EDITCrotchety Old Lady Complains 1

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Views from the Train: Mission style farm.

• Crotchety old lady here today:



• I dislike being told that there’s nothing wrong with my hip flexor, it didn’t go snap in yoga, and I just have to cut down my activities because it is osteoarthritis. Hip replacement is the only alternative. I’ve glad I took G with me when I went yesterday as I felt vastly less alone. I’m sure my GP wonders why I didn’t come in to have my knee looked at when I fell or have my neck looked at when it stopped working a week or so ago. Oh, Grrrr!



• Did I say I was tired of cooking? I’ve been doing basic food prep since I was in grade school. I’ve been cooking real meals since I was twenty one….as have all of us. And I’m not alone in my tiredness. Most of the folks when I work don’t cook any more. No one but me still uses cookbooks. Bob, one of the pricers, now has a computer in his kitchen and just looks up recipes for what he needs. My cookbook collection is an anachronism.



• Meds: I’ll only complain about this once. I’m afraid. In the last year, two meds no longer work. Most prescription meds have the opposite reaction. Like the orthopedic doc, none of them read my allergy list when I bring it in. He said they use Lidocane….which has a paradoxical reaction, and only looked at the med list when I raised a fuss. Marcane, the nearest substitute, no longer works. What will happen when I am older and can no longer be my own advocate?



• I should do a dry run way up the coast to the mammogram clinic for tomorrow. Why can’t it be done down here where I live. I’m going to work at the store tomorrow and just leave for the North very early in case I get lost. Complain, complain, coomplain.



• G had instructed Lessa’s mechanic to fix her SUV last time not fix via Band-Aid.



• Ok, now that I’ve complained, a lot, I feel better. On to the good stuff. Despite M&M’s, while I was sick I managed to lose one pound. The Geezer gained. I’ll read yesterday’s poem to the group today over lunch out. Dinner out. It will be a good, sunny, warm day at the beach. What more could I want.

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EDITS
I need to start making notes of the editing suggestions from the poetry group, or I forget the why of them. Don’t dangle “The’s.” That’s a biggie. Another more important note, they didn’t understand. The words “your” and remittance” didn’t make the point at all. In fact, no one in the group caught the word “remittance” in it’s context. No one knew what a remittance “man” was. A work has to be clear to have the impact one expects. No one here caught the reference either. Tho I have to stick to the syllable count, so many words aren’t needed. So here’s a revised, retitled work. Inheritance



...................................I’ve always spent too much of your money
...................................to have someone else do my work, do my
...................................dreams, lead me on into naivety
...................................when at age twenty I should have known some

...................................questions to ask. At age thirty I knew
...................................answers but I was mad as a hatter
...................................and spent all of life wantonly in a
...................................wonderful insanity till forty.

...................................At age fifty, education took it all.
...................................At age sixty, I went to Paris
...................................not quite spending everything, and
...................................at age seventy, I’m impatiently

...................................paying for tests with this last remittance
...................................when I’d rather be dancing till dawn.