Doin' It With Friends

Well, I'm off for that threatened weekend with the girls to celebrate my fifty-fifth.  One missing face, Diane...gone now these two years.  Why does it strike me harder now than it did back when she first died?

Well, she fought Ovarian Cancer for 13 years...according to her own doctors that's quite a record. It attacked her body, ravaged it continuously but she fought with conventional and unconventional medicines and kept living.
The last year was hard, as the disease breached her lungs.....She died on April 3, 2008.  I'll be putting her artwork up on a website as kind of a tribute gallery.  She always wanted to have her own art show...now she will. So I'll add the links once it's up.

Anyway, she'll be there in spirit for sure...parting with the rest of us gals. So I won't enter anything in the blog 'til my return...unless, well. I'll leave the computer at home anyway. Trying for a true weekend off is like I don't know, looking for a needle in a haystack. But here's to trying!

So for today, Fifty Five is all about Doin' it with friends-taking the time to just enjoy after a long time of a lot of work.  Advice to everyone-go do the same.

The New Aging Curve and Remembering a Warrior

Some days, even looking in the mirror makes one feel old! Where'd that gray hair come from, and jeeze-louise! crows feet?  Could I have been in denial this long, or did it all come on me over night like that other great event of my womanhood, i.e. the menses. Just when we think we're over all that mess, along comes the wonders of aging.

Some folks are great at it, they've maintained their weight and ate rabbit food, but me...?  Well?
It's been a few seasons between push-ups, and I'll admit to an indulgent past. I'm overweight, don't wear make-up, rarely get my hair cut, don't shave anything, and have a double chin.  I take after both parents-mom on shortness, dad on roundness I guess.

T.V. is full of commercials about tummy tucks and liposuction, diets, pills and promises. And if none of those things are a problem, don't worry-there's always bad breath, dandruff and erectile dysfunction. Seriously!

Those personal products people really get on my last nerve, asking if I'm feeling fresh, if I've remembered to brush or if I'm tired.  Hey! I turned on the boob tube to escape my misery, not be reminded of it every five minutes by a guy with teeth white enough to see from space! 

I don't mind looking my age...and if I'm feeling older some days, I'll look that way.  By the same token, when I feel younger, I'll look that way, too...maybe.   The baby boomer generation is now the AARP generation, and we have our own way of doing things. That includes aging.

BREAKING NEWS....Just heard that dear friend Jack Herer passed away yesterday. He authored the book
"The Emperor Wears No Clothes."  Dear friend, warrior and inspiration....Jack, rest in peace.

For today, Fifty Five is all about the New Aging Curve...and also about memories of Warrior and Friend.

Tax-E Dancer

We live in very confusing times, full of talking heads talking at us from all directions....and they all have a Bottom Line.  The Republicans complain that the wealthy are being over taxed, the Democrats complain that there's not enough help out there for people in need, the Tea Party folk complain that neither knows what the heck they're talking about, and the rest of us are watching all this go on, hoping there is clarity...AND SOON.

In the meantime, it's April 15th. Tax day. Surely there's gotta be another way, but what? The richest 400 Americans hardly pay any taxes while the remaining tax payers are bled dry. Of course there is reason for unrest, and of course change has to happen. BUT-

What concerns me most right now is the direction we seem to be heading...the undercurrents concern me. The ultra-conservative, uber-religious aspect brings a potential that cuts too close to "Handmaid's Tale" for my liking.

We have to learn to work together toward common goals, agreeing to disagree when needed in order to insure that ALL citizens are served.  Otherwise, we're just spinning our wheels.

For today, I'm going to call it as I see it....Fifty Five is the New Tax-E Dancer....dancing as fast as she can and hoping they put on a slow tune real soon.

Fifty Five, Double Nickles Day

Well, here it is...as promised, the anniversary of the day Lincoln was shot and the Titanic hit the ice berg. It's here at last, and also happens to be my 55th Birthday.

A pause while I sip upon the bit of bourbon secreted away from the holidays just for this moment. Ahhhhh.

Bourbon is, to me, a civilized drink. Not saying it doesn't have an uncivilizing way about it, speaking personal experience here. But once all issues are settled comfortably in their own skin and as long as no one brings out the drama toys, a good honest bourbon is a nice way to toast an occasion, or just sit back and enjoy the world for a few rounds. No harm in that.

My preference though is cannabis. Ahhhhh.

Nothing against delivery systems of the liquid kind, it's just that cannabis not only elevates my mood, it eases my pain, helps with mobility, lessens tension in muscles and joints and eases the nausea associated with taking the ibuprophin (sp?) I take to help with all of the above.  So who says Cannabis isn't a Health Care Issue?
This question needs to be raised in every town and hamlet, city and parish...this question needs to be raised and settled to the point of rescheduling cannabis as having sound, proven medical use.  This medical use should not be taxed. Patients and their doctors should not be persecuted or prosecuted.

There should be safe, affordable access to medical cannabis for medically approved patients AND these patients should also have access to not only their medicine but community centers in their area. In them, they can congregate freely, medicating while they take part in activities and services, hold meetings, memorials and events.  Actual real, live community centers just like any other special interest group's community center...that's the kind of thing needed.     

Let's not beat around the bush...so to speak.  I believe cannabis use, ALL cannabis use must be legalized. Note the word must, not should.  There's a reason.

There's been a great unbalance in the world since cannabis for all use was outlawed in the United States.  No, not just in the "vibe" (how California!), but in real concrete ways.  Look at trade and international relations. We've limited what the entire world is permitted to produce, thereby creating false high prices, shortages on goods produced and false famine.

Anyway, although I had my one shot of bourbon-thank you, tasty good...!  I am not going to sit around all night getting plastered...not that there's anything wrong with that. Over the weekend I'll be getting together with a couple gal friends and we'll share a few cups, it'll be great fun. But for now, I raise my alternative choice in a toast to the cosmos, to my parents, to my mother in particular who went through all that birthing....(oy!) and to everyone in my life, love and blessings to all! Happy Birthday.

For today, Fifty Five is the New Fifty Five, because that's what it is to me right now...bright, shiny....new, right out of the box, and it even has batteries! So, without any further ado....
let's take this puppy out for a spin!

LIfe-A Baptism of Change

It's taken a few days....but I did it!  I beat the dastardly computer at it's own game (sound of evil laughing and rubbing together of crusty, bony hands) and lived to tell about it, al la Rod Sterling of Twilight Zone.
-although oddly enough, Sofia of the Golden Girls began her stories the same way...go figure.
    ...Picture if you will....
    A mixed-weather morning in a San Francisco neighborhood famous for parrots and poets. Our hero is prepared for a morning of internet, post-production and bill paying. She sits confidently before her fairly new Toshiba Qosmio PC and turns it on. Everything looks right, until she tries to go on the internet...then NOTHING.  She entered the Virus Zone.

   To make a long story short, and to quote the movie Poltergeist (a cheap shot and why not?) I'm back!
Battered, bruised and covered in computer goo, but alive.
    ....until next time when..... oh wait, that's The Outer Limits. Nuff said!

So, what does any of this have to do with Fifty Five being the New anything?  Pleanty!  And it 's all about life and all about living and pushing on through.
Easy to say....real "Rebeca-Of-Sunny-Brook-Farm"-ish...maybe too much so for some stomachs, and that's okay too. I don't always feel this way either, so please don't go painting me with a gingham dress, pig tails and rose colored glasses quite yet.  I been in the deep stuff, too.  Still am.

You know how it is...sometimes so deep, ya can't even breathe without breathing in some of it--right into your soul...that kinda deep. It gets putrid and old and scary and boring all at once, and there doesn't seem to be any thing else to that damned tunnel but more tunnel.
Talk about the Twilight Zone.
Right now, I could allow myself the luxury of getting lost in it all...been doing that for years. And you know what?  On the verge of turning fifty-five I've finally figured out something.  It doesn't work, it never has and in all likelihood it never will.

Well, Golly.  So what's next?
It's all about choices. I don't want to get lost in confusion and stagnation anymore...so rather than looking at the entire tunnel, maybe I should just lean against the walls and take it all in...let my eyes adjust to what little ambient light there may be, lest I miss a step and end up at the bottom of a mine shaft.

Once that happens, I'll take up my trusty walking stick and plod along...carefully tapping the ground ahead and around me for obstacles and other dangers.  If there are tracks, I'll stoop to feel them, remembering how sometimes I could feel the vibrations of the train wheels on them in the distance.  

If there's a light at the end of the tunnel, it might be said train and if it is, I'll hop on board and ride it through to my next destination, which has to be better than sitting alone in the unknown darkness...isolated and with limited options. Metaphorically speaking, that is.

I'm tired of being the one overwhelmed by life, and looking at everything all at once all the time has been doing that to me.  I'm so full of "what if" there's no room for "why not?" anymore! Oy!
I don't want to be the techie, the legal eagle, the go-to-it-girl full time, all the time anymore. I want to make my own dreams come all the way true, without the proviso that they are attached to anyone elses', and would deeply appreciate any help offered.
Bloody Hell, that felt good.

So for today, the day before my B-Day, Fifty Five is the New Life-A Baptism of Change. As long as there is change there is life...as long as there is change, there is hope....and hope is the brightest light ever brought to the deepest, darkest pit.  Here's to keeping it lit.