In a recent blog about how fond I am of my readers I wrote about enjoying the back-and-forth that has developed between me and some very special people who I'm now lucky enough to know because of my blogging here.

One I feel very close to now, after months of getting-to-know-you gradual unwrapping of layers of comments and emails, is a woman I will, for the sake of this post, call T.

T often leaves very thoughtful and insightful comments on the blogs and adds much to the dialog that is... more

When I packed up my most important effects during the preparation process of making my first international move, a substantial component of the bulk that was my life at the time was made up of footwear.

Although I donated my tap shoes and golf shoes ... adorable pink and white oxfords with some mean cleats ... along with at least forty pairs of flats, pumps, heels, mules, boots, sandals, slippers, jellies, sneakers, loafers, espadrilles and moccasins to covetous friends and Goodwill, I still came to my new life in... more

Some days seem to hammer home points about aging, while others continue to lull me into the illusion that no matter how quickly time passes, ripened fruit will forestall any dropping for one heck of a long time.

Today, as you'll notice from the rather one-note song sung on this blog, is one of the former, unfortunately. Appropriate for a category where "Older Parent" places equal emphasis on both words, although the 'older' could beg the question:... more

Right now I'm staring at a huge wall, upon which someone has written: Yo! Sandra! You're O-L-D!

Okay ... the wall's been there for a while ... tall, wide, flat -- a perfect surface for imposing messages ... and I have noticed some scribbles across it before, but all of a sudden over the last couple of days it's all gone rather neon-bright and impossible-to-ignore-blinky / flashing-pay-attention and get-with-the-program-like.

Why?

Gee ... let me think. Could it have anything to do with ... more

I have one of those small world things possibly going on now that has me amused at possibilities, so I'd like to share.

One of the regular readers here on the blogs, a geezer dad of teens adopted from foster care named John, has clued me into the fact that he's on a fishing trip in Oregon at the moment. Since fishing trips now come with WiFi, apparently, he's in blog contact even as he relaxes in the crisp mountain air ... I can almost smell the piney-woodsy tang from here ... and letting me know the fish are few and far between.... more

Yesterday's blog about women's suffrage in honor of the day American women were granted the right to vote started me pondering ... in true geezer fashion ... on all that has been hard-fought, but eventually deemed too inconsequential to bother about.

In 2004, for example, 61% of eligible women voters actually... more

Not all that long ago, I watched a CNN reporter approach people on streets in some American city, stick a camera and microphone in their face, and ask blankly, "What do you think of women's suffrage?"

The responses were, to say the least, disturbing.

Almost every interviewee responded with a single-minded attack on women "suffering", apparently completely oblivious to the meaning of suffrage.

Because I can, and because I should, today's post is written in celebration of women's suffrage,... more

Ten years after the fact, the word is out on what they're calling in the British press the "world's oldest natural mother".

With an apparent attempt to keep her son out of the glaring light of media attention, the now 69-year-old woman chose to keep quiet about her age and his birth way back in 1997. She was 59 at the time and became pregnant with no fertility treatments, donor eggs, or any other assistance ...... more

Continued from the previous post.

Mom had been none too pleased by my unfortunate and unplanned pregnancy at the ripe young age of all of 17 ... see the series on "The Girls Who Went Away" for all the gory details ... and worried more than a bit, I'm sure, when I had my second child just 18 months later.

By... more

Writing as I have lately about grandparents raising grandchildren ... and gratitude toward parents, as well ... this seems a good time to share some of my personal experience as it relates to both issues.

I'll have to go back in time, thirty-something years should about do it, to when I was single-parenting my now-grown children... more