Showing posts with label age. Show all posts
Showing posts with label age. Show all posts

Friday, February 7, 2014

A True Story That Makes Me Laugh



 

All three or my boys were in high school at the time.  (I dont remember if I had given birth to Jenna yet) They were 15, 16, and 17.  My husband often referred (and still does) to the 15 year old as Casper as he had a way of disappearing for every chore.

One night Biff and Tony were washing dishes when Randy went on one of his disappearing jaunts.  He had excused himself to get music or perhaps it was already playing his idea of music anyway.

Biff and Tony listened to Soft Jazz and oldies.  Randy listened to what kids his age would listen to I guess.  Still listens to bizarreness with no beat really.  I dont care for what he thinks of as music.  Apparently neither did his brothers.

As Biff and Tony (who are both older than Randy but only by one of two years) continued to do dishes they went into discussion about how Randy was of another generation.  I started laughing.  So they tried to correct their mistake by saying, Well, kids that are Randys age which made me laugh all the more.

You guys are all actually of the same generation and pretty close in age.  I reminded them.  Still, they were convinced that the distance between them and Randy was the same as between them and Jenna.   Shes technically the same generation also, but there is a distance between technology and current events. 

Academically, Randy and Jenna seem the brightest.  Biff has innocence and can often recognize things that the others overlook.  Tony is currently the only one with children well one daughter.  But long before he even thought of getting married, he was the only prepared for changing diapers.  Still is.  Hes the only one of my three boys who would change Jenna though Biff took a stab at it, the change was unsuccessful as he couldnt figure out how to work the diaper.

Having them believe their age is so much greater always cracks me up when I think about that night when they were doing dishes.

Friday, June 7, 2013

It’s Okay if You Want to Celebrate her Birthday Twice This Month

Il_570xn
          I’m not really sure why I was the privileged one put on the mailing list for Alpine Ridge.  Perhaps I had made the request – but it would have been over four months ago.

          I received a letter last month informing me that I would have the opportunity to meet with a director and nurse if I had any questions concerning mom.  I assumed that my three sibs would be getting the same letter.  They never did.

          And just the other day, I received a calendar schedule for this month – first one that has come in the mail since January when we took mom there to live.  Really?  I remember asking about them back in March – but I never received a hard copy of one.  I did find one on the web and have looked at it and will still refer to it as I sometimes misplace my hard copy – but I am still puzzled at why I would receive these things and not my sibs. Surely they have that information for my brothers.

          I may have given my address to the director back in December – before we had even moved mom in.  Though I don’t remember having provided them with it.  But still.  That was six months ago!

          Anyway, the calendar has my mom’s birthday marked on the calendar for yesterday – but really it isn’t until the end of this month. I mentioned it to the activities director – just in case there was a mix up on her paper work.  Right now I don’t guess it really matters much when her birthday is celebrated or if celebrated at all. 

          Last month mom told me that she decided she was 62.

          “Oh, you decided that?”

          “Yes.  That is how old I am”

          Great.  That means she gave birth to me when I was only eleven.


          Yesterday she informed me that she is 174.  That is the same age at Harold.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Another Guilty Pleasure



We haven’t always had cable – cancelled due to lack of finances – we’ve even cancelled the Internet.  I was okay with going to the library, but Roland wasn’t.  And now that he’s taking classes through the Internet – dropping the Internet would just frustrate him even more.

When so many stations were converted to HD and even the local channels needed some kind of box or connection, it seems like we always had TVland.  For a while it was our primary source of entertainment.  That, and going to the library for offered programs and to check out DVDs.



The station has added original programs including a reality show called “ForeverYoung”. The advertisements intrigued me, but I hadn’t watched it when it initially debuted.  But I did check it out yesterday. I was laughing so hard at watching these two (obviously) generations try and communicate.  Having lived between the two, I understand the frustration of the other – also having had to experience it myself.

Jenna is often asking, “Did they have such and such when you were little?” 

“Yes, we had Fisher Price people.  They weren’t made of plastic, they were made of wood.  They were smaller than what is offered now. “



“No we did not have iPods.  We didn’t even have CD’s.  We had phonographs and walkmans.



“No we did not have DVD’s.  I don’t recall the VCR coming out until I was a teenager.”



“Yes. We had cracker jacks.  But they offered cool prizes back then – well, at least compared to the lame prize that comes with cracker jacks today”



“No, we did not use slates back then.  We used paper. How old do you think I am?”



“There was an Electric Company.  But it didn’t come out until after Corey was born. It was different from what you watch today” (I had actually checked out a DVD from the library not realizing it was from the ‘70’s.  She couldn’t stand it)



She is far more superior at modern technology than I am.  She has found things on my phone that I didn’t even know existed.  She prefers Roland’s phone with his touch screen.  Roland is older than me and seems comfortable using his cell phone, but I hate it.  I actually have small fingers (one of the few parts of my body I can still refer to as small) but put me in front of a touch screen and they become clumsy fat hot dogs.  I can never find where I need to go and get so frustrated in trying to do so.



I appreciate the GPS – and the one that we had was not complicated and much easier to use than the map.  But I have used street maps before.  I must admit that I have texted messages – but it annoys me to go through each letter at a time – I’d much rather have a keyboard.  I do own a cell phone but started out dialing a rotary. 



I haven’t been on roller blades – but I know what they are.  I also remember the old time roller skate that fit over the shoe.  I owned several pairs of shoes with marks left from the roller skate that I used to glide around in my parents’ unfinished basement.



I’m actually too young to remember the car seat that my parents used vs. the ones that are out today.  Mine hung over the seat – front seat.  Mine was yellow.  It did not have the cool steering wheel feature built into it.  There was no car seat law that I know of.  Often the cars themselves didn’t come with safety belts for the driver – let alone the passengers.



I remember black and white television and a very limited amount of channels selection.  I remember life without Sesame Street and Sesame Street without Elmo.  In fact, I remember the original cast featured only four human beings.  And I remember three different Gordons. I can remember that Sesame Street did not explain Mr. Hooper’s death until a year after the fact.





I remember the world before computers made their way into just about every home.  I remember the ancient television sized monitors unlike the flat screens of today. I remember the manual typewriter and the cool features of the new electric ones.  



I remember cameras that required film.

I do like this “Forever Young” reality show that introduces “bridging the gap” and demonstrating that we really can learn from one another regardless of age.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

To Everything There is a Season





          For the first time I recently watched “The Odd Life of Timothy Green” – I’m certain it was involved with a lot more symbolism than what I saw.  Timothy came to his mom and dad in the spring and had to leave when the last leaf fell in the fall. 

          I was crying hard as the show came to an end – nothing to do with Timothy Green or his departure or anything to do with the movie at all.  Just reminiscing the long fall that was present during the last five months of 2012 – symbolizing the same fall as my mother and each of us seemed to be going through with her. Her leaves were falling more rapidly each day – and then came the harsh winds of winter. And it’s been cold.  Bitter cold.

          She will never return to spring again.  Not in this life anyway.  The only way she can have spring again is if daddy returns for her.  That may be a long time from now.



          I had no idea that the 8th would be her last good day.  Our last day as Lucy and Ethel.  She seemed almost comatose after that.  And had passed out at least three times.  And then she was hospitalized. And when I brought her home, she wouldn’t accept it.  I don’t think it would have mattered where I had taken her.  She wouldn’t have wanted to stay.  She certainly doesn’t want to be in the memory care unit that Kayla drove her to. Where she needs to be.

          She sits in the community like a child starting his first day of kindergarten – willing to participate as long as at least one family member is in sight.  Panic sets whenever that family member has left – or so the child believes.

          She doesn’t understand that we’ve moved her in there for her own good – for protection as well as consistency.  She’s safe. She’s not alone.  But somehow – even if she does accept it, she doesn’t retain for even a full minute.

          George and Peggy Bird came to visit mom while Jenna and I were still with her.  I took it as an opportunity to slip out without mom being irate or hurt over it.  Peggy asked if she had had any other visitors.  Mom said no.  Even though Jenna and I were probably still just in the parking lot.



          I think I may be in the fall of my life right now.  I think these winter storms may have pushed me into fall ahead of schedule.  I hope it’s a long fall and that my leaves shine brilliant colors for a long while before the winds set in.  And hopefully my children won’t have to watch me experience the harshness of winter but may enjoy the peace of the falling snow. 

          If I could lose just one ounce per tear – just an ounce – I would have disappeared by now.  I don’t wish to cry anymore.  Lucy wants more time with Ethel – the way it was.


          Today is Kayla’s birthday.  She’s just started the summer of her life.  It looks like it will be summer for a while.  Happy Birthday, Kayla!




Friday, August 3, 2012

McDonald’s: an Evolution of Perception



          When we are children and don’t know any better, we believe that McDonald’s is the greatest thing.  Oh, sure, perhaps we’re too busy at the play center or enjoying the toy that falls apart long before we have finished whatever lame meal was ordered.  What did we know about nutrition?  It wasn’t even in our vocabulary.

          Teenagers seemed divided.  It’s fast, it’s cheap, close enough to the high school or jr. high.  Given the right time of the day . . . not that I think of it as a hangout – not in your larger cities anyway.  Not with a playland and 30 screaming kids.
          “It’s not where you take a girl on a date,” says Randy.  Although I could picture Tony doing that very thing – and not with a limo and candles (which Randy said was too cheesy – why spend the money on a limo?  Why not just better quality food?  Have to agree with that part.




          Biff likes the yogurt parfaits.  That’s about it.  Even at thirteen (when he was seriously a better eater than he is now) he saw McDonald’s food as something that would clog the arteries.  And it would take years and years to undo the damage.  I think Biff views McDonald’s as the gateway to suicide.

          As adults we would prefer NOT to go to McDonald’s.  It’s fine to take the kids when they’re younger, but as they get older?  Come on.  Surely we can come up with better food – even if McDonald’s does seem the only thing in the budget.

          Children don’t seem to   appreciate home cooked meals.  Going out just seems so much more prestige – even if it is McDonald’s.

          I recall the first time the boys had Alfredo sauce.  Neither Biff or Tony (who literally eats anything but chicken) seemed unimpressed, but Randy (who always expressed his gratitude and appreciative thoughts and anything to be the center of attention) said (and he genuinely did mean it as a compliment) "This tastes like restaurant food”

          Randy was grateful to eat something other than the budget meals that they had before I met Roland.  And he really did like it even if Biff and Tony weren’t all that impressed.

          I think it is the prices at McDonald’s that draw in the senior citizens.  I remember dad thinking McDonald’s was pretty good.  And mom, who, for so many year has said, “I don’t want to eat at McDonald’s.” didn’t seem to mind it the other day when Jenna announced that’s where she wanted to go.  I certainly wasn’t up for McDonald’s food, but that’s where we ended up and “grandma” didn’t seem to mind. 

          I guess by definition of the AARP I turned into a senior citizen at the end of May this year.  But my love for McDonald’s (should I ever have one) is so far into the future that I think my taste buds will have to be further gone than I am.




          On the up side: McDonald’s does provide housing for families for children who are in hospitals closer to the hospital than their own houses.  The paper products used by McDonald’s are supposedly all recyclable.  Big Macs, for instance, used to come in a Styrofoam carton.  Styrofoam is not recyclable. Therefore it was changed to cardboard.  Though I think more ends up in the “garbage” than in the “recycling” – how can a product all covered in fatty food possibly be recycled?

          There are a lot of pluses to McDonalds – possibly more than down sides.  They may have a bad rap with many.  But there will always be that genuine love among the children and senior citizens.



Saturday, March 10, 2012

Congratulations to all of those who made it passed junior high


Being a youth (Jr. High age) is such an awkward part of our lives.   Everything is taken literally and there is so much tragedy and devastation.  Too young to be adults but yet too old to be considered children – or treated as such.  Often being told to “act your age” when it’s so obvious that people that age have never been that age before and have no knowledge of how to act.

          As adults we can literally look back upon all those "painful" memories and realize that what we thought was so important really isn't.  I think if a person can make it through junior high, he or she has put behind the most awful part of their social lives behind them, and can move on to become actual human beings.


Recently I read the juvenile fiction The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger - written from the students' point of view. I laughed so hard – not just at the words, but at the illustrations.  But you really do have to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy it. 

I tried to read it to Jenna, but there’s too much of it that she has yet to go through and just doesn’t understand my laughter at this time – and may not get it when she is that awkward stage of her life.  I hope that I can help her overcome her struggles so that hopefully she can deal with the “pain” a lot better than I did.  But then she has always been a lot more mature academically.  Perhaps with my encouragement she will be socially, too.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Late Bloomer

I was thirteen when I got my first period.  I was with my family – on vacation.  Ugh!  I told my mom that there was blood in my pants.  She explained what was taking place inside my body and how I could look forward to this special gift each month.  Yuck!  Seriously.  Wasn’t at all excited about having this piece of womanhood.

          I didn’t receive my second period until two and a half years later.  I was at school thinking, “Okay, this is not so bad.  Every two and a half years.  I can handle that”  But there was no two and a half year wait for my next one.  They started coming in perhaps every five or six weeks.  Soft.  If it weren’t for the disgusting smell, I could have probably gotten away with just a band-aid for my entire period.  I have never been a heavy bleeder.  I have never been regular.

          I didn’t get married until I was thirty-nine.  I had joined a ready-made family and was quite okay with it as I didn’t plan on bearing any children myself.  Roland wanted more children, but I told him I was too old.  Plus our financial situation was so unstable, I didn’t think it was a very good idea. 

          Now I know the only sure method of birth control is abstinence – which I knew would not be happening with Roland’s strong desires.  I did take birth control in the first year of our marriage – never knowing whether I really needed it or not. 

          I’d been instructed on how to take them and what was expected from the cycling process.  Instead of my usual four to five weeks, I would be ovulating just every four.  And although my period did come more regular than it ever had in my entire lifetime – it was every three.  And so I was still irregular.

          Before I got pregnant with Jenna, Roland and I were told that there would be a 25% chance of my getting pregnant IF I took frailty drugs.  This was due to my age and having only one tube. I had finally convinced Roland that I would not be able to bear him anymore children.  So that was that.  Or so we believed.

The boys were out of town the summer of 2003 and Roland and I had gone to a health fair to donate blood.  I don’t know whose bright idea it was to have the registration so far away from the blood bank – but it was.  We filled out the forms at the school and walked half a mile across the playground to the trailer where the blood was drawn.

Roland has excellent blood.  He has marvelous health and was hooked up right away.  Well, by the time I walked all the way from the school to the trailer in the unbearable beating sun, my blood pressure was too high.  My efforts were rejected  (though I did get a piece of red gauze to wear on my arm so that it would appear that I had donated)

We went to another exhibit.  I was tested for diabetes and told my sugar was high – but because of the heat it might not be accurate.  I was given a card that had the address and phone # of a medical research and was told I should make an appointment – which I did.  I was feeling sluggish. 

On the morning of my scheduled appointment I questioned some pain I had in my breasts – like rubber bands snapping.  That was a familiar pain I had had before the major pain that had taken me to the hospital the previous year.

“Could I seriously be pregnant?” I wondered.

When I arrived at the clinic I told the staff that it was possible that I might be pregnant.  So they did two tests on me.  I tested negative for diabetes and positive for pregnancy.  My obstetrician was in the same complex, and so I left the medical center and went right over to make an appointment.

The first thing my Dr. did was send me downstairs for an ultrasound.  He didn’t believe in the test results I had taken and wanted to see what was really going on.  And if I was pregnant that my baby was growing where she was supposed to be and not in the remaining tube. Sure enough I was pregnant.  Blew my doctor away!

Babies seem to arrive early in my family.  Like so many others, Jenna was born  before the intended due date - eight days.  My mom and sister and I were just about to leave the house to attend a birthday party for an eighty year old we had all worked with.  But then my water broke.  Surely I wouldn't be able to drive myself to the hospital.

I had just finished eating a tuna fish sandwich – which came out shortly after we had all checked me in.  My mom and sister stayed camped out with me in the birthing room.  And Roland joined us after a while.  I was starving, but they wouldn’t let me eat anything.  And Jenna had certainly taken her time. 

23 ½ hours!  23 ½!  I had to be induced (I never did contract on my own) and Jenna’s head was guided out as I was told to push or not push and I was so loaded up on epidural I didn’t know if I actually was pushing or not.

Short of seven weeks Jenna and I are nearly 42 years apart.  My first one.  My only one biologically.  I had had some weird symptoms with her.

I couldn’t drink water without getting sick (even that summer when Roland had donated blood and I had been rejected; before I even knew I was pregnant I would get sick just drinking water) I developed a really numb case of tendentious. 

Every time I mentioned an odd side effect, my mom would just look at me with a puzzled expression and state, “I don’t remember ever getting that when I was pregnant”  Nor did my sister-in-law.  But they were also 20 years younger when they had their first babies.

Jenna keeps me young at times.  But at the same time I feel so much older as I am theoretically old enough to be the mother of some of her friends' parents.  I will be sixty when Jenna graduates high school.  And at the rate I’m going I probably won’t experience menopause until I’m in my late 70”s.