{"id":10238,"date":"2020-04-05T06:00:16","date_gmt":"2020-04-05T10:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dennygibson.com\/blog\/?p=10238"},"modified":"2020-04-05T18:01:45","modified_gmt":"2020-04-05T22:01:45","slug":"aging-in-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/aging-in-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Aging in Place"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"This picture is indeed a repeat. It appeared last November in a post about my first decade of retirement<\/a>. It is now being used for my birthday. I’m celebrating my seventy-third birthday today in the middle of a pandemic and a statewide stay-at-home order. That is not, however, why I’m reusing the picture. As soon as I made the image, I knew it would be perfect for my next birthday post. Sure, I took the picture with retirement in mind, but once the text was added it became a birthday image. I went ahead and used it in the retirement post because I didn’t have time to think of and produce anything else. Here is where it belongs.<\/p>\n

The aforementioned pandemic and the changes it’s brought make me aware of other privileges I have besides growing old. In normal times, having a fixed income is often seen as a negative. Any unexpected expense can be a disaster and the slow creep of inflation can be a major problem over time. But, when restaurants and other businesses are being closed, new layoffs are announced almost daily, and most of the self-employed are left with nothing coming in at all, a fixed income doesn’t sound so bad.<\/p>\n

I’ve been living alone for more than twenty years, and I’ve become quite used to it. Quite happy with it, too. Social distancing is easy, and I don’t have to worry about anyone but me contaminating that teetering stack of books on my table. I’m not officially responsible for anyone else. Please don’t read that as a disclaimer intended to shirk responsibility. It’s an observation that there is no one is depending on me for shelter or meals. I do keep an eye on my 94-year-old stepmother but she’s remarkably independent and well prepared with wonderful neighbors who make sure she doesn’t run out of anything. I usually see her every week or two, but when I suggested coming to visit last weekend, she talked me out of it.<\/p>\n

Each of my three kids fits the model of what I think about when describing someone being responsible for someone else. Each has a family that they shelter and feed and — with schools closed — educate. I was never a particularly good parent but all three are self-sufficient and caring and I’m pretty happy with that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I had planned to be in the middle of a short road trip right now, and celebrating my birthday with dinner at the historic Century Inn in Scenery Hill, Pennsylvania, but the inn is about 250 miles away and only doing carry out anyway. As that affects me personally, it seems to be among the first worldliest of first world problems. It means that the only National Road mile marker I’ll see today is the one on my mantle. I’ve not often done carry out during this quasi-quarantine, but I probably will today. Maybe something from the steakhouse across the street.<\/p>\n

Yeah, I’m privileged. Not so much for being old as for growing old. I’ve often said, in reference to road trips, that I enjoy getting there more than being there. I guess life’s kind of like that too. I think I’ll just grow older for a while.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>ADDENDUM 5-Apr-2020:<\/strong> In the end, I did not go to the nearby steakhouse. I decided if I was going to venture out, it would be for something special — and local. The steakhouse is a chain and Montgomery Inn<\/a>, while being a long way from a mom-and-pop restaurant, is independent and locally owned. I did a drive-by for my favorite ribs & shrimp combo and even helped my dwindling beer stash with a six-pack of Ted’s Red (brewed by Mount Carmel<\/a>).  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This picture is indeed a repeat. It appeared last November in a post about my first decade of retirement. It is now being used for my birthday. I’m celebrating my seventy-third birthday today in the middle of a pandemic and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-event"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WE0S-2F8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10238"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10262,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10238\/revisions\/10262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}