Thoughts about Seniors

I’m pleased to report that people have actually read some of my Blog entries. If I can believe what they’ve said, they appear to have enjoyed them. This means that either I’ve done a good job or they’re just as weird as I am. I don’t know exactly where I’m going with this Blog thing, but the “bitch’ thing is therapeutic for me and it appears that many of you share the same bitches. As I’ve said before, the older I get, the more things I find that annoy me and I felt this was a great way to get it off my chest without annoying my friends. I’m sure I’ll even find some good stuff to include in future entries.

Here’s a few of my thoughts about senior citizens. You should never ask them how they are because you will definitely find out, and find out, and find out. Disease, medicine, tests, Medi-care, prescription drug plans are all things you will now have an in depth knowledge of. You know, I fall into the senior citizen category myself, but I think I have a few other things to talk about besides my ailments. I have a party coming up this month that should be a happy, holiday get together, but will invariably the conversation amongst my friends will fall into the above categories. O love them dearly and appreciate their concerns for these things, but a nice annual sit down dinner will be ruined by talk of illness, insurance, medical and long term, convalescent homes, operations, medical tests and any other realities of old age. No wonder young people don’t talk much to (seniors). I spoke of this upcoming boring evening with my wife who agrees with me and has come up with a great idea that might avoid this boredom. She suggests that we each draw a slip from a hat that has a topic written on it. During the course of the evening the person must then talk only about this subject for the evening. Others obviously may respond. It’s only a pipedream, but wouldn’t it be nice.

To round out this old person stuff I’ve dug up a few humorous little observations.

I've reached the age where the happy hour is a nap.

At my age, I'm envious of a stiff wind.

After a certain age, if you don't wake up aching in every joint, you are probably dead.

Do you realize that in about 40 years, we'll have thousands of OLD LADIES running around with tattoos? (And RAP music will be the Golden Oldies!)

By the way, speaking of old, our foursome is making its 25^th consecutive trip to Myrtle Beach……same four guys….longer than most marriages and there haven’t even been any battles. I don’t think four women could ever set that kind of record.

Thanks for the kind words about my site. I’ll do my best to make it entertaining.

To bitch or not to bitch

I think I now have a better understanding of what “writer’s block” is all about. While, by no stretch of the imagination, do I consider myself a writer, I’ve been having difficulty placing another entry to this Blog Site. I write some great stuff in my head while laying in bed or day dreaming in a chair, but when I sit down in front of this screen it all seems to vanish. There’s a good chance that I’m unable to move it from brain to screen because deep down I wonder if anyone is ever going to read it. How will anyone ever find these gems that I create…..lol.

So far my creative efforts have all been bitches about things I find wrong in our world, especially restaurants. Unfortunately getting more material has not been easy. For some strange reason my recent visits to restaurants have been rather pleasant and without incident. In fact we went to the Red Lobster in Rocky Hill this past Friday and were fortunate to be served by one of the best waiters I’ve had in the last few years. Not the super polished one’s you get in up scale restaurants, but very entertaining, attentive and helpful. One who knows the menu is not afraid to make recommendations like Arctic Char that was recently placed on the menu. He was quite a salesman. Go us to order an appetizer although we usually never do. Also got the four of us to split a large dessert though he knew we really weren’t considering one. His performance was worth it since it moved us to leave a much larger tip than we normally leave.

Since creating this Blog Site, I’ve been able to bitch about highway traffic, lousy restaurant service, crummy breakfasts and modern packaging. Now I’ve got a new one. Flat screen TV’s. I’ve been waiting for a ten year old 32” set to die to give me an excuse to get me one of those “Flat Screen” beauties so I’m trying to decide what to buy. You’ve got to be kidding me, Plasma, LCD, DLP, ED, HDMI, Pixels, Contrast ratios, 1080, 720, built in tuners, box required, equipped for card, dual channel tuner. Give me a break, I’m not a friggin engineer. How the hell do I know what to buy and do you think the salesmen do? I realize that competition creates these diversities, but pity the poor consumer who tries to figure all of this out, but I think I have the answer. I have a good friend whose son is an electronic Guru. I’m strongly considering giving him a check and send him shopping for me, because I just know that each exploratory trip I make will only increase my frustrations and give me more Blog material.

Vacation tid bits - Sunday, October 22, 2006

I recently spent a few days in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a county with a large Amish and Mennonite population. Although this was my second trip, I am still amazed by this group’s ability to hold fast their religious principals despite living within our modern populous. How do they resist availing themselves of today’s technology. Even more surprising is living without use of a car or even electricity. Simply amazing! Thanks to them this beautiful agricultural landscape has been preserved. No condo development, no tract houses, not even any street lights. Unfortunately this tranquil farm land is only minutes away from route 30, where we have the usual, shopping malls, Burger Kings, Red Lobsters, miniature golf courses, and much, much more. I hope they can hold out forever.

Made our usual wine tasting stops and wine purchases, although some of it never made it home. Sat in the motel provided gazebo and used it to wash down the cheese, crackers and apples. One of our wine trips was a disaster. Drove many miles in a downpour, almost got killed going the wrong way on a one way highway and found the damn place was closed. Mr. Dickel, owner of the Lancaster County Winery was sitting in his house and decided he wasn’t going to open the damn place up even though open daily is advertised. It was even worse because I was in desperate need of a facility. Oh well, a couple of his shrubs looked like they needed watering.

Found a very nice place for breakfast. Figured I would finally find one I couldn’t complain about. Not bad, but I still got my usual soggy toast and an un-grilled roll. We went there three times to keep giving them a chance to get it perfect. Well, I finally got one that was very close, but I had to come all the way back to Southington to get it. Went to Erika’s on Queen Street, a restaurant I had previously criticized and got what was just about perfect, crispy home fries, real brown toast that didn’t bend when tested and eggs done to perfection. Even my wife’s poached eggs were perfectly prepared. I should have gotten the waitress’s name so I could praise her here……she got everything right, I can’t believe it.

Lot of other things happened in the five days we spent in Pennsylvania, but I hesitate continuing to bore you. I’m surprised you read this far. For any golfers reading this, you’ll be happy to hear that I played golf one day and shot my second best round of the year ( 86), Guess I have to go out of state more often. The 86 was after I nearly decapitated myself when I ran into a tree branch trying to see where one of my shots went. I’m still bearing the scars and definitely can’t use hairspray without screaming. Well, enough until the next time.

Monday - October 9, 2006

Well here's a brand new week for me after realizing this morning that my heart was still beating. I do complain a lot, but the fact that I'm still up and around, pretty damn healthy and have a mind that still is able to recognize the faults of our society is gratifying. I'm retired as most of you know and for many reasons am not that excited about it. The biggest problem with retirement is the fact that I must be old and getting older rather rapidly. Another problem is that I've been a very busy person for a whole bunch of years and now I actually have to find stuff to keep me active and make my brain function. This Blog Site at least forces me to use a little grey matter.

Thought it was a good idea, but one of my dear friends told me that I should get a life. Well, actually retirement makes that possible. Time is my own and I can do anything with it. These past few months my wife and I, along with another couple have been visiting all the Connecticut Wineries for wine tasting, picnics, wine purchases etc. We've done fifteen of them and needless to say my wine cooler is loaded and my wallet substantially lighter. All these visits are with the hope of winning one of three trips sponsored by the Connecticut Wine Trail. We have them stamp a passport book and then they enter it in a drawing.

On our last trip we visited two wineries in what they call the quiet corner of Connecticut, and quiet it was, empty roads, serene villages, beautifull scenery. Then all hell broke loose when we tried to get home through Hartford. I cannot believe the traffic, unreal. That's a time when I'm happy to be retired without the need to travel our "great highways". Somewhere along the line the engineers fell asleep. No one should have to endure this torture day after day. Oh for the days when people car pooled and took turns driving to work. I guess the thought of having to actually speak to someone (not on a cell phone) and having to go a little out of the way to pick them up is a thing of the past. But just think. If everyone just rode with one person, half the cars would be gone and people would actually be using that expensive and waste of lanes project called the HOV. Well, so long, I'm off in pursuit of another bitch.

Food for thought - October 4, 2006

I don’t know how many of you remember the “Tylenol Incident”, it’s been quite a few years. For those of you who don’t, some psycho tampered with some Tylenol containers and poisoned several unsuspecting consumers who later died. This created a real panic and all Tylenol was pulled from the shelves. The panic spread as every other manufacturer rushed to develop the perfect tamper proof package.

It appears that they’ve succeeded in removing that threat by developing a deluge of packaging innovations.

Unfortunately these packaging geniuses might be causing more deaths than the original poisoning episode. Think about this; Senior citizens are being deprived of food and nourishment because they can’t get a goddamn package open. I’m old, but still strong and there are times when I can’t have a potato chip or peanut because I can’t pull the damn bag apart. Same goes for cereal containers. Where the hell are they getting this indestructible plastic? They might just as well use the stuff to make bullet proof vests. I kid of course, but think about some of the problems you are having opening up stuff. Just try to pull apart a blister pack without using a razor knife…dangerous shit.

I can just visualize some nerdy package designer sitting there thinking, how can I make this impossible for old or handicapped people to open?

Well enough of this nonsense, just a little food for thought.

Monday - October 2, 2006

Hi,
I'm going to try to reestablish my original blog site on "blogspot.com". Don't ask me why, but Ido like the general appearance of the whole thing compared to other one I started. Let's see if I can work with this and not delete everything like the last time. No great literary gems this time around, just using this to get things started.