped, smelly room in someone’s basement. I wondered where she would be entertaining us. Contrary to my mental image, Isolde lives in a beautiful fully restored townhouse on the fringes of the VCU campus. The house is owned by one of the current residents, Connor, who did all the renovation work with his father. Not only was the home an architectural delight, but has some history as well; having been built by the first major elected by the city of Richmond after the end of the Civil War. I was in awe! It truly rivaled some of the flag-officer homes on Admiral’s Row in Norfolk where I attended parties back in our Navy days.

Isolde greeted us at the front door of this lovely home along with Leslie, one of Maggie’s childhood friends. In the dining room, Isolde had laid a beautiful table with trays of crudités accented with petite champagne grapes, a wedge of Brie, meringues and a bottle of Tott’s chilling on ice, all surrounding a grand arrangement of freshly cut flowers. Leslie popped the top on the Champagne, Isolde charged our glasses and we toasted Maggie. For the next hour or so we caught up with each other, laughing and snacking. Then I cut the chocolate cake I’d brought and the room grew quiet as we savored the dense chocolaty goodness of the flourless cake. Another glass of champagne and it was time to walk to the restaurant to make our reservation.

Before we left, Isolde presented us all with our own tiaras as well as a sash for Maggie to wear that read, “Bachelorette!” I was amazed by how almost all of the people we passed along the way, stopped what they were doing to wish Maggie well; including a bunch of guys tossing a football around in the street! It gave our stroll more of a parade feeling, with Maggie as our queen.

When we reached our destination, and began to look over the menus, we realized that none of us were particularly hungry, but the food looked great. So, we decided to order several appetizers and share. The food was phenomenal and despite our previous snacking and dessert, we managed to clean all the plates. After settling the check, it was back to the streets in our tiaras.

As we walked back to Isolde’s I told the girls that I had been afraid that I wouldn’t have been able to keep up with them because of my usually early bedtime. They all laughed and one by one assured me that their nights of late-night partying were long gone and were usually in bed by ten. It was amusing to think that among these young women, with two of whom I’d held a “grown-up” roll, I was now simply an older woman, not a Mom. It was a nice feeling.

After saying our goodbyes and good nights to our lovely hostess, Maggie and I headed back to her house with Leslie in tow for a quick tour before she hit the road back to Charlottesville. Once she had left, we changed into our jammies and settled into her couch to watch a sub-titled chick-flick about the Danish aristocracy and the Age of Enlightenment. It wasn’t long before her two cats, Rupert and Ivan were cuddled up on her lap and in the crook of her legs. When it ended a little after eleven, we both toddled off to bed.

So, despite my fears that my advanced age has rendered me unable to hang and party with younger women, I learned that going out with your adult daughter and her friends to celebrate is much less taxing than monitoring a slumber party of ten-year olds. It’s so much nicer now that Maggie and her friends’ tastes have moved on from soda and Cheetos to those of fine dining, a good glass of wine and witty conversation. That I can hang with; at least until ten or so.

August 22, 2013

Affairs of the Heart

heart art

Yesterday Dave and I spent the entire day together – in the Emergency Room. He’d been experiencing some discomfort in his chest along with fatigue and decided to give his doctor a call when he got to the office. Having been around the block more than once, I wasn’t at all surprised when he called me later in the morning and to tell me that he was down in the Emergency Room hooked up to a bunch of monitors. It was only appropriate procedure to follow when a 58 year old smoker walks in complaining of chest pain.

When I asked him if he wanted me to come join him, he said he was resting comfortably in a bed with wires attached to him and they told him he’d be there for several hours; I could stop by and say hello if I wanted. So, I unplugged the iron, put on a little makeup, grabbed a large Vera Bradley tote bag and gathered his reading glasses, IPad, the latest editions of National Geographic and Consumer Reports, my IPad and knitting and headed off to the ER.

Thankfully, I was very calm. Having grown up watching a slew of Soap Operas and medical shows, my mother’s favorites, I have a better than average working knowledge of things medical. As I said, I was reasonable sure the tests they were running on Dave were routine. As I drove I said a few prayers and gathered my female relatives who had passed around me for support and guidance. Call me silly, but I fully believe in the communion of saints and know that my grandmothers, aunts, mother-in-law and female friends who have passed are with me, ready to help in any way they can. Yesterday I they surrounded me with peace and confidence, lifting me up in love to help me get through whatever I would encounter.

As I pulled into the parking lot, I found a space near the entrance right next to a minivan with an advertisement for a company called “Affairs d’Amour” with a big heart logo on it. Seeing it made me smile. Earlier I received a series of text messages from Maggie alerting me that Jan wanted to make a couple of changes to the wedding plans. With their wedding is just a little more than two weeks away and I was initially a little annoyed, but then decided to let them handle the changes to their “affair of the heart” while I dealt with mine.

I was greeted at the door by a really nice guy who directed me to Dave’s room. I have to admit he looked kind of silly in his suit pants, dress shoes and hospital gown. I asked if I could take a photo of him to use in my blog but emphatically declined the request.

Soon I was comfortably seated at his side, playing solitaire on my IPad as he rested. Tiring of that, I pulled a hank of yarn out of my bag and to my delight, discovered that a hospital bed side table works extremely well to hang yarn on when rolling it into a ball. Once my yarn was ready, I grabbed my needles and cast on a the stitches for a sock.

During the course of the next several hours I took a trip to McDonalds for lunch, chatted with the doctors and nurses, let Maggie and Andy know what was going on and continued work on my sock. By two o’clock, Dave was fully rested and getting restless in the bed. Fortunately Martha Jefferson offers a guest Wi-Fi and we were able to tune into our Netflix account. We spent the next two hours watching an interesting documentary by Ken Burns called “Death and the Civil War”. Again, maybe not the average choice to watch in the ER, but it was engaging and helped the time go by.

Finally, after eight hours, and half a sock later, with all troponin tests coming back as normal, Dave was released with an appointment for a follow-up stress test set for next week. He was both relieved he hadn’t suffered a heart attack and a bit disappointed that they hadn’t told him what was wrong with him. Ah men, so unaccustomed to the working of the medical world, assuming there is always an exact answer for every ache and pain. Thank God he doesn’t have to go through menopause with all it’s quirks!

This morning, after a good night’s rest, and an extra hour of sleep, Dave awoke refreshed and feeling a lot like himself. Still bewildered about his undiagnosed discomfort, I suggested he give his primary physician a call to help him sort it out. As for me, I also slept well, feeling relatively secure that we are not facing a medical crisis in our lives, but glad that we did have this little exercise. Out of this little dark cloud came one very shiny silver lining; it provided that little oomph necessary to get Dave to finally quit smoking again! It was his equivalent of my falling in the shower a couple of months ago; a reminder that life is fragile and we have to take care of what we have.

We still have the stress test next Tuesday to see if there is anything else going on with Dave’s heart. I’m more inclined to point a finger at his gall bladder. We’ll see. Until then as the saying goes, I will Stay Calm and Carry On, with the help of my friends and family, here and passed.

PS. To clarify my position on calling on my relatives that have passed, I also call on my grandfathers and uncles, but mostly for assistance when I am handling power tools, etc. In many ways I remain a traditionalist.