42point1

my generation, baby

I am terrified of getting older.  This terror started two years ago -- it was a direct result of falling on the ice and not being able to get up, and of still feeling the effects of that two years on.  I feel as if I aged twenty years that day, and no matter what I do, I've turned prematurely into an old woman, and the slide downhill will continue, and I'll end up incapacitated and dottery by fifty.

Fifty is not that far away.

I also live in a community with what seems, to me, an unusually high population of retired people, most of whom are very feeble and dottery and make me wonder how they possibly manage to keep their driver's licenses. 

And they terrify me, because that is not how I want to get old.

This is how I want to get old:

These are The Zimmers (Zimmer frame is what a walker is called by the Brits), who made a bit of a sensation last year with their cover of The Who's "My Generation".

Now, go back to around the 3:00 minute mark -- around 3:03, 3:04, and stop the video. There!  See that dapper guy in the black suit with the beard?

That is Buster Martin.

What, you've not heard of Buster Martin?

Buster Martin is 101 years old, and he went back to work three years ago because he was bored.  He recently ran a half marathon, and this April?

He has his sights set on the London Marathon.

Buster Martin plans on being declared the world's oldest competitive runner.

Now, that's how I want to get old.

nuntii latini

So, let's say you're an ancient Roman, and find yourself suddenly gifted with the ability to time travel.  And you do, and you find yourself in the twenty-first century, but you have No Idea what's going on.

How would you find out?  Where would you get your news?

Well, you'd probably get yourself a computer (shut up, yes you would, if you're clever enough to time travel, you're clever enough to get yourself a computer), and head over to the Nuntii Latini.

What's that?  What are the Nuntii Latini?  Why, none other than a weekly review of the news of the world delivered in classical Latin, courtesy YLE Radio Finland.

Leave it to the clever Finns to come up with this.  Have I not said I love Finland?  I do, I love Finland.

BTW, you can also get it as a podcast.  Why, of course, I subscribed.  Carpe diem, and all that.

(For the record, I tried to get this translated into Latin, but the on-line translator I found managed to butcher it royally.  I only had one year of Latin before the school declared it a Dead Language and pulled it from the curriculum, which I regret.  Mind you, I decided to switch over to studying Italian, which was definitely a good thing.)