65

It's really an arbitrary thing, no less so than, say, a Fiftieth Anniversary. Why is that such a milestone compared to the 49th or the 51st? Be that as it may, here I am turning 65. Technically, at 4:30 this afternoon, the more or less exact time I was born. It was a Friday. The world rejoiced.

65. Intellectually you know (or at least assume) that by the grace of God you'll make it. Then you actually do. 

I indeed feel different this morning, although I'm sure that's psychological. A milestone has been achieved, such as it is. The first hint was my Medicare card coming in the mail at the end of March. Oh, this is actually happening, that 65 thing, I thought, even though my joints and muscles have been proclaiming its approach for a few years now. 

Yet here it really is. I took my walk this morning; I puttered in the old barn. Outwardly things seem the same. But, 65. Might as well embrace it with all the gusto those joints and muscles will allow.

The Joke's On Me

I am getting older. As such I'm beginning to realize how often the joke's on me (quiet, Ron).

I've talked a lot about watching Rifftrax, a movie parody site where they mock movies, TV shows, short films and what all. Last weekend I watched several Rifftrax offerings with my son in Ohio, one of The Ohio Cosgriffs. As usual, I laughed at many of the jokes.

One of the jokes involved the Internet. It was that a character was so old that he still typed www before website addresses. I laughed at that, well, because it was clear I was supposed to. Yet I didn't quite get the point.

Back here in Detroit I tested that joke. And sure enough, you don't have to type www before a web address. You just type weather.com or aol.com and there it is. I just tried it again: I typed mudhens.com, exactly like that, and was taken immediately to the Toledo Mud Hens web site as I now fully expected.

So the old guy joke was on me. But I had to laugh at the time, if only to cover myself.

The 13% Solution

I don't believe that I'm alone in worrying about my health as I get older. Paranoia increases with the calendar. Yet my doctor has thrown at me some interesting calculus in trying to assure me that my overall health is really very good.

My blood pressure is, to my mind anyway, high, or higher than I would like it to be anyway, although my physician does not share my view. He's all right with it. 

When I voiced my concerns during my last checkup, he pulled my charts up on the computer in the examination room and began calculating. My blood pressure history times my age divided by great cholesterol numbers interpreted by the cosine of my vitamin D levels divided by the iron in my blood weighed against my ideal amount of potassium subtracted from the sodium seen in my white cell count compared to kidney function in ratio to my being about 25 pounds overweight contrasted to the zenith of the rising Sun on the Tenth of October in 2019 means that I have about a 13% chance of a serious cardiac or stroke event in the next ten years. "And we don't even worry at all under ten percent, because that's just about anyone's risk at your age," he assured me. "So you're in good health Mr. Cosgriff."

Well. That's it then. I'm healthy. Even if I didn't understand a word he said.

Old Knowledge

You're never too old to learn, right? And you're never too old to learn from someone older than you either. Whether you actually want to learn some of their wisdom is another question.

When talking to a friend who is about 20 years older than me, he was explaining why older folks have more trouble with bronchial issues. "The older you get, the weaker your chest muscles become. It becomes harder and harder to expel mucus."

Well, that's another thing to look forward to I suppose. The anticipation is killing me.

Oh The Pain

Years ago I realized that aging meant hurting myself in ways and manners I couldn't expect. Once I turned to answer someone, just a simple twist of the torso, and my back went out. Lovely.

You know how us Catholics like ritual, even quick, brief ones, right? Yesterday I approached a pew in Church and began to genuflect, exactly as I have for years. And I pulled a muscle in my leg.

The muscle on the top of my thigh popped. The pain was awful; I wasn't sure I could get up. Then, of course, I had to sit down, stand up, sit down again, stand up, kneel, blah, blah, blah as Mass went on. Being obstinate, I had to go through all the motions. Irish Catholic guilt is still a real thing, folks.

I may be using a delivery stick when curling tomorrow night. But it does feel better this morning though.

Dragnet Ageism

So yesterday I spoke about the old TV show Dragnet, right? But I didn't say anything about the episode which was on, only commenting on the intro. Yet I did watch the show, and I was not pleased.

During the course of an investigation Friday and Gannon found themselves in a home where a murder occurred. They questioned a young woman who lived there. "Does anyone else live here?" Joe Friday asked.

"Only my frail old mother," he was told.

"I'd like to question her."

"Well, all right, but be considerate. She's old and frail. She's 62," the daughter explained.

At hearing that I thought, old and frail? 62 is old and frail? What kind of ageism is this? 

It didn't help that the actress playing the mom actually looked about 85. Still, what did they think of seniors in 1968 that 62 was old and frail? 

My being 65 has absolutely nothing to do with my indignation either.

Third In Line

We had our family reunion yesterday, and I do believe that a good time was had by all. It sure seemed to me that everyone enjoyed everyone's company. There was a great deal of laughter, which is the best medicine.

Upon driving home something occurred to me. I realized that I was the third oldest there. Holy. Cow.

I chuckle at that factoid as I type, yet also shake my head. The third oldest person at our family reunion.

Again: Holy cow. It's just a bit astounding. But it was a good day, and that's what matters.

Little White Pills

"I think we should try a blood pressure medication. Are you all right with that, Mr. Cosgriff?" my doctor asked me yesterday.

"Yes, I am," I replied. My blood pressure has been high for about two years now. I do walk 6 out of 7 mornings, yet could stand to lose weight. Not that I haven't actually lost any. Between February's checkup and yesterday's I lost a pound. True, that isn't impressive. But it is, uh, shall we say, trending in the right direction.

My mind had already been made up that I was going to ask for medication no matter what he told me. I don't want to be paranoid but as I told the good doc, I don't want to have a debilitating stroke at 68 because we didn't start taking precautionary measures now. He agreed, along with the admonition to continue walking and to try to eat better and lose a few pounds. In my defense I think I am eating better. I'm just eating too much of it. Three pounds of salad, even dry salad (no dressing) is still three pounds of food.

I'll take my blood pressure every day along with the name which I can't pronounce of the prescription drug. I heard all the warnings: watch that your pressure doesn't drop too low, notice if you have dizzy spells (quiet Ron) and blah, blah. I didn't listen to nor read them all. The precautions are too much like War and Peace these days.

 With all that in mind, I held the little pill in my hand this morning before popping it down my throat, thinking, well, me and you now, little buddy. It's simply another aspect of the aging process. Life goes on. Hopefully for quite a while yet.

The Realization

While logging into my AOL account yesterday I saw an article which proudly offered an easier way for seniors to trim their toenails. I clicked on the link, thinking, oh, I should check that out. It might be useful.

And this is what my life has become. 

Heavy sigh.

On The Other Foot

This may seem more melancholy than I intend it to be, but I'm really only trying to be observational. 

Watching the Ohio Cosgriffs drive off home yesterday morning, Christmas being over, I found myself reflecting on little things in life which had never quite occurred to me before. I was thinking of how me Grandpaw and Grandmaw Hutchins may have felt in years gone by as we would leave their home in North Carolina after our annual summer visit. Or even, perhaps, how me parents and grandparents up here felt when my family would make our exit after spending time at their homes.

With more extended stays it's as if you just get into the new routine and it's over. Several times yesterday after the family left I found myself expecting one of the dogs to be staring at me as I opened the door into the dining room, or to see my son or daughter-in-law or granddaughter sitting on the couch as I entered the living room. I expected those things so much that it took a second or so for me to re-orient when nobody was there. 

I believe I would rather be the one leaving than the one staying. The ones moving on are naturally occupied with that: the drive back home, returning to work, anticipating the usual day in and day out life. While I certainly had my routine coming back at me, there was still a rather marked change for me as all I had was that routine returning. There wasn't the relative distraction of a four hour drive home. There wasn't so much as a walk down the block to occupy me. I just went back into the house and locked the door as I closed it, changed into work clothes, and got back to normal. Poof. In the bat of an eye, nothing was different than it had been last Thursday. But it felt radically different, at least for the first few hours.

I suppose it does offer me a better sense of what my elders felt way back when. I don't really like it, but it is what is, eh?

Life Goes On

Yesterday I took a call from the wife of an old customer. Sadly, she was calling to tell me her husband had passed away. I offered my condolences of course, and promised to pray for him.

I had known the man since my teens, so we're talking about the 1970s. It seems so long ago, and yet almost yesterday. The older we get, the more such experiences we have. C'est la vie, I guess.

He was a Shriner, and a couple of times he gave me tickets to take my family to the Shrine Circus. I always appreciated that, especially as a young family man with hardly any disposable income, and appreciate it all the more today.

Godspeed, good sir. Godspeed.

Smile, smile, smile

I find myself literally giggling at myself more and more lately. Sure, many of you have laughed at me in the past: I haven't forgotten that. Sometimes I've laughed along with it. But now it's more about the growing realization that I am not getting younger.

As I bent over to pick a wrench up off the floor today I realized exactly how far away the floor was and how much my body did not want me to bend down to pick that wretched wrench up. I laughed at myself over that. As I turned a screwdriver to adjust the clutch on a machine my shoulder positively begged me not to do it. I did it anyway of course. But I giggled at myself over my own body resisting me.

It's not as though I haven't known that aging meant bodily resentments. It's just that I didn't expect to find aging genuinely funny.

Oh well. Better to laugh than to cry I suppose.

It comes with age

I have gotten into the habit of eating lunch for breakfast. By that I mean I eat after my morning walk and typically skip actual lunch. It gives me longer to burn the daily fat, I figure, and I am typically not hungry at Noon either. Still, it qualifies as lunch for breakfast. I usually eat a sandwich.

So I walked, went by the Shop for a bit to refresh myself on what items I needed to order today, and came home. Going into the kitchen, I gathered all the sandwich stuff I had decided I wanted this morning, made lunch for breakfast, and went before the computer to see what was up. You know, to write this blog and stuff.

As the computer booted up I took a bite of my sandwich. All I tasted was bread and mayo.

I set the food back down on the napkin which I was purposefully using as a plate and traced my steps back to the kitchen table. There sat open lunch meat and an open package of cheese as well as the condiments I had meant to yet did not use. I had absentmindedly made myself a mayonnaise sandwich for lunch.

No, I wasn't going to write about this today. It's simply that I'm curious: does this sort of forgetfulness come with age?

I'm asking for a friend, because I forgot where I was going with this.

Aging means forgetting

The signs of getting older...

When a customer comes in for a part, you get the part and set it down, then you can't find it. So you get another because the customer is waiting and sell him that one. The instant he leaves, you see the first one you got, hiding in plain sight.

Yep, that's how my morning has gone so far.

Achy breaky everything

I'm getting old and achy.

I'll miss this curling season when it ends in April. But I'm ready for it to end.

It hasn't been a bad season. We've won our share of games and a couple of bonspiels, and I really like playing the at Tier 55 level. The competition is still good, and you see the same guys often enough that even more and farther flung curling friendships grow. Curling is perhaps the best participation sport out there. You can play it for a long time too; I think the closest comparison to that is golf, and I'm getting that bug as well.

But today my right hip hurts; in fact, it burns a little. My left knee isn't liking me very much this morning either, almost like I've overextended it. If that keeps up I'll have to consider a brace of some sort for next season, or wear one of those baseball catcher's wedges to give it more support. One of the guys has been doing that this year and says it helps.

My right shoulder has been stinging so badly that the last couple of months it often wakes me up at night. I'm sure the sweeping motion from curling isn't helping. And all of this is before recurring lower back pain.

I'd say don't get old but there just aren't many other options to aging. So stay active, get exercise, and keep going. Keep the aspirin and the Tylenol handy while you're at it as well.

Sentimentality

The little blond boy waving from the living room window as I walked back to the Shop. The redhead who wanted to play 'guys' (role play with his action figures) at lunch. The preteen who played softball because her dad liked bat and ball games. I miss them.

Maybe I am more sentimental than I care to think.

For years I thought it was all behind me. I thought I was beyond sentimental. Then days come when I find out they're still here.

I watch movies about vampires, with Rifftrax commentary (and only because of that) with one. I go to venerable Major League ballparks with the next. I eat marvelous soups designed on the fly by the third.

And it's all good.

So you may as well be sentimental about it. Because it's all good.

The advantage of the curmudgeon

I have said before that I want to be a curmudgeon. You may wonder why someone so lovable as myself might actually wish to become such a person.

Go ahead. Ask. I'm waiting, so long as a curmudgeon may deign to ask.

Deign. What a delightfully curmudgeonly word when said snidely. I deign to ask that. I deign thou to deny me my right to ask that.

You do not. Ask, that it is. Nor deny me my right to respond. I shall answer anyway. I shall deign (ha, ha, ha) to answer your unasked address.

It is because I am increasingly aged. That, by itself, allows me to ask questions ordinarily dismissed as impertinent. I am increasingly older. Therefore, I am increasingly curmudgeonly. All will love me and despair!

You see, curmudgeons are loved because they are curmudgeons. They are too old to be held accountable, let alone responsible. They ask all the questions no one else will ask because they will not be seen as impertinent. Old curmudgeons are always seen as cute. You. Lose.

That's why I want to be a curmudgeon. I'm ahead of the curve.

Being a curmudgeon is cute.

You may ask, especially after yesterday's missive, why someone so lovable as myself might actually wish to become a curmudgeon.

Go ahead. Ask. I'm waiting, so long as a curmudgeon may deign to ask.

Deign. What a delightfully curmudgeonly word. I deign to ask that. I deign thou to deny me my right to ask that.

You do not. Ask, that it is. Nor deny me my right to respond. Yet I shall answer. I shall deign (ha, ha, ha) to answer your unasked address.

It is because I am increasingly aged. That, by itself, allows me to ask questions ordinarily dismissed as impertinent. I am increasingly older. Therefore, I am increasingly curmudgeonly. All will love me and despair!

You see, curmudgeons are loved because they are curmudgeons. They are too old to be held accountable, let alone responsible. They ask all the questions no one else will ask because they will be seen as impertinent. The old curmudgeons will be seen as cute. You. Lose.

That's why I want to be a curmudgeon. I'm ahead of the curve.