Doug French: I woke up at 2 this morning. I was so excited. I did this whole thing, by the way, on two hours sleep.
Magda Pecsenye Zarin: Like, the more you talk about this, the more I'm amazed that you're actually still awake.
Doug: Well, it occurred to me. Can you hear me if I do this? I'm talking like this now. I'm slumped in my seat.
Magda: Yeah, but it sounds weird.
Doug: Because I could have just done the whole thing like, hey, When The Flames Go Up, it's sponsor time. Sominex. Or riding between two football stadiums because you're a big dummy. That countdown made your face all rainbow-y and had different color palettes on it.
Magda: The countdown. We're overly fascinated with the countdown.
Doug: Yeah, well, just watching you get all psychedelic brought me into your madness.
Magda: But anyway, we're back for season two. I'm excited.
Doug: I can tell.
Magda: Doug, would you like to tell me and everyone who's listening what you did today, the day we're recording this?
Doug: I would love to tell you this. I would love to tell you, for example, that once again, I have failed to give you this picture of Thomas that I had specifically made.
Magda: Yeah, because we just we saw each other yesterday. We went to see the exhibit of photographs by Pete Souza, who was the official photographer of President Barack Obama for all eight years of his term. And Pete Souza picked 50 of his favorite photos of the former president. And they are on display at the Ann Arbor Cultural Center for a while. And you and I went to see it. And you forgot to give me the photos of our kid in the excitement.
Doug: You were in my house.
Magda: I know. The cat, by the way, who looks floofier than ever. He's such a floofy cat. He's huge and he's floofy.
Doug: The floofiest cuddles all the time, and all it is is a big endorphin rush for me, which is what I need right now, because what you're getting at is that I biked 72 miles today.
Magda: 72? I thought it was supposed to be 62.
Doug: It was 65 from stadium to stadium. The fundraiser is for Battling ALS, which is the thing I am most scared of ever getting.
Magda: Okay.
Doug: Just the whole idea of being alive and well while your husk of a body rots around you, it's... Yeah.
Magda: Yeah. It's terrifying. What is the organization that put this race on?
Doug: It's an organization in town here in Ann Arbor called Active Against ALS.
Magda: Ah! That is the one that I, remember when I used to run the Twinkie Run.
Doug: Really?
Magda: Yes, because it was started when my former professor from business school, Gretchen Spreitzer, her husband, Bob Schoeni, died of ALS. And everybody who had been one of his students or one of her students got together, formed this organization, Ann Arbor Active Against ALS and they used to just have runs and I have done their runs, their Twinkie run and all that kind of stuff. And so now they're doing bike races.
Doug: They have ramped up, ramped up. Well, this event's been going on for a while. It's called the Stadium To Stadium ride. So I got up this morning at 5:30, biked over to the high school. We took some pictures in front of the Big House. [University of Michigan Stadium] And then we bussed up to East Lansing to stand in front of the Michigan State Stadium. And then we all biked back.
Magda: Wow. And that was 65 miles.
Doug: Right. And I count the extra seven because it was three and a half miles each way to get to the high school.
Magda: Can I ask you what was the longest distance you've biked previous to this? And when was the longest distance you biked previous to this?
Doug: Four days ago was the longest distance I'd ever biked prior to this.
Magda: And what was that distance?
Doug: Far less than 72 miles. It was like 31 miles. It was my first metric half century, as they call it.
Magda: Oh, because it was 50K. Got it.
Doug: Yeah. So I got my 50K. I felt all highfalutin. And I had put this in the newsletter saying, “Oh, my God, this is actually a pretty cool thing to do. And it's coming up. It's on Sunday. I've got to do this.” And, you know, just for, uh, to have, to have such blatant disregard for my age and my body and the parts of that body that I used to sit with, I agreed to bike 72 miles to raise money to fight ALS. And it was in three parts. The first part was three hours, 31 miles to Stockbridge. And that's where we had lunch.
Magda: Okay.
Doug: And that was gorgeous because it was early. It was the morning. It was breezy and calm. I had a nice light overshirt on. It was all paved. Cornfields, farm country, Trump signs. I got to Stockbridge feeling like, oh, I got this. You know, tap dancing around and so forth. Even though...I was the last person to arrive at Stockbridge, and this is a theme, so stay tuned for that.
Magda: Oh, interesting. So how many people were doing this, would you say?
Doug: About 25, 30, and 24 to 29 of them were like superstars at what they do. They showed up with their bikes and their clip-on shoes and their mounted phone monitors and their Fitbits. And their compression socks, and they were just off. And I was just a guy in shorts, just kind of biking down. “Hey, guys!”
Magda: This is very funny.
Doug: It was flat for a lot of it. Downhill, obviously great. But when it came time to the climbs, I was terribly inefficient and lost everybody. Which was fine, because there was the sag wagon, the struggle bus. You know, the person driving around, making sure everybody's okay.
Magda: Mm-hmm.
Doug: And we got to know each other well today because she was the one waiting at the intersections to make sure we all made the right turns. And I was always the signal that it was okay to move on because if I'd made the right turn, then she could go and perch herself at the next spot.
Doug: That first leg, 31 miles, I felt fantastic. I showed up in the parking lot and I'm like, hey, guys. And I caught them. They were just leaving, having finished lunch. Everyone else? Everyone else, yes.
Magda: Except the organizers.
Doug: The organizers hung out with me. We chatted for a long time.
Magda: Oh, no.
Doug: And that's the news because I talked to this family. This family has lost six people to a particularly vicious strain of genetic ALS that takes you in a year.
Magda: Oh, my goodness.
Doug: And this is the thing. I mean, if you're last, you have time to talk to people. Because everybody else is like, “I've got to make good time. I've got to put this on my Strava.” I'm on Strava, by the way. Come follow me and watch my shenanigans.
Magda: You can't say that and then not tell people how to find you on Strava.
Doug: Well, just go to Strava and look for me. I'm Doug French.
Magda: Oh, Doug French.
Doug: Yes.
Magda: Aren't there multiple Doug Frenches?
Doug: I don't even know, but I'm the only one who looks like me.
Magda: Oh, okay. All right.
Doug: Who lives in Ann Arbor and booked almost my entire trip today because my phone crapped out. It was so busy working so hard to find a signal in the woods when I was trying to bike that it ran out of juice in Dexter. So I only got two-thirds of the leg on the Strava.
Magda: Oh, my God.
Doug: Oh, yeah. You'll look at the socials. There's plenty of proof that I started the race, but only one picture of me proof that I finished it. Because I missed all the photographs.
Magda: Oh, no.
Doug: So the second leg was from Stockbridge to Dexter.
Magda: Okay.
Doug: So after we had sandwiches in Stockbridge and they were all gone and I sat there and had a nap and then got up and rode to Dexter, which is 22 miles.
Magda: Okay.
Doug: And that was the most grueling thing I have ever done in my ever-loving life.
Magda: Really? 22 miles? Was it hilly?
Doug: Yeah. It was hilly, it was dirt roads, it was hot. There was banjo music playing in the background. It was creepy, it was more Trump signs. And there's no pavement. Nothing is paved. I take it back–there's one road there, North Territorial, which is a major highway that I rode on for about three quarters of a mile, and that was paved. So I'm on all this non-paved dirt roads, all uphill, all headwinds, and then I get to Territorial and it's like, “Oh my God, pavement!” and then I go off and make another turn, and it's no more pavement. And I shook my fists at a cloud.
Magda: Oh my God, brutal.
Doug: It reminded me of when I was in high school and we had a new sicko soccer coach who made us run laps during practice in pairs. These pairs of people doing laps around the soccer field. And then at his whistle, the two people at the front of the line had to take off and sprint and run around the field until they caught up with the back of the line.
Magda: Oh my God.
Doug: And he would do that until we all threw up.
Magda: That's awful.
Doug: For me, I mean, I loved playing soccer because it was fun. Dr. Voskian was our coach and he was just like, pass the ball to your friend. He was our history teacher and had dubious knowledge of English. And threw the ball out there and said, do your best. And we loved it. And then this lunatic came along and made us run like nuts. And after practices, I felt like I do now. I have not felt this way in 40 years.
Magda: Wow.
Doug: So I get to Dexter. Everybody's gone. There's like two people waiting for me. And they were telling me more about the stories of their family members who had passed. And we sat there eating donuts and drinking cider. And then they had to go. And I took another nap. And then I went to the coffee shop. And this really nice woman charged my phone for me.
Magda: Oh, that's nice.
Doug: Yeah, but that wasn't because I wanted to put Strava on. That's just because I didn't want to ride home without an active phone in case I fell into a ditch. I wouldn't be able to summon somebody. Because I'm going through, that's the B2B trail, and it's not on the road. So, I mean, it's a beautiful trail, but it's in the woods. So she charged me up, and then I biked home and took a picture in front of the Big House. Texted it to the organizer who responded properly and posted it to Instagram. She's like, “They all made it!”
Doug: And now here I am ready to go to sleep. But oh my God, I know parts of me died today, but a lot of me is as alive as it's ever been because it was absolutely stupid to be like, you know what? I just got to 30 miles. Let's do 72 three days later. Who does that?
Magda: Yes, it absolutely was. I think you're not going to feel very good tomorrow, Doug.
Doug: Oh, it's a recovery day. I get to sit back and just eat carbs. I'm just going to eat everything. I'm going to go get a tub of ice cream.
Magda: You are going to wake up in the morning and you're not going to be able to move your legs.
Doug: Maybe. So I'll have to have someone deliver me.
Magda: You're going to have to roll out of bed.
Doug: Yes.
Magda: And then like log roll into the kitchen
Doug: I will be log rolling all day and summoning Uber Eats to bring me ice cream that I can bathe in.
Magda: Oh, boy. Well, I have to say, I went to church this morning and, you know, everybody at church knows you. And they were like, where's Doug? And I was like, Oh. Let me tell you where Doug is.
Doug: I love the opening. Oh.
Magda: Yeah. And people were like, “Why???” Like. Not about the biking part, but about the fact that four days ago, you hit the pinnacle of your biking performance with 32 miles, and turned around and decided to just double it four days later.
Doug: That pinnacle is now way down the slope.
Magda: Oh boy. Yeah. Well, okay. I'm glad you're alive because, you know, I asked you at what point do you think you might be done? Like so that I know when to start worrying.
Doug: Yeah, I was done.
Magda: So like two hours after that, I was really seriously considering trying to look up the race and contact the organizers and be like, “The guy that just signed up?”
Doug: “Oh, we know that guy.”
Magda: “Is he alive?” Yeah.
Doug: Well, this is the thing, though, because I went to that, I forget the name of that coffee shop in Dexter. I sat there for one of my first naps while my phone was charging. And all these bikers came through. Dexter is a very common place for people to gather and expand outward into all the paths that go north and west from Dexter. And so they're all hanging out. And so this couple comes out of the coffee shop and they're talking to me and they actually asked me, “How far did you ride today?” And I said, “Wouldn't you like to know? I actually left East Lansing this morning at 8.40 and I'm just starting this final leg home in the Golden Hour.” But they were so psyched about that. This is exactly why this new gig with the Bike Alliance is so much fun because there's so many people who don't know all the cool stuff you can do in this county that's bike related.
Magda: Okay, so for people who are listening to the podcast now and who thought they were going to get a lot of hot instructional material about being 50 and instead we're just really talking about the trials and tribulations that you and I have encountered being in our fifties over this month, we were on hiatus. Exactly.
Doug: I'm going to push back on that because I think this is how to be 59 almost.
Magda: Yeah, I think so. Okay. But tell people what you're talking about with the Bike Alliance of Washtenaw, people who didn't hear about it last season.
Doug: Oh, well, I just started doing communications for them because I started out running the Instagram and then I started writing the Substack and now I'm hosting a podcast.
Magda: And now you're also signing up for really long races so you can report in on those.
Doug: Well, exactly. Because I want to, yeah, I don't want to just be a dilettante. I want to have done this and they know it. They saw me showing up there in a t-shirt and shorts and just a guy with a pair of sneakers on who wanted to ride his 15-year-old bike. You know, I bought that bike in Manhattan before we got here.
Magda: Do you think that like if you did it again next year, would you gear up or would you just come and do it again and figure you'd have a better time because you would have been doing more longer races?
Doug: Oh, I think if I do longer races in the future, part of this was also an experiment. You know, I want to see how much do I have left to learn? And boy, do I have a lot to learn. But I did learn a lot in terms of how to prepare, how to load up on carbs before. And that helped me a lot. I also took that collagen, as you suggested.
Magda: Do you feel like that helped you hydrate?
Doug: Yeah. Well, I mean, I felt powerful. I was achy. I could still do it, but it was the ache that was kind of overwhelming the muscle aspect of it.
Magda: Okay.
Doug: I think I did a lot of things right. But I also think, and again, this is where the troubles happen because buying bike gear is a slippery slope.
Magda: Oh, it's like buying dog gear, right?
Doug: Like anything, if you decide you really like something, then you're going to start thinking, huh. Now, I'm not the guy yet who has to have like 10 bikes in a specific shed for said bikes, but there are people I work with who have a specified bike shed and cannot not buy new bikes because they have the sickness. And again, when I look at Strava, I see friends of mine that I've been working with here. You know, this kid went out for a 40-mile bike ride just because. And he's a little younger than I am, but still, he's rubbing it in my face.
Doug: But part of that is because he's been doing it for so much longer and he knows how to optimize the experience with gear and knowing the right routes. He knows the right routes for anything. And one of the great things about seeing what he does on Strava is I can look at his routes and say, oh, okay, so that works. A lot of shortcuts, a lot of hill-avoiding. And I knew exactly what the issue would be when I saw when they distributed the maps of the routes we were taking. And there was a matching elevation map down below, like a grab.
Magda: Oh, yeah.
Doug: And so you look down below and you see right when you get to Ann Arbor, there's this one little whoop. I knew exactly where that was. But it's intriguing. It's very encouraging, the fact that I could finish it and that I could take some steps to make things better on me. Like the newest thing I learned is there's a woman in town who fits people for bikes and she is known nationwide.
Magda: I didn't even really realize that bike fitting was a thing. Like, I mean, I'm a runner, so I know that shoe fitting is a thing, right? Like they watch you run and then they recommend a brand and style for you. But so I guess biking is the same thing. They recommend a brand and style for you.
Doug: Yeah. You look at how high your seat should be, where the handlebars should be, and they put you on, you know, a machine, an indoor machine, and you bike on it. Just like when I went and got fitted for running shoes and they checked out whether I pronated and all that stuff. They want to see what your biking stance is like and you could make a bike fit the stance you have so that you can ride in comfort and not be, as I am, in epic back pain because I was bent over on my bike the whole time.
Magda: Well, I also think if you, before you do a ride this length again, did a bunch of rides that were 30 miles and then like, one or two rides that were like 50 miles, it would be much easier on you.
Doug: Oh yeah, that would make a damn load more sense.
Magda: Absolutely.
Doug: I just went and bit off the cracker. I was like, okay, I did this and it wrecked me. So now I'm going to do double it four days later.
Magda: Well, I'm glad your impulsive behavior actually paid off.
Doug: I mean, I feel it as though it has. I mean, we'll check in 72 hours from now and I'm still log rolling around the house.
Magda: Yeah.
Doug: Again, I also was looking into it. My birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks and I wanted to be able to have written my age.
Magda: Oh, okay. Now that your 72nd birthday is coming up and you rode 72 miles today. Right. You're happy?
Doug: Absolutely. And I was thinking the same thing. My grandfather, in a very happy move, he once shot his age playing golf.
Magda: Oh.
Doug: He was 72, and he shot a 72, and it was the talk of the club.
Magda: So you're turning 59.
Doug: Yes.
Magda: And you rode many more miles than that today, so that's good.
Doug: Well, I didn't have much of a choice. I guess I could have stopped 13 miles out of town and said, “Taxi! Taxi! That's it. That's all I got. Call the sag truck.” And the sag truck was fun. Although it wasn't, one of the things I was expecting was a bit more like the, the sag wagon was going to have tools in it.
Magda: Oh no, it's not like, you're not like the pit crew. They just pick you up and, and say,
Doug: It's a mom and pop thing.
Magda: Exactly. Right.
Doug: And the, the sag wagon is just Gail who drives the U-Haul.
Magda: Yeah.
Doug: But if I'd had a flat tire or if I'd had a broken spoke or anything that needed attention, she'd be like, well, we'll just throw you in the back and I'll drive you home.
Magda: I read this book of essays by Rachel Kushner and she has an essay in it about having done this motorcycle race. It was crazy. It was like you do like 18 hours in one day on the coast of Mexico. And she just wiped right out in the middle of it. And there's no support at all. It's just this group of people riding motorcycles. And so eventually like miles down the line, the people she was with figured out that she wasn't with them anymore. And this was also in the days before cell phones. So like people weren't even in contact. So somebody had to just like go back and she was like lying on the side of the road and they just hauled her into a bar and like, wrapped her up with paper towels and stuff. So at least there was a bus.
Doug: At Least There Was A Bus: A Memoir. Yeah, exactly. so what else do we want to talk about that happened in the hiatus before we came back?
Magda: Oh, we can talk about dropping our kid off at college, because that's a very “in your 50s” thing to do.
Doug: Sure. Well, and let's also give a brief shoutout to the two pictures we got from our kids today. A study in contrast. So assuming the kids are okay with it, I'll post a picture and I'll say, guess which kid is in college.
Magda: I am guessing they're not going to be okay with it, but we have one kid who is a firefighter out West and he posted these very, you know, they're beautiful and they're very, just these bleak photos of them fighting fires. And there's one with a helicopter flying.
Doug: They are beautiful. And there's lighting. It's really well done.
Magda: So one is really beautiful, but they're very kind of bleak about the firefighting. And then the kid who's in college had gone with his friends to Target and was wearing a big hot dog costume. And was like specifically contrasting what his brother was up to.
Doug: Yeah. Yeah. All right. So how do you want to start off talking about dropoff?
Magda: So our older kid went away to college in the middle of the pandemic and didn't let us drop him off. He just got into his car and drove down with the stuff in the back of his car and moved himself in and that was it. And then took a semester off and then switched schools and drove off in his car, didn't let us move him in at all. And so when our younger child was looking at colleges, I said, you know, okay, A, I don't even care if you go to college. B, I don't care where you go to college, but C, if you do go to college, all that I'm asking is that you allow your father and me to move you in your first year to college. And I know that this is not your fault, but your brother denied us that parental pleasure. And it's all, you have to shoulder that burden and allow us to move you in. And he said, “Okay.” He's very patient with me. The younger one is very patient with me.
Doug: Yes.
Magda: And so he knew that we were both going to be moving him in. I had a carload of his stuff from my house with Mike, and you had him and a carload of stuff from his room at your house. And we met in the town the night before and stayed overnight in a hotel. And then went to the move-in the next day and that ran like a Swiss watch.
Doug: Oh my goodness. Amazing, wasn't it?
Magda: It was so amazing. And I've seen a bunch of people posting similar things from different schools. So I know that we weren't the only school that has this down, but it was really a science. Like, our kid went and checked in and they gave him his name tag for his orientation group and they gave him the key to his room, which he already knew about. And then they gave colored pieces of paper for our dashboards so that the traffic people could direct us to the correct dorm. And we just pulled up. It was sort of like lining up waiting for pickup in middle school. We just waited. And then when it was our turn, we pulled up in front of the dorm. We had to have had all of the boxes and everything labeled with our kid's name, and the name of the dorm, and the room number. And then there were just kids there from the team–it was like the girls' soccer team and track team–just opened up the doors to our cars, and anything that had a label on it, they just hauled upstairs.
Doug: Do you want to tell people what those people said to you about your labels?
Magda: A 19-year-old girl looked at my child's labeled skateboard and said, "Ooh, slay with the labels!" So at that moment, I was like: Motherhood Complete. I will never reach any higher pinnacle.
Doug: We have just read the last chapter of At Least There Was a Bus.
Magda: Exactly. But it was like, you know, I mean, all the stuff I struggled to do correctly for these kids and, you know, just getting them through life. And then the moment I dropped this kid off to go off in his life by himself and my labels slay, it just made me feel excellent.
Doug: Especially because we gave you plenty of shit about those labels.
Magda: You did. You gave me a lot of shit about those labels. I believe that I am going to be releasing the Google Doc of my label template to the incoming first year parents next year as a public service.
Doug: Oh, my God. The den mother strikes again.
Magda: What font would be most legible?
Doug: Yes. But you went with a pretty ordinary font. What font did you choose? It looked like Arial.
Magda: Yes. No, it wasn't Arial. It was a serif font. Oh, maybe it wasn't. No, it wasn't. It was Roboto.
Doug: I was going to say, you can't bring it up and not know what the font was.
Magda: Well, and for me, it was about legibility and how it would fit on the page. I wanted to fit two of them on the page. And yeah, so anyway, I think move-in went really well. Our kid had already communicated with his roommates before. We got along with the roommates’ parents. It's interesting to me that colleges are now offering so much to the parents because, you know, when I went to college, my parents helped me move in and then there was like a lemonade–and I don't even know if there were cookies; there might have just been lemonade–reception for the parents and they got to lay eyes on the college president. And if they were bold enough, they could walk up and talk to her. And then after 45 minutes, it was like “Parents, go home.”
Doug: Yeah.
Magda: “Your children are in our hands now.” And then, you know, 20 minutes later, they were teaching us how to make a dental dam out of a condom. That was orientation. I think it's interesting now that the colleges feel like they really need to engage the parents and they need to provide programming and services and stuff like that for us. I don't, I'm not a person who needs programming and services. Like I enjoyed the fact that we had time to go to the bookstore afterwards and, you know, buy car magnets and mugs and whatnot. Merch. But I'm not convinced as many parents really want that stuff. I think parents go to it because we are a generation of parents who go to everything. Like we feel like we have to comply. And if we don't comply, we're doing it incorrectly. Like that's what we were trained to do. So, you know, if the school says, “Hey, there's a meeting that parents are supposed to come to,” we will go to that meeting, and we'll bring a notebook. But that doesn't mean we enjoy it.
Doug: But yeah, friends of ours who teach college students have said that the parents are a lot more proactive about, why did you give my child this grade, for example? Why didn't you give them an extension?
Magda: Okay. That's not the same thing as parents wanting programming for them.
Doug: Well, the programming is not about them. I mean, the programming is not about the school. It's about cya. It's like read the fucking manual. It's a way of saying we're going to provide all this information for you now so that when you ask about it in three weeks we can say, “We told you that already.”
Magda: Yeah, but I think the colleges think that they are giving these people with more time than common sense something to think about so that they aren't going to come back and try to go after the teachers. But I don't know that that's actually the truth. I think they're just giving people who want more touch points, more touch points. And those people then think, Oh, I'm supposed to be contacting them all the time.
Doug: Yeah. But you can forgive them for being a bit more defensive though, because it is such a fragile operation now, not only to recruit kids, entice them with financial aid, right, and then keep them. The richest schools are like putting in wave pools and the non-rich schools have to fight with the rich schools, and so they're doing whatever they can. You know that's a big part of staying alive.
Magda: Yeah, and I don't know how that interacts with the programs for parents. I think that they would be doing better to focus on interactions with the kids to get the kid to stay there. Because it really isn't the parents saying, “you should transfer,” right? It's the kids who feel unhappy and feel unsettled. And maybe they say to their parents, “I want to transfer” or “I want to drop out.” And it's possible that if the parents have had more touch points, they would be less supportive of the kid transferring and try to keep the kid in longer. But I think it still has to come from the kid. And so I would think I would put more into keeping the kids. But OK, anyway, now we're getting to like Magda's Philosophies of Life instead of talking about the actual dropoff.
Doug: That's what we need to provide to people. Right. It's been four or five long weeks since Magda's Philosophies of Life made their way to the airwaves. So let's give the people what they want.
Magda: Yes. It was very interesting to me to see how streamlined it was. Our kid was in a triple room and all three kids were in different orientation groups, which I thought was great because then they were making friends with their roommates and they also had this other group of kids that they were in orientation with. And my understanding is that their orientation groups were also different groups from their first-year seminar groups, because the first-year seminar is kind of like, I don't know, like homeroom and your first-year seminar teacher is your academic advisor.
Magda: So it just seems like they're trying to put together kind of a matrix of support for the kids. So the kids are meeting a lot of different kids and spending some time with them so that they can sort of build friendships. Our kid does not traditionally have problems making friends with people. He's very willing to just walk up to people and start talking to them. One of his roommates, I think, is the same way. And so the two of them, I think, just became fast friends and sort of walked out and had accumulated a group of friends.
Doug: And the third roommate's parents are Trump supporters.
Magda: Do we really want to say that on the air? Like, it's true, but...
Doug: No, because, yeah, you overheard that whole conversation.
Magda: Oh, my God, Doug. I was so thankful that you were putting on your... It wasn't the Gregarious Doug act, right? Because you have a Gregarious Doug act. This was the Clueless Midwestern Dad Gregarious Doug act, right? Clueless. This lady was saying some stuff that was genuinely indefensible, and you were just like, “Oh, and what makes you say that,” right?
32:03
Doug: Well, because you can't be a scold when you meet someone for the first time. This is a kid who lives with my kid. I can't be like...
Magda: I know, but I just am not as good at fixing my face as you are, I guess.
32:18
Doug: I mean, that's the whole point. You got to let people talk. That's all they want to do is be heard. So there's six of us parents in there in this triple trying to build beds and stash stuff in wardrobes and put furniture where it will fit. It seemed like the perfect way to get off on the wrong foot was to have a scolding match about politics.
Magda: Yeah.
Doug: I mean, she's a one issue voter. She told me what she was interested in. And unfortunately, that's what I think a lot of Trump voters are. They just decided one thing like they want the tax cuts and that's enough for them. I think they're really good at compartmentalizing the stuff that they know would be a deal breaker in any other circumstance. But if there's one thing they can point to that they think he'd be better for, that's enough for them to vote for him. So, of course, I'm biking through this gravelly shithole and I'm thinking, look at all these Trump signs. I should just drive on up. I need a break. “Excuse me, can I use your bathroom? And by the way, what the hell, bro?” And he was never heard from again.
Magda: Oh, boy. So, what other age-appropriate things went on in these past five weeks? Anything?
Doug: Well, I traveled around and saw a lot of people, a lot of friends, a lot of parents and we had substantive conversations. I mean, the most substantive that we've had about plans, about where assisted living might be and how much it might cost and more talk about obituaries, more talk about funeral arrangements, more talk about retirement assets. I mean, it was incredible. And since we've been doing this podcast and since I've been learning so much more about what it's like to be 80, since right now I feel like I'm 80, um, I got to say, this podcast has taught me to press a little harder on things that I know they need to address and are perfectly content not to as long as they're both healthy and as long as they're both autonomous. And that's great, but you got to have a plan.
Magda: Yeah.
Doug: Never mind if the plan even comes to fruition because wacky shit could come down and blow the plan to pieces. But you got to have something in place now. And then tweak it as necessary.
Magda: And there's value in putting together the plan.
Doug: Yeah.
Magda: Because once you've put together one plan, you've thought about things. And if things need to be completely different, at least you've already been through it. So you know what there is to think about.
Doug: And it gets the parents talking about it because they're not a monolith. You know, parents have different ideas of what they want to do with their unautonomous lives. And it's an uncomfortable thing if you don't address that. You know, it's, “wait a minute, I always thought you wanted to do this.” “I never said I wanted to do that.” You know what I mean? And it's never too late to do that, even if you've been married 62 years.
Magda: Right.
Doug: So we had long talks about that. And that made me feel better just because I know I'm going to be in charge of this circus. And I just want to know which baton to wave.
Magda: It was my dad's birthday. So I called and my dad,
Doug: How old's he now?
Magda: He is 77.
Doug: I was going to say he's not 80 yet. Yeah.
Magda: No, not at all. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, I think two years ago, but you know, I mean, the symptoms had been happening for a long time. You don't just like wake up one day and get diagnosed with it. It's interesting to talk to him on the phone. It's interesting that he still has a lot of stuff there that has been in his head for a long time. He still knows very much who our kids are, but he couldn't remember the name of the college that our younger one went to. That kind of thing, right?
Magda: So it's been very interesting to watch how this is reeling out for him. It's very different than it was with his mom. It's also interesting to see that, you know, people say, that when you have dementia, but especially Alzheimer's, it kind of strips away a lot of your social stuff and your basic personality comes out. And my grandmother was angry and bitter a lot and more so as the Alzheimer's progressed for her. And my dad is not angry or bitter at all. He's very sweet and he's very thoughtful and very kind. I guess that doesn't surprise me. You know, I wouldn't have expected him suddenly to become very angry. But I think it's got to be easier just on your body to be sweet and not bitter.
Doug: You think he knows that for whatever reason, it's his age or his condition that he's letting go of stuff?
Magda: Yeah, absolutely. He does.
Doug: I mean, he was the one who always felt he hung so tightly to things that upset him.
Magda: Yeah. You know, he's the one who pursued the diagnosis. He knew something was wrong. He suspected it was Alzheimer's because his mom had Alzheimer's. I mean, he absolutely knows he's going out and–
Doug: He's a scientist. He has a scientist's point of view.
Magda: Yeah, he really I mean, he's a computer scientist. He is a scientist. And so he'll say things to me like, “I'm sorry, I have to ask you to tell me again.”
Doug: Oh, wow.
Magda: Because they're just things he can't hang on to.
Doug: That's amazing because the majority of older people who are starting to succumb to that get really irritable.
Magda: He had his dark night of the soul about it before the diagnosis, I believe. I personally believe that the diagnosis was a relief to him.
Doug: Oh, yeah. I would bet. Sure.
Magda: Because he was noticing it and finally to have somebody say, no, this is what it is. I think that was just good for him.
Doug: Well, if it gets you out of your own head and confirms something you suspect, that's got to be a comfort for sure.
Magda: Yeah.
Doug: And I think he knows he's in good hands. I think he knows that his wife loves him and that his wife will take care of him for as long as he needs.
Magda: Yeah, it's true. I mean, I think, you know, like you wonder what you would worry about if you really couldn't be the one who was running your own life. And it really would just be that your basic needs were taken care of and that you weren't leaving everybody else hanging in some way. I mean, I think that would be the worst thing about having something like this come on when you were much younger. You know, like his kids are out of the house. He doesn't have responsibilities to them. He isn't working anymore. They've got their financial world set up, all of that kind of stuff. And so I think he feels like he really doesn't have to run things anymore.
Doug: So how are you feeling about being still so far away from them? I mean, I know they're a little younger than my parents. I hate leaving them. I hate how far away they are.
Magda: They moved away. I don't like it. They moved away. I can't do anything about it.
Doug: Of course.
Magda: I'm never going to be okay with it. I've become okay with the fact that I'm never going to be okay about it.
Doug: All right. Well, then we'll look forward to a similar state of comfort in your old age because you've come to terms with how upset you are about not being upset.
Magda: Well, I don't plan to move away from our kids. You know what I mean? If either of our kids moves to where I live, I will not move away from there. Unless they want to.
Doug: I'm not buying trouble here, but I'm just looking down the road. Because you are remarried now. You've got a husband who's got two kids of his own. I mean, perish the thought, but let's open this last thing up. What happens then when Mike wants to be near his daughters and you want to be near your sons?
Magda: Well, we've talked about it.
Doug: Okay.
Magda: We've known each other for a while. This is something we talk about. On our first date, Mike said to me that once the kids were all out of the house, I could pick where we lived.
Doug: Wow.
Magda: So that's number one.
Doug: First date?
Magda: It was like day three of our first date. Our first date in Buffalo.
Doug: That's emblematic of dating in your 50s. It's just, let's just get some baggage out in the open right now. This is where we are and let's admit some foibles and let's just start talking about a more practical way to fall in love, if you would.
Magda: So I get to pick where we live. But what we've basically decided is that if any of our four kids have a kid, that's where we're going. And we think it's unlikely at this point in time that, well, okay, let's just say there are three of our four kids who have said, we don't want to have kids.
Doug: Right.
Magda: So that leaves Mr. Hot Dog Suit to, that's our only hope. So what we basically thought is that we would wait and see if any of our kids had a kid. And the first one to have a kid, we would attempt to bribe the others to move closer to that area.
Doug: Oh, that's healthy.
Magda: And see if that could work.
Doug: You had me going. I was like, this is great. You guys have worked this out and you're going to just bribe them.
Magda: Okay, but how would that not work? It's a plan. I mean, it's better than a concept of a plan. Let's just say that.
Doug: Yes, and I have the concept of a hairline.
Magda: Okay, I have to disagree with this because a concept of a plan means there's nothing there. You used to have a fantastic hairline. It's just been sort of disappearing progressively. That's not the same thing.
Doug: Oh, thank you so much for reminding me how great my hair was.
Magda: Your real estate is just changing.
Doug: Yeah.
Magda: It's just, there's erosion of the shoreline.
Doug: Oh, it's an archipelago at this point. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I guess it's more of an atoll. And again, I should ask my dad about this, the geology major, about what creates an atoll and what kind of volcanic activity creates the central tuft up here. But then you've got the rim all the way around.
Magda: What the hell are we talking about?
Doug: Yeah.
Magda: We're just talking about grandchildren.
Doug: We were talking about grandchildren, yes, and how I really hope to have them because I was born to be a grandfather, damn it.
Magda: Yeah, it's true. You were born to be a grandfather. I don't know. I feel that grandchildren will be accumulated some way. I have faith. I accumulated a sister. I never had a niece or nephew. I accumulated a niece. It all works out.
Doug: So it's all The Secret. You've been manifesting this forever.
Magda: Yes, I've been manifesting it.
Doug: Or hatching your manipulative plans you've been bribing people to create.
Magda: I've been bribing people. I manipulated my brother into getting married so I could have a sister. Okay, I think we should hop off. I'm going to fall asleep. We need to stop. I really, sincerely, in my heart of hearts, Doug, hope that you can actually walk tomorrow.
Doug: And I hope I can get ready to ride 144 miles on Thursday.
Magda: That would be amazing.
Doug: I mean, at this rate, I'll be riding to Florida by Christmas.
Magda: Right. Seriously. But I think you're going to have to buy compression socks before then.
Doug: Compression socks. Yes. I know people who wear them all the time and swear by them. And that may be my jam coming up. We'll see.
Magda: Well, my grandmother, who was four foot ten and gave birth to five relatively large babies and never had varicose veins, said that she was told by her doctor when she first got pregnant with my mom, who was the first one, wear compression hose and that'll prevent varicose veins. So she put them on when she was pregnant with my mom and she basically never just took them off. She wore them every day.
Doug: Well, that may have been what my dad was listening to as well because he had to wear compression socks after his hip replacements because he had all those clot issues.
Magda: Oh, wow.
Doug: So, yeah, episode 56 is in the books as we start season two. Anything you want to end with?
Magda: I don't know. Oh, well, I mean, I guess we should say this season is not just going to be us talking. We have guests that are going to be really interesting. More stuff about being in your 50s.
Doug: Well, everybody, thank you for listening to episode 56, start of season two of When the Flames Go Up with Magda Pecsenye Zarin and me, Doug French. Our guest has been what's left of my body. When the Flames Go Up is a production. Yeah, well, I wasn't going to say carcass because carcass implies death. I'm just in a more of a limbo state. When the Flames Go Up is still a production of Halfway Noodles LLC and is available on all the usual platforms and at whentheflamesgoup.substack.com. Please subscribe there for our weekly episode every Wednesday and our Friday Flames newsletter every other Friday starting this Friday.
Doug: We have been reading a bunch of stuff. I want to hear more about what you've been reading because I have been reading a lot of interesting Substacks.
Magda: I've been reading a lot of stuff. I can even make you graphics because, you know, I log everything on StoryGraph and they now have monthly graphics that you can generate and post of what you've read.
Doug: Can you do that with articles?
Magda: No, because they don't have a way to log articles. It's just books.
Doug: Okay. Well, anyway, thank you for listening to episode 56 of Thank you for indulging me as I put my body back together. And we will see you next week. Until then, bye-bye.
Magda: All right. I think if you have any fish oil, you should probably take some fish oil. It'll help your muscles.
Doug: Really? I think if I have any, it's probably way past its prime.
Magda: Oh, okay. Then just take some ibuprofen.
Doug: Yeah. Done.
Magda: Yeah. All right. Well, I don't know what to say. This was a real dumb idea, Doug, but I'm glad it worked out for you.
Doug: Well, yeah, it worked out as a strong term, but yeah, at least there was a bus.
Magda: “At least there was a bus.”
Doug: To throw him in when it was time.