Being Elderly Stuff

    Sticky Weather Blues

I took an hour-long walk

on one of the first

beastly hot and muggy

mornings of the season.

My ageing body,

impeded by a touch of tachycardia,

took more than

an hour and a half

to cool down afterwards,

and I felt vaguely unwell

for the rest of the day.

Unusually for me,

I even lay down on my bed

early in the afternoon,

hoping for a nap,

hoping, in truth,

to fall asleep and not awaken,

but sleep eluded me.

I wondered,

if I’d achieved my wish,

how long it would take

before somebody

found my cadaver,

and considered finding someone

to check up on me

once a day

to see if I’m still alive.

                          Eye Exam

I took a nasty drunken fall one evening

after drinking with Martin –

not for the first time –

and for months afterward had to wear a strap

around the back of my head

from one temple-arm hinge to the other

to keep my glasses from falling off when I worked.

One of the temple arms eventually fell off,

so I went to Budget Eyewear for a new pair

using my old prescription.

They tried to sell me a new eye exam,

telling me it was however-many years since my last one,

but I replied that the broken ones had been working just fine.

Seven or eight months later

I started having trouble reading small fonts

on the screen while I worked.

I waited a few more months

until I decided that I could afford an eye exam.

The good news was that I’d been right,

my current prescription was fine

and I didn’t need new glasses.

The problem, however, was that I had a cataract

growing in my left eye,

and the way that the public-health system works

in regard to cataracts

meant that I wouldn’t be able to have it removed

for several years after that exam,

during which time

my eyesight has become progressively worse.

It’s been maybe four years now;

everything at least a few metres away’s a blur.

Time for another eye test.

               Say It Aint So

I made a sauce

for my soba noodles with shrimp

that included sesame oil,

a shallot, a clove of garlic,

lime juice, mirin, soya sauce,

and some hot German horseradish,

but when I ate it I failed

to taste any of it distinctly.

I wonder if age is dulling my senses?

       Sharp Reflexes and Bad Balance

Okay, I was jumpy,

as I always am

when walking across

the Whitiora Bridge

– vertigo and the proximity and speed of the traffic and all that –

especially since I was carrying

both my groceries and my brolly

in a light, blowing rain.

My mental focus

had been on how much

those fucking Hush Puppies hurt my feet

when a woman jogger,

the sound of the rain having masked her approach,

belted out a robust, ‘Good morning!’

from just behind my right shoulder.

I reacted with a full-body flinch,

almost losing my balance completely,

and hitting the front of my left ankle

with a wine bottle in my grocery bag

– the weight of the entire bag adding emphasis to the blow –

just a bit above the place

where the shoe was hurting me,

bruising myself badly.

The last ten minutes of the walk home were certainly no treat.

I limped painfully for almost a week.

Just as it was coming right,

I fell down my stairs

and broke three ribs.

Balance problems, apparently.

             Too Adroit

It occurred to me

as I attempted to tend

to an injury

on my right forearm

how hopelessly right-handed I am.

Hell, I couldn’t make

a left-handed lay-up

until I was in my mid-forties,

just a few years

before playing basketball

became a part of my past,

and a fat lot of good

having acquired that skill

does for me now.

            Look: It’s All Very Simple

It’s two kays each way, more or less,

from my house to and from the Pak’n Save.

I walk it at least three times a week.

Sometimes doing this

takes me a few minutes less

than at other times.

I can’t figure out

whether the repeated exercise

has trained my body to walk faster

or if I’m slowing down because of age

or if it’s such additional variables

as the weather, the traffic, the time of day,

and what shoes I’m wearing.

Most other aspects of life

are much more complex, though.

                Just A Game, Anyway

The cataract growing over my left eyeball

has been making that eye useless

for such things as seeing stuff,

unless you consider vague blurs to be stuff.

When I use my computer

I have to sit way up close to the monitor,

and I really can’t get a clear view

of the entire screen all at once.

This means that working on texts has become tiring

and that when I play computer solitaire

I fuck up repeatedly,

not seeing moves that I could make.

Then Microshit forced me to buy a new O.S.,

which doesn’t have that solitaire programme,

so it matters even less.

          A Squelching Noise

A cataract is fucking up my left eye.

Not only is it making it almost blind,

but when I rub that eye with my knuckle

when it becomes fatigued,

as it does frequently,

it makes a squelching noise

that doesn’t happen

when I rub my overworked right one.

     Marbles and Taste

It would be preferable,

when and if

my marbles finally end up

where I can’t find them,

that my daughters stow me away

in a loony-old-folks bin

where the food isn’t

bland and tasteless

and they don’t make me listen

to crappy pop music

of any era

or watch idiot television

all day long.