Old dogs...

 Just 12 months ago I was looking forward to a really good year, convinced 2011 was going to be a game changer for me.
When Mom died the second week of January, I didn't see that as good. In fact, I went through a lot more grieving and adjusting and emotional reacting than I expected. On the other hand, it set me free. I could be me because there was no longer a parent around to tell me how to be, to comment, correct or commend/criticize (depending on their life views). That was unexpectedly freeing. So much so that I didn't know what to do with it for a long time.
2011 kept doing that. I spent a large chunk of time in close proximity with the ex for the first time since he left, and that was eye-opening and freeing as well.  I would never have picked Mom dying and seeing the ex as hallmarks of a good year, but here we are 12 months later, and I am different. Fundamentally.
 To my astonishment and gratitude, I've grown up--although I wasn't aware of it.
 I was at a friend's for a movie night last night and we were telling each other about our Christmases. Both of us had wonderful, family-filled holidays. As I was explaining how truly special it had been to be asked to sleep over Christmas Eve, and had woken up early (OK, the earliest of anybody in the house, too excited to sleep) and then spent lovely quiet time with my granddaughter...then the son and daughter-in-law got the coffee going and presents opening...the other grandparents arrived with more prezzies and got the turkey cooking with all the goodies...the wonderful meal...I had trouble explaining just how astonishingly comfortable and full it had been: I hadn't offended anyone, said anything unforgivable, felt jealous or paranoid or left out or taken anything personally...it had all been so peaceful.
 And my friend said, "That's called happiness."
OMG. I'm 66 years old and don't know what happiness feels like?
It feels great. It feels right. I like it...a lot. I'm just astonished my friend had to point it out.
 Take today. My son invited me to go for an adventure at the Olympic Park. He, his brother and his wife and I would ride a luge down the track, something I've always wanted to do. I was so excited that I put everything out to be ready. I calculated when I needed to leave and when to get up. I went to sleep with visions of exciting luge runs dancing in my head. I woke up at 5. Woke up again at 6.
And then I woke up at 8...exactly when I needed to leave to be on time.
Oh! The adrenalin. The fumbling. The swearing as I lept up, dressed and headed my car for the rendezvous at light speed. Oh! The adrenalin, the fumbling, the swearing when the red and blue lights swung in behind me. Unusually for me, I quieted.  I could do nothing to right the wrong. I would be late. I would not ride a luge. I would have a ticket on my record. And I still had a 40 minute drive to get there.
I spent it examining why in the world I would make myself late for a date I wanted hugely to keep. I had realized in the past year that making yourself late only causes stress, bad hormones and anger and was inconsiderate, rude and hostile toward those waiting for you. So why was I now inexcusably late and causing angst to my sons and daughter-in-law, who would wonder where I was since I had forgotten my cell phone in my rush to the car.
I decided I am not stupid or worthless, as my parents said. I sometimes make bad choices. Like being late. I decided I have a little girl inside me who resents being told what to do (by her parents) - even by her more mature self. Even when it's something she wants to do. So she put obstacles in the way and argues with her rational self when she says it's time to go, get up, leave.
I decided it was time for that little girl to grow up. I don't want to be inconsiderate, stubborn, defensive and intractable any more. I could shut her down. I am an adult, it was time to stop being ruled by childish choices.

Getting ready to luge.

When I arrived at the track, I was thrilled I was in time to take photos of them going down the run. I grinned and hugged them all. I invited them to breakfast where we had fun catching up and got a group photo, compliments of the waiter. They were impressed I hadn't bored them with a blow-by-blow excuse of why I'd been late.
2011 has been a game-changing year for me. Not in the ordinary or expected way, but in a way more satisfying one. It's never too late for old dogs to learn tricks.
Like what happiness is.
Yahoo :)

Right and Might and Kids and Playgrounds

Life is a leap in the dark without rules.

'Getting old isn't for sissies' is dead on.
I've been working for a daycare. Lots of hugs. Smiles. Prezzies of color-scribbled pages.
Also lots of work - physical work, cleaning, stooping, thinking how to make positive comments to a screaming, emotionally-tsunamied toddler in mid-meltdown or pro-actively teach said toddler how to request to use the toilet instead of their pants. I've adored much of it: teaching thirteen 3 to 4-year-olds how to eat their first drumstick without becoming drenched in barbeque sauce is good, messy fun.
It's all good when the children are good, and often even when they're bad (not a term child care officials sanction, but nonetheless used sotto voce amongst workers). Where there is predictable structure and known, clear boundaries with immediate rewards and consequences in an atmosphere of respect, even the meltdowns are survivable. These are immature human beings whose minds and bodies get overwhelmed by small matters who will, as you watch, grow out of it, learn to cope and become comfortable with social intercourse. I've seen them evolve from sitting in the middle of the room devastated and crying their hearts out demanding mommy or daddy because someone snatched their toy. With some, you just hug them until the moment passes and they feel safe again. Others resist touch and work it out on their own. Some let other kids help them. In all cases, they eventually flick a switch and run off to play without a backward glance. They don't need you anymore--but they know you're there.
Daycare is hugely important in a country filled with double wage earners. The parents who have good daycares are hugely fortunate.
Staff is key. Many staffers are young earnest women with no experience with children who want to be friends and play with their friends (a daycare word for children or students or class).
That works until the friends push the boundaries a little.
Which is their job.
We set the expectations; kids test them to see if we mean it and if it applies to everyone. Applying to everyone is important to children. They know life isn't fair, but rules should be equal.
It has occurred to me that the Wall Street Protesters are protesting unequal rules. Not that life isn't fair, they know that the billions owned by a favored few vastly outnumber the resources of the working poor, but what gets their goat is that those few are not held to the same rules. They seemingly have no rules.
That's not right.
Which is way bigger than fair in daycare. Just use a word like supper instead of dinner or say autumn instead of fall and you. are. not. right. 
Bankers and other capitalists flaunting the rules and making profits on the backs of those held to those rules is just. not. right.
Kids, who are corrected more frequently than an untrained puppy, know that. They learn the right words, actions, thoughts and beliefs by frequent correcting by parents, teachers and other kids. They delight in correcting those who express other - ipso facto wrong - words, actions, thoughts or beliefs -  and sitting in the catbird seat for a change.
And if something's not right, they look to us to fix it. If we don't, they get to thinking rules don't matter.
I've seen what happens when kids get to that point. If the teachers don't restructure and reinstate rules for everybody, it's Lord of the Flies time.
Money buys amoral anarchy for those who have it, always has, but the filthy rich were savvy enough to conceal their dirty doings from the hoi polloi. Now these capitalists rub their faces in their excesses like bullies on a playground; flaunting payoffs, lifestyles and perks while smirking all the way to their tax havens.   Schoolyard bullies are powerless if no one plays with them. They suddenly recall their manners and use social skills to get the attention they crave. It would be fair if the Wall Streeters could do that to the rogue Capitalists.

High Hopes

Meanderthals against Chinook gusts.

I hike with a bunch that calls themselves the Meanderthals. 
You might think with a name like that, they 1) have a keen sense of humor and 2)) they stroll around the mountains enjoying the views in their golden years of freedom. You would be half right.
These geezers, who go into their 90s, "strolled" 850 meters up a mountainside to Windy Point on Wednesday, covering 7 kilometers in 4 hours in a Chinook with winds up to 100 kilometers per hour, and on the way back discussed how we could have crossed a ridge to a neighboring peak to get in another 2 hours and made it an even 1,000 meters.
And they are the B group; the As would have bagged the neighboring peak and gone on to top another before circling back - at double the pace (they include some 90-year-olds).
I've learned a lot about hiking that I didn't know when I played around with it in the Bay Area.
Up here in the Canadian Rockies, the mountains are not as tall, but much steeper, and to get anywhere, you pretty much have to boot it. I come back aching all over, which makes overnight trips fun since you get to do it all over again the next day. One memorable trip we started the first day with an elevation of 800 meters and covered 21 kilometers. I think even my hair hurt coming back from that one.

The last golden poplar in the Wind Valley.

Not that we do anything spectacular. Even within our group, we pale next to the As who attempt some mildly technical peaks, and in the world of hiking and climbing, our excursions are piffling. Still, we get out. I hike with some younger folks, and they take in stride their endurance, strength, balance and quick recovery. In the Bay Area, I was usually comfortable on hikes, panting on especially steep inclines, but mostly just striding along. The leader, the eldest in the group, was capable of a much faster pace and steeper terrain, but went at the pace of  the slowest. I didn't get tested often. Here, I do.
I've learned that hiking isn't a stroll. Where I once wondered what the hurry was, I now realize a brisker pace means you can get out and up and back in a jiffy and have time to do other things with your day. A good hike with a beautiful view and sections that stretch your muscles and lungs can fill a morning or afternoon.

Dinner for a hungry bear or cougar.

My fellow Meanderthals are mostly retired and some go out every day if they want in this active mountain town. It becomes part of their day, not their whole day. I get to go out when I get time off work, so it's a bigger deal for me.
But I've learned.
The deal with hiking is to go with those who match your pace. If you're going so fast you can't keep up a conversation, it may not be much fun. You decide if you 1) need to get in better condition so as to keep up more easily or 2) find a group that goes your pace.

That's Calgary on the horizon under a Chinook Arch

Kind of like life, I guess. Finding like-minded souls starts on the playground and never ends. I never made it up Lady MacDonald, my goal peak for this summer. On my one attempt, we got started late and I ran out of gas even before the boulder field, which is before the teahouse, where many turn around, and that is before the steep ridge that gets you to the scree that covers the actual peak. I have a friend who has vowed to do it with me. She was with me this summer.
She says we will make it.
I love having something to look forward to.

Life after 64 gets better and better

Meanderthals maneuvering on anonymous benefactor's tree trunks. 

 OMG (love that expression - it works whether you mean gosh, goodness or god) -- this has been the longest, most colorful, glorious autumn in the Bow Valley since anyone I've talked to can remember.
It started in August with a tinge of yellow leaves in a few trees and has continued with some politely mild (and not-so-mild) freezes until last night, when it snowed for the first time. And then the sun came up up and melted the white stuff. A ton of trees are just turning gold and others have carpeted the ground with their yellow bounty.
Aspens peek out from evergreen mountainsides and glow golden in the sunlight. There are even red - red!- leaves, which we do not normally get.
The big bonus is that I demanded - and got - some days free from work to hike. We have been going steady since summer finally hit in late July. While I love the kidlets at the daycare and it is an active job with plenty of fringe benefits like hugs and stuff, my soul need the outdoors, the muscle-stretching, lung taxing excursions that can take us to the top of a peak or along a ridge that falls away on either side. As the snow covered the peaks, we have moved the hikes lower, but there are still plenty of options.

These leaves have fallen  but others have taken their place in 2011's fabulous fall.

On Tuesday, we went on what should have been a stroll along a creek which would normally  be dry by now. The leader hadn't been on the trail before and the two hikers who had hiked it hadn't been on it for a while, either. Which explains why when we got to a place where it looked like a box canyon without an outlet, I jumped ahead to scout it out and found a beautiful tiny little canyon carved by the creek (which still had water in it). Some unknown benefactor - whom we cannot thank but are grateful to - had stacked rocks and laid down tree trunks in strategic spots so we could make it through without getting our boots wet.
It meant a bit of balancing and tightrope walking and boulder hopping, and I was in my element. I love that stuff. I never think of getting hurt and falling only means you might get a little wet or lose a little skin to me, neither of which is a big deal. I do not like scree, those spots at the top of our mountains made up of small rocks that allow you to take two steps forward and slide back one, but leaping goat- or sheep-like from boulder to boulder is one of my favorite things.
There are other Meanderthals who are more aware of injury and dislike glacier cold water baths. They are far more cautious than I and slower, which means I have time to take pix like these. It was a swell day. The only one who fell close to getting wet was me, on the way back with one other hiker (the rest preferred a steep bypass route) when a log that had been dislodged by the passage of 19 hikers rolled and fell off its perch on me. Fortunately it was right at the end and there was a boulder underneath so I didn't even get my hiking boots wet or have a rock rash to show off.
Perfect day. The Meanderthals range from 50s to 90s and some of the fittest are the oldest. I'm in the B group. The As climb to the top of everything and even get a bit technical on some climbs. The Cs and Ds pick their own trails and speed. And if the Best Fall Ever continues, we'll be hiking into November, have a little break, then continue with snowshoes or cross country skiis.
Life after 64 gets better and better.

I have often felt lucky to be my age, because as the last of the War Babies, I am young enough to adopt to new technology while old enough to appreciate life BC (before computers).
I started with a 7k paperback book-size laptop (before laptops got a name) from Radio Shack, supplied by my daily newspaper so I could write town and county council stories and file them by licking and sticking a suction cup on my rotary phone (landline) receiver instead of dictating - which involved a whole pit of problems with homonyms and mishearings and misunderstandings. I remember doubling the memory to 14k so I could write two stories on it. Then I went hog wild and bought a Tandy 1000 from Radio Shack, which inexplicably lost its strong market lead in the PC game soon after this model. 
As part of the leading edge of the PC revolution, I launched my sons on paths to high nerdy skills, but didn't stay current enough to keep up myself. A child of the build-it-to-last generation, I refused to buy a new computer every 6 months and thus got woefully behind the dazzling innovations, so when I did upgrade, it was a whole new learning experience--and not usually a pleasant one.
Even with all the help from my sons and employers, I experienced extreme frustration and cursed each new generation as I tried to untangle its nerdy inner workings.
This cartoon brings home a story I did in the high plains desert of Colorado, the extreme eastern corner (next stop: Nebraska), where the mountains can't yet be seen. A report on the police scanner (I was the police reporter for a daily) stated that county deputies has discovered several computers in the ditch on County Road XX--murdered by multiple shotgun blasts.
I so understood the rapagenous impulse that led to the computercides. While I fully acknowledge the advances computers have bequeathed to society, I lament the loss of locomotion as young (and old) children endanger their health sitting at them for uncountable hours as well as the absence of imagination and wild fancy in young children fed every thought and impulse by business-based media cartoons.
And I would not be surprised if someday we all agree the best way to welcome the computer revolution may have been with shotguns.

The Adventure Continues on Route 66

Thelma owns the car, I was Louise in the shotgun seat.

 OK, I've changed my mind. Fact is, I'm still getting older (that "er" is crucially important) and the adventure continues, so: on with the blog.
Sixty-five was an eventful year. OMG.
I lost my mom in January. A release for her, who found life increasingly a burden with little joy, and for me: I now have no one to please but myself. After a few months, it felt as if I'd been wearing blinders directing where I looked and how I behaved all my life--and I had, they were called Mom's opinion. They disappeared. My horizon widened astonishingly and I see things I never did before: people, opportunities, my motives. It's been a new world - and a good one :) 

Still beautiful @ 88. Goodbye, Mom.

I tried to climb a peak called Lady MacDonald--which is no lady--with my buddy of the 65th birthday climb, but we got started late and I lagged behind puffing like a steam engine (if anybody still knows what they sounded like) so we packed it in before reaching our goal.
I got my lungs checked out and found that 41 years of smoking (and two aunts - one one either side - who died of lung cancer) had narrowed my bronchial tubes slightly. So I have an inhaler for when I hike. Have used it once (and didn't notice much difference, but I may not have used it correctly.)
Added a cardio segment to my treadmilling: I dial up the speed, get the diaphragm pumping and build up the muscles - a way better way than drugs to empty stale air from the lungs and suck in fresh oxygen,  I think.
My buddy says we haven't quit, we will get back to the Lady.
Noticed some aches and pains in the last year. I blame work. After applying for every seniors benefit I qualify for (NB-it took more than a year), I get enough for rent and food - if I don't eat too much. I was supplementing with savings, but with women in my family living into their 80s, I was on track to run out of savings well before my last breath.
I started as lunch relief at a daycare a year ago. The Alberta government deems children a vital resource, so tops up the pay of daycare workers, thus the check is well above minimum wage. Plus I get fed well at lunch and on some days, snack as well: a scrumptious perk I deeply appreciate.
I have enough to pay living expenses plus perks like a little traveling :)
It cuts into hiking and tennis time something awful. Yes, looking after kidlets is more active than sitting behind a desk, but it isn't a 21k hike or 2 hours of running around a court. My general body conditioning has deteriorated. I'm a vicious cycle of no time to exercise because I'm working and no exercise when I have time because I'm exhausted from working.
I don't like the aches and pains of an underused body, so I'm working on that.

Hiking the Athabasca Glacier.

These are minor and fixable issues. Life is good. Really good. I spent 65 & started Route 66 by cruising down California's PCH in a 1967 Mustang convertible playing Louise to my buddy Thelma, hiking in some gorgeous country, visiting friends and hugging the WGG - who has unaccountably started kindergarten already!
And that's the update, roundup, status report.
A friend asked me to show her how to blog (on the belief that I would be a gentler teacher than her hubby or kidlets). I used mine as examples and realized I miss it.
It is so neat to be able to start again.