Live and Learn

Now that I've been in my apartment for a month, there are some things I will think about next time I'm looking for a place to live. This is the nicest home I've had, though. I actually lived without a dishwasher, disposal, lighted closet or "people". Now I have people to take care of everything. Water drains from the dishwasher onto the kitchen floor, I call someone. Window missing a screen? Fixed in an hour. For someone who doesn't like leaving the house the apartment life is wonderful.

Speaking of the kitchen floor--I'm picking up tips for us boomers as I go along. Take your pills in a room with a dark floor. When I dropped pills in my old house with the white floor, I could crawl around there for hours trying to find the estrogen before the beagle got it. Now with a dark fake wood floor, picking pills off the floor is easy. It's easier for the dog too, so move with purpose.

Big mirrors are used a lot in apartments here. They pull in the light, make the place seem bigger and unfortunately  remind you had a C-section twenty-five years ago, have tributary leg maps and like glaciers, some slow but trackable downward movement. Having to begin and end each day looking at yourself across an entire wall of reminder can be depressing; talk about your wailing wall. Boomer hint: cover them with mourning cloth and have another glass of wine. If you can't pound nails into the walls, just put a little table outside your bedroom and take your glasses off before you enter the reality zone. What you can't see won't hurt you, unless it's that little spiky dog toy you just stepped on.