CODs

I forgot to mention what CODs are. Confused Old Duffer s. But perhaps we have not really totally arrived at that position. And Space is something to be considered. Each one of us needs some space, private space, quiet space, alone space, loud messy space, cluttered space, but there to we can adjust. I try meditation but there are too many space interrupters in this Space, so I guess I do my meditating when I am pulling weeds. The garden is a meditative space. Rocks moved for a better setting are meditative. Pulling small leaves of grass can become meditative. So I guess I am saying space is meditative!

I just read about centenarians. They are our 100 and older people. The Study done revealed that nothing they do or don't do makes a difference. It may be genetic loving a long life. So you might as well just live the life you want because it will either be long or it won't. So each day could as well come and go and you do what you want with it, cause you just don't know.

Family and CODs

It is a day of pouring rain. It is coming down so hard that you can hear it on the roof. Granted, the roof is metal, new in the last 6 months, but there is a small attic space between us and the roof. Pounding rain, and I contemplate the change in the house hold. We have had a visiting daughter and her dog. It was pleasant and warm with all of us here. Two dogs skirted each other carefully, but really were OK with the arrangements. The cat hissed when close to the new dog, looking a bit like a lion in miniature. There was laughter, and intense silence as daughter did her research, grading, and teaching on line. And she did a lot of driving exploring the surrounding territory filling us in with what she found. When we moved the towels out of the bathroom she used, it rang with the silence. It echoed. Frogs spent time in that bathroom waiting for the trip back home. I heard them burble a few times.

I thought about how older humans seem to need to move from home and go somewhere they have read about, sunshine, sand, townhouses filled with their kind and age. But I really think that is probably a mistake. I bet they really end up feeling lost and alone, and like what do I do now. And then there are usually masses of people, parading around, pushing you aside in grocery stores because they have to pee, but need to pay for their purchase. And they end up walking but not seeing where they are.

If you stay where you are familiar with the terrain, the weather, the services, and perhaps some of the people you know that are still living in the area, than you continue with your life, and it may just seem longer! To have a daughter filling the spaces with laughter and helping you chatter about things, makes you realize what empty can be when she leaves. So heed the decisions that can be made about what you do as you age. Stay where you can welcome the family and know where you are walking or riding. And perhaps the daughter, or the son, or the other daughter will come and visit. Well, really, she knows where you live. And the cat will adjust once again! And all the other kids might come and visit as well! Being old is liking your space if it remains the one you remember.

I still hear the rain, but the cat came in and is napping.

My Attempt At College

For some reason my Mother thought it important to send me far away from home. I guess I should question that, but she had to convince my Dad that I would do just fine. I went to Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Now that is enough Colorado's, isn't it! I had to take remedial courses in the summer before going away in Math. I passed my SATs with the help. I had no idea what I wanted to do but did take Geology because I really like rocks. But at the time my advisor told me that most likely I would like being outside, and they just didn't send females into the field back then. So I change to Art. I should have taken just basics and be happy with that. (I hear dogs howling in the background as I write!) (Not werewolves!)

I arrived at college and remember vaguely being introduced to the school through orientation. Then the beer bust that I went to out in the woods. How I got there I will never know, and I had really never done beer before. But I survived that, and then ended up dating a Beta guy who was very persistent. My Mom had to call the Dean of Women to check up on me and find out if I was actually going to school. I did make some really cool friends who I hung out with on Sunday's, two guys and a couple of girls, and we went to a deli a few blocks away for sandwiches, mine usually liverwurst with mayonnaise, lettuce and wheat bread. Loved it! We would go to the Shove Chapel to hear one of the guys practice on the organ. We would lie on the choir benches below the pipes and bliss out! This I was happy with and not really with the persistent Beta guy. to be continued!

Aging Continued

I could weep and become ever more depressed as I feel my body not being able to adjust to my old active lifestyle. But it is just adjustment. I can still ride my bike, walk a bit, ski some, go up and down stairs, and keep my mind active with books, cross word puzzles, laughter, and research.I test myself at times and try to remember what I had eaten, and I keep a journal. I remove weeds but I have to stoop to do that as a knee doesn't want me to kneel quite yet. i found a Towhee nest the other day at the base of my poppies. There was one last year. The fledglings are almost ready to fly by the time we get back, thank goodness, as the cat likes stalking little squeaky things.

To age is to make it to the top of the life hill and start descending down the other side. It is to be told when you go in for a physical check up, 'oh you don't have to do that test anymore'. I get it, it won't matter and we won't fix it! I still monitor all those things in my mind as I don't want to go out debilitated and in pain! So what would I do? Deal with it. Since we have lived where we live, at least three people have taken the life force into their own hands and ended it. One swam out into the Bay until she could no longer swim and then washed up on shore. Another rowed out into the Bay and disappeared. And another shot herself in her car near the same Bay. I think my Dad just starved himself. He wanted one of us to bring him a gun and we wouldn't. So he stopped eating. He wanted to go but his life force wasn't ready so he had to take his own measures. In those last months we connected. I heard a lot of things he wanted to remember. Even though I was a woman, he could talk to me. He had an old fashioned opinion that women should be in the home, and that was all they were good for, homemaking! But maybe he found out finally that that wasn't so! So could I take my life force and remove it? I don't know.

One wants to age with some sort of dignity. If my mind goes, I won't know if I am dignified or not, and won't care. Others will have to deal with me and that is a hard thought. But as long as I can get up in the AM, shower, and dress and feed myself I will be happy. All the other things will fall into place.

So it is the body failing to do its job that determines your aging pattern. Changes occur. But my dream is that my husband and I can live in our house, take care of each other, and when we can't it will end. No burden to our kids, just happy memories. Going to have to work on this scenario and make sure it happens. A dog is softly breathing behind my chair. I looked and she has a paw over her muzzle. Pretty cute. I am so easy!

The Dog's Life

Aging will be continued! This morning into the fog and fine mist, the dog and I went into the back yard. I like to give the plants some water as the fog helps soak it down into the soil. The dog leaps out of the door enthusiastically unless I open, first the main door and then the screen, very slowly. If I open the door and screen briskly she thinks she must challenge something vile! The back corner of the yard which has wild roses, and a white lilac we brought from our other home 24 years ago, and thimble berry plants and snowberry that came with the lilac. It is home to some kind of troll in the dogs mind. She will go up there smartly if I go, but if not, she has to insinuate herself punctuated with barks and look backs until she can get up into the vicinity of the corner. I think perhaps she has seen a raccoon in my neighbors yard ghosting under their porch and gets bold with that sighting, but the troll has her flummoxed.

We are truly lucky to have a very happy dog. She likes to be with us, and things make her bounce and jump and chase. Of course, we provide lots to be happy about. There is regular food, warm beds, toys to chew on, bones in appropriate places, and sticks in the yard. And she has a sister cat who likes to taunt her into chasing games in the house or out. They both seem to adjust to our winter place and our summer place and it is all just fine. The cat stays inside in the winter home, and she goes outside in the summer home. And it seems to be no big thing getting used to her routines. She checks in with a meow when she comes back in from outside in summer, and she checks in with us at mealtimes in the winter and finds places to sleep, and games to play while awake.

Our dog is a large dog, but fearful of the unknown. A branch rustling can startle her, but if she sees what did the rustle, she stands right up to that. She is cautious with people but likes every dog she meets. If a dog snaps at her, she just steps away and goes on about her business. And then there is the corner of our yard! She is totally fixated on our routines and us as her people and that can be a problem as anything else upsets her. Her Mother was fearful of us as well and we should have known, but we had fallen in love and that was that.

Routine with animals is important. As long as those remain fairly constant, life is good. Having had dogs and cats all my life I find I cannot tolerate what I see as abuse of animals of any kind. They deserve just as much attention and kindness as humans. Oh, thats right, humans abuse themselves and are vicious and cruel forgetting compassion and respect. Humans perhaps have really doomed this planet to it demise. But perhaps the speechless animals can make it right again. Oh Oh, I have mounted the soapbox. And where did that term come from. Soapbox!

If you live with an animal most of your life, and can feel relaxed about their presence, they can feel your every mood. Building trust with an animal calls for attention, softness, kindness, and love. When our dog first was with us as a puppy she would rouse up and give a guttural sound in being surprised if disturbed. As time went on, this changed and we could bump her, or move a limb and she did not respond. We had built trust. Animals have to find out if they can trust you, and then act accordingly. Wouldn't it be nice if humans could do this without having to be armed? It appears it just takes time. Trust and you will feel good. Maybe even happy like our dog. I could get on the soapbox about arms, but I won't. NRA will be proved wrong one of these days. They will start shooting each other because none of us without arms will be left! That ought to get me in trouble. Pacifist! One shot deserves another, and on and on! Pacifist!

The Aging Phenomenom

I just finished a novel, 'Still Alice' concerning an well educated woman, Professor of Linguistics at Harvard who has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer Disease. She is 50. Well, I am into my 70's and can go whew for that! But it was indeed thought provoking. I found myself taking mental notes. I would also feel apprehensive, and then I would wonder about myself and the things that I would forget, the reasons behind my desire to organize my files and make notebooks noting where things are, what accounts we have, etc. Then I read the Obits! There I note that people either die young, below fifty, or they seem to make it into their 80's. Lots of people die from 'battling cancer'. God forbid that should happen now. I wonder if I would be up to the battle. Then I wonder, do these people move around much? The ones who make it into their 80's? We are still driving back and forth on trips that take 2-3 days, and so far we have been aware enough to notice if we think something might happen. But things do happen! Tires come off those big trucks. Things like blocks of wood fall off truck beds. Idiots throw things off bridges. Drunks are out there driving the wrong way on highways. But one thing, we don't drive at night. That narrows some things down. And the roads we travel on seem to be so empty a lot of the time, and they are four lanes. There are two big, well maybe three big city corridors to drive through, and they can be some kind of hell, but we make it by both being alert! Well, we try being alert. One lovely trip going from East to the West, we were in the Salt Lake City corridor, the beginning of it, 8 lanes here, and coming around a long gradual corner there in the road is an large metal shed that would hold bags of ice, but it has just fallen off a trailer into the middle of the middle lanes. If you can believe it, a person with no shirt on is coming out into traffic to do Lord knows what. The truck and trailer are on the right side of the road, and another person is standing looking at the trailer. Oops! The best thing to do is get out of there. We did!

So back to aging, but the above is an example of being alert. If no one else is alert, it could be one big mess. But driving in and around where you live gets to be easy, so you have to make yourself be alert. Driving to the Post Office I prod myself to look around me, watch for others, obey stop signs, lights, and whatever else might be out there. No nonchalance for me anymore. Once driving with my Father who was in his late 70's, he was driving, and managed to merge across six lanes after coming off a ramp on the left, and I swear he did not look at all, just kept merging. I know he didn't look because horns were going off all around us, and when he got to the far right lane so he could go off another ramp, traffic was stopped, he stopped abruptly and the license plate right in front of us was 'Yew Ram'. I almost peed my pants. Another lesson learned.

Missing parts

That should have gone on to say peanut butter, tomato, and mayonnaise sandwiches. I wrote two more paragraphs, and they disappeared. I will have to try and capture the muse once again, but that will happen tomorrow.