Movin’ On Up

Just when I was starting to feel better about myself, my health and my future life prospects my best friend since our schooldays has become a grandfather.

I apparently once said (a friend recently reminded me that I said this years ago, and I’m astonished at how perceptive I was back then) that people stay at the age at which you meet them first. As an example of what I mean by this, think of Little Old Ladies that you see pushing wheely shopping bags.  To me they are Little Old Ladies, probably aged about 70. My mother-in-law is 74, and to other people probably looks like the archetypal LOL, but because I met her first when she was in her forties I think of her as young. I will never see her as older than these ladies.

Because my mum and dad were grown-up since my earliest memories, I remember them as confident, knowing parents. Yet they were in their early 30s, and probably felt young and clueless at parenting, much as I still do now.

I met Schoolfriend when we were 12. We were inseperable all through school (people used to think we were brothers) and have remained friends ever since. His wife has been my friend nearly as long, since he and I met her when we did a joint drama production with a neighbouring girls’ school. She was so determined not to miss the wedding of Mrs Tin and I that she brought her 4-day-old baby with her. This baby, the youngest person at our wedding, is now the proud mum.

But although Schoolfriend is married and has grown-up children, in my mind he and I are still kids, so I was startled last night to hear the news. I wasn’t expecting him to suddenly evolve into someone who wears cardigans, takes his teeth out and cleans them in company and tells interminable rambling stories about life during the Emergency. (Brief diversion here for my overseas readers. “The Emergency” is how the Irish referred to the Second World War during its duration. We have a terrific capacity for euphemism. Thirty years of violence in Northern Ireland was known as “The Troubles”, which sounds as if the country was merely suffering from some mild bowel irritation. The current recession will in times to come be known as “The Comeuppance”. If there is ever an atomic war the resulting nuclear winter will be referred to as “The Overcast Days”).

And of course Schoolfriend hasn’t changed at all. But what he has done is make me realise that I am moving up one generation, that my kids are getting close to being adults themselves, and that eventually a new layer will be added beneath them (I’m going to have to start thinking of names – Tingranddaughter1, for example, would take a lot of typing by fingers which I can feel getting more arthritic ever since last night’s phonecall).

The sheer joy in his voice on the phone from the hospital was lovely to hear. I know they’re going to love and dote on baby Megan, and I know they’ll make wonderful, and very unconventional, grandparents. And I’ve realised that my time for that gets nearer year by year, and that I’ll love it too when it happens.

I just don’t want it to happen too soon. I’m only a kid, after all.

Paranoid Android

Firstly, here comes the science bit. Concentrate…

There are two main types of Tax Credit in our system. There is the Personal Credit, that everyone gets, just for existing, and the PAYE Credit, which those of us who get taxed at source are granted. It doesn’t apply to the Self-Employed, or to Company Directors.

In other words, everyone gets the Personal Credit, but not everyone gets the PAYE Credit. Simple?

Apparently not. My Tax Credits Cert for 2009 gives me the PAYE Credit, but not the Personal one. So unless the Tax Office have made a mistake (and this is such an appalling vista that every sensible person in the land would say that it cannot be right that I should suggest this) there is only one possibility.

In a post about a trip to the dentist last November (don’t worry, even I’m fed up with links now), I said this:

“This will be my third crown, as well as all the Tinman pacemaker stuff. What percentage of my body weight has to comprise man-made materials before I’m officially classed as an Artificial Life Form?”

Whatever that percentage is, I have obviously reached it. It seems I no longer count as human and, while the Revenue are willing to recognise that I do actually contribute to society by giving me the PAYE Credit, they refuse to grant me the Personal one since they seem to reckon that I’m not, well, a person.

Back when I was starting this blog, and was trying to think of a name for it, one name I toyed with mirrored one of my favourite movie lines. In the film Men in Black (well, you didn’t think it was going to be from something by Bergman or Fellini, did you?) an ambulance driver arrives into the Morgue with a body, makes a load of tasteless remarks to Morgue Doctor Linda Fiorentino, and leaves. After he’s gone, Linda mutters “I hate the living”. I’ve often felt the same way.

And I hate you all even more now (no offence) since it turns out I’ve to pay more tax than you lot. I wonder if Data is taxed by Starfleet in the same way.

And I also wonder what’s going to happen when I reach retirement age (a mind-bogglingly mere 15 years away). I presume that I’ll get the Old Age Pension since, robot or not, I will be old. They probably won’t give me the fuel allowance though, since they’ll think that I can’t feel the cold (they’ll be bloody wrong there, I can tell you). Will they give me free bus travel? Probably not, they’ll expect me to be able to walk forever, like the Duracell bunny. In fact, they’ll believe (and I apologise in advance for what I’m about to do to you all here) that I would walk five hundred miles.

And what about the butter vouchers? They’ll probably figure I won’t need to eat, so unless I can persuade them that I intend to spread myself in butter to keep myself from rusting I’m unlikely to get them either.

And what about the next step after retirement, when I am, er, no more?

Will I be buried, or re-cycled?

Paraskavedekatriaphobia…

…..that’s easy for you to say.

Our office party is on tonight. All the staff and their partners are invited to the Radisson SAS in Cavan to eat turkey and, er, ham, to drink beer at a free bar and then stay overnight. There will be 233 people there.

My boss last year (not really)

Some may say that this is over-extravagant while banks are crashing, while jobs are dwindling and while Bob the Builder is presumably now Just Plain Bob. The company’s attitude, though, is that the staff have worked just as hard this year as last, so why cut their party? They also take the attitude that if everything really goes badly, in 18 months time it’s unlikely they’ll be saying  “if only we hadn’t held that party – it would have made all the difference between solvency and bankruptcy”.

Anyway, I’m delighted. As I say, there are 233 people going, so it’ll be the biggest birthday party I’ve ever had.

For today is my birthday, and, as you’ll have noticed, it’s the 13th (I know it’s the 14th where you are, LK, but we Irish have always been a bit behind the times). And, back in 1957 (aargh!), the 13th of December was indeed a Friday.

So the title of this post is not Mandarin, Klingon or indeed Keyshitatrandom, it is the term for Fear of Friday the Thirteenth.

The great advantage of being born on F the T is that it means you can never be superstitious. It’s hard to take rubbish about magpies, walking under ladders or breaking a mirror seriously once you’ve survived bring born on the The Day Most Fraught With Peril. Magpies are bad because they are loud and steal other birds’ nests, walking under a ladder is unlucky only if the guy at the top drops something on you (you could say the same for walking under a bridge), and breaking a mirror is bad because, well, you’ve to buy a new mirror.

In the office last week we got new Golf Umbrellas delivered to give to our clients, and I opened one to see what they were like. “You can’t open that in here,” said MyAgeGirl (the only other Over-50 in the office, though very few people know it), “it’ll bring you bad luck”.

“Jesus, MAG,” I said, “You’re talking to a guy with heart problems. What more bad luck can I get?”.

Which makes me think. In the past 18 months I’ve had 17 blackouts, three operations, and a pacemaker. I have scars on my forehead from one of my falls. I have a condition where I don’t fully experience things anymore. I’d a tooth taken out yesterday and a crown put in. I’d to pay €470 for that, and last week I’d to pay €100 to get the heater fixed in my car.

Not only that, but Ireland were awful in the Rugby World Cup, the world economy is banjaxed and the Cassini spacecraft has stopped transmitting (I know these things aren’t just my bad luck, but I’m on a roll now). Chrysler and GM are going broke. Pigs can kill you. Martina Navratilova didn’t win I’m a Celebrity. It’s pissing rain.

None of this, of course, is due to when I was born. Touch wood.

******************************************************************

(Ps. As my birthday present to you lot, a word of advice. Don’t ever type “Office Party” into Google Images. And, if you do, don’t look at the fourth picture along.)

Look, I told you NOT to.

Like a Dragon

So, not too bad. I do have to get one tooth replaced by a crown though. The dentist asked would he take the impression there and then, saying that there was a small chance doing this might actually pull the tooth out. Fuck that – it’s hard enough being the old guy in a company full of beautiful young women, without being the old gummy guy as well. So I’m going on Monday 15th and the crown will be ready on the 18th, & if the tooth comes out on the Monday, well, then I’m taking 3 days holidays.

I do wonder, though. This will be my third crown, as well as all the Tinman pacemaker stuff. What percentage of my body weight has to comprise man-made materials before I’m officially classed as an Artificial Life Form?

Anyway, the dentist cleaned up my teeth, dug out all the gunk, etc, then told me this story. He had an old guy in yesterday and did the same for him (and now the reason for the strange title of this post will become clear). The man stood up, poked his tongue against his teeth, and said “that’s great, now I can do my Christmas trick for my grandkids”.

“And what’s that?” asked the dentist.

“Spitting gin though the gap in my front teeth into the fire.”

Old people rock.

Good News, Bad News

The Good News is that I get to stay in bed for an extra hour-and-a-half tomorrow morning!

The Bad News is that this is because I’ve got an appointment with the dentist.

It’s the first time I’ve been since last December, when I rang and cancelled on the basis that I’d had a Heart Monitor inserted the day before, and I felt there were only so much punishment anyone could be expected to inflict on themselves in one week. I promised that I’d re-schedule for early in 2008, so my appointment’s tomorrow (well, it IS early – it’s at 9).

I’m not expecting it to go well. My dentist (who I’ve had since I was eight, and who looks about 40 – how old must he really be?) is unlike the Tooth Fairy.

When you’re a child, the Tooth Fairy takes away your teeth, and leaves money under your pillow.

As you get older, the Tooth Fairy hands over his (her?) job to the Dentist, who still takes away your teeth, but takes your money as well.

Doesn’t seem fair.

I may be blogging tomorrow through one side of my mouth, with dribble trickling down the other side.

I Nearly Fell Out of my (Bath)chair

The Irish Times carried an advert yesterday for the Over 50s Show, which is taking place in the RDS next weekend. The Show, organised by ‘Senior Times’ magazine (nah, me neither), is described as “Ireland’s Lifestyle Event for Older People”. The ad has 3 photos of celebrities who will be performing there: Gerry Daly (“Gardening Clinics”), Sonny Knowles (“The Legend Returns”), and Sil Fox (“Mr Comedy Himself”).

Get. Bloody. Stuffed.

Not me, yet

The organisers seem to think that when we turn 50 someone takes our aesthetic taste and puts it into a blender to turn it to mush, as they do with the food that we now have to eat. I do not regard either Sonny Knowles or Sil Fox as entertaining, and cannot imagine what age I’ll have to reach before I ever will. Nor am I interested in a “gardening clinic”, whatever the hell that might be.

My dad is 75 and would scoff at this crap. He still has Pink Floyd on his iPod (hear that, Senior Times, older people have iPods!).

If the rest of the show is as stereotypical as the celebrities they’ve hired, I can guess what the exhibits will be like. Ads for Denturefix and Sennakot. Brochures for Nursing Homes. Discreet leaflets about erectile dysfunction.

Perhaps they’ll go all out and have a Undertakers’ stand.

Thanks K8, that’s Gr8

What I like about all this blogging lark is that occasionally – completely by chance -  you find a post that really helps you deal with your own life, just when you need it most.

Yesterday I read a post by the K8 the Gr8 called Old My Arse, which you can read yourself at

http://www.cackaloo.com/ (can’t do links or fancy stuff like that)

It’s about two elderly ladies she picked up in her taxi on Sunday, one of whom turned out to be 91 and fit as a fiddle.

It’s entertaining, it’s uplifting, it’s got a link to a really terrific poem and I’ve written a complimentary comment on K8’s blog. But it struck such a chord with me and the way I feel at the moment that I reckoned that wouldn’t do it justice, so I’m writing a whole post about it instead (oh, and I’ve also stolen this -> photo from K8’s site).

I am 50, and not very happy about it. I hid this from myself for a long time. I refused all offers of a party, saying that it was no big deal, which I believed, but on the morning my birthday arrived I felt suddenly old.

I work in a company full of twenty- and thirty-somethings. They are terrific people, and some of them – by chance, some of the best-looking girls – have become close friends, at least to my mind. But sometimes, when I’m depressed,  I wonder what they actually think of me – am I odd to insist on hanging around with them all the time, do I come across as weird  (or pervy) when I spend time with them? Depression, and the paranoia that comes with it, is something I’ve fought for many years, but being 50 hasn’t helped.

I am also very conscious of the fact that I am now less than five years away from the age my mother was when she died. I realise now just how young she actually was, and how unfair it was that her life was cut so short. Back then, when I was 29, 55 seemed like a reasonable age. Now it seems just around the corner, and even the fact that my father is still going strong at 74 (and got married again two years ago) doesn’t seem to counteract the sense I have that I’m very much on the last lap.

It’s also time I admitted to myself that the health problems of last year, which led to me becoming a tinman, have left their toll on my mind. I, who was never sick, was suddenly blacking out for no apparent reason. Far from being striking-looking, I was now striking my looks, smacking my head and/or face against a variety of concrete and brick surfaces.  Seven months of not knowing when it might happen next, of travelling on the Dart to the accompaniment of stares at my black eyes or scars, and of being wary of being anywhere that I couldn’t hold on to something, have left me panicky in crowds and also left me with a strange sense of feeling permanently slightly drunk, as if I’m detached from everything that’s going on around me. I think that started as a defence against terror, as again I played down the whole situation to anyone who asked.

Eventually I was diagnosed as a guy with a heart problem. As I was in my forties, this made me feel unusual. Then, in the middle of it all, I hit 50, and now I was an old guy with a heart problem – sure what could I expect?

Since the tin operation, I’ve good days and bad days. This week was not one of the good ones. I’ve written about the terrific day I had at the yacht race last Friday, but on Saturday the company had another event – 12 of the staff went water-skiing. I put my name down to go, and then found out that I wasn’t let.

It’s the first thing that I’ve wanted to do that I’ve not been allowed to, and it made me feel disabled. On Monday and yesterday everyone was talking about it, and we saw all the photos, so I was thoroughly fed up going home on the Dart.

That’s when I read K8’s post, linking to it from a comment she made on Twenty’s site. The image of these two ladies happily smoking fags, travelling the world and listening to modern music really cheered me up.

Me one day?

I know that they are women, and that men generally don’t live as long (remember that girls, when you say it’s a man’s world – and we lose all our hair) but why shouldn’t I start to think that I could live at least into my eighties? That I might actually be a grandad one day (I’ve honestly never thought about it, never expecting to actually live that long)? That I’m actually still young?

So thanks, K8. You’ve made an old man very happy.