There’s a monster cottonwood tree behind our house. I believe this tree is also known as a poplar, but it is not popular in our area, because it drops fuzz bombs into our pools. The annual dropping of the cotton is about over, and thank goodness. One can scoop the pool and an hour later, it looks like a feather bed.
I made up a song to lighten the mood (sung to the tune of Here Comes Peter Cottontail). You can sing it while you scoop … a fun exercise for the aging homeowner!
Here comes Mr. Cottonwood,
Fucking up the neighborhood.
Aging in front of each other
One of the weird things about getting older is watching your partner get older while you remain impossibly young. Just kidding. We’re both aging – aging well – and grateful for the opportunity – but still, once you’ve purchased pre-moistened butt wipes, you kind of see the world in a different way.
Dale came home from grocery shopping with a nice haircut, and I complimented him. He just turned 70, and I said, “You don’t look 70 at all!” He got all puffy and happy, pleased with the positive feedback. Something compelled me to add:
“Although you do look old when you run.”
Ouch. I felt bad, but he got me back a few days later. Dale was cooling off after a run and said, “Just so you know. I tried to run like I was 69.”
The man is hilarious. And a helpmate.
Babs, it could be your hippocampus
Dale alerted me to an impending disaster involving my hippocampus, a part of your brain that has nothing to do with the amount of weight you gained in college.
The hippocampus is apparently integral to spacial navigation. Evidence suggests relying on GPS turn-by-turn directions gives the hippocampus a free ride, but it needs to be active to protect against cognitive decline. You can read about it here.
I have never had a good sense of direction and happily celebrated the advent of GPS. A little voice telling me where to go and how to get there? What could be so wrong? Now, however, I’m left wondering if my hippocampus is congenitally deficient, and does that mean I have a higher risk of Alzheimer’s?
Dr. Dale doesn’t think so. I just need to exercise it more, you know, run like I’m 69. He suggested I use my cellphone GPS to get directions but put it away and drive from memory.
This week I played golf at a course I’ve been to before, but I always use GPS to get there. I did what Dale said, and I was there and back again with no detours. I do think it’s a good thing to pass on the turn-by-turn, unless I’m in a completely unfamiliar area. At that point, it’s a safety issue.
All this pleases Dale, and not just because he cares about my welfare. He likes real maps with grids and weird directions like north, south, east and west. And all that nonsense about where the sun rises and sets. I liked it better when the voice just told me which way to go. Left or right.
Pre-moistened butt wipes? Really? I need to look for some of those.
Very handy. Toilet paper aisle. I get Cottonelle flushable wipes.
My wife marvels over the GPS in my head, I once gave turn by turn directions to someone in Irvine, California to Stephen Kings house in Bangor Maine. But my GPS goes dormant inside. We were in the Venetian Casino in Vegas for a wedding and I had no idea how to exit, but my wife led the way
That is an impressive skill, Dave! I suspect inside manages to get us all from time to time … mall confusion for one. The Seinfeld about where they parked the car is a good one.
I go with the philosophy that if I lost direction, finding my way is an adventure-unless I’m on an extreme time crunch. which reminds me, I have yet to take that side trip to see the largest Prairie dog on the world one of these days. I use cloth towels instead of paper, cloth napkins instead of paper, clean with rags, use re-usable cups and straws but I gotta have my feminine wipes – to my credit I never flush them and use them as rarely as I can.
I hate getting lost. Hard for me to think of it as an adventure, but I’ll give it a try.