Happy Birthday to ME!!

Truthfully, my birthday was a couple of weeks ago but I have a little ceramic cake that I light a tea light in for the entire month of August (the cake says, "August" so I'm entitled). It is a pretty little 3-tiered cake. Cream and chartreuse and pink and periwinkle. With a lavender candle sticking out on top. The halcyon candlelight flickers through the little windows and doors of the cake. It's like something out of Mother Goose. A little family should be living inside.

My real birthday cake was entirely different. And edible.

I turned 46 on August 9th and it was rather uneventful. Birthdays never freaked me out much. Mainly, because I am notoriously bad at keeping track of them. In my 30s, I had myself turning 40 twice. Finally, my mother, in exasperation, said, "You know when you were born. Do the math!" 

I don't make that carefree mistake anymore. I look my age and - worse! - I feel it. 

It all started (ironically) with 40. Over night I could not read the fine print. Truly! Over night! And the aches? I am rarely without them. I make little grunting noises when I sit down. All I need is a babushka and opaque stocking rolled down over my knees and my picture of decline would be complete.

My concentration is shot to hell. I used to have laser-like focus. Now it seems as if nothing is really worth my attention. This is not a conscious, arrogant judgment on my part. This is a decision that has been made by a heretofore unknown part of my brain that has hijacked my comfortably familiar neurons and synapses and has them all huddled in some back corner near my ancient brain stem while it calls all of the shots. 

When my boss discussed a new task he wanted me to do, I would unfailingly be thinking of something else. I'd like to say I was distracted by something weighty, like the bank in the process of foreclosing on my home or my husband (nonexistent) having an affair with my sister, but I was much more likely to be wondering if the trails were muddy enough to require hiking boots or if I could get away with wearing some lighter shoe. 

There is nothing quite like coming out of a reverie as you are leaving your boss' office with the dawning horror that you have no clue as to what took place while in it.

So, turning 46 is not the high point of my year but, since it is no worse than turning 45, I am mostly okay with it.

Instead of dwelling on my decline, I am choosing to focus on the second half of my life (assuming I live until 90) and what I want to do with it. The new ADD is a bit of a stumbling block - that and the unbelievable lassitude that washes over me at the most unexpected times. All of this makes things are a bit untidy but I am hopeful. I have always needed a fire lit under me. That inclination, coupled with an exceptionally high threshold for deprivation, has always made me a late-boomer. It's something that causes my family no pause whatsoever but sends my friends up a tree with anxiety and bewilderment.

I am streamlining my focus: 1. Continue to exercise (lose weight, for god's sake!!); 2. Clean the house; 3. Build up a dog-walking business.

This should be doable. 

Right? 

The Unheralded Return

After a 4 year hiatus, I have returned. 

I would love to be able to recount tales of adventures and weight loss but, alas, that is not to be. I have, however, been laid off. So, this time is ripe with the possibility of new beginnings. 

I am weary. Weary of the rat race. So, I am withdrawing from it a little. Dabbling in a new dog-walking venture in the hopes that it will blossom into a second - albeit, unlucrative - career. 


Andy - you remember Andy, don't you? He is 6 and slowing down some but still game for running 4 miles a day.

I have begun grooming Andy myself - something he prefers since he gets to lie on my lap for the duration. I cannot say that I enjoy it - it is back-breaking labor - but, I am free to pretty him up as I desire.

I finally scalped him. The summer heat was too brutal. He loved it! Zoom, zoom, zoom!




Sheilagh, my lovely, lovely girl, died this January and broke my heart. She was 18 years old. I think she lived longer than she wanted just because she knew that I needed her so. She was a born nurturer to the last. What do you say about someone who has been with you for 18 years and only got better with age? And I wonder.....how do I measure up? Am I improving with age? Are things that are fine and good in me crystallizing? Concentrating? Or are they sinking like sediment to the bottom? We have a choice. Animals can show us how to age with grace if we can be open to the lesson.





I have begun painting. My very first painting  was - you guessed it - of Andy. I am currently working on a landscape that was derailed when I threw out my back from too much road biking. I love biking past all of the the farmland in my neighborhood. It's as if I have set my spirit free.

I continue in my book club and, on my own, am reading The Road to Coorain by Jill Conway and A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson - while riding my stationary bike (I'm not ready for road biking, yet). I picked both books for their paperback comfort while pedaling. 

The Road to Coorain  is an autobiography of the first woman president of Smith college and her life growing up in the Australia bush. Very well written. 

A Walk in the Woods is a hysterical travelogue of the author's experience walking the Appalachian Trial. Do DO read it if you get the chance!

All in all, things are contemplative here. I am growing tomatoes and red peppers. Cooking curries and baking brownies. Hiking and biking and writing and painting. Unfortunately, none of this pays the bills, so I'm trying to drum up some pups to walk.

My very first gig is with the most adorable 11 week old wheaten-poodle mix named Chloe. Such a doll- baby. And right down the street from me. She and Andy will be the best of friends, I'm sure.

If this prose sounds sluggish, it is because I am sluggish today. Every so often I wake up a slug. It is the oddest thing, really. Like something out of Kafka. Andy tolerates this with forbearance - and the knowledge that he will have a day without running. It tends to coincide with good weather, too, which seems monstrously unfair. I push through rain and sleet and blazing, scalding sun, only to curl up into a ball when the weather is spectacularly beautiful. I unfurl myself only to eat. I hate to tell you all that I've eaten today. An awe-inspiring carb load. The mother of all carb loads.

The scales will be my arch nemesis for the rest of the week and tomorrow will be frightfully busy as I rush to do Thursday's errands along with today's.

Winter Blahs

I woke up this morning to fog! What an insult. And it wasn't the dense, lovely, romantic Heathcliff on the moors type. No this was wimpy and wispy - like someone nearby was burning a leaf pile. All of the beautiful snow was virtually gone. We keep getting hit with a foot of snow at a time only to have it disappear within a week. Ironically, I kept dreaming about snow last night. Not visceral dreams; it was more like watching a technicolor slide show of winter scenes. So many blue shadows, glaring white stretches, and trees laden with snow. The reality was me strapping on my Yaks and taking the dog for his run in the slush, ice, fog, rain. The I hit Sam's Club for some staples and navigated around family clusters eating the samples. What is that about? Is this their dinner out? That sums up my day. Unfortunately, my mood is dictated, to an absurd degree, by the weather. The fact that I've been living on 5 hours sleep a night for the past week doesn't help (but, that's a story for another day). New Year's Resolution(s): None (big surprise, seeing that it is January THE SIXTH). I've nothing against them - it's just, where on earth would I start? So much to fix, so little time. Can you imagine how daunting the list would be? 1. Lose weight 2. Exercise 3. Eat right These first three are pretty much the de rigeur of resolutions, aren't they? I mean, you could be planning to end world hunger, but you had better knock off those 10 pounds, first. Then the list gets a bit tricky. We are supposed to get a bit more introspective at this point. 4. Be kind, patient, less critical (i.e. do not make snide comments about Sam's Club grazers) This resolution is usually the first to fall to the wayside - and it usually happens without our awareness. Substantive change is difficult. So many of our interactions are of the ingrained, knee-jerk variety. It takes intense focus, will and insight to overcome them. 5. Develop focus, will and insight. And the list goes on. Now, I fully recognize that lambasting this cultural tradition is really just a transparent attempt to shirk all of the work that needs to be done and I am not the type to make virtues out of my vices, nor to attack those brave souls who dare to enter that hazardous terrain of self-improvement so that they will not cast a critical and assessing eye on me and wonder to themselves what changes I will be making. I'm just weak, lazy and lacking in initiative. Now, If I wake up tomorrow to beautiful blue skies I may rethink this whole issue.

Snow in Michigan

Twice now I've awakened to a world blanketed in white. Such loveliness. It amazes me how so many born-and-bred Michiganders HATE the snow. You would think that several decades of it would have softened them a little. The only drawback is reining in my 76 year-old mother (who lives with me). Our morning snow-days begin with my begging her to wait for me to have my coffee and cereal before shovelling. She is heartless. She typically gets a 45 minute jump on me. I shudder to imagine what the neighbors think. Last time she got 2 offers for help.