Triumphs of Age

 One of the best things about getting old is I am forced to slow down.   I plod along doing things.  I don't want to injure myself and I think, if I don't get it done today, I can do it tomorrow.   And some things really don't need done at all.

But the best thing, my older brother and I talked about it last night, is you can do pretty much what you want and nobody thinks twice.  I could go out mid day, to check my mail, in my bathrobe, and my neighbors would just wave it off as "that old lady doing old lady stuff".

You can say what you want too.  Nobody cares or even thinks twice or looks your direction.  Once you hit 60 and beyond---you are invisible.

I like this.   But on the side, I do more work in a week sometimes than any twenty something could imagine doing.   All on the sly.  Don't want to give old people a new name.   Many of us are still closet  workaholics.

My younger brother noticed that his friends who have retired talk about staying warm, have lap blankets and no apparent lives, outside of waiting for monthly checks, booking cruises or talking about booking cruises and to talk about their latest health issue.   He asked me to shoot him if I ever catch him in a chair with a lap blanket.

Nah, not doing that.   

Sorry brother.  

I am not a thrill seeker.  Never was, really, but maybe was once more than I am now.    My greatest enjoyment now, in the winter that is, is going to bed early, reading in bed, with my cats piled around me and the weather visible outside my window.   How can that not classify as world's top entertainment activity?

In the summer, all I want to be is on the water, up the river or in the lake, doesn't matter, lazing or paddling, doesn't matter much either way.  That too is one of life's greatest joys.

Last summer I got a lot of that and I loved every second.

This winter, I'm doing the reading in bed with cats nights and I love every second of that too.

Decadent!

Sitting by the lighted Christmas tree in the dark also is one of my favorite things.

I was going to describe the aging of my car and other various appliances, in the post, all struggling with age related issues.  But meah, who cares.  They're old too but still working.  

My headlights seem quite dim, even after bulb replacement, still, and I realized their aim was off.  

But today I found someone who tried his best to aim them and also cleaned the lenses off.  One of the two headlight covers now looks excellent and clear.  The other didn't clean up as well, being plastic and scratched and faded from sun.  But its better than it was.   I was worried I'd need to replace both headlight units entirely.   The adjustment screws both sides are stripped but he said he used pliars somehow, after lubricating the rod.  Whatever that means.  We shall see.  Maybe tomorrow night I'll take it for a check the lights out drive.

My refrigerator woke me making a horrible racket early early two mornings ago, but, after I opened and closed the freezer drawer, then moved the frig out and then pushed it back the noise stopped.  Ok, thanks frig. 

My phone battery won't hold a charge long anymore.   I have to be charging it constantly.   I decided to reactivate my old net10 phone, to be ready, because I fear the one I have is about to conk dead.  I couldn't get in to my old account for that phone, however.  They claimed the password stored in the PC was not correct.   And horror upon horrors, I couldn't get into the old phone either, even though it had no plan or minutes on it.  Why?  I'd created a security PIN for it and forgotten it.  I am sure I wrote it down somewhere but couldn't find it.

To the credit of customer service, they tried for two hours, to help me unlock my old phone.  Finally, they told me to expire the number of allowed attempts at entering the PIN.  Which I did.  With that company, I got ten tries and all were the wrong tries at which point all personal data, like apps and contacts were scrubbed and it factory reset.   Now I can use it again.   I have to wait for the new sim card and plan to arrive.  I tried to open the phone on wifi, but it asked to connect with my wifi password.  Ok, where is that stored.  I have no idea but I better start looking, because the sim card will come any day now.   

So on we march into the sunset.   Sturdy still and happy.   Christmas is almost upon us.   

Nothing going on here out of the ordinary.  Scooping litter boxes, cleaning up hairballs, washing dishes, doing laundry and I can't find much to complain about.