A well-meaning fail

Not every project I take on works out, but all of them begin with good intentions. Recently I tried a project with the best of intentions, but it didn’t pan out. Even so, I don’t regret a thing.

The background is simple: Leo will turn nine in a few months, and I’ve noticed that as he’s grown older, he’s had more trouble jumping onto furniture, like our bed. To be honest, I think some of it is performative, because if I walk over to lift him up, he suddenly manages to jump up on the bed or whatever. Even so, he’s a little guy about to turn nine, and, just like me, he’ll need some minor alterations to things to make his ageing easier.

I thought that there was something I could do to help him, and I designed something, a kind of steps to put at the foot of the bed. I imagined a three-tier thing with storage in each tier. It’d be strong enough for me to sit on, like wooden the blanket box that’s there right now. However, the Garage of No Return doesn’t have enough room for me to build anything, and I don’t know when that will change (note I didn’t say “if”—I live in hope).

It was then that I found a four-tier step system (the bottom of the two photos at left; the blanket box I mentioned is the top half) that I thought would work. It’s a bit smaller than what I designed, but I thought that the four steps would make it easier for Leo. Each “step” is actually a soft-sided storage box, and each step is attached to the next-smaller step using a zip (aka zipper) on the front and back. The zips were a little tricky to fasten, but assembly was otherwise straightforward

And that was the end of the success. Leo wouldn’t step on any step, and wouldn’t jump onto a high one like he did on the old blanket box. I tried to lead him up the steps, but his reaction was as if he thought I was trying to hurt him. He didn’t “get” how to walk up stairs. He’s a smart guy, so this puzzled me—after all, we had stairs in the last house we all had together.

Yeah, well, I often forget how much time has passed since then. He lived in that house for 19 months (beginning shortly before his first birthday, and we moved away when he was 2 years old). I can’t remember how often he went up and down stairs at the old house, but we left that house more than six years ago, and we’ve lived in this one-storey house ever since.

I know that it may have nothing to do with his past, but the small stairs I bought for him may not have felt safe to him. So, I put the old blanket box back with just a blanket on top of it (making the top he jumps onto a centimetre or so lower than it had been).I moved the fancy steps over to the other side of the bed and put some of his toys on higher steps: He’s never tried to get them, not even when I put his favourite toy on it. I think that if the steps were more conventional, he might’ve been more willing to use it—or, at least, not as frightened of it as he seemed to be, but it it what it is.

This means I’m probably back to building something for him. Right now I think it should have a wide lower step for him to step onto, but I’ll have to create a temporary one to see if he uses it. We’ll see. The point is, just as I have various plans to make this house better for ageing me, I’ll make changes to make things easier for an ageing Leo, too. This particular attempt just wasn’t a good one. Oh, well—onward.

The annual increasing number: 67

Another year, and another birthday for me. This one is another of the “non-significant” birthdays I mentioned last year, and that’s because “I tend to focus more on [birthdays] ending in zero or five”. I was thinking about my approaching birthday a couple days ago, and wrote a note to myself, probably for this post. I wrote: “Every year my birthday surprises me as if it’d never been on that day before.” I have absolutely no idea what I meant by that, so this year, at least, I surprised (confused?) myself, so that’s something new, I guess.

I’ve said many times that I think of my birthday as my own personal “new year”, and so, I’ve always looked at my birthday as an oppoprtunity for a reset. New beginnings, and even new ideas entirely. This year is just another example of that, though this year I my patio cover project was completed on my birthday, something that doesn’t happen every year. I’m glad that it was.

Birthday selfie under the roof.

These days, though, I’m less focused on projects, resets, or whatever, than I am on the fact of my ageing. I’ve taken steps to try and make that process better than, maybe, it might otherwise be, and I’ve talked about that, but what else is there?

I have projects galore for now and the near future, and I have some (mostly) vague plans for my (somewhat…) longer-term future, but about between the two? Let’s assume I have ten years before any physical decline begins (to be clear, it could be sooner or later). What am I going to do with my life for those ten (or more…) years? This is the one question I’ve been unable to answer ever since Nigel died, and that means that, as some may put it, I squandered the past six years. Maybe I did, but I don’t think so because I was in no position to do any differently when I hadn’t yet found my way through.

In any event, I intend for this year to be a pivot point. To be blunt, time is running out: Maybe I’ll get 20 years, more or less, before I my being stops, but I have no idea how many of those years will be what I consider to be valuable. That, I think—hope?—will be the story for this year and beyond. If so, it’ll be documented here.

This morning, just like last year, I made poached eggs on toast with sliced Edam cheese. In this case, I decided that yeatsreday afternoon, then in the evening I looked at least year’s post to prepare for this year’s and saw the connection. That’s actually why I added the cheese this year (the bread, and amount of cheese are less than last year, as it happens). Still, like last year, I used freshly ground salt & pepper and added some dried parsley—but not from my garden this year. Even so, it’s just as true as last year that I seldom make poached eggs on a weekday, and that made it a special.

I’ll be celebrating my birthday with family on the much more convenient Friday. I’m excited about Friday, as I always am when I get together with family—especially because this is a “non-significant” birthday, and so, today doesn’t matter. Well, apart from having my patio cover installed, of course.

It’ll be an early night for me tonight (I may have dozed off in my chair a couple times this evening…). By Friday I’ll be back to me again. After that? Let’s see what happens.

So, my birthday is usually a weird mashup of gratitude, thoughts about the future, missing Nigel more intensely than most days, and matter-of-fact realism about where I’m at and where I may be one day. And I’m okay with that.

The US Route 67 sign is a public domain graphic available from Wikipedia. US Route 67 runs between Presidio, Texas and Sabula, Iowa, running through the western part of Illinois from ­Missouri to Iowa. The route passes through Macomb, Illinois, which is the home of Western Illinois University. I know I visited a friend of mine when he was studying there, but I don’t remember how I got there (I must’ve either driven or used Amtrak, but I don’t remember which it was). One way or another, though, I was probably on Route 67 in Macomb at some point.

My Previous Birthday posts:

2025: The annual increasing number: 66
2024: The annual increasing number: 65
2023: The annual increasing number: 64
2022: The annual increasing number: 63
2021: The annual increasing number: 62
2020: The annual number increase happened
2019: Another 'Big Birthday'
2018: The annual increasing number: 59
2017: The annual increasing number: 58
2016: The annual increasing number: 57
2015: The annual increasing number: 56
2014: The annual increasing number: 55
2013: The annual increasing number: 54
2012: The annual increasing number
2011: The annual increasing number
2010: The annual increasing number
2009: Happy Birthday to Me…
2008: Another Birthday

Walking into my future

One year ago, on January 6, 2025, I began a programme to walk every single day. I had pretty simple goal when I started: I wanted to increase the strength of my legs and related muscles of my core in order to maintain mobility, flexibility, and even balance, for as long as possible. So: How’d it go?

Before I started walking daily, I wasn’t sure how I was going to approach the challenge, and originally thought I might alternate days with longer walks with days of shorter walks. Then, I thought maybe I’d do two walks a day a couple times a week. However, I had trouble getting the spreadsheet to calculate averages, so I pretty quickly settled on one walk per day (the spreadsheet issue is probably user error—I’m no expert user—but the spreadsheet progreamme I use, part of the open source LibreOffice, is sometimes, um, quirky).

My original and mostly informal goal was to walk for 15 minutes or one kilometre, whichever came first. My thinking was that if there was a day in which I just wasn’t feeling it, I could say, “I only have to do this for five more minutes,” or “Hm, 13 minutes? I can go a couple more minutes.” I knew that those little games would be enough to help keep me going longer, and that’s mostly what’s happened.

I walked every day, even on days when I wasn’t feeling well, except for one day when I felt particularly unwell. A couple days later, when I felt better, I did two walks, mostly so I could still have seven walks in the week and get the badge the Fitness App gives me when I do. The other days when I walked despite not feeling well had short walks, half a kilometre are most.

Part way through the year I started counting my mowing as a walk—because that’s what it is, something I only realised that when I started recording walking workouts. I couldn't see any reason why I shouldn't get credit for what's still a structured walk.

When I began the walks, it often took me around 15 minutes to cover a kilometre (which is how I came up with the original goal). Speaking of pace, at the start of the year my pace averaged out around 13 minutes per kilometre, and by the end of the year it was around 11 minutes per kilometre—though speed was never a goal, consistency was.

Overall, the results I noticed early on have continued. Most obvious to me, my legs definitely feel stronger, and I can notice they're firmer—not visibly, they just feel more toned. My flexibility is better, and so, my balance is also better than when I started. One example of all three: I can now stand on one leg without wobbling uncontrollably—not that I ever actually need to do that, but still!

However, my stamina has not improved, apart from being able to walk farther and longer than before this started. I’d hoped that the walking might help with my general stamina, though that was a hope, not a goal. Maybe that will improve this year?

In 2026, I’ll be increasing the work. For one thing, I’ll start doing two walks per day, both an average of at least one kilometre, though I think that of the two, the morning walk may end up being the longer one of the two. There’s growing evidence that multiple short walks per day are more beneficial than one long one, though doing three walks is simply too big of an ask right now. I also plan on using my dumbbells more frequently, though I have no idea how often that’ll be. That’ll be a tale for next year’s post about all this.

In 2025, I walked a total of 427.67 kilometres (which is 265.741818 US miles). The map up top is lighthearted way to show how far that distance is (SOURCE). I think it’s funny that the distance shows I could walk to anywhere in the North Island, and even to the top of the South Island—assuming I really could literally walk on water, and not merely in people’s imaginations. Also, it would only take me a year to get there walking maybe 15 to 30 minutes a day…

Finally, although today is the anniversary of when I began this journey, I’m now only talking about stats for a calendar year, mainly because it’s easier for me (that pesky spreadsheet again). So, the stats I talk about here are for January 6 to December 31, 2025—though I’ve been walking and recording the results every day so far this year, of course. Right now, I think it’s time for a walk.

Previously:
“I’m going to live” – February 23, 2025
“I’ve been walking, yes indeed” – March 1, 2025
“Walking to… somewhere” – July 7, 2025

Mow big deal

The most common reaction of folks to me arranging for a company to mow my front lawn was a variation of “What took you so long?” Fair question. In facr, my Blogging Body™ Roger Green left a comment on the post linked above (direct link to the comment). He wrote:

You get to make your own choices, of course. But I've been saying to myself for at least a couple of years, "Why doesn't he just get someone else to mow? He doesn't seem to be getting any joy from it." AND your list of To Do kept getting longer and longer and… So good on you.

There was a time when I quite liked doing the mowing: Back when I began doing it, when the lawns were still some patches of grass, some weeds, and a whole lot of bare clay. I rralised recently that this house is actually the first one where I’ve mowed lawns since I moved form my paretns’ house to Chicago, more than 40 years ago. Between there and moving to New Zealand, I lived in apartments, and here in New Zealand, we had two houses with lawns that we hired companies to mow, as well as three houses that had no lawns. So, it was a sort of nostalgic adventure for me, I guess. But as the mowing became harder on me physically, the novelty truly wore off.

There, of course, other factors I’ve spoken about in the past. First, and the biggest one, was that I bought a battery-powered mower and also have a battery-powered line trimmer, both of which I recharge using solar power as part of my desire to tread more lightly on the planet. I knew that mowing services all use petrol-powered machines, and which are polluting, obviously. I needed time to adjust to the need to compromise my values.

As time passed, however, the physical challenge becamse hared to tolerate. Up until this year, mowing was my biggest form of exercise by far. Now, of course, I walk every day, often farther than a mowing adventure provided. I think it’s kind of ironic that the main reason I felt it was time to stop mowing the front is that doing it became increasingly hard on me physically, especially if I did both lawns in one session. So: My biggest form of exercise became too hard, even though I now do daily walks—or was it because the mowing is now on top of those daily walks? Actually, it could just be one simple word: Age.

Regardless of why mowing the front became physically difficult for me, it certainly did. I needed time to accept that reality, and the implication that this will be a repeating reality the older I get. If I’m truly honest with myself, this was actually a far bigger thing for me to adject to than compromising my values was.

Despite all those barriers, there was something I was quite keen to leave behind: Unnecessary stress. As I said when I announced the change, “the front lawn is the only one anyone sees, so it’s important it’s always tidy—but making sure it’s tidy puts pressure on me that isn’t helpful.”

This brings me, in a round about way, to my “To Do” list. It is indeed of extraordinary length—well, more accurately, they are, because I have several different ones. I really must write the blog post about that I’ve planned for ages—and, of course, I even created a list for future blog posts, though the “To Do” list one isn’t on it. The larger point is that all those lists exist because I forget the same things constantly and repeatedly, and so, their real purpose is to reduce the stress that the constant forgetting, remembering, and forgetting again was stressing me out. Listing literally everything I need to do “sometime or other” means I can check anytime I want to see what I have to do, so I don’t actualy have to remember any of it (I put urgent things on my calendar or Reminders App so I’ll get specific on-time reminders). As it happens, most of the stuff on my “To Do” list(s) isn’t urgent.

All of that combined is what both drove my decision to hire mowers to do the front lawn, and also “what took me so long” to get to that point. There’s almost always a story or two behind our stories. This is just an example of that.

The photo up top is a kind of, sorty of, “before and after” of the front law. The “before” is actually from a 2022 blog post. I took the photo on the right shortly after the mower left, but I never even thought of taking a photo before he started. Oops. Fortunately, I have an archive of relevant photos, because that 2022 photo is pretty much what it looked like the day it was mowed.

I think it’s time

The die is cast: Today, I went out front to put a plastic bottle in the recycling wheelie bin (because it hadn’t been emptied yet), and I saw the guy mowing the nextdoor neighbours’ lawns was there, so I asked him if they could take on mowing my front lawn, too. I think it’s time.

I’ve been thinking more and more that this is the time: Mowing the front is extremely hard on me physically, which I think is mainly because the land gently slopes down from my house to the footpath, and because parts are thick with kikuyu, which is quite difficult to push the mower through. Also, the front lawn is the only one anyone sees, so it’s important it’s always tidy—but making sure it’s tidy puts pressure on me that isn’t helpful.

I’ll still do the back lawn myself for now. It’s is easier on me despite being roughly twice the area, possibly because it’s flat. Also, I plan to make physical changes to the back of the property after the pergola is installed over the patio (after it is, I can actually see the whole space I have to work with), and that’ll affect what routine maintenance I’ll need done. At this point, I expect to keep doing the back until my mower battery stops accepting a charge.

Friends and family will be glad about this news, probably mainly because I’ll finally stop moaning about how hard it is on me to mow the front lawn (LOL. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of other things to moan about). I’ll be really glad to no longer have to do a routine job I’ve grown to pretty much loathe, but if I’m truly honest, it’s kind of hard to accept that I need to make allowances for a body that can no longer do all the physical work it once could, and also that this won’t be the last time I have to do that.

Still, given the realities of aging, it makes sense to use my physical energy and strength for things I actually want to do or enjoy (even gardening, sometimes), and not force myself to do things I loathe but must do anyway, and that’s especially true when I can hire people to do it for me.

I got a text this evening that they’ll start this coming Friday (December 12), and it’ll be $30 each time (every week right now, every other week at other times of year). That’s a lower cost than a typical mowing costs because it’s only the front lawm, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me. Sure, I could probably do it “cheaper” if you consider my time as worth minimum wage, however, when one takes into account how much the mowing wrecks me, the price is both fair and a bargain.

So, progress. But, yeah, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of other things to moan about.

The photo up top is from a 2022 post—about mowing, oddly enough.

Time for my old man Life Hack

I have an old man Life Hack to share: This weekend, I figured out an easy way to re-set the clock on my oven without knowing how to reset the clock.

Whenever the power is off for any reason, as it was last week during the air conditioning installation, the oven clock starts flashing when power is restored, and it stops flashing when I turn the oven on. That much I knew all along, but I had no idea how to set the clock.

The builder left all the manuals in a kitchen drawer, but I moved it and the others “somewhere safe, so I can find it again”, and then promptly forgot where that was. I later made up a notebook in which I write down where I put a thing, and since I did that I haven’t lost anything.

The main problem is that the oven is actually a wall oven, not one designed to be mounted under the kitchen benchtop, as the builder did, directly under the hob (cooktop), as is common. The only way for me to see the temperature I’m setting, or to see several of the controls, is to sit on the floor—and that’s never a great idea the farther one gets from 50. Doing that just to set the clock I don’t even need was never going to happen.

So: I had an oven that hasn’t been displaying the correct time pretty much since I moved in. Until this weekend.

I knew that when power comes back on, it resets to Noon (it’s a 24-hour clock). Mid-afternoon on Friday, I suddenly realised (because I never cared about that clock…) that if I simply turned off the power to the oven at Noon, then turned the power back on, the clock would show the correct time.

Unfortunately, I didn’t remember that at Noon on Saturday, but did at 12:30, anyway, to make sure I was right, and, of course, I was. So at precisely noon on Sunday (relying on my watch, which gets its time from a time server), I switched off the power to the oven at noon, then a couple seconds later I turned it back on. Next, I turned the oven on, then back off, and the oven was FINALLY set to the correct time.

Yes, I could’ve launched yet another search party to find that “somewhere safe” where the manual is, as I’ve done a few times, or (more likely) I could’ve looked it up online, but that wouldn’t help me get back up off the floor after swearing at the difficulty in changing a damn clock I don’t actually use, anyway.

Maybe someday I’ll redo the kitchen, though I’m more likely to move somewhere with a wall oven that’s actually on the wall, and, until/unless that happens, I’m even more likely to continue silently cursing the stupidity of putting a wall oven under a kitchen bench (and also that so many functions are indicated by cryptic pictographs, but that’s a different gripe entirely).

Still, I finally figured out a workaround to reset the clock on my oven when I had no idea how to do it “properly”—and I have a hunch that my way is much easier and faster than the “proper” way. It only took me precisely five years and ten months to achieve this enlightenment, but an achievement is an achievement.

A friend betrayed me

A friend betrayed me the other night, and not for the first time. Every time it happens, I don’t see it happening until after the fact. Getting old is weird.

The friend I’m talking about is one of my oldest and dearest friends, coffee—not the one in the photo, but its fraternal twin. The coffee in the photo is decaffeinated, and the one that betrayed me was not, and that’s the problem, Actually, it’s become a problem only as I got older.

There as a time when I drank a lot of coffee, especially in the time leading up to getting my stent, and again when I was having so much trouble with severe fatigue while I was on betablockers. The caffeine didn’t actually help, but at the time it felt like I was at least trying to do something about the problem when doctors didn’t seem to want to.

And this is where aging comes into it. At some point I noticed it was taking me longer to fall asleep if I had coffee “too late”. At some point I made 4pm my arbitrary cut-off time, but the problem returned. So, I moved the time back to 3pm with the same result. In the past couple years or so I moved it back to 2pm for the same reason. However, there have been times when I had coffee later in the day, like if I knew I was getting together with family and knew I needed to be awake enough to drive back home (as I’ve said several times before, if I drive anywhere I never drink alcohol, so this is about keeping me awake and alert at a time when I’m usually winding down for the night). That doesn’t usually cause me a problem.

Late Saturday afternoon, I decided I wanted a coffee, but I was out of decaffeinated. So, I made a real one. It doesn’t usually cause me any problem, so, why not? Because sometimes it does cause problems. If only I’d remember that.

What usually happens is that in the evening I feel “unwell”—nothing necessarily very specific, but at its worst, I can feel incredibly anxious. Then, when I go to bed, I don’t fall deeply asleep, but instead it’s more like dozing, usually on and off. This makes me feel even worse, even making me think that something’s wrong with my heart. But the very worst thing about all this? Every single time I forget that it happens whenever I have real coffee “too late”—yes, I forget it every single time.

To be fair to me, this problem it’s pretty rare, because I don’t ordinarily have a coffee after 2pm, but especially because I usually now have only one cup of real coffee per day, and that’s first thing in the morning. It’s probably no wonder, then, that I keep forgetting about the consequences of having real coffee “too late” in the day.

However, the bigger issue is that I never used to have this problem at all until after I was nearing 60. What other fun changes are awaiting me on this ageing journey? I’ve “joked” in recent years that getting older is an ongoing series of new aches and pains in parts on the body we never realised could have aches and pains, that and foods that never bothered us now causing issues (literal or figurative…). This coffee thing is an example of the second type.

It may seem pointless to blog about something that I’m already dealing with as well as possible. For bloggers, sometimes (well, all the time for me…) some content is better than no content. However, the longevity of this blog means it's evolved into a repository of a whole bunch of my experiences and challenges, so I’m hoping that maybe this will help me remember this issue the next time it comes up—though it probably won’t, of course.

This time, the only real thing it did to me, apart from making me feel bad at the time, was to leave me feeling utterly wiped out the next day. But, really, this is just another in a series of things to get used to. Getting old is weird.

Eventual evidence

Every once in a while I find evidence for something I’ve said in a blog post a day or so later. The Facebook “Memory” above is an example of exactly that. This past Saturday, I wrote about the latest of the twice yearly clock changes. That post had a lot of tongue-in-cheek joking—including about me. However, it turns out, I really am affected by those time changes.

The Facebook Memory above was offered up to me yesterday, and it was last-year-me saying essentially the same thing I said in my post this year, namely, that the time change makes me tired. And boy, does it ever.

Yesterday I got together with some family, and I felt so incredibly sleepy I was worried I might doze off while I was there. I didn’t, but after I got home and sat down to watch my evening TV, yep, I fell asleep. Because my Apple Watch monitors whether I move or not, I know roughly when/how long I was asleep—only “roughly” because if I’m awake and watching TV but not getting up, my watch shows the same lack of movement as when I fall asleep. However, I know that I’ve been asleep when I wake up.

While I really do feel tired for around a week after the clocks change, I don’t remember that ever happening until I was in my fifties. Another change related to ageing? Dunno, but it’s certainly annoying, especially because the amount of sleep I get in the adjustment period doesn’t matter: More, less, or my usual amount of sleep all leaves my tiredness unchanged.

Still, it does eventually go away, and I know that—I just have to endure it until then. And then do it again twice next years.

The other thing I mentioned in that FB “Memory”, getting sunlight into the evening will become a real thing soon enough—but, at the moment, it’s just that sunset is now after 7pm—nice, but not as good as it’s going to be. Besides, the first full day after the clock change was mostly rainy—often with very heavy rain and dark clouds, and that weather made the later sunset seem exactly the same as the day before. It IS Spring, after all.

I re-set my wall clocks yesterday—the only ones I manually change. This year I finally realised why I hate doing that so much: The molded plastic backs all have a similar immovable loop used to hang the clock on a picture hook. However, I can’t see the picture hook, and I have a lot of trouble getting the clock back onto the hook. This is especially difficult with the kitchen clock, because where it’s hanging is awkward for me to reach. I came up with an idea to fix that buy putting a large loop of wire on that plastic loop because wire is flexible, and should be easier to put onto the hook. Maybe? If I do that for the next clock change in April, I’ll try to remember to blog about it (I should probably write a note for myself if I want to remember any of that…)

There’s nothing I can do about those clock changes, so I just have to be ready for around a week of being out of sorts. The clocks may change twice a year, but apparently my reaction to them doesn’t change. Oh, well.

Walking to… somewhere

It’s official: I’ve now been walking every single day for six months. This is my longest-ever commitment to anything I’ve done for my own well-being, my health in this case. Even I’m surprised by that—happy, sure, but definitely surprised.

When I talked about this back on March 1, I trotted out some statistics from a spreadsheet I made to track my progress (and still use). That’s been quite interesting—to me, anyway.

First, and most obviously, I’ve walked a lot: Over the past six months, I’ve walked a total of 289.44 kilometres—we’ll call it 290km—and the map up top [SOURCE] shows how far I would get if I walked 290k in a straight line from Hamilton. I should point out that, contrary to what many may think, I can’t walk on water, so only the points on land are relevant. Seriously, though, it’s not necessarily possible to walk to some of those places, but if someone far fitter than me attempted it, it wouldn’t take anywhere near six months to walk that far.

The serious point here is that I’ve met my true goal: To walk every single day, with a minimum of at least one kilometre per day. The point here was consistency, not distance or speed, because I wanted to position myself to hopefully maintain flexibility and mobility as long as possible. Basically, I figured that if I started now, I’d have a better chance of achieving that goal before I reach the lifestage at which those are sometimes a problem. And that’s why consistency is what matters most: It keeps my leg muscles used to motion and holding me upright.

Even though consistency was my goal, not distance or speed, both have naturally increased. When I began (actually back in December, but that was before I made the commitment to daily walks), my average pace—the amount of time it takes me to walk one kilometre—was more than 15 minutes. Now, it’s usually under 12 minutes—in fact, my average pace per kilometre is around 2.5 minutes faster now, which means I can walk farther in the same amount of time, and that matters a lot.

I’ve discovered that I have what I’ve dubbed my “boredom barrier”. A 15-minute walk is usually no problem, but by 20 minutes I’m starting to get over it, and at around 30 minutes, I’m thoroughly bored. This was a problem for maintaining my commitment.

I got around this at first through sheer stubbornness: I refused to stop until and unless I’d covered one kilometre. But, as my pace increased, I could cover, say, 1.35km in fifteen minutes, and that meant it was relatively easy for me to get myself to do 1.5km, since it would only take a few minutes longer. Then, if I managed 1.5 kilometres, it was maybe another 6 minutes-ish to get to 2 kilometres, and that now happens more and more often these days. It turns out I can re-set my “boredom barrier”—when I really want to, anyway. More often than not I get myself to the point where that’s possible by focusing on thinking about a specific thing (like, say, a project, maybe a blog post). That makes the time seem go faster.

While consistency was my goal, I was aware that all this walking would strengthen my leg muscles, too. Over time, they felt stronger, and I found I was able to do things I wasn’t always able to do, like standing on one leg without wobbling. Oddly enough, I seldom have any reason to stand on one leg, but I can do it, dammit! The real point is that my muscles are stronger, even my bum—I mean, not the envy of any male model (or maybe especially a male “model”—“actor”?), but a change I was able to notice. In other words, it seems there really are perks to exercise.

I added another thing over the past couple months: I’m using small dumbbells to strengthen by arms and shoulders. That’s also about flexibility. Of course, but better upper body strength will help me with many, many projects in the coming years, and that gets at what led me to start all this in the first place.

In December of last year, I realised I was struggling with physical tasks, like mowing the lawns, and it’s also the main reason I couldn’t bring myself to do the hard work that I needed to do to tame the gardens: I wasn’t physically up to the challenge. I was beginning to think about how I probably needed to start hiring people to do things I felt I could no longer do, and that was deeply depressing. But then I remembered something I’d said back in 2019, which I mentioned in a 2020 blog post: “I’m too young to feel this old”. However, I knew I’d remembered that around four and a half years after I first said it, and I wasn’t sure whether it was actually still true.

My breakthrough moment was when I thought to myself, “but what if I really am still too young to feel so old?” I then wondered if becoming fitter would allow me to do more physical stuff, but I also knew that even if it didn’t, it would at least help me with flexibility and mobility in the years to come. And with that my crusade was born.

It’s still too early to know how much more physical stuff, if any, I’ll be able to do, but I really do feel stronger, something I feel most when I’m walking around in daily life (not part of a workout), and that makes me happy. Six months from now, I should have a much better idea of how my efforts will lead, and I’m actually excited about that—while being realistic.

When I began this fitness journey six months ago, I wasn’t sure I’d really manage to walk every single day, nor that I’d achieve my goals. The fact I’ve succeeded with both really is a surprise, but it it’s also a source of hope: If I can make a commitment to myself and maintain it for every single day over six months, what else might I be able to do? I’m excited to find out.

Unsolved mowing conundrum

Last Friday, I mowed the front lawn and did the edges. That happened after many delays caused by lots of rainy weather over the past few weeks. I once again (still?) think it all underscores that it’s getting closer to the time for a change.

The rain delays let the “lawn” grow thick, and it was a lot of hard work to push through it, especially because I had to be careful to avoid stalling the mower—over and over again. By the time I was done, the mower battery was drained, and so was I (I also had to change the line trimmer’s battery, but I had backups; I only have one battery for the mower).

It was quite hard work physically, though arguably not as bad as before I started my daily walks. Even so, I think it’s time to give up mowing the front lawn and hire a service to take over. As I’ve said before, I’ve resisted because I need the exercise, and also because my battery-powered mower is recharged on solar power (so is my line trimmer). The mowing services all use petrol-powered machines.

One the one hand, switching from clean and green mowing to polluting fossil-fuel driven machines feels like defeat, like I’m abandoning my values—in fact that’s the main reason behind my stubbornness on this. On the other hand, I absolutely don’t enjoy mowing the front lawn, so why should I keep doing it?

For now, I’ll still do the back lawn for all the reasons I’ve mowed the lawn up to now. Also, the back is flat and the “lawn” is much less thick than out front, both of which make it much easier to do. I wouldn’t say I “love” mowing the back lawn, but I also don’t mind doing it.

The next day, in fact, I mowed the back lawn, which was even more overgrown (and it took less time to get that way). It isn’t unusual for the back lawn to grow faster than the front, but, even so, it’s easier to mow than the front is. However, Saturday was supposed to be rainy, so I skipped doing the edges along the fence up on the bank, along the side of the yard. I did manage to get the whole back lawn mowed—an area roughly twice as big as out front—without draining the battery.

There’s one more aspect to this adventure: I fixed a problem.

The last couple times I used the line trimmer, the line cut off on one side the bump head, meaning it stopped feeding line. This started happening after a few years of it working completely nomally—the line would completely run out, leaving the bump head empty. I thought I might have to replace the bump head (which isn’t inexepensive, but not horrible). However, I decided to take some [name brand] spray silcone lubricant into the holes the line feeds though. That seemed to work, and the line trimmer worked completely normally. If it starts breaking off again, I should be able to do this again.

Mowing out front was hard, the back less so, and I also managed to fix (at least temporarily…) my line trimmer. It was a variued adventure this time. Now, nearly a week later, I still think that it’s a question of when not if, I hire a service to take care of the front lawn, but I still have no idea when that will actually happen. I guess it many be a surprise to me, too.

The photo is of the tree on my street, the one I can see through the front window when I’m sitting in my chair. Not surprisingly, there were a few leaves I ground up while mowing. That, I’ll admit, was very satisfying.

Not just about bread

I don’t often share food photos any more (and clearly not much of anything else, for that matter…), because it’s all so trivial. Yesterday, though, I decided to share a photo (at right) of my trivial lunch to my personal Facebook. In this case, at least, there were reasons.

I made two poached eggs severed on a wedge of homemade (bread machine) wholemeal bread, and topped it with freshly ground salt and pepper and yum-yum sauce (Japanese mayonnaise), which I use on poached eggs because hollandaise sauce is too much work, tbh (I usually just use S&P). All of that is very ordinary, but the bread is the real reason I shared the meal (I make poached eggs most weekends).

I was never satisfied with the ordinary breadmaker bread I used to make, so much so that I even considered getting rid of my breadmaker. However, among my local supermarkets, my local Woolworths doesn’t stock my preferred brand/variety of commercial bread (just the brand’s gluten-free variety),and while the nearby New World does stock it, it sells out quickly. I don’t like the in-store bakery department breads at either chain.

This is an issue for me because the commercial bread I’ve been buying instead of my preferred brand sometimes gives me indigestion, and the ordinary breadmaker bread sometimes did, too (my preferred brand never did, but maybe that’s just because it’s so hard to get that over the past year or two I haven’t had it often enough to find out?). It’s early days for the wholemeal bread experiment, but so far it’s been fine. On the other hand, I’m out of practice cutting it (it makes a tall loaf), and have cut a wedge-shaped slice twice in a row, which isn’t ideal. If I tolerate this bread, I may try using the breadmaker to knead the dough, etc., and then finish it off in bread pans in the oven (to get better sized and shaped loaves). I do hope this works, though.

Occasional indigestion from bread wasn’t the only reason that I stopped posting food photos, though—there were several reasons. First, the same sort of ennui that’s kept me from cretive pursuits like blogging and podcasting, has also left me unspired to cook anything new or different, and so, there hasn’t been anything ne to share. Another reason, though, was eggs.

Prices for all food items when up in the Covid-related economic challenges and supply chain distruptions, and the massive spike in inflation when all the restrictions ended. Eggs were among the things with higher prices, of course, but we also had a fire at a major egg farm that killed thousands of hens, and egg prices shot up. However, egg prices in New Zealand eventually stabilised and have been stable for many, many, many months—despite even bird flu at a South Island farm. All of which means I can have eggs whenever I want, and at reasonable proces. However, I’m aware of how expensive eggs in the USA have become (another all-time record retail price was set just recently). It felt kind like bragging to share photos of my egg means (possibly the most common I’ve share over the past few years).

Eggs also get at another reason I’ve backed off posting things like food photos: All that sort of thing seems so utterly banal and trivial given the slide into fascism in the country of my birth. I’ve shared some things I find funny or interesting, but have deliberately avoided most things that touch even lightly on politics in the land of my birth—mostly, because I have shared expressly, and even sharply, political things to Reels (via Instagram).

It’s fair to say that there’s no reason I should avoid posting about things I’m doing, even if it’s only lunch, but with the world in such dire shape, it’s at least understandable. On the other hand, maybe the distraction of a freshly-made meal or a shopping excursion (or whatever) can help make the bad times just a little more tolerable, even if only for a moment or two. Maybe.

At any rate, I never would’ve guessed that finding a tolerable bread would be so difficult, but, as I often say, I’ve learned that growing older is a never-ending series of aches and pains in places I never knew could have them, and suddenly finding I don’t always tolerate some food I’ve had all or most of my life. C’est la vie, apparently. But all of that is still better than the awfulness all around the world, and maybe that makes celebrating everyday life that much more important.

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 418 is now available

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 418, “Podcasting for 18 years”, is now available from the podcast website. There, you can listen, download or subscribe to the podcast episode, along with any other episode. The site is not “https”, so you may need to tell your browser to let you through, anyway.

The five most recent episodes of the podcast are listed on the sidebar on the right side of this blog.

My Dad would be 109

This week had my father’s109th Birthday. I remembered to blog about it, even thought I didn’t have time to follow through, only because I decided to get organised: Almost a year ago, I wrote a post in which I talked about setting up a list of certain posts I wanted to be sure to write and publish. When I set up this year’s list, this post was on that list.

Life has been unusual for quite awhile now, and I continue to fins it difficult to find the time to actually get blog posts and podcast episodes done. Nevertheless, I’m getting to this in my dad’s birthday week, which right now, is a huge win.

I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot lately, because of what I’m going through now, a few years older than he ever managed to reach. I’ve talked about how my single biggest challenge emotionally and existentially about aging is that I have NO idea what to expect. My Mom and Dad both died younger than I am now, so I don’t know how they would’ve been as they aged.

My father’s siblings all lived to be old, though with the health problems of old age, and my grandfather was a nonagenarian. My mother’s parents died relatively young, but her uncle had good innings. So, because I have few examples to turn to, I don’t know if I’ll have mobility problems, cognitive decline, or any of the other things I worry about.

Which brings me back to my Dad. I remember when he was in his 50s how he couldn’t walk far at all. There were a lot of reasons for that, but he was certainly unfit, too. Over my life, I’ve seen several older people slowly decline, and watching them made me wonder how avoidable (generally speaking) loss of mobility and flexibility is.

All of that made me realise that I have some agency here: If I get fitter now, it’s bound to at least help me as I age, and maybe age-related decline might not be too bad. At the very least, it will probably (?) improve the quality of my life now because I’ll be better able to do physical things better.

As I said in my blog post about my walking, I already find it easier to get up off the floor, and even my knees seem more reliable. So, yay, I guess. And, in a roundabout kind of way, my Dad was one of my main inspirations.

Still, I often wonder what my Dad would’ve been like in old age, though I know he’d almost definitely be gone now regardless, and his too-early death left me with no example to look to in order to guess what my own old age might be like. However, there’s also everything that came before his death that’s helped build the foundation on which modern me is still being built, and that’s an important thing. As I said in my 2021 post about my Dad’s birthday:

Mainly, though, I’m grateful for the base he and my mother gave me, the framework to build the me I would eventually become. I get some of the credit for that, of course, as do other family and my friends (and, again, especially Nigel…), but the fact remains that he and my mother laid the foundation on which I would one day build me. Open eyed, aware, and certain that I may be, I nevertheless acknowledge where I come from, and my Dad was an important part of that.

All of which remains true, but it would be handy to have an inkling of what I might be facing over the next 20 (or so?) years I may have left.

Nevertheless, as always, thanks, Dad. And Happy Birthday!

Previously:
My Dad would be 108 (2024)
My Dad would be 105 (2021)
My dad would be 100 (2016)

Related:
Sunday Quiet (2009) – What Sundays were like when I was a kid
Like father, like son (2009) – A reflective post about sons imitating their dads and the freedom my dad gave me
Easter (2009) – Where I talk about my dad’s stage management
Good Friday Flashback (2011) – More about his stage management, with a photo
Arthur Answers Again, Part Two – Religion questions (2013) – I talk about being a preacher’s kid
AAA-14 Answer 7 – Loss and memes (2014) – I talk about the death of my parents
New Year’s Eve 2014 – In which I talk about one of my favourite memories of my dad

I’m going to live

I can remember the precise moment I realised that I’m not going to die. I was walking down the hallway that connects all the bedrooms to the living areas, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a painting a friend of ours painted and gave to us for our Civil Union. Our friend died from motor neurone disease in the year before Nigel died, and as I paused to look at the painting, I thought about how she was gone and Nigel was gone, and then it hit me: I’d spent all of my time since Nigel died expecting that I could die at virtually any moment, but clearly that was no more likely for me than for many others. I realised that if I wasn’t about to die, then I’d better focus on the business of not merely living, but having a good life. That, in turn, meant redoubling my efforts to have a good aging.

That was the moment everything changed.

I’d been thinking about what government officials like to call “ageing in place”, that is, growing old in our own homes, with support services gradually added as we need them, all designed to help us live long, healthy lives in our own homes, without having to go into care until/unless it’s truly necessary. Seeing the painting that day later helped me focus on what I needed to do.

I chose my house because it’s one storey (no steps), and after I moved in I installed the solar power system so that it could help keep my power bills as low as possible so that I’d have more money to pay for living, not merely existing. I have further plans to upgrade this house to make it even better for me (and, to be honest, for the eventual resale, in case I need or want to sell it, even if that’s not until well in the future).

However, there was more to this planning than merely making my house elderly-me friendly, there’s all the time between now and then, too. So, I decided to work on myself to try and keep mobility and flexibility as I age. This led to my biggest work on myself, probably ever.

Last December, I started walking two or three times a week. Then, on Monday, January 6, I began walking every single day, which means that this past week was my seventh consecutive week of this daily routine. There have been positive results, some subjective, but at at least one that’s clearly measurable.

Before talking about what I did and why, it’s important, if obvious, to note that this is about my personal journey in health and aging, and shouldn’t be taken as advice. I will say, however, that any exercise is better than none, but how much is enough—or too much—will vary from person to person. It’s a good idea, especially for us older folks, to talk to our doctor before starting any exercise programme—but I didn’t do that, even though I absolutely should have.

That out of the way, here’s what I did and why.

My Apple Watch tracks minutes of exercise (the green ring), movement (the red ring, and an estimate of kilojoules/calories burned), and whether I stand for at least 5 minutes every hour for 12 hours per day (the light blue ring). My progress throughout the day is tacked on those rings, and the goal is to close all three rings every day (there’s an example at left, from February 21, 2023). My Apple Watch’s week is from Monday through Sunday (I have no idea why or if that can be changed, and I frankly don’t care), and that’s why my daily walking routine began on a Monday.

My routine was to walk two kilometres (1.24274 miles) every weekday, and one kilometre (0.621371 miles) on Saturday and Sunday. On weekends, I actually walk a bit farther than one kilometre per day because, generally speaking, my watch requires a “workout” to be at least 15 minutes to register it as a workout, and since my average pace for one kilometre is faster than that, I keep walking until I pass 15 minutes. I also end up walking a bit more than two kilometres on weekdays, too, mostly because I can.

My Apple Watch also sends me rewards badges, first for each ring on my watch as I close them, then another when I close all three rings, plus badges for a perfect week (closing the ring every day), and a perfect month (closing them every day of a month). There are additional monthly challenges, and there was one more I never got: Doing seven workouts over that Monday-Sunday week (the watch can track many different kinds of workouts, including both indoor and outdoor walks). Getting those badges every day and week is a surprisingly strong motivator for me.

For some reason I assumed that the workout challenge was to do workouts on all seven days of a week, but this week I suddenly realised that it’s actually seven workouts total, not per day. So, this week I experimented with doing two shorter walks on both Wednesday and Friday of this week, each walk a bit more than a kilometre. This meant that I did seven walking workouts on Monday to Friday, and, as I suspected, I got my reward badge on Friday (the image at the top of this post). That means I could’ve taken the weekend off from walking if I wanted to (I didn’t, but in the future I may use one of the two days as a “rest day”).

I first felt my walks affecting my calves, then my thighs, and finally my hip flexor muscles, all of which felt stronger. Over time, I noticed my balance had improved, that I was easily able to stand on one foot. My knees seem more reliable, and even my lower back doesn’t get sore like it used to, and I also noticed that it had become somewhat easier for me to get up off the floor (like after I scrub the shower floor). Gaining flexibility and greater balance is precisely what I was trying to achieve, but all of that’s entirely subjective. Fortunately, there’s now an objective improvement.

I’ve been getting annual blood tests for years, and I have a spreadsheet with the results dating back to 2011 (though there’s a five year gap between those first results and the next ones, probably because I lost the forms for some years’ results. Nevertheless, one of the consistent things has been that my HDL (“good cholesterol”) has always been too low. It’s supposed to be greater than 1.00 mmol/L (“millimoles per litre”), however, mine has never reached that. My worst (lowest) reading was 0.64, and my best was 0.90. Last year’s result was 0.88, but my most recent blood drawn on February 5 showed my HDL was at a new high of 0.92—the best reading ever, as far as I know. I’d always been told I needed to exercise more since it’s the only way to significantly improve the HDL level, and my new result came after I’d been doing daily walks for around a month, and doing walking workouts at least some days for roughly six weeks. If I keep walking/exercising, I may eventually finally pass 1.00 mmol/L.

In summary, my legs feel stronger, my balance and flexibility has improved, and I’ve raised my HDL levels, all of which gives me an incentive to continue (that and getting those Apple Watch badges…). However, I haven’t noticeably lost any weight, but that wasn’t goal at this point; that will come over time. This is a process, of course, and I still have a long way to go.

I have a cross-trainer (also called an elliptical) in the garage, but I don’t yet feel anywhere near fit enough to use it—although, it’s been way too hot in the garage to use it, anyway. The elliptical also helps with upper-body work, though I have other plans to help with that, too—after I take off my training wheels, so to speak. My plan is to slowly build my strength and stamina, then add more and different routines to target different areas, all with the same goal of strengthening the muscles associated with balance, stability on my feet, and even pain avoidance (lower back, for example). I want to be as mobile as possible for as long as possible, and I’m the only one who can do anything to help make that happen.

It’s still early days for all of this, but I definitely feel better, stronger, and more flexible, to varying degrees, and that’s more than enough incentive for me to keep going. All I really want is to have the best life I can have, regardless of how many or few years may be ahead of me. I finally understand that I’m not going to die, after all, not right now, and that it’s up to me if I want to be able to live whatever life I still have to the fullest. I think I’m well on the way to making sure that happens, one step at a time.

Lost in the weeds

A week ago, I was in the midst of mowing adventures. It took me three days to mow all the lawns, and that made me reconsider—well, a lot of things, really. In the end, the lawns were tidy, but I’m not sure my mind was.

There was a lot of rainy weather after my most recent mowing, and that was bad for a couple reasons. First, as always, it delayed the mowing because I needed the lawns to dry out a bit—and then it would rain again. At the same time, warmer temperatures, when combined with that rain, caused the weeds to run amok.

It’s not unusual for that to happen this time of year—it’s actually what Spring is like an a normal year. This time of year, then, the lawns are filled with the flower spikes from the weeds, and the leaves of the weeds grow more quickly, too, making the whole lawn thicker, from the machine’s perspective, than it actually is.

So, a week ago Friday I went out to start using the line trimmer on the edges out front (because it’s what everyone sees). That was fairly uneventful. The mowing, however, went slowly because the lawn was still pretty damp, and because I often had to go back and forth over some patches to be able to cut off the flower spikes at ground level (also not unusual for this time of year).

That was difficult, but the front lawn is also a gentle slope from the house down to the footpath, and at the side, it’s even a little steeper. As I was finishing up, on that steeper side, I was absolutely miserable: Tired, sweaty, and totally over it. I thought, yet again, about getting a service to mow the front lawn so I don’t have to deal with it—and that, in turn, led me to think about how these days I think about all the things that I no longer seem to be able to cope with doing by myself, and how that seems to have picked up speed since I turned 65.

I knew there wasn’t much battery left in the mower after it struggled out front, so I only mowed a very little bit of the side yard. I also did some of the edges—until the line trimmer’s filament rand out. That, I decided, was a good place to pause.

I sat down to rest and cool off, and to let the mower battery cool enough to recharge it. Unfortunately, I realised too late that I’d forgotten to do that, and there wasn’t enough time to charge it and mow the back, and that meant I’d have to finish on Saturday.

The next day, Saturday, despite totally not feeling it, I went out to do the back lawn, starting with the edges. First, I opened the spool because I couldn’t feed new line into it, and found out that the old line had someone gotten stuck, and some was still wrapped around the head. I cleaned it out, fed in the new line, and began trimming.

I hadn’t gotten very far when the line trimmer stopped: The battery was dead. I went and grabbed another one, but the trimmer wouldn’t go, so I checked the power level (the manufaturer calls it a "fuel gauge") and found out it was empty: I hadn’t recharged it the last time I used the line trimmer because I put it were recharged batteries go. Oops.

I decided to start mowing, anyway, and got a lot of the lawn done—until the battery was again fully drained without the mowing being done. The problem is that the back lawn, which is mostly weeds, grows much faster and thicker than the front lawn does, and so, the mower had to work much harder than at other times of year.

I thought I’d finish mowing on the next mostly sunny day, which was projected to be Monday or Tuesday, and for a very personal reason: I like to avoid making any noise on Sundays. My rationale is that people who work Monday through Friday generally do noisy outside chores on Saturday, not Sunday. Maybe they like the idea of one quiet weekend day, too? At any rate, I normally avoid making noise outside on Sundays unless I have no choice.

This time, I thought that I’d better not count on good weather the following week, so I did go out and finish the mowing on Sunday, something that only took maybe 20 minutes (at most) to do. It turned out I definitely made the right choice: Parts of Monday and Tuesday had rain.

My plan was do the lawns again after about a week—basically, now—to try and get it under control before the next big blooming of the weeds. Today has been a rainy day, and tomorrow is expected to be one, too. Monday through Wednesday are expected to have at least some sun, so they look like my best shot, earlier than I’d normally do them, but later than I’d have liked. I’ve noticed some flower spikes are already pushing up,

That mowing adventure was unusually arduous, but my thinking around it was not unusual. I’ve spoken before about how often I’ve thought about hiring a service to mow out front, but they only use petrol-powered equipment, and mine a use batteries recharged with electricity from the sun. Giving up feels like going backward.

At the same time, part of the problem is that I now only have one battery, so I usually can’t mow both lawns on one day. Worse, my current battery is probably nearing the end of its life (the warranty is only for three years), and when it dies, a new battery will cost me between $379 and $579 (today, around US$221 to US$338) for a new one (depending on the capacity—which basically means how long it’ll go before it runs out of charge). Is it really worth buying a new battery, or should I just give it all up at that point?

This gets back to the things that I no longer seem to be able to cope with doing. Mowing is my major form of physical exercise, and, I always told myself, that’s precisely why I find it so difficult to do: I’m not fit enough. But, what if this is at least related to my aging body, or even just that aging is making things harder regardless of my fitness level?

Yesterday, the company that installed my ventilation system sent a technician to change the filters, something they do every two years. Last time, I found non-branded filters of a similar spec that cost less than half the price of what it cost me to have the company do it. However, that would mean going up in the attic to do it, something I think is a terrible idea, not just because I’m getting older, but also because I live alone, and if I fell through the ceiling, no one would be here to help me. To be fair, the company also checks to make sure everything including airflow rates are within specification, so it’s more than just changing a filter. Even so, 20 years ago I’d absolutely have gone up there to do it myself.

All up, this period in my aging has been confusing as hell, and trying to work out what I can or should do myself, and what I should pay others to do for me, has been exhausting. Whether it’s mowing my lawns or changing filters in the attic, the first step is to be sure of my own realistic and sensible limits, something thats not always easy to do

Last week, I had unexpectedly fraught and lengthy mowing adventures. There are likely to be many pivot points over the next five and ten years, times where I’ll have to accept my limitations beginning to exceed, or, at least, restrict, my abilities for doing things myself.

There’s one more thing I know for certain: All of this is exponentially more difficult because Nigel’s not here to figure all this out with. On the other hand, if this really is the beginning of my physical decline, then I’m kind of glad he didn’t have to see it, because I know how hard that would’ve been on him.

No wonder I’m lost in the weeds.

The photo up top is of Leo in the weeds this past Sunday, November 24, just before I began to finish the mowing. By the time this mowing adventure began the previous Friday, the weed stalks out back were at twice his height (more in some places). I took this photo kneeling on the ground, so the view is basically at flower height.

A new season

According to some people, a new season just began, with the arrival of the September Equinox. However, there are many different different dates we can pin seasonal changes to. Turns out, that’s true for human seasons, too.

The September Equinox, also known as “Astronomical Spring”, arrived in New Zealand at 12:43am Monday morning (or, to some, Sunday night…). Metrological Spring, which is what we generally use in this part of the world, began on September firstAs if all that wasn’t confusing enough, there’s a third option: Solar seasons.

Yesterday, Stuff published “Spring has sprung: Understanding the four different season start dates”, which attempts to explain the differences in the various choices for when we declare seasons to begin. Solar Seasons, the article says, relate to relative daylight in each hemisphere, and are six weeks either side of a solstice. It doesn’t say if that’s also true for equinoxes, but, if it is, that would only account for 48 weeks—are the other four weeks a sort of Seasonal Interregnum?.

None of the choices relate to weather, of course, and we’ve had both mild and wintry days/nights since September first, and we still are. In fact, yesterday I had my windows open, but today is a bit less Spring-like.

Seasons relating to weather are the ones we humans may obsess about the most, but we also have seasons in our own lives, something artists frequently refer to in their work. This has something that’s been on my mind lately partly because of the actual seasonal changes, but I’ve been reflective about ever since Nigel died, and especially with the recent fifth “horrible anniversary” of Nigel’s death.

I think it would be more surprising if I wasn’t thinking about the seasons of my life, now that I’m a 65-year-old widower: What is life going to be like for me as I continue aging and face those challenges alone? This is a bigger topic all on its own, and one I’m still trying to wrap my head around, but it’s probably been most noticeable in my relationship to my own health.

Because my parents died when they were younger than I am now, I have no sense of what I may be in for, apart from the fact that since I never smoked, I’m unlikely to face the specific smoking-related health problems they had. Other than that, who knows? The fact that Nigel isn’t hear to help me navigate these uncharted waters makes this even more challenging—and sometimes even terrifying.

Yesterday, I went to see my doctor, the first time I’ve seen him in 2 year, 4 months because of Covid restrictions and the ongoing overwork that most doctors deal with every day because of a shortage of doctors and lack of proper government funding (in fact, the fee the practice charges for a standard 15-minute appointment recently went up 25% to help them cope with fast-rising costs). In the time since my last in-person appointment, I’ve traded secure messages with my doctor using the online patient portal, I had an in-person vitals check, I’ve had annual blood tests, and, of course, I always keep up my vaccinations. I mention all that because I do the ordinary things one does to remain healthy.

My specific complaints were about lightheadedness: I’ve sometimes tried to get out of bed in the morning and felt lightheaded. This is a common enough thing for people on blood pressure medication, however, that’s never happened to me before. Also, one day recently I had a massive head-rush as I walked across a supermarket carpark, something that passed quickly and had no other symptoms.

My doctor said the general lightheadedness was a symptom of getting older, though he didn’t put it like that. It was clearer to me because he mentioned that folks in their 80s often have trouble with the same thing—actually, even more so—but because the don’t have the core or muscle strength to keep themselves steady, they may fall. I know that his point in telling me that was there are natural changes that occur as we age, but this also inadvertently gave me a glimpse of something that may be ahead for me 20 years from now (give or take). It also made me realise I need to take my own fitness more seriously, and work on maintaining muscle mass and core strength—actually, “work on” is being generous: I need to start doing that.

What’s important at the moment is that I’m quite good at monitoring my own health. For example, my Apple Watch records my heart rate many times per day (speaking of which, no more atrial fibrillation!), I sometimes check my blood pressure, and I even check my blood oxygen levels sometimes. All of that is on top og regular things like annual blood tests, routine vaccinations, and even my willingness to contact my doctor if I’m concerned about something, especially things that seem to have changed.

While I’m monitoring my own health and how things are changing as I age, there’s something else about that: I’ve become more relaxed. I’ve written several times about how after Nigel died, I was worried I might die soon, too. Then, it became worry about something happening to me and Nigel not being here to help me—or just to talk me out of my latest health panic—though I wouldn’t be having panics if Nigel was there, of course.

Nowadays, I’m far more relaxed about everything, including, even, my own death. I understand far too well that death is inevitable, and while being good about my own health can help delay that, and possibly improve the quality of my life between now and then, there’s absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop death itself. That’s why I no longer worry about that.

All of this is part, maybe the most visible part, of my ageing and my move into new seasons. I still can’t even guess what my future seasons might be like, buy they’ll arrive whether I’m ready or not. I think that maybe the best any of is can do is to be sensible, keep our eyes open, and to stay grounded. Actually, there’s one more thing: We can try to find more moments of joy, regardless of the season, and that alone will improve literally everything else. It doesn’t matter what we call the seasons or how we mark their beginning or progress. Just like the seasons on our planet, really.

The photo up top is of the trees on my street, the only one I have a good view of out my front window. I took it on Sunday, around nine hours before the September Equinox arrived in New Zealand. Mainly, I was just excited to see the leaves emerging again—always a highlight Spring for me, what with the promise of warm weather to come. And yes, I've share several photos with this same tree in it.

Visible signs of ageing

For many of us, turning 65 can be a major turning point in our lives. In New Zealand, it’s the age at which New Zealanders who meet certain criteria can begin collecting the national pension, known as superannuation (or “super”). They also qualify for prescriptions without the $5 co-payment per drug that the current government reinstated (the previous Labour Party government had ended it), we also get many immunisations, like the annual influenza jab, for free. And then there are the discounts, too. And yet, getting all that also means one is getting older, so there’s that.

Superannuation payments are managed by the Ministry for Social Development (MSD), which overseas all benefits. They also run the government programme to manage discounts for those 65 and over, a discount card called the SuperGold Card. On August 30, I took the selfie above (and made a little video) that I shared on social media. I said about the photo:

I received my SuperGold Card today, a card issued by the New Zealand Government to folks 65 and over, entitling us to discounts on products, services, and even public transport. Who doesn’t like a discount?! Yeah, but I’m not as keen when getting them means I’m now over 65… Oh, who am I kidding? I ALWAYS love a discount! 🤣

I then left a comment on version on my personal Facebook, saying that “Among the discounts are funeral services… 😳 Um, I wouldn’t exactly get to ‘enjoy’ that one. 🤣” There are other discounts similarly targeting “seniors”, but most of them are kind of general—like discounts at various cafes and shops. The idea, basically, is to give people 65 Plus a bit of a break, and I thought it was a good iead, years before the programme began back in 2007—when I was 48 and 65 seemed like decades and decades away.

Getting the card really does signify one is getting older, and the programme itself seems to cater toward the older end of the over-65 spectrum. I knew there was an App for the programme, but I didn’t download it until I got my actual card in the mail. Once I did and downloaded the App, I found out that it was basically just a small, easier to access version of the website that tells you where discounts are in your area. That’s useful, up to a point, if one is out and about, however, I’ve found the App listings to be incomplete. I also assumed that one could load their Super Gold Card into the App so in shops we could scan the screen rather than pull out the card, just like we can do with loyalty programme cards for various businesses: The App doesn’t have that functionality.

This is an issue for me because it’s yet another card I have to cram into my wallet—and I have several. My two supermarket loyalty cards, and my general loyalty card, are all loaded into their respective Apps, and the App I use to pay for petrol let me load both my general loyalty card AND my Super Gold Card so I get the maximum discounts when I buy petrol. Yet I still have to carry my Super Gold Card so I can use it everywhere else. I know that many older people struggle with technology, but not all of them do, and many adapt to smart phones quite easily. Maybe the App will catch up when younger baby boomers, Generation Jones, and Gen X make up a larger percentage of users?

This past Tuesday, I used my card and shared a selfie from the supermarket carpark (at the bottom of this post), writing on social media:

Today I used my Super Gold Card for the first time! That also means I got my first-ever senior discount… 😳 That’s probably a look of shock on my face.

This isn’t an ad for anything, of course. It’s really just an acknowledgment of how lucky I am to be around this long so I can get a small discount at the supermarket. Far too many folks never get that chance, as I know FAR too well.

I then turned to the comments to explain the supermarket situation:

Both the New Worlds I’ve been to the most in Kirikiriroa-Hamilton offer GoldCard discounts on Tuesdays, but the nearest Woolworths that does is in a part of the city I never go to, and Maps somewhat optimistically says it’s a 15 minute drive from my house. As I said to my mother-in-law, if I’m going to the supermarket on a Tuesday anyway, I might go to New World for the discount, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to save 5%.

For example, today I mostly stocked up on a lot of staples (and my impulse buy of a loaf of bread—I’m a reckless radical!) and I saved a whopping $6.82 (today, that’s around US$4.19). I’m pretty sure that their Club Card loyalty card gave me far more in discounts, but, unlike Woolworths, their receipt doesn’t summarise them.

I went because I thought it’d be kind of funny to break-in my SuperGold Card at the supermarket, but what I didn’t take into account is that Tuesday is one of the mostest busiest days at New World, with lots of folks there for their GoldCard Discount—and younger folks annoyed at what they perceive as the slower older shoppers. The carpark was *very* full, too. Honestly, I was glad to get away from there.

So, it was mildly amusing to use my card for the first time at a supermarket (clearly, I’m *very* easily amused…), but I’m firm now that I absolutely won’t go out of my way to go there on a Tuesday. Now, if they raise the discount… 🤔🤣

The thing is, I really am what used to be known as a “superannuatant” or a “pensioner”, and if people assume that such people are frail and very old, that says something about them, not the older people. So, I make light of the new existential land I now find myself in, complete with its various discounts, and sometimes, perhaps, I may perhaps push too hard. When I shared the photo up top on my Instagram, I said in a comment on that post:

Hm… looking at the photo now, my attempt to make a goofy face ended up making me look older than I really am. It’s probably punishment for joking about being “old”. 😂

The reality is that not only am I trying to adjust to being over 65, I’m also trying to grasp what that, and ageing itself, means. While I was (somewhat) joking in my Instagram comment, it nevertheless realise pays to tread carefully. This is, after all, so very new to me. Still, I take very little seriously, especially not myself—especially not myself. That’s been true most of my life, and I know that much is unlikely to change, even if visible signs of ageing do appear, including silly selfies mocking myself for my period of adjustment.

I really am keenly aware of how lucky I am to be around this long so I can get discounts because I’m 65. Like I said earlier, “Far too many folks never get that chance, as I know FAR too well.”

Indeed.