{"id":9357,"date":"2020-08-17T09:00:46","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T16:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?p=9357"},"modified":"2020-08-17T08:06:18","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T15:06:18","slug":"celebrating-seventy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?p=9357","title":{"rendered":"THE RELUCTANT SEPTAGENARIAN"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Suzanne Sparrow Watson<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_9348\" style=\"width: 277px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?attachment_id=9348\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-9348\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9348\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9348\" src=\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Birthday-Party-2-267x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"267\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Birthday-Party-2-267x300.jpg 267w, https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Birthday-Party-2-768x863.jpg 768w, https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Birthday-Party-2-912x1024.jpg 912w, https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Birthday-Party-2.jpg 1088w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 267px) 100vw, 267px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-9348\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Leslie, (left) supervising me<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">I knew this day was coming &#8211; I could tell by the <\/span><strong style=\"font-size: 16px;\">hanging jowls and the crepey skin<\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">.\u00a0 Yet somehow waking up last week to the realization that I&#8217;ve entered my 70&#8217;s was a bit sobering.\u00a0 I feel pretty darn good and my doctor says I&#8217;m in tip top shape.\u00a0 Hmmmmm.\u00a0 I cleaned out files recently and found some documents from a gym I belonged to in 1980.\u00a0 \u00a0As I perused my old weight and measurement chart I was pretty pleased until I took my current measurements.\u00a0 How can I possibly weigh the same and yet be bigger in every place that counts?\u00a0 Are my ear lobes appreciably smaller?\u00a0 Does gray hair weigh less than blonde?\u00a0 I&#8217;m guessing the <\/span><strong style=\"font-size: 16px;\">weight loss has occurred in my brain<\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"> because I&#8217;m not sure how much is up there anymore.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve spent a lot of time at home this summer so you&#8217;d think I would be pretty familiar with my house, yet I still wander into a room and wonder what I&#8217;m doing there.\u00a0 As my friend Liz Gett always says, &#8220;These days I only retain water&#8221;.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Still, I&#8217;m doing just fine and especially in this catastrophic year of 2020, I&#8217;m just glad to be upright.\u00a0 <strong>Don Imus<\/strong>, the former disc jockey also ran a camp for kids with cancer.\u00a0 He once said whenever he&#8217;d go to some soiree on the Upper East Side where people <strong>complained about their age<\/strong> his response was to ask them if they would like to visit his camp, where 12 year-olds were just hoping to make it to 15.\u00a0 \u00a0Every year on my birthday I think about Leslie, my childhood best friend.\u00a0 The photo is us at my 10th birthday where she supervised my gift opening, just as she supervised most everything I did. She called me every year on my birthday without fail.\u00a0 \u00a0On my 64th birthday we had a long conversation and she laughed hysterically when I told her <strong>I had chickenpox<\/strong>.\u00a0 It was the last time we spoke; she died suddenly a couple of months later.\u00a0 I still miss her and think about her on my birthday so far be it from me to complain about reaching 70.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_9356\" style=\"width: 265px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?attachment_id=9356\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-9356\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9356\" class=\" wp-image-9356\" src=\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/cake-2MP-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"255\" height=\"191\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/cake-2MP-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/cake-2MP-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/cake-2MP-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/cake-2MP.jpg 1632w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 255px) 100vw, 255px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-9356\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Just some of my bounty!<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n<p>Besides, I had a <strong>wonderful celebration<\/strong> filled with \u2026what else?&#8230; cake!\u00a0 I guess at this age it&#8217;s good to be known for something.\u00a0 I have friends that are known for being smart, dressing well, a kind heart, a great artist, you name it.\u00a0 I, on the other hand, am known for my love of cake. I used to be the kid at the birthday party who would elbow my way to the cake cutter so I could get the corner piece with the <strong>big, sugary flower<\/strong> on it.\u00a0 This year I received three cakes for my birthday, including one that exploded with flowers, candy and cake when I lifted the lid.\u00a0 I didn&#8217;t share ANY of them with my husband.\u00a0 It dawned on me that I might have a problem when the guy we&#8217;re working with to select new flooring (that&#8217;s an &#8220;I need to have my head examined&#8221; story for another blog) brought me a <strong>dozen doughnuts<\/strong>.\u00a0 I think I have a problem and so far as I know, there is no such thing as Cake Anonymous.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_9347\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?attachment_id=9347\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-9347\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9347\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9347\" src=\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/70th-2-300x277.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"277\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/70th-2-300x277.jpg 300w, https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/70th-2-768x710.jpg 768w, https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/70th-2-1024x947.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/70th-2.jpg 1984w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-9347\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Perfect pairing &#8211; wine and dessert<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n<p>My celebration was capped by a fabulous dinner at <strong>Vivace Restaurant<\/strong> in Tucson.\u00a0 Due to illness and a wariness of COVID it ended up being just me, my niece and my great-niece for dinner.\u00a0 Actually, it was perfect!\u00a0 We had such a wonderful time catching up.\u00a0 There is something special about three generations who enjoy each other&#8217;s company and share laughter and good stories.\u00a0 Most of them true.\u00a0 The restaurant is spectacular and the food was beyond tasty.\u00a0 One advantage of our smaller group was there was <strong>more dessert to go around<\/strong>.\u00a0 The restaurant offered a lovely tiramisu in honor of my birthday, but really, sharing dessert among three people doesn&#8217;t quite meet the mark so we also ordered a cr\u00e8me brulee and a chocolate molten lava cake with ice cream.\u00a0 \u00a0All that, coupled with the wine, provided a sugar rush that I&#8217;ll still be recovering from on my next birthday. Still, it was worth every spoonful.<\/p>\n<p>So I was feeling pretty good about turning 70 and life in general and then the worst happened &#8211; the NCAA <strong>cancelled the football season.<\/strong> Is it even fall if there is no college football?\u00a0 COVID has been hard enough but life without college football seems unfathomable.\u00a0 I may just have to eat more cake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Suzanne Sparrow Watson I knew this day was coming &#8211; I could tell by the hanging jowls and the crepey skin.\u00a0 Yet somehow waking up last week to the realization that I&#8217;ve entered my 70&#8217;s was a bit sobering.\u00a0 &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?p=9357\">read more<span class=\"meta-nav\"><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1246,1423,3383,2015,3382],"class_list":["post-9357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-70th-birthday","tag-birthday-cake","tag-don-imus","tag-ncaa-football","tag-vivace-restaurant"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Birthday-Party-2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p31aN0-2qV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9357"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9366,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9357\/revisions\/9366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}