I’m Ready To Roll, Deal With It!

I’ve been released! Essentially this means my two weeks of post-op recuperation requiring me to stay house bound is over. On Wednesday 2 December I was sprung. I can tell you it was wonderful. It was the first time I had driven further that the local grocer a couple of miles away. I actually drove into real Tucson traffic and it was a trip!

This surgery is one of those negative check marks when looking at hiring an older individual. We are considered a feeble risk and we will drive up the cost of premiums in the company insurance policy. No matter that we are doing our best to be healthy, we are loyal and give our best.  I’ve lost weight, am eating carefully, and sleeping better that I have in a while, yet I’m seen as a risk to the millennials in charge. To the company we create issues in their minds.

This is what it feels like to be profiled. It has nothing to do with who I am, who I really am as a human. It has to do with perception. To the new college graduates and the millennials in charge I am the age of parents or grandparents and we are useful only for telling stories about the past and keeping traditions going. We make them uncomfortable.

Well I have a few stories to tell.

• How about the first time I did speed at a concert that was also my first laser light show-Steve Miller and left there to go to Jekyll and Hyde’s, a gay bar for dancing.
• Or the time I was at the Boston Concert and kept dropping the ball of hashish from the pipe bowl every time I tried to light it.
• What about  my friends and I hitchhiking up and down Speedway Blvd in Tucson on a Saturday night, leaving my car at Pinecrest Center?
• Or the time my buddie Eddie gave me a gram of coke for my birthday, and in gratitude I shared the lid of weed I had.

I got memories for you!

Hippie 70’s Nancy

Experience is what teaches lessons – all of the lessons – good and bad.

I have years of administrative office experience. I worked for doctors, realtors, insurance brokers, scientists, retail buyers…you get my idea. With plenty to offer and the time to offer it, why doesn’t that equal a desire for these skills?

Want more? I throw a good party, I’ll keep a confidence, and I’ll be there for happy hour. I can talk about football or laboratory sterile technique. I can kill it at karaoke too!

Now back to my writing. My female lead is about to get busted by her son coming back from a hot date with her new man.

Cheers!

-N

My New Dietary Plan

The discovery of the medical condition that led to my right carotid endarterectomy surgery still exists in my body. But I can adapt and adjust, to arrest it’s progress and hopefully change the status going forward. I joyfully say I am at the end of post surgery two weeks of being careful and taking it easy and tomorrow I can get back into life…full speed.

At the bottom of this post are shots of my incision over the course of two weeks.

As a self professed ocean lover 💙 when I saw the Mediterranean Diet it made sense. Since its time to adjust my eating style and exercise efforts, pretending to be living in Greece or Italy while I do it makes perfect sense. 🏃‍♀️🚶‍♀️🚴‍♀️

So here are the diet deets, with the adjustments based on my medical needs.

• The foundation of this plan is exercise, daily whether ten minutes or an hour, just move.
• The next level is plant based. Fruits and vegetables – lots of them raw or cooked. I have a sweet tooth so snacking on fruit is starting to feed that. I especially love grapes, apples, mango and pineapple. We have a dehydrator, and so have started making our own dried snacks. Another good snacking item are nuts. I especially love almonds. However due to my Carotid Artery Disease (CAD) it is necessary that I avoid salt. Not completely, I can use some in cooking, but reducing it, so no salted nuts. I’m incorporating beans, legumes, couscous, Quinoa, and bran into my cooking. I am changing out butter for extra virgin olive oil and it works quite well.
• The next level is where I get my protein – and my focus is fish, chicken, turkey and not much super lean meat. Again the CAD recommends no meat like beef and pork. I also add some dairy like eggs and fat free cottage cheese. I check every thing for cholesterol, fat, and sodium numbers.
• The top level is what I call my treats like alcohol, baked goods, etc. Those are extremely limited in consumption for me.

So now I start watching for changes in my systems, and I have already noticed some. I feel different. My scar is healing but has a ways to go, and my energy is improving. As I get familiar with some recipes I will share those with you.

I am following the works of Dr. Kim Foster and Dr. Amy Riolo for guidance and information.

An exciting side note, I am doing a wedding dress alteration! It such a wonderful thing to know I can do something I love like sewing and actually get paid. How cool is that?!?!

Cheers!

-N

SCAR 01 Dec 2020

SCAR 19 Nov 2020

SCAR 27 Nov 2020

What is age?

I don’t like my chronological age. It doesn’t remotely reflect how I see myself. It doesn’t reflect my interests in most cases. It is, however, unavoidable.

In my varied work life spending the work day with many different ages of coworkers I found I gravitate toward younger individuals. I appreciate their energy, curiosity, enthusiasm, perspective, and enjoyment of life. Working with them is fun, and I find I model my actions to theirs. The conversations are about what’s the next thing to experience. The new places to eat, the great places to go to listen to music, the crazy friends who entertain them with adventures they have, the trips they take and places they go for fun.

Conversely, when working around older humans the conversations are about doctor appointments, prescriptions, parents failing health, avoiding places new that might risk injury, paying bills, worry for adult children (the ones who are having all that fun) and fear of what is around the corner. I gravitated to the younger employees (if there were any) and escaped as soon as I could for those situations.

Can I tell you how easy it is to fall into the old foggy mentality. Instead I dream of beaches, music, boats, diving, dancing.

The past several months have been startling to me by the varied aspects of my life as aging grounds against my self perception. Literally – doctors, prescriptions, tests, treatments, looking at my reflection and thinking of how she can be that fun, silly, carefree person she was?

I’ve never wanted to get old. Each age milestone didn’t make me excited for what was next but gave me pause for what I had lost. It’s been that way my whole life. I didn’t even like my children getting older.

I see elderly people and say to myself, “I don’t want to be them,” and still I am creeping up, crawling up, flowing up, rushing up, running up on that.

So, as I get ready for another test today at 1 pm I try to push away the regret for youth lost, and think this will give the doctors the information to keep me going another good twenty years.

My Happy Place – Salt Water

Cheers!

-N

The words are back

I’m very glad to share I have been writing again!

I sat down, opened the file, read what I had already written – I’ve done this before with no results – and when I reached the end of the text another line came to my mind, then another, and before I knew it 1000 words were knocked out and my mind was flying. It was bliss. I’ve since added more words, plotted the next couple of chapters, and fleshed out an important character I didn’t yet know very well.

This fed the creativity in my brain for the cosplay costume I am making. I was becoming so stale it was disconcerting and depressing. I can’t express how great it feels to get things moving once more. One thing I did discover is I need to ignore the distractions, specifically a person whose negativity is counterproductive. I shut the door, blast the Netflix or music and get busy writing and sewing. Woo hoo, it’s fun.

I spent four days in the LA area with my sister, Mary, and I think that started the brain cleansing. The laughing we did felt great. A good, long, loud belly laugh does wonders for the perspective. We spent hours at the ocean, we cruised down one canyon and up another listening to great music, singing, and remembering. Went to a wine tasting, had breakfast at Weiler’s-twice-and spent plenty of time with Melissa and Charlie (love kissing that boy.) Got a little too much sun. I felt young, bright, free, and adventurous. It was a perfect respite from the tension that flows from the negative person in my house.

I would have liked to have Chuck along but this was a girls trip. Next time!

The nights are cooling off, finally! The days are still too close to hell fire for me, but thank goodness for refrigeration and lots of fans to keep the air moving. My nephew is holding his own in Army basic, hubby is busy with his leather working, my kids are busy productive humans, and life is going on.

“There’s no such thing as too much magic, pixie dust, or fun.”

Cheers!

-N

Birthday hug for me

My actual birthday is this Monday, but since hubby has to work 1pm-11pm that day he gave me my birthday gift last night. He nailed it! That man knows me well.

Started my birthday celebration at Gentle Ben’s. A college landmark just off the University of Arizona campus, although businesses on University Blvd are considered part of the campus thanks to swarms of students filling the area, it was fun to be surrounded by the energy of youth on a Friday night.

 

We had a wonderful server who enjoyed our celebration as much as we did. She laughed with us and took good care of us. Wine for me, beer for him and a yummy appetizer.

We listened to the pep rally for the UA Wildcats football game occurring across the street, and people watched the herds of humans moving up and down, in and out.

Superb!

The next part of the evening was my actual gift. Tickets to the Broadway touring company presentation of Cabaret! It was fantastic. We had good seats in Centennial Hall, were feeling relaxed thanks to the drinks, and sat back to let the story and song flow over us.

If you don’t know the story, and the play is the best way to experience it, there are some hilarious scenes, some heartwarming and romantic scenes, and scenes that will shock and disturb you, with the story set in pre-WWII Berlin.

The performers did a great job, the choreography was spot on, the musicians immersed themselves in the cast, and the set was dramatic and brilliant.

I liked it! Thanks Chuck XOXOXO.

On our way back to our car we walked past my absolute favorite building on the UA campus. Herring Hall. Built in 1903 it has a strong presence of old academia, and if you can have a crush on a building, well, I have had a crush on this one for 30 years!

I love touching and caressing the old red brick-waiting for them to tell me stories, looking in the darkened windows for reputed ghosts, and hugging the massive columns.

It was the first time I had my photo taken with it and I know it was happy to be remembered.

I wanted to linger and walk around it, running my hands across, capturing the feeling of a small, old, but majestic academic structure that is being crowded out by the new and architecturally splendid edifices spilling out all over campus.

 

New is good and fine, more attractive to youth, and technologically adapted to the future, but the beauty of this one shouldn’t ever be overshadowed or dismissed.

It has served the University of Arizona well and continues to offer it’s space to the needs of generations to come.

I said good night to my building, finishing off my wonderful birthday celebration.

Do you have a special place, space or building that touches your heart and mind? I would love to hear about it.

Cheers!

-N

 

Feeling crazy young

I just had the absolute best time. My nephew is painting my house, he’s a pro. Yeah he’s getting paid. Anyway, his daughter, my so extremely cool niece Trinity and her buddy Casey came by. They live just down the road so the girls walked over to ride back with my nephew Kris.

I turned on the music (of course) and I began doing my aunt duty by giving them lessons in wine tasting, mind you no one underage drank anything, but I showed them the finer point of wine tasting. Using a Malibu red blend I demonstrated what to do and what to look for. They took to it like the pros I expected from them. Trinity is related to me, and Casey is her friend so is awesome by association.

We talked, pretending to be grown ups as I described varietals and the best year for red grapes. We made fun of people who drank fruity wines and sweet Rieslings, you know the routine.

It is my duty to help.

Then we went into my office and Trinity saw the books were being packed up and my laptop open. This girl knows me well. We started talking about my writing and what they had happening in their lives. Such cute girls. These are the girls I did the Cupid Shuffle with at my nephews graduation party, but I digress.

I said, “Listen to this song,” and I played Walk Away by Kelly Clarkson, then Try Me by Jason Derulo. Then I played…House Party by Sam Hunt. There was excessive teenage girl squealing and then the three of us proceeded to sing at the top of our lungs and dance like it was a Hollywood dance club! We were laughing and singing and dancing and the years between us were gone.

God that was fun!

I think this needs to happen very often.

Cheers!

-N

 

 

No, I’m not old!

I had an eye appointment today and the first thing I noticed when I was walking into the big building of doctors offices was there were lots of “old” people coming and going. Blue hairs I call them. My eye doc, who is really great, is retiring to Florida. Bummer, Chuck and I both like him. He is mellow and works quickly. Gonna miss that guy. Eyes haven’t change much, that’s good. I have small cataracts, that’s bad. Did I really say that??

Please God, I’m not old, right?

In my head I’m 30. I was skinny and energetic when I was 30. No reading glasses, I could jog a mile without breathing hard and I could drink and dance all night if I wanted. My kids were little so I knew I wasn’t old.

I worked for almost 10 years at the University of Arizona and it was one of the most fun jobs I ever had. Primarily because I was around young people all day. It was great. The best part was hearing about their fabulous and crazy college aged lives. I heard about who they were hanging out with, where they were going for vacays and the parties they hit on the weekends. I felt younger being around them. They cheered me and kept me from the oldness feelings.

For years before that I had worked in the medical field in hospitals and private offices. I found I spent my time talking about doctor appointments, medications, sick days, and aches and pains. Not getting ready to go to the beach or bar hopping with friends to meet people. It made me feel old and I started to sound like these grumpy people.

Right now my Sirius car radio is on the “top hits or Z100 or coffee house”, my Pandora is on the “Mark Ronson station or today’s hits”. I’d love to hit the dance clubs and get sweaty dancing all night, but they look at me funny. Ok, Chuck isn’t a dancer. So I’m not that skinny girl who closed the bars when she was 22 but I’m still fun. Just try me!

My son said I was loud about everything. I think it was a compliment?!?! I’m not typing in all caps, right?

I know I can’t avoid the chronological progression but dammit in my brain I’m not that old. “I’m gonna kiss myself I’m so pretty.”

Cheers!

-N