I hear a lot of the over 60 crowd complain that time has passed by in a flash ... too fast a flash. Saturday night, a little girl who grew up with my youngest was at dinner at my youngest's home. Her 41? year old husband was talking of the same experience thinking of his two boys, running about with two of my younger grandchildren up over our heads "happened just like that" -- as he snapped his unarthritic fingers. Yup! I remember when his wife and my daughter would be walking around in their diapers in our contiguous back yards in the Summer talking like two parrots on a perch ... making not a whole helluvalot of sense but having a great time. Now, his wife talked a mile-a-minute and my daughter looked prematurely addled; she made sense but not at a speed accessible to my slowed down Central Processing Unit or, apparently, to her friend.
Oh and I looked at my calendar: I'm gonna go to a meeting on Thursday and there's this fast talking lady there, as well. I identify -- when in these moments -- with Nipper from the RCA Voice of the Master commercials ... my head cocked to the side and wondering what she is really trying to say. I've considered that maybe she's quietly communicating the sudden appearance of an itch right on her forehead which her Mother taught her wasn't polite to scratch in public. I have -- need I add -- considered other options but I mention this one remembering a time when I actually was bold enough to stop her:
"Nancy, I know this may sound odd
but I keep thinking you have an itch to scratch right above your eyes
and wondered whether -- when you slow down --
the need to scratch that itch may become more urgent."
Need I say: Nancy wasn't amused. I was! And while I cannot say that my intent wasn't to be rude, I can't help but think as I toddle through the Last Quarter of Life that fast-talking Men and Women might not have something they would prefer not to discuss.
What to say: I've been pretty self-satisfied (Mea Maxima, M!) now that M who is 18 months younger than I (a mere child!) but over 65, as well, has begun to show some growing awareness that both her hearing and her processing speed have slowed. I have counted on her for many years to tell me what is being advertised on Television .... just what the Twins are talking to each other about over dinner .... and sundry other details like who a man -- besides his Urologist -- is supposed to contact if he has "an erection lasting more than four hours." I told her that it seems like in this situation I'm only supposed to contact my Doctor while I thought it was like when a guy got his first A.C. Gilbert Erector Set in the Fifties and ran out the front door to tell each and every friend. Ought to be enough to get a guy to get a Facebook page, I thought, and Tweet to tens of thousands.
Stop being silly, Howard.
OK, OK! The truth of the matter is that I feel uncomfortable about not being able to keep up. By the time I've figured out:
the words
what's being advertised
what they're trying to cure
what the evidence is to suggest that it does anything sufficiently to risk
what the side effects are
Gasp! It's just too late.
By that time, a completely new commercial has begun and M still hasn't yet explained to me why, if Xarelto puts you at risk to all kinds of horrible deaths, one should take it or the immuno-suppressant drugs that seemingly put you at risk of a variety of really bad diseases or why the people on the Cialis commercial all end up in matching claw-foot tubs that would require more advanced Barnum-Bailey gymnastics in order to couple than would be required in the back jump-seats of a 1966 Porsche 911 S ...
Damn ... I've counted on her all these years to explain all kinds of stuff ... from who the Goalie was on the 1965 Bruins, to who lets Paul McCartney out of the Nursing Home to lip synch all his great lyrics that I could never quite make out .... like "I wanna hold yer Ham" or "I've got blisters on my blisters." Indeed, I think she once explained to me why the Moody Blues were concerned about their Beagles being washed away.
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Woof! What am I woofing about?! Truth is I'm irked with myself ... Yesterday? Removed a Winter's full of leaves and the mesh cover holding them from our pool, cut down some relatively small trees with trusty old chain-saw, and trimmed some hedges. Now, I'm walking like the proverbial ruptured duck, kvetching in pain with each step and just a little disgruntled at whoever made the decision for an Old Man to do those things. I think it was M! And GuntherDog is disgusted with me.
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