Well, I've been a Baby Boomer for a while now and praised and vilified accordingly, and now, thanks to last night's newscast, I'm part of the impending Silver Tsunami ready to terrorize the streets and highways of the Bay Area.
The newscast 'warned' that in the next 10 years, 1 in 5 Bay Area residents are going to be 65 (I think that was how they put it) and so younger residents will need to start thinking about how to have "the conversation" about our not driving when the time comes.
Really? The younger folks should be worried about me? I am not talking on my phone, or texting, or playing grabass with my passengers, or shaving my bikini line, or smacking bratty kids -- or all of the above!
Actually, I find that over the last couple of years, I've become somewhat more careful as a driver. For example, I no longer drive with the stereo blaring; I want to make sure I can hear sirens coming down the road -- and approaching intersections! I also find that I watch out for others a whole lot more; I am not being so distracted by daily worries of work, etc., and instead pay more attention to what's going on around me.
Part of that, I must admit, is trying to be a more defensive driver since I find the frenetic pace of the Bay Area freeways getting worse and worse. If someone is coming from behind me and wants to get off the freeway at the same exit I do, will they wait for me? Nah, they speed up and go around me and cut in front of me, and yes, I am driving the speed limit or maybe a bit faster,depending on the flow of traffic.
The freeways have not been very pleasant around here for a very long time, and they seem to be getting worse. I can finally understand why my elderly friend would only take surface streets. She found the freeways too hectic. I am starting to feel that way, too. Even dear ol' 680, which I've always enjoyed driving, isn't quite the pleasure cruise it used to be.
The other factor that may be playing into this is the fact that my life has slowed down, anyway. Since I am not out driving in commute traffic any longer, I am not caught up in something and am not acclimated to the faster speeds and the need for quick reaction times for the idiots driving erratically on the roads.
I am glad to be out of life in the fast lane, in all respects, but sure wish there was time and space for some slow lane time.
Even the slow lane is the fast lane on our freeways!
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
To the Root of the Matter
In my previous post I wrote that I had been up to spend time with my mom. We had a good visit; she recognized me two days out of three, which is a good result, as far as I am concerned. I came back newly charged up to find a way to move her down here, and I am glad to report that I got her onto a waiting list for a place very near by. Whether or not I can get her the financial aid she will require is another matter.
During this visit with Mom, as always, several people told me I look just like her. I used to reply laughingly that if they didn't stop saying that, I was going to stop coming! I don't see the resemblance, but many apparently do. That's OK. My mom, age 78 and despite years of smoking cigarettes, has lovely skin, and I hope mine will hold up as well.
I also took a good look at her hair this time around. (I wrote before that I was slowing down and taking a better look at everything around me, and here's another example!)
It's not all white, more salt and pepper, with some silver woven in. So I start to wonder if I look so much like her now, will my hair age like hers did? Her mom had nearly all black hair until she died, with very little silver in it. As my hair stands right now, underneath the color job I last had done a few weeks ago, I see that my hair is mostly dark -- some color between black and brown that I can't really name -- with some silver woven in. I also have some pretty striking white hair at my temples.
When I worked, I worried more about coloring my hair because I have always thought roots looked pretty skanky, despite what the younger generation allows itself to look like. After I got 'retired,' I let my natural color grow out for a while, but I didn't like it, so I went back to coloring it. Someone else wrote that she colors her hair so as not to be 'invisible,' and it made me wonder why I still color mine.
The simple answer is that it looks prettier when I do.
One day, when my hair has made its transition to that beautiful white that I now see at my temples, I will let it all be white (although how I am going to make that transition, I have no idea.) I have two men friends, Mike and Ken, whom I've known since both were much younger and blonder. Both now have beautiful white hair. Pop, also, has lovely white hair, and if mine looks as good as theirs does, I'll gladly wear the white.
Until then, I'll keep working to keep my hair the color it was when I was in high school: not because I think it makes me look younger -- I am not fooling anyone -- and not because I feel invisible otherwise.
It just looks prettier to me, and that ought to be good enough!
During this visit with Mom, as always, several people told me I look just like her. I used to reply laughingly that if they didn't stop saying that, I was going to stop coming! I don't see the resemblance, but many apparently do. That's OK. My mom, age 78 and despite years of smoking cigarettes, has lovely skin, and I hope mine will hold up as well.
I also took a good look at her hair this time around. (I wrote before that I was slowing down and taking a better look at everything around me, and here's another example!)
It's not all white, more salt and pepper, with some silver woven in. So I start to wonder if I look so much like her now, will my hair age like hers did? Her mom had nearly all black hair until she died, with very little silver in it. As my hair stands right now, underneath the color job I last had done a few weeks ago, I see that my hair is mostly dark -- some color between black and brown that I can't really name -- with some silver woven in. I also have some pretty striking white hair at my temples.
When I worked, I worried more about coloring my hair because I have always thought roots looked pretty skanky, despite what the younger generation allows itself to look like. After I got 'retired,' I let my natural color grow out for a while, but I didn't like it, so I went back to coloring it. Someone else wrote that she colors her hair so as not to be 'invisible,' and it made me wonder why I still color mine.
The simple answer is that it looks prettier when I do.
One day, when my hair has made its transition to that beautiful white that I now see at my temples, I will let it all be white (although how I am going to make that transition, I have no idea.) I have two men friends, Mike and Ken, whom I've known since both were much younger and blonder. Both now have beautiful white hair. Pop, also, has lovely white hair, and if mine looks as good as theirs does, I'll gladly wear the white.
Until then, I'll keep working to keep my hair the color it was when I was in high school: not because I think it makes me look younger -- I am not fooling anyone -- and not because I feel invisible otherwise.
It just looks prettier to me, and that ought to be good enough!
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Checking in with Mom -- "You Talkin' to ME?"
They, whoever "they" might be, keep talking about the Baby Boomers as the sandwich generation, taking care of both kids and parents.
Well, I don't have kids, but I have a mom, all right. She's been in a skilled nursing facility, up in WA State, where my brother dumped her, for about 13 years (And may I just say, now THAT is what I called skilled -- keeping her alive all these years, when the average is 3 years in a facility.) Honestly, with the long list of things wrong with her, I don't know why she is still alive, but she is.
More or less.
It's not the life I would want to live, and in her more lucid moments, when I fly up into the Pacific Northwest, she expresses surprise at her whereabouts.
I wheeled her out in her chair yesterday, when the sun was out (oh joy), and she said, "Doesn't it EVER get warm here?" Yes, I replied, when it's summertime. "Well, WHEN is summer COMING, then!" she replied quite vociferously.
The social worker tells me Mom is in a state of advanced dementia, yet when Mom has her hearing aid in, and when she finally realizes that I am there, she becomes quite lucid and pretty chatty.
I have done what I usually do on these quick trips: clean out the old ratty clothes, replenish her wardrobe, spend short snatches of time with her -- she isn't awake for very long -- and then I head back to the hotel to rest up for the next foray into the life I sure don't want to live myself.
And while she hasn't quite yet got it that I was here today, she knew yesterday. But then she kinda blew that because she asked where her other daughter was. (She doesn't have one; she only has 3 sons. They all have children, or live too far away to visit, so of course they don't visit.)
God knows she could use another daughter, that's for sure, but there's just me.
Mom and I weren't that close when I was growing up, for a variety of reasons. We were shopping buddies, mostly, but she seems to have spent most of her quality time with my 3 younger brothers.
So now, when my time has expanded and I've had the chance to slow down, to look at birds and hills, and all that nature stuff, I have also had the time also to slow down and see my mom. She is no longer the mom I grew up with, but I have to say we have a better relationship now than we did back then.
She said to me the other day, "You're just a sweetheart," and I asked her, "Who am I?" because it was so unlike anything she'd ever said to me.
She said my name, so I knew she was talking to me.
Like I said, time has slowed way down, in a way, now that I'm 'retired,' or whatever, and I think this time with Mom is yet another gift, and I am grateful.
Well, I don't have kids, but I have a mom, all right. She's been in a skilled nursing facility, up in WA State, where my brother dumped her, for about 13 years (And may I just say, now THAT is what I called skilled -- keeping her alive all these years, when the average is 3 years in a facility.) Honestly, with the long list of things wrong with her, I don't know why she is still alive, but she is.
More or less.
It's not the life I would want to live, and in her more lucid moments, when I fly up into the Pacific Northwest, she expresses surprise at her whereabouts.
I wheeled her out in her chair yesterday, when the sun was out (oh joy), and she said, "Doesn't it EVER get warm here?" Yes, I replied, when it's summertime. "Well, WHEN is summer COMING, then!" she replied quite vociferously.
The social worker tells me Mom is in a state of advanced dementia, yet when Mom has her hearing aid in, and when she finally realizes that I am there, she becomes quite lucid and pretty chatty.
I have done what I usually do on these quick trips: clean out the old ratty clothes, replenish her wardrobe, spend short snatches of time with her -- she isn't awake for very long -- and then I head back to the hotel to rest up for the next foray into the life I sure don't want to live myself.
And while she hasn't quite yet got it that I was here today, she knew yesterday. But then she kinda blew that because she asked where her other daughter was. (She doesn't have one; she only has 3 sons. They all have children, or live too far away to visit, so of course they don't visit.)
God knows she could use another daughter, that's for sure, but there's just me.
Mom and I weren't that close when I was growing up, for a variety of reasons. We were shopping buddies, mostly, but she seems to have spent most of her quality time with my 3 younger brothers.
So now, when my time has expanded and I've had the chance to slow down, to look at birds and hills, and all that nature stuff, I have also had the time also to slow down and see my mom. She is no longer the mom I grew up with, but I have to say we have a better relationship now than we did back then.
She said to me the other day, "You're just a sweetheart," and I asked her, "Who am I?" because it was so unlike anything she'd ever said to me.
She said my name, so I knew she was talking to me.
Like I said, time has slowed way down, in a way, now that I'm 'retired,' or whatever, and I think this time with Mom is yet another gift, and I am grateful.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
The Yellow-Billed Magpie
But until today, I had no idea that magpies lived in the U.S. -- well, except for the human variety, which Pop, my father in law, can tell you all about.
When I saw a bird like this today, just starting out on the trail up Mission Peak, I couldn't figure out what it was. Hmmm, I thought, it's about the size of a crow, black and white with deep sapphire blue patches on its wings. It kinda looks like a magpie, but . . . .
I grabbed my little East Bay Parks bird guide. Nope, no pictures like that, no magpies.
I grabbed the new girly white iPhone with the pink antenna-protector thingy and tried to snap photos of the bird on the way up. No luck. I tried to look it up on the girly iPhone, too, but that was wasting too much good time. I just relaxed and enjoyed the hike.
And then coming back down, my husband pointed this bird out, sitting on the barbed wire fence. He/she (the bird) wasn't a bit worried about me; in fact, it was so busily chattering away that I almost felt it was inviting me to talk -- or trying to scare me away from its nest.I sidled my way closer than I'd thought I could and snapped a few photos.
It still reminded me of a magpie, and my husband pointed out its yellow bill and the bits of yellow around its eyes.
Back home, neither of the other SF area bird books had a photo of this bird, so I turned to my big red field guide, The National Audubon Society Western Field Guide, which I bought recently at Borders' bankruptcy blowout.
I followed my hunch, looked up "magpie," and found it. A magpie with a yellow bill, all right!
A yellow-billed magpie. Whaddaya know? Sometimes things just do make sense.
Up on that trail, I stood looking at that bird and also looking down at a campus where I'd taught English, oh, 15 years ago. Back then, I would never have hiked, unless it was to Starbucks, and I also bet that had that bird plopped itself right in front of me on the sidewalk as I rushed into or out of the classroom, I'd have missed it.
Not any longer, and I am so grateful that I see differently now.
Monday, May 9, 2011
COBRA and other insurance that bites
Earlier this year, my husband's COBRA benefits ran out. We knew it was coming, we did our research for state and federal high risk pools, we looked over various other offerings, and we ultimately we chose for my husband to purchase one of the HIPAA policies from Aetna. He has a pre-existing condition, so unless he wanted to go without insurance altogether for 3 to 6 months, he had to take a HIPAA policy from one of the big boys. Each company gives you only two choices, and he bought the best coverage he could. I purchased my own separate policy and was able to do better since I have no real ailments.
You would THINK that if you chose a policy and already paid top dollar because you are in a high risk group, with guaranteed coverage, the insurance company would already have charged enough and not have to raise rates even higher.
You can see where this is going, can't you? My husband just got a notification that his plan premium, just started in February of this year, will be going up 10% in August.
I am so tempted to give them all the middle-finger salute, with both hands!
And yet, I have seen another side of the costs for medical attention. I visited a doctor who told me one price would be the cost for me if I had insurance, but only half the quoted price if I did not have insurance. Now, why is that? And is this the same kind of pricing 'strategy' that is taking place with Medicare billing?
"It ain't fittin'; it just ain't fittin.'"
You would THINK that if you chose a policy and already paid top dollar because you are in a high risk group, with guaranteed coverage, the insurance company would already have charged enough and not have to raise rates even higher.
You can see where this is going, can't you? My husband just got a notification that his plan premium, just started in February of this year, will be going up 10% in August.
I am so tempted to give them all the middle-finger salute, with both hands!
And yet, I have seen another side of the costs for medical attention. I visited a doctor who told me one price would be the cost for me if I had insurance, but only half the quoted price if I did not have insurance. Now, why is that? And is this the same kind of pricing 'strategy' that is taking place with Medicare billing?
"It ain't fittin'; it just ain't fittin.'"
To Friends from Long Ago, and Today
This photo, taken in January 2010, shows a group of women who had not seen each other since the mid-70s. (Well, two of us had reconnected in person a little bit earlier, but the other 3 had not stayed in touch with each other, or with us, since back then.)
Three of us were in the same grade, the other two were 2 years behind us; some stayed in Southern California, I moved to the Bay Area, and one was just visiting from Florida, although she has moved back to her California girl roots. We all served in our high school band's auxiliary teams, as flag twirler, ID squad member, or majorette, but we didn't all really hang out together in high school. I know we didn't share a meal, unless we all were on the band tour.
Yet here we all came together, in our 50s, via Facebook, and we made the effort to get together. While we don't still spend much time on Facebook, we still stay in touch one way or another, and I appreciate the opportunity to get older with these lovely women.
See you down in the OC real soon, ladies!
Monday, May 2, 2011
SSN, FICO, and Job Applications, Oh, My!
Yesterday I found an interesting job on a "Jobs in Aging" board. It is a part-time position, the job requirements are right up my alley -- training design and facilitation, working with people, benefits, the elderly and their caregivers and families -- and so I went ahead and applied to the email and person listed on the job announcement.
This morning I got an email from that person directing me to the organization's website so that I could apply online. I went to the site, started my application, and then stopped in my tracks.
No, I will not give you my SSN so that you can run a credit check on me at this point in the process. I don't want to give out my SSN, and I don't want your inquiry hitting my credit score!
A few months ago, I went online to the Borders site and had to go through the same exercise, all for a part-time position for a company that was soon going into bankruptcy.
And you want to see my credit report? C'mon.
As much as I would like to be considered for that part-time position in aging, I wrote a polite email back to the recruiter and explained to him/her why I wasn't going forward with the application process. I did offer to speak with him/her and if it looked like the organization was getting serious about wanting to hire me, I would certainly provide my info later in the process.
I just decided that I am putting my foot down and not letting some anonymous recruiter out there -- with his/her hackable software -- have my personal info any longer.
That's just wrong.
This morning I got an email from that person directing me to the organization's website so that I could apply online. I went to the site, started my application, and then stopped in my tracks.
No, I will not give you my SSN so that you can run a credit check on me at this point in the process. I don't want to give out my SSN, and I don't want your inquiry hitting my credit score!
A few months ago, I went online to the Borders site and had to go through the same exercise, all for a part-time position for a company that was soon going into bankruptcy.
And you want to see my credit report? C'mon.
As much as I would like to be considered for that part-time position in aging, I wrote a polite email back to the recruiter and explained to him/her why I wasn't going forward with the application process. I did offer to speak with him/her and if it looked like the organization was getting serious about wanting to hire me, I would certainly provide my info later in the process.
I just decided that I am putting my foot down and not letting some anonymous recruiter out there -- with his/her hackable software -- have my personal info any longer.
That's just wrong.
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