27 Things

Because 27 was Mike’s favorite number, and because I like lists, and just for fun.
27 Things That Are True for Me About Weight Loss
27 Historical Inaccuracies In The History Channel’s Vikings SPOILERS
27 Things You Can Do to Help Save the Planet
27 Cringeworthy Song Lyrics
27 Weird Pandemic Habits
27 Things That Won’t Change Back
27 Songs That Made Me Cry This Week, in No Particular Order
27 Skills That Will Come in Handy for Another Month of Isolation
27 Things I Like About Working from Home
27 Signs You Really Are Getting Older
27 Things No One Tells You About Widowhood
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27 Things That Are True for Me About Weight Loss

“Going on a diet” is doomed to fail; it implies you’ll go off it.
Permanent lifestyle changes succeed.
You can’t lose weight permanently through exercise alone, or by just restricting carbs without exercise.
Exercise is essential for weight loss if coupled with lifestyle changes.
You can lose weight without exercise, but your health won’t improve as much as it could.
Fetishizing sugary or salty snack foods ensures you’ll break down and binge on them.
Allowing yourself a moderate portion of “treat” foods on a special occasion is OK; you’ll lose the bullshit weight you’ll gain if you immediately return to healthy eating.
If you have to be a chemist to understandthe list of ingredients on a box, can, or bag, don’t eat what’s inside.
Sticking to organic foods with one ingredient (“chicken,” “salmon,” “asparagus,” “green beans” etc.) will help you lose weight.
If you lose weight with potions, powders, supplements, or other quick fixes you find on the Internet, and make no lifestyle changes, you will soon gain all the weight back and then some, which makes it harder to lose next time.
If you make permanent changes in what and when you eat, you can lose weight and keep it off.
Resistance exercise is better than cardio for weight loss, especially if you’re over 50, and you’ll still get your heart pumping.
If your doctor fat shames you, run.
You know your body better than any fat shaming doctor ever will.
Doctors are consultants who answer questions and provide information, but you are the decision maker.
It isn’t necessary to go hungry to lose weight.
Never eat after 6 p.m., which means you must eat enough before then to feel full and satisfied.
If you must eat later, eat protein
When you lose weight, buy new clothes
Give away your fat clothes; keeping them means you expect to regain the weight. It impairs your confidence.
Yes, you must quit drinking alcohol.
Yes, you can have an alcoholic drink or two on special occasions; that’s or two, not five
Quitting dairy foods, corn, soy, and wheat, unless it is sprouted organic wheat will help you lose weight (I learned this from a book called “The Fast Metabolism Diet” by Haylie Pomroy, and no, I’m not getting paid to say that).
If your goal is losing a certain amount of weight by a certain date (your high school reunion, your cousin’s wedding) you will fail.
If your goal is to permanently improve your health, sleep better, live longer, and to be happy with yourself, you will succeed.
Health, kindness, and gratitude are more important than size.
Taking weight loss advice from a stranger on the Internet is a bad idea.

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27 Historical Inaccuracies In The History Channel’s Vikings SPOILERS

1. 1. Bjorn Ironside was Aslaug’s son, not Lagertha’s, according to sources cited in Wikipedia: “The Tale of Ragnar’s Sons (Ragnarssona þáttr) is an Icelandic Fornaldar Saga from about the 14th century that combines traditional Norse oral history with legendary themes. It states that Björn was the son of Ragnar and Aslaug.” See also HistoricUK.com
  2. Bjorn Ironside was the second son, not the eldest, of Ragnar by Aslaug: Ivar the Boneless was the eldest.
  3. King Ecgbert did not commit suicide, but died of natural causes after victory over the Vikings and their Cornish allies at the Battle of Hengeston: “Egbert died of natural causes in 839 CE and his son Aethelwulf succeeded him without opposition due to support from the church” according to World History Encyclopedia.
  4. It was Guthrum, not Hvitserk, who converted to Christianity and took the name Aethelstan, with King Alfred the Great acting as his Godfather. Guthrum made two treaties with Alfred, one promising to be baptized and leave Wessex, and the other establishing boundaries between Wessex and the area that came to be known as the Danelaw.
  5. Aethelwulf died of natural causes, not from a bee sting, although he did take Alfred on a pilgrimage to Rome.
  6. Aethelwulf’s wife Judith was Frankish King Charles the Bald’s daughter, not Aella of Northumbria’s daughter.
  7. Alfred was Aethelwulf’s son, not Aethelstan’s, and there is no evidence that a specific monk named Aethelstan survived the Lindisfarne raid to be enslaved by Ragnar, although Vikings frequently took slaves and were engaged in the slave trade.
  8. Ivar the Boneless died before Oleg of Novgorod came to power.
  9. There’s no evidence that Oleg ever invaded Scandinavia.
  10. Rollo and Ragnar were not brothers nor contemporaries; Rollo became Duke of Normandy around 911, long after Ragnar died sometime between 852 and 856. Gisela was Charles III (“the Simple”)’s daughter and was betrothed to Rollo probably around the year 911.
  11. The Temple at Uppsala is depicted in an architectural style for Christian Scandinavian churches that wasn’t established until the 11th century, well beyond the time period of the original series.
  12. The raid at Lindisfarne happened in 793; the first Viking siege of Paris was in 845. Ragnar was probably born around 760. He would have been in his mid-80’s if he was at both raids.
  13. Ivar wasn’t killed at the battle of Eddington in 878. He made an alliance with Olaf the White of Ireland and raided Scotland, then returned to Dublin. He probably died in Ireland around 873.
  14. Kattegat is a stretch of water between Denmark and Sweden, not a port or village.
  15. Ragnar had three wives, not two.
  16. Thora was Ragnar’s second of his three wives, not Hvitserk’s lover. Thora and Ragnar had two sons, Erik and Agnar, who are said to have died in battle against a Swedish king. Some accounts combine Lagertha and Thora into one person.
  17. Ivar didn’t kill Sigurd Snake in the Eye. After the “Great Heathen Army” captured York, Sigurd may have gone on to be a co-ruler of Denmark with one of his brothers, Halfdan, who may be the same person as Hvitserk.
  18. Vikings didn’t call themselves Vikings. No one at the time did. The probably referred to themselves by their national origin as Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, etc. Saxons and Franks would have called them Norse or Northmen.
  19. Christians didn’t use crucifixion as punishment. Think about it–would an early Christian put a heathen in the same position as the Son of God?
  20. The sagas and legends of Ragnar say he was Swedish, not Norwegian.
  21. Even though only one has ever been found, Vikings wore helmets and and only berserkers fought naked or shirtless. Although, hey, thanks–nothing like a bit of eye candy in the form of extremely fit and handsome younger men for a mature woman to enjoy to distract her from the violence and gore of the battle scenes.
  22. And speaking of helmets, the style worn by the soldiers of Wessex in the show weren’t invented until about 700 years after (scroll down in that link) the events depicted.
  23. Alfred waited out three older brothers before he ascended to the throne of Wessex — Aethelbald, Aethelbert, and Aethelred–not just Aethelred.
  24. Ansgar, the missionary who was put to the test by Aslaug and died, actually preached for decades in Scandinavia, and died of natural causes at age 64.
  25. Norsemen probably didn’t shave their heads–to cold!
  26. Ragnar never met Ecgbert or Alfred.
  27. Although there are many legends of warrior women, and recent archeological evidence that warrior women existed, there’s no proof that organized bands of “shield maidens” were a thing. But then again, no one was looking: when a grave with warrior objects in it was discovered, everyone just assumed the person in it was a man.

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27 Things You Can Do to Help Save the Planet

1. 1. Stop using a dryer and hang up a clothesline.
  2. Use cold water to wash most of your clothes.
  3. Lose the lawn. Plant native plants instead.
  4. If you can afford it and one is available, buy an electric or hybrid car.
  5. Plant a pollinator garden.
  6. Plant a rain garden.
  7. Don’t waste water – turn off the tap while brushing your teeth.
  8. Use rain barrels.
  9. Buy less stuff.
  10. Buy used stuff.
  11. Recycle.
  12. If your company allows it, continue working from home.
  13. Walk more.
  14. Cycle more.
  15. Drive less.
  16. Use reusable silicon food storage bags rather than disposable plastic.
  17. Wash out plastic bread, tortilla, and other food bags and reuse them.
  18. If your supermarket lets you, use reusable grocery bags.
  19. If you keep some of your lawn, use battery powered lawn care equipment.
  20. Use LED bulbs.
  21. Grow your own veggies.
  22. Join a CSA for local meat and produce.
  23. Compost.
  24. Stop using weed killer. Pull weeds or use eco-friendly alternatives.
  25. Go paperless for as many things as you can.
  26. Use a refillable water bottle and commuter cup.
  27. Plant trees.

For more like this, search “simple things you can do to help save the planet.” Here are a few links I used as sources and inspiration:

https://www.sierraclub.org/toiyabe/100-things-you-can-do-save-planet

27 Cringeworthy Song Lyrics

1. 1. “You ain’t a beauty but hey, you’re alright..” Bruce Springsteen, Thunder Road. Aw, Bruce, just the backhanded compliment every woman yearns to hear.
  2. “Sweet little Mary was just 13, walking down the street she’d make a good man mean” – Good Work, by the Bodeans, at a time Sam Llanas, who was later accused of sexually abusing the daughter of the band’s leader, was still in the band. Oh, OH, NO. NO. NO. Nononononononno. Eeeewwww!
  3. “All the guys on the corner stand back and let her walk on by…” Jackson Browne, She’s Got to Be Somebody’s Baby. Let her, Jackson? LET her?
  4. “Hey little girl is your Daddy home did he go away and leave you all alone?” – Bruce Springsteen, I’m on Fire. Little girl, Bruce? Another Eeeewww, this time for you!
  5. “Don’t say a word, my virgin child, just let your inhibitions run wild…” Rod Stewart, Tonight’s the Night – Really, the whole song is just gross. “Stay away from the window, stay away from my backdoor too, disconnect the telephone line, relax baby and draw that blind….” why, Rod, so she’d have no way out and no witnesses?
  6. “I’d take you into the night, And show you a love Like you’ve never seen, ever seen” – Benny Mardones, Into the Night- right, except “She’s just 16 years old…”
  7. “Sit down, getup, get down…” Rod Stewart, Stay With Me – nothing like a little controlling abuse, especially after insults like, “with a face like that you got nothing to laugh about.”
  8. “The only lover I’m ever gonna need’s your soft sweet little girl’s tongue” – Bruce Springsteen, Rosalita – Little girl again, Bruce. If it hadn’t been for Spotify during work from home time, I’d never have realized how pervy some of your lyrics are.
  9. “You’re sixteen, you’re beautiful, and you’re mine” – Ringo Starr, You’re Sixteen – Ringo should have known better – he was 33 in 1973 when he recorded a cover of this 1960 Johnny Burnette hit. Burnette was 26 when he recorded it. Honestly, are all rock stars pervy?
  10. “Young girl, get out of my mind, my love for you is way out of line, better run girl…” Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, Young Girl. Wait, better run, girl? So it’s her job to keep him away?
  11. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve been tied to the whippin’ post…” Gregg Allman, Whipping Post. Umm, NO. White guy does not get to liken relationship problems with a woman to the torture of an enslaved person. NO.
  12. “Well, I’m the friendly stranger in the black sedan, Oh, won’t you hop inside my car? I got pictures, candy, I’m a lovable man, I’d like to take you to the nearest star.” – Ides of March, Vehicle. Beware the Ides of March indeed. I was always so distracted by the vocals and horns of this song that for decades I didn’t notice how creepy it is.
  13. “That little faggot got his own jet airplane, That little faggot, he’s a millionaire” – Dire Straights, Money for Nothing. OK these words invoke the character of the blue-collar guy who IN-stalls microwave ovens, custom kitchen deliveries, moves refrigerators, and moves color TVs, so I get it – the song makes fun of the working guy who is simultaneously envious and contemptuous of the guy who makes a living as rock star. But we just can’t have that “f” word anymore.
  14. “If I go there will be trouble, If I stay it will be double” – The Clash, Should I Stay or Should I Go – so, she’s got a real choice there, doesn’t she, boys?
  15. “If she ever tries to fucking leave again I’m a tie her to the bed and set this house on fire” – Eminem, Love the Way You Lie – just call the cops why does this guy get to record anything at all?
  16. The Rolling Stones, Some Girls – the whole song is so awful I can’t even quote any of it
  17. “I always get it up for the touch of the younger kind” – The Knack, My Sharona – more from the pervy lane of rock’n’roll
  18. “Somebody’s gotta wear a pretty skirt, Somebody’s gotta be the one to flirt, Somebody’s gotta wanna hold his hand, So God made girls, God made girls” – RaeLynn, God Made Girls – oh, barf, just barf.
  19. “Can I have your daughter for the rest of my life?” – Magic, Rude – Um, HELLO – where’s the daughter in this scenario? Does she have a say in the matter?
  20. “I got that boom boom that all the boys chase, All the right junk in all the right places” – Meghan Trainor, All About That Bass – it’s bad enough that this white woman attempts to vocally impersonate a Black woman, but then the song, that’s supposed to be about body acceptance, is really just about what “boys” want – blech.
  21. “A little bit of Monica in my life, little bit of Erica by my side, a little bit of Rita is all I need, a little bit of Tina is what I see, a little bit of Sandra in the sun, a little bit of Mary all night long, a little bit of Jessica, here I am, a little bit of you makes me your man” – Lou Bega, Mambo No. 5 – so, you’re the man for 7 women, simultaneously? Grow up and make a commitment, dude.
  22. “Dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped-up four-wheel drive, Carved my name into his leather seats, I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights, I slashed a hole in all four tires, maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats” – Carrie Underwood, Before He Cheats – criminal damage to property as relationship revenge, Carrie? I suppose you think you’ll get away with it because blonde?
  23. “She’s so rock steady (Bam-ba-lam) And she’s always ready (Bam-ba-lam)” – Ram Jam, Black Betty – This one covers all the racist stereotypes about Black women, including single motherhood and insatiable sexual appetite. Puh-leeze. Aaaaaaack! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!
  24. “If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, Never make a pretty woman your wife, So from my personal point of view, Get an ugly girl to marry you.” – Jimmy Soul, If You Wanna Be Happy – right, because a that woman a man judges to be “ugly” will be so grateful to have a man marry her that “An ug-a-ly woman cooks meals on time, And she’ll always give you peace of mind” meaning she won’t cheat, because who would want her, right?
  25. Rolling Stones, Brown Sugar – oh, man, another one that’s so awful I can’t quote any of it. Enslavement, torture, rape, and a peppy celebration of the sexual subjugation of Black women. Way to go, Mick. Apparently the lyrics get to him enough now to change them when he performs the song. But why perform it at all?
  26. Rolling Stones, Under My Thumb, Stray Cat Blues –two more from the Stones about controlling and subjugating women, and statutory rape, respectively. Classy, boys.
  27. Everything ever recorded by Eminem not previously mentioned. Honestly, enough already.

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27 Weird Pandemic Habits

1. 1. Wearing lipstick under my mask
  2. Manic decluttering
  3. Working out braless
  4. Keeping my webcam off during Zoom or Teams meetings because my hair is wet after my shower after my braless workout and I realize how thin my hair looks
  5. Having OCD panic attacks about the inhaling the fibers that rub off the basement rug and form little fibrous fuzz balls all over the basement rug I work out on top of
  6. Obsessively vacuuming the basement rug before each workout
  7. Asking Angelic Daughter what day it is
  8. Replying to Angelic Daughter with “Wednesday? Didn’t we just have Wednesday? It feels like we just had Wednesday…”
  9. Rearranging the living room curtains repeatedly until I finally figured out how to screen out my neighbors’ blindingly bright motion activated floodlights that blare into the living room
  10. Still being pissed off about my neighbors’ blindingly bright floodlights that create so much light pollution we can’t stargaze on the deck
  11. Wondering if I’ll ever get to go to Maine again where I can see more stars in one night than in a lifetime at home
  12. Already plotting a road trip route to Maine
  13. Realizing I can’t take enough time off work to drive to Maine, stay there for a week, and drive home again
  14. Praying that I’ll live long enough to reach full retirement age so I’ll have enough time to drive to Maine, stay there for more than a week, and drive home again
  15. Realizing that full retirement age is 5 and a half years from now and even though things should be better by then, I will never be comfortable with air or train travel again
  16. Wondering if I’ll have enough marbles left to drive safely when I reach full retirement age
  17. While I’m thinking about driving, trying to calculate how much money I’m saving by not commuting by car
  18. Failing to save the money I must have saved by not commuting by car, even though I can’t really figure out how much that is
  19. Realizing I have to save as much each month as I pay on my home equity loan to pay my property taxes
  20. Patting myself on the back for saving enough money to pay the property taxes this year without having to sell something
  21. Wondering why I’m not having OCD panic attacks about my home equity loan coming due three and a half years from now
  22. Realizing I had planned to repay that loan by selling the house
  23. Deciding there’s no damn way I’ll be ready to sell this house just 3 and a half years from now
  24. Adopting the habit of “crossing that bridge when I come to it”
  25. Talking to the birds and foxes that pass through my back yard, and hooting back at the owl I can hear but have only seen twice, that lives somewhere high up in a nearby tree
  26. Standing outside 25 year-old Angelic Daughter’s bedroom door just to check on her breathing, like I did when she was an infant
  27. Alternately smiling and crying when I hear music that reminds me of my late husband.

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27 Things That Won’t Change Back

1. 1. Regarding paper towels as irrelevant when I have a supply of washable dishcloths
  2. Counting squares of toilet paper
  3. Saving, washing and reusing Ziploc bags
  4. Regarding deodorant as irrelevant when I have soap and running water
  5. Regarding underwire bras as instruments of torture and renouncing them, forever
  6. Appreciating natural curls and letting them be what they are
  7. Lathering my hands with soap for a count of twenty before rinsing
  8. Lathering my forearms at the same time I lather my hands
  9. Regarding disinfectant wipes as hoardable
  10. Maintaining prepper bins of canned goods in the basement
  11. Delighting in the fox family that trots around my yard
  12. Not minding the fox that jumped into my garden hunting that damn chipmunk
  13. Cursing the climate change that has brought record spring rains and endless clouds
  14. Trying to maintain my sanity despite record rains and endless clouds
  15. Seizing every rare sunny day for yard work
  16. Enjoying mowing the lawn on rare sunny days with my pretty blue electric mower
  17. Seriously contemplating turning half the backyard into a prairie that I won’t mow
  18. Working with headphones on
  19. Cleaning the house with headphones on
  20. Hoping I can continue working from home with headphones on indefinitely
  21. Low impact 30 minute workouts that make me feel good even if I don’t lose weight
  22. Forgiving myself for eating a bagel, because a person ought to be able to eat a damn bagel once in a while, carbs and all
  23. Wondering why my knees hurt all the time way when my workouts are low impact
  24. Refusing to associate joint pain with age or weight
  25. Not feeling guilty about accepting the things I can’t change
  26. Realizing that I can’t change how badly I miss the weight of a man in my bed
  27. Trying to live in the now because a pandemic reveals that now must be enough

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27 Songs that Made Me Cry This Week, in No Particular Order

1. 1. Vincent – Don MacLean
  2. A Safe Place to Land – Sara Bareilles
  3. The Dimming of the Day – Bonnie Raitt
  4. These Days – Jackson Browne
  5. Leader of the Band – Dan Fogelberg
  6. The Pretender – Jackson Browne
  7. Long Long Time – Linda Ronstadt
  8. Fountains of Sorrow – Jackson Browne
  9. Boulder to Birmingham – Emmylou Harris
  10. Here Come Those Tears Again – Jackson Browne
  11. Hello in There – John Prine
  12. Moon River – anyone who ever recorded it
  13. Old ’55 – Eagles
  14. Clay Pigeons – John Prine
  15. Long Ride Home – Patty Griffin
  16. Our Town – Iris DeMent
  17. The Road – Jackson Browne
  18. My Old Man – Steve Goodman
  19. Wild Heart – Mumford and Sons
  20. I and Love and You – The Avett Brothers
  21. Beloved – Mumford and Sons
  22. The Dutchman – Steve Goodman
  23. The Heart of the Matter – Don Henley
  24. The Circle Game – Joni Mitchell
  25. You Matter to Me – Sara Bareilles and Jason Mraz
  26. Ghost in this House – Alison Krauss
  27. For a Dancer – Jackson Browne

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27 Skills That Will Come in Handy for Another Month of Isolation

1. 1. how to thread a needle
  2. how to use a threaded needle to sew a mask and mend an item of clothing
  3. how to clean without using paper towels
  4. how to use a handheld shower as if it were a bidet
  5. how to cut your own hair
  6. how to not give a crap how your hair looks
  7. how to cut your own lawn
  8. how a lawn mower works so you can cut your own lawn
  9. how to forget about having a lawn and use the lawn as a vegetable garden instead
  10. how to grow a tomato from seed
  11. how to grow any vegetable from seed
  12. how to raise chickens
  13. how to heat a chicken coop for the coming winter without burning it down
  14. how to turn off the TV and the phone and the laptop so you can work your backyard farm
  15. how to bake yeastless breads because all the people who have never baked bread before bought all the yeast already
  16. how to bait a hook, catch a fish, clean, cook and eat a fish without barfing or worrying about mercury
  17. how to cook a fish in the fireplace when the power goes out because of a storm and the repair workers are all home sick
  18. how not to spend money
  19. how to barter when the money you didn’t spend becomes worthless
  20. how to appreciate silence
  21. how to be grateful for breathing
  22. how to marvel at the night sky when the lack of light and air pollution means we can see stars again
  23. how to feel humbled by the courage of delivery drivers and grocery store workers
  24. how to face your fears
  25. how to speak like you know that anything you say to someone may be the last thing you ever say to them
  26. how to forgive
  27. how not to forget

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27 Things I Really Like About Working from Home

1. 1. Being in charge of the work music mix
  2. Singing along at full voice to the 4th movement of the Brahms Requiem while planning to eventually vacuum and dust to make my dwelling place lovelier
  3. Having time to work out
  4. Working on finding the motivation to work out (I did the morning I wrote this!)
  5. Spending most of the day at my desk which was already my happy place
  6. In-person breaks with Angelic Daughter, instead of phone calls
  7. Lunch with Angelic Daughter
  8. The window by my desk, with a view of my backyard
  9. The return of the cardinal couple, building their nest, in the backyard, through the window by my desk
  10. Fat little finches figuring out the fencing around my still-dormant vegetable garden, out the window by my desk
  11. The loud blue jay who scares away the fat little finches from the fencing around my still-dormant vegetable garden just beyond the window by my desk
  12. Boots the cat, looking very fat, who came around again for the first time since Sophie the cat died, stopping to stare at me through the window by my desk
  13. Morning video chats with my coworkers
  14. Working on my stalwart, eight-year old Sony Vaio
  15. Remembering how Mike commandeered my stalwart Sony Vaio when it was spanking new
  16. The sapphire blue color of my Sony Vaio
  17. The feel of the keys of my Sony Vaio
  18. The fact that the work I’m doing from home is writing
  19. Not commuting
  20. Feeling smug that I filled the car with gas that cost less than 2$ per gallon before I started working from home and it’s still full
  21. Using coffee cups and wearing clothing with my blog’s logo on them which I’d never do at work because I don’t really want my ~~much younger~~ less experienced coworkers to read it and outside logos aren’t allowed at work anyway
  22. Easily finding the discipline to stop watching so much TV and get enough sleep
  23. Watching Angelic Daughter figure out how to entertain herself including singing, playing her new melodica and her old ukelele, and going outside to sit on the deck, when she’s not sleeping the days away
  24. Making and eating fish chowder without worrying about stinking up the kitchen at work
  25. Screwing around with Spotify and finding new (old) artists I can’t believe I never listened to before, like Lucinda Williams (where have I been all these years?)
  26. Feeling gratitude for my natural germ-freak tendencies, which are actually turning out to be quite valuable, and
  27. Choking up when I hear Angelic Daughter coping with her anxiety by spontaneously reciting the Lord’s Prayer at random moments throughout the day.

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27 Signs You Really Are Getting Older

1. 1. Every time you’re about to go down a staircase, you think to yourself, “don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall…”
  2. Standing up at your desk counts as “exercise”
  3. You finish dinner by 5, get your jammies on by 6:30 and you’re in bed by 8
  4. You congratulate yourself on waking up in the morning
  5. You congratulate yourself when you wake up at 2 a.m. for making it through at least 6 hours of sleep before getting up to pee
  6. Your primary criteria for new pants or shoes is comfort
  7. You don’t even try to open a jar before you bang it on the kitchen counter a few times
  8. You post something on Facebook remarking on the passing of any actor, writer or musician who had been working prior to 1970 (I’m looking at you, eldest brother)
  9. You have a weekly date in the bathtub with Dr. Teal (Epsom salts)
  10. Even though you use a non-slip bath mat, you wonder how you will get out of the tub without slipping, falling and possibly dying of a broken hip after your date with Dr. Teal
  11. You devise creative ways to avoid slipping, falling and possibly dying when you get out of the tub after your date with Dr. Teal, like turning over to your hands and knees and slowly rising up from there
  12. While you’re pushing yourself up out of the tub from your hands and knees position, you’re thinking, “don’t slip, don’t slip, don’t slip….”
  13. Once you’re on your feet in the tub after your date with Dr. Teal, you hang on to the wall with one hand and use your other hand to help lift your knee to step out of the tub
  14. While you are lifting your knee with your hand to step out of the tub after your date with Dr. Teal, you’re thinking “don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall…”
  15. The only television programs you care about binge watching are Masterpiece and Grace and Frankie
  16. Falling asleep in a chair while binge-watching Masterpiece or Grace and Frankie is perfectly acceptable – you can backtrack to the last episode you remember tomorrow
  17. A nap is more important to you than a meal
  18. Five grapes and an ounce of soft cheese count as a meal
  19. You can’t find your keys, water bottle, re-useable grocery bag or sunglasses until they beam back from whatever alternate universe they disappeared to and reappear RIGHT ON YOUR DESK, KITCHEN COUNTER OR HALLWAY TABLE, where you swear you JUST LOOKED A MOMENT AGO
  20. You don’t mind the neighbor’s dog barking in the morning because he always barks at exactly 5 a.m. and you should be congratulating yourself on waking up by then anyway
  21. The most difficult choice you’re willing to make in the hour after congratulating yourself for waking up in the morning is which pair of stretch jeans to wear that day
  22. You’d rather skip breakfast than cook it
  23. You’d rather brew coffee than buy it, because back in your day, a cup of coffee cost 25 cents, dammit!
  24. You know that horses, dogs and babies communicate telepathically through their eyes and you just “get” each other
  25. You talk to yourself and your deceased spouse and relatives out loud and unapologetically
  26. After you congratulate yourself on waking up in the morning, you notice birds are singing and you say, out loud to your deceased spouse, “hey, loves, birdie sing!” because that’s what you used to call that time of morning when you woke up together
  27. Birds, bunny rabbits and butterflies are inestimably delightful and you could sit and watch them flit and frolic in the backyard for hours and it occurs to you that dying while watching birds, bunny rabbits and butterflies flit and frolic in the backyard wouldn’t be a bad way to go and you wish you could have gotten your dying spouse outside somehow one last time to see them but it doesn’t matter anymore, because you’re sure he is watching them with you now.

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27 Things No One Tells You About Widowhood

1. 1. Women with living husbands will treat you as predatory, almost immediately
  2. Men with living wives will treat you as available, almost immediately
  3. Other widows will judge you for not being widow-y enough
  4. You will judge other widows for wallowing in their widowhood for too long
  5. “Getting out there and doing things you love” doesn’t cheer you up
  6. “Getting out there and doing things you love” doesn’t find you a new partner
  7. You will realize no one really ever understood your marriage
  8. You will wonder if you every really understood your marriage
  9. You will find things hidden in drawers and closets you don’t understand
  10. You will find things hidden in drawers and closets you understand all too well
  11. You will go through a year or so of “widow brain” where you alternate between
    giddiness and despair, spend too much money, change your hair, your clothes and your home, and none of it changes your life
  12. You will be furious at how much of your life and your marriage you wasted on stupid disagreements, miscommunication and resentment
  13. You will declare your intention to become a better human being
  14. You will regularly fail at being a better human being
  15. You will throw things away you wish you hadn’t, and keep things you wish you could throw away
  16. Things that used to be very important to you won’t seem important anymore
  17. You will allow yourself not to finish books if you don’t like them after three chapters
  18. You will make a reading list of everything you think you should have read by now
  19. You will become generous with your time to people you used to ignore
  20. You will quit activities and friendships that don’t seem worth your time anymore
  21. You will tell your siblings the truth, that your spouse was not a saint, but they knew that already
  22. You will tell your children that your spouse was perfect, and they’ll know you’re lying
  23. After a few years of frantic “keeping busy,” you will finally learn how to be still
  24. In stillness you will discover the depths of your grief and the magnitude of your loss
  25. The magnitude of your loss will help you remember the quality of your strength
  26. The quality of your strength, putting one foot in front of the other and getting by one day at a time, will lead you to your truest self
  27. You will recognize that your truest self was forged in your marriage, your love and your loss, and you will be grateful for all of it