Reluctant Senior and other adventures

In my mind I probably see myself a bit like this.  Still.  I think Jae must have taken this photo of me sometime in the 1970s when we were roomies in our little house on Marlbrook in Atlanta.

There I am early 20s, sans makeup and, apparently, self assured ... never actually thinking about getting older and certainly never contemplating being a "senior".  Heaven forbid.



Turn the clock ahead another 40 years (holy crap!) and I find myself actually a senior - albeit a reluctant one - and I have the official documents to prove it!

My Senior card and parking permit.

Mind you the card does have it's benefits and that's why we - George and myself - applied, met the criteria (you have to be 60 and over - groan) and obtained our own.  I was always against it.  I felt that, as a self funded retiree who went to the gym and still believed in social justice, equality and the Rolling Stones I didn't actually qualify for the card - yet.  But while we were on the cruise up to Cairns one of the captains of another yacht had one and he always got great deals on transport while we were in marinas so George insisted we apply for our own.  I think I may have mentioned this in a previous blog - can't remember (hopefully having "the card" isn't prematurely ageing my mind!).

Anyway I was hit with the paradox of my senior-ness yesterday as I pulled into the seniors parking at the local grocery store with Jimmy Hendrix blaring out of the car stereo.  I couldn't figure why other patrons were staring until I realised the volume was up to a window shattering level.   The irony made me laugh.

Paradox indeed.  More like a new paradigm.  I've always thought - along with the rest of the baby boomer generation I guess - that as we age we will most assuredly redefine what "getting old" really means! 

In other news .. this week has been busy.

On Thursday I had a very enjoyable lunch with my friend Sarah at her house.  We had a good ole talk about life, husbands, children (her two boys), work and chickens!

Sarah has two very nice looking chickens and she tells me they lay very nice eggs on a regular basis. I must say as we sat at the kitchen table talking the soft clucking of the chooks in the backyard was very soothing.  I liked them!  The only real downside I guess is they are indiscriminate shitters.  Left to run free they are a bit messy.  I had a wonderful time with Sarah catching up...friends are good for the soul.

The companionway steps for the boat are finished.  George, as expected, did a superlative job on them.  They're lovely.

We'll probably wrestle them into the back of the car and down to the boat tomorrow.  He's finished the sanding and varnishing of the inside of the companionway and it'll be nice to have the boat back in one piece again.  We haven't spent much time on it lately and I can see a 4 or 5 day break coming soon.

Yesterday we found a second hand lawnmower for sale on the local version of ebay and drove almost to Parramatta to pick it up.  George hates gardening.  Passionately hates it.  And gardening in his book also includes lawn mowing.  Our old mower had given up the ghost long ago even though it could be coaxed into doing the yard with care and a small degree of frustration.  A few weeks ago it kicked the bucket altogether and lately the growing grass was becoming difficult to ignore.  Out of the blue George called me in to show me the online page with the advertised mower.  I hadn't even been "nagging" him about it.  We called and now it's in our garage... and the yard is once again lovely.

New mower.  Not much to look at but it does the job - so far.

And its only 4 weeks and 2 days until I see The Rolling Stones!!!!!!