Cosmic Lemons, Lemonade Sea

"When life gives you lemons, rent a storefront in the trendy part of town and make artisanally squeezed lemonade at $14 a glass."     - Bike Snob NYC

                                                         

The Little Lemonade Stand of Life

Life is funny. It wasn't that long ago that I was complaining about having to pay my taxes. Complaining isn't exactly the right word here - let's just say that I was acknowledging my civic duty, but reflecting in a negative vein about what I'm getting in return, viz., the grudging ownership of a corrupt and bankrupt medieval principality somewhere near the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram Range that begins with 'A.'

On the other hand, I did record my elation at having applied for Medicare. This milestone is, like most milestones, a mixed blessing inasmuch as milestones generally mark the passage of one's days, and to qualify for this little prize you have to have reached a point at which, willy nilly, you begin to surrender certain of the powers and perquisites of being a large primate.

"Sure, I used to swing - both ways."

My point here is that sometimes, all you have to do is mention something that might use a little improvement, and the tables turn just the way you wanted them to. If I play my cards right I can break even - take back in medical payments what I pay out in taxes. That way, I'm not really leaving a balance on either side of the ledger, so I'm not contributing to the GDP. Which is just another way of saying that, provided I get sick enough, I will no longer officially exist. Or to put it another way, mereo, ergo sum. And that means I'll no longer have to do certain things, like comb my hair. . .

. . . or sit up straight

Not officially existing, in my lexicon of financial terms, need not mean the same as being entirely forgotten. So long as the Social Security Administration grants me a minimal existence by keeping me on its rolls as a beneficiary I'll be happy. So far, so good. Not everything is entirely rosy on that score however. They acknowledge my existence (much like that of a lesser god, a distant star or an awkward weather system . . . )

. . . but their letter apprising me of my new favored status ("Notice of Award") was sent from the department of Retirement, Survivors and Disability Insurance. That seemed to me a little bit of "giveth and taketh away" in the same breath. It is beneath mention that this is not a select group, nor do any of these designations include poor Miguel. I am neither retired nor disabled, and I like to think of myself in my cheerier moments as more than merely a survivor.

Survivor making artisanal knishes 

Let's be clear about this: being alive isn't necessarily the same thing as "being a survivor." It seems you would have to have survived something, like eating an artisanal knish, to qualify for the title.

"Knish, anybody?"

And then talk about making knishes out of lemons, this other thing happened as well, just like mentioning taxes and being immediately taken under the government's sheltering wing.  I had posted some time ago what was beginning to seem a premature announcement of my return to gainful employment somewhere in the Great American Desert - in Nevada, to be precise. But, like the pages of the calendar flipping across a movie screen . . . 

 

. . . the days passed, the phone was silent, the e-mail came and went with its empty promises of Viagra and ExtenZe offers. Forty days and forty nights I fasted in the desert; I complained, I raised my hand against the Cosmic Lemon, I cursed my humors and the fruit in my loins (lemons, assorted citrus). And the Cosmic Lemon heard my plaint and there issued forth lemonade in the desert.

There must be a moral here somewhere to help navigate this Sea of Lemonade we call life. In my case I'd say the moral is complaining will get you everything you want. It usually seems to work.

If I Get Sick, Call Washington

Applying for Medicare has got to be a landmark in anyone's frail and tenuous existence. I have attained that social pinnacle, having sent my online application to the Social Security Administration just a week ago. It seems that I may be getting in just under the wire, although it hasn't been entirely smooth sailing for the new Congressional budget geniuses. 

Head Genius

I will only say, vis-a-vis the application process, that it wasn't all that difficult to figure out, although I can see that it might be if you've been sick or intend ever to be sick. Fortunately there's nothing wrong with me that a course of antidepressants and a good talking to couldn't cure, but I guess I'm just one of the lucky ones.  

 

My medical regimen

My last major landmark, as nearly as I can remember it, was turning 60, which seemed (in anticipation, at least) pretty much the end of things for me. But the party came off in style and the morning following witnessed the return of my vital spirits, general elan, and the knowledge that I had my Medicare to anticipate. I recall that celebration with great pleasure now - so much so that I give you the invitation I sent out asking friends to share in the revels:

Miguel de Montaigne desires that you convene with select friends to celebrate the near approach of his Senescence, Obsolescence, Decrepitude, Desuetude, Detumescence mental and physical, general Diminishment, and existential Dread on the occasion of the Sexagesimal Anniversary of his Natal Day. See the Dimming of his Faculties; watch Reason forsake her Throne. Revels to include:

• Sacrifices, Burnt Offerings in the Old Style, with a cake
• Recalling Names and Telephone Numbers of People I knew in the Forties, by Sir Alisdair Pevin-Jimson
• Chalk drawings (with comic attempts to rise from his working position), by centenarian sidewalk artiste Gulley Jimson
• Reminiscences of Lost Youth, by Murgatroyd Poindexter de Montaigne, recently parolled uncle of the celebrant
• The Exotic Dances of the Jimson Sisters (formerly the Sisters Khapadia) of the Tolleygunge Club, Calcutta
• The Lamentations of Job, sung by the Northern Macedonian Male Chorus of Agios Hilarios and Dimitrios
• Impersonations of the 18^th Century’s Great Men of Science, by Wladislaw, natural half-brother to Prince Ludwig the Mad of Bavaria 
• The Highland ballads and musical stylings of Wee Stanley MacGregor 

Indeed turning 60 was not the end of the road, pass it did, and my current state almost feels like a graduation of sorts . . . 

It doesn't get any better 
(than being eligible for entitlement programs)

So I enter the ranks of the Medicare-eligible, being in sound health, having lived a clean and wholesome life, having exercised pretty regularly, having mostly eschewed fatty viands. . . 

Chicken fried everything

 . . . having learned in some measure to control my states of agitation, annoyance, pique, petulance, ill-temper, savoir-meilleur, and those emotions (save but one) that raise the heart rate and render the humors overly dry, sere and heated. At the same time I remind myself that Heraclitus accounted the soul as fire and thought that a dry soul was best. Dry, as I said, but not too dry.

 Medicare Plan D 

(prescription drug plan)

Why Are We Here? Who Are You?

Regular walking, I've read somewhere, enlarges the hippocampus, the part of the brain that controls short-term memory. Short-term memory is one of the first casualties of approaching geezerhood. Still, most people I know who are losing their STM couldn't care less if only a just and merciful god had seen fit either to put their hippocampus in control of other functions they find more important and enjoyable, or to allow that brisk walking might enlarge some humbler part. Memory loss has been the bane of the aged and the grist for more jokes than adultery, unless you consider those jokes that combine the two conceits (as in the one about the old priest who only remembers where he left his bicycle when, reciting the decalog for his flock, the seventh commandment proves the mnemonic key.)

"Oh, and here's my chasuble!"

Years back, when I was yet of an age to mock the forgetful, I was called to an elderly woman's house to inspect an antique bookcase she had advertised for sale. She answered the door and seemed nonplussed when I explained why I had come. After elaborate explanation and patient repetition, her old ganglions (ganglia?) sparked intermittently, fired, and off we went. She recalled placing the ad, recalled the item so advertised, and led me into another room to look it over. After I'd inspected it, she suddenly remembered another piece in yet another room she thought might interest me, abruptly chugged off in that direction with me in tow, halted in the doorway, looked beseechingly at me and asked, "Why are we in here?"

The question bore such existential cargo; I knew the moment would become eternity and none like it would ever again present itself; my baser self triumphed, I took the bait, the words came out: "You mean in general?" 

"Are we here - or peut-etre over there?"

But I was young - well, probably not yet 40, which seems young now. And generally my memory is good. I can find the car keys, never misplace my glasses . . . 

Here they are

. . . unfailingly remember the name of my helpmeet, my daughter-in-law's birthday, generally know the year of our Lord without checking my cell phone, and the name of every member of Congress who voted to dismantle Medicare.

So my short-term memory has not been a matter of concern to me - not, that is, until today. I did not, myself, forget anything at all, but inevitability was made manifest, and in this wise: having the health and happiness of my hippocampus ever present in my frontal cortex (try that, you young whippersnappers), I set out on my bicycle for a regular constitutional, meaning to raise the pulse, elevate the blood into the relevant parts, modulate the breathing and replenish the stock of beneficial serotonins which make me the sanguine, optimistic and unfailingly cheery spirit you all know.

So setting out this blustery gray spring day, I stopped at an intersection and met a friend (younger than I am by several years) striding vigorously along the sidewalk in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, cheeks rosy, obviously in the middle of his own daily exertions. But it wasn't exactly a day on which anyone over, say 45, would willingly venture out in light gym clothes, and damp ones at that. I asked him where he was headed. "Home to get my bike," he answered. 

The poor chap. He'd walked the mile and a half to the downtown YMCA, changed into the garb I met him in, did his workout, returned to his locker to dress for the walk home, and could not to save his soul remember the combination to the very padlock he had opened an hour before.

I did not laugh. I seem to remember that I commiserated. I'm certain I must have.