I am becoming concerned about my brain. There’s too much going on in there. While exercising at the gym I have my ear buds in listening to music, but sometimes I do not actually hear it because I got distracted by something on the tv screen that has no sound. Then someone comes in the door and I get to thinking about what kind of person they might be but I look down at the timer and I still have a few minutes to reach my goal. The song in my ear changes and I get lost in the lyrics and then lost in the memories the song triggers and then I am back to wondering how my mind became like a rabid squirrel. AND, I remind myself that we are out of milk at home and I forgot to thaw out something for dinner and an appointment needs to be made to get the dogs’ nails trimmed and that reminds me that I need to schedule a booster shot. Good grief! I will not accept that this happens when a person is on the downhill side of 77. Wait a minute. That could be an issue. At my age there are so many memories, so many things still to do, and way too many lessons learned and a whole lot of trivial information that serves no practical purpose and all that takes up brain space. Just like a computer with a full memory gets slow and maybe even crashes, my brain is overloaded. So, maybe I am okay after all. Not really sure about that explanation, but I like it so I am deciding to believe it.

I used to do the same thing with religion — choose to believe it for about half my life until it just didn’t make sense to me anymore. Gave it up and became a happy heathen instead. Now that can be a mind clearing experience. I like making decisions and choices based on what is real and evidence based. I like that there is no reason for me to fear hell. Hell isn’t real to me. I really like giving up the guilt that goes along with religious thinking. I just do my best. The freedom to choose what to believe and what to discard is something I am way grateful for. It can be a challenge for those who knew the old me and expect her to still be here — but that is for them to deal with. I’m just going to stay happy with myself.

Spent some time catching up on the news today and as so often happens there is very little that is new and very little to be glad to know. There is still war in the middle east, in Africa, between Ukraine and Russia and probably several other places that are not covered by our news media. The world is still a mess, as it has been as long as I can remember, which is a fairly long time. Politics here in the USA is destressing and local news is all about crime and sports. I kinda like the sports part. Even so I am grateful to be where I am and living the life I have.

For the time being our country is not actively engaged in a war. For now, we have freedoms here that are not common in most of the world. There things that I am so very pleased with about the United States. I love that there are people here from all over world and I get to meet some of them.

The last time I was in an airport waiting to board I heard several different languages and saw faces the many shades of humankind. There were young families, business people, couples and single senior citizens. I met a young girl in a wheel chair who was going away to college and all excited about it. She wants to be an engineer. On the plane my seat was behind a young couple with a toddler who was curious about everything, as toddlers usually are. The little girl kept peeking at me over the seat and her father apologized for her bothering me. I was not al all bothered, rather entertained. We played peek-a-boo and, after getting permission, I shared my graham cookies with her. For sure I had a new friend for the flight.

Here in the small town where I live most folks look pretty much the same. That’s not awful, but it is limiting. I grew up in a small town and it was much the same as this one. Being a small-town-girl only keeps aspirations and vision small if one stays there. I have found that travel, reaching out to groups of people different from me, reading about everything I possibly can all make me a bit less small-town. I will probably never be a sophisticated urban woman, but I hope to be more informed, more open to change and more accepting of that change as long as I this life lasts.

It’s not a good sign when the first words out of my mouth in the morning are WTF. Nothing really wrong, I just was not done sleeping yet but the dog needed to go out and the husband got to the bathroom ahead of me. So, while keeping my knees close together I went to the door and let the dog out then stood outside the bathroom door until it opened and it was my turn. Not a lot feels better than peeing when you really need to. Very little chance I can go back to sleep but gave it a try anyway. Turned one way then the other and after cussing a bit got up to have coffee and hope for an attitude adjustment to make a better day.

Here’s the thing about an attitude adjustment — you have to do it yourself. So I took my coffee outside where I could watch the hummingbirds buzz around and enjoy the morning sun. It was quiet in the neighborhood and the weather was just right. Okay, feeling more like my cheerful self I decided that some toast and jam would be just the thing, and it was. For just a moment I almost brought myself down by thinking that I really need to go to the gym, even though that is the last thing I really want to do. Ditched that idea quickly and decided to have a day off from all the shoulds and just please myself. More coffee was pleasing and then a walk around the neighborhood with good music in my earbuds.

The husband decided to mow the back yard so I went inside to catch up on the news and clean up the dog hairs and paw prints on the floor. The rest of the day was devoted to a novel I am halfway through, a hot bath and grilled steaks for dinner. Now it is halftime of the Chiefs and Falcons game; I am a glass and a half down on wine and beginning to wind down for a good night of sleep. Such a simple life I have and I am so grateful for it. Tomorrow may be a pain in the ass, buy I will handle that when it gets here. Right this minute it’s all good.

This morning I took my great-granddaughters out for breakfast. They are four and six years old and have that special wisdom of children who are curious about everything. They keep this jaded old granny on her toes for sure. When I picked them up their mom had them dressed up in pretty dresses, straw hats, sunglasses and their favorite shoes. They were a hit at the restaurant with oh-so-cute comments all around us. I learned from the four-year-old that Fruity Pebbles are better without milk and that cats are faster than dogs. The six-year-old wanted to know if the sky dies. Well, eventually everything that lives also dies, but for the sky I suspect it takes a long time. She explained to me that Pluto must have died because it isn’t a planet anymore because it moved too far from the sun and somebody made it stop being a planet. I was also informed that shooting stars die before they hit the ground. We talked about stars that we see are really just the light from stars that died a long time ago but the light still shines for a long time. I don’t recall this from my first-grade years, but then that was a very long time ago.

We returned to my house for a few hours of play before taking them home. We had purchased new toys at the gift shop that took up a little time before changing to hopscotch and exploring the neighborhood for a while. The fallen leaf collection is still in the back seat of my car but I drew the line at trying to save the feathers of a bird that appeared to have tangled with a cat. I delivered them back to mom and dad and having gotten a kiss from their baby brother headed home to wind down a bit with the husband.

It is too hot and humid outside for me so I entertained myself with some television. On Saturdays I usually catch up on recorded Bill Mahar episodes and other items of interest. Rachel Madow’s documentary From Russia with Lev is worth watching. I already knew some of this, but not to the extent she reveals. I recommend it as a way to exercise the brain. I have found that there is more real information in late-night comedy than in news broadcasts and I rarely learn anything new from celebrity interviews and nearly nothing from paid political ads.

Learning, I think, should be a lifelong strive for wisdom. I grew up in a small town and then moved to another small town where I still live. Many of the people I have known have travelled away from their hometown only for vacations to places like Disney World or a concert not too far away. This is not the best way to learn about the world. There is much more of it than our little bit of ground and neighbors who are not much different from us. I am grateful to have seen at least part of this country and met people from other nations and cultures. And, grateful for books. Books about everything are free to read at the library and they can take you to anywhere your imagination allows. My hope for the great grandbabies is that they travel, and read and meet people who are very, very different from themselves. That they hear and maybe learn languages from the rest of the world. That when they are old like me they still want to know more.

This morning, I spent some time at the gym, which I try to do a few times each week. The stationary bike was my warmup next to two elderly gentlemen (I know I am elderly, but not as much as they are) who began to discuss the election. They talked about how Trump is going to fix this mess. One mentioned that Trump will put these socialists in jail where they belong. The other said that the woman doesn’t know how to be president. I just kept peddling. Then the man nearest me asked me how I would vote. I wish he hadn’t done that. So I told him. My vote will be for the Harris/Waltz ticket. Why. They actually know what they are talking about and Trump doesn’t. They respect the rule of law and Trump doesn’t. Both care about and have plans to help veterans, like you two, to get the services they need. And, she is more qualified than any candidate we have had for a few elections. I respect your right to see things differently than I do but I cannot agree with you.

After that I was treated to a recitation of his accomplishments, mostly false, and reminded that he is a Christian man, definitely false, and that the economy was better under Trump. So there being no point in trying to educate them I just smiled and said, “Okay. We disagree. But have a good day.” I moved on to the rowing machine.

Thankfully not all elderly men are cult members. A much older, almost 100, gentlemen who works out regularly and who often walks beside me on the treadmill while we talk came in as I was finishing up and asked how things are going. I mentioned that politics was getting in my way again and he laughed. “Oh, you mean those two? They were dumb asses when we were in high school and as far as I can tell haven’t learned a damn thing since.” He made my day, as he often has before. I decided to walk a bit longer and we had a good visit and a few laughs.

Maybe I forgot one of the things my dad taught me. That we should not waste time with idiots.

I am so much enjoying staying with my son’s family for a few days to celebrate my grandson graduating from high school. They live in a lovely small town in the southern half of New Hampshire and coming here is always a treat for me. This state, especially the lakes region and the White Mountains is beautiful in every season. It’s bike week right now and motorcycles are everywhere. Graduation ceremony is tomorrow night and then on Saturday the grandson is having a small party at home with some of his friends. I look forward to meeting them and will make snacks for the party, be sure that plenty of soft drinks and food are available, as an assist to his mother, then get myself out of the way. I recall my younger days and my grandmother hovering over my party was not my idea of fun.

When this grandson was born eighteen years ago, followed by his brother a year and a few months later I was pleased to have new babies to love. I thought there probably would not be more babies for me to cuddle. Well, since then my granddaughter has had three babies. We have a great granddaughter who is six, a great granddaughter who is four and a great grandson who is one. Every one of the grands and great grands have had a bath in Granny’s kitchen sink and been rocked to sleep in my favorite chair. The first grandson is thirty now and the mother of the greats is twenty-six. I am seventy-seven this year and I believe that there will be no more babies before I am done, but one can never be sure.

A few days ago I was near my old neighborhood and decided to drive by the house I grew up in to see if it had finally fallen down. My great grandfather built the house during the first years of the twentieth century so it was well over a hundred years old. All gone now. All I saw where the house used to be was the concrete slab it was built on and a lot, a whole lot, of weeds. Sad and inevitable.

I remember that house to always be full of family and friends and laughter and music. My maternal grandparents lived there when I was a small child and my mom, dad, brother and I lived there with them so that we could help with my grandmother who was ill. After both my grandparents died my family lived there until I graduated from high school. There were three of us children, myself, my brother and sister. But, there was always a cousin, sometimes two, staying with us. Then in middle school two boys were added to the family. The oldest of my foster brothers is six months older than me and the youngest a year behind me. It was common for all of us to have a friend staying over on the weekend so it was noisy and chaotic and fun.

Holidays were a big deal that we spent days, sometimes weeks, preparing for. My great aunt Louise, a widow, was always included in family events and entertained us playing the grand piano for sing-alongs and assisted mom with meals. Our house was after all where she grew up with my grandfather, her sister and brothers, so she was literally right at home. She was the organist at our church so usually began our song fests with hymns, but after my dad made her a couple gin and tonics she played boogie and even some rock and roll.

Christmas was the social event of the year at the old house. The boys and dad cut a tree and we always had a tree trimming party a week or so before the holiday. Cookies and punch and old and new jokes and stories were the order of the day and many of our school friends helped hang ornaments and lots, really a lot, of tinsel on the tree. Christmas day was a party all day long and into the night. There was a huge spread of ham, deviled eggs, several casseroles, cakes, pies and fruit salad, yeast rolls and the punch bowl full of eggnog. All day, as different groups of aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors and special friends came and went the food was moved from the fridge to the table and back again. The teens played ping pong in the shop; the adults visited in the living room or later in the day played cards at the dining room table. Penny poker mostly. The old house seemed to sigh with relief when the end of the day came and quiet settled over us all.

I parked on the street and walked around the neighborhood for a bit. All that I have in my memory is only that now. The house is gone as are others where I used to sit on front porches with neighbors. The little town where I learned all that was important for me to know is smaller now than ever. Since I left there sixty years ago there is hardly anyone I remember there. I walked past the Kalbacher building that housed a bar when I lived there and walked by what was Judge’s tavern when I was a child. Just a small, boarded up old brick building now. Same for what was the bank, post office and grocery across the street. All empty and dilapidated. The bar at the base of the bridge that crosses the Ohio river where my grandfather used to drink, a lot, is still there and functioning. I thought about stopping in for a drink, but I was driving, so no.

I love to read banned books ever since high school when I checked out Lady Chatterly’s Lover from the library. It wasn’t available in our school library of course, so I went to the Dale Carnegie library in another town. Our little town didn’t have a library at all. At that age I found it to be a more real kind of love story. Surprisingly enough the description of oral sex did not inspire me to give it a try. Just like the old bible story of Cain and Abel didn’t make me want to murder my brother. I was more impressed by the quality of the writing and the careful building of the characters. So, I read more works by D. H. Lawrence and learned more about the world outside the little bubble I was growing up in.

A quick look at the list of most often banned books makes me think far too many folks are going through life with a big stick up their ass. Must be hard to navigate that way. I cried when I first read To Kill a Mockingbird and again when watching the movie. The realistic depiction of racism and bigotry made me see the existence of those terrible traits in my community. That book was part of my growing disdain of the abuse of minorities by those who appeared to be upstanding citizens.

Some may be surprised at which books have most often been banned. Like Huckleberry Finn, The Diary of Ann Frank, Of Mice and Men, even Through the Looking Glass with Alice in Wonderland. The Bible has also been banned, which actually makes sense to those who have read the whole thing. I somewhat understand that some object to Nabokov’s Lolita and Huxley’s Brave New World because of explicit content that the very young might not need to know just yet. But please trust me, high school kids already know this stuff. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger was intriguing to me and as far as I can tell had no negative effect on my morality.

Last year I sent a copy of Maus to my grandsons specifically because this graphic novel by Art Spiegelman was banned in many school libraries and I am convinced that knowledge of the Holocaust is essential to a complete education. I hope my children and grandchildren always read banned books so that ignorance will not be part of their character.