I've been included in a Minnesota anthology "Under Purple Skies", now available on Amazon!

My second chapbook, "The Second Book of Pearl: The Cats" is now available as either a paper chapbook or as a downloadable item. See below for the Pay Pal link or click on its cover just to the right of the newest blog post to download to your Kindle, iPad, or Nook. Just $3.99 for inspired tales of gin, gambling addiction and inter-feline betrayal.

My first chapbook, I Was Raised to be A Lert is in its third printing and is available both via the PayPal link below and on smashwords! Order one? Download one? It's all for you, baby!

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Tell Us Again About How You Had to Change the TV Channel by Hand, Grandma!

I got an e-mail this week from an old friend bemoaning the gradually-increasing strength of his “forgeterrer” and the fact that he believes he may have broken his “rememberer”.

As someone who has repeatedly voted against the aging process – and I think the record will bear me out on this – I must say that this has not been my experience. My rememberer is working just fine, thank you; and except for the occasional confusing foray from one room to another only to find myself standing in front of an open refrigerator for no discernible reason, I remain in full control of all of my faculties.

Oh, it's all well and good until you find your underwear in the freezer and wonder to yourself, now where did I put that pound of hamburger?

Oh, come on. Play along, and let’s pretend that we’re not all getting older!

I have an acquaintance who, according to his friends, has not changed one bit since graduating from college. Still the partying frat boy.

This is not as charming as you’d think.

Just to get under his skin a bit, I mentioned the concept of “middle age” to him. Heartily offended, he said that he was absolutely not middle-aged.

“You’re 38,” I said, “Just how long are you planning on living?”

So maybe 38 is not as middle-aged as, say, 45 or 50, but one is certainly moving towards checking a different box in the demographic information sheets at this point. And apart from the ability to lose weight easier in one’s younger days, what’s the big deal? Would you ever go back to the hormonal, hyper days of your youth? Not in a million years. I was an impetuous, bewildered nutcase in my 20s (and 30s and…). I barely made it through the first time and that was before cell phones, FaceBook, and rampant tattoos. Can you imagine what kind of horrors I escaped just by not having those things available?

I know me! If tattoing had been acceptable in my youth, I would have had a Chinese symbol tattooed on my backside only to discover years later that it meant "gullible" or, to quote George Carlin, "Beef with Broccoli".

It’s just now, comfortably, almost comatosely in my 40s, that things are really starting to click for me. And I’m not just talking about my knees and neck here. I mean that things are beginning to make sense. What a relief! I guess in the long run that I’d rather have it this way – being confused in the beginning and then gaining clarity as I go along – than the other way around…

Wait a minute. What was I just going on about? Something about clarity or something.

Oh, well. Whatever it was, I’m sure I’ll remember eventually. In the meantime, I’m going to step into the kitchen for a bit, just to check out what’s in the fridge.

Let me know if I can get you anything.

22 comments:

Zaedah said...

I may have just panicked a wee bit... what might I have accidentally relocated to my fridge today? I'm in the cushy spot of 35, where I'm young enough to shake my head at the forgetters and old enough to tap my rememberer daily... just in case it got stuck when I wasn't looking... which is more and more as daydreaming has become an acceptable way to ignore the real world they forget to mention when we're teens and dying to get into it.

mapstew said...

Ah, beef with broccoli, now you're talkin'!

I have only 15 months to wait for 50! It hit me hard last week when Herself (5 months younger) was telling me that she could release some of her pension when she turns 50.

"But that's waaaay in the future" says moi!

Ahem! :¬)

xxx

Anything Fits A Naked Man said...

Couldn't have said it better! Thanks! I'm 45, and I've got to say I LIKE the person I've worked for all these years to become! So, it creaks and sags a little around the edges, so what? Cheers to US!!

savannah said...

i keep telling myself that it's just a number! that's my story and i'm stickin to it! xoxoxox

Anonymous said...

I'm past middle age. I've been AARP age for 8 years, and still don't know what I want to do aside from winning the lotto.
Not only did we have to change the channel by hand, but with pliers, the knob was broken. And we had to go out side, up on the roof to turn the antenna, and depending on which station every one wanted, we sometimes had to stay there and hold it a certain way. They did have to want Dr.Zhivago when it was my turn.
Hint from some tv show, i forget the name with helen hunt and paul reiser. Under wear from the freezer is nice on a hot day.

Simply Suthern said...

I am the one who horrifies the kids friends with stories of the past. Only 2 TV channels, AM radio, 8 track players and no AC. Daaaad!!! The good ole days.

Kevin Musgrove said...

I was trying to convince somebody on a helpdesk that a PC monitor was broken. "The picture keeps slipping, it looks just like when the vertical hold goes on your television..."

It's getting very hard to be 26 these days.

Douglas said...

Whippersnapper! I am middle-aged. If, of course, I live to be a 126. Which I intend to. And still play golf. Oxygen tank equipped, nurse/caddy at my side driving the cart.

Jayne Martin said...

My 40's rocked. So much so that when I turned 60 last year I declared 60 as the new 40 and I'm doing them all over again. And yes, I have the occasional brain fart, but wandering from room to room wondering what the hell I'm doing there is the only cardio I get.

Ann Imig said...

I hope things click for me in my 40's

Meanwhile, you'll find me well into my 30s s-t-r-etching and striving and deep breathing.

xo

p.s. your blog is ROCKING OUT, Pearl!!

*mary* said...

I'm 32 and I found myself putting peanut butter in the fridge the other day. No, not the organic kind that requires refrigerating. It was Jif.

anon said...

I keep putting my phone in the fridge, Pearl.

But the milk? Well, that goes in the utility closet, where it belongs!

Kevin Musgrove said...

It looks like some tanning salon customers have remembering problems, too!

Menopausal New Mom said...

Ha! Great post! Yes, my knees are clicking too but I just try to ignore them, kind of denial like your friend. And if my undies are in the freezer, it's because I'm having a hot flash and need to cool off!

Nancy/BLissed-Out Grandma said...

Heck, I remember when we didn't HAVE a television. I walked over to my friend Kay's house once a week to watch Bishop Sheen (who was actually funnier than Milton Berle). And we didn't DIAL a telephone, we picked up the receiver and spoke to the operator. Sadly, the older I get the more I can remember those days but not what someone told me just yesterday.

troutay said...

Hey Pearl!

We ate at the "Anchor" today! Great fish and chips!

Flea said...

I'd like the beef and broccoli, please.

Just wait till you hit the beginning stages of menopause. Puberty's got nothing on this. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Bill Lisleman said...

Your trip to the fridge shows how as we age we spend more time thinking of the here after as in "what was I here after".
I agree completely about the tattoo. I predict that tattoo removal is going to be a booming biz in just a few years.

Happy Hour...Somewhere said...

The rememberer button is on the butt...because as soon as you sit down you remember why the heck you got up in the first place. My SIL and I tried to buy a movie today but we could only remember the actor, Spencer Tracy, that it was black and white, that it involved the Scopes Monkey trial, a great courtroom drama, but we could not remember the name of the movie which drove my baby brother crazy. How could we remember all the details but not the name?! Sheesh. Such a crab. He looked it up on in his phone but wouldn't tell us. SIL finally got it, "Inherit the Wind." And she didn't even have to sit down to remember!

Pat said...

I'll have an antioxident-rich smoothie, please.

I can't keep a phone number in my head after I look it up unless I keep saying it over and over till I punch it in. Maybe I should sit down when I'm putting the number in. I'm 62.

Tempo said...

Yeah, youth is wasted on the young...
Imagine how useful it would be now we're so much smarter. I look back and wince...was I ever THAT stupid? Damn right I was!

Barbara Blundell said...

Hi Patricia,
What an interesting poem !
An impetuous,bewildered nutcase soon to join the octogenarians