NOVEMBER 11, TUESDAY

88 1/4

I was born on August 11, 1937, which makes me 88. I didn’t pay much attention to my age until 80 when I had a glorious birthday party at Todd and Susie’s place in the country. But after 80 I began to live on borrowed time, the great unknown just around the corner. Today I visited my general practitioner doctor, Dr. Lateef Cannon, who had just been to Morocco and who showed me photographs of him and his sons snowboarding on sand dunes. All of them have years and years ahead of them with all kinds of adventures ahead.

I was there because my blood pressure device had told me that I often had an irregular heart beat. I never would have noticed if I hadn’t been informed by the machine. But when I told that to Dr. Cannon it lead to and EKG and then a flat monitor being glued to my chest for two weeks. Sure enough, my heart beats faster at times, it just gets excited and speeds up, but apparently this is, in his words, benign. But since then I have been paying attention and a couple of days in the last month I have been dizzy for several hours, not keeling over or unable to get through the day normally, but simply feeling lightheaded for a while. Apparently that is nothing to worry about, either. Like so many signs of aging I am told to pay attention and if things get worse to let him know.

I am slowing down, beginning to grind to a halt, nothing to worry about, normal. But it is also the reason that I am beginning to pay attention to my age. I don’t just notice my birthdays, I am beginning to notice the 11th of every month. Today I am not in my eighties, not even 88, but 88 1/4 hoping to extend things next month to 88 1/3.