Tag Archives: The Write Side of 50

Summer Reruns

18 Monday Aug 2014

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Loand juleon vacation

When The Write Side of 50 launched in November 2012, Julie was recovering from hip replacement surgery and Lois stated often, that, unlike many people her age, she had never had back pain.

Well, twenty-one months later, Julie has a new hip that’s as good as new, has traveled to remote corners of the world, and may very well hold the record in all of Manhattan for museum, art house, and restaurant visits.

Lois has had back pain due to trauma for nine weeks now, has moved twice, and got a divorce.

And the blog has remained afloat. (In no small measure, thanks also to the contributions of Frank and Bob.)

But they need a real vacation – a veg-out; a brain and body recharge. Maybe even a departure from the grid entirely – no e-mails, no worries. A beach bingo.

So they put the blog in charge of itself for one week. Starting tomorrow, The Write Side of 50 will be reposting four of its favorite and most popular pieces from that first year.

And also worth repeating – thank you! to all readers, followers, and contributors.

Beach It in the Rain with Seven-Shake Bloodies

01 Friday Aug 2014

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Rain

Rain, and no shine.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

Last weekend was cloudy, with on and off showers, which made for near-perfect beach days. As someone who grew up on the water, a sunny day over 75 degrees used to mean the beach was mandatory. A rainy day was a respite. No sun, no beach.

But as I’ve aged, and no longer sit in the sun, I’ve come to love the beach in the rain. Crowds stay away, and swimming under a slow and steady drizzle (sans thunder and lightning) is sublime – a rain-and-sea-and-me bond.

A rainy day on the sand is also ripe for a gathering under the umbrella for Bloody Marys.

So the forecast for this weekend is rain. Beach it. And bring along the bloodies.

Bloody clinkHere’s my Seven-Shake Bloody Mary recipe, as salty as the sea, and adapted from an old friend’s father, who used to make these for us 20-somethings on a hungover morning-after back in the 1980s, when we would spend the night, and wake up on the beach. (Always make one at a time so as not to lose count, and risk disturbing the chemistry):

*Stuff an 8-ounce shaker with ice, and add 2-4 ounces of vodka
*Add:
7 shakes of Tabasco
7 shakes of celery salt
7 shakes of Worcestershire
7 shakes of pepper
7 shakes of garlic powder
Fresh horseradish – add to your liking. Me: I like my bloody speckled. I add two heaping tablespoons.
*Top with Clamato juice

Shake lightly – pour the whole thing into a chilled glass (take out all the ice except for a cube or two), and garnish with either pickles, olives, celery, shrimp, lemon slices, cucumbers, bacon! – or all seven.

My Kind of Jeopardy: Geriatric

30 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by in Confessional, Men

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Trebek Bob

BY BOB SMITH

Lately, we’ve been watching Jeopardy almost every night. It’s broadcast every weekday at 7 p.m., but we program the DVR to record it so we don’t have to watch any commercials. This has the added benefit of skipping a couple of days and then go on a mini Jeopardy binge – watching two or three shows in one evening. Modern technology can be a great thing.

I can’t recall having watched the show regularly when I was younger, so I’m not sure if I could ever have gotten all, or even most of the answers correct. But it’s clear there would be one of two results if I were to get on the show today:
a) I’d end up with zero dollars because I’d never figure out exactly how and when to push the button on the “signaling device.”
b) I’d somehow master the signaling device, but I’d answer so many questions wrong I’d end the show in negative numbers.

The last episode we watched was part of the Teen Tournament, in which the three contestants were in 7th, 9th, and 11th grades, which makes me at least 10 years older than their combined ages. The winner was the 7th grader, a bespectacled boy wearing his Dad’s best tie bunched up in a lumpy knot. The kid had barely begun puberty, but when “HE WAS PRESIDENT DURING THE WAR OF 1812,” flashed up on the screen, he promptly buzzed in and correctly replied “Who is James Madison?”

Alex Trebek always talks briefly with the contestants about an interesting fact from their lives. This 7th grader told the story of how, during his first confession (what – four years ago?), the priest had addressed the assembled prospective penitents before taking them aside individually to hear their sins. Once the priest’s speech was done, this lad was first in the confessional booth.
However, the priest forgot to disengage his lapel microphone before settling down in the confessional, so this kid’s entire first confession was broadcast to his, no doubt, delighted classmates waiting in the pews outside.

Which normally would be a pretty embarrassing event, but as Alex Trebek observed:
“And they heard everything? But this was your first confession, right? So how bad could it be?”

I suspect he was confessing to having a secret system for cheating at Jeopardy. How else would he know about things like “MOZART’S LAST AND PERHAPS MOST POWERFUL SYMPHONY SHARES ITS NAME WITH THIS PLANET.”

My answer (a wild guess, just for laughs): “What is Uranus, Alex?”

But the correct response, from the mouths of babes: “What is Jupiter?”

I certainly didn’t know that in 7th grade. In fact, I wasn’t aware of it until yesterday. And there’s a pretty good chance, given the way my memory is drying up, that I won’t know it next year either. Or even tomorrow.

The kid won more than $19,000, and qualified to compete in the quarterfinals of the tournament against other freakishly knowledgeable teenagers. I’ll watch, and try to keep up with them, but I don’t have much hope with categories like “NEW TESTAMENT GEOGRAPHY;” “PHYSICS;” and “KATY PERRY VIDEOS” on the board.

I might fare better if they had Geriatric Jeopardy with categories like “PAIN RELIEVERS;” “FLORIDA GOLF;” “SINATRA SONGS;” “NEW HIPS;” “OLD HIPPIES.” There’d be a pee break before Final Jeopardy, and if you’re lucky, you’d get to say “Make it a true Daily Double Knee Replacement, Alex.”

Oh yeah, that’s my kind of game.

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Stabbed in the Back. Am I Thrust to the Sidelines?

11 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by in Confessional

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Mud Jump

Am I too old to jump with reckless disregard?

BY LOIS DESOCIO

And then there were two.

On the same day I posted about MuckfestMS 2014 and The Three Mudketeers, I was humbled; stabbed in the back by my 59-year-old spinal cord that pretends to be half its age.

Something had seized it that Saturday, and by Monday, it, and my left leg were pierced with pain that brought me to my knees for twelve days.

Twelve days. Twelve days of crippling pain. I couldn’t sit, stand, or lie down. Twelve days of crawling, rolling, crying, and begging for mercy.

It was on Tuesday, day two, that I called 911 at 4 p.m. to take me to the hospital. I hadn’t slept in two days, and wouldn’t have been able to move from the floor without a gurney.

After an emergency room diagnoses of severe sciatica as a result of trauma, that would probably linger for another four to six weeks, and a shot of Dilaudid (apparently one step below morphine), and ten painkiller pills that were gone in two days, I was still debilitated and miserable for another week and a half. No more 5K obstacle-course runs in the mud for me. I’m too old to be a Mudketeer.

And that revelation carried its own pain, once I was upright and working my way back slowly. I was plagued by the possibility that this may be a defining moment for me. A “grow-up-Lois-you-are-not-invincible” wake-up call. Take to the sidelines, already!

I’m pretty much parked in adolescence – at least in attitude. And I have been successful at warding off the aches and pains and injuries and ailments that plague middle-agers. I’ve been really fortunate when it comes to health – and downright cavalier about how any recovery from injury or illness will always be swift and complete.

I have a strong mind-body connection that has always served me well. I’m never sick or injured to the point of defeat. I can talk myself through pain. (I gave birth without drugs – twice.)

But this bout is different. I’m afraid. Afraid that this pain that was so potent, and so prolonged, might come back if I make a wrong move. I continue to be guarded. Am I on the precipice of fatalism; resigned to a smaller world? Weakened? Old?

Will I have to give up the big waves in the ocean? The pounding core cardio workout? Twisting, jumping, dancing in the dark, trampolines, water parks, sliding down things, running up the stairs, rolling on the floor? Heels? Can I remain carefree? Can Pollyanna live with Prudence?

Perhaps I’ve confused fear with levelheadedness. The gift of aging. Because us 50-plussers have numbered days, fear can serve to gather perspective – quickly. And from physical pain can spring intellectual renewal. A re-routing. A savvier path. It feels so good to be back on my feet again – I’m almost grateful for the experience.

So I’ve reminded myself of, and will tuck away, what I used to say to my kids when they were young and fearless, growing into adolescence, and were wont to listen to the wisdom of the older:

“Live in the moment.”
“Have fun.”
“Be wise.”
“Be happy.”
“Protect yourself.”
“Be kind.”
“Take chances.”
“Stay out of the mud!”

The Three Mudketeers

23 Monday Jun 2014

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Mud selfie

Our selfie(s).

20140621_123812-2

Our hosed-down, post-race selves. Photo by Cameron Sackett.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

This past Saturday at 10:30 in the morning, I ran out of the gate through the hoses. I clamored up the first of the triple pits and slithered down into the waist-deep muddy waters with dozens of people underneath and above me. I alternated running and walking (for hours) with crawling through big dirty pipes, and under big dirty ropes. I hoisted over huge muddy barrels and tight-roped over a pit on a rope bridge. I swung and was tossed into a six-foot deep brown and rocky pool and clung for dear life on (and ultimately slid off of) a spinning wheel of ropes over a mini river of brown muck, before wriggling like a worm, and emerging with a bloody elbow, through a rocky, muddy, sewer-like tube, to the finish line.

Bring it on, MuckFestMS 2014. For three years now, I’ve been on team Mudketeers in the 5K for multiple sclerosis. (We started with six, this year we hovered around 20.)

The three-mile run in the South Mountain Reservation (amped-up with 19 man-made obstacles with names like Skid Mark, Big Balls, Spill Hill, and Muck Off), has manifested into a special, girlfriend, in-the-trenches, tradition for me and my two dear friends, Maura and Deborah.

We check our competitive natures, and any desire for a personal best, at those Triple Pits. We brave the onslaught of obstacles, the wet rocks, the hills and dales of the woods, the Dragon Crawl (nailed it), Mt. Muck-imanjaro (have yet to attempt), in tandem. We are one – all in honor of Maura's husband, Lee.

We’re in our mid to late 50s, and no doubt, amongst the oldest of all the participants. And even though it seems to be that we are always the last of the Mudketeers to cross the finish line (we know our limits), I’m betting no one has more giggles, grunts, endorphin-rushes, hugs, high-fives, bruises, jumps up and down, and gushes of pure love than we three.

Last year, I got stuck in the mud early on and ripped a muscle in my thigh while clawing my way up a mud hill.

“Go on without me,” I yelled. “I’ll be OK!”

But not to be a stick-in-the-mud, and thanks to my friend, who gave up going “all-out” for me, and stayed by my limping side, we were able to finish together. (There’s free beer at the end.)

This year Deborah tattooed my cheek for me, and Maura cleaned my bloody elbow.

So once a year, us 50-something girls get to be warriors, to play dirty, and to challenge mind and body to the core. We think of Lee, drink to Lee, wait for each other, pull each other up, encourage each other, scope out for each other (“Stay to the side!”), give hugs, share tears, cheer each other on, and dance across the finish line. As one.