Category Archives: Aging

The Truth from Ruth

February 2, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc New (Bridgit) Moon

A couple of things I’ve been intending to write here. First, granddaughter Ruth. At gymnastics she was given a bracelet with a word on it. She removed one cube with a particular 6702011-01-15_0625 letter and showed it to her mother. “Look, mommy, I got a bracelet with my name on it.” Sure enough the bracelet read Ruth. It was only later that her mom discovered it had been handed by a Christian woman to this Jewish young girl. The bracelet originally read, Truth.

Another Ruth story. In a store with her mother, Jen, and Tennessee Grandmother, Barb, a clerk complimented Ruth on her color sense. “Oh,” Ruth said, “I’m an artist.”

Something else I enjoy are authentic obituaries, where the usual formula of passing on, entering heaven, being received by Jesus or into God’s arms get replaced with something it’s obvious someone said. A recent favorite from a 50-year old man, “Good-bye and bite me.” Says a lot. Good epitaph material. The classic for me was, “We thank Jesus for this fine Norwegian.” Another one this week, which I don’t remember all together, went, “He liked his Camels, his whiskey, and ?I think it was, his women.” Give me honesty or give me death. Or both.

Aging, Family, Retirement, Travel

A Decent Insurance Sales Agent

January 27, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waning Moon of the Cold Month

Kathryn Kiegler has restored, no, wait that’s too strong, has challenged my opinion about insurance sales folk. She gave us good advice, walked us through the labyrinth that is Medicare and the various parts attached to it A, B, C, and D, then helped us evaluate a plan best suited to Kate’s needs. She was clear, patient, gave us the time we needed. Great person to work with.

We did hit one weird snag. Kate had not gotten her part B card, nor her letter telling her she had been enrolled. Without this letter or the card Kate couldn’t sign up for Medicare advantage at all. Kathryn called Social Security, finally, after a really long and tedious animated voice, a real human came on the line. Kathryn explained Kate’s need for the letter, the woman agreed to fax it and all seemed in order. Except. By the time we were ready to leave, no fax. None of us wanted to wait the 10-12 minutes to go through the animated phone information.

What to do? Kathryn recommended going to the Social Security and getting the letter in person. Not a bad solution since the SSA office is on Chicago Avenue and 18th, not all that far from Kathryn’s office near Westminster Church downtown. So, we drove over there. Kate went in while I waited outside. I’m not real patient with bureaucracy. When she returned a bit later, letter in hand, she told me why we had received no fax. “The man told me the Social Security Administration never faxes anything with a social security number on it.”

Hmmm. Have you ever read Kafka? Can you imagine, say, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles choosing to never fax something with a license plate number on it? Yes, of course. Identity theft. I know. Seems that such intelligent folks could have figured out a solution. One idea. When faxing a document to the person whose social security number is involved? Leave it off and let them fill it in on the other end.

The really good news in this is that our budget for Kate’s insurance costs was about double the cost we’ll pay. That probably means the same will hold true for me. That will remove several thousand dollars a year from our expenses, maybe a bit more. Where was that cruise brochure? Maybe we could afford that round the world jet junket? Nah, even at $65,000 that sounded like a cheesy deal. The Amazon River? Egypt? Possible. Maybe possible.

Aging, Family, Retirement

Finishing the Puzzle–Not Quite Done. But Close.

January 27, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waning Moon of the Cold Month

One more piece of the retirement puzzle should get put in place today, Medicaid part D for Kate. We’re visiting an adviser recommended by both Ruth Hayden and RJ Devick to help us sort through the overwhelming number of choices.

Since last year we’ve added social security for both of us, withdrawals from the IRA, my pension, long term care insurance, Kate’s medicare, added funds to our cash savings and trimmed our budget some. Now we just have to live a few months into this way of getting our cash together and see how it works. Don’t anticipate any big problems.

Seems like the most difficult part of all this is the setting up, making choices phase. After that, barring disaster, things look reasonably smooth for us. That way, we can just go back to life as we live it day to day. Because we’ve done so much planning for such a long while now, the transition seems to have been easy, but, of course, it wasn’t. Lots of legwork, phone calls, penciled in budgets, head scratching over rules and options. Worth it though.

Aging, Asia, Politics, US History, World History

The Times They Are A Changin’ (Still)

January 24, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waning Moon of the Cold Month

Temps have come up. Near freezing on Thursday. Break out the beer cooler, the barbecue and the hot dogs. Time for a picnic Minnesota style.

Every once in a while I find myself driving in a part of the Cities I don’t know well. Tonight was one of those times. I needed to get the Urban League building at 2100 Plymouth. Looked straightforward on the map, but, as usual, I wanted to try something, so I got off at the Olson Highway exit. Hmm. A bridge too far. I had to wend my back north through side streets. Finally found it and made it to the meeting.

Senate District 58, Linda Higgins. The Sierra Club’s first in-district meeting with members and legislators. A good turnout and a lot of good dialogue, back and forth on environmental issues, peace and justice and taxes. Back in the car, back home.

How about that news that GM sold more cars in China last year than in the US? Whoa. Things change. Our time at the top of the heap alone has come to an end. I’m not with the dystopians who see us limping toward the next century, a much larger and sadder equivalent of Britain after the fall of empire. Neither am I nervous about China. Nothing in their 5,000 year history suggests to me that they will do anything more than shore up their borders and try to make as much money as possible while living interesting lives.

My own feeling? The world will be better served with two different, but equal powers. Will we stay there with China for the long haul? I don’t know. I don’t care. How we live our lives here has become interwoven with China as an economic power, yes; but, will the superbowl or the world series cease? No. High school proms and McDonalds? No. Car trips and love of our national parks? No. Our wobbly, creeky democracy? No.

Will the US change over the next 50 to 100 years. Of course. More Latinos. Greater ethnic diversity. More people in cities. Sure. Will this makes us less American? Nope. Will it change what it means to be an American? Maybe. But are we the same Americans as those in the first 13 states? I don’t think so. Different than Civil War America? In substantive ways, yes. So, it stands to reason that American will have a different flavor in 2111. Not only am I ok with that, I celebrate it and hope my grandchildren and their grandchildren help make it special.

Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Health, Retirement

Gospel

January 22, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waning Moon of the Cold Month 3 degrees

In all the hoopla and aftermath of the party I forgot to mention the gospel. The good news. The friend’s wife I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, the one diagnosed with cancer? She came to the party. Not only that she said her energy was better than it had been for a while. She looked good, too. Both she and her husband looked still vulnerable, the residue of concern, fear lingering. She has a hormone treatment, recommended by her oncologist, that may keep the cancer at bay. Not cure it, but keep it from getting a firm grasp on her.

As Leni said, another party goer that same night, about his throat cancer, “Well, you know, the goal now is to make cancer a chronic disease. Something you can manage.” He’s living proof, having survived in apparent good health for several years now. He and the friend’s wife were not alone, either. Hank, another party goer, has leukemia, a disease kept in check now for many years, so much so that it almost recedes into the background.

These are the three I know about. There were probably others. Cancer no longer has the skull and cross-bones attached to its every appearance. Think of it. Cancer is not a new disease. It killed people relentlessly in all centuries before the last one. Now, it begins to look, at least in many cases, like the caged tiger, pacing back and forth within its chemical compound, its lethality imprisoned, though not rendered harmless.

Kate has retired from the practice of medicine as others graduate each year to take up the responsibility, this tricky act we call healing. It has more parts than chemistry and technology and knives, we know this, yet those parts themselves, the fruits of engineering and science, have a great deal to offer. Perhaps this next century is the one where the enlightenment driven side of medicine will meet the ageless truths of the human spirit, joining together in a medicine, a healing for the whole person. It may be that the last years of the baby boom generation, now upon us, will provide the impetus for this fusion.

Aging, Family, Retirement

The Hereford Queen

January 21, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Full Moon of The Cold Month 0 degrees

Here’s a picture I took with my cell phone at the Great Western Stock Show. That’s the Hereford Queen in white, all white.

Confusing. Yesterday I had cold symptoms that I had to knock back for Kate’s party. Thank you Dayquil. Today most of the symptoms are gone except that nagging, worn out feeling, the sort you get when your body has other things to do than help you be alert.

Today marks the end of Kate’s second full work week of retirement, one in Colorado and one in Minnesota. We’re still sinking back into it, realizing the nuances. Probably won’t be clear for a year or two. We need a full garden and holiseason cycle, too.

This has been a cold winter already and it will get yet colder tonight, though not as cold as last night. A fire, a book, supper, TV and bed. That’ll put this cold back in the bottle.

This was a busy week with the Target tour on Monday, the Woolly Meeting at Scott’s in the evening of the same day, getting ready for the Legcom and holding the meeting, then the last minute prepping for Kate’s party, the Expressionist tour yesterday morning, then the party in the evening. That’s a lot for this guy in terms of outside obligations. Next week looks a bit more subdued, though Monday looks like a lot going on, again. This means I can get back in the Latin groove, push myself toward finishing Vanished. It’s a keeper and I’ve a good bit of it done already.

Aging, Family, Retirement

Kate Has Other Things To Do

January 21, 2011 Charles 1 Comment

Winter Full Moon of the Cold Month -18 outside right now

Woolly Mammoths on parade. The herd came to the event last night. Docents came, too. Tom and Allison and Kathleen and Wendy and Joy and Carreen and Grace and Jean-Ann 6702011-01-20_0607 and Paul. Paula came. John Pastorius came. Suwy came, not once, but twice, at the beginning and at the end. From Shoreview. Before and after work. Kate’s nail lady and hair dresser came. The Perlichs came, Lydia and Pam. Greg and Ana came. Nurses and docs and lab techs from the Coon Rapids Clinic came. Jane and Dobbie West. Around 100 over the evening. Lois and Hank came. Jettie Ann, Jean Ann, Mingjen and a couple of other CIF folks came. There was even a woman who wandered in, not sure what was going on. Once she realized it was a retirement party she went to the gift shop and bought Kate a small beaded purse that matched her jacket.

We gave away fabric bowls, a pillow, a purse and a pint of Artemis Honey. Conversation ebbed and flowed. Servers passed sparkling cider and champagne, appertifs, too. One, a Kobe beef with shrimp in truffle aioli sauce got rave reviews. The Turtle Island String Quartet played through the speakers and the buffet always had a few folks at the counter.

Some wandered off into the museum and came back. Many had not been to the museum before. Many had. Kate wanted the event to provide closure. She said it did.

Then we loaded up the truck and drove home, the temperature dropping degree by degree to -13 as we got home.

Aging, Art and Culture, Family, GeekWorld, Retirement

Expressionists

January 19, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Full Moon of the Cold Month

A cold stretch coming up. The night of Kate’s retirement party predicted to be -22 with a high of 3 during the day. I have disposable cameras to buy, chipboard for small signs and a couple of things to print out. That last may be a problem. My HP laserjet printer, one I’ve had since the late 90’s, you know, back in the last century, seems unwilling to accept a new toner cartridge. I’ve changed these out many times over the last 10-12 years, so this is a puzzle. My other printer, a Canon color printer, is also down right now. I’m going to take a stab at solving those while I’m out buying cameras and chipboard.

I’ve got my tour for tomorrow morning patched together. We’ll start with Monet, the impressionist Haystack, to ground our further adventures in expressionism. Where the plein air impressionists wanted to show just what their senses saw, color as created by light bouncing off of objects and received by painterly retinas, the expressionists gave up the senses to the camera and tried to depict that cavern measureless to man, the human mind and human feeling. Using the formal aspects of painting in new and unusual ways, color, bright color, chosen for its expressive nature rather than its sensory veracity, flowing lines not always stopping at the borders of one object, compositions set flat against the canvas, shoved up toward the front with all the Renaissance experiments in perspective abandoned, the expressionists wanted to evoke feeling and the swirling inner life of the individual.

Some of my favorite pieces in the museum are in our expressionist collection: Beckmann’s Blind Man’s Buff, Kandinsky’s Study for Improvisation V and the Egon Schiele painting to the right.

Well, back to the tour work.

Aging, Art and Culture, Commentary on the news, Memories, Politics, Retirement, Travel, US History

MLK

January 17, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waxing Moon of the Cold Month

“Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.” – Eleanor Hibbert

Ms. Hibbert, whoever she is, has it right; just the way life is. And, by the way, I’ve had my share of experience.

Slept in my own bed last night. Ahh.

Today is the tour of the Target Corporation’s art collection with lunch at Masa before the tour. This one has been a bit problematic, partly because it came in when four other events also got organized. However, the day has come at last.

Today will be the first day at home, a regular work day, when Kate does not go into the Allina Medical Clinic Coon Rapids. She stayed up last night until 2:oo a.m. playing a word game on her Kindle. Freedom. A beautiful thing. This is also the week of her party, Coming of Age: The Art of Retirement. On Thursday, January 20th, from 5-9 p.m. we will celebrate Kate and her medical career, but, with more inflection, Kate and the next years of her life. If you read this, you’re invited to join us at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. No gifts, just you and yours.

It’s also Martin Luther King day today. My age cohort grew up during Dr. King’s rise to national prominence as the civil rights era took hold of the nation’s psyche. The civil rights movement represents the US at its best and its worst. Over the long haul since King’s leadership in 1955 the Montgomery Bus Boycott ignited by Rosa Parks to today cultural attitudes and practices have changed dramatically when it comes to people of color. One way to note this is to consider the relative reputations of Dr. King and two of his chief opponents: Lester Maddox and George Wallace.

Have we come all the way to a nation in which a person is judged “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character?” No. Are matters demonstrably better? Yes. Can we stop working on the pernicious effects of prejudice and racism? Of course not. Can we celebrate a better day? Yes, that’s what MLK day stands for.

All I’m saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This perspective of King’s has its roots in the radical theology of Henry Nelson Weiman. It was Weiman’s basic idea that god could only be found in relationship and, further, that god really was the mystical thread of connection between and among us all. A fine idea, though a bit of a category mistake in my opinion. Why call this mystical thread god? Why not the mystical thread or deep relationship or interrelatedness? In either form though it represents a distinct challenge both to American individualism and to the existentialist stance that I consider my own.

King and his intellectual mentor, Weiman, call to those of us who put our bold lettering under Individual to consider that there is an equally bold and distinct word, Related. Martin Buber would approve.

Aging, Family, Humanities, Travel

Family Time

January 15, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waxing Moon of the Cold Month

Kate sees this trip as vacation; I don’t. Family related travel, the bulk of what I do, has a different purpose and feel. It’s about relationships and the hard work necessary to maintain them. It has the flavor of duty, but duty in a positive, not an obligatory sense. The hard work has its pleasures, yes, lifting Ruth up in the air as she giggles, helping Gabe push his toys around on the floor, but it also has its rough edges. A relationship with a sister, troubled since birth, breaks bad in a new, more intense way after she becomes pregnant.

The parents of young children face a plethora of challenges, too, noise and activity levels after a hard day at work, insistent demands for attention, keeping the kids safe indoors and out, little time for themselves separately or together. None of this is new, this is the ancientrail of child-rearing, but it is one meant to happen in an extended family. In our case, as in so many, many others, children and grandchildren live in one state, grandparents, uncles and aunts live in another.

Continue reading Family Time →