Life is Unpredictable

Tom and I were driving home from lunch one day when we found ourselves stopped in a left turn lane and unable to get out of the way, while a police car with sirens blaring veered around a slow car in its path and came speeding down the middle of the street, head-on toward our car. In the seconds before the police car zoomed by us, missing us so closely that we felt the car shake as he whizzed by, I knew that my life could have changed drastically, or even been ended, in a split second. Fortunately, it was not our time.

Some of us plan and set goals. Others believe life will always be like it is now and don’t worry about it. But none of us really knows what is around the corner. The trouble with predicting the future is that we can only assess the information available to us today. We don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow that can throw the whole thing onto a different trajectory. A diagnosis, a pink slip, an accident, an introduction, a random event, a natural disaster, any one of these things can throw all our plans and predictions out the window .

This sometimes worries me more than it should. It’s a cloud that hangs over happy moments, the thought that good things can go bad in the blink of an eye. Yet, the future can also turn out better than we ever hoped, as it sometimes has for me. The unpredictability works both ways.

When I was in junior high school, I predicted that I would never get married. At no time did I ever dream that I would be a widow at age 46. And at age 46, I really didn’t think I’d ever marry again. But life proved me wrong.
I had a best girlfriend all through elementary and high school, and I thought we would be friends for life. She died when we were both 29. When I was in my 30’s, I loved having a job so much that I predicted I would never retire as long as I was healthy enough to keep working. Flash forward, I retired at age 56, in very good health.

A common interview question is to ask “Where do you see yourself in five years?” A far scarier question to me is where I might see myself in twenty years. Perhaps my volunteer work of talking to elderly people who are in depressing, even desperate, circumstances: alone, impoverished, ill, or mentally unstable, skews my vision of what the future could hold. These are, I keep reminding myself, worst case scenarios, and most people don’t spend their later years in this way.

We make choices, large or small, every day, and these choices can influence the futures we will have, but there are no guarantees. All we can do is enjoy life when it’s good, look for the good when it’s less than perfect, and build our strength and inner resilience to get through the tough times.

In and Out of the Digital World

My very few regular readers may have noticed that I haven't blogged lately. Like many of my "boomer" friends, I'm comfortable with, and curious about, trying out all the new forms of electronic communication. Still, I haven't become as fanatically attached to them as the younger generations are. I have a cell phone, but don't feel compelled to turn it on most of the time. I shut down my social networking page for lack of interest. I haven't "tweeted" for weeks, and haven't updated my blog for months. So it's not that I haven't tried these things, I just don't quite get the point of them.

I recently read The Dumbest Generation, by Mark Bauerlein. Aside from its rather blunt and insulting title, he makes some good points about the downside of being too "wired."
According to Bauerlein, obsessive use of social networking sites, games, and cell phones has made teens and young adults even more susceptible to peer pressure and pop culture than they've ever been in the past. In addition, on-line activities tend to replace reading anything of substance and experiencing a wider range of cultural activities.

But I guess what bothers me the most about social networking, blogs, tweets, and the like is the implied narcissism behind it all. I was raised to NOT blow my own horn or talk about myself all the time. This used to be considered rude; in the on-line world it is the norm. I am also cautious by nature and wary of revealing my personal life to strangers, so part of me finds the amount of self-revelation available for public consumption on-line, as well as the assumption that anyone cares to hear it, a little shocking.

Perhaps this is why I never seriously pursued my childhood dream of becoming a writer. Much as I like to express myself in writing, it takes a lot more courage than I have to expose my innermost thoughts and emotions to public view. And perhaps this is the real reason why I don't blog more often.

Speaking of Seniors

I was recently asked how the economic downturn is affecting the senior citizens I talk to in the course of my volunteer activities. The seniors I deal with are not the healthy, active, prosperous seniors we all hope to become. These are very vulnerable people who are already living on the edge: low income, physically or mentally impaired, and socially isolated. They do not have to worry about losing jobs and most don’t have mortgages or investments; but a cutback in a government program, a spike in the cost of food or rent, the loss of a caregiver, or a health setback could be enough to push someone barely making it over the edge. And while constant exposure to television news of “economic collapse” and impending financial disaster in the country is disturbing to some of them, others have faith that things will turn out all right.

I am constantly amazed by the resilience of the seniors I talk with, how they keep their sense of humor and somehow manage to find joy in their lives, even in the most difficult circumstances. My husband says he couldn’t do volunteer work because it would make him sad. It doesn’t work that way for me. I usually come home feeling energized, with more gratitude for the good things in my own life and for being able to briefly cheer up someone else. And while I am grateful that I’m still young enough to take steps to ensure my own financial, physical and mental health in my old age, I’m also well aware that “life happens” and that things could change in the blink of an eye. This is why I need to care about them, why we all need to care about one another.

Resolution: Blog More in 2009

I started Grasshopper’s Journey as an experiment. I’ve always loved to write. I’ve always felt that thoughts and feelings not recorded are soon forgotten or distorted in memory, and that leaves us wandering through life on auto-pilot, unaware and less human, somehow.

I’ve kept a personal journal throughout most of my life, although at various times have let months go by without writing in it. Those are usually times when I’m busy and not taking enough time to reflect on my life. I thought that a blog might encourage me to write more regularly.

But the blog has been a double-edged sword. Although my readership is small, just the idea that “someone” might read it disciplines me to write more polished pieces. This is a good thing. On the other hand, writing for an audience, even a small one, somehow restrains me from really opening up in the same way I would do in a personal journal. I hesitate to write about anything that would seem petty or boring or trite to someone else. I avoid writing about other people, for fear of offending someone. I shy away from specifics or controversial topics to preserve my anonymity. So what does that leave me to write about?

Last year I made a resolution to blog more frequently and make shorter, more diary-like entries. That didn’t happen, for the reasons noted above. But I’m going to try again, this time jotting down thoughts as they occur to me and come up with a short piece every week. More personal, more specific. Stay tuned.

Thanksgiving in Southern California

We had a heat wave in mid-November. The hot Santa Ana winds spread wildfires through several Southern California communities and many residential neighborhoods were devastated. Although I live near the coast, sufficiently far away from the fires, we could smell the smoke, and all of the cars, plants, and lawns were covered with a thin coating of ash. The weather was beautiful, but there was no walking outdoors for several days. Unfortunately, this scenario is becoming less and less uncommon in these parts.

Now the weather has changed. The air is cool and clean and perfect for walking, and rain is predicted for Thanksgiving. We need the rain desperately, but everyone is praying for those folks in the burn areas. Too much rain after a big fire often leads to landslides. Like everything else, the rain can be a mixed blessing.

As I did last year, I will spend this Wednesday helping deliver hot turkey dinners to needy and disabled seniors who are homebound during the holidays. Then I will enjoy Thanksgiving with my own family, knowing how much a really have to be thankful for: a secure home, my loved ones, my health, and a year free of disasters.

Wishing all of you a wonderful Thanksgiving and many blessings for the year ahead.

On the Arrival of Fall

Autumn is here and I’m loving it. Born in October, I seem to come to life in the fall, as the weather cools and the laziness of summer gradually picks up speed as it coasts toward the hectic holiday season.

I’ve been spending more time outdoors lately, opting for brisk walks in the park, at the beach, or around my neighborhood instead of machine-time at the gym. It’s still exercise, but the experience is quite different. Instead of becoming one with the machine and distracting myself with iPod music, I feel much more human, alive, and tuned in to my surroundings, whether it’s squirrel-watching and people-watching in the park, the sound of the pounding surf and the smell of salt are at the beach, or houses, cars, dogs and cats in the neighborhood.

For all the problems (and there are many) facing our nation, our economy, our planet, there are also many small pleasures around us every day to be thankful for.

Cut Off From the Internet!

Our home internet and email connection is finally back after being completely down for one full week. While it really wasn’t a life-or-death situation, it was painful not being able to use my email, look at my bank account balance, pay bills on-line, or surf the web for information.

The first thing I did was to contact the customer support department at Earthlink, my internet provider. I went through the whole bit, describing everything to the Indian guy on the phone, checking this, typing that, until he finally came to the conclusion that my cable connection was out and that I needed to contact the Time Warner service department. This, however, was not so easy. Every call I made to Time Warner was transferred via their automated phone system back to Earthlink. I tried various combinations of menu selections, yet always got back to Earthlink.

The second day, almost by accident, I managed to connect to a recording that confirmed there were some service outages affecting internet access, they were aware of the situation, and they were working on it. Well, that was something, anyway. But the next day, the recording was gone and I still had no service. Did this mean they thought it was fixed? I wanted to talk to someone!

Day four, after continuing to punch through all possible combinations of menu options, I managed to connect to a live person in the service department! He confirmed that there was a service outage that covered a large area of Southern California. He assured me that I should be back on-line by the next day. But I was not back on-line the next day, or the day after.

By the seventh day, I was determined to either get the problem fixed or kill someone. I first talked to Time Warner, and they informed me that the service outage was no longer an issue, that my cable and modem both worked, and that I must contact Earthlink again. Earthlink once again took me through their trouble-shooting script and this time decided it was a Microsoft issue! I had been receiving an automatic update program from Microsoft which failed to load several times. Earthlink believed that this could be the reason for my problem.

Microsoft said they could fix my problem, but would have to charge me. Okay, by that time I thought it was worth it! After over an hour of trouble shooting with the Microsoft Indian guy, the final solution was to do a system restore back to a week ago, before I lost internet access. We also disabled the automated Microsoft updates, which apparently aren’t compatible with my computer for some reason. Well, it worked.

Perhaps I should have known to do a system restore without having to pay for a service call. I’ll know next time. But I hope there is no next time. Dreamer!

Grasshopper Goes Alternative

I’ve always wanted to try alternative healing and finally had a reason do to so. It all started last month when I caught a cold with a slight cough on the 4th of July. It seemed like an ordinary cold that was running its course nicely by the end of the next week, but then worsened into chest congestion and a stuffy nose that wouldn’t go away. Week three of my misery, I finally went to the doctor, who diagnosed a sinus infection and gave me the standard antibiotics and decongestants to take for it. I took the antibiotics, my nose seemed to be less congested, and all was going well until I broke out in big, red, itchy spots about a week into the antibiotic treatment. Total misery! The doctor’s remedy was, you guessed it, yet another drug prescription to offset the effects of the first one.

This, I decided was the perfect opportunity to try a different approach, one focused more on the whole person, rather than treatment of symptoms. I asked around and got a glowing recommendation for a local lady who is an acupuncturist/natural healer. I arrived at my appointment quite excited to start on this new venture.

Unlike the usual 10-minutes with a conventional doctor, my first treatment session lasted well over an hour and consisted of much in-depth personal discussion about my health history. I told her about my apparent low immunity to colds this last year, my allergies, my normal diet. She then performed acupuncture, which truly did not hurt at all, massaged by head and sinuses, and did a relaxation exercise. Her diagnosis: I needed to rid my body of toxins and let go of obsessive over-thinking as well. I went home with a bag full of supplements and instructions to stop using antihistamines for allergy, to avoid sugar, white bread, and white rice and to eat lots of greens.

I willingly followed the program for nearly a week. Then, a very slight, barely noticeable skin rash that started shortly after beginning my supplement program began to spread and started to really itch. It was obvious to me that I was having an allergic reaction to one of the supplements, perhaps because my system was still hyper-sensitive after reacting to the antibiotics.

I emailed my practitioner with my concerns and asked if I might need to drop one of the supplements. Instead, however, I was told to take mega doses of Vitamin C and to be sure I wasn’t inadvertently eating any sugar. You see, in this particular world view, there is no such thing as an allergy. My body was simply ridding itself of “toxins.” After a day or so of obsessive over-thinking, I made the decision to drop two supplements out of my regimen and see if the rash improves. I suspect it will.

So does this end my experiment with alternative medicine? Perhaps not. I haven’t yet decided whether to return for a follow-up session, but am leaning toward the negative. On the other hand, I plan to continue on a couple of the supplements she recommended, as well as the diet. I’m also pursuing some herbal alternatives to antihistamines for my allergies, which show some promise, as well as some herbs to improve immunity. We’ll see if I get fewer colds next year!

Gotta Have Friends

I just finished an interesting book called Vital Friends by Tom Rath. Rath was associated with the Gallup organization, as well as other major research firms and specializes in studying the impact of friendship on peoples’ lives. While the book discusses many types of friendships, it focuses a great deal on the workplace, and how having a best friend at work can make a huge difference in an employee’s productivity, engagement, and job satisfaction. This got my attention.

One of the things I missed most when I retired was the daily interaction with my co-workers, even though I didn’t actually have one “best friend” and the work environment was becoming far less conducive to employee socializing. Looking back, I’ve always had a best friend or a few very close friends almost everywhere I worked, and when I didn’t, my stay was short. Rath validates what I’ve always felt: it’s the people you work with who make the job bearable – or unbearable.

Filling that friendship void when you don’t have co-workers anymore takes effort. I meet with my former co-workers for lunch periodically. It’s always great to see them, but it’s just not the same as working with them every day. There is something about sharing the same goals, problems, and daily frustrations that makes co-workers close. I’ve met new people through my volunteer work, but don’t see them often enough for that “co-worker bond” to form quite as easily. In time, though, I think it will happen.

More on this subject in a future post. . . .

Note: I will now be posting the same pieces both in Blogspot and in MyBoomerPlace, so that my Blogspot readers who do not want to register in MyBoomerPlace can still access them. Thanks to everyone who has supported my writing efforts.

This is Serious

There’s a lot on the news lately about the high price of gas and the possibility that it will dump us into a Recession. It doesn’t sound too different from the over-hyped news stories of past years that we usually tuned out, as long as we were still able to fill our tanks. This time, though, it may be more than just saying “ouch” and paying a little more. This time is serious.

A long, long time ago during the 1970’s, we experienced a nationwide gasoline shortage that resulted in gas-rationing, less recreational driving, car-pooling, and a rush to buy more fuel-efficient cars, like the then new Honda. The shortage didn’t last very long, though, and we soon forgot all about it. And although gas prices continued to rise and fuel-efficient Japanese cars became decidedly less “foreign” to us, we gradually started buying bigger and bigger cars again until, today, there seem to be far more gas-guzzling SUVs than anything else on the road.

Then came 2008. While we have become accustomed to rising gas prices, which then level off for awhile as we adjust to them, no one seemed prepared for the rapid and steep increases that experts predict will continue to $6, possibly even $10 per gallon. We are finally reaching the point where gasoline will be truly unaffordable. The trouble is, we’re reaching this point seemingly overnight, while our society can’t change that fast.

Planes still use only petroleum-based fuel, and airlines are losing money. They can’t raise fares high enough to offset their fuel costs without also losing customers. Many will go out of business. Truckers can barely afford to fill their tanks for long hauls across country. Many will go out of business, and the price of shipping goods (and, therefore, the price of nearly everything) will continue to rise.

Some people, already living on the edge, will fall off that edge. Most people will simply cut back on other spending in order to afford gas in their cars to go to work. Less spending equals Recession.

I believe that we will eventually solve our energy problem. Unfortunately, it will take years for the country to agree upon a cost-effective alternative to petroleum fuels, develop and produce that alternative, and convert everything that currently runs on petroleum. In the meantime, people are hurting. Why did it take us so long to wake up? The truth is, we didn’t want to hear the truth, and we elected “leaders” who only told us what we wanted to hear, not what we needed to do.

Retired One Year!

A couple of weeks ago, I received a request to take an on-line survey from my former employer. The survey targeted recent early retirees and tried to determine not only why we retired early, but whether the company could have done anything to keep us longer. I found the survey to be well-designed and interesting. It made me really search my own soul.

I’ve been retired a whole year now, and sometimes retirement still doesn’t seem natural to me. Most of my adult life, I enjoyed working and got a lot of self esteem from my job. But by the time I decided to retire, that joy of working was gone, for the most part. Would I have stayed on the job longer if offered part-time hours with medical benefits? Part-time with a full pension? How about a paid sabbatical? Contract work? These survey questions probed to the heart of the matter: did I really want to stop working altogether, or did I just need more time off?

Continuing to work at the same job part-time might have given me more time to exercise, cook, and go to the beach, but I doubt that I would have enjoyed the job itself any more. So I might have considered it, but probably wouldn’t have accepted a part-time offer. The idea of a sabbatical or contract work was even more interesting. Taking a break from work altogether could certainly help in a situation of job burn-out or long-term stress. But once again, I probably would have turned down such an offer after seriously thinking about it. In the end, my motivation for retiring was not stress or burn-out as much as lack of passion for what I was doing.

I applaud the company for finally realizing that it needs to take steps to retain its most experienced people. I have no doubt that many people considering retirement would be receptive to a phased, work-to-retirement option of part-time work, contract work, or a paid sabbatical. But the key to retaining employees, retirement age or not, is a little more complicated than offering benefits and incentives.

Wake Up!

We’ve been on Daylight Savings Time for about 3 weeks now, and I must admit that I’m still not completely adjusted. Perhaps the artificial time change just started too soon, a supposed energy-saving measure that some suspect was really designed to boost retail sales, giving people more daylight hours for shopping.

The government’s “stimulus payment” to taxpayers is also supposed to help boost retail sales and “jump start” the economy, though most people I know aren’t going to go right out and buy something with that money, and if they did, the money wouldn’t go very far, so the effect on the economy would be short-lived. What would really cause people to buy more over the long term would be lower gasoline, food, housing, and health care costs; secure, better paying jobs; and getting out from under their personal debt.

When are our elected officials going to realize that the American people aren’t little children that can be pacified with free candy? Who is paying for the candy, and when are they going to start working together to solve the problems that got us into this mess in the first place? I’m getting a little tired of all the political posturing and bickering between Republicans and Democrats or even among those of the same party. We’re all in this together, folks! Let’s get to work!

Update on Those Cats

It took some doing, but I finally convinced Tom that we urgently needed to capture and spay the stray cats (pictured in my last post). I borrowed three humane “trap-and-release” cages from Lynne of the Whiskers and Tails Foundation. Tom had a lot of anxiety about frightening the cats and separating them from one another, but one fine morning he managed to capture Momma Cat within a matter of minutes after baiting the trap with her favorite Fancy Feast canned food.

Momma endured the trip to Animal Birth Control with quiet grace and came through her operation with flying colors. Tom was much relieved – at least until we released her and she decided to pull one of her disappearing acts. I was sure she was so happy to be out of the cage that she was out visiting all of her favorite hang-outs around the neighborhood. Still, it was a relief when she finally reappeared two days later to have a snack and take a nap in the garage.

Snowflake was the next to go. We weren’t entirely certain that Snowflake was female, but our hunch proved correct. Not only was she female but, like Momma, she was also pregnant! Snowflake also came through her operation very well, but cried and pawed to get out of the cage. Thunder missed her, too, as they had been nearly inseparable. So soft-hearted Tom released her, perhaps sooner than he should have, and to our surprise, she and Thunder immediately darted under the house through an open grate. Once again, we worried and watched for nearly two days until Snowflake emerged from her hiding place, happy and healthy and seemingly oblivious to what had happened to her.

As a result of making the difficult decision to capture our free-wheeling strays for just a little while, we avoided being overrun by multiplying stray kittens and will continue to enjoy our three “garage cats” without fear of the situation getting out of hand. Still TBD: little Thunder, a male, will also eventually need to be captured and neutered.

Thunder, Snowflake, and the Momma Cat

A stray black cat gave birth to three kittens in our neighbor’s back yard last summer. Only one kitten survived: a spunky tabby with dark stripes and white feet. My husband Tom named it Thunder. Tom began feeding Thunder and Momma in front of our house and even set up soft beds for them, first in the garden and later in the garage, to protect them from the rain and cold.

Thunder and Momma were soon joined by a small white kitten/cat with one blue eye and one gold eye and a distinctive black tail. Tom called the white cat Snowflake. Thunder and Snowflake soon became inseparable buddies.

I was ambivalent about trying to adopt one or more of the strays, since I already have a 10-year-old cat named Tomo, who stays in the house nearly all of the time and doesn’t much care for other cats. But it didn’t matter anyway. Momma wouldn’t let anyone near Thunder, while Snowflake darted away every time anyone approached. We couldn’t even get near enough to determine the gender of the kittens, although we now think Thunder is a male and Snowflake is female. They are all, I’m afraid, now too accustomed to their freedom to ever become house pets.

As spring approaches, Momma appears to be in heat. Tom wants to adopt one of her kittens next time, if there are any. But Momma is a stray, after all. She no longer sleeps in the garage every night and often disappears for days at a time. Who knows where she will have her next litter. Meanwhile, we watch Thunder and Snowflake from our front window as they grow into mature cats, so close and yet so out of reach.

Gratitude

2008 started out as a bad news year. I’ve had news of friends and family members losing their jobs, serious illnesses within my extended family, and the death of a cousin who was so loved and will be deeply missed by many. All this bad news came while I, along with everyone around me, it seemed, fought off a miserable winter virus with chicken soup and hot tea. I spent the first month of 2008 just wishing things would get better for everyone who is having a bad time.

Having lived through similar challenges myself, it was not difficult for me to empathize with the troubles of my friends and relatives and to become sad when thinking about how quickly good times can turn bad. Sometimes I need to remind myself how important it is to be grateful for all the good in my life. A habit of gratitude enriches the good times and helps us through the tough times that are bound to come. In my volunteer work, I talk to folks who are in some very tough circumstances, and I’m constantly surprised by how cheerful, strong, and optimistic some are. Their gratitude, whether it is for a long life that was good most of the time, people who care, small everyday pleasures, or memories of loved ones who are gone, keeps them going and helps them find the joy in life underneath the sadness.