Run Away With Me

O boy it’s Friday. 4:34. I’ve got my tennis shoes on and in the ready to run out the door at full blast position. I am tired of this week. Now on to the weekend.

I have garage sales to go to and things to poke around in and other people’s junk to buy as my new treasures.

Mechanic Man found me an old, old very tall book case to hold my thousands of books, and now it’s time to seek out more at yard sales and garage sales and estate sales. It’s in the shed that holds the freezer right now for want of space inside the house but I am seriously considering the few steps from the door to the shed could be considered exercise and I may put my books in the shed with the freezer. Except it is a nice old antique-looking book case that I would like to show off.

And more yard sales to find things to stuff in my book case because book cases are NOT just for books. So boring. No. Book cases are perfect for tea cup collections and glass animal collections and owl collections and old musty-smelling leather bound book collections about nothing I have ever read.

My sneakers are squeaking in anticipation.

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Reluctant Volunteer

How do you say no???? I need to learn this. I am a people pleaser big time. I want to please everybody around me, be it at home or work or in the store or, well, all the time. I never say no. Most times it’s a good thing and I walk away feeling just a little taller or kinder or gentler. It’s my little self boost. But sometimes, I should just say no.

I was standing at the bus stop downtown to go the short two miles to my home on the lower northwest side of Spokane.

A gal was standing next to me with a couple large boxes at her feet. As the bus arrived she turned to me and in very broken English, in a strong Russian accent, asked if I would help her with one of her boxes. It was more of a command than a request. “You carry box,” pointing at the box and then at me, nodding her head once as if that would seal the deal. I thought nothing of it and lifted up one of the heavy boxes for her.

As we got close to my stop she again said, “You carry box,” along with the curt nod. I asked her when her stop was and she indicated the one right after mine, so I nodded back, once, and then watched as my bus went past my [perfectly good car parked in front of my perfectly good little house] on the way to the next stop.

We got off and she curtly ordered “Carry box” and “Follow.” And I followed. The box got heavier and heavier, my legs got more lead in them, I moved slower and she hustled down the side street, her box on her head, marching resolutely along, every now and then curtly stating “Come.” She was plainly disappointed in my lack of speed. So there we went, a little mini-parade, marching down another side street back around the block until we were exactly across (but two blocks away) from my house.

I would have gladly driven her and her boxes from my house to hers. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t ask. Except for the fact that she probably assumed that since I was taking the bus I did not have a car. Probably a real luxury from where she lived in the Ukraine.

Made me think how we take for granted our material possessions while people from other cultures might consider them precious luxuries that few have.

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Tears for my Dad

I searched for him everywhere. I sought out his friends. I googled his name. I wanted to have him back. My Dad.

Dad went in for the umpteenth time for dialysis. At three times a week, four hours a day, six years – he had dialysis for 730 days of his life, 2,920 hours. And now he was being told they had run out of veins for his dialysis. It was Friday, December 10, 1993. It was my son’s 21st birthday; my Army child, stationed in South Korea. Dad decided not to go back to the center where he spent all those long grueling hours. He chose to die now rather than months from now, under all the same four hours a day, three days a week routine. He died on December 19.

I came home after spending the last week of his life with him and did mundane things, like shop at Albertson’s for milk and bread. All the while thinking that surely the clerks, the other shoppers, the children in the child seats, the baker, the butcher, the florist – would all see the pain in my eyes, the ache of my heart, the whole in my soul. Surely they noticed. I wanted to go up to each one and say “Did you know my Dad?” “Did you know he died?”

I went to his friends and would touch their hands, knowing that their hands had shaken my Dad’s hand. I knew that their hands had affectionately clapped my Dad’s shoulder or embraced him. And I would eagerly and breathlessly wait for anything they would say about my Dad. I wanted to confirm all the good things I knew about my Dad. I would stand there, soaking up his friends’ words like water on a parched throat.

“Your Dad was very kind.”
“Gentle”
“Warm.”
“Intelligent.”
“He was so important to me.”
“Your Dad loved you kids so much.”

All these words would bathe over me and sooth me.

Recently I have watched various news blogs about local people who have met untimely ends in freak accidents and what struck me were how many relatives who had never commented on these blogs, now were writing. They were writing in response to remarks made by various bloggers who didn’t know their lost loved one, and the remarks were sometimes hurtful, tacky, or erroneous. These loved ones have written from Ohio, California, Seattle – outside the scope of Spokane, Washington. And these loved ones have expressed the pain of reading these remarks when all they were doing was what I had done – they searched for anything about their child, their mother, my Dad. They googled their loved one’s name. They wanted anything about their loved one. Just like I did with my Dad. Any positive word to say he was loved by someone else. That someone else misses him as much as I.

Four months ago a good friend’s 24-year-old daughter passed away due to cystic fibrosis. I wrote about it on this blog – in a good way, in a positive way, highlighting what I knew about his daughter from my own experiences with her. I have a comment tracker and I have been amazed that every day, every single day, I have received hits to that particular post, from all over the world. Her friends started commenting to me – that it helped them so much to handle their grief over the loss of their friend. Her mother contacted me. She too wanted to hear that people loved her daughter as much as she did. The loss of her daughter took her breath away with its nearly unbearable anguish. She wanted comfort, she wanted to see her daughter through others' eyes. It confirmed for her that her daughter was vital to many, many people. That particular site gets two dozen hits a day. All because I said kind things about a person that was loved by so many people.

I wrote that story because I desperately wanted someone to write about my Dad in the same way. I wanted someone to say they loved him too. They missed him. They were sorry for my loss.

The empathy I get from others has healed the gaping hole I had felt for months after my Dad died.

Hopefully my treating others as I wish they would treat me makes a difference.

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To See or Not

Or
What My Friends Don’t Know


I lay awake last night and thought, of all things, blind dates. Don’t tell Mechanic Man. I don’t know why these sporadic thoughts jump into my head – but it occurred to me that I have had a string of really horrid blind dates set up by well-meaning friends who have convinced me that they do not know me AT ALL. And also convinced me that I just might be a very shallow person underneath my sweet-looking exterior. The reason I say that is that my blind dates had flaws. They weren’t major – but they impacted how I envisioned them in my future. I grew up on tall, dark and handsome princes. That’s just me.

My first blind date was with George – who was 25 years older than me and lived with his mother and took me to a ballroom dance with a whole bunch of really old people. I was 19. They were in their 50s. He was older than my Dad. It lasted one date.

My next blind date was sitting when I met him with a friend of mine and her “tall, dark, and handsome” hunkie boyfriend. Tim, my date, looked like he was still sitting when we all stood up to go to dinner. I’m five-foot-two. He was not even five feet tall – in high heeled shoes. His nose came to my chin. It’s like dating your baby brother. There is a real ick factor somewhere here. It lasted one date.

My next blind date reached out to shake my hand with his left hand, which was deformed, half as large as his right hand, and lifeless. It was like shaking hands with a wimpy, limp, lipid, non-human something. I had a real problem telling myself that I might have a problem with people who have handicaps and that makes me a deplorable human being. But purposely drawing attention to his hand by trying to shake my right hand with his bad left hand????? Eeeeeuuuuuu. It lasted one date.

The “old” guy and the hand-challenged guy both persisted and pursued me. The “old” guy wanted to take me home to his mother. He kept calling my dorm room over and over and over until the girl across the hall answered it and told him I died. I have always felt bad about that because I think he truly grieved for me. The hand guy wanted to bring his mother’s home cooking to me. I finally just didn’t answer the phone. And they slipped away from my memory. Until last night. When sleep taunted and teased me, I lay there thinking about my blind dates – a whole string of really awful blind dates. And wonder if I were just as awful to them.

And am I terribly shallow that I want a guy taller than me, closer to my age, able to hold me with two normal healthy hands?

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No TV for me!

Just got back from a totally relaxing week on the Oregon coast, south of Yachats, north of Heceta Head Lighthouse. I did absolutely nothing. I was totally unproductive. I vegged big time. I lay around in my pajamas and ate cereal for dinner, in the living room, watching bunnies out the front window and ever-watchful bald eagles from the back window. The eagles starved and the bunnies were totally oblivious.

I didn’t watch a clock. I took naps. I didn’t follow rules. I did, however, floss and took my vitamins. I ate whatever I wanted; got up when I felt like it; dressed when I felt like it (some days, never). I became civilized occasionally and dressed appropriately and blended in with other tourists in the quaint Old Town villages of Newport, Waldport, and Florence. I stopped at every wayside along Highway 101 from Lincoln City down to Florence, enjoyed the ocean and all her majesty from as many viewpoints as I could find.

I spent a wonderful full ten days with no phone, no tv, and lots of books. So, I was a little startled as I drove home and all that was on the radio were news items about Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Gale Storm, Billy Mays, and Ed McMahon. All dead. O my. Of all of these deaths, the one that bothered me the most was Gale Storm. She was one of my mother’s favorites. Perky, saucy, funny. Her death was lost amongst all the hype that went with particularly Michael Jackson, but Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon as well. All the loss, turmoil, pain, ups, downs, eccentricities, foibles.

Of all the things I didn’t have on my vacation – the television was the least missed. It brought to point for me that there really is nothing worthwhile on television that enhances my life in the tiniest way. I came home refreshed and revitalized – something that television just does not do for me.

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Yard Sale or Bust

I had my very first yard sale this last weekend. Suffice to say, it was a bust. So I’m making up a list of How to Have a Yard Sale:

1. Advertise! Toot your horn! Make sure the whole area knows that YOU are having absolutely a must see yard sale right in your own neighborhood. And put your ad in TWO days before, not one. Sign up on Craig’s List – and update your ad every morning under a different email account so it’s always towards the top of the list.

2. Signs. Signs are a must. About twenty signs on every intersection you can think of.

3. BIG PRINT. The sign must be readable from a car a block away as it is driving towards the sign at 30 miles per hour; if your sign is too small or too lightly written, and your drive by car has to slow down to read it, or even stop to read it, other cars get antsy and honk at you until you just say hell with it and drive on to the next sign that MAYBE you can read this time.

4. Print your address – don’t just say “yard sale that-away” with an arrow. Quite often the wind blows the sign and it ends up pointing a totally different direction, like down.

5. Anchor your sign. I didn’t have near enough signs and one of them kept falling over repeatedly until I braced it against a light pole. I worried about my sign incessantly until I thought I’d have to put a “stupid” sign on my forehead.

6. Balloons. Mark your territory and show the whole street that you are having a party!

7. Tell all your friends to stop by. Give them a schedule and have them just park their car at pre-appointed times. They don’t even have to get out. For some reason, a parked car at a yard sale begets other cars. Whenever one stopped, several stopped.

8. Have a tarp for every table and then you just cover them at night and hope nobody helps themselves to freebies in the middle of the night.

9. Don’t have a yard sale when something big might be going on like graduations from all the high schools in your area but they are celebrating downtown and aren’t even going to drive by any time soon to just happen upon your poorly advertised yard sale.

10. It is so true that what is one person’s junk is another person’s treasure. You think that little sole Tupperware lid all by itself is ready for the garbage and some old lady pounces on it because she has been missing hers since the last church picnic.

I’m going to read this list and check it twice and try this whole thing again in a month. O my God what a lot of work.

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Kidney Update #2

Here's my sad soppy saga. I am starting to go through tests to get on a transplant list. (no cancer wanted - if I have cancer, they'll just throw me away). Anyway - went to see the kidney doctor today (saw the dentist last Thursday and this last Monday for what can only be described as roto rooter of the gums, with anesthesia and nitrous). So I'm already kind of whacked out of shape.

Then the doc tells me that my kidneys are functioning at ten percent of normal. Ten Percent. yeesh. I feel ok, really. The kidneys are shutting down but not telling the rest of my body - so my brain thinks I'm doing just fine thank you very much. But one of the things the kidneys do is "talk" to the bone marrow who talks to the blood who toils and turns out red blood cells - and the kidneys aren't talking, so I'm really low on blood. I'm getting what's called an EPO shot, once a week for three weeks and then once a month - if that doesn't work - it's a blood transfusion.

Are your eyes falling out of your head yet?

So - he said to watch for these symptoms: fatigue, feeling out of breath crossing the street, going up the stairs; itching skin; nausea; dry heaves; and anorexia (I wish). Well, as he starts clicking these things off, I'm still insisting I "feel FINE" but it's flashing through my mind - last night's itchy leg episode that about drove me insane; yesterday morning I didn't even want to brush my teeth because my gums still hurt and just the thought was making me feel like throwing up - and lately I don't just throw up - I do it repeatedly several times and then go into the dry heaves for several bouts; and I've started taking the elevator to get from the 15th floor to the 16th floor; and last night I gave Mechanic Man half of my hamburger - and no fries. I'm thinking, Jeanie you are so out of shape and need to diet and exercise. But Doc said that wasn't my problem. I have kidney disease related anemia. It's my uncommunicative kidneys again. Those silent buggers.

I went to Riverfront Square and then to Rite Aid over lunch. I was panting the entire way and just pooped by the time I got back. And I've noticed this before when I've gone to the Riverfront to get my hair cut - I'd start back and think, o boy, if someone would just carry me, it would be sheer bliss.

I'm beginning to think I'm SICK.

I’m still insisting I feel fine. I’m still trying to think positive thoughts and not dwell on this. I’m still trying to tell myself I’m not in denial. It’s a quandary. If I think about it, I’ll get worse. I’ll get worse if I don’t think about it. If I think positive thoughts, my kidneys just might go completely gonzo on me and turn out their lights because I’ve got my head in the sand. If I think negative thoughts, like, you’re-going-to-be-on-dialysis-for-the-REST-of-your-life (this is a litany I heard my mother sing to Dad for seven years until he finally pulled the plug on himself), then I’ll be on dialysis that much sooner. They’ll never find a donor kidney for me. I’ll have a permanent tube in my stomach or my arm, depending on what type of dialysis. What about sex? Bikini’s? (well, I wouldn’t be caught dead in a bikini – but what IF?) Slinky dresses? The too-sexy-for-my-jeans look?

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Oscar, the Oven Mitt

I love names. I give names to everything – my car, my cat, my kids, spiders, clothes, and oven mitts. Actually, it’s my Mom’s doing. She started it.

When we were growing up, Mom acquired an oven mitt in the shape of an alligator (or a crocodile – I can’t tell them apart), and we were fascinated with “him.” We worried endlessly about how he would survive going into the hot oven to grab something with his teeth. Mom named him Oscar. Oscar was like a Mighty Crock who could withstand innumerous dunkings into the fires of hell, er, the oven. He was singed, and once even caught fire upon which my Dad heroically put out the fire by throwing Oscar into the dishwater and nearly drowning him. Once he actually made it into the laundry and all the little singed parts became little frayed holes. But he still managed to be the chief pot holder in the family, and the only one with a name.

We had a George, too, who was really all our hoodies for camping – only they weren’t called hoodies back in the cold age of camp fires, marshmallows, and ghost stories. They were plain old sweatshirts with hoods and pockets in the front. We each had an identical shirt and they were only used for camping – so at the end of the summer, Mom would make a show of putting the smallest hoodie into the next hoodie, into the next, until finally Dad’s sweatshirt was enveloping the whole family of hoodies. It looked like a torso and sat in the back of the closet. She named him George.

This was handy other times of the year because if we heard creeks or groans from the house, we all chalked it up to . . . . . . George.

And of course, spiders have names. According to my mother. They are all Fred. Fred lives outside – at least that is where he belongs. So she carefully picks Fred up with a tissue and puts him outside where he belongs. All of my siblings and I learned this very valuable skill very early in our lives. Spiders – all named Fred – belong outside as God intended.

However, if the spider happens to be a Black Widow – then all rules about Fred go right out the window – I mean to say – the Black Widow doesn’t get the same privileges as Fred. The Black Widow is killed by Mom at least 150 times until she is absolutely positive that there is no more Black Widow at all, not a single molecule.

So – I was dating a guy I considered pretty macho and we were sitting on the couch watching a movie when a centipede started marching along the wall behind the television. I thought nothing of it – a cousin of Fred – and grabbed a tissue and gently lifted the centipede and put “her” outside where she belonged. I turned back and here is macho man, with his knees up to his chest, looking like some monster had slithered along the floor under his feet. What? You don’t put your little critters out where they belong?

Anyway – Oscar grew old and frayed and finally was relegated to the back of the drawer of old towels and cleaning rags – the nursing home of oven mitts. I still put Fred out where he belongs.

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And so it begins. . .

I was blithely going through my day, the normal humdrum of filing, typing, cataloging, typing, time entry, bla bla, more typing, and arrived home to the mail:

A packet starting with the ominous "The Journey of Transplant Evaluation."

O boy.

It's several pages and forms to fill out to start the process of being evaluated to be placed on a kidney transplant list.

I'm half excited about this. Actually I feel too good to really be considered for a transplant. I'll probably go along like I do in sports - and be the last one on the list. Who knows? Evidently my doctor sent my name in to the transplant center - and also to social security. Did you know that I might be able to get Medicaid?

I'm half overwhelmed, too. I'll meet with a team of people - the transplant surgeon, transplant nurse coordinator, social worker, and dietitian. I'll have all kinds of tests done: dental, colonoscopy (well, I've kind of been looking for an excuse to have one done, other than having it done just because I'm "old"), EKG, ECG, Ultrasound, cardiology, vascular, CT, besides draining me of my blood for chemistries, serologies, microbiologies, and cancer markers. Heck, once I pass all of these tests with flying colors, I should be able to live totally free of kidneys - who needs a kidney when everything else is working so well! Well, maybe not.

But what if I fail these tests or it shows something else.

Anyway - here I go, off into the dark world of medical tests on every single cell in my body.

It beats dialysis any day!

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Take Me Out of the Ball Game

I have found my household glued to the TV lately, watching the Mariners’ games. I’m not a real enthusiast. I only know that my presence is a hindrance to winning games, whether I am watching in the bleachers, or totally at a distance from the hidey-hole of my living room. And I have mystical, magical powers of doom.

If I leave the room, the team scores. If I stay, the other team will get a three-base hit and run. Never fails. So I try to occupy myself elsewhere and give the Mariners a fair chance. :)

All this baseball drama has brought memories of the one summer I was on a softball team for the City. I won’t say when because I think I’d get tarred and feathered. You see, I have the same effect if I am actually on the team. Worse.

I could not hit a ball to save my soul. I couldn’t catch a ball either. Or throw. But I’d try, try, try!!!!

Once, I was thrown the ball to 2nd base, where the runner was flying down from 1st. I just closed my eyes tight and held out the ball towards the runner and, damn! if she didn’t run smack into it with her left boob. She said she was going to go around again and try for the right – so at least they (the boobs) would be even.

I was a terrible but extremely earnest player. I never did make it to a base – so no need to worry about stealing 2nd or 3rd – I never got to 1st.

The legend of my lack of prowess got to be so bad, that BOTH teams would root for me. I caught a ball, playing shortstop. I mean, I actually caught a fly ball. I’m hopping up and down and shouting, “I caught it! I caught it!” and then realized that every one on both sides is doing the same thing. All jumping up and down and screaming “She caught the ball! She honestly caught the ball!” The game stopped so we could all regroup. Even the people on the bases stood still instead of running for all they were worth. Oh, maybe you can’t do that if I caught the fly ball. What do I know. . . .

Sigh.

When we got to the finals and there were several teams playing, I showed up, loyally and diligently, in my uniform, with my mitt, ready to Play Ball. The coach met me at my car and told me he was benching me right off the get go. No hard feelings – we just needed to have all players actually hitting the ball and catching it. You know, we’d like to actually win a game here.

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Mother, I hardly knew you. . .

It’s difficult to think about my mother this Mother’s Day. Mom passed away three years ago, on May 11, the day before what would have been my Dad’s birthday. So every Mother’s Day, I am reminded of her. It’s not that I enjoy my memories – it’s more like I am torn between the good things and the bad things. Are all mother-daughter relationships so complex? I wonder.

My mother could be doting one minute and condescending the next, degenerating on down to being spiteful and hateful.

While I can write reams of funny and loving anecdotes about my Dad – Mom is just the opposite.

Why is that? I want to know. My heart weeps for what has gone by, for what has been lost, for what was never mended. I have no “Moms” in my life anymore. My mother-in-law passed away a year ago, on my birthday. I was closer to her in many, many more ways than I was with my own mother.

Mom did touching things, like making up scrapbooks for both my sons of their lives up to the day she gave them each their own “biography in pictures” when they were 12 and 13. She took wonderful pictures of my sons in a series that told a story of that particular day. They were fantastic! One shows the boys and Mom’s little dog, Sally, walking along the beach, daring the waves to get them, each photo a little closer, a little more daring, when suddenly all three have leapt into the air, grinning from ear to ear (dog, too) as they are frozen in time, safe and high above the waves. There is another series that I just love where the boys are sitting side by side in a home made swing my Dad made just for them. They are coming down from back of the tree, frame by frame, moving closer to the viewer, and then the last shot is on the upswing, heads thrown back, mouths wide and laughing. It touches me like no other.

Mom could be cruel and this started when I was 16. We go along for days just fine, normal mother and daughter, when she would turn to me and say “You are the most selfish person I have ever known.” Or, “You are FAT!” (At 5’2” and 110 pounds – I now see why teens can become anorexic or bulimic.) Once when I had been divorced for about ten years, my boys being 11 and 12, she was leaving the house when she said “out of all my children, you are the worst parent.”

These were harsh words, all of them, for me to hear and to burrow out from under. It harmed me and I struggled for years to come to terms with her viewpoint of me, to the point that I disregard it. I am my own mother – giving myself the kind and encouraging words I so needed to hear.

On the other hand, as a mother myself, I enjoy the life of my two sons – they are my breath and my heartbeat. They are the total sum of who I am. I cannot imagine speaking to my sons the way my mother spoke to me. It’s unfathomable.

So, Mother’s Day is just a couple days away. I try to remember the good moments and the good memories, and I forever strive to be the best Mom to my boys that I could ever be.

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Joys of Camping

This is for Cindy, who thinks camping is for the birds, in response to my post on Camping at http://jeaniespokane.blogspot.com/2008/07/time-to-go-camping.html.

Ten reasons you can enjoy camping:

1. You can throw your dirty dishes in the campfire with no guilt. (Well, paper plates, unless you are a true camper phobic and have to bring along your good China – then have your sons wash the dishes for you – in a kettle of water they drew from the lake and heated up over the open fire).
2. You can stay up as long as you like and tell ghost stories around the campfire after the sun goes down – no need for tv, radio, or books
3. If it rains during the day – you get to do jigsaw puzzles with your kids
4. If you go camping with your mom, you get to go to bed before the sun sets because she doesn’t like sitting outside in the dark by herself
5. If you go camping with your dad, you get to get up first thing in the morning because the fish are jumping, the fire is going, the eggs are frying, the cold fresh air is invigorating, nature is calling.
6. Those little black thingies in your eggs – that’s just pepper. Really.
7. You can lay in the sun and have absolutely nothing to do but bake (bring sun screen).
8. You can prove your warrior strength by standing over your children so horseflies as big as basketballs don’t carry them away.
9. You experience the Zen of sleeping on the hard ground and waking up energized and ready for a dawn swim in the icy cold river.
10. You love building a fire with twigs you and everyone else gathered when you first set up camp, after you found a fairly flat piece of ground, raked away the rocks, tree limbs, and pinecones, set up the tent, pounded the stakes in the ground so the tent wouldn’t blow away, and if it is really windy, you built a windbreak just for the fire. The fire never goes out because you feed it and feed it and feed it and feed it.

Camping is just so much FUN!!!

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Perspective

Age is all from perspective, I have decided. This weekend alone I have witnessed the whole continuum. I stopped and chatted with a man I didn’t know, who was on oxygen. He started telling me about the ailments of old age. He said, “You turn 60, and it’s all downhill from there, in a rush! You turn around and there’s another birthday. And then another. And another! All downhill from 60.” And when I told him I just turned 60, he remarked that I look good for my age and maybe that downhill race won’t happen to me.

Then a little friend came over. She’s 11, almost 12, going on know-it-all 30. She saw my birthday cards and upon asking how old I was, her mouth turned into a perfect O and stunned silence for about 30 seconds. The usually chatter silenced in speechlessness.

Just now a young mother with two toddlers in a stroller came by and stopped to talk to me. I’ve never seen them before and they both readily told me “I’m four.” (Twins) They told me their names and asked me for mine. And then chatted nonstop about their adventures in the playground and that they have to go home now because they were sopping wet from jumping around in puddles. And treated me like I was a playmate or at least a doting aunt with an ear for listening. Age meant nothing to them. I still hear the cheerful humming as they both sang “Bye Jeanie” in unison and went on their way.

From young whippersnapper to ancient crone to best pal in 24 hours.

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Waking Up Old

So, I woke up this morning, my birthday morning, as an older woman. Older than yesterday when I was 59. And somehow jumped into another decade as I have just turned 60. Ok, now I can tell you that I was being kind of optimistically frivolous when I made up my 60 reasons I am excited about turning 60. It's more like, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

I say it – 60 years old – and think to myself, uh, no that's not me. That is not who I am. Age doesn't describe the inner me. I am ageless in my mind – and you ask my two sons and they agree. I'm playful and goofy and pensive and romantic and introspective and soul searching. Has nothing to do with age.

Several years ago, my coworkers started a tradition of "60 presents for the 60th birthday." Little things. So for the past five days I have received 10-12 little presents every day – books, cards, plants, candles, soaps, energy drinks (which seems to draw every single person and they all want to try it). Does an energy drink counter the effects of just plain being old? Inquiring minds want to know. It says it has no caffeine and no sugar. So, if you come to my cubicle and I'm not there, look up – I may be on the ceiling, having sampled some of my energy drink supply, called "Orange Explosion." If that doesn't work, I have several latte gift cards so I can get my double caffeine, triple shot chocolate, Grande latte. Fat, hot, and a hell of a lot.

How do I feel about 60? I didn't notice a big drop in brain cells, so I think the "senior moments" are still in the future. Maybe if I keep working, I'll keep my brain active, and I won't have those moments. I'm playing Sodoku frequently over the last year because I have heard that it improves the mind. However, it hasn't improved my balancing-the-checkbook skills, at all. Instead of a savings account, I have a slush fund in my checking account, to account for my not accounting my account.

Age is relative I suppose. I remember when my grandmother turned 95 years old, still living on her own. Her son-in-law asked, er rather shouted to her good ear, "So, how do you feel today?" to which she replied, louder just for the heck of it, "I'm 95 years old. How the hell do you think I feel!" When you are 95 years old, you can be cantankerous and ornery just for grins and giggles and nobody will fault you. When you're 60 and act like that, well, you're just being a brat and a pill.

So here I am – 60 years old. Am I better? Older? Wiser? I like to think wiser, finally, after many false starts. I'm an all-around better person, through time and through events and experiences. I'm just not older. I'm definitely not elderly – although were I to trip and fall in the street and a reporter happened by (and I'm only a block away from the S-R building), the article in the paper would read "Elderly Woman Breaks Hip on Riverside and Monroe; Traffic tied up for hours trying to get her, screaming and clawing, into ambulance for ride to nursing home."

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Identity Redux

I usually enjoy getting my driver’s license renewed. I like to compare pictures and prove that I’m not getting older, I’m getting better.

Something went really bad when I went in to renew my license on Saturday. It’s the most awful picture I have ever seen. It’s a mug shot. It’s a mug shot of a seasoned criminal. I can’t show this in public! What am I going to say to whoever looks at it?

O, yeah, that was one hell of a hangover. (Even though I spent the night before watching old chick movies.)

That? That picture? Oh, it’s evidence for my malpractice suit on Botox injections gone horribly wrong.

What? No, oh no, that’s not me. That’s someone who stole my identity and tried to phony up a picture to look like me. Despicable job.

That really is a mug shot of me trying to steal Dentyne gum from the neighbor store.

I can explain that. Some really old, short, fat lady with no neck invaded my body. And I want it back.

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ARRRRGH! I’m stuck with this really awful picture for FIVE years. And the truly horrible irony of all of this is that I had the chance to renew online and keep my really great looking picture for another five years but I kept having trouble with my credit card billing address because I have moved but haven’t really moved and I can’t make up my mind whether to make Mechanic Man’s address MY address or to keep my real address as a place to temporarily go to on lunch hours and weekends. Now I have this truly ugly picture following me around every single solitary second of my life. For five years!

Obviously, the Department of Licensing did not get my memo on 60 reasons to be excited to be 60. They must have received one that said "there is only one reason for this person to look like an old worn boot, because she is ELDERLY, OLD, WRINKLED, and, well, REALLY OLD."

New Year’s Resolutions have nothing on the resolution I am making as a result of having my driver’s license renewed. Oh no. Now I am passionately and resolutely determined to change my identity. I’m going to lose 40 pounds and I’m going to join a gym and I’m going to get massages every other day and I’m going to tape my face up and back and go back in and have the damned picture retaken. Again and again and again until it looks like ME.

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The Walk Home

I had a migraine that day. It was set to be one of the bad ones and I decided to leave for home. I had missed the bus and so prepared to walk the two miles. It was cloudy and threatening to rain and so I picked up my yellow polka-dot Mary Englebriet umbrella and set out on my way.

As I got to the Monroe Street Bridge I noticed a man leaning on the cement banister, looking out over the water. I'm always aware of people when I'm walking. I try to assess them and make up a story about them. This one though was different. He was older than me, wearing a plaid shirt and jeans. My first thought was, where's his coat – it's going to rain and it's cold still for early April.

I got closer and just wanted to get past this guy. I was chanting in my head "don't turn around, don't turn around, don't turn around." I was just inches past him when he said "Hey lady." I planned on ignoring him and I planned to keep on going, but there was something about the tone. I stopped and looked back. He looked at me, soft sad brown eyes.

"Yes?" I hesitantly asked.

"Help me. I'm going to jump."

There's dead silence; I can barely hear the river below; I don't notice it has started to rain.

"What?" I ask – surely I didn't hear him right.

"I'm-going-to-jump-you-need-to-help-me."

I pointed my finger at him and I think I only said "STAY", not anything else. In my head I was shouting, "You stay right there and don't you move one muscle!"

I ran up the walk to the first building at the edge of the bridge. Closed! I ran to the next building. Closed! What's with all these closed buildings? I don't have time for this! I went to the next building and couldn't get the door open. I don't know why. My brain stopped working and I was a blithering idiot. I finally noticed a phone booth right next to me and miracle of miracles I even had money on me, in my pocket. I dialed 911 and told them my story. The dispatcher questioned me with "How do you know he's going to jump?" "He just told me!" I yelled back. I hung up in despair and my mind is screaming "O my God O my God O my God"

I ran back down the sidewalk, the man still standing there, O thank God, leaning over the edge. Just then a police car came down the road, the absolutely only car for three blocks! Two officers gently approached the man and lifted his hands off the edge of the cement wall and carefully guided him back to their car. The three of them made one glance at me and then drove away.

And there I stood with my cheery sunny umbrella while it rained in earnest now, pouring tears from Heaven.

Three weeks later, on my birthday in fact, I was reading the paper and I got to the ad section, which I never read, and it just caught my eye, a little ad:

"To the lady with the yellow umbrella. You saved my life. Thank you."

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60 reasons I am excited about being SIXTY:

ONE WEEK AWAY

1. I don’t look it – see me next year
2. I am healthy (mostly)
3. I am content
4. I am mature (something I am extremely grateful for – no more hot emotions, no more being jealous or petty; just nice calm maturity)
5. However, I can be cranky if I want to. I'm OLD.
6. I love the person in the mirror that looks back at me.
7. I laugh at myself way too much. And that’s perfectly fine.
8. I am hardly ever sad.
9. I have the bone density of a 30-year-old, so my doc tells me
10. I am mother of two great sons that I don’t have to nag after
11. I have dear close friends that hold secrets, tell jokes, and care deeply
12. I laugh and laugh and laugh
13. I’m alive
14. I feel great
15. I am comfortable in my skin
16. I have become a sensitive, compassionate woman
17. I have become an example to follow
18. I’m a great mother-in-law and the envy of all my daughter-in-law’s friends who don’t have me as their mother-in-law
19. I have a beautiful singing voice, especially in the shower
20. I am 1/3 of the way through my list
21. I look back at some of the things I write and think, boy, that was really good!
22. I am passionate about attitude and living, truly living!
23. I am a good listener and confidante.
24. Not to worry when you tell me a secret; I can honestly say I have forgotten it by the next day
25. I dance when I clean the house, usually to Meatloaf’s “Bat out of Hell.”
26. Sunsets
27. Beaches
28. The ocean
29. I can still climb lighthouses
30. I am a pretty good photographer
31. I might retire in five years; maybe not; maybe work fulfills me still
32. I’m good with computers
33. Babies – I look forward to being a very young in spirit Grandmother in my 60s
34. All-you-can-eat buffet places that give senior discounts to 60 and older. I can eat those 80-year-olds under the table.
35. I can skip exercising (well, occasionally) and blame it on "old age."
36. I get to take naps!
37. I can be weird and eccentric and everyone will love me anyway
38. My eyesight is still 20-20
39. I actually wasn't born yesterday
40. 2/3 through my list
41. I am wise and make less mistakes
42. When I make mistakes I just write them off as senior moments
43. Cats love me (they see an easy mark)
44. I'm still active and in more ways than one
45. You are only as old as you feel – and sometimes I feel like I'm twelve.
46. Some days I feel like I'm 100.
47. Life!
48. I have God in my heart; God walks with me all day long
49. I have a great sense of humor
50. Other people laughing is contagious; I surround myself with laughing people
51. I am introspective and engage in lots of soul searching and generally find good things in my soul
52. A former boss told my current boss to hire me because I was gentle and kind; I really like being thought of as gentle and kind
53. I have my teeth; and I floss
54. I sleep very well
55. I have no regrets
56. I have at least 60 friends!
57. 20 of my 60 friends are my very best friends forever VBFF!
58. Today is the first day of my life, and I get to start all over again with a fresh slate; and it is the last day of my life and I get to fill it up with all kinds of adventures and experiences and memories
59. I can still swing to the top of the bar with my feet high and my head back
60. Wow! I'm sixty years old! Can you believe it???

Pieces of Joy

I love finding little things in the day that are joyful.

• Like, passing a gradeschool during recess and listening to dozens of children laughing;
• Watching the neighbor teen "race" with his little short-legged terrier running like it meant his life, the little dog's tail wiggling so much that he zigzagged as he ran, stopping now and then to smile at his master and let the teen catch up;
• Sitting at a light and hearing loud cheering from the car next door with its window down and realizing the guy by himself is singing at the top of his lungs to the radio, his head thrown back with glee;
• Babies being strolled by on the first spring day;
• Tulips and crocuses have exploded out of the hard wintered soil;
• Putting my coat back in the closet, finally;
• Spring cleaning! Leaving the windows and doors open, sending the old stale air out and letting the fresh spring air in;
• Bliss.

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Health Report #1

Just wanted all of you to know that I am "good" for a while. I am having tests done to start the process of going on a transplant list but my overall health is very good and that will keep me riding the fence for a while – and I pray for a long, long while. As I told a good friend, I am really good at sitting on fences. I should be a politician.

I feel the good vibes and the prayers. Thank you so much! I'll just keep on keeping on, as they say. Our minds are so powerful and our attitude is magic.

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Giving up the bottle

Giving up the bottle. . . . . Not the beer bottle – the baby bottle. When my youngest boy was born a mere 17 months after my oldest, I felt a tremendous amount of guilt that I had a second baby while my first born was STILL a baby. I remember walking up the stairs with the brand new baby and looking at the top step where my not even 18-month-old was standing. My heart stopped with a pang. He's only a baby I thought. I wanted to cry. And sometimes, when both were crying, I cried right along with them. How could I have done such a selfish thing! So, I appeased my guilt by letting my now 18-month-old still use a bottle.

I knew that I should be potty training him but it was so much easier to simply make up two bottles instead of one and then there would be about five minutes of silence, with the two munchkins happily and contentedly (and quietly) enjoying their bottle.

When they were 18 months and a month shy of 3 years old respectively and STILL on the bottle, well, things needed to change. I worried about this moment for weeks. I tried to think of plans. Plan A - and Plan B in case Plan A blew up in my face. So – Plan A was to wait until their Dad went on assignment (in the Air Force) where he worked off site three days and three nights. We'd take Daddy to the base on such-and-such morning and then go back to the house and throw all the bottles in the garbage. Cold Turkey! And then we would burrow in for three days and three nights of crying, wailing, gnashing of teeth, pounding heads against crib bars, going through bottle withdrawal – and after three days and three nights we would be boys and not babies. We would be bottleless and ready for potty training! We would be out of diapers and into training pants. Hoo Rah.

So – we drove Daddy to the base and came home. I asked the boys to gather all their bottles together. They happily did so. Like a game! Then I had them go out to the garbage cans and toss them into the brand spanking new empty garbage cans. And we went back inside and they jumped up and down and clapped their hands and asked what else they could throw away. And acted like nothing happened. They went and played with their stuffed animals and their Weebles and their Fisher-Price cars and acted like nothing happened. They had their lunch with their milk in sippy cups and again – no wailing, no tantrums, no kicking and screaming.

My babies miraculously turned into little boys with a snap of a garbage can lid.

And there was no Plan B.

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