As my friends and I navigate our 60s and 70s, we notice — with amusement and consternation — how our conversations have changed. Instead of talking about our kids’ college applications and the best camping sites, we find ourselves discussing back pain and long-term care insurance. The bottom-line concern, of course, is how to create the best quality of life as we age.
When my friend and I couldn’t get a table at Junior’s, we sat at the counter. Of course sitting at the counter means having lunch with the stranger next to you.
If you are offended either by the idea of cremation or humor about the dead, you may want to stop reading. It\’s OK.
For the past six years, my mother\’s often challenging journey and our evolving relationship have inspired much of the writing in my column. Although she\’s no longer here in my life, she\’s definitely still alive in my thoughts and memories.
Within the first moments of the comedy/drama \”Sunset Park,\” I wanted to get to know Sheila Oaks, who plays widowed mother.
Stella Goren is only about 4-foot-10, but she packs a strong punch.
It all started when she was turning 79, and her husband asked what she wanted for her birthday.
\”I\’d like to work out at a gym with a personal trainer,\” Goren told him.
In spite of thinking she was meshugge and assuming this wouldn\’t last, her husband gave his wife of 45 years what she wanted.
\”I was very happy,\” Sam Goren recalled. \”I didn\’t have to go out and buy her a present.\”
It turned out to be the perfect gift. Goren has been working out at the In Training Fitness Center in Hollywood, and loving it, for the past five years.
My mother has become a serene and content old woman.
The changes, probably due to both her dementia and medications, have created an unexpected-and quite wonderful — new chapter in our relationship.
Irvin Kipper may be 88 years old, but he still loves wooden blocks and Tinker Toys.
In fact for 60 years, \”Kip\”
has spent his days thinking almost exclusively about dolls and trains and stuffed bears, because he owns Kip\’s Toyland in the original Farmers Market.
Kipper just can\’t stay away from his store.
\”The few times when I haven\’t gone to work, I feel like I\’m kind of lost,\” he said. \”I might do a few things around the house, but I think, \’What am I doing here? I should be over there working.\’\”
And work he does, Monday through Saturday, still making sure that his customers find that special toy for their children or grandchildren.
My mother and father are both in diapers. I wasn\’t at all prepared for this possibility. Dealing with the visual and olfactory aspect of my son\’s end products when he was a baby was an expected part of being a mom, but it\’s a completely different matter when it\’s my parents wearing the Pampers.
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