Elder care options

I guess as I journey through my senior years, one of the things I’ll have to consider is where I’ll live as I age. When I was considering an apartment to buy more than twenty years ago, one of the criteria was that it had to have an elevator. Where I was living was a walk-up apartment and I knew that I would one day probably not be able to manage the stairs. So when I moved to my current condo 21 years ago, I was pleased that it’s only on the 3rd floor which is manageable, and it also has an elevator. The irony is that it’s become so old itself that it constantly breaks down and is out of commission for weeks on end, waiting for its spare parts to arrive!

More than making do with less

Way back when I was working full-time, I always thought that I needed all the accoutrements that came with corporate life. A nice car, lots of clothes and shoes, eating out at expensive restaurants and exciting holidays. Even though I was a single mum raising my son on my own and putting him through private school, making a good salary meant that I could treat myself and I considered these luxuries an essential part of life. Now that I’m out of the job market, my life is a lot simpler. But strangely enough, it's also become much more satisfying.

I miss the sun!

I recently spent two weeks in London, in the dead of winter, helping my niece who just had her second baby and spending a lot of time with her firstborn toddler. C is very particular in announcing that he is three and a half, not four or even three and three quarters. He can expound on any number of subjects way beyond his years. One day, when we were discussing colors, I asked him what color the sky was. Without even considering it or looking outside, he immediately said, “Grey.” I’ve always associated England with dreary weather and I was getting a big dose of it, bone-chillingly wintry cold and wet. What I didn’t expect was to come back to the tropics and face the same dull conditions!

My hapless experiments with confinement cooking

When I had my baby, more than 30 years ago, I didn’t pay much heed to all the food restrictions and health tips that everybody else in Asia seems to be following. I considered myself a modern, emancipated woman who knew better than my elders what my body needed, and that included daily showers and hair washing although those were taboo. Now, perhaps, with hindsight, I should have paid more attention to all that advice, because my bones ache on rainy days, something the old wives warned about.