Marcellus my new octofriend

Marcellus, white eye showing above his suckers

Yesterday, I went for a nice walk around the waterfront with my friend Steve. Although I am perfectly capable, for now, of going on these walks alone, I am really grateful to Steve for his companionship and conversation. We went more than five miles and, when we got to the Marine Life Center, we went in to visit the new octopus who is now a resident. He was picked up when some fishermen caught him in a net, and although injured, he has recovered quite well and is now eating and playing (as all octopuses seem to do) in a covered sanctuary. He can be viewed easily, as you can see from this picture, but signs everywhere remind visitors to talk softly and not to point at him. They are very sensitive creatures.

I first visited when Sherlock, another Giant Pacific octopus, had been captured and was available for viewing. When Sherlock was first captured, he was ten pounds and stayed for several months before being released back into the sea. He gained thirteen pounds during that time and made many human friends, who cared for him and probably still miss his presence. They can grow much larger, up to around 150 pounds during their relatively short life span.

Marcellus is much smaller, although another giant Pacific octopus, and he was given plenty of TLC when he first arrived and has gained a fair amount of weight in the short time he has been at the Center. He will also be released at some point in the future to return to his natural environment. It is fascinating to me to watch him, to wonder what is going on in his mind that allows him to settle into captivity and seemingly thrive. I was first enthralled by octopuses when, by chance, I watched a wonderful Netflix documentary about them. You can see it at My Octopus Teacher if you have a Netflix account. I've watched it several times and certainly will again.

Last Thursday, I almost decided to hike with my regular group, instead of working in the lunchroom at the Senior Center. But I finally did my usual volunteer session and ended up working harder than I have before. It was partly because they were serving Salisbury Steak, which apparently is a real favorite of the clientele. I ended up taking home a vegetarian patty, with mashed potatoes and green peas. There were so many people in line that some people had to eat and leaVe more quickly than usual to allow us to accommodate everyone. For the first time, there were still people coming through the door when we usually are finished for the day. Although I got very tired and ended up walking more than 10,000 steps during my shift, I found that when I tried to remember three or four requests in a row that I simply couldn't do it. 

I also learned that it makes a huge difference when people are appreciative of your efforts and don't just treat you like part of the furniture. An imperious snap of the fingers, pointing at an empty cup, didn't make me more likely to hurry to fill it. In fact, I found that when someone treated me like that, it made me angry and resentful. That was the first time in the lunchroom that I realized what a difference it makes when people are having a good time and pass along their appreciation to those around them.

I am also already seeing some regulars who must come for lunch every day, sit in the same places each time, surrounding themselves with the same companions and enjoying both the food and the camaraderie. I overheard someone telling another to be less judgmental of those of us serving them because we are volunteers, not paid staff.

The lunchroom before the onslaught

There are eleven round tables to set up, each with six chairs, which are stacked on the walls before we take them apart and put them around the tables. You can see the lazy susan in the center, holding ice water, glasses, salt and pepper, sugar packets, and a plastic flower bouquet. Everything except the flowers are wiped down carefully before and after we use them. Everyone works together, without anyone being in charge, helping one another.

'Thank you' is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding. —Alice Walker

I really enjoy being part of a team, and I have made more friends who will be there with me as we work to help others. Through example, many people help others just by being appreciative, and others by showing the best way to accomplish a task. Everyone is working together and it lifts everybody up. As you can see, there is a good reason why I am enjoying my new role at the Senior Center.

It also helps me to remain positive, to look past the news of the world towards a better future, towards a brighter day ahead. All of us here on this tiny planet can do something to make today better for someone, and it also helps us as well, to bask in the hope ahead for a kinder, more gentle world. We can only accomplish a little bit of that, each day, but it adds up. And there are plenty of helpers along the way, if we look for them and fill our hearts with love and gratitude.

That's it for today, dear friends. When we meet again next week, I hope that your days are filled with happiness and healthy thoughts. I must say that just writing this post has helped me. I think of Marcellus, my new friend, and Michelle, another new friend who has helped me learn the lunchroom ropes. And many others who surround me with good vibes. Until we meet again, I wish you all good things. Be well.

I found my tribe

Me at the Volunteers party

Last Friday, we volunteers were treated to a wonderful Roaring Twenties party to introduce us to the new venue for the Bellingham Senior Center. It won't be ready for a couple of years, but I should be an old hand (in many senses of the word) by then, knowing all the tricks and trades of the kitchen helpers. Although I've now only been to four Thursday lunch setups and serving duties, I feel it's where I belong. I always get at least 10,000 steps running around and helping people, and no other volunteer activities seem to offer as much exercise, which (as you know) I love. If you give me a chance to move at top speed for more than two hours, and feeling well used at the end, it's my idea of time well spent. 

Lynda looking really pretty on the dance floor

The first task I had to undertake in this group is to accept that I belong here, with these seniors, and that I have something to offer that uses my skills and helps me to feel useful as I approach my eighty-second birthday. That large area where the seniors are dancing will be redesigned to be a place where many different activities can take place. Right now we are in a building that has few options for expansion. I took a tour of the new facility and am very impressed with how it will all be used.

I can still take the occasional Thursday hike with my old hiking partners, as they are also getting older and slower, but mostly I have migrated over to the Tuesday hikers, since they take a much less strenuous walk or hike and I end up being one of the more fit hikers, rather than struggling to keep up, as it often turns out with the Thursday hikes. I do know, however, that it's important to keep my exercise routine going for as long as I can. Once I stop, well, it will be something I did in my early years. When I was young, my whole life stretched before me, I would use the phrase "the rest of my life" as if it was infinite. But it's not. Life for each one of us is finite and limited by the events we experience, whether or not we stay active. 

When I was just starting out, when I first began to feel like an adult in my early teens, I had no idea what the future would hold for me. I remember a long-ago Fourth of July in our backyard, when Daddy gave us sparklers to play with, and he lighted them with a cigarette. He asked me to hold it while he set things alight, and I still remember how grown-up I felt holding a cigarette. Many years later I tried to stop smoking, and I finally succeeded in my thirties. No, that innocent foray long ago didn't get me started with smoking, but peer pressure and then addiction held me in its sway for much longer than I wanted.

And then as I simply lived my life, I got old and felt as though I could no longer be free to act like the kid I still felt myself to be. Life is a true blessing, and all the various iterations of the many versions of myself are still part of me. Being old is also a blessing, right? Not everybody gets to experience it.

The most important thing I can tell you about aging is this: If you really feel that you want to have an off-the-shoulder blouse and some big beads and thong sandals and a dirndl skirt and a magnolia in your hair, do it. Even if you're wrinkled. —Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was one of the most prolific poets of her day; she was born in 1928 and lived to be 86. She was always an inspiration to me, and the phrase "I know why the caged bird sings" is what I think of when I remember her. It communicates everything to me. That's another aspect of age: I think of those who are already dead as mentors who will help me over that hump we all face in our future. When I was young, I felt that once you had died you were simply gone. I don't think that any more, partly because of the continuing effects on the living that many who are gone still impart to those of us still here.

When I ponder the wonderful gift I have been given, the life I have lived and continue to enjoy, even through the tribulations of change and diminishment, I cannot help but be filled with gratitude. All of the many people I have been are still part of me: the mother who played with her infant and the mother who buried them. The earthbound person who learned to fly in the air with her friends, and the person who finally gave it up when it was time. The person who searched for her tribe once she got old, and finally found it at the Senior Center, surrounded by others who find that service to others is very uplifting and joyful.

It certainly helps me continue to enjoy life to be able to share it with my dear partner, he who shares my days and sleeps next to me every night. And I do cherish all the wonderful gifts of community that I have with my virtual family as well. The fact that I can still see well enough to read and write is something I never take for granted these days. I know one day it will be gone, but then again, so will this body. It wasn't made for permanence, whatever that is. The only true constant of our existence is change, and I accept that with joy and sorrow. Glad I have it now, but sorry it will be gone in the future.

Mercy! This turned out to be different than I expected it to be, when I decided to write about my new senior existence. But it's appropriate, and I do feel better now that it's out of my head and poured into the post. I think of you, my dear virtual family, often when I consider that the continuance of my days and our time together will one day pass away, but not yet, not now. You deserve to look for joy and happiness in your days, just as I also deserve the same thing. Until we meet again next week, dear friends, I wish you all good things. Be well.

Election Day is coming

Dahlias at Hovander Park

I am a real fan of dahlias, which only come to grace our gardens with their blossoms at the end of summer and early fall. These were taken when the Senior Trailblazers went to Hovander Park in Ferndale a couple of weeks ago. Since we have still not had a hard frost, I expect that they are still doing well. We've had a few nights of temperatures in the low 40s (6°C), but nothing colder than that. Yet.

However, this weekend has given us the most wonderful cool and sunny weather that anyone could hope for, even those used to more moderate temperatures, like people from Hawaii or more temperate climes than we get here in the winter. We are just entering fall, and winter is a few months away. 

Leaves are starting to fall

But between us and winter lies another scary time, and I'm not talking about Halloween. It's the American election. I am going to take a moment away from my usual (hopefully) uplifting posts to discuss what is uppermost in my mind right now: the election in three weeks. Any day now, we who live in Washington State should receive our ballots in the mail and will fill them out and either post them, or place them in a drop box outside the Bellingham City Hall. Given the stakes of this election, both me and my guy are anxiously awaiting them and will fill them out and get them into the drop boxes right away.

Not only do I consider it to be our civic duty to vote, but frankly, it is the ONLY thing I can do other than to send money to my preferred candidates. That's all available to me at this moment in time. When we lived in Colorado, we were some of the very early voters in line to cast our votes on Election Day, and at first I really didn't like that we couldn't have that moment duplicated here in Washington State. But now I have grown to prefer it this way, because we can be assured that our votes will definitely be counted and not manipulated in any way. 

I am really having a hard time understanding why this election is so close. What is it about Trump that he has such loyal followers when his rhetoric is so hard to follow? And when he is saying such awful things about his fellow citizens? By this time in the election, I expected that the polls would reflect a landslide for Kamala, but no, as the days pass, her lead is shrinking and we are in danger of Trump being re-elected once again. I was so happy when Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris, an amazing woman with stellar credentials for the job. She started out strong, and I watched the entire Democratic convention and enjoyed the spectacle and everyone who spoke. It was like a balm to my liberal soul to watch so many people all around the country come together with joy and enthusiasm.

Election days come and go. But the struggle of the people to create a government which represents all of us and not just the one percent — a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice — that struggle continues. —Bernie Sanders

I voted for Bernie and was disappointed when he was not our candidate, but I voted enthusiastically for Hillary and was looking forward to our first woman president. Now I am there again, but I've learned the lesson of 2016: don't assume you know what the electorate will do. Of course, Hillary won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College. And we might be seeing a repeat of eight years ago once again. So, here I am sitting at my computer in the dark, typing away and hoping for the best. I wish I could take a longer view and realize that all things work together for good, eventually, but there are so many people all around the world suffering horribly that I forget sometimes to simply stop and just sit, fold my hands in prayer, and turn it all over. The only person who can help me to see the longer view is me.

Yesterday I had the most delightful walk to Squalicum Harbor with my friend Steve. We walked around five miles, and I have now begun to hold his arm whenever we are together, taking it just above his elbow, and feeling safe whenever we come to an obstacle or street corner. At first I held it only at the street corners, but I began to hold on longer and longer, because it made me feel so much more confident. He's like my Seeing Eye Buddy, but I don't get to see him except on Saturdays and for a few minutes on Thursday before he heads off to teach his chemistry class. He still works full time at the local community college.

We met in the coffee shop more than a year ago, but I cannot imagine my life today without his company. He's very smart and taught me to do sudoku, but I've let it go because I enjoy word games much more than numbers. We play some New York Times games like Wordle and Connections before we head out the door on our walk. The one thing we rarely do is talk politics, since we both need to look on the bright side of life and just enjoy being together. He has become a good friend indeed.

I wish there was a way to describe what is happening with my eyesight. Last week I had the third eye jab in my left eye, and I don't think I've lost any vision since I started with the injections, but they only slow the progression, not stop it, so I am always braced for what comes next. I realize that I can continue to write here and read your blogs, only because of what's still not gone from the left eye. Everything eventually comes to an end, and I will find some way to enjoy my life and find new activities once I can no longer see to read. Habits of a lifetime are just that: habits. I will find new ones and discover a way to keep myself happy and content in my life with whatever comes next. I am already well into my eighties and so I am not looking to start anything too difficult or time consuming. 

Volunteering at the Senior Center has already become a very delightful activity, and I will be able to continue that for the near future. I really enjoy being a waitperson with my fellow seniors and actually can do it pretty well. Plus I get more than ten thousand steps just during that two-and-a-half-hour stretch. I'm usually pretty tired afterwards and it feels just great to have been part of a team. Hopefully I will end up being a real asset and not just a newbie to that team. They are delightful people who have accepted me as one of their own. I like that!

Well, this post didn't turn out to be as much of a downer as I feared it might. I now am looking forward to my Sunday breakfast with John, and experiencing yet another beautiful sunny day. I got my flu shot yesterday and my arm is hardly sore (Yay!). I was afraid I might have a bad reaction but no, it's nothing really. Much better than getting the flu, and if I do get it after all, it should be a mild case. Life is good, and the coming days should be pleasurable, with the right attitude and not too much news to bring me down. I hope you will be enjoying yourself, too, and finding ways to concentrate on the positive and not the negative. We do get to choose what we focus on, right?

And my dear partner still sleeps next to me as I write this, and my tea is long gone. The day beckons, and I find myself feeling much better than when I began. I do hope you will find a great week ahead, and I look forward to our next gathering here. Until then, be well, dear friends.

Fall is upon us

Steve in front of mums, eating a jalapeño bagel

Yesterday, I went on my usual Saturday walk with my friend Steve. While at the most distant spot on our walk, we stopped at the Haggen Grocery Store so I could use the bathroom and he could buy himself a tasty bagel. He likes spicy stuff and when I asked for a bite, he gave me one with some jalapeño on it, and it immediately cleared up my nose, like magic.

We walked just over six miles, and I began to feel myself tire around the five-mile mark, so instead of extending the walk, we headed back to the starting point. I have not yet recovered fully from the effects of covid, even though I had a booster just a week before getting sick. It took me a few days to get over it and feel better, but I didn't test negative for a day or two after that. My dear partner is still sick, having gotten it from me, and since he is immune compromised, he's still coughing but gradually, slowly, recovering. I feel a tiny bit guilty for having given it to him and then bounded back so quickly. However, my continued tiredness and low energy is expected, I guess. I am grateful to be in such good health that I can fight off the illness with little after-effects. Just the lack of boundless energy, but it's a little better every day.

On Monday, I will receive another eye jab, and I am not ashamed to say that I am NOT looking forward to it, but the fact that this treatment exists at all, and that I can get it mostly paid for by my Medicare Advantage Plan is a benefit that I hope will help me keep more of my sight from deteriorating. It's only expected to slow the progression of the geographic atrophy, not stop it completely. But the fact that I can still to this day sit here with my laptop and see to type is worth whatever I must endure. Every day when I wake, I am unsure whether I will be able to see well enough to write a post. One day, I will find that the central vision is gone from my left eye and although I will be able to make some adjustments to help me get something on this post, it won't be easy. Sometimes I cover up my left eye and see whether I could continue to write. The answer is complicated: yes, I could use the audio feature to write something here, but I couldn't go back and read it, rewrite parts of it (as I always do). I'll come to that one of these days, but for now I'm still functional with my good eye.

We all know that everything in life is temporary anyhow, right? I've been blessed with good health and work-arounds for many aspects of aging, especially if I am willing to take "good enough" and not pine for the days when I didn't even have to think of these shortcomings.

Love grows more tremendously full, swift, poignant, as the years multiply. —Zane Grey

 The fact that I have outlived both of my parents and most of my immediate family makes me feel quite accomplished in some ways. I am the oldest of six siblings, and my dear sister PJ died more than a decade ago. We all have been taking statins for many decades to combat the hyperlipidemia that we inherited. I will be signing up for my annual wellness visit within the next few weeks and will see how my blood work lines up with past years. But before that happens, I need to get through the eye jab and the dentist. Sigh. As I sit  here in the dark, I realize how fortunate I am to have these options open to me, but it doesn't mean I enjoy them.

That said, I realize how lucky I am to live in the Pacific Northwest, with its moderate climate, and to have a warm rented home to live in within my means. There are so many people in the world who would see my life as incredibly fortunate. So I do my best to help others and give as much as I afford to charitable organizations. Right now most of my disposable income is going to political campaigns, but that will end soon and I can go back to Doctors Without Borders and St Jude Children's Hospital. 

I am reminded that I have a choice every day, when I begin my week, looking at my circumstances and realizing how much better my life is than so many others. At the coffee shop, I see homeless people everywhere, those who carry their few precious belongings around behind them in a cart. I see them on the bus, on street corners, and gathered together sometimes to create a makeshift community. They will struggle to stay warm during the upcoming cold weather. I wonder if they look at me, many decades older, and feel compassion for me, as I do for them.

This morning I am hopeful that my dear partner will be a bit closer to being healthy. He's been coughing so much I worry about him, but his body aches and tiredness are beginning to moderate. When I think back to the days of the pandemic, I never imagined that we would still be getting the virus and being vaccinated against it, these many years later.

I feel so much gratitude for the life I have been given, and I am happy to share the small little corner of my world with my life partner, as well as with all my virtual family that comes to visit me every day. I am also feeling blessed to have such wonderful activities available to me, such as the Senior Center and the hiking friends I have known all these years. And I can still walk on most of them, feeling just a little twinge that the hard hikes are no longer within my reach. There are plenty of other walks and hikes to enjoy, so I will.

My friend John will be by to take me to breakfast, our usual Sunday morning activity, and I will then come home to do some mundane tasks (like laundry) and go out into the sun and clouds as I walk my usual three miles, taking in the changing leaves and feeling the fallen ones swishing under my feet. And I also hope that you, my dear virtual friend, will have a wonderful and satisfying week ahead. Until we meet again next week, I wish you all good things. Be well.

So pretty!