Friday Favorites 7/11/2014

I was talking to a friend last night at my Thursday Night Men’s Meeting.  He’s about my age, and like mine, his career has taken an upturn at an age when many are retiring.  Our circumstances are different but we are both happy to be working.  When I asked him how he was doing, he said, Business is going really well but I’m tired a lot.   And there it is … that seventy-something fatigue that nearly all males my age seem to deal with.   It’s particularly frustrating because my mind is as active as ever, if not more so, but my body can’t quite keep up with my brain’s machinations.   My brain says, We should finish up this months financial report, to which my body replies, I need a nap.  My brain says, Let’s clean my office so we can get started on that new project.  Nah.  Let’s go sit in the park, my body replies.  Yeah, I know.  Vitamins.  More sleep.  Low T.  Blah, blah, blah.  Part of getting old(er) gracefully is adjusting to being old(er).

Friday Favorites 5/9/2014

I think that some people would say that, for a man, I love flowers just a little too much.  For some reason our society does not regard liking flowers as an especially masculine trait.  If you listen to the local sports talk weenies, you’ll hear them urging you to call 1-800-FLOWERS to send Mom a bouquet for Mother’s Day but for Father’s Day it’s tool or a fancy camera.  Of course, once Dad has that fancy camera, you may catch him in the garden, taking pictures of (gasp) flowers, since their colors often make for stunning close-ups.  And, of course, artists like Monet and Van Gogh painted flower for that very reason.  True, the same weenies who think that a man shouldn’t love flowers often see art as not very manly either.  If I listened to those guys, I’d be a dull man indeed.

Monday Smiles – 7/24/2013

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I seem to be beating the Chop Wood, Carry Water theme to death this week, but with my brother, Glenn still in the hospital and improving slowly, it is a good theme to be beating.  On Sunday, I heard from my sister-in-law, George Ann, that my sister, Patti and Glenn’s daughter, Linda, have made it to Mentor, which will surely help both Glenn and George Ann.  And, as I said last week, there’s been plenty of wood to chop and water to carry.   Figuratively.  We do have indoor plumbing and I’m too old for chopping wood.  But my business has been brisk and on Sunday, friends from Connecticut were coming for brunch.  My Inner Curmudgeon likes to grumble when we have to spruce up the yard (there are actually no spruces) but both of us enjoy getting our hands dirty and seeing how nice the yard can look when properly attended to.  So, Saturday morning on the way home from the park, I stopped at Home Despot for supplies.  That’s not a typo … I’m fond of renaming stores – haven’t you ever heard of Bed, Bath and Beneath?  I bought annuals for my flower pots, bulbs for the lanterns out front, a new kitty-cat planter for the barbeque and paint to touch up the family room wall … Sahara, it said on the can.  It didn’t match the Sahara on the wall, however, but it was close enough … for now.  Most of my afternoon was spent putzing in the yard.

Monday Smiles – 6/25/2012

It was an odd weekend.  Muri and I have had to make some family decisions that have no entirely satisfactory options and we’re still trying to be happy with the decisions we made.  Goldstar, the half price ticket website that fuels our date nghts, came up empty so we went to see a very positively reviewed film, Moonrise Kingdom.  Apparently, the director, Wes Anderson is a favorite of critics and known for quirky films.   Moonrise Kingdom struck me as borderline dumb and marginally entertaining.  Muri liked it better than I did, of course.  Beyond that, it was a To-Do-List weekend, mostly clean up the messes I seem to leave in my wake and work in the yard.  So here it is Monday, and what better than admiring the fruits of my labor to compensate for my aching muscles.

Walkers and Hoppers

Memorial Day weekend signals the unofficial beginning of summer here in Socal, which is when My Park becomes The Park. With school out, bevies of mothers bring their children to the park for play groups, Mommy and Me Boot Camps and stroller-jogging.  I love the kids, except when they chase my ducks, but the Moms?  Let’s just sat that a substantial percentage of North Orange County moms think the birth of their baby gave them special rights on the park trails … one of which is never having to move over for anything, especially old guys on bikes. And that’s not the worst of it. Weekends bring Weekend Walkers. Weekend Walkers travel in packs of two to five … and they don’t so much walk as stroll. I don’t object to

Monday Smiles – 2/28/2011

The Weather Channel was predicting heavy rains and record low temperatures for Southern California on Friday night, and the local TV weather geeks were practically orgasmic about the possibility of snow down to the 500 hundred foot level.   Five hundred feet.  Approximately the altitude of the highest point in Anaheim Hills.   Was it possible, I wondered, that I’d wake to snow on the ground Saturday morning?   The rains were indeed torrential Friday evening … my wife and I went off to bed humming I Love a Rainy Night (we do but weren’t humming).   Saturday morning I bounded out of bed and opened the blinds to find … a magnificently sunny Socal Winter day.   I put on a warm sweatshirt … it was in the fifties outside … and headed for the park.

Monday Smiles – 11/23/2009

Last night, I woke up a little before 4:00 am.   One of the negatives about growing older is that we tend to wake up more often during the night for a variety of reasons.   I have a strain in my elbow that begins to ache … and wakes me up …  if I roll into the wrong position.   Like many men, I wake up more often to use the bathroom, especially when I’m fighting an infection in the general neighborhood.    Sorry to be clinical folks but this is a blog about feeling older.   

Scoop Soil, Plant Flowers

As I’ve gotten older … and successful enough to have most of the heavy yardwork done for me … my flower garden has gradually shrunk to six pots like this one, spaced along walks and walls in the yard.     Several times a season these give me an hour or two of pruning and replanting, adding new annuals for more color.   If the Santa Ana winds roll in and I forget to water, I can restore my whole garden on a Sunday afternoon.    I look forward to these afternoons at the potting bench as more than just an opportunity to beautify our yard.