Growing Old

"I've found a formula for avoiding these exaggerated fears of age; you take care of every day -- let the calendar take care of the years." -- Ed Wynn

I think age is indeed a state of mind. I, for example, am a 25 year old trapped in the body of a 51 year old. My dress of choice is jeans and sweatshirt. I like to sit on the floor. I like to try different make-up styles. I like to drive fast. I like to dance. I like rock concerts. I collect music. I read blogs.

The problem is not with my 25 year old mind; it's with my 51 year old body. I'm having to buy bigger jeans, and it takes longer for me to get up off the floor. Make-up doesn't do much for hiding the wrinkles or age spots. I can still dance, but not with abandon; I get tired and have to sit out a few. I'd probably stand on my chair at a rock concert, but only if my husband were there to hold on to me. This vessel of my soul is losing its elasticity and endurance.

Now all these perky, Barbie-bodies tell me to exercise. "It will make you feel great!" they say. So I joined a gym, paid my money, and nothing happened. (bah-dah-bump) Okay, yes, I even went a few times, and I hated it. I don't care what anyone says; exercise does NOT make me feel better, and I'm NOT losing weight. I may keep going, but I don't have to like it.

But I digress.

It's not that I mind getting old. In fact, I like being in my 50s. It gives me an excuse for just about everything: losing things, forgetting things, changing my mind, repeating myself, etc. Once one is half a century old, I feel one has earned the right to do pretty much whatever one wants to do: be it wearing out-of-style clothes, making dorky remarks, eating dessert first, telling other people what to do, or generally behaving in ways that are considered "not normal." (Who really decides what's normal anyway? I'd like to meet this omnipotent Dictator of Norms. Why didn't I get to vote on the criteria for normalcy?) No matter now. I'm over 50, and I no longer have to abide by "normal" requirements.

I spent many years doing the right things. I RSVP'd and wrote thank-you notes. I ate with my left hand in my lap, and I didn't talk with my mouth full. I didn't ask people how old they were, and I (mostly) obeyed the speed limit. I endeavored to keep conversations away from myself and more about the other person. I wore tasteful jewelry and appropriate shoes. I tucked in the corners of the bedsheets using hospital corners. I never let the cat jump on the table (in front of company). Not that I won't continue to do these things (or at least some of them). Now, however, I do them because I CHOOSE to do them, not because I'll become a pariah if I don't do them.

If the vessel of my soul is growing more sluggish, the container of my thoughts is just revving into high gear. I have all the experience and wisdom of half a century on which to build what I'm learning for the years to come. And don't we learn a lot in 50 years? Furthermore what we neglected to learn when we were too invincible to pay attention, we now review and retain because we find it interesting! This is why grandparents are so insightful; they learned much from years of experiences and mistakes, and they have the luxury of following the pace of the child and not having to keep up with "all the right things to do." (Plus they can return the grandchild to the parents and still get a good night's sleep!)

My dad is 81 years old. It is likely that he has prostate cancer. He is not interested in finding out if he does actually have it, nor is he interested in treating it. He has told me more than once, that he is "ready to go to heaven." It isn't because he's depressed or feeling woeful; he's telling me the truth. His body is wearing out; his spirit is ready for the next journey - whenever it begins. He'd prefer to take the easiest route home. I respect that. I will very likely feel the same way when I'm 81.

I am having a wonderful life. I will try not to waste a single minute of what's left of it. I will not worry about things I cannot control. I will not concern myself with petty things or petty people. I will love my family and my friends as well as strangers I may meet. I will learn as much as I can about as many things as I can. I will notice small things and consider all things. I'm half a century old; I've earned the right to do this.

I don't fear aging. I don't fear death. It is the only guarantee we have when we take our first breath. I intend on living life to its fullest until my journey here comes to a close. I find that my younger friends don't like thinking about these things, but one day they will understand. I remember wondering why our parents read the obituaries every day. Now I know why. But it's okay. I want mine to say: "She had a great time! Said she'll save you a seat on the back row next to the potted palm tree."

My friend, Susan, sent me this:

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming, "WOO HOO, what a ride!"

Ain't it the truth?!!

San Diego Photos

flying along with the Hornblower on our whale watching cruise


common dolphins playing in the boat's wake


thar she blows


a whale fluke


a wart hog


Baby & Mama Koala


a meerkat keeps watch


an Alaskan brown bear


one of the zoo's two pandas


a snoozing gorilla


Mom and Junior


Oh! Hello there!


stunning flamingos


Hotel del Coronado and the surrounding bay


there's a lorakeet on my head!


a cheetah


munch munch


chomp chomp


Mama and Baby Rhino


Torrey Pines golf course and the Pacific beyond


catching a wave off the coast of La Jolla

Visiting San Diego

San Diego is a great place to visit! There is always something to do, and the people are great!

We stayed near the Gaslamp District which enabled us to walk to Seaside Village (shops) or to the Embarcadero (restaurants & docks) or downtown (restaurants, bars, nightlife). For the first day, we walked everywhere we went. After that, we rented a car.

Whale watching was great fun, but I was disappointed that the whales weren't closer to the boat. I got some photos of spouts and flukes, but I fear they won't amount to much. Even with the zoom lens, there isn't much to see. We enjoyed the boat ride, however, and the Common Dolphins that rode the wake alongside us.

The San Diego Zoo is the best I've seen anywhere. If you're an animal lover, it's a must-see at least once in your lifetime. I got some great photos. Even though we spent most of the day there, we still didn't see everything.

Before returning to the hotel after the zoo, we drove over the Coronado Bridge to the Hotel del Coronado, and when we win the lottery we'll stay there next visit. I could get used to that sort of pampering and atmosphere!

The Wild Animal Reserve is also a must-see. It's worth the extra money to board the trucks for an adventure right out among the animals. We hand-fed giraffes and rhinos! Talk about photo ops! The drive to Escondido is scenic in itself. We passed a huge ostrich farm as well as a vineyard. For a native of the east coast, seeing the different flora and fauna found on the west coast was intriguing.

By the third day of seeing animals, my better half was ready to see something else. Like Torrey Pines' golf course. We headed west from Escondido and caught Hwy. 101 back down the coastline. La Jolla was just as Frommer's described: very high rent and upscale shopping and dining, but very scenic. Beach towns south of there are similar to beach towns everywhere in my opinion - commercialized with great vistas.

I'll doctor up my photos and post some of the more interesting ones next week. I have a good one of a lorakeet sitting on the top of my head. I loved it.

We were fortunate on this trip to skirt the torrential rains that pelted Southern California. The only real inconvenience from the weather was in our departing flight being an hour behind schedule which caused us to miss our connection in Cincinnati and thus get home past midnight. I noticed a photo on the web this afternoon of someone paddling a kayak through the streets of one of the very beaches we drove through! We must've been very lucky indeed!

***

I'm still working on learning HTML, and I'm slowly getting there. The new template you see isn't my design; I imported it from a site called Blogger Templates. I used a graphic I found from Pat's Graphics. There are a few more tweaks I want to make to the page once I figure out how to do them. It continues to be a work in progress, but it's better, don't you think?

Till next time . . .

Learning HTML

I'm having a blast, but I'm not there yet.

There is so much to learn and to remember. I have three books I'm reading about HTML, and I'm practicing with Notepad, but experimenting with MS Word. I will figure this out eventually.

Unfortunately, I'm so preoccupied with this that I'm neglecting many other things - like writing more posts, laundry, getting ready for my trip, etc. Bear with me. I shall return next week.

We leave Thursday for San Diego. We'll go whale watching and visit the zoo and wildlife reserve. I hope to have some great animal photos to post when we return. Stay tuned!

Happy Valentine's Day!

The Sesame Street Generation

Ever wonder why we hear so much about Ritalin or Adderall or ADD or ADHD? Have you noticed how hard teachers work to make education entertaining? or how often kids expect to be entertained at school?

Sesame Street made its debut in 1969 -- 35 years ago. Before Sesame Street, children may have watched Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, Captain Kangaroo, the Mickey Mouse Club, the Little Rascals, or the Howdy Doody Show. Consider the differences in these early shows and shows since Sesame Street. Think: bright colors, catchy phrases & songs, flashing objects, constant visual & audible stimulation, fast-paced subject changes.

*In 1954, RCA began production of the first color television sets manufactured in significant quantities; however it was not until 1961, when Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color premiered, that sales of color television sets actually took off. Up to then, most households had only black and white TV sets, so color stimulation wasn't yet a consideration. The Flintstones and the Jetsons debuted in 1962, but specific educational TV for children had yet to be developed. (*ref: http://www.novia.net/~ereitan/) That would take place in only seven more years.

Two of the nice things about shows like Mr. Rogers and Captain Kangaroo were their leisurely pace and low-key approach. It was okay to stop and examine an object that caught your eye. It was okay to think about this object and how it might relate to different things. Thinking and questioning were encouraged. Taking time to just watch and wonder was entertaining enough without the need for toys or games or additional stimulation.

Sesame Street presented a successful, entertaining approach to learning. Children were exposed to different cultures, languages, and words. They were learning to sign, to spell, to count, to do math. Learning was fun! Parents were overjoyed! Not only did they have a babysitter, but it was providing enrichment for their kids as well. In addition to the television show, educational toys began showing up on shelves of toy stores. A whole generation was beginning. Hence, the Sesame Street Generation.

Alas, despite its success and achievements, something else grew out of this Sesame Street explosion. Call it over-stimulation. Call it less parental involvement. Kids began to believe that learning had to be fun, and it had to happen fast. Sitting still for long periods of time while someone demonstrated a science experiment was boring. Ditto for sitting still and reading a long book. Sitting still became torture for some.

Then in 1980 we were introduced to PacMan and Intellivision. Soon after it was Atari, then Sega, then Nintendo, and computer games. In 1985, our 2 year old was better at computer games than we were! Now think: immediate gratification, multi-sensory stimulation, increasingly challenging levels to keep them tuned in. And these techno innovations brought with them the portable devices and more advanced educational toys. Were sitting, observing, thinking, wondering, and musing becoming obsolete? Maybe.

Were children being over stimulated? They were spending hours watching TV or playing video or computer games. Parents, in their quest to develop smart kids, showered their babies with an array of stimulating toys. Why not? They were available and affordable, and perhaps all too often, they conveniently replaced parental involvement.

Ultimately, school became boring. The classroom teacher was hard pressed to compete with the TV show or video game stimulation. Necessary concepts that took longer than a few seconds to assimilate were dismissed, albeit mistakenly, by the student. "Boring." "Takes too long." " Why do I have to know this anyway?" They could sit still for hours while pecking away at the keyboard or rotating the joystick. But ask them to sit still and listen to a description of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock? Not unless you can dress up the characters and have them perform the actual event, complete with flashing lights and catchy songs.

My intention is not to berate Sesame Street or educational television programs. Contrarily, I think they offer wonderful opportunities for children to learn things often unavailable to them in their environments. The creators of these shows were right on target with what it takes to get children's attention. My beef is with the loss of "down time," and its effect on other types of learning.

We had an interesting discussion in the kitchen on Super Bowl Sunday while our better halves sat glued to whatever it was on TV. "We" were an elementary school teacher, an early childhood development specialist, a student in a school of chiropractic medicine, and a former educator who has reared 2 kids. (That would be me). The elementary school teacher commented on the very real dilemma of ADHD (attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity), and how some parents don't believe their kids suffer from it. This led to an interesting theory put forth by the future chiropractor that kids are affected by the preservatives contained in so many foods these days. I put forth this idea about kids growing up with fast paced television shows and constant stimulation and entertainment. The developmental specialist suggested that kids were over stimulated with too many toys intending to develop too many skills at once. We concluded that it was probably a little bit of all of the above.

Bottom line? All this incredible technology is contributing to a generation of over simulated children who watch too much TV, play too many video games, and who have too little encouragement to just "sit, watch, wonder, and think."

So what do we do? We medicate them, which can certainly make a difference in their being able to focus on schoolwork when it isn't flashy and fast-paced. Therein is another discussion for another day: one that should also include the effect that all this technology has on the lack of excercise and social skills.

And that's how I see it.

More Backyard Birds

Here are a few more shots of birds we're seeing in our back yard. Not pictured are the black-eyed juncos and rufous-sided towhees. Being ground feeders, they're harder to photograph.


A brown thrasher enjoys some suet.


A red-bellied woodpecker. We also have downy woodpeckers, but no photos of them yet.


Mourning doves have a drink.


A tufted titmouse.


This black-capped chickadee checks out the scene.


A Big Fat Robin Reunion.


The blue jay can't squawk with his mouth full!


A young cardinal gets some safflower seeds.


The Mr. and Mrs. step out.


A purple finch, one of many finches to pay us a visit.


This is either a wintering male or a female American goldfinch.


This rascal and his seed-fed pals drives my pups crazy!