Why Revive a Sleeping Blog?

Dearest Readers,

You have been abandoned the last two years as life intruded on my writing. For that, I am sorry. This blog and its weekly columns ran about 8 years before being distracted by moving back to Carmel from the Sierra Foothills,  by the kidney cancer of Cranky Pants and the larynx cancer of me.

The thing about cancer is this: it keeps you busy and keeps you driving. We drove the Honda so many times to doctors and scanning centers,  Cranky Pants,  whose daily name is Mac, called it The MelMac Cancer Bus.

The good news is…they got it all. I am getting my voice back and CP is recovering slowly from a surgery that involved a five-armed robot named Da Vinci. If you ever meet this creature, you will be lucky as the delicacy of this robot, controlled by highly trained surgeons, can work miracles not possible with ordinary surgical cutting.

So where to go from here? Back to human, factual, funny writing about aging, about life between 65 and 100. No robots involved. Just heart and brains. I figure, during our hermit and Covided lives, we need a little distraction, acknowledgement of what’s going on that is not covered by the discouraging media.

So What’s Happening to You?

What do you miss most is what I want to know. Your job is probably high on the list if you are unemployed,  but what about the little things that none of us are supposed to mention or complain about…not in such a serious time. I do know  what you are not missing is toilet paper as I imagine most of you  have a Tower of Paper hidden somewhere in the house.

Me, I missed flowers on the coffee table. The pre-quarantine ones were long gone. The bright center of the living room was missing. But who would be silly enough to go to the grocery store, not just for eggs and milk, but for flowers? Me. I donned my robber mask, my gloves and my mental Super Woman cape , waded into market battle and got me some flowers. Alstroemeria is what to buy during a pandemic because it lasts long enough for you to watch several years of televised episodes of favorite shows on Netflix. It also makes a nice background for your Zoom calls.

Older people have to be careful about these video calls from the kids, as the kids, having read that geezers are prime target for a virus, are checking you out as they talk. Do you look sick? Are you coughing? Is your house neglected? I even put lipstick on for a Zoom cameo as I don’t want them worrying about me…pale and wan…an aged hermit in her den.

And about the hermit part… Have you discovered your Inner Hermit, the one that has been waiting to come out for 60, 70 or 80 years?   Mine is out and soaking up the quiet, loving the empty calendar and just sitting around doing nothing. I should dress like a monk to express this newly emerged self, but it would scare Cranky Pants, so I put on the pink sweatshirt he had made for me after I got a clean pathology report. On the front it says in block letters: All Final Margins Are Clear.

So that’s my story… lived to see another day, both of us. Lived to begin writing to you again. And  you can leave your story in the comments below, which are public…just so you know. Other readers can be inspired by the utterly useless and embarrassing things you miss while trapped at home.

“Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in our hearts”.

Winnie the Pooh