Sunday Smatterings

A typical lodge of the 18th century in Ireland. Many of these still existed when I was growing up over 70 years ago.

I live in a place which has the title "Lodge" in it. This is either a glamorous or depressing word depending on your history with it. If at all. I was raised in Ireland where there were many lodges, most notably those small houses holding a gatekeeper at the end of a long curving driveway leading to a mansion of the landed gentry. The lodge keeper would come out, tip the forelock if you were recognised, or run you off if you weren't. Then there were hunting lodges for the mad fox persecutors with their baying hounds and horns. But I digress.

Daughter lives in a Cove and keeps a journal of "As the Cove Turns" which provides weekly entertainment for us both, so I started my own particular journal.

I decided to do occasional little updates on where I live, in my lodge with 48 other apartments. Yes, I am "lodged" here but am not a "lodger" which implies dismal cabbage-smelling boarding houses in Bournemouth. Amazing how one word opens up so many other interpretations and riffs.


As The Lodge Lurches

My next door neighbour, Grace, 91, just died. I didn't know her well, just to chat with in passing. The Lodge is a small village. Like high school, little cliques, chronic complainers, recluses (me, selective), drunks, flirts, it is a microcosm of the human race. Little battles break out about usage of the two fine and beautiful common rooms, bingo and cards and darts versus piano practice, workshops, scrabble games. I hear about them in passing and don't participate except to ask the most wounded and hurt "And why do you listen to gossip about yourself?" Because they do. Gossip is the currency. I had warned a friend who moved in here to be truly selective as to who she hangs with and she made the mistake of befriending every lost soul and their troubles and now they bang on her door at 9 at night and because she's nosy she opens the door to them and is going mental so comes up here the odd time and pours out her distress at being the target of so many strays and being unable to stop. So now she gets drunk with a few of them every Saturday night. Old age is complex and almost child-like at times. I keep my distance and am happy that way. My boundaries are clear and I am not afraid to enforce them.

I sign off with this:

Sunday-ish Smatterings

I ran into an old friend after I gave a talk last night. He would call me a friend, I know that. And I used to call him a friend until I realized that it was all fairly one-sided. And I also realized that most women I know (myself included) fill in those awkward gaps with a few of our male friends. It's hard to explain this in writing but I'll try. I remember sharing with this guy a few years back about a terrible time I was having with far too many losses in my life and he never responded but immediately plunged into a new job or some-such that his son-in-law now had. And I thought whoa Nelly, off the share list with this guy as I felt immediately worse, as if he didn't give a flying.

So as I was saying I ran into him. And since I saw him last, about a year ago, I have changed. I now ride on a stick (George, my walking cane). I mean if the situation were reversed I would immediately ask him how things were, what's with the stick? But him? No, he just looked at me and gave me a hug and waited for me to ask him how he was, and I didn't and he didn't and then he walked away, as I didn't bail him out of the conversational well. It was most interesting. I'm going to do that again with others who only broadcast at me and never, ever ask how I am or show concern, etc., but launch into some kind of monologue after I ask how they are. Life's too short to put up with self-centredness like this or narcissism or whatever we call it.

In the mail:

A postcard of Adelaide from a blogmate with her own vignettes on the back.

A postcard from my 18 year old friend, now on full scholarship in Halifax (she's brilliant)

and here's a taste:
About 145 light-years in diameter, M13 is composed of several hundred thousand stars, the brightest of which is a red giant, the variable star V11, with an apparent visual magnitude of 11.95. M13 is 22,200-25,000 light-years away from Earth.
If you'd like more read all about it here.

And last but not least, I was hunting for a copy of this book for a long time and it finally arrived from Australia a few days ago. It was written by one of my high school teachers, the first nun in Ireland to gain a PhD. We're talking the fifties here folks.

Sunday Smatterings

The old health thing. Old being relative.

Ears

I find I always keep close caption on now. Well Netflix is the only thing I watch and that is just periodic and I don't watch crap. But even Irish shows and BBC I find it mumble mumble. I had my doc have a look at the old ear cavities and he said nothing blocking. Could it be dialogue is deteriorating. What say you elder peeps? The annoyance factor comes with I like to knit and watch but having to read the CC prevents that. I know. 1st World problems. Though I dislike the term 1st World. To others we could be 3rd. Especially in the way we take care of impoverished elders, etc.

Aches and Pains

I bought a new pillow. A lovely one. I'd read somewhere get a good pillow and back and neck will benefit. And lie as flat as you can. So I took away second pillow and tried this lovely new one and noticed how old my body was behaving in the mornings getting out of bed. Stiff, sore, ugly. After a couple of months I inserted the second pillow underneath new pillow and honestly the improvement is dramatic. I don't know why, it is a mystery. But I am sleeping and getting out of bed like, well, when I was 75.

Also I had this ongoing issue with my left arm, on and off. Terrible pain. I would get a week's relief then back again, small pillow underneath it so I could sleep. I had to tie it to my chest a few times to get some relief during the day with this brace I had. Long story short. I hauled out my keyboard tray, it had always seemed too low so I had stopped using it. I'd moved my keyboard in front of my big screen desktop for efficiency. I started using the tray and bingo, several months now and no more arm problem. Simple solutions to ongoing bodily issues.

Medications.

I get some nasty reactions to some of the meds I'm on. I won't provide a list as it would be far too long. Suffice to say is that I am housebound unexpectedly some days due to cramps and needing access to the bathroom. I've tried over the counter solutions as per doc and sometimes they work but boy I hate when this happens. Last was Friday night and I'd gotten to the parking lot of where I was going and meeting some friends and had to turn the car around and go home and now it's the second day and I feel I'm finally coming out of it. Not that I mind being housebound. I love it actually. Getting caught up with reading, knitting and writing and not worried about my inners performing badly. Internal thunder and lightening as my dad's best friend would put it. And I would wonder what he was talking about. No more.

On the needles (a shawl for a very special niece)

I posted this on FB and it makes me laugh every time I see it.

Sunday Smatterings

These "5 Birds on a Wire" right outside my bedroom window cheered me up no end this morning. I hope you can see them. You might need to enbiggen. And yes, fall is in the air.

I updated my 2019 books read and rated list. Only 49 so far but most have been terrific reads. 2019 Books Read is on the sidebar. Links to all books read and blog listed is here.


And finally, I do love a dance video that is multi-cultural AND age-friendly like this one from the Jiggy group out of Ireland. Swing any kind of move to it.

Sunday Smatterings

Thanks to a post from Elephant's Child on her Sunday Selections, I thought to post some of my knitting art on here. All items have left me as gifts to Ireland or Canada.

This shawl was sent to a dear artist friend in Ontario, it features her art work and her love of stars and 9 wee hearts for her grandchildren, etc. She wears it all the time. She says it always feels like a hug from me.

Close up of the above piece:

A dear friend in Ireland received this:

I covered this bench in Daughter's house.

And this is a blanket I designed and knitted for Grandgirl showing my house and our ferry rides and the lighthouses we love and coffee, we love our dark roast. And books and music. Of course.

Sunday Smatterings

Remember those stories you heard about old women stashing money in odd places?

I've arrived there.

I don't know why I do it.

But view this as a tale from the trenches of old age.

It happens. Eventually.

I received cash for multiple reasons in the last few months and I don't know what to do with it so I hide it. There's quite a bit there (I think - I don't stroke and count it). It just lies there quietly. Waiting for death or dismemberment or fire and flood.

There's an odd comfort to it. I remember Granny digging deep in her underwear drawer and handing me a few notes back in the day with strict instructions to "spend it on myself mind you, not on the childer and not on the husband." I know, she fed me a lot of crazy notions about independence and not having too many children to tie me down. At 32 she faked breast cancer (it was a large painful cyst) to stop the nonsense of adding another twenty babies to her existing six children as her doctor said it would kill her to have more. She lied. But I digress.

Here she is with me on her lap as a baby ( I was her first grandchild and her favourite), my mother on the left of her and my darling Granda at the back. A proud O'Sullivan, his clan originally was from The Beara.

She was originally a Sliney, but word had it very much later on that her mother was the kept woman of the local lord of the manor and her children (or some of them) were in actual fact Abernethys. This bomb was dropped by an aunt at one of the family gatherings.

I need to get my DNA done.

Sunday Smatterings #3

Much on the go. we are finalizing our Support our Seniors press release, it took an inordinate amount of time. Nothing is easy truly and I find that as I age things just take a long time. Elder word searching, yanno? "Disparity" eluded me for days. Economic disparity. Simple but just that ephemerally out of reach thing. dis, diswhat, dismay-no, disregard-no, disrespect-no. And there it pops today.

And then I was invited to perform in the Abortion Monologues. I'll be closing the show as the old woman. It is a powerful script, moving and unapologetic. I am so looking forward to this in August. 3 days before my 76th birthday. A truly fabulous way to celebrate. I love stage work so much and this seems so fitting.

I am inspired by this friend of mine who talks of old women and aging and freedom so succinctly. I really believe I've never been braver and more me than ever before in my life. And as a result I find I genuinely like myself. (Apart from loving myself, an entirely different thing.)

Here she is - the wonderful Mary Walsh.



We have a Canada Day BBQ in our building tomorrow. Some music and socialization. But quiet and mannerly as we Canadians are. None of this impassioned nonsense for us. We're kind of secretive about our pride.

I wish you all, wherever you are, a Happy Canada Day. We made #1 again. (Sorry-not sorry).

Sunday Smatterings (2)

I am grateful for the pieces of work that come my way and supplement my meager pension.I am also grateful for my newly subsidized rent, geared to my total under-the-poverty-line income, but shocked on the application that one of the questions demands of applicants to state the "amount donated as gifts by family members and friends in subsidy." Seriously. I read it three times. Surely this is private?
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My very favourite aunt (I had 8 blood aunts and 2 aunts by marriage) in her heyday. This picture is circa 1940. Her name was Daisy and she was beautiful, vibrant, talented and artistic and married well. I wrote about her descent into alcoholism in two parts here.

Here's another photo, taken around the same time:

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The fog is rolling in again, it's been three days now. Can't tell you how much I love it and the sound of the foghorn warning the ships. This is a picture I took at my old house to give you an idea of how softly it drapes everything.

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Random. I love this photo I took one November sunset with the tracery of the trees and the sleeping boat and the lackadaisical water of winter. This was well before the madness and destruction took place next door and hundreds of trees were felled.

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Feel free to join me in Sunday Smatterings. No rules, just whatever takes your fancy in photos, song, memories, surroundings and link to your blog in comments.

Sunday Smatterings

Grandgirl is here with me. Loving that. She cooked us supper tonight. A delicious pasta with zucchini and chicken and cremini mushrooms and garlic and asiago in a creamy rose sauce. To die. Though admittedly it's an odd feeling her taking care of me. I entertained her while she cooked with stories of my checkered career as a corporate controller in a man's world. The stories have me shaking my head and she is flabbergasted. Sexism and harassment ran rampant then. She now has her masters in economics and is poised, I would think, on the brink of a brilliant career.

This is a picture of me on the right, my friend Rosaleen on the left and my tiny daughter (who is now 52!) on the verge of our descent
to go UNDER Niagara Falls, back in the day. With gear supplied by the tour company. Spring 1969. I think that adventure has long been abandoned. It was scary I remember - the noise alone!

February 2009 I was driving by this church and stopped to take a picture. Somewhere near Portugal Cove South, I believe.

Grandgirl and Ansa Summer 2010, they loved running on the beach together.

And view from my front deck at the old house, also in 2010, I took so many pictures of sunsets there.