I MISS SHIFTING

Last October I bought my 2018 bright red Honda Civic with some of the money my father left me when he passed away almost a year ago. I took my time looking & finally purchased the car that I wanted. Nine months later I still love it! There are times when I walk out into the garage & think, "Damn, that's my car!"

While talking to the salesman at the Honda dealer, I asked about stick shifts saying I've always driven one. I might add he sounded impressed that at 68 years old, I still preferred a stick shift. He shook his head & lamented, "I know what you mean. I prefer a stick shift, too, but it is getting harder & harder to find one. I don't think we have a single stick on the lot." Having read that automatics were now more fuel efficient than a stick, I made the decision to buy my first automatic.

My only occasional, very minor regret is that it isn't a stick shift - at least until I'm sitting in a traffic jam pushing the clutch in & out constantly or stopped at the top of a steep hill in San Francisco with a car behind me right on my bumper. That is when I appreciate the fact that I own an automatic

My dad was a car guy & I suppose I inherited some of that from him. From the time he was a teenager he loved his cars. No matter what car he owned, he would pretty much wipe it down daily. My dad's cars were NEVER dirty. Even his job revolved around cars. He was an autoworker with General Motors for 30 years.

In 1963 my dad somehow talked my mom into letting him buy a 1960 MGA from a guy at work who had an accident with it. He took over payments of $300 (total, not per month!) & paid him another $300. The fender was repaired & it was painted a metallic silver blue. It was a cool ass car & I loved it almost as much as my dad!

At 13 years old I would sit in the car in the garage practicing putting the clutch in & shifting through the gears on weekend mornings. When I was 14 my dad often took me to an open field & taught me the fine art of shifting smoothly. It took a long time & fortunately neither of us got whiplash as I jerked that little car hundreds of times. But I finally learned & was pretty damn good at it if I do say so myself.

The day I turned 16, I took my driver's license test in that MG & passed with flying colors! But I was a little pissed off at the examiner who had to find something to mark me off on - he said I stopped over the crosswalk at a stop sign. Hell, I don't think I did & I nailed the parallel parking on the first try.

Every car I have owned over the years was a stick shift. I've always liked the control that you have being able to shift yourself rather than rely on the transmission. There is a real knack to holding a stick shift on a hill by gently using the clutch & gas pedal. And being my dad's car girl I think I impressed a few guys back in the day. The first time I drove my car when Lou was with me 18 years ago, he exclaimed, "Wow! It's a stick!"

Darrin also inherited his grandfather's car gene since he, too, learned to drive on a stick shift (that's all we had!)  He recently told me my dad was instrumental in teaching him the fine art of shifting a car as well. Darrin also took his driver's test on a stick on his 16th birthday & may have even beat me by a point or two on his score. And, yep, he was upset he didn't get a perfect score, too! Like mother, like son.

But, alas, now both Darrin & Lou have had automatics for several years. They would occasionally drive my 6-speed Nissan Versa that I traded in for the Civic just to make sure they could still do it. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone with a stick shift to drive sometime. But I have heard that it's like riding a bike, you never forget. I hope so.

What seems a bit sad to me is that Charley may never learn to drive a stick shift car. I plan to give her my little red Civic when she turns 16. My dad gave Darrin his Isuzu Impulse (a 5-speed) when he turned 16 so I want to continue the tradition. And I'm crossing my fingers that someone Darrin knows will own a stick shift that he can teach Charley to drive - just so she knows what real driving is like.

All this reminiscing came about today as I was driving to the store & thought, "I miss shifting." Sometimes it hardly feels like I'm driving. But, unfortunately, things change in life. And I will always have my memories of driving that super cool, bad ass, silver blue MG as a teen-ager!

PS: My mother & sister took the MG to the Cow Palace to watch a horseshow in the early 1970s. When they came out, it was gone! It had been stolen from a main street where it was parked. They found the license plates (BPU 419, I still remember it) in the trunk of another car a few weeks later. The police surmised that it had probably been sold for parts. Shit! It deserved a better fate.

GUEST BLOGGER

My friend of 25 plus years, Howard Deporte, wrote a delightful, insightful little ditty that I happened to run across on Facebook. His witty style & vivid descriptions were quite enlightening for this female. Howard gave me permission to share his encounter on my blog. Thanks, Howard! His account ran the gamut of making me chuckle quietly to laughing out loud. Without further ado...ENJOY!

Skilled urination, a generational divide.

The spent travelers catapulted out of the plane, exhausted by the flight, eager for bladder relief. Count me as a member of the XY hordes hell bent for the men's room.

I found my urinal, predictably attached to the wall, one of those new waterless types that leaves the depositor pondering, without an answer, how the hell do they do that?

A fellow traveler slipped into the sleeve next to me, a chest-high modesty wall between us. Even though I no longer can pee like a racehorse, I felt like one, next to a competitor, at the gate, ready to race. He's positioned no more than 12 inches to my left.

In the near distance is the theatre of expectant sounds: faucets running, nose blowing as if trying to expel an elephant, hand-blowers sounding like jet engines peeling skin off bone, automatic paper towel dispensers squealing and throwing a tantrum...the usual stuff in a men's bathroom at the airport.

Back to my fellow urinator on my left. Peripheral vision is a dangerous thing. Mine is fully intact. I was facing straight ahead when it was instantly put on alert. Not a "...he's peeking" alert. But more of an OMG, where have I been alert.

With his right hand he was texting, bringing his cell phone within inches of his face. I guess he wanted to make sure he didn't misspell. I can only imagine that his left hand was handling the other tool that was, apparently, effectively and accurately being utilized. This adds a whole new meaning to the adjective "ambidextrous."

Now that's some skill...generational, high-grade, practiced, young people's skill. I can't program a computer. I still don't understand megabytes of data (it sounds like a dinosaur from Jurassic Park) or linking to Wi-Fi or a hotspot. A laptop still amazes me and hand-held computers boggle my puny brain. Admittedly, all the computer-tech stuff is for the kids. But, whether young or leathered like me, we do share common ground. We all have to pee.

Begrudgingly, I have to admit, neither can I do what that guy did ! Show-off.

How does one do that? First, with the left hand, unzip, search, rescue and release, aim and fire, shooting a bullseye, all-the-while, with the right hand, in apparent complete control of all his digits, his thumb tapping away on the miniature keyboard with such speed and grace it reminded me of a Nathan Chen ice skating routine peppered with quads...how does he do that? Phenomenal, breath-taking, envious talent!

As for me, well, let it be said, I have no skills. I need both hands, complete concentration, total focus and good luck, lots of it. I have to watch the process from beginning to end, lest I step back from the urinal unawares of the rainstorm that curiously came out of nowhere attacking my pant legs and shoes.

One thing is for certain, a cell phone in my hand during elimination would end up at the bottom of the trough. I would immediately be horrified and reflexively try to retrieve it from certain death by urine and forget that my process of voiding was still engaged, until it was too late and I'd need a full change of clothes...the redeeming advantage of being in an airport, suitcase in hand.

Oh, to be young again. Imagine. One day the magic man to my left will ponder the evolving skills of the next generation using the urinal at the airport...a cell phone in one hand texting of course, conducting a Google search which is being projected on the forearm connected to the other hand, all apart of an international conference call and verbal instructions to Alexa to manage the nimble but no-nonsense robotic urinal. Happy times ahead!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

First of all, let me wish every woman out there who has given birth to a child or raised a child or even mothered a dog, cat, horse or any other furry friend a VERY, VERY Happy Mother's Day! I realize this will be a belated wish but this post didn't come together until late this evening as I was reflecting on my Mother's Day weekend with a smile.

I am blessed with an amazing son who is not only a wonderful person but a fantastic father. While I feel completely loved & appreciated all year, Darrin has been doing special things to celebrate Mother's Day with me for as long as I can remember. I'm pretty sure the big events all started with a John Mellencamp concert at the Shoreline Amphitheater in 1997 that Darrin treated me to. Several other concerts over the years included Mark Lindsay (my teenage crush), Greg Kihn, Eric Burdon (of The Animals fame) & Lynyrd Skynyrd.

We have wine tasted a few times, hiked Mt. Diablo with incredible wildflowers, journeyed to the northern California coast several times & just enjoyed each other's company over the years. To any parent that is the best gift of all, your child's time. We have polished off several cases of wine over the years as we talked into the wee hours of the morning. Amazingly, we never seem to run out of things to talk about. And I'm totally convinced that we could solve every one of the worlds problems if people would just listen to us!

This Mother's Day was no different. We made plans earlier in the week for Darrin to come up Saturday & spend the night. I suggested we have lunch & hit a couple wineries then just enjoy the time together. So, we did just that. I'm sure that most mothers out there totally get it when I say I feel truly blessed to be Darrin's mom & Charley's Gaga.

He bought me lunch & a couple bottles of wine, but what totally turns on the waterworks are the heartfelt personal sentiments in his card, Charley's card & Lou's card. Those of you who know me understand that I am emotional. I cry at Ellen Degeneres giving money to deserving guests or any book or movie that is even remotely sentimental. Hell, I cry at commercials all the time. That one currently airing where the baby foal has gotten over the railing onto the roadway while the mother horse paces frantically on the other side as the man stops his truck & lifts the foal back over the fence gets me every time.

After another long chat session after breakfast, Darrin headed home early this afternoon. What was particularly moving to me was his Facebook post this evening along with this photo. He rarely posts anything on Facebook which made it even more special. Yep, I raised a real sweetheart!

Mother’s Day Weekend Checklist:
☑ Brunch
☑ Wine tasting
☑ Giants game on TV
☑ Sharks game on TV
☑ NASCAR race on TV
☑ Lots of basketball talk (only because there wasn’t a Warriors game on)
That’s my mom, and I love her!

And the icing on the Mother's Day cake was a 20 minute Facetime talk with my beautiful granddaughter, Charley. I definitely had to thank her for her personalized card. There just aren't enough adjectives in the dictionary to describe how wonderful I felt surrounded by the love of the people who I love the most!

Happy Mother's Day!

THE PETRIFIED CHEESE STICK

First of all, I don't mean "petrified" as in scared to death, but rather "petrified" as in turned to stone. This is an interesting story that our family has experienced & wondered about over the past nine or ten months. I'm sure you must be thinking I'm just a half bubble off of plumb, & that may be true, but let me back up a little & explain.

For as long as I can remember Charley has loved cheese sticks. You know, what I mean if you've been around kids, those round cylinders of mozzarella string cheese. They are about 4 to 5 inches long & 1/2 to 3/4 inch across. Back when she was two or three, I recall someone asking Charley what her favorite food was - she immediately & enthusiastically replied, "Cheese sticks!"

Last summer on one of Darrin & Charley's trips up here to visit us, Charley was hungry. Being the prepared dad, Darrin handed her a cheese stick. Soon after Charley was distracted with something either along the road or inside the car. After several minutes, she said, "Where is my cheese stick?" She looked all over for it with no luck. Not on the floor. Not on the seat. Not on her lap or with the ghouls she brought in the car.

Darrin asked if she had eaten it already. Charley insisted she hadn't eaten it but she did indeed have it at one point. Darrin agreed that he had given it to her. We know that Charley would not have forgotten that she ate it &, of course, she was still hungry. Darrin gave her another cheese stick which she did eat right away this time.

Upon their arrival in Sacramento, I was informed that there is a missing cheese stick that "just disappeared" in the car according to Charley as she raised her hands in the air for emphasis. Darrin looked everywhere in the car to no avail. He reached under the seats, felt in the crack between the seat & the back, even moved the car seat - but no cheese stick was discovered.

Since then the story of the missing cheese stick was related to other friends & family members. Several times in conversation over the past months the mystery of the disappearing cheese stick has been discussed. How it just vanished has continued to stump us.

Fast forward to this past Saturday. Darrin drove up to spend the weekend with us. While he was here, he decided to vacuum his car really well since our garage makes that task a little easier. He couldn't remember the last time he had worked on cleaning the inside of his car. I can totally relate to that, like mother, like son. I talked with him outside for awhile then went back in the house.

A few minutes later, Darrin comes in & rather excitedly says, "Guess what I found!?", holding up a yellowish colored stick. "Omigod!!! You found the cheese stick!", I exclaimed. Apparently, it had fallen under the front seat & rolled up against the frame work where he couldn't see it or feel it until the seat was moved all the way back. Yay!!! The mystery was solved!

But here is the really crazy & somewhat unnerving part. The cheese stick was literally hard as a rock! It definitely appeared to be petrified, honestly, like wood in the petrified forest. It wasn't slimy or moldy or gooey or anything weird. It looked almost like a dog bone. Both of us were a bit flabbergasted that the cheese stick had hardened into something that was not about to break but still retained the approximate shape & size of the original. Bizarre!

We Face Timed Charley saying we had something funny to tell her. Darrin said to her, "Do you remember last year what was lost in the car? Charley immediately shouted, "The cheese stick!" Darrin held it up & said, "I found it! It was under the front seat where I couldn't see it before." Then we banged it on the table to show her how hard it was. She was really surprised, too, & excited that the cheese stick was finally found even if it was now "petrified". Darrin saved it to show her when we see her later this month.

Last night I was relating the petrified cheese stick story to my sister. She, too, became slightly excited & said she remembered hearing about the cheese stick that just disappeared. I'm pretty sure our family just might be a little wacko but I love us all just the way we are! Not to mention that we are the proud owners of a fossilized cheese stick. How many people can say that?

ADULT ORPHANS

It has been six months since my father passed away. My mother died almost twenty-eight years ago. There is a strange phenomenon that comes about when your second parent is gone - you become an adult orphan.  In my case a 68 year old orphan.

It almost seems silly at first thought to call yourself an orphan when you are in your fifties or sixties or even seventies. When I first thought of this concept, I did an online search for "adult orphans". Low & behold, there is a ton of stuff written about experiencing life as an orphaned senior. I learned that I was far from alone in feeling like a grown up, or even elderly, orphan.

Like me, many people have had the responsibility of caring for our aging parent. I spent over thirteen years as a caregiver for my dad. I talked to him daily, drove him to medical appointments, ran his household, managed his finances, coordinated caregivers & spent countless hours doing numerous chores or making decisions for him. I learned far more about wound care, physical therapy & other necessary medical procedures than I ever dreamed possible.

Fortunately, at the end my father didn't suffer. We had visited him that morning & he was his normal self. That afternoon he apparently had a massive heart attack. Paramedics got his heart beating & inserted a breathing tube allowing us to make it to the hospital. Paperwork was in order & his wishes were honored. He never regained consciousness & when the breathing tube was removed, he passed quickly with me holding his hand in the ER just a couple months before his 90th birthday.

An article I discovered online summed up some of my feelings pretty well: "Some of us expect to feel relieved when we no longer have these responsibilities & are blindsided by the depth of the empty hole left by the passing of our final parent. For others, the shock comes from feeling like an orphan. Realizing that the last person who loved you from the day you were born is gone, & with it, the generational layer between you & your own death can be overwhelming." I won't say I was blindsided or overwhelmed but I definitely had similar thoughts.

Another website compared losing the role of caretaker to that of an empty nester when your children left home. Suddenly, you were no longer responsible & involved in the day-to-day lives of someone extremely close to you. It can be quite unnerving to realize that as an adult orphan not only have you lost your role as someone's child, but you are now next in line to leave this earth.

As life would have it, one of my best friends who is three years older than me, lost her mother at age 99 just a few months after I lost my dad. She is my friend of 45 plus years who moved to Australia over 20 years ago. We have spent many hours on the phone discussing this crazy concept of being 68 & 71 year old orphans. But both of us have felt disjointed many times since losing our second parent. At times we were caught by surprise by these feelings.

When I mentioned these thoughts to another friend (also in her early 70s) who lost her second parent many years ago, she commented that due to Alzheimer's, she had become an adult orphan long before her mother passed away. If any of you have similar adult orphan thoughts or feelings, I'd love to hear them.

I'm still kind of at loose ends & wondering what life after prolonged caregiving will be like. Of course, my son & granddaughter take center stage in my life but my major daily responsibility is gone. I don't take my cell phone upstairs every night anymore. I'm not awakened at 7 AM by a phone call from a caregiver. I can go on vacation without worrying about my father. An 800 number call doesn't scare me (it may have been Life Alert calling that my father fell, again).

For now I'm enjoying doing not much of anything. Watching "Ellen" or "Rachel Ray" is my guilty pleasure in the afternoon. Going to lunch with friends is just a fun afternoon rather than a respite from caregiving. Sure, I miss my dad. I still think, I have to tell Dad something I see or recall. I wish he was here to watch sports with like we always did. And, he was my best wine drinking companion a couple afternoons a week. I'll always miss that. Such is the life of an adult orphan.

MYSTERY DRUGS

A couple months ago I made a puzzling discovery in my medicine cabinet. Sitting on one of the shelves, kind of hidden by a few other things, was a huge bottle of bright orange ibuprofen tablets. I pulled it out & wondered how it got there. Upon further inspection it was Kirkland brand & there were 500 pills in it.

Those of you who shop at Costco probably recognize Kirkland as one of their store brands. I realize that isn't anything unusual except that I don't belong to Costco & don't shop at Costco, except on rare occasions with my sister who has a Costco card. I had no recollection of her giving me a giant bottle of ibuprofen but I was thinking that must have been the case since I don't know anyone else who shops at Costco. And certainly no one who would share that with me. The bottle had not been opened & had an expiration date just a few months away.

That reminds me, I want to share the results of a study regarding medication expiration dates that I ran across a few years ago. An independent company did testing on prescription & over-the-counter medications potency after their expiration dates. It found that virtually all medications were still effective two years beyond their expiration dates. And some were still effective up to 15 years after the expiration date! Even if you took a long expired medication it would not hurt you but simply wouldn't be as effective. I was amazed & figured I could safely use things up to two years past the printed dates.

But, I digress, back to my mystery bottle of medication. Since my hip surgery & my constant foot pain issues, I do use ibuprofen fairly regularly. Given the fact that my current bottle of 100 was good for at least another year & a half, I decided to open my newly found enormous container of 500 & use them first since their expiration date was April 2019.

A few days ago, I finally remembered to ask my sister if she gave them to me. Nope, she didn't give them to me. I described the Kirkland name & really big bottle of 500 orange pills but she said she hadn't bought those. However, she had seen them & knew what I was talking about. She added that they come in a sealed pack of TWO bottles. Of course, they do, it's Costco. Everyone needs 1000 ibuprofen tablets.

So, they didn't come from my sister. I decided to ask Lou next thinking maybe someone had given them to his father who can't take ibuprofen & he brought them home. I showed him the bottle saying I found it in the medicine cabinet. He shook his head & said, no, he hadn't seen them before. The mystery intensified. Where did they come from??? They didn't just materialize inside our cupboard, did they? I was at a loss to explain their appearance.

It was after my dad died that I found them & briefly wondered if I'd found them at his house when we cleaned it out. But he couldn't take ibuprofen due to using blood thinners & all of his caregivers knew that. No one would have brought them to him if they even shopped at Costco which I don't think they did. And I may be a little crazy once in awhile but I certainly did not bring home that huge bottle, put it in the medicine chest then wipe it from my memory with no recollection of doing it.

To this day I have no idea how we came to have a gigantic unopened bottle of Kirkland ibuprofen in our downstairs bathroom. If they were just conjured up by some unknown super natural phenomenon, I guess that's okay but why couldn't it have been something a little more valuable or exciting than pain relievers? How about a bag of gold coins? Or what about a box of diamonds? Hell, maybe even a couple of tickets to a ball game?

Since I have no clue where they came from or any more thoughts of who to ask, I am resigned to the fact that their presence may well remain a mystery. But, if by chance, any of you gifted me with all this ibuprofen, please let me know. That will solve the mystery of where the ibuprofen came from but will bring a new question - where has my brain gone?

AN EVENTFUL YEAR

As I sat down at my computer to share thoughts of 2018, I couldn't think of a simple adjective that would adequately describe this past year. To say this year was a roller coaster ride of really high "ups" & really low "downs" would be a total understatement. As I searched for a title adjective I considered "exceptional", "unforeseen", "extraordinary", "unpredictable" to name a few & finally settled on "eventful".

"Eventful" seemed to convey that some damn big things occurred both good & bad. One thing I know for sure is that I will remember this past year for everything that happened which affected & changed my life in so many ways. Here are the highlights (& lowlights) of my 2018 "ups" & "downs":

The 2018 roller coaster started up the first big hill with a huge trip that literally took us around the world. We learned of a 14 day cruise that sounded intriguing. Great deal after great deal fell into place & we had a 21 day trip booked to Singapore, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Oman & Dubai with an extension to Delhi, Agra & The Taj Mahal in April. A definite "up"!

My hip had been giving me grief since October 2017. I was diagnosed with bursitis & a hip flexor muscle strain before being sent to physical therapy & a specialist. Exactly two days after making final payment on our "trip of a lifetime", I was told I needed a total hip replacement! Shit! Lou agreed to push me around as many places as possible in his dad's small transport wheelchair which we took on our trip. I postponed the surgery knowing I wouldn't do any more damage. A discouraging "down"!

Three days into our trip on our Thailand excursion I was able to check my phone messages since both Lou & I had elderly fathers at home. Never in a million years did I expect to find out that my son was in surgery as I read the message. He had an accident while on vacation necessitating hip reduction surgery. That was one of the most helpless & traumatic events of my life knowing my son was in surgery half way around the world. His girlfriend & his dad were with him, thank God. And someone gave him their phone to call me from recovery which had me in tears on the tender but I was so thankful to hear his voice. A big "down" followed by a relieved "up"!

He was doing great & we detoured to see him on our way home from SFO. We did a 9 day trip to Texas in May that we had planned before the India one. I just limped around & did what I could do. We spent lots of fun pool time with Charley during the summer. I had scheduled my surgery for the week after Charley left. I wasn't missing any time with my granddaughter to recuperate. All "ups"!

On July 17, I had the first major surgery of my 68 year life. It all went well but I have since learned that it takes 4-6 months to heal physically & a full year to feel "normal" again. I'm getting there but it is difficult not to get impatient. Kind of a frightening "down" but ultimately an "up"!

The lowest point of my roller coaster year occurred 11 days after my surgery. My 89 year old father had a massive heart attack at home. The paramedics got his heart beating & put him on a ventilator to keep him alive until we got to the hospital. I was able to hold his hand & talk to him but with no response. After about 15 minutes we removed the breathing tube & 10 minutes later he passed. An unbelievable "down"!

Although my dad was "just an auto worker" his whole life, he managed to leave a substantial amount of money to my sister & me. She bought a pickup truck & I bought a 2018 red Honda Civic. We both paid cash for our cars (with plenty left over!) for the first time in our lives thanks to our dad. It was bittersweet not to be able to tell him & show him our new cars which he would have loved. Both "up" & "down"!

I used some of my inheritance to treat Darrin, Charley & Lou to a Disneyland trip over Thanksgiving vacation. That was a wonderful experience that I will cherish forever. Since Lou has treated me to travel for the last few years, I splurged on a fancy cruise to Cuba for him & me just a few weeks ago. Another wonderful "up"!

My son, my sister, my partner & my granddaughter have been my rocks through this crazy year. I have several friends who have been there for me for years & years & years. Their support & love were crucial to me. I couldn't have made it through without the countless, & I do mean countless, hours of phone conversations. Plus I reconnected with an "old friend" who I met as a teenager & she has become a great "new friend" in my life. All amazing "ups"!

This eventful year has involved some of our most amazing travel destinations, incredible time with my son & granddaughter, scary health issues for my son & me - & the death of my father who I had been caring for over the past 13 years. I'm really hoping that 2019 will be just a little less eventful - at least the "downs".

Have a safe & Happy New Year!