Phone The Doctor

Some doctors don't see patients person to person, other than by special request. That's the way it is now. The inanimate receptionist person says, once you call and  get past the list of doctors and clinic hours and that you are important to them but that they are busy and will get around to you as soon as possible - click - music.  When you do finally and gratefully, hear the human voice it usually says , will you hold please - click -music and finally and later, a  voice that says, sorry to keep you waiting. Only then, can you say that you would like to make an appointment. The efficient voice comes back on and says yes, in two weeks, you may with your FAMILY DOCTOR  and he/she will phone you at such and such o'clock on such and such a day. You are asked also, if you wish to make an in person appointment. That's the second choice. Most of us settle for the phone call, because it might be  simply to ask a question that requires a brief answer or perhaps to seek a prescription renewal. If you are taking blood pressure medication that is on-going, you are asked by the doctor over the phone, what your blood pressure is, you being the one who takes it regularly.  When I had a swollen throat, I needed to see the doctor to presumably have the swelling felt. It was a privilege apparently to capture an office appointment.  One person I know of, without ever actually seeing the doctor,  received in the emergency ward, the news by the hospital doctors who were very present, that the diagnosis was a malignant cancer in the last stage. When asked, how long,  the person was told by the emergency doctor, that it would be about two years with or without chemotherapy or surgery. The patient opted out of chemotherapy so that the remaining time would be less miserable but the family doctor was away on holiday, therefore, he could call his doctor on his return. I will say nothing of the condition of the hospital ward but it is not somewhere I would want some I loved to be. When a ward bathroom is filthy and flooded and it take six hours to clean up, it's not a pleasant place to hang out.  The person has yet to sit actually in front of the family doctor due to the doctor being on holiday far away. No other doctor is available to replace the holidaying doctor who well deserves the time off. Nevertheless, the doctor did at one point call the patient with the cancer. The patient, not the doctor, asked if it would be all right to call the doctor during his remaining time and if it would be okay to "keep in touch" once a month. Well, not actually  in touch  physically, but via  phone calls, please. The doctor gave the patient permission to do so. Now, I realize there is a shortage of doctors to go around,  and there are walk-in clinics and emergency rooms where one can sit before a real live doctor eventually and eventually, is often a long time,  but my concern is, as a mere patient, the growing number of  regular phone-call-doctors. Perhaps I am old-fashioned as I am told over and over again, being the age I am, but to me a doctor needs to shake my hand, say hello in some way, and sit opposite me to be my own personal life-saver when it comes to my health. I like to think that there is a professionally trained and experienced human being who is taking time to talk to me, to look at me and speak to me personally with whatever is the medical situation we are dealing with. A phone call is something that comes out of a plastic speaker on a plastic thing and sounds like plastic.  It is not the voice and presence, of a warm blooded, caring doctor who has seen me through numbers of health issues, knows all my personal junk and who cares enough sit and kindly chat with me during my fifteen or so minutes in the little room. It makes me, as a patient,  feel happy that someone very special and knowlegable is my health care friend. The doctor knows all about me in a way that no one else does. The doctor advises me and when I hear that voice, I trust. I know that I have the best help there is because it is my family doctor. And we all trust our doctors. I don't trust phones much. 

Snip It

One of a lady's best friends is a pair of scissors. Why do they call it a "pair" of scissors when there is only one piece. Aha, there are two blades crossed to do their work. Off the aside, I inherited from a dressmaking mother, a number of wonderful pairs of scissors that I found when emptying the house she no longer needed, and use them in ways she may be horrified over. Mom was very particular about her sewing supplies and I fear, I simply do not have that stitching gene. Sorry Mom wherever or whatever you are now. It's my turn to be an elder. Since I have given up plying the sidewalks going on window shopping ventures due to mobility issues called "a bad knee", I make the most of being someone who loves being in her home with my computer friend, discovering delightful ways of making it my "happy nest". And it works, because I am not a butterfly lady, flitting here and there much to the consternation of my gallavanting friends who shake their heads at my love of being in and not out. Tut, tut they say, it's not healthy to be in too much. Oh really, I nod and smile, but it's my choice and I like it. Having given up short sleeves, due to arms that are not the smooth ones of the distant past, I was excited to learn about something called I saw on line, called "cooling sleeves". You pull them onto your arms as you would,  socks. They look like long sleeves in part and are quite smart looking. They also cover up.  These things need not be purchased, since you can convert your old hose into the same things that sell for around five or six dollars each. Simply cut off the leg parts about thigh high and at the ankle. Pull on the "sleeves" that are light and stretchy, and voila, cooling sleeves. Golfers wear them and archers or anyone who doesn't want to take on too much sun. I like them for cover up.  Lots of people, don't mind flashing their aging arms, wrinkles, spots, floppy bits and all, but I would rather not. My choice. Stockings come in all colours therefore, if you are ambitious, you can make these things that I call "armlets" yourself . A fun DIY and recycling process. Other scissor tricks are to cut off the tops of old dresses and make them maxi skirts. I have also given up dresses which are not always flattering when the waistline goes on permanent vacation and the lumps and bumps appear from nowhere to show up on you. Older age has many surprises and all need a good giggle instead of a tear! Some of my old dresses have charming fabric and when they are cut off and elastic placed at the waist, they make  freewheeling maxi skirts that are fun to wear with bright tee shirts and sandals in summer. Skirts are cool and feminine and freer feeling than pants.  Sometimes, I add skirt pockets made of the sleeves from the discarded dress tops or  little matching hand bags. Snip snip. Another scissor use is in the kitchen. I've tried herb scissors that are great for herbs and poultry scissors for chicken, but the best kind are merely ordinary dressmaker scissors. I use Mom's favorite one in my kitchen and it's terrific. Anything you want to cut up: celery, green onions, pieces of meat, lettuce, whatever needs cutting up in a way that scissors can, you'll find that ordinary scissors that are sharp and have user friendly finger holds work well. I must be careful for my fingers using Mom's best German made blades. Ouch. Did I mention, I also cut my own hair that is longer, to keep the ends from looking frayed now that I take pride in the healthy silver strands I once blonded and that I enjoy more now. I have come to appreciate the wonderful uniqueness of old age and treasure it. I take joy in finding ways to make my last chapter in life, the best one. Mom's scissors help. 

Second Storey

 In my condo eras, after a few house experiences, I learned about the floor hierarchy. "What floor are you on" became a determining social factor. Every unit in condos is pretty much alike with some having more " furniture margins" ie. square feet, than others. All of the new condo towers boast white on white, marbled or stoned, you might say, decor and have floor to ceiling windows and no room for a set of drawers in the bedrooms.They all have steel electric apps and a bar with stools being the only allowable curves present. Bathrooms of course, are the highlight after the walk-in closet that is never big enough but has a lot of shoe shelves. The bathtub has become more important than the couch. I like being clean, thus a walk-in shower pleases me. Who has time for a bathtub and who wants to loll in a gradually cooling warmish soup of cast off skin cells? Oh yes, there is a balconey to put your bike on, which is illegal according to the bylaws. Your tower life barbecue is a rarely used and is for appearances, an essential piece. Vegans hate them. "Don't send me your dead meat smoke!" Electric ones make little smoke anyway, because condo "barbecueing" is much the same as frying on a kitchen stove. With similar results. But you must have one that actually looks like a real barbecue. It's a requirement. Of course, no one smokes cigarettes on the little deck,  because law demands smokers be seven feet away from a building. On a condo, that's death unless you live on the first floor.I don't live in a tower, but I have visited them on invitation. It's hard to say, "wow" because the new ones, regardless of price,  all look alike and are decorated alike and truth-be-told, mostly all have the same sorts of people in them. Today, you cannot be unique; you must go along, to get along. I live in a old, old building that is only three storeys high. There are about two dozen owners of it, unlike the thousand or more  in a tower. Owning this property, however, is a struggle. It's age costs in repairs and replacements.  Living on the second storey, I am in a sandwich, you might say, but it is very comfy. I don't get the same cold as those up and down from me, in winter,. In summer, I am insulated, again , by my dear neighbours. The view above me, which you pay up to hundreds more for, sees the ocean as a little silver paper strip way far off.  But the best part is, that, in this old place, our windows and balconies don't look directly into someone else's windows and balconies as happens with clustered tower life. The property, a corner lot, has large trees and balled up shrubs the "gardeners" tend to do, and actual grass that our blower man loves to play with at top volume. It's heaven until the levies for such as a new heat pump, come along. Old buildings like old people, begin to fall apart and some owners who complain, in a self-owned place, don't realize that condo ownership is yup, owning the whole property and paying for it much as having a house. There is no landlord to complain to. It's yours, Baby, all yours. Our lowrise, didn't opt for professional management.  We opted to run our home place, ourselves. If you don't like something here, you talk about it, and the resident volunteers who actually want to do something about it, make the fix as best they can. Those elected are called The Council and they are volunteers. It's not an easy job and there is no pay. The new towers meet the need for living space as our populations grow. They may offend the eye but it does meet the need. A long storey. 

Life's Giant Step

 My ninety year old grandmother, a woman who bore seven children in her time, was someone who  remembered hearing of Queen Victoria's death from people passing in their horse drawn sleigh on a snowy Ontario winter day. She experienced a few more kings and queens over the next decades, but one day when she was ninety-one, she fell on the sidewalk while shopping near her home, She owned a condo in a small West Coast city where she and her husband once owned property previously. Their children went to school and later, into jobs and businesses, rearing their own families. But now, a widow twice, she was living independently, in a condo in the same city. She was aging, but contented, and in relatively good health.  Low blood pressure had caused her sudden fainting spell and fall. She  had reached the Giant Step in life. Big changes were about to occur. She and the family decided that it was Time. At some point in life's stages, Time or The Giant Step happens.Aging isn't a number, it's a physiological condition. It can be of the aging body or the mind or both. But one's life after that Step, is no longer the same. And while there are empathetic people around, they are not able to feel exactly what that means. For everyone who arrives at it, it's different. First, there is disbelief. This can't be, one thinks, surely I am not that old, but soon, one realizes "wow, it's my turn". The realization is that decisions to do with you personally, are no longer your own entirely, and that after much family palaver that usually happens when you're not around "for your own peace of mind", decisions are made for you. They are big ones, but they are for your betterment or care or happiness or convenience or whatever words fall from the very long list. You realize that, yes, it is the Giant Step and here I am doing something I thought would never happen to me. It's Time. My grandmother who lived until one hundred, two, had been through her two marriages, dealing with family rearing and latterly, caring for her older husbands until their deaths. She saw the sad endings of some of her own children and grandchildren.  She was much valued by her family and she alike, valued them. Even though entering a "home" must have been a difficult Giant Step, she did not complain. She couldn't complain. It was Time. She learned in her long lifetime that complaining gets you nowhere. Doing, does go places, when you're old it doesn't count. Our society worships youth.  You are human but no longer make decisions that are major. Young takes over. Grandmother learned that backing away from being a fully independent woman was a downhill process but, gracefully, she bent more and more, with consultation, to the wishes of others rather than her own. It simply made sense. It must have been hard since she was well known for being a strong woman who had survived a number of life's trials. I wish I had known this woman more, and learned her wisdoms, but it's too late now, and it's almost my turn. The Giant Step is nearing.

Dying To See You

 Death isn't a popular subject, but when there is an article about it by someone doing it, the subject is entered widely. Why is it, we read about death with a combination of curiosity and fear? Why is it that when someone is dying, we are very interested but can't seem to get past, the fear we have of facing what lies before every single human being who ever lived? No. I don't have the answers because I'm one of the people who do this very thing. Death is the Great Mystery because there is no one who can truthfully be an expert on what it's like to actually, not just temporarily die, but be "on the other side", "passed away", "with my Maker" or in any way other than heresay, having come back to tell us what it's all about. That's why it's the major, number one, mystery. One that is likely never to be answered. And I'm no expert. What I can say, is that I have seen death happen: soon before and after, watched the after effects in those left behind, and experienced many of  them personally. I have worked as a volunteer at a hospice after taking the required courses, but none of the preparation truly prepares an individual to face the actual experience with perfect knowledge or any aplomb. Death is a certainly for us all, but we fear it and that is perfectly natural and understandable. No one can feel complete joy anticipating "solving" the mystery. What bothers me, is that when the announcement is made to a person, that life is ending with no hope of a fix, they are suddenly alone. They become an immediate outcast. One asks, how can they be feeling alone when every single human they meet or not, is going to die themselves in time? Another mystery. My own life is almost at the end of its journey and I think about it sometimes and then quickly push it away into the back of my mind. And that feels okay to me. What bothers me is talking to those who learn that their life is ending and are finding themselves, suddenly alone. "Where did all my friends, my fellow workers, my relatives go?", they say. It's as though, they are a kind of leper of life. They get little cards and notes and sometimes short phone calls but what happened to their closest and dearest and friendliest, sitting across from them with a mug or glass or cuppam and just gabbing? Where's the joshing and bits of gossip and the laughter that accompanies? Where are the light touches and faces and memories? Fear of death is one thing, but fear of the fear of death is worse. We fear tears while tears are natural and when we cry while with our dying fellows, we then laugh and that's a heap of relief. Relief? Yes, indeed. It's because we have shared a moment that is purely and absolutely, human. We come out through the tears with our dying folk and know that we are human, together. Surely, we can do this, and not ignore our dying people, or fear them because, as one individual said when he would not see his wife at her dying and death, "it's too hard on me, I can't do it". Sure you can, and please do do it. You will experience this, the finest moment of both yours and their life. You'll feel something as valuable as gold and more precious than breath. 

Patta Cake, Patta Cake

 Patty cake, patty cake, baker's man, bake a cake as fast as you can. Roll it and pat it and mark it with B and put it in the oven for baby and me. My gramma taught me that little nursery rhyme a long time ago and it applies today. Most of us have splurged and bought ourselves an air fryer. Mine is the simplest but rated the best and it doesn't have fancy dancing all over it like little windows and baskets and layers. It does the job. When I got the AF and put it on my already busy counter top, people said "Oh no, not another small appliance!" and at the same time, I wondered about that myself. I love gadgets. Many of them go to the Thrift Shop after a time, but this gadget has become a pal. Living on one's own demands strong nutritional attention to avoiding prepped foods that come in adorable little packages that boast at least an inch of additives on the label. Skip those, they have been sitting around for weeks on the store shelf and who needs a bunch of chemicals in the mix. One gem, I picked up the other day, a dip that supposedly had "cheese" in it, had a bestbefore date well into the next year. What? If it lasts more than a year, what is it doing in my fridge? And where else has it been?  How to make sure, you are getting the freshest, best nutritional value from your loonies these days is a challenge but going fresh can't go wrong. Especially if you are an elder living alone. Today I am going to try something quick, easy and new to me. I'll call them patty cakes because that's how they'll look when I pop them into the air fryer. My dandy tiny hot pot has, crammed into it, a couple of peeled potatoes,  carrot slices, onion, celery leaves (I don't throw all of them out because they give marvellous flavour), small broccoli florets, and some of my deck grown spinach leaves. Sprinkled on top is my own mix of herbs with just a touch of sugar (my mother's secret ingredient in everything she cooked) and some water for steam. Boiling vegetables is passe. When the rooties and leaves are reasonably tender, I'm going to mash them with some butter, salt and pepper and an egg. I might just toss in an extra egg and add some bread crumbs made of the left over crusts in the freezer. I don't believe in waste so my freezer accommodates little packages of these left over bits that could end up in meat loaves or soups or stews or hey, patties.  I will form patties and coat them with olive oil, some that is sitting in a little bottle with bay leaf and garlic staring out at me from its depths.  Perhaps I should roll them in some buttered bread crumbs and then, put them into the air fryer. AND hope they turn out yummy. If they do, they'll make a full meal: protein, veggies and all. Last night, as an experiment, I cut up a pork steak and did it in the air fryer, and wow. How easy is that? Air fryers are really only tiny convection ovens with high heat simulating a frying pan. Very little grease necessary. Patty cake, patty cake...

Black Spots

 Our  written language is full of little black spots: periods, colons, semi-colons, exclamation points, quotation marks and apostrophes et al. None of them are absolutely necessary beyond the twelfth grade. By that time we have read enough of the black spots sprinkled liberally in literature and other less illustrious and astute verbal presentations, to say "I get it" and glibly remove all of them forever. By now, you could eliminate them all from what I just penned, and nothing would hinder your understanding of what is being said. Or is attempted to be so. We don't use little black spots when we speak, so why do we need them in print? Before setting into a rant about tradition and correct grammatical form, think about it. Break out of what was, and think about what could be.  Your English teacher would cluck, "We need punctuation for understanding, my dear; you need to know if such and such belongs to so and so, or if your words are dialogue." "No", would voice, Miss Aiken ( my once wonderful Grade Seven Engish teacher who gave me an A plus 'the first tiime in her life' when I wrote a true story about my grandmother who inadvertantly fell into a shallow creek, mink stole, pearls and all.") a story should be free because  story comes first and worrying about little black spots is something later, called editing." I have just used many little black spots in the previous tale, but if I removed them, as I would love to do with capital "I" forever, you would still understand and perhaps giggle a bit, at my tale. I can see periods have a purpose, but commas and all the rest, are, to me, artificial and de-noting the prime ignorance of reading people who might seem to need them in their lazinessses. Something called "context" ought to make it clear what the intent of the words are, while the spots merely serve to make it only more academically snobbish and yet troublesome, to the keyboarding writers who must adhere to their presence, or their editors won't have jobs. Or Engish teachers, for that matter.  What to do about never more, seeing the little black spots? We elders who've lived long, aren't about to be re-inventing grammatical or other wheels, for example, as are our younger writing humans are busily about daily, but are those of us who have seen a lot of ridiculous things in a lifetime, and actually know what could be changed for the betterment of Man to make Man more able to get on with taking the old and  making the new by eliminating all the old mistakes. Notwithstanding run-on sentences. But no. Usually, everyone wants to plug along on a keyboard that has not been reinvented for a couple of hundred years to still hammer out those little black spots, while little children labour over learning what the black spots are, and how to use them. They waste valuable intellectual time worrying more about little red exes applied by diligent teachers, where they didn't use black spots and instead  went on with their unhinged creative powers so prevalent and rampant in young writers' heads, just waiting to be freed for the sake of the story. When their papers are returned with their bloody exes all over, due in part to missing or wrong black spots here and there, they turn to their cell phones and in a silly series of capital letters and no black spots, and tell their friends they are taking up computer mechanics with spell check and grammar help, rather than hoping as once thought, to become writers.

Let's Face It

Young faces need not apply here.Women and men who are older worry and comment about those lines and wrinkles that are perfectly natural but I am not a believer in doing nothing about it just to be "natural". Nope. I take a good hour for myself in the morning to pay attention to what everyone else has to look at. Being no beauty, even cute or pretty, people like me have to work at it a bit more than those who are. Good make-up doesn't have to be the most expensive.The cheapest ones are just as useful. In many franchise drug stores starting at the cheap end and on to the more expensive lines, stop in the cheaper section. These products are almost the same as the costly ones other than a load of chemical additives, gorgeous factory buildings and ritzy ads in the best fashion mags. The same colours are here,the same basic items, the same shaped packaging but with less gold print.If you want to spend a lot of dollars on what really works, go to an expensive anti-aging serum but use it very sparingly. Skin is a kind of pre-leather and if you want tanned wrinkled leather, go sit in the sun and your wrinkles will blossom.  Sun screen isn't the answer because you can't keep enough on long enough to do much good. Keep out of the sun!!!  Begin your session, by washing with soap and water and dry with a clean cotton towel. This rubs off dead skin cells. Immediately after, smooth on your serum and/or moisturizer. Don't forget your neck and chest area, too. Let it soak in.  If you like wrinkle serums or creams, pat them on under the eyes, line between the eyebrows, along the upper lip line and your centre neck. Let it penetrate. Next is your base colour that matches your skin tone and please do not forget to take it down below the sides of your jawline. One lady I know, persists in going just along the jawline and consequently, shows a line for all to see. Uh uh, and oh oh. Blend and pat in smoothly. Using a powder, a touch warmer in colour but darker, have a big brush to shade a line under your cheek bones along to your ear lobes.  Bring it down along the jawline and across the chin. too. Now you have outlined your face. A portrait.  Add some to your forehead topline and just above your eyelids on that bony structure. Blend. Now take a very, very  light colour and dab the cream  in the middle of your forehead, just under your brow, the bulge of your eyelid, the length of your nose and your chin point. Blend them all in. This gives light to lift your look. Your eyes are usually your best feature. Use a narrow brush and lift with grey or brown in a dark shade to each end of your eyelids at the outer corner. Make eyebrows but not big dark ones and keep the ends up not down. See how open  your look is now. Shade with grey or brown, the eyelid. Heavy at the ends with none toward the inside. Practise getting it right.  And don't forget to use a thin brush to line each eyelid along the top and the bottom. This is careful precision work. Now you have big eyes. Next mascara, not the lumpy clumpy kind. No flakes or gloopy lashes please. Brush it until no lumps. Finally, overall use a skin tone loose powder to dust all over. Then a big brush and dust off. This step sets your make-up. Finally, a dab of pink powder on each cheek apple, brushed up toward your temples. Just a pink hint. Make sure it doesn't look clown-like but as natural as possible. Seems a "ton of makeup" but with practise you will have it looking "natural", but fresh. Secret: no sun and no touching that face. Last, use and re-use lip liner to add to or correct your smile. Now go and glow for the rest of the day.