Those 70ish Girls

Oldies but oldies by Valerie Halla

The Cars, Jackson Brown, the Stones, The Beach Boys, the Turtles and the beat goes on. I’ve been doing a lot of California freeway driving and California dreaming since my husband has been in a skilled nursing facility. I have to drive over an hour one way to visit him. Traffic can be painful so to make the driving less stressful and less tedious, I have been listening to tons of 60’s and 70’s music. I let the volume blast. I’m also having a blast.

It’s been even better since I just bought a 2025 SUV with a far out groovy sound system. What a difference that makes since I’ve been driving a 2010 used car for 15 years. My new vehicle has full on speakers everywhere and the music sounds like you’re there with the band, rockin out or they’re maybe in the back seat grooving along. Their sound even comes out of the doors. I can listen to the Doors blasting their funk through my car doors. “Come on baby light my fire.”

I had not bought a brand new car since 1999, in the old days. These new cars have computer systems and safety features that make a bank seem like a kids playground. My new vehicle has computers to explain the computer screen, buttons on the dash, on the screen, on the doors, on the steering wheel and about four manuals that will take me ten years to read. Righteous.

I urge you to listen to the Eagles version of “After the Thrill is Gone”. It’s sad and you might cry or maybe just shed a tear or at least remember some far off lost love or high school heartbreak. Bittersweet. Yet still sweet. Rad.

When you drive and jive in your car nowadays flying down the highway or freeway in your RV or EV or SUV or hybrid, nobody has their car windows down. Sometimes when I blast the music, I’ll roll the electric windows down and sing loudly with my hair blowing in the wind (thanks Bob Dylan), and no one’s sharing the rockin rollin tunes with me. If I drive too fast, my car reprimands me. It’s like my robot monitor- or my mommas and poppas. The other people driving by probably wouldn’t like the oldies anyway. “We’ll have fun, fun, fun now that Daddy took the t-bird away.”

With all the stress and worry that I’m going through, dealing with the serious illness my husband has fought for almost two years, I find that music takes me away from the troubled times. The loud songs pump my brain away from it all, “Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water”.

Music is soothing. When some of the older songs come on, the screen will say that it’s been “remastered”. It sounds fuller and grander than the old record players or transistor radios I had used to listen to songs in my teens. The songs are oldies but they’re brand new to me, ready to lift my spirits and whisk me away to better times. So let’s say we enjoy some music, sing along, listen and slip away to yesterday or even dance a bit at the Hotel California.

I’m a Daydream Believer and I Get Around.

Cool.

Kip and I and our 2 dogs finally hit the road. We managed to get away Wednesday morning around 11:00 and drove to Lake Livingston arriving about 4:00. We made several stops for doggy potty breaks. Ruthie is in the habit of going outside several times a day and we wanted her to get used to going potty on a leash. She resisted at first but she finally got the hang of it.

We have a picturesque spot overlooking the lake. Today (Thursday) is beautiful. It’s 70 degrees, and after 2 days of high winds, it’s nice and calm.

We couldn’t wait to go to Jerry’s, our favorite little Cafe for breakfast this morning. It didn’t disappoint.

I’m almost afraid to say anything considering, but we’re planning to leave on a short RV trip on March 5th. We’re going to Livingston State Park on the way to Galveston.

Our motorhome is cleaned to perfection and ready to go. Kip has a Dr’s appt on the 4th, so our plan is to leave the day after. This will be a short trip because we have to be back by March 31st for my 6-month colonoscopy. At our age, it seems like we trade the time we used to work for Dr’s appointments.

Galveston is another favorite place to go. We stay at a really nice RV park called Jamaica Beach. It’s right across the road from a nice beach where we can take the dogs for long walks. We’re praying for good weather.

This will be a good 3 week trip which we will use to get the 2 new dogs acclimated to RV travel. After the 1st of April we are all clear for several months so we’ll take a longer trip. We plan to go to CA to see my brother and Gus and on to parts unknown. Billy’s family is having a big 80th birthday  celebration at the end of May to celebrate his wife, Liz’s 80th birthday.

Before I let you go, I have to tell you about our day yesterday. When we got back from our walk with the dogs, we discovered 3 large pizzas had been delivered. They were sitting on a chair on our front porch. When I called Little Ceasars to let them know we hadn’t ordered them, they told us it was a mistake and to just enjoy them. We took one to our neighbors, and we’ve enjoyed having pizza for 2 meals so far. When Kip came back from the neighbors, he found an Amazon package on our doorstep. It contained 8 tubes of Vaseline intensive care chapstick that we hadn’t ordered. It was addressed to us, so we had no idea who it belonged to. Amazon told us to just keep it. Suffice it to say it had to have been going to a very young person. 8 tubes is a long lifetime supply.

When we start on our trip, I’ll be writing a travel blog. Stay tuned. I think it’s really going to happen this time.

https://maryfrancismcninch.com/2022/12/04/those-70ish-girls-the-stock-i-came-from-pt-4/

https://maryfrancismcninch.com/2021/04/26/murdo-girl-the-tv-tray-tent-one-of-my-faves/?sfnsn=mo

https://maryfrancismcninch.com/2022/11/17/those-70ish-girls-the-stock-i-came-from-pt-2/

https://maryfrancismcninch.com/2022/12/30/those-70ish-girls-there-is-always-room-for-another-phobia/

https://maryfrancismcninch.com/2016/07/10/murdo-girl-the-vivian-dance/

https://maryfrancismcninch.com/2022/10/02/those-70ish-girls-those-six-sandersons/

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.