Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Today, again, for the second time in umpteen visits, a local fast food restaurant gave me the senior discount on my order.



In the past I've reacted, "WTF? How old do you think I am?" Now I'm like, whatever. You want to give me a discount I don't deserve, that's okay with me. I don't care if young'uns think I'm 15 years older than I am. I'm only as old as I feel. And a buck-fifty's a buck-fifty. 😅

For years I've been secretly jealous of senior discounts. As a teen struggling to afford things on my minimum wage salary I always frustrated by it. Why do seniors get a discount? I wondered. They've had way more years to get the money!

Well, now it's my turn. I mean, technically it's not my turn for another 10-12 years for 10% off at many restaurants, hotels, etc., but why not let grab those discounts as soon as I can from whippernappers who think that everyone over 40 is 65+. That's right, kids, I remember the 1980s! I changed TV channels with a knob on the TV set! I raised and lowered windows in my first car by turning a crank! Now give me that damn 10% off. 🤣

Occasionally I feel wistful about growing older. Each passing year brings some new infirmity or awareness of something I can no longer do like I used to. At our joint birthday party (Hawk's and mine) the other night I was reminded that it's not just me. All my friends are growing older, too. That was made most acutely clear in the form of two friends who were having a visibly difficult time walking.

I'm no stranger to people struggling to stand or walking with a cane. I'm not talking about "older people" here— my grandmother used a walker starting in her 70s and a wheelchair in her 90s— but people my age. My partner has been using a cane regularly for 10 years already. Her conditions are unusual for her age, though. Or at least they were. Now as we get older more and more of my friends are struggling to stand, walking with a cane, and/or laboring and breathing hard after climbing just a few stairs. This is becoming the new normal for our age group.

Tonight Hawk and I are hosting our long-awaited joint birthday party. We're celebrating a combined 104!

Hosting a house party requires having a presentable house. That means before we party we have to clean. (We have to clean after the party, too, but that's a story— and a chore— for another time.)

Fortunately we did some cleanup a week ago as we had friends over for card games last Saturday. That made today's cleaning effort less forbidding. For example, I vacuumed the foyer, stairs, dining room, and kitchen last week; so this morning they only needed a quick touch-up. Though I did hand-mop the floor in the foyer today. Ugh, the towels came up black after wiping every few 12" tiles. But it's satisfying to know I've cleaned up that crud.

Hawk and I went out for lunch today, a very unspecial not-exactly-our-birthdays-anymore meal at Carl's Jr., then ran a few shopping errands. We got some balloons to decorate the house and a few grocery odds and ends to fill out the pot-luck-for-those-who-want-to spread for tonight. Now I'm taking a break for a bit. In a while I'll straighten another few things, shower, and then start prepping food and drink for the party.

More to come!

My birthday was this week. Yay, another year older.

I've tended not to do much for my birthday the past... oh, 30+ years. I just don't care. One might say I take after my father in that regard. But it's at least as much because, when I was growing up, my birthday was often lost in the Christmas rush this time of year.

I didn't have a party or get presents. I didn't even buy myself a present this year. (Last year I bought an iPad.) All I did to make the day a little different than any other day was treat myself to a delicious, slower paced lunch at a casual restaurant I haven't been to in months. Then Hawk and I went out for dinner together at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. It's a place that we think of as treating ourselves nowadays, though in the past we used to eat there a few times a month.

Oh, but there will be a party. Hawk and I celebrate our joint birthday in early to mid January each year. We're looking at probably Jan 18, or possibly Jan 11, for that.

Thanksgiving '24 Travelog #4
Martinsburg, WV - Sun, 24 Nov 2024, 5pm

This morning we got in the car at our hotel in Falls Church, VA and drove out to Martinsburg, West Virginia. Yes, it's a bit of a haul; about 63 miles by shortest route. While that would be a terrible commute it's fine for a day-trip. We made the drive out there in 90 minutes even with some traffic on the near end.



Why Martinsburg? It's where one of our nieces lives with her partner and their 6 month old son, Dean. One of our other nieces joined us out there. Her partner would've come, too, but he's getting over an illness and didn't want to risk infecting the young child. Dean is just 6 months old.



Dean is a very mellow child. He falls asleep easily and is happy for anyone to hold him. Our niece passed him first to Hawk, on whose shoulder he quickly fell asleep. Then when she needed to get up she passed him to me. He woke for a few moments and happily went back to sleep. BTW, in the photo above I'm not asleep, too. I'm just mocking Dean for how mellow he is. 😂

Visiting family made for a great day. But seeing Dean reminded me that I've just gotten a generation older. Dean is my niece's child. That means Dean's grandmother is my sister. My younger sister. 😳 My younger sister, in her mid 40s, is a grandma. And I'm older than her. 🤯

Yesterday I got my pneumococcal shot - the vaccine against pneumonia. I'm at T+20 hours now so maybe it's a little premature to say but my side effects from the shot have been mild to nonexistent. I've got a dull ache in the upper arm where the shot was administered; that's it.

This is one of the additional two shots I thought I needed this year after the combo of the Covid-19 booster and flu shot. The other shot I was planning to get is the RSV vaxx, but CDC seems to have changed the guidance on that sometime back so it's only recommended for older (65+) adults. The CDC recommends the pneumococcal vaxx for all adults 50+, children under 5, and certain others with risk factors.

It seems strange to me that there are vaccines now for older people. When I was a kid I thought they were all just for kids. Y'know, one-and-done sort of things. I had a bunch of shots when I was little kid, a few more before I started kindergarten, then one or two more when I went to college because apparently they missed a few when I was a kid or maybe a few more had been added to the list. There was no obviously no Covid-19 to get shots for back then. Annual flu shots weren't even a thing. <Cranky old man voice>Back in my day, we just got the flu every year!</voice>

Well, I'm much happier now with an annual flu shot instead of an annual flu.

Blue Ridge Trip '24 #18
Boone, NC - Wed, 4 Sep 2024. 11pm

Once we got back to Boone this evening, after a satisfying long day out, our first order of business was finding dinner. It's surprising for a college town that Boone doesn't have more local, casual eats; mostly it's chains here. But we did find a well reviewed local burgers place call the Come Back Shack. The food was... college town eats. Which is to say, good but not great food with a fun, younger-oriented vibe. And it was less than half a mile from our hotel, so that was a win, too.

One of the things that comes along with a younger oriented vibe nowadays is no physical menu. There are no menus at the tables, no lighted menu board overhead, and not even a cashier to order from. You scan a QR code with your phone and order through their website, or you use an ordering kiosk at the back of the dining room.

I'm not a Boomer, but I agree with Boomers on this: We hate QR code menus. Just give us a physical menu! I like being able to see the menu all at once instead of having to scroll, scroll, scroll through pages of stuff on my tiny phone screen. Oh, and the fact it's seldom well lit in such restaurants anymore makes it even more of a challenge. Thankfully this restaurant did at least have that ordering kiosk at the back, so we could page through the menu in a reasonable font size. We ordered there. Though we noted that all the Boomer customers were having trouble with it, so if we found ourselves stuck behind one... shit, we'd probably just leave and go somewhere else.

Phoenix Weekend Travelog #3
Arizona Grand Resort - Fri, 10 May 2024, 1pm

I had grand plans for this morning. I'd get up early (I've been rising early the past week anyway) and use the hot tub near our hotel room in the quiet and cool morning hours when the hot water would feel good, then come back to the room to putter around a bit, then go out to the main waterpark at its 9am opening to start floating around the lazy river.

The key word there is had. I had grand plans.

The reality was I did get up early— I've been getting up with the sunrise around 6am the past several days anyway— and then puttered around the room all morning instead of going out for a soak in the hot tub. Hawk slept in a bit. But then we did at least get out to the water park right after it opened at 9am.



Getting out to the waterpark early was important for two reasons. First, we wanted to snag choice seats. We claimed a set of 4 lounge chairs— two for us, two for my inlaws— in a nice, shady location near one of the sets of stairs into/out of the lazy river. Second, starting early meant we could get in 2 hours of so of water fun before it started getting really hot. (How hot is "really hot"? Today's forecast high is 98° F / 37° C.)

As much as I joke about being lazy in not hitting the hot tub first thing in the morning, my inlaws are even pokier. Their idea of "Let's meet at the waterpark at 9am" was to arrive at 9:30. And it's not even like travel time was a variable. It's just a short walk along the sidewalk from their room. They didn't even have to wait for an elevator; they're on the ground floor. 😅 But coming 30 minutes late, even after regular prodding ahead of time, is their version of on-time.



So what did we do? Hawk and I jumped in the lazy river without the lazy-bones parents. We took a lap or two then met her parents when they were ready. MIL came in the water with us and enjoyed floating around the river on a bright yellow tube; FIL was content to ride a lounge chair in the shade. He did inform us later that our average lap time in the lazy river was 10 minutes. 😂

After a few laps together in the lazy river, Hawk, her mom, and I switched to the wave pool. I don't have a picture from there, sorry. I haven't felt like dragging my phone around to the pools and worrying about keeping it safe from the water.

By about 11am we decided we'd had enough of the pools— for now— and took a break for lunch. We gave some thought to eating at the pool cafe. But the prices are kind of obnoxious, and we knew we'd want a break after eating anyway, so we went back to our rooms to change and drove out for lunch. We landed at 5th Street Burgers & Fries in Tempe. Mmm, it was good.

Now we're back at the hotel. We're all a bit tired with food coma after lunch— yes, we're all getting older— so we'll relax inside for a bit then go back out to the pools around 3pm.

BuzzFeed posted an interesting listicle yesterday, "Everyday Things People Are Too Old For" (26 Mar 2024). The subheading is that it's according to Millennials and above. I'm... above... and I agree with most of the list. To be clear, these are not "Kids get off my lawn!" grumbles. These are things I embraced or at least tolerated in, say, my early 20s that I decided by my 30s weren't worth it. The listicle counts from 1 to 21. I'll call out just Five Things:

If I'm not having fun, I leave [#1]

This is the #1 item in the listicle and it's pretty high on my own list, too, of things I've changed as I've gotten older. I won't stay long at an optional activity I don't enjoy just to satisfy others or meet expectations. And especially if people there are being jerks, as in the example given in the listicle, I'll nope out. My leisure time is too precious to waste.

I don't try to be friends with jerks [#2]

This is #2 in the listicle and also high on my own list. When I was a kid... and up through college age... I wasted a lot of time trying to be friends with people who were jerks. One part of it was my upbringing that if someone was treating me poorly it's because I must have done something wrong and needed to make amends. The other part of it was me yearning to be friends with the "cool" people, even if they were jerks. I learned the hard way through years of experience that, one, some people are just assholes. And two, abasing myself to win the praise of jerks isn't worth it. It's far more worthwhile to invest my precious time with people who like and respect me for who I am.

I'll stay at a hotel [#8]

I've always loved to travel. When I was younger I lacked time to do much of it, and even more so than time I lacked money. Thus I always looked to crash with relatives or friends. That included sleeping on a couch or the floor a bunch of times. As I got older I found that to be less and less comfortable. Fortunately as I've gotten older I've improved my budget such that I can afford to stay at a hotel when I travel. That gets me not only a real bed to sleep in but also a private space I can withdraw to at the end of the day. Even when the trip's purpose is visiting those friends and family, it's better when we're not crammed together 24/7. I'll note, though, that staying at a hotel is not a rule. When someone has real space for me in their house, for example my inlaws, I'm happy to be a sleepover guest.

I hate loud music in restaurants/clubs [#13]

This is one where I'm tempted to say, "I'm not sure if it's just me..." but I know it's not just me! And it's not just a thing of getting older. Restaurants and clubs have gotten louder. I noticed it when it was happening. I studied architecture enough to recognize the trends years ago toward designs and materials that made social spaces thunderously loud. Similar to the first item on my list, if I'm not enjoying myself somewhere, I'll leave. And that includes leaving because the environment is unpleasant in addition to leaving if the company is unpleasant.

A lot music, TV, and movies are crap [#16]

This one veers a bit toward "You kids get off my lawn!" old-fogeyness in the BuzzFeed listicle, but I agree with it with a bit of nuance. Like the complaint in the article mentions, one basic problem is that the talent threshold is lower today than years ago. But even that has a root underneath it: the increased number of publications and media channels clamoring for content. Consider just TV for a moment. When I was a kid, there were, like, 5 channels of TV. Today there are hundreds. And while there are some amazing things on TV today, there's also tons of crap because of all those channels scraping the bottom of the barrel. All that crap makes it challenging to find the relatively few things that are genuinely worth it.

In movies there's a different problem. The problem there is formulism. Almost everything nowadays is a franchise sequel, prequel, or reboot. And almost every franchise is a based on a comic book, a line of toys, or a theme park ride. Producers choose and fund these franchise movies because they're seen as surer bets for making money. The audience is already known and the marketing tie-ins already exist. Too bad it results in increasingly insipid, repetitive stories.

There's an interesting way to put time into perspective, and especially what events you consider recent or not-so-recent. It's to compare when two things happened versus today. One basic pattern is, "Event (X) occurred closer to Event (Y) than today."

Take WWII as an example of a huge historical milestone. WWII ended in 1945, so a thing that happened in 1984 is closer to then than it is to today (2024). Thus you could say— accurately!— "The Apple Macintosh launched closer to WWII than to today!"

Also, the movie Ghostbusters (1984) came out closer to WWII than to today.

As someone who remembers seeing Ghostbusters in its first theatrical release I'm like... *gulp*.

You can also flip around the order. WWII ended (almost) 69 years ago, and 69 years from now is... 2103. So, the 22nd century is closer to today than WWII is.