Could it be a sign?

     I had always imagined  that the Golden Years' reputation for serenity was partly due to uneventfulness.  Change would slow down; hours would stretch out to allow for greater contemplation; there would simply be less of the continuous to-do that has always marked my life. Turns out, that impression arose from the narcissism of youth:  to thirty-year-old me, it just didn't look like the over-sixty crowd was doing anything. They puttered around.  It never occurred to me that I might be as pole-axed by my life at sixty-one as I was at twenty-nine.  


     Tip: if anything, it all gets faster, wilder, and more significant.  Now, there's no open-ended lifetime stretching out ahead. The decisions we make at sixty may be our third-from-last, our next-to-last, or worse...we could be stuck with this stuff.  It all matters now. Everything. And I can't speak for the rest of the senior citizenry, but I don't know one jot or tittle more about what I'm doing than I did at eighteen, which makes this an adrenaline-pumping ride, a cortisol tilt-a-whirl.   


     Therefore, whenever I'm faced with a tough call, I try to abdicate, or, at the very least, assign it to someone else.  My husband is the obvious and favorite choice.  And the responsibility hand-off can still work as long as he doesn't see it coming.  Unfortunately, he's onto this whole ploy, which leaves me to face my apprehensions head-on and headlong.


     This last week has been a case-study in the breathless pace, the unnerving choices that have characterized my 1.5 years of Old Age. (Never mind if you don't think of yourself as old at sixty; I say it starts somewhere and this is my blog, after all.)  Against all instincts, but in the name of logical thought, I agreed to contacting the nice young realtor we know.  I can't bring myself to look closely at the e-mail we sent, but I think we wound up inviting him to come on over to talk numbers and...oh, my...bring a sign with him.  The funny part is, I thought he was coming this last Wednesday and we prepped for that:  mowed, tidied, sprayed pleasant smelling stuff around (don't ask me why, since he's not the buyer).  When he didn't show up on time, I phoned him and, naturally, it's next week.  That mistake is very typical of both of us, now.  We joke about it; we'll work at being even funnier about it, but this ramped-up goofiness is a faintly worrisome development, at best.  You can only get so far with a joke.



     It's tempting to see our error as a sign that we should stay put. We've reached this signage point once before: the same day the previous realtor was to put a sign in the yard, her mother suffered a medical crisis so severe and unexpected, she couldn't call to cancel or explain.  Been there, done that, and don't blame her a bit.  But I felt relief that the MLS listing was postponed.  We backed off from the decision just long enough for the real estate bubble to burst.  Intuition tells me something else will come up this time.  Given the record, I'm not sure I'd want to be our realtor.


     And I had to meet with the Financial Dude.  He wanted me to put some of my retirement back into the market...that same market that done me wrong ...oh, so very recently.  I don't understand a stock market that seems entirely divorced from the state of our economy, which is to say that I'm missing the big picture altogether.  I hate to own up to dumb.  I said yes, though.  And I felt better when he told me I'd made good choices that day.  Clearly, I have reached the stage of senescence where I'll settle for a pat on the head rather than financial  sanctuary.  Not good.


     It's all so overwhelming, last night I resorted to pizza.  No, not the delivered kind; the from-scratch vegan kind that was so improbably scrumptious, it actually made me forget how old I am.  Recipe follows, with a bow to Barbara and Camille Kingsolver's site http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/Recipes.html.   They use real dairy.  I substituted something I ordered on-line that turned out to be a small miracle in itself:  Daiya Vegan Shreds, made from cassava root (picture those dusky women pounding plant roots, from National Geo...got it?).  The Italian Shreds melt like mozzarella and taste creamy and rich.   I'm sold completely.  http://www.daiyafoods.com/index.html.  There just had to be pizza; I couldn't face another plate of barely-adorned greens.  Besides, there was fresh basil, rosemary, and Greek oregano left in our little herb garden begging to be useful...heavenly.

Vegan Paradise Pizza

Dough:  3 tsp. yeast dissolved in 1.5 cups of warm water.

4 cups whole wheat flour

4 Tablespoons olive oil plus 2 Tblsp. extra

2 tsp. salt

3 tsp. minced rosemary

Add oil and salt to dissolved yeast.  Stir in flour and rosemary, mix, mound in bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm spot for about 45 minutes.  Prepare toppings.  When dough has risen a little, center it on oiled and floured baking pan or pizza stone (2 twelve-inch or one extra large crust).  Use oiled fingers to push and spread dough to the edges of pan with a little slop-over.  Shape the edges of crust to form a rim.  Brush generously with olive oil.

Toppings, in order of layering

Veggie shreds or thin rounds of fresh mozzarella

Thinly sliced fresh tomato, lots.  

Baby spinach leaves

Sliced shitake mushrooms

Minced fresh garlic

Caramelized onions

Fresh basil and oregano

Pine nuts

Bake at 425 for about 15-20 minutes.  In a convection oven, 15 minutes is plenty.  Check rim of crust at 15 minutes for crispness and make sure pine nuts don't burn. After dinner, watch "Ghost Town" DVD.  Forget your troubles; come on, get happy.