Why does it get boring every afternoon around three? Are naps things that everyone takes but nobody admits? Do people who see me in the elevator think I am old? How come pedicures last so much longer than manicures?

Why are YouTube videos so engrossing? Do my daughters spend as much time on their phones as I do? Do other people get all of their news on Social Media? Is the election going to happen before the world ends?

What does the tooth emoji mean? What if I want to use the eggplant emoji to mean an actual eggplant? What does FWIW mean? Have they stopped using LOL? Why do they have ads on all the streaming services now?

I am in favor of “intuitive eating,” even though I am not sure what it is. Popcorn is addictive, I do know that. Since I started eating so much fruit, ice cream seems too sweet. Most people cook corn on the cob too long. Butter spray is actually pretty good.

Thirty minutes of exercise a day is enough for a person to lose two pounds a month without changing their diet. Even if you eat a lot of popcorn. Ten thousand steps a day is ridiculous. I can’t do the Asian squat.

Can you divorce the artist from the art, even if the artist is Woody Allen? I never really cared for Alice Munro. Elon Musk is a nut job, but if they had charging stations in our parking lot, I might get a Tesla. I think I read somewhere that Dr. Seuss was a racist. Goodnight Moon is a very scary book; I never read it to my children…

I know people who won’t get colonoscopies because of the prep. Men should do breast exams on themselves. I couldn’t spell diarrhea until I worked for a veterinarian. If a cat vomits, it’s probably ok, but if a dog does, you should worry. I once started reading a novel that mentioned “adult breastfeeding,” and so I returned it to the library.

I have lived in this apartment for five years, but I have never dusted the Venetian blinds. If you brush your cat daily, you won’t have fur balls on all the rugs. I almost never brush my cat. Declawing cats is illegal in California, but it’s because of Gavin Newsom. I wish he were running for President. But President Biden is not too old; he just stutters. And the news is disastrous daily; now they are shooting at one and trying to drive out the other one. Americans are reeling.

You should not put butter on sandwiches. Mayo is what you should use. Mustard is good, but only Dijon. When I was in grade school, my mom packed me a bologna sandwich and an apple every day for lunch until I gagged in the lunchroom. I told her, and from then on, she bought me a lunch box with a thermos and I got soup and Franco American spaghetti for lunch. I went from crap lunches to gourmet lunches, and I hated both. All I wanted was the occasional Frito and maybe a tangerine.

I can’t text with my thumbs; I make too many mistakes. How do the kids do this? What is Snapchat? Is there some woman named Ashley Madison? What is Roblox? Do you have to use hashtags?

Should I start vlogging? What IS a vlog?

Dayton, Ohio. Saturday morning. A busy day ahead.

Do you remember when you used to make fun of old people? You know, the ones with boring lives? We are no longer making fun, because we are not young. This is the dismal truth. I still have trouble grappling with the fact that some of our neighbors in the building “check on us” whenever an ambulance pulls up. My God! But facts are facts.

So. What is a busy Saturday like for old people like us? Well, here is a bullet list:

• Have a grocery meeting. What do we need? What will we have for dinner this week?
• No meals with black beans; we had enchiladas last Tuesday.
• Check to see if we need olive oil.
• Make addendums to the list.
• Grab the reusable bags.
• Head to Kroger, where they have remodeled the store; it is now HUGE.
•  Search for dill pickles; the dill pickle aisle is not where it used to be.
• Chat briefly in the cookie section with a neighbor, and remind husband that he HATES Vanillla Wafers. He looks me in the eye and places them in the cart.
• Eye the self check-out and decide once again not to try it. Maybe next time.
• Try not to explain to the checker why we are buying three different types of mouthwash. He doesn’t need to know our business. No matter how tempting it is to discuss plaque and such.
• Load up the trunk, congratulating ourselves once again that we got one of those shopping wagons, to make lugging stuff into the elevator SO much easier.
• Listen as my husband makes small talk with the man in our building who has a brand-new Mercedes. The man says, “Yes, yes!” A lot.
• Gently take my husband by the elbow and whisper into his ear, “Charlie, that man does not speak English…”
• Unload the groceries upstairs, shaking the box of Vanilla Wafers and pointing out that these will end up in the trash.
• Discuss at length what show we will watch after dinner–Grantchester or D I Ray?
• I vote for Grantchester, since I have been confused by D I Ray from the get-go.

This is only SATURDAY. The rest of the week is nearly this exciting.

Docks, sails, lobsters, linen pants. Fires on the beach. Parties. Adultery. This is what summer vacation is about in all of the books I love.

Covid. Benadryl. Kleenex. Staying behind when everybody else goes to the Safari Park. This is what my summer vacation was about. Not one person at any of the airports we were in wore a mask. I didn’t, either, because don’t we all want to live in a post-pandemic world?

It began with a slight rough feeling in my larynx area. I tried to ignore it. By the evening, it was worse. Then came the chills followed by hotness. This was followed by eye rolls from the rest of the group, who witnessed my covid at the last family vacation. But by the next morning, I had given it to everybody, and they all had coughs but proclaimed that “it’s just a cold.”

I knew better, but since I was the only one getting worse, I let it go. There weren’t any tests around. None of the others seemed upset, despite the fact that I had become a super spreader. They just coughed and left for the golf course.

The end of the trip came, and everybody went home. Not us. We had to move to a hotel and change our flights home so I could be even sicker. We have been home now for five days. We both tested positive when we got back. However, my husband was hale and hearty enough to go golfing, but I have been in the same pajamas for the five days since we got here. The world goes on, but for some reason, my covid is sticking around.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I will get up, take a shower, put actual clothes on, and accomplish something, even if it is to stay upright until after lunch.

Mask up, comrades!

Humans are great ones for predictability. We categorize and stereotype. When it comes to naming our children, we choose names that we feel are befitting of a certain cultural standard or current style. When I was in grade school in the olden days, there were a lot of Bobs, Bills, Toms, Sandys, Pattys,  Marges,and some exotics, like Michelle and Renee.

Let’s examine a few examples of what happened to, for instance, a Bill:

Bill would fall off his bike and skin his knees. He would only eat cereal for breakfast, no toast or anything. He would excel at baseball and later on shoot a lot of hoops, in hopes of becoming an NBA star, which of course never happened. Bill would grow up, become a doctor or attorney, and marry a Pam or a Sally. They would have kids, live in a glossy suburb, and maybe stay married.

Or what about a Marge: Marge would have sturdy legs. Her mother would plead with Marge to put her dirty clothes in the hamper to no avail. Marge might say her prayers every night, but she couldn’t be relied on to participate in saying grace along with the rest of the family at dinner. Marge would become a secretary and marry her accountant boss. They would remain childless, because Marge had “female problems.”

When I had babies, styles had changed. There were Whitneys, Merediths, Chads, and Daltons. These kids were typical, still riding bikes; but they carried backpacks and rode skateboards, too. We lived in a suburb with sidewalks, but most kids got driven to school. They asked for kiwis in their lunchboxes. The majority of them got good jobs and had families. Their kids are our grandkids.

These days, I am unable to attach a stereotype to a name any longer, because kids have names like Denyse, Cace, Alinia, Caden, Rebeknia, and Mylan. I have no idea how these children might grow up, but I will take a shot:

Mylan is gifted. His parents noted it when he was 18 months old and stacked his Legos in rows by color and size. He refused to wean from the breast until he could actually tell his mother he was finished with that whole phase, and he used complete sentences. Mylan is so gifted that he became an influencer on TikTok, and he feels confident he will be able to pay for his own college tuition with the proceeds.

Rebeknia has trouble with frustration. She bit her preschool teacher on the arm when they ran out of chocolate milk. Her mother is afraid of her, because Rebeknia is shrill when provoked. Rebeknia spends most of her time on Snapchat or gaming. She has ten thousand friends. She has met five of them in person. “Reb,” as her friends call her, has no desire to get a driver’s license or a part-time job. Instead, she is preparing for a life as a celebrity.

So what can the folks of my generation do? How do we cope with all of these unusual kids, this new world of gens X, Y, Z, or whatever they call them?

We name our dogs Bill and our cats Marge.

You are going to a) play tennis b) take a walk or c) do any other activity requiring sneakers, for instance. You are not a complete nerd. So what do you do? You put on your half socks–you know, the ones that don’t show when your shoes are on. Because remember your grandpa who wore white crew socks and a white patent leather belt when he put on his Bermudas? How embarrassing was it to be seen with him?

But hold on. I have it on good authority that as of today–right now–if you go out wearing shoes with your ankles showing, you are totally out of it. That’s right. The days of old, when the guys on Miami Vice made bare ankles popular? Those days are gone. The style setters, otherwise known as influencers, wear socks. Crew socks and knee socks. Socks with ballet flats. Socks with mules. Socks with loafers (or whatever kind of leather shoe people like Ryan Gosling wear).

I am not kidding. I have seen pictures of Billie Eilish wearing a skirt, knee socks and heels that would make me wonder what she was thinking. What? You don’t know who Billie Eilish is? I don’t either, but trust me, she is famous. With the socks.

Do you have Birkenstocks? My God, you can wear them with socks and actually hold your head up high! And guess what else? Bermudas are back in style, too! Don’t feel ridiculous putting on a pair of bright green Bermudas, a polo shirt (French tuck; that’s for another blog post), threading a belt through the loops, and pulling on a pair of white crew socks before slipping into your Birks. Or even KNEE SOCKS. Those are totally stylish, too! Could black socks be far behind? Of course not! Because socks of any color are totally IN.

This creates a problem for us Boomers. We used to be able to run into a perfectly normal friend, we’ll call him Bob, at Costco; and  if Bob was wearing plaid Bermudas and black socks with his sandals on, it was a  safe call to lean over to your spouse and whisper, “Oh no, I think Bob may be losing it.”

You could be entirely wrong about Bob. Bob may be an influencer. For all we know, he could have 57,000 followers on Instagram, all of them admiring Bob and his socks, despite the fact that Bob’s wife is mortified to be seen with Bob. No–Bob is actually riding the new wave of style, and it is the rest of us who are living in the past.

You can get really good quality socks at Costco. They are a bargain. Bob and I, and if we are all lucky, Billie;  will see you there.

I took a hiatus. Originally, it wasn’t a hiatus; it was the end. But it turned into a hiatus when I realized that taking a long time off from writing could not be permanent.

So here l am again, getting used to a new laptop with a very sensitive keyboard that causes me to make a typo with every other word. Frustrating, but it’s a learning curve.

Here is what happened while I was gone:

• My hair turned white
• I took up pottery; I am getting minorly proficient
• I stopped vacuuming so often
• I became addicted to crime shows
• I realized that the crime shows are shams, because the murderer is always the spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend
• I did my own nails for a year, then realized they looked terrible; so I went back to the salon
• I got “old people skin”
• Crepe Erase does not work; don’t buy it
• I became a “Swiftie”
• Travis Kelce is a hunk
• Thank God for Taylor, who made granny underpants stylish again
• We eat so many chickpeas it’s ridiculous, but at our age, it’s the fiber, baby
• I read at least two books a week, but never remember the book title, the author, and in most cases, the plot
• I spend way too much time on social media, thus I have no attention span whatsoever
• My favorite Taylor Swift song is “The Man”
• I am afraid to use emojis, in case they don’t mean what I think they mean
• Don’t call anybody, for God’s sake, TEXT THEM
• I binge watch everything

Stay tuned. I will be showing up regularly!