How will you age?

My friend Charles is 92. A year ago he was running the streets of his Fort Worth neighborhood and riding his bike, although he hung up his car keys voluntarily a couple of years ago. Today he spends much of his time in a nursing home bed, but he gets out--oh, boy, does he get out. He goes to the Unitarian church, and friends pick him up; then they all go to lunch afterward. He goes to lunch on Wednesdays at the Black-Eyed Pea with a church group, and today he and his youngest son had lunch at the Swiss Pastry Shop which he loves. Tonight I took him to a local bistro that serves mussels, which he remembers eating as a very young child. He told me several times how much he was looking forward to the evening, and enjoy he did.. He ate a small serving (looked pretty big to me) of mussels in Italian sauce (wine, cream and pesto)--I tried my first mussel and thought it was neither good nor bad but not something I'd order. Then he had a crab cake, and I could tell he was only avoiding dessert because of my diet, so we finally compromised on chocolate mousse with two spoons. He ate 3/4 of it, while I happily took a few bites and ate the raspberries. When I asked if he was going to have wine, he said, "Oh, yes, that's part of the meal I'm looking forward to." He savored every bite, eating slowly and enjoying--something I should learn to do. I should mention that he arrived with his mouth set for crab cakes but they weren't on the menu--I too wanted crab cakes but the waitress said they had only one left from yesterday, so I gave it to him. I ate Caesar salad and steak tartare. We had a lovely evening, teasing each other as longtime friends will do, and when I took him back to the retirement center he guarnteed me he'd be asleep in an hour. I enjoyed the evening, doubly because he enjoyed it so much. But it made me thinnk--I want to age like Charles. Even though he now uses a walker, confesses that he's gotten clumsier, and refers to himself as disabled, he has an absolute zest for life and thoroughly enjoys the string of visitors who come and go from his room. Obviously they enjoy him too, and except for moments of forgetfulness--he called me last night to ask if we'd missed our date and I explained it was tonight--he's as lucid and brilliant as he always was, one of the smartest men I ever knew. I want to age like Charles.
Funny thing, but when I go to the retirement home to see him I keep running into some old acquaintances who now live there. One said tonight, "I wish we could get you down here,"and I said, "I enjoy my house too much." I guess I made a faux pas because when I walked in I saw a woman I know, we spoke, and I asked if she was working there. "No," she said, "I live here now." Charles laughed when I told him the story.
But on a sad note, we lost a good friend who died last night, a surgeon who had been my ex-husband's senior partner and who, when I was left alone with four children, kept a close watch to see that we were all okay. We've remained friends over all those years, and I lunched frequently with his wife. She was the one who called this morning to give me the news. Charles says he wants to go to the memorial service, so I'll go pick him up Monday morning.
I realize, with some shock, that all that is not that far away for me--twenty years, and I'll be Charles' age. I truly hope to do it gracefully, as a joy to my family and not a burden. But I know it ain't easy.

Work and rain

That's what my life seems to consist of this week--work and rain. Even though they predict an end to rain, it continues--nice cool days but rain! Often not enough for an umbrella--just enough to make me look like a drowned rat. And work--accidentally spent most of the morning at TCU Press yesterday. Got there about 9:30 and got involved until it was time for me to go meet a friend for lunch. Today was staff meeting, but I was out of there pretty quickly after that. I've decided to put the Google Book Settlement aside for a while and concentrate on reading manuscripts that are piling up. Next week, the office staff goes to sales meeting in College Station--meeting at the office at 6:30, so praise be I'm not going! So there's no staff meeting all week, and I hope to put TCU Press pretty much out of mind and concentrate on the chapter I need to do for the history of the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine. Yesterday I got the manuscript I edited for Texas Tech Press off to the author for his final approval. Wonder if I'll ever get back to writing mysteries.
The only break in my work/rain routine has been meals. Yesterday I met Mary Volcansek, who's pretty much the power behind the Center for Texas Studies ast TCU, and we talked about publishing projects plus, since we're good friends, had a pleasant visit. We ate at the Swiss Pastry Shop where I always order bratwurst, potato salad, and sauerkraut--I do NOT want to talk about what that did to my point count for the day Came home and realized I had 2.5 points left for a glass of wine and supper. Didn't quite make it, but had lost a tiny bit of weight when I weighed this morning.
Today I met Nancy Olson for lunch--we ate at the Modern Museum of Art which has a lovely dining room overlooking a huge pond, lined with gravel and beautifully landscaped. It's fun to sit at the window with the water lappng up right next to you. The Modern is noted for sophisticated food--but I rarely eat there because I don't find much on the menu I want. Today I had a salad with lime-tequila dressing (so far so good) and tortilla strips--well they were hard to eat, and as Nancy said, they went one direction in your mouth while the salad went the other. Nancy and I have been friends since the mid-60s when I first came to Fort Worth. She and Ray have lived in Santa Fe for, oh, at least 15 years now, and I treausre my visits with her. As we were finishing our lunch, she said, "Okay, who haven't we talked about?"
Tonight Betty and I went to the Tokyo Cafe, which is rapidly becoming our favorite--I think I'm addicted to wasabi. But I had miso-cured carpaccio in a sauce of molasses and balsamic vinegar--so good. And then salmon sashimi. I figured I'd had my salad at lunch and could eat protein.
Back to the manuscript I'm reading, which I think is really good. It makes me want to keep reading, and few enough do that.

A delicious day

Every morning in the world I get up, brush my teeth, and wash my hair in the kitchen sink--my dad would spin in his grave at the violation of hygiene, but I don't like to wash it in the shower and get the soap in my eyes. This morning I didn't shampoo, shower, or put on makeup--okay, I did brush my teeth. I didn't change clothes either--just fed the animals, fixed my coffee, and went to my desk wearing the T-shirt I slept in. I've been there most of the day, except for a nap. It was the first day of my retirement, I think, that I stayed home all day with little contact with the outside world, and it was great. Jacob was supposed to come tonight for a couple of hours, and that would have been my contact, but his mom is sick and stayed home.

I'm editing a manuscript from Texas Tech Press, Hotter 'n Pecos, and loving both reading and editing it. I'll finish tonight probably and have it ready to send off Thursday. I love getting absorbed in a project, like I was in this one the last couple of days. Then today I got word that the magazine, Parker County Today, wants to try a monthly cooking column, beginning with their December issue--oh, oh, another October 1 deadline. But I can do it. I'll start going through recipes tonight looking for a Christmas hook that isn't trite and tried.

After a weekend of Mexican food and too much of everything, I ate my healthy Weight Watchers meals today--smoked salmon, hearts of palm, and grape tomatoes for lunch, with 1 oz. of chocolate; chopped sirloin and asparagus and raspberries for supper. I'll ruin it all tomorrow by going to the Swiss Pastry Shop and eating a bratwurst and potato salad for lunch!

It's finally stopped raining and the sun actually came out this afternoon. We prayed for rain--and we got it. It's probably still not enough to break the drought, especially in Central Texas, but still, it's a big help and now it's nice to have a break, with temperatures still in the 80s. September often isn't this cool in Texas, and today was a lovely day. My only regret about my stay-at-home day is that I didn't get out and enjoy the weather and a definite top-down day!

A decadent day

Jeannie and I had lunch at the Swiss Pastry Shop today--our standard lunch there is one bratwurst, kraut, and potato salad. I said, "Okay, the question is, are we having Black Forest Cake (their specialty) or not, and she responded, "We are." I do NOT want to talk about what that did for my Weight Watchers Points, but it was sure good. Actually, I felt pitiful and entitled to a splurge. After eight hours in the car yesterday, my back gave me fits during the night last night and when I first got up. After I moved around a bit, it was okay--but there are still sore spots today. I'm beginning to rethink that drive to Colorado at Christmas.

Other than that, it's been a day of catching up on small details that have been cluttering my desk--acquisitions work for the office, emails to answer, and so on--I actually got a lot done, in addition to a grocery run, a long nap, and 40 minutes of yoga.

I'm still fascinated by the Teddy Kennedy coverage on TV--sorry about the anonymous writer who left a comment. I don't think the Koepechne family would agree with my assessment of Kennedy's life either and leaving the scene of an accident cannot easily be dismissed as youthful indiscretion--yet I still think he grew into his shoes and did devote his life to public service as well as to raising his nieces and nephews. I admire him.

Now I think I'm ready to start a new novel. I just finished Carolyn Hart's Dare to Die and enjoyed it a lot as I do all of Hart's work. When I think about the Death on Demand bookstore series, I think what a bold move it was on Hart's part to name the major characters Max and Annie Darling. Come now, did you ever meet anyone whose last name was Darling? And yet it works so perfectly in that series. I'm a fan.