Digest This, SoCS 1

The rules for this prompt were made for me!  It’s how I write 99% of the time – no plan, very little editing, and stop whenever you feel like it!  So here you go.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “digest.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

My grandma, bless her heart and all the memories she left us with, was a big fan of the Readers Digest magazine.  She subscribed to it for years and years.  It was a great way for someone with a short attention span to learn a little bit about a lot of things. I liked the reader submitted “jokes” even though most of the time they weren’t even remotely funny.  When grandma was in her late eighties she was still getting renewal notices from the magazine and decided it was time to sit down and write them a letter.  She asked them if they thought a woman of her age should still be getting magazines in the mail and would renew or not renew her subscription in accordance with their opinion on the matter.

The reason we know the contents of her letter is because she gave it to mom to mail, and mom thought she’d better open it up and check what grandma was telling them, just in case.  You had to know grandma to appreciate the wisdom of this decision.

I don’t remember what happened next exactly, although I do recall thinking the readers digest people weren’t likely to agree that she was indeed too old to be giving them her money.

Is Readers Digest still around?  I could submit this for their “Life’s Life That” category of unfunny jokes.  Probably too many words though.  They were always such sticklers for brevity.

Phone Phobia

http://catsherdyou.com/take-your-cat-to-work-day/

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate answering the phone?  I have that exact cat expression except with a slightly more raised left eyebrow whenever the phone rings.  (Oh crap.  Who is that and what the hell do they want. I’ll just let it go to voicemail.)

I will make an exception of course if I’m expecting a call, or recognize the number and actually feel like talking, but those circumstances are rare.

List of possible reasons for my phone call paranoia:

1. It might be bad news.  Here’s a weird thing I remember from my childhood. Our phone rang and I said “phone calls used to always mean bad news, like somebody died”.  After that profound announcement my mother took the call and learned that one of our uncles had suffered a heart attack and died.  It was a strange coincidence, I’m not psychic or anything, but I’ve never forgotten it. Maybe this helps to explain the little jolt of anxiety a ringing phone still gives me.
2. If it’s a telemarketing or solicitation call it’s hard for me to be anything but dismissive and rude.  It’s impossible to but in because they never shut up, so I just talk over them and then hang up.  After that I put their number on our  blocked list.
3. It is really frustrating to have difficulty understanding what is being said, especially if someone talks very quickly or has an accent.  I’m so much better face to face.

Whoa. That last one is the biggest reason.  I stopped after I wrote it and went off to do some research and this resulted in (YAY!) yet another list.  Check out this site for the full version.

When you have a high frequency hearing loss, you may have trouble:

– following conversations (hear but can’t understand).
– talking on the phone.
– understanding TV shows or movies even when you turn the volume up.
– understanding young children’s voices because they tend to be higher in pitch
– enjoying music because it sounds distorted, especially at higher volumes.

Also….

– people think you aren’t listening to them or accuse you of having selective hearing

– you accuse people of mumbling

– you answer questions inappropriately or miss punch lines

– you smile and nod even though you have no clue what the hell is going on

Well that explains a lot. Why I turn the radio off with a sigh of relief.   Why I always have subtitles running across my screen no matter what I’m watching.  Why I can hear some things from rooms away but never the stove timer.  Why my mumbling grandchildren are so hard to understand,  and why they get so exasperated having to repeat themselves for me.

Sorry guys.  It’s not JUST senility.  Maybe I do need to seriously consider that hearing aid I was told I was borderline for needing.  Or I could wait until I can no longer even hear the phone ringing at all.  Decisions, decisions. Meanwhile, practicing that cat face but adding nodding and smiling to it.

Old Lady Things

Today’s list was inspired by the temperature outside and a rare bout of insomnia.

Old Lady Things I Am Ready For Already

1. Bunny Slippers.  Big fat pink ones.
2. A walk-in sit-down shower.  Ok, I’m not really sold on the sit down part of that yet, but my knee does not like stepping over the side of the bath tub these days.  And it’s not even a very high side.  I’ll be wanting ramps instead of stairs soon.  An elevator would be nice.
3. One of those robotic vacuum things that bangs around your furniture picking up dirt while you sit on the couch wishing it was less stupid and more thorough.  But if I had one I would likely want to get a cat to ride around on it.
4. A bunch of flameless candles unlikely to burn the house down if left unattended. With a remote control.  Might as well go all out.
5. A granny shawl.  Actually two.  One for my shoulders, one for my lap.
6. A personal shopper.
7. A personal masseuse.
8. A chauffeur.
9. A pool guy.  And yes I know we don’t have a pool.
10. A tiny home.  I watched a minimalist documentary.  I think I could live that way.  Probably have to give up the pool guy though.

Seriously right now I would settle for just some big ass warm and fuzzy slippers because my feet are freezing.  And I am wearing thermal socks.

This is what my life has become.  I need a nap.

 

Second Best

Watched this movie on Netflix last night, because I loved the first one and I love Judi Dench. My daughter said I look a bit like her. Best compliment ever. Can you believe she is eighty years old? If I age half as well I will be smugly happy about it.

Maggie Smith got the best lines.

It’s a fun feel good movie I would watch again.

Stretching It All Out

What can I say, right now, with certainty?  “It is time to get up off the couch and do something about these atrophying muscles before I am unable to get up off the couch at all.”  I am quoting that annoying little voice in my head.  Some days it makes a lot of sense. This morning I came across this interesting looking book in an e-mail from Amazon.  They are always sending me suggestions on how to spend my money.  And although normally I am very boring and predictable, sometimes I do things that are spontaneous and insane, like spending almost eighteen Canadian dollars on a book and an author I’ve never heard of before. I blame my ignorance on rarely watching television.  And a few other things that I don’t feel like getting in to here.

But who is there among us who would not like to be 10 years younger and 10 years lighter?  Excepting of course 40 pound ten-year olds.  But what really sold me was this phrase.. gentle, scientifically designed workouts based on Classical Stretch and Essentrics…

I don’t believe the aging process has any hope in hell of ever being reversible, but staying as fit as possible, for as long as I can, definitely appeals to me.  As does not doing anything strenuous which might cause me to break out in a sweat. So I downloaded the book, had a shower, fixed my hair and put on a bit of make up, just in case anyone drops by, so that they will not sadly shake their heads at me and wonder why I am letting myself go, now that I don’t go to work anymore.  No one has actually done that yet, but I like to be prepared, because you never know.

Normally I would not do any of these self grooming things before getting some exercise (whatever that even means anymore, it’s been so long).  Then I started to read.  And I read and read and read, eventually skipping through a bunch of pages and then going back to the table of contents to see if we were EVER going to get to the part where we’re told what to do to scientifically stretch our damned muscles.  There was really no need to sell me on the WHY of all this.  Let’s just do it, for the love of essentrics.

Okay!  I did 9 ceiling reaches, which is a little over half of the recommended dosage.  The process involves much stretching, as promised, and a lot of breathing.  Both good for you.  I went on to the Hamstring Stretches and discovered I could actually do them, even though the pictures had made me extremely skeptical.  Then there’s a bunch more leg stretches and pretzel positions, much like I remember getting entirely frustrated about when I tried yoga a hundred years ago. You are supposed to stop if you experience pain.  Excellent rule.

The Open Chest Swan Sequence for Posture is my favourite, so far.  Except I had to keep getting out of the various positions to tap the kindle to turn the pages.  There are nine steps involved.  The whole procedure is supposed to take about 30 seconds to get through.  HAHA!  By this time my 30 minutes was up.  How the hell did that happen?  And my arms felt like lead weights were attached to them.  So I quickly went through some lunges, noting that I was making almost all of the common mistakes so helpfully noted and illustrated.  Then I did a few side leg lifts, just to see if was possible.

She lost me at the modified sit ups.  I’m saving those for tomorrow.  Or whenever I happen to get to them within the allotted 30 minute time frame.  I’m excited about the zombie position and spine rotation and plies.  There are also Squash Lunges and Barre Footwork things and frankly I don’t know what else yet.  No wonder she put all this at the back of the book to give us lots of time to think about it.

Anyway, it all looks awesome!  And like being double jointed is not a requirement!  I feel like I stretched a few muscles that I didn’t even know I had.  I don’t think the eighth of January is too late to spontaneously come up with a sort of resolution.  I would really like to keep this up. I felt virtuous and proud and down right energized making my ridiculously healthy smoothie after I was done.  There are also pain relief exercises and things to do for balance and mobility.

Looks like a good book!  And like it or not, I will try to keep you posted with my newly young stretched out fingers and admirable computer desk posture.  Hey, those are good goals too.

Just Jazzy 249

Jazzy Does 100 Days of Happiness 36

Happiness is knowing that the older you get, the less stupid things there are left for you to do. Well, let’s hope that’s true.

Rainy Days and Mondays

This picture was taken a couple of days ago when the sun was shining, the sky was a beautiful blue filled with fluffy clouds, and I thought W would like to see what the neighbors new fence looks like.  For which we owe him half of whatever it cost.  W is off to his island again for most of the summer, sending me texts and drinking rum.  And fishing.  Let’s not forget all that fishing.

Today the sun is shining somewhere else.  The sky is a thick grey blanket.  It’s spitting rain.  It’s Monday.  I have to go to work.  Talk about your double-double whammy.  For now I don’t have Mondays off anymore.  My schedule has always been at the whim of circumstance and a boss who schedules our lives like it’s some kind of random crap shoot.  Sundays, Thursdays and Fridays are now my days off.  Now that I’ve put that in writing it’s likely to change completely before the month is over.

Do you ever feel like the only reason you can live through something is because you know it will eventually end?  That it won’t last forever? Must be the gloomy day talking.  I have about a hundred and thirteen days to go before retirement.  Give or take ninety if I decide to work until my license expires on December 31st.  I am old and tired and would like to have EVERY day of the week off.  I read three posts the other day by three different bloggers who all used the tag ‘aging’.  It’s nice to know I’m not alone in my feelings about this process.  I don’t like knowing there are things I just can’t do anymore.  I thought I would age gracefully but often I’m just cranky and sad about it all.

So it’s time to bring Jazzy back and live vicariously through her eternal optimism and snark.  Maybe some of it will rub off on me.  Yes, I’m being completely weird because she can’t say anything if I don’t make her say it.  Poor thing.  I love this thing going around Facebook where people do 100 days of Happiness and write some happy thing every day.  What a great way to be grateful and recognize the good things in your life.

Stay tuned for “Jazzy Does Happiness” from whenever I start until the day I kiss work goodbye.  It’s looking like the end of September.  I can stay happy until then or die trying.  God, I hope I don’t die trying.

Stuff Worth Saving

In my filing cabinet where I keep records of paid bills and income tax and bank statements and other boring and mundane but necessary stuff, one of the folders has the label “Stuff Worth Saving”.  My e-mail also has a folder with the same name.  So do my “pictures” and “documents” on my computer .  This is the laziest way I know of to never have to mull over and make a decision about how to categorize something interesting.  Just dump it in the stuff worth saving file.  Well today I’m taking a few things out of the file and sharing them.  Because if they’re worth saving, they should also be worth sharing.

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I hope these made you smile. 🙂