Cooking the NYTimes and Other Assorted Retirement Activities

In my Florida mind, I am in a different decade.  I am in my late thirties to early fifties, the time period during which my parents wintered on Sand Key, just south of Clearwater Beach. When I go with my mother to the grocery store, there are many what seems to me to be old people  Then there is my mother, who is not yet old in my Florida mind.  Then there is me and no in-between these three divisions. My day rolls much like the tide.  I manage to rollerblade from the condominium complex down to Sand Key Park, where I glide around and through the parking lot, holding onto my portable CD player where Sting's Ten Summoner Tales provides the background music in my Florida mind.  My dad wanders down the beach to the parking lot, to make sure I'm okay and tell me it's time to come home. There are four small children in my Florida mind, frolicking in the waves, digging in the sand, crawling onto the lounge chairs with me and Dan, burrowing under the beach towels...

We're in Florida until the end of April, returned to the same townhouse we rented last year.  Simply put, we love it here. That's not the subject of this post. Driving down, we listened to a couple interesting books: Educated  by Tara Westover and Bad Blood   by John Carreyrou.  (Click on the link to read Bill Gates' notes about the book.) An aside: if you have yet to discover downloading audible books from your local library, I highly recommend doing so tomorrow, if not today.  You have 3 weeks to listen and there is something quite soothing about being read to (ask any preschooler for an endorsement). We were mesermized by the story of Bad Blood --it  details the rise and fall of Theranos. If you aren’t familiar with the Theranos story, here’s the short version: (from Bill Gates's Gates Notes)  the company promised to quickly give you a complete picture of your health using only a small amount of blood. Elizabeth Holmes founded it when she wa...

I'm preparing to celebrate the annual trip around the sun tomorrow, which always feels like an opportune moment to step back, savor the view, and see if you're ready to address a couple of life's big questions with the advantage of another year of wisdom under the belt. First, of course, is determining what Life's Big Questions are.  For that, I turned to the Google.  Here's what I found:  https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-top-10-big-philosophical-questions-most-people-wonder-about .  There were a bundle of other sites as well, most with a Biblical bent.  Not all of the Life's Big Questions are ones that I found myself pondering at any point during this last year, but a couple were. 1. What is the meaning of life? I actually witched around this one with significant angst during my adolescent years and landed on something my maternal grandmother told me:  "You are here to leave the world a better place than it was before you were born."  The ongoi...

You know those movies where the protagonists are women of a certain age? Where they sit around drinking until their tongues loosen up?  Then they titter dirty little secrets about sex, or lack thereof, and the predominantly female audience is expected to titter along at the women and say something akin to oh, my, goodness aren’t they a hoot?  I want to be just like that when I get old. Dearest Hollywood, that is not the real world. When you dare to reconnect, this is what I've learned about female protagonists who season with age. Yes, life includes the wonderful places you've visited and still intend to see.  It's about your children and their spouses and the incredible grandchildren they've gifted to you.  It's about what you learned at work, the impact you made, the impact you continue to make, the legacy you have left behind. It's also about how you've rolled around in the dirt.  How you've been plowed under by the avalanches.  The pain, the ...

If you're not familiar with Krista Tippett's On Being , allow me to encourage you to click on the link.   The On Being Project focuses on "tools for the art of living."  It is about as far removed as possible from the Project that subsumed me earlier this week: On Being Crabby. In the rearview mirror years of my life, I spent way too much time being crabby.  The small things got under my skin and burrowed their way into my soul, often in record time.  There they took up residence, remaining and welcoming in all the other small things that I permitted to get under my skin.  And in retrospect, it took way too much time for me to work my way past On Being Crabby. Fortunately, for the most part, the On Being (Perpetually) Crabby Project is a thing of the past.  So much so, in fact, it now takes me a while to figure out a name for  this emotion that is just bugging the bejeezus out of me.  What is this?  I'll ask myself.  Wh...

A question a la Sex and the City... If perception is reality, and your perception doesn't match the rest of the world's perception, then whose perception is reality? Here's how I perceive myself: Kim Basinger, 1998 Academy Awards I thought she looked stunning in that gown and have asked my children to use this photo next to my obituary. Given what transpired this afternoon, this image is probably much closer to reality: Found after Googling old decrepit woman Because at the liquor store, someone who looked like this: Found after Googling tattooed woman Kindly (giving her the benefit of the doubt) said she would call for a carryout, after packing the wine I purchased into a carton.  I replied, "No, thanks, I'll carry it myself" and then she shot me: THE LOOK. Found after Googling expression of disbelief I mean, it was blatant.  You are too old to be carrying twelve bottles of wine, old woman!  screeched THE LOOK. Na...

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, which for the Christian calendar closes the Christmas season. Not everyone closes their season on this date.  Many shut 'er down right after the 25th.  Christmas trees have been sitting at the end of driveways, awaiting garbage collection, for over a week.  Slowly you notice the dimming of the holiday lights, always a source of sadness for me in this gloomy darkness of what has been a grey, slushy, muddy, brown winter.  The stores turned everything over on the 26th and now the pinks, reds and whites of Valentine's Day brighten the aisles. Being the fan of the Christmas season that I am, I start early--mid-November this year--and will begin the dismantling today.  Tomorrow I will pull the plugs on the outdoor lights.  We will bring the fake deer gracing the front lawn into the storage shed.  The planters will remain until the medium holding the decor in place melts, probably late March.  The Christmas dishes ...