Month: March 2022

I had an incredible first week with my son and his family helping them settle into their new home. This second week of my stay has been a bit different. In fact, it has been a kind of torture from a purely physical standpoint. A few issues converged to challenge my ability to accomplish everything I desired in my usual fashion. Some of the problems can be attributed to my own negligence, others to those blasted steps.

Why is it that when I leave home, I think I can simply abandon some routines that literally promote my well-being? While at home, I begin my day with a 4-minute morning warmup stretching routine. I follow a wonderful app on my phone called “Stretching Exercises”. It’s a great app and I use it for multiple routines. Stretching improves flexibility and helps prevent injuries. I know this. And yet, I embarked upon my first week in a home where I had to climb up and down a total of four staircases multiple times a day. I had to go up a flight or down a flight just to use the bathroom. I did this without warmup nor warning for my knees and now I am paying the price. My weak left knee became overly stressed and inflamed, rendering it painful and almost entirely useless.

My son tapped into his compassion and purchased a knee brace and Tylenol for me. Someone told me that he considered a cane, too, but didn’t go there. I added more anti-inflammatory foods like blueberries, strawberries, almonds, broccoli and turmeric to my daily menu since I can’t take Ibuprofen because of my chronic kidney disease. And instead of unpacking, organizing and decorating at my usual pace, I sat on the sofa with an elevated knee and an ice pack several times a day, giving advice. I spent a lot of time ordering needed items from Amazon than putting them away. The most disappointing thing was that I could no longer sit on the playmat with my grandson because I literally could not get up. Thankfully, he’s good sitting on my lap, staring into my glasses or playing with my sparkling Brighten beans that I wear especially for him.

On top of my knee problems, I was shocked and worried when my ankles and feet swelled up. At first, I assumed the issue was related to overuse of my limbs. But I was also having weird heart issues at bedtime when I took my newly prescribed blood pressure medicine. It was my mistake not to ask the doctor about the possible side effects since he neglected to mention them on his own. I stopped taking it for fear that I might not wake up in the morning and I looked up the side effects of the medication. My physician daughter-in-law confirmed my suspicions. Sure enough, the most common side effect was swollen ankles and feet and heartbeat issues. Since my blood pressure is borderline and my kidney disease hasn’t gotten any worse in five years of monitoring it, I’m hopeful that my switch to a plant-based diet will solve the issues and eliminate the need for medication.

Although my timing wasn’t optimum, becoming a vegan was a good idea. I think perhaps I should have waited until I returned home to fully immerse myself in this new lifestyle. Being here, I find myself cooking vegan meals for myself and meat-centric meals for my son’s family. In other words, I’m doing double duty in the kitchen every day. Besides going to the bathroom and a store or two, cooking is my only sustained movement every day.

One thing I did prepare for was the fact that they have hardwood floors throughout the entire house. Knowing the fragility of my feet on hard surfaces, I purchased a pair of OOFOS Sport Slides for myself and my son and his wife in advance of my trip and their moving in. The slides are cushiony and protective against the hard surfaces. I purchased them on Amazon for a worthwhile $60 a pair. They are so incredible that I’ve decided that close family members are receiving these slippers from me for their birthdays this year.

As I prepare to head home tomorrow, I’m both proud and regretful. Next time, I won’t neglect my morning stretch and hopefully I’ll weigh a lot less, eliminating some of the stress on my knees as I tackle the stairs in their beautiful new home.

I don’t really know if I invented the term, “grand-mothering”, but that’s what I’m calling my stay in Philadelphia for the next two weeks to help my son’s family settle into their new home while also celebrating my grandson’s first birthday.

These two professional working parents have a live-in au-pair from Columbia who is here on a J-1 visa. She takes incredible care of my grandson from 7am – 3pm and then she seems to disappear into thin air until dinner. She does absolutely no housework as per her contract and is here for primarily for cultural exchange. I first met her when she arrived last July 2021 when my son asked me to come to help her transition to the U.S. and to teach her how to care for my grandson. I spent my career primarily working with international students, so it really was a natural fit and I enjoyed it. We got along really well and I was happy to hear that she was eager for my return.

My son and his wife invited me to come this time because they needed help again. My son is busy transitioning to new work duties after a substantial promotion and my pediatrician daughter-in-law is already overwhelmed with long work hours at the hospital and motherhood. A move to a brand-new home was too much. My assignments are to organize and decorate the new house, cook and clean, and enjoy baby James.

I walked into their newly built five-level row house and was simultaneously stunned by the beauty and chaos before me. There is so much to do! And I only have two weeks. I spent the first evening just setting expectations, discovering their preferences, budget, and determining how decisions would be made. One thing was evident, they were stressed out by all the chaos and lack of organization.

As a cook, my first priority was to organize the kitchen and then stock the refrigerator and pantry after determining what they wanted to eat. I should note that before arriving, I switched to a vegan diet (more about that another time). They are in no way vegans, however, and we’re uninterested in becoming vegans. So, our trip to the grocery store took longer than they would have liked since we were shopping for two separate meal plans. In fact, it was their first trip to a grocery store in a few years. They usually order their groceries and have them delivered. It was my grandson’s first ever trip to a grocery store and he seemed fascinated by it. I wasn’t certain how many vegan products I would find in the Philadelphia Acme supermarket, but they were not lacking at all. I did end up ordering a few products from Amazon afterward, though.

This first week has been fun and challenging. I’ve been working from sunrise to sunset to get this place in order. Friday, I spent almost the entire day hanging pictures and mirrors on two levels. I was relieved when my choices met with their enthusiastic approval. I ordered printouts of family photos in various sizes from Costco and my son wanted that to be a surprise for his wife. We worked out a system whereby I provide them with the choices of a variety of home furnishing items. They select the items they like most and we order them. It feels like deliveries are being made two to three times every day. I’d like to spend a lot more time in actual stores for some of the items they need, but it’s been like pulling teeth to get there.

My grandson is handsome, intelligent, and adventurous. He never stops smiling and staring at me whenever we are in close proximity. He allows me to play with him, carry him around and rock him to sleep. For St. Patrick’s Day, his Irish mother insisted that he wear the clover leaf pajamas she had especially ordered for that evening. Of course, my son forgot. After a facetime call with her at bedtime, my son had to change him into those pajamas. For his birthday, we all went to the “Please Touch Me Museum” and enjoyed a specially ordered birthday cake.

I’m hopeful that some of the bigger items will arrive before I leave in another week. But if not, I’ll see them installed at the end of April when I return for another two weeks of “grand-mothering” when the au-pair returns home to Columbia for a visit. Grand-mothering is a wonderful retirement occupation.

It is unfortunately true that I wake up every morning to a new revelation of what white conservatives think America should be. In a nutshell, they want America to be ruled by white “Christian” men; they want everyone to be heterosexual and male or female as assigned at birth; they want fantasy to replace actual history and science; and most importantly, they want freedom and justice for themselves, but not for others whose backgrounds, values, and beliefs differ from theirs. And they are willing to fight dirty or violently to get what they want.

These older white conservative men grew up in an America built on a foundation of genocide, slavery, racism, and sexism that specifically catered to their needs and their ambitions. They didn’t have to compete with feminists, people of color, or LGBTQ folks for access to the best education, highest paying jobs, capital from banks, or political power. Even when feminists and people of color finally won the right to vote, white conservative men were able to pass laws that ensured their unfettered choices and opportunities for success in life for many more years, while legally finding ways to oppress the freedoms and opportunities of everyone else. Every small victory for the access was met by opposition from the conservatives and complaints of “reverse discrimination”. However, just recently, the doors of freedom and opportunity seem to have cracked open for the previously oppressed and they want to close them again.

Feminists, people of color, LGBTQ folks, religious minorities, and fair-minded white folks were able to ban together to demand access to justice, opportunities and equal rights. They effectively used a combination of protests, creativity, the political process, lawsuits, and determination to pry open these doors. For conservatives, I think the election of Obama followed by the legalization of gay marriage terrified them. Obama signaled to many white Americans that they were losing “their” country and the passage of gay marriage signaled that they were losing their “freedom” to discriminate and oppress those whom they never accepted as fully American in values, color, or religion.

Instead of turning to prayer, they turned to Trump. I think in their heart of hearts, they know that Jesus isn’t on their side. Jesus calls us to love our neighbors, not to judge nor oppress them. I think they know that the devil is a liar from the beginning, and yet they embraced the liar and his ongoing lies with gusto. To say these conservatives are “Christian” is a disgrace to true followers of Christ. These folks have truly abandoned the faith for an evil bigot and his oppressive ways. They are almost foaming at the mouth in their level of hatred for the push toward justice, freedom, and opportunity for all.

While draping themselves in the American flag and crying freedom, they want to force women to give birth, ban books, prevent teachers from teaching history and science, prosecute parents seeking care for their transgender children, force media companies to carry networks that promote lies and misinformation, defy mask and vaccine mandates that save lives, and block reasonable gun regulations. Their policies are deadly, yet they claim to be “pro-life”.

So, I wake up each morning realizing that it’s not time to celebrate the glimmers of freedom, opportunities and justice feminists, people of color, religious minorities and LGBTQ folks have finally won. The battle continues and it’s only becoming fiercer. The battles are taking place in the courtrooms and school boards across the country and will soon be waged at the ballot box. And it is no coincidence that the conservatives have made it more difficult to cast that ballot.

Gasoline prices are high and they are expected to rise even higher. A few days prior to the Russian invasion into Ukraine, I decided I’d better fill up my gas tank before the prices soared despite having about a third of a tank left. So, I drove my Lexus 300 hybrid to Costco on a Monday around 11am, thinking I’d avoid the weekend traffic, but that wasn’t the case at all. Others must have had similar thoughts to mine because the line was really long. Some drove away, but being retired and with time on my hands, I decided to wait. It cost $47.94 to fill my tank.

As expected, gasoline prices have soared here in California to over $5.00 per gallon. I still have my full tank of gas because I don’t drive very much. At the height of the pandemic, when I was working from home and rarely leaving the house, it took me four months to use up a tank of gas. Gasoline has never been a huge part of my budget because I worked only 6 minutes from home, drove a hybrid, shopped locally or online whenever possible, consolidated errands, and I’m not fond of taking long drives. My Lexus is now eight years old, and I only have about 36,000 miles on it.

Without sending our children to fight, I think we should ban together to inflict as much economic pain as possible upon Putin because of his war on the innocent people of Ukraine. Putin’s major export is oil and about 8% of the oil we consume is from Russia. I already wrote to President Biden and Nancy Pelosi asking that we stop purchasing oil from Russia even though prices will go up. I also expressed to them that reducing our supply of oil and higher prices might motivate us to build the kind of structures that will enable us to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and thereby protect the planet from climate change. This is something we should be doing anyway. I hope others share my sentiment and contact them as well.

History has shown that there are things we can do quickly as a nation during times of stress that seem impossible during peaceful times. This war in Ukraine, while horrible, could be our opportunity to greatly improve our public transportation system, increase production of electric vehicles and charging stations, move to a four-day work week and increase opportunities for remote working where feasible.

Businesses can be encouraged to offer vanpools or help organize carpools or offer remote working, four-day work weeks or a hybrid working situation. They can provide vouchers for public transportation or provide pick-up services from bus and train stops. They can make their car fleets electric. They can install electric charging stations at the workplace. Larger employers can offer on-site food services, childcare, laundry, and gym facilities thereby reducing the need to drive while also improving the work-life balance of employees.

Putin, like Hitler before him, needs to be stopped and he must be made to pay for his war crimes. But every challenge is also an opportunity, and my hope is that we will use this opportunity to punish him enough to help Ukraine while at the same time taking advantage of this stressful time to build a greener and more efficient economy for our country. In the meantime, I pray for the brave and determined people of Ukraine as they fight for their freedom from the tyranny of Putin. I just hope we will care enough about freedom and democracy to be willing to pay more at the gas pump to stop him.