The Old Lady Gig

I let down my guard over the last couple of weeks and ate whatever I felt like. Nothing extreme, just a biscotti with my mid-morning coffee, a couple of low-fat Oreos after lunch, a round of pita bread and hummus when I got home from work. Got on the scale today and discovered I gained four pounds. Good lord. Getting old really sucks.

Meanwhile I've scheduled my first old lady surgery. (I figure there will be many more.) Once the semester ends and I've filed my course grades, I'll limp on over to the hospital for foot surgery, with the aim of restoring "some mobility" to my left big toe. Amazing how much a toe matters. "Appreciate your toes while they are mobile," counsels the wizened old woman.

The surgery is scheduled for December 16, and then I'm to keep my foot up and my body prone for two weeks. If you do the math, you'll discover I've scheduled myself out of any meaningful role in Christmas celebrations. I hadn't really thought it through--I was focusing on limiting any interruption to my teaching schedule--but now I'm rather looking forward to reclining on the sofa like a Victorian invalid while the holiday festivities flow on around and about me. I figure I'll dip my toe in now and then. And maybe, occasionally, someone will have pity on me and will bring me a reindeer cookie. Except there won't be any, as I won't be able to make them. Hmm. Slight difficulty in the Victorian invalid scenario. Well, what the heck. Christmas will survive without reindeer cookies, and I need to lose four pounds anyway.

But the thing is, I remember my grandma sitting on the sofa while the holiday whirlwind rushed on and around her. With my first old lady surgery, have I somehow propelled myself precipitously into wholesale old ladydom? Am I doomed to early irrelevance? Will people whisper about me and instruct their children to be nice and say hello?

And yet. . . my gram was a clever woman. Maybe there's more enjoyment to be had on the sofa than, well, hustling in the kitchen or trying to pacify the warring tribes of children. . . Dunno. Maybe this old lady gig won't be so bad after all.