Thursday, April 24, 6:53am
State College PA - The Nittany Lion Inn

So much for blogging daily, huh?  I need to be dressed an out of this room by 7:15 - so this will be quick.

Yesterday was daughter Julie's 50th birthday.  This is not an easy time for her - and I don't think it is about the years.  Regardless, she is doing good stuff, tough stuff, stuff that makes my life a lot easier.  She is very special.  I love her so much.  (And we are going to go see The Lion King in Manhattan in May).

Watching reruns of Mad Men.  Had not seen it before.  Last night as I was watching, Betty had an orgasm with the rumbling washing machine.  Ouch.  These folks are my contemporaries.  It takes place in 1960 - and Betty is 28.  I was 25.  I remember those 'men-in-suits'.  As I deliberately recollect, I especially remember John B and Phil.  Certainly better than a washing machine.

Socks - where do they go?  Why do two go into the washer-dryer and only one come out?  I remember years ago someone telling me that she safety pinned her husbands (not hers because she was probably wearing panty hose then and me too) socks together before putting them in the washing machine so they would come out as pairs.  A little too compulsive for me.  I wonder if I can let myself wear whichever two socks my hands land on in the sock drawer.  If I land on a pair, fine.  If I land on two loose socks, fine.  Sometime I do that if I am going to be around the house all day.  Need to let myself do it for whenever.  Should take the same approach with earrings as I have many singles in my box.

Those are my morning thoughts.  Time to dress and go.

April 16, 2014

Made mistakes in yesterdays blog.  Only a year and a couple of months older than last post.  My date on that post was a year off.  Then, as I read yesterday's post, after I posted it of course, I found a few typos.  Wonder if I can post today without typos.

Joy was my waking thought.  Even though it was 27 degrees at 8 am in Pittsburgh.  The sun was out.  My pansies are still alive.  And I watched Mary Poppins last night.  Maybe it was ten days ago that I used my new ROKU box for the first time and watched "Saving Mr. Banks".  Many reviewers consider it one of the best movies of 2013 - and I truly enjoyed the movie.  It made me want to watch Mary Poppins again.  Then Monday night I watched "Dancing with the Stars" on TV.  This year, one of the "Stars" is Amy Purdy, a bilateral below the knee amputee and an Olympic bronze medal winner in snowboarding. She is a "must watch" for me.  Watching her challenges me to keep on movin'. Another pair of "stars" on the program are the two young folks who won the Ice Dancing Gold Medal at the Olympics, Meryl Davis and Charlie White.  And back to the JOY stuff.  It is Charlie White who gives me joy.  He danced to "Supercalifragiliticexpealidocioius" and I thought he was just wonderful.  I think I have the show taped and I am likely to watch Charlie do this dance again and again.  Watching Charlie is watching joy in action.  That led me to last nights time with Mary Poppins.  Turns out it wasn't a "watch it again" event.  I had never seen it before.  Another two hours of joy!!

 I am working at letting myself take the time to enjoy some of of this media stuff.  Watching TV at home - except for maybe a couple of hours a couple of night a week - has always given me a feeling of not doing what I was supposed to be doing (whatever that might be).  As I work my way to 80 years of living (about 16 months away),  I am giving myself permission to 'do' less and to just 'be' more.  I started this last year by lying in bed with a book for an hour and maybe more in the mornings.  Next I am going to work at letting myself watch some of the wonderful old movies with this magic box attached to my TV.

And now it is time to "do" a few things - like file away all the papers that are surrounding my desk as the result of tax time and just life in general.  But first, I am going to head down to the corner and get a haircut.

Two Years Older

It's April 15, 2014 - Tax Day.  And I haven't pushed "submit" on TurboTax yet or mailed my check to the IRS. That's very high on today's to-do list.  But somehow, I have been thinking that it is time to blog again - to blog about getting older and older and older.  As some wise said, that is better than the alternative - and that is true for a large part on life, but not for the last parts of it.  For me, it is still better - but I am watching my body and my mind slow down.  One of the most obvioius slowing down signs for me it that I only want to spend twleve or thirteen hours a day out of my bed.  My bedtime has become 9pm.  Mostly I wake up around 6:30 am (later on darker mornings), but I don't get out of bed until 8 ish.  More about this slowing down in the days to come.

One of the things I started the year off was a committment to gratitude.  I can't always hold onto that, but I am trying to keep coming back to it.  Yesterday morning when I came down to the kitchen and looked out of the window, I was assaulted - in the most wonderful way - with the weeping cherry trees in my side yard having burst into bloom over night.  Great beauty and joy right out my window.  Ceertainly cause for gratitude.  It set the whole day off right - even as I was finishing up the taxes.  Today, the temperature (and it is spring) here in Pittsburgh, has dropped to just above 30 degrees.  Sleet and snow are forcast.  I overslept because the sky is gray.  I came down to the kitchen to find a gas mask as well as an unwashed pan and crumbs from something on my kitchen counter.  My attitude of gratitude was seriously challenged.  As a matter of fact, I was ready to be cranky.  (I really like a clean kitchen and haven't had that luxury in years except when I pick up the stuff of those othere people in my house  - and more about that later too). Then I looked out the window at the blooming cherry trees - and they are surviving the cold just fine, thank you. Beyond the cherry trees, my neighbor's huge magnolia has just burst into bloom.  Cherry trees one morning, magnolia right behind them.  Thank you world.

This blog thing,  it is a meditative practice for me - an activity to quiet me mind and, like quilting, to reach toward my own soul.  I want to take regular time to do this.   I will see what tomorrow brings.

Monday, January 7, 2012

Getting ready for bed at the Penn Stater in State College.  Thinking about the process of getting ready - besides those regular things like washing my face and brushing my teeth and peeing.  Decided it is time to start blogging again - about getting older - actually about getting old.  So far, I think I look as if I am doing it with grace, but I am thinking about those extra bedtime steps that have to do with this aging body.  For me they are: taking out the hearing aid (this is a new activity), taking off the leg, cleaning the inner sleeve that sits on the leg (I use baby wipes to do that),  and cleaning the remaining leg part (again with baby wipes) then crawling into bed and when done with either TV or reading, taking off the glasses.  I think there is a haiku here, but I haven't gotten there yet.  I have never been the most attentive person in terms of body care - want to simply have to shower, dress and go and then do minimum steps at night too - simply about staying clean.  It's gotten more complicated.

I had an interesting experience at a TSA checkpoint about a month ago.  The officer (a female) looked at my driver's license, looked at me, looked at the license again and looked up and started with "You don't".  I interrupted her and said "I know I don't look that old, but you would know for sure how old I was if I took my clothes off".  I was 77 this December birthday.  I figure that really is old.  So, I am taking advantage of some of the gifts that being old brings - senior citizen prices at the movies (sometimes), folks giving me seats when I ride the Pittsburgh bus, folks picking things up when I drop them.  It gives me permission to go to bed early, to excuse myself early from evening events, and to be cranky or crotchety.

It also brings reflections about life, especially my life.  It brings thinking about how to live the rest of this life as it gets harder to be independent.  I'm going to pay some attention to that stuff in this blog as well as tell funny stories when they occur to me.

April 29, 2011 - A Saturday

New socket delivered on Monday.  This one is V-Pin technology - that's vacuum pin.  Artistically, it is a success.  I will get a picture out here, maybe before the day is over as I have grandchildren around to take one, and new technology that makes it easy to get from there to here.  So far, I am not having any limb problems with this socket.  However, I don't think it will be as easy to do the reciprocal stair thing with it as it was with the suction socket that I had that had to go.  What I can do however, that I couldn't do before (before is with the last working socket) is the elliptical bike or walking machine or whatever it is.  Now I need to get back to the gym and get working on it. And I went to Chico's one day this week and tried on pants, something I was not willing to do with the "before" socket because it was sometimes a challenge to get it on.  The prosthetist talked about "the pin dance" - all the stepping around that sometimes happens to get the pin in the ratchet based socket into the ratchet.  I didn't want to be in a dressing room doing the pin dance.  This new one is an easy on job.

Life has been too busy otherwise, and I'm not sure why.  And it's gonna keep being busy until the middle of June.  My plan is to do what has to be done - to quilt in between - to get back to the gym in between and get back to work on my body.  The bout of pneumonia and the socket that "had to go" set me back a bit.  But spring is here, my garden is beautiful and I have an urge to go a local nursery and buy some plants.  (I've been looking at on-line nurseries, but I need to touch the darn plants.  So, I'm gonna stack up the rest of the papers spread out on my dining room table and take that nursery trip.

A haiku as I was getting the first new socket -

Some feet work better
Some feet don't work at all
I want feet that dance

April 19, 2011

Measured for next socket this morning.  Instead of a cast, a computer image of my limb was generated.  Apparently that goes to a carving machine where a foam limb that matches mine is carved.  That foam is then used to create a plastic liner for the new socket.  This is done in Tempe Arizona as I am going with the V-Pin technology; it's newer technology; its being quality controlled by Hangar at the Tempe site for a while longer.  The liner is then sent back to Hangar here in Pittsburgh where a test socket is made using the liner as the model.  Next week I try on the liner and the test socket.  If it fits, that is then used as the basis for building the actual socket.  In this technology, the plastic liner has the V-Pin in it - the pin that causes the vacuum to form in the socket once its on.  I'll let you know how it works in a couple of weeks.  And now, I have to make a new cover for the socket so I have it ready next week when the final socket building takes place.  I'm working with very light fabrics, not my metier.  I'll figure this out.

Friday, April 15, 2011

The scoop on the limb and the prosthesis - new prosthesis did not fit exactly right.  Space between the bottom of the liner (which fits tightly on the limb) and the bottom of the socket.  Thus, this great technology which is supposed to pretty much a vacuum around the limb, left a vacuum space between the bottom of the limb and the bottom of the socket.  The bottom of my limb (distal surface) was  constantly sucked down by the vacuum pressure, but couldn't really go down, because the bottom was too far away (2cm).  Anyway, I returned to the old socket for now, and will be re measured for a new socket this coming Tuesday.  This time, instead of a casting, Hangar (the prosthetic makers) will use computer imaging of my leg - which they believe to be more exact.  And I am going to move on to the next newest technology - something called a V-pin - that's vacuum pin.  More descriptions of this in the future.  For me, it is aesthetically more pleasing than the suction system that I just parted with.  The suction system had a neoprene sleeve over much of the outside of the socket so you couldn't see the art.  I also believe there is more positive contact between the bottom of the limb and the bottom of the socket.

That's the story for now.  Still have a bit more healing to do but I haven't gotten any infections in the wounded area - and that's critical.  Will have a new socket in about two weeks.  Pneumonia is about all gone.  A couple of more days of limb healing and I hope to get back to the gym.