Just Some Mileage on These Weary Limbs
At about 80,000 miles, I’ve discovered over the course of a lifetime, my automobiles begin to need replacement parts. I’m not talking about tires and batteries, but alternators and transmissions.
This is when the expense of repairs makes getting a new car a viable option. Baby boomers are discovering that the same can be said for body parts. Since we have no idea what the ultimate mileage on our own model is, we begin the patching up.
Long gone are the days when I bounded out of bed and gulped down a multivitamin. There are my morning and my night meds: cholesterol, thyroid, allergies, bone density, yada yada and quelle bore. Right now, my joints and muscles are my most acute problem.
I’m scheduled for rotator-cuff surgery on the left side. I’m left-handed and not ambidextrous.
I’ve done my best with regular exercise, but eons of lifting children, grandchildren, groceries, and the dog have bested all my efforts with Nautilus and Pilates. Friends have helped me figure out what kind of shirts and pants are easiest to maneuver, and how to clip a hair dryer on a stand so you only need one hand to comb out and “style.”
Eating is the biggest nuisance. Hence I’m standing over a hot stove on a 90-plus degree day making nutritious bean soup to freeze for the later ease of drinking out of a mug.
Sandwiches are too labor intensive with one arm in a sling. Luckily the new Trader Joe’s just opened in my neighborhood.
Microwavable-vegetable biryani and pakanis looked interesting as well as chicken tikka samesas. I had no idea what they were but they looked user-friendly. After trying them out, I decided not even hydrocodone could change my palate that much. Zucchini fries! Shades of when I used to try to pass off fried broccoli balls to my picky-eater children as tater tots. Nah, I’m too old for that.
Turkey meatballs. Aha! In my cart. Those I can spear. And potstickers. In my cart. But this got me thinking. I can let my fingers do the walking with Chinese and pizza home delivery. Spring rolls and dipping sauce and those pizzas that are cut into bite sized squares from Campisi’s. Yum. I can wash it all down with lemonade laced with Metamucil and a pain pill!
Ah, summer. While I’m confined, I can kick back on my sofa with an icepack on my shoulder reading beach books even though only sofa surfing. Just getting a little more mileage out of life.
This story appears in the August issue of Park Cities People, on stands now.
