The Middle Ages

My mom once told me that she could tell how old a man was by what he talked about.  Her story went like this:

When men are young, they talk about women.  Amongst themselves, they discuss the cute gal at the gas station, the sexy one who works at the post office, the waitress with the nice curves, how some chick flirted with them at the restaurant - you get the picture.

Middle age arrives and the conversation shifts to food - where you can order a fantastic steak, the best diner, the greasy spoon with heavenly lemon meringue pie, the fabulous Thanksgiving meals Gran used to make…

Old men talk about their ailments - diseases, operations, aches and pains, medicines they are taking, side effects of medicines they are taking, doctors they see, doctors they want to see, upcoming office visits, warts, moles and cloudscapes*. 

(*Autocorrect felt colonoscopies couldn't possibly be what I meant, so she graciously changed it to cloudscapes.)

The Zimmermans in our native habitat - a restaurant booth. 

I was thinking about this conversation the other day and what I hear these days validates my mother's theory.  I even see it in myself. Although I'm not gonna admit that my husband and I are solidly middle aged, I will say that now we go to the grocery store and impulse buy for fun.

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Brrrr!!

I have a common cold. I pretty sure I feel worse than most people though because for them it's business as usual and I didn't even get out of bed for two days. My husband has taken to sleeping on another floor because my barking is keeping him awake. It keeps me awake too. It may even be keeping the neighbors up because I'm pretty sure I'm rattling the entire house with every coughing fit.

Somewhere while I was wrapped snugly in my own little cocoon of mini-misery, 2014 turned into 2015 and now we're in the middle of an arctic blast of frigid air. I know this because the National Weather Service keeps sending me alerts. Judging from the number of emails I've received, our local utilities company is quite concerned about frozen pipes as well.

I want to get back to my normal routine so this morning I decided to go for a walk. Neither of my walking partners cared to join me although one did text me to “Bundle up. It's cold out there."  

Never one to ignore good advice, I did just that: I put on two pair of pants, an undershirt, tee shirt, sweatshirt, polar tec fleece, hat, mittens and my real winter coat. Toasty warm, I headed off into the winter weather.

Northern girls layer

Out of nowhere, a dog lunged at me. This dog has allowed me to pass by many, many times so I can only attribute his behavior today to the fact that he mistook me for an Ewok. 

Another walker passed me. She said “We're the only ones brave enough to be out today. ” I asked her where she was from. “Virginia,” she said. “You ARE brave!” I replied and she smiled.

I was beginning to feel feverish so I removed my hat and gloves. As I was taking off my coat, I realized that I couldn't even see my breath. How cold can it be when you can't even see your breath? Maybe I'm not feverish! Maybe I'm overdressed.

When I got home, I decided to check the official temperature. “37 feels like 33.”

Sub 40. This IS serious cold.

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Flip Phones

Among the gifts our grandsons got on Christmas were two plastic flip phones. 

The boys were both extremely pleased with these presents and during the day we watched as they took imaginary pictures and stopped what they were doing to have make-believe conversations on them.

As we were leaving, I noticed that Brody had stuffed his phone in the elastic band of his pants. “In case Spidey calls,” he told me.

Who can argue with that logic?

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