You Know You are Middle-aged When. . .

Rapid Change*, pencil drawing, title indicative of life as a middle-aged being

An older and wiser friend reminds me from time to time that life is like a roll of toilet paper–the closer to the end, the faster it goes.

I’ve been thinking lately that you know you are middle-aged when. . .

. . . you prefer hiking uphill to downhill because your knees kill you going downhill.

. . . you choose not to watch a movie because you don’t want to shuffle 3 remote controls and don’t understand why it is even necessary.

. . . your pastor, doctor and the president are all younger than you. (Not so with the current president, in case you were wondering.)

. . . you go to your class reunion and can’t find your friends among all the old people.

. . . you know the words to the orchestrated songs in the grocery store.

. . . you notice young people driving too fast instead of old people driving too slow.

. . . you recognize the word “update” as a euphemism for “complications and trouble ahead”.

Do you have anything to add to this list?

*Rapid Change is available for sale here.

 

What I’ve Learned Recently

One of my favorite bloggers, Anne Bogel of “What Should I Read Next“, posts a list of things she’s learned at the end of each month. Being a copyist, I’ll borrow this idea and tell you a few odd facts that I’ve learned recently.

  1. Tulare County used to have a building designed by Julia Morgan, the architect of many lovely buildings in Monterey (at Asilomar) and the Hearst Castle (and probably many more things I know nothing of). The building was the tuberculosis hospital in Springville, since replaced with a more “modern” structure.
  2. The tuberculosis hospital was a “sanatorium”, which is a different thing than a “sanitarium”. The first is a place where you go to be helped, healed or cured; the second is more of a spa.
  3. Huge & Rude, the telephone company that “serves” Three Rivers, keeps trying to sell something called “Uverse” to its customers, in spite of no fiber optic cables beyond the main building in town. Beware of this baloney if you live in Three Rivers; many of my friends and neighbors have gotten into techie-messes because of this misunderstanding.
  4. I found some shoes that I think are fabulous by (oh how embarrassing this is) looking on Pinterest. They are made by Keesky, come in a wide variety of colors, are very comfortable and only cost about $18. Here’s a link: great shoes
  5. Weird stuff happens. Our friend crawled out and walked away from this with almost no injuries:

    An upside down car in a ravine
  6. There is an ailment called “SIBO” – Small Intestine Bacterial Overload. It has slammed a friend hard, one who went vegan thinking she was eating healthy. Sigh. . . who knows what “healthy” even means any more? (Remember when butter, bacon and coconut oil were bad for us??)

What have you learned recently?

Happy Birthday, Marilyn!

Extra birthday wishes to Sylvia, Pam, (oh no – is yours the first or the second of Sept.?) and Ron T.! Happy birthday, friends!

Today’s post is for Marilyn, AKA The Captain. Just some photos of new flowers, and a get-well wish along with a birthday greeting.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARILYN! GET WELL SO WE CAN HIKE TOGETHER AND DISCOVER NEW FLOWERS TOGETHER AGAIN.

(Remember when we found Western Eupatorium??)

What is this?
Collomia
Felwort
What is this?
What is this?
What is this?
What is this?
What is this?
What is this?

 

Western Eupatorium

Hiking Mineral King – Eagle Lake, part 2

The rock section of the Eagle Lake Trail is very challenging if you were just expecting a little walk in the woods. Sometimes you have to wiggle your feet between some boulders, sometimes you have to just guess where the trail might be, sometimes you walk on a slab of granite, and none of it is very easy.

There are rewards: this is “Heather”.

After the rocks, there is another section that I forgot about. It isn’t too hard, but you have to watch your step because of all the roots. Trail Guy said there needs to be more “trail checks”, which are things that catch rocks and dirt when water is flowing down the trail; otherwise, all the fill dirt washes down the trail, exposing the roots of the trees (none of which show in this photo- you’ll have to trust me on this.)

Eagle Lake is one of 4 lakes dammed by the Mt. Whitney Power Company so they could control the water flow for producing electricity. Trail Guy is heading out over the dam; doesn’t it look like a lovely inviting path?

Welcome to Eagle Lake. Wish I’d brought some M&Ms. We earned them.

Trouble is, now we have to retrace our steps.

I think of the Eagle Lake Trail as “roots and shoots”, because there are zillions of roots to trip over, and all those rocks required lots of shooting with explosives to make the trail. The evidence is in those star-ish shaped dealies on the rocks.

“Ridiculous!”, said Trail Guy, about the condition of the trail.

The vertical meadow below the sinkhole and above the trail junction to White Chief was still full of a variety of wildflowers.So interesting that Eagle Lake is the most popular Mineral King hike destination, and it is probably the very worst trail. Our conclusion is that people like the name, have no idea what they are getting into (it’s only 2.4 miles one way – how bad could that be?? Try 2+ hours to walk it and then decide for yourself!), and most people want to go to lakes.

Hiking Mineral King – Farewell Gap

Two days after Trail Guy went to Farewell Gap via a loop, we returned together with our new best hiking buddy Jessica. The point of the hike was to see Sky Pilot, an elusive high-elevation flower that we’ve never seen anywhere except Farewell Gap (not that we go anywhere outside of Mineral King. . .)

Here are my photos of that trip.

The flowers are still great at the “Junction Cafe”. This time we didn’t stop here for lunch but just kept heading up and up and up.

A previously-ignored or never-before-noticed, not-in-the-books yellow wildflower
This reminded us of marigolds, and if I can’t find it in any book, I will simply title it myself: Mountain Marigold.
I think this is the same thing, looking down from the top. Most of them had 3 sections of petals.
Stonecrop? Nope, that’s yellow. This is an unknown high-altitude succulent.
More unknown high-altitude succulents.
Blue Lips are still in bloom up high. This is late for them!
Identify yourself, Unknown Shrub!

The lupine up on Farewell Gap have white accents, and the penstemon is a color I’ve never seen it in before.
Sky Pilot – THIS is why we hiked 6.7 miles one way, uphill.
I was thinking of this hat as a Lupine-head, but Jessica wore it in honor of the Sky Pilot.

I felt sort of tired, and thought, “How disappointing, I’m out of shape”. It later occurred to me that middle-aged people who are truly out of shape don’t hike 13+ miles in one day at high altitudes (or low ones either).

Sorry, Trail Guy – no one will come by to give you a lift back down to the cabin.
Jess and me with the Golden Trout Wilderness/Forest Service land behind us.
Jessica and me with Timber Gap in the background.
Franklin Creek continues to flow strongly, but it is easy to ford now.

Thoughts After a 40th Class Reunion

My 40th class reunion from Redwood High School in Visalia just happened. I have a list of thoughts pertaining to the event.

  1. Spouses from other schools don’t belong – they are bored, and people generally don’t come to reunions to see who other people married.
  2. I only saw one person scrolling through his phone (a bored spouse).
  3. No one gave me a business card, but I handed out many.
  4. It is good to stay sober at reunions.
  5. You can wear anything you want – shorts, jeans, fancy pants, dresses, high school logo tee shirts – it is merely an expression of one’s personality. (There were no leggings, thank goodness, because leggings are NOT pants!)
  6. Women seem to be aging better than men, but this is probably because hair accounts for 90% of one’s appearance, and most women color theirs (I am one of the exceptions, and no one cared or noticed.)
  7. Loud music and low lights make the experience less enjoyable.
  8. Less rah-rah (silly prizes for non-essentials like the most tattoos or youngest spouse) would give us more time to study faces, remember names and reconnect.
  9. It would be very interesting to know where people live, what their interests are, and what they do for a living.
  10. Everyone is thin and beautiful in high school – the video confirmed this.
  11. A class of 410 is too large to know or remember.
  12. The most interesting people to reconnect with are those from elementary or junior high. . . those with the longest history together.
  13. The most precious friends are those we are in touch with currently – our friends in real life.
  14. Skipping the class reunion when you live in the same town seems rude, especially to those who travelled great distances to come.
  15. Those who went away and then returned to the area usually did so to be near aging parents.
  16. Instead of silly or generic prizes, it would be good to get things from classmates who own businesses.
  17. There was a prize for the classmate who has changed the least – it wasn’t given to a woman who looked the same but instead it was given to the woman who looked the hottest and youngest!
  18. It would be very fun to have a list of everyone’s interests, jobs, locations, websites, emails, blogs, etc. . .

Since you have made it to the end of my list, I will reward you with a picture of my very smart spouse who had the wisdom to stay home instead of attending a party where he would have been bored half to death. I will return the favor when his class reunites for their 50th (in 4 years, in case you were wondering).

Oh Say. . .

. . .Can you see that we live in a fabulous country?

Oh Say, oil painting on canvas, 6×6″, sold

Random Thoughts

Today’s post is a list of random thoughts, unrelated to art, things that one of my tens of readers might be interested in.

  1. Crocs shrink if you leave them in the sun. Mine are too short to wear now. Isn’t that weird? Rubber shoes shrink in the sun! (maybe it is related to #2. . .))
  2. After it has been 107º for a week, 97º feels balmy.
  3. I’m editing a previously published book about the Visalia Electric Railroad. It was first published in a hurry, the Tulare Co. Historical Society is ready to re-order, and author Louise Jackson and I know we can do a better job of both the text and the photos. So, we are working on it and hope the TCHS will agree to publish it in a real book format instead of 8-1/2×11″ with dark photos, “Foreword” misspelled, the stock market crash happening in 1939, and someone joining Pancho Villa’s cantina band, as if he were a guitar player. Intrigued? I’ll let you know if this turns into a book.  
  4. What I’m reading (or recently finished): 41:A Portrait of My Father by George W. Bush, Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman, Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough, Alone Together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other by Sherry Turkle (If you click or tap on any of the book titles, you’ll get to the Amazon page that sells the book. If you buy, I might earn 15¢ or something. . .)
  5. Samson still bites.
  6. What I’m listening to: The Smartest Person in the Room, Brian Buffini, Gretchen Rubin, The Road Back to You, What Should I Read Next
  7. No memorial services this week for me. 2 in 2 weeks is 2 too many.
  8. I think white flowers are boring. Did you think this post was boring? (Go ahead–tell me the truth; I can take it!)
Ranger Buttons, a white wildflower