I’ll be 65 this year. Wow.

I can’t ignore it; my inbox and mailbox are already starting to fill up with companies trying to sell me insurance and Medicare supplements. And the way my body feels and looks, I can see why they are targeting me. Good grief, it’s really like the movie Alien. Some old, decrepit thing has moved inside my body carrying a little hammer. It bangs away on my joints, bones, and muscles at every opportunity.

But I’m still here. I wake up every morning having my daily hot flash and appreciate that though I’ve woken up looking like I jumped into a vat of grease, it beats the alternative, right?

Meanwhile, Gump’s in full-on crisis mode. Mr. ‘I’m fit as a fiddle and can hike the Grand Canyon on one leg, backwards, twice a day’, is struggling to get up a step ladder nowadays. Sometimes, even the mighty Gumpster can’t unscrew the lid of a jar or a bottle. He accumulates most of his daily step count getting up to pee at night, and I’ve changed his name from Gump to GRUMP.

See, most of the ladies reading this blog get where I’m coming from. Because men, at 68, think they have it so bad. Listen, from the day our first hormone hit puberty, women have been dealing with a smorgasbord of aches, pains, migraines, cramps, hot flashes, pregnancies, surgeries, invasive annual medical exams, inequality, tampons, less pay, kids, housework, countless meals, school, homework, jobs, husbands, boyfriends, parents, mammograms, laundry, PTA meetings, nursing people, birthdays, holidays and what the feck are we going to fix for dinner tonight.

So, when Grump makes his third trip to the loo (and not very quietly, I might add) I just go back to sleep.

Chubby update….Scout the wonder dog is still battling her weight issues. It’s interesting to see my personality manifest itself when I look at my pet. We already had the chubby tummy, skinny legs, and side eye in common, oh, and the growling and short temper, but her eating habits completely mirror my own.

My dog can smell chocolate like a shark smells a drop of blood in the ocean a mile away. Just like yours truly, Scouter believes anything edible I have, is by rights, partly hers. I can’t get away with eating a crumb without her sudden appearance, POOF, just like a genie. Are your pets like that too? I actually try to sneak chocolate when she’s upstairs with Gump in his office. I quietly open the fridge door, grab the chocolate, gently peel back the wrapper, and SHAZZAM….there she is, at my feet, licking her lips. It is impossible to cheat on my diet with her around. Yet somehow I manage to do it anyway. I’m ingesting enough calories to ensure I’ll fail in my quest to drop weight before my next doctor’s appointment, and will have to suffer the potential mental flogging I’ll get.

I probably mentioned in a previous blog that I tell people Scout the Wonder Dog is a Blue Heeler crossed with a pot-bellied pig. Well, Gump, who always copies my clever quips and takes credit for them, takes Scout to a park near us every morning for their bonding 2-mile walk. I’m supposed to go as well, but I’m always too busy eating breakfast and writing my best-selling novel starring Emily Blunt. Periodically, Gump stops to pass the time of day with other people also walking their canines. Often he is asked what kind of dog Scout is. He answers, “Part Blue Heeler, part pot-bellied pig,” and invariably they respond with. “Wow. I had a pig once etc. etc. etc.” before they go on their merry way.

Huh? These people seem to think that Gump is legit. That our rotund Heeler is 50 percent hog. Like that is a breed? Honestly, it happens ALL the time. No one ever says “There ain’t no such thang,” they just nod. This is the world we live in folks. Acceptance of anything weird with absolutely NO question. I mean, if they successfully crossed any dog with any pig, and they had offspring, wouldn’t it make the news, like it was a HUGE deal? Remember all the press for Dolly the bio-engineered sheep? It blows my mind. Seriously, these are the things I worry about. These are also the things that make me feel I’m not as dumb as thought I was.

BTW – I checked to see if pigs and dogs have ever mated. Couldn’t find a Heeler-pig-a-doodle-doo. Apparently, there’s been a lot of flirting between pigs and dogs, but no action. Sounds like me and the Gumpster 😊

Enough canine convo. Let’s talk about the damn video clips on Instagram. Somehow I have succumbed to scrolling through them at night when I’m lying in bed reading my iPad while Gump and the wonder dog snore.

Why do I do this to myself? At what time in my life did I feel the need to watch such absolute crap? I lay in bed, sometimes until midnight, watching people I don’t know, have never met, and who need to stop putting filler in their lips, get haircuts by stylists that frighten me. I watch appalling stories of half-starved animals getting rescued. I watch people buying revolting houses and fixing them up. I alternate between crying (not the boo-hoo kind, but the tears-on-face kind), and wishing I could move and/or get a haircut and save a dog/cat. Now and then, one video will slip through and I’ll get a zinger about someone popping a pimple (really?). It’s gross. Who would watch that? Wait, probably the same people who believe my dog is half pot-bellied pig. Oops, I slipped back to the dog talk. Sorry.

And whilst enjoying this colourful life of mine, I still aspire to become a famous writer. I am accomplishing one of those desires because I am writing. The other part of the equation seems to elude me. This disappointing situation might be one of the reasons my chocolate intake is above average. Okay, it’s possibly an addiction.

I get up at five most days leaving bladder boy and piggy-puppy sound asleep. With my trusty cup of tea, and a sneaky piece of shortbread, I whisk myself away to Victorian England, and delve into murder/mayhem and other events as I spin my yarn.

Amazing how a person can be creative at five in the morning, don’t you think? But as many of my fellow writers can attest, it’s the only time of the day you have to yourself. It’s weird, sitting in my room with only the glow from my computer screen lighting my way. It’s a lot like being inside a fridge (without the cold temps) and it being quiet, dark, and peaceful. As soon as the hubs gets up and walks down the hall, the fridge doors open wide, the lights come on and someone’s looking for breakfast….actually, it’s about to happen right now…..(I just read that paragraph and realised it reads like I’m on drugs…a fridge? Where the hell do I come up with this nonsense?)

The highlight of my upcoming week is a bone density test. We girls have these, because as our oestrogen (British spelling) decreases, so does our good humour, calcium, and ability to give a crap. The upside is we grow thicker, stronger facial hair.

And it’s tax season!! Yippee! How the hell did it get here so fast? Ugh. Back when I was newly married, full of good intentions, and baking regularly, I did that thing my mum always warned me NOT to do – I said to my partner, “Why don’t I take over doing the taxes? You already have so much to do” – What the hell was I thinking? I have a big mouth.

Now the sun’s just come up. We’re headed into another balmy warm day in FEBRUARY….what the heck…did the equator move? Everything is upside down, isn’t it? Politics, war everywhere, strange weather, and now, Gump’s bladder – whatever next? Don’t answer that.

Speaking of world events, Gump finally got his bi-annual haircut. It looked great the first week. But a couple of weeks have gone by, and he’s started to look like an older, scarier member of the Bay City Rollers. It’s not pretty, people. I try not to look above the level of his eyebrows. If I do, I might break out with “Saturday Night.”

Yesterday, the dreaded seeds came out (fanfare). It’s planting time! My dining room table was covered with pots, labels, and seeds, and Grumpola meticulously picked up one seed at a time with his tweezers and placed it gently in a bed of fresh dirt. He could have been a great in-vitro doctor. Definitely would have needed to change the hairstyle though. But he’s happily planning what he will grow or not grow, or whether he should expand the garden, or not expand the garden, and on and on and on…and this is just the beginning. Yay, planting season….

If Gump would only show that level of interest in the multiple projects he’s started and not yet finished. Then my house would cease to look like part storage facility, part Home Depot. Every time he leaves the garage door open, people think we’re having a sale.

Well, I suppose that’s enough moaning from me. Sharing my home with a wonder dog and a Gump is challenging at times. But then what would I have to write about on the blog?

Author stuff – if you know anyone you want to annoy, please have them sign up (subscribe) on here so that I can send this joyous nonsense to them every month. You can also tell them I write books and they can read them for free on Kindle Unlimited or purchase them on Amazon.

If you’re reading this and haven’t subscribed, please do. I will not share your email (except with my alter ego or anyone offering me a huge bribe). The amount of subscribers makes me look more successful to agents, editors, and publishers who want to see how many ‘followers’ I have….. Currently, my stats are a spouse with a bad haircut and a fat dog.

Have a wonderful last week of February people!

Jude