Christine Elias

Today I had one of those moments. I am pretty sure it was precipitated by learning that Kim Mitchell is 60 years old.

I am not very popular when I complain about aging. (It does not stop me. One dear friend suggested — with a wink — that I might consider talking to someone — i.e., someone paid and not her — about it.)

Most of of friends are about my age or older and they don’t seem to share the same anxiety about the march of time. And they probably think I am bit nuts. And younger people just think (but don’t say): Yeah, you’re old all right, deal with it. My parents did. Both are right.

And it was thinking about how right they both indeed are that snapped me out of my momentary funk.

I am very happy with my life. Very, very happy, indeed. And I’m a lot more interesting than I was 20 years ago. Smarter, too and a lot more fun. I would not go as far as wise, but I do feel pretty together. And I own lots of great footwear. Really, what more do I need?

Yeah, sometimes I think what the heck happened? But I am pretty sure we all do. And that’s probably good. It keeps me eating my vegetables and walking for an hour every day. It keeps me reading and learning new things. It keeps me on top of my chin hairs, too.

I feel the same as I ever did. Same Christine. (And I like her as much as I ever did.) That’s the secret, right? We all — no matter how old we get — feel like ourselves. We don’t change, the music just gets worse.

Plus, Kim Mitchell was rocking the stage at 60 and he looked pretty damn good. Damn good. Sounded good, too.

So I’m gonna rock middle-age — even if I can’t believe I’ve arrived at the first intermission. The rest of the play is gonna be amazing.

I am not sure how rare it is, but I two of my very dear friends are married to each other. (I actually have a few friends in this boat!) I spent the weekend with them in the hinterland. Okay, not the hinterland, but there was a barn down the road from their house.

What we did:

Eat, eat and eat. My dear friend A. is a fabulous cook. It was all spicy and delicious. (I packed extra stomach tablets and I used them. What’s a little pain when you are experiencing gastric bliss?)
Enjoy each other’s company. Um, maybe that should go ahead of eating? We did this. It was great. We chatted, we relaxed, we played with our gadgets in the same room. B and I are both technically-minded and both enjoy quiet time in each other’s company. A. and I Facebooked (is that a verb?) to each other from different sofas. (A bit weird perhaps, but funny as hell — to us anyway.)
Went to a water-park with the (super delightful) kids. Somehow I got the idea that I might be sitting under an umbrella drinking margaritas during this excursion. But no, I was in the wave pool, the jungle river thing, and the black hole — a tube ride of hellish proportions. (And it was the most darn fun I’ve had while damp in quite some time!)
Went to a country fair in the middle of nowhere and drank Molson Canadian — not our beer of choice — in the beer garden. There was music. First up, a band playing rock and roll hits from our high school years. They were quite good. And the headliner? Kim Mitchell. Yeah, it was pretty muddy and yeah, we were surrounded by drunken people in 80s fashions, but it was fun. A. noted that she was the only ethnic person in attendance. I am pretty sure I was the only person of Macedonian descent there, too. B. and I rocked on. A. is — I think — not a big Kim Mitchell fan but she was at least dry in her calf-high Hunter boots. My white sneakers may not make it — will try washing them later this week. We made some friends trying to find a bank machine. Well, I did anyway. A. — I think, like any sane person –would sooner not talk to drunken fellows bemoaning the departure of their ex-wives. (For the record, I don’t know why people tell me these things. I just exchanged greetings with the guy in the beer line.)

I am home now and I miss them already. I have promised to return soon…and I will.
Thanks for the fun A. B. N. and J.!

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Patio Lanterns….

Did not think I’d hear “Easy to Tame” live in this lifetime… I was wrong.