Independent Living

Posted on November 10, 2024 by Lin Ennis

Funny phrase “independent living.” We’ve each lived independently to some extent, more or less, since we left our parental homes. I was sixteen. How about you?

Four and a half days ago my wife and I moved into a senior community, minimum age 55, that when preceded by the phrase independent living, is followed by the execrable word facility.

It’s a lovely place, much like a resort. Food and drink are included (to a limit), plus electricity, water, trash removal, cardboard recycling, washer and dryer, Internet and DirecTV. No more home owner’s insurance or property taxes (all included in the monthly rent, of course.)

We were gobsmacked by the eight-foot island and deep stainless steel sink. More drawers than we had in our Sedona home of 22 years (though we had a walk-in pantry there, so find the cupboard space here a bit constrained, e.g. I found room for only two dishtowels and for the time being, our two potholders live in the oven).

I walk out to the great room several times a day to see what’s going on and whether there are interesting people to talk to (we talk to all of them, though, and look for what is interesting about each). Sometimes there is room to join a game. Twice today I joined in on Mexican train with different sets of players.

I swam in the indoor pool, worked out in the gym (twice, though not for very long) and Ellen and I walked the Flagstaff Urban Trail System 1.75 miles. I’ve completed more than 11,000 steps today, because when a friend called while I was in the great room, I excused myself to take the call and circled the first floor four or five times while continuing that lovely conversation.

My goals are to keep up my exercise, maintain a healthful diet and participate with others as much as possible to build community. I think over dinner we cheered up a resident with long Covid who was having a terribly horribly very bad day. We listened and complimented her sense of humor.

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Cleaning House – Dr’s Orders

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Lin Ennis

Yes, my kitchen cupboards are painted purple inside--what color are yours?

I heard an old wives’ tale a few years back, and it made some sense to me. The saying was, “Whatever state of order or disorder you are in as the new year rolls in will predict your entire year.”

I’m superstitious about some things and not about others (there’s a whole blog post right there!). I was not frightened or superstitious about that bit of ‘grandmotherly guidance,’ but I deemed it a good enough idea to incorporate ever since.

So sometime between a couple weeks before Christmas and New Year’s Day, I take my dresser drawers, one-by-one, to a TV tray in front of the – you called it – the TV — and sort them out while I watch favorite shows. I refold scarves, reorganize jewelry, recycle worn socks and unwearable T-shirts. It’s a call to pack away shorts and tank tops and fill the drawers with turtle necks and sweat pants.

When I’ve been especially industrious, I’ve carried over this straightening up to the bathroom. Drawers and cupboards and bins of toiletries are sorted, thinned as needed, and reorganized into an even better schema than last year.

Sunday, December 18th–right in the key cleaning up field–I amazed myself by taking on the kitchen cupboards from top to bottom. First, there were the brightly colored and seldom used, mostly ornamental bowls and pitchers sitting atop the cupboards, organizing their own dust disguises for at least the last six months. All were cleaned or washed and repositioned.

One by one I delved behind cupboard doors, top shelf to bottom, removing all contents, dusting or washing the shelves, as needed, and returning – or washing and returning – the dishes. A little reorganizing, a little gaining space. Up and down the two-step stool I went, in a frenzy of polishing and making the kitchen gleam.

I didn’t stop there. I did all of the drawers–washed the flatware trays, returning the nested spoons and forks to their respective compartments.

Next drawer: sharpened all of the knives while clearing and cleaning.

Next: Re-sorted and realigned placemats.

Then that most horrible of all drawers – the one with the over-sized utensils and the measuring cups and funnels…Many serviceable items were retired to covered plastic storage bins, awaiting a shift in gourmet preferences.

Moving left, there were kettles and baking dishes and storage containers and mixing bowls and glass measuring cups – all to be sorted, decided upon, and their pull-out wire baskets removed completely for thorough cleaning underneath. I won’t bore you with the plethora of kitchen items. They’re the same ungainly lots as yours, I’m sure. Each 3-4 items has a completely different shape, unsuited for nesting or compact storage.

I didn’t stop here. I polished the counter tops, scoured the sinks, mopped the floor. All of this for what?

Because my doctor put me on Estrogen therapy, so instead of caring about only myself and my jewelry and my clothes, I went on a deep-seated pre-evolutionary kitchen binge, leaving me barefoot, knowing where every pot and spoon is.

Oh my gawd. I’m not going to get pregnant, am I? Because then I would really need to address my closet!

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Writing

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Lin Ennis

I love to write – and I love to edit.

There was a time when I preferred editing. I found it easier to correct, sharpen or “improve,” (according to the Bible of “me”) someone else’s brilliantly-crafted ideas.

No compulsion in the world is stronger than the urge to edit someone elses document. —H. G. Wells

I’ve just come off a three-month ordeal that required a lot of writing. The whole project energized me, but especially the writing. What I dislike most now that it’s over is the vacuum where a must-communicate demand used to be. I whipped out web pages and promotional emails as easily as drinking water. And for me, apparently, just as refreshing.

Writing is especially compelling when there’s an urgent message to convey or a mind-blowing insight to reveal, not so much that people’s lives would be changed as that they would see one (me) as an embodiment of wisdom or enlightenment.

That’s pathetic. But it’s also the reality of many a writer.

I’ve known since I was in the 6th grade and won a poetry contest (probably the only entry in my age group) that I wanted to be a writer. I’ve since spent decades doing other things—many involving writing in some ancillary way, such as developing brochures for organizations that had no idea what they needed to say to their not-yet-adoring public.

Most fun for me is when I do see an idea from a new perspective. I want to write about it. Because possibly even more than writing I love teaching. Either way, I’m compelled to communicate to change someone’s mind. Persuasion. How to win at that is another topic for another day.

When we’re children, we fancy people who mirror our thoughts—we both love grape soda, so we must be best friends and find two straws.

As a young adult, I noticed I liked to sit on the edge—observe the group from almost outside the circle. Inside enough to understand them; outside enough to bring in ideas that did not already exist in the group. Like a painter, I portrayed a recognizable scene with colors and emphasis that were all my own, giving new life to old ideas.

I’m not the best writer, not a Pulitzer winner, not a great or even compelling poet. What I think I am is clear. Creative enough to keep your attention (you read this far already?). Do not own a golden keyboard. But insightful. Passionate.

What about you? What passion of yours have you shared this week, and how did you do that? Did you create a new dish, bead a bracelet, plant your fall bulbs, tune up your car?

What have you done for you lately?

.

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Invisible Servant

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Lin Ennis

raise your hand and volunteerWhen you volunteer to serve on a committee, commission or in the community, you tacitly surrender your own opinions, your ego and your survival of the fittest instincts. You may retain your education, life experience and perspective—all of which you must release if others on the committee, commission or in the community think your contribution less useful than sawdust.

Some people do this well; others cannot do it at all and fight tooth-and-nail (often loudly) to make their voices heard. (One wonders where in their lives they feel so unheard.)

I’ve gotten better at letting go. When I was less mature, I could be so sure my way was the best way (sometimes it was) that I would defend and promote it relentlessly. OK, no one likes anybody or anything that is relentless, unless it is lots of money coming in or decadent zero-calorie food!

Here are some reasons to let go:

  • Share the responsibility! Don’t you have a lot of other things you wish you could be doing – or you should be doing – besides this little corner of a project many people are participating in?
  • Be a leader by stepping back and ensuring others get the opportunity to lead.
  • Commit to doing it badly. If you do not complete this project/committee/whatever imperfectly, you will not be able to do it at all. Because no one is perfect (though you may come closer than those other people on the committee—or so you think!).

Servanthood, like philanthropy, contributes best when invisible…unless you want to make sure you and your foundation’s name gets scattered amongst many other not-for-profit organizations!

The invisible servant is like an awesome office or industry manager. That is the person who supports his or her team members in succeeding magnificently – and imperfectly, remember imperfectly! – in accomplishing the thing the invisible servant is responsible for.

Tips for the Invisible Servant

  • seek to be edited, overrun, voted down on your suggestions/creations
  • praise the people who replace your notions with ideas of someone else, because – based on your starting point – they are probably spot on
  • run with these new ideas (which replaced yours) as if they were even better than your ideas (they probably are!)

If this plan does not work, start over with new ideas and, please, run through the same process (because you’re a rock star!).

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What Do You Do

Posted on September 4, 2011 by Lin Ennis

Does your occupation define you or do you define your occupation?Our Western society is tied to asking people, “What do you do?” Knowing another’s profession gives us a place to pigeon-hole the person, to attach to him or her all we’ve ever known, suspected or feared about people in that same occupation. It’s a social short-cut, a way of pulling together the CliffsNotes to establish a baseline for understanding. Getting a handle on the other person calms us, soothing our anxieties and opening a window into how much we have in common–how simpatico we are.

But I’m not asking about your occupation, your trade or cap and gown. I’m asking what you spend your time engaged in, what you live your life for–regardless of what you claim your occupation or life to be about. What is it you spend your time on? Are you an investment banker who spends more time watching football than stock tickers? Are you an outside salesperson who spends more time on your novel than on your beat? Are you a writer who pours herself into housework rather than into the blank pages before her?

Are you selling widgets but would rather be working in a nursery–or a zoo? Should you be writing music or poetry or fiction? What goes on in your head when you are alone with yourself?

Let’s tease that person out…the one who has a vivid fantasy life of doing or being or saying or living certain things or certain ways.

What is holding you back? Perhaps a desire for what you do not have anyway, even though you let it hold you back?

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What Does Anyone Know

Posted on September 2, 2011 by Lin Ennis

You’re heard the saying People see what they want to see. Or its variant hear what they choose to hear. I’m not going to argue about the concept of choosing what we see or hear, but I am convinced we do not perceive the world the same way as anyone else.

When we were children, my brother and I were often scolded for not doing something our mother told us to do. We knew she had not told us what she said she did, because in the black and white world of youth, we knew our memories were flawless and hers, belonging as it did to a middle-aged single mother was not. I vowed that I would not swear I had or had not said, done or seen anything if there were any doubt.

If we were all a little less certain of the “rightness,” the factualness, of our experiences, we would have a lot less to argue about. What you experience is your truth and what I experience is my truth. But what are the facts? What does any one of us know?

Not much, and I can prove it! 😉

I just read a series of police accident reports that are related to a hotly-contested safety issue in my town. There was one accident in particular I wanted to read about, because I’d heard the pedestrian…

  • stumbled off the curb, or
  • bent over to tie his shoe, or
  • staggered into traffic

Here’s what an on-duty police officer reported: “I then observed male and female dressed in dark clothing crossing the roadway…The male pedestrian was in the lead.”

Here’s another eyewitness account: “We were walking across the street from the hotel we are staying at…to purchase some groceries. We were halfway across the street. He said, ‘Stop the car is coming too fast.’ We were both waiting but I was a few steps ahead of him. He was about a yard behind me.” This account is from the wife of the male pedestrian.

In the world we think we know, there should be only one place for the man to be. He was physically behind his wife, beside his wife or ahead of his wife. There should be a X that could mark the location.

I walk fast. If someone were to ask me, “Were you ahead, behind or beside your partner?” I would probably know I was ahead.

Should we believe the wife? She was there and experienced it. Or the police officer? He was a trained observer.

We have to believe both of them. Each told his or her own truth, what was real to them, what they saw and experienced. What I don’t have to believe is what I heard on Facebook. I can discount stumbling off the curb (he was in the center, two-way turn lane, not near a curb) or bending to tie his shoe.

My point is, we cannot often “know” another person is wrong. Nor do we dare be too sure we are right.

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Pomodoro

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Lin Ennis

A few days ago, the Pomodoro technique was introduced to me by Lifehacker. Pomodoro is Italian for tomato. The technique was invented in the last century, 1992 to be precise.

Similar to Interval Training for optimal physical fitness, the pomodoro technique uses bursts of focused activity, separated by mandatory breaks, to improve productivity. The timing must be precise. If you have to stop mid-Google, you do it! If going to the bathroom and opening a beer takes longer than your five-minute break, adjust and be more precise next time. The rules drive you and force you to forget about what time it is and how big the task at hand is.

You can download a little tomato-shaped utility for your computer (which has me lusting for a plastic, tomato-shaped timer like the one pictured) for jobs that must be performed away from the computer.

On paper, you keep an inventory of tasks you want to get to, a few of which get copied to a daily to-do list. On the day’s list, you estimate how many pomodoros the job (or slice of it) will take. It becomes a game to finish within the pomodoro. But you cannot finish early. If you do, you go back over your work to see how you can improve.

Even if 10 minutes into a pomodoro (25 minutes long), you feel the urge to get up and walk to the kitchen looking for a nibble or something interesting to drink, you realize that you can contain your urge for 15 more minutes, when you will be forced to take a five minute break (or every four pomodoros, a 20-30 minute break).

As a self-employed person, I’ve often felt I didn’t have time to manage my business, especially now that I do everything online. There is so much to learn each month. So many new, helpful products to review and possibly buy to accelerate success each week. Plus relationship building and social media. And the relationships that make life more worthwhile.

I downloaded the eBook, a worthwhile read because it also details how to handle interruptions – both external and internal. That is a huge time-saver!

I may tire of the pomodoro technique in a while. Don’t you find we constantly need new practices, new metaphors, new goals, all to keep us fresh and interested in life? –to keep us interesting!

But in the meanwhile, I’m looking for a windup timer that looks like a tomato!

_____
Picture from WikiCommons

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Timing: NOT Everything

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Lin Ennis

Clock - Is timing everything --or not?I hate it when people say timing is everything.

It isn’t. Unless you live in a world of no substance.

  • When you’re making a sales presentation, it’s important to call on prospects during the time they’re looking for what you’re selling! But if you have nothing valuable to sell, does it matter when you present it?
  • You can’t expect an early wedding proposing to your best friend when she’s seven, but when she’s 18, you might have a chance!
  • You had a great new product idea, but it didn’t do well in testing. Someone’s going to try to encourage you by saying, “Bad timing; timing is everything.” If it’s a good product, look for a better time to release it. But what good would it do to have perfect timing with no product and no idea?
  • If you see a car you’d like to own, but don’t have the money, or your current car has years of life left it in, all right: the timing for buying that new car is bad. But timing would not be a factor without these other considerations. Timing is not and never will be everything!

It’s true in business that one “first to market” generally accrues a greater market share than those who come later with similar products. But not always. Those in front have to build demand and product recognition for those who come after. They work out the kinks. They spend the most in development. But whether you are the first or the 10th, how you do what you do largely affects your outcome.

If you’re running for office and lose, I guarantee someone will say, “Bad timing; better luck next time.” It could be true. You might win next time. If you do, it will be because people had more time to get acquainted with your name and what you stand for. But if you don’t stand for what the voters think they want, all the timing in the world won’t help you win!

So the next time you’re tempted to say timing isn’t everything, think about what is everything. It’s the everything-ness of it, the all-ness. It’s talent or quality or a good match or something else or all of these and possibly many other things – PLUS timing.

If you do not take a more realistic view of what comprises everything, you will not only not encourage your friends with this remark, you may also miss the boat yourself. And with boats leaving shore, timing counts!


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Picking Up Where You Left Off

Posted on January 25, 2011 by Lin Ennis

Two old friends reconnectingDon’t you love it when you run into a friend you haven’t seen in a long time, possibly years, and you pick up where you left off as though no time has passed?

I’ve delighted in that experience and relish the friends I am so in-tune with that picking up where we left off is as natural as smiling or hugging.

However.

I had a recent experience that turned my affinity for “picking up where we left off as though no time has passed” into a hiccup. More like a cough. Make that a choke.

(It wasn’t you, if you’re one of my friends reading my blog. It was someone…I don’t remember who. Besides, I don’t think my friends read my blog. I’m very popular, however, among others.)  😉

It occurred to me, one reason we may pick up where we left off is that the other person hasn’t changed, hasn’t grown, hasn’t budged. That would make you either pick up where you left off or have to introduce yourself (who has grown and changed) and a new person to that ‘old friend.’

What if the other person is the same old…?

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Look! Look!

Posted on November 18, 2010 by Lin Ennis

kids in car on vacation looking out window“Look, kids! Wake up and look over there, because I can’t; I’m driving.” Children drowsy during a four-day, 2000-mile cross country car trip are usually a godsend. Less squabbling. Less toy throwing. Less name calling. But as we neared Pikes Peak on our journey from Texas to Oregon that summer, Mother couldn’t contain herself.

We blearily looked off the side of the road into the hazy green bowl that had her so stirred up. Tree-covered mountains in the distance. What was the big deal? The winding climb over the Rocky Mountains seemed to never end. And she kept saying, “Look!”

Only as an adult who has driven many a mountain road and backroad could I begin to appreciate my mother’s fear of heights and of narrow roads one knows mathematically must be wide enough for two cars but don’t look it — a fear I fully inherited (along with her freakish talent for backing up at high speed!).

I relived part of that vacation this morning. It held my first taste of fresh apricots, cherries and dates; my disappointment that the petrified forest had fallen down before we got there; the smell of the redwoods; the absurdity of driving our car through a giant Sequoia; and my grandmother’s persistence in pronouncing Yosemite in two syllables, like it’s spelled she said: YOZ-myt.

All of that came back to me as I stood shivering in the driveway today at 5:30 a.m., head back and eyes straining skyward to catch a pre-dawn meteor shower. My partner told me last night there would be shooting stars between moonfall and sunrise. I didn’t try to remember. As I grabbed my morning coffee and headed toward my office, she said, “Go outside and watch for meteors.” After all, she was busy reading the paper and getting the crossword and Sudoku finished before her 6:15 commute; she couldn’t.

Without thinking, I zipped my fleece top and went outside. It was so dark, it took me 30 seconds to get down the two steps and stand in the driveway. I needed to put my hands in my pockets, but it was too dark to see where I might set my coffee. By the time my eyes adjusted enough to catch the reflection of a flat white rock marking the edge of the driveway, I wondered why I’d marched outside instead of to my desk!

Dutifully, I stared. I wonder if the radio said which direction to look? I need a knit cap. I bet my coffee’s already cold. Movement. A meteor? The light was slow and steady…a satellite. I watched it cross overhead, then turned around and watched it from the other direction for several moments. I scanned the horizon and overhead again. That’s it. I’m going in. Was that a glint or my bifocals?

I scurried inside to microwave my coffee, recalling a favorite family saying: Let’s not and say we did. I reported, “Yes, there was a meteor shower.” I didn’t stay out there long enough to see it, but I’m sure it happened.

As I stoked the wood stove to warm myself, I thought about how amazing what I’d just witnessed was. Any given night, one can go outside for a few minutes and probably see one of nearly 3000 satellites orbiting the earth.  By the time we crossed the Rockie Mountains and drove to YOZ-myt in my childhood, there had been only about 20 successful launches. None of those would still be orbiting.

Why I look when people tell me to, I don’t know. But today I traveled across the country, amidst family memories, through history and into space by doing so. I’ll probably keep on looking.

“Look!”

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