Getting old … er … older – Nutshellcity.com

2022 Nutshells, Family, Florida, Getting old ... er ... older, Parenthood and Children

The great mystical quest for the license of drivers

July 27, 2022 No Comments

They call it a driver’s license. With this license, you are legally allowed to drive. It does not specify in the rules where you can drive. You can drive wherever you want. To the store. To Alaska. Running guns to rebels in Central America. They leave that up to you. The license gives you the freedom to move, as long as you have an instrument of movement. A vehicle.

To get this license, you must first take a test. This test will quiz you on all the keys to successful driving. It is like a mythical quest. It might be the toughest, most demanding, most psychologically grueling thing you ever do. Well, after childbirth, your first day of kindergarten, the SATs, the time you got caught with a cigarette and that time you fit the giant jawbreaker into your mouth and had to go to the ER so they could remove it with surgical tongs.

To pass this test, you must show a mastery of driving, including how to park on an incline. Forget that this seems kind of absurd because you live in a flat state where there hasn’t been an incline since 1952. That’s when someone decided to build a hill. Everyone’s ears popped from the elevation and they bulldozed it the next day. It’s been flat ever since.

2022 Nutshells, Getting old ... er ... older, Health

A not-so calamitous run-in with a colonoscopy

May 8, 2022 No Comments

There are things we do in life that just aren’t fun. Taxes come to mind. Root canals are pretty high up there. Licking a nettle on a bet. But all pale in comparison to the medical things we’re supposed to start doing when we get up there in age. The kind of ages and medical procedures that you never worried about before. They were too far in the future to give any thought, and you figured someone would just invent an iPhone app to replace it before it became an issue.

The “it” refers to procedures like a … hold on while I figure out how to spell it … c-o-l-o-n-o-s-c-o-p-y.

Wo! That hurt a little just to type it.

That’s what I had last week. It’s when they send a camera up your behind and to have a look-see inside your colon. Just to make sure everything is OK. Think of it like a Martian rover on some great adventure, only not nearly as cool or fun.

But it’s all about preventative medicine. According to the CDC, colon cancer is the third leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S. And as alarming as that is, early screenings like colonoscopies are the best way to head it off.

2022 Nutshells, Getting old ... er ... older

Holding onto my 40s, and my failing eyesight

February 13, 2022 No Comments

Come on eyes! Hold out another year. I just need one more year.

Next week I celebrate my birthday. The last one in my 40s. A final hoorah before turning 50 next year. It’s kind of scary really. And intimidating. The idea of turning 50 carries so much weight. It’s a milestone, and a midway point. When you start getting those senior discounts. Wait! What? Really?!? And I guess when people can legally start calling you a “senior.”

Ohhhhh. Cruel.

But it weighs on me for other reasons, too. Some more physical. That it might mark when “changes” start to set in. Already I can feel them.

Like my eyesight. Sure, it’s still pretty good at a distance. But up close? It’s like a steamy sauna. A foggy drive with a windshield smeared by a candy car.

Let’s call it dodgy, even with low-grade cheater glasses. Up close, things are getting blurrier. Like menus. Or fingernail clipping. I noticed this one the other day. That if I’m not wearing reading glasses, it’s all guesswork. Random snipping. I’m either taking off several millimeters of fleshy tip, or clipping 5 inches from my nearest digit. I inspected a middle finger later and it was a dead ringer for Mt. Everest. All jagged peaks and crags.

2021 Nutshells, Getting old ... er ... older, Parenthood and Children

Happy birthday to the not-so-little one

December 25, 2021 No Comments

Happy birthday, little one!

Nope … hold on … something’s not right …

Happy birthday, kid!

No, check that …

Let’s try: Happy birthday, short stack!

That’s definitely not it. She’s almost as tall as me.

Maybe: Little missy? Or Strawberry shortcake? Wee widdle one? Precious peanut? Ye’ who spent all my money on diapers? Baby boo-boo?

Oh, no. None of them are right. None of them work for a daughter who turned 16 today. Sixteen! Can you imagine such a thing? About the only one that works – the only possible option! – is the unthinkable one. The one I can’t fathom saying. The one that curdles the lips and twists the tongue into knots. It will crumple my soul to hear it out loud. Can I even say it, this crime upon the ears?

2021 Nutshells, Family, Getting old ... er ... older

Better do something when your dad turns 80

August 25, 2021 No Comments

“You realize your dad is turning 80, right?”

My wife said it in such a way that it wasn’t really a question. More of a statement. I sat on the sofa with a blank expression on my face. I mean, I was trying to watch TV. Probably YouTube. Videos with titles like, “10 times when people did really dumb things.” I did not see the irony. Or where she was going with this.

For starters, I barely know how old I am. How am I supposed to remember my father’s age?

Did I know his birthday was coming up? On this one I was proud to say I did. Because my computer calendar saw to it that I don’t forget. It was all set to remind me on when I should call him and say something thoughtful and profound, like: “Happy birthday, dad! OK, gotta’ go.”

But my computer had no idea how old he was – what good are they?!? And if my wife was right, this was certainly going to change things.

“… turning 80, right?”

2021 Nutshells, Getting old ... er ... older, Parenthood and Children

Not quite the ‘whoopers’ we used to be

July 25, 2021 No Comments

“Dang,” I said. “I really thought we were going to ‘whoop it up!’”

Definition of “whoop it up!”: To enjoy oneself and have a very noisy celebration. You know … to party. To cut loose. To go out drinking all night. And to drink things that are lit on fire. Maybe get in a bar fight. Definitely get arrested. But not like major-crime arrested. More like, “Sir, reciting Shakespeare in the middle of the road is definitely frowned upon. I mean, who even reads Shakespeare anymore?”

To cut loose. To run free. To live.

Whoop … it … up!

Because … that’s what you’re supposed to do when your kid goes away on a summer retreat for a week, right? Your 15-year-old daughter. Your only child. Which really means you’re only ever alone when she goes on a youth retreat to North Carolina. And once when she took a middle school trip to Washington D.C. And before that? That 5 minutes she was sleeping in the womb, right before she woke up with a startle and kicked your wife so hard she swears there’s still a bruise on her stomach.

“We are going to ‘whoop it up!’” I remember saying before she left. “We might even cash in your college fund and fly to Vegas. Because we are free, sucker!” (I’m not exactly the greatest parent.)

2021 Nutshells, Family, Getting old ... er ... older

The king of absent-minded forgets … wait, what was it again?

June 3, 2021 No Comments

I feel like I am forgetting something … Oh yeah, to write this column! Dangit!

Almost forgot.

I seem to be doing that a lot lately. Or if not a lot, at least more often. Forgetting things. Being absent-minded. Not remembering … wait … what was I doing? Dangit! This column … right.

Anyway, it seems to be more common these days. Happening more often.

Sometimes it’s little things. Like leaving the toaster on. Or forgetting to put the cap back on the milk.

There was a green plastic cap sitting on the counter. I saw this and did what comes naturally to most family men in the household: blamed everyone else.

“Hey y’all, anyone know where this cap goes?” I said. “Because clearly it goes to something. Because caps don’t exist in nature all by themselves. And clearly it was one of you because I am infallible, recognize the value of ‘cap management’ and never leave anything out rather than putting it back in its rightful place where it is ‘capping’ something. So, yeah, who did it?”

2021 Nutshells, Family, Getting old ... er ... older, Health

A little back pain solved by listening to mom

April 21, 2021 No Comments

I am the type of person who misinterprets things. This is especially true when it comes to health. This means that when I feel a small twinge of something in my back, I automatically assume the worst. One of three things usually: 1) Kidney failure, 2) untreatable cancer, or 3) proof that aliens abducted me, inserted some kind of tracking device and it’s now causing both kidney failure AND untreatable cancer.

The triple whammy!

They didn’t mean to do it, I should add. They thought they were tagging me like a bear for research. But it turns out that thanks to an online bargain, they got some cheap, knock-off trackers made with toxic materials. And this is the result.

Yes, my hypochondriac imagination does get a bit elaborate.

What I do NOT think is that maybe I just tweaked a muscle. Or that maybe something simpler, or more realistic, is at play.

This was the state of me recently. Back hurting. Frantic updates made to my will. Wondering which court had jurisdiction when my family goes to sue the extraterrestrials.

2021 Nutshells, Animals, Family, Getting old ... er ... older

The home for ever-aging critters

April 14, 2021 No Comments

Suddenly, I feel I am running a house for elderly critters. Varmints who are getting up there in years. Reaching their senior moments. Getting all geriatric on me. Demanding the early-bird buffet.

I’m not sure what to make of it all.

Our dog, Lily, must be about 10 years old. She’s starting to show gray in her muzzle. She doesn’t act old, or seem her age. But there are little hints that it’s coming. That she isn’t the young pup she used to be.

The cat, Sunburst, is a reformed stray who is pretty ancient. We don’t know his exact age, but it must be up there. When we asked the vet, they offered to carbon date his one good tooth. That means they know he’s pretty old. Our best guess is he comes from the Paleolithic era. But he seems to be managing just fine, old fella’ that he is. He tells too many stories about the Civil War, but other than that – and a wobbly walk like he’s been drinking rum – he isn’t any worse for the wear.

2021 Nutshells, Family, Getting old ... er ... older, Houses, yards and projects, Marriage

How to spend an anniversary the romantic way

March 22, 2021 No Comments

Boy, nothing says, “Happy Anniversary!” like spending the day prepping the outside of your house to be pressure washed.

Yay romance!

We sure know how to do it up right. Moving garbage cans. Carrying off potted plants. Trying to figure out why every stick my daughter brought home from vacations is stacked up on our front porch. Along with every stone, every shell, every rock and what may be either a large chunk of coal or something way more toxic. Either way, it could use a pressure wash. We left that outside, then went about shuffling and moving before relocating a platoon of cold-stunned lizards who couldn’t believe we had the audacity to uproot their lives.

“Can’t you just celebrate an anniversary like normal people?!?” they seemed to say.

No, actually I don’t think we can.

It was the luck of the scheduling. How you never think about how much there is to get ready for a house project when you schedule it, or that it might leave the bulk of the work for a big day.

Whoops!