7/24, 365 - How to Survive Retirement

Farewell to a Four-Legged Friend

2011-01-08T11:54:00.000-08:00

It's been exactly a month since I posted. No excuses. I've been "uninspired" for lack of a better word.

We lost a four-legged family member today. I can barely bring myself to type that our daughter Jackie's cocker spaniel, Bella, had to be helped to go to doggie heaven this morning. She brought so much joy to their life (and ours) and will be sorely missed. We were her dog-sitters whenever Jackie and Neal went on vacation and we just returned her to them after a five-day visit with us last week. She wasn't her usual "self" and wasn't eating very well. This photo was taken a week ago today on our couch.Searching for consoling words for Jackie and Neal and the children, I came across a Rudyard Kipling poem that is also a prayer:

A Dog for Jesus
(Where dogs go when they die)

I wish someone had given Jesus a dog.
As loyal and loving as mine.
To sleep by His manger and gaze in His eyes
And adore Him for being divine.

As our Lord grew to manhood His faithful dog,
Would have followed Him all through the day.
While He preached to the crowds and made the sick well
And knelt in the garden to pray.

It is sad to remember that Christ went away.
To face death alone and apart.
With no tender dog following close behind,
To comfort its Master's Heart.

And when Jesus rose on that Easter morn,
How happy He would have been,
As His dog kissed His hand and barked it's delight,
For The One who died for all men.

Well, the Lord has a dog now, I just sent Him mine,
The old pal so dear to me.
And I smile through my tears on this first day alone,
Knowing they're in eternity.

Day after day, the whole day through,
Wherever my road inclined,
Four feet said, "Wait, I'm coming with you!"
And trotted along behind.

Rudyard Kipling

I'll get back to "surviving retirement" with my next post. We, both of us, are embarking on a new eating plan for this new year. Perhaps sharing our successes (or failures) will keep us on track. Too many cruises and too many pounds since retirement. Being home all day every day with that large appliance in the kitchen with the light that goes on when you open the door has taken its toll, especially on me. I have a magnet that reads: "Thou Shalt Not Weigh More Than Thy Refrigerator". I laughed when I bought it, now....it's not so funny! I've ordered a book called "Cinch: Conquer Cravings, Drop Pounds, and Lose Inches." Promises include: lose up to 8 lbs. in 5 days with the quick detox portion of this 30-day program that REQUIRES you to eat dark chocolate every day. (OK, yes, that's the part that got me when I saw it on Raechel Ray.)

Happy 2011 Everyone....and please keep Jackie and her family in your prayers as they face the days ahead without the "tap tap" of doggie paws following them down the hallways.

Panama Canal Cruise Do's and Don't's...

2010-12-08T08:09:00.000-08:00

It's been a long silence since I last posted. Reason is we've been through the Panama Canal again. It was worth doing the second time. We decided to sail again and part of the reason was that the first time many of my photos look as though they were taken when the Canal was built in 1914...Joe had been "playing" with my camera and set it on sepia and forgot to put it back to normal! Another was that there is always a new vantage point and new things to see. It was pouring rain the day we traversed the canal this time, but a well-kept secret on the Norwegian Star is a little restaurant on the 8th deck called "The Blue Lagoon" that very few passengers seemed to know about and that had several window seats which gave a wonderful view of the locks. We settled into a table at 6:15 am and stayed until after 9! Wonderful! We watched the Celebrity Infinity next to us going through just ahead of us and got some wonderful photos (in natural color this time).

On to the Do's list:

1) DO check out the casino on NCL ships...they are heads above any other line we've sailed;

2) DO take advantage of the "all you can fit in the laundry bag for $19.95 special" to save packing laundry at the end of the cruise;

3) DO ask to share a table at dinner in the main dining room...you'll meet an assortment of interesting people (you'll find this under the "DON'T" list too);

4) DO buy a Christmas ornament at every port (this eliminates the tendency to buy "souvenirs" that will gather dust the other 11 months of the year and when you put up the tree you'll remember all the faces and places you've experienced);

5) DO offer to take pictures for couples who are shooting pics of their spouse in front of landmarks (they'll usually offer to return the favor);

6) DO take the City Tour in Key West, FL and if you're lucky you'll get Michael as your tour guide...the one hour "hop on/hop off" was so good, we did it once from the left side and again from the right!

And as for the Don't's:

1) DON'T think that the casino will give you a big jackpot and not figure a way to get it back before the end of the cruise;

2) DON'T play bingo if you don't want to be ripped off (on NCL). They have gone back to the old wooden cards with "shutters" to close the number when called. They are cumbersome so you can't play more than 2 sets of 3 easily and they charged up to $89 to play 4 games, $59 to play only 2 games and then paid out $100 or $150 per game;

3) DON'T sit at a table for six where two of the men talk about motor homes, engines, broken plumbing, and gear shifts ad nauseum for two hours....find an excuse, any excuse, to leave and go back later if you can (not only did we have to endure this boring evening once, but out of 2200 passengers, we got one of them again three days later - I dubbed him "Mr. Personality");

4) DON'T always buy into the onboard offers for excursions...the same offerings can be 1/3 the cost if you wait 'til you get to the dock;

5) DON'T take just any taxicab in port; be sure they are approved or you could end up somewhere you didn't intend to be and the ship won't wait if you're not back in time;

6) DON'T expect all passengers to have an IQ above 60...at every port there were a minimum of 6 people who didn't return on time (they probably didn't know about DON'T #5).

All told, we had a wonderful time. As with all of our trips, one of the nicest moments is turning the key and walking back into our home and saying a "thank you God" for keeping it (and us) safe from harm. (I don't count the cold I got on the fourth day. I came armed with a virtual pharmacy this time so got over it before we docked. Why am I so prey to the petri dish aspect of cruising? Michelle says it's from hitting the "PLAY" button on the slots! I "borrowed" a glove from the cleaning cart this time, but it was too late.)

So now that we're back I have to figure out how to do the following in the next ten days: update and print labels for our Christmas cards; write and print our Christmas letter; stuff, stamp, and mail them (probably won't be any "personal notes" this year); get the tree out and decorate the house (minimally I think); wrap the gifts I bought before we left; buy the gifts I didn't; and lest I ignore "me"...play some real bingo!

My next blog will include some appropriate reflections on this busy, hectic, SPIRITUAL season. Hope you're all finding time to remember "the reason for the season".

"Stop and Read the Pizza!"

2010-11-14T10:32:00.000-08:00

No, I'm not losing my mind...I said "read the pizza". That's what I didn't do on October 3rd when we were visiting our daughter Michelle and her husband. Michelle arranged with her local pizza parlor to spell out "Oh Baby" in pepperoni on top of a pizza. She then made cute little stickers to go on top of those little plastic "tables" that keep the box from touching the pizza. On the sticker was written "We're expecting!" along with the due date (it read June 3, but actual due date is June 1, 2011), and in a circle around the perimeter was written Boy? Girl? in blue and pink. (The reason I'm blogging about it six weeks later is that we promised to keep it secret until Mike and Michelle were ready to "share" with the world. They did that on Wednesday, their fourth wedding anniversary. My tongue is sore from having to bite it so often over the past six weeks!)

Son-in-law Mike went to get the pizza and when he returned Michelle asked Mike's mother and I to "help" in the kitchen. Mike's Mom, Linda, picked up the lid of the pizza box and then closed it again and moved on to the next box, examining it and closing its lid as well. I went up to the table next and mimicked Linda's actions: I opened and closed all three pizza boxes. At that point, Michelle was noticeably irked and announced "Would somebody who can see without glasses, please come in here and get some pizza!" Linda and I looked at each other and then went back to box #1 and realized what we were looking at! Needless-to-say, there were hugs, tears, and laughter in abundance!

This long-prayed-for little one will be the first grandchild in the Sherack family and I must admit I'm a little envious of Linda. As a grandmother, you can only experience that "first child of your first child" once in a lifetime. It is a joy that knows no bounds. Each grandchild after is a unique blessing and inflates your heart to make more room, but even as you hold grandchild #2 and grandchild #3, the memory of that first little hand wrapped around your finger comes back. I know that when I hold "Baby S" for the first time, I will remember his or her cousin Jackson and I will know exactly what Linda is feeling.

This baby couldn't have a better world to be born into. As the "California grandparents", it is comforting to know there is no shortage of people who will be there daily to support Mike and Michelle as they journey into the wonderful world of parenthood. Along with grandparents-to-be Linda and Mike, there is Uncle Steve and Aunt Valerie and a host of extended family and friends standing by to welcome "Baby S"!

This is a good place to put Joe's three rules for grandparenting:

Never say "no".
Money's no object.
Always give them back!

The Day After...

2010-11-03T09:16:00.000-07:00

This blog will be short. No gloating. No whining either. I'm just sooo glad not to hear any more character-maligning TV and radio ads. No matter where you stand on the issues, the process itself seems flawed when a candidate spends $146,000,000 to try to win an election. How much good could those millions have done?

It's time now to see what is accomplished by the next Congress. It's not enough to promise, they have to deliver. My hope is that when we are asked to vote again, the role of government in our every-day lives will have diminished considerably. If we keep accepting "bail-out" money from foreign countries to be "redistributed" because of promises made without fiscal responsibility, we won't recognize the America our forefathers envisioned. If you want a refresher course on the Constitution and those who fashioned it, go to http://teachingamericanhistory.org/convention/christy/. It's a great tutorial.

In a perfect world, we would help the helpless at the local level; provide training to put the unemployed back to work; we would reward entrepreneurship with fewer regulations and taxes; we would welcome immigrants who ask permission to become part of this country just as our grandparents or great-grandparents did; and we would hold our representatives responsible for their actions. We have allowed our government to "buy" votes by creating an "entitlement generation".

There's an old adage: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." It's time we stopped giving and started teaching.

Blog/rant over! Happy Day After Election Day!

What is your "Titanic" story?

2010-10-26T10:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, I admit the title was designed to make you "read on". But, it was prompted by remembering moments in my life that might never have taken place had it not been for some other unforeseen event I had no control over.

And, yes, there is a "Titanic" story to my life...one that I was unaware of until just a few years ago when I was told by my sister, Avril, that our grandfather...our father's father...was a pianist and was commissioned to play on the maiden voyage of the Titanic in April of 1912. But, he missed the boat train. When researching the web for a photo of that infamous ship, I was taken with the story of the photographer of this photo. It is a great story and I'll link you to it here. His story is another example of "what if"...

That was the first of several "what ifs" that thread through the pattern of my life's story. The next "what if" would be: "What if my mother's father hadn't been late to pick her up at the dock when she sailed from America to England in 1943?" She wouldn't have met the young RAF airman who asked if she needed help. And later, when she had left the airman and decided it was too difficult to be a single mother, "What if her father hadn't been 'on time' in the lawyer's office while she was signing adoption papers for a childless English couple to get a 2-year-old daughter?"

I've often wondered "What if my mother hadn't moved from New Jersey when I was 15 and was just finishing high school?" I would have remained eligible for the scholarship I'd been given to attend what was then Ryder State Teachers College.

"What if my best friend Marcia in Florida hadn't become a Delta flight attendant in 1964?" I would never have been encouraged to try it myself. And "What if my foot hadn't fallen asleep and I practically fell over when my interviewer asked me to walk across the room?" Did my humor at my own awkwardness help? (I guess it did.)

I think I may have already written about how Joe and I met, but that certainly is another: "What if Vicki D's roommate hadn't stayed so long at the San Diego Zoo on February 3, 1967?" (She would have gone on the blind date instead of me.)

That leads to another "what if" moment that our daughter Michelle experienced. As a Delta flight attendant, she occasionally meets former Naval aviators who knew her Dad. On one occasion the Captain called Michelle into the cockpit and asked, "Are you related to Joe Sarnecky?" When she said she was his daughter, he said, "Well you probably want to come over here and shake my hand. I was the helicopter pilot that picked him up out of the water off the coast of North Vietnam in 1968." If he hadn't been there, Joe might have ended up in Hanoi. She gave him a hug!

I know you've all read the stories about the people who would have been at "ground zero" if it hadn't been for something that caused them to change their routine that morning. We have one of those stories in our family too. Michelle was in California with her boyfriend, Mike, to attend a Chargers/Redskins game. Because our son-in-law, Neal, and Mike were both Redskins fans, Joe had purchased tickets for the six of us to attend the game on September 9, 2001. Had Mike not come out for that California vacation, he would have been arriving at the subway station at the Twin Towers to go to work at the building across the street. Happily, he was here instead and is now our son-in-law.

I had some other topics in mind for today, but I have been thinking about this topic since our cruise to Halifax where many victims of the Titanic are buried. The alternative might have been a "rant" on television ads that precede election day (I didn't want to put you through that).

I hope this post has sparked that part of your memory where you keep the "what ifs" of your life. If it did, consider doing what I have done this morning...I said a heartfelt "thank you, God" for all those moments and all those people who were His instruments and brought me to this wonderful place in my life.

Updates and corrections...

2010-10-18T09:58:00.000-07:00

Like every endeavor in life, every now and then you need a "do over". I'm using this blog to correct and/or clarify some things I've written in the past couple of weeks.

First - I am not a "true reality TV junkie"...I have to qualify that statement. I DO watch Survivor, Amazing Race, Dancing with the Stars, The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and, yes even Big Brother. On cable, I enjoy Top Chef and many of the Food Network reality shows...they are more like travelogues.

I DO NOT watch: [fill in the blank with name of city] Housewives. I do not watch any show exploiting people who have an inordinate number of children or young people living together and letting TV cameras follow their every boring move. I absolutely NEVER watch a show with a very strange-looking man wearing a giant watch around his neck (I accidentally caught a glimpse of that one and it made me think of the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland). If I offended any "15-minutes-of-fame" cable reality show, I apologize, but given their content I doubt they'll ever read this blog (the operative word being "read").

Next, I realized after my last post that I did have some photos from our Canadian cruise. Before Joe bought a new chip for his camera when we reached Halifax, he used my camera and got quite a few photos. This is a favorite and will probably appear on this year's Christmas card.

Real time update now...on Friday evening our daughter and her family arrived to spend the weekend. Saturday was an all day adventure to Julian for apple-picking. The lovely town of Julian is about a 90-minute drive on winding mountain roads and during September and October their peaceful community is "invaded" by all the city-dwellers seeking mountain air and home-made pies. As a result, we were shoulder-to-shoulder with a few thousand other "apple-seekers". When we finally got seated at a restaurant, the waitress said we had picked the busiest Saturday of the year. After lunch we decided not to wait in line at Pie Shop" for a famous Julian apple pie since the line waiting to get inside the shop was about an hour long. Off we went to the Raven Hill Orchard where we picked three bags full of apples and Jackie got many photos to choose from for their annual Christmas card. On the way home, we discovered another "Mom's" and stopped and got pies. It was a wonderful day that ended with three happy children enjoying cherry-apple-crumb pie with vanilla ice cream (yum!).

It's now Monday morning and the house is very, very quiet. I always forget in between visits how much energy exists in the bodies of three children! The giggles, shrieks (Ava is best but she's been doing it longer), shouting, laughing, and occasional crying (not very often) echoes in this empty house today. Joe is off fishing so it is accentuated. We usually go up to visit them rather than them packing up for five people plus the cocker spaniel so it was a real treat to have everyone here.

Another cruise...another story...but first a 50th Reunion

2010-10-07T12:58:00.000-07:00

We returned yesterday from a two-week vacation that began with Joe's 50th high school reunion in Pennsylvania. If you are the spouse at a 50th (or any other "th") reunion, it's kind of like being a third thumb...no one needs one. But...it was great watching him interact with all the people who had been such a big part of his "youth". He had a terrific time and everyone was very nice to me. I found a couple of other spouses to talk to and thanks to the annual convention of Volunteer Firefighters for the entire state of Pennsylvania, we had some additional entertainment (their first and second-place winners of the marching band competition played for us). A local trio played and sang a lot of the "oldies-and-goodies" we both danced to in high school. It brought back lots of memories. Of course, I remembered my classmates I danced with...Joe remembered his...but his were all there!

I found myself wishing more than once that I had lost the 30+ pounds that is my goal. It seems most of his male friends from high school had either passed away or decided not to attend. But...every girl he dated in high school was there...and none of them brought male companions. I took several pictures for him with all the former girlfriends, but none will be posted here. This vacation will be remembered as "The Vacation of Everything-that-can-go-wrong-will-go-wrong" with regard to Joe's camera.

First, while taking the aforementioned pictures, I got a message stating "Internal Memory Full". When Joe investigated, he found he had left the chip in his computer back in California! Since I knew I'd be taking pictures for him since I didn't need to be in any of them, I left my camera back at the hotel. So, we got just a few shots at the reunion.

But the saga doesn't end there. We left on our 7-night cruise to Canada with stops down the New England coast the day after the reunion. Got some great shots of The Intrepid aircraft carrier and Lady Liberty as we sailed out of Manhattan. We were at sea for a day and when we docked at Halifax, Canada it was easy to see how the Titanic ran into an iceberg...the fog was so thick we couldn't see the shore until the boat docked. It rained the whole day so there weren't any picture-taking opportunities. Joe went ashore because by then I was in the throes of a terrible cold. He found a drugstore and came back with enough remedies to last the week.

The next day St. John didn't offer much better weather but by early afternoon I was feeling well enough to go ashore. We spotted a restaurant that boasted steamed clams and lobster and ordered a bucket of clams apiece. I can't describe how disappointed we were when the first clam offered enough sand to fill half a teaspoon! The others were the same so after a brief souvenir shopping for a Christmas ornament (that's all I ever buy on cruises...no need for trinkets...and this way we relive our travels as we trim the tree), we returned to the ship to find something "sand-less" to eat.

At Bar Harbor, Maine it was raining hard and I was coughing harder so I stayed on board and slept while Joe saw the sights and returned with an ornament to make me smile. (I have to add that later that night I felt better and went to the casino and won almost $900...that's a great "tonic".)

In Boston the weather still didn't cooperate so once again I slept and Joe went ashore. The next day the sun finally found us and I was almost feeling human so we went ashore in search of a restaurant recommended by a friend. It turned out to be over a mile from the dock and when we got there we were greeted by a "Closed" sign on the door. Turns out they only open for dinner after summer season. :-( We found another restaurant recommended for their clam chowder and this time it was as advertised. The day couldn't have been prettier and Joe got some great photos.

Not to make the cruise sound like our worst ever...I have to say that if you're going to feel sick on board, the Norwegian Dawn is one of the nicest places to do it. First, they have "Freestyle Dining" so you don't have to eat at a certain time with the same 4 to 6 other people at every evening meal. If we had been assigned dining room seating, I probably wouldn't have gone to the dining room at all with my cough, which persists still. (Doctor assured me yesterday that I am not and was not contagious after the first three days; cold triggered bronchial asthma which I've had twice this year.) So, we didn't meet a lot of new people this time, but the food at our table for two was delicious. In addition, the entertainment on board was so good there were times we had to miss the main showroom to see one of the acts in the lounges. We're booked on another NCL in the near future and I can't wait (I'm going to get well and get a flu shot before then).

The morning after Newport, we docked in New York and Michelle and Mike picked us up. We went to their house to spend the rest of the day watching football with all the Sheracks. It was great to see Mike's parents along with his brother, sister, and cousin. We wanted to get a picture with everyone there so Joe went to his bag to get his camera. This is where the saga gets sad: the camera wasn't in his luggage! We've sent e-mails, posted on the Cruise Director's facebook page, Joe made numerous phone calls, and I've been wearing out St. Anthony with pleas to find the camera.

I probably don't have to put it in writing, but here's my rule for travelers: ALWAYS go back one last time to check the room/stateroom before leaving!

"A house is not a home...and a door is still a door..."

2010-09-22T10:05:00.000-07:00

Remember that song? Dionne Warwick and Luther Vandross both sang it...written by Burt Bacharach. I'm using a little poetic license as the line was actually, "a chair is still a chair...even when there's no one sitting there." But, this short blog is about us getting a new front door.

I am sentimental (I cry over Hallmark commercials)...I think that's been evident in past blogs, but I have been experiencing a melancholy moment or two over replacing our front doors. Don't get me wrong...they really needed replacing. We moved into this house when our daughters were in preschool and first grade. The poor old doors showed their age. After 30+ years of hanging Christmas wreaths and taping an occasional note to delivery people, the scars were many and deep. They had been revarnished, but they definitely didn't add to our "curb appeal".

So Joe and I started looking at other people's doors. You don't realize how many styles of front doors there are until you start looking. Then, when we found a style we liked, we couldn't believe how expensive doors are (did I say it was 30+ years since we'd bought doors?). So we went to a small hardware store on Coast Highway in Encinitas and started looking through books. We settled on a pair we liked and then contacted people to give us bids on staining and installing.

That began an odyssey of "ooops"...the first contractor pointed out that Joe had ordered two 3' doors and our opening is only 5'....that was 12 inches too much door!! Luckily, the order hadn't been placed, but it required another trip to Encinitas to find a different design. It was a happy mistake since the 30" doors are even nicer than the original 36" ones. We made arrangements for the installation with one contractor and staining by another after they were hung.

That's when the melancholy set in. Joe put the old doors out at the curb to be picked up by the trash. Too late, I realized I hadn't taken a "last picture" of them. Then I thought about all of the guests we greeted at that portal; the back to school photographs taken there; the prom night photos; greeting the girls and their husbands when they came to visit (one particular visit when Jackie and Neal walked in the door stating they had to check some video Neal had shot and then put in a video of their first ultrasound....Joe thought there was something wrong with the picture...I just cried!). More recently, I pictured three bundles of energy running through the front doors, through the house and into the backyard to check out the frogs in our pond.

Anyway, it seemed very unceremonial to just toss those doors at the curb. They protected us from the elements and kept us safe from harm for three decades and I am grateful to them. So this blog is my way of acknowledging their participation in the story of "us" and of welcoming the new guardians of our gate. It is likely that someday these doors will protect another family...I'll print this out and put it with the title so they will know how important they are.

5 Days Later...I get to retire my broom...

2010-09-17T11:15:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update. Doctor said the prednisone would make me grouchy, jumpy, and irritable for about 5 days. Well, the five days is up and I can't discern a difference yet, but it's early. Guess I can park my broom and go back to regular forms of transportation.

I forgot one important aspect of the rule I posted in the earlier blog this week: if you're going to give husband a hint about upcoming storms on the horizon in the text of your blog, be sure you insist he reads it first before you make reference to it hoping for a smile in response.

Yup, when I snapped about something, I said, "I warned you about this. I'm going to be more than usually cranky for a few days. Didn't you read my blog?"

Husband's reply: "So now we have to communicate through your blog?" Ooops! Guess I need to go back to the drawing board.

End of saga: seeing my feelings had been hurt, penitent husband read the blog and came in and gave me a hug. He complimented the blog and all is forgiven.

May take a break from the norm for the next post and give my opinion on the new "Survivor". I am a reality tv junkie and particularly like "Survivor". With the "geezers" against the "gorgeous" it has the possibility of creating a polarized fan base...age discrimination anyone? Comments on the main blog are leaning that way for sure. (I've unsubscribed.)

"A License to Complain"

2010-09-13T17:16:00.000-07:00

It's been almost two weeks since I posted and I have a good excuse. I have been coughing nonstop. It started as a slight cold with a runny nose. Then came the cough and it wasn't pretty (will spare the details) so I called my doctor. There has been whooping cough going around in San Diego so I was concerned. He prescribed a Z-pac of antibiotics. Finished the 5 days of that and still kept coughing. Everywhere I went people would look at me as though I was Typhoid Mary. I didn't feel particularly bad so didn't stay locked up in the house. I instinctively knew I wasn't "contagious" since there was no fever and I didn't experience any pain. Just a wracking cough. I've gone through copious numbers of cough drops...they didn't really help and the aftertaste is there all the time.

Finally went back to doctor today and I have "bronchial asthma"...non-contagious. (Thank goodness since I have been around a lot of people...more on that later.) Prescription to get rid of the cough is prednisone...and the side effects: irritability, insomnia, jumpiness (his word), and increased appetite!!

GREAT! I am going to eat myself to match the size of my refrigerator and be a bitch! Lucky me...and poor Joe!

But, wait a minute: is it so bad? Hmmmm...does this mean if I snap at some real or imagined "slight" precipitated by something Joe says or does, it's not my fault....it's the drug??

My timing couldn't be worse. Joe went to the annual Tailhook Convention in Sparks, Nevada. He and 15 former Navy buddies all played golf for three days and, I'm sure, imbibed a few bottles of "Fighter Pilot Red" produced by another Navy buddy at his Bella Luna Winery. If I'd gone to the doctor on Wednesday of last week, the four or five days of irritability would be ending today instead of beginning.

This is the first time in over a year that Joe has gone on one of his "guys only" getaways. He hasn't been fishing since the wonderful trip to Canada for salmon...plank cooked on the barbeque was the BEST I've ever eaten! But, I digress...one of the things I miss from pre-retirement days was the occasional business trip that would take him away just long enough for me to miss him and be glad to see him when he returned. Tailhook was going to provide that and with no dinners to plan or schedules to keep, I had a couple of getaways planned for myself. I had an overnight at Harrah's Rincon and was going to have a spa treatment, but by the time I got there and got checked in, I was too tired and just had a good dinner and went to sleep. I played bingo on Saturday and Sunday but got lots of glares from fellow players as my hacking interrupted their concentration.

So.....Joe just called from a town just north of Victorville...about four hours away. My "rule" for this blog is: if you have to take a medication that is going to alter your personality (or aggravate tendencies that are already there....such as in my case), try to plan it around your significant other's vacation...and if that isn't possible, keep your sense of humor and warn him/her in advance to put on the emotional armor and smile a lot (that's what I just did when he called).
Next blog: I'll let you know if the rule works!

CAPture and TRADE

2010-09-02T10:41:00.000-07:00

A little late this week…I’ve got a cold. (That’s my “in-advance” excuse if this blog isn’t my best.

I “retired” again yesterday. That’s what it’s like after three months of working part- and full-time in Admissions & Records at the college I retired from. It’s wonderful to see everyone, but it’s really, really nice to return to my “retired life”.

I’ve given lots of thought to my subject today and I risk getting into “rant” territory, but I’m compelled to write it anyway. Do you understand what “Cap and Trade” will mean to all of us retirees? I thought I did, but on closer scrutiny, it will negatively impact not only us as retirees, but certainly our children when they “inherit”.

First, because I needed to educate myself on this TAX, I went to the following websites:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/cap-and-trade-a-license-required-for-your-home.html

HR2454 American Clean Energy & Security Act: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-2454

Cap and trade is a license to cheat and steal: http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/columns/oped_contributors/Cap-and-trade-is-a-license-to-cheat-and-steal-45371937.html

I will sum them up for you: What would you say if I told you that the majority of the “green” jobs our President is promising as a result of “Cap and Trade” will be a kind of “energy compliance Gestapo” to inspect your home and tell you what you have to do to meet the government’s standards (based on “fuzzy science” at best)? And what if I said, you wouldn’t be able to sell your house without getting it retrofitted to meet their standards? And what if I said, you will be taxed every year with a license “fee” for the privilege of letting the government examine your home and tell you what you have to change? These “inspectors” will allow you to place a sticker on your window telling the world you have met their standards. These “home license fees” could come to more than your present locally-controlled property taxes.

Are they kidding? Here’s where the “rant” would start, but I am going to restrain myself and just let you go to the links above and decide for yourself. I have just one closing statement on the subject. It’s not surprising it is called “Cap” and “Trade”. The government is going to CAPture your hard-earned money and TRADE it to someone who doesn’t have what you have. It is not even well-disguised…it is redistribution of wealth (read: socialism), which is what our current Democratic Congress relies on to be re-elected. That’s what’s being traded: your money for the vote of someone the government will give it to.

I don’t think it’s necessary, but I will put a rule at the end of this blog: If that doesn’t sound like democracy to you, perhaps you’ll consider sending a message to the “CAPtors” in November?

Chilean Miners experience a REAL 7/24...

2010-08-25T19:59:00.000-07:00

http://www.freetranslation.com/

7/24/120…but they're not married! They may not even all like each other and they've already had almost three weeks of each other's "unbathed" company.

While watching the news about the Chilean miners who are trapped thousands of feet below the surface in a copper/gold mine, I pondered their predicament with my “take” on retirement. Yes, we are together 7/24/365…but….we are not trapped. We leave when we want to; we breathe freely and, most importantly, we shower daily!

I heard on the news that local officials were consulting NASA and submariners on how to handle the emotional trauma of being in such close quarters with 32 other human beings. While I’m sure they are friends, nothing has prepared them for the possibility of seeing only each other for an extended period of time. They are not rocket scientists like the NASA astronauts or military men with a higher mission; they are ordinary working men. I came up with my own ideas of how to encourage them to “hang in there”. I borrowed some of the ideas from my years of teaching 1st and 2nd graders about religion. I had to keep the attention of the six- and seven-year-olds for 90 minutes once a week after they’d already spent 6 hours in a classroom...the similarity is that they often felt "trapped"...by me!

So….here are my ideas:

1) The 33 miners should all write their names on a piece of paper and each morning someone (perhaps the oldest member) would draw out one name. For that day, the miner whose name was drawn would be “#1” for the day. They could tell their family story to everyone there; they could perhaps sleep in the most comfortable area of their capsule (they should designate a “#1 area for that purpose); they should be the recipient of notes from each of the other men telling them one thing that they like about that person. On that day, if there are chores to be done, the #1 person would get a “day off”.

2) A fund should be established on the outside (by contributions from around the world)…the miners should be told that there would be a competition for the duration of their entrapment to see which one of them exhibited the most sympathy, compassion, and helpfulness while trapped...the winner would receive the cash. (They shouldn’t be told that the fund would be divided equally when they get free…the idea is to keep them helping each other for however long it takes to get them out...I'm sure the competitive nature of men isn't an "American" thing.)

3) Kazoos should be lowered down the supply tube and they should practice their national anthem to be played on the day they are released. (There's already a video of them singing their national anthem.)

4) At the end of each day, each man should express one wish and then they should have a prayer service where each of them would pray for the wish of the man next to them rather than their own.

5) And this one is borrowed from Marriage Encounter and Cursillo retreats sponsored by the Catholic church: the world should be encouraged to "adopt a miner". Make an email address available where messages from the world can be printed; choose a name and make the message specific to that miner. Before emailing, go to my favorite free translation website (got me through my French classes in college).

I've emailed a Santiago newspaper website and requested a contact email; will add it to this post and put it on facebook if he/she replies.
Add them to your prayer list. The best thing ever would be if Apple stepped up to the plate and helped the rescuers send a cable line down...along with it 33 iphones!!

Stewardess or Flight Attendant...rude is the same...

2010-08-15T19:52:00.000-07:00

In view of the “hero of the week” Steven Slater, I thought I’d reminisce about life as a flight attendant…it seems that one thing is constant from “my day” when we were still called stewardesses, to today…rude people are universal. (You’ll notice I didn’t excuse the occasional rude flight attendant…the jury will decide whether Mr. Slater is a hero or a villain.) I am referring to the absence of courtesy. It has no gender bias; or race bias; or age bias; or nationality bias…you’ll find rudeness in the grocery store; in the line at your bank; at the DMV (definitely at the DMV…at both sides of the counter)…needless-to-say, rude is not discriminated against.

In the late 60’s when I was a stewardess with Delta, the book “Coffee, Tea, or Me” was published. The “hero” of the story was a bachelor (played by Tony Curtis in the movie) whose apartment had a revolving door through which numerous stewardesses entered and exited. It painted all stewardesses as lacking morals and just slightly better than prostitutes (they didn’t get paid). On one of my flights a little old lady was reading the book and as I walked past her, she looked up at me, shook her grey curls and said, “Tsk, tsk, tsk…shame on you!” (I didn’t give her the satisfaction of a reply.) In the clip art shown here, they refer to "the Girdled Stewardess"...among the indignities of the job was a "girdle check"...your supervisor could board a flight unannounced and ask to check and see if you were wearing a girdle...God-forbid you should "jiggle" down the aisle! (I'm serious!)

The traveling public many times places flight attendants into a category of glorified waitress. It never occurs to them that if they: a) have a medical emergency; or b) the airplane has a mechanical emergency, or c) God-forbid someone has an agenda that doesn’t include the airplane arriving at its destination, the flight attendant is their “first responder”. They are trained in first aid, CPR, over-water ditching, emergency landings, how to recognize and defuse potentially dangerous passengers, what to do if the plane loses pressurization, and even how to deliver a baby and place it on the mother’s tummy until they can be transported to a hospital. Doesn’t sound like a “waitress”, does it?

In my five years with Delta, I had some experiences that called on extraordinary patience and constraint. I may not have succeeded 100%, but in most cases I was proud of myself. Whenever a passenger was incredibly rude or demanding, another passenger (or two, or more) would hand me a business card and offer to write a letter if I need corroboration. I experienced a man pulling my oxygen mask off my face as he exited the restroom when the masks fell after a rapid descent. (I let him have my jump-seat and got the portable tank from the overhead rack…when people panic, they often betray the image they extend to the world.)

Then there was the famous TV cowboy who was traveling with three of his buddies to go hunting. His equally famous wife wasn’t with him…I’ll let you figure out who it was. After about six drinks, one of his traveling companions thought that “Coffee, Tea, or Me” was true and pinned me to the wall in the galley. I rang the cockpit button and the co-pilot came out and informed him, quite forcefully, that he could be arrested for what he had done. Then he suggested he sit down and stay in his seat for the rest of the flight. In their hearing the Captain told me not to serve them any more drinks…in those days there was no limit on drinks in first class.

On a charter flight to Las Vegas out of Baltimore, everyone on board had been celebrating the Orioles having won the World Series that afternoon. They boarded already drunk and put their pennants in the overhead rack along with their bags…there were no doors on the overhead racks then so every one of those sticks with flags on them was a potential “missile” if we hit turbulence. Before we ever taxied out, several men had raided the liquor cabinet and one had so many bottles in his pants I thought he’d be “mooning” everyone before he got to his seat. We had no liquor left before we took off so when people wanted a drink, I directed them to his seat. Part way through that flight, one joker had a “play” doctor kit he and he took out the “fake” hypodermic and shoved it into my arm pretending to give me a shot. Only problem was, the toy didn’t retract the way it should have and it broke through the skin on my arm. I was never so happy to see passengers depart. To add insult to injury, at that time if you worked a Las Vegas charter (paid for by the Flamingo or the Thunderbird hotels), the passengers were usually so grateful they would pass the hat and the girls would share a nice tip. This particular group didn’t do that….aarrrgh! To this day I get a negative feeling when I see that Oriol logo.

Then there are the mothers who would board with their little darlings, open a book, and turn over all parenting duties to the stewardess. It was as though they started their vacation the moment the wheels left the runway and any child care became our duty. I had one little Dennis the Menace who thought it was fun to see the lady come running down the aisle whenever he pushed the little button that rang a bell and turned on a light above his seat. I asked him to not push the button unless it was an emergency. When he did it again, I interrupted his book-reading parent and asked her to insure that he not ring the bell again. When he did it again…and again…and again…I didn’t speak to either one of them, I just pushed the button back in and raced back to the galley! When he did it for the 13th time on that meal service leg from Atlanta to Dallas with 99 passengers in the coach cabin and 1 hour serving time, I said, “Little boy, I have activated your seat and if you push that button again, you’ll slide down into the baggage compartment and it is REALLY, REALLY dark down there.” Mother came to life and spluttered a few things that I barely heard as I rushed to pick up meal trays before we landed. He didn’t push the button again and there’s probably a 50-year-old man out there who doesn’t ring call buttons (at least I hope so).

Some of the unusual things I was called upon to do weren’t rude, but they also weren’t covered in our training. One of the strangest experiences I ever had happened in San Diego. It was a flight that landed in Los Angeles and then in Dallas before continuing to Atlanta. A Navy Chief boarded and he asked if he could use the restroom while on the ground. He said he’d just been separated from the service and had partied a little too much. (He looked a little “green”.) I said he could and continued boarding the flight. When we did a seat check to get ready to taxi, I realized he hadn’t left the lavatory. I knocked on the door and I heard a muffled voice from inside. After a minute, the Chief stood there with a paper towel over his mouth. I asked if he was okay. He said, “Do you know how to get something out of the john?” Puzzled, I said, “What exactly do you want to get out?” He moved the paper towel away from his mouth and said, “My teeth.” He had been sick and lost his false teeth in the toilet. (Yuk!) I told him to have a seat; I locked the bathroom door from the outside so no one else could use it…he was the only one who had been there and the airplane had been serviced overnight. That was the good news; the bad news was that he was changing planes in Los Angeles and the airplane didn’t get serviced there. The teeth would be going with us to Dallas before they could be “retrieved”. Believe-it-or-not, he filled out his name and address and in Dallas they got the teeth, put them in an envelope and mailed them to him!

Those reminiscences may be humorous, but the experiences of flight attendants on duty on September 11, 2001 can’t be compared to anything we “stewardesses” experienced. Have you ever focused on the events of September 11, 2001 and asked yourself, “Who was the first victim of the deranged perpetrators of the most horrific tragedy in our lifetime?” If you asked that question, you would have to have answered: “A flight attendant.” It was a flight attendant who tried to keep the Muslim extremists from entering the cockpit on the first airplane. A terrorist cut her throat with a box cutter.

Flight attendants today are a “sounding board” for complaints by any passenger who is frustrated over long lines, fewer “perks”, higher fares, added fees, and post-9/11 restrictions. Most flight attendants listen and sympathize even though they, personally, had no say in the imposition of the rules and would gladly be serving meals for everyone at no charge just like “the good old days”.

So, my rule for this post is: The next time you fly, remember 9/11 and think of your flight attendants as your “first responders” and thank them when you leave the plane. (One of them might be our daughter.)

Remembering the past...investing in the future.

2010-08-10T16:18:00.000-07:00

Recently we had dinner with three other couples we’ve known for 43 years. It is amazing that we live within 30 minutes’ drive of these couples who knew us even before we were married. All four men were the “junior officers” in Navy squadrons on the USS Kitty Hawk in 1967 and 1968. All four women were the “dates” they brought to squadron parties when the ship was in port between cruises. All of us got married in 1969. One of the husbands was among the 40 men who attended our wedding in Sasebo, Japan when the ship pulled into port in May.

Our lives took different paths when the men left the Navy. Two of the four men went into large real estate development companies. After a brief time dabbling in that market, Joe opted for government service and the fourth husband became an airline pilot.

Among the four couples there are 11 children and 12 grandchildren. We have shared milestones along the way that remain among our favorite memories: baby showers; 30th, 40th, 50th, and 60th birthday parties; weddings of our children; and, more recently, my college graduation celebration and retirement parties. We only see each other a couple of times a year, but whenever we get together we have an unmistakable bond.

While reminiscing at dinner, we were doing a lot of “Do you remember….” talk. Topics included childhood games and TV shows and the products we “had to have”. They are a litany of the things that the baby boomer generation made profitable. How I wish I had invested in the parent companies of this list through the decades:

1. Schwinn bicycles…remember playing cards and Popsicle sticks in the spokes?

2. Chatty Cathy doll (a personal favorite) and Barbie soon after.

3. 45 rpm records and the record players to play them...I had a black and white vinyl carrying case for going to slumber parties.

4. Transistor radios – the entrance of the Japanese into the electronics market.

5. Frozen foods and Corningware – I have to lump them together because they did more to liberate women (from kitchen drudgery) than the feminist movement ever did. TV dinners on fold-up trays...is that when families stopped talking?

6. Calculators – what did your first calculator cost and didn’t you wish you’d had one in high school?

7. VW Beatles and vans…everyone had a friend who had one or the other.

8. Pampers – and the myriad of other baby products that “boomed” as the boomers had their own babies.

9. Station wagons (without seat belts).

10. Home Depot – every suburban husband belonged to this “club” (Joe still does…they know him by name when he walks in the door).

11. Computers - it took a building to house the first ones...what would that scientist think if he could have seen the iPhone?

12. Japanese cars…and remembrance of long lines at the gas station.

13. Blackberries and cell phones that got smaller every year.

14. Viagra – that doesn’t need an explanatory sentence.

15. Supplemental Medicare insurance – retirement has its “down” side.

This blog is partly a “heads-up” to anyone out there wondering where to put their discretionary funds (if you have any). What do you think the next trend will be for this huge segment of the population? Well, if the current health care reform goes unchallenged and stays as it was designed, there will be a czar of healthcare with a government official in charge of determining the appropriate medical care for patients at the end of their lives. Extraordinary means, even “slightly-more-than-ordinary” means, will not be exercised on behalf of the baby boomers when the cost is determined to be too high for the possible length of time the patient may gain. Dr. Jack Krakorian went to jail for practicing this theory before it became the law of the land. Difference was that the doctor “asked the patient”…we won’t be asked.

If that happens, the patient (the baby boomer) will not have to use up their savings on life-extending medical care and they will, therefore, create a new consumer group. They will be called “the inheritors”. With less time in the hospital or hospice, there will be more wealth to pass on to our children, they will then become “the baby-boomers’ babies” generation and their children will be the “baby-boomer-babies’ babies”. Wish I had a crystal ball so I could invest in what they'll be buying! Then I could leave it to my grandchildren's children who will be the "baby boomers' babies' babies' babies"! (I'm a little dizzy after trying to figure that out.)

Bookshelves and saving trees...

2010-07-31T15:53:00.000-07:00

I often put whatever book I'm reading on a shelf in our downstairs bathroom. When we had company recently, he came out of that little room hysterically laughing. This is the photo that caught his eye and produced the laughter. I will leave it to the reader to see the humor in the two dominant titles.

I suppose one way of looking at it would be to imagine the wife is praying for "tight lines" for her fisherman husband. Not found within the covers of Stormie O'Martian's book is the following "Fisherman's Prayer" borrowed from a site called "Positive Thoughts".

"I pray that I may live to fish,
Until my dying day.
And when it comes to my last cast,
I then most humbly pray:
When in the Lord's great landing net
And peacefully asleep
That in His mercy I be judged
Big enough to keep."

There are several other possibilities that could be attributed to the photograph, but the truth is that when the oversize book on fly-tying arrived, Joe put it in one of the few places that wasn't piled high with papers, etc. (Not that funny, but it gave our guest a chuckle and provided me with a few blogger lines.)

While on the subject of bookshelves, ours are soon to join the ranks of the dynasaur. For Christmas I got an amazon.com Kindle. WOW! I love, love, love it. When we cruise, I would use half of a small suitcase to pack enough reading material to last the two weeks. They have libraries on all cruise ships, but I'm always afraid I won't finish the "loaner" before we dock. When we are on vacation I like to do what I call "fluff" reading. I got my degree in Literature & Writing, but I don't take the classics on a cruise. I read a lot of serial books. Among my favorite authors is Debbie Macomber. I started out reading her Blossom Street series because I love to knit and crochet and the stories not only followed the lives of the shop owners on the little street in Washington, they had patterns included. I moved from that group to "The Cedar Cove" series. These books are kind of like soap operas in print. The characters' lives intertwine in convoluted ways, but they are quick reads and thus the need for half a suitcase.

Then, on our cruise to the Black Sea last year, we met a couple from Georgia who are now part of our email address book and "facebook friends". Joe met the husband while we were checking in at the port in Italy. Joe was wearing a golf shirt that had his Navy wings embroidered on it. That sparked an inquiry by Paul, the husband, and soon we found out that not only did he and Joe have Naval aviation in common, he and I had a Delta connection. He is a retired Delta captain and in his early days as a first officer we had worked on the same flights from Atlanta to Los Angeles! (Cruising re-emphasizes how small a world this is.) Back to topic...Paul's wife, Milene, introduced me to the Kindle. It is the same size as a paperback book, but much thinner. It not only holds thousands of titles, but you can increase the type size for even easier reading. To turn the page, you just give a push on the "next page" button on either side of the e-reader. And, the screen is glare-free so you can read even on deck!

I sound like an ad for amazon.com. That's not the purpose, I promise. I know folks who have a leading competitor's newest product that is about the same size (no names), but if you love to read and you want an affordable e-reader, the Kindle is great. Best of all, if I finish a book and I want to read another, I just turn on the wireless connection, browse a little and within seconds I have a new novel. As of today, there are 630,000 titles to choose from. Among those, there are literally hundreds of books that are either free or nearly so ($.25 or $.50). Often a new author will offer a free e-book to build a fan base; you love it and then you pay for the next offering. E-books are always less expensive than the paper version. (I like to think I'm saving at least a portion of an endangered forest.)

I downloaded the Holy Bible before a bible-study class and it was in my Kindle in less than 30 seconds. Having visited the Huntington Library in Pasadena and seeing the painstaking work that went into the original, I can only wonder what Gutenberg would think?

More soon...I've decided that when it comes to blogging, less is more if you haven't got something worth writing. (That's a good rule to end with.)

Piling and Pedaling

2010-07-19T07:49:00.000-07:00

I’m getting my posts back to life as a retired couple. There was one thing that drove me to distraction during the year I didn’t ask Joe to do anything around the house. It was the “elephant in the room”…the conversation that we never had. It was the cause of my tongue-biting on many occasions. It was the condition of our garage!

About fifteen years ago, Joe bought a book called “File Don’t Pile”. Out of it he created a new way of filing. It doesn’t use alphabetizing like normal people do. Every file has an upper-case letter followed by a number (example: T-1, T-2, T-3, etc.). At the front of all the “T” files is a green folder. Inside the green folder is a list of what all of the files contain. Do you see an inherent problem? Yes. That’s right. Only the person who created the files has the ability to find anything ever again. The “T” files are the only ones I am privy to: they are our taxes based on the year of filing.

However, the book didn’t teach any tricks about not “piling” things in the garage…and any other flat surface in the house. Several years later he also had custom cabinets made for the garage to solve that problem. He gave Closet World a call and they installed six large cabinets, a counter next to the sink and a desk that was supposed to be for my crafts.

Over the next year or two, as things came out of the cabinets (like fishing gear), they started reappearing elsewhere. Nothing ever seemed to go back to where it came from. Then when Joe moved from his Santa Ana office back to San Diego, he brought boxes of office supplies home. But instead of taking them to the new office; he put them in the garage. There was also the wood to finish the fence and gates for our yard; a project that never quite got finished when he and a friend constructed a new fence in 2001. The lumber was piled up in the garage just about waist-high…that made it a target for piling things. It was like having another work bench.

Joe has one of those too...one of those rolling work benches that can be moved from place to place. The only thing it couldn’t be used for was “working”…because it was piled two feet high with bags, junk mail, unread newspapers, and boxes (many from QVC whose contents are a mystery). To give you an idea of how bad the “piling” got, when he finally cleared out the garage, he gathered up bags from Home Depot that still had the receipts in them and returned them all for over $300 in store credit. All of those items represented things he re-purchased because he couldn't find the original bags when he needed them.

I don’t mean to make Joe sound like a potential candidate for the TV show “Hoarders”. We’ve always been able to park both cars in the garage (barely) and there was a path from the door out of the house to the side garage door to get to the back yard. But other than that, every square inch was covered with items that were not “put away”.

Included in the many items stored out there is a pontoon fishing boat I gave him for our anniversary and Father’s Day in 2009. He had planned a fishing trip to Utah that June and the boat came in a cardboard box about five days before he was going to leave. Well, he didn’t unpack it and put it together before leaving; he just loaded the box on top of his car and took off on the long drive. He said he'd get help from some of the members of the fishing club to put it together when he got there. It started raining heavily on the drive so he stopped and got a blue tarp and covered the box. He never unpacked it at the fishing site. Instead he borrowed an already-put-together boat from a friend. The box, wrapped in its blue tarp, is still in the garage unopened.

I deliberately didn’t take a picture of the “before” because it was too embarrassing…when I had a mini-stroke last September, I asked him to clear the garage so I could get an exercise bike and use it while watching the TV he set up on “my” craft desk (which was piled three feet high with Joe’s things for several years). Motivated by my request, in January he contacted a pair of professional “organizers” whose ad was on Craig's List. He made an appointment to get help for the garage. BUT – after two or three appointments and cancellations, the organizers “flaked” and never showed up. (Rule 1 when starting an "organizing" business: have a calendar/planner with you when you return phone calls.)

I wouldn’t have started this post if it didn’t have a “happy ending”. Over the past two months, Joe managed to donate, throw away, or “put away” almost everything that was filling the single car area of the garage and for my birthday he bought me a recumbent bicycle! The desk is clear! I’ve started a regular routine of going out there first thing in the morning before the day begins three times a week.

And - Joe ordered a "Power Platinum Total Gym" after watching yet another info-mercial. (I'll let you know how that works out. He said it was "kind of a pain" to have to pull it out and set it up each time. And, he hasn't watched the "how to" video yet. That's kind of like asking for directions, isn't it? Don't think I'll start on those stories.)

At the end of the day, it was worth biting my tongue every time I parked my car. This is a good place to restate a rule I’ve written before: “Nobody ever died from biting their tongue!”

Birthday blues, Beatles, and Blogger-block.

2010-07-13T16:09:00.000-07:00

This is my birthday week…in two days I will move into the second half of my sixties. I’m conflicted over whether or not that is cause for celebration. I know…I know…not getting to the second half of my sixties is a not-so-good alternative, but I have always had trouble with the second half of decades. They are reminders of the impending birthday that ends with a “0”. Somehow those second halves seem to go faster as the first digit of that birthday number gets larger. Folks talk about mid-life crises...I have mid-decade crises...26, 36, 46, and 56 did it to me too.

While in that state of mind, I heard a story on TV about Ringo Starr turning 70! Yikes! It doesn’t help that Ringo was the oldest of the Beatles…70! I remember what my life was like when they arrived in the U.S. It was 1964 and the year I turned 20. I wasn’t an instant fan. It seemed almost like being unfaithful to all of the great groups I danced to and was a fan of during my teen years. They were so different! They looked different, they talked different, and a lot of folks thought they’d be a “one hit wonder” (who knew?).

When I think of that time, I also remember Twiggy and Carnaby Street and the many other British imports of that decade. It was the decade when I embraced my own British roots so it is fitting that it was a time when everything British was "in". I remember with a smile the exit of “beehive” teased hairdos and the entrance of the Sassoon cut. Everyone was straightening their curls and seeking the perfect wedge haircut. That look has endured as long as the Beatles’ music. I got my hair cut short to try to achieve that look while I was in Scotland in 1966.

It’s now 44 years since that trip. I was only 22. When I look back on the years in-between then and now, the memories blend together. Birthdays are a time for reflection and reminiscing. I titled this Birthday Blues, but that’s not entirely accurate. If there is sadness, it’s only for the people who touched my life along the way and who are no longer here.

Conversely, I am so lucky to have a supportive husband who overlooks my faults and praises my accomplishments, two loving daughters, sons-in-law who compliment my cooking and love their wives (who could ask for more?), and three grandchildren whose smiles warm my heart long after they’re no longer beside me. In addition, I count myself blessed to have family members who are also friends and friends who have become like family. Collectively they give me reason to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson who penned this thankful prayer:

“For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.”

I had difficulty getting started on today's post...it should have been posted last Friday...that's the reason for "blogger-block" in the title. I have several topics in mind for future blogs so, hopefully, this was a temporary condition brought on by my mid-decade crisis. Next week look for the saga of that list of “to do’s” that was on hold for Joe’s first year of retirement.

Family, Frogs, Feathered Friends, and the Fourth

2010-07-03T09:19:00.000-07:00

One thing that gets in the way of writing a blog about retirement is going back to work. Three times a year I return to the college I retired from and enter application data for all the new and returning students. It gives me a chance to see old friends and to earn a little "fun" money.

We've also been hosting Joe's cousin from Vermont, his wife, and their son and daughter (14 and 15 respectively). In addition to the usual sights (i.e., Sea World, San Diego Zoo, Missions) they made some wonderful memories: Joe's cousin gave his daughter a para-sailing flight as an early birthday gift...she was thrilled. Son, Mom, and Joe went horseback riding out at Camp Pendleton, and on another day a close friend of Joe's gave them an up-close personal tour of the USS Midway. Mom and Dad had their picture taken in front of the "Sailor Kissing the Girl" Statue at the waterfront (at their daughter's encouragement, they struck the same pose much to the delight of onlookers, including a tour boat going by).

On to the "saga of the frogs". Since they arrived at our house after midnight on the first night, they weren't introduced to a unique feature of their temporary quarters. In California, if you put a water feature in your yard, within hours the tree frogs will discover it. The photo here shows one of these critters sitting on a leaf...not a very big leaf...they are about an inch-and-a-half long and very hard to see. However, what they lack in size they more than make up for in croaking volume. At precisely 8:30 pm every night we have to close the sliding door if we want to hear the tv. The males try to attract a mate with their high-volume croaking. Once they've found a willing female, they get quiet....for a little while. Then it starts again, louder than the time before. (Did I mention that the pond is right below the bedrooms where our company is sleeping?)

As a preface to the end of this post, I want to tell you about my Dr. Doolittle-like effect on creatures. Whenever I would accompany our daughters on field trips to the zoo or to Sea World or any other environment where animals or birds were present, inevitably there would be mating. From ducks on our vacation in Kauai to walruses at Sea World (they could be heard all over the park...think "When Sally Meets Harry" times about 5000) and I can't omit the lowland gorillas at the Wild Animal Park...there were many times when I had to be creative when a 7-year-old girl asked, "What are they doing Mrs. Sarnecky?"

The most unique time was on a whale watching voyage out of our local harbor. Several Girl Scout and Brownie troops combined together for the afternoon outing so both of our daughters were there. We had been told that the whales NEVER mate before they get to the warm waters of Baja California. That was before I was on a boat in their vicinity. For those who might be unfamiliar with the California grey whale, they are huge animals. Because of their size it takes "three to tango"...one adult male, one adult female, and one immature male. The latter acts as a "guide"...helping the adult male find the target. Enough about the "how"...the result is a churning and splashing as they do barrel rolls over and over...the tour guides were positively apoplectic! (I just thought, "not again"...perhaps I should have added the word "feranomes" to the title of this blog.)

I also had a semi-domesticated roadrunner for three years in a row. This funny little bird would catch a mouse or a lizard and come to my sliding glass door and tap-tap-tap with his beak to get my attention. If I didn't respond right away, he would tap louder and longer until I would go to the door. I would look at whatever he had caught and say, "what a nice mouse" or "wow, you got a great lizard"...then he'd do a little bounce up and down and run off to his mate. I swear! Our son-in-law, Mike, thought I had made it up...in fact, he thought the roadrunner was created just for Wylie Coyote...until I showed him this photo. (That's him just beyond the rocker with a mouse in his beak.)

That same summer we also had "honeymooning ducks" in our pond. (The female is the dull grey one; the male has the pretty feathers.) After their tryst, the mama duck came back about three months later with her brood....they swam a little in the pond and then took off through the vegetable garden. It was almost like she took them on a field trip to show them where Mommy and Daddy created them!

Getting back to this week...Joe was in the kitchen and looking out into the backyard and he called me over to the door...there was a Mama Duck and seven adorable ducklings. They couldn't have been more than a couple of weeks old. They spent half an hour just swimming around the pond. At one point four of the ducklings got out and started walking away. Mama Duck quacked a command and they did an about-face and went back in the pool. We took many photos but here are a couple of my favorites. Unfortunately our guests were in Los Angeles and didn't witness the transformation of our small pond into a duck water park. (I wonder if this Mama Duck is one of the offspring of the earlier honeymoon couple.)

Having company visit us always makes us see our little corner of the world through other eyes. It reminds us of how much we love it here and how we couldn't imagine living anywhere else!

To all the veterans out there, including the one I share a life with, "Thank you for your service." As you light the barbeque or head to the beach for fireworks, say a prayer for the men and women who continue to risk their lives so that we are free to enjoy the wonders of this beautiful country...wonders like frogs and whales, walruses and roadrunners, and baby ducks.

Landscaping, Putting Greens, and Airborne Automobiles

2010-06-19T15:24:00.000-07:00

Since I got so off-point with last week's blog, I was determined to write on the topic of retirement this week. But then life threw us a curve on Saturday night/Sunday morning and I must write about it.

Since the story involves our yard and landscaping, I can also include the story of how Joe will never have to cut the grass again....ever! That happened thanks to me!

While playing golf with Navy friends in January of this year, he mentioned that I had taken my Social Security a year early but he was waiting until 70 in order to get the max. The friend asked, "So, are you getting your spousal share of Cathie's?" Joe remembered hearing about that when he went to his pre-retirement workshops, but he had forgotten about it.

Joe went off to the local office and found out that he was entitled but they could only make it retroactive for six months. The date he filed the paperwork was two days short of six months since I had started receiving benefits. Lucky! When he got the lump sum check, he told me he was going to use this new found treasure to replace all of the grass in the backyard with a putting green and a chipping green. One Putt Greens was the company we used and we are incredibly happy with the result. (What Joe didn't factor was my rose bushes that shed their petals onto his putting green whenever the winds pick up....he doesn't have to "mow" but now he has to vacuum.)

We re-landscaped our entire yard, including replacing the driveway with brick overlay, after the years of tricycles, bicycles, and kicking soccer balls were behind us. Joe wanted to minimize lawn-mowing and we both wanted an atmosphere of tranquility. We maintained some of the original landscaping on the slopes including some junipers that are trimmed to resemble bonsai trees (but much bigger of course) but the rest was redone in 2001. Much of the grass was replaced with brick and concrete/aggregate. We put in a pond and a beautiful waterfall that is right outside the windows that run the length of our living room/dining room.

Into that tranquil scene came an uninvited visitor on Sunday morning at 3 a.m. Joe thought he heard a crash on the main road that runs parallel to our smaller street (at the top of a 20 foot slope). He didn’t investigate, but when he heard the sound of tires spinning at around 5 a.m., he got up. He turned on the lights and saw a white car with its inside lights on moving very slowly up the hill in front of our home. He went to the garage to get shoes and a flashlight and by the time he turned on the outside lights and went outside, the car was gone. He checked the front and back of the house, but NOT along the living room/dining room area. He walked up to the corner and down to the neighbor's house, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

Later that morning when we were preparing to go to church, I noticed some black plastic around our waterfall. Upon closer scrutiny, we saw three of our full-grown hedges knocked down along with several smaller bushes and a very large palm tree. A branch on one of the bonsai-shaped juniper (planted 32 years ago) was also knocked off. Joe went outside and this picture is what he saw inside our pond. There were also two orange posts inside the pond. It dawned on us that the noise Joe heard was a car crashing. And it had crashed right into our waterfall. There was plastic and glass all over the place.

Remarkably, the culprit had gotten the car out and then drove it through all the plants in its way to our driveway and out of the neighborhood (it was him that Joe saw when he went in search of the flashlight). We were heart-sick. There’s a feeling of violation when you know someone has done damage to your property and then left you to pick up the pieces.

The next three hours were taken up with police reports, insurance company calls, and all the details associated with a crime scene. The Crime Scene Investigator arrived and took photos from every angle (hers are probably better than these). She also checked shoe imprints and tried to get fingerprints from the orange posts that had been used to help facilitate the exit from the pond. The police were astonished that neither one of us had realized this was happening on our property since at one point he was driving the car about five feet from our living room windows.

For my part, I was grateful that Joe hadn’t confronted whoever did it. The driver might have been drunk or there might have been several people and Joe would have been outnumbered. There were a lot of “what if’s” going on in my mind. (I watch too many crime dramas.) We both agreed that in the grand scheme of things, it could have been worse. The car could have come over the slope at a slightly different angle and could have ended up inside our living room. If that had happened, we might even have had a fire and could have lost much more than plants and trees. Also, the car could have flipped over and a life might have ended in our tranquil yard. You see…I’m very good at “what iffing” (my word). In church I said a prayer for whoever was in that car; thinking he/she must have been injured badly for there to be so many pieces of their car in our yard. (It helped that the homily included the admonition to “care for others”…the scripture was about the woman who wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair.)

In ordinary circumstances that would be the end of this saga. Prayers said; thankfulness that it wasn't worse; police reports filled out; insurance company called; and decision to put aside anger because it doesn't help.

But the story doesn’t end there. At 2:30 in the afternoon the doorbell rang. When Joe answered, he saw a middle-aged man and a young man standing there. The older of the two introduced himself as the step-father of the younger man and said, "My step-son Jose has something to tell you." Jose then said, "I'm the driver of the vehicle who crashed on your property this morning. I'm really sorry and I came to bring you my driver's license number and insurance information." Flabbergasted doesn’t begin to describe Joe’s reaction.

The step-father went on to say that he had had a “long conversation” with his step-son. A retired Marine, he told the son that he had to “do the right thing.” And he did. He had made copies of his license and proof of insurance. The young man apologized again and shook Joe’s hand. Joe commended him for the courage it must have taken to come to our home and admit his wrongdoing. It was a moment I’m sure neither of them will soon forget. (We still can't believe he wasn't injured beyond a small cut on his right hand. From the damage, the police determined the car was about 4 feet in the air after jumping the curb and before coming to rest in the waterfall.)

Joe called the policeman who is in charge of our case and when he told him what had happened, he replied, “Do you have any idea how rare that is?” Joe said that he did indeed. The police officer said he could not remember ever having someone “own up” to something they had clearly “gotten away with.”

I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes. It came from Anne Frank's diary and, coincidentally, was written on the day I was born:

"It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank

There is only one rule that comes to mind for this week's post. I'm sure you've heard it before, but it bears repeating here: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."

Produce, Profiling, and Parity in Politics

2010-06-11T10:59:00.000-07:00

I love alliteration. I've had fun this week preparing this blog. Hope it gives you a smile or two. (Blogger had new templates so I'm having some fun with a new look.)

When driving back from Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago, we were approaching the California border and saw the agriculture checkpoint up ahead. My friend Pat said, “They won’t stop you. You’ve got a military sticker on your car.” I said, “I bet they do.”

I was right. The agent asked: “What kind of fruits and vegetables do you have today?” I thought that was odd. I mean, he didn’t ask, “Do you have any fruits and vegetables?” He assumed I did and wanted to know what kind.

I felt “produce-profiled”. I didn’t give him any cause to think I had fruits or vegetables. I didn’t have banana peels on the dashboard or strawberry juice on my shirt. What made him think I was smuggling fruit into California? I mean, I don’t like fruit and vegetable smugglers any more than the next person, but in that moment I felt resentful. Where was the VCLU (Vegetable Civil Liberties Union)? Should I report this to PETO (People for the Ethical Treatment of Oranges)?

Okay...I’m through with the tongue-in-cheek. What I do want to write about is being an immigrant. I came to this country when I was five-and-a-half. Several months later my mother told me one day that I was going to be naturalized. Not knowing what that meant, she went on to explain that “you’ll be a Scottish little girl when you go in and when you come out you’ll be a full-blooded American little girl.”

I was struggling with understanding English as it was spoken in Paterson, N.J. while I retained much of my Scottish brogue. At school my accent brought about giggles and stares when I declared, “I dinna’ ken” when I didn't know the answer to a question. Little by little, the Paterson “twang” blended with the brogue and there was a period of time when I wasn’t understood either at school or at home. It was during that period that I had to ponder my mother’s explanation of citizenship.

Lying awake that night I had visions of large nurses wielding larger hypodermic needles and removing all of my Scottish blood and replacing it with American blood. I didn’t think it was such a great idea to become an “American little girl”.

The next afternoon when we went to the courthouse at the appointed time, I eyed the railing in the center of the stairs leading to the front door. I wrapped my arms and legs around the railing and screamed bloody murder, refusing at the top of my lungs to go into the building. To say we drew attention would be an understatement. Passersby glared at my mother thinking she must be abusing me and inbetween wails I pleaded for someone to save me from my impending total-body-transfusion.

After several minutes my mother managed to pry my fingers from the railing and she literally dragged me down the hallway (still screaming of course) and into an elevator. When we arrived at the Immigration Office, my photograph was taken (if Webster's needs a photo to go with the word "waif" I recommend that one). Then my mother raised her right hand and swore to the authenticity of my birth certificate and the fact that she had been born in the United States and a few minutes later we were given my naturalization papers. That was it. No needles; no blood; no nurses, just a nice man and a piece of paper. Why is it that your most humiliating moments are the ones that remain crystal-clear after 60 years??

I don’t mean to trivialize immigration, or citizenship. I had the opportunity to “choose” my citizenship when I turned 21. Until then I had dual citizenship to both Great Britain and the United States where my parents each had been born. I remember making the choice of America and registering to vote when I was 21 (that was the age to vote back then). I was with Delta when I voted in my first presidential election. I fumed for days over the fact that the State of Georgia went to George Wallace before my absentee vote had even been counted. I felt nullified.

For a little more tongue-in-cheek while on the subject of voting, I might as well tell my solution for political parity. I think if the country is going to become involved in running banks, automobile companies, and other previously “public sector” entities, then we as taxpayers should be considered “shareholders”. If you are a “contributing shareholder” (i.e., you pay taxes) you should get to “vote your shares” the same way you do if you own stock in a corporation. Every taxpayer would get additional votes based on the amount they contribute (your “tax shares”). If you don’t own any extra voting shares (you don’t pay taxes and you are on the receiving end of tax dollars), you would still get your one vote. What would the outcome be? If the politicians wanted the votes (plural) of the people who held all of the share-votes, they would be answerable to them for their decisions. Gosh, what would you call that? Being answerable to the shareholders just like the Board of Directors of a corporation? I know: we’d call it “political capitalism”.

Rule for this blog: Above all else, keep your sense of humor.

Party and Panama

2010-06-08T10:17:00.000-07:00

I know I promised a blog on cruising and this will get there, but I wanted to write about the retirement party I gave Joe. (He had a party with colleagues from the San Francisco office at a restaurant in Orange County and a party at his office in San Diego on his last day.) For someone who seemed to be resisting retirement, he sure enjoyed getting into “party mode”.

I had been thinking about his party for over three years. Not that it was going to be a formal party that needed three years’ preparation; Joe just kept changing his mind. Each November starting in 2004 (the year I retired), we would have a conversation that went something like this:

Me: “Joe, I’m getting ready to write the annual Christmas letter. Is next year the year you’re going to retire?
Joe: “You bet it is. I can’t wait to retire."

Then, somewhere around the end of March I’d see him sitting at his desk with a calendar and a calculator. Then we would have the following exchange:

     Joe: “If I keep working one more year, I’ll have enough days to sell back to get a new truck.”
     Me: “So you’re not going to retire in 2005. Does that mean you’ll retire for sure in 2006?”
     Joe: “You bet! I can’t wait to retire.”

You get the picture. That scene repeated itself over and over until finally on April 30, 2008 he actually did it. I planned a backyard barbeque and decided that I would have the food catered instead of doing it all myself. Here is where I give a major plug to Famous Dave’s Barbeque. If you don’t have one near you, you’re missing a treat. If you do and you haven’t tried it yet, you should.

I spent a long time trying to find the perfect retirement gift. He had given me my laptop computer to use when I went to college. It was the best gift ever and I didn’t know how to match it. One day while I was walking down the hallway in the Administration Building at MiraCosta College, I saw some beautiful watercolors. One was of the local commuter train, “The Coaster”, leaving the Carlsbad Village train station. Instantly I thought of commissioning a copy since it symbolized Joe’s daily commute to and from the office.

The artist, Benita Gleason, was a part-time counselor and professor at the college and someone I had known and admired when I was working full-time. I called and asked her if she could do a watercolor painting from a photograph I had taken of Joe with grandson Jackson and granddaughter Ava (Audrey wasn’t walking yet) when we rode the train to go to San Diego. Here is the result of her effort. I call it “Commuting Just for Fun”.

As the RSVP’s came in, I was pleased that many of Joe’s friends from Navy days, co-workers from years past, current co-workers, neighbors, church friends, and family were going to be with us. Best surprise of all was my sister, Jean, who came to represent my English family on this special occasion. She made the long trip just for the weekend, arriving Thursday and returning on Monday. It was a wonderful day (also coincidentally our 39th anniversary) and marked the beginning of a year full of amazing sights and sounds and people.

So now I will get to our incredible year of cruising. If anyone had told me that day in May of 2008 that I would take not one, not two, but four cruises over the next year and a half, I wouldn’t have believed it. Joe hinted at wanting to cruise when he decided not to rent a tuxedo for our daughter’s wedding in 2006. He said he would buy one instead so he’d have it for when we took cruises. I think I said, “That’s nice.” I pictured a 7-day Baja or maybe a short Caribbean cruise.

Joe started looking online at the industry travel website that Michelle told him about. One afternoon he said, “How would you like to cruise through the Panama Canal?” I was flabbergasted. The Panama Canal was a dream-come-true. The Royal Caribbean Radiance of the Seas embarked from San Diego and sailed through the Panama Canal with stops in Mexico and Central America before docking in Fort Lauderdale. As soon as we booked our cabin, I started planning what to pack.

When it comes to packing, I am a list-maker. In fact, I'm a list-maker about everything; I’ve even been known to write a list after I’ve accomplished a task just so I can cross the items off...it’s like having the pleasure of completion twice. I started my packing list a month before the cruise. That’s probably why I packed 13 pounds more than what I wore. (I weighed all the clothes I didn’t wear when we got back.) If you’ve never cruised, you can pack lightly for during the day. Jogging pants or shorts and a t-shirt and a bathing suit will see you through all of the onboard activities and most shore excursions (think "wrinkle-free" and lightweight).

I was pleasantly surprised that Joe really enjoyed getting dressed up for formal nights onboard. (If I made the rules, though, I’d ask the guy in jeans and a t-shirt to go up to the buffet instead of insisting on staying in the dining room even though he chose NOT to get dressed up.) There’s something about getting dressed up that brings out the best in people. Everyone smiles and takes pictures and compliments their table-mates. It also makes you reminisce about the times in your life when you’ve dressed up: your first prom; graduation parties; your wedding; your childrens' baptisms, first communion, and confirmation; your children’s weddings…all the days that make you smile when you think of them.

“At sea days” are like summer camp for grownups. The cruise line brochures tell you about all the ports of call and try to encourage you to take their shore excursions, but there is also a life onboard that you discover every night when you return to your room. Your room steward places a four-page daily program for the following day in your cabin while you’re at dinner. The myriad of choices include: cooking demonstrations, bingo games, Wii games, “Name That Tune” at the piano bar; slot tournaments; Veterans Meetings; yoga; water aerobics; and Team Trivia to name a few. Team Trivia deserves a paragraph of its own.

Team Trivia players give a whole new meaning to the word “competition”. On the first “at sea” day, players form groups of six and they choose a name and compete at trivia every “at sea” day with the same people for the remainder of the cruise. To the diehard trivia player, the team trivia time determines what else they will do for the rest of the day. I love trivia so I got to the lounge early and sat next to one other woman and we waited to see who would come along. Soon a couple joined us and then a man who was looking for a group. A young woman came by and we asked her if she’d like to join us. Her reply: “Are you smart? I had a group last time that wasn’t smart.” Since I was shocked by her lack of tact, I didn’t think before I spoke and said, “No. You probably want a smarter group.” She left. Twenty questions are asked and answered and on each day one group gets a pen, or a keychain, or maybe a coffee mug! (With the way people argue about answers being right or wrong, you’d think there was money involved.) At the end of the cruise, the group with the highest running total gets a bag advertising the cruise line that they’ll probably stick on a closet shelf (yes, I did). The "Are you smart?" girl glared.

The Wii competition brought out the little kids in us. We particularly enjoyed the boxing. On one afternoon, the staff member decided it would be a “battle of the sexes” and he had husbands and wives pair off. (I “decked” Joe a couple of times…he was a good sport about it even when I did my imitation of “Rocky” complete with theme song.) One other couple wasn’t quite so congenial. As the husband raised his Wii remote and gave an uppercut to his wife’s character on screen knocking her out cold, he shouted, “There! That one’s for your mother!!” There is no suitable word to describe the kind of silence that followed. The last we saw them, she was twenty paces ahead of him and he was trying to catch up. It probably cost him a trip to the ship’s jewelry store.

I don’t intend this to be a travelogue of all the places we visited over the next year, but as Joe kept getting emails about offers that were “too good to pass up”, we sailed again in January of 2009 from Santiago, Chile to Los Angeles (I became a shellback….I will talk about that in the future); in April we sailed from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic across the Atlantic to England (and visited my family); and then in October we sailed from Rome through the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea, eventually flying back from Greece. I'm having cruise withdrawal...we haven't boarded a ship since November. We hope to combine a Canada/New England cruise with our trip East for Joe's 50th high school reunion in September.

On that first cruise on Royal Caribbean's Radiance of the Seas we had an outside cabin and were very glad we did because of the wonders of going through the locks. We got to see how very tight a fit our ship was as this picture shows. After that we had two cruises that we booked inside cabins. I know there are people who can’t imagine cruising without a veranda but my rule for this blog is: “I’d rather have two cruises without a window than just one with.”

Memorial Day Anniversary

2010-05-31T10:03:00.000-07:00

I'm three days late with this week’s blog, but it is by design. I wanted to blog on this Memorial Day holiday because for me it is not only a time to reflect on the servicemen and women who have fought and died for our freedom, it is also a day for Joe and I to reflect on our personal journey.

After weeks of trying to figure out where and when we could get married when he returned from his ten-month cruise on the Kittyhawk, we had come to the conclusion that if everyone couldn't be at the wedding, then no one would. His family was in Pennsylvania; my friends and family were in Georgia and Florida; our mutual friends were in San Diego. We planned on being married in Hong Kong, but the inport period was cancelled just hours before I was going to board a flight. A week later he called while I was on a layover in Santa Monica and said, "I'm in Sasebo, Japan...how soon can you get here?"

Forty-one years ago today, I stood at the door to a Quonset hut/chapel in Sasebo, Japan. I was thousands of miles from home. I had no bridesmaids. There was no father of the bride (Lcdr. Bob Browning stood in). There was a corsage bought by friends Richie and “Doo-doo”. As the doors opened, I looked in on 40 men who could have been “extras” in any Blues Brothers movie (they had celebrated a day early). All I could think at that moment was, “What have I done?” If there was a movie about my wedding, it would be called "Forty Men and Me"...except one of our bachelors brought a "date"; the wife of a sailor who had deployed from Sasebo the day before.

I wouldn’t have been there had it not been for Delta Airlines (kind of like a guardian angel with wings of steel). Many of the best moments in our life together have been possible because of Delta. Before meeting Joe on a layover (described in an earlier post), I also met my father because of Delta. I had been taken to America from Scotland when I was five and my mother returned all mail and packages that came from my father. When she remarried, I was lost to him. Later, when I was sixteen, my grandfather helped me find him. He had been in the RAF and stationed in Egypt; he met and married my step-mother Audrey and they had two daughters. I met them all the year after I was hired by Delta.

I loved every minute of the 4-1/2 years I spent with Delta. It was during the Vietnam War and there were many opportunities to honor the young men who were serving our country at a time when it wasn’t very popular to be doing so. I remember a mother who came up to me at the foot of the stairs in Dallas and handed me a cardboard box with a plastic window on top. Inside was a birthday cake that said “Happy Birthday Jimmy”. She asked if I would please take it to the APO post office in San Francisco as she was afraid to have it go in the cargo hold. Well, of course I said "yes" and then the other three flight attendants and I put on dark red lipstick and put “kisses” on the box and wrote our own messages to Jimmy.

About two months later, I was called into the office of one of the VP’s of Delta and was admonished for “tampering with the US mail”. I acted appropriately contrite, but I think we both knew that I wasn’t at all sorry for what I’d done. (Jimmy had written to Delta to say the cake arrived crumbled, but he was “king for a day” because of our additions to his package.) Every Memorial Day I think of Jimmy and of all the young men in those jungles in Southeast Asia; I remember the pilots and RIO’s who didn’t return, including Mike Doyle (“Doo-Doo”) who was a POW but didn’t come home with all the others (his remains were returned 14 years later).

When our daughters were in high school, I said to them, “Don’t do what your mother did. Get your college degree. Then, if you want to become a flight attendant or anything else, you’ll have your degree to fall back on.” It was another of those “famous last words” moments but I didn’t realize it at the time.

During her senior year at Loyola Marymount, our youngest daughter called one day and said, “Remember what you said, Mom? Well, I was hired by Delta today.” So began another chapter in our lives that has been nothing short of miraculous. Because we are parents, we have flight privileges which enabled Joe and I to visit my English family several times. It also means we continue to see Michelle often even though she is based in New York.

When Joe retired, Michelle told him about an industry travel agency and said we would qualify for industry discounts on some cruises. I never believed that Joe would consider the word “cruise” in the same sentence with “vacation”. From his experience cruise meant months at sea in cramped quarters in the bowels of an aircraft carrier and days and nights being catapulted into the sky and landing on a moving runway the size of a postage stamp when viewed from above. I couldn’t believe my ears when he asked, “How would you like to cruise through the Panama Canal?” (Our year of cruising will be the subject of my next blog.)

Rule #6 – Honor your past (and those who touched your lives); cherish the present; and embrace the future. And thank God for being with you through it all.

"He Can't Go Out To Play"

2010-05-21T08:42:00.000-07:00

I was going to stay with my chronological suggestions for surviving retirement, but this week has provided me with too many instances where my own rules and suggestions just flew out the window.

After a four day fishing trip last weekend, Joe came home with a sore throat. It was clear by Sunday night that he wouldn’t be playing golf on Monday. Not only that, he lost his voice completely. The picture at the left pretty much says it all “I’m mad and I can’t go out and play and I don’t want you to talk to me because it hurts to talk back.” A trip to the doctor brought good news/bad news. Good news, it wasn’t serious; bad news, the only cure is lots of rest and plenty of liquids.

Need I say more? The “…in sickness and in health” part of the vows are not so hard when you’re faced with a major medical challenge. Joe had to have an aortic valve replacement over seven years ago and I “hung in there" for that. How could I not? It’s the little sicknesses that seem to chip away at the harmony of marriage. Men revert to six-year-olds when they can’t “go out and play”.

Creating this blog site is an outcropping of my own “confinement” because of foot surgery on March 24th. If I hadn’t had to lie on the couch with my foot elevated for three weeks, it might never have been hatched. While mentioning that I have to say Joe didn’t get an A+ when it came to taking care of me. Example: the day of my surgery…I was feeling pretty sorry for myself and I had bought a big jar of Jelly Belly jellybeans (a favorite of ours) as my “feel better treat”. I was only able to walk short distances for “necessities” (i.e., to the bathroom and back). That evening after dinner when Joe got up from his recliner, walked to the kitchen and I heard the unmistakable rattling sound of a hand grabbing jelly bellies, I thought, “How nice, he’s bringing me a treat.” Wrong! He sat back down in his recliner and I glared as I watched his clenched fist rise to as he prepared to toss a few multi-flavored egg-shaped treats into his mouth. Definitely not a shining moment! I just looked at him and held up the little bowl on the coffee table I was using to count out my 35 jelly bellies that equals 140 calories. Sheepishly he came over and emptied his fistful into my dish. (I know; that should be the worst thing he ever does….it wasn’t a “deal-breaker”.) Yes; then he walked back and replenished the fist.

Back to this week: no golf on Monday; no Rotary on Tuesday; no Old Bold Pilots on Wednesday. By Wednesday night I was ready to run away from home. Joe couldn’t go out to play.

Thankfully he woke Thursday morning and felt well enough to play golf. However, his day didn’t end as well as it began. His habit is to back into our garage because if he pulled forward he wouldn’t be able to open the driver side door because of a support pillar. As he comes around the corner where we live, he reaches up to the remote and opens the garage door. He did that and he saw the door start up as he was backing into the driveway, but then he stayed in the driveway while he completed a phone call to a fishing buddy. (He loses his wireless connection once he’s in the garage when he uses his new Ford’s Bluetooth feature.) Well, he hung up and hit the gas pedal…and then hit the garage door!

Seems the door stopped about a foot short of fully opening so the left upper corner of his SUV caught the unopened portion (lower panel) of the garage door. Neither the car nor the door came out of it unscathed. But here I have to give Joe credit for being a much better version than the Joe I was married to when he was working and stressed. He came into the kitchen and found me preparing dinner. I asked how his golf game had gone, he said, “ok, but now you have to slap me on the wrist.” He held out his hand and of course I complied but then asked, “Why?” I felt so bad for him. His beautiful new SUV was no longer “pristine”. 

The next two hours were spent a) pounding out the dent in the door in hopes of getting it to close so our incredibly cluttered garage (definitely the topic of a future blog) wouldn’t be visible to the entire neighborhood; and b) calling garage door repairmen. Seems that our door was made by Stanley and they are no longer in business (of course). So Joe was able to get the door to close….we moved my car out first in case we couldn’t open it again. But once the door is open tomorrow, it has to be manually lowered because the dent crosses the light that is a “safety feature” in case a child or animal is crossing under the door. Two garage door companies are coming tomorrow. In a perfect world, they will have a similar door for replacement so that we don’t have to replace the separate one-car bay door to the right of the main two-car door.

At the end of the day, this new “retired” version of my husband said, “Pick a nice restaurant and I’ll take you out after we get this fixed.”

“I’m sorry” can be said without the use of those particular two words. I think I like that as Rule #5.

Become a "Senior" Senior

2010-05-14T12:26:00.000-07:00

So, for a little diversion from the pattern of my blog, I’m focusing on me today. Today’s post actually fits the subject of surviving retirement, but from another angle. If, like many retirees, being retired is enough to send you running for the “Help Wanted” section of the newspaper, you might consider going back to school instead.

All of my life I felt “less than” those who had completed college. I had the opportunity to attend a Teacher’s College in New Jersey with the help of scholarships, but my mother moved out of the state and I became ineligible. Then, circumstances forced me to have to work. As luck would have it, though, my last full-time employment was at a community college. I started taking classes to improve my skill set. Then, I added a few more and got my associate’s degree. By the time I retired, I had 72 units and decided to apply to the closest California State University at San Marcos to complete my bachelor’s degree.

(One more reason to go back to school: according to Susan Kemper, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky who worked with Dr. David Snowden, author of The Nun Study, “…stimulating the brain with continuous intellectual activity keeps neurons healthy and live.” The study examined nuns in Minnesota who donated their brains to advance research in Alzheimer’s Disease. To read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,999867-5,00.html. )

Because I no longer sought education for employment, I had the luxury of being able to choose my major based on passion rather than necessity. I became a Literature & Writing major, with an emphasis in Writing. And so I entered two of the most enjoyable years of my life. I was unprepared for the bonuses I received that went far beyond the “book learning”.

When I first considered full-time school, I was terrified of walking into a classroom of teenagers and early 20-somethings. I expected whispered comments and perhaps giggles as this overweight 60-year-old walked in and was NOT the instructor, but a fellow-student. With the exception of one badly-brought-up girl who unfortunately was in two of my classes, that was not the case.

On Orientation Day, I was approached by a smiling young woman who had been a student at MiraCosta and who remembered me for having helped her. Her name was Michelle and she asked if she could join me for lunch. That began a friendship that continues to this day. We were classmates and soon became dear friends. I sometimes felt like a surrogate “Mom” when she was having difficulty and she often reminded me of my daughters and gave me a hug when I was stressed (read: every time I had a French test).

I figured out how to navigate the very large campus (they refer to it as “Stairmaster U” because of the hundreds of stairs between levels) and I had classes on all three levels. I quickly discovered every elevator and the nearest alternative elevator in the event the primary was out of order (that was necessary more times than I care to remember). If you ask today’s college student how you know when a senior citizen student is approaching, they will undoubtedly say “by the sound of their rolling cart bouncing over the walkways”. If you consider going back to school, the first thing you want to buy is a rolling backpack or computer case. I would not have survived without it. As a LTWR major, I had as many as 35 books per semester.

And now for the “bonuses” I referred to. I became many students’ new “best friend”. Not actually, but you would have thought so as they seemed to appear daily at my desk at the end of class or in the hallways before class. After introductions often followed by a compliment or two about something I’d written, they would get to the heart of the matter, “Cathie, could you do me a favor? I see you taking notes on your computer in class. I have a _____________ (fill in the blank: doctor, dentist, etc.) appointment, could you send me the notes after the next class?” The simple action of attaching a file and hitting “send” garnered me dozens of new acquaintances who not only didn’t mind my being in their classes, but probably gained something because of it. Those same students always wanted to be in my “group” if we worked on projects. The word got out quickly and I remember laughing as I watched six students try to fill the four seats to my right in a class that the professor broke up into groups of five based on your seat the first day. Funny, but touching too…I know, I know; it wasn’t my dazzling personality, but my avid note-taking and refusal to get anything less than an “A”. The grades were assigned “as a group”.

I should mention here that many colleges and universities offer “incentives” for non-traditional (academia’s way of saying “old”) students. It seems there are people in administration who do see a value in having someone in, for instance a history class, who lived through many of the events the younger students know only from books. We add a voice that says, for example: “Yes, I remember that. I was on the ground in Atlanta waiting to fly to Miami when the captain opened the microphone to let us hear the radio message that said ‘that’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind’.” Life experience is of value. Even though I didn’t have a degree, I knew a lot. Without sounding boastful, I think I was smart, but I always felt I had to have that piece of paper to be validated.

I have one last bit of advice if you decide to go back to school. Find the Disabled Students office and offer to volunteer as a note-taker. This is especially easy if you take your notes on a laptop because all you have to do is attach the file (as mentioned earlier). Bonus for you: you get first-day registration at many institutions as a “thank you” for helping. And, more importantly, you meet some wonderful students who are grateful for your help and if you’re lucky, as I was, become friends you keep in touch with. One such student was paralyzed in a car accident when she was 18. She had such a wonderful spirit and such a vivid imagination and her writing never failed to touch my heart. She wrote one story that literally brought me to tears in class. It was about a fairy whose wings didn’t work and she couldn’t fly. She became friends with a caterpillar and at the end of the story the caterpillar-turned-butterfly carried her to the sky. Beautiful! Kim gave me a CD with her story, beautifully illustrated by her sister, and narrated by her friend. (You can see it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3pFxkUpsuc). I treasure it. You can order this lovely story at: http://www.lulu.com/browse/search.php?fListingClass=0&fSearch=Kim+Anderson. It is available for a nominal cost as a download or, for a little more, as a paperback.

When I graduated in May of 2006, I had a loving family in the stands. Because the university had no auditorium or stadium to hold the ceremony, they rented the Del Mar racetrack. My warped sense of humor wanted me to find someone to rent a horse costume with me, put a mortarboard on it, and prance down walkway from the paddock where we congregated to the track where we sat for the ceremony. But I engaged my serious side for that never-to-be-forgotten day. When they announced my name and “magna cum laude”, I swear I heard my daughters and husband cheering and they were joined by all of those “friends” whose lives I had touched and who had touched mine in return.

Rule #4 – don’t let fear keep you from doing anything…even becoming a “senior Senior

Rule #3 - Fill His Calendar

2010-05-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

This is the most important aspect of the first year of retirement.

When I looked at Joe’s calendar for the first two months after he retired, it was glaringly empty. I was faced with two choices: a) spend my days making breakfast, lunch, and dinner and providing entertainment to fill the hours in-between; or, b) suggest (hint at) possible alternatives to “a” that would appeal to him. Needless-to-say I chose “b”. A dear friend once gave me the following advice about marriage and retirement: "It's for better or worse but not for lunch."

For my last couple of years at work and during my time as a full-time student, I had either every Friday or every other Friday off and we always went to breakfast and a movie or a movie and then lunch depending on what time the movie was. That was a pleasant preview of what retirement would be like. But – you can’t go to the movies Monday through Friday.

I also didn’t want Joe to think I was kicking him out so I knew I’d have to deal with this problem one day at a time. Monday I knew would be the hardest to fill. If he was going to have any “withdrawal” from his life as a worker-bee, it would be on Mondays. I had spoken with other wives who said they first noticed their husbands’ depression on Mondays. (Back to that “men are what they do” statement – if they wake up on Monday and are doing "nothing"…well, you get what I mean.)

Monday was taken care of by a good friend named Jerry. He retired and moved back to California after years of living in Japan and Hawaii. Jerry had been in the Navy with Joe and kept in touch with a lot of former naval aviators that Joe hadn’t seen in years. There was a group of about 20 who met every Monday to play golf at MCAS Miramar (formerly NAS Miramar…in Joe’s mind it still is). Jerry invited Joe to join the group. Thank you, Jerry!

Tuesday was a little trickier. Joe had been a member of Rotary when he worked in the North County in the 1980’s. He enjoyed the people and remained friends with many Rotarians but didn’t want to be “tied down” by weekly meetings. Rotary is very strict about making up missed meetings or attending an out of town meeting if you’re on vacation. He worried about taking fishing trips or vacations and the meeting commitment. But, he attended a couple of meetings and decided he could handle making up meetings or paying the fine if he couldn’t make them up. Tuesday: done!

Wednesday was an even bigger challenge. The activity that presented itself had a meeting time of 7 a.m. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it yet, but the one thing Joe really, really looked forward to was “sleeping in”. Unlike me, he can wake up and then turn over, go back to sleep, and stay in bed for hours. But I knew if I could “suggest” he try this group, he’d be sold. The name of the group is Old Bold Pilots. I would link them, but they don’t have a web page. (I wish they did.) They are over 200 strong. They are former Navy, Air Force, Army, Marine, and even Luftwaffe pilots. There are members who never flew, but love talking about aviation. They meet at our local Denny’s every Wednesday morning at 7 and they never have an agenda. They welcome new members (so they can tell their “war stories” to new ears). On any given Wednesday there are 50 or 60 “Old Bolds” sharing their memories of dogfights, carrier landings, bombings, first flights, etc. The overarching theme of their get-togethers is patriotism. Wednesdays are a special day; he never complains about getting up early.

Thursday was empty for quite awhile. Then he was invited to fill in with a group of golfers (two were also in Rotary) when someone couldn’t play. Eventually, he became a “regular” with the group. In addition, he started taking “fly-tying” classes on Thursday evenings and he added a Monday evening twice a month for two fly-fishing clubs.

All of a sudden I realized that I might have created a monster. He had a full calendar. He wasn’t depressed. He had dozens of new friends. And he was never home. What had I done? I looked into the future and wondered, "what happens at the end of the moratorium on 'honey-do'?" I remember thinking, “He’s not going to have time to do anything on my list when I finally give it to him.”

And, like Scarlett O’Hara, I said, “I can’t think about that right now. If I do, I’ll go crazy. I’ll think about it tomorrow.”

Next post I'm going to give Joe a break and devote some space to what it was like to return to college as a senior citizen. There may be some of you out there who think you can't "fit in" or are reluctant to enter academia when it's been decades since you took notes or worried about test results (other than the kind the doctor orders).