Rough Draft

I Love Winter, But...

...I'm done with it now.

I do love the winter season.  No, really, I do. I love when the weather starts to change and the beautiful colors of autumn turns into a cold, white, dormant winter.  I love the cozy aspect.  Simmering soups and dark evenings. Curling up on the couch and reading a book.

However.

Somewhere around the beginning of April it all changes for me.  Besides the obvious appearance of spring on the calendar I begin to get itchy for warm weather.  I'm no longer in love with soups simmering.  I'm totally out of love with my jackets and coat and can hardly look at the basket of gloves, hats, and scarves another minute.  And I am convinced I will enjoy my books much more in the cool air-conditioned house.

I'm ready for summer.  (Although, spring in Idaho is simply beautiful and worthy of a bit more attention than it gets.) I want to get out in my vegetable garden and the fact that I must continue to wait another week or two (there is still a wee bit of snow on those mountains) is absolutely driving me crazy.  I want to see color in my yard.  Flowers blooming.  Vegetables growing.  Barbecue, um, warming? I want to sit outside in the early evenings with a glass of wine (and that book) and breathe in the fragrance of freshly cut grass.  I want to wake up in the early morning wearing flip flops and head out to my vegetable garden to water and pick produce.

I want long, warm, light days.  Taking the kids to the pool.  Waking up without an alarm.  Spending my evening not making lunches for school the next day.  Relishing Thursday evenings in a relaxed state instead of a crazed, hurried, homework-laden state.  I want to go barefoot.  I want to hear the sprinklers make their rounds from the front yard to the back...three times a day.

So while winter has a warm and cozy place in my heart, as the calendar turns now to May I am MORE than ready to welcome the hot sunshine, the hum of my air-conditioners, dusting off my flip flops, and my hands dirty from planing in my vegetable garden.

Of course tonight they are saying we may get a little snow in the valley.  Are you kidding me?

 

Seniors

There is something that is bugging me.  (Oh, shocker.)

Can anyone tell me why WHY senior citizens believe, wholeheartedly, that they can do and say anything they want simply because they are over the age of sixty?

Do they feel this way because they have lived a good (or not so good, I don't think that point matters), long life and therefore entitled to say whatever comes into their brain?

Here is what I find disappointing.  These seniors are the ones years and years ago that taught and insisted on good manners.  Say please and thank you.  Get your elbow off the table.  Respect your elders.  Work hard.  Stand up straight.  And so on.  And suddenly after the age of sixty they throw all that shit out the window and act like a bunch of spoiled, cranky, indigent, I've-paid-my-dues assholes.  Could this be the reason that assisted living establishments have been popping up everywhere? Or, have seniors historically acted like they can do and say whatever they want at any time and directed at anyone?

And I'm about up to here with them justifying every rude, stupid, idiotic comment with, "I'm having a senior moment" about as much as my kids tell me no one says, OMG anymore.  Can I just go around being rude and mean and claim it on a headache? (Not easily and without some reprocusions.)

I just spent two weeks around senior citizens and let me tell you I didn't find it amusing to watch these (older) ladies act rude and mean and then laugh and mutter how they are old and therefore that gave them the right to say whatever it was that came into their mind.

Once these people hit sixty are they handed a Get Out Of Being Polite card? Does that arrive with their first social security check? Are there instructions that advise all seniors to forget how they acted for the first sixty+ years, and to now go ahead and be rude dimwits?

Do we lose patience as we age?  Do we suddenly lose enough brain function that we have forgotten to continue to be nice and polite?

I'm sorry but I don't give a shit how old you are...stop acting like a rude bitch!  And for the love of Gawd, stop blaming EVERYTHING on your age.  Can you imagine hearing teens every minute acting rude, egotistical, and impatient (okay, many teens ARE rude, egotistical, and impatient) all those seniors would jump down their throats for how AWFUL THOSE KIDS ARE!

Shouldn't these people just be mellow? Chill seniors.  Take a load off.  Relax.  You have way less to be concerned about that would make you cranky, rude, and impatient (especially compared to mothers with sleepless nights, toilet training, teenagers, etc.).

I don't think seniors should let all they have taught and instilled over the first half of their lives and spend the remaining complaining and rude.