OK. Here I go again with the abbreviated version of my post about sun protective clothing. I’m not super-sensitive to the sun, but it’s not getting any cooler out there, so I do what I can to protect my skin.
The first photo is what is often called a sun shrug or shawl. You can wear one over a shirt, as I’m showing, or under. I tried several of them from Amazon, but all the sleeves were too short for me. I went with SP Arms, a brand favored by the LPGA. Never mind I had the most putts of ANYONE in league play yesterday, but at least I looked spectacular.
Sp Arms America is offering a 30 percent discount and free shipping through the end of the year with this code: LPGA30OFF. For reference, I’m 5’7″ and wearing the medium. The color is gray, but it’s actually bluish gray. I might get another one in black or white.
In the last picture, I’m wearing One Pair UV Protection Cooling Arm Sleeves. Affordable and effective! I’ve heard some of my golf buddies complain that sleeves fall down, but these don’t. I don’t even notice they are there.
Oh, and the hat. I went for a bigger brim because I do spend a lot of time in the sun and now use a Retinol product on my face. This hat is from Outdoor Research. I purchased it at REI. Even with the hat, I use SPF 50 on my face.
Solar power
Speaking of the sun, we have contractors coming today to give us a quote on installing solar power. Our accountant said this is the last year for the 30 percent federal refund, so if we’re ever going to do it, the time is now.
We’ll have to see about cost. I’ve read you should be able to recoup your investment within five years. We expect to live here that long, but you never know what will happen. We’re paying a lot to the utility company and like the idea of spending some of our savings to stop the bleeding. Solar power should certainly be good for resale when it comes to that.
Some of you may have seen a post I wrote yesterday about sun protective clothing. The links got messed up and were giving me fits, so I ended up deleting the entire post. Of course, I should have saved it to reprint later, but that would have been too smart.
I’ll try and recreate the article, but I’m just not into it right now. I’m rather annoyed with myself and feeling kind of down about the state of the world. So many terrible, violent and racist things going on, and on top of it, sun protective clothing reminds me of global warming and all the people who refuse to believe it.
And in the face of all this, I wonder if anything I’m writing about is worthwhile. Maybe I write because it was a childhood passion, but the world has changed since then, and maybe my voice isn’t relevant. To my blogging friends, do you ever wonder about that? What keeps you going?
As far as the U.S. goes, Dale believes it will get better, but I have my doubts. I just can’t imagine our future if Trump is re-elected. I’m not going to move to another country, but I may have to hunker down, ignore the real world and enjoy my little bubble of a life. I might do that anyway.
Anyway, sorry to be so negative. I’m sure I will snap out of it, but that’s my explanation for the missing post.
According to the New York Times, older women are furious about past injustices. I tried to summon repressed anger in the spirit of solidarity, but it’s just not there. Certainly, I have a few bad memories recorded in the great big picture book of moral crimes and misdemeanors, but I choose to let it go. I find myself too happy to be enraged.
I do understand and support the #MeToo movement. I feel empathy for those who hurt. Still, I like to think we can feel and express our anger in real time and then challenge, litigate or move on. Not to excuse bad behavior, but life will throw you curve balls, some of them quite horrific. One woman in the article said she was still furious, still dealing with residual rage, after being asked how fast she could type.
Everyone owns their own experiences, but in my view, a sexist expectation about typing hardly ranks in the Tower of Troubles. Even if it was particularly horrible for that person for some reason, dwelling on it 40 years later doesn’t seem healthy to me.
Even as a child, the idea that nothing bad would ever happen to me seemed ridiculous. My family life was dysfunctional and emotionally abusive. It was a slow start, but I climbed my way out, and the trajectory only goes up from there. I experienced sexual harassment and other injustices along the way, although I’ve never been assaulted. My trajectory flatlined twice with illness and then with a sociopath who tried to destroy my career.
Working with the sociopath was the worst year of my life, and I’ve had cancer twice. Oh, and by the way, the sociopath was a woman. But as I think about her now, I just feel sad it had to go down that way. I was treated badly. Lots of people stood on the sidelines and watched with a knowing eye. I felt like someone should have saved me, and no one did. So, I saved myself. I cut my losses and got the fuck out of there.
All that said, I just can’t get too fired up about it anymore. It happened. It’s over. I have a good life. I’m exceedingly grateful. Maybe the anger women are expressing now is a variation of the same helplessness I felt when no one saved me from the sociopath. Are they looking for a savior? Social media to the rescue? They can hashtag all day long, and they might get clicks and likes, but I’m pretty sure no one will come.
I do not condone the behaviors documented by the #MeToo movement, and it doesn’t matter if you are 25 or 75 years old. I totally support addressing the issues by any means necessary. I’m glad older women are speaking up. And maybe that will help alleviate the repressed anger.
My point is that it’s equally important to take care of yourself from within. With professional help or without it, talk about it all you want, but fight to keep these experiences from cracking your core. Maybe this sounds naive, but I’ve reframed my entire life’s experiences as ingredients in the recipe that created the marvelous person I’ve become.
In the words of the Pet Shop Boys, happiness is an option.
We keep appliances until they are absolutely, positively dead. The Betty Crocker toaster finally croaked, and we were trying to remember when we bought it. Was it when we lived in South Carolina? Mount Pleasant? If our memories are correct, that would make it about 25 years old.
The toaster has served us well, and now it’s time for a new one. This is where Dale and I take completely different paths. Although he sometimes lacks motivation to get other things done, he is Johnny Mission when it comes to replacing broken appliances.
I was gone all day, but Dale immediately went out and shopped
for toasters at Bed, Bath & Beyond. He didn’t buy one, though, because he
thought I’d want a vote … which is a polite way of saying he figured I wouldn’t
like whatever it was he bought.
Dale does not appreciate my approach to purchasing new appliances. I get online and do research. I check Consumer Reports, Good Housekeeping and The Wirecutter. Oh, and Amazon reviews. I want to know test results, best overall, best value, unusual quirks.
My process served me well when our hand blender died, because I learned the biggest and baddest would not have worked for my small-batch mayonnaise. A simpler and smaller model was perfect.
I was like this before I retired, but now I’m more zealous than ever. I liked being in charge when I was working, and I guess I still like it. Dale also liked being in charge when he was working, and I don’t think he appreciates the idea of reporting to me. Sometimes in marriage and in life, you will lead, and sometimes you will follow. Retirement is an opportunity to work on the follow part. I’m getting there.
We had the toaster discussion last night. He said I know you. You’ll get online and try to find the perfect toaster with all the bells and whistles. And then I surprised myself. I said, yes, that is what I would normally do, but I’m not going to do it this time. The toaster is in your court. Whatever you choose is fine with me.
Really? Yes, really. And when I let go, I felt good. It’s just a toaster, but it’s my husband’s free will. I mean, that’s how we ended up with a red food processor, and life hasn’t come to a screeching halt. Let him be the natural born predator that he is. Set him free to hunt it down, kill it with a credit card and drag it home.
This morning I asked him about the toaster he liked at Bed, Bath & Beyond.
Did it come in colors?
Yes.
OK, what colors?
White and chrome.
Which one did you like better?
White.
That’s cool.
I was thinking chrome, but I kept my mouth shut. We will soon be celebrating the arrival of a brand-new white toaster of unknown origins. I have nothing to do with it. Just following along.
When the game Words With Friends first came out, I was hooked. I was also quite good at it, and soon enough some of my friends didn’t want to play with me anymore. I decided to play with a random partner.
We began the game, and I used all my letters two turns in a row. The person at the other end went ballistic, sending me messages through the app about cheating. Called me horrible names even I with a foul mouth would not repeat here. I did whatever you did back then to end the game so it counted as a win for the other person.
Apparently, that was not enough. More horrible messages. I shut down the game. Somehow the person managed to send me messages anyway. I finally had to delete the app. I’ve never played again. Dale said I was a bit obsessive anyway, so it wasn’t all bad.
Then along came the NY Times, which I am still reading for free through this link. I have an account, and I have the NY Times app on my phone. You do not need to subscribe to anything to have an account.
To read for free, I log out of my account, click to redeem the code and then log back into the app. That gives me about four days of reading pleasure, and then I simply do it again. It just takes seconds.
Soon enough I was seduced by the puzzles. I now subscribe to this section only for about $20 a year. My favorite is called Spelling Bee. The goal is to make as many words as possible using the letter in the middle. You get little rewards along the way … starting with beginner and ending at genius. Extra points for using all the letters in a single word. My goal is to find the pangram and make genius by 5 p.m.
So, yes, I can be a bit obsessive. But it’s fun! It’s like Words with Friends but you don’t actually need friends. The perfect game for a loner (but not the serial killer type).
It’s not that I don’t have friends, but they seem to be scattered all over the world. Dale and I are not good at making new friends. We’re not joiners, we don’t have children and we don’t go to church. I guess you could say we don’t thrive in large group settings. I wonder why we both ended up in the Army. But that’s another story.
Anyway, there is hope.
I met two women playing golf. We all liked each other and thought our husbands might like each other, too. None of the men played golf, which is unusual. All are studious types who enjoy reading, music, cooking and gardening. We set up a dinner date!
Honestly, I wasn’t sure we’d know how to behave. It has been so long since we’ve mingled with anyone as a couple. Dinner was at one of the couple’s home Tuesday evening. We had a fantastic time. The men are all unique characters, but they had so much in common it was almost creepy. I knew it was good when they started quoting lines from Commander Cody songs.
It’s funny. We didn’t really want to go because we are so used to our little routines. But it was great to socialize, and now we want to branch out. Maybe it will be our turn to host the next dinner.
All in all, I think the first step to being social is changing your mindset. We’ve become reclusive. I mean, I freak out if the doorbell rings. Step 2 is the hard part. How do you actually make new friends? Have you been successful? What’s your secret?
I am in awe of retirees with monthly goals and quarterly accomplishments, but all that sounds too much like work to me. I’m more of a slacker.
Goals and accomplishments lead to performance appraisals, which nearly always pissed me off. In my experience, the powers that be are compelled to find some sort of flaw, because after all, no one is perfect, but they never actually picked a valid criticism. It was like a grab bag. Oh, look! Here’s something she’s good at. Let’s call it a development area!
The best advice I ever got was no matter what they said … good, bad or indifferent … just act earnest and say thank you so much. I love this job. I’ll work hard to improve. Then go home and brood.
My goal in retirement is to lighten up. So far so good. I keep a little note card on my desk to remind me of the general stuff I try to do on a semi-regular basis. I don’t do everything every day, but I check it out and go, oh, I forgot to do weights or oops, the kitty needs a brushing. Better get on it.
You can tell by my list I’m the planner slash social director. Dale just won’t do it, so it falls into my court. Exercise takes up a significant chunk of time … especially golf, the ultimate sink hole.
Everything on the list should be self-explanatory, with the possible exception of the rebounder. That’s a mini-trampoline, and I try to do a couple of hundred jumps when I think about it. Astronauts use them to improve bone density after space flight. Since my estrogen was strip mined 20 years ago with my first cancer, I have bone density issues and do what I can to help out.
Although I don’t want to over-orchestrate my life, I do keep a separate list of specific short-term actions, most of which relate to home improvement. And although we don’t have a big travel Jones, I keep a spreadsheet of ideas for local road trips and other potential adventures.
Everyone is different, but I had a couple of readers ask about my planning. This is really the extent of it. I’m pretty happy with how it’s working out. Yes, some things slip through the cracks, but I try not to fret. I will eventually get to it.
I was out of town last weekend, was comatose Monday and then played golf Tuesday and Wednesday. Today was the first time Dale and I had an opportunity to do something together. Something involving lots of pork.
We drove into Sacramento on a foodie excursion. First, we stopped at Morant’s Old Fashioned Sausage Kitchen. The butcher is a certified German sausage meister. We bought three different types of sausages, including the beautiful brats in the picture. Dale is grilling the brats tonight, and we’ll have them with marinated cucumbers and sweet onions.
Then we headed to the Mercado, where we bought local lard and Pasilla chiles. Lard sometimes freaks people out, but it’s no worse than butter. And it’s not like we’re gulping it down by the spoonful. We buy fancy lard from the farmer’s market for biscuits but the cheaper stuff for schnitzels. You know they make it fresh when you can smell the chicharrones frying.
The chiles are for his homemade chile sauce, which we use in a variety of Mexican dishes, including enchiladas and huevos rancheros. At the cash register, I saw pumpkin candy, which I’ve adored since I was a kid, so I couldn’t resist.
Next stop was Corti Brothers (thanks to a tip from Christina at Tahoe Girl). What a treat! Dale’s like, this isn’t going to be cheap, but I said, it’s our hobby! He laughed, and we did get out of there for under $40. So many tempting items. The most gorgeous Berkshire pork chops I’ve ever seen, but we didn’t get any. It’s only a 30-minute drive, so we can go back.
We love Molinari pepperoni, which is hard to find. We also love anchovies on pizza and Caesar salads, and Dale has been wanting to try salt-packed anchovies for a long time. Bingo! There they were. Another impulse buy were these little Tarallini crackers with garlic oil and hot red pepper. We opened them and ate them in the car on the way home. Yum.
Amazon Returns
Have you returned anything to Amazon lately? I have had an unusual number of returns over the past week, and everything is different. It seems they don’t want you printing labels anymore. Larger items still have to be boxed and sealed, but others don’t even require the original packaging. They send you a code, the UPS person scans it and you’re done. You also have the option of returning it unpackaged to a participating Kohl’s.
It’s fine, change is good, blah, blah, blah, but you have to be careful to make the right choices when you start clicking around. I accidentally clicked Kohl’s … it may have even defaulted to that. But I thought I selected UPS drop-off and found out the hard way I goofed.
I had to come home, cancel the return and then start over. I also had an item that was free if I did the code, but there was a shipping charge if you printed the label. My only other beef is that I liked just dropping off the package. Now I have to wait in line, but it does go fast.
It’s a small world after all
I always love small world stories, and I think they are even more special as we get older. My friend, Lisa, and her partner run a restaurant on Long Island. I’ve known Lisa 30 years but haven’t seen her in maybe 15. We catch up on the phone every so often. She was trying to reach me while I was in Reno, but I wasn’t paying attention to my messages. We finally connected, and here’s the story.
She and her partner have friends who frequent the restaurant, and they brought along another couple, Warren and Barbara, who were visiting from out of town. When the restaurant quieted down, Lisa joined them for a glass of port. As she was getting to know them, they discovered common ground. Warren spent years working for the Army in Germany. She knew someone who worked for the Army in Germany. She lived in Cairo. He knew someone who once lived in Cairo.
Soon enough they discovered they both knew me! Warren was my first boss after college, when I worked as a civilian in an Army public affairs office. He was a great boss – and a delightful friend – but I haven’t connected with him in years. It’s hard when you move around so much but always a pleasure to find each other again one way or the other.
Do you have a small world story? Why do you think they are
special?
It has been an interesting week. I went to Reno for a few days to play golf in a member-guest tournament. There was a practice round, silly but fun games and then the tournament itself. The course was very difficult – much harder than what I normally play – and there were lots of big hitters. I’m not super long off the tee, and it was humbling to see these women blast the ball.
We didn’t win anything, but I’m proud to say I held my own with the big girls. In situations like that, my greatest challenge is lack of confidence, so I just tried to play my own game and focus on what I know I can do. Reno is dry and windy, and the course was mentally and physically exhausting. I got home Saturday with seriously chapped lips and just wanted to sleep for two days.
And then it hit me, I can! I don’t have to go to work! I’m
retired!
So, I was enjoying a restful evening. I decided to start watching Downton Abbey from the beginning, since it is now free on Amazon Prime. I had the headphones in and was watching it on my Kindle Fire, when Dale starts hollering, “Donna! Donna! There’s a fire in the backyard!”
We both jump out of bed and threw on some clothes. By the
time we got downstairs, four firetrucks were parked out front and a slew of
firemen were in the backyard dousing the fire.
Note: Firemen are very attractive. It’s not just the fire
that’s hot.
Back to the story. There’s a ballfield behind our house and
some brush in between. Apparently some kids were back there smoking, and the
brush caught fire. They ran off and left their scooters behind. I kind of
wanted one of the scooters for my yard art, but the firemen took them as evidence.
All the neighbors were out, peeping over the fence. We just had
our fence repaired, so I’m kind of pissed about that. It should be relatively
inexpensive to fix … probably not even as much as the deductible on our
homeowner’s. My neighbor, on the other hand, is thrilled. Her fence was in bad
shape, and the firemen broke through it to get to the yard. She’s excited at
least part of her fence will be paid for.
While I was out there, I chatted up the neighbor’s son. He’s in community college and works at the local grocery store where we frequently shop. I’ve never really talked to him, but he made an effort to snag me one of the scooters. The firemen said no way. While I had him, though, I talked to him about the comment card I filled out at the grocery store. I’ve been surprised no one has responded. It has been at least a month.
Dale thinks it’s hilarious that I expect a response. It’s a good store with great customer service, so I absolutely expect a response. Michael, our neighbor’s son, asked me what my feedback was. I said I suggested they peel and core ripe pineapples to sell whole, so you can just cut slices for the grill. He thought it was a great idea and said he would follow-up.
I’m calling that a win-win-win. A minor fire with no injuries
and no significant property damage, attractive men storming my house and a possible
solution to my pineapple concerns.
Then there are the stupid kids who started the fire. I told Dale they should have to spend at least one night in jail, just to scare them. Their parents should pay for the damage and reimburse the fire department for their expenses. However, we don’t know who they are. I thought about putting up signs that say, “Did your child lose a scooter?” And then see who bubbles to the surface.
Maybe those cute firemen will figure it out. Perhaps they will need my assistance? They did an awesome job and kept us informed throughout the evening’s events. I was impressed and happy to pay taxes for their excellent service.
As for Downton Abbey, I got to the episode where Lady Mary finally figures out she loves Matthew Crawley, so I slept well, although poor Mr. Bates. And that awful O’Brien. She reminds me of someone I worked with, and it made me all the more glad to be done with that nonsense.
Some people don’t like exercise, but some of us practically live for it, and retirement gives us the opportunity to enjoy a variety of activities. I would give up writing and everything else just to focus on sports, but I don’t like putting all my eggs in one basket. I personally think it’s important for all of us to seek balance among creative, intellectual and physical pursuits. In my case, there may come a day when I can’t do all this stuff, and I’ll be grateful I can still put words together. And hopefully, you will be there to read them!
There’s no expiration date on fitness, although some things just don’t work like they used to. I wrote about running. I really saw myself as a runner, but within a few weeks, everything started hurting. It just wasn’t worth it to me, so I went back to walking and hiking.
I almost always walk when I play golf. Several of the women
in my golf group are in their 80s. I played with an 85-year-old the other day,
and she can hit the ball. She shot a 109, which is not great, but it’s probably
what some of the men I play with would score if they actually kept score. There’s
an 83-year-old who walks 18 holes with a pushcart.
The walker said she has aches and pains like everyone, but
she just keeps going. She’s my inspiration! I want to be just as active in my
80s as I am today. Aside from physical ailments, I figure the biggest risk to
my plan is drinking enough water. Staying properly hydrated is an ongoing
challenge … and the more you drink, the more you pee, and that comes with its
own set of problems.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I’ll share that I haven’t
had an accident yet, but I did buy bladder control pads for long walks and no
restrooms. So far, I’ve just tried to make sure I’m completely empty when I go
out and hope I make it back in time. I really don’t know what else to do.
Then there are the aches and pains. I keep moving, stretching and using my cannabis balm. I have not used CBD-only products, so I can’t say how they work. I make my balm from a strain of cannabis relatively high in CBD, so I suspect the results might be similar.
I use my homemade balm twice a day on various body parts.
Sometimes I think, well, I’ll skip my knees because they don’t hurt right now.
Then I think, well, maybe they don’t hurt right now because I use cannabis
balm. I don’t skip my knees.
My back is a mess on the MRI, but it usually doesn’t hurt. I
rub the cannabis balm up and down my spine as far as I can reach and along the
hips where I sometimes have sciatic pain. I would swear in a court of law the
cannabis balm is saving my back.
While I also use the balm for pain across my mastectomy
scars, an interesting twist is the introduction of swimming. I swam laps years
ago, but access to pools varied over multiple moves and demanding jobs. I used
to be kind of a snob about swimming, like why bother unless the pool is Olympic
size? Our pool is not big, but this year I decided 20 minutes of laps would not
drive me too crazy.
I mean, there is some wall-bashing involved if I don’t pay attention, but I like it. I’ve noticed a big difference in my post-mastectomy pain. Maybe it’s helping my back, too. I just do the crawl – my competency in other strokes is nil. I originally was only going to swim in the summer, when I can use our pool, but now I’m thinking I will have to find an indoor pool for winter swimming. Swimming makes my body feel good, almost like it’s longer, leaner and stronger.
As you may know, I did not have reconstruction after my
mastectomy. I’m flat with a few scars. I swim topless, which feels rather decadent
to me. My own version of lemonade out of lemons. I suppose I would cover up if
I head to a public pool. Of course, I would. Right?
I have some nice jewelry – not diamonds or gold – mostly unique silver pieces from when we lived in Egypt and silver, turquoise, coral and sugilite from the American southwest. I viewed them as wear-to-work or out-for-dinner, and I’m not doing much of either these days. My retirement wardrobe is functional and not particularly stylish.
For some reason, I worry about what happens to our stuff
when we die. We have wills and all that, but there’s this weird dark side of me
that considered selling everything little by little, so that by the time we die,
all the good stuff will be gone. My dad used to sell our toys if we took a
bathroom break, so I’m thinking this another oddity from the gene pool.
So, yes, I thought about selling my jewelry, among other household
items, but silver isn’t all that valuable and I don’t really want to part with
the stones. As they say, you can’t take it with you. I’ve decided to start
wearing it, possibly even adopting the look of a crazy lady who wears all her
jewelry at once. By the way, this does align with my vision of pretending I am
a Bohemian heiress who spends her later years dabbling in what amuses her.
I’ve always leaned minimalist, and it was not hard to follow
Coco Chanel’s advice about removing one piece before you leave the house. Why
not add one piece before leaving the house? Or two? I’ve also decided
items I reserved for special occasions can now come out to play. Kind of like
using your good china, because it’s just sitting there otherwise.
My silver concho belt with a rash guard and denim shorts? Birkenstocks?
Why not? I shined up the belt and wore it to the grocery store. We were walking
down the aisle, and Dale said, “That belt looks beautiful.” Wow, so that was
worth it, right?
The bad news is I need to polish up the rest of my silver, but I’m excited about wearing some pieces that have been tucked away for quite a while. And wondering how I am going to mix it up … unusual combinations I hadn’t previously considered.
I’m also thinking about new ways to wear some of the work clothes I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of. And, oh, those cowboy boots from Texas.
If we do it right, retirement can be all about freedom. Maybe with aging, we lose the fear of being judged. Wear what you want, think what you want, say what you want, do what you want.
Just live your life. Wear the jewelry, use the good china.
