Going Solar And Male Prowess.

The third one up is my place.

Hello Gerard Oosterman,Your Electricity Distributor, Endeavour has approved your installation.We can now send your solar install request to your installer.An installer will be in touch soon to work out a time and date that suits you.

Speak soon,

Origin Solar

The above I just copied and pasted from a letter I received 5 seconds ago. There you go!

For many years, Helvi and I used to ponder about installing solar panels. It first cropped up on our farm well over 20 years ago when solar panels first started to make their appearance. We had lots of roofs but somehow the costs were not as they are now and we were advised to wait for them to come down. Of course, now with Government rebates and the cost of panels a fraction of what they were it doesn’t make sense not to do it.  The quality of the panels have also improved. Even so, one has to be careful, we were told there are a lot of shonky operators out there trying to sell you a donkey for a horse.

I remember getting very annoyed with endless phone calls trying to lure you into getting solar panels. I ended up with a perfect solution by telling them we had no roof. You could hear their astonishment being told we lived in a house with no roofs! Another ploy I used was reading them a children’s story in Dutch. They soon hung up and it amused Helvi and I for a while. Such memories I tend to stick to. Laughter and a smile is good medicine and lately I haven’t been happier than right now. I made friends and I meet her, and others almost daily. In seems odd that during this Covid-19 pandemic, people seem to be keen in meeting each other and perhaps also make the time available to talk and give smiles.

Distances are still required and most seem to adhere to that. I haven’t as much as shaken hands with her, or others, let alone try and get intimate. Couples must be busting to get to each other, but… distance please…, eat a carrot instead. At my age, my masculinity is waning ( if you relate masculinity with sexual prowess)  and I have yet to consider asking the doctor for any help in the form of Viagra or other stimulants.

Years ago, that wasn’t an issue with me, but now with  getting older, some still seem to want to stick to what once was. I now avoid coffee, tea and other stimulants after 8pm as my sleep does need careful planning, and I do appreciate that more than a possible feeble rump about, under the doona.

In any case, lets stick to the solar panels for generating electricity. I was told that it takes about three to four years to regain the initial costs of the installation. That is a pretty good return and it would be foolish not to do it. I also bit the sour apple and bought the place next to mine as well. I am not sure but will probably rent it. A bit of a capitalist, and that, at the fag-end of my life!  Where did I go wrong, daddy? Of course with two places now, I also double my joy in gardening efforts in both places, and that balances the capitalist and the botanist (kasvitieteilijä in Finnish) nicely.

I am so excited.

Doctor will see you now.

The sun is out.

It is surprising how it has turned around. Years ago, if one was crook, doctors would do home-visits. Before doctor’s arrival, Mother would give the house a peremptory clean-up with the toilet-brush swirling vigorously around the bowl, then a quick flush. All was aired. The kitchen given a quick scan and dishes put away. The patient, one of us children, would lie prone in bed wearing a suitable pallor, indicating the illness was genuine, dispelling any doubt he or she could have gone to the Doctor’s Practice instead.

Most doctors now have moved into collective groups and in my own case it’s almost like going to the pictures. One enters a large building with doors sensing patient’s arrival opening up, before your trembling hand is even within reach of the glass. Germs are well contained within the patient’s own bodily confines. This collective groups of doctors are now called ‘Medical Centre,’ all housed under the same roof. One almost expects the possibility of the Centre  to address other issues as well, perhaps selling vacuum cleaners or prosthesis’.

For the over seventy-five, the driver’s license can only be renewed after an obligatory medical test. One of the questions I faced a few weeks ago was; if nurturing ‘suicidal thoughts’ were obvious. I can’t imagine a patient entering Doctor’s office with a length of rope scanning the ceiling for any suitable hooks to hang oneself from. How does one nurture suicidal thoughts ‘obviously?’

Of the few times I see a doctor, there are always rows of patients seated next to each other in the waiting-room. I am idling some time away trying to figure out their ailments. A bandage here and there makes this guessing easy. It get’s a bit tricker when nothing apparent is visible. Last time I noticed a woman with a very red face as if she had been the aim in a beetroot throwing party. She could have high blood pressure. With healthy men I wonder if they are seeking a repeat prescription for Viagra, especially if they look a bit tense or shifty. I believe Viagra ordered on-line is risky. There have been cases where the Viagra was just an aspirin with the patience of the partner finally running out and romance flagging so sadly.

My Medical Centre waiting room had a number of rooms attached in which the different doctors would see their patients by calling out their names. Of course, with average patient’s age ripening, the hearing aids feature plentiful. That’s why doctors now call out the names much louder than let’s say 10 years ago. It won’t be long and doctors will hold high, boards with names on it.

My waiting room has an aquarium with listless gold-fishes just swimming around oblivious to any ailments or physical shortcomings of the surrounding people. At the bottom of this aquarium nestles a Tudor castle and some plastic trees. What disturbed or factious genius thought up building a castle underneath water and then proceed to drown trees? No wonder the gold-fish are listless. Above this  watery oddity is a TV screen giving patients now a second options in loosing their minds. This TV is showing the local temperature interspersed with a quiz testing medical knowledge. One question asked if flu was caused by bacteria or virus? Most of the questions gave three or four possibilities or answers. One had to guess correctly by answering  a, b, c, or whatever.

The TV is not really looked at. Even the elderly are checking their iPhones now, bent over little screens, little sighs sometimes escape.  Getting old is not without sighs.

Years ago we held wild parties. I remember a woman coming out of our bedroom, totally dishevelled at 4am. She had crashed out on our bed. She woke up and ambled into the lounge-room where some of us were still going on, rambling about politics or the state of the Vietnam war. ‘Is there another cold one in the fridge,’ she asked? We never even knew who she was or what she was doing. That’s how casual it all was. It did not matter, she had played the piano earlier on. Not a care in the world.

Now, I am sitting in a waiting room at a Medical Centre also wearing hearing aids. What’s going on?

 

What’s in a title?

The year is now nicely steaming along. Even my dread of Sunday and their difficult afternoons have past. We watched the documentary on David Hockney. A great piece of film making. A work of art on its own. We went to bed at midnight after we heard rain pelting down joyfully on our metal roof. During the documentary a hauntingly beautiful piece of music was being played. I was overjoyed to recognise it instantly as, una furtiva lacrima, by Donizetti. Last week I could not remember Mahler’s slow movement in Death in Venice. All in all, not a bad ending to the Sunday, really. Also, the encouraging words by Hilary that the episodic memories are the ones to leave us last was so heartily taken in. Thank you Hilary. I am still here.

Over 70,000 words have now been cobbled together waiting for a title of which I thought of asking  your opinions. How important is the title? The book, (or rather my book,) will be published by hook but more by crook. I am now overloaded by words. I will let them rest and allow time  for some bedding down. In the meantime a search for a title with hopefully some input by you!

Helvi thought of ‘Migrant’s Vignettes.’ This what I have titled it for the time being.

The book  kicks off with a lengthy introduction. ‘Those first two years on Own block of Land’ before it jauntily starts in earnest with many shorts bits of all that entails a migrant’s life. One of those bits is called ‘Erectile dysfunctional benefits.’ I rather like that as a title.  It has an optimistic timbre and pitch about it, together with a hint of a societal medical quandary. It also seems to give hope. They say sex sells. I mean, men especially are obsessed with their potency, flagging or otherwise. Doctor’s surgeries are chockers with balding men seeking to renew their prescriptions on Viagra while pretending to read a well thumbed Women’s Weekly.

What about women though? Would that title be enticing enough? What age group of women would be drawn to such a title? Don’t forget that women outlive men. Eventide Home and Autumnal Haven for the aging are often sadly lacking in men. Have they have all succumbed to the worry of their dysfunctional erections? Would a book with such a title be stocked in retirement homes? Perhaps a quiet read in the evening for those women whose men had left them so prematurely? Would the book give them some solace?

In 2015 the WordPress annual report stated that during the year  A nostalgic look back at my Colonoscopy was the most read and responded to, with 121 views. That says a lot about what draws readers to my pieces, doesn’t it? There clearly is a hunkering after the good old days. How would that go down as a good title? I personally think it might be too medical. Then again, the word ‘nostalgic’ conjures up yearnings for what has been.  The previous title with the word ‘erectile’ included seems to have rigidity or an unyieldingness about it. What do you think?

What about artistic merit or integrity reflected somehow in the title? So much to ponder.

I would be so grateful if you could spare some time and advise.

 

Get ‘Rock-hard’

Our kitchen of ‘give and take’

If you thought the road to getting old is easy and paved with gold, think again. Some time ago I wrote an article about getting old and even praised some of the benefits often overlooked in magazines for the ‘senior.’
https://oosterman.wordpress.com/erectile-dysfunctional-benefits/

Many of the senior magazines seem to feel it their duty in pointing out, ad boring infinitum, that old age needs not result in a soft age and that a slackening off on a firm ‘useful’ erection need not be a foregone conclusion. As if!

Ever since I wrote this article I have been getting spam e-mails exhorting me to take tablets for the correction of any possibility of erectile wilting. ( how would they know?) This is while women line up trying to make the best of things with face peels or wrinkle free necks. Men’s only thought is to their holy dick (penis). Why is it assumed that all an ageing man ever wants is to be ‘rock-hard?’

I have lifted my security from medium to strong on my computer but as I get up each morning, (soft as eider-down) and make my weary way to the computer, I have this melancholic task of deleting those endless posts that vary from; ‘she will scream for more’, to ‘you will last like a teenager again’, for ‘swell with size and confidence, to the grand finale of ‘get rock hard’. All they want is to sell pills.

Is that what it is all about? Is that what has driven me? How sad a comment on men. What a dreadful plight, blight and burden on men. Just when I have arrived at an age to contemplate going to a travel night with video-slides of ‘trip down the Danube’, I still keep getting those spams. I am actually in the market for ‘reduction pills’ or ‘moving gaze above navel’ potions, see the ‘true opposite sex’ tablets with ‘and how to ‘engage in nice conversation with women’ unguents.

Surely, we deserve to be left alone and calmly allowed to age, enjoy a stroll around the park, sit on a bench, observe the glint in crow’s eye, the black raven’s cry and quack of ducks. Give men a break. Some deserve it.

“Could it be that advancing age is blessed with well hidden benefits of not having to be driven by those ridiculous up and downs, up and downs again? It is not as if, afterwards, one ends up in Kalgoorlie, back of the black stump or Vienna. No, we are still is in the same spot and our partner will soon be snoring, a bit tired and the ‘Rock hard’ Viagra now is calling for a revenge but will settle for a solid bout of thirty six hours of indigestion.”

Erectile dysfunctional benefits.( adults only)

http://www.theshedonline.org.au/articles/article/erectile-dysfunctional-benefits

Here you go, there is hope for all of us. I have reached the age where I am almost at the stage to finally leave things well enough alone. Although I must admit this poem by Maggie Mae still gave me a twinge;

http://maggiemaeijustsaythis.wordpress.com/2012/08/16/i-know-this-man/

*This is a bit risque…so…if you aren’t an adult, don’t read it…LOL

“I feel myself screaming down low,
my curves curving more, in search of,
in need; my cave waiting,
tugging on the emptiness,
in desperation.

I know this man who is solid,
his limbs aligned, straight and hard,
as a man would be. He has been calling me
with capacity, firm grasped,
swollen purple.

He has come for me before,
it was winter, he turned me into a mermaid
and brought me to a heated spring.
I never hesitated.
That was just once.

There were several times, over several seasons
that he came for me
again, and again.
I know this man who is solid and firm
and I scream for him, my body searches for him,
I belong to him.”

Struth; stone the crows.

In Praise of Erectile Dysfunction

 

Gerard Oosterman

It has got me beat, why, when getting older and the morning glory finally in retreat, allowing a bit of a sleep in, that men’s obsession with flagging tumescence is called a ‘dysfunction’. The scientists in cahoot with sexologists have pored for years over glass test tubes to come up with a solution that will make the ageing male re-born again and cure him from flaccid flesh, drooping donger and dismissive dirges from partners. The expert doctor will now prescribe a pill to try and crank up the tired and ageing engine of love and lust once again.

We all know why doctor’s waiting rooms are seeing more and more men, looking a bit shy and sly. The grey haired male heads are now buried in Women’s Weekly trying to fill in the remaining left out clues on the cross words or count the differences in the two pictures. Life hasn’t always been easy.

All those relationship and marital battles, the kids gone astray up North bumming around on Noosa’s beaches with strumming guitars and silly girls with oafish boys. What about the maintenance and restorations, additions, extensions on houses and costs of kids, all those years of mortgage payments and sometimes also on partners and wives long gone.

Oh, that fatal dipping back in once life, the reminiscing on things gone by, and was all this for the insane drive and biological need for the going up and down.  Is that what has driven us all along in life?  Is this why we are sitting here in a doctor’s waiting room, all lost and chewed up?  Is it to pursue us men forever on?

Better stick to this puzzle making words from rows of letters, see how many I’ll get in before seeing the quack and get script on Viagra again.  I wonder what the Doc does in his old age, no doubt very generous in his own prescriptions.

Would all this worrying about rigidity in pyjamas next to partners be some giant con to get the pharmaceutical companies out of trouble?  I believe there is now a Viagra for women as well; many scientist have worked feverishly on this for a long time.  They believe that this new kind of female Viagra makes the blood flow to the pelvic area and works wonders.  Tests, so far done on rats, have shown it to be safely tolerated and the Pharmaceutical Companies a doubling of profits is assured if we can make ‘normal’ women feeling they have a ‘normal dysfunction’ as well.  Just like us blokes.

There are vague references made to men, as they get older, having vascular problems, smoking or drinking etc, all very normal and lack of tumescence a result of those chosen life styles.  Never ever, do they say that getting older might mean that things slow down a bit and that the flaccidity problem is a result of healthy ageing and pretty normal.

Oh no, around the world, hundreds of millions of men are bombarded with advertisements on how normal it is to have ED, and this is the triumph of money over common sense, it is a DYSFUNCTION and therefore ‘not normal’.  Millions don’t want to be feeling they have a dysfunction and hence the queue to the doctors and the handing over of billions to the merchants of Viagra, Cialis, Ram Rods, Pole Vaulters and others.

It seems that the mature man perhaps ought to take matters in own hand, step back sceptically and re-consider the issues a bit more thoroughly.

Could it be that advancing age is blessed with well hidden benefits of not having to be driven by those ridiculous up and downs, up and downs again?  It is not as if, afterwards, one ends up in Kalgoorlie or Vienna.  No we are still in the same spot and our partner will soon be snoring, a bit tired and the Viagra now is calling for revenge but will settle for a solid bout of thirty six hours of indigestion.

Gee, what rotten luck.  The Sudoku has been done in the May 2002 New Idea.  Don’t doctors ever think that patients might like something a bit more recent?

Just a good cuddle is what we are all really wanting more than this struggle with rigid or sloppy bits and being dependants on a pill.  It’s our entire fault, the stupid chasing of something that has gone, changed for something else, youth that is gone, thankfully gone!

Who would want to go through all that again?  Surely by now we could be looking forward in at least not having to worry about erections at bedtime and forgetting the Viagra.  We finally have the house paid, plenty of knives and forks, all the things at last in the right place, made a few friends and got it made, with pictures of smiling grandkids as proof.  The ride-on mower and two door fridge.

And afterwards, that glass of red, post dinner and on the comfy settee with partner in opposite armchair, nothing doing, not TV or Vid, nor noisy kids or tumbling dryer and dishwasher.  Just be sitting there.  How glorious.

That’s it, we are fed up with being taken as a sucker, enough is enough.  We have done our heaving and hoisting for pleasure, procreation and progeny, more than enough for the time being.  Put it all to pasture for a year or so, go for hugs and kisses, smell the roses and enjoy  time left.  No worries, yippee!

Doctor will see you now.

Yes, doc, I have got such a persistent cough………..