BABY BOOMER EXPOSÉ: An Inconvenient Truth ~ In Tandem ~ Kay and Sherry

Kay's Cane Chair - best invention ever!

At the Galapagos

Kids, when we were asked to choose partners for a collaboration, I asked Kay, given we graduated in the same year, in the same home town, and both have a habit of making fun of our aches and pains. Sure enough, it didn't take long to find common ground, as our emails normally sound exactly like this collaboration! I am highly envious of Kay's cane-chair. Though I'd likely go ass over teakettle were I to attempt to sit on it. So I'm envious of her agility as well!!!! Here’s Kay:

Sherry is wrong. I have no agility whatsoever. It takes me at least 10 minutes to get onto my cane-chair unaided, but only five minutes if my husband helps. I also have a very poor sense of balance. It's best if  use my chair-cane in front of a wall for support, which I'm not doing in the photo.

However, watching a field full of blue-footed boobies (males doing their courtship dance, and some females guarding their eggs, which are laid right on the sand) made up for having to lean on the handle of the chair gizmo for hours.

Yes, hours. There were two groups from our boat, and my husband's group thought the others had stopped for me, and vice versa. On a 20-passenger boat, no one stays lost for very long, however, so I was rescued while still happily watching the blue-foots.

Sherry and I often moan and groan about our various aches and pains, some similar, some unfamiliar, because we're the same age. Chances are everyone born that year has pain in some part of his or her body by now.

So we decided to put together a Baby Boomers BooBoo list, disguised as verse. Art in ain't, not by a long shot, but I'm feeling much better now that we've done it. Coincidence? I think not! Misery loves company and we are two of the most miz'ble ol' gals to come out of the Okanagan Valley in a long, long time. Love ya, Sherry!

     *****     *****     *****

my heart doesn’t murmur

my mouth usually shouts

my arteries and veins do not have clots

but the illnesses I have

cause long and prolonged pouts

for everyone just thinks that I look fine

“well, you look alright to me,

 so I suggest that we

 should go hiking on the Tuesday after next!

 if you say no, I’ll go alone,

 and you know I’ll really be quite vexed”

  

but wait, my friend, please, don’t you know

I’m not sick just to inconvenience you?

when I go to bed, I can’t get to sleep,

and morning finds me just as unable to waken

I do not get up refreshed

and ready to face a new day

I fall out of bed and if 

I don’t fall on the dog

I drag myself up and head off

to the bathroom to stay

for a year and a day

’til my colon problem du jour’s done its job

  

I’m out of breath if I try to walk

into the next room for a short talk

with my husband, who’s not sympathetic,

“you just saw the doctor, what did he say?

I don’t know, I couldn’t see him today,

his nurse says he phoned in sick

     *****     *****     *****

Oh, I hear you, Miz Kay,

and I top you

with my Head,

which hurts so much some mornings

I wish I could stay in bed.

But there’s work to be done

and the dog to be fed

so I crawl across

the floor with toe- and fingernails

all spread.

I have a pain in my big toe

and it has no where to go,

so it travels up my backbone,

gives my neck a nasty knock.

All my joints are aching,

my brain’s in some kind of shock,

but when I sing the blues, they  say

something about a sock.

“Put a sock in it!” How mean!

Do they even have a clue

that getting old’s like

putting on a too-tight shoe?

That everything hurts

and the brain is not too swift?

But Tomorrow is not promised

so today is still a gift,

(even when we need some Elavil

to get a lift.)

Just hold that banner high,

Girl!

Let the universe unfold.

We’ll give our raucous cackle

and paint all our colours bold. 

Kay 1963

 

Sherry, 1964

We were kids in the 60's

when it was all so cool.

Now we’re in our 60’s - 

quite another kind of school.

The sky back then was promising
and always coloured blue.
Now there are holes in the ozone
and  our heads have some holes, too.

It isn’t true what they say:
what doesnt kill you
makes you strong.
What doesnt  kill you
makes you a TOTAL WRECK.
I have so many aches and pains
that I don’t even know their names,
but  I’m still breathing,
so I figure what the heck!

We Boomers have bright hearts.
You'll hear us singing 
many songs about 

holding onto hope.
And, at Happy Hour, 
you'll find,
we forget we've lost our minds.
Buzzed enough that we can Cope,
everything's De-Lovely,
even when we’re swinging
at the end of
     our
       very
          frazzled
              rope.

Someone hand this woman a beverage, quick!