Category Archives: Aging

Ice and elevate

Posted on by
36

A photo I grabbed online of Dove Valley Ranch golf course.

I golfed yesterday with a friend from my neighborhood. It’s the first time I’ve golfed in years. I think I went once or twice after my ski accident and ACL replacement surgery in 2018. But never since COVID. So it’s safe to say four years without golfing? Actually, my neighbor and I went to practice at a driving range twice since April, but that’s not the same thing as going out on the course.

My friend had knee surgery a year ago and this is her first time she’s golfed in two years.

I was unbelievably nervous, wondering if I could still play. In fact, I woke up several times during the night worrying. I tried to visualize what my swing would feel like during my drive hitting a perfect shot. It helped me fall back to sleep. When I finally got out of bed, I thought, “It’s just a stupid game. What was I worrying about?”

At the first tee, I was shaking nervous. We were paired with two men. I knew that would happen and dreaded it. There are way more men playing than women, so it would be rare to find ourselves playing with other women. I apologized to the men in advance, explaining that I hadn’t played in years.

They teed off first on the men’s tees. Their drives didn’t make it to the women’s tees a mere yards in front of them. They took mulligans which sprayed out of bounds.

My friend whispered “This is going to be a long day!”

I teed off and hit a perfect drive. So did my friend. Then our fairway woods were amazing, too. We chipped onto the green and were set to putt for par. Meanwhile, our guys playing with us were all over the place, cursing.

My neighbor said, “I think we’re making you nervous!”

One guy muttered, “I’ve never played with women before.”

I settled down nerve-wise, realizing the men were probably as scared as I was, or more so!

Eventually they relaxed and outplayed us. I started to fall apart the hotter it got and the more tired I became. When I used to play golf with two girlfriends in Palm Springs, I always hit the longest drives. But now, my neighbor was outdriving me by 20 to 40 yards. I felt a competitive twitch and realized I didn’t like to be outdriven. Especially not consistently!

We stopped after 10 holes, tired and hot and not wanting to push it further. Our scores were close — my neighbor beat me by one stroke.

My bad knee was tired and hurting. I iced and elevated off and on for the next few hours. I’m happy I got back on the golf course and with zero expectations, I did pretty well after all.

What sports do you like to do or outside activities? Do you surprise yourself with a competitive spirit — or are you already aware of that personality trait?

Who can turn the world on with her smile?

Posted on by
28

“With her widower’s help, a splendid new documentary explores Mary Tyler Moore’s private side,” is an article from the Los Angeles Times by television critic Robert Lloyd. Here’s an excerpt:

“Who can turn the world on with her smile?” It’s Mary Tyler Moore, of course, and you should know it.

To be precise, it’s Mary Richards, a person Moore played. But the smile was her own, and it worked magic across two situation comedies that described their time in a way that some might have regarded as ahead of their time. Although Moore proved herself as an actress of depth and range and peerless comic timing again and again, on the small and big screen and onstage, “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” made her a star, and incidentally a cultural figurehead, and are the reason we have a splendid new documentary, “Being Mary Tyler Moore,” premiering Friday on HBO. Were it titled simply “Being Mary,” there’d be little doubt who was meant.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2023-05-26/being-mary-tyler-moore-documentary-hbo

My daughter called to tell me about a documentary I had to watch called “Being Mary Tyler Moore.” If you’re wondering why someone born at the tail end of the millennial generation would watch a documentary about Mary Tyler Moore, you have me to thank.

I loved the Mary Tyler Moore show with great characters like Lou Grant, Rhoda Morgenstern and Phyllis Lindstrom. My family watched the show religiously in the 1970s. Not only was it a ground-breaking show, it was one of the first sitcoms to employ women writers. The original writers (who were men) realized they had no clue what was in a woman’s purse, so they hired women writers to make the show authentic. Not only was the writing fabulous, the actors were, too.

I have faint memories when I was very young of Mary Tyler Moore as Laura Petrie in the Dick Van Dick show and Van Dyke tripping over their ottoman. That show propelled Mary Tyler Moore to become a full-fledged Emmy-award winning star.

When my kids were growing up, I believed they were missing great shows that were no longer on the air. I bought the entire Mary Tyler Moore, I Love Lucy and Seinfeld TV series on DVD. My daughter loved them. One of the things she like best about Mary Tyler Moore was the fashions.

I took my daughter’s advice and watched the documentary over the weekend. I found out many details about Mary’s life and how she changed how women were presented on TV forever.

Do you remember Mary Tyler Moore in the 1960s and 70s? What shows were your favorites when you were growing up?

One of those weeks

Posted on by
35

Cactus in bloom.

I’m having one of those weeks where every single day I have an appointment or something I have to do. Hair, doctors, a fundraiser for trafficked women and men….Every single day it’s something. Sometimes it’s more than one thing. Also, my appointments are 45 minutes away in downtown Scottsdale, so while I make the drive, I make a list of what I can get done while I’m in civilization. With the price of gas, I might as well take advantage of a big drive and hit Trader Joe’s.

Yesterday I left the house at 8:30 a.m. Plenty of time for my morning pages, prayers and walk. But then I didn’t return home until 6:30 p.m. because of appointments and stuff to do and big gaps between my appointments 45 minutes from the house.

After a relaxing visit to the beach, I can handle it. I just don’t know why sometimes everything stacks up in one week. My son and I were talking about it. He’s been busy at work, doctors, socializing. We both agreed we’d prefer to socialize with friends once or twice a month! This weekend I’m having people over Friday and going to friends for dinner on Saturday.

I guess I should be thankful for the energy to get through the week. And the blessing of a good night’s sleep to get through the day’s activities. Sometimes I wonder if it’s the past few years of solitude that make it harder to be social or getting out of the house for activities and appointments?

Hedgehog cactus in bloom

This is one of the cacti I photographed last week covered in buds. It’s blooming nicely!

What are your thoughts on being busy versus quiet time at home? Do you think the COVID shut downs have changed how we view our solitude?

What’s a facility use fee?

Posted on by
38

I had a visit from this lovely cardinal yesterday.

Have you ever heard of a facility use fee? We ran up against one this week.

My husband had an appointment with an orthopedic doctor. The appointment was for a shot of cortisone in the knee. He asked if he could go to the doctor’s office but was told by staff that it had to be at a surgery center.

He wondered why, but was told that’s where procedures were done.

Then he got a text message from the doctor’s office that our deductible wasn’t met and it would be $1,600 for facility use. It was another $65 for the doctor and shot.

Of course my husband questioned this. But he went ahead with the appointment thinking there might be more happening than what he was expecting. Like maybe they needed a scope or an MRI, or something.

He said at the center there was an anesthesiologist, they put a bracelet on him like you’d get at a hospital. They wanted him in a hospital gown and there were four nurses in attendance. My husband lifted the leg of his sweats for the shot and refused the hospital gown. The anesthesiologist had nothing to do and stood oddly by.

I talked to a friend of mine who said they ran into the same thing for her husband when he was getting a cortisone shot.

Of course we’re fighting the fee, but be forewarned that it’s becoming a common practice.

Here’s a snippet from Consumer Reports:

When Dan Sokol saw an orthopedist for shoulder pain in January 2018, he got an X-ray and then a cortisone shot to treat what the doctor said was bursitis. It all took less than 30 minutes at the doctor’s office, and his shoulder pain went away.

So a few weeks later when Sokol, a 61-year-old bank credit officer who lives in Los Angeles, got a bill with more than $3,000 in charges from Cedars Sinai Medical Center, a hospital near his doctor’s office, he was sure there was a mistake.

https://www.consumerreports.org/fees-billing/surprise-hospital-fee-just-for-seeing-a-doctor-facility-fee/

Have you heard of a facility use fee before? Have you ever been charged one?

The big box

Posted on by
45

I made myself a treat. My husband had to meet with clients over the weekend, so while he was busy, I bought two pounds of little neck clams and made myself a feast. I had clams while I was visiting Seattle, of course, but I can never get too many!

I’m finally attacking some chores that I’ve tried to avoid. When I say avoid, I mean I’ve successfully put them off for years!

First there was a huge box that my brother mailed to me in 2015. I know the date because its stamped across the two-foot by three-foot-long box on the UPS label. It was a box from Mom. I hadn’t looked at it until after she died. When I was getting ready for my trip to spread her ashes on on our riverfront property, I thought perhaps I’d take a peek inside the box. I found several photos to share with family and promised myself I’d get into the box when I returned.

The box had lived in our hallway closet in Palm Springs until we moved. Then it found a home in a hallway closet in Arizona.

I ordered a couple photo storage boxes and decided I needed to sort through the photos from mom’s childhood through my adulthood. The keepers are now in a 11.25″ X 7.75″ box.

I discovered tiny little photos from my mom’s childhood of relatives I’ve never met. I think Mom said she had a Brownie camera. I wonder if that’s what made the teeny tiny photos?

I found color polaroids from my childhood. Photos from our trip to Hawaii when I was in second grade. Vacation days in Victoria BC where my brother and I were dressed up like we were going to church. Several years of birthday parties with neighborhood and school friends.

Mom also had tons of photos of my children, from when they were babies to beginning grade school. I did more throwing out than saving and felt somewhat satisfied to toss the huge cardboard box in recycling.

Now I have four boxes out from the same hallway closet to conquer. I’m on a roll and don’t want to stop now. These boxes are full of framed photos. I think I’m going to take the photos out and if I want to keep them, store them in a photo box. The frames I’ll take to the Kiwanis Thrift Shop. It will feel good to get rid of all this stuff that’s sitting in boxes for years. These are boxes that were stored for years in Palm Springs and rather than making decisions about them before we moved, I moved the boxes with me.

Here’s a photo my mom took of my husband and me when we first got together. My husband was my son’s age!
Do you have any chores or boxes in closets that you’ve avoided?

Will they take a six-month pause?

Posted on by
34
Cactus blooms

A cactus beginning to bloom. This is either a fish hook or hedgehog cactus.

Did you hear that Elon Musk, Andrew Yang and Steve Wozniak signed a letter asking artificial intelligence labs to put a pause on their development? Around 1,000 tech gurus signed the letter asking for a pause on development until shared safety protocol could be developed, implemented, and reviewed by independent experts.

What do they know that we don’t?

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, who released ChatGPT-4, admitted he was a little scared of what they’ve created. But he didn’t sign the letter.

A headline popped up on my phone stating what jobs would be lost first to AI. Accounting, mathematics and writing. It’s predicted 20% of jobs will be wiped away. That’s 20% of our workforce with no insurance or income.

I’m reminded of a freelance writing job that kept me busy during the early days of the pandemic. I featured small businesses for a trade magazine and another magazine highlighted parks and rec. I’d receive an email from the editor with a list of contacts and questions to ask. Each story had to include several things, like the square footage of the business and revenue. The assignments began to feel robotic because it was so formulaic. What kept it interesting were the people I interviewed. They had unique stories of how they created their businesses and what they were doing to make things work during the pandemic.

If you take people out of the equation, what do we have left? What are your thoughts?

A gray day

Posted on by
39

It’s cloudy and gray with a 90% chance of rain. It rained all night and should rain on and off the rest of the day.

I think I’m coming down with a bug. I haven’t been sick in a long time. But last night was rough. I was coughing, felt like I had a fever and someone split my brain with an axe. Not good.

I woke up hour after hour with relief. It’s 1 a.m. I have five more hours to sleep. It’s 2 a.m., four more hours. Finally, I pulled myself out of bed and took an Advil. I had moved into the casita so I wouldn’t keep my husband up all night. I was propped up on four pillows to help me breathe. I had the humidifier on and Olive was on my legs to give me comfort.

I had to get up early and drive my husband to surgery. It was a minor oral surgery thing, but he was having general anesthesia, so despite how I felt or what a lousy night’s sleep I had, I was on duty.

I packed a quilt, pillow, my laptop, Cheryl Oreglia’s book “Grow Damn It!” that I’ve almost finished. I had my journal to write my three pages. I was ready to hunker down in the car for hours. I didn’t want to sit in the waiting room coughing and sniffling.

I got two pages of my three written and my phone rang. The procedure was over. I’m talking 20 to 30 minutes!

I was kind of disappointed it was so quick. It was a let down after I was so prepared to sit for hours.

I drove him home and unpacked the car. Put him to bed. I’m ready for bed, too.

What procedures have you had or your spouse that went easier than expected?

Or, what has been worse than you thought it would be?