Given Enough time

Back in my corporate days, I seemed frequently to be on the answering end of this question: "What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?" I had a ready answer. "My greatest strength," I always said, "is that given enough time, there is no problem I cannot find a solution to. My greatest weakness," I then added, "is 'given enough time.'"

As I get older, I certainly don't think any faster. But younger people seem to speak faster and faster (how fast they think is up for discussion). They don't make eye contact. They slur their words. Sometimes, they chew things.

I blame the Gilmore Girls.

http://www.celebuzz.com

Enter the Internet. Best friend to aging faculties: slowing thought processes, fading hearing, dimming eyesight. You can hold it on your lap, enlarge the font, increase the volume. It never makes you stand in line; it never ignores you to gossip with friends; it never eats while you're talking to it.

Recently, more and more business sites are adding Live Chat. This gives me all the time I need to formulate questions and type them in. If the person on the other end is rolling her eyes or getting impatient, I neither hear, see nor feel it. And honestly, the people I've encountered seem to have both endless patience and exquisite manners.

In the past several weeks, I have communicated with the folks at Directv, AT&T Uverse, and Mood Fabrics. At Mood, a nice person named Bridget McManus (or so she said) helped me pick out a fabric perfect for making a chef's apron.  And Directv and AT&T? Perfect!!! They never transferred me, never made me feel stupid or a nuisance, never stopped trying until I was satisfied. For some reason, the online chat people don't seem to fear saying "I don't know, let me find out."

And best of all, today I'm making plans for my visit to Scotland later this summer. I'll be staying in Glasgow but I want to take a side trip to Helensburgh to visit Charles Rennie Mackintosh's masterpiece Hill House.

Pictures and history are available here.

Guidebooks claim the house is within walking distance of the downtown. But, wait.

Hill House. It is on a hill, right?

How far is walking distance; how steep is the hill?

It matters to my new hip.

So I googled "how far from Helensburgh train station to Hill House?"

Several pages later, I learned it is 1.5 miles up a steep hill.

Several more pages later, I learned that Helensburgh has both a Central station and an Upper Station. The Upper station is a short, level walk to Hill House (don't yet have a translation for short or level).The two stations are on different train lines. I can catch the train at the Queen Street Station in Glasgow, a mere 6 or 7 blocks from my planned hotel.

How did I decide on a hotel in Glasgow? When I visited tripadvisor.com, up popped a message that a Facebook friend of a friend had recommended it. My friend lives in Australia. I met her in England. I have no idea where her friend is, but I do know that my friend has impeccable taste.

And the pictures of the hotel are lovely. See here.

Thanks, Carolyn.


Train stations in the UK are cute and efficient. Reservations are available online, 120 days ahead of your planned travel date. In some places, when you arrive at the station, you use a code to get your ticket from an unmanned kiosk. You will have been sent this code via email. It will be available on your smart phone. Slick!


Maybe I could have waited until I got to Glasgow and received all this information from the concierge. Maybe not. (See Gilmore Girls above.) I may rely on them to book my train tickets. I'll let you know how it turns out.

With my friend the Internet, I feel confident I can go anywhere and do anything - given enough time.

Hello Brave New World, I'm happy to meet you.

Pool People

We never thought of ourselves as “pool people.” We know pool people. We’ve been invited to their homes. Pool people are gregarious; they throw parties with lots of other people and lots of beer and chips. We don’t. That’s how we knew we weren’t pool people.

But then, we bought a house with a derelict pool in the back yard. We toyed with the idea of tearing it all down — liner, wall, deck, fence, gate — but that job never rose anywhere near the top of the priority list. 

Eventually, just for the hell of it, we set up a modest sized Intex pool inside the deck. That was fun. Our extended family enjoyed it, and every year the pool got bigger until finally we cleaned the whole thing out and replaced the liner, painted the deck (twice now & it needs it again), and became pool people.

Last summer and so far this summer, the pool has not been fun. It’s been a gigantic pain in every muscle of my body.

Our pool is surrounded on two sides by trees. 

Trees =  leaves, twigs, pollen and underbrush. 

Underbrush = raccoons. 

Raccoons  = poop on the deck. 

This year and last, we’ve had frequent, severe storms.

Storms = rain + lightning.

Rain =  cold water. 

Lightning = death.

Cold water + threat of death = no swim time.

This entire set of equations turns a pool into all work and no play. 

The side of pool people that I never saw was their capacity for manual labor . . .

their willingness to backwash . . .

to power wash, sweep, skim, vacuum . . .

to perform tests, wear gas masks, add chemicals . . .

With Dick’s decreasing mobility, more of the pool maintenance is falling to me. Last year, I bought a gadget called a Kreepy Krauly. It runs off the filter intake and is supposed to crawl randomly (creepily?) across the bottom of the pool, vacuuming up leaves, twigs and silt. It kind of works but quickly clogs the filters. 

What happens when a pump can’t move water because the filters are clogged? Beats me. 

Maybe nothing. Maybe disaster. 

I live with one ear tuned to the sound of the pump. Is it louder than usual? More strained? I don't know this stuff. I never wanted to know this stuff. I'm a tea and needlework person.

This year, I bought a Turbo Turtle. It works off the filter discharge. A hose is attached with one end to the wall socket and the other to a floating gadget disguised as a turtle. From the turtle’s belly, another hose drags a net. The water from the discharge flows through the turtle down to the pool floor where it stirs up leaves and silt for the trailing net to capture. A brilliant plan. 

But my turtle seems intent on going in circles clockwise until he’s coiled inside the hose with no way out, no matter how much his internal randomizer ball tries to send him in different directions. I’ve narrowed the problem to the hose being still coiled from packaging. The manufacturer’s solution is to lay the hose in the sun. 

We’ve had no sun for going on 9 days now.

But wait, there's more.

No, I'm weary. I don’t even want to think about this year’s crop of buffalo gnats.

Where’s the balance between effort and entertainment? 

Narrative Embroidery

A couple weeks ago, I drove to Columbus Ohio to see an exhibit at the Columbus Museum of Art.

PETERSBURG IL  to  COLUMBUS OH 

411 miles

Yup, a day out, a day back, and a day in Columbus.

It was worth it.

The object of my journey was Fabric of Survival, a collection of 36 embroidered panels worked by Esther Nisenthal Krinitz.

In 1939, when the Nazis invaded Poland, Mrs. Krinitz was 12 years old, living in Mniszek, a village of a dozen or so families, mostly Jewish, in central Poland, with her parents, her older brother and her three younger sisters. After several years of increasing atrocities against them, the Jewish families of Mniszek were evicted from their homes and force-marched to their deaths. Esther and her next younger sister, Mania, escaped by fleeing into the forest.

In 1977, fifty years old and living in America, Mrs. Krinitz turned to her skill with needle and thread to tell her story. The result is this series of 36 embroidered panels. To say they tell the story of her survival is true but inadequate.

Her daughters have put together a video and a website, showing the panels and telling their memories of their mother and her stories. Both pictures and video are available here.

The exhibit was doubly interesting to me. I'm an avid embroiderer and, like many older people, I've developed an interest in history, especially recent history. But seeing this particular work in person had the same effect on me as when my daughter took me to her university dissection lab where I could see the inner workings of our bodies: the details fascinated me, and I became totally absorbed in the how; but every so often, the reality of what I was looking at hit me, and I had to sit down and contemplate the why. The beauty of Mrs. Krinitz's embroidery was a stark contrast to the horror of her subject.

While there were rules against photographing visiting exhibits, the Museum welcomed photography of permanent collections. I loved that right outside this fabulous embroidery exhibit was Renoir's "Christine Lerolle Embroidering."

The exhibit will remain at Columbus through June 14, 2015. The museum is easy to get to -- once you're in Columbus -- and well worth a visit.

There is a small snack bar with a central atrium - a lovely place to eat, read, or just rest. Far from crowded on the day I was there.






 And for those of us with aging legs, there were two rolling racks of folding stools (as well as a number of permanent seating areas).





Making this trip on my own was a significant stretch. When I was younger, I was fearless. I commuted between Chicago and New York City. I drove to Louisiana to help with Hurricane Andrew relief. I drove to Alaska and back. I celebrated my fiftieth birthday in the Yukon.

What happened?!

A friend advised me that as we get older, we should deliberately plan to travel beyond our quotidian boundaries on a regular basis. Now, when I head off, there always seems to be something like a bungee cord pulling me back. The feeling is tangible. Around fifty miles from home (I've clocked it), the feeling cuts loose.

The nice thing about life in this world is that there's always something calling, some new interest to be explored, something to learn. I just have to keep reminding myself to sweat out those first fifty miles.

A Day in St. Louis

In our community, when people (especially those of a certain age) say they are going to St. Louis for a couple days, other people grow serious and say in hushed voices "take care of yourself." For central Illinois dwellers, St. Louis, while also being a source of culture, entertainment, sports and shopping, is often a place of excellent, specialized medical care. We go to St. Louis the way our grandparents went to the hospital: when hope dims.

But not this time. This time, Dick was going to St. Louis to take a class required to maintain his Professional Engineer status, and I went along. The class was held at the Holiday Inn Forest Park, right at the edge of The Hill district and that's where we stayed, checking in the evening before and enjoying dinner at Rigazzi's: stuffed artichokes, pizza and all-you-can-eat mostaccioli.

The next day, while Dick spent a gorgeous April day inside with other engineers, I explored.

First stop: The Missouri Botanical Gardens.

I've been a regular visitor to the Mobot website since we moved downstate ten years ago. I especially love the Japanese Gardens. I had no idea how much there was to see. My favorite spot was the English Woodland Gardens. The only photo I took was of the cherry blossoms lining the path. I promise to do better next time.

After a late lunch at the Sassafras Cafe in the visitor's center, I spent some time exploring The Hill. The Hill is an Italian neighborhood, settled in the late 19th century by Italian immigrants coming to fill jobs in nearby factories.

Statue at St. Ambrose Church, dedicated to the Italian immigrants who established The Hill

It's an old style urban neighborhood: narrow streets lined with tidy houses interspersed with shops, groceries, restaurants, schools, and churches.

I picked up coffee and chocolate chip muffins from Shaw's for later, then stopped at Gelato Di Riso for lemon gelato. The gelato was delicious and the cup full to overflowing. Fortunately, they have a hand washing station!

By the time I'd finished, it was time to pick up Dick, leave the bucolic streets of the Hill to navigate through the horrific tangle of interstates that greet visitors to St. Louis, and race north against the weather coming in from the west. We made it as far as White City, IL before we had to pull off of I55 and circle wagons with a half-dozen or so other vehicles to wait out the storm.

Each time the wind tried to pick up the car, I pushed on the brake with all the strength my titanium hip could muster! We made it home safely, with a few scratches on the trunk from flying debris. And four days later, I'm still limping.

But ah, the cherry blossoms, the stuffed artichokes, the gelato, the chocolate chip muffins we ate while waiting out the storm . . .

The Great Purge Part 1

We bought our house almost ten years ago. Dick was still in the last years before retirement from corporate life and I was still teaching in the final years of my graduate studies. But we were thinking about retirement and planning to move back to my home town when the time was right. Then our house came on the market and even though the time wasn't right, we recognized it as home.

The move took two years, and it wasn't tidy. We made the four-hour drive between the two houses nearly every weekend, always with a car load of stuff. We did little of that sort-through-and-throw-away that we should have done. We moved it all. And on our trips down the 200 miles of I-55, we passed through some great antiquing territory. And since our new house was a three story Victorian, well . . .

I wonder if that’s how it usually is in transition spaces. You have the detritus from the old and the gathering necessaries of the new.

Even transitions as quotidian as the changing seasons bring stuff. There’s the sweater that should have been thrown away at the end of last winter. Plus the pretty new sweater you just bought. On sale!

Every new season of life leaves clutter from the last. The more seasons to your life, the more clutter. For instance, bicycles.

I have a "city" bike that I bought years ago. 

At some point, I didn't feel safe trying to balance with such a high bar. 
I replaced it with a lower bar girl's bicycle 

When swinging my leg over even the lower bar became too difficult for my arthritic hip, 

I replaced the girl's bicycle with a special, step-through, easy-boarding bicycle. 

So far, so good. But that makes two bicycles I’ll never ride again, one in the basement, one in the garage. Somebody could use those bicycles, I tell myself every time I see them. 

And to make things worse, we now have a lot of undesignated space that makes it way too tempting to bypass difficult decisions.

                                     Me: What is this?

                                     He: I don’t know.

                                     Me: Do we need it?

                                     He: Maybe.

                                     Me: What for?

                                     He: It might go on something.

                                     Me: OK. I’ll put it on the third floor
                                                          . . . (down in the basement)
                                                          . . . (in the east bedroom) 
                                                          . . . (back in the drawer). 

It weighs on me. I like things tidy. True, I don’t have to go up to the third floor or down in the basement and I rarely go in the east bedroom. But I know that stuff is there. I smell the cardboard packing boxes.

So the purge is on. We’ve started. I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, I'm off to Paris!!! Who knows what I'll bring back.

Book Review: SPECIAL EXITS by Joyce Farmer

The difference between comic and graphic novels is debated. I'm growing used to the phrase "graphic novel" though it used to make me cringe. Isn't that what we called pornographic novels? 

Regardless of the term, a graphic novel, or long comic, is a story told with drawings. But you can't speed through them the way you used to speed through Archie and Veronica. 

The drawings are dense and meaningful, performing the same task as descriptive passages in traditional novels. The subject can be quite serious.

Joyce Farmer's long-narrative comic, Special Exits, chronicles the final years of the lives of Lars and Rachel Drover, stand-ins for Farmer's own parents in this semi-autobiographical novel.

At a solid 200 pages, this is an intense read, both for the drawings and the subject matter.

Isolated in their south Los Angeles home, the Drovers leave the house only for groceries and medical appointments. In their home, they no longer even try to manage the events that surround them. 

Lars’ arms are covered with Band-Aids where the cat has scratched him. The garage door won’t close. The laundry isn’t done. 

In one early, explosive frame, set in a Sizzler Restaurant, Rachel cries, “If I could, I’d go live in a old folks home!” 

But they can’t, Lars explains. They would have to sell the house and their money might not last. They’d have to get rid of their beloved hobbies - her dolls and his rocks and books. The changes would be too big to manage - they’re stuck. 

They’re even more stuck when Lars, daydreaming of his youth, has an auto accident. 

Enter Laura, their daughter, stand-in for the author. Her parents don’t care to have strangers in their house and so Laura visits more and more often as the novel progresses, shopping, scheduling appointments, dealing with bureaucracy, and cleaning, always cleaning.

There’s nothing sentimental here. It’s not a spoiler to tell you that by the final pages, both parents have passed, and their final exits don’t come at home, in bed, surrounded by loved ones. 

The long comic genre is excellent for this story. The pictures are densely drawn and uncompromising in their portrayal of the accumulation of years of dust, cat hair, and stuff in the house, the garage, and the surrounding grounds. 

I would have liked more exploration of the relationship between Lars and Rachel. Rachel’s decline comes first and Lars takes patient care of her. We see brief episodes of anger, but nothing more. And how could we? This is ultimately Laura’s story. She is the hero. The elders are the conflict. It is an excellent story of taking care of your parents in their final years. It doesn’t pretend to be nor does it need to be anything else.

Maybe this is currently your story as you deal with aging parents. Someday, it may be your children's story. As for me, my parents died young. If this is my future, I wonder how I will get there. Is this your story? Is it your future? Please feel welcome to chime in with a comment.

Tales From the Inside

I used to live down the street from Edison Middle School. Every spring the EMS band marched in the local Memorial Day Parade. They practiced their song indoors all year, but at some point during March or April, the Edison Middle School Marching Panthers would take to the street.

The grade spread was, still is I think, six through eight. I estimate this to span ages eleven through thirteen. At that age, on the border of puberty, those marching bodies didn’t appear to be of the same species. 

There were of course differences in height and girth. But from the perspective of my living room window, their bodies appeared to be put together in wholly different ways, of only similar parts. Some were still children, compact and tightly hinged. Others were mostly torso; still others, mostly arms and legs. Their hands and feet operated like semaphores. 

I could pick out 8th grade girls. They were smallish adults having grown into maturity over that mysterious summer between the 7th and 8th grades. But the others, the boys and the younger girls looked like they’d been assembled out of parts from a can of Tinker Toys, and not all from the same can.

Maybe not even all Tinker Toys.

What I didn’t realize then was that this oddball assemblage of disparate parts would reappear. 

From the end of puberty through young adulthood, householder years, middle age, we humans all look fairly similar. We differ in height, weight, even limb length and laugh lines, but proportionately, we’re pretty much the same. 

Then somewhere, maybe as early as age 60 for some of us, we start to disassemble. Our torsos thicken, our shoulders round, our heads go forward, we lose muscle in our legs and plumpness under the skin of our arms, hands and faces. Our fingers stiffen and curl. Our limbs are supplemented by canes, walkers, scooters and wheelchairs.

We look like old middle schoolers. The Edison Middle School Marching Elders.

And like middle schoolers, we’re treated as one-size-fits-all. 

Plenty of advice is being written about aging. How to stay young, look young, think young, feel young. How to care for your aging parents. How to deal with your aging body. What drugs to take. How to grieve the loss of your spouse and your friends, over and over. All good, I’m sure. But all one-size-fits-all.

What we need are stories from the inside. Whaddya say? Let’s write our own. Let’s be the heroes in our own narratives.