We’ll All Be Okay Friday Round-Up

So I was asked if all my short stories are about old people and it seems that they are. Somehow, I’ve forgotten how not to be old. I used to think – for years, into my forties and fifties – that I would always be nineteen in my head which is crazy because being nineteen was hellish and reckless and not worthy of revisiting in any way. And yet, that’s the age where my little aging heart landed as being the healthiest, the most robust, the most beautiful. But just like that, thinking of myself as always nineteen just evaporated. Now, I am just old, and it feels like I have been old several lifetimes. It’s all so weird.

Today, I went to the first of three sessions about ageism. The first two sessions I’m supposed to be a listener and then one of three panelists at the third. I learned today that people with positive attitudes about aging live 7.5 years longer than the sad sacks, are healthier, have less dementia, and all own Cadillacs. This was all on a little sticker that I’m going to put on our refrigerator. I actually believe all this stuff. Looking at aging as itself being a disease folds people into the size of postage stamps. That’s not for me. I want to take up all the space.

The big story here is that we have a new, very substantial, quite impressive dog. Durant (said with a French accent) is here. He has a rough, multi-colored brown/black coat, a short snout, and enormous feet. He is incredibly strong as sled dogs are but very sweet. He is a dog who wants to look you in the eye. I love that. When I woke up early the first morning he was here and saw him standing quietly at the window watching the sun come up, I knew we would be okay together. That said, I still see the flash of Swirl’s beautiful white tale around every corner.

We’re gearing up to get our Covid and flu shots before anything else extremely stupid happens. The sloppy, ignorant, flagrant incompetence at the Federal level is going to hurt people and old people, just because they’re on Medicare, aren’t immune (so to speak). The rising tide of idiocy will sink all boats. So we will get vaccinated (for the umpteenth time) because we are over 65 but then we will literally be swimming in a sea of unvaccinated people every day. Nobody’s looking out for the country. That’s the hard message. We each have to look out for ourselves. Sickening. But that’s what we’ll do.

Our new routine is to have coffee on the back porch in the morning. This is a dog related thing. Getting the dogs fed and outside quickly. And then just sitting while they wander around the yard, sniff everything, lay down and snooze a bit. It’s been cold though, so heavy sweatshirts are needed. I want to hang them on a hook by the back door like we live in a cabin in Alaska. This morning, there was much laughing, and I remembered we are people who make a great day out of almost anything. Today, it was just coffee and dogs.