Menopause

Twenty or thirty years ago the topic of menopause was not brought up and even in this day and age many women view menopause as an end to life as she knows it. When girls are taught sex education in school menopause is rarely mentioned as if it is some dirty little secret. Menopause does not have to be an end to life, but rather, it can be seen as the beginning of a new stage of your life with more freedom than ever before if you face it with a positive outlook. For once you have reached menopause you no longer have to worry about messy periods or unwanted pregnancies, on the upside, but on the downside you become a dried out old prune with loss of libido, greying and falling hair, week brittle bones and in the beginning stages, mood swings which have your family hiding in dread. After going through menopause myself it brings to mind a joke I once read, “Why do they call it menopause?” “Because mad cow disease was already taken.”

Menopause is the time in a woman’s life when her reproductive years come to an end with the average woman going through menopause around the age of fifty one. As menopause nears, the ovaries produce less estrogens and the first sign is a change in your menstrual cycle. You can experience a heavier or lighter flow, bleeding can last for shorter or longer periods of time or skipping one or more periods. At some point the ovaries slow in the production of estrogens and this causes periods to stop. Lower amounts of estrogens will cause changes in the body over time as well, such as overall weight gain, unwanted facial hair and a pot belly that would make Santa envious. Menopause is different for every woman; some will notice little change while some may find it difficult to cope and will want to kill anything that crosses her path.

The most common symptom of menopause is hot flashes. Around seventy five percent women experience them. They can occur at any time day or night. They can be mild or severe and can come several times a month or several times a day. They can disrupt sleep patterns, making it difficult to fall asleep or finding yourself waking in the wee hours of the morning drenched in sweat. While other people around you may be freezing you will be hot and sweaty and find yourself wearing shorts and singlet in the middle of winter. Once the flash has passed you will start to freeze with the rest and pile on layers of clothing. You may find yourself changing clothes several times a day. Lack of sleep may become one of the biggest problems during this time, it’s no wonder many women become grouchy.

Changes in the vagina also take place as the lining becomes thin and dry causing painful intercourse. The vaginal area will also be more prone to infection. Urinary tract infection is also common and women who have gone through menopause may be more susceptible. Bone loss is normal but the rate of bone loss increases after menopause which can result in osteoporosis. Bones of the hip, wrist and spine are affected the most and with increasing bone loss the risk of breaking bones is higher. With fewer estrogens produced women are also more prone to heart attack and stroke.

Menopause can be an emotional time for some women and many suffer from mood swings and feelings of stress. Some women will have less interest in sex during this time as lower oestrogen levels decrease sex drive and cause vaginal dryness. Some on the other hand are not affected sexually at all. Lubricants can be used to help remedy dryness. Orgasm can be difficult to achieve or may take longer than previously.

In order to stay healthy during menopause eating a well balance diet is important. Eat a low fat, low cholesterol diet. Fat intake should be only thirty percent of your daily calorie intake. Calcium rich foods should be included to maintain strong bones. Women aged fifty one and older who, are not taking hormone replacement, need at least one thousand five hundred mg per day. Women who are using hormone replacement therapy need one thousand mg per day. As your body can only absorb five hundred mg at a time calcium supplements should be taken in two doses. Calcium rich foods are yogurt, cheese, other dairy products, oyster, sardines, and canned salmon and dark green leafy vegetables. Calcium cannot be absorbed without vitamin D. Milk fortified with vitamin D is one of the best sources. Getting adequate sunlight will help or you can take vitamin D supplements. Recommended daily requirement is ten micrograms per day for women aged fifty one or older. Eat fruit and vegetables and whole grain cereals high in vitamin C and carotene such as grapefruit, oranges, carrots, winter squash, tomatoes, broccoli and cauliflower. These are a good source of vitamins, minerals and dietary fibre. Avoid salt, salt cured and smoked foods such as sausages, smoked fish, ham, bacon, bologna and hot dogs. High salt intake can lead to high blood pressure. Avoid food and drinks with processed sugar as they contain empty calories and add excess weight.

Exercise is important as you get older. Regular exercise slows down bone loss and improves heart health as well as overall health and mood. A woman who is sedentary may suffer from heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and osteoporosis as well as back pain, stiffness, insomnia, weak muscle, shortness of breath and depression can set in. Walking, jogging, aerobics, swimming, biking and dance are all good exercise for the menopausal woman. Staying active helps to improve your outlook on life.

Hormone Replacement therapy can be useful when you are going through the change, according to some doctors; others claim that clinical trials have shown that HRT causes cancer. With this in mind many drug companies have come out with herbal remedies to combat the symptoms of menopause. The decision to use HRT should be discussed with your doctor but in my opinion HRT only delays the inevitable. We all grow old and as Joan Rivers once joked, “The secret to anti-aging is to die young.”

The Older Woman

You see it all the time, the fat, balding, aging man dating or having an affair with a twenty something year old girl. Yes at that age they are still girls who are frivolous and haven’t really lived much of their life. They are full of insecurities and need constant reaffirmation that you love them and that they are beautiful. The woman in her twenties does not fully trust her man and is forever questioning his were abouts and what he’s been up to. She’ll never trust that you’ve been hanging out with your buddies having a few drinks and shooting the shit. Sure you look at other girls, surreptitiously, when you are with her and openly ogle them when you’re with your friends, after all it’s a guy thing that a twenty something year old girl will never understand. In her mind you have her so why do you need to look at another hot chick.

A woman over thirty is a different kettle of fish all together. We’re psychic, we know you look at other women and we also know what you’ve been up to. We can see it in your face every time. You’ll never have to tell us about your multitude of indiscressions and we wouldn’t hesitate to shoot you if we could get away with it, but since we can’t we have other ways of making you pay. We can praise you lavishly even when it’s not deserved or we can tear you to the ground. We know what it’s like to be unappreciated. We don’t lay awake at night and wonder what you’re thinking about because frankly speaking we don’t give a crap. We know there isn’t much going on in that mind of yours and we’d rather get our sleep anyway. If you want to watch sports or play your games, go ahead we won’t bitch about it, we can find something else to do that is much more rewarding and fulfilling.

We don’t care what you think about us or what we are doing. We are self assured enough to know what we want and when we want it. We don’t need your reassurance. Even if we don’t trust you we will still introduce you to our girlfriends because we know they will not betray us. Dining out with us is pleasant because we won’t start a brawl with you in the middle of a restaurant. We’re dignified and wise enough to know that the silent treatment cuts deeper. Women over thirty are more honest and will surely tell you what an ass you’ve been if need be. We don’t pull punches and we can take as good as we give without breaking down in tears. Women over the age of thirty are sexier. By this time we have reached our sexual peak, we know what we want in bed and we know what you want. We don’t need to fake orgasm and if it wasn’t enjoyable we’ll let you know. We want to be pleasured as much as you want to be please.

If you decide you want to go out with your friends for a little male bonding, please do. We won’t stop you or whine about it or insist on going with you because we know that the saying “absence makes the heart grow fonder” is true as does “familiarity breeds contempt”. The same goes for” out of sight out of mind” because we surely do not sit and think about you every minute of the day. We need our space as much as you need yours and we don’t want you breathing down our necks all the time.

Into Each Life

Into each life a little rain must fall. Of course we know that this little saying means that no one’s life is ever smooth sailing. During our lifetime we all have our ups and downs, there are the good times and there are bad times and so we all must suffer through the bad before we can enjoy the good. Unfortunately my life is full of more bad then good.

Take for instance my car. Grant you the car is old but I cannot afford to replace it just yet, hopefully in a year or so but not now. Last week while driving home my car started to make a high pitched squealing noise and since that was a Friday night I figured I’d take it into the shop the next day, a Saturday. When I first heard the noise I thought it was someone else’s car but as I pulled away from the toll the noise was not getting lower but remained the same. I turned off the radio to listen more carefully and sure enough it was my car damn it! After driving a few hundred yards the noise stopped but almost halfway home it started again. I knew then that I had better have it checked.

The next day I got my car into the shop early and after checking the mechanic told me it was the alternator belt. It took them an hour and a half to change the damn thing and once they were done I noticed the mechanics talking to each other and pointing at my engine. To me this is not a good thing so when one of the mechanics approached me I knew that something else was wrong. Sure enough the mechanic informed me that the alternator was crooked and he couldn’t straighten it, there was a screw missing and a metal cylinder which should be part of the alternator was missing. I had changed it a little over a year ago and had not had any problems and now the mechanic was telling me it needed changing again. The last time I had changed it I had gotten a second-hand one and was charged $280.00 and there was only a five month warranty. This repair had been done at another shop at which I suspected the mechanic there was ripping me off. Not surprising he was, when I asked this mechanic how much to replace it he said $118.00 for a brand new one. Once my car was done the mechanic told me that my car was leaking oil and also asked when was the last time I changed my timing belt. He told me I needed to wash my engine before he could check where the leak was coming from. I didn’t think it was too bad so I told him I would wash it and bring it back in for him to check, as for my timing belt I had to check my shit load of previous bills to find out when it was last changed.

So this past Saturday I dutifully washed my engine and took it back. Half way there the damn car stalled and I had trouble starting it. Managed to get it to the shop and told the mechanic what had happened and that the timing belt was last changed in 2007 so that had to be changed as well. He looked around and then informed me I would have to leave it at the shop for a few days because they would have to take the engine apart to check. I guess you can’t expect much from a twelve year old car which has been pretty good up till now. I left it there and today it is ready. I just went to collect it and the bill came to a whopping $2000.00 for repairs. I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream but all I could do was laugh, hysterically I might add. Thank god for credit cards. The engine looks like new engine, my clutch is loose the way it should be, they washed my car and polished the wheels and best of all they screwed up the rear fender which was about to drop off.

Yep into each life a little rain must fall, but in my life there always seems to be a typhoon. If it’s not teenager problems its car problems, nothing ever seems to go smoothly. No wonder I drink. A wise Chinese fortune teller once told me that according to the life lines on my hand I would have to work my whole life. A few years later the lines had changed and he told me that once I reached the age of fifty my life would be easier. This year I’ll be fifty two, I’m still waiting!

The Birds

They started building their nest at the beginning of February, just outside my front door, in the pie shaped ledge at the top of the cylindrically pillar which holds up my car porch. The pair worked diligently for about two weeks and then they disappeared. I thought they had decided not to nest there as a few years previously another pair of swallows had started to build a nest in the same spot only to abandon it half way through. The reason for the abandonment I’m not too sure about but I suspect it was due to the heavy traffic which goes through my front door on a daily basis, human, dogs and cats. Eventually the abandoned nest was taken down and all that was left was the mud stains on the newly painted corner.

They came back two weeks later. I spotted the mother sitting on the nest. Day in day out she sat there leaving it only temporarily to look for food. My cat had spotted her and made it her mission to piss off the bird on daily basis by jumping up on the wall that separates my house from my neighbours. The pair of them would make a hell of a lot of noise while diving at the cat. Whenever I heard them I would run outside and throw the cat off the wall and chase her away. I think the little birds realized that I was their ally and weren’t much afraid of me.

Another two weeks went by and I noticed a couple of egg shells lying in the driveway so I knew there had to be at least two baby chicks. A few weeks went by where I witnessed the mother and father coming and going with insects to feed the hatchlings. The cat of course still pestered them and of course I kept chasing her away. Towards the end of these two weeks I noticed little heads popping up every time food arrived and now as they grow larger and larger everyday a cacophony of chirping can be heard every time one of the parents come back to the nest with a nice juicy bug. I had first thought that there were only three but last week I notice a distinct fourth tiny head popping up much smaller than the rest. I figure it must be the runt.

The cat kept on terrorizing the parents and finally one day last week I got pissed and sprayed the cat with the hose. Since then I have not noticed her jumping on the wall but all it takes is for her to lie in the driveway to get the birds upset. The mother during these times will sit outside my door chirping loudly to get my attention. Once I chase the cat away all is quiet once again.
The birds should be leaving the nest pretty soon. They are quite large now, too large to hide in the nest. They sit in the nest with their tiny heads resting along the edge. In my mind I refer to them as eeny, meeny, miny and moe. They are constantly chirping although when danger is lurking I have observed the mother loudly chirping and her offspring will hunker down tightly together and keep ever so quiet until the coast is clear.

I love to stand just inside my door and observe the birds; it calms me and gives me peace of mind as well as makes me realize how wonderful and amazing life can be. Every now and then I have a chuckle at their little heads with down feathers standing on end and their overly large yellow beaks constantly open waiting for food to drop in from manna. I’ll be sad when they leave but that’s all a part of life’s cycle. My only worry now is when they start to fly; my fear is the damn cat will catch one of them in their ungainly flight. Hopefully I’ll be around to protect them.

The Hair Cut

I have always been pretty particular about my hair, not because I studied hairdressing at one time; I mainly put it down to my OD. Yes I am slightly obsessive about certain things and one of them is my hair. I must wash, dry and style my hair everyday and the only time that doesn’t happen is when I am too sick to get out of bed, and that does not happen. I cannot stand it when my hair gets too long and hangs in my eyes, the worst is when I wash and dry my hair in the morning, I want the style to last the whole day and when it doesn’t I get pissed. Once it gets too long nothing will keep that hair standing in the spiky style I like.

So the other day I realized my hair was getting too long as it was flopping all over the place. The morning I decided to cut my hair I washed it then headed over to my hair stylist. I go to the same hairdresser all the time as he speaks English. Over the years I have had some pretty hoarky hair cuts because after living in Malaysia for twenty eight years I still do not have a very good grasp of Hokkien or Malay. I know shame on me but this article is not about my lack of communicating skills. It has taken me years to find a hairdresser who cuts my hair the way I like it and speaks English so I can explain what I want.

Upon reaching the salon at almost eleven o’clock in the morning I saw that they weren’t open yet which pissed me off. After all I want to cut my hair; you’re supposed to be open at ten o’clock where the hell you are. Disappointed I go home again and wait. At twelve o’clock I go back and I am told by the kid who washes hair that Denis is not there yet and probably won’t be there until three o’clock. By now I am ready to blow a gasket because one of my quirks is that when I decide to do something I want to do it then and there and this sometimes gets me into trouble, but hey what can I say. So I decided to go to my son Justin’s hairstylist, the one he calls Hoaray (inside joke), when I go and fetch my youngest son Jordan, home from school.

I pick my son up and ask him if he can wait while I cut my hair, he’s thinking I’m going to my usual hairstylist which is close to home so he says he’ll walk back from there. I inform him that I am going to Hoaray’s so he says he would like to sit with his friends, at the mamak stall I picked him up from and wait. Fine by me. I leave him there and drive off the hairdresser’s shop which is not far away. I get to the salon and Hoaray tells me he can cut my hair straight away. I have had my haircut by him before but stopped going to him because 1) he is irritating, insisting on cutting your hair the way he wants and 2) he doesn’t speak English. I sit in the chair and he gets on with it, He’s like Edward Scissor hands, he has a shaver in one hand and a comb in the other and the next thing I know hair is flying. As he cuts my hair we have a weird conversation, weird because I am speaking English and broken Hokkien and he is speaking broken English and Hokkien. Through the conversation I gather that he knows my son Justin, cuts his hair and says that my son looks like me oh and he also tells me he knows how I like my hair cut. Once he is done with the electric shaver he grabs the scissors and once again hair is flying all over the place and within ten minutes I am done. He asks the girl to rinse my hair and dry it. Once that is done he checks my hair and cuts a little more where it is uneven and once he is satisfied he applies gel and spikes my hair. I pay him and leave.

I arrive back at the mamak where my son is and honk. He comes running and climbs in the car. As he settles he looks at me and says “What the hell did you do to your hair!” “It’s shorter than mine.” My kids have potty mouth as my sister Angela would say, can’t blame them they learned from the best, me. I learned from my mother how to cuss but I have to admit that as my mother aged she cleaned up her act, probably because she hung around with a better class of people. As for me I still cuss. He’s right though my hair is short in fact it is as short as Justin’s. I think Hoaray was thinking about his hair style when he cut my hair. It’s ok though, it will grow and with the weather being so hot lately I feel so much cooler. The downside is I look like a man with boobs but hey at least it’s not a faux hawk!

Growing Old

As we grow older it is hoped that through experience we gain wisdom and are not doomed to repeat the mistakes of our past. When we make mistakes in our younger years we usually learn from those mistakes and move on but to make the same mistakes in our old age, we are considered old fools. Hopefully with our experiences we can steer our children in the right direction, unfortunately it’s not always the case, because the young are conceited enough to think they know everything and don’t need our advice. As I have grown older I have found that it is easier to let children fall on their faces and just be there to help pick them up, dust them off to start all over again.

The best things about growing old are many, such as being in a position to tell your kids I told you so with a smirk on your face. Growing old allows us to stop and smell the roses and pick a few, if no one is looking. If caught we can always claim insanity. We can now pursue our own interests without someone thinking we are silly or frivolous. We don’t care what anyone thinks. We are not interested in climbing up the career ladder, because by the time we hit our old age we are either there already, retired or do not care enough to climb the slippery slope anymore. We do not need to reflect on the past, as we know we cannot change it or second guess our selves because it’s too late anyways.

As we grow older we learn that money isn’t everything, unless you have no health insurance and need to be admitted to hospital. All we really need is the love and respect of our children. We do not need a lot of things or the latest gadgets. Half the time we don’t know how to use those new confounding gadgets anyway. All we need is a roof over our heads, food on the table and a pillow to rest our heads on at night. Hopefully we can sleep.

As we grow older we can say something one day and forget about it the next day, claiming we are suffering from premature Alzheimer’s. Whether you actually forgot is a moot point, you can always say you forgot rather than admit that you have simply changed your mind because you had been drunk when you had agreed to let your kid do something. You can keep on telling the same boring stories over and over again just to bug your kids. As we grow older we can stop sweating the small stuff, because we realize that life is too short to worry about it and we’ll just worry ourselves into an early grave.

Growing old allows us to have more me time, we don’t have to put others before ourselves anymore. We can say what we want, no matter how outrageous and get away with it because we are considered senile by the young anyways. We can dress to please ourselves and not have to care whether we look hot or not, because we have lost interest in men. We no longer need them or want them around because they are more needy then children and without men around we have more peace of mind.

If we are lucky enough we will have grandchildren. We can love them and spoil them in a way we would never have done to our children and once they start whining and crying, we can pass them pack to their parents. We can sit on the sidelines and watch as our children raise their children and make the same mistakes and listen to them as they bitch about how rotten their kids are and as we listen we can snidely think to ourselves “payback time!”

The Most Thankless Job

Parenting is the most thankless job in the world. Yes it is a job and your job scope changes on a daily basis. From the moment of conception you tell yourself that you will be a perfect mother. You go out and buy books to read up on parenting. Every ones parenting style differs, and you tell yourself you will never be like your mother. Then the bubble bursts when that squalling little thing is placed in your arms, you panic and wonder what the hell you have gotten yourself into. By time the next child comes, you find yourself building a bonfire using all those parenting books.

From the beginning your patience is tested on a daily basis and there are some days you think you might lose your sanity. From the incessant crying in the middle of the night to the toddler stage where you are defied every step of the way. A nice little tap on the butt is the only way to handle things and you’re the one who ends up crying. You spanked your child and feel really guilty. All through the years of development into the teenage years, the yelling the screaming the whining (all yours) is enough to have you running to the doctor for Prozac and one day you realise that, damn somewhere along the way you have turned into your mother. The temper tantrums in the grocery store have you hiding amongst the vegetables pretending it’s not your kid. Then one morning you wake up and look in the mirror and wonder who that wild eyed, wild haired woman is only to realize it’s you. You used to be such a sharp dresser and you had a career but now your attire of choice is mom jeans and your husband’s faded out shirts. Your career has gone down the crapper and turned into a life sentence. You begin to realize that this is the craziest job that you ever took on, no pay, no appreciation, long hours and it lasts a life time.

You muddle along hoping you have not caused irreparable damage to your kid, in fact you are the one who has been damaged, realising this as you find yourself lying on the floor in a foetal position blubbering to yourself and that man you fell in love with, well you’d just like to give him a good kick in the nuts. All your good intentions of yesteryear fade away and you hope your kid would hurry up and finish school and go to college, but wait, how are you going to pay for college? That bank account you opened for your kid, well you’ll be lucky if you save enough to buy text books for college, never mind tuition fees. Then one day the worst happens, that happy go lucky child you brought into the world has become a sullen teenager who slinks away to their room and becomes uncommunicative and everything you do is lame. They start using a language you don’t understand and the cell phone becomes an extension of their hand. You take your kid shopping for clothes because they insist they have nothing to wear and you realize that your kid’s jeans cost more than your whole outfit. Hell the price of your kid’s jeans is enough to feed a starving third world country for goodness sakes. Any real conversation with your kid during this time always starts with “I dunno, can you drive me to the mall?” When you have the audacity to say no it’s either an argument or a look and if looks could kill you’d surely keel over dead. There are days when after a round with your teenager they threatened to run away from home, you offer to pack their bags. Everyday there’s a minor war going on in the house. Either between you and your kid or your kid and their siblings and you have to wade in like a trooper to get things under control to make sure they don’t destroy the house or kill each other. Your peace and quiet is a thing of the past and you find yourself wishing they’d hurry up and grow up and move out of the house.

Then when things have quieted down you pour yourself a good stiff drink trying to get to the happy place, which you find yourself doing more often. You sit and ponder and wonder why the hell you didn’t opt to have sterilisation. After a while as the alcohol slowly takes hold you begin to think clearly and realize they will never, ever leave you.