Happy Birthday to My Mom!

A couple weeks ago I spent several days making like the Morgan Freeman character in Driving Miss Daisy as I drove my elderly parents from their cottage on Cape Cod back to Ohio. Well, except that I didn’t have that spiffy chauffeur cap.


Uh oh. I just re-read that sentence and I see a big, glaring problem with it. What – you don’t? Ah, allow me to explain, grasshopper.


Were my mother to read this blog (which she doesn’t), she would take exception to the word “elderly.” She doesn’t like to be referred to as “elderly.” Even though she is. I mean, once a person turns the corner on eighty, they are smack-dab in the middle of “elderly.” Am I right? And, as of today, my mother is eighty-eight-years old, so there’s no turning back.


Personally, I think it’s a badge of honor to be eighty-eight and still kickin’. If I were eighty-eight, I’d probably be as irksome as a three-year-old digging into his Barney birthday cake and poking people with purple frosting-covered fingers crowing about the fact that he was three. I’d be poking people in line in front of me at the grocery store with my cane, and, when they turned around, I’d crow, “I’m eighty-eight!”


Not that my mother (a) carries a cane, (b) pokes people in line at the grocery store, or (c) has ever been as irksome as a three-year-old. Probably not even when she was three. But I can’t prove that.


Nevertheless, I can’t really blame my mother for taking offense at being called “elderly.” Heck, she’d be mortified to learn that I was outing her in the age department right now. Guess it’s a good thing she doesn’t read my blogs, isn’t it?


Of course, all bets are off when you’re somewhat lower on the age spectrum. Like me. During our long drive across the state of Pennsylvania, mom was talking about something or other and she stopped me completely in my tracks when she referred to me as “middle-aged.”


Well, not literally. I mean, I kept the pedal to the metal, as it were, and didn’t cause a chain reaction pile-up on I-80 or anything. But, me? Middle-aged? No wa-…Oh. Yeah, okay, I guess I AM “middle-aged.”


When the heck did that happen?


Probably around the same time mom moved from Middle-Aged to Elderly.


It happens to the best of us, I guess.


Mom hasn't come up with an alternative to the word elderly, however, so I'm not sure what she'd prefer. Eighty-eight and effervescent? Eighty-eight and elegant? Maybe. Just as long as we don't ever refer to her as feeble, doddering or decrepit. If those words ever crossed our lips, she'd find a cane and would start poking us with it. And there'd be nothin' “feeble” about it.


So, mom? I'd like to wish you an elegant and effervescent eighty-eighth birthday today. I hope dad bought you a purple Barney cake and you're enjoying it like a three-year-old. Purple frosting-covered fingers and all.


But if anyone who reads this happens to see my mother in church or at the grocery store anytime in the near future, please do NOT wish her a happy 88^th birthday. Eliminate the year altogether. I might even suggest you tell her she's wearing “Middle Age” well. She won't believe you, but a little white lie couldn't hurt. After all, you never know when she might start carrying a cane...

Musings on the Road of Life (or at least on I-71N!)

I was driving home from the gym last night after a sweaty workout and was paying more attention to the aches and pains of various body parts than to my fellow drivers. Don’t get me wrong, I had my eyes firmly focused on the road ahead of me, but I wasn’t noticing each and every vehicle sharing the highway with me.

This is unlike my usual behavior where I often check out the vanity license plates and make up stories about the person. Some plates are so clever that I don’t make up stories about the person – I just admire their creativity. But others? Not so much.

Hey, I figure anyone who is vain enough to pay for and affix to their vehicle a license plate that reads “2HOT4U” deserves whatever fictional stories I can envision.

Like I picture the tan, blonde little chickie-doo with this particular vanity license plate a few decades down the road with skin all wrinkly so that the “cool” tattoos she had drilled into her skin at 20 have become unrecognizable. And I imagine that gravity has finally gotten the best of things and the fourteen holes she had pierced into her ears are causing her lobes to droop to her shoulders so that she vaguely resembles a beagle.

Is this mean of me? Eh. Maybe. Hey, I think it’s great when young people celebrate their youth. They should – because it doesn’t last as long as anyone thinks it will. I also say “to each his own” and if someone wants to cover themselves in tattoos and piercings, that’s their decision. But I also totally get that young folk do not think they will succumb to old age – ever. None of us do. But even when I was young, I was never vain enough to think I was “2HOT4U” even during the years I might have been somewhat lukewarm.

But, as I said, I wasn’t paying attention to vanity license plates. I was thinking, Oww…my knees are shot. I shouldn’t have set the speed on the treadmill at 1.2 MPH…that was wayyy too fast! And I was also thinking, I wonder how long it will take me to get buff arms using .5 lb weights?

I joke. Actually, the treadmill was set at a level that, while not fast enough to win me any speed records, was faster than, well, "not moving." And I’m not a total slouch with the weight machines either. Nevertheless, on the drive home I WAS thinkin’ about the stitch in my side and the ache in my shoulder.

Anyway, I was suddenly distracted from my thoughts when I noticed a motorcycle in the lane next to me. The rider had on a helmet, riding gloves and sturdy shoes. Not much of a distraction, right? But then I noticed the brown stretch pants. From there my eyes were drawn to the white lace blouse fluttering in the wind.

Huh?

Most of the time when I see women on motorcycles, they are hanging on behind a male rider. So forgive my antiquated notions that only men drive the things. But the stretch pants sort of had me befuddled. I couldn’t come close to telling her true age as her black and red motorcycle helmet hid her face from view. But – and please forgive me – the arms holding onto to the handles were not young arms. They were sort of…um…flapping in the wind.

Not that I have room to talk. But my arms rarely see the light of day. And they are never attached to the handlebars of a motorcycle!

Sadly, my decided lack of knowledge of all things “motorcycle” prevent me from reporting on what sort of bike it was. Nor would I assume that she’s a member of Hell’s Angels or some other badass cycle group. She could be, I suppose, but I doubt even granny riders wear brown stretch pants and white lace blouses when they’re out on their “choppers.” (Do they even call motorcycles “choppers”? See? This is unknown territory for me!)

Nevertheless, I did sort of think it was cool that this (apparently) older woman was tooling down the freeway on her bike. To each his own – right? And, okay, so I did sort of wonder if she had any tattoos. And then I tried to imagine how many holes she had in her ears. And my final thought before I returned to my own little world of aches and pains was: Can you get vanity license plates for motorcycles? If so, hers might read: “HOTFLSHN”!