Month: January 2026

Margo's Musings

Please Hold  

that little voice9 Comments

“Please hold” is the dreaded recording I hear thousands of times when I’m needing a quick answer. Actually, I get that same command even when I’m not needing anything before my next breath.

This is how businesses avoid responding to calls. After an hour and ten minutes, if you are patient enough to endure dreadful music on an endless loop, I may finally hear:

“You are being transferred to a representative. Please hold.”

By then I’ve eaten two meals, screamed obscenities into my cellphone, and shouted “Representative!” until my voice sounds like a wounded coyote. At that point, I’m not even sure why I’m holding the phone.

My short-term memory is shot, my good nature won’t return for a week, and it’s time to sign up for a martial arts class specializing in wringing someone’s neck through the phone lines.

I hear you whispering that it isn’t lady-like to verbalize my dissatisfaction in front of my grandchildren, who are playing outside. I shouldn’t be hollering.

But they shouldn’t be listening either.

I have to wonder if the old-fashioned party line my grandparents lived with was as frustrating as today’s syrupy “Your call is important to us” assurances, when all I need to know is whether my checking account is overdrawn.

I would check my balance, except the bank’s website is telling me my password isn’t correct, meaning I have to be recertified as a human.

Most days I can tolerate elevator music ringing through my skull because I’ve learned to listen with one ear while playing mindless Sudoku.

It’s the days when I have a noon luncheon date and I start this marathon at 9 a.m. By 12 p.m., I’ve yanked swatches of hair from my head, I can only whisper, and I’m hoping I won’t have to pay for lunch, because I still don’t know if I have any money.

And I’m still waiting on my credit card company to call after they promised yesterday they would call me back shortly to let me know if I’m over my limit.

If you have any suggestions for surviving this dial-and-wait existence…

Please hold.

Margo's Musings

Icey Trees, Toasty Toes

that little voice2 Comments

The snow keeps falling here in Texas, and the tree limbs are getting coated with ice…

But, I’m sitting near the fire and my toes are toasty and nice.

Margo's Musings

Birds in the Weather Snack Together

that little voice4 Comments

It has been snowing, temperatures have plummeted, and birds are seeking food this weekend in northern Texas.

So, I’ve sat inside, warming my body by the blazing fireplace, enjoying taking pictures of various types of birds feasting on fodder my daughter and son-in-law are sharing with their feathered visitors.

The pictures aren’t the greatest, but since the birds won’t stay around if I step outside, these are taken through the living room window. At least the birds aren’t bothered too much by the ice, snow, frozen grass, and 7 degree temps.

Margo's Musings · Uncategorized

Reclining Expectations

that little voice9 Comments

I am on the hunt for a few pieces of furniture, and the search has been eye-opening, feet-weary, hilarious, and mildly exasperating.

At the top of my wish list is a small, compact recliner—one that does not resemble something my father sat in forty-five years ago. You know the one. A hulking slab of brown leather capable of holding two Paul Bunyan bodies after an evening meal of meat, mashed potatoes, gravy, biscuits, beans, and four glasses of milk—followed by half a cherry pie.

My house is not big. One chair like that would occupy the entire living room, or the bedroom, or possibly both at the same time.

What I want is a modest recliner—one that will hold my 125-pound body comfortably while I read, write, watch Johnny Carson reruns, or listen to 1950s rock-and-roll ballads. Something civilized. Something scaled.

My exhaustive search has taken me to resale shops, giant furniture warehouses, used-furniture dives, private homes, junkyards, and mysterious dwellings with no addresses and shadowy personnel whispering prices. I have sat on new, used, worn, pristine, comfortable, and back-breaking chairs—sofas, ottomans, stools, and even swings—all enthusiastically described as “perfect” and “top of the line.”

So far, every chair I liked cost just under $3,000.

That is slightly above what I am willing to invest. After all, I am almost eighty-four, and I doubt I will wear it out in the time I have left to sit in it.

What has made this pursuit especially entertaining is observing how furniture displays are arranged, depending on the size of the showroom. One warehouse-sized store had an entire wing devoted to bedding, another to recliners, another to ottomans, one for leather sofas, one for oversized coffee tables, with lamps and end tables scattered throughout like emotional support objects.

Then there was the place where the “prospective chair” was the one the shop owner himself had been reclining in for the past eighteen years.

At another stop, I asked a woman why she was selling a lovely electric recliner. She explained that it was so slow to unrecline that her trips to the bathroom were being dangerously delayed.

I jumped out of the chair, waved goodbye, and fled.

Buying a chair, it turns out, can be entertaining, educational, and hazardous to one’s health. My quest for the perfect recliner continues—with hope in my heart, doubt in my mind, and an ever-increasing awareness that comfort, dignity, and bladder response time do not always align.

Margo's Musings

When Silence Knows Better  

that little voice7 Comments

We make decisions all day long. Some are small, like what is for dinner. Others come with paperwork, shame, and a credit score, like whether to file for bankruptcy or leave town.

Most choices are not clean. They come with options, opinions, second guessing, and a lot of internal noise. We weigh them, talk about them, worry over them, cry about them, sometimes shout about them, and sometimes avoid them altogether, which is its own kind of decision.

Do I?
Don’t I?
Will I?
Won’t I?
How do I know what to do?

For me, the hardest part is telling my mind to be quiet long enough for something wiser to speak. I have to put a gag on my racing thoughts and turn up the volume on my soul.

That is not my natural setting.

I do not want to wait. I want to act. Quickly. I want to choose something, anything, and move on. Right or wrong, I will deal with the consequences later, preferably at high speed and without reflection.

Sometimes that works.

Other times I find myself tumbling downhill, gathering momentum, watching the wreckage pile up behind me. The damage gets recorded somewhere permanent, and there is no eraser in sight.

That is when I take a deep breath, invent an excuse no one believes, and mentally pack my bags for another street, town, country, or planet. Consequences are inconvenient that way.

But here is what I have learned, slowly and often the hard way. When I stop, really stop, and wait quietly, something steadier begins to surface. A nudge. A whisper. A direction that does not always make sense but feels strangely calm.

It is not always the answer I want. It is rarely the one that lets me save face. But it is usually the one that does the least damage.

At this age, I have walked through enough messes to know I will survive the next one. I have faced emotional train wrecks, awkward truths, and humiliating realities, and I am still here. A little dented, a lot wrinkled, but breathing.

I carry memories, regrets, victories, and gratitude in equal measure. I also carry the small miracle that some people still answer my phone calls.

That feels like luck to me.

When I look back, I would not trade the stumbles for a smoother road. The heartbreaks, the detours, and the improbable victories all made me who I am. This life, complicated and imperfect, has been mine to live.

And if I am lucky, I will keep listening just long enough to hear where to go next.

jusjojan daily prompt

Chewing or Chewy?

that little voice3 Comments

I’m so cheeky today; just indulge me while I get back into the blogging groove. Here is my response to today’s jusjojan’s prompt ‘chewy’. I’m not sure if this one is chewing or just finding that morsel chewy.

What say you?

https://lindaghill.com/2026/01/12/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-12th-2026/

Cosmic Photo Challenge

Still Life?

that little voice2 Comments

So, I don’t know if this is still alive…that’s the reason I wonder: Still Life?

This is my response to this cosmic photo challenge. Your guess is as good as mine.

https://cosmicphotochallenge.photo.blog/2026/01/12/the-cosmic-photo-challenge-still-life/

being · Hazards of Being Old

Wanted: Dead or Elderly

that little voice7 Comments

I have been officially notified.
I am elderly.

This revelation arrived at the county jail, where I was being fingerprinted for a passport. No crimes were involved. Apparently, even law-abiding grandmothers must now surrender their fingers to the federal government.

Gone are the days of ink-smeared thumbs and blotchy cards. Now fingerprints are taken digitally, which requires spraying your hands with a mysterious blend of window cleaner and lotion. My fingers were slick, shiny, and feeling slightly violated.

Then came the problem.

Several of my fingers refused to cooperate. They would not give up their ridges and swirls. The computer just kept blinking at me like I was trying to log in with the wrong password.

The fingerprint technician pulled out a form letter that explained why my prints could not be captured. It was not subtle. It did not say “fine lines” or “minor wear.” It said, plainly and without mercy:
She is old.

Not “her fingers are old.”
Not “age-related degradation.”
Just… old.

As he read this to me, a man reclining in the jail cell behind us added, in a drunken slur, “Well, she looks old too.”

I did not realize aging erased parts of our identity. First the shine leaves our hair. Then the smoothness leaves our skin. And now, apparently, our fingerprints pack up and quietly disappear.

Still, there is an upside.

If I ever commit a crime, the authorities will have no way to track me. My permanent record is now blurry. All they will know is that the culprit was… elderly.

Which means somewhere out there, a wrinkled woman is free to roam, unidentifiable, and possibly dangerous.

It depends.

Margo's Musings

The Twelve-Accident Plan

that little voice2 Comments

Sharing can be a surprising and stressful sacrifice, especially when you live with four teenagers who have driver’s licenses but only three cars filling the driveway.

Sometimes sharing means reluctantly handing over the keys to your personal vehicle so a newly licensed driver can shuttle a sibling to band practice, football workouts, or the grocery store for mushrooms needed in the stew bubbling on the stove.

This simple act of transferring the start button should not cause one’s blood pressure to spike or reduce a grown adult to fearful tears. Obviously, if you don’t react this way, you have never been a step-parent to a houseful of raging, hormonal teenagers.

In our family dynamic, I was the one who received the phone calls when a driving “incident” occurred. I owned a business, which meant I could bolt out the door to a crash site without asking permission or getting my pay docked. This quick response was required so often I realized I needed a plan.

I gathered the three girls and one boy around the dining room table and presented a well-thought-out way forward, designed to preserve my sanity and emotional balance whenever the phone rang.

My proposal was simple. Each driver would be allotted three accidents, for a total of twelve emergency calls. These could include flat tires, crashes with city buses, gear-shifting failures, cars lodged in hedges after taking curves too fast, or ambulance rides ending at the hospital with one of my so-called bulletproof drivers.

The list was extensive, but twelve felt generous. Surely it would provide a cushion before my pending nervous breakdown became official.

I asked the four young, inexperienced motorists to keep a tally of their incidents so they would know when their accidents were supposed to stop happening.

It was a brilliant plan—if you are naïve, optimistic, and unfamiliar with teenagers.

The system failed quickly. One child logged five accidents, another racked up four, and one counted two and a half. That left only half an accident for the fourth driver, which felt deeply unfair. How many people actually have half an accident?

That was the lesson. Step-parenting does not operate on plans, logic, or math. You simply suck it up and accept that sharing your ideas will not keep you from crying, sweating, or memorizing your cardiologist’s phone number.

Another slice of life—burnt edges and all.

Margo's Musings

Rock and Dream

that little voice1 Comment

Walking up a street I’ve traversed tens of times, I noticed this artwork on a door. It doesn’t appear to be newly painted, but it is the first time I saw it, and I had to take a picture.

I’m intrigued whether this is the home of a retired grandparent indicating it is a place to have a story read to a child while being lovingly rocked cuddled in a padded lap.

Or perhaps it is the story of someone who is wanting to slow down and their wish is to spend time reflecting and relaxing.

Whatever the message, this painting filled me with warm joy.