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Yep, this holiday has stages and we who are older live in the very best stage of all. Now it’s all turkey, no oven, no making of pies, no lumping of gravies.

Which is how we started out as kids. No responsibility for the holiday. Moms and aunts did the manual labor. I even remember my grandmother burning the ends of the feathers off the bird, so near to nature were the turkeys in the days of yore.

The feast began days before Thanksgiving with pies and sauces made by others and not made by you who were still in school coloring pictures of Pilgrims. And Thanksgiving Day was apron day for the women, sitting and smoking day for the men and perfect freedom for you. Maybe you were allowed to put the cream cheese into the celery bits, but that was it. The turkey work belonged to others. You could play with your cousins.

Alas, that stage grew into another over the years and as the years and holidays passed. you became the Turkey Queen, Czarina of the Pies, Princess of the Mashed Potatoes. It was all up to you unless you had the sense to ask others to bring the yams with the marshmallows, the green beans with the crisp onion rings.

And then even more years passed. Many turkeys met their end, but so did your role as main character in the turkey scene. Turkey platters got passed to the next generation. It was their turn to Butterball, mash, chop, roll, bake and worry.

And now, as older adults…some of us great grandmothers…we are back to the freedom enjoyed as kids. The younger generations have taken over. Some do their thing from scratch, but many are seduced by the pleasures of take-out or eat-out. Restaurants now do what grandma and the aunts did and probably better. And so it goes here at my home this year.

Yes, I will miss the smell of turkey cooking, but not the work. Yes, this will be the first Thanksgiving where a family member is bringing in turkey takeout and we only have to do the dishes. I think my over-worked grandma with her seven children might love it and I intend to set a place for her…a physical thank you for the many years she spent lifting tough 24 pound birds.

So yes, I can play this Thanksgiving, watch the parade instead of the turkey, watch the dog show on TV instead of watching the gravy curdle, talk with my family instead of isolating in the kitchen. And then give thanks that we are lucky enough to have good food from any source. Plus add in another thank you for freedom from holiday exhaustion.

OK…one confession. I will miss the Friday lunch with a turkey sandwich on Wonder Bread and far too much mayo.

Happy Thanksgiving, no matter how you do it.

I have deserted my post here for two years and want to get back to writing for and about people who are over 70, under 100, of pretty sound minds and with bodies that keep going back into the shop. Seeing my husband on his journey off the planet for the last 24 months was the focus…that plus dealing with the earthly departures of brother, son and daughter have more than knocked me about and off my line of work, which is writing for you.

As I write this, I am packing to move to a new way of living in a continuing care place where you can dance around the campus as an independent geezerina, but know that assisted living, memory care and even skilled nursing are at hand should you need them. I will be setting up a writing desk there next week and getting back to you.

Here, to start, was something I wrote at the beginning of the Covid lockdown. It is just as true today as it was then.

The Barnacle Theory of Life

Barnacles….marine undesirables, clinging sea-shelled critters. They grab onto and weigh down everything from sea turtles to boats that have to be put into dry dock to scrape off the cluster of heavy shells.  And then there are the barnacled whales. If you don’t already feel sorry for whales, Google whales and barnacles.

Well, imagine humans, but imagine them being weighed down by invisible barnacles….burdensome emotions and regrets. I have this theory that we are born without barnacles, no ponderous experiences and thoughts have yet attached themselves. But as life commences, we get these imaginary weights…the bad things that happen in every life that pull down our spirits, prospects and hope.

Could be bad parents, addictions, mental illness, job disappointments, poverty, bills, divorce and the deaths of friend and family. (We are all orphans by this time of life.) You have your own list of barnacle events, happenings that squeeze the life right out of your spirit and weigh down hope. Maybe take time here to inventory your own barnacles. Everybody’s got them. Writing your truths in a journal is a good way to take stock.

You may think I am off the chart here, but I see this Covid lockdown as a chance to go into dry dock and get your spiritual barnacles scraped off, emerging lighter and more buoyant at the end of these solitary months.

Yeah, easy to say. How do you scrape off a spiritual barnacle in the middle of a pandemic?  Well, gratitude can melt some barnacles. Gratitude is often talked about, occasionally used,  but needs to be practiced on an expert daily level if it is to have an effect on  outlook.

But why should we geezers be grateful? We have lived most of our lives, are falling apart and can no longer even go out to eat pizza, drink beer and stay out flirting until midnight. You’ve got your own list of good things, but at the top of mine is the absolute miracle that in this unimaginably huge universe, in a constellation of stars called the Milky Way, near a so-so star called the Sun, on a blue planet that actually  has water and life, a wiggle of a sperm hit an egg decades ago and that became me. What are the odds of that?

What are the odds of you? So the fact of existence against all odds is certainly something to mull over today. Makes our own little emotional barnacles seem insignificant. Looking at the ocean has the same effect. Best of all, at night, in the ocean, floating on your back, looking at the universe…real remover of any barnacles.

There are other and perhaps easier ways to scrape off the weights of life: Take music. Why do you not have your favorite music on right now? Why don’t I? It’s already in front of me on my computer. It’s on my cable TV, my radio. Get to it girl. Oddly enough, a mix of country music, Beethoven, John Denver and Bach do it for me as does any Dixieland jazz, especially if that jazz has a sax somewhere. Is there anything a saxophone does not make better? Sonny Rollins and Stan Getz can melt barnacles.

And then there are pets. Those eyes that see through you. Well, maybe they just see the possible liver treats coming from you, but, unless they bite, growl or throw up on the couch, they are front line barnacle removers.

As are flowers. If I could not retreat from the hard things in life into my lavender and roses, I would sink beneath the waves…and you know the current waves. They are  named Covid, Politics, Climate, Economy and Loneliness.  Who knew a rambling rose could be a protector against these things?

And, of course, there are friends and family, the other inhabitants of the blue planet. Meetings in the open air, Zooms, phone calls…(those still exist)…emails, texts…everything except carrier pigeons to keep in touch and remember you are part of a big tribe. Also, if you know someone, a so-called friend, a complainer, who has repeatedly weighed down your spirits, a lockdown is a great time to distance. You just can’t meet to go to the movie. Or anywhere.

All the above can lighten the load, but protecting yourself against incoming barnacles is smart too. Maybe we will emerge lighter from lockdown if we avoid the big weights of the media….the constant chatter, the alarming headlines, the lies, the anger,  the always breaking news. The clue is to not let that news break you. Cut down the media input and the barnacles don’t have such a chance to attach.

So that’s my theory….The Barnacle Theory of Life. Does any of it make sense to you? Your comments are welcome.  Thanks for reading. Mel

It isn’t often that a writer sets out to talk about inconsequential things. No, we chase the important stuff with BIG HEADLINES. But I have had enough of important stuff as it mostly has to do with Covid, death and politics. So I went on a search to write about something unimportant that was useful, comforting and delicious. I came up with one thing.

Jam. Now this is a candidate for indulgence during lockdown, one that won’t have you end up as big as a walrus when home prison ends.

I don’t know of one person who does not love the sweet and fruity deliciousness that brings your toast up to culinary levels fit for the gods and minor saints. You met jam as a kid and have kept on with it ever since, though jelly got in there too as the grape jelly that went on the after-school peanut butter sandwich.

So anyhow, I went and investigated jams to see what were the most popular, most delicious and best reviewed of the bunch. Almost all can be ordered online or delivered from your grocery store if  you don’t feel like masked shopping.

Strawberry is the most popular jam in the US. Now there are a lot of lousy jams out there…mostly sugar, high fructose corn syrup, flavoring  and pectin, but little fruit. A good jam should be at least 50% fruit. If you would like actual pieces of strawberry in your jam, try Bonne Maman’s Strawberry Preserves. You may have seen the jars of Bonne Maman around as they have that red and white checkered top. If you want to investigate their whole line, you can order a selection of mini sample jars on Amazon for $10.70. All are made in France but popular here: www.bonnemaman.us

Bonne Maman’s five most popular preserves are apricot, golden plum, raspberry, strawberry and lemon curd. All would be good on cream cheese, cottage cheese and yogurt as well as all kinds for bread, though jam will slide off naan flatbread…duh… as the spots on my desk will attest this morning.

Cranky Pants and I have found that Bonne Maman is cheaper in the stores than online. You may have better luck, but if you are in Costco looking for a deal, try Kirkland Strawberry Jam which gets excellent reviews, the only drawback is that it comes in a huge jar.

Now, about a jam that gets really good press. Every reviewer…there are lots of jam reviewers… says that when it comes to grape jelly, Smucker’s gets the prize. That will be my next scientific experiment, comparing grape jellies.

Back to popularity…important if you are making choices for people who are not you, usually known as family. Here are the US stats from most popular on down: Strawberry wins by far. See above. Next are grape, raspberry, blackberry, apricot, blueberry and cherry.

There are some brand name jams that keeping cropping up in the reviews and here are the ones to look for:

Tiptree from England. Their apricot and damson plum are in my fridge, the plum great on lamb rather than the dreaded mint jelly.

Crofters Fruit Spreads. The Morrelo Cherry gets five stars on Amazon with at least one person wanting to go  for six. Have not tried this is as it is expensive,  but if you order a pack of six, the price goes way down. Not a size for us: Six is too many for a geezer household and condo pantry, though they could make good holiday gifts if tarted up with wrapping and ribbon.

Last, the one that gets a spotlight, red carpet and champagne in the reviews: Sarabeth’s orange and apricot  preserves which also has pineapple in the mix. This mixture of Sarabeth’s has won prizes and stars and is in my online shopping cart. Sarabeth’s is made in the exotic Bronx.

Now, about the sugar and the weighty walrus lurking within.  Most jams have about 10 grams of sugar per tablespoon. Don’t need a tablespoon to get a flavor hit. Instead, a heaping teaspoon has about five grams of sugar. Try that in one of the low sugar yogurts. This homemade mixture has about half the sugar of the popular fruit flavored  yogurts that have as much as 26 sugar grams.

Here are some low-sugar yogurt brands that would welcome a heaping teaspoon of your favorite jam plus maybe some berries and nuts:

Fage Total, Siggi’s Icelandic, Stoneyfield Plain Greek and Oikos Triple Zero which leaves some room in the container for you to add what you want.

Anyhow, I hope this foray into the inconsequential but delicious has inspired you to abandon CNN in favor of a cup of tea, a piece of toast, a spot of jam, all enjoyed outside somewhere, luxuriating in the inconsequencialness of it all.

Do not be surprised if there are more food columns here in the lockdown months, food for geezers who are living  solo or in twos, mostly tired of cooking for 50 years and needing some easy culinary comfort while in home prison.

In my other life….before the gerontology degree….I was a cookbook author and had a syndicated column about food, so there is a bit of experience behind these columns. The curious  among you can still find a cheap used copy of my Guerrilla Cooking on Amazon. And no, I don’t make any money from it…a writer’s eternal lament.

Now to order that Sarabeth concoction and see if it really is sunshine on toast.

Barnacles….marine undesirables, clinging sea-shelled critters. They grab onto and weigh down everything from sea turtles to boats that have to be put into dry dock to scrape off the cluster of heavy shells.  And then there are the barnacled whales. If you don’t already feel sorry for whales, Google whales and barnacles.

Well, imagine humans, but imagine them being weighed down by invisible barnacles….burdensome emotions and regrets. I have this theory that we are born without barnacles, no ponderous experiences and thoughts have yet attached themselves. But as life commences, we get these imaginary weights…the bad things that happen in every life that pull down our spirits, prospects and hope.

Could be bad parents, addictions, mental illness, job disappointments, poverty, bills, divorce and the deaths of friend and family. (We are all orphans by this time of life.) You have your own list of barnacle events, happenings that squeeze the life right out of your spirit and weigh down hope. Maybe take time here to inventory your own barnacles. Everybody’s got them. Writing your truths in a journal is a good way to take stock.

You may think I am off the chart here, but I see this Covid lockdown as a chance to go into dry dock and get your spiritual barnacles scraped off, emerging lighter and more buoyant at the end of these solitary months.

Yeah, easy to say. How do you scrape off a spiritual barnacle in the middle of a pandemic?  Well, gratitude can melt some barnacles. Gratitude is often talked about, occasionally used,  but needs to be practiced on an expert daily level if it is to have an effect on  outlook.

But why should we geezers be grateful? We have lived most of our lives, are falling apart and can no longer even go out to eat pizza. You’ve got your own list, but at the top of mine is the absolute miracle that in this unimaginably huge universe, in a constellation of stars called the Milky Way, near a so-so star called the Sun, on a blue planet that actually  has water and life, a wiggle of a sperm hit an egg decades ago and that became me. What are the odds of that?

What are the odds of you? So the fact of existence against all odds is certainly something to mull over today. Makes our own little emotional barnacles seem insignificant. Looking at the ocean has the same effect. Best of all, at night, in the ocean, floating on your back, looking at the universe…real remover of any barnacles. Plan a future trip to Hawaii to get this done.

There are other and perhaps easier ways to scrape off the weights of life: Take music. Why do you not have your favorite music on right now? Why don’t I? It’s already in front of me on my computer. It’s on my cable TV, my radio. Get to it girl. Oddly enough, a mix of country music, Beethoven, John Denver and Bach do it for me as does any Dixieland jazz, especially if that jazz has a sax somewhere. Is there anything a saxophone does not make better? Sonny Rollins and Stan Getz can melt barnacles.

And then there are pets. Those eyes that see through you. Well, maybe they just see the possible liver treats coming from you, but, unless they bite, growl or throw up on the couch, they are front line barnacle removers.

As are flowers. If I could not retreat from the hard things in life into my lavender and roses, I would sink beneath the waves…and you know the current waves. They are  named Covid, Politics, Climate, Economy and Loneliness.  Who knew a rambling rose could be a protector against these things?

And, of course, there are friends and family, the other inhabitants of the blue planet. Meetings in the open air, Zooms, phone calls…(those still exist)…emails, texts…everything except carrier pigeons to keep in touch and remember you are part of a big tribe. Also, if you know someone, a so-called friend, a complainer, who has repeatedly weighed down your spirits, a lockdown is a great time to distance. You just can’t meet to go to the movie. Or anywhere.

All the above can lighten the load, but protecting yourself against incoming barnacles is smart too. Maybe we will emerge lighter from lockdown if we avoid the big weights of the media….the constant chatter, the alarming headlines, the lies, the anger,  the always breaking news. The clue is to not let that news break you. Cut down the media input and the barnacles don’t have such a chance to attach.

So that’s my theory….The Barnacle Theory of Life. Does any of it make sense to you? Your comments are welcome.  Thanks for reading.

We have a long road ahead when it comes to managing life in the time of Covid and I’ve found ways to keep up mood and morale. The greatest of these…in my house now…is a deep dive into the past. When one is older, the past is BIG. How to organize my wallows was the problem. The answer? Organize nostalgia by decades.

I decided to start with the 1950’s. Such a calm decade compared to what went before…Depression and World War II. Living into the beginning years of that decade was like coming home. How sweet it is now to wallow backwards into memories of that time.

I began my wallow by ordering a used copy of a long lost family cookbook: Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book, revolutionary in that it displayed photo images of techniques and foods, including, on page 307, Beauty  Touches for Pies…a photo guide. (Most cookbooks before the 50’s were just text.) In this book, I’ve found family recipes including my grandmother’s way of making tapioca and I intend to cook from this book for a month at least.

On the menu: nostalgia for the mouth. I want to try the touching 1950’s version of ethnic gourmet, spaghetti and meat balls, and will look for a straw-bottomed bottle of Chianti in which to put a multi-colored candle that drips and makes one feel racy enough to put on a black turtleneck.

Then what to watch after dinner? What were the great movies of the 1950’s, many appearing now on Turner Movie Classics, Netflix and Amazon Prime? Look for American in Paris, Singin’ In the Rain, Bridge Over the River Kwai, Rear Window, High Noon and many more. If you are watching on an Internet movie site, just put in:  movies from the 1950’s. Turner’s schedule for classic movies can be found at: https://bit.ly/3j3oXbt

If you are royally sick of watching anything on a screen, there are the books of the 1950’s, ones you may have not yet read. Auntie Mame and Eloise in Paris are the lighter ones. Peyton Place will show you how values have changed in 70 years. Here are some others for a deep literary dive:  East of Eden, The Old Man and the Sea, Doctor Zhivago, The Caine Mutiny, From Here to Eternity, Giant and on and on. Almost all can  be found on Amazon from the used book sellers.

Music: Oh boy, this is a book in itself. That decade was so rich musically. I could throw out dozens of names, but the important thing is that any of the artists you once liked can be found on www.youtube.com

If you want to see Duke Ellington at the 1956 Newport Festival, you can find it on YouTube. Or look for Elvis doing Jail House Rock. I’ve gotten fabulously distracted on my computer looking for Little Richard, Ray Charles,  Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, John Coltrane, Count Basie. Again, almost anybody you can think of who sang or played an instrument in the 1950’s, can be seen doing it again on YouTube.

While you’re on YouTube, you can also look to for the Top Ten TV Shows of the 1950’s to get snippets of I Love Lucy, Lassie, The Ed Sullivan Show or The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason, he who showed me, when my dad took me to dinner with him, how to eat black olives…one on each finger. Gleason was funny on and off the screen.

Then, getting away from the boob tube, there are always the yearbooks. If you have any from the 1950’s, you can go back and look at lost loves, departed friends, friends you should get in touch with while you are both alive, the teachers, good and bad, and what passed for cool things to write in a year book back then.

If you have any clothes from the 50’s, you are a better hoarder than I. My ex took back his letter sweater so I can’t wallow in my closet.

I intend to go backwards into the 1940’s and started last night with a sleeper of a good movie on Netflix,  The Exception, with Christopher Plummer. More on that decade later. Until a vaccine arrives, my intention is to wait out life by nostalgic visits to the eight decades between the 1940’s and now.  If I give a month to exploring each decade…. books, food, movies, TV, music, friends and lovers from the past…that should take me up to the arrival of a vaccine and a reopened, less frightening world.

Three  things are really hard for me: getting off sugar, learning each form of social media and agreeing with friends and family about what it’s ok to do in this year of the plague. It’s the last that I bring before you today. You have already run into it one way or another.

Take couples for instance: Maybe the man thinks it’s ok to have Ronnie over for drinks inside the house, all notions of a mask set aside. Six-pack thinking according to the wife, who hasn’t even allowed their grown kids in the house for three months. There will be a conversation about that, you betcha, with probably no conclusion as this Covid is new and many are the guesses about what to do and what not to do. Is your guess as good as mine?

Or take someone living alone. One thing that person knows is that living in a hermitage is getting old, especially since it may continue to the end of the year. So what to do? What outside activities are highest risk and what are lowest? Is a trip to the grocery store the same risk as a trip to the doctor’s office?

And so it has gone. Such confusion. But…the physicians in Texas have gotten together to make up a handy dandy risk chart going from 1…low risk…to 9…high risk. To me, the chart seems sensible, providing some structure to the choices we all make.

Examples: Worst thing is going to a bar. Also 9’s: going to a sports stadium or big music concert.  Though the chart doesn’t mention it, I would think political rallies and conventions would be up there in the 9’s, high risk.

The 8’s are still high risk, but not quite as bad. One surprise for me is that going to a buffet is an 8. So is Disneyland.

Getting a haircut is a 7, which is too late for me as I got one last week because I couldn’t see out past my hair. I do have a son who now looks like Benjamin Franklin, bald on top from chemo, but luxurious  on the side. The info on the chart indicates that I should shut up and not say a word about a haircut.

You have to see the chart for yourself, but opening the mail is a 1, lowest risk; getting takeout is a 2; grocery shopping is a 3; eating on the outside of a restaurant is a 4; having dinner at someone’s house is a 5; visiting an elderly relative is a 6, though the chart does not say who is at this moderate risk, the visitor or us geezers.

Using the chart as a guide when there now is little else to show the way, maybe a  couple could agree that the family do only those things that are 1 to 3 on the chart, the lowest level of risk. A lively single looking for action will know to stay away from the 7 through 9, the highest risk.

Below is the link to this chart which doesn’t cover every situation, but it surely is a start, a way to make these new decisions without getting into a fight with family, friends or yourself.

If this link does not work for you, Google:

Know Your Risk, Texas Medical Association.

Thanks to the docs of Texas, maybe I can now stop the argle-bargle with Cranky Pants. And get lots of takeout. Only a 2.

https://www.tpr.org/post/know-your-risk-covid-19-chart-released-texas-medical-association