Cooking the NYTimes and Other Assorted Retirement Activities

And here's the wind up for 2018 and the pitch for 2019... This morning, driving to yoga, I heard a gentleman being interviewed on MPR talking about President Trump's disturbing description of Dr. Christine Blassey Ford's testimony during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.  He used the analogy of the President speaking to a crowd at the Roman Colosseum as they cheered on his belittling words. This seems like a particularly adept way of looking at how we can react to the President's diatribes and verbiage.  We can simply stay out of the Coliseum, not buy into what he is saying.  Doing so give his words unwarranted power--and besides, they change within minutes (if not seconds) of spilling out of his mouth. Does this mean we give him a free pass?  He of 7,644 falsehoods in 2018? ( Washington Post )   Of course not.   It is our civic duty to pay attention.  (One end of the year wrap up article thanked all politicians for the crash cou...

Every so often, someone utters a word or phrase that resonates with me, frequently in a manner it was not intended when said.  This was the case last week at yoga, when the instructor referred to the yoga block as a little rectangle of hope.  For the not yet members of the yoga tribe among these readers, the yoga block is usually used to facilitate the practitioner moving into a pose that might not otherwise be available to them.  If you can't reach the floor when going into a twist, for example, you move the yoga block close to your hand so you can hold on with the intention--hope--that at some point, practicing yoga will allow your muscles to become strong enough that you can reach the floor. I love this concept.  All around us, there are little rectangles of hope we can grasp.  You don't need to ask permission to hang on.  Some days you need that little rectangle, others not so much.  The rectangles of hope can be manipulated by you into any ...

We're winding down our two month stint in Belleair Beach, Florida.  During the daily beach walk(s), I've been using these last few days to reflect on our time here. I suppose the best thing I can say is that we're already signed on to return next year.  The place where we've stayed, a townhouse in a small development called Los Caracoles (the snails) that fronts the Gulf of Mexico, has been, as my sister who is a realtor down here calls a real find.   (In fact, on a walk the other afternoon, Hank discovered this snail on the property.) Next year the unit is available for 6 weeks rather than 2 months.  We'll make due.  I can sit on the patio and look out at the Gulf; listen to the waves at night, which have more than once lulled me either to sleep or back to sleep; and in about 73 steps,give or take a few, be on the beach.  We are simultaneously spoiled and blessed. The time, like the Gulf, ebbs and flows differently depending on what is g...

No, this post is NOT about sex but I am going to posit a question a la Carrie Bradshaw, she of Sex and the City.  Plus I figured having sex in the title might be a good way to draw readers. Before I retired, many already retirees would look at me with something akin to sympathy and tell me that it would take me awhile, but I would find a routine.  I've been ruminating over this quite a bit, which leads me to wonder--Why is it important for people leaving the routine of the workforce to then burden themselves with a new routine?  Because, after all, isn't that something we're all looking forward to with baited breath once we retire?  That we can jettison the routine, do whatever we want, whenever we want? (I previously wrote about the value of getting into an exercise routine, which I have been adhering to rather religiously.  Therefore, I exempt exercise from the ensuing conversation about routines.) And don't get me started about schedules.  Definiti...