Fun Monday - When I'm 64 (no, when I'm 80!)

I'm hosting Fun Monday this week! Your challenge:

Using your imagination, project into the future and tell me what you will be like as an 80-year old. Will you be someone who doesn't accept the aging process, spending all your time in thegym and the bars, or will you be a rocking chair granny, or something in between?


I've been pondering this for a while - even before the nudge from my friend Jennifer when she suggested this topic for our consideration.

My in-laws are in their 80s. My mother's mother died at age 84 and my father's mother just turned 90. His father is 92. His grandmother was 99 when she died.

I have reason to believe that despite recent events or unforseen future events, I will easily make age 80 and probably quite a bit beyond. I also understand that what 80 will look like will have a lot to do with how I have treated my body and mind in the past, in the present and in the foreseeable future. Old age is only as good as the life leading up to it!

I can tell you that I will probably have blue feet. That in spite of the efforts to keep circulation going in my feet and legs with walking and running and biking, neuropathy has affected my grandfather, my grandmother and my father. The fact that I have diabetes (though am very close to "curing" myself) makes this even more likely. I will do what I can because I am forewarned - and forewarned is forearmed. Perhaps I can hold off the blue feet until I am 90...

I will have thin hair, hopefully white or silver. My hair is thinning already and I really hope I still have some when I get to 80, but if I don't, I shall buy glorious platinum wigs that look most natural.

I won't be fat anymore. In fact, I'll be on the rather scrawny side. Hopefully I'll be taking care of this particular issue in the next year, but I can tell you that if I ever fall and can't get up, I want someone to be able to just come pick me up rather than having to call a crane to do the job.

I will still stand tall (or as tall as you can at 5'4") because I've never been one to slouch. I may be using a cane, however. I have arthritis that comes and goes and has for 20 years already. It mainly affects my hips and lower back. A few days of warm baths, medication and gentle exercise has helped me get off the cane in about a week so far. It may take me longer later, but I hope I will still be walking somewhat briskly and tall when I am 80.

I accept that old age is coming. In a strange way, I welcome it because once it arrives, the pressure to be "successful" or "good at your job" isn't a constant drumbeat in your head. You can actually slow down and enjoy the world around you - or retire from it altogether if that's what you like. It gives you a freedom to be who you are that is never there when you're trying to make a living, raise a family and fulfill the myriad responsibilities that surround an adult person up until about age 65 or 70.

I'm a bit of a hermit. I will be quite content to live mostly alone with the occasional visit from friends and family. I expect my son to go out there and live his life, but to touch base with me from time to time. I don't want him to hover. He'll be 43. With his own career, his own family to worry about.

I really do hope my eyes hold out. I can go deaf tomorrow and not miss the noise of traffic and loud neighbors and booming car radios. The world is way too noisy for me already. But I'd miss my eyes. I love to read and do things with my hands. I love playing on the computer and writing letters or books or even just lists. However, if something does happen to them, I'll find a way around it.

I'm looking forward to time to sit and do nothing. To garden. To amble around the block with my small dog. To drink cocoa or tea with a purring cat and a good book. To go to bed when I want, sleep as much as I want, eat what I want and when I want. By the time I'm 80, being "naughty" really won't matter as much.

I always thought that 85 was a good lifespan. After that, your friends are disappearing faster than ever. You maybe move slower and think slower because the world doesn't have to happen so fast anymore - which is a good thing because your physical self can't keep up with that world anymore either. But there are still good things, good friends to be had for as long as you live - however long that is.

I hope that I am one of those people who remembers to appreciate that - when I'm 80.


Go visit the other participants, listed below and see what THEY think 80 will be like!

HulaGirl / Lil' Mouse Jill (host for next week's FM) / Patience / Gattina / ChrisB / Margaret the Misanthrope / Mama Drama Stephanie / Janis / Grace / Mariposa / Sandy / Beckie / Rayne /
Mama Drama Min / Hootin' Anni (viewer discretion advised)/ Running at Large /

And don't forget to check in with Jill for next week's assignment!

Fun Monday Assignment for June 8th

STICKY POST! SCROLL DOWN FOR NEWER ENTRIES.

Hello, fellow travellers... I'm hosting Fun Monday for Monday, June 8th. I was really casting around for a topic, and my friend Jennifer helped me out with several.

Your assignment for this week is this:

Using your imagination, project into the future and tell me what you will be like as an 80-year old. Will you be someone who doesn't accept the aging process, spending all your time in the
gym and the bars, or will you be a rocking chair granny, or something in between?

Sign up in the comments ! Lil' Mouse Jill will be hosting next week!

HulaGirl / Lil' Mouse Jill (host for next week's FM) / Patience / Gattina / ChrisB / Margaret the Misanthrope / Mama Drama Stephanie / Janis / Grace / Mariposa / Sandy / Beckie / Rayne /

A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That

A random compilation of my week so far...

THIS:
In the comments of my post, YOU CAN'T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER, a few of you asked about DNA testing. It's not hard. If you google DNA testing for Dogs, you get all kinds of results for all kinds of companies. Some of them are very cheap and have a short list of breeds. Some have a very long list of breeds and are quite expensive. We went with a middle of the road company with 64 breeds and a special price for testing two dogs at once.

We went with BioPet Vet Lab. The cost was $110 for two kits. The hardest bit was keeping the dogs apart for an hour before testing. The test is two cheek swabs (one for each side), which you stick in the side of their mouths and rub the inside of the cheek. Stick it in an envelope and mail it in. The dogs are separated because if your dogs are like mine, their favorite pastime is fang wrestling - which swaps saliva. Which means you could get DNA that doesn't belong to the correct dog in the DNA test if you don't separate them.


THAT:
Summer has begun as far as the kids are concerned. ZBoy's friend Ben will be heading off to Virginia for the summer next week, so his dad has a week of childcare to figure out. Monday morning, Ben landed on our front porch. He and Z played while I worked, then at 11am, we set out to get lunch and go into the office, where Darling Man would take charge of the boys and take them away somewhere.

There was a little bit of overlap between when I arrived and when DM could take them away, so with strict instructions to be quiet and polite, I allowed Z to take Ben on a tour of the TV and radio stations. But first I had them run some paperwork down the hall. Then they came back and said they were going on their tour. They were gone a long time. Finally, they came back (with a depression glass vase I'd won in an auction on Friday - in once piece, I might add), and visited the offices around mine. A few minutes later, DM collected the boys and left.

I got a lot of work done and was about to take a break when I heard laughing out in the hallway. Zhonta stuck his head in the office and asked if the boys were gone. He was saying that they had great entreprenurial spirit and said something about a sign. I had to get up to check it out. Just outside my office I found this:

It says: Z&B dilivery service, 10cents per person, ask Sarah S if dilivery throuout the building is needed.

I have no idea if anyone took them up on it, but I apparently owe them money.


THIS:
The pool is to be resurrected. So much for my gardening plans. I have come up with an alternate idea, however, involving container gardening and the one deck that actually gets a fair amount of sun.

Darling Man kept putting off and putting off pulling out the pool. Then he started wondering if he could maybe patch the pool and save it. I told him he could try. A patch kit's only about $6 so what was the harm in trying?

It worked well on the hole that started it all (below), so he cleaned up the rest of the pool and began spot-patching.

Then he added water. Not much, just enough to see if it would leak. It leaked. Since we've determined to keep the pool for a bit, we'll replace the liner and put in a new system for purification (was baquacil, going with the 20% chlorine system that all the greenies are touting). It'll cost us about $500 all told, but the pool should then be good to go for another 10 years.

The boys took advantage of the water in the pool though. They belly-slid all over the place for about 3 hours before DM made them get out. Ben's tummy was RED!


THAT:
I love the new StarTrek movie! I've seen it twice and when it comes out on DVD, I will own it! The other day, ZBoy asked to go to Burger King for dinner. I'm not a huge fan of Burger King (I hate their fries - not that I should be eating them anyway) but I agreed. And discovered that they were selling Star Trek glasses for $1.99. Ooooo, goody! So I bought one.

It's the perfect size for my large-ish alcoholic favorite on those rare days when I feel like I need a Bailey's Irish Cream and milk with a little squirt of chocolate syrup. Had one last night, as a matter of fact. Uhura approves.

THIS:
Ben wound up spending the night, so Uhura and I joined them in a game of StarWars Monopoly.
Turns out that Ben and ZBoy are pretty good economists. Look at all those properties! AND they managed to amass a fortune of $10,000 (but they had to get rid of some of that property). They wouldn't part with any money to improve their property, so while I had only a few complete sets of properties and put a couple of settlements on each one, I managed to stay in the game a lot longer than they expected. About halfway through the game, they joined forces to gang up on me.

When it was all over, I had $17 left. Even passing GO wouldn't save me. Chortling boys headed off to bed after that, and I was left to clean up the mess.


THAT:
I stopped at the grocery store on the way home from work last night. On impulse, I bought this week's Woman's World with the SouthBeach Diet story on the front. Last night, after everyone was in bed, I began thumbing through it. Diet story - check. Sassy Summer Hair - check. Article saying "You Deserve the Best.... Ice Cream!" Lovely, lovely pictures of cartons of ice cream and a sample serving next to them. Haagen Dazs, Ciao Bella, Turtle Mountain - and then this picture of Breyers' French chocolate Fat-Free Double Churn.

I must have been tired, because when I got to this picture, I read it as "Breyers' Free Double Chin". Guess where my head has been lately?

And that's it for This & That for today!