-An Old Bitty Battles Aging -  

What happens when a free-wheeling seventy-four-year-old woman gives up her carefree RVing lifestyle and moves into an over-55 community?

Follow Gerri Almand’s real-life efforts to adjust to her new home, complete with hysterical and poignant insights about growing old. She struggles to adjust to failing health in both herself and her husband as they forge new lives. Her angst mushrooms into a nervous panic as she looks around her neighborhood and questions whether she belongs with all these old people.

From her kitchen window, Almand has a bird’s-eye view of the multiple first responders coming into her neighborhood, notes a rapidly revolving door as old residents leave and new ones move in, and attends her first community estate sale, horrified to find strangers pawing through the detritus of her former neighbors. Anxiety mounts as she realizes these horrors will likely be hers in the future. 

Almand makes concerted semi-successful efforts to become accepted in her new community. She learns of the pain of loneliness in the senior years as she watches the dating efforts of several older friends. She discovers multiple deteriorating body parts and questions whether anything would ultimately make things better at her age. Ultimately, she adjusts and finds happiness in her new life, relieved to have yet another midlife crisis resolved.

Gerri Almand’s true story of finding gravity in her over-55 community will bring laughs, groans, and aha moments of understanding in anyone over the age of forty. This book is a baby boomer’s delight.  

Praise:

Trading the open road for an over-55 community, the author of three humorous books about RV travel finds herself in a neighborhood where the neighbors rarely wave, friendships are slow to bloom, and mortality seems to be lurking around every corner. With candor, wit, and an eye for the absurd, Gerri Almand takes readers inside the everyday comedy of aging. Over-55 Conniptions is a book for anyone who has ever thought I’m not old yet, while holding an ice pack on a bruised knee.

–Juliette Godot, author of From the Drop of Heaven: Legends, Prejudice and Revenge.

Known for her best-selling humorous books about RV travel, Gerri Almand tackles a new journey when she moves into an over-55 community where, faced with the frequency of illness and death among her neighbors, she goes through denial and criticism as she struggles to adjust to her new circumstances. Watching her tackle topics like dating, garden clubs, and feral cats is like watching piranha boil up around a victim. And then, in the midst of the boiling fury appears a moment of quiet grace: one of the oldest members of the community nurtures a small tree with a single lemon. Fierce, vulnerable, funny, apologetic, demanding, and honest, Over-55 Conniptions takes us on a journey from denial to an embrace of the art of dying.

–Susan Parman, author of Scottish Crofters and The Dream in Western Culture

Over-55 Conniptions is a tell-all of Almand’s struggle to fit in with her elderly neighbors in an over-55 community and opens her eyes to all she has been avoiding about her own aging process.  Told with honesty and humor, this book has relatable insights, especially for those of us who, like the author, feel younger than our years.  

–Jill Amy Sager, author of Guidance from the Universe: Hopeful Messages for Everyday Challenges.

I held Gerri Almand’s book upside down and fanned the pages – hoping more insights might reveal themselves and fall to the floor. Her perceptions on aging spoke many universal truths about the human condition. There were tears, both from humor and tragedy, as she explores the hubris of both denying while trying to reconcile a teenager’s soul stuck in a not so young body. As an aging benchmark, 55 seems the crucible. If you’re younger, her words tell of what’s to come; if you’re older, you’ll smile at the memories. This book is a must read.

–Michael Foster, author of the Wakanisha series and more.

Over-55 Conniptions is a book for aging boomers. In it, Gerri Almand reflects and illuminates her journey to grow old with grace, hope, and dignity. Witty, compassionate and with a keen eye for observation, Ms. Almand takes us on a journey of understanding, change and discovery as she moves from the carefree adventures of full-time RVing to the confines, restrictions and politics of an over-55 community. Her linked personal essays run the gamut from mortality, gardening, loneliness, bicycling, declining health, dancing, live music, senior dating, the differences between sexes, and the struggle to adjust to new surroundings. Contemplative and fiercely independent, Almand pulls no punches.

–Jim Beane, author of The Deadening.

Getting old and seeing your world shrink is no joke, but get ready to smile, chuckle and even laugh out loud with Gerri Almand's Over-55 Conniptions.  In her straightforward style, Almand gives us a glimpse of life within a 55+ community filled with incredibly relatable tales of friendships, adventure, and even heartbreak. Life among seasoned residents can be challenging, but that doesn't make it any less interesting or fun. 

–Aleida Socarras, author of For Freedom’s Sake: A Mother and Daughter’s Journey.

by Gerri Almand
Page Count: 236
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Publish Date: December 9, 2025
Imprint: Brown Posey Press
Genre: Humor

FAMILY / Life Stages / Later Years
SELF-HELP / Aging
HUMOR / Topic / Aging