Is There Sex After 60? (Navigating Single Life After 60)

Author Archives: istheresexaftersixty

• Managing Reality

  Posted at 1:19 am by istheresexaftersixty, on September 13, 2019

   

  Some people are better at this than others.  Some people actually manage to hide from this for most of their lives.  I am not fond of facing it but sometimes there is no escape.  When my children were young, both of my boys had issues with monsters and ghosts sneaking around their bedrooms at night especially right before bedtime.  I would read, hopefully, funny or cheerful books to them before bed and I always left a nightlight on.  Still those pesky monsters and ghosts and sometimes-even aliens (no not from other countries, the ones from outer space) would be hiding in their closets or under their beds.  I finally came up with a plan.  I decided to tell them the truth and believe it or not, it worked!

  I told them that there are things to be afraid of in life.  I focused on three things.  I told them there are bad things in life and that these usually consisted of three things.

  1. There IS such a thing as bad people. There are some people that might want to harm you. This is why I am so careful with you and that is why I watch out for you.  That is why I always tell you not to talk to strangers.
  2. There is illness. That is why I try to get you to eat fruit, vegetables, milk, meat and fish.  That is why you need your sleep and why I make you wash your hands when you come home and before every meal.  That is also why I take you to the doctor and dentist.
  3. There are accidents, some of these are preventable, and some are not. That is why I make sure you look both ways before you cross the street and why I tell you never to walk behind the school bus.

  “All of these things are true and can happen so we will try our best to avoid them, however, ghosts and monsters and aliens from outer space are not real and are nothing to be afraid of at night in your bedroom. “

  Guess what, it worked.  I gave them the truth.  I showed them reality and believe it or not reality was less frightening than their fears.

  So, where does that leave us?  Reality is spooky but sometimes it is necessary to face it and look at it, straight in the eye.  Handling reality is tricky.  If you are reading this you are probably over 60 years old and so you have had to juggle this issue like most of us.  Facing the truth can be good when you can make changes to improve a situation.  If you can’t change the truth you are facing well this can be harder to figure out.  For example, everything that is alive must die.  We know this and we recognize this as a fact and a truth, however, it is still more than an uncomfortable concept to face.   Is it really good for us to dwell on this everyday, twenty-four hours a day?  Everyone we know and love and care about is going to disappear.   This is where Yin and yang come in.  It is good for us to recognize that we are all here for a short time and that this time and our family and friends are precious to us.  We can recognize this fact without it having a sense of doom hanging over our lives and our relationships. So, it is good to ignore the facts and to ignore reality as much as it is important to face it.

  Being a March baby makes me a Pisces.  We are dreamers and most of us do our best to hide from truth and reality as much as possible.  I have been known to do this on occasion but I also have been responsible for taking care of my children, my pets, and yes my “was-band” for most of my adult life.  I have to bite the bullet and often face truths and reality when I would just like to stay in bed and cover my head with a blanket.

  As a very small business ownerI will keep that going and I am working on expanding my business to improve my financial situation.  I am going to keep writing this blog to keep my creative side alive and well.  Creating keeps us young.  I decided to stop drinking alcohol (no I’m not an alcoholic) just to save money and as an experiment to see if I still have my old self-control and discipline in tact.  I loved smoking more than life itself and I gave that up 35 years ago.  I guess life was more important to me than cigarettes after all.  Now I’m not giving up alcohol for life.  I just am not going to have it every night from now on.  I want to see if this makes any difference in my life. (So far, so good.) Stopped over three weeks ago.  I just realized that I made a habit of having one to three glasses of wine every night.

  My lady doctor asked me if I drink alcohol?  She is my new doctor and asked me all kinds of questions. “You don’t drink any alcohol do you?” she asked.  I have a really nun-like, sweet face, so no one suspects me of doing anything wrong. I answered, “ I don’t smoke.  I don’t take drugs. I don’t have sex.  I eat healthy foods, however, I do have two or three glasses of wine with ice. “  She looked perplexed and said, “Three glasses is too much.  You shouldn’t have more than one glass a day.”  I was shocked.  “I don’t need it I just like it.  Listen, I don’t have any bad habits… can’t I have some wine???”

  Well, she told me that it wasn’t a good idea.  Not only wine, she told me to cut down on my salt intake too! “WHAT, NO SALT, NO CARBS, NO WINE!!!!”  I manage to face a fact or two and I am not giving everything up at the same time.  I do have salt … just less.  I am giving myself six weeks without any alcohol after that I will have it once or twice a week or if I go out to dinner with friends.  I am not going to have three drinks a night, every night.

  There is still sex.  Oh I forgot, I am not having that either.  I have heard it is a good way to burn calories.   I am over 60 and I have to admit there isn’t anyone in my life right now but I have to take this reality thing … one step at a time.  I am not willing to face the reality that sex is over for good.  There is such a thing as taking reality and facing it and then there is a time for taking reality and placing it in your back pocket.

  Until Next Week…

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• The Sad Saga of the Move That Never Was

  Posted at 2:11 am by istheresexaftersixty, on September 6, 2019

  “Extemporaneous – to get along in a makeshift manner.” Merriam Webster- Word of the Day September 2, 2019.

  Wow, so what happened to moving day?  Well, let me tell you.  I was so proud of myself because I pulled up my boot straps and started to work fast and furiously to accomplish the millions of things one has to do to complete a move from one place to another, which is made even more difficult when you are moving with a son and an ex (my was-band, only here for awhile) and three pets, all of which do little or nothing to help with the move.  I hired professional cleaners to do a deep clean, all the moving boxes arrived on time, along with the supplies, paper, magic markers, spools of tape, and bubble wrap. I changed TV and Computer Wi-Fi. Contacted the gas and electricity to be started on my moving day. I hired a maintenance man … (the cute, nice, one) to take down my tons of paintings and mirrors and TV off of the walls and to patch the holes left by the nails and hardware for hanging heavy objects. I reserved the elevator for the move 8 A.M. for Saturday.  The mover came to give me an estimate.  We worked out the moving plan.  He told me that his employees could pack anything that I had missed the day before the day of the movie.  I WAS READY!!! 

  THERE WAS ONLY ONE MORE THING TO DO BEFORE THE MOVE.  I had only seen the apartment in photos and the plan of the apartment on my computer.  I thought I should see it in person.  So my son and I happily drove to our new residence on a bright, warm, sunny, Wednesday morning to drive to the other side of our fair city to check out the neighborhood as well as our new home. We noticed that there weren’t many stores in the area.  At a stoplight a homeless man standing right next to the car started screaming and swearing at me walking ominously, right next to my window yelling profanities when I motioned to him that I didn’t have any money with me.  I didn’t have a penny, only credit cards.He was frightening.  I told my son that I had hoped this was not a premonition of things to come.  We laughed, how people laugh in movies just before something terrible is about to happen.  

   As we entered our complex, flowers were blooming and the fountain was tossing small beads of water as I walked into the grand hall, with a 30 ft. ceiling towering above three modern desks sitting in a row in front of a lovely modern sitting room with a huge television that was set on to the Weather Channel.  I felt cheerful and relieved at the cool, pretty leasing office and sitting room.  A smiley young woman was sitting at the first desk.  I introduced myself and mentioned that I had signed a lease for apartment number 1717.  (BTW, I took the number of the apartment as a good omen.)   I asked if she could show me my apartment so that I could have an idea where to place my furniture ahead of the move.  I noticed that she had an odd sort of foreboding look on her face and I felt slightly uncomfortable.  She said to follow her.  I was surprised when my son and I drove through the iron gates and she stopped. I called out to her that we would follow her.  She said just park where she was standing, which was about four feet from the complexes’ locked gates.

   We walked directly across the street, walked up two stairs to a dirty, dark hallway with dead leaves flying in the breeze.   Around the dark hallway were two doors.  Our apartment was the first door on the right.  I noted right away that this corner would be a perfect spot for an unwelcome intruder to hide as a surprise to the renter (me) who would have her keys out and ready to open the door when returning home at night.  The door itself was dirty with three locks that looked as it they had been opened with a crowbar sometime in the past.  I held my breath when the leasing agent opened the door. As I entered and looked around my eyes adjusted to the dim light that entered through the smallish window in the living room.   I literally fell back a step or two as if someone had pushed me.  The kitchen was tiny, painted a dark grey just big enough for one person.  Under my feet was a plastic sheet of flooring that was supposed to resemble a wooden floor. It was easy to see that it wasn’t wood because there was a bubble that went across the floor announcing the fact that the floor was indeed plastic not wood.  The dining room was seven inches from the tiny kitchen.   On the right was a mirror that reflected a built in desk on the left supposedly for the lady of the house to use as a working desk.  The wood on the bottom of the desk was scuffed obviously the painters had missed it.  There were pillars separating the dining room from the living area, on either side of the dining room that managed to look ridiculous in such a small space.  (Nothing resembled the photos I had viewed on-line) The living room was a small square box.  I walked into the little hallway where I saw two broken doors that I pulled open to view an empty closet where a washer and dryer were supposed to be.  The agent said that I had to rent them for only $35 dollars a month. On the right was a hose covered in dirt and mold? Perhaps?

  Next, I glanced at the two tiny bathrooms.  One had a tub the size that would have been perfect for a child of six or seven.  Two small square bedrooms were located on either side of the hallway each containing one window and one closet.  The only way to separate the master bedroom from the second bedroom was the fact that the master had a small walk-in closet, while the second bedroom had a small closet with a sliding door.

  The straw that broke this camel’s back was the small balcony or porch?  This space was the size of a medium couch.  The balcony looked out on two sets of iron gates.  If you sat in a small chair at night with your glass of wine on this balcony every single car that would drive in or out of the complex opening and shutting the larger iron gate to come and go would see the person sitting with her wine glass in her hand and if they were friendly folks they could wave hello and goodbye every night.

  To make a long story longer, I told the nice lady-leasing agent that I could not live in her complex.  Funny, she didn’t even try to talk me out of my decision.  She let me out of the lease immediately.

  Interestingly enough my building took me back with open arms. My blood pressure returned to normal. My heart palpitations disappeared. My rent in my present luxury apartment is not that much more then the one I was going to move to, to save money. I decided that my son and I would just have to work harder to add to our income.  Sometimes it’s worth it to come home to comfort and a little bit of luxury.

  What have I learned from this sad saga?  DO NOT MOVE INTO A HOME OR TO AN APARTMENT THAT YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IN PERSON, FIRST! 

  UNTIL NEXT WEEK…

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• The Real Me

  Posted at 8:56 pm by istheresexaftersixty, on August 17, 2019

  Men just don’t get it. They can’t help it.  They are different.  They are men, well, not really.  Men, (I have noticed lately) are all still little boys.  I think that they stop at about 12 or 13. However, at about 12 or 13 they are starting to notice girls too.  So they might go in a group to a girl’s house.  Sometimes out of the blue they just show up at the front door after school or on a Saturday for a chat.  Now this is where boys and girls are very different.  Boys and Men don’t have a clue about women as far as, just showing up, is concerned.  Girls and women change at around 12 or 13 and we require notice before meeting a boy or man for a chat.  We need to be at our best.  This usually doesn’t change for women from the age of about 12 until death. To look our best we have to have newly washed shiny hair and it has to be curled or set and brushed into a hairstyle of some sort.  If we are 12 we probably just need a touch of lip gloss on our lips and a nice new clean outfit to wear that will give a nice impression.

  The whole idea of this post is to explain to men that we woman need time to fix ourselves to be our best before presenting ourselves to men and or to company in general.  It is my duty to show men that we of the female gender are, in fact, different.   This is not a popular idea in modern times. Young people like to believe that we are all the same.  I believe as this younger generation matures they will, possibly begrudgingly, realize that there are still some real differences between the male and female sexes.

  I live in a high-rise building.  Our mailboxes are in a room off of the lobby.  When I leave my apartment to go to the elevator and down to the lobby.  I don’t leave my apartment unless I have brushed my hair, put on a clean presentable outfit and I usually have a bit of makeup applied to my face such as some lip gloss, a bit of blush and some mascara.  I have earrings in my ears and a spray or two of some sort of fragrance. You never know who you might run in to when riding the elevator or getting your mail. (I can hear my mother’s voice, from the past, in my mind.)  Now, most women understand this.  Most men will saunter out of the door of their apartment in their slippers or flip flops, with disheveled hair, in old jeans and a dirty t-shirt.  “Why get dressed up to get the mail?” they think to themselves.

  Working from my apartment, 99.9% of my work revolves around using my computer and my phone.  My business requires me to be up in the morning and I work until about 3 P.M. or 4PM.    Therefore, I usually take my shower in the afternoon before dinner. During the day I am up and dressed but usually with my hair in a ponytail, working in yoga pants and a t-shirt while, working on my computer and or my writing.  I do not look my best.

  Lately my men friends have discovered Face Time on their phones.  Let me tell you, my girlfriends and my family members, don’t now, nor have they, or we, ever used Face Time when calling each other.  We know better. I look my worst in the morning sitting at my computer with my coffee cup and a cookie.  I hate FACETIME.  Okay, true, if I had grandchildren I would probably love it but I don’t have any grandchildren.  If I ever do have any grandchildren I will probably be so old and wrinkled and decrepit that seeing my face on Face Time might scare the daylights out of the little tykes.

  So, yesterday one of my man friends called me on Face Time to probably innocently to show me the scenery and the view from his deck.  I had just stepped out of the shower and I had a towel on my head.  I was sitting on my bed in my all together (so to speak) I literally almost answered the phone which would have been a shock for the both of us. I didn’t answer the call and I called him back (not on Face Time) explaining my present situation. We spoke for a minute or two and hung up … he gave me five minutes and he called me again on Face Time.  I didn’t answer.  So I sent him a text.  I said, “My hair is still wet.”  He sent me a text calling me a coward.  Yes, I am a coward.  Listen, at 25 girls can look pretty cute in a towel with wet hair.  At 67 it is a different story.  I dried my hair and set it.  I put on cream and then some makeup and earrings I put on a sweater. Yes, I even brushed my teeth and sprayed a little perfume on my hair.  I know you can’t smell on Face Time but I wasn’t taking any chances.  I called him back.  It is the first time we have seen each other outside of still photos.  I’m not 27 anymore.  I’m 67.

   Thank heaven I have reached this grand old age.  Life is good and it is bad but it is a privilege to be alive. It’s good to be honest and it is good to show the world the real me.  Yesterday, after our conversation I took a selfie, fully clothed, I might add.  I sent my selfie to my friend.  He sent me one too.  Today I put yesterday’s selfie on my Facebook page.  It is about time that I show the world the real me at 67 and counting. Now, men, please take this advice from me, to you.  If you are inclined to call any of your lady friends on Face Time, text them first and give them some time to get ready.  It takes a bit longer after 60 so have some patience with us.  Guys don’t care as much … we do.  So now I have displayed a picture of myself, how I looked 24 hours ago.  It is a photo, good or bad, but it is a photo of my face at 67 years old and it is a photo of, the real me. 

  Until Next Week…

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• As if by Magic!

  Posted at 11:26 pm by istheresexaftersixty, on August 8, 2019

  If you have been reading my blog recently you know that I am supposed to move to a new apartment in exactly three weeks and two days.  This is going to be very interesting to see how all of this is going to happen.   As of today’s date, I don’t know where I am going to move.  I looked at two possible rental buildings.  I have already canceled one of the two apartments out. This newly viewed apartment was smaller than my present apartment and it is about the same monthly rental.  I’m looking for less expense, not the same or more. The unit is not in a very pretty area and the parking is $25.00 more than I pay at the moment! This new parking cost would be almost what I paid for the rent of my first apartment, as a single girl in my 20’s, in Chicago, in 1977!

  I have been scouring the Internet for a part of each day in the search of a new potential habitat.  So far to no avail.  Not exactly, to no avail…  I have two more units to check out in the next few days.  I have read recently there is an upswing of sales of trailers and campers.  Suddenly I understand why.  It is because it is so expensive to buy and own homes of any size.  Home rentals are difficult because so many homes are rented with the stipulation that the home can be shown by realtors hoping to make a sale. This means that if the house is sold often the renter is giving 60 days notice to leave.  If you are a pet owner this fact also limits the houses and apartments that are for rent.

  Did I think as a youth that I would be looking to move to an apartment in my 60’s with one of my sons and two cats and a dog?  NO! I thought that my life would be settled and that I would be retired and my husband and I would be happily visiting my grandchildren.  My life would be cheerful and stable.  Life would be easy without many worries.  If I had to move, my husband and I would make the move together, without much fuss.  Wrong again! I am separated, no husband to help, no grandchildren, and I am the owner of a very small business with no retirement in sight.  Life is full of surprises.

  This dilemma actually reminds me of when I was a college student in London.  I remember that I would get a pile of assignments from all of my professors. My last year, before graduation, I had a mountain of work to finish each week.  I had a book or two to read in each class.  I took Irish Writers and I often had to read three or more plays a week.  Most of my professors also required their students to write a paper EACH WEEK, in each class.  I also took Short Story Writing.  I had about six papers to write every week.  Now, I knew that I was going to do the work.  I always turned in all of my work and on time!  There were days when I would sit in my bedsitter (a bedsitter is one bedroom, that often college students rent, in some person’s apartment, usually with the use of the bathroom and with the use of the owner’s kitchen.) I would stare out of the tiny window that looked down on the rooftops of other small apartment buildings surrounding my building, and then I would glare at the piles of work that had to be done.   I wondered, how all of my homework was going to be finished on time? Somehow I knew it would all be done and done by me.  It was like magic.  I knew somehow everything would get finished in the allotted time.  I remember thinking that, “By next Monday, everything will be done.”  Then after an hour or so of daydreaming I would open a book and begin. By the time Monday would roll around, the work was finished and turned in, on time, by me, as if by magic! 

  Today, while sitting in my little office in my very nice apartment, (soon to be someone else’s apartment) on the 16^thfloor, with the stupendous views overlooking Denver from every room, I am wondering, again, how in three weeks and two days, my move, will all be done?  In three weeks and two days, I will be directing moving men where to place my white leather loveseat in my new apartment somewhere in these United States of America.  Once again, everything will be done and finished on time.   As if by magic, in three weeks and three days I will be sitting staring out of a window, with a new and different view, with piles of boxes surrounding me, in every room, waiting for someone to open them.  I will be sitting holding a nice big glass of wine and maybe with a plate of cheese and crackers, sitting on my lap, if I can find them in one of the boxes, in my new kitchen.  I will wonder, how on earth, I accomplished all that I accomplished in only three weeks and three days.    It will happen as if by magic, by ME!

   Until Next Week…

   

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• The Fly in the Ointment

  Posted at 10:46 pm by istheresexaftersixty, on July 25, 2019

  Those of you who have been keeping up with my life, on my blog, might feel as if you have gotten to know me by now.  You probably do have a good idea about my likes and dislikes.  I recently wrote about my long time abiding love of summer tart, red, cherries.  If I had to pick my favorite fruit of all time it would most likely be summer cherries. Oh I like them dried too.  Guess what?  They are supposed to be good for you too.  Yes, I know the sugar in cherries make them bad for a diet but in summer when I see delightful, tangy, cherries, in a bowl on the kitchen counter I have said it before and I will say it again, it is something I just can’t ignore without grabbing one or ten of them.  Then, today, one of my Facebook friends, who knows very well that I adore cherries, sent me a video of a person cutting a few beautiful looking red cherries in half.  What do you think was in the middle of the cherries?  Worms!!!!  Little, tiny, white, worms.  The person in the video cut many perfect looking cherries in half and 99 % of them had little white worms in them.  Now how in the HELL (excuse my language) am I ever going to enjoy a cherry again???

  Something happened very similar to this with a summer favorite of mine, fried chicken.  Every once-in-a-while I like to treat myself to a piece or two of fried chicken and coleslaw.  For me, I can’t have one without the other.  Now, I also have a particular thing about fried chicken.  I like it cold.  In other words, I like cooked fried chicken the second day.  I like it cold from the fridge with a cup of nice cold coleslaw sprinkled with a generous amount of salt and pepper on both the chicken and the slaw.  I usually only buy this maybe three times a year.  I’m not stupid.  I know fried chicken isn’t dietetic or particularly good for one’s heart.  Still, it is something I look forward to having in summer usually, with cherries for desert.  One more thing, I don’t make this myself.  I buy it from a fast food restaurant like most of us Lazy Americansdo in summertime when they don’t want to toil over a hot stove.  Then I saw it…. I saw another video on Facebook.  There was a video of a woman sitting in a fast food restaurant; she peeled the crispy fried chicken skin back on a piece of her chicken and what was underneath the skin?  YES, you guessed it … LITTLE, WHITE,WORMS, squiggling about.   Even thinking about this video makes me sick all over again. I haven’t been able to have a piece of chicken in several months.  To be perfectly fair … the chicken wasn’t from the famous fast food company that likes to give you your chicken in a bucket.  The chicken was from another fast food spot.  Here is the worst part of the story.  I can’t remember which other famous fast food chicken restaurant that was the star of the story.  I only remember it was one I haven’t visited recently.

  This leads me to a very different subject.  As my readers who frequently read the posts on my blog might know, I am in a search for the perfect apartment.  What makes this a very difficult quest is that I am very particular in my tastes.  To add to this difficulty is that I have pets and my son is living with me for the moment and my “was-band” (husband that was) showed up unexpectedly and is sleeping on my chaise longue at the moment. That isn’t all.  I have to move in five weeks and two days, and, last but not least, I have a small budget for the move and for my monthly rent.  Now, originally I thought that I should move to a spot near a large body of water and a beach that I could walk along. After searching most of the beaches in the United States I narrowed it down to the Southern tip of Texas.  It is a cute little resort town with a long walk-able white sandy beach.  I saw a few very nice apartments with lovely views.  The apartments are almost the same size as my present apartment.  They have large, lovely pools and a gym, wood floors and newly remodeled kitchens.  So what’s wrong with the new possible apartments???

  Do yourself a favor if you have made up your mind about a new apartment or really if you are going to get anything new that you have seen on line, DON’T….  LET ME SAY THAT AGAIN, DON’T READ THE REVIEWS.  So my beautiful newly remodeled apartment is on the first floor and it has mice.  Not one mouse, the last renter killed 12 mice and the management doesn’t seem to think it is a problem.  The second apartment with, the view of the beach, has bugs, all kinds of bugs… bed bugs, ants and cockroaches.  The renter couldn’t stand it and left after four months.  The third apartment was really nice but there are never any parking spaces when the renters arrive home from work.  There is no assigned parking.  The renters are given a sticker but if you have a guest who manages to find a space anywhere in the complex the management puts a boot on your guests’ tire and charges $350 to remove the boot.   Apparently, this happens all of the time.

  One thing that I have learned after reaching the age of 60 and beyond; is that there is almost always going to be that famous, well known, “FLY IN THE OINTMENT that ruins perfection.”  This doesn’t surprise me anymore.  Youth is great.  Young people look at everything as if everything is going to be great and perfect, and sometimes it is for a moment or two or three but then wham, bam, there it is, just waiting for you to notice it, the fly swimming around in your nice pretty bowl of ointment.  It might be that handsome man, with the great smile who simply adores you.  He adores you because you are so different from his wife, who is home taking care of his five children, which he forgot to mention, when he asked you out.  Or, if you are a young man and ask that nice, sweet girl you met at church, out on a date. You didn’t know she would order three bottles of expensive wine and drink them all by herself, now did you?  What about the shiny, new used car you bought that comes with everything except a new timing belt that just broke and wrecked the transmission?

  Now, don’t get me wrong. There are some moments and there are some days that are perfect.  These days stand out in our minds and probably even get better with time.  One of the really great things about being over 60 is that we learn how to go with the flow.  We aren’t shocked or surprised when things or people aren’t what they seem. Now, I can bend with the wind. That’s how I have lived to be this old. I just scoop up that fly and toss it out.   I keep the ointment and use it until it is all gone. What’s the harm of a fly here or there, anyway?

  Until Next Week…

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• A Safe Harbor & Searching for Mr. Darcy

  Posted at 12:03 am by istheresexaftersixty, on July 19, 2019

  In six weeks and two days I have to be moved out of my present apartment to some other place somewhere in the world, that has at the very least, four walls and a roof.  Usually this type of event would have me rushing around (as my mother would say) like a chicken with her head cut off, but for some reason, so far, I have been reasonably calm and as of last night, still sleeping 6 to 7 hours a night.  This might all change by the time I am finished writing this post.  By tonight I might be my usual hysterical, nervous, self, pacing the floor of my bedroom at 2:00 A.M. or scouring Google Apartments.com for an inexpensive 2 bedroom /2 bath/ pet friendly, apartment, w/v (with view) anywhere, on this planet.  (If I’m not the person driving, I get car sick, so I am pretty sure I will not be taking any trips to the Moon or Mars in the near future.)

  There is a slight stirring and some sort of movement in my stomach region.   This might mean that when I am not looking; uncontrollable or exaggerated emotion could hit me at any moment.  I am going to proceed with this essay as my invisible man-friend, who has two strong hands pushing down on my shoulders, will be keeping me seated and typing this post, while he is holding down my overly emotional self.  You see I have an invisible friend.   Well, actually, he is my invisible boyfriend.  (If one is over 60, may I still use the term boyfriend?)  My made-up, invisible boyfriend or man-friend is named (by me) Mr. Darcy.  He is a man of reason.  He tells me that when I only have $450 to last before my next check, that I really don’t need to buy that bottle of Champagne.  He has stopped me from buying new shoes and a new wardrobe this year. He let me know last year that Martinis and Margaritas are very nice occasionally, for some special occasions, however, he strongly suggested one glass of wine or two with ice, might be a better idea for my waistline.  I decided he was right.  He did mention that two martinis are okay on special occasions as long as special occasions only happen two or three times a year.  Mr. Darcy is a man of conviction and self-control.  We argue with each other on occasion.  Just today, for example, I was seriously considering having my son drive to Arby’s to buy me a beef sandwich, onion rings and a small Coke. Mr. Darcy flew into a rage.  He couldn’t believe that I was seriously considering this lunch feast after I had worked so hard to lose 4 ½ Lbs. last week. So after a long argument I decided to have one slice of ham and a half of slice of Swiss cheese on one slice of Rye bread with a large glass of water.  Golly, Mr. Darcy can be so persuasive in an argument.  He actually made me stand on the scale in my bathroom. That did it!  He can be a tyrant at times.

  Mr. Darcy found this statement on Facebook and he made me notice it, and save it, on my desktop Screen Saver, to remind myself of what is important and what I should remember.  It states, “Don’t chase, don’t beg, don’t be desperate, just relax.  When you relax it will come to you. Make your wants, want you.”  {(I am not sure who said this, but at the top of the statement, this is what was written.)(@MINDSETOFGREATNES}  

  Well, Mr. Darcy was right again.  This statement has helped me through this new difficult situation.  Having to move again on a limited budget in six weeks and two days can be very stressful.  Each morning when I wake, I read the above statement and I take a deep breath and go on with my day.

  Now, I take a part of each day with Google, Apartment.com, and Rent.com. & Zillow.com, searching for a safe place, for myself, my son, my two cats and a dog with  …….  2bds/2ba/parking/w/d/pet friendly/w/v.   It has occurred to me lately that really we are all searching for a safe place.  We are all searching for a safe harbor where we can live and laugh and learn and love without fear.  I am looking for a place where I might be able to take long, deep, breaths of clean air and  where I might be able to take walks by myself or with my dog and feel safe and secure without worry.

  I know I have been searching for most of my life for a safe harbor so that for a few years I might not have to be the one who handles everything for everyone.  I have been hoping for a time when someone else, besides me, might be able to pick up the slack, make the decision, make the money, pay the bills, find the apartment, sign the lease, make that homerun, take the ball and run with it, lift that bail, just someone else, for once. Then, I remember, my imaginary friend, Mr. Darcy.  When I don’t know where to go or what to do and I wonder if over the age of 65 if I will be able to keep handling everything on my own and by myself: this is when, Mr. Darcy appears.  He gives me a pat on the back and smiles his, warm, charming, smile and he reminds me that I have done this before and I can do it again.  He reminds me that I am strong and that I have gotten this far and to this age, by being the substantial, impregnable, force,  that has been managing herself and her family and her business for a long, long, time. Somehow, in a few weeks, I will be packing and unpacking again.  I will manage to stay calm and I will handle things, as usual.  Thank you, Mr. Darcy, wherever you are.  I guess he knew I had it in me all of the time.

  Until Next Week…

   

   

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• Marry Me! Not!

  Posted at 10:04 pm by istheresexaftersixty, on July 11, 2019

  There are some things that maybe should be done only once.   Some things can only be done one time.  You can only lose your virginity one time.  In days of yore there have probably been women and men who have pretended that, this particular event had happened more than one time.  At least that is what I have heard.

  You can see a place for the first time…. only once.  My first trip to Europe happened only once.  My first view of the Eiffel Tower happened one time.  My first bowl of pasta in Rome I will never forget.  My first glance at the Mediterranean happened one time.

    There is the first time you are kissed. It happened to me in Hawaii when I was twelve going on thirteen.  I remember that he was blond with blue eyes and he was from Canada.  He was staying at the same resort.  He was an only child of older, very rich parents.  He was a French Canadian.  I have had lots of crushes on several different men but as for love. Only three times, so far.

  I have only been married once.   I still have a “was-band”.   We have been separated for a long time.  We have come back together many times, at first, because we tried to give it a go once again.   The second and third and forth time, it was due to the fact that my husband is the father of my two sons and it helped to have him around to help with the boys as well as the house and pets and all the little things men can do that I can not do.   He could climb up on ladders to get rid of a wasp nests, to tell me what is the matter with my car’s engine, grilling things on the grill, getting rid of mice, and washing the dog after he has frightened a group of skunks that lived underneath our stairs in one of our houses.

  My particular “was-band” is very clean and neat unlike some other husbands that I have heard about from my friends. He likes to vacuum and dust and clean out garages.  So he does have his good points.    He is sort of like the brother that turns up when he  needs me to look after his pets or if his house that he was renting was sold out from under him and he needs a place to stay.  I have a white leather chaise lounge that folds down into a bed for him.  That is his bed, in my living room, when he needs a place to stay.  Am I the better person of the two of us?  OF COURSE I AM!  Am I a saint? ABSOULETY I AM, NO DOUBT ABOUT IT!!  I feed him too!!!

  There are a few things that I would like to do again. There are a few things that I would like to do for the first time.

  I would like to go on the Orient Express to Venice.  I have always wanted to go on the Orient Express and I have always wanted to go to Venice.  Both of these things would be for the first time.  BTW I want to stay in a beautiful hotel in Venice and I want to have drinks at Harry’s Bar and I want to sit in the Piazza San Marco and just watch people go by.

  When I was 20 years old I went on the S.S. France with a whole group of students who were going to college in Europe for their junior year abroad.  It was a dream come true for me.  I had always dreamt about going on a ship across the ocean to Europe.  Why?  I don’t know why?  Maybe because I had seen so many old films on the Late, Late, Show, as a child, about the sophisticated romance of an ocean voyage.   I would like to do that again sometime in the future.

  When I was 26 I bought a condo in Chicago on the 33^rd floor.  It was mine all mine.  I bought it myself and I was very surprised when I signed my loan at the bank.  I signed on the dotted line.  Next to the word, Spinster!  Yes, I was a Spinster at 26 years old.  When I was 52 I bought my first home in Arizona.  It was a darling home with more than half of an acre of land.  I had my own cactus.  I had my own palm trees and a pool with a hot tub and waterfall.  I would like to build my own home.  This would be another first for me. 

  What else would I like to do again? This might not be possible because you can’t exactly force the issue or make it happen.  I would like to fall in love again.  It wouldn’t be for the first time but it would be the first time after the age of 60.  I would like to get an engagement ring from some man and I would like to have a big celebration with my friends and family and have a reception and slice a beautiful cake.  I would like a band to play for us and to dance with my new love to some good old songs that we would choose so that both of us would know all of the words.   I would like to go on a long honeymoon and see things for the first time that I have never seen before.  I would like to move into a new home with this man and decorate with both or our tastes in mind.   I would like to have dinner parties together with our friends and family. I would like to wake up on a Sunday and read the paper together over coffee and I would like to discuss what we might like to do for our Sunday afternoon as a couple.

   There is only one problem.I  am not sure that I want to be married to this person? Maybe we could have all the fun without making it legal?  So I guess someone would have to ask me to just, love and care for him and for each other, until death us do part, without signing on the dotted line.

  Until Next Week…

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• What Are You Worth?

  Posted at 10:23 pm by istheresexaftersixty, on July 3, 2019

   

  Today I woke up in my usual semiconscious state and after a few minutes of just staring vacantly at my ceiling fan going round and round which makes me slightly dizzy, I walked over to the other side of the room to turn on my cell phone to check if there had been any emergencies that have come to light, with the light of dawn.  I first check my messages and then I usually read the joke my good friend from the South has sent to me on my text. This usually produces my first smile or laugh of the day.  Lately I have been getting a few messages from my long, lost, “was-band” in the form of a joke or two, or a question about my possible move to a less expensive apartment in the very near future.   I delete all of the ads on my emails that have arrived overnight, and then I face the harsh reality of checking my bank accounts: business, personal, and the reserve line.  Today I was relieved to see that all of the checks that I have cashed and the on-line banking that I have used to pay most of my latest bills, have cleared. I have a plus balance in all three accounts.  If I were to tell you what those balances are today you would be surprised.  They are all on the plus side but miserably, small for a woman in her 60’s.  This isn’t unusual for men and women in their 60’s. It is a sad state to be in as a senior woman who has a son living with her for the moment, as well as three (yes, count ‘em’) three rescued pets, in a very nice, two bedroom, two bath, apartment with a dining area, a washer / dryer, a balcony with a breathtaking view and a comfortable office for me to handle my small business as well as writing my weekly (well, usually weekly) post for my blog.   Several situations have led me to this dismal financial state.  I won’t go into detailed circumstances of my very fragile financial state as there are several incidents that no one could have predicted two years ago, before my move to the big city, that have contributed to my present position.  Am I able to see any light at the end of the tunnel?  Well, there are a few little strands of light that might be splintering through the dark tunnel.

  There are some good things that come with struggling through financial woes.  One, you don’t worry as much about anything else that might be rising with the dawn.  You really only concentrate on paying your immediate bills while contemplating new ways to earn more money.  This is tricky after one hits the grand old age of 60.  Not many businesses are interested in hiring men and woman over sixty. It is a reality and a true, harsh, reality.  I interviewed for two jobs in the last few months.   Actual shock registered on the face of the twenty-nine –year-old woman who was interviewing me.  One woman looked at me and said, “You aren’t the woman I spoke with on the phone are you?” “Yes, I am”, I answered while trying to smile, a youngish smile.   “I guess that I have a young voice.”  I managed to keep smiling while answering her.  Now I don’t look like a teenager but I am hoping that I don’t look my age either.  I’m not a beauty, but you know, nice looking for 67 years without the help of any plastic surgery.   Hey, just six months ago while taking my second trip to the hospital in an ambulance,  (I won’t go into the reason for that trip … good news, it’s nothing serious) the 30ish pretty woman taking my vitals asked me if I was 56 or 46 years old.  (I still wish I had that on tape to replay for my family who look at me with very doubtful frowns when I mention that to various friends.)

  Here is another good thing about having financial problems.  (What could that be you might be asking yourselves?)  Well, you set your priorities in a logical manner.  I stopped concentrating on my health.  Do I have a pain here or there?  Yes, but these are the least of my problems.  Can I die?  Sure, but it better not be today because I have that schedule to fill out and those invoices to send.  Therefore, dying has to be postponed for a day or two or to sometime in the future after I have paid those bills staring me in the face.  Retirement?  Are you joking?  There will be no retirement for me.  EVER!  So, what is the good news?  I will keep working while keeping my small business running and I will keep writing.  One of these days surely someone will contact me and suggest that I write a column in the local paper and or an agent will come knocking on my door with a contract in hand promising me a huge amount of money to write a book or to turn my script into a movie!  Financial success awaits!  Financial issues can be a sort of interesting divergence from everyday problems and worries. Arthritis?  Who can think about arthritis when looking for a new, nice apartment for my son, my three pets and myself, with a possible view of the ocean, … somewhere in the U.S.A.?  Man in my life?  Are you kidding?  Listen, it would be nice, but right now, I have to move, keep moving, keep living and as I often say, in this very blog, I have to keep on keeping on!

  Now, speaking of worth.  What am I worth?  What are you worth?  For some reason I have always known my worth.  It comes from inside.  Either you feel that you have a worth or you don’t. It’s funny but no one can give you a feeling of your own worth.  Isn’t it odd how many rich, and seemingly successful people aren’t happy or fulfilled? I especially try to hold in my anger , when a good-looking, successful, wealthy, healthy, person, professes to be depressed or suicidal.  Listen, fellows, just place your selves in my shoes for a moment.  I’m working hard, to keep on working hard.     Occasionally, I have been surprised at a person’s view of me…. let’s say, not a very complimentary view of me.  I had a dear, longtime, friend in the last year who stopped talking to me.  I never found out why or what I had possibly done to upset her, to never want her to speak to me again.  Puzzling? Sure.   Am I devastated?  No, I am not.  I have tried to live my life without hurting or embarrassing anyone.  I know my own worth so I don’t need to make anyone else feel, less.  If you know who you are and what you are worth all you have to give to others are good feelings, kindness, and a helping hand, if it is at all possible.  So, am I unhappy? No, I am not.  Worried? Sure.  Who wouldn’t be slightly worried about their future?  Do I have faith in myself? Do I think everything will turn out for the better? Sure I do.  Why? (As the hair care ad on TV, says)“Because, I’m worth it!“  

  Until Next Week…

   

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• A Bowl of Cherries

  Posted at 9:52 pm by istheresexaftersixty, on June 21, 2019

   So far this year, as we were moving onto summer I have bought three different bags of cherries. Cherries are my very favorite fruit, along with tomatoes (yes, tomatoes are in the fruit family) and lemons and blood oranges. I love cherries so much that I even eat cherries that aren’t very flavorful. This year all three bags haven’t had much taste. Doesn’t matter too much to me because, if I like something, I like it, no matter what. My taste hasn’t changed that much though the years. I have a few foods that have been my go- to meals when I am sad or not feeling too well or when I need to support my mental state with a special, “Happy Meal” My own “happy meal”, usually revolves around small shell noodles with Hunts Tomato Sauce and a nice chunk of butter, salt and pepper and Parmesan on the top, shaken from a can. Everyone who has known me from the age of three or four, through high school and college and beyond … knows this about me. Even in college I would make this simple pasta dish for my friends in my dorm room with just a hotpot to use for me to boil the noodles. I believe I made a whole group of my friends addicted to this feel-good snack. In college I became so famous for this dish that I could imitate the sound of stirring the pasta with the tomato sauce. My friends would say, “Make your sound of noodles being stirred” and I would make the curdling sound with my mouth and tongue. Oh yes, I had many natural talents or highly skilled attributes, which so far, have not made me rich. Ah well, back to my story. I also make homemade chicken soup with dumplings. This always helps if I am feeling blue. I cook it for a few hours while the smell permeates through the air. Then I make the dumplings and drop them in the boiling soup, a spoonful at a time, until they are cooked through. I make hard dumplings. They are the most satisfying. I like the soup to be salty. I only like to make chicken soup if I am able to make a half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a plate next to my bowl of chicken soup. One more thing, I have to have with this meal is, an ice-cold glass of milk. The milk can be skim, 2% or whole milk… it doesn’t matter to me… it just has to be ice cold. I have a few other things that can make me smile or feel better no matter what is going on in my life. I will list them not in any particular order. Ice Cold Champagne, Margaritas on the rocks with salt, Dirty Martinis with lots of olives, almost any ice cold white wine, Perrier, also ice cold, lemon cake, my mother’s Angel Food Cake with her cherry glaze frosting (my mother is no longer with us … now she is the angel so I don’t eat this cake anymore), potato chips and onion dip, Cherry or Apple pie … must be hot with vanilla ice cream and ice cold milk to drink, Pretzels, buttermilk, sour dill pickles wrapped in a piece of summer sausage, herring, only vinegar and onion herring, eaten out of the jar. I know sort of unusual however, my mother liked herring and I picked up the habit.

  These are all my favorite foods that I have loved since I have been eating solid foods well with the exception of the alcohol. When I like something, I like it, forever. This goes for lots of my likes and dislikes. Movies, TV shows, books and yes, even people. If I like you and take the time to know you then by golly, I like you for life. I hate pudding, I have always hated pudding and I still hate pudding. There isn’t a pudding on earth that I would like. If I were starving … would I eat pudding? Yes, only if I were starving. I’m not crazy.

  You might be wondering when I will be getting to my point of this blog.

  If I have taken the time to talk to you, to write you and to talk to you in person, or on the phone, and if I have made myself vulnerable by getting to know you and letting you get to know me then, like it or not, I like you and I will probably like you, forever. That is just who I am and I can’t help it. Now, I have really, good friends that have drifted out of my life. I am not sure if it was on purpose or if it just happened as we moved on with our lives, however, am telling you right now, that if we used to be close friends, as far as I am concerned, we are still friends. If I run into you after many years apart, I am still going to be thrilled to see you. I still want to catch up on your life and everything I have missed since we last spoke. Need help or a shoulder to cry on… I am still here and I want to help, if I can help, in anyway. I’m loyal, and yes, I would say, I am loyal to a fault. I have been in like in my life and I have been in deep like and I have been in love, and I have been deeply, madly, and truly, in love. When these friendships or likes or love or deep loves have moved on did I stop caring, or liking or loving? No, I did not. A few times in my life (thankfully in the past) I have been devastated with severe and overwhelming grief, due to the loss of a friend or loved one or the loss of what I had considered to be a real romantic love.

  Thank heavens, I have aged and grown stronger and tougher as the years have rolled on. I don’t feel devastated by rejection, disappointed? Sure, upset? Okay, for a bit, but now to quote my very favorite actress of all time who has recently passed away, “Que, Sera, Sera. If I liked you I’m sorry but my own feelings haven’t changed. I like you and I probably always will. If I loved you then that probably hasn’t changed either. Maybe it isn’t truly and madly or deeply, anymore, but I probably still love some part of you. Consider the way I have never been able to walk away from a really good bowl of cherries, even bad cherries. I can’t help it, my likes, stay the same. You can walk away and some people have walked away. That’s okay too. Judy Garland sang about life in a fabulous song, “Life is just a bowl of Cherries.” Look up the words to that song. Try to live that life.

  Until Next Week…

  Songs mentioned in the post: Que Sera, Sera   singer,Doris Day Published, 1951 Written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans

  “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries” (Love, Judy Garland’s rendition) Written by Ray Henderson and Lew Brown Published, 1931.

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• Daddy’s Girl

  Posted at 12:09 am by istheresexaftersixty, on June 14, 2019

   

  My father didn’t sit down with his children often, to have heart to heart talks, however, one night I remember he sat with me in our den that we also referred to as, the TV room.  He turned on a movie and sat with me.  He suggested we have a brandy together.  My father wasn’t really a drinker so this surprised me.  I honestly can’t remember how old I was at the time; maybe, I was in my last year of high school or on vacation from college?  We sipped our glasses of apricot brandy and proceeded to watch the film on TV.   In this particular film there were two men digging a hole and talking.  We sat and watched for a few minutes and then my father turned to me and said, “You know any movie that has two guys digging a hole for five minutes…. is a movie that has nothing to say, and is a waste of time.” My dad got up to turn the channel. (Yes, in those days one had to get up off of the couch to change the channel. A person had to turn a dial to change the channel by hand. There was no such thing as  a remote control.)   A light went off in my head.  It was the best basic critique of a film that I have ever heard of before or since.   That was my father in a nutshell.  He wasn’t a phony or a huge conversationalist.  He immediately got right to the point.  I never forgot that night.  Why? I guess it was one of those moments that my father sat and talked to me.  That night he treated me as another adult instead of his little girl.  He told me that he didn’t like the taste of alcohol and didn’t really like to drink. He mentioned that he only drank when he had to travel for work.  He would stop and have a few drinks in a bar at night before heading to his hotel room. He admitted to being sad and lonely on the road.  This shocked me.  My father, sad and lonely? I never thought of him as a lonely person.

  The first night my parents arrived home after dropping me off at college my mother told me that my father stood in my bedroom for a long time.  He told my mother that it wasn’t the same without me.  I was so surprised that I made a difference.  True, I was the middle child.  I had one sister 6 years older and one sister 7 years younger. Somehow being in the middle I never considered myself of having an important impact or role in the family.  My first two years in college must have been difficult for my mother and my younger sister because my father was caught cheating with another woman.  I tried to keep everyone together calling long distance from my dorm in Iowa. (This was a time before cell phones. We had four pay phones that were located in the hallway of our dorm.) My father got on the phone with me and told me not to worry that he would take care of the situation.  He didn’t, but I guess he tried.

   The first Halloween away from home my father sent me a crystal ball from Tiffany’s that sat on a crystal post.  My father said that I looked like his grandmother who was a fortune-telling gypsy. It was a sort of secret in our house that I had the ability to see the future and I had been known to see ghosts every now and again as a child and later as an adult.   The crystal ball was one of my prized possessions that I lost in a move.

  My father wrote me long letters while in college, in long hand on the front and back of lined tablet paper, that he must have had on his desk at work.  I loved hearing about his feelings and his work and his travels.  He often wrote me when he was traveling to the Far East. Many years later I realized that writing me must have made him feel that he was connected to home.  In one of his letters he mentioned that he often had to walk down dark very spooky alleys in Korea or Singapore or Hong Kong and he realized that someone could come up from behind him and slit his throat and no one would ever know what had happened to him.  This was in 1970 and 1971 when my father would be the only American he would sometimes see in a 24-hour period.  My dad did business in all of these countries without speaking anything but English. Ninety percent of the time he didn’t even have a translator with him. He was usually all-alone.  In his no nonsense manner he could conduct business probably using pictures that he would draw with a pen or pencil.

  Dad had more energy than any person I have ever known in my life.  He would normally wake up in those days at 5 A.M. or 6 A.M., even while traveling, in Korea or Hong Kong or Singapore, and dad would put on a pair of white shorts and a white short sleeved t-shirt and tennis shoes and he would jog through the streets of whatever city he was in.  This was long before most people jogged in the U.S.A.  Dad told me that most people would look at him as if he were running in his underwear.   In the early 70’s jogging was an unusual form of exercise in the Far East. If there was a pool or a tennis court in his hotel or nearby he would swim laps and try to get someone to play tennis with him or hire a tennis coach to hit with him. He would work all day and I guess at night he would probably sit at a bar and have a few drinks.  Later he would often go to his room and write me a nice long six-page letter.  My dad would sign his letters, “Love, Father Norm” When my college friends would glance at the letters on my desk from my dad they all thought that a priest was writing me.  No wonder I had a “goody-two-shoes” reputation at college.

  Dad had is faults.  He was a philanderer.  He couldn’t help himself.  His good, was really good and his bad, was pretty bad.  As a father he was perfect for me.  He had what a lot of people would have considered as a difficult childhood. My dad loved telling us stories about his childhood. He was street smart and tough.  He looked back on most of his childhood as happy.  He sold papers as a kid, he was a small thief.  Dad would often take food from large grocery stores.  He always got away with it, as he could outrun the police by jumping over fences.  He sold Chicago newspapers next to bars at night because drunks give big tips.  He was a creative, strong, handsome, hardworking, interesting, positive, man. He was often thoughtful and kind. He built a business from almost nothing to a business that he sold to Pillsbury in mid-1970.  We are no longer associated with his business but it still has his name and my maiden name on the boxes in stores all across the country and the world. His former company still sells many of the items he created from nothing. He was proud of his business, he was proud of becoming a Navy Pilot in WWII and he was proud of his three daughters.  Miss you, daddy. Happy Father’s Day!

  Until Next Week…

   

   

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