Parking Lot Encounters

I walked out of Kroger holding a bag that contained Naked juices, a pineapple and some kiwis when I spotted a car that looked like Tucker's wheel into the parking lot.
I hadn't been home yet since going to work then the gym so I walked over to surprise him, as young men love to be surprised by their mothers out in public.
Tuck clutched a sandwich bag jammed full of change. He planned to go in Kroger to use the change counter and get bills in return. I made a half-hearted effort to convince him to put the coins in rolls and take them to the bank, but he wanted the immediate opportunity to pour coins into the metal tray and receive cash back, even though it cost him 7%.
"Ok," I said and reached up to kiss him on the cheek.
"Hey, none of that," shouted an old man wheeling a cart around the parking lot. I'd already noticed him looking up and down the aisles searching for his car.
"That's my son," I told the old man who had smiled after his bark.
He admitted that he needed some help finding his car. "Has that ever happened to you?" he asked.
And I agreed that I had misplaced my car before, thinking of times when I was pregnant and not quite sure where I'd parked.
"What's the car look like?" I asked.
"I knew you were going to ask that and the truth is, I don't know."
At this point, I was doubtful the guy should be driving anyway. I looked around the parking lot. I saw a Kroger employee walk out the door to gather carts, and I wondered if I could simply shuffle the old guy to the people who worked there.
Instead, I asked the man if he had a key fob. I showed him my key with the lock and unlock buttons.
"All I have is this," he said, pulling out a key, a crushed tissue and a coin. I pushed the tissue aside and pointed out the buttons on his key.
I pushed the lock button and heard a beep a few rows over. "Sounds like it's over there," I motioned. It took a few more beeps before I got him to  move in that direction.
We found his silver Accord with temporary plates on it. No wonder he couldn't remember what it looked like. He'd just gotten it.
I showed him the trunk button on the key and he began to move his plastic bags from the cart to his trunk, but didn't set me free yet.
"Guess how old I am?" he asked.
"75?" I guessed politely, thinking he looked much older.
"Come on," he said. "Really guess."
"80," I tried again.
"I fought in World War II for 27 months and came home in December..."
"Oh, no. Not math," I said.
Another woman pushed her cart to a  nearby car. "My father fought in World War II," she began before he barked at her.
"I'm not talking to you." Then he smiled.
"I'm 90 years old."
Luckily, I didn't have to respond because the other woman began a conversation.
"I'll take your cart back," I offered and walked back into the store, determined to track down Tucker and tell him about the old man. I wanted to give the old guy plenty of time to leave before I headed back to the parking lot.
And, although he hadn't departed, he was safely ensconced in his car and would hopefully make it home without further incident.

Joie de Vivre

Sometimes, getting caught up in life, you don't realize how good life is.
I've become one of those persons who is anticipating my future -- a move to France.
But I hadn't realized how much I'm enjoying my life in our small city on the edge of downtown Columbus until I talked with someone who is not happy.
Of course, I meet plenty of people who spend time complaining, don't we all, including me.
On Tuesday, the snow started to fall in the morning. Lying in bed, I asked my husband to look out the window to see if the streets were slippery. He said the streets were still black, so I dressed and went out on a run.
The snow aimed for my face, except when I ran east, but I couldn't simply run east, so I blinked my eyes and swiped the wetness off my face. My miles were slow because the snow covered the street and I ran carefully not to slip. I skirted past kids with heavy backpacks on their way to school. I waved to the crossing guard waiting to usher kids across the street. I stopped under the awning of the library to text Sheila and see if we planned to walk that morning. Then I took a selfie to show the snow.
And I smiled.

Running in the snow if such a freeing feeling. And maybe that's because I didn't have to go to work. I had the entire day to curl up in front of the fireplace and write or bake some blueberry muffins or watch House Hunters.
When I returned home, I pulled out a big broom to sweep the inch of dry, powdery snow from the sidewalk. I glanced at the untouched snow in the yard, and I knew I had to make a snow angel. So I stood with my back to the virgin white powder, and I cautiously fell backward. I waved my arms and legs in the snow, immediately feeling the wetness through my cotton pants.

Next came the tricky part. I had to get up without ruining the lines of the snow angel. With difficulty, I got to my feet and started to stand so I could step away.
That's when my neighbor called out.
"Are you okay?"
I laughed. "Yes, I'm just making a snow angel."
She'd been afraid that I'd fallen in the snow. I guess I was lucky she didn't call an ambulance to hoist me up.
I told that story on Wednesday night out with writing friends. One of my friends, Erin, who just turned 40, but seems much younger, looked puzzled.
"I guess I've never felt the spontaneous joy to make a snow angel," she said.
That's when I was jolted into my reality. I'm pretty happy. Running is a big part of that happiness.
It let's me release stress and fills my bloodstream with endorphins, no matter what the day holds.
This morning, after a 5-mile run, I paused to wonder at the sun rise, a flush of pink behind the city skyline. Sometimes I take a picture of the amazing things I see; others, I remind myself to live in the moment. The vision in my head is enough without pulling out the cell phone.
Even though I'm looking forward to the next part of my life in May 2017 when we move to France, I'm enjoying this one too.

Heating Up

On Tuesday, I was feeling pretty good about my youthfulness as I approach another birthday this month.
I'd been to the eye doctor and he said that I had "young eyes." He said I might not ever need reading glasses.
That cockiness waned that evening.
I was teaching a glass from six to nine p.m. As I stood in front of the class, wearing a blue and gray wool sweater over a camisole, I felt a heater ignite inside of me.
Suddenly, sweat was dripping down my forehead, plastering my bangs against my skin. I surreptitiously reached up and wiped at the sweat.
I pushed up my sleeves to bare my forearms.
But I wanted to rip my sweater off and stand before the class in only my camisole.
Why was I suddenly so hot?
This entire winter, my thermostat has been running high. In bed at night, I sleep in a t-shirt and shorts while my husband is bundled in flannel sleep pants and a long sleeved shirt. Often I kick the covers off, or simply stick my feet out from under the covers, but I hadn't had an actual hot flash before.
I suspected I might be having them the week before, but I was sick, so I couldn't tell if I had a fever or hot flashes.
On Tuesday night, I had no doubt as I suffered through three hot flashes while standing in front of the class.
I had to teach the next morning, and remember the hot flashes from the night before, I wore a sleeveless blue dress, tights and a cardigan. I wore a scarf too, which was easy to unwrap and throw over my chair. But I didn't think it through. Because when I got too hot, I felt too self conscious to take off my cardigan. I just thought the students would judge me for wearing a sleeveless dress when the temperature was in the 20s outside.
By the last class that day, I simply said, "I'm too hot," and I pulled off my cardigan. No one commented on my bare arms.
Nor did they say anything about the way my bangs started to wave as they got wet from my sweaty forehead.

Here' a picture of me and 2-year-old Regan.
No more babies for me now that menopause
 has hit. Well, I wasn't going to have more anyway. 

I'm still not sure whether I should acknowledge the hot flashes when I'm teaching or if I should continue to ignore them. I don't know why I'm afraid to. It's not like they don't already think I'm really old, compared to them.
Although, in one class, when they were talking about age, they asked how old I was, and I told them, 51.
Their mouths dropped open, and one girl exclaimed, "I would have guessed 39 at the most."
Well, she's getting an A, but I still might not confide in them.

My Parents Eat the Weirdest Things

This post could probably be written by a 5th grader who thinks her parents are weird, but as my parents age they try the strangest things.
Maybe they're onto something because they are in their mid-70s and they're still active, playing golf five days a week.

Here's Mom and Dad with a bunch of chocolate dipped strawberries for her birthday.
Eating chocolate-dipped strawberries is not weird, just delicious. 

My mom says they're just gullible because they're old, but truthfully, Mom has been gullible since I was a kid. She always filled out those Clearinghouse Publishers Sweepstakes or any other giveaway.
In their 50s, they started drinking some mushroom drink, kombucha, which they grew in their refrigerator.
They've always taken a lot of vitamins.
This week, as I stay with them, I've seen them downing a green liquid every morning. It's some sort of Green Superfood that comes in a powder and they mix with water. My dad stirs up two cups each morning with a little whisk. The darker green settles in the bottom. It's supposed to help with hearing and sore joints and I'm not sure what all.

Next, they pull out a jar full of gin and golden raisins. They take a tablespoon of that each morning for arthritis. Neither of them has been diagnosed with arthritis, but better safe than sorry. They've gone through four jars of gin and raisins and have decided to stop because they're  not sure it works.
Yesterday though, Dad read an ad about another supplement that is supposed to help stop whooshing and ringing in the ears. He is ready to order it. Mom is skeptical, but I think she's just putting on a good front while I'm here.
Whatever they're eating or drinking, I'm glad they're healthy. And  I don't think they'll mind me poking fun at their cure alls.

False Flattery

My darling daughter texted me excitedly earlier in the week from her stage makeup class.
"We have to age ourselves so I used a picture of you as an example."
People say Grace and I look alike, except she's 6 inches taller than I am and has straight hair.
It makes sense that if she wanted to age herself, she would look at a picture of me.
She downloaded my picture from Facebook to use as a guide then she set out to make herself look old.
"Everyone who saw your picture said you were so pretty," Grace said.
Which was nice.
But when she texted the photo of herself looking older, I didn't feel flattered any more.
Yikes.
Is that what I look like?
I hope Grace ages better than me, or at least better than the makeup she used to age herself.
She sent another picture during her makeup test that doesn't look quite as frightening.
Here's the picture with her looking "middle aged" on one side of her face and in "old age" on the other side of her face.

Who would make themselves look intentionally old anyway?

Worry Lines

Last February, when I had my birthday, I got a facial at the local Aveda shop. Pattie, the woman who does facials at Aveda, has seen me about once a year for the past 10 years, so we always catch up.
This year, as she smoothed my hair off my forehead and attached a velcro headband to hold it in place she asked me my secret.
"How have you avoided worry lines between your eyebrows?" she asked, pointing to her own parentheses just above the bridge of her nose.
I shrugged. I hadn't really thought about it.
Until Friday, when I looked in the car mirror and yikes! I didn't have two parentheses between my eyebrows, I had parentheses plus a dash. That space above my nose, right before my forehead begins is now crowded with punctuation marks.

How has this happened in seven months?

I know I've been juggling funds recently with two kids in college, and, face it, money worries make some of the biggest impacts on our beauty.

Also, this whole teenager, young adult thing is having a huge impact. I used to think if I could just get a full night's sleep that everything would be wonderful. Now I know that bigger worries awaited me than getting the kids to sleep through the night.

But, with two kids away in college, my day-to-day worries about them should lessen. The one child left at home goes to school each day, works out three days a week, picks his girlfriend up from college to spend the evening at our house, and gets home by his curfew on weekends.

Okay, he did have a minor fender bender Thursday night, the night before I noticed these new marks. No damage to our car and nothing to the other car, except a loose bolt on the license plate. But the young man he bumped blew up at Tucker and made the whole scenario worse.

I'm hopeful that these parentheses will fade rather than deepen, as the year of college payments reaches its end in March, and maybe I'll have two months of a line free forehead, before the payments begin again.

Faded Glamour

This weekend, my husband and I made the four-hour trip to my grandmother's house south of Lexington, Kentucky. My 94-year-old grandmother hasn't been back in her house since she had a stroke, then nearly died from pnuemonia, then went for rehabilitation in a nursing home and finally moved in with her daughter near Lexington.

Last month, she started pushing to go back to her house to live. We agreed to try to find someone who will stay with her and last week my cousins moved her back home.

Earl and I spent Friday night with her and she needed care that older people usually need. I trimmed and filed fingernails and toenails. I emptied the portable toilet situated in her bedroom. I took her to the bank and went to the grocery for her.

But in the bedroom where we slept, I was reminded of the woman she used to be, the glamourous Nana who ran her own store and worked at the post office. 

This is a jewelry tree that holds some of her clip-on earrings. I remember as a kid going through Nana's costume jewelry. It felt like 1950s movie star glamour.  

Here's a close-up of some of Nana's clip-on earrings. Imagine her with her tiny-waisted dress, kitten heels, and ginger hair curling around her ears where these big baubles dangled.

Getting in Shape

As someone who runs, I usually think that I am in fairly decent shape. At the beginning of December though, right around the time that I needed to figure out a way to get my daughter home from France, I started having lower back pain. Yes, it might have been stress.
I couldn't easily pinpoint what was causing the back pain because it didn't bother me when I ran or when I did P90X, but the pain would wake me up in the early morning as I lay in bed unable to turn over. I ended up sometimes grasping the side of the mattress and hoisting myself over with my hands. I hated that. Then most mornings, my back would be so stiff I couldn't bend over to pick up my shoes or slide open a drawer to pull out clothes.
I decided to cut back on my running to see if it made a difference. I tried lifting weights, not lifting weights. Running, not running. Walking. Changing shoes. Avoiding the couch in the evenings. The pain continued.
Finally around the beginning of the year, I got serious about documenting the pain. I went to the Y and ran 3 miles on the treadmill and was surprised how quickly I'd gotten out of shape. I couldn't run 3 miles in a row. I'd run one mile then need to walk.
I got into the habit of running at my regular speed then sprinting before walking some. I kept mixing it up, still disappointed at my lack of stamina.
Then February loomed and I knew I needed to get serious about getting back in shape for two reasons other than the back pain. One reason is that my birthday arrives in February. My birthday is a time when I do a little self assessment. Being in shape is definitely a criteria I want to meet. The other reason is that senior night is coming up for the basketball players. My son Spencer is a senior, so my husband and I will accompany him across the gym. I know that if I'm in good shape, I'll walk with confidence rather than slumping across the gym a foot shorter than my husband and son. (Note to self, Wear Heels!)
As my rambling runs on the treadmill continued, I was able to correlate a connection between the days that I ran and the next morning when Ihad no back pain. Eureka. So I needed to keep running. I figured five days a week should keep me out of pain.
Then the nice weather arrived. I couldn't figure out why I should go run on a treadmill when the mornings were balmy in the 40s. So I started to run outside. I'll admit to some back pain the first morning that I ran four miles along the street. My mind raced. Was it the extra mile? Was it the asphalt? I decided to keep going to see what happened.
And this morning, for the first time in nearly three months, I ran five miles from start to finish without stopping to walk in between.
I officially declare myself back in shape, even though no one who looked at me might see much of a difference from two months ago, my lungs and my leg muscles know what I'm talking about.

The Effects of Gravity

My bellybutton has become an emoticon.
You know, those little faces that people use in text messages and emails.
My bellybutton use to be simply a circle, sometimes deeper sometimes more shallow. Three different times it became a taut dot on the mound of my stomach swollen with baby.
Just this morning, as I stepped out of the shower, I noticed that it has taken on a distinctly different look.
It looks like this on the top: ^
And the bottom is like a parentheses turned on its side. A smile. So at least my bellybutton is a happy emoticon.
I imagine that the emoticon at the top right of the photo is the closest to my belly button image.
Now what does this have to do with gravity? Well, I actually tugged on either side of my belly button and pulled it upward. The ^ disappeared. Which means gravity has had its way with the skin on my stomach which I consdered fairly tight.
Something else for me to worry about, or I could just accept that my belly button is trying to express itself. It has gotten over the look of surprise 0_0 and moved on to happiness and acceptance.

Dreams

I'm antsy this morning. My to-do list running through my head. The college's website that lets me grade paper not working from 5 to 7 a.m. The minutes tick by so quickly now when I need them to slow down.
I made myself go to the Y to burn off some energy.
There, I ran into the white-bearded man who first explained how to use the treadmill for interval training. He came and stood by my treadmill today, wishing me a good trip and filling me in on the latest news about flights to Paris.
"My understanding is that ticketed passengers have priority. Those who missed their flights have to wait." He's one of the guys who seems to be an expert on every subject, but in a sweet way not an obnoxious one.
I suggested that my trip to Paris might inspire him to travel some.
"No," he replied.
His wife wants to go to the Caribbean or Florida. He wants to go to the mountains and hike.
"So go," I told him.
He claims he knows no one who would go hiking with him.
"I'll just walk on my treadmill alone," he said.
He's in his 60s and in decent shape, judging from the amount of running and weight lifting that he's doing at the Y everyday. So why has he given up on travel? Why is he condemning himself to a lifetime of watching himself in the mirrors in front of the treadmill rather than mountain peaks and blossoming leaves?
My darling, handsome husband is in his 50s now, and I can't imagine that 10 years from now: A) he'll have a white beard down to his chest or B)he'll be content to walk on a treadmill that doesn't go anywhere.
I expect that 10 years from now, hopefully, with all three children through college, we'll be travelling more than ever.
I'll need to keep watch on the pilot light of our dreams and fan it to make sure it stays alive well into our 70s or 80s.