When a Couple Crosses the Line and Turns…..OLD!!

Saturday morning, I have to drive 14 year old Sandor to his job at 10:30 am.  He’s a busboy and a crazy popular pizza restaurant.  But today is different, I’ve convinced my husband, Alex, the sometimes curmudgeon, to drive with me and stop by the wonderful Hot Springs Farmers Market afterwards.

The top is down, I have a convertible, the morning is beautiful and our son, Sandor is in the back seat.

Alex looks over at me. ” I can’t believe you made me wear this sweatshirt.”

“Come on, it’s soft and nice and new, what’s the problem?”

“I like my old red sweatshirt. I don’t care what people think.”

“”You look really nice, though,” I pleaded.

“Sandor, she’s being mean to me.”

I rolled my eyes, looked at him and smiled, “What? I’m making you go to the Farmer’s Market on a beautiful Saturday morning. That’s so awful?  I’m sounding like a Jewish Grandmother, right?”

“What ever, the Elite Eight, NCAA,  first game starts in three hours.”

I playfully smacked him. “What ever, I’ll have you home two hours before tip off. Just enjoy the morning.”

And then were were silent for a moment.  I looked in the rear view mirror and locked eyes with Sandor. He smiled at me. “What? What are you grinning about?” I asked him.

He just shook his head, “You guys are adorable.”

We got Sandor to his job on time.  I stopped the car and looked at Alex, “Adorable. He called us adorable. You know what that means?”

Alex pulled a cigarette out, waiting to get out of the car so he could smoke it. “Hell yeah, he’s calling us old.”

“Exactly!” I said.

“It’s ok, we still got it,” Alex said to me, trying to dismiss the fact Sandor called us “adorable.”

Alex and I now comfortably fall into old people grumbling, bickering, bitching.

I looked at him. “We still got it?”

“Hell yeah,” he replied ruefully, like a dude from The Outsiders.

“Well ok then. Let’s tear up the Farmer’s Market.”

*Apparently I will never ever, ever get back on Google Adsense, cause nine years ago I messed up.  That means I’ll probably never make money from this blog.  So….you comments and support mean everything…otherwise why would I write.  Let me know what you think. Please.

 

 

 

Old People on Ellipticals

I swing back and forth. One day I am paralyzed by the fear of age. I don’t want to get any older I’ve got to much to do, I want to learn to surf. I love rock climbing walls and live bands. I was the baby in the family I can’t get old.

And then there are the days I look at seniors and I’m filled with admiration for old people, especially when they are fearless. 

Last week I watched an older lady climb on the cyborg like elliptical machine at Anytime Fitness.  She was wearing yellow polyester pants and a sweat shirt with a  spotted cat mad out of sequins. Still she climbed onboard as thoughborn to elliptical.  She set the resistance and incline fearlessly and her skinny legs began churning away. Then she plugged her earphones in.and changed the tv channel so she could watch Ellen. |Hell yeah, that’s how you work out at 70.

Last week I ate lunch with a lot of sixty year old men in the Ohio Club, a fantastic historic bar in Hot Springs, AR.  Everybody tells stories and makes fun of each other.Jimmy Young brought his mother, a lovely eighty year old who cheerfully sipped a pint of dark beer while the rest of us drank sweet tea. She was wonderful and witty. Drinking dark beer at noon when you’r eighty, that’s how to roll it right as a senior citizen.

Recently my son worked out with his 25 year old boxing coach. Tony has a full sleeve tattoo, it’s a swirling dragon fish combo that’s actually really pretty.  I took lost of pictures. Latter that afternoon  I pictures of Tony and Sandor working out in tank tops, on Facebook.  Tony called me and said he’d “untagged” himself .  He explained his grand parents are his friends on FB and they don’t know about his giant swirling tattoo. How cute is that? Old people on Facebook, poking around, tagging, lol-ing and thumbs up-ing just like college sophomores.

Honestly, I wish my mother-in- law would get on Facebook, or at least learn to e-mail.  We live 1500 miles apart and if she would just try to get on line she would be so much more connected with her grand kids. She is missing out and so are my kiddos.It almost makes me mad. 

 Hopefully, when I’m 80 and my kids want to visit with me via hologram I will embrace the idea simply to be closer to those youngsters. And I hope in turn, they will be just like Tony the boxing coach and protect me from all the wicked stuff out there. I hope I won’t be afraid to hang out with the boys and have a beer and I hope I’ll have the guts to jump on a treadmill or elliptical and speed off  in my bedazzled kitty cat sweat shirt.

Comment or write to me hampoland@gmail.com.  Thanks, DH