... I'll get off my rear, and actually do something around the house. Not that I'm idle all of the time, with restrictions on how much I can lift, 10 pounds if you ask my doctor, but in reality, my golf bag weighs about 40, and not even my "brother from another mother" Mr. Bill is going to load and unload my golf bag. ** Just a side note, on some of the "better" (expensive) courses have people meet you, and take care of your clubs from trunk to cart, and back. TPC Scottsdale even wiped all of my clubs down.** I can't think of it as "defying doctors orders," or being one of those old guys who think, "I'll show you who can lift only 10 pounds..." I'm not doing either, but the reality is, if I could only lift and carry less than 10 pounds, I can't even help my wife bring in the groceries. A few days ago, we FedEx'd the top of the table at Mary's mom's house, to he brother in Cleveland. The box weighed less than 52 pounds, and was almost 4 feet square, and 8 inches deep, so I never even tried to carry it, but I did manhandle it around, once Mary and I got it into the car, and rolled it (yes, I did say it was square) into the FedEx store, until I could slide it on the tile.
That's the reality. Quite often, it costs me, I will hurt for a day or two, but I have been able to work out (stretching, exercises from my Physical Therapist, inversion, meds, Australian Dream (this is no joke, if you have arthritic joints, you should try this stuff), lidocane patches and creams. You'd think, with my history of back pain, my complete knowledge of my history of back pain, I'd be babying my back a week before a new treatment, but no-o-o-o-o... Sometimes I think that despite my 129 IQ, that I'd know better... [BZZZT!] That was Beulah the Buzzer (only a few of you will get that), and your answer was incorrect. The correct answer is: I'm a flipping idiot.
I'm slowly understanding that the list of "Things I Can No Longer Do:" keeps getting longer every day. It took a long time for me to understand that I no longer wanted to do my own car maintenance, an to find a place to take my car. ** Firestone, at the corner of Callen St. and E. Monte Vista Ave. (in Vacaville) has been doing the work on my cars since 2000, and I recommend them very highly. ** I worked for a number of years as a mechanic at the old Vaca Bowl (a year in 1966, two and a half years from 1991 to 1994), and at STARS. I was on the crew that installed everything from the seating to the back wall of the building, settee's, approaches, lanes, gutters, pinsetters, ball returns, "the whole nine yards." After that, I was the night mechanic for about a year before I started teaching. During my Navy career, I took a second-job as a pinsetter mechanic two or three times, as well. I guess, I got tired of having to scrape grease from under my fingernails, and using solvents to get the gunk off my hands, face, and arms. So giving up being a "backyard mechanic" wasn't that hard.
It's all of the other stuff, now.
I should say, at this point, that I learned enough plumbing, electrical, and landscaping stuff when I was a teenager, and we moved to Vacaville, my parents buying a "brand-spanking new," never before lived-in house on Berryessa Drive. Before we ever took possession of the house, my dad had worked out a deal with the builder that allowed my dad to make a few alterations in where certain light fixtures would be, where to place heating/AC ducts, and some other stuff. The builder agreed, as long as my dad made the changes himself. My dad had built-in slave labor... me. I have to admit, after all these years, that my dad had some great ideas, including the addition of a few electrical outlets, some switches, and moving a chandelier from the center of the kitchen/dining area to the center of the dining area alone. He got a lot of static from the builder, but when the house was finished, my dad looked like a genius. All of our work was inspected, and approved by the Building Inspectors, so everything was "within code". We also moved both toilets to accommodate a larger vanity that we installed instead of the one that "came" with the house.
Throughout my Navy career, I would learn even more, and utilized the skills I had developed as a kid. I could have done a replacement ceiling light fixture in our second bedroom, but even thinking about it made me tired, and although I could have done it myself, I paid someone to get it done, and darned glad I did. Same with our front yard, I was going to have a tree taken out, then I was going to prepare and plant a new front yard. When the tree came down, there were roots everywhere, the ground-down the stump, and as much of the surface root as they could, and putting in a new yard would be a pretty big deal. The guy who does our lawn care offered to sod it for a few hundred bucks, so guess who put in the yard? I kind of wish I had, because our yard is "lumpy".
My dad trained me pretty well, there were lots of things I used to be able to do, but "at my age," I'm better off not doing them anymore.
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