And This Little Piggy Went Wii Wii Wii…

Posted on December 22, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

Santa brought me a Wii for Christmas!  It was on my list and I guess I was a good girl this year.  Although the tag said it came from Ed the Dog, I know it was from Santa.  Of course the guys had to set it up for me.  It came with Wii Sports and Wii Resort.  Here’s the lowdown:

Amazingly, I have the exact, and I mean EXACT, same curve ball to the left when I bowl on Wii as when I bowl in real life.  I may actually learn to bowl using this thing;  when I move to the right, as Jeff Plonsker has long told me I need to do to compensate, I got quite a few more spares and strikes.  OK, OK, next time at the bowling alley I will do it that way and see what happens.   

If I needed more proof that Wii does mimic real life more than you would think, I kicked butt at ping pong, which is my dominant sport in real life.  Wakeboarding and jet skiing, not so much.  Essentially, I have drowned many times over in the past 48 hours.  Tennis, baseball – I think those just take awhile to get the hang of, and I hope to improve. I have no interest in trying the golf. 

I also found it interesting that although you don’t have to accurately mimic the whole body motions of the sport for the Wii to react, you find yourself doing it anyway, and actually work up a sweat.  Thus I had to move the coffee table so I could take my bowling steps to the line.  My baseball bat swings were a danger to Ed the Dog; in addition I felt quite foolish when my “team” would drop the easy outfield fly and the other team would catch each one of mine, and I would let out a “no way!” loud enough for the neighbors to hear.  Or when I miss that spare by an eyelash.  Or when my awesome wakeboard stunt doesn’t count because I didn’t land flat on the water. 

After Christmas I hope to get a balance board and Wii Fit on sale and start exercising.  Al thought I was kidding, but physical therapy departments are actually using the Wii to improve balance in their patients.  I just want to be able to start practicing skiing before I hit the snowy snowy slopes – which, by the way, are the joyous by-product of coastal rainstorms.

Think I’ll go try some canoeing or archery in the meantime.  Thanks, Santa!

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I Could Have Told You Vincent…

Posted on December 20, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

We went to the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco yesterday – The Sondag Guys and the Mom.  First of all,  I must say that I am such an art ignoramus in general.  I probably know more than I think I do, but I couldn’t pull any of it out of my head at a dinner conversation – but I know what I like.  I write that disclaimer because what I thought I was gushing over yesterday – Van Gogh’s Starry Night – was actually Van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhone.  Well, la tee da.  No wonder I had never noticed the couple in the lower right hand corner, nor the boats moored in the foreground nor the cityscape barely visible in the starlight.  Wrong painting.  Guess what, I couldn’t have been more entranced, nor more thrilled had it been his more famous masterpiece.  I’d say I even like it even better but I can only compare it to the cheap prints you frequently saw on college dorm walls when Don MacLean’s song “Vincent” was a hit. 

We were lucky enough to have the last timed tickets of the day,* so when it was near closing time we went back to near the beginning when there were about three people in the Starry Night Over the Rhone room so we could get up close and personal.  It nearly brought me to tears and I’m ready to head to France for awhile, which is something I never thought I’d say.  These paintings (along with Gauguin, Rousseau, Toulouse-Lautrec, Seurat and more – oh my heavens am I spelling those right?) are on loan from the Musee d’Orsay which is undergoing renovation. 

The DeYoung is the only place to view these in North America.   Between that and reading that Illinois is the number one worst state in which to retire due to financial woes in the state (even worse than California?) and of course the snow for some reason seems to make it undesirable – well I guess I just have to count my California blessings now and again.  

The best part about the field trip was that you may have noticed that normally nice, friendly, unpretentious people upon entering a museum of fine art, suddenly get looks on their faces as if they were born of highly educated royalty in hopes that nobody knows that most of them, like me, don’t know diddly about what they are looking at except that it is special somehow.  Kind of like the winery phenomena only it’s art.  The Lafayette Sondags, with me often giggling in the background I’m afraid, have never been known for their sense of decorum in the face of pretentious snobs, although as they get older they are toning it down somewhat.  However, we were the only people in the exhibit who actually looked like we were having FUN – we smiled and laughed; we made quiet fun of some of the more silly attempts at greatness from the studios of by-and-large insane or at the very least ridiculously eccentric group of artists; we discussed at length the possible security measures in place.  That scrawny homeless looking guy over there with the beret?  Probably would take you to the ground if you so much as laid a finger on a frame.  The spider on the ceiling? A spy camera for sure, monitored by ten people just in case nine blinked at the same time, at least one would know who stole one of Al’s favorite paintings in the world.  Which is (drum roll please): Van Gogh, Bedroom at Arles – and by the way I know enough about art that when you find it almost impossible to stop and look at a single thing in the painting without exerting great effort with your eye muscles, because your eyes are compelled to keep moving all over the painting – that’s good composition.  See.  I do know. And I dare you to try to concentrate on one item in this painting without your eyes trying to pull you somewhere else in the room…

 Bedroom at Arles

To be fair, Jeff is our artist and he did offer some wonderful insights into some of the art, but gosh darn it he did it with his trademark broad smile.  I was never so happy to be at an art exhibit, where I’d occasionally run into my sons who were clearly enjoying themselves but still not getting arrested or anything. 

Jeff leaves tomorrow, our Christmas is “over” except we’re going to save our stockings for December 25th, even though I think I have to put Jeff’s in a locked steel box for his ride back to Santa Barbara.  We’ve had a wonderful time.  I’m still going to try to bake cookies, but for now I just didn’t get around to it, viewing timeless art and all…  

*Mary’s Museum Tip of the Year: get the last timed ticket of the day, walk in, go to the END of the exhibit and start there – by the time you get to the beginning, which is usually where the coolest stuff is, you’ll be practially alone except for the guards looking at their watches.

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Jingle Bells…

Posted on December 17, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

Our family Christmas is this weekend instead of next.  Jeff and Joe arrive today and we have a packed weekend ahead.  A few thoughts before the wild ride begins.

The transfer of VHS movies of my children’s young years to DVD is almost complete.  I stopped taking a lot of movies around 1996, although there might be a few more rolling around on 8 MM VHS.  It has been quite the learning experience for me. 

The “wonder years” were not easy for me.  I was far away from my mother and sister, Al’s Mom and my Dad passed away when the boys were quite young.  We had no other family in the area, our closest relatives were in San Diego.  Along the way I had friends who would help out when I was overwhelmed, most notably Thais, who has my undying gratitude for being the example of how to let it all roll off your back.  She always said she wanted ten kids but that wasn’t flying with her other half!  She could have done it and made it look easy.  Except for Thais, friends are not family – they had kids of their own and grandmas nearby and generally could not relate to my situation. They would help when they could, but when I really needed someone to take over, I was out of luck.

I spent much of those years extremely tired and often crying.  The movies prove to me that it wasn’t always that way, and I am beginning to practice my Dad’s philosophy which was “I only remember the good times.”  However the movies also show me a glimpse of why it was so difficult for me.  The noise never stopped.  The action never stopped.  Unlike most girls who will occasionally actually sit down and color in a coloring book, that pasttime that I loved so much when I was a child NEVER occurred in my home, no matter how cool I thought the coloring books were or how many brand new packs of crayons I bought.  As far as I can tell Jeff whined during all of 1991 which occasional time outs to smile and laugh.  Joe loved to be the center of attention, and Andy could have melt downs if someone looked at him the wrong way. 

So I know I yelled alot.  I know I cried alot.  I went to frequent counseling, both personal and marraige, to make it through.  I always worried that my boys would never come home after they grew up because I was such a wreck half the time.  With Christmas nearing and a recent Thanksgiving behind us, I am assured me those fears were unfounded.   Not to mention they can sense if I’m getting nervous and the jokes come fast and furious until I could not possibly continue in that vein.

The movies also reveal an amazing truth.  There was one common denominator, one unflinching paragon of patience and humor, one steady and faithful emotional background upon which we all were projected throughout the wonder years.  It was the father of the boys, my husband of almost thirty years, Al Sondag.  Every movie finds him throwing crying babies over his shoulder – and then within seconds babies would be giggling.  Bathtimes  and subsequent pajama wrestling, which ultimately would have have me yelling and running to my room in tears, was handled with ease and a calm demeanor by Al.  Nothing phased him.  I gave up giving my children baths the first time a toddler boy put a foam bathtub letter “O” on his penis and thought it was hilarious.   I just finished watching a pillow fight between Al and Joe and Andy, aged 5 and 2, with baby Jeff looking on and laughing, that went on for half an hour!  I would have lasted about 5 minutes.  I just didn’t get it, ya know? 

Al did.  He got it all – the boundless energy of boys, the nonstop noise that exhausts me even watching the movies twenty years later , but most of all I think he understood much better than I ever did that it was all passing, and passing quickly.  He understood, perhaps because his Dad passed away when Al was five, how important his role was (and is) as a father.  A tantrum was met with the same even keel response as reading a bedtime book.  He didn’t need parenting books to teach him this.  It just came naturally.  I needed the books to remind me, and failed frequently.  A tantrum from a child was just as likely to elicit a tantrum from me. 

Watching these movies I have been given a second chance to love my little babies, without the fatigue and immaturity.  They are all coming home this weekend for an early Christmas since Jeff has to work on Christmas Day.  I am healed now, the doubts about the quality of my mothering washed away as I have relived it all – only the good times, true – and am ready to carry on as the mother of three grown men who will continue to bring me great joy, as they surely did then, and no one will be yelling – except maybe them at some point in the future!  My hope is that they will all have inherited their father’s innate sense of what’s important and what’s not in child-rearing, and that they will be as proud of their children when they grow up as I am of mine.  Of course, they might have a brood of foreign creatures called “girls,”  and then all bets could be off…

As I write this, a VHS is in the background being transferred and I hear this:

“Jingle Bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg, Batmobile lost a wheel and Joker took ballet – hey!”

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Nutty as a Fruitcake

Posted on December 16, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

 I belong to a small band of sisters and brothers who love fruitcake.  It arrived in yesterday’s mail: my fruitcake! For years I longed for the delicious fruitcake that arrived every Christmas from one of my Dad’s business associates.  As a child I learned to love fruitcake because of this yearly gift.  (I also loved liver and onions, but that’s another story.)   In my adult life I would often try again but could never find anything as scrumptious as that fruitcake and do, indeed, understand why all the pathetic jokes about doorstops masquerading as fruitcake circulate each Christmas without fail.  I would not buy cheap fruitcakes – the one time I did it after I was married, it just made me ever so sad that I wasn’t ten years old again, where a superb fruitcake would be delivered to our door without invitation or question about whether it would be good.  Every year I would vow to make the fruitcake from the Joy of Cooking – I love to read about the ritual of plunging it into powered suger and wrapping it in cheesecloth and pouring bourbon over it now and again for six weeks – but it required me to be proactive and get started before Thanksgiving to do it right, which of course I never remembered to do.

A few years back my Mom sent me a fruitcake made by the Trappist Monks at Gethsemani Abbey in Trappist, Kentucky.  It is the Holy Grail of fruitcake.  A fruitcake that melts in your mouth with whispers of bourbon and candied fruit and nuts and winter spices would not serve very well as a doorstop.  (Note: I had to stop writing this and go get a piece…)  Those of you who refuse to even consider that your preconceived notions of fruitcake might be skewed by the Walmart variety are missing out on something grand.  I would feel sorry for you except I would rather the secret not get out – more for me.

It is true that there is a limit to how much fruitcake one can eat.  A good fruitcake is rich, but not doorstop heavy.  I would not want it more than once a year, and Mom only sends half a cake – along with the the monks’ bourbon fudge which I can’t eat in the middle of the day when I still have patients to see – because I’m liable to be the only one eating more than one slice.  Even if it melts in your mouth it can add a doorstop or two to one’s hips.

 Now you know the truth.   You always wondered why I was so nutty.  I love fruitcake!

Posted in General Musings | Tagged | 1 Comment

Unlikely Compassion

Posted on December 11, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

I will start this blog with a quote from the AP story by Colleen Long and Tom Hays, Associated Press, hoping that it will shield me from judgement by those who may read this and not understand why feel such a gut sadness about the news of the suicide of Bernie Madoff’s son, Mark:

Ronnie Sue Ambrosino, who leads a group of Madoff victims who have been fighting for restitution in the case, said the death is just more evidence of the pain the case has wrought.”’It’s sad. It’s very, very sad that any life is taken,” she said. “It’s so wasteful.”  She said she doubted any of the victims were taking pleasure in the Madoff family’s sorrow. ‘That’s not going to help the Madoff victims find the justice and the restitution they deserve.”

The whole thing just makes me sick – the scam, the pure greed for more money than anyone needs to live a decent life, the loss of moral direction that destroyed life after life after life and culminated in a young man with a young family, due to guilt or fear of indictment or reality of what his father did becoming to much to bear, or reasons we may never know, hanging himself  while his 2 year old son slept nearby.   I don’t know what part Mark Madoff had in the whole mess, we all assume he was fully informed about it all, but the jury is still out on what Mark knew and when he knew it.  Isn’t that irrelevant when we are talking about someone taking his own life?

I’ve been putting VHS movies on DVD and reliving the lives of my little boys who have grown into manhood.  Part of the reason I’m sick at heart is that I look at the eyes in the photograph of Mark Madoff and I know he started out just like we all do, just like my little boys did.  We come out of the womb.  We have no choice as to whether we are placed in a family of good people or bad people, smart people or stupid people, peaceful countries or war-torn countries.   The little baby Mark was raised in a moral vacuum and in some ways his life was doomed to end where it did, hanging from the end of a dog leash in an apartment in Manhattan.  Most of us would rather die ourselves than experience the death of a child, and to experience it because of our own actions would be unbearably painful.  Does Bernie Madoff feel that way?  Will this spark a moment of remorse in his dark, dark soul?

I do not have compassion for Bernie Madoff and I highly doubt he feels the same deep sorrow for his own son that I feel for a young man about whom I know nothing, who took his own life.  He is a sociopath, a man who could hurt and steal from other human beings and not think twice about it.   Sometimes it’s just hard to figure, but I was glad to hear the words of the woman quoted above.  A voice like that is what keeps good people moving forward in dark corners of the world, a voice that implies forgiveness even in the face of having been terribly wronged, a voice of compassion.  Unlike Bernie Madoff, it doesn’t sound like she wanted restitution money for money’s sake, at the cost of a young man’s life.  She just wants to be made whole. 

If Bernie Madoff has no moral code, at least his victims do, and knowing that beautiful truth is, for me, worth more than a hundred beachfront properties, which in turn are worth much, much less than the life of the human being who was born as Mark Madoff.  If only Bernie Madoff could have understood that truth before his greed became a tidal wave of human tragedy, even drowning his own flesh and blood.

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I’m Nired

Posted on December 6, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

When Jeff was little, he was a bit of a whiner; he knows this, I’m not embarrassing him, it’s still a bit of a family joke.  His brothers would make fun of him, because “I’m starving” (we regularly starved our children – it builds character) would become “I’m narving.”  “I’m tired” would become “I’m nired.”  Then it would start, the brutal big brother life lessons: “Mo-om.  Jeff is NARVING.”   “Mo-om.  Jeff is NIRED.”

Today, I’m NIRED.  It started out like any other Monday – I stretched in bed and knocked over my entire nightstand glass of water.  I just ignored it since it was water, and drifted back to sleep.  Then the alarm went off – I don’t know why I set it.  Al is always awake before I am.  Today he was lingering.  I tried to go to sleep, but for some reason it seems the paper delivery person with the muffler-less car and grinding gears apparently needed to stop at every driveway and – what?  I don’t know.  Like the mailman (we have a mailman, I know the USPS ordains mailwomen too…) the delivery person also apparently goes down one side of the street and then back up the other.  I did not get back to sleep. 

I fell on my butt last week.  I was wearing dress shoes for a work meeting and stopped at the office to do some patient paperwork.  Normally I am in my athletic shoes and fly around that particular office at top speed.  This did not work in dress shoes, and my supervisor tells me she wondered what happened because one second I was looking at her and the next second I was gone – or down as it was.  It wasn’t until today that I realized that the pelvic pain I’ve been experiencing was not constipation but probably a deep sacral bruise.  Too much information?  Tough.   Anyway, I woke up still in pain and not feeling like driving around, that’s for sure.  Had I said I would do an admit on Monday on top of the three patients I had?  Better go to the office to find out. 

Shit.  What was I thinking?  I called one of the patients and rescheduled. 

Back and forth to the car three times for stuff I didn’t bring in but, of course, needed.  Back into the office for my keys that I left on the desk. Realized I forgot to take my morning meds and went back home – no sense having a stroke over forgotten blood pressure meds to avoid starting the day already thirty minutes behind schedule, when the very fact that I’m already fifteen minutes behind could make my blood pressure shoot up by 4 p.m.

Took my meds, got back into the car, stop at the bottom of the driveway, called the first patient to say I would be late.  Gratefully she tells me she’s not feeling well and wants to reschedule.  Drive the car back up the hill.  Drag my stuff inside to do some paperwork in the extra time I’ve copped.

You get the idea.  My first patient asked me if I’d had a busy morning.  I had to tell her I indeed had a busy morning and had pretty much gotten nothing done.  One of the lovely things about patient care in the home is that you are, for that period of time, their own private physical therapist.  I am able to tell her about my crazy morning (minus the bruised sacrum) and she gets a good laugh – it reminds her, I’m sure, of when she was capable of running around like a chicken with her head cut off and getting absolutely nothing done in the process.

The VHS to DVD process continues.  For some reason that eludes me, sometimes when the finished product comes out, the audio and video are not in sync.  So Joe’s mouth is moving and I’m talking, that type of thing.  I’m sure it is something I’m doing in the editing process but it is much easier to just start over.  I’m doing that right now.  I’d just let the whole damn thing fade into oblivion, but this particular tape is Al’s Mom at Christmas, when Jeff is just a month old.  Beautiful.  Well worth doing over.

My paperwork from today’s patients awaits, I haven’t listened to the last two days of the Evolutionary Christianity webinar, and I’m working on these VHS tapes.

And, I’m nired.

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Pink Smoke, Three Rivers and the Holy Spirit

Posted on December 5, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

Today I went to see a documentary “Pink Smoke Over the Vatican.”  This is a documentary about the struggle of ordinary yet extraordinary Catholics to bring about change in the Church against all odds.  It is about women’s ordination in the Roman Catholic Church.  This is a big ticket item of contention for many who have left the Church.   I have not left the Church.  As I have mentioned before on these pages, my Baptism is part of who I am, it cannot be taken away from me from a mere mortal man in Rome.

I wept a few times during this documentary, not necessarily tears, but inside I wept.  I wept to listen to gentle, peaceful women who were called but were told “no.”  I wept as I listened to a diocesan representative in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania speak the party line in a robot like manner.   I wept when I watched “illegitimate” ordinations take place, as hands were placed on the heads of women, as those women talked of their calling since they were children, and then who were ostracized from their jobs and communities as a result of their ordinations.  I wept for their courage and their pain and ultimately their joy.  I wept as I watched them do what I have watched men priests do my entire life: facilitate the transubstantiation of mere bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.  I have wept because for reasons that have only to do with power, women of great spiritual calling have been excluded from the priesthood by foolish men of power. This film did not simply document or delve into vocational callings and spiritual drive.  It touched upon archaeology that has revealed that women were priests and bishops in the early Church.  The facts are clear, only the struggle remains.

What does the Three Rivers have to do with this?  My breath was taken away when I learned that the first women in the United States who were ordained, we ordained on a boat at the confluence of the Three Rivers in my beloved Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Where the Allegheny and the Monongahela meet to form the Ohio, the Holy Spirit descended upon our Church.  This is significant to me only because I feel so drawn to that place, and now I understand why.  The second time I visited Pittsburgh, I had a dream that I was standing on a bluff, directly overlooking the confluence of the rivers, one river flowing on my right, the other river flowing on my left, and the Ohio straight ahead of me. The visual of that dream has stayed with me for ten years, and the meaning has always escaped me.  The last time I was in Pittsburgh, I physically overlooked the confluence from a different bluff and I felt as if I could sit there forever looking at that spot.  Now I know why.  It is a place that is filled with spiritual power.  I am not called to be a priest, just in case you think that’s where I’m going, but I believe that there are places on this Earth that hold sacred energy, and that place must surely be one of those, and perhaps I need to listen more closely to what it is trying to tell me.  

Another thing that struck me deeply watching this movie – and by the way, the theater was filled with women all of whom were over the age of 50 and most of whom were easily over the age of 65 – was that over and over again the women who had been ordained or were fighting the good fight said the same thing I have been saying for at least 30 years and what I have said previously in this blog:  I am Catholic.  I can no more say that I am not Catholic than I can say I am not a woman.  It is my birthright by my Baptism.  There is no fear in their voice, to wavering of conviction that they have been called and will answer.  Only truth can instill that kind of courage in a person.

The fact that I find myself so drawn to the confluence of the Three Rivers and the town that grew up around it, now has meaning to me: that my conviction that I will remain Catholic until the day I die is based on the fact that I must stay, that I need to stand next to these women (and men) who face excommunication for doing the right and moral thing:  opening the eyes of the blinded Church so that those eyes can reflect the wholeness of God that exists in all human beings, and that the calling to the priesthood belongs to us all:  

Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.  Colossian 3:11

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Advent Journey

Posted on December 3, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

I am excited to have been introduced to something that is near and dear to my heart: the mutual importance of science and religion – not either/or, but rather both/and.  I may be really out of commission for awhile between putting VHS tapes on DVD (Al giving Andy his first bath – epic video. When I instructed him to put a little powder on Andy, the poor infant ended up looking like a dumpling that was floured and ready for the oven…) and the free teleseminar I want to listen to over the next thirty days, I may have just enough time to brush my teeth, go to work and sleep.  I may end up burning the midnight oil anyway – seems like when I am the busiest is when I am driven to write the most. 

The teleseminar I speak of is this: www.evolutionarychristianity.com and I will quote the blurb about it below, but I let me say that this is one more path that is calling me.  I am only halfway through this year of re-evaluating my purpose and calling on this earth.  At times I feel that I am like a child in a candy store – I want that piece of candy – no! that one.   I am trying to be patient with myself and am following these paths as they present themselves, weighing which ones require more attention, or less.  If this blog ends up getting less attention I want to assure you that a)I will be back and b) I can’t thank all of you enough who have read my stuff thus far.  It is much easier for me to write in general knowing I have an audience, no matter how small.  You are the reason I write. 

So now, without further ado, the skinny on the most perfect teleseminar ever for a philosophy/theology student turned physical therapist (aka scientist).  If you think you might be interested in all or part, just go to the link to register.  It’s free and it will be archived so you don’t have to listen at the exact time it’s being broadcast. 

Love you ALL! – Mary

Saying Yes! To Both Religion and Science

Are you frustrated with how the mainstream media portray the science and religion issue? It’s as if the only two games in town were science-rejecting creationism and faith-rejecting atheism. But for the millions of us in the middle who see no conflict between faith and reason, heart and head, Jesus and Darwin, we know that’s a false choice. Religious faith and practice can be positively strengthened by what God is revealing through science!

There Is More That Unites Us Than Divides Us

Whatever your background or beliefs—whether you consider yourself conservative, moderate, liberal, radical, or something else altogether—we invite you to join in this historic exploration of how a sacred “deep-time” view of grace and guidance can expand your faith and inspire and empower you in ways that believers in the past could only dream of.

Join Us for this Lively Discussion — Participation Is FREE         

Evolutionary Christianity points to those who value evidence as divine communication. Whatever our differences, we all have deep-time eyes and a global heart—that is, we’re all committed to a just and healthy future for humanity and the larger body of life.

“Studying evolution is like following cosmic breadcrumbs home to God. Only by looking through evolutionary eyes can we see our way out of the current global integrity crisis that is destroying economies and ecosystems around the world.”

Posted in Oh My God | Leave a comment

Senior Discount

Posted on November 28, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

I’m fifty six on Tuesday.  I have noticed something since turning 55.  Yes, the AARP made me a member whether I wanted to be or not, but something else has happened.  Suddenly, all the early bird discounts at restaurants, senior discounts at movie theaters, theme parks, national parks, and the like have all suddenly turned into (>65) when I swear for the last ten years my only consolation at nearing 50 was that at least I’d get some discounts in five years.  Suddenly 55 is young! Spry! Practically eligible for the teen discount!  I was checking out ski lift tickets and “senior” at the slopes means (>7o).  Are you KIDDING me?  I wrenched my knee two seasons ago and am only this year thinking I may try to get back on the slopes.  I have to be 70 to be considered a senior on a ski hill???

I don’t like this trend.  I understand what’s going on – all of us Baby Boomers are hitting the magic age at approximately the same time, which is causing the bottom line to turn in the direction of my once attentive bosom.  So what does the young whippersnapper in accounting do?  She raises the limit a few years.  First she wears halter tops in front of me, now she snatches away my senior discount?  What’s next, casually tipping my wheelchair down the cement stairs when she skateboards past me?  Figures that respect for the aging dies just as I start aging in earnest. 

There is only one comfort in all this – we Baby Boomers have Power in the marketplace.  Maybe we could start a boycott of all places that have changed their senior discount cutoff.  I would get started on this except I’m too busy with my active adult lifestyle.  Ta ta for now, dahling…

Posted in Middle Aged and Onward | Leave a comment

Black Friday Good Earth Style

Posted on November 27, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

It’s not what you’re thinking.  I hate shopping even when it’s 9 p.m and the stores are about to close and no one is there except cashiers nervously hoping I’ll finish my shopping so they can go home.  This is not a problem.  I rarely linger.  First of all, I don’t want much.  Shopping is a chore for me, nothing more.  A necessary evil to get new underwear or replace my cotton tees that are coffee stained and unwearable.  Therefore, don’t ever expect me to go out on Black Friday at all let alone camp out the night before. 

I worked instead.  Had three patients, one to discharge, one a regular visit, and one an “open.”  The last one was the open and I spend about an hour and a half  meeting the patient, discussing the plan, doing the endless bureaucratic paperwork required by Medicare.  This patient’s daughter was having a garage sale. 

I’m not a garage sale junkie, either, but I can’t resist taking a look.  I averted my eyes as I was led into the home, right past the tables of stuff, in through the garage door.  The used medical equipment alone was a travelling therapist’s dream – I’ve quite a collection of equipment that can be used on a trial basis before the patient decides to purchase, or if they need something temporarily.  I told myself I don’t NEED any more medical equipment, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk past it all again without at least handling a vase or other doo-dad.

The visit went well – lovely lady, lovely daughter, not a bad way to spend the day after Thanksgiving work day.  Then it was time to leave.  I did the best I could, I really did, but there it was: a glider chair, something I’ve always wanted but a) I am too cheap to buy and b)I am trying not to buy new stuff anymore.  The cushions looked good, a forest green color.  It just needed one little rung on the foot stool reglued – no problem!  I sat in it – aahhh!  And…it was $20!  I had no cash but asked them to save it for me, drove a couple of miles away to the nearest ATM, managed to rearrange all the travelling therapist stuff in my car so the chair would fit (love that Subaru Forester!) and I headed for home, all smiles.

Arriving home I took the usual rash of abuse: Mom!  It doesn’t go with the living room!  It set our living room decor back five years! Little did I know that my home, which has resembled a boys’ locker room for the last twenty years, would suddenly need to be ready just in case Architectural Digest drops in with a camera crew.  I had to agree that the unstained pine wood is pretty ghastly, but I’ve refinished chairs, cabinets, built a dollhouse and assisted my son in replacing a driver’s side door window.  I think I can get it up to snuff just in case we are to be featured in AD. 

I had my own personal brand of Black Friday.  I am proud of my desire to stop purchasing new things if I can find them in a used store or garage sale.  I save money, I save a few resources – decreasing that carbon footprint, is that what we call it now?  That all sounds very altruistic but I am just so happy I finally have my glider chair for just twenty bucks!  It’s also kind of nice because even though that patient will be seen from here on out by another therapist, I was just the “opener,” I will always remember her – limited to a scooter due to rheumatoid arthritis and no hip joints, but she and her daughter and their great sense of humor made working the day after Thanksgiving no so bad, and I even get  to say I got some great deals on Black Friday.

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