I'm Old

Saying for the Day- All would live long, but none would be old. Benjamin Franklin

Ways I know I’ve reached old.

1. All my teeth have left the body.

2. I can’t remember people’s names. ( I couldn’t when I was twenty either but now its because of age.)

3. I take my cute little oxygen bottle every where I go.

4. A big day is visiting all the blogs I link to.

5. I list the same link to visit two days in a row. ( Thanks Quilly for calling it to my attention)

6. Pain in the morning simply means I’m still alive.

7. I am beginning to understand Betty.

8. I let Betty do the driving.

9. I am afraid the dog will knock me over.

10. I shop on a power chair.

11. My ears don’t work well. ( I have a hearing aid)

12. I ride a lift chair to the basement, ( I don’t do steps)

13. My children have reached middle age or advanced youth.

14. I can't find my glasses because I'm wearing them.

15. I can’t remember what it was I decided last night to blog on today.

So you see I have made the steep climb and reached old. ( The alternative is dead)

#### News from Pigeon Falls-The little town in my basement where the trains still run, dragons fly, and life is back to normal. They are having a birthday party for Mabel Stetson tonight at Last Lutheran Church. She will be one hundred years old and she still lives alone in the house her parents built. Her husband Jake died twenty years ago and though her children have invited her to comer and live with them she couldn’t bring herself to leave the old house. She has visited them, of course. She has more airline miles than some business men. But when she visits she soon gets homesick and flies back to Pigeon Falls. Tonight all of her children ( she had fourteen) that are still alive (eight) will be here along with some of her grandchildren, most of her great grandchildren, and one great, great grandchild. Her son George, who is in a nursing home will be brought by his children and is looking forward to the event.
Friends from the Church will be there as well. Mabel hasn’t gotten out much lately. She hurt her back chopping wood and has been taking it easy. She hasn’t been to church for a month and that is very unusual for Mabel. Pastor Joan has been bringing her communion and keeping her up to date on what’s happening in the church.
So it will be a really big celebration tonight. Petrovich ( a distant cousin) will be the Master of Ceremonies and has taken time from his driblet study to put together a short history of Mabel. Her parents came from Russia and moved to Pigeon Falls when Mabel was ten. They built their own home in which Mabel now lives. She met Jake when she was sixteen and married him when she was seventeen. For the next fourteen years she had a child every year, not one of which was born in a hospital and only two were delivered by a doctor. The rest of her children were delivered by a midwife. According to Petrovich when the midwife moved away Mabel went through a midwife crisis and decided to have no more children. That decision didn’t hold and she had the last two delivered by a Doctor. During the years she was having and caring for the babies she also planted potatoes, milked the cows, fed the chickens, chopped wood, and made all the clothes for the family.
Tonight she will give her great, great, grandchild a little jump suit she made while her back kept her from doing other things. The only question is whether Last Lutheran can hold all the people that intend to celebrate with her.
*******

Today's Link- A Bee in her Bonnet-Learning from children.
A hard breathing day . I went through two of the little oxygen tanks. In the morning I visited some of the blogs I didn't get to yesterday. In the afternoon Betty and I cut a piece of plywood to fit the "last" table we need for the layout. Then I went downstairs and put the table together. Betty came down and painted or started to paint the mountain side. THen I did some more blogging. Now I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA