I have recently celebrated the 32nd anniversary of my 39th birthday.   Want to know how old I am?    Figure it out for yourself!

It was a great day and a good time was had by all.    Now I could stop here and the post would be complete.    But if you’re a regular reader, you know I won’t stop.  After all, the older I get the more “wisdom and experience” I have to share.   By this age I have lots to share, yes? Or as is now popular…WAY?    You are supposed to reply, NO WAY!

A minor digression here to explore the oddities of current popular language.   Whatever happened to the word  YES?   It worked  fine until a couple of years ago.   Oh well, my inflexible old age is showing… can’t keep up with the times.     Or, maybe I don’t want to keep up with the times.

Uh….you know…like uh…way….no way!   As a friend said:  “those words are just ’space fillers’ to let the brain catch up with the mouth.  The way I see it, it would be better if the brain were ahead of the mouth.   It sure would stop a lot of people from getting ‘foot in mouth’ disease.”

Well, getting back to the topic at hand…. BIRTHDAYS!…as you can see, I’m not only inflexible but also forgetful in my old age.    Maybe I have CRS.. (can’t remember Sh-t)   Then again, perhaps the fact that I’m still alive, kicking and screaming at this age is a very positive sign.    After all, every birthday is now an achievement   I am still seeing the green side of the grass, not the black, so I’m blessed.

Despite all my limitations, along with changes in expectations I find that life is still interesting.    In many cases it is because the people around me are changing and growing.   That is fine with me because their examples are causing me to grow.  In other ways I find reasons and ways to grow.   Not only that, but many of the things that are worrying other people don’t bother me.   I’m past all that.   “If we are still alive, have funds for our basic needs, and our minds still work,  we have a future.”  (Expectations)

So on to the end… the Birthday dinner with family and friends was excellent; the cards and congratulatory messages were pretty as well as amusing so it is time to say goodbye to this birthday and to look forward to my next one.    As my son told me today, “I’ll live to be 90 and see my grands graduate from college.”   From his mouth to your Book of Life, Lord.

Which Expectations did you bring with you into retirement?    Did you retire at the usual age of 65, or did you work until the last possible minute?    Did you kick the dust off your feet as you waved goodbye to coworkers at age 55?  Perhaps you lucked out and won the lottery!   Were your retirement years all planned out?    Or were you going to take it day by day and just enjoy the freedom from work responsibility?

This is a lot of questions to start off with I know.    Yet so many of us wait breathlessly for retirement, for the”golden years” to start.    Sometimes they truly are golden; other times perhaps not.  I know a man who plans his dream trips and has made many of them already.    Another man has moved south to the Gulf of Mexico and is daily enjoying the boat he purchased in expectation.   He and his buddies really love catching and eating all those fresh fish.    I also know one lady who worked and saved to make a trip to Israel as soon as she retired.    Her trip was planned and paid for; but she passed away a week before leaving.   So a person never knows what the future will bring.

Does this mean wee should not dream?   What if our expectations are all wrong when the time comes?   SO WHAT!   If we are still alive, have funds for our basic needs, and our minds still work,  we have a future.   Our expectations may change due to heath or circumstances, but they don’t die, they simply change.   That is what I call transitioning.  After all, at 40 you can’t really tell what life will be like at 65 or 79, or even older.    That doesn’t mean we stop dreaming, being active, or growing.    It may just take different forms.

My suggestion is to sit back, relax, think about all the wonderful  things you have done, all the more wonderful things you would like to do,  and enjoy life however it comes.   That is what I have done and guess what?    It’s worth it!

When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember the polished, old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother talked to it.

Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person. Her name was ‘Information Please’ and there was nothing she did not know. Information Please could supply anyone’s number and the correct time.

My personal experience with the genie-in-a-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer, the pain was terrible, but there seemed no point in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy.

I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway. The telephone! Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear. ‘Information, please’ I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.  Read the rest of this entry »

Lives there an adult who has not read or at least heard about Gail Sheehy’s book Passages?    The book was  written about adult crises and how to help oneself to cope and overcome them.

Well, I find I am past the “Adult Crisis” stage; instead I’ve entered a whole new phase of life experience.   For want of a better title, I call it “Transitions”.    The term Passages implies you are on your way from one place to another;  while Transitions means something very different.   According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, transition as a form of change means: a movement, development, or evolution from one form, stage, or style to another.  So what, you say?   Then you must be one of our younger readers.   

Transition means your life is changing as you become  a senior citizen. You find your interests and ideas are changing.  So is your body changing, both healthwise and in appearance.     Has your hair turned gray?   Do you need strong bifocal glasses?    Are hearing aids a necessity in your life?   Do you routinely forget names and places; or why you went from one room to another?   Instead of running and chasing with your grandkids, do you sit comfortably and watch them run and chase?   Do you heave a sigh of relief when they go home, collapsing into your favorite lounge chair?   If you answer yes to many of these questions, you are transitioning into senior citizenship.  Of course many of thr signs and symbols of aging can be covered or erased through modern cosmetic techniques and plastic surgery.   Read the rest of this entry »

Much as we were loath to lose Nelda/Cheers from this earth, we still wanted to give her a royal clown send-off. Her family in South Texas held their memorial service for her at 2 p.m. CST and we timed our celebration to parallel theirs.

Even though our celebration was on the internet, people really got involved in it and in their memories of personal experiences with Cheers. As the administrator said, no more tears today, just joy in celebrating Cheers’ life and blessings to us.

It was a fun time, held on the island of DUNFRETTIN (get the meaning there?) which is the place to forget sorrow and problems. It has sand and beaches, palm trees and mild breezes, with native staff to take care of food and refreshment. The good ship S.S. Imagination left the pier every 5 minutes to carry everyone to the celebration. We’ll be waiting for anyone who cares to join us there..

The theme of the day was Clowns (what else) and balloons figured predominantly in the posts. Also important were individual recollections:

DK “I think everyone here can remember all the times I was trying to explain how a program or something works. Cheers would get on me and say keep it simple for us simple folks. I would e mail her pictures & descriptions of how a program would install or how to do something in a program & she would e-mail me back saying HUHHHH We had a lot of fun going back & forth with explanations. I was glad I could make her last year a HAPPY year”

ARM: “Let the celebration begin.

Maybe these are Birthday balloons but it is the celebration of the birth of Cheers in a different life. Chloe, to your list of things about Cheers we should add all the jokes we had to explain to her. It was fun trying to confuse her.”

CHLOE: ” Wish I had kept a list of all the “Cheerisms”. Between the malapropisms and the bad spelling there were times I was laughing so hard just about fell off my chair! Know some of it was deliberate on the part of Cheers because she knew darn well that somebody would come back (often myself) with a smartas* comment. So the first graphic is to say THANK YOU!”

Finally, let us give Cheers the send-off she deserves

Saying goodbye …

Now the balloons rising to the heavens to say: Well Done Cheers

GOODBY DEAR FRIEND… WE SHALL MISS YOUR WISDOM, HUMOR AND LOVE.

Yes, my dear friend Nelda, aka Cheers has moved out of the cycle of pain and suffering into the heavenly arms of her Savior, Jesus.

Nelda was a very special person who was ordained to bless others with her humor, dedication, wisdom and love. She was non-judgmental as she offered up her suggestions and wisdom to those who came to her. She was also a human being, with her own faults and shortcomings, but now as we deal with her death we prefer to see her only in the ways she blessed us.

Have you lost a very special person? Someone who loomed larger than life in your heart? Then perhaps you can understand how the members of the Senior Playground are feeling.  (http://www.seniorsplayground.com/). This woman’s impact on the world around her is much larger than she, and we, ever realized.

For much of her adult life, Nelda was Cheers, the clown. She had a clownmobile called Beaux and she did love that little car - as did the people who saw it coming in parades and special activities. She never really stopped being a clown; she simply dispensed with the clown apparatus as age took its toll on her. Then cancer reared it’s ugly head and the battle was on! Nelda never quit fighting until the very end; but she passed away quietly and peacefully at home. ‘Tis a blessing to those of us who mourn her because we won’t have to watch her valiant struggle as we pray for her.

Nelda/Cheers never lost her positive attitude and she sheperded our forum whenever she could. Fortunately she had prepared for this eventuality and trained two very good people to carry on after her. So the Playground will continue, but right now the slides and swings are empty as we all gather to celebrate the life of our friend and mentor.

May all the blessings and peace of God be upon Cheers, her family, and her many friends. She will receive the royal clown sendoff of balloons at her memorial service next
Saturday.

I’m happy to announce that I’m finally connected to the internet and ready to resume acquaintance with my friends all over the internet world. It took me a week to get connected although I tried to set up services in advance.  It seems I was forced to commit to a many headed hydra of a corporation that has a contract for all such services here in the apartment complex. I do not like that corporation, nor have I ever liked them. BUT in today’s “global” world one is forced to follow the big guys, right?

It took me until yesterday to get my television service and today for the internet. It also took two technicians and my apartment manager to get the various issues resolved. But ’tis done and I’m in business. YIPPEE! Wonder if Andy has any champagne left over from his birthday celebration? (See Archives for February 10 2008,)

The Computer that is. One of the last steps in packing; so the deed will be done this afternoon. Believe everything is arranged now so will be back when move is accomplished and I’m back on internet.

Take care and have a wonderful day.

I’m signing off for now since I will be involved in moving the next few days. Not sure when I’ll have internet service again, but I shall return.

Have a great week all.

I lost one of my hearing aids, then got swimmer’s ear so I couldn’t wear it anyhow.  Result:  very limited hearing ability.

Shortly after that, I accidentally dropped  my lower plate (false teeth) on the tile floor and it broke in half.    We’ve tried gluing it but that didn’t work, so I have an appt. to get new false teeth down there.    Until then, speak carefully and don’t laugh with mouth wide open.

Now, as of yesterday, the lenses fell out of my glasses frame.    The frame is totally unbroken so all I can say is, What Is Happening?     Luckily, I can still see without them, but it’s blurry.

The cost for replacing these necessities is going to strain my savings badly.  Especially with the cost of moving.

See No Evil; Hear No Evil; Speak No Evil.   Remember the three monkeys?       I  wonder how that applies to me?   It certainly is a good analogy for what is happemig.

There must be a lesson to be learned in here somewhere.   Any suggestions?