Retirement Routine

Retirement is 'doing whatever you please,' I suppose, but really every life needs some routines. One of mine (when I'm in town and sometimes when I'm away as well) is to get up every morning and have coffee and work the NY Times crossword. If it is Monday-Wednesday, I copy it first and try to get FFP to play along. If it's Sunday, I copy it a couple of times just so I'll have worksheets and won't interfere with FFP reading the NY Times Magazine where it appears.

I find myself looking forward to getting up at 7ish and doing this coffee and puzzle ritual. I often work other puzzles in other papers. (We get the local rag, The Austin American-Statesman. and The Wall Street Journal.) If it's a weekday, I turn the TV on to CNBC to see how the financial markets are doing. If it's Sunday, I've recently taken to turning on a Sunday morning jazz station. I record CBS Sunday Morning and watch it later.

Another routine I have when in town is to go to my club and play casual tennis on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

A lot of days, after the coffee and the stab at the puzzles (I also do the nearby Ken-Ken puzzles in the Times), my day is shaped by things we've agreed to do: entertainment, meals, events. Sometimes with others, sometimes just us. Sometimes we take a walk and have a meal or snack and see what's happening within the three-mile or so radius that is our limit. But the routines, the things we usually do, give life some shape. Sixteen years after retiring from the life defined by work routines, it gives some comfort.

Retirement

Unsure what to write about today. So I looked through the raw images of pictures I took this month and decided to use this one. Given the caption, I picked a favorite topic: retirement.

It has been over fourteen years since I worked.That amazes me. Not that it seems like just yesterday that I had a job, but that I have really not accomplished many of the goals I had.

To quote a blog entry from almost seven years ago (so half way into the journey): 

I saw myself getting everything in my (old) house organized and working to a fault. I saw myself fit and active and achieving things, doing things for others. I thought my financial life would be organized and I'd have learned lots of new things. Of course, there were those books that I was going to write and entertaining and informative WEB sites that I was going to design.
I don't know when the vision shifted to downtown living. When I retired in 2002, downsizing was on my mind but the idea of living in 1200 square feet or so was not really something I'd considered.

So I spent a lot of time from my retirement in 2002 to 2009, not so much getting organized or learning things or being creative but, let's see, remodeling the house one last time before we would leave it. And then, around 2007, seriously downsizing to move downtown.

Something else that was on my mind early on was travel. Unconstrained by counting vacation days, how hard could it be? Turns out there are constraints. As I said back in 2009:

FFP was still working full time running his agency and wasn't ready to do much traveling. However, not too many weeks after I retired I was off to Colorado with my dad and then off to Berlin. Dad was doing better then. He could travel, drive even. My in-laws had quit driving but could still walk around the neighborhood and take cabs to go places. Intellectually I knew that they would become more feeble and have more needs.  

So, yeah, I got away a bit right after retirement (which was right after my mother's death). But in 2009, I could feel the implications of the age of my three remaining parental units we were responsible for. (My dad would have some serious health issues in 2009 and he would die in 2010 in the midst of a health scare for my husband. Both in-laws would die in 2011.)

As I summed it up in 2009, vis-a-vis travel:

I did get back to South Africa, had a trip to Dublin, a driving trip or two with FFP, trips to New York, two trips to France with FFP. It sounds like a lot but it's been seven years and we didn't go anywhere in the last twelve months except for a short trip to New York, a night in San Antonio and a couple of nights at Lake Austin Spa. 

We do seem to reliably get to the Northwest every year. We've made more trips to New York. Been a few times to New Orleans. I don't really count all the back and forth trips to Houston to follow up on FFP's health scare. We made it to France in 2015 and Dublin and Italy in 2016. But, no, in spite of not having accomplished all the learning, organization, and creative goals, I also have not traveled enough. We keep saying we have to do it while we can still comfortably travel, but we've become more and more convinced of the need for well-planned travel with first class accommodations.

I found while stealing the past ruminations on my failed retirement that I gave George Bush advice on his retirement.

Anyway, I'm always telling people who retire that I'll advise them. But, really, I've failed at managing my own.

Know Thyself

It's good to know oneself, I think. SXSW film always makes me realize a few things about moi. And I'm going to tell you some of those things this morning. FFP sits behind me writing for hire (although admittedly for a pittance). I sit here writing about my favorite subject (me) for free. (At least I'm not paying for the privilege of writing other than the cost of the computer and all.)

I would rather not be in crowds or lines. We went to the trouble of trying to get an advance ticket for this movie we wanted to see last night. We bought badges, but they are giving out limited numbers of advanced tickets that they said would allow you to be seated in front of other badge holders. However, when we got to the theater (later than we normally would have) the guy was uninformed and made us go to the back of the line. After some people were seated they reversed themselves and let us in ahead of a few people who hadn't waited around to get advanced tickets. This irritated me, but once I had an OK seat I just drank a Guinness and enjoyed the movie about conspiracy theorists. I don't like lines and crowds. It's hard to go anywhere at the film fest where there aren't a lot of other people. So that is kind of a downer about festivals.

The movie we saw last night was a doc about conspiracy theorists who believe everything in the world is controlled by a handful of people. I don't agree with the folks who are featured in it, but I don't necessarily think the government always tells us everything. But that isn't the point of watching a documentary like "New World Order." The point is to look in the eyes of people obsessed with something. The point is to see what is going on with other people without having to be where they are. It is nice to be presented with another viewpoint while having a goat cheese plate and a Guinness at the Alamo Ritz. So I don't like lines and crowds but I do like seeing obscure docs instead of the latest blockbuster film.

And, yeah, we only saw one movie. I had another 'penciled in.' But we knew, in our heart of hearts, that we probably wouldn't make that one. I've been battling some little cold or allergy. I'd even napped in the afternoon before we went and I was taking medicine. It was cold and rainy out in line land. (See above.) So we came home and watched TV and read the papers. Today we have three movies on the calendar. One we definitely want to see and we got an advance ticket for it. How many do I think we'll see. Maybe, two. We were just sitting here discussing how we might skip another movie...to have drinks with friends.

Drinks, yeah. There are lots of parties where free food and drink is available to badge holders. But we know in advance that we don't really want to jostle in crowds for special drinks or certain beers offered by sponsors or fight over cheese cubes or other apps. We just as soon go to a favorite bar and pay for our sins. So the idea of a party that is exclusive to gazillion badge holders? Not so much. So I sort out the party invites and then plan one-by-one to miss them.

It's time to get showered up and face my fun day. It's a bit dreary and cold. I have this cold or allergy that has robbed me of my voice and some of my sensibility (or maybe that is the drugs). But I have fun things to do, really. See obscure movies. Look at life through others' eyes. And see what's happening on the streets of Austin as SXSW takes it by storm. (Music doesn't start until next Wednesday.)

I know these things about myself. Just must remember them. I'll only make it to half the movies I think I will because of the crowds and lines, mostly. I'll see an array of obscure docs and such (which won't reduce the crowding, there are other weirdos here). I'll skip parties, but we will be tempted to go out to bars and restaurants (probably while skipping a movie).

La ti da. So goes retirement. I could have to work and have to take vacation to continue the fest on Monday. I guess when you don't work, you have to find something to play hooky from even if it is supposedly fun stuff.

Not What I Imagined

I had things in mind when I retired. Ideas about how my life would go along and ideas about what would happen in the rest of the world, too. These visions don't usually add up to reality, though, do they?

I saw myself getting everything in my (old) house organized and working to a fault. I saw myself fit and active and achieving things, doing things for others. I thought my financial life would be organized and I'd have learned lots of new things. Of course, there were those books that I was going to write and entertaining and informative WEB sites that I was going to design.

I don't know when the vision shifted to downtown living. When I retired in 2002, downsizing was on my mind but the idea of living in 1200 square feet or so was not really something I'd considered.

I wanted to travel. FFP was still working full time running his agency and wasn't ready to do much traveling. However, not too many weeks after I retired I was off to Colorado with my dad and then off to Berlin. Dad was doing better then. He could travel, drive even. My in-laws had quit driving but could still walk around the neighborhood and take cabs to go places. Intellectually I knew that they would become more feeble and have more needs. (Although their current needs are surprisingly low for their ages.) I imagined that I'd keep traveling a lot. That I'd go back to South Africa and other places. Oh, I did get back to South Africa, had a trip to Dublin, a driving trip or two with FFP, trips to New York, two trips to France with FFP. It sounds like a lot but it's been seven years and we didn't go anywhere in the last twelve months except for a short trip to New York, a night in San Antonio and a couple of nights at Lake Austin Spa. I feel like a stay-at-home. I know I'm making too much of keeping up with the old folks. If they do as well as they are right now, it would be easy enough to get a little help and, um, abandon them for a bit. I am planning to plan a trip to New York. Oh and maybe back to Europe. Of course, the expenses of moving and the economic downturn have put a little damper on spending.

I guess after 9/11 and a closer reading of the newspapers about world affairs, I didn't hold out much hope for the mess in the world. I haven't been disappointed but I have been a little surprised by the scope of the agony. (And amazed that we are still as lucky as we are.)

I guess things are always different than in your mind's eye. I wonder if the Democrats swarming the White House are finding it like they expected it to be. I'll bet, to some degree, not.

Dawn of a New Day---Retirement

No, it's not me retiring. Long time readers may be surprised to wake up and realize that I have been retired over six years.

No, George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the U.S., has retired after serving the maximum term for a president. And, since I have now spent ten percent of my life retired, I thought I'd give him some advice. Oh, sure, you are saying, "He could ask his daddy." In fact, this morning I asked my daddy what advice he'd give George and he said that he'd never been that good at managing other people.

So, it's up to me, I guess.

Piece of advice number one: ignore the critics. Yeah, you pretended for eight years to ignore them or maybe you actually did ignore them. But maybe it stung a bit. Sometimes. I got a pleasant send-off from my last job although I'm sure there were people happy to see me go. (In fact, I later realized the event organizer was probably one of these!) But, dude, living well is the best revenge! You get a salary, a staff. You'd already saved for retirement, huh? You can do whatever you want, within limits. Wake up each day and dig the freedom. Who cares if the people back at the workplace are altering your code (er, executive orders in your case)?

Piece of advice number two: don't fall into being your father's keeper. Yeah, your dad is eight years younger than my dad and he's still got your mom, the Secret Service, various other help. Still, make no mistake, it can be time-consuming to hover over them when they have problems. Try to get Jeb or the twins to do it. You still have your Mom, too. (People will say "You are so lucky to still have them." It's true, but it can interfere with your travel, fitness and time to follow some of the advice below.)

Piece of advice number three: wake up and smell the coffee. In fact, make the coffee. I think somewhere you said you'd enjoy making Laura a cup. Do that. Take yours outside and watch a beautiful sunrise, knowing that you don't have to do a thing you don't want to today.

More retirement advice? Yeah number four: just pretend to write the book. Books are hard, blogging is easy. Take it from me. Since you can get a lot of money for a book, do one. But get someone else to write it. Get Jenna to write it. She did her own book, yes? Let her ghost yours or co-write it. Get yourself a blog. Moderate the comments. You can delete the negative stuff and the spam selling drugs and weight loss. You can say whatever you want, edit it later and pretend you didn't and scoff at your critics. In fact, get a Facebook page. Not one someone else concocted but one of your own. Just collect your real friends here.

Am I done? No. We have number five: learn something new. I don't think you are as stupid as people would have us believe. Nevertheless, retirement is a time to learn new things. Since I retired I've practiced identifying the countries of Africa (harder than you might think: click here), learned a few new words. Left to your own devices with no earth-shaking work (literally in your case) you can research things like history and literature. You can read Ulysses. (Or maybe you can't. I haven't made it to page 700 yet.)

Is there more? You bet. I haven't wasted the last six plus years. (Well, that's disputable but still there's more advice.) Number six: do something at a weird time. Take Laura to a movie in the afternoon. Go to SXSW. Stay out as late as you want and sleep in some morning.

I know you love to exercise, Mr. ex-President, but number seven: change your routine. You have time to add water aerobics or Pilates. You can take up a new sport or one you haven't pursued in a while. Come down to Austin and play tennis with Rick Perry and Andy Roddick. (Well, actually I don't know if Rick plays tennis, but he looks like a player, doesn't he?)

And, number eight on the list is: downsize! I know you and Laura bought a really big house in Preston Hollow (nice timing on that) and you have the ranch. Seriously, though, it's very freeing to dump some of that junk. Do you really need all that space? After all, if it's something sentimental stick it in the library. I wish I'd had a museum to store my stuff in!

Number nine? Travel. Don't just talk about it. Do it. Go to Paris and eat stars. Make the Secret Service follow you and Laura on a driving trip around the U.S. and Canada. You might want to stay out of Mexico, though, especially border towns. Kinda dangerous just now.

And, number ten on the list of retirement wisdom? Spend more time on your finances. Your money was tucked away in a blind trust, but now you can track your own investments tanking and rising. You can struggle to figure out where to get a decent, safe interest rate return. You can worry about your taxes. The muni bond market is weird right now, by the way. But since you're a Texan you don't have to worry about state income tax. Wait until you see your property tax bill, though. But Dallas is better than Austin where we bear the burden of much un-taxed state property. You will be really glad you have a defined benefit pension, I promise. Even though you may think you bought that mansion at a low point you may find that you see comparables in your neighborhood decline in value. But honestly just get out and get into a condo and lower expenses. We have some nice 1200 square foot or so units here at our place.

Get Serious

Yeah, I won't be buying the little red dress in the shop window of Estilo on Second Street. Get serious. (And yes photographer LB does seem to be positioned, camera in face, to make a shot that I won't call by name for fear of attracting the wrong WEB searches.)

Yeah, I'll continue to wear blazers and slacks (pants suits they are quaintly called for women) and dressier tops and slacks and sweats and shorts and jeans.

I need to get serious, really, about something which is why I gave this title today. Picking the photo was just a matter of randomly picking one I took yesterday and had edited. But I need to get serious about my photography if I'm going to do it. If it's going to be shop windows with my reflection, then fine, but I need to stop using years-old point and shoots and old software (which I haven't learned that well anyway) and get fancy equipment and wait for the right lighting and I need to call it art and make an artist's statement and make quality prints and frame them in shadow boxes surrounded by found objects and mirrors and reflective things and put high price tags on them. I need to nod indulgently when people are attracted to them but repulsed by the prices. Because really, just snapping these eccentric pictures isn't a worthy endeavor without all that.

I need to get serious about organizing my space and my files and my finances. It isn't good enough to shrug my shoulders and act like I don't know WTF to do about investing my retirement funds. I need to be confident like the guys on TV who just know what stocks are beaten down to a low from which they will ascend without setback or scandal or obsolescence of their product. I need to be a serious investor who reads prospectuses and studies financial sheets. Have you ever seen a prospectus that wasn't a yawner from the get-go? And you know all those pretty people pimping the investments aren't capable of interpreting them either. This new Madoff scandal is amazing. I don't believe any of my investments are affected, but it gives you pause, huh? Yeah, I must get more serious about investment.

I need to get serious about exercise, too. There have been times when I actually kept exercise logs. Online. When I seriously thought about how much I was doing and when. Similarly, with diet. I have been known to at least write down all the junk I ate in a vain (but serious) attempt to reform.

I need to get serious about writing, too. It is not good enough to make up jokey business cards that say "Pretending to Write but Really Just Blogging." Either take it seriously or don't do it, right?

But retirement for me just doesn't seem seroius. It is this frivolous 'becoming something soon' time like childhood. All the serious decisions are somewhere in the future when you will be smarter and more in tune with your body, feelings and talents. Maybe it is a second childhood after all. And what could be serious about that?

In The Pink

I dug around in old pictures and this one from last March gave me the title of this post. Now. What words am I going to put with it? The Holidailies prompt today is another about Holiday celebration. ("Tell us about your unique/beloved holiday traditions in your part of the world"). Yesterday, while trying to 'celebrate' my in-laws 70th wedding anniversary, I suggested where we might go for lunch on Christmas. It seemed to overwhelm them a bit, but they were game. Anyway, no more entries about holidays for a few days.

I guess I am "in the pink." I don't have much pain or discomfort. Little aches and pains and afflictions I suffer from...I have learned to put up with them. Best not mention them or they will get worse. When I see the old folks, when I see them complaining about their back and knee pain, I feel young and strong. That fades when I leave them and I am around my young friends while I ponder what will happen to me in my seventh decade.

I'm behind with things I should be doing and I should have lots of time for things now, really. I got through the move. I got this place fixed up so that workmen are no longer having to be called, cajoled and accommodated. But the paperwork, tidying, organization, etc. I promised myself I'd do "when there was time" is languishing. Oh, I'm getting to the things that have to be done. One does that. And I'm spending a bit of time reflecting over coffee and editing pictures and typing into blogs.

But where is the organized and manageable existence I promised myself when I owned one less house and this one was the way I wanted it? Where is the time to tidy cabinets, get the files organized, catalog the books (let alone read those four I'm in the middle of), get control of the piles of newspapers and get a proper amount of exercise?

I don't know. But this minute I'm going to get up, dress in some sweats and go with FFP to the club. I should work out here because the trip to the club will waste thirty minutes, he will be done exercising before I am ready and, if I didn't go, he'd make the emergency trip by the Randall's to get yogurt and coffee by himself. Leaving me some time to...to what? To get my stuff organized? Write? Read? Yeah, right.

One wonders how when I worked I managed to get anything done except for showing up there and doing that. But I did. Sometimes it seems like I got more accomplished outside work. But. I was younger.

Restraints

A lot of people, I'll bet, look forward to retirement as a time of freedom. I know I had images of doing lots of traveling without worrying about 'vacation days,' of reading and writing in coffee shops, of learning new things unhampered by the need to spend time learning things at work that I'd often soon find were useless (including the organization chart and how to navigate it). I envisioned myself totally in control of my finances and with all my stuff organized so it would be useful to me. I thought I'd be more useful to society in general and those around me than when I was committed to the 9-5. I saw myself doing exercise programs, playing tennis and playing Bridge. I saw myself well-informed, reading lots of books and three newspapers a day.

Life creates restraints, however, and working for a living is just one of them. Your health and the health of the people you are responsible for curtails what you might do. Once you commit to some activity, too, whether it's tennis or a commitment to yourself to do so many sit-ups a week, that's time you can't commit to something else. You have to budget every hour you spend. Looking at your investments? Then you aren't writing. Or reading. Or getting your house in order. Want to take a vacation? Still you have to plan it around your other commitments. Yeah, we have planned to take five days out of town in 2008. How can it be that we are missing two charity events we probably should have participated in and also having to get someone to take my dad for medical stuff. Five days. Geez.

And we aren't the people we used to be. We retired early but we are still too old to take up mountain climbing. Too old in fact to learn too many new tricks. But, one day, I hope you find me budgeting a morning a week to sit in a downtown coffee shop near my new home and drink coffee and read and write and watch the people go by.

Delusions

The picture is a reflection of South Congress in the window of an art gallery showing a painting which gives the illusion of water color and tissue paper over a mundane photo of a street.

Before I retired I envisioned that retirement would be a certain way. Some things panned out. Others, not so much.

I thought I'd exercise and play tennis. This has become true. I never think I do enough activity but the truth is that my regime has made me fitter. I feel it, for sure.

I thought I'd worry about money with no regular influx from the man and having to pay health insurance and so forth. I spend time managing money, but I don't worry.

I thought I'd do drug studies. No, really. I used to read those ads and think "that is the way to pick up a little money in retirement." That is so silly, I can't believe I entertained it for a second. I hate taking an Advil for a headache. (One of the big things that has bothered me about my stupid floating aches and pains in my mouth is my temptation to take Advil for it.) I don't like taking vitamins and try to get stuff in my food. I think time will cure anything. Most studies require that you stay in the facility some of the time and show up for appointments. With my social schedule? Plus...I've noticed that many, many of these studies have an age cut-off of 55. Hello?

So, yeah, no drug studies.

I wasn't delusional about taking contract work. Every time someone has approached me I have assessed whether there is no possibility of me taking it (when it was going to be a long involved engagement in a morass of politics or was out of my ability range) and recommended someone else. When I thought I might take it, I was very clear on the parameters, gave my free advice (and totally worth it) freely and somehow avoided ever having to really turn down a contract. (I got some good lunches, though, and had interesting discussions.)

I thought I'd do more volunteer work. I really haven't although I have been sucked into a rabbit hole of the board of my club. Must find a way out of that one.

I thought I would write novels, screenplays and short stories. I thought I might even participate in making movies. I have blogged.

I thought I'd do something with my photography of shop windows and my interest in collage. I have posted photos of shop windows and computer collages on my blog.

I thought I'd get all my possessions in order, organized and labeled, neatly arranged and easily accessible. I thought the house would look neat and artful at all times. In spite of the fact that I'm facing a great downsizing (which I didn't really anticipate in 2002) I'm surrounded by piles and stacks of stuff that needs to be, well, organized and labeled. Or discarded. I think we have gotten rid of a room full of stuff (scores of cubic feet). But you wouldn't know it to look around here.

I thought I would play Bridge. Ha. I thought I would cook more. And eat more healthy foods. Ha. Ha. I thought I'd do some interesting things with the computer. Other than editing pictures for the blog and blogging. Ha.

I never set out to blog or try to read all the newspapers that show up at this house or to get better at working crossword puzzles. But there you go.

Spiraling into the Rabbit Hole

Yesterday, Sunday, had a delicious free quality to it. We had a little social event in the evening and one that didn't elicit a fashion emergency at that. This was the first day in a few weeks where there weren't daytime commitments as well as evening ones. Don't get me wrong...it was all fun or self-improving stuff for the most part. Still I'd been busy. Here was a nice time to maybe catch up on the downsizing or get something tidied up around here. Or just relax and read. So how did I waste my time?

I decided to run virus and spyware scans on one computer and watched them run part of the time. I tried to work The New York Times magazine crossword on the computer and later tried to fill it in in the actual magazine. (No joy until today when I could unlock the key and get help. Clever puns in this one.)

At one point I thought I'd attack a pile of magazines that had survived other attempts to move them toward recycling. I managed to discard a few. In one I just had to read a piece before letting it go. Most of the ones I looked at got saved. A Harper's because of a piece by Jonathan Lethem about plagiarism that was completely plagiarized. (I later read this on the exercise bike but still saved it because I hadn't completely read his notes about where he extracted everything.) I saved a Summer Fiction edition of The New Yorker from 2004 even though I have it on DVD because you never know when it would be handy to take along to read. I saved another Harper's because of an article about Werner Herzog. I saved a June issue of The New York Times magazine not to work the puzzle (which looks quite hard) or to read the serialized novel (I haven't been able to get into any of these and this is chapter five of the last one they did). No, it was a bunch of articles about the rich getting richer and the poor...you know. I'm still trying to figure out which I am much less the whys and wherefores and politics of that economic idea. So...interesting and maybe I should read it.

Then there was The New Yorker issue (too new to be on DVD yet) which had a review of the Edith Piaf movie I missed at the theaters. I saved a Harper's because of an essay on the virtues of idleness. The irony was not lost on me.

I saved another issue of The New Yorker because of an article about the Queen Mary 2. The issue is on the DVD collection. But I'd really like to read it. If I ever get downsized and escape real estate hades, I'd like to go on that ship. I've been on the QE 2. But I digress.

Another issue of The New Yorker survived because of an article about neurosurgery and a Woody Allen casual. And another because of an article about mathematics. So sue me. I must confess that there is a 2005 issue in one of the bathrooms because of an article about Angela Merkel.

So the result of all that activity was that one pile had become two, reduced by three or four magazines that will make the recycling truck on Friday.

During my bout with the magazines, FFP arrived in my office with a 'home for sale' brochure from a house in the neighborhood. We spent a bit of time looking the place up in the database of the local tax collector and calculating a price per square foot.

I sorted through some current newspapers and tossed some ads in recycling. I glanced at Marilyn Vos Savant's column in Parade. She had an interesting puzzle. I didn't try to work it out but when I read the solution I thought it was amazing and wrote a small proof about why it worked. Seriously.

I managed to get to my gym for some exercise (mostly riding the recumbent bike while reading the Jonathan Lethem piece). I thought briefly about a trip to New York, too. Because in New York once, in the Village somewhere, we found a mystery book store while waiting for time for a jazz performance at the Vanguard. And I bought Motherless Brooklyn because it seemed interesting, I wanted to support the store and it was set in Brooklyn. I later bought Fortress of Solitude because I liked Lethem.

Yeah, those were the kinds of "accomplishments" and reveries I managed on this day of little obligation. Oh, and I put together a letter about my great nephew Jack's Flat Stanley's adventures in Austin and ordered and picked up prints of pictures of his (F. Stanley's) visit here and wrote on postcards and put the whole thing (along with Mr. F. Stanley with arms and legs folded) in a package to mail back to Jack's teacher.

I wanted to accomplish things in my retirement. I didn't anticipate how much my adult attention deficit disorder would affect idle times. And my greatest accomplishment seems to be becoming a dilettante. And learning to spell dilettante!

Where Does My Time Go?

Well, I drink a lot of coffee. It's time-consuming: the making, sipping, savoring and, if you make it at home, the cleaning. Yesterday we received our new Jura-Capresso E8 via UPS. I would tell you that it is a time-saver since it delivers each cup of coffee at the push of a button. (You have to add water, beans and do the occasional clean-out job, though.) But I'm not sure that's true. We shipped our mal-functioning, recalled (for potential electrical fire) and over six-year-old CA1000 back to the manufacturer (see this ancient journal entry for more on that device) and received this new one for a heavily discounted price. We are pleased. We spent a half hour setting it up before we watched Office last night.

That's the kind of thing I spend my time on. I am so lucky that I'm not dodging bullets and bombs in Iraq, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan or one of the many other spots on the earth where that is the norm. So that I can spend time drinking coffee. I'm so lucky I have power to power the Capresso, not to mention being able to own the machine itself.

I also spend time at my country club. I've noticed whole half days get consumed this way. Yesterday I went over there at 8:30. I played two sets of singles, rode an exercise bike and lifted a few weights, took a shower and met with the club manager to go over board business while eating a delicious salad. Today I went over at 8:30 and climbed into the deep end of the pool with my dad and a bunch of ladies for water aerobics. Then I worked out in the gym. It was about eleven by the time I got home, rinsed out my suit. It was noon before I'd had a small lunch. And I still haven't showered.

I am very lucky. I retired and my days are pretty much what I dreamed they would be. Except I haven't carved out time for my novel or the technical project I have in mind. My technical skills are so lame and rusty that the patent granted this week with my name on it confuses me about as much as technical stuff I had nothing to do with. But so it goes. I get to spend half of many days exercising or playing games or eating out. Or drinking coffee. And not writing and not inventing and certainly not working for the man.

And, yes, of course, I spend a bit of time managing my money. Which requires more management now that I must make it make a living for me. But life is good. It really is. Even if I don't seem to accomplish great things. A lucky, caffeinated interlude should be appreciated all on its own.