Stayin' Alive

As I hunker down in the bliss of middle age, there is one thing that has become extremely clear to me: I am very lucky to be alive. I have been babysitting my grandkids fairly regularly lately and though I figured that I was pretty good at mothering, it's a lot different now. I grew up in dangerous times and didn't even realize it until I became a grandmother. I raised my own children like I was raised. I thought my parents did a pretty good job with me, so I carried on their work with a few upgrades.

As I was strapping my 2 1/2 year old granddaughter into her car seat the other day, it all hit me as to how lucky I was to be walking this earth. I am pretty sure I didn't have a car seat or even seat belts when I was young. Oh, I take that back. I did have a seat belt. It was called Mom. When she had to hit the brakes suddenly, she would throw her extended arm across me to keep me from being hurled into the air. I don't think that kind of protection would prove effective in today's crash tests, but I am still here to tell the story.

When my grandson rides his bike or his scooter, he wears knee pads and a helmet. When I look back, I rode a bike and roller skated on the city streets without any kind of head gear or padding, I am astonished that I made it to this age. My younger sister skated too and she wasn't as good as I was and was prone to falling down pretty often. Obviously, Mom was ahead of her time in the field of childhood safety, because even though she never thought about protecting my sister's head, she started belting a bed pillow to sister's back side when we went outside to skate down the sidewalks. The pillow trick worked really well because my sister's butt was unharmed and is flourishing to this day.

Come to think about it, I am closer to being a senior citizen than a debutante, so how did I escape death when I grew up on white bread? I even ate Velveeta and Spam and I am here to talk about it. I don't eat it anymore, but I can assure you that in my youth I had my fill of gluten and trans fat. I am pretty sure that an Omega 3 oil never crossed my tongue as a kid unless it was found in fish sticks. Growing up, the closest I ever came to eating organic was when I decided to taste one of the mud pies I had created in the yard.

Thank goodness my brain was never corrupted from watching television in my early years. Although there was no such thing as Parental Control to block me from watching unfit things, there weren't actually a lot of unfit things on TV back then. How much trouble could Gilligan really get into to that I would need to be shielded from?

It's a miracle that I lived to be this old because I was spanked within an inch of my life for misbehaving. Kids today are not spanked or slapped anymore. Even if they try to touch something dangerous or run into the street, corporal punishment is considered wrong. Now parents discuss the wrong-doing with the child and make contractual agreements with 5 year olds about the consequences if the infraction should ever occur again. I was slapped on occasion, spanked from time to time and otherwise punished in addition to being put in solitary confinement to think about what I'd done. How did I ever escape childhood relatively unscathed?

And to think I played with cap guns, and pogo sticks and jump ropes. I could have been burned or impaled or strangled for goodness sake! I faced so much danger and yet... I made it.

I had mumps and measles and chicken pox and, except for the permanent little hole in my forehead from that spot I couldn't stop scratching, I came through all of it.

I feel very fortunate to have lived through so much despite the fact that I didn't have anything to keep me safe and healthy. I am one lucky lady.

Miss Fifi has yet another gift to be thankful for in this life... The privilege of getting older.

Senti-MENTAL Journey

I am writing this from this from Indialantic, Florida, which is right below Orlando. It is 6 o′clock in the morning and I am trying to put my thoughts down on this iPad from my guest bedroom without the benefit of coffee. I am here to help my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Micky and Alana, through a somewhat bittersweet process: selling their home by the sea and moving back to California, where most of the family resides. Their house is going on the market in 2 weeks or so, but before that, a giant estate sale had to take place so I came here to help, both physically and mentally. Just to clarify, I am divorced, but my ex-husband’s family is still MY family. Basically, they kept me and he got to have his girlfriend. I am the big winner in this deal.

“Estate sales are a very emotionally draining experience and it was up to me to be the voice of reason every step of the way.”

Getting ready for a move across country and downsizing considerably is very physically demanding even if you are 35, which we are not. Just setting up to sell a house full of stuff is a huge effort. I conducted estate sales as a sideline for many years, so I know the ropes as to how to get things sold. There is more to it than just the day of the sale. Before anything else can happen, you have to separate what is to be sold from the items that are keepers. This is where the real fun begins and why they really needed me. This is a very emotionally draining experience and it was up to me to be the voice of reason every step of the way. Parting with things you love can be so traumatic and can really mess with your head and heart.

I know from experience how hard this process can be. After my divorce, the family home was sold and I ran my own estate sale. I had lived in the house for 25 years and raised my babies there. I was moving into a place not even half the square footage of my house, so I knew I had to whittle down my belongings. Easier said than done. My poor sister had to be much more than "the voice of reason" with me. She had to perform an intervention on me every time she viewed what I was planning on keeping.

I couldn't imagine myself as a single woman living alone. I couldn't fathom not needing every mixing bowl, vase, platter and tablecloth that I owned. And what about the things that belonged to my loved ones who were no longer on this earth? And all the sweet gifts people had given me through the years? And my collections, for goodness sakes! I had been working on those for decades. My poor sister had to talk me down from the roof on every "treasure" that I insisted on keeping. She was an angel and was very patient with me. I know what Alana was going through and I was determined to get her through this sale with a feeling of relief from being out from under all her stuff and not regretting her choices.

I am the most sentimental fool I know of and my sister-in-law is not far behind me. I had to be gently persuasive when trying to get her to part with things and put them in the sale. She hadn't come to grips with the fact that many of the items she felt she couldn't live without were things she hadn't used in years. My dear brother-in-law, Micky, was no problem at all. He was in charge of getting rid of the endless tools, widgets, electronics, yard equipment and other "testosterone-ish" items that filled the garage and shed. He had way less attachment to his man stuff and was excited to turn them into cash. He kept out of our way and only appeared when he was needed to move something. Micky is a dream man. He made my job easier. Alana is another story.

She really loves and trusts me and listened to my reasoning. She let go of things she really wanted to keep and I was proud of her. I didn't even say anything when I noticed that some items had mysteriously made their way from the "sale" area to the "keep" room. When they go to pack it up, there will be another edit when everything doesn't fit in the moving van and yet another one when they find a place in California and discover they still own too much. It's the natural progression of things and it doesn't seem to end, at least not for me. I have lived in my place for nearly 7 years and I STILL have an ass-load of belongings to get rid of. So who am I to judge?

We held the sale for 3 straight days. We made a nice amount of cash and got rid of tons. Clean up was a breeze. Alana and I hauled an SUV filled with the leftovers to the Goodwill on the last day and she never looked back. Good girl!

This experience was a good one for all of us. I got to visit my beloved beach oasis one more time and be with people I adore. We proved that even old people can "Git 'er done!" with determination, love and a good amount of red wine.

I had such a good time, despite the long hours and hard work. And as a bonus, I get to have their fantastic curio cabinet that I have admired for ages. I kept all my little collections of Murano glass birds, my grandmother's tea cups, my mother's thimbles and so on and I will have a perfect place to display them. Boy, will my sister be surprised to see them again! Wink, wink.