Back to the future....

I listened to Obama's speech last night, and felt guardedly optimistic - very guardedly, you understand - about his chances at being elected. I don't see Obama as some kind of savior, mind you. I think it's going to take more than decent leadership to put this country back together again. And I think it's going to take a very long time, and I'm not entirely sure that we're even going to have decent leadership, because experience has taught me to distrust the election system. The Republicans have unashamedly stolen two consecutive presidential elections in this country - we all knew they stole them, but they got away with it. So, what's to prevent them from getting away with it again? It's amazing to me the way Americans - those in leadership, I mean: those that we elected to represent us on the local, state and federal levels - have become just so completely greedy and aquisitorial that they will sell us out for what amounts to lunch money from the lobbyists. They - and by this I mean the majority, not those few exceptions who challenge the rest but get nowhere - are so focused on who owes them, and who they owe, and what they want and need for themselves that they can't afford to buck the system on our behalf, not if they want to continue living in comfort and acquisitorial splendor, they can't. It's not what they get paid for their political work that supports their lavish lifestyles, it's all those perks and side deals and constituent "appreciation" that does it. You and I - with our measly little one vote - don't even cross their radar screens. And so, the wealth in this country has rather quickly - over the past several decades - risen to the very top. And they just keep getting richer and richer, and they just keep indulging themselves more and more, and their income, which is in the multiples of millions if not multiples of billions, just keeps growing exponentially while the middle class in America is sinking just as exponentially. See that picture up there in the right hand corner of this blog? That's the child labor that built so much wealth for the robber barons of the 19th and early 20th century in this country. For many of us whose families have lived in New England for a few hundred years or more, that's where a lot of our ancestors worked from dawn until dusk six days a week - in textile and shoe mills under the worst imaginable working conditions. And while our ancestors grew old before their time, or developed serious health conditions because of the dyes and toxic chemicals used in those factories and died at early ages, the rich grew richer still - we've all read about the world of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his ilk. Those robber barons left so much money to their families that there are quiet family "dynasties" all along the northeastern seaboard where just the interest off those estates is keeping hundreds of descendants living in the lap of luxury. One such family had a little scandal within its ranks a few years back - it seems that their trusted "financial advisor" had, over a period of years, siphoned about $50 million out of their accounts. The kicker? THEY didn't even notice it! It only came up when they changed auditing firms and the new firm apparently didn't have the same arrangement with the financial manager that the old firm had. Can you imagine "not missing" $50 million????? Ah, but that's mere chicken feed to those people. Now, after WWII, the middle class in this country actually started to come into their own - actually started to send their kids to college, to buy homes, to drive decent cars, etc., etc.. The age of the robber baron was, ostensibly, over. We were growing into a new society with equal opportunity for all. Life was good. Too good, evidently, because the big dawgs got a little uncomfortable with it, and had to put their heads together to get themselves back up to the tippety-top where they belonged. And, they've done it. The chasm between rich and poor in this country is currently as big as the Atlantic Ocean, if not bigger. And, I look at that picture - at the children and women whose backs our economy was built on, and I ask myself, "Are we headed back in the same direction?" How many houses John McCain owns isn't the important question. The important question is how many houses does it take to SATISFY him and his cronies? Now I know that people see things differently than I do. If age has taught me anything, it's that arguments that seem perfectly logical to me are NOT shared by everyone. I think that they're uneducated fools who can't be bothered to think logically, but they think that there's something wrong with my thinking, so how do you get past that? How do you bring together two diametrically opposed factions? There are people out there who buy into the Republican propaganda. My favorite irony is the fellow driving down the highway in a ten-year-old rustbucket with Bush/Cheney stickers on the bumpers. Are you kidding me? You can't even afford to drive a decent car, and you think these guys should stay in office? (Obviously these are old stickers, undoubtedly slated to be replaced by McCain/whomever as soon as the new bumper stickers come out. Same car, though, only now it'll be eleven years old.) I actually have spoken online to a couple of people who are losing their homes to foreclosure, but are STILL diehard Republicans. Huh? The logic escapes me, I'm afraid. I am just fervently hopeful that folks can break through their racial biases long enough to vote for their children's future, you know? I am fervently hoping that our voting machines don't get tampered with yet AGAIN. I admit to being a bit haunted by the above picture.

Regards,

Z

Stone's birthday - August 27

Sixty-two. That's us - two peas in a pod, except he has better hair than me. It's usually back in a pony tail - especially when he's playing IT consultant and dressed like a conventional person. We've been together for seven years, now, and it's been an interesting ride, to say the least. We've been discussing birthday plans - nothing extravagant, it's not like he's ninety or something, but certainly we want to acknowledge and celebrate in our own, quiet but hopefully meaningful way. My kids are planning a cook-out on Sunday - we'll celebrate Stone's and my daughter Kim's birthdays together. She will be 38 on Aug. 31st, he'll be 62 today. It'll be fun and busy and energetic and nice for him, since he has no offspring of his own, and has (informally, but very committedly) adopted my four. But we - he and I - will also celebrate more quietly by ourselves, as well. I'm at work today, but tonight we'll have his favorite supper, and I'll bring him flowers, a card, and some sort of "healthy" birthday cake. (When I was on the Atkins diet for lo, those ten-odd years, my kids would make me a "hamburger cake" with cheese frosting and always too many candles.) Stone & I are not doing "Atkins". I ate enough red meat during that period in my life so that I don't even want to look at it anymore, nevermind eat it. No, we are eating lots of high fiber foods - multigrains, vegetables, chicken and a lot of those faux-meats that are soy-based. When you marinate them properly, and gussy them up with sauces and stir fry ingredients, for example, they are actually very palatable. About six months ago, Stone's doctor informed him that his glucose levels were too high and that he was "pre-diabetic". That's when he started eating what I had been eating for the past year or so - the high fiber, etc. - and we started a modest exercise regime - walking (with our quarterstaffs) at least three times a week. Not a whole lot else, but he lost seventeen pounds, his glucose levels dropped right back to where they belonged, and his doctor was astounded when he went in for his follow-up visit a month or so ago.
Stone and I really ARE "two peas in a pod" in so many ways - too many, really, to even count. But, we both have a love of reading (our house overflows with books), both are very committed to our artwork - he with painting, me with sculpting - we both write some, both enjoy the outdoors and some minimal kinds of gardening (the kind we can do in urns - very low maintenance) and we enjoy hiking about in the woods and talking about philosophy, personal belief systems, politics, sociological trends, social programs - what works, what doesn't - and etc. Amazingly, despite the wide range of discussion subjects, we have never, ever had an argument within the context of our personal relationship. (Yeah - we sometimes find ourselves on the opposite sides of a philosophical debate, but that's stimulating and fun - about ideas rather than the realities in our everyday life together.)
So, in conclusion, it's a nice day today, and we'll have a nice, quietly celebratory supper when I get home. On Saturday, he'd like to go to Old Sturbridge Village, which is located about 20 miles from where we live, and is the reconstruction of an entire New England village, circa the mid-1700's. So, we'll do that, and spend the day traipsing about chatting with all the historical re-enactment folks. Back in July, one Sunday, we had headed out to a reservoir a few towns over just to do a little hiking, and came upon a Revolutionary War re-enactors event. There were patriots and loyalist camps, and even a mock battle, which we watched. I have to wonder what the attraction is in re-enacting war. Bad enough that we have to suffer through the damned things - what's the point in romanticizing them through re-enactment? There are groups that do Civil War re-enactments too. Oh, well. I suppose, somehow, that the Revolutionary War and the Civil War are seen as "righteous" wars - wars that accomplished something important. Unlike the "unrighteous" and immoral war we are fighting today over in Iraq. I don't imagine they'll be doing any re-enactments of THIS war a couple of hundred years from now.
But here I go again, running on. That's why I can't write a book. I'm too easily distracted from what I'm supposed to be writing about. Here I was, doing a nice little tribute to a very good man on his birthday, and I end up talking about war.
Ah, well.

This n' that -

Ronni Bennett has wrapped up a perfect argument with regard to who should (or shouldn't) vote for John McCain. I am appalled, frankly, that the Republican party still has the audacity to HAVE a candidate for the presidency. Haven't they done enough damage over the past eight years? How do these wealthy folks whose major stress in life is trying to figure out how to SPEND the money they have lying around because we middle-class (and sliding) folks are footing the bill for everything the government does - well, I mean, how do they live with themselves? How can they enjoy $5,000-a-plate meals knowing that 18% of the children in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA are living in poverty? We have more kids here in poverty than any developed nation in the world. How can John McCain and his wife own so many residences that they can't keep track of them while the greatest percentage of increase in homelessness has been among families with children? How can ANY presidential candidate justify the money they spend on their campaigns - the money they spend just to GET elected, when their campaign chests could most likely come pretty close to wiping out hunger and homelessness throughout the entire country? I have to say that I can't get excited over any candidate at this point in time. I don't see how ANY of them, Obama included, is going to make things any better. Our national debt has reached the point of no return; China OWNS us. People are losing their homes, losing their pensions, losing jobs, losing health coverage. The cost of education is rapidly escalating beyond what the ordinary citizen can afford. What else is there to lose? What kind of world will our grandchildren and great-grandchildren live in? Oh. Sure. I'll vote for Obama. I'd vote for Mickey Mouse just to keep McCain out of the white house, but I've got to say that I am increasingly pessimistic. And, to be perfectly realistic, I've got to wonder whether my vote will make any difference, anyway. Bush and the Republicans stole two elections already, and suddenly they're going to play by the rules in this election? If you believe that, I've got a few bridges you might be interested in buying! Maybe I'll be in a better mood tomorrow.
Ciao for now,
Z

Thursday, then Friday....

And so on and so forth....

Stone has gone up to Canaan, N.H. to help a friend cut firewood for winter. It's about a 2 1/2 hour drive - maybe a little more than that, actually - and he stayed there last night and will probably stay tonight, as well. Our friend lives on about 40 acres of primarily undeveloped forestland right in the heart of the White Mountains. She and her third husband (and soul-mate) bought the property about five years ago with plans to build a simple house for themselves and turn the rest into a non-denominational retreat for friends, acquaintances, and future friends and acquaintances to come to for renewal and rejuvenation. They had just about six - maybe seven - years together when her husband died unexpectedly of sudden heart failure. They had cleared a large amount of property, but hadn't started building their house. When he died, they were living in a rented house in town. Since then, friends have come forward to help her, and the house, designed after old New England barns, with a basement that she spent all last winter in, and two floors above, is framed up waiting for a permanent roof, wiring and plumbing. Last winter was very hard on our friend, and she's been anxious to get the roof finished so that the rest of the interior can be completed, and she can move herself upstairs where she'll have some sunlight and bright space. So, whatever capital she has will go into that roof, and friends - including Stone - will help cut and stack firewood so that she'll have a free source of heat for the winter months this year.

I was looking forward to some "Me" time - relishing the thought of some SPACE, since Stone and I have been together constantly since last November when he was summarily fired from his job as a software engineer for a major New Hampshire medical center. Odd, don't you think, that it happened right on the heels of his sixtieth birthday? This, after some ten years of employment with glowing annual evaluations and steady pay increases? Now, suddenly, it seems that he "works too slowly". Ah, well. He's filed an age-discrimination suit, but we know how unlikely it is that anything will happen on that in the foreseeable future. Better to take stock of our resources and move along from there. That way, if anything should come of the discrimination suit, it will be a lovely surprise, but nothing that we'll count on, for sure. He was able to collect unemployment up until mid-July, when it reached its limit, but then the 13-week extension was signed into law, and he has applied for that. We're just waiting on them processing it. Luckily, of course, my job actually covers most of our living expenses, and he has applied for his SS retirement, which is due to start coming at the end of October. Then, hopefully, he can find some part-time work that will get him out of the house on a regular basis, as I do think that the isolation is wearing on him at this point. And I know that it would do wonders for our conversations if he had something to tell me about each day beyond having cleaned the cat box and watered the tomatoes. But, to get back to what I was saying, I thought a few days apart - and being alone in our apartment would be "just what the doctor ordered" for me. You know - an opportunity to eat a candy bar for supper if I wanted to - and loll about watching inane TV shows if I felt like it (the only TV he and I watch together are documentaries or some highly recommended movie - we've seen "What the Bleep..." a dozen times. We really must get the sequel.) or just plain loll about doing nothing at all.

It didn't turn out that way. One daughter was parked in the driveway when I got home from work. Her husband had somehow managed to lock her out when he and his mother left earlier in the day to take my six-year-old grandson to the zoo about 50 miles from home. My daughter came in to wait for his call saying that they were home and she'd be able to get in. So we sipped iced tea and chatted for a good hour or so, and then when she left, I had no sooner started to undress so that I could take a long, leisurely bath in my deep clawfooted tub when my other daughter stopped in with her little girl, and they stayed for nearly two hours. I had some of my clay out on the worktable, thinking I might play around with it a bit after my bath, but my granddaughter ended up making an array of turtles and fish and birds that I'll fire up next time I'm doing a batch of my stuff. Lately, I've been focusing on faces - tribal and otherwise - to use for pendants on leather thongs, and some small spiral goddess figures. But you never know what I'll be doing next. Maybe I have ADD - I can't stick to just doing the same sort of thing over and over again. So, by the time I got to my bath - and out of it - it was time to get myself to bed, and was I ever surprised to discover that I couldn't get to sleep! So much for some relaxing "alone" time!

So the picture is me with my quarterstaff. I didn't know it was called that until I read one of Ronni Bennett's Time Goes By blog posts. I'm learning a lot now that I've dicovered some folks my age here in cyberspace. I've also joined the Elderwoman network - the brainchild of author (and so much more!) Marian Van Eyk McCain. Something tells me that I'm going to have to start using my brains again, and I'm looking forward to it! Anyway, the picture shows a rotund me who has gained about seven - maybe eight (I refuse to step on the scale) pounds while visiting with my sister in N.C. I DID do some hiking and rock climbing (really!) but not nearly enough to offset all the eating. I moved around and exercised, yes, but if you only knew how much I ate....and am still eating. Good grief - I've got to get a handle on this. I've given myself until the end of this week to splurge. Then, I'll have to get back on the wagon. Ugh.

I guess I should do a little work. I AM at my desk, after all.

Z

North Carolina

This is the scraggly little peach tree out in my sister's backyard in Hendersonville; she's lived there for eight years, and this is the first year it produced. The peaches were small, but juicy and sweet. They would make wonderful peach preserves, but I don't think sis will make any. With just herself and her husband, who picks at a little of this and a little of that, but doesn't really actually eat a whole meal at any given time, she's not very motivated to create wonderful foodstuffs. She does enjoy puttering about her yard; her house is built atop a little wooded knoll that nestles, nearly completely hidden from passersby, at the corner of a major suburban route and a smaller country road. She's completely surrounded by trees and huge, flowering shrubs. Her house started out, I think, as a basic two-bedroom ranch style, but with a full basement that when renovated (before she & her husband bought it) added two more bedrooms, two more baths, and a laundry room. The main floor of the house has a huge living room with french doors opening into an equally huge sunroom in addition to living room, dining room, kitchen, two bedrooms and bath. She complains about how much work it is, trying to keep up with so much space, but of course it's great when she has guests.

Our relationship has evolved over the past several years, and as we've grown older, we've grown closer, and more able, I think, to understand - and even empathize with - the way our own personal choices in life kept us apart for so long. And also, the way our personal choices led us to our current life situations. With understanding - and empathy - a lot of old bitternesses and resentments have fallen away, and we've been able to appreciate each other as "family" - as our very real connection to where our people came from and where they're headed.

I am not an easy person. I never have been. Not with women, at any rate. My relationship with my mother - or perhaps the lack of such a relationship - left me feeling uncomfortable and unsafe in the company of other women. Because my father and I were so close, I suppose - the long mornings and afternoons spent trudging about the woods, the skeet shooting, the horses, the ocean - I always tended (often with less-than-desirable results) to trust and confide in men rather than other women. Thank gawd that's all behind me! Well, it was primarily one man - my ex-husband - and as it turned out, he was probably the LEAST trustworthy person on the face of the earth! I might as well have put my fate in the hands of the pizza-delivery guy or some anonymous convenience store clerk. And, at age 61, living with his second wife, he is STILL dabbling in little side affairs. Good grief, will the man EVER wind down?

Peaches - if fresh, juicy and sweet enough - can provide a great deal of comfort, and that's the truth.

My eyes are blurring. I just got new glasses a couple of weeks ago. What's going ON?

Z

Accepting cronehood; struggling to embrace it

I am no spring chicken. I am, in fact, well into my crone years. I've arrived here somewhat incredulous, and often in denial of the obvious. Yes, my 73-year-old sister and I still climb up and pose ourselves on the jetty at Sakonnet point (see picture, right) but certainly not on a regular basis. I am envious of people my age who live in the country and are hardy and hale souls who tromp about in the woods and find interesting bits of twig and lichen that they hang or display fecthingly in their houses. I'm envious, and yet know full well that I'd last only briefly without a bit more social interaction - although I DO like my "space", and tend to get quite frustrated when I don't have enough time to myself. I'm still in the process of figuring out who I'm supposed to be, I think, and that seems a bit affected and silly at my age, but I'm afraid that I just don't feel quite "finished" - am still wondering, I guess, if "that's all there is"? I wonder if others at my age feel quite so unfinished as I do. Increasingly - not daily, and not even monthly: more like once a year or so - I see an obituary for somebody my age, and think, Omigawd, what if I died tomorrow? It's certainly perfectly possible, and if I did, there would be so much left hanging. I feel, most of the time, like I have years and years ahead of me, but my sister, who is eleven years my senior (I thought ten, but on the trip I just took down to North Carolina to visit with her, she corrected me - it's eleven) has aged considerably since last fall - even had a valve replacement done on her heart back in February, and is now functioning with the help of a pig's valve. Odd. She seems a bit more fragile, although I went with her to her "walking place" - a sweet little park with a duck pond not far from the center of Hensersonville, and we did two laps around the park together. I had my quarterstaff, which is a tad shorter than I would like, and since she had none, I decided to find myself a new one while I was in North Carolina and leave my old (shorter) one for sis. She's 5'2 to my 5'6, and she has always been tiny and petite while I was and am sturdy and prone to the stockiness that I have battled since I was in my 20's. Part of accepting (if not yet able to embrace) cronehood has been to re-evaluate my body, which isn't all that bad, but neither is it "all that good". I have dieted on and off for years and years - frequently with success: during my pregnancy with my last child, who is now 27 years old, I gained 50 pounds, and lost it within six months on the Atkins plan. I continued with Atkins for ten years, and stayed slim and athletic all that time. Then, I was seduced one year while vacationing on Cape Cod by a jumbo hot fudge sundae, and haven't been on Atkins since. I've gradually climbed back up a good 25-odd pounds, and have taken ten off here and there, but haven't kept it off. I do well for a while, and then stop doing well. More recently, I've been wondering why I need to worry about being on the heavy side. Who cares? My (second) husband of the past seven years doesn't seem to mind the way my first husband did - that one was always commenting that it looked like I'd "gained a few pounds" no matter how thin I was. Anorexic, even, for a time. Now, I'm happy to say, I have a healthier relationship with # 2, and as a result, seem to be developing a healthier attitude towards my body. We eat quite well, actually. Lots of fresh vegetables, lots of fiber, fruit, and no more red meat. I use a lot of the soy-based meat substitutes, and if you marinate them to add a little flavor and serve then in a stir fry or salad, they are every bit as tasty, and far less fatty than real meat. We do eat chicken and turkey and I do an occasional pork roast, but we've cut the red meat out entirely, and now I don't think I could eat it even if I didn't have anything else. Too much of it, I guess, all those years on Atkins. But, back to my ambivalence about cronehood. On the one hand, I like the idea of relaxing my standards some - around appearance, I mean. I still have to dress professionally for my job, but I mean mostly about weight. There is simply no need for me to kill myself trying to be thin, even though if I had my druthers, as they say, I really WOULD be a slim and elegant old woman with silver hair in a long braid down my back. Or, with silver hair cut EXTREMELY short in a little wispy helmet, which I could do easily enough, but not being slim at this particular point in time, and NOT having a long, swan-like neck atop which to display this short wispy little helmet, I would end up looking like a scoop of ice cream with a cherry on top. Okay, not that bad, but not good, either. I need the hair to balance out the wide shoulders and thickening waist. My legs are still pretty good - reasonably sized, and with slim ankles, but there are a few quarter-sized spots where the veins have broken, and my calves aren't as firm and muscular as they used to be by a long shot. But, again. what's the difference? I'd LIKE to be slim, trim and athletic well up into my eighties or nineties, but I don't think it's so important to me that I'd work particularly hard to achieve it. I'm really in awe of those who do.

As an aside - after years and years of being an over-achiever (you know, the ones who arrive early, stay late, and spend evenings at home sending and replying to e-mails) I am finally realizing that killing yourself at work doesn't earn you much more than the occasional accolade, and the same free coffee in the employee lunchroom that even the underachievers get. I'm slowing down, thinking about what I want to do - and where I want to be - when I retire (unless I get fired or something) in three years. My husband is already retired, and keeps busy with his art (he paints, sculpts and writes) but is contemplating getting some sort of part-time job just to get himself out of the house. He's taken on a volunteer project - evaluating and redesigning the computer lab for a neighborhood center in the city where we live (He spent 35 years as a software engineer) - but it won't get started until October, and in the meantime, he's feeling a bit restless. Not to worry - I left instructions regarding preparation of a pork roast for our dinner. That will keep him busy for a time.

Over and out.

Shorter seasons...

It's true. The older you get, the more quickly the seasons - and days, weeks, months and years - pass. It seems like summer barely gets started, and we're up in the last weeks before fall takes over and the sun grows weaker and weaker. I knew I hadn't posted anything on this blog in some time (I admit it; I couldn't remember how to get back to it - elder blogger, indeed!) but had no idea it's been quite so long as this. It's been a busy, if not exactly eventful, summer. I just got back from visiting with my sister for a week down in North Carolina. I'm back to work tomorrow, so I need to get myself off to bed. 5:30 in the AM rolls around way too quickly. But, I'll get back here tomorrow sometime. I'm glad to have found my way.