Retirement. . .or Reclinerment?

 

FOREVER FRIDAY

It’s my anniversary!

No, not that one. If you add up the husbands, multiply by the number of meatloafs I’ve made and divide by the number of times people with the drawn faces of suffering and hunger have asked “What’s for dinner?” that will let you know how many years of my life I’ve toiled away in blissful matrimony. I mark that anniversary by eating ice cream and turning the air down low every July.

The anniversary I celebrate with joy, despair, happiness, sadness, certainty, and indecision is. . . .

RETIREMENT!

I entered the working world at 22 years old. I was a size ten and could still see my feet. These days if I want to see if my socks match, I ask someone to take a picture.

For forty years, I started the work week asking, “Is it Friday yet?”

Three years ago, I answered my last phone call, took my last long lunch break, stuck my last post-it note to the computer screen, and sauntered out the front door into. . .

a land of turmoil and indecision.

What do I do now?

The first order of business was to get in shape.

With attention to diet and exercise, I lost three pounds. Remember, these are post-menopausal pounds and count as extra credit.

My blood pressure medication caused me to gain four.

I thought about stopping my medication, but that caused everyone else’s blood pressure to go up and made my doctor’s eyes bulge out in a peculiar way. He should see a doctor about that.

I turned my attention to other activities.

I ripped my arm out of its socket and learned to eat cookies left-handed.

I solved the Dude Ranch murder with Nero Wolfe and his sidekick Archie Goodwin.

I napped Every. Single. Day.

Then my sister retired. 

Turns out, as usual, she’s better at it than I am.

She cleaned out her closets, hosted family dinners, threw a fabulous birthday bash, and Oh My God how much more can I take, mopped her kitchen floor.

I have friends who volunteer at hospitals, libraries, and animal shelters.

My husband plans to go into bookbinding when he retires.

I announced tearfully at breakfast one morning, “I’m doing retirement wrong.”

My son, in a family where wisdom obviously skips a generation, said, “Did you go to work?”

Snuffle. “No.”

“Then you’re doing it right.”

It so happens that the hardest part of retirement is finding out what makes you happy.

I still haven’t seen my toes in a while. But I restarted my blog, wrote some essays, and made some people laugh.

Which made us all happy.

But I still take a nap. . .

Every. Single. Day.

 

 

 

Cookies and Cupcakes are an important part of the C-Food Group and an essential ingredient in my beauty regimen.

The Secret’s Out

Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.

Because I’m not. 

If beautiful is the bullseye at the throwing hall, my axe is stuck in the wall somewhere near the bathroom door. I'm good with that. The last time I tried to create a smoky eye, I looked like I was on the wrong side in the Zombie Apocalypse.

When it comes to beauty secrets, I’m the one everybody kept the secret from.

Oh sure, the potential’s there.

It’s like when Michaelangelo, faced with that big block of marble said, “Maybe if I hit it with a hammer, something will show up.”

I’ve heard that we’re all beautiful, but I think mine is tucked away where you can’t see it, and I’m too lazy to do upkeep on the outside.

I’ve tried every beauty tip in women’s magazines. I’ve been Walking Myself Thin for half a century. I gained 50 pounds. What I lost in years, I gained in cupcake weight.

I bought stylish outfits in the new fashion color, butter yellow. I found that I do better in colors not named after food, since I usually have the real thing spilled down the front of my shirt.

I tried to give my face a pop of color. Remember the old saying “Red Sky at morning, sailors take warning?” The whole fleet was afraid to leave the harbor.

I gave eyeliner a try and almost shish-kabobbed my eyeballs.

So I joined a Facebook group that had 70,000 members, all women.

They talked about their beauty secrets.

Some said they wore nice clothes whenever they left the house.

For me, nice means the dog hasn’t drooled on my pants leg during dinner.

They did things to their eyebrows that I don’t do anywhere on my body. It sounded like what foreign countries do to you when you won’t spill state secrets. One woman had an injury to her eyebrow that she assured us would heal soon. I’m not interested in any beauty procedure that results in a visit from Emergency Responders.

I don’t wax, peel, or laser.

I don’t botox because I may need my facial muscles at any second to give my husband The Look if he tries to tell the gorilla joke.

When I go to my knee doctor, I shave my legs up to the problem site with my son’s head shaver. 

DO NOT TELL HIM!

Beauty sounds too risky to me.

I’ll just sit in my chair, read, and eat cupcakes.

You can hate me for that, but I’d rather you join me.

There’s no dress code.

And there’s enough cupcakes to go around.

 

I'm not sure if this is before or after. It could go either way.

Ready, Sit, Go

 

My doctors are out to get me.

When I was younger I didn’t go to the doctor.

Now I have four. I’m playing Doctor Bingo and my card is almost full. I hope I don’t need one for the free spot. Or maybe I only want one for the free spot.

My doctors all have different priorities depending on which body part is about to wear out.

It’s like playing a Reality Version of Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.

Don’t tell them, but so far my toes are doing fine.

They only agree on one thing.

They all think I should exercise.

Except I’m not allowed to stand up.

It’s like telling Bobby Flay to make dinner for twelve without stirring.

Since I’ve been sidelined, I’ve been watching cooking shows. Which could be part of the problem. They make me hungry. Not for ordinary stuff you can get in the cookie aisle at Ingles, but stuff that requires Chantilly cream or mascarpone, or homemade meringue. Maybe we could start a food train with famous chefs.

But let’s get back to the action. Or lack of action.

When I stand up, I’m likely to fall over. If I try a daredevil move like, say, walking, it’s double down. So to speak.

You don’t get odds like that at the Kentucky Derby. So I use a cane, or grab the arm of whoever is passing by, which is something the Derby horses don’t get to do, so I figure I’m better off than a two million dollar racehorse.

Which also means jumping jacks are out. Or jogging. Or reading magazine articles that say, “Walk Yourself Thin.”

Years ago, I used to walk around the mall and stop for a biscuit on the way out. My clothes didn’t fit, but I felt great and never got hungry. So we should be sure to support our malls for health reasons.

But now my doctors say I have to keep both feet on the floor.

So I get to exercise SITTING DOWN.

What’s the worst part of exercise besides smelling like a racehorse? Getting tired, of course. It always held me back in gym class and shopping marathons.

I figured I would eliminate the getting tired part and the rest would be easy. I put on a hairband with pink sparky cat ears to hold my hair out of my eyes. You can still look cute and exercise when your’re sitting down.

 I turned on a video.

An hour later I couldn’t drag myself across the finish line.

How do they think of so many things to do sitting down? I was tired.

So I went shopping online.

Sitting down.

Turns out the bakery delivers.

 

 

 

 

 

A picture of me wearing sunglasses so
you won't recognize me after reading this post.

Poop Positive

The story you’re about to read is true. The names have not been changed

because of course this would happen to me.

 

How bad does it have to be when the Poop-by-Mail people throw away your colon cancer test sample?

It happened to me.

You know the place. They have those commercials with the talking blue and white box and people singing “I Did It My Way.”

Which is not a tribute to Frank Sinatra.

The doctor was firm. It was either the home game in the blue box or a close-up visit with Colonoscopy Guy in a sterile room. I thought respect came with age, but with all the medical tests, I don’t have any personal boundaries left.

But back to the Do and Dash people who threw away my sample.

Did I offend them? I can’t conceive of what you have to do to offend people whose business involves getting poop in the mail.

Is it a good day or bad day when they get a ton of mail? The day after a holiday do they argue over who gets to open the extra mail? Do they get junk mail?

When you have a bad day at work, remember you’re not the one opening the mail at the Poop Place.

How do they decide which ones to keep and which ones get pitched in the dumpster?

I was very careful to follow the instructions which were in a book the size of War and Peace. I thought it was written in code until I realized that I was looking at the part written in Spanish. I don’t speak Spanish. Some days I don’t even speak English very well. I thought it was one of those books where you get to choose the ending.

Which brings us back to me.

I received, via the United States Postal Service, a notice that my sample had been discarded.

I mean, really?

It hurt my feelings. I felt like. . .well, I felt bad.

Nobody likes to think they’re not worth. . .that they’re not important.

Then I received a phone call.

From the nice lady at the poop place. She explained that my prescription had expired.

First I was very excited. I was worth. . .I was not inferior after all.

But, wait. Poop needs a prescription?

I’ve been doing it wrong all these years.

I contacted my doctor who gave me another prescription, and everything went according to plan.

Except the test is known to have false positives and false negatives. Kind of like the Algebra tests I failed in high school.

So I got a positive which was negative.

And ended up with the consolation prize - a close-up meeting with Colonoscopy Guy who was very nice and made sure I had a nice nap and pleasant dreams.

It was just what the doctor ordered.

 

 

 

Olympic material or Ozempic material?

For the Win!

It's Olympics time!

I love to watch all the sports, even the ones where the athletes look like they breakfast on bowls of multivitamans every morning. I prefer the ones where they look like they eat bowls of doughnuts, but Sumo wrestling is still waiting its turn at the Olympics.

But I follow Simone Biles like fairytale children follow bread crumbs through the forest, so I’m tuned in with a front-row recliner to see how the games play out.

Watching the qualifying rounds for gymnastics on a screen large enough to reveal which athletes floss their teeth, I couldn’t help noticing some details. First, that other people in the house get testy if they can’t see the action.

Bill: For heaven’s sake, you’re fogging up the screen when you exhale.

Me: I want to see if  the gymnasts have panty lines.

Bill: You just sucked three lights off the Eiffel Tower. Snoop Dogg’s Doo Rag flew past and landed on the Pit Bull. It looks like he's wearing a red, white, and blue toga.

Some people don't appreciate the spirit of the Olympics.

ANYWAY, I made a list of differences I discovered between Olympic athletes and me. I just have to make a few minor adjustments and I’ll be ready to audition for the 2028 games in Los Angeles. I'm looking at you, Sumo wrestling.

Things I noticed about Olympic athletes:

1.  They dress up nicer to sweat than I do to eat Heath bars in my living room. An internationally famous gymnast had bigger sparkles under her eyebrows than Galileo charted in the night sky. If I tried that trick, I’d blind myself. My hands are so shaky these days that when I put on mascara, my eyelids look like a bar code.

2.  Wedgies are a fashion accessory. I don’t mean the shoes that look like you’re standing on little hills, I mean when your bathing suit, leotard or other essential athletic paraphernalia becomes wedged between the gluteus and the maximus giving the viewers maximus exposure and the athlete maximum discomfort. There are divers I could pick out of a lineup without ever seeing their faces.

3.   They take longer to pack to leave the arena that I do to go on vacation. I learned to pack from my son. He tosses his laptop and tablet in a bag, cushions it all with spare socks, sticks his phone in his pocket, and heads for the car. I watched as the American gymnasts carefully folded warmup clothes, tucked in their personal equipment, meticulously ascertained that all was secure, hoisted their bags and paraded ceremoniously three yards (that’s 2.7432 meters European) out of the arena. Now I’m self-conscious that I don’t pack a bag to go to the bathroom.

4.   The swimmers cover their bathing suits with puffy coats. Finally, something we have in common. I have a muumuu made out of blackout curtains that I wear over my suit to guard against frightening small children and wayward sea turtles at the beach.

5.  All in all, it's good to be reminded that heroes are made from everyday people. The pommel horse specialist who clinched the bronze medal for the American men’s gymnastics team turned from Clark Kent to Superman when he took off his glasses. 

Maybe I AM Olympics material. When I take off my glasses, I fly through the room like Wonder Woman.

But usually it’s because I trip over the dog.

 Cry Me a River That Flows Past Park Place

I never cry, even if I drop the last bite of brownie in the kitty litter where the five second rule doesn’t apply,

I don’t cry at baseball, even though my team manages to lose in creative and expensive ways each season.

I don’t cry when I’m picked last for teambuilder activities, even though I was the acknowledged and celebrated Red Rover champion in the fifth grade and the only girl on the First Baptist softball team who could catch a pop fly.

I don’t cry at tearjerker movies that are written for the express purpose of generating tears (unless it’s Secondhand Lions and that’s the law).

But there is one thing that makes me cry like a newly crowned Miss America with the cameras rolling.

I’ll clue you in, but you have to promise not to tell.

Pinky swear.

It’s. . .

Monopoly.

I’m not sure if that’s why I’m banned from playing it at my house, but there’s a reason that during the last game we ever played, Son I, William the Conqueror, gave me an extra life and called it Monopoly: The Bailout Edition.

All I know is that if someone that I carried in my body for nine months can charge me $1,200 to stay at his hotel for five minutes without even considering an AARP discount, he wasn’t raised right and I’m a failure as a mother.

Son I regularly takes top honors in Careers, Sorry, Uno, and The Barbie Game and I live to fight another day even when he insists on playing by the rules on the box instead of House rules.

Son II (The Pokemon Master, for those of you in the know), has reigned as the Connect Four champion since he was eight years old. I would brag about him in my knitting circle if I could knit.

But Monopoly is personal.

Anyone who can refuse his mother bail when she’s been behind bars for more than three turns is a menace and shouldn’t be allowed to pass Go.

I can’t catch a break, or break even for that matter.

I can’t hop a freight train. (I have all the railroads, Mom. You owe me extra.)

I have poor design sense. (None of your colors match, Mommo. If you get any money, try to buy properties with the same color.)

I need magic dice. (Motherrr, I own all the properties on that side; you need to roll 15.)

I regret the days I let this kid win at Candy Land.

The money was still wet when we put the game away for the last time and passed around bandages to the competitors. Everyone agreed that the additions of Senior discounts and Buy One Get One Free offers enhanced game play.

The family Monopoly game still looks like new. My guys are grown now and life is busy.

But I can always find a way to start a conversation.

I say, “Hey, does anybody want to play Monopoly?”

Then I sit back and watch the fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

 Fashion Forward

Clad in Star Wars finest - Vintage Hand-Me-Up BB8 TShirt.
Not pictured{Black pants, flowered Skechers, no socks, dog making fun.)

I hoped that by the time I reached the seasoned age of 65, I would have plucked the fruits of wisdom, experience, and knowledge from the Tree of Life. Instead, what I have plucked is a situation where a husband who can’t tell stripes from plaid is in charge of my wardrobe. How hard can it be to see if the lines cross?

Remember when Daddy dressed the kids and their teacher thought they’d run away from home? It’s like that, but with the added adventure of foundation garments.

I’m not man bashing. I’m fortunate to have a husband who has taken over every household chore now that walking to the bathroom has turned into an Olympic event for me. He’s not only mastered all of my secret recipes, he has cracked every excuse I ever invented for ordering pizza instead of peeling potatoes.

The trouble comes when I need to wear matching clothes for, say, a trip to the specialist of the day. The time has come when I collect doctors like a lumberjack collects splinters. Neurologist, orthopedist, cardiologist--I’m looking for two more ists to make a full house. Each one wants to feel my ankles and tell me to drink more water. I considered contacting Aquaman for a consultation, but Jason Momoa thwarted that plan when he took out the restraining order.

I don’t mind the clothes adventures as much as the comments from passers by when we go out. Here in the South, we have a saying, Bless Your Heart, that means everything from “I’m sorry to hear about your mama,” to  “dumb as a sack of hammers.” I’ve been blessed enough times in the past year to earn me the favored spot in grandaddy’s toolbox.

Getting ready for a doctor’s appointment, I allow an extra 4-6 weeks to allow for searching for clothes that have got lost in the laundry or have been donated to charity due to unfortunate bleach or spaghetti sauce incidents.

The following interaction may or may not be true:

Bill: “How about these pants?”

Fashion Victim: “They’re yours.”

Bill: “That’s good. Everything goes with khaki.”

FV: “And they’ve got those handy cargo pockets to hide problem thighs.”

I won’t go into the difference between navy and black (there is none) or socks that match (they don’t) and have sacrificed all claim to jewelry that can’t be clamped on or stuck on with adhesive. Two-sided tape is no longer a luxury.

Shopping online, I purchased a navy and white striped top that could be worn with any of the ten pairs of navy blue pants hanging in my closet at any given time. Last Tuesday I sallied forth to the doctor in a black and tan shirt, blue pants, and school bus yellow socks festooned with pictures of racoons.

The receptionist smiled sweetly and spoke.

“Bless your heart.”

That’s it. No more doctor trips for me. But when you call for Emergency Responders, tell them to bring extra socks.