Those 70ish Girls

ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER- by Valerie Halla

Have you ever noticed when you work out the answer or solution to a problem and you congratulate yourself, feeling a refreshing sense of satisfaction, accomplishment and pride, that it doesn’t last long? Maybe you celebrate with a glass of wine, a fancy coffee drink at one of those places using your stars or points or finally use that gift card covered with lint at the bottom of your purse to treat yourself .

I have a running list of “to do” stuff. I never get to some items on the list and some are too easy: walk dog, clean laundry room floor, find that missing sock, eat an apple. It’s the tougher ones I tend to avoid doing: get giant crack in driveway repaired, go visit your old friend whom you haven’t seen in 30 years, wash all the blinds in the house, dust and clean all baseboards.

Once I get something done, I feel good but I realize that there’s always another item on the list to take it’s place and now that I’m 70 ish, many listed items concern medical issues and getting care for my husband of 53 years. There are doctor visits, both video ones and in person, blood tests, scans and dental appointments. The anxiety grows. On my last doctor video visit, my primary care doctor noted on her summary report, “Patient looked tired and rundown.” I had Covid and although my doctor helped me immensely, I felt exactly that way “tired and rundown,” BUT I didn’t know I looked that bad! However, I now didn’t have to do anything on the infamous list. It was kind of like a list vacation. I had a great excuse. I was ill. Covid hit me hard and the list faded from my sight. Ahhh.

My cousin started writing a blog a long time ago and then changed gears by renaming it and giving birth to a new theme for the blog. She asked me for title suggestions so I sent her several, none of which she used. I thought we were talking about the weather when she said 70ish. It was about 100 degrees in Texas that summer where she lives and 70ish in California where I live. But now I understand. We are girls, which is a long stretch of the teetering aging imagination, and we are in the age range of 70. Even though I liked some of my renaming titles better, she went with “Those 70ish Girls”. It’s a good thing I don’t hold a grudge, because I actually have, “Call Cousin Mary soon” on my list of things to do.

It’s number 25 on my list.

Can you believe it? We still haven’t gone on an RV trip even though our RV is now fixed. Our plan was to leave on January 25th, but as they say. Life happens while we’re busy making plans.

As it turns out, I have a couple of new doctor’s appointments coming up in February. It was the earliest I could get in. One is with a kidney specialist as a recent sonogram showed a suspicious looking lesion on my kidney. Please don’t worry. It’s still so small that they can’t even do a biopsy yet. I also have high liver enzymes which means another doctor’s appointment on January 30th.

Retirement means switching work hours to doctor’s appointments. Even in retirement our days are not necessarily filled with fun things, but they are somehow filled. I often wonder how I ever found the time for a job.

Being 70ish has its challenges. It’s a full-time job just to stay healthy. I used to exercise faithfully, and my doctor tells me it’s the single most important thing to do to keep my bones healthy and my blood pressure under control. It helps with a multitude of things. Kip and I are going to invest in a good treadmill, so I will definitely use it to get back into shape. I used to have a treadmill, and I enjoyed it. That was many houses ago, and I ran on it then.

So here are the plans. We are going to leave on a short RV trip around the 2nd week in Februrary. We’ll spend a couple of nights at Livingston State Park on our way to Galveston where we’ll spend a couple of weeks. Surely we can make that happen. We’ll definitely keep you posted. I love writing travel blogs. Please stay tuned!

https://maryfrancismcninch.com/2024/06/19/those-70ish-girls-18/

COMPLICATIONS CAN SET YOUR LIFE OFF TRACK QUICKLY BY Valerie Halla

Just when things seem to be moving on an even keel, your life can change and the roller coaster life takes over. I don’t like roller coasters at all because my heart jumps into my throat and then I feel like my heart trades places with my brain. Then my brain is sloshing around in my stomach and it leads to dark ugly places. I need all the brain I can muster.

When my husband was diagnosed with cancer 14 months ago, naturally it was tough, mind blowing, boggling and rough. We did get onto a course of regular doctor visits, physical therapy sessions, MRI scans and CT scans plus scheduled immunotherapy treatments, IV’s being as common as the common cold and we settled into the journey ahead. Most days were just waiting around for nothing to happen except eat, struggle to the bathroom, back to the easy chair, sleep and wonder.

Then just recently my husband had a setback with an intestinal blockage and infection. After a trip to our local ER and an ambulance ride to Stanford Hospital, we’re settled into the next destination on our ride. This looks like a long stay in the hospital and next a search for an acute care home. Luckily the hospital has resources to help with this. That takes an immense weight off my family’s shoulders.

In fact, my husband is being transferred today to an acute care facility about an hour’s drive from our house. He needs special care with a drain in his side, overall weakness, weight loss and cancer hovering over all these other health issues he’s been experiencing. The roller coaster will be parked for the night and hopefully it’s out of service until we get things settled onto a new course in a new location with a new schedule to follow.

We will see the equivalent to a car on this parked roller coaster: the tires checked, balanced and rotated. Might even get a tuneup and fluids checked out. Time for a full service inspection. Hopefully the track is clear.

I still don’t like roller coasters, however, I am getting used to them. For now my heart is not in my throat, my stomach is settled and my brain isn’t too jostled, although it’s diminished. My heart feels like it’s in the right place, although it’s a bit misaligned.

We will see if the complications get resolved and we can get back on track with a new refurbished model. Even rollercoasters get old.

https://maryfrancismcninch.com/2024/08/30/those-70ish-girls-24/

https://maryfrancismcninch.com/2023/12/12/those-70ish-girls-a-strong-life-passed-on-by-valerie-halla/

GRANDMA DRIVES A PORSCHE BY Valerie Halla

When I flew into LAX this past weekend, I waited outside on the busy sidewalk in a pre-holiday rush of cars, trucks, buses, vans and people for my son to pick me up. I had some time to kill so I did serious “people watching” observing whatever caught my interest. Many good looking young folks held up signs high above their heads looking at many vehicles go by. All at once a limousine or big black van would pull out from the stream of traffic and pull up to people with the signs, popping the trunk and setting their luggage in the back, then they’d get inside and go off with the chauffeur.

One such example caught my eye off to my left. A brand new, sleek, prominently purple, modern Porsche sedan pulled over with a thin, grey haired older sporty-type woman jumping out. She “jumped out” in the slimmest use of the word. She was also slim, but she didn’t jump. She smiled broadly at the four people on the sidewalk and the youngest one ran over to hug the older lady while the only man there wrangled many pieces of luggage and backpacks into the shiny car trunk. All of them smiled big loving broad smiles. The women all got into the car as the man finished struggling and he got into the snazzy car sitting in the shotgun spot. He looked like he felt good to be occupying shotgun position even though he was puffing mildly. The veteran lady driver’s face beamed with delight as she maneuvered the slick car out into heavy traffic. This was LA traffic which has a life of its own and is crazier than any country lane by a thousand times.

They were all clearly happy to be riding with this queenly older Porsche gal, in a $150,000 automobile being carted off to what I imagined to be her mansion in the Malibu neighborhood or possibly Brentwood or amongst the Beverly Hills mansions, probably at some location a gazillion miles away from where I live and where I drive my 2010 Camry with 223,000 miles on it.

It was a beautiful quick weekend visit with my son. I was visiting him because he had to work over Christmas and I wanted to bring his gifts. That weekend was his only time off. It purpose was pure fun.

We crammed a lot into two days. We went out to a Korean Market for snacks and some refreshments before heading to a Hot Pot Holiday dinner put on by my son’s friends. We decided at the last minute or maybe in a New York minute to stop at a cozy coffee shop for hot chocolate since we had time to spare. There’s always time for hot chocolate! It was a place called The Loft and it looked like some movie set as we walked in. The place had long, heavy, deeply dark colored drapes covering the big windows and three huge mirrors hung along one wall vertically, distinctly hanging out from the wall at the tops. There were a few dark corners with small tables placed here and there- some here by the window, some over there underneath the mirrors. It felt like a horror film’s main room, a dark cavernous living room that hid many stories. We sat upstairs in the loft.

We ordered two hot cocoas and headed up the stairs to the equally dark and mysterious loft.

Next we headed to a tiny apartment to visit my son’s friends for a Hot Pot Dinner treat.

Those 70ish girls… Our magical Sanderson Christmas Eve

https://maryfrancismcninch.com/2022/12/16/those-70ish-girls-is-it-okay-for-santa-to-bring-used-stuff/