Cleaning for the cleaners

For years I swore that I never would use a cleaning service, I was sure no one could clean my house to my satisfaction; plus, I really didn't like the idea of strangers in my home. About fifteen years ago I developed arthritis in my hands and one Saturday, after spending the full day cleaning the house, I was tired and my hands were really sore. I finally gave in and started searching for a good cleaning service. 

Since then we went through three or four different services but one thing remained the same. We cleaned up for the cleaners. Well, to be exact, we tidied up. I felt foolish doing it, but that didn't stop me. Since then I have discovered that it is actually normal and a good idea. The less clutter the cleaners have to deal with the better, and quicker, they will clean. As time passed our preparation for the cleaners expanded.

At first we just cleared surfaces. Now we empty all the waste baskets and put the trash and recycle out. This is because we discovered that our cleaning service didn't bother to discriminate between trash and recycle. 

Our current cleaning service has a large number of clients who have Airbnbs. As a result the cleaners are used to clearing all surfaces and emptying the dishwasher, they even wanted to wash our sheets and towels. We managed to convince them to leave that to us. Even still after a cleaning, we had to search for the remote controls and table mats which had been stuck away out of sight. 

At first I stripped the beds on cleaning day, and left fresh sheets for them. But I am very fussy about how my bed is made and after a few occasions having to totally remake the bed I changed the sheets before they came and we left the bed made up. A number of times that didn't stop them from remaking the bed to suit themselves and I had to remake it yet again. So now, before they come, I make sure the bed is picture perfect and they leave it alone. 

One time recently, I left the dishwasher going—we always leave the house when they come. When we got home I noticed that the dishwasher door was not closed completely. They had emptied it. The problem with that was twofold, One, the cycle had not completed and two, they had no clue where to put anything. Sure enough, it took me all day to find the items they had removed from the dishwasher.  So, wash dishes and empty the dishwasher was added to our list of prep work. Perhaps I could get a sign to put on the dishwasher; they would probably take it off and put it somewhere I would never find it.

If this goes on much longer it will be easier to clean the house myself. Perhaps not, they do wash all the floors and dust and vacuum, plus most of all, clean the bathrooms. That alone is worth all the effort on our part. And it is only once a month.

What you say and what kids hear

As I was writing a previous post, about being active, I thought to myself that it was a shame I was never athletic; that thought conjured up a memory from way back when I was about seven years old. Sports Day at the Loreto Convent Beaufort in Rathfarnham Dublin. I went on my own. The school was about half a mile from where we lived and in those days it was perfectly normal for kids to wander the streets unsupervised, including crossing streets. 

I entered almost every event and got a first in the sprint, I have no idea what the distance was; second in the sack race and third in the egg and spoon race. I entered but was not placed in the three legged race. I couldn't wait to show my mother my prizes, three books! I knew she would be impressed and I lived to impress my mother. There were six of us, three boys and three girls; I was number three, plus the middle girl. It wasn't easy to get my share of the spotlight.

When I got home and showed my mother my prizes, waiting expectantly for her praise, all she said was "Stop showing off dear." I was devastated. I never took part in any form of sport at school from that day. Of course, I don't blame my mother. As I said, she had six children and a husband who was worse than useless. She was probably exhausted and unhappy. I never spoke to her about it and I am sure that if I had she would have no memory of the occasion. 

At the time, I heard so much more than she said. At least I am pretty sure that all she said was "Stop showing off dear." She hated showing off. But what I heard was, "You are trying to be better than your sisters." Of course, that was because I believed I could never be as good as my sisters. They were both beautiful and outgoing while I was awkward and painfully shy and I knew she would never love me as much as she did them. Although I didn't speak to her about that particular incident, many years later I did mention to her that I always thought my sisters were so much better than me. Her response was "I know what you mean! I often looked at them and wondered to myself 'Where did I get those swans from'." Confirming my childhood feelings of being the ugly duckling were not misplaced. But also giving me insight into the fact that she also felt like the ugly duckling.

And yes, I do realize that the story of the ugly duckling is backwards.

Don't get me wrong, I got over all that rubbish many years ago. Months of psychotherapy helped me to let go of past hurts, real and imagined, and find my own self worth. But not everyone is as lucky as I was, so please, even if you are exhausted and miserable, fighting your own demons, be careful what you say and even more important, what you leave unsaid—at least where children are concerned. Who knows how different my life would have been if my mother had told me she was proud of me, or even just said "Well done." 

On the other hand, I am very happy with who and where I am today. Looking back, I wouldn't change anything

A body in motion

I recently finished up a second round of physical therapy on my shoulder. I referred to this issue in a number of previous posts, the issue being long head bicep tendon dislocation to be exact. 

I left the clinic after my last appointment with a sheet of exercises to be practiced daily—forever. These exercises add weight/resistance work to my program. 

Spine

I am aware that exercise is important for everyone, the older you get the more important it becomes. As you age, joints wear out and arthritis sets in. Bones thin and osteoporosis starts the slow dissolving of the skeleton. It is true that regular exercise reduces the impact of both of these inevitable deteriorations. 

It is as important to keep muscles strong and working, this reduces the risk of falls. Falls frequently are the death knell for the elderly, breaking hips which no longer have the capacity to heal is a big cause of death. Here is a scary statistic from theconversation.com:

"One in three adults aged 50 and over dies within 12 months of suffering a hip fracture. Older adults have a five-to-eight times higher risk of dying within the first three months of a hip fracture compared to those without a hip fracture. This increased risk of death remains for almost ten years."

I suffer from both osteoporosis and arthritis in various joints, including my knees, so I am aware that exercise is important and for the last twenty-eight years, since moving to the US with only myself to consider and take care of, I have exercised, just not consistently. At first I had gym memberships and later I purchased a treadmill and weights machine and had my own mini gym at home.  When I met and married my husband, the home gym was replaced with a bedroom for my stepson and I started running in the early morning, outside. That didn't last long as the weather in Texas is not very supportive of outdoor activities, at least during the Summer, and the Spring—and often the Fall. Eventually I got another home gym setup and did use the treadmill for long periods, unfortunately these were punctuated by, also long, periods of excuses—the demands of work mainly. 

In the last two years however, I have hit the treadmill five mornings per week, for a full hour. Four months ago I added thirty minutes of Yoga to my schedule. Two months ago, twenty minutes of weights/resistance training was added—a result of the shoulder injury. You have to be retired to fit all of that into a day! And I don't even like working out.

I do have to admit that I am noticing the advantages to all of this. For one thing I have a wonderful feeling of achievement. Secondly, my muscles do feel stronger and joints are less painful. The biggest obvious benefit is that I find it a lot easier to get up off the floor. You might wonder why I would be on the floor in the first place—yoga is practiced on the floor, well on a mat, but the mat is on the floor. It is remarkably difficult to get to your feet from the floor, or for that matter, down to the floor, as you get older. After four months of yoga, this morning I sat on the floor, cross legged, without thinking about how to get there, and without remembering how I did it. In other words, it was not an effort. That makes it all worthwhile.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, falls are the leading cause of injury-related deaths in older adults. Plus, serious complications from falls, like pressure sores, dehydration and pneumonia, are more likely if you aren't able to get into an upright position. Older adults who maintain muscle strength and flexibility through regular physical activity are less likely to fall. 

My advice is don't wait until you are old. A body in motion stays in motion according to Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein agrees with him. 

Eleven months later

I find it hard to believe that I have now been retired for eleven months. I keep waiting for it to feel normal, for that Monday morning feeling to stop appearing and for the TGIF feeling to occur every day. It still has not happened.

Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying being retired. I am loving being removed from the toxic politics that is part of every large, and some small, corporations. The hypocrisy of lip service to valuing employees while never demonstrating that care when the need arises. But, I wonder would I have settled into retirement more easily had it been my choice to do so? Of course, it was my choice to retire but only because that was the lesser of two evils.

As I saw it, my situation was very much like walking the plank, stay and suffer multiple stab wounds with a long sword or step off into the unknown. Well, not entirely unknown. I knew that my salary would cease to arrive every month and my health care would be reduced to what the US considers sufficient for old people, don't want to waste too much money on them. I gave myself four months to get used to the idea before I finally departed Amazon, without a ripple and without an exit interview—that is something I am still angry about. The only good wishes were from my direct reports who did make a huge fuss over me and did express deep regret at my departure. In fact, almost all of them have since left that group themselves. During those last four months I trained my senior engineer to take over from me and I planned how I would fill the time once my gainful employment was no longer. 

I have always had a number of hobbies, and we had recently moved to the lake so fishing and boating had been added to that list. I knew that I would not get bored, but I was not so sure about being challenged. That is what appealed to me so much about my work. Admittedly, my writing does challenge me though not in the same way. My work presented a constant need to learn; technology changes and Amazon is quick to adopt the latest and greatest. Writing requires discipline. Fortunately I don't write to find myself on the best seller list. I write for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I can't not write. And of course, I do have my retirement obsession, Masterclass.

On a good day, and to be fair most days are good, I will tell you I am no longer bitter about how I was treated. My one brush with depression was a very long time ago; fueled by a broken marriage, menopause and a car accident that permanently damaged a number of vertebrae in my neck. Since then I rarely have a bad day but on occasion I will admit that I am still bitter about it. Bitter and angry that I was treated so very badly. (Yes, I did blog about it here.) Frustrated because the recourse I thought existed to protect me, was a lie. Amazon didn't value me and didn't care if I stayed or left. By the time I did leave I think they were very glad to be rid of that squeaky wheel. No grease was forthcoming.

Whatever the reason, on Sunday evening I still find myself getting organized for the coming week. But Monday is no different to Sunday now. I also still get that feeling of relief on Friday morning in anticipation of the coming weekend, again no different to any other day in reality. I wonder if it is that way for every retiree? perhaps it just takes time to adjust no matter how much you planned, no matter whether retirement was a choice or was forced upon you. After all, forced retirement was ended in 1986; before that the only people who retired by choice were those who had the means to retire early. Even then, it wasn't unexpected—there was no plank walking to be done.

So I will continue to try to let go of my bitterness and continue to enjoy my retirement for as long as the Universe allows.

Computers and Utility Bills

At the beginning of this month, April, I wrote about my Friday; the day my computer fell sick. I have not written anything since then for a number of reasons. Sometimes I don't post to this blog for days because I am busy working on my other writing, sometimes it is because I have nothing to say of interest—though you might think from some of my posts that would not stop me! This time it was computer related, combined with the physical therapy which is ongoing, for my rotator cuff problems.

After spending an entire weekend attempting to cure my computer without success; all diagnostics pointing to dementia—memory issues. As the computer was three years old and apparently these days that is obsolete as it would not support an update to Windows 11, we decided not to mess with replacing the memory and just bite the bullet and buy another computer. 

Amazon may have discarded me but I still enjoy being able to get fast delivery of just about anything. The new computer arrived within a couple of days. Naturally there was some work to be done on it before it was ready to use. Updates applied to the OS and software installations, such as my embroidery design software and of course our virus protection. That was where things got messy. The virus protection, Bit Defender, refused to cooperate. Eventually Larry contacted them for assistance. They said the reason the software would not install was because our network was infected with a virus, or more accurately, a trojan. How could that be? we have used Bit Defender for years, on all our machines. In fact we had successfully installed it on a new laptop only a few weeks previously. "Well," the support tech said, "it is because your network doesn't have the firewall installed and it has been infected within the last few weeks." We were passed along to their security tech.

This resulted in three full days coordinating with that tech, not to mention calling our bank and credit card companies to block access to our accounts and request new cards. The security tech installed Bit Defender firewall on our network, then cleaned all of our devices, two desktop computers, two laptops and a network storage device. Needless to say we were somewhat stressed and definitely annoyed with ourselves for missing such an important protection. Once the network was secured and cleaned, we set about updating all of our passwords and securing our accounts and our new cards.

Of course, the problem with new passwords is that you tend to forget them and just days later Larry locked himself out of our electric supplier account. He asked me to try to access it. In order to do that we needed our account number. At this point I need to go back a bit to give you some background. When I met Larry I was incredibly anal about keep my household accounts, and files. When I first came to the US I knew that I must have seven years income tax records at all times. And I did. But I also kept every scrap of paper associated with every penny owed, paid or spent. Receipts, bills, statements; you name it, I had it all filed away. Larry told me this was not necessary. He was completely the opposite. He believed in keeping nothing, other than the tax records of course. He convinced me to get rid of it and to stop 'hoarding'. I did, up to a point.

Back in 2015 I wrote here about a crazy experience I had attempting to close a bank account, in an Irish bank. The bank manager required identification before he would let me close the account, which had a grand total of EURO 59. I happily produced my Irish passport. Not good enough he told me. Had to be either an Irish driving license or—wait for it—a utility bill. I pulled out my Texas drivers license. No, that wouldn't do. I explained that I had been living in the US for over twenty years and didn't maintain an Irish drivers license and never thought to travel with a utility bill. Read my post if you want the full details of that debacle. However, the result is that I always keep at least one utility bill with my current address on, just in case.

Larry shreds all of the bills once they are paid. He used to not shred anything, so at least I got him to do that—the reason why you should is covered in this post. Luckily, the utility bill that I had saved was an electric bill and we were able to get our account number from it, logged into the account and updated the password again.

The good news is, apart from accessing our electric account online, our network and computers are safe, clean and healthy, my shoulder is improving and I have that precious utility bill in case I ever need it. Also, we got rid of the Trojan before it did any damage.

Today

Friday was a strange day.

It started as normal. Friday is my 'day off', that is I do not work out on Friday. I usually try to get a little extra time in bed and often manage to stay there until 5.0 a.m. This Friday I got up shortly after 5.00 and as I headed to my office, I noticed that my computer screen was displaying a blue screen instead of the usual cycle of photographs. A closer look confirmed that the computer was sick. It had apparently attempted to heal itself but had failed and was displaying a miserable message: "Automatic Repair Couldn’t Repair Your PC"

I tried a few things to see if I could get it working. No luck, so I decided to wait for Larry to get up and see if he could figure it out. 

We had an appointment to get our second booster / fourth COVID vaccination at 10.00 so the computer would have to wait till we returned from that. It didn't take long, But, after the shots Larry had a few things he needed to do so it was midday before we got home. Under Larry's supervision—he is better with hardware than I am—I tried a number of things to try to fix the problem. I had my laptop to google the various error messages. Tried running chkdsk, that failed due to read only issues. Luckily, I am very comfortable with the command line and was able to access that. Nothing Google suggested worked.

We do run a background process which backs up our computers and saves the image to our server, so we tried restoring one of these. Still no luck. Despite the fact that I had a double backup of my important files, my writing, on OneDrive and on a USB flash drive, still I was getting more and more stressed by the frustrating failure to solve the issue. 

When I noticed that my shoulder was starting to ache, I removed myself from the office and sat with a heating pad on my shoulder for a while. No, this was not the booster causing the pain, it was that same shoulder that necessitated two months of Physical Therapy. Two weeks previously I had gone back to the PT and she discovered that the large bicep had once again popped out of its groove. Some expert manipulation had forced it back into the groove, and two visits a week for 4 weeks would be required to strengthen the muscles and retrain me to use my back muscles to support any shoulder movement. I certainly didn't want to impact the progress so far. I was aware that stress causes me to tense up my shoulders in a way that might cause more damage. The heat helped and I forced myself to relax and pay attention to my shoulder.

We had planned to meet with my stepson and his wife for dinner. I was looking forward to a dine out experience. Something that was a regular occurrence before COVID was now extremely rare. That fell through but we decided to go out to eat anyway. We have a restaurant just over a mile from our home and it is reasonably good. That was where we went. 

When we returned, as we pulled through the gates into our community, I looked at the familiar street, lined with town houses to our left, against the backdrop of the lake behind them, and a steep incline to our right with the backs of small row cottages that once had a clear open view of the lake and now looked down on the town houses that were built across their view. The slope is scattered with small Spanish Oak trees clinging precariously to the sloping rock face—it seems that all of Texas is solid rock. The trees are interspersed with small rock walls, I presume to stop the cottages from sliding down the rocky slope into the roadway. Home again, I thought to myself, with a feeling of nostalgia. 

In that moment, I realized that there might come a day when that roadway in front of me would become a memory. Something I would look back on with that feeling of nostalgia I just experienced. This was exactly the here and now that I had promised myself I would soak in and enjoy as it happened, not relegating it to be remembered fondly sometime in the future, with a knowledge that I had not enjoyed it enough at the time. 

I need to keep working on living in the moment. I even blogged about it here. Today is the yesterday I will be nostalgic about tomorrow

Larry is still working on the computer and I am using my laptop while that is happening. We are fully boosted. And my shoulder is improving. Life is good.

What I miss about working...

 —and what I love about being retired.

Now that I have been retired for almost a year, ten months to be exact—I retired on 31st May 2021—I can see more clearly what I miss most about working.

Human interaction. But at a professional level. I am an introvert. I was painfully shy as a child and into my teens. I still do not enjoy large social gatherings, except with family. I hate small talk, talking for absolutely no reason. Since I retired, my husband and I will go for days without seeing other human beings. Fine with me, as I said, I don't enjoy idle conversation, particularly with strangers. But I find I miss the work related discussions where the team worked through challenging problems to come up with innovative solutions. 

Daily challenges. I loved my job and found the challenges stimulating and very satisfying, even when they were equally frustrating. I particularly loved coding. Coming up with automated ways to minimize manual intervention and then writing the code to implement these tools.

Management. Watching and guiding my team to grow their careers. That was probably the most difficult, and the most rewarding part of my job. Difficult because Amazon made it so. There was a very demanding set of requirements for anyone within Amazon to achieve promotion. And so rewarding managing to meet those requirements and see a talented engineer achieve their well deserved goal.

Independence. I am not sure if that word fully encompasses what I mean. I miss having places to go, such as the office or to conferences; things to do, deadlines to meet and meetings to attend. All of it seemed very mundane at the time—apart from the conferences which I loved—but now, looking back, it represented independence and a mission that I was on. Of course, my car was also a big part of my independence. (Mentioned here).

Of course I do also miss that regular paycheck.

What I love about being retired. I have blogged about this a few times as I became more familiar with the idea. As retirement was forced on me, it was difficult to adjust at first. But I think I am getting the hang of it. The best thing about being retired is time.

Time to spend on me. I never have to cut my workout short, if I get up a little later in the morning, I can still do a full hour on the treadmill, plus 30 minutes Yoga. I am probably a lot healthier now. When I was working, I often had to skip my workout or cut it short.

Time to write. I haven't done much blogging this month because I have been working on writing short stories, and on my book. I can, and sometimes do, write for hours each day.

Time to shop when the stores are quiet. I don't like shopping and when ever possible I do it online, but grocery shopping I prefer to do in person. The stores are almost empty mid week, during the morning. 

Time for my other hobbies, fishing, boating, embroidery and reading.

Of course I do love that I no longer have to tolerate being bullied by bad managers.

Downsizing

When we bought the condo on the Lake Travis North Shore, the plan was to use it as a weekend getaway. We talked about eventually moving there when I retired. My retirement was very much a figment of my imagination at that time. I didn't plan to retire. I didn't want to retire, I enjoyed my job and it was very rewarding in every sense of the word, even if it did require me to put in a whole lot of hours, sixty hours a week was normal.

I couldn't retire because I was the sole earner in our home. When my mother in law, who was living with us, started to lose her eyesight, my husband quit his job to stay home and take care of her. He drove her wherever she needed to go, and that was a lot of driving. She had multiple doctors for a start; dentist, nails, hair, shopping and more. We had bought a large house when she moved in with us, in order to satisfy her need to have a full master suite on the ground floor, it was expensive to renovate and maintain. I covered all of this in a number of different posts, so just repeating myself briefly for some background.

The Universe knows best and in quick succession, my mother in law moved out (see here for details), COVID-19 struck and I was forced to retire (see here for those gory details).

Many people downsize when they retire. At that point any children are grown and out on their own and income is suddenly reduced. There is usually plenty of time to plan. Moving from a larger home to a smaller one means less furniture, less storage space and less room for everything. In our case, we had two fully furnished homes. The one we were selling had 5 bedrooms and a large bonus room; a huge kitchen with masses of cabinets and a large, walk in pantry; a three car garage with workbench and a big collection of tools. We had already sold my car as we had no need for two cars during the pandemic, I was working from home. The home we were moving to had three bedrooms and a two car garage. The kitchen wasn't tiny, but it was compact and with a very small pantry.

We identified the few things we wanted to bring with us. Our computers and printer, some of the kitchen equipment as a weekend kitchen is sparsely equipped. Clothes obviously, and a few pieces of furniture—a set of shelves and a couple of bedside tables and of course, my sewing machine and a couple of desks. That was it. What to do with the rest!? We invited my stepson and his wife to take anything they wanted. They didn't have much room and just selected a few pieces. Next we asked our cleaning lady and she took most of what was left of the kitchen equipment. 

While we were packing and gathering stuff to take to Goodwill, I contacted a friend who was a realtor in the area and she arranged to come out and look at the house that Saturday. I warned her that it was a total mess because we were in the process of packing. At 10.30 a.m. she came and walked through the house. She said she was meeting a couple of clients at 12.30 to show them some houses and they might be interested. I said go ahead but warn them it is a mess. At 1.30 she called me with an offer, 'as is' and including the furniture. She also said they would undertake dealing with any mess and disposal of what they didn't want. 

Before my last day at work, bearing in mind that I had been working from home from some time, I went into the office and cleaned out my desk. I left behind a small refrigerator, a lot of technical books and a coffee maker along with some old mobile phones and tablets which I used for testing. Even still, I had a box of pictures, mugs and assorted bits and pieces to find a place for in our new home.

We were downsized. It has taken me two years to get used to the reduced storage, particularly in the kitchen. Occasionally I look for some item that I left behind in the old house and have to decide if I want to replace it or not, where would I put it?

There were four reasons our downsizing was so disorganized

1. We had no warning that Mildred was going to move out.
2. My retirement was not planned.
3. COVID was rampant.
4. We already had two fully furnished homes.

I like my little condo, the area is quiet (most of the time), because most of the neighbors are weekenders. The summer gets a bit noisy at weekends. But all the rest of the time, we can sit in silence and gaze at the lake. That is, when we are not out on it fishing.

I miss my car, but I don't need it. I miss the extra storage space, but I am learning to live with what I have got. I occasionally miss work, mainly my team and the challenge the job presented. I do not miss the office politics, nor the bullying that resulted in my decision to retire. 

I will never miss back scratchers. We had one in the bedroom—in both houses, on our desks at home, on my desk at work and in the living room—in both houses. For some reason, we felt it necessary to bring all of them along with us.

Your federal return was accepted

When I first came to the US I was aware that Income Tax was a big issue. Of course we pay taxes in Ireland, but compared to the US we are pretty much spoon fed. Deductions are made from our income with little or no input from us, almost everything is taxed at source and tax time is just a matter of filling in a form in case we have extra deductions, or income the tax man is not aware of. This is optional, you do not have to do this unless you are requested to do so, by the IRS. Nothing like the huge task it is here. 

When I was living in Ireland, Americans were known for their very loud voices and constantly complaining about taxes, so I knew taxes were not simple here. My first year in the US tax system was complicated because I had lived and worked in Ireland for exactly half of the year and lived in the US for the second half but working was somewhat unconventional, despite the fact that I had a green card. Two months in summer camp for pocket money, then three months 'off the books', and finally, in December, I started working in the system. That year I did the dreaded and very unfamiliar tax return by hand. It was painful and stressful. Forms of any kind stress me. I got it done and I was not audited that year. That was tax year 1994.

During the following year I bought a state of the art, 486 computer. It came with some free software, including Intuit's Quicken. I used Quicken for my household accounts for the next twenty years, upgrading every couple of years.  Because I was using Quicken, it was a no brainer that I would also use Turbro Tax to do my taxes. 

I stopped using Quicken when Intuit sold it and the new owners made changes to the software that destroyed it, in my opinion.

I used Turbo Tax until 2015 when I switched to H&RBlock software. I made the switch because I had a somewhat complicated year in tax year 2014 with employee shares vesting and sold for the first time in my life and a change in employer after thirteen years. 

I was offered a free copy of H&RBlock and so did my taxes with both Turbo Tax and H&RBlock that year. I discovered that while it was not quite so easy with H&RBlock, the refund was slightly larger. I wrote about that here. Since then, the interface has improved drastically and I continue to use it.

I absolutely hate tax time. I start to get stressed about it around October time. I purchase the latest version of the tax software as soon as it is available, then constantly open and update it, until mid February. By then I have most of the tax forms required to complete a first run. Then I wait some more, for further updates to the software and for the last of the tax forms to come it. Finally I finish. Then I wait some more. I am always afraid to submit the completed form for fear there is something wrong with it. So I check and double check. Finally I electronically submit it and wait. When I get that message back "Your federal return was accepted" I can breath a sigh of relief.

At least I do live in Texas where there is no State tax. I lived in California for two tax years and that was so much more complicated. Having to do both Federal and State returns was double pain.

This year was also a little more complicated, as I retired at the end of May and switched to Medicare and stopped earning a salary. I am hopeful that next year will be a lot easier but I suspect it will also be the first year that we will not have a refund and will probably have to pay the tax man. Why is that?

When my mother in law moved in with us, I also did her taxes for her. an elderly widow, not exactly retired as she never actually worked, but definitely not earning anything other than social security. I wrote here about her taxes always resulting in her owing the IRS. Of course, if she had more tax deducted from her social security payments, that possibly would not be the case, but that was such a small amount in the first place. I fail to understand why you would pay into social security all your working life, retire and start drawing from that only to be taxed on it again. It doesn't make any sense to me.

And on a more personal note, I had twice the stress doing two sets of taxes, plus my MIL was never happy that she owed money and made me feel like it was my fault. I did feel bad about it. I just don't get how badly the US treats it's elderly. 

Take for instance, Medicare. That doesn't cover any dental or vision costs whatsoever. Which means the US don't believe old people need teeth, nor do they need to be able to see. The only way to get these benefits is to pay extra for supplemental insurance.

I guess I just proved I am turning into an American, obsessed with taxes. At least now I have a better understanding of why it is something to complain about, it is not the payment of the tax, it is the preparation of the returns that is the problem.

Getting older and getting better

There was I lot I thought I knew about being old as I was growing up. I used to carefully observe my grandmother. I knew that you developed a lot of aches and pains and these appeared to vary in intensity in direct relationship to weather conditions but were continuous no matter what the intensity. I knew your hair slowly turned gray and thinned. I knew you often repeated yourself. I knew that you started to move slower and sleep less.

I even knew that bones became brittle and breaks took longer to heal. I also knew that you lost height, in part due to becoming more stooped but also due to bone loss—though when I was a child I didn't understand bone loss. I also didn't relate my grandmother's decrease in height to my own increase in height; not that I grew very tall, but, between the ages of 7 and 13, I did gain some on my grandmother.

I also didn't realize that it didn't only take bones longer to mend, it took simple things like cuts and bruises longer to heal—and easier to acquire as the skin becomes more fragile. I published this post dedicated to my grandmother, she was a wonderful example to me and an amazing woman.

When I turned my attention to older people, other than my grandmother, I noticed that many grew fatter and crankier, some even became odd and distant, though not my grandmother. She was very careful of her weight, she was always cheerful and rarely complained (I knew about the pains because she took medication for arthritis and stopped knitting and sewing). She was also as witty, curious and sharp as she ever was, right up until the day before she died—and then only because she went into a coma.

I am normally extremely healthy. I rarely get so much as a cold. I only have a few of the ailments that go along with aging. I don't have a problem with blood pressure, cholesterol, heart or lungs. I do have osteoporosis, (as did my mother and my grandmother) but these days that is easy enough to control. And so far I have not lost any height—a good thing as I don't have much to spare at a half of an inch above five foot. I also have an under active thyroid, but that is not exclusive to the elderly as so do many young people.

Since COVID I have not had a cold or a sinus infection despite the fact that I stopped getting my allergy shots. I am convinced this is due to wearing a mask, it blocks the pollen that causes allergies which in turn irritate the sinuses; it also reduces the chance of picking up colds. I will find it difficult to stop wearing a mask in public even when the pandemic is no longer a threat.
 

However, prior to COVID I used to get very stubborn sinus infections, eventually also getting ear infections on the side. I don't ever remember have an ear infection in my life before. In fact, though I grew up in a time where tonsils and adenoids were removed like teeth or warts (and yes, in those days teeth were pulled without consideration or knowledge of how to save them)—in spite of the times, I still have my tonsils and adenoids. Now, sometimes it takes two doses of antibiotics to clear up a bout of sinus.

Not so long ago I got a paper cut. Very normal occurrence, not so normal that a full week later it was still not fully healed. I decided to do some research and was surprised to find this article, which states:

"As one ages, the capacity of an aging nose to produce mucus is reduced as the mucus membranes lining the nose (nasal mucosa) become thinner. 

Poorer blood circulation to the nasal lining also results in less humidification of the air passing through the nose, resulting in nasal dryness. 

Furthermore, in the elderly, the clearance of the mucus from the nose is less efficient. The combination of a thick mucus which the body is unable to clear efficiently together with the lower immunity results in a higher risk of sinusitis in the elderly,"

This article was halfway between downright scary and somewhat insulting (to the elderly).

"We worry so much about the way we look on the outside BUT … what about the inside? Have you ever thought about the skin inside your body getting older, getting damaged and getting thinner?"

And what about this one!? Now we know why witches are portrayed with long, drooping noses.

"With aging, the physiology and function of the nose changes. The nose lengthens, and the nasal tip begins to droop due to weakening of the supporting cartilage. This in turn causes a restriction of nasal airflow, particularly at the nasal valve region (where the upper and lower lateral cartilages meet). Narrowing in this area results in the complaint of nasal obstruction, often referred to as geriatric rhinitis. "

This is the only article I could find that came close to explaining why a paper cut should take longer to heal, and it makes a lot of sense—it is mainly because it will be deeper. It also explains why bruises occur more easily, look so much worse and take longer to heal.

"Skin becomes thinner with age and loses some of the moisture and connective tissue support that makes it strong. This means that a cut can may often be deeper than would be the case in a younger person. More importantly though is that the body’s repair mechanism is not as efficient with advancing age"

Here is a post I wrote following my mother in law's injury and healing after a fall.

The problem is, we (the elderly) don't realize we are old, oh we know what age we are, and we understand that at a certain point, that is considered old; but inside we are the same person we were as a child, teenager, young adult.

Sometimes when I look in the mirror I think 'who the hell is that old woman'!? But at some point we need to accept the advancing years and be more aware of our fragile skin, mucus membranes and god alone knows what sagging is going on, on the inside! Probably just as well we do not know.

Relocating

This is something people who live in the US tend to do a lot, however, they mostly relocate between States, not countries. While there can be huge differences in everyday life between States, given how enormous the US is, varying climates and cuisine (I wrote about some of the differences in cuisine here) and a variety of imported influences, there are still less unexpected differences than experienced when moving between continents.

As I mentioned in my book, Peeling the Onion, I had not expected to encounter a language barrier when I moved to the US from Ireland, where English is the first language—but I was surprised (read my blog here about that).

Almost 28 years later I still get caught out by language occasionally, when I use an expression and see blank faces, I realize I have used an 'Irishism' and it has not been understood, so I then have to explain myself. I can't tell you how often I have seen that blank face and said "oh, you don't say that here, do you?"

But there are other things that are also unexpected and can be difficult, particularly if you are past your prime when you relocate, as I was—habits of a lifetime are hard to change, and that is always assuming that you are aware that they are considered 'wrong' in your new location, or just not understood, or worse, misunderstood.

Take for instance date formats (this from W3)

Weights: luckily there are many calculators online, (this is one), as in Ireland weight is expressed in ounces and pounds up to 14 pounds, which is 1 stone. In France, for instance, they are fully metric.

Measures: just about everything you care to measure is different
Distance and Speed Limits:

Pints: there is no way that I could have figured all this out without Google:
Here is another site I use (Check Your Math)

Clothing: I still have to google these conversions, particularly shoe sizes when I am buying shoes to send to my grandchildren in Europe—and even then, it depends of whether I am sending to France or Ireland—because they are not even the same. Here is another cool website for this information.

Shoes

Clothing

Driving

In order to work, I had to get my US driver's license, so I had to quickly learn the rules of the road differences—all way stops were the most scary. Turning right on a red light - that just felt wrong and still does. School zones and School buses, all rules that don't exist in Ireland and all needed to be mastered before I could take the driving test.

Even more significant is the fact that in Ireland we drive on the left, therefore the driver's seat (and associated controls) are on the right. In Ireland, particularly when I was learning to drive, but even today automatic transmission is extremely rare. Everyone who owns a car, drives a manual shift—and not everyone owns a car as public transport is extremely good (see this blog) and cheap, plus it is almost impossible to find free parking anywhere in major cities. When I first arrived in the US, I bought a car with manual transmission—sat on what I considered the wrong side of the car, and it took me weeks to stop clutching at the door handle in search of the gear shift, which of course is on the left of the driver in Ireland, but on the right in the US. At the same time I had to concentrate very hard to remain on the correct side of the road, multi lane junctions and U-turns were the most difficult as I got somewhat disorientated while negotiating these. I still have to think before I get into a car, in case I climb into the wrong side. What is kind of pathetic is that I also have to do that in Ireland now.

Once again, weights & measures come in—in Ireland gas (which is called petrol) is purchased by the liter (spelt litre), here it is gallons.  Consumption is kilometers per litre in Ireland, miles per gallon here. And if all that is not confusing enough, speed limits are posted in Ireland as Kilometers, here it is normally miles, however, in South Dakota there are signs displaying both.

Irish speed limit sign

Regular US sign

South Dakota Sign

Spelling

Then you have the problem of spelling. I used to be quite good at spelling, but since I came to the US my spelling has gone to pot, both in UK and US English. I found this website to help me.

Pronunciation

There are also differences in pronunciation of some words on either side of the Atlantic, as well as between States, particularly Southern States have a law of their own, quite separate from accents. I will give you a few examples:

Vitamin, Aluminium (I know, it is spelt differently also), Privacy, Schedule, Ate, Garage, Water, Mobile, Advertisement, Herb, Tomato—and there are many more.

And what is worse I still get jeered for what Americans consider my mispronunciation, not just teased, seriously—jeered. There was the occasion (and I may have written about this one before—because it still annoys me when I think about it) when helping out at a Haunted House set up I was asked to get some Duct Tape from the supplies. I waited in line while a geeky type dealt with each person's request. When my turn came, I asked for duct tape—my Irish accent apparently made it sound like I said 'duc' tape' and he pretended to not understand what I was saying and made me repeat myself multiple times, then said in an extremely condescending tone 'In America we call it duct tape' and gave me a roll of tape.

Finally, while I love my life here, there is still that feeling of having left a part of me behind—which of course I have done, and I don't just mean family, I mean a part of my life, my past—the familiarity of places where I grew up that trigger memories and emotions. There is no place in the US that was ever part of my childhood, or part of my teenage years. It is hard to explain, but I think this sculpture does it better than any words :

A beautiful sculpture by Bruno Catalano demonstrating that piece an immigrant leaves behind

And of course, the Irish have been emigrants for centuries, here is another sculpture that I particularly like—depicting the famine emigrants.

Customs House Dublin. Painfully thin sculptural figures, by artist Rowan Gillespie, stand as if walking towards the emigration ships on the Dublin Quayside.