#philosophyofoldage — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #philosophyofoldage, aggregated by home.social.
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"Why I Hope to Die at 75"
I just set up a self-hosted instance of Wallabag and transfered over 3000 articles originally saved to Pocket. Reviewing them, I came across this nine year old article, which I forgot I'd saved. It is more urgently relevant now that I'm 71 -- and the world has taken the turns it has. My wife and I are going to talk about it with our kids.
#PhilosophyOfOldAge
#AlterKackerLifehttps://communitarium.org/wallabag/share/6557def9593238.49610268
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The lawyer advised my wife,
who is downtown with over 130 comrades
for a court appearance relating to their civil disobedience
(blocking 3rd Ave. in front of Kirsten Gillibrand's office last month,
demanding a #CeaseFireNow)
that she's been allowed to wait indoors
while dozens of others have been forced to wait outside in mid-40's (F) temps
because she is deemed a "decent, ordinary criminal"
while they are deemed "political".Incorrect but, in her 70's, she'll take it...
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The Murena One shows how hard it is to de-Google your smartphone
[My wife and I are expecting our Murena One phones to arrive by 2024, at which point the adventure will begin. We are both in the privileged position of being retired (and sufficiently financially secure), so we're in a position to experiment with our phones. The Alter Kacker vanguard!]
#PhilosophyOfOldAge
#AlterKackerLife
#OKBoomerhttps://www.theverge.com/2022/5/31/23144917/murena-one-smartphone-degoogle-android
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Ascending a hill in #InwoodHillPark I encountered a chalked sentiment to which I am increasingly prone
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I just carried a 12-lb. (5.4kg) sack of groceries from the unfortunately- (or is it defiantly- ?) named BJ's on 237th St. in Riverdale (da Bronx) to our apartment in #Inwood, #UpperManhattan, a distance of 1.4 miles (~2.25km).
Does Strava record activity like that? I don't know, but I'll bet not.
I want a damned gold star!
#AlterKackerLife
#PhilosophyOfOldAge -
For the second day running I peed my pants while on a walk through the park.
This confirms my suspicion that I have to ignore the money-saving tip that tells me that Rxs are efficacious beyond their expiration dates...and start taking meds that have not yet expired. -
I need a special search engine which,
given my mishearing of a lyric,
returns its best guesses as to what that lyric *really is*.
The first query I would make:
What was the singer who
(emanating from a boom box I passed on my walk through the park)
I *heard* to be singing "I feel like a mud pie"
*really* singing?
Once I've construed a lyric that way it's hard to clear my head sufficiently to figure out what the true words might be... -
@ivalaine
Increasingly, my perspective seems to be:
outside, looking in... -
On my return from the grocery store I was able to ascend the hill whose descent had been blocked earlier this morning.
(Finding the previous post representing this situation is left as an exercise for the scroller.) -
Out on my first walk outside in days, I am thwarted in my normal path through the park and must seek a path less taken.
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I seem to have been spending a lot of time, over the last few weeks, trying to make sure that I remain on friendly terms with my mortality.
It's not that I feel my death is imminent.
It's just that the fact that my end is always closer has been figuring more centrally in the way I conduct of my daily life, for some reason. -
As my (moderate) frenzy of
setting up,
configuring, and
testing
the various new sites which I hope to somehow knit together into one, multifunctional community platform
proceeds
I am, even in retirement, confronted with something like a work/life balance quandary.I've been spending so much time setting them up that I have to remind myself to conduct a... normal ... life.
It's 90° outside, here in Upper Manhattan -- in APRIL!
I'm going out for a walk!
#PhilosophyOfOldAge
#AltaKackaLife -
Sure, okay, #OldPeopleOfMastodon -- but, personally I identify more with:
#AltaKackaLife
#PhilosophyOfOldAge and aspire to multi-generality with
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity -
My wife has been cutting my hair for over a decade. She won't let me go near her hair, preferring a long subway ride from 215th St. down to Lafayette St., on the Lower East Side, to have Jeffrey cut it.
Below, the results of this morning's shearing, in reverse chronological order.
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‘We have money and power’: older Americans to blockade banks in climate protest
Demonstrations at 90 sites are billed as first major action by older activists: ‘It’s not fair to ask 18-year-olds to solve this’
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It occurs to me that,
contrary to the old song,
I don't "got a lot of living to do". -
I'm OMW downtown to discuss with my gastroenterologist what last year's endoscopy and my recent SIBO breath test tell us about the state of my gut biome.
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For Older Americans, the Pandemic Is Not Over
Seniors are increasingly left to protect themselves as the rest of the country abandons precautions: “Americans do not agree about the duty to protect others.”
“I don’t think people understand how Covid affects older Americans. In 2020, there was this all-in-this-together vibe, and it’s been annihilated."
#Covid
#AlterKackerLife
#PhilosophyOfOldAge
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunityhttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/11/health/covid-pandemic-seniors.html
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My wife has informed me that she cheated on me.
She ate her half of the cranberry tart purchased at the Farmer's Market this morning before we could sit down and share it over coffee.
I will console myself over a cup of coffee and half a cranberry tart. -
In a family videochat, my wife asked "Why do charities send cards? Who sends cards anymore?"
As part of her #DeathCleaning today, she uncovered evidence substantiating her contention. -
I decided to celebrate my 65th straight day of studying Yiddish on Duolingo...
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Turns out that I was supposed to administer a covid test this morning before I left the house. They sent me to a local pharmacy to buy one. They administered it.
Once I tested negative they collected a baseline breath sample and had me chug-a-lug (more or less) 8 oz of sugar water. I'll be tested again in awhile, to see what impact the sugar had.
This is my first trip downtown in months.
Yay.
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I'm on the downtown A (first time since my bout with COVID), traveling to a unit that will be administering a SIBO breath test over the course of several hours. I've been on a whitebread, black coffee and water diet for the last 36 hours, so I'm in a particularly good mood!
#AltaKackaLife
#PhilosophyOfOldAge -
My wife, as part of a death-cleaning sweep, has decided that this 2012 copy of "Medication and Mothers' Milk" is past its use-by date.
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Before anyone asks: I'm all right.
I post this link because-- still contending with some of the after-effects, physical and psychological, of a moderate case of COVID-- I find it necessary (and comforting!) to think more about my mortality.
It would probably do us all some good to think more forthrightly and fluently about our own deaths. -
I awoke late so my wife went to the Farmer's Market alone.
She dropped her gloves and, because it is still painful for her to bend *and* she had neglected to bring her reacher-grabber, couldn't pick them up.
She relied on the (solicited) kindness of strangers to retrieve them.
Moral: A person's reach should exceed their grasp so *remember to bring the reacher-grabber*! -
A month ago, before my spell of COVID-19, this morning's walk to the Post Office and the bank would have been a pleasant little foray.
Today, post-COVID, it was quite wearing.
More evidence that, in my 70's, it just takes much longer to bounce back, regain an acceptable level of fitness, after a period of inactivity.
I'm going to need to adjust what I expect of myself.
#PhilosophyOfOldAge -
When my wife picked up the Paxlovid from the pharmacy she was also able to pick up 8 free test kits for me, since I'm on Medicare. They ran out, so she'll return tomorrow to pick up 8 for herself.
We are each eligible for 8 free tests every month.
Get sick and learn! -
Heading downtown for a brief visit with my doctor and to get a COVID booster.
In the minutes before I head out I recognize that a small dread has formed:
- leaving the neighborhood
- walking on rain-slicked surfaces
- walking down 110 steps to Broadway and up ~50 steps to the elevated 1 station
- riding 150 stops, masked, on a subway train on which the majority of riders will be unmasked
- doing this all in reverse on my returnDread doesn't stop me but it's there.