Standards

I was chatting with a friend on the phone the other day. She had recently been in phone conversation with her thirty-ish daughter on the far coast. Lovely girl, very attractive and sociable, very smart, expert horsewoman and loves to hike the mountain trails. For most of her life she and her mother did not get along well at all, she was definitely Daddy's Girl. But somewhere along the line things shifted, now they chat regularly and when she comes home to visit, my friend says it's like heaven on earth, she can hardly believe in it.

Anyway, daughter recently broke up with boyfriend. Not really news, she does this regularly. But this guy looked serious, maybe this time it would go somewhere. However, when he suggested they move in together, daughter balked.

"Mom, I have standards. You don't just move in together and see how it goes. We have to date for at least a year and then maybe we'll get engaged."

Friend and I were silent for a moment, remembering our pasts. A year?

"What did you say to her? Nothing, I hope."

"I said, 'Right! Who does that s***?'"

"Certainly nobody we know!"

We laughed.

The other thing was, he was anti-social and had a temper. A temper?

"But Mom, he's never laid a finger on me!"

Right. We know where that goes. A year, eh? And he didn't like that so they broke up.

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We talked about the pandemic.

"We're the lucky ones," she said, "retired with pensions, no mortgage, no kids to support. And we live in one of the best places."

"I know, eh? Sometimes I just sit on my back deck and think to myself, 'Oh wow! Oh wow!'"

I was pulling up weeds yesterday and my neighbour came out into his backyard with a cup of coffee and commented on weed pulling (mine) and lawn mowing (his).

I said, "But aren't you glad you have a back yard?"

He agreed and thought about it for a moment and then said, "Aren't you glad you're not thirty with kids right now?"

For us retired folks self isolation and physical distancing is not a lot different from normal life, but I have no doubt it is very hard on younger folks with busy lives put on hold, livelihoods evaporated and kids forced to stay home.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My friend and I discussed Hapi's problem with the basement stairs. She had all sorts of suggestions around blocking the stairs and I was the one balking. I spent most of the rest of the day sorting out my objections to the idea. I think there are two things. One is selfish, if I block her access then I will have to move upstairs too and I don't want to. The other is quality of life vs quantity. She really wants access to the basement and I don't want to refuse her. She knows she has a problem with the stairs. For now, I am going to let her deal with that on her own terms. It's a risk, I know and I may regret it, but that's how it stands today. We'll see about tomorrow.