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Monthly Archives: March 2015

Honored Old Memory

27 Friday Mar 2015

Posted by mbtrevino in Love

≈ 2 Comments

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love

He was a Rembrandt; a pitcher who could ‘paint the corners.’ He was a living Michelangelo’s David. And he was mine for a dreamy season of time that linked us together. We cooked, surfed, rode bikes, played tennis, sang off-key; every song on the Eagle’s Desperado album. He read Jonathan Livingston Seagull out loud to me. For my birthday he gave me a simple gold cross. For Christmas, a Bentwood rocker. We set a date, ordered invitations; I bought my bleached-muslin wedding dress. But that very night I had a nightmare that was so horrific, it sucked the life out me. I completely panicked, called off the wedding and rushed back to school. He got a steady job at the Grain Elevators. I studied furiously, graduated quickly and kept on running. February of 1978, I heard during a long-distance phone call from my broken-hearted mom that there had been an explosion 40 days earlier. He had been at work that evening. He was only 26. He died; crushed very violently; and hopefully, suddently. It has taken me thirty-seven years to finally read this dreaded Death Certificate. It lists the Cause(s) of Death. It is much too graphic, too painfully horrible to repeat. I still wear my cherished gold cross. I rock in my treasured chair. I never told him why I ran away. I never had to; I know he already knew. He wanted our love to live honored in my heart forever. It does.

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Park Etiquette 101: How NOT To Be The Ass Everyone Hates

24 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by mbtrevino in Uncategorized

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Hold Me, Don't Hold ME

Oh, the park. How I love thee, and your rolling green hills. Your trees, the only survivors of the unstoppable urban sprawl, provide shade from the hot afternoon, post-nap sun (or the drizzle if you live in the Pac NW). Your sandpit, with it’s lot of broken, discarded, plastic toys, is one of few places I can sit still while Baby 1.0 happily digs, piles and eats sand like she is one of those giant angry worms from Tremors. Your swings bring back the memories of the only way we could get our precious daughter to sleep for the first 7 months of her life. And your constant parade of playmates provide a welcome bit of socialization from what can otherwise be a bit of a lonely existence. But it’s not all sunshine and sidewalk chalk rainbows. Every once in a while, someone comes along and sullies the experience. So…

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On the Fence

22 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by mbtrevino in Aging, Anti-Aging, Boomers, Elders

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Aging, Anti Aging, Boomers, Elders, Seniors

My Anti Anti-Aging post got some attention with a little bit of reaction. Seems like a few readers/friends showed that they are on the fence about this process we call aging. Here’s a sample of the wisdom I gratefully received. (Thank you all sincerely!)

For starters, from a friend that I have known since college days – ” I have mixed emotions about aging. I don’t ever really think about it, but lately so many things have happened in my life that I’ve begun to realize that I am not as young as I used to be. I will probably handle aging in a mixed medium. I will continue to fight through exercising, eating right along with a lot of laughing and dancing. On the other hand, I will continue to pursue what will help my body and mind continue to function in this fast-pace world. I hope to age gracefully but full of life.” G.C.

From a close friend and contemporary of my recently-deceased, 78 year-old mom (who was very helpful during mom’s illness) – “My motto is God Bless Pain Pills so I can do most of what I want without minding the pain too much.” P.L.

From my dear friend L.R. (we share a grand) “Unfortunately, I can relate. Fortunately, I agree with the points you make. This aging thing is beginning to take over more of my thoughts. I am now calling it the age of loss. Every week I lose something or someone from my life. I’ve got to start replacing or I’ll be down to nothing soon.”

And from a childhood friend that I have know for over 55 years “I was just thinking about this topic not too long ago…the realization that aging can be beautiful if you will allow it to come through and manage it as part of a natural process.” K.S.

Let the dialogue continue. Please talk to your friends and children about it.

I’ll end with a quote by my favorite doctor. “How did it get so late so soon?” Dr. Seuss.

To All The Other “Bad Mothers” Out There

20 Friday Mar 2015

Posted by mbtrevino in Uncategorized

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Hold Me, Don't Hold ME

Well hello, Lovelies!

Let me start by saying welcome, and thank you for joining me in my first ever “Bad Mothers Club” meeting! My name is Emily, and according to strangers on the internet, I’m a bad mother (amongst many other less than desirable things). See, a few weeks ago I wrote a post about Why I’m Never Getting My Daughter A Pony, and wouldn’t you know it, it awarded me membership to the club with gusto (awesome comments can be read here)!

Shortly after receiving my membership notification, via multiple comments along the lines of my personal favorite, “You’re a blithering IDIOT!!!”, and of course the old stand-by, “You shouldn’t be a mother,” I came across another poor fellow mother and blogger who was ripped a number of new assholes from hundreds of angry mothers who didn’t agree with her message. If you’re wondering what her message…

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Anti Anti-Aging

17 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by mbtrevino in AARP, Aging, Anti-Aging, Boomers, Retirement, SilverTsunami

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

AARP, Aging, Anti Aging, Bad knees, Boomers, Elderly

Look at just about any advertisement anywhere, in print, on-line, on TV and it is trying to sell you something to make you look younger, reverse the look of aging, preserve what youth you may still radiate. Not much for anyone who wants to healthfully embrace aging. And not too much concern or conversation about it either. I remember my own Grandmother’s 80 birthday party. I was about 30. She whispered to me that “you will feel old for a lot longer than you ever felt young, so learn not to fight with it.” She aged beautifully. I myself have merely aged. And she was right about feeling old a lot longer than feeling young, especially if you have been injured or you simply live as long as she did. She was almost 93 when she died. On my 50th birthday, my grown kids and I did a Class 5, white-water river rafting trip on the Cache la Poudre. For my 60th, we are going to celebrate with a more mellow, water-based family weekend. There are two babies in our family that need to ripen more before we ever subject them to that extreme level of adventure. The key word here is ripen. I am just ripening too. I don’t want to fight aging. I want to gradually mellow into what nature intended all along, an older me. The wrinkles show more when I laugh than when I keep a straight face but I would much rather laugh than not. The body parts I accidentally wounded and injured over the past 60 years sometimes remind me very loudly of how many miles they have taken me. We have a truce about how to keep adding more miles. My knee doctor told me it was my choice, I could play really hard for a little while longer or I could walk really well for a whole lot longer. I like walking just fine. I plan to mellow to a ripe old age. I am going for a walk…

Anti Anti-Aging

17 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by mbtrevino in AARP, Aging, Aging in Place. Seniors, Anti-Aging, Boomers

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Tags

Aging, Anti Aging, Bad knees, Boomers, Elders, Ripe ol age, Seniors

Look at just about any advertisement anywhere, in print, on-line, on TV and it is trying to sell you something to make you look younger, reverse the look of aging, preserve what youth you may still radiate. Not much for anyone who wants to healthfully embrace aging. And not too much concern or conversation about it either. I remember my own Grandmother’s 80 birthday party. I was about 30. She whispered to me that “you will feel old for a lot longer than you ever felt young, so learn not to fight with it.” She aged beautifully. I myself have merely aged. And she was right about feeling old a lot longer than feeling young, especially if you have been injured or you simply live as long as she did. She was almost 93 when she died. On my 50th birthday, my grown kids and I did a Class 5, white-water river rafting trip on the Cache la Poudre. For my 60th,  we are going to celebrate with a more mellow, water-based family weekend. There are two babies in our family that need to ripen more before we ever subject them to that extreme level of adventure. The key word here is ripen. I am just ripening too. I don’t want to fight aging. I want to gradually mellow into what nature intended all along, an older me. The wrinkles show more when I laugh than when I keep a straight  face but I would much rather laugh than not. The body parts I accidentally wounded and injured over the past 60 years sometimes remind me very loudly of how many miles they have taken me. We have a truce about how to keep adding more miles. My knee doctor told me it was my choice, I could play really hard for a little while longer or I could walk really well for a whole lot longer. I like walking just fine. I plan to mellow to a ripe old age. I am going for a walk…

Is It Better to Be Tied to a Tree Than Squashed on the Freeway?

12 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by mbtrevino in Uncategorized

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Sending you my wish for peace. Yesterday was the one year anniversary of my own mom’s death. I often felt like I was tied to a tree or squashed on the highway. I don’t miss that, but I do miss her.

mom and dad move in

boytree

Baby Walter — that’s what everyone called him since his dad was also named Walter and no one much liked the sound of “junior” — spent most of his single-digit years tethered to one heavy object or another.

His older sister Tina was one of my closest friends. We grew up in the 1970s and 1980s at different ends of the same rural road in Ohio, an unlined swath of blacktop connecting old farmhouses to the fields of green soybeans and sweet corn planted in between.

Baby Walter and Tina lived in the last house on the right before our road crossed over Interstate 71, the busy freeway connecting Cleveland to Columbus to Cincinnati.

And Tina’s mom — not overly protective of Tina or her older brother — worried constantly that Baby Walter would run down the slope of their side yard and onto I-71 where he would almost certainly…

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Senior Moments

05 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by mbtrevino in Alzheimers, Boomers, Senior Moments, SilverTsunami, Traveling with Alzheimers, Trip Insurance

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AARP, Boomers, Dementia, Senior Moments, SilverTsunami, Traveling with Dementia, Trip Insurance

With the aging of “Boomers” (those born between 1946 and 1964/ A.K.A. the Silver Tsunami) the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease is expected to almost triple. (13.8 million by 2050) The fifth-leading killer of aging Americans; it destroys brain cells; affecting memory, language, reasoning and behavior. (approximately 5 million Americans every year.) Those are the numbers that are reported. Some familiies hide their ‘problems’ and this area is no different. Excuses are endless. (“senior moment”) Facing this complicated reality is often ignored. My step-dad, Tom started presenting signs of dementia after a stroke. Mom became the brains of their partnership. Against my adamant advice, they embarked on a Baltic cruise in May of 2013. Mom was his ‘keeper’, but she became deathly ill at sea and required immediate hospitalization. The cruise ship was diverted to Stockholm. They were officially disembarked and transported by ambulance to St. Joran’s Hospital. The compassionate doctors were so concerned about Tom literally getting lost without mom, they admitted him to the hospital for ‘safe-keeping’ where he stayed in a bed next to hers. (His own Americian doctor didn’t want to tell him he had Alzheimer’s.) At 7 a.m. on May 27th, I received a phone call from Emma, the Port Agent for the Cruise Lines asking me to come to Sweden and take custody of Tom. After a 4 day stay to stabilze mom, they flew home with a Medical Escort. (Thank goodness for trip insurance!) Mom died March 10, 2014, about 10 months after the cruise. Tom now lives in a ‘Retirement Center.’ I went to visit him yesterday; I go at least once a week. He told me that he had signed some papers that morning. I called my step-sister to ask her what he was talking about. She explained that she had sold mom and Tom’s house. The closing was yesterday. Try to talk to Tom; after a few minutes, you will realize he has some form of dementia. How can anyone with dementia or Alzheimer’s sign a binding legal document? Let’s hope more effective prevention and treatment methods are discovered for Alzheimers! At least 30 state legislatures have adopted plans or task forces to address the disease. “We’re being proactive here in Connecticut,” says Representative Joseph Serra, co-chair of the state’s newly established Task Force on Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia. “I believe we need to get a handle on it before it’s an even bigger problem.” The problems surrounding aging are very complicated with cascading effects. It can unravel families. Start the dialouge with your grown children. Be proactive about your own destiny.

Senior Moments

05 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by mbtrevino in Uncategorized

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Senior Moments.

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