For the record, this time I did not land on my head. I broke the fall with my left cheek — not the one on my face — then my left elbow and my (formerly) “good” knee. Don’t be alarmed. Nothing to see here. Just a bruised butt and ego. It’s yet another injury time out on the pickleball court for this formerly fit 20-something chick and a painful reminder that she’s 62 with bilateral osteoarthritis in her knees. Before we left Michigan in January, I saw my handsome orthopedist (whom Rebecca lovingly calls “Dr. Kardashian”) and received two cortisone injections to mask the bone-on-bone knee pain that’s worsened over…
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Erasing our history
Another Groundhog Day has come and gone. Keeps happening. Punxsutawney Phil, that lovable western Pennsylvania rodent, saw his shadow in Gobbler’s Knob last Thursday. Six more weeks of winter. As a semi-snowbird, I feel for those back at home in Michigan, but honestly I’m not surprised. It’s February, after all. It’s also Black History Month, a time to remember and celebrate our nation’s African American heritage by removing it from official college curriculums because it makes some people … uncomfortable. Wait, what? That’s right. Before Phil’s handler could don his top hat and tux, the College Board released an official curriculum for its new Advanced Placement course in African American…
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Forever Mayberry
Mount Airy, NC – When in Rome, do as the Romans do. And when in the city that inspired a fictitious little town called Mayberry, you visit all things Andy Griffith. Here we were on the first stop of our circuitous 2023 road trip to Florida – by way of North and South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia, and … The Villages. (More on all that in another blog. Trust me.) On this late Saturday afternoon in January, we had just enough daylight to see the bronze statue outside the Andy Griffith Museum here in Mount Airy, population 10,000, according to the 2020 census. This sleepy North Carolina town just over the Virginia…
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You’re in trouble?
Lookalike couples have captured public fascination for years. There’s even scientific proof that some dogs and their owners often look similar. Familiarity breeds content. (See what I did there?) In my 60-plus years, though, I have never heard of owners and their pets taking similar prescription meds – at the same time of day – to slow the advancement of the same disease. But I’m here to tell you: In our house, it’s true. It has to do with Madison, our 14-year-old Havanese puppy. Puppy, you ask? Of course, I use that term facetiously, but it suits her, even at Maddie’s advanced age when she’s considered a “senior” dog. Loves…
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Many happy returns
“Drop your booty down!” Gosh, how I’ve missed hearing those four words. Even my miserable failure to drop like the Times Square ball couldn’t stop me from grinning ear to ear. On Monday, Rebecca and I began our New Year’s resolution early: move more, feel better. As in, shake your booty and anything else that’s required in a Jazzercise workout. We’re baaaack. Throughout most of 2020, we continued attending Jazzercise classes online, even during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. At first, we worked out at home, three or four days a week, as in 2019, when we were at our proverbial peak. It felt good to keep up with…
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Kindness of strangers
Just when you think the last ounce of genuine kindness left in this world would fill a thimble, you see a promising post on your neighborhood website: “What is the one thing you NEED that you cannot afford right now? Let’s check and see what others say. Maybe you have it and don’t need it or have a connection to get it.” Joanna D. is our Nextdoor.com neighborhood lead and founding member. A local real estate agent, she added that she had seen this on another community page and was amazed at some of the kindness shown. “No selling,” she continued. “If you’re offering something on here to someone, it…
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Word of the Year
Are you even the least bit surprised that the 2022 Word of the Year comes from a nearly 80-year-old Hollywood movie and literally means “the perception of deception”? Considering the state of our republic, I am not. “Gaslighting.” Seriously, that’s the 2022 Word of the Year. It was a word looked up frequently every single day. According to the folks at Merriam-Webster, this year saw a 1,740% increase in lookups for gaslighting. WTH? And, unlike previous years, there wasn’t a single event that drove significant spikes in the curiosity, as it usually happens with M-W’s chosen word. In 2021, their word was vaccine. In 2020, it was pandemic. But not this year.…
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I’ve got rhythm
“Holding. Natalie.” Waiting in the hospital’s busy eighth-floor prep area for yet another attempt at zapping out the unwelcome atrial fibrillation inhabiting my heart, I swore I heard the young nurse answer the phone with this greeting: “Bowling alley.” Spare me the boomer age jokes. We both heard it, so it’s true. “Did she just say bowling alley?” I asked Rebecca, my eyes and ears since they had already confiscated my glasses. “Yes, I think she did.” “That’s weird,” I said. “Yeah. Maybe that’s what they call this place: ‘The Bowling Alley.’” “Right,” I added. “Where bad patients end up in the gutter!” Good one. Thanks. Tip your server. We’re here all…
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Funiculi, funicula(r)
(Editor’s note: Every time we go on a trip, something outrageous happens to me. So much so that it requires its own sidebar, or “side piece,” as Rebecca says, similar to this one. Our last river cruise in 2019 to the Bordeaux region of France involved a one-hour, full-body massage with a Romanian masseur that changed my life. And his. It was called “International Cover-up.” Click on the title to read it, after you read this one, of course.) COMO, Italy – On Tuesday, September 20, at precisely 9:30 a.m., the hotel fire alarm started blasting. I was sound asleep in a semi-feverish state, nursing a rotten cold, cough and sore throat. Startled,…
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The big sick
Starting at birth, more than half of your body weight is composed of water. The average percentage of body weight that is water remains above 50 percent for most or all of your life, though it does decline over time. I beg to differ. After being sick for two weeks and nearly coughing up both lungs, I’m convinced my body is at least 70 percent water with a mucus chaser. Quite possibly even more. That said – and with all due respect to my dear readers who may have just lost their lunch – we returned on September 22 from our long-awaited/twice postponed seven-day river cruise on the Rhine. Fourteen…
