Shuffling off this mortal coil

I read a theory once that the mobility that came back with our generation (remember that our grandparents and great-grandparents were the ones who moved across an ocean) was an attempt to hide from our mortality. If you don't watch familiar people growing old, you can ignore growing old altogether. 

Living in the house I grew up in shoves it into my face on a regular basis. Most of the neighbors who were here and part of the "village" that raised me are gone. I have very vivid memories of family and friends stopping by, and daily life with my Granny and my uncle because we lived here with them. My mother and I both grew up in the house where I live now. 

It was pointed out to me that this is a particularly Pittsburgh arrangement. Evidently there are more people who live in a family property here in Western Pennsylvania than anywhere else in the U.S. My husband and I have made many changes to the house and yard over the years, but it remains essentially the place I have always been. I was once even interviewed as part of a feature newspaper story about this phenomenon.

My mother's aging has been particularly difficult. She has suffered almost every illness known to medicine with the fortunate exception of diabetes. She has had several serious falls, and sometimes debilitating depression. By far, however, the worst thing has been the post-herpetic neuralgia that resulted from shingles back in 2005. She is never without pain. 

She moved in with me and my husband after knee-replacement surgery in late 2011. So I am constant witness to her physical and emotional decline. She can't fix any of her own meals, can't dress herself, needs help with the smallest of daily tasks. Nonetheless, she soldiers on. She has one of those devices which is a set of pedals that can be worked while sitting in a chair. She faithfully pedals 200 stokes while hooked up to her oxygen concentrator. She works therapy putty in her hands while she watches television from her bed. She uses her one-pound weights while sitting and talking with us in the living room. And every Friday she irons the four shirts my husband wore to school that week.

Her appearance has remained important to her. Hair is done weekly, and acrylic nails redone every few weeks. We match her outfits and she gets compliments everywhere we go. She doesn't leave the house without earrings. But there is a sadness to her life, rooted in her aloneness. She is the last of her immediate family: mother, father, ten siblings all claimed by death before her. My father has been gone for nearly twenty years. Many of her friends and most of our neighbors have died, and at 87, I am sure she thinks about what happens next. 

Recently, her oldest friend was convicted of third-degree murder. He was her childhood buddy and high school sweetheart and they had reconnected in recent years. He shot a man during an argument and shocked us all. My mother knew he owned the gun and worried about that, but he felt safer in his home with it. We are sick over the whole thing: a man is dead, a 90-year old is going to prison, both families are changed forever.

But I have a perspective on the situation that I only gained because of taking care of my mother and witnessing up close the powerlessness that comes with this kind of aging. I think that geriatric depression is greatly under-recognized and under-treated. Just stop and think about how you would feel if all of your choices were taken away and you had to depend on someone, even if a loved one, to do everything for you. 

The man had built up a business, raised a family, taken care of everything all his life. Gradually, he had trouble even caring for himself. In their frequent conversations, he talked about how tired he always was and how he missed the past when he felt useful and normal. 

None of this justifies taking a man's life. But I think I have a window into the souls of the elderly. Even those who have remained relatively vital, and I know several of them, admit to thinking about their mortality. And now I do, too, theirs and mine. I am hoping to remain vital; I do not have the health problems my mother had even when she was much younger than I am now. I exercise and eat well and try to stay mentally fit. But we can't predict when an illness, an accident or the normal aging process can rob us of what we take for granted. Not sure yet how to deal with all of this. But definitely admitting it is there to be dealt with. Hence my current love affair with the Serenity Prayer. Amen.

There are too many people in my kitchen!

Anyone who knows me well knows that I cook, therefore I am. So it was no surprise the other night that my dream involved my kitchen. Though retired, I juggle many activities.  With lots of help from some friends, my sister and I take care of my mom, I work very part-time at Pitt Medical School as a Standardized Patient, I serve on our Borough Council and chair the Planning Commission and in between try to have a life. 

This coming June, our friends from England are crossing the pond to spend a few days here in Pittsburgh and then the six of us will head down the Great Allegheny Passage to the C & O Towpath and on to D.C. on our bikes. We can't wait to see them, and had a flurry of preparations back in November setting up accommodations for the trip. Yes, we had to do it that early. Finding rooms for six in the peak of bike touring season on one of the most popular trails in the country meant early planning. 

After the itinerary was set, the next task was to stock up on wine. Since we normally drink French, Italian and South African wine when we are with them in England, I had decided that we would go with American wines while we are here. I have been collecting since January and have a little over a case now, to be supplemented with some "fizzes," as they say. 

Things have been rather hectic here of late. My new tenant is out of town on a school research trip. If she were still living in her previous place of residence, her housemates could have taken care of her dog, Mac. She is here alone, however, so I agreed to walk him several times a day, since I have a vested interest in preventing him from using the interior of my house as a potty. He is a good dog, well-trained and pleasant, but it adds a level of difficulty to days that are already packed. My mom has been extra tired of late, and we have a round of doctor appointments all squished into March since January and February's weather caused cancellations when the weather was just too bad for her to go out. 

I guess things had just piled up, and as they do, came out in a dream. In the dream, my friends were already here. I was trying to prepare dinner, but for some reason the house was full of people, all demanding my attention. My kitchen, especially, was attractive to them. My brother-in-law kept trying to get me to taste wine he had brought, my mother stopped by with giant chicken breasts that I decided needed to be incorporated into the dinner. At some point, I realized that all wine I had stockpiled was already gone and it was only their first day here. My neighbor came through to wash her hands at my sink and her grandson wanted me to help him practice for a job interview. You get the picture. 

Eventually, I just stood in the middle of the kitchen and yelled, "Everybody has to go into another room!" I woke up laughing about the whole thing, because everything about it was so, well, me. I love nothing more than to cook for friends. People do tend to congregate in the kitchen and I love to talk with them while I work. But once in a great while, it is too much. And now, I know that sometimes I need to protect myself from the kitchen becoming overcrowded, both realistically and metaphorically. We all need to clear our minds once in a while, step back and remember that we can only do so much. And then ask people to clear the kitchen. 

One Adam-12

You know your life has taken a strange turn when you find yourself chatting with police officers after midnight on a Friday night about how to break into your own house. (For the record, the best way to do it without breaking glass is to drill through the doorknob lock). The route to this means of accessing my own property is a long and circuitous one, to be sure.

It actually started in the 80s, with the demise of the steel industry. We were newly married, my father lost his job, thousands of people fled Western PA for prosperity elsewhere. Those who remained were either retired early against their will like my dad, retrained into more relevant jobs or just descended into despair and crime. The 90s came with their crazy Wall Street boom, real estate bubble, the birth of the variable rate mortgage, and more thousands fled to suburban greener pastures, leaving behind those of us who knew that despite its shortcomings, this area is a wonderful place to live. Close to downtown and Oakland, yet removed from the fray, we soldiered on, happy with our short commutes and long-time neighbors, whose quirks we preferred to think of as "colorful" rather than just plain wacky. For us at least, the grittiness was part of the appeal. That, and it was very affordable. Moving in to take care of my grandmother, who was 90 at the time, turned into a lifetime commitment to a very worthwhile cause.

As long-time neighbors died off their offspring, ensconced in suburban comfort, sold off their childhood homes for bargain prices to landlords who were only interested in the profit they could make. Over time more and more houses became rental properties with absentee owners who did not bother to vet their tenants well. Many of those tenants had "five-minute visitors," and property values overall fell. 

The police were very cooperative in keeping an eye on things, and the most troublesome residents did not last long here. And although everyone who came to visit agreed it was a great neighborhood, families did not flock to live here. Those of us who had just stayed became resigned to keeping an eye on things and enjoying our little corner or paradise, property values be damned.

So back to the police officers. Early last summer, we rented my mother's house to a medical student and his wife. My mom moved in with us two years ago, and we did not want to sell her house outright for several reasons. A one-bedroom house a few doors down had been for sale by owner for several years. We knew the owner, he had renovated it for his own daughter several years before, but she had moved because of her husband's job. One day at dinner, I said, "Maybe we should just buy Ray's house and rent it out, since we are already landlords." I had expected to be shot down by my husband and mother, but somehow there we were seriously discussing the idea. Our financial planner vigorously approved as well.

We bought the house a short time later and realized we could wait for the right tenant. And we found her. She is a graduate student in Pitt's social work program, a delight who was eager to start "living like a grown-up," as she put it. Very responsible, very social, very inexperienced with northern winters. From the south, she is not familiar with the realities of snow and freezing temperatures. In short, she thought that the heating system is comparable to lights: turn it off when you are not there. So when she dropped off a load of her things the week before her lease began, that is what she did. Combine that misunderstanding with last week's negative temperatures, and you end up with frozen, exploding radiators. 

This is why one buys landlord/homeowner insurance. Frantic phone calls to the agent, the plumber and the water company set us on track. Unfortunately, after an initial survey of the damage on Friday afternoon, the plumber locked a lock to which we had no key. Hence, the police. That night, because everything thawed, we could hear water running, but couldn't get in. A call to 911 brought two of our local officers with whom we debated the least destructive way to break into a house. (Drilling through a lock, remember?)

The damage seemed daunting. The first floor was flooded, the toilets were frozen, radiators had literally exploded, spewing dirty water through the only carpeted area in the house. So we turned off the water, brought the shop vac down and set things as right as we could at 1:00 a.m. 

The weekend brought an assessment by the plumber, a new meter from the water company and many  funny exchanges with the tenant, who was mortified at the havoc she had wrought. All is well that ends well, and we are on the way to a fully functional heated home. Theoretically all will be set right today as a result of an all-day stint by the plumbing crew. The tenant will be happy to have running water and heat, and oddly, we are not discouraged.

We will continue to try to rebuild our neighborhood and populate it with enthusiastic (if inexperienced) young people who will help revitalize it. Wish us luck. I think we are going to need it.

Random thoughts

What a week. We got home from volleyball perfectly fine on Friday, and on Saturday Bob woke up with chest congestion. We quickly evacuated the Mamá to my sister's house. From what I could see of his "affliction," it could have done her in, her lungs being her weak point. Sunday we visited MedExpress, by s request. That kind of scared me. "The flu," they declared. So we are treating symptoms with prednisone and Mucinex and hoping for the best. I have been trying to keep my distance and following him around with Clorox wipes. I have been taking echinacea and vitamin C and we wait nervously for it to pass and hope that neither she nor I end up catching it.

We have watched an amazing number of movies, and fortunately for me Sunday was highlighted by an NCIS marathon on USA. So that brings me to thoughts of NCIS. We were oblivious to the show for the first two seasons and discovered it while crossing the country on our bike. It turns out that wherever you are in the country and whatever day or time it is, when you check into a motel in any town and turn on the tv, there it is. So we got hooked. I spend what is probably a ridiculous amount of time thinking about the show and its characters, but lately I see posts on Facebook about shows like Breaking Bad, 

Downton Abbey, Scandal and the like, so I realize I am nit alone. It fascinates me that we can get so wrapped up in the characters  and plots. So I thought about what appeals to me about this particular show, besides that it reminds me of the epic bike trips.

It is the most watched show on tv and has been for several years. One theory I have is that everyone really wants their job to be just like this. They do meaningful work, use technology in innovative ways, get to handcuff people and they all like each other. What wouldn't you do to make your job that fun? And to top it off, there is David McCallum still looking amazingly good. Gibbs has an appreciation for substantive women and doesn't suffer fools lightly. They are a family whose members pool their talents and abilities for the greater good. The characters play off each other perfectly. 

See? Way too much thought. Tonight, after watching a movie about the race down the Great Divide on mountain bikes, we viewed an episode we had DVR'd from yesterday. It dealt mainly with the education of girls in Afghanistan, a year before Malala, and was fascinating for its depth. It also had Tony contemplating mortality and making his bucket list. So it got me to thinking.

What would be on mine? Knitting, for one. I learned to knit a long time ago, made one sweater and just never got around to doing it again, interrupted by a 17-year needlepoint project. (Yes, you read that right.) But I would like to do it again. Seeing Cuba, before it is overrun with McDonalds. Cycling in India. 

But the really odd thing about bucket lists at 57 is that you realize that there are some things that you will never get to cross off. I will never be a professional dancer or get to work with dolphins. I will probably never be really, truly fluent in Spanish, simply because the way my life worked out made that difficult. I most likely will not ride in Paris-Brest-Paris.

Some of these things are okay. Some not so much. But they are. And the trade offs have, on balance, been worth it. And on the whole, I think Gibbs and I would get along.

Who took my joy?

Yesterday was the harbinger of illness, literally. Bob woke up with chest congestion, fever and an overall bad feeling. I hustled the Mamá out of here and to my sister's to help her avoid the bad stuff, especially since he really complained about lung congestion and coughed like crazy.

Today started with a request for a trip to Medexpress, which confirmed a diagnosis of the flu, apparently one which was not "covered" by the flu shot back in October. I spent the day cleaning the bedrooms and hallway, so as to minimize contact with the infected one. A quiet day overall, enhanced by a well-timed NCIS Marathon, my personal guilty pleasure. 

Somewhere in there I realized that we really need to remember to notice and appreciate the joy present in our lives. We laughed about something while watching a movie, and it struck me how much I have been worrying lately. Every the proponent of not worrying, I need to remind myself of how much good there is. So noted. 

In the name of...

Rituals. Where would we be without them? They are related to the whole routine thing, but different and even more important. Athletes use them to bring good luck. We use them to express spirituality. They help us mark the passing of time.

I have grown to love my post-work rituals. The unhurried breakfast, followed by leisurely scanning Facebook, doing my Lumosity "workout," reading parts of the newspaper I previously ignored. The year is full of them as well. I was afraid that once I left teaching I would not be as aware of the passing of time. Starting fresh every fall makes one acutely so. As does running into former students who are now parents. But the year is still full of rituals. We just passed through the winter holidays, and are into the looooooooongest part of the year.

The other day, I was able to summon up just a glimpse of the dread I used to feel starting back after Christmas with no break to look forward to, still in the part of the year when it is dark or at least gloomy most of the time. I realized how lucky I was to be doing what I am doing. I resolved this year to use January as the Chinese do: make a clean sweep. The house, the attic, the soul. So far, so good.

The swearing off the negativity, especially on Facebook, has worked wonderfully well. Now if I could only get people to stop believing that every story they see reposted is real!

Family matters

We spent the afternoon eating and chatting with some cousins we don't get to see often. My mom was the youngest surviving child of 11, so she has a couple of nieces who are almost her age. Her late niece Rita was married to Dave Sinclair and they had 10 children. Their son Dave and my mom form a mutual admiration society that has gone on for many years and takes the strange form of an exchange of lamb-related gifts. (Long story) 

Dave called last week and we set up a time for him to bring his dad and visit. They arrived this afternoon with Chinese takeout and we enjoyed lunch and a couple of hours of reminiscence. The people who remember our Granny and all the aunts and uncles are few and far between, and most of us who are left don't see each other nearly enough. I brought out my iPad and streamed the video that we had done this summer of our old home movies. The videos themselves are not what anyone would call high quality. They are in their third form, having been transferred to VHS in 1987 by one of my students, then to a DVD and a website by Costco this summer.

My father was not the best cameraman, though he loved new electronic gadgets and was always the first to buy things like cameras and tape recorders. He panned quickly, so those with sensitive stomachs sometimes get queasy trying to follow the action. They are home movies, so no sound, none of the voices or chatter that we remember. But there they are, all the people who are gone now. In their prime, they jitterbug, polka and twist in game rooms in celebration of someone's anniversary, someone's birthday. They file into and out of church to share in the joy of a wedding. And though they are blurry and jerky, we watch fascinated and excited and call out, "There's Aunt Mary." "Look at Uncle Mike dance!" "Wow. We were learning the Twist." 

We get to see them again before they were gray, weak, infirm. Before terrible accidents happened, or heart attacks, or big misunderstandings that caused long rifts that were eventually healed. We see ourselves, in crinoline dresses, bow ties, slicked-back hair, tight perms. And it is a wonderful nostalgia, somehow so satisfying in the sharing.

So much more satisfying than much of the faux-nostalgia that somehow creeps into emails and Facebook posts about how much better life was before car seats and bike helmets. In truth, it is amazing that we survived as well as we did, surrounded by the second-hand smoke and tipsy drives that permeated our childhoods. But that survival does not validate those things, and I don't miss them. 

I do miss my Granny and my aunts and uncles, though, and I am always happy to be with someone who shares the memories.

The best laid plans

The first time I read The Great Gatsby, I remember getting to the scene where Mr. Gatz finds the notes that his son James made for himself that included his daily schedule, and thinking, "this is me!" Somewhere in my own "archives," there is probably such a list. 

Maybe that is why teaching appealed to me from a young age; perhaps I intuited that lessons had to be planned carefully. The idea of accounting for one's time, minute by minute, seemed normal and natural. And for 26+ years that is how I made my way. Then I retired, and started to help care for my mother.

Every day I wake up with a plan in my head. Unfortunately, some of the plans are formulated at 3:30 a.m., when I can't sleep. They usually include jumping out of bed at 6:00 when Bob leaves for school, accomplishing several tasks before 9:00 when I wake my mom up for morning medications and "breakfast," and then accomplishing several more tasks before showering and then getting her out of bed and dressed and having lunch.

In any case, a lot of what happens after that depends on her. Our plan might work just as it was conceived: smoothly and efficiently, allowing us to get everything done. Or it might not. Usually, it does not, and it is not always her fault. As in teaching, I monitor and adjust all day long. 

Oddly, I sometimes have to force myself to let go of the plan. I have to remind myself that many of my obligations are self-imposed, and if I don't get the bathrooms scrubbed today, or the groceries bought, or any of those things that keep life going, done right then, all will still be well. I have to slow down to match my mother's pace. And it is all okay. 

Odd that back then, my idea of discipline and efficiency was making a schedule and sticking to it, and now I feel successful if I am able to chuck the schedule without guilt. One Wednesday, I headed to the game room with the laundry and turned on the tv for company while I sorted. It was 7:00 a.m. And USA was running The Interpreter, with Nicole Kidman. U.N. interpreters are the rock stars of the translation world, and I love that movie. So I decided to blow off whatever else I had planned that morning and cuddle up on the couch and watch the whole thing. During commercials, I brought my breakfast down and had a second and third cup of tea. It was one of my best retirement moments so far. 

Well, back to work. Have to have the kitchen cleaned by 9:00!

New year, new plan

So, happy new year. Decided to try a new approach. I wanted to blog my last year of teaching, but retired earlier than planned, so that didn't work. Then I though I would blog my first year of retirement, but was actually too busy to keep doing that. I am a little more accustomed to the routine now, so giving it another shot.

Something that has really dismayed me of late is the amount of negativity everywhere, but especially on Facebook. I won't give it up, as some people seem to be able to, because it is a good means to stay in touch with some people in my life who live far away. But recent experiences with some people's comments have me rethinking the way I use it.

I subscribe to a couple of feeds such as Upworthy, which share stories that are supposed to be inspirational and positive. I must first say that I have questioned a few of them in terms of their qualifying for either of those labels. But what disturbs me even more are the comments I read. People seem to have a way of finding something negative to say about anything. And then arguments start, where commenters begin to attack and insult each other. This is weird. They are people who have never met, total strangers who seem to devote hours of time to tearing each other down in cyberspace.

You might ask, then, why it read them? Good question. It is one of those "train wreck" things, I guess. I don't watch any reality tv and try to avoid negative people, but sometimes I get sucked in and just scroll and scroll, fascinated by the nastiness. It started with reading the comments generated by Lance Armstrong's posts, but that is a topic for another time.

The other day I posted a link to a site that is made up of current and former residents of my hometown, about two women who want to buy and renovate a mansion here and turn it into a day spa and wellness center. They had a listing on indiegogo.com and were asking for startup money, something I have heard about other people doing on similar sites. I just thought people might be interested and maybe someone would be inspired to help them out. The nasty, rude and sarcastic comments I got made me sick to my stomach. If you aren't interested in getting involved, fine, but you don't need to tear other people down. Many of the commenters did not seem to be aware of this type of fundraising and really said mean-spirited things. I ended up deleting my post and thinking about the whole commenting thing.

I realized that it leaves me with a really bad feeling and seriously, who needs that? So I removed some of the feeds from my Facebook profile, removed myself from groups where the negativity seems to abound and resolved (knew we'd get to that word, didn't you?) to limit my feeds to the Penguins and Pittsburgh Dad and some of the bike feeds that have good information. I also will not be reading the comments on any of the things other people share that are not their personal posts.

I am also going to try to keep up with a daily blog, mainly because it feels good to write and I need a creative outlet. I will post the link when I think of it and if you want to read my opinions and rumblings, fine. If not, finer yet. Just don't make nasty comments, except inside your head. Because the last thing the world needs is more nastiness.

And in the spirit of positivity, it was a great Icicle Bicycle ride today. We had lunch at the Hofbrau Haus with a woman who was in the ride alone and got to talk about long-distance touring, which she has never done, but wants to. And then we had dinner at my sister's, which was excellent and gave us a chance to have a great visit. So, yay to starting out the new year right.