It's Coming

Older age, that is.  One of our conversation topics is parents in their 80s and 90s...the heartaches, yes, but some of it is just so damn funny.

My friend, Hannah, is dealing with her mom, who is in her mid-80s, in assisted living mainly because she has severe memory issues aka Alzheimer’s.  Hannah gets all her mail, takes care of her bills.  Her mom, by the way, has no idea what direct deposit is.

One day, she gets a $20 annual fee charge on her mom’s credit card.  What???  Why pay this fee when she never uses the card?  She calls Chase or Capital One or Bank of America....whatever it was.  “Ma’am, we cannot take the fee off unless we speak directly to the cardholder.”  Hannah tried to convince them that her mom was in no shape to respond to their questions.  Of course, they were relentless.

What choice does she have?  She calls them back from her mom’s apartment and puts her on the phone.  “We have just a few simple questions for you to answer, okay?”

“Is your name Minnie Steinberg?”

“Speak English!” Minnie yells into the phone.  Of course, they’re calling from India.
Undaunted, they try the next question.

“Are you working, not working, or retired?”

“I am sooo tired.  Thank you for asking.”  

There’s a pause and they try again.

“What is your income, Mrs. Steinberg?”

“I have no idea.  My daughter stole all my money.”

At this point, Hannah gets on the phone laughing hysterically, “I’ll pay the $20!”

My friend, Jill, has an older brother...not quite 70 and they were watching one of those oh-so-serene Viagra commercials one day and he turns to her and says, “I’d take one of those blue pills but then I’d have to put it somewhere.”

Okay....guess he hasn’t checked out Sun City aka Sin City.  Evidently, the VD rate is off the charts.  Geez, you hear stories of all kinds of weird behavior, including women traveling around in golf carts NUDE!!!  Can you get a picture of that???

As my kids would say, “EWWWW!”  I know, I know....TMI!!!

It’s coming....

Girlfriends

Fifteen years ago, I came to Hilton Head Island for the first time with two girlfriends to celebrate our collective 50th birthdays.  I fell in love....with the island and its environs.  We day tripped to Charleston, Savannah, Daufuskie Island.  We ate like we’d never had a good meal.  We rented umbrellas and chairs and sat on the beach for hours on end reading whatever was on Oprah’s list.  And we walked and talked and cried and laughed until we were completely wrung out.

We vowed to do it every five years.  And, we have.  These are women who were teaching colleagues of mine, who I raised my children with, who were with me when my husband died and who stayed with me afterwards.  These are the girls who held their breath and tried to be nonjudgmental about my choices of men and can now exhale because, although it took me 15 years, I found my Mr. Wonderful.

I thank God every day for the great women in my world.  Men bond over work, golf, poker.  But, women get right to the heart of it....how is your soul?  Your spirit?  What makes you happy?

With your women friends, you can just unleash....it’s stream of consciousness no holds barred.  There’s no topic that’s off limits.  We love our adult children, but we absolutely adore our grandkids!  We talk about our aging parents and assisted living and how our bodies are failing us.

Ironically enough, all of our mates have traits of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  One has to redo the order of the dishes in the dishwasher, another has bins of used golf balls lined up in the garage, another has to have his washed tumbler on either the right or left side of the dish drain depending on whether it was the orange juice or cranberry juice day.

Ya just gotta laugh.  But, I’ll take OCD any day over having a mate with Executive Dysfunction....now, that’s a real headache!

Most of us are retired now.  We’re not rising at 5:30 a.m. to get the kids to school and get ourselves out  to work.  We’re staying up later, rising later.  We’re  doing what we always wanted to do....traveling, writing, learning the new technology, working out daily, planning the next happy hour or gathering,  We’re adjusting to being with our mates 24/7.

All in all, It’s a joyous life of freedom.  But, we know it’s fleeting.  Be conscious....be here now.  Today is a beautiful moment in time...our time.  Live it.  Love it.  Celebrate.

No One Like Nora

The TV was background noise as I was reading the Style section of the Washington Post and I swear I heard, “Nora Ephron has died.”  I was stunned....complete shock.
NOOOOOOOOOO!!!  It just can’t be true.

Of course, Nora didn’t know me from Adam but, she was my heroine.  If you’ve read her, you know what I mean.  There is no one on this planet who can take life’s tragedies and absurdities and turn them into complete hilarity!

She was fortunate enough to be born to parents who were writers.  Her mother told her early on to take notes. “Observe your own life, you never know when you can use the material.”  What a sage piece of advice that was.

My first encounter with Nora was her best seller, Heartburn.  OMG!!!  This book gives the world the gory details of her marriage to Carl Bernstein, the famous Watergate reporter and now the infamous philanderer.  Fool that he was.  In case you haven’t read it, it’s basically the evolution and subsequent collapse of a marriage between two very talented and intense artists.  She leaves her life in New York to set up housekeeping in Washington, D.C.  The book is sprinkled with divine recipes from her dinner parties.

The marriage implodes when she discovers his ongoing affair with the British Ambassador’s wife, who she describes as a “giraffe with big feet.”  Does it matter that Nora was seven months pregnant with their second child???  Yep, she outed him and turned it into a bestseller and movie.  And, she got her life back in New York and a new husband who adored her, Nick Pileggi, the fabulous crime writer.

On a side note, Peter Jay, the British Ambassador, went on to getting the family's nanny preggers; thus, ending the marriage and his diplomatic career after 25 years.  Margaret, the cohort, went on to become the Leader of the House of Lords, retiring from that position in 2001.  She is now Baroness Jay of Paddington.  Ahhh...those Brits!

But, that was the 70s when it was all about Make Love, Not War....now in DC, it's simply Make War!!

The young Nora was a magazine writer, writing for Cosmo and Esquire.  Who could forget her 1975 essay, “A Few Words About Breasts,” where she lamented having small ones in a world that adores big ones? Her friends told her not to worry about it.  It’s more important to be witty and brilliant.  She decided they were full of shit.

Then, she entered the film world as a screenwriter, director and producer.  What a powerhouse!  I got teary in “Sleepless in Seattle” and “You’ve Got Mail.”  “When Harry Met Sally” was Nora on top.  Meg Ryan’s fake orgasm scene was filmed at Katz’s Deli in New York, one of Nora’s haunts.  To this day, customers come in and try to reenact that scene receiving either a standing ovation or a chorus of boos.

But, more than her movies, I loved her collections of essays on aging, I Hate My Neck and I Remember Nothing.  Every woman over 40 should read them.  Books that make me laugh out loud are all too rare.  Nora’s observations were spot-on hilarious!  God, she made it possible to laugh at growing old!  Oh, how I’ll miss her.

There are Nora-isms....maxims about life that only she could nail.

“Show me a woman who cries when the trees lose their leaves in autumn and I’ll show you a real asshole.”

“When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog around so someone’s happy to see you.”

“In my sex fantasy, nobody loves me for my mind.”

She even wrote about wishes for her funeral, “I want everyone to be basket cases.”

Nope....not a dry eye.

I Admit It

Yep...ancient adolescent.  How did this happen?  I'm in my mid-60s!  I'm retired!!!  I got the graying, wiry, curly hair flying in every direction.  I'm relentlessly fighting my midriff bulge...working out with weights, doing 45 minute cardio downloads almost everyday.  I try to watch what I eat but I still love my fries and burgers....my vegetarian kids are rolling their eyes.  I love a fresh salad, but I am sorely tempted by filet mignon and ribs.

I am in a war against saggy arms, saggy thighs and a saggy butt.  I do this upper body workout by Chris Freitag that is so intense I have to drink a glass of water every 10 minutes!  "I love sculpted shoulders," she announces while incessantly wielding these ungodly heavy weights over her head.  "Back at ya, Chris!" I gasp.

I can't say I'm winning the battle but I'm not about to concede.  I'm not a gym rat.  I have no schedule, I'm on the road constantly.  Gave up my gym membership...can't commit to even one class.  The battle is being waged in my living room using my iPod, while watching The View or listening to NPR.

I call myself an ancient adolescent because I feel as light and free as I did as a teenager without all the angst of not being independent or knowing what the future held.

As that future unfolded, I loved being a mom, raising wonderfully challenging children.  I welcomed a career in education where I felt I could make a difference in someone's world.  I faced the overwhelming tragedy of loving and losing my dearest friend and mate through the scourge of AIDS.

I had a hip replacement 12 years ago....I fought breast cancer as has practically every one of my close friends.  I take Lipitor for my ridiculously high cholesterol levels.  I've had three knee surgeries....blah, blah, blah.  You get the point.  You get this far, you got issues!!!

I'm a lucky girl.  I'm winning the battle.  I've got more energy than I had 20 years ago.  I wake up every day renewed and ready for whatever the day brings.  I got to retire in an economy that makes that almost impossible.

Now it's my turn to do what I want to do.  I always wanted to write so now I blog.  My first blog was all about my hapless love life and my second blog focused on my spiritual evolution and my encounters with the 'other world.'

But, this is my stream of consciousness blog.  Only God knows where we're headed!