Month: February 2023

High school. Has it really been 50 years?

The weather is turning gnarly, so I visited the library to load up on mystery novels. I keep telling myself to act like a big girl and read something literary, and occasionally I do, but inevitably I return to my low-brow life of crime.

One might say I’m attracted to the simple and seedy. I grew up in an underfunded and dysfunctional working class family. Certainly, I read my share of literature in school and later, after I hit escape velocity, but it’s not like we sat around the kitchen table discussing Finnegans Wake.

My dad read sleazy pulp fiction, and my mother enjoyed her True Detective magazine. Not saying I didn’t sneak a peek at their reading material from time to time. We children may wander, but sometimes it seems all roads lead back to the source.

I’ve been thinking about connections to the past since I was contacted by two friends I haven’t heard from in decades. They found me through the blog to reach out regarding our 50th high school reunion in Southern California. I haven’t attended any of the previous reunions and can’t imagine going to one, but I was pleased to hear from them just the same.

Both live in California. I joined the military after high school, and most of my friends went to college here. A few went to out-of-state universities, but I’m pretty sure they all came home after graduation. I also returned … 40 years later. Let’s just say it was a circuitous route.

One of my old friends lives in Santa Barbara, so we caught up via telephone. It was a great conversation, and I’m really happy we took the time to share our stories with each other. I always thought she had her shit together, and she always thought I did, so it was fun to confess neither one of us had a clue.

My other friend lives closer, and we’re going to meet in the middle for lunch next week. I’m looking forward to it! Socially speaking, I do better one-on-one or in small groups, as opposed to hanging out with a couple hundred people I barely remember at some sort of party venue. So, lunch. This is good.

What are your experiences with reunions? Do tell! It will be like a Clint Eastwood movie. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Life lessons from Wordle

In his 2022 year in review, the humorist Dave Barry wrote:

Millions of Americans on social media realized — it took them a while, but they finally got there — that nobody wants to know how they did on “Wordle.”

So, let’s just say I knew better, but I went ahead and flashed my Wordle stats at my hairdresser, who then flashed me her Wordle stats, which put my Wordle stats to shame. Aside from a year-long streak, she solves most of the puzzles in three words.

My genius stylist then revealed something I did not know about Wordle streaks. According to Lisa, if you forget to play one day, maybe you actually go outside and (dare I say it) have fun … your streak is gone. Her streak was over 300 days, and she said it would have been more, but she missed a day when she was on vacation.

All that time, sweating over my streak, naively assuming the outcome was binary. Win or lose! The pressure was on, and I was ready to perform with excellence.

But now I know there’s a loyalty clause. Being good is not good enough. Let’s just call it Workle because it’s damn near the same thing.

I went through the stages of grief but emerged stronger for the experience. It’s like a cord has been cut, and I feel free.

Life is different now that I know you can lose without losing. I wish someone had told me this, oh, I don’t know, 40 years ago?

Anyway, that’s a life lesson that needs to come with me to the golf course, where I lost my temper this week. Not only dropped the f-bomb but also the mf-bomb. My profanity was not directed at anyone else, only my charming self, but still, I’m not proud.

I’ve decided to work harder at staying joyful and appreciating pleasant companionship on the course, as well as the unique challenges of the game. It’s not about the score. I repeat. It’s not about the score.

While I usually don’t play on Fridays, due to all the people “working from home,” I booked a tee time so I could practice being peaceful. Lo and behold, I had a better score. Of course, there’s a connection, but now I need to see if I can stay happy when the golf gods fight back.

So much to learn! Become a little less obsessive. Enjoy the game, whatever is is. Accept you can lose without losing.

Just another lesson at the intersection of Wordle and life.

Not messing with my face

I’ve been thinking about Madonna’s face, and I’m guessing that’s exactly what she wanted. Famous people accustomed to the limelight can’t seem to give it up, so why not just maim yourself to get everyone talking? I don’t believe it has anything to do with ageism. I mean, she doesn’t look younger, only worse, but at least she’s in the headlines again.

Personally, I’m more focused on healthy habits and creature comforts than messing with my aging face. Do I sometimes do a little mirror surgery to see what I’d look like with everything tightened right up? Sure, but that’s not how I want to go down.

For example, I went to the dermatologist yesterday and actually had to put on real clothes. Black leggings, black t-shirt, black denim jacket, white sneakers, turquoise earrings, no makeup and a shock of silver hair. I must admit, I looked in the mirror and thought, damn, I look cool.

As I see it, you can dye your hair and inject your face, and that might create the illusion of youth, but I’m pretty sure they know how old we are. My thinking is that silence is a position of weakness, and being silent erodes confidence over time. I refuse to cower.

Aging should be a liberating experience. Wear what you want, say what you think, live how you like and like how you look – perhaps it is the absence of these things that makes aging such a drag for so many people.

But not us! We’re digging it, right?

So, the latest in retirement creature comforts – linen sheets. I mean, if you can afford this, do it before you die. I bought mine here. I can’t quite describe the comfort – soft but not silky. Not warm, not cool. The fabric feels heavier, but air flows through it. Dale preferred silky cotton, but he’s converted now. There’s no turning back for me.

Another indulgence I started this year is a 90-minute full-body massage every three weeks.  I love it. Yes, even though it does hurt a bit when she digs into those trigger points. The pain kind of scared me at first. I thought she had uncovered some sort of rare muscle-wasting disease, and I almost quit going because I thought, well, better not to know.

But now, I just breathe my way through it and it starts to feel good. Aside from the pure pleasure of having my creaky old body tended to, I do think massage is nothing but good news for your immune system, and it helps with stress, circulation, muscle pain and flexibility.

So, back to aging faces. I love the artist Jesse Dayton, and I am absolutely crazy about this reboot of Brand New Cadillac with Samantha Fish. Check out the drummer!

Old and cool. Inspiration for us all.

A bridge lesson

I was invited by one of the women in my golf group to participate in a series of beginner bridge lessons in her home, and I thought why not? They say this complex card game is especially good for the aging brain. It seems to me anything that might help us dodge dementia is a good thing. I’m retired. I’ve got the time.

Today was my first lesson, and that’s an hour and a half I’ll never get back.

Perhaps I should have known. When I told Dale, he reminded me math was involved. While it’s true I picked journalism as a major because it was about the only degree that didn’t require even the most rudimentary of math skills, I thought, well, it’s a card game. How hard can it be?

Many of you probably know this already, but it’s damned hard. I won’t even go into the complexities I tried to absorb during this first lesson, but it reminded me of high school geometry, when the teacher spent an entire semester saying, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

Because that’s what it sounded like to me.

The bridge instructor scheduled an indefinite number of lessons every Thursday at 9:30 a.m. Not bad, but not good for the retirement practice I subscribe to called, “The Slow Start.” But you know, staving off dementia, I guess I could move out faster for a good cause. Also, Thursdays at 10 is my preferred time for massages, and one must have priorities.

On the plus side, I wore jeans and my old Lucchese cowboy boots, which I haven’t done in a couple of years. At least I looked cute, and that takes a few brain cells, doesn’t it?

Bridge is interesting, and I can totally see the attraction. I generally like games. I really liked this group of women. If they had a Yahtzee league, I’m all in. I used to play Hearts back in the day, and that didn’t kill me. Backgammon. Scrabble.

But bridge, wow. I’m 67, reasonably intelligent and in excellent health. However, I don’t think I have enough time left to understand this game.

Even without the card counting and all that, there are all kinds of weird things including where you sit and what cards you play – north, south, east and west. What’s so wrong about left and right?

Sometimes your partner will show all their cards, and you play those, too. Like one hand wasn’t enough. And all these little codes to signal your partner how you want to bid. If everyone subscribes to the same convention, why not just say it in plain English? I have five spades!

I didn’t want to disappoint my friends, but I also didn’t want to pretend I’d come back when I knew it was a lost cause. While I acknowledge some stress is good for you, this is the kind of stress that makes me miserable. Rather than drag it out, I just laid it out for them. They were gracious, but now they have to find a replacement, which sucks for them.

When I got home, I told Dale he was right. Numbers gone wild! Crazy stuff! And all my Thursdays eaten up just to learn the basics? I’m pretty sure I would start dreading Thursdays, finding excuses to stay in bed, when in fact it’s a rather pleasant day of the week that has done me no previous harm.

He said, “So, you’re saying it was a bridge too far?”

The man’s still got it. 

All this is good news for those of you who enjoy reading my blog. I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks, and I had been thinking, maybe I’ll just quit writing. But that’s looking like a bad strategy now that I know bridge isn’t going to save me.   

I promised the bridge gods I would work harder at writing if they would just leave me alone.