Bad Feeling

January 12, 2023 — Pat Bertram

Have you ever had a bad feeling about something and acted on it? I’m not talking about things like tests or job interviews or doctor’s appointments or first day at work or any of those things we have to do at some time or other despite a feeling of uneasiness. I’m not even talking about a premonition. Just an all-around bad feeling.

That happened to me yesterday. Just an all-around bad feeling about a meeting I was supposed to attend. I have no idea where the bad feeling came from. It’s possible I’ve been around people too much lately. Actually, that’s not just possible, but a fact. I have been around people too much lately, but still that’s no reason for the bad feeling. I’m a bit uneasy about having been exposed to The Bob, and although I’m sure the person who exposed me is past the contagious stage, it could still be something that set off the bad feeling. I’m also having my general winter coughing spells, which I prefer to have at home rather than in public. Luckily, I’m discovering that a cool mister helps. (Cool Mister? Sounds nickname for a romance hero!)

Now that I think about it, it’s all too probable the bad feeling comes from a falling barometer since I do tend to be affected by changes in atmospheric pressure. For example, when the barometric pressure drops, it creates a difference between the outside pressure and sinus pressure. Considering how problematic my sinuses are, the difference can, at the least, give me a bad feeling — not exactly sick, but not exactly tip top, either. Lower air pressure also exerts less pressure against the body, allowing tissues to expand, causing pain around joints. I’m not to that point yet, though I’m sure in the coming years I’ll become as much of a human barometer as anyone with aging joints.

Also, the falling barometric pressure indicates a coming storm, though there is no need for a barometer yesterday — I woke to sunny skies and still air, and by noon, dark clouds and high winds were the norm. I don’t like driving or being driven in storms, so I went with the bad feeling and backed out of my meeting.

As it turns out, the storm was overrated, just a sprinkling of snow, and nothing happened to the people who went to the meeting, though if I believed I’d had a premonition (which I don’t) and had a more mystical bent, I would think that my staying away was the equivalent of the flap of a butterfly wing that changed everyone’s fate from dire to favorable.

Still, whatever the reason for the bad feeling yesterday, for the first time ever, I went with my instincts and stayed home, reading and napping and enjoying a pleasant afternoon despite the low pressure outside and the higher pressure inside my head.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in dealing with old age, life. Tags: , , , , . 1 Comment »

Daily Tarot Reading

December 31, 2022 — Pat Bertram

In yesterday’s blog post, I mentioned what I hoped to gain by a daily tarot reading, and it was only afterwards I remembered that the only thing I hoped to gain was a feeling for and a knowledge of the cards. Although I made it sound as if I was looking for a deeper understanding of myself and my life, that isn’t the case. Or at least, it wasn’t. I have no idea now what I’m doing it for.

At the beginning, of course, I did a daily reading more as an homage to my deceased older brother because he was the one who collected the cards. I figured he did so in an effort to understand his life (which was confusing at best, and often horrific). As I’ve become more familiar with the cards, any true reading has to reflect me, my hopes, my life otherwise they are just playing cards.

Still, despite this disavowal, I am looking to them for something since my daily question is “What do I need to know today?” and more often now, “What do I need to focus on?”

I certainly didn’t get into this daily practice to find ways to improve me or to understand more about my life. At this late stage, I’m not sure it matters all that much. So much of what was to be has already been. The past is a long tail on the mote that is today, and today is a mere shadow indicating perhaps what is to come. If I look too far into the future, the end is obvious, so the secret is (perhaps) taking a short long-term view. Or not look into the future at all. And I certainly have no interest in rehashing the past. I’ve done that and have laid it to rest. So to a certain extent, I am a static being suspended in the crucible of today.

I hesitated about inserting “static” in the previous sentence since no one is truly static — we are all changing even if in small ways — but it feels as if I am a done deal. If I could have been smarter, or wiser, or more intuitive, or more radiant, or whatever, I would have thought I would have accomplished that already. Now I so often find myself tired and feeling the weight of my years. It’s hard to find enthusiasm for anything (though I do try, especially when I am posting a commentary here). I’m probably more interested in finding acceptance in myself that in instigating any big change in attitude or attribute.

And yet, there is that daily tarot reading. It’s become such an established procedure of my day that it’s gone long beyond being merely an homage to my brother. Maybe someday I’ll figure out why I continue to do it. Perhaps someday I will even become smarter or wiser or more intuitive. Or not. Who can say? So far, the tarot is remaining mum.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in dealing with old age, life, tarot. Tags: , , , , , . 1 Comment »

It’s Weird Being the Same Age as Old People

November 21, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I saw a saying on a tee shirt that made me laugh: It’s weird being the same age as old people. Because . . . oh, how true that is!

So often now when a character in a book is described as old, the character’s acquaintances go on and on about being worried about the old person, or the character’s children wonder how they are going to take care of their aged parent, or the detectives discount what an old witness might have seen because of the unreliability of an elderly person’s eyesight or hearing. I find myself nodding in agreement, because elderly people can be frail, fraught with ailments, have the beginnings of age-related dementia, or any number of issues.

Then, like a static electricity shock directly to my brain, it hits me that I’m the same age or even older than the character. When did “elderly” characters in books get so young? Or maybe they have always been young. (At least from the point of view of someone my age.) For example, although Miss Marple’s age is never stated in any of Agatha Christie’s stories, various clues make her out to be in her mid-seventies, so that’s the age she’s generally portrayed in movies. But Agatha Christie’s great-grandson thinks the “elderly spinster” was meant to be much younger — perhaps in her 60s.

Either way, these “elderly” characters are a lot younger than I imagine them to be, so perhaps a better question than “when did elderly characters get so young?” is “when did I get so old?” Either way, it really is weird being the same age as old people.

Although I have often written about getting older and have mentioned some of my age-related debilities, such as my wonky knees, for the most part, I don’t see myself as old. I don’t see myself as young, either. I’m just . . . me. Admittedly, I do worry about growing old alone, but even that shows my age ambiguity — “getting old,” you see, rather than “being old.” I have a hunch if Jeff and I were still together, age wouldn’t be a factor at all — we’d continue to deal with whatever life hands us without putting labels on it, but since I’m alone, and have only myself to rely on, it’s important for me to prepare now as much as possible for whatever old age might bring.

And it’s not just me. Other people in my situation — women who lost their mates and have been left to live alone — also think about the same things. One friend told me she had to be careful because what if she fell and knocked herself out and no one knew? This happened to one woman I know, but luckily for her, it was her cleaning lady’s day to work. I try not to think about such things, because there’s not much I can do about it but be as careful as I can (and I do have a neighbor who pays attention to my window shades and gets concerned if I don’t raise them each morning, so that’s a comfort) but this is simply concern for the coming elderliness, not for now. Still, if I were a character in a book, I’d be worried.

In real life, though, I don’t have to worry about being elderly. From what I’ve been able to gather, most of us consider an elderly person to be anyone who is ten or more years older than we are, so from that standpoint, none of us is ever really elderly until there’s no one that much older than us left alive.

So perhaps it’s not being the same age as old people that’s weird. Maybe it’s just age in general that’s weird.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in being me, culture, dealing with old age, life. Tags: , , , , , . 13 Comments »

A Spring in My Step

October 2, 2022 — Pat Bertram

My step has lost its bounce, as if the balls of my feet have become underinflated. At best, I tend to plod; at worst, I lumber. Of course, a lot of this has to do with tiring myself — and especially my legs — working in the yard, but there is so much to do out there before winter that I tend to work more than I should. Still, I thought I’d check online to see what — if anything — would help put the spring back in my step.

I had to laugh. The first few articles I found had advice like think positively, eat right, drink right, work in a garden, go shopping, visit with friends, have some fun. Good advice, but not exactly what I was looking for. I did eventually find some exercises to help improve strength and balance in the lower body and enable elderly people to walk better and be safer.

After more research, I came across an interesting explanation of why older people lose the spring in their step: a difference in joint and muscle redistribution. For younger people, a normal gait is powered 1/3 by the hips, 1/3 by the knees, and 1/3 by the ankles. For elderly folks, the gait distribution is 3/4 by the hips, 1/8 by the knees and 1/8 by the ankles.

Because of this, you’d think that ankle and knee strengthening exercise would help redistribute the propulsion ratios, but although those exercises are valuable and help with many problems, exercise itself does little to put the spring back in a person’s walking gait. I can attest to that — I am doing various ankle/hip/knee exercises, and although they are helping my knees, they aren’t doing much to help with the spring in my step.

What does help? Paying attention to your gait when walking, standing tall as if peeping over a crowd, and actively engaging the ankles — land on the heel, roll the foot to the ball of the foot and push off.

Of course, as with everything I research, there is controversy. Some physical therapists and exercise trainers say this is entirely the wrong way to walk, and each offers their advice to walk correctly, such as landing on the outside of the heel and slightly move it inward to land flat. Or don’t land on the heel at all but walk toe to heel. Or land on the ball of the foot and use your hips to propel you forward because your hips are the bigger muscles and hence have more power. (I wonder if this is why elderly use their hips more than ankles or knees — since it is the biggest muscle group, it would retain muscle mass longer than other muscles.)

To me, the correct way of walking is whatever is most comfortable, least painful, and lightest on the feet, so I suppose almost all ways of walking are correct for someone.

There’s not much I can do about trying to propel myself forward when I’ve spent myself — I’m lucky to be able to move at all at those times — but I have noticed the rest of the time that if I pay attention and actively engage my ankles, I do seem to have more of a spring in my step.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in dealing with old age, gardening, life. Tags: , , , , . 2 Comments »

A Good One

August 12, 2022 — Pat Bertram

When I was young, I had a five-book boxed set of Pollyanna books. Every time I got sick and so couldn’t go to the library for a fresh stack of books, I reread the ones on my shelf. Despite having read the Pollyanna books perhaps a hundred times, the whole “glad game” thing never took hold in my life. I simply could not see the benefit of being glad you didn’t need the crutches you received instead of the doll you wanted. I thought gladness should be effortless rather than a struggle to find something good about bad times.

Ever since Jeff died, though, I tried to play my own version of the game (though I didn’t know that’s what I was doing) by finding something to appreciate every day. I needed a way to ground myself because so often during those first years I felt as if I were teetering on the edge of the abyss, and without a firm footing, I feared I would topple into that bottomless black pit.

The lessons learned back then have served me well. I make sure to appreciate every flower that comes up, every blade of grass that shimmers in the sun. In a glass half full/half empty sort of way, I try to see what’s there rather than what isn’t. For example, to see the plants and sections of grass that are doing well instead of worrying about the areas of the yard that are desiccating no matter what I do.

Some days, however — like today — I find it hard to appreciate much. It’s been too hot for too long; it’s too much work trying to keep the weeds from taking over; and it’s too hard to focus on what is still growing rather than what once was doing well but is no longer thriving.

I took this same curmudgeonly attitude on my walk today to check out how my friend’s roof was coming along. The job site was deserted, but I could easily see why — the roof has been re-sheeted, ready for to be shingled whenever the rest of the roofing materials are delivered. On my way back home, I stopped to pick up an item at the dollar store, and when I checked out, the clerk said, “Have a good one.” Sometimes I can let that idiocy go, but on a day when I cannot even appreciate that I have glass, let alone whether it’s half full, I find it impossible to hold my tongue.

“Have a good one what?” I asked. The clerk had to think about that one for a minute, then said hesitantly, “Day?” The thing is, all the elderly people I have taken care of become fixated on their bowels (mostly because moving them has become a difficult non-daily task for them), so they are always pleased when they “have a good one.” Anyway, the clerk finally said, “Have a good day,” but then as I turned to leave, she said again, “Have a good one.” I just looked at her and shook my head.

Some things are just not worth dealing with.

Although I have temporarily given up on trying to keep the weeds in check, temporarily given up on caring about the less-than-appealing areas of my yard, I still do manage to find something to appreciate if only in passing, such as the lance-leaf coreopsis, pictured below. Now that was something effortless to be glad about — the original seeds were strewn three summers ago, and these perennial plants raise themselves without any help from me.

So maybe the “good one” the clerk told me to have was this flower. In that case, I should have thanked her for the pretty bloom instead of giving her a semi-rough time.

Anyway, have a good one, whatever “one” it is that you want to be good.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in books, dealing with old age, gardening, life. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Apprenticeship

July 27, 2022 — Pat Bertram

Sometimes I feel as if I am serving an alchemical apprenticeship as I continue my transformation into an old woman. You notice I said “old woman” rather than a “wise old woman,” because I’m not sure wisdom is something that can be apprenticed. Neither can old age, actually — we get there or we don’t — and yet there are things we can do to make aging easier.

My apprenticeship is about learning the art of living when it doesn’t seem as if life is worth living anymore. So many frail elders are beset by an existential crisis, especially when they are the last ones left of their family. (Or even if it only feels as if they are the last ones left.) It is a valid point — is life worth living when everyone you have loved has died? When you have little control over your life and yourself? When your body continually fails you? When it’s hard to see, hear, feel? When your days extent too far behind you and —even though you know you have an expiration date — seem to extend too far ahead? When all anyone cares about is how old you are, not about you and how you are dealing with your great age?

A vast old age (or even a frail younger old age) leaves elderly people feeling as if they have outlived their usefulness, as if there is nothing left to live for, as if they don’t belong here. I’m hoping, in this apprenticeship I have apparently taken on, that the lessons I learn now will become habit, so if (when?) I go through my own age-prompted existential crisis, the tools for continuing to live as full a life as possible will be at hand.

I have no idea what I will be feeling in those hopefully still-distant years. My experience with grief has taught me that we cannot imagine how we will feel about anything until we get there. I do look to the elderly people I know and have known in recent years, see how they are feeling and acting (or not acting), and try to extrapolate from them what I might need to know. One advantage I have is that existential crises are not uncommon for me, the big ones being when I hit adolescence, when allergies (and the prescribed allergy medication) tossed me into a black hole of depression, and when Jeff died. Too often, people sail along fine their entire life until they become physically incapacitated in some way, and then . . . wham! Along come all problems and thoughts that were held at bay by activity.

To this end, I celebrate the small beauties of the day — a flower, a pretty stone, a smile. I look for something to care about and to focus on — for now, it’s my yard, but when that becomes too much for me, I hope something else will come along to give my life focus. I look for something to be grateful about every day. Admittedly, it’s hard to think about one’s life here (especially if that life feels insignificant) when a person is focused on what comes next after this life. So along with the gratitude, I look for something to ground me, to connect me to life and to Earth. Right now, as with so much else, that grounding comes from my garden, from dealing with the literal ground rather than a mental one.

I am also paying attention to the ways my body works and doesn’t work to try to figure out what muscles I might need to exercise to make sure I can do for as long as possible the simple things we take for granted — stand, sit, walk, swallow. Yep, swallow. About a month ago, I was downing a vitamin when it slipped straight past my esophagus into my lungs. Yikes! Scared the heck out of me. So I researched the mechanisms of swallowing and learned that in order for the windpipe to be blocked off, it’s necessary to swallow with the tongue pressed onto the roof of the mouth. The only thing I can think of is that day I forgot how to swallow and relaxed my tongue and throat, and then . . . oops. I’m very lucky that it wasn’t worse. The pill (a capsule) was innocuous and eventually, it dissolved with no lasting effects. Now I am mindful of where my tongue is when I swallow anything. And if I don’t feel like taking the vitamins, I don’t. Even though I do feel as if they are helping me, they can’t help if I can’t swallow them.

It’s all part of the apprenticeship. There is no grade to this apprenticeship, nor is there any reward except that I get to live another day. When I feel more as if I “have to” live rather than I “get to” live, I remind myself that today is not given to everyone, and I find a way to mark the occasion. I hope I can continue to do so. If nothing else, having such a tool at my disposal will help make all the coming years worth living.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in being me, culture, dealing with old age, life. Tags: , , , , , . 4 Comments »

Adorable

July 20, 2022 — Pat Bertram

A woman saw me getting out of my vintage Beetle today and told me, in a distinctive southern accent, that I was adorable. Or maybe it was the hat she thought was adorable, or the car, or both. (I get a lot of admiring comments for both of those accessories.) It does come as a surprise at times that I have reached the “adorable” age, though why older women with a different sense of style (such as it is) are considered adorable, I don’t know.

I smiled, of course, and thanked her, because what I else could I do? Shortly afterward, I thought of her comment when I acted considerably less than adorable. I was waiting in line for a checkout clerk, but the clerk kept looking around and seemed to be interested in everything but me, as if I were invisible, and I know I’m not. Invisible, that is. I finally said that if she weren’t going to help me, I was going to leave. She did approach me then, but there was something about her lackadaisical attitude that rubbed me the wrong way, so I said rather irritably, “Forget it. I’m going to leave anyway.” And I did.

It was the right thing to do because by that time, I didn’t want to have anything to do with her or the business that employed her, but I would have preferred leaving the irritation out of my voice and adding in a bit of the “adorableness” that the woman from the first encounter had seen.

Ah, well. Who wants to be adorable, anyway? I’d rather be known for a razor-sharp wit (which, unfortunately, I don’t have) or . . . hmm. I can’t think of anything else I’d rather be known for. I certainly wouldn’t want to be known as an irritable old grump (which, unfortunately, I was for a moment today.)

On second thought, maybe it’s not so bad being thought of as an adorable old woman wearing an adorable old hat and driving an adorable old car.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Posted in being me, dealing with old age, life. Tags: , , , , . 3 Comments »

Vexatious Issues

July 16, 2022 — Pat Bertram

When I first started working outside this past spring, it felt as if my yard were an extension of my house — an outdoor room, perhaps. Now the outdoors feels hostile and alien, a place that I cannot control, at least not in the way I can control the “climate” inside my house. We can’t control the inside one hundred percent, of course. So much is still out of our control, such as bugs that find their way inside, appliances that go wonky, as well as any number of things that can go wrong. But at least inside (so far anyway) I don’t have to deal with searingly intense and dangerous heat, slime molds, dead birds (well, one, anyway — I found it on my front lawn when I went out to mow today), clouds of grasshoppers that chomp on non-suspecting plants, grass that turns brown and desiccates overnight.

The past few days, dealing with all those vexatious issues, I haven’t even felt like sitting in my gazebo to enjoy a few minutes of rest after my hard work. I’ve just gone inside, closed the door, and felt glad to be in a more familiar place.

At least for a while, that is, until the phone rings. And oh, does it ring! In the past couple of days, I’ve received maybe forty calls from entities with names like “Spam Risk,” “Haitian Chick 5,” and “Telemarketer.” I don’t answer (well, I do, but I hang up immediately; if not, the calls go to voice mail, and then I have to delete all of them) so I don’t know if there are real people behind the calls or if it’s all robots. But it doesn’t matter who is calling — the ring always startles me, though I have it on low. And I turn the phone off at night to keep from being awakened.

Apparently, after the slowdowns and shutdowns and sheltering-in-place during the past couple of years, the telemarketing machine gave us a bit of a break, but now it’s going full bore, trying to make up the money they think they lost. (Though why, with all warnings about spam and identity theft and fraud, people are still buying into these scams, I don’t know. They blame the “old people,” but my generation and even the one before me are tech savvy and wary. Or so I thought. But maybe we’re losing what few brain cells we have left, and what we once knew we no longer do?)

But luckily, it’s cool inside, so there’s that. And I have books to read and food to eat. And, if necessary, I can mute the ring so I don’t hear it at all to give my poor frazzled nerves a break.

Even luckier, I was able to leave all the rest of my vexations outside where they belong.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

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Believing Impossible Things

July 1, 2022 — Pat Bertram

A commenter on yesterday’s post “Practicing the Tarot,” mentioned that he liked the notion of believing six impossible things before breakfast. His suggestion was to use the tarot to challenge three of these thoughts (only three because for the next twelve months I will be doing a three-card reading rather than the two-card layout I’ve been doing for the past year). That captured my imagination, and I responded, “What a great idea. I also like the idea of believing six impossible things before breakfast. Or at least one. I might add that to my morning routine.”

I was wondering how getting in the habit of believing even a single impossible thing every morning might change one’s life, then I realized it wouldn’t change mine at all because believing impossible things is already part of my life. Not that I believe them before breakfast, exactly, nor do I do what the white queen did and practice for half-an-hour a day. It’s just that a belief in certain impossible things runs concurrently with the truth that impossible things are impossible, and no amount of positive thinking or changing one’s habits can make the impossible possible because if the impossible became possible, then it wasn’t impossible.

Some of my impossible beliefs are that I will grow younger, taller, thinner, more muscular, prettier, stronger, smarter, quicker, sharper, able to run long distances and backpack for days at a time, write a book thousands of people will love, become radiant enough I can dispel my atoms and become light itself (actually, I haven’t thought of that last one in a long time; it was an impossible belief for a much, much younger me). And those are just the impossible things I can think of at the moment.

Some of those things might not actually be impossible. Although I have never been able to lose weight, chances are that as I get older, I will also get smaller, and as a result, I will weigh less, but I will also lose muscle (which is why it’s not a good idea for otherwise healthy older folks to lose weight), so one possible belief becomes an impossible belief when coupled with another such belief.

Still, you never know, right? That’s the whole point of believing impossible things because perhaps, just perhaps, they’re not impossible after all. But even more than that, I think we need to entertain such impossible beliefs. Seeing — and believing — only what is probable, is bleak. Who wants to believe, deep down, that they are getting weaker, slower, older, losing brain cells, shriveling up, losing muscle mass, being unable to run ever again, and that it’s all downhill from here? Not me, for sure, which is odd considering that I am one who professes to need the truth. And I do accept the truth of my aging and what has become impossible for me, and yet . . . there they are, all those impossible things I find myself believing.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Posted in dealing with old age, life. Tags: , , , , , . 4 Comments »

The Joys of Getting Older

June 11, 2022 — Pat Bertram

It wasn’t that long ago when I could lift 50 pounds. In fact, three years ago when I was setting up my office/media room, I had to lift a 50-pound television onto a stand, and I managed it. Barely. (Why do I have a television, you might ask, since I don’t subscribe to any sort of television programming and wouldn’t watch it if I did? Well, when I moved here, before I got involved with reading again — which I’d given up after Jeff died because I couldn’t handle stories where someone died or was lonely or fell in love — I would watch movies, both DVDs and VCR tapes.)

I’d obviously gotten weaker because it was a struggle to lift that television. I’m sure I’ve become a lot weaker since then, especially considering the problems with my knees, so when I found out that the box containing the outdoor furniture I ordered would be about 58 pounds, I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle it. I considered opening the box where the delivery person dumped it, but I was concerned about perhaps losing small parts outside or damaging my antique wood floors if the deliverer was kind enough to bring the box inside, or any number of things.

In the end, it was easy. I and my knees were strong enough to lift one end of the box, so I slipped a towel underneath that end of the box, then lifted other end of the box and slipped a towel underneath it too. That enabled me to slide the box to my work room where I will — eventually — assemble the table and chairs. Assuming the holes match up, that is. A couple of reviewers said the holes didn’t line up, but other reviewers said if you arrange the pieces properly, the holes do line up, which I hope is true.

It’s too late today to do the work — I need time to concentrate, and my ability to concentrate, like my ability to lift heavy things, seems to be weakening.

Even if I have to wait a few days before I can assemble the furniture, it will be fine. There’s no way I’m going to be sitting outside (even if I do have a lovely place to sit) when the temperature is well over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and it will be several days before we’re back into the nineties.

I’m looking forward to the project — assembling furniture is the adult version of putting a model together, and seems more like play than work. At least it seems that way to me. Or I should say: at least it seems that way to me until I get frustrated.

Frustration, unfortunately, seems to be gaining strength as the more practical attributes like being able to lift things and being able to concentrate are weakening.

Ah, the joys of getting older! (That’s irony in case you don’t recognize it.) I consider myself lucky that I can still manage to do the things I need to do without damaging myself or my surroundings. I’m hoping my luck continues to hold until I finish this particular task, whenever that might be.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in dealing with old age, home, life. Tags: , , , . 6 Comments »
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