I'm slowly un-numbing from another session with the dentist, and this temporary crown may be a little off because it's starting to hurt a bit. I'm nice and mellow, but his office is closed tomorrow, so I want to call today if it's going to give me problems.
UPDATE: Spent another hour and a half getting the temporary corrected, but it feels much better, although the gum is raw. Guess I'll just have to drink milkshakes, hm.
And I've got new contacts that let me see the street signs again. I've got the beginnings of cataracts (how can I be THAT OLD) and the doc has warned me that within the next 3-5 years I'll need surgery, and until then, we'll have prescription changes each year. I'll get new glasses ordered tomorrow. But when he tested my vision and proclaimed, "you can still pass your driver's test with that vision," I had one of those "who is he talking about?" moments. The thought of my not being able to pass a driver's vision test had NEVER occurred to me.
I'll tell ya, getting older has some disadvantages, and the user's manual doesn't tell you about these glitches -- actually, I'm still trying to find my copy, which I'm sure must be around here somewhere. I am increasingly in awe of the 80-90-somethings who keep going and doing, and I am trying to keep things running well enough that I can be one of them eventually. My great aunt Fran just celebrated her 100th birthday, and while she has some problems, she's in reasonably good shape.
The achey-breakeys also get worse as you get older, and things just aren't as flexible as they were, which is my biggest motivation for yoga. My balance is terrible, and that's certainly a state of age. Yoga may help with that too.
It's ironic that as you get wiser and better able to see things as they are, and to care a lot less about what others think -- in short, to become who you really are and be happy with that -- physical stuff starts to deteriorate. Now I know that a lot of that can be staved off with exercise, diet, attitude -- but some of it you just plain don't have any control over: it's in your genes.
And once again, it's back to doing all you can, where you are, with what you've got.
Looking good at 80
We saw Tim Conway and Harvey Korman last week, and while they may be older (Korman is nearly 80 and Conway is 73), they still have the ability to put an audience into stitches with their comedy. There is no show on tv -- for the past many years -- that compares at all with the Carol Burnett Show, Laugh In, and other shows of that era. I don't know if it's because the variety comedy show is too passe' for the demographics, or because there simply isn't a comic who has the versatility to perform week in and week out the way Carol and Harvey and Tim and Vickie Lawrence did.
Geeze. I sound like a geezer in training, don't I ... "they just don't make 'em like they usta, sonnyboy..."
But there's some new tricks left for this old dog
Just a year ago we started a photo club with a core group of nine who met in our living room. Today we number between 20 and 35 regulars at our meetings, which have outgrown most living rooms and are now held at a local agency.
And many of us submitted photos to our district fair which opened today. We had to check out the exhibit, of course, and ran into several fellow photographers in search of the prize winners. I'm thrilled to report that out of our 30 entries, we ribboned on EIGHT, including two blues -- one each. They'll be posted on our photo site.
I've taken photos over the years as part of various jobs, but never like I've been taking them since I got my own camera this past year. We're having a great time, learning new stuff (keeps the mind sharp, we're told), and wooing the creative muses.
A while back I found a bumper sticker that I liked: CRONE.
That's not necessarily considered a complimentary term, but it is the third of three stages in a woman's life -- the first two being maiden and mother. Usually associated with pagan/wiccan traditions, it also has roots in Native American, Norse, Celtic, Egyptian and Greek lore.
This bumper sticker, though, was an acronym.
C= Creative
R=Researcher
O=Of
N=New
E=Experiences.
I like it. I don't mind being a Crone in that respect. May I never stop seeking new experiences and creativity!
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