Category Archives: Aging

POB

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I love POB (partner of blogger).  She is the better half of my soul.  She is extraordinary.

She is also “at liberty” these days, since losing her job in a corporate restructuring.  To my mind, she can rest on her laurels and eat bon-bons for the rest of her life. I want her to be happy.  But recently, I think she needs to have a job for her sanity and well, frankly, for mine.

A few weeks ago, I learned from POB all about the scam of recycling plastic bottles.  The bottles are shipped to China (add to carbon footprint) where the process of recycling those bottles causes noxious gases to be released into the atmosphere (EPA would not allow such recycling in our country) and then the recycled product is shipped back to us (add to carbon footprint). All this, over dinner, after a long day trying to woo clients and bring in business.

Last night, we were at dinner at a restaurant with friends and POB had questions about the fish special.  Was it farmed? Was it certified as “happy fish” before it was fooled by bait and impaled on a hook?  Where was it fished? (as in, was it fished in a place that is overfished?)  I had an extra glass of wine that had a huge carbon footprint.  I felt bad but the wine felt good.

But it was really the other week that I decided that POB needs a job, ANY job, with or without pay.  POB announced over a gluten-free, nut-free and (dare I say) taste-free dinner that we should get one of those apartment-size composting kits so that we can create fertilizer and then drop it off at compost-receiving stations in Central Park.  That way, the parks will be greener and we will be, too.  Ok, ok, ok, ok, at age 47, I am composting nicely, thank you.  I will disintegrate enough just in time for the worms, etc. to break down the rest of my cells at my death.  POB is not mollified by the knowledge that I am in slow-burn compost mode.

What, am I not compost enough for POB????  At long last, has it come to this?

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Our Family’s Idea of Father’s Day

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To be fair, POB (partner of blogger) has more traditional notions of Father’s Day.  She invited everyone over for brunch and made a blueberry pie from SCRATCH (I know, I know, I am grateful every day that she doesn’t realize she can do better than me).

SOB (sister of blogger) and I took DOB (father of blogger) and HOSOB (husband of SOB) to the cemetery.  SOB and DOB really, really, wanted to go to the cemetery.  It scared me a little, because I feared something foreboding about needing to visit the dead.

At DOB’s age, it is like taking him to visit his friends.  For HOSOB, it was his first time meeting Mom. It was about time that HOSOB was formally introduced.

I rented a car.  A Mercedes.  I decided that it was important for our dead relatives to know that we are prosperous a few generations on in this country and that the “Vohrr” (as in World War II) was over as it concerns German products.

We schlepped to where most New York Jews are buried — Long Island. As we passed the Jewish cemeteries we made sure to say them in an old Yiddish accent, with the requisite throat clearing, “Achhhhem, Beth Moses Cemeterrrrry, dahlink”.  “Turn onto Vellvood [Wellwood] Avenue.”

First, we visited Mom.   Mom always packed a sweater in August and the day of her funeral was so bone-chillingly cold.  SOB and I still feel guilty that we left her in the cemetery on that January day.  And to add insult to injury, we left her all alone to fend for herself among Dad’s deceased family, also resident in the family plot. My grandmother never had a nice word to say about Mom.  And vice-versa.  Uncle Loud was, let’s just say, narrow-minded.  His wife was lovely, but she screeched when she talked.  My other uncle was a difficult guy.  We positioned Mom’s grave so that she would be closest to those she tolerated, loved even, in life.

There were stones on the graves (a Jewish custom to show the grave has been visited) except for the one difficult uncle.  Really, really, really?  My cousins visited the cemetery and put stones on Uncle and Aunt Louds’ headstones, our grandparents’ headstones and our mother’s headstone, but they couldn’t put a stone on our other uncle’s headstone?  The headstone is not even inches away from my grandmother’s.  In death as in life, the competitions and the divisions remain.

Then we visited Mom’s parents in the next cemetery over.  They have graves in the International Workers Organization plot.  All headstones are the same height in this plot, in keeping with its socialist and egalitarian ethos.  I remember that my grandfather’s headstone was laid, but we didn’t have an unveiling because Mom’s cancer came back shortly before her father died and she just couldn’t have a ceremony, for a gazillion emotional reasons.  So, more than ten years have passed and as I looked at the stone, I thought the stone cutters got part of my grandfather’s Hebrew name wrong. Oy.  This is a huge problem in Jewish tradition.  So I better do some research first before I call a foul.

We started the drive back to the City and blueberry pie.  My father tried to navigate us to Queensboro bridge (why pay a toll?) and started each wrong instruction with an “Achhhhem” eerily reminiscent of the old generation.  We got a little lost in Queens, which is like being in another country to the spoiled Manhattanites that are SOB and I.  I saw the Empire State Building and just started driving toward it.  Luckily, we didn’t have to swim.  We found the bridge.

We arrived in time for blueberry pie and all was well with the world.

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The View From Inside

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This morning I had an endoscopy. For stomach, esophagus and duodenum.  Not colon, thank G-d.

But first the back story. DOB (father of blogger) has horrible reflux.  SOB (sister of blogger) sometimes has bad digestive episodes, but she never complains.  DOB, however, does complain, but if you ask him, he would say that he just describes the sensations searing through his digestive system.

[You can tell that the family parses these distinctions at the dinner table because, after all, Jews can talk about anything with their mouths full.  A curse and a blessing, that tribal trait.  But I digress from my back story.]

Like DOB, like Blogger.  I try to be more like stoic SOB, but recently I had become concerned about the severity of the reflux.  I even went to a doctor last Friday.  SOB went with me, in case I did not present the key elements of my “case”.  (Doctors are that way.)  The GI Guy (gastro-intestinal doctor) lectured me on how I need regular check-ups and screenings.

All the time I am thinking, “you are a really nice man and come highly recommended but, GI Guy, if I don’t listen to SOB, why would I listen to you?”  But GI Guy is SOB’s friend and colleague and I didn’t want to make waves.

Maybe GI Guy is a mind reader because he suggested that I consider an endoscopy.  Or more probably, based on my sparse history of going to doctors, he must have realized that I must be concerned if I was in his office.  We set today as the date for a look-see down my throat.  Then, SOB reiterated the lecture about getting checked out regularly.  So, I asked her if she practices what she preaches.  Pause.  I told her that she was unashamedly hypocritical.

It is amazing what you can find on the internet.  Pictures of not so good results:

 

I thought the procedure would look like this:

 


But not exactly.

 

Anyway, enough back story.  Fast forward to this morning at 6AM. I picked up SOB in a cab and we went over to fancy shmancy East Side for the procedure.  But at 6AM, even the tony, tony neighborhoods look like hell:

Still, I am not so unnerved by this.  I figure a relaxant and then a tube and a few pictures and that’s that.  And there was a spa two doors down…

Ok, not so much.

Blogger is on a gurney (the first picture is to show off the pedicure) next to really enthusiastic GI Guy – it IS 6am and the civilized world is still asleep or at least in their jammies.  (SOB is in the room (and taking pictures).)

The anesthesiologist shows up.  ANESTHESIOLOGIST?????  He mumbles questions and we had a little Marx Brothers routine, where he asked questions in English mumble, SOB translated into English non-mumble and then I answered in Blogger-ese.  SOB then had to translate into doctor-speak.  It could have been the United Nations, except we were all speaking some dialect of American English.

Thank G-d for SOB. She gave me a good luck kiss on my forehead, but I knew she was staying right next to the anesthesiologist.  She is my bodyguard and I am hers.

In went the IV and the propophyl (the stuff that killed Michael Jackson).  I had to bite down on a plastic ring and off to sleep I went.  I was awakened after the “scope” and tissue was scraped for biopsies.

First question to GI Guy when I awoke:  Did you take pictures for my blog?

I stayed loopy for a while.  GI Guy’s assistant told me: Do not to resume normal activities (she doesn’t know that no one ever ascribes “normal” to anything I do); do not go to work; do not make any important decisions; and do not sign legal documents; do not make business decisions.  As if directed at me specifically, she told me:  Do not do anything that requires unimpaired concentration or judgment.  I don’t get it; that is how I live every day.

So, I went to sleep.  That propophyl is awesome.

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Transformations

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Over the last half-year, POB (partner of blogger) started exercising to handle the stress generated by her job.   (I wanted her to quit because she was working so hard at making a difficult situation workable that I didn’t think it was worth it.)

POB balances so much — she takes such fabulous care of TLP (our son, the little prince) and me — that I tell her often she can stop anytime and then eat bons bons and rest on her laurels for the rest of our lives.

Recently, POB’s job ended [more on that later].

All of a sudden, she had time to shop (she needed new clothes for the summer and for her slimmed-down body) and do things for her and the family that often went undone because of our schedules.

Then, one night, I came home and walked into the kitchen to see this tall, slim, blond woman in heels and form-fitting clothes, cooking dinner.

I was a bit surprised; who WAS this women?  Then, I remembered.  Before she could turn around, I asked, “Excuse me.  Are you the trophy wife I ordered from Amazon?“

POB turned around and said, “Yes, yes, I am. Be afraid.  Be very afraid.”

Ah, all is the same.  POB is still POB and she is a gift.

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Desperately seeking “Apps for Dummies”

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Well, not Apple apps especially.

I need help with any apps that are supposed to enhance my photo library or make on-line anything easier.

For a while, I have wanted to post an adorable picture of my son on my blog, but I have wanted to photo-shop it so that his eyes are blacked out for privacy (let me dream that identities can be protected).  And, apropos of nothing, I wanted to combine a few Adobe pdf scans into one document.

I sit down at the computer and an Adobe reader update is downloading.  Hmmm, I think.  The system that lets me combine files, mark up scanned documents, fill out governmental forms, etc. from my office laptop.

Adobe, I think again.

Adobe, I determine as my answer to all things technological.

ADOBE, I decide to purchase more applications.

ADOBE, I know will make my home computer dreams come true.

ADOBE, it becomes my mantra.

I click my heels twice as I also click on my credit card information and off to Oz I go. (Funny, Oz requires credit cards these days.)

I think Oz turned out better for Dorothy.

Two hours and two large glasses of wine later, I haven’t been able to combine my pdfs into one, but I managed to export my photo libraries into the netherworld.  Coming soon to a world wide web address accessible to you.

I wouldn’t care about having those pictures out in the world (they will bore anyone who is not inextricably tied to our families), but there ARE the teenage/post-adolescent fat pictures of POB (partner of blogger) and me.  Those could go viral.  Otherwise, if you need a soporific, have at the family pictures.

So, to all of these “make your life a snap” apps, I say, “Give me my typewriter and Polaroid camera.”

Oz was a bust.

 

 

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Non-bloggable moments

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College friends were in town this weekend and those who were in town on Friday came over at our house for a late bite.  We were all catching up on each other’s news, and I was telling a story, and my dear, dear, friend, let’s call her DCFOB (DC friend of blogger), exclaimed, “this story isn’t on your blog!! I thought everything was on your blog!!”

Dear, dear, DCFOB, not everything can be on my blog.  Then, no one would talk to me.  So, yes, there are wild and crazy stories — just ask IFOB (Italian friend of blogger) but there need to be blog-free zones.  In fact, one of our dear friends prefaced one conversation this weekend by stating, “this is a blog-free conversation!”

So, everyone, I try to be tactful where others are concerned.  I am not always (or often) successful, but I do try.  Really, really, hard.  And some stories . . . well, I think I have shown exceptional restraint.  But, when senility starts to eat away at my discretion, just hope that the memories get lost too.  Otherwise, be afraid.  Very afraid.

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High School Reunion

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THIRTY YEARS.

Thirty years.

Thirty YEAHS (said like a New Yorker).

It isn’t as if we were celebrating 30 years of marriage or a career.  We were celebrating surviving for 30 years since we last saw each other as a group.  “So, whatcha been doin’?” would require days, if not weeks, with every classmate, in order to catch up.

But we only had a few hours.

I was the class nerd whose parents couldn’t afford to have me keep up with the clothes and accessories of the others.  So, I always felt I was on the outside looking in and, sometimes, some of the girls were mean.   And, of course, I had an inkling that I was different somehow (later, to realize I was gay).  I think it manifested by not understanding how to connect to the other girls; I was always at home talking with the guys.

So, this is was a loaded event for me.  But I had a plan:

look thin and prosperous.

Except I hurt my arm 10 days ago and hadn’t been to the gym.  And, POB (partner of blogger) is no longer employed.

Great plan; bad execution.

So, I was bloated and feeling unprosperous.  And yet I am a lucky person in life and I am really happy, so, Saturday, I had a new plan:

Just make sure the make-up is flawless and the lipstick color is awesome.

So I put on comfy clothes and went.  There was a small pre-party at a classmate’s chocolate shop, with people who were always quirky and kind enough to accept my bizarro-ness and eccentricities even then.  Immediately upon entering the chocolate shop, all trepidation disappeared.  And the years melted away in such a warm and wonderful way.

[Just a side bar about the chocolate shop: Bond Street Chocolate, www.bondstchocolate.com, a tiny, fabulous place that is worth the schlep to East 4th Street; it isn’t actually on Bond Street].

Everyone was instantly recognizable.  Same laughs, same voices, same cadences and same energies.  Some looked so fabulous that I just know they have their own Dorian Gray-like pictures in their closets.  They were AGELESS.  And no scalpel touched their faces.  (Maybe some hair coloring and under-eye cover stick but that was it and we are 48!!)

We all arrived at the official party.  The turn out was amazing.  And, again, people were instantly recognizable.

Life has tread on all of us.  We lost our harder edges.  The mean girls weren’t mean anymore.   Those old distinctions didn’t matter anymore.  We all had happy times, disappointing times, scary times, and sad times and that makes us all a lot more grounded than teenagers spending grades 7-12 together in a tiny Upper East Side private school.

I left grateful for the occasion to reconnect with people who share some of my past and, I hope, part of my future.

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Older? Yes. Wiser? Hmmm.

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I thought that wisdom came with gray hair (and wrinkles).  A cosmic consolation prize for an aging gameshow contestant.

My parents got wiser and smarter as they got older (well, until they started to forget everything, so let’s leave that).

So my point is that I was expecting to feel a growing serenity — that you’ve-seen-enough-of-the-world-to-know-that-things-work-out-and-you-can-roll-with-the-punches-of- life kind of feeling — by the time the wrinkles started appearing under my eyes (or would be appearing but for the daily slathering of face cream).  Actually, the wrinkles are there, but if you apply the hydrating cream, then put on make-up and never, ever, wear your bifocals when looking in the mirror, then the wrinkles just disappear.  (Is this too much back story, here?)

Instead, I feel more anxiety and less sure about the world around me.  (AND, I have gray hair and wrinkles.)

I will be seriously bummed if I bypass the serenity thing and go straight from high-anxiety to senility.  Actually, that may get me to about the same state of mind. 

Ok, never mind.

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Being 51

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Being 51 isn’t as hard as I expected.  (Ok, I am really only 47, but you would understand this all from prior blog entries.)

I can do things that any 47 year-old can do, only I look GREAT at it.  I was doing some unassisted pull ups at the gym and one guy came up to me and said he was impressed and that he doesn’t even see young women do that.

What do you think gave it away?  The gray hair, some wrinkles, that way my body imperceptibly (at least to me) changed with time and gravity?

I asked him, “What tipped you off that I wasn’t young any more?”

He was embarrassed — poor guy — and took out his wallet and showed me his fat pictures.  I guess he felt he owed me.  Here is this young guy with a sculpted body who was a candidate for the “Biggest Loser” about 6 months ago.  Up close, I could see the faint stretch marks around his outrageously toned biceps and triceps.

I told the guy he could even call me old lady.  Of course, I didn’t say that I would smack him if he actually did.  Then again, with his new body, he wouldn’t feel it if I tried.

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Being Mom on Mother’s Day

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POB (partner of blogger) and I don’t exchange mother’s day cards, although TLP (our son, the little prince) must make two — one for each of us.

I still have a vague feeling that I have forgotten something on Mother’s Day, as if I should be sending a card to someone.

But, when we gathered for the obligatory lunch, I went through the mental catalogue:

  • Dad’s mother: May 1973;
  • Mom’s mother: June 1988;
  • Mom: January 2003; and
  • POB’s mother: April 2006.

Nope, no one to whom to send a mother’s day card.  Anyway, the postage for four cards from here to Heaven would probably break the bank.

Now, POB and I are the honorees.  We get the handmade cards that we will treasure for a lifetime even if the ungluing pink glitter is all over the house.

Even my brother called to wish us a happy mother’s day.  He must have that same sense of forgetting to do something — like sending a card to Mom.

I know SOB (sister of blogger) is having a good cry going through the family pictures in her photo album which we reverentially call “The Shrine”.

It just doesn’t feel right.  Mom, it is still your day. Always will be.

I love you.

 

 

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