This gallery contains 2 photos.
As I get older there are some things that I don’t understand. Certain things just don’t make logical sense to me. Perhaps they should or maybe they are just mysteries. Despite the fact that menopause happened a while back, I … Continue reading
This gallery contains 2 photos.
Sometimes we get sucked into our own microsphere and get disengaged from friends. Not because we mean to but because life is full of nonsense stuff. I moved back to my childhood town 17 years ago following a painful divorce. A … Continue reading
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Just so everyone understands, old people are always people who are older than me. As I get older, so do old people. They will never be my age. That’s just how it is. There was a time when I though … Continue reading
This gallery contains 4 photos.
My hair is medium length – not short and not long. Over the years, I have found that different hair products do not change my hair much. It doesn’t matter how much I pay for them or what wonderful things … Continue reading
This gallery contains 1 photo.
My first real corporate job was working in a purchasing department for a large company. I did some low-level administrative stuff. What surprised me most was that I worked with a bunch of old people. In a department of thirty, there … Continue reading
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Whatever did we do before Post-its? They are God’s gift to the aging (and slightly demented). There was a time when I actually had a short-term memory. I could recite birthdays, sizes, menus, grocery costs, the alphabet, just about anything … Continue reading
This gallery contains 1 photo.
In the past week or so, I have had some of the most depressing events of my life. First, I signed up for Medicare. That is just nasty. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful that the government has such … Continue reading
This gallery contains 3 photos.
Cars are not my thing. I hate buying cars. I buy one every eight to ten years. The salespeople are well, icky. I don’t know what I want. I buy by color. Last spring the beloved husband replaced his car. He … Continue reading
This gallery contains 2 photos.
“I was raised by a woman who went through the great depression.” There have been many times that I have repeated that quote to explain my bizarre behavior. My mother experienced “the great depression” as a young girl and it wasn’t … Continue reading
Nothing strikes fear in aging baby boomers as the words “old people smell.” You know what it is. Maybe you smelled it in your grandparent’s home or the home of an elderly neighbor. (For purposes of this blog, elderly always means considerably older than me.) I remember it in my old Aunt Mary’s house – musty, slightly like perspiration, old clothes, like an attic.
It doesn’t come from being dirty. My sister-in-law’s parent’s home had it too. Maybe a contributing factor is wearing sweaters and wool clothes too long between cleanings but it’s not from not bathing.
I don’t know when it starts. It’s probably like other house smells. It starts so gradual that you never know you have it. With three cats, I always worry that my house smells like cats. Not enough to get rid of the cats but enough to buy candles, plug-ins, the reed thingies in the bottle – you name it, if it promises to smell good, I buy it. In our last renovation we built a room I call the “cat bathroom.” Yep, it’s enclosed with a cat door and has an exhaust fan and it’s located in the basement. Don’t let the basement part fool you, it is an upscale cat potty!
But I am not convinced so I ask unsuspecting visitors, “Does it smell like cats in here?” What good-natured visitor would tell me the truth? Of course I always pick visitors with pets or people like my brother who can’t smell anything.
If I wanted the truth, I would ask a child. They have a way of blurting out the most vivid truth in words that are not subtle. My grandniece Karen once told me my house stinks. Just like that. “Your house stinks.” Fortunately, I was considerably younger (so I wasn’t worrying about old people smell) and I happened to be frying cabbage at the time. At this point, she is too old to be that blunt or truthful so there is no point in asking her about the cats. Oh, yes, she also has cats.
Of course, maybe I really don’t want to know. Maybe it’s in the genes. My mother’s house never smelled of old people and she lived to see 75. Her house had wonderful cooking smells almost all the time. Maybe that’s the answer! Cook more, sweat less and don’t wear wool!
Views and Mews by Coffee Kat 