I mentioned this on the International Blog the last time I was able to post, and while this one is working I'll put it here, too, for those who might not see the other ...

I would like to offer my sincere apologies to anyone commenting on my blogs or emailing me at the blog email if I am slow to respond.

I'm still having a great deal of trouble getting my computer and the blog technical stuff to speak the same language, so there are days at a time when I'm not able to accomplish much at all and end up having to send my posts to my editor to post for me. I'm often not able to see my own blogs once they're up, so have no idea if there are comments, and the blog email is just... more

I mentioned a while back that I've recently reconnected with my best friend from high school. I even posted the photo I took of myself to send her for reference to the now-me, since the me she last laid eyes on had had thirty-seven years or so less sun, stress, gravity, exposure to pollutants, and so on. (I know ... excuses, excuses.) Well, she managed to set some sort of there-to-here record getting photos ... the non-digital kind that had... more

Continued from here, where we've been talking about spoiling ...

As older parents, and specifically older adoptive parents, we all, I suspect, teeter on the brink of over-indulgence with our kids. Many of us come to parenting late after years of longing ... a recipe for spoiling if ever there was one. Plus, it's said by many that we have more patience than we did when younger, and that may translate to putting up with a lot more guff than we should.

Easily... more

This article, "Has Generation Y overdosed on self-esteem", has me wondering if we Boomers haven't done more harm than good in working so hard making life the easy and comfortable passage between birth and death it now is for so many in the Western World. It was, after all, our generation that took it on board to do everything within our power to level playing fields, even the odds, and strive for as close to some guarantee of 'normal' for as many as possible.... more

Because I was so young when I had my first set of kids, most of my contemporaries then were childless. Although there were a few of us caught in the pre-available-contraception web, most of my friends didn't start having children until mine were heading toward the tween years. My circumstance set me apart, and my twenties were tough. While others worried about finals and getting into the classes needed to satisfy a degree program, then began the climb up corporate ladders, I struggled to get myself and my kids ready for work/school every morning,... more

I've been having them. Down days. Days when everything I touch turns to waste matter, not one single thing works the way it should, and piles of little things add up to an unassailable mountain range of huge proportions that defeat me with their mere presence.

Every day has been starting the same, with a frustrating battle I lose between me and the cyber-power that rules these blogs. Slow loading leads to not being able to upload photos at all, to having nothing work, to having me screaming, to tearing my hair out, to wanting to never blog again.

An electrical storm on Sunday made things ever so much worse by knocking out power to everything for hours, then having lingering... more

All right, already, I'll admit it ... I'm not as young as I used to be. In my defense, however, I must point out that no one is. Unless yesterday was one's last day, today everybody is that much older. Even my mother, about as adamant a woman as ever walked the Earth, has stopped complaining to me about getting old, because what she gets back is a reminder of the alternative.

We live. We age. So what?

So what?

So what?

I'll tell me "so what?"!

So what is, at fifty-five, a cold ricochets... more

Continued from here, where I was about to point out how and why having kids as an older parent works for me ...

There are differences between parenting in my twenties and doing it now that I'm in my mid-fifties. Many of these have to do with maturity, security, life on a tropical island, a sense of humor and so on, but I'm too wrung to go into depth or detail, so I'm sticking with just big differences ...

Big... more

I'm tired.

Wrung, is probably closer to the physical consequence of a week spent up to my ankles in snot ... those very same ankles being the ones covered in clinging, whiny, grumpy, bored, cantankerous snot-factories: AKA Sam and Cj. In addition to my mucus-encrusted appendages exerting extra drag, therefore requiring more of an output of energy than it normally takes to get through a day, the work load has been bumped by the fact that the month is February, so short, yet still due the 86 blog posts a 31 day month gets, and I'm behinder... more

Sorry if the photo scares anyone. Believe me, I wouldn't be posting anything so hideous unless it was a necessary visual aid.

Was it ever explained to anyone you know that one obvious consequence of aging is asymmetry? I know I never heard this one.

Sure, gray hair, crows feet stamped around eyes, spreading butt, sagging knees, arm wattle, receding gums, splaying feet, creaks, moans, cracks, snaps, groans, blah, blah, blah ... but looking like two distantly related people stuck together at my meridian? That... more