Another High Point for Seasoned Citizens: New Year’s Eve in Times Square

Now why, you ask, would a 70-ish couple want to spend hours out in the cold, celebrating an event that comes predictably every year with 1,000,000+ of their close, very close, but not-so-personal friends? The average age of Times Square revelers is probably 22.

So why do it and maybe scare ourselves silly in the process? Because we could, and it was a stretch and, yes, a little scary. That’s the point. As we get to this age, there is a huge tendency to circle the wagons and play it safe. Not a good idea. If we don’t continue to grow intellectually, emotionally, and in competency, we shrink. There is no standing still.

Still, we all have to pick our challenges to match our interests and physical limitations. Times Square has some physical and psychological requirements that are significant.

1. Structurally: You have to be able to walk several miles and stand in essentially the same spot for up to 8 or 9 hours. I hopped a lot and did some deep knee bends when rigor mortis started setting in.
2. Cold: We’re talking New York City on the last night of the year. It can be snowing, sleeting, or just bitterly cold. Bring more layers than you think you need. Wear mittens: they keep your hands warmer and you can drop hand-warmer packs into them. Ours kept our hands moderately warm for 7 hours. Toe warmers stick to the bottom of your socks to warm your feet. That helped, too.
3. Bathrooms: We have to be frank here. Essentially, there are none. If your bladder can’t hold its own for 8 hours, you may have to rethink—or make provisions to help it. I thought this over carefully and came up with a plan. After my breakfast cup of coffee, I cut off all fluids for the rest of the day. And for the first time in my life, I wore Depends—just in case that wasn’t enough. Luckily, cutting off the fluids worked, but it’s always good to have a back-up. And I found out that anti-leaking undergarments are quite comfortable—for future reference.
4. Escape routes: In Times Square after about 3 PM, the police cut off most of the access roads and pedestrians are funneled through densely populated check-points, where you will be wanded and cleared to enter a cordoned-off viewing area with big metal barricades. The only way out, once packed in like cattle, is by climbing over the barricade, so you have to decide to either stay or that you are physically able to climb up and over. Once out, however, you will not be allowed back in.
5. Back to the packed in like cattle: If you have even a touch of claustrophobia, don’t do it. There are times when you are packed so tightly together with strangers of different sizes that you can’t even raise or lower your arms. You are totally pinned. My sweetie and I held on to each other through those areas with iron grips to keep from getting separated. I wanted him there at midnight. I came for the kiss!

So why would anyone want to do this? I can only answer why we did it. Several reasons:
• It was our 45th wedding anniversary and we wanted it to be bizarre.
• We had seen the ball drop on TV for so many years; we just wanted to see it happen live for once.
• Our kids blew off our offer of an all-expense paid Disney cruise and park vacation, and this was plan B.
• I was curious to see who else would be crazy enough to do this. I met people from France, Germany, Mexico, Dubai, Croatia and about 14 states. Of course, they were all under 30. New York City-ites wouldn’t be caught dead there.
So we did it, first counting down the hours and finally the minutes. We saw the crystal ball drop, saw the 2014 numbers light up amid fireworks, and kissed each other like we had another 45 years in us.

Then we slogged through the crowd for umpteen blocks back to our hotel, toasted each other with champagne and crashed! Next year, we’re thinking of New Year’s Eve in Red Square in Moscow. It didn’t look as crowded.

Seasoned Citizens Unite!

Every once in a while, something sticks in our brains, besides nutty old songs or trying to remember someone’s name. My aha! moment came out of a class I do, called “Aging with Pizzazz,” that started out meaning aging ‘with health and humor’. I’ve since broaded that definition of pizzazz to be aging with passion. Pizzazz passion drives us to take care of ourselves physically so we have the stamina to follow our dreams, mentally to stay sharp and challenged, ethically to live an honest life; but most importantly, to age with the passion to energize and empower other people around us, and leave this world a better place than we found it.

We all have issues about which we feel passionate. After all, we live in a pretty complex and scary world. After visiting remote tribes living on atolls that are three inches above sea level, and seeing the ice melt away from Kilimanjaro and breaking ice floes in Antarctica, I’ve returned home passionate about combating global warming. I’m thinking about forming a new group: Grannies Against Global Warming, but I’m not sure the acronym would work: GAGWA?
And while I very much care about this issue, my epiphany involves a greater cause: that of harnessing the activist power of 120+ million “seasoned citizens” to combat a multitude of issues. It makes all the sense in the world:

• We certainly have opinions! (Just ask our kids)
• We care what kind of world we are leaving our grandchildren.
• We have years of education and experience to bring to the table.
• We have the time to get involved.
• We have numbers! There are 76 million Baby Boomers and another 45 million of us between 61 and 90. That’s over 120 million experienced people who can make change happen.
• We want to focus beyond all the aches and pains that come with age.
• It’s a great way to embarrass our children and our grandchildren.
• There is a problem needing a solution to fit every one of us, and the world needs us -now!
So—May I convince you to give activism a try? Activism, not such a scary word, simply means finding a cause about which you feel strongly and taking some kind of positive action. Activism can take many forms. We can get involved with grassroots organizations already fighting for what we believe in, or we can engage in what I call: “single-handed feats of activism”:
• Resolving to be kind and validate every person we have contact with every day
• Tutoring a child (our world’s next great leader?)
• Raising money for cancer research
• Helping out at an animal shelter
• Working at a food pantry
• Writing a letter to an editor
• Pulling lonely people into a support network
• Being fully engaged in seeking positive solutions to tough problems.
We can be a force in this youth-oriented culture, and return to our activist roots. It starts by finding and channeling our passions into something that helps other people and our planet. It starts by letting our pizzazz shine, one person at a time. Seasoned citizens: our time is now!

Cataractical Chaos

Aaauuggh! How could something so relatively straightforward, medically speaking, be so logistically confounding? I’m talking about having cataract surgery. Even as a nurse, I find the process daunting, so I know other people are challenged.

Oh! I forgot to mention I also have glaucoma, so I’m on two different eye drops because one didn’t reduce my pressure enough. I’m a really healthy person, but apparently a good lifestyle and prevention only go so far. Because I have glaucoma and cataracts!

So my glaucoma regimen is one drop in each eye twice a day and one drop once a day. I do the twice a day in the morning before I get up. No prob. The once and twice a day are done at night, but have to be administered at least five minutes apart, so I put in one drop, rest for a couple of minutes, then go wash my face, brush my teeth, etc., go back to bed and put in the second one. Mission accomplished.

So here comes cataract surgery and THREE more kinds of drops, but just for the eye being operated on. One of them is four times a day, and the other two, three times a day. Again, at least five minutes apart. When I outline the regimen I’ve figured out, my husband just rolls his eyes and says he hopes he never has cataracts.

One reason he says that is because my machinations will affect him and his ability to get fed or to sleep at night. AND---once this process calms down, we start over with THE OTHER EYE. So here goes:

Before rising: glaucoma twice-a-day drop both eyes
Breakfast time: drop (5 minutes) drop (5 minutes) drop. Then get up and fix breakfast
Lunch: drop (5 minutes) drop (5 minutes) drop. Then get up and do whatever
Dinner: drop (5 minutes) drop (5 minutes) drop. Then get up and make dinner, after a stiff drink!
Bedtime: drop (one eye) (5 minutes) drop both eyes (5 minutes) drop both eyes, bed!

The three extra ones start a couple days before surgery and then go for one-to-two weeks after, encompassing travel and time-zone changes. I know this isn’t serious, just something akin to a Keystone Kops routine. I am truly blessed with good health. It was just too funny not to write about!

Caring for My Parents: Things I Learned from my Sister

Our parents are now 90 and 88 with some significant health issues, but more difficult to deal with, political and control issues. During a recent visit, my dad excoriated me about not understanding the horrible shape this country is in, courtesy of the Democrats, our president, yadda, yadda. We don’t share the same political beliefs, but more importantly, he has never told us what he wants us to do about it. So going to visit is like walking on eggs. I want them to be as independent as they can be, but have the resources they need to stay that way. When we try to help, it is often greeted with a resounding: “No! Back off. I don’t need help.” And yet they do.

While we made some strides during my visit, I left feeling exhausted and like I was fleeing the scene of a crime. A few days later, enter one of my three sisters, the one who has been taking care of her equally difficult, but thankfully local, mother-in-law. She is also the one with the active listening skills honed from years in special education. And boy, does she use them, and well! In the few days she was with my parents, she made major strides in making them safer and starting a dialogue about “what if”. They visited a multi-level senior care center with independent living apartments, assisted living, skilled and dementia care. And they kind of liked it.

Because of my sister’s listening skills, Mom was able to say that she didn’t feel safe in the shower, something I had talked with her about and she insisted was fine. My sister went shopping with them and got them a shower chair with a back and arms. What they had tried before had neither, and my mom couldn’t get down or back up, making falling an even greater possibility. After they got it, my sister helped her take her first shower, making small adjustments, lowering the hand-held shower holder, so everything was well within reach. Now Mom feels safer and we breathe easier. Her success with our parents got me to thinking back about every encounter during my visit and I could see where I could have handled those situations differently.

What they both need is to feel heard without having someone volunteer solutions all the time. As my sister found, they come up with their own solutions if they have someone to bounce their thoughts off, and it has the added benefit of keeping them in control and feeling validated. For now, I can practice my active listening skills with them over the phone and next time I visit, since I can’t undo. Luckily, I had my sister for that. And I’m keeping her close by as my personal consultant so I can learn from the best.

More Trips for Oldsters

Wouldn’t it be great if we could just plan a trip and do it? Not so fast. At our age, stuff happens. This was the second year the three amigas planned to hike the Grand Canyon and the second year we had to cancel it. What’s the point of being the Three Amigas if one of us can’t do it? Last year a blood clot sidelined one. This year, it was a bad knee.

By holding on to our prior expectations, all we did was increase our stress and the guilt feelings of the amiga with the bad knee. Not a good way to start a road trip.

So the order of this trip was to cancel all the reservations and start over. We were packed and the car was loaded, so last minute is an understatement. Consequently, we took stuff we didn’t need and left things we could have used. Making it a little more complicated was an extended monsoon season. So all our hiking and sightseeing involved dodging raindrops and finding dry clothes to change into.

But it worked because we were able to let go of our expectations and grab for the fun where we found it. If there is anything useful we can learn as we age is to be flexible and choose to have fun. It helped that we had firmly affixed in our minds the reasons we were doing this trip: to spend some extended girl time with dear friends and guard this oasis of fun between frantic bouts of normal activity. Everything else is gravy.

We got one extended lovely hike in before the heavens opened up, and then spent most of the rest of the time in a cave—very handy during monsoons. And a lovely cave it was: Carlsbad Caverns with its size, theatrical lighting and amazing formations kept us busy for quite some time. And did I mention the bats? Carlsbad has a thriving bat population. We watched them fly out in the evening and would have watched them fly back in the morning if it hadn’t been pouring on the al fresco amphitheater. So instead, we adopted bats for all our grandchildren and various other relatives. (Won’t they be surprised?)

When we came home, we were all three recharged and ready to face whatever mayhem presents itself. We also had a long bucket list of future trips with varying degrees of activity, depending on which one of us is indisposed next year!

Mountaineering Mamas (and Papas)

So many younger people are too busy to do much hiking through the wilderness, but age has its privileges. Because we live high in the mountains of Colorado at a slower non-9-to-5 pace and this year has been exceptional for wildflowers, we get out there any chance we get.

But we all realize we have to be smart about it. After all, the equipment doesn’t work as effortlessly as it once did, and because we’re all on the shady side of 60, we’ve learned how to keep doing it. One of us has an arm problem, another, sciatica, and me, well, my depth perception kind of stinks. Still, we tackle long treks at altitude, even those coveted Colorado fourteeners (peaks over 14,000 feet).

While my 88-year-old mom keeps asking me when I’m going to grow up and act my age, I think I have. I’m out there hiking smart and loving it. We avoid scree, or as my friend calls it, ball-bearings. That’s the fine gravel that can make you slip and slide, especially going steep downhill. We use poles, especially for those sometimes treacherous water crossings, and we keep a steady but slow pace. And we pick our hikes, based on how well the body is working on a given day.

We seasoned citizens are of one mind on this. The important thing is to keep doing it. The more we do, the more we can. We just do it smarter than other hikers we’ve encountered: climbing high right after arriving from the flatlands, wearing open-toed sandals, not being prepared for changes in weather, and not carrying enough water for the distance and temperature.

Our hikes take us into some areas seldom seen by most people our age. There is a reason for that. It’s work! Not only that, but you have to develop a comfort level with bush toilets, rain and bugs. And as my husband would add, it helps to have a high tolerance for whining.

To be prepared for sudden climate changes and to tote enough water and calories to keep going requires a good day pack. I carry a large waist pack in the back with a water bottle holder on the front because my shoulders bother me with the traditional day pack. My friend with sciatica finds a well-fitting day pack with built-in water pouch hydration system the most comfortable. Day packs and waist packs should not exceed 15% of the body weight of that person. Make sure you allow room for food, first aid supplies: ibuprofen for muscle or joint soreness, bandages, cleansing wipes, antiseptic cream, sprain wraps, and moleskin. 

Now we’re ready to boogie up those mountains and have the time of our lives doing it!

True Love Knows No Age

But second love requires some common sense. That’s what I found out when I went to a birthday party and a wedding broke out! Perhaps I should explain? We have some long-time friends we’ve traveled with for 20 years. They have been a couple for as long as we have known them, and then some: twenty-four years. She was divorced; he, widowed. So they “hooked up” in modern parlance and have grown in love over the years as they’ve traveled the world together.

Last weekend, we were invited to an all weekend bash to celebrate her 70^th birthday. We had a pre-party Friday evening, the big birthday bash Saturday evening, and wrapped it up with a Sunday brunch. It was all very festive and we reconnected with many friends.

Friday was wonderful. Saturday evening came, and when we reconvened for a lovely dinner, her beau who was hosting it, stood up, invited her to join him at the front, and said he had three questions for her: How many countries has she been to? (277) What was her favorite one? (The next one) And then he got down on his knee and asked: Will you marry me? After a communal gasp, she said yes, and explained that in Colorado you don’t need to be married BY someone; you can just marry each other, as long as you have the proper paperwork and the required witnesses. And that is what they proceeded to do! None of their closest friends knew this was coming. They repeated their vows to each other. He slipped a gorgeous ring, purchased in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, of course, on her finger and they were married! Lots of laughter and tears as we celebrated their joy.

Back to the point: not only did they NOT rush into marriage (24 years-seriously??), but they checked out all the legal and financial ramifications before they did: things like divorce settlement and pension issues. Neither had children, which made it simpler. When I talked to her later, she explained that there was no downside to it. Our country is pretty pro-marriage. So Mazel tov all around!

For many couples, that’s not the case. Besides children worried about losing their inheritance, many couples could lose necessary retirement income from survivor benefits and others by getting married. Because of that, to stay solvent, they live together outside marriage. So I guess it pays to look before you leap. Our friends did and were able to leap with abandon. Me? I’m going to keep my original model, going on 45 years now. What’s his is mine and vice versa. That works for us.