Month: November 2018

No more cycling for me

I donated my bicycle today, and while I’m happy some lucky person will get a fantastic bargain, I have mixed emotions about age, risk and loss.

Actually, I was never big into cycling. But I had a run at it when we lived in Texas, as our house was just off a paved, car-free bicycle trail. I bought a beautiful road bike, akin to an entry-level racing bike. Smooth as butter after a little breaking in period.

About the breaking in. The bicycle came with clip-in pedals. I bought special shoes that clip in and out, and the shop clerk showed me how to use them. On the very first day I took the bike home, I went for a ride and practiced clipping in and out while I rode merrily down the street. Easy!

When I arrived at a small park, it was time to practice getting off the bike. I unclipped on one side and completely forgot about the other side, toppling over and falling hard on my wrist.

I managed to get home with my wrist propped up and my feet on the pedals (but not clipped in). My husband took me to an urgent care clinic. They did x-rays and said I had low bone density, which I already knew. Nothing was broken. The wrist hurt like hell for a week and turned me into a raging maniac. At the urging of a coworker, I went back to my regular doctor, and this time they confirmed the wrist was indeed broken. The cast was like magic balm.

After my wrist healed, I replaced the pedals with the regular kind and continued to ride moderate distances … nothing too long … mainly because even with padded shorts and an ergonomic seat, riding a bike can be a real pain in the crotch.

All that to say it was fun, but I was not all in. When we first moved to California, I rode a couple of times on a car-free trail but was too busy with work to do much more than that. Plus, my default exercises are golf and walking, both of which are better for bone density anyway.

About a year ago, I retired. Why, now I had time to do anything! I kept thinking about going out for a ride and talking about going out for a ride, but the bike sat in the garage untouched.

I’ve gone back and forth but finally decided to part with the bike. While it’s true I enjoy other activities more, the real reason is I’m afraid of falling. I got away with a broken wrist last time, but next time I may not be so lucky. My long-term plan to stay healthy and active depends on remaining fracture-free.

On one hand, I’m happy to have made the decision. One less bulky item in the garage. One less thing to distract me from my true interests. But another part of me feels sad to eliminate an activity that is safe and routine for many. Most people don’t fall. But then again, most of us don’t bounce like we used to.

Am I being too careful? Old before I’m old?

Maybe, but the fear of falling is already etched in my brain, and I’ve read thinking you’ll fall is a sure recipe for falling. I concluded riding a bicycle is just not worth the risk. It seems like such a small loss, given the other indignities of aging, but I hate being reminded my body has limits.

I can only imagine what it will feel like when it’s time to turn in the car keys.

Playing in the rain

When I was 14, my friend, Susie, invited a few of us for a sleepover on Friday night. Her backyard was an avocado grove that sloped to a drainage ditch we called the La Branca. It had rained heavily that evening, so the next day we took Styrofoam boogie boards and rode them down into the ditch, where we happily paddled downstream.

Of course, it was dangerous. I can hardly believe I did it, and now I envision being sucked into the sewer or wherever that little ditch goes. My mother was horrified. I remember her telling my dad, “Donna played in a ditch Saturday morning.”

In recent years, I’ve been pretty tame. I avoid bad weather and hunker down inside. Until today.

We have a regular Tuesday golf group and most canceled because of anticipated rain. I was the first one to arrive at the golf course, and it was deserted. I approached the clerk and said I was going to brave it and see if I could play 18, but I could always get a rain check, right? He said they don’t do rain checks. I did not get mean or swear, but I did say that was a ridiculous racket.

He got nice after that and said we could go whenever the rest of the group arrived. No need to wait for our tee times. This was about 9:30 a.m., and my tee time was 10:04. It was sprinkling off and on, but the big rain was expected around 12:30 p.m. I putted a little bit and checked my emails. Two more had canceled. I thought, I could wait around another 30 minutes and be the only one here. I’m going for it.

I asked the guy in the shop if I could go out alone, and he said sure, he’d tell anyone in my group who showed up I got an early start to try and beat the rain. Rain, you can’t stop me! I was dressed in multiple layers with a rain jacket over it all. And a good hat.

Not that golf is dangerous in the rain unless there’s lightening, but it’s kind of a mess. I’ve been sort of a fair weather golfer lately, but I was ready to begin the adventure. I usually walk, and I considered taking a cart, but I figured wet is wet. A cart won’t save me, and my pull cart has an umbrella.

It was so much fun. I had the course to myself, and I felt like a kid again. It did get pretty wet out there, but I managed to walk 18 holes in three hours … before the big deluge. As I walked up to the golf shop, I saw the rest of the group. Just three brave souls. They quit at the turn, where they were happy to see the club house, and we decided gather inside for a bite to eat.

And that was my only mistake. Sitting there for an hour in wet clothes gave me a chill. On the way home, I put the car heater on high and heated up my seat, too. I really didn’t warm up until I got home and took off those wet clothes. My golf junk is soaked and drying out in the garage.

But it was fun! If I weren’t retired, I might have felt ripped off, but I have plenty of time, and I like to stay active. That said, as I’ve gotten older, I’m pickier about enjoying the outdoors in less than ideal conditions.

I’ve come to think whatever your sport, whatever your weather, if you’re properly dressed, a little nastiness won’t hurt you. What do you think? Ride it out inside or go for it? For me, it was just plain fun, and in the future, I will be more open to getting outside when it’s wet.

But super cold weather? Let’s sit by the fire and talk about that for awhile.

Brined and spatchcocked

Yes, it’s Thanksgiving, and that’s a newspaper cooking in the oven. Well, drying out. We finally got rain, and a big fat newspaper plump with Black Friday ads arrived on our driveway this morning in a leaky plastic bag.

I used my blow dryer for one section, while Dale opted for the oven at 250 degrees. Dale, otherwise known as Mr. Wizard, says the ignition point of paper is 500 degrees, so we should all be safe. If you should get a wet newspaper, our test revealed the oven is faster.

Oh, and please do not put the newspaper in the microwave! Dale set fire to our microwave one year drying out a wet newspaper, and we believe it’s because there’s metal in the ink. At this point, I may as well tell you there’s a history of Dale and fire.

Dale believes the cat prefers his food at mouse temperature. Dale’s ritual is to take a shower at the end of the day and feed the cat afterward. There was a time when he would set the cooktop burner on low and heat the can for a few minutes just prior to his shower. He’d turn off the heat and then go take his shower while the cat waited impatiently meowing outside the shower door. Once dried and dressed, Dale would return to the kitchen accompanied by a hungry cat and received by perfect mouse-temperature cat food.

Except one time he forgot to turn off the burner. Nothing was on fire when he returned to the kitchen, but it set off the smoke alarm, and the odor of burnt cat food jumped the kitchen and spread viciously throughout the house. Dale opened the windows and turned all fans to high in a feeble attempt to air the place out.

Meanwhile, I’m coming home from work, and I pull into our street only to find a firetruck outside the house and the distinctive odor of burnt cat food oozing its way to the driveway. Fire fighters had arrived and started asking questions. Dale explained he burned the cat’s food heating it to mouse temperature. The fireman said, “Sir, do you mind if we take a look around?” As in, are you fucking nuts?

The house was declared not on fire, but since then, no actual burners are involved in the heating of cat food. He trained our new cat in the shower ritual, but now Dale removes the can from the fridge before taking his shower … just to take the chill off. At serving time, he adds a tablespoon of hot water, which makes for nice gravy anyway. The cat certainly seems to be happy.

Another problem solved.

It’s turkey day, and Dale is in charge of the bird. I don’t recall any fires involving turkey, although we have had incendiary discussions about the best way to cook it. He is a die-hard fan of brining, and this year I made the mistake of sending him a New York Times article about brining being out of fashion. And then just to rub salt in the wound, I told him about my friend, Carole, who spatchcocks her turkey.

Dale, aka Mr. Wizard, said spatchcocking is just a fancy word for butterflying, and there’s nothing new there (other than the possibility of it being golden brown, crispy and delicious). He doesn’t care. He already has a process. And he’s right – I love his brined turkey – but I am also open to new experiences and even mentioned Carole makes her stuffing in a bundt pan. She sent me a picture.

Mr. Wizard said it looked good, for dressing. He said it’s not stuffing if it isn’t stuffed inside the bird. Whatever. After 40 years, I’m used to this. I’ll be making an apple crostata for dessert, along with standard side dishes. I’ve made every kind of pie crust known to mankind over the years, and I’m going back to the first cookbook we ever owned, a recipe that uses Crisco – not butter.

Dale doesn’t challenge my dessert and side dish decisions, so I’ve backed off on the turkey. Besides, we sort of got a new experience at breakfast. Fresh newspaper, brined and spatchcocked.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Retirement side hustle

I’m an avid golfer, usually playing two or three days a week. I sometimes play well, and sometimes I suck. That’s the way golf go.

However, I’ve been taking lessons (sadly, not the first, second or third time) and have seen marked improvement. Something clicked. My teacher gave me a free lesson when his other student canceled, and toward the end of the freebie, he mentioned he was writing a book. I’m grateful to him for helping me with my game, so I said if you need someone to edit a draft, I’d be happy to. Editing is a large part of what I did for a living.

He said yes and offered to pay me, but I said, no, consider this an act of kindness. Also, there’s less pressure on me if you don’t like my changes – not like you got ripped off! It’s a fabulous book, but it needed lots of editing. Some writers have solid concepts but don’t know the first thing about punctuation or how to be consistent with capitalization and other style/formatting issues.

I enjoyed editing his book and have been wondering if that’s what I should do for my retirement side hustle. Editing can be aggravating … so much to fix and so hard to catch everything. I must have gone through it three times and still found stuff I missed. In the end, I’m proud of the work I did, but I’m not sure I would do it again. Not a 175-page book anyway.

Today’s golf got rained out – just as I played one of my best front nine holes in ages. My teacher was in the clubhouse, so we met briefly to discuss the edits. The track changes feature in Word was driving him nuts, as it often does if you aren’t used to it. I schooled him a bit on that. For the most part, he’s on board with my edits, although like many corporate executives I used to support, he loves capitalizing anything he thinks is important. I called it visual clutter, and he looked sad.

Which reminds me – The New York Times featured an editorial on Trump’s communiqué about the Saudi mess, and they wrote, “The president made clear his commitment to the use of the exclamation point, if not to truth and justice.” I texted it to my friend from work who also cares about grammarly matters. We used to joke if someone pissed us off, we would deny them the exclamation point at the end of an email. The one that says:

Thanks!

You misbehave, and all you get is thanks. Period. The power of punctuation.

We had another pet peeve about names. It’s polite to start an email with the person’s name, whether you add hi, hello, dear or whatever. But use their name. We worked closely with someone who never used your name, ever. Just jumped right into whatever she wanted, and it came across as a giant bark.

But I digress. As for retirement side hustles, I could see taking on smaller editing jobs. Although I will not be penning the great American novel, I do know how to write and edit, which I don’t think robots have figured out just yet. I also like the way this opportunity emerged out of something I was doing anyway. That seems like a good way to find your retirement side hustle.

I’m going to let this one simmer for awhile. As you know, I’m kind of busy having fun. I’ll have to figure out if I can do both.

My coconut year (and the results)

I’ve written about my love of coconut and have incorporated it into my diet – mostly in the form of unsweetened coconut and coconut oil in my homemade granola and Indian soups and stews with full-fat coconut milk. These foods have been a staple of my diet for about a year now.

Although I don’t have a scientific process for examining cause and effect, in that year my cholesterol went up where it should have gone down and down where it should have gone up. My doctor said if it were anyone else, she wouldn’t even comment.

But it is not anyone else, it’s me, and she knows I take this stuff seriously.  She gets that I’m annoyed. I explained the details of my coconut year, and she agreed cutting back would probably bring my numbers back to where I want them. I hadn’t realized coconut was so high in saturated fat. Like 85 percent! Yikes.

Because it would be too simple to blame it on the coconut, during that year I also stopped taking a daily fish oil supplement. That scoundrel Jane Brody of the New York Times reported there doesn’t seem to be evidence fish oil supplements do anything but generate expensive urine. I’m all about cheap pee, so I stopped taking the pills.

As soon as I got my metabolic panel results – back to fish oil for me. The doctor agreed it was a prudent move.

Yogurt is another possible culprit, although I suspect not. I make my own yogurt using whole milk and eat a serving with breakfast nearly every day. Although I haven’t gained weight, one could argue the fat contributes to my cholesterol. I’ve been eating whole milk cheese for years, and my cholesterol was fine.

Nothing I’ve read puts a target on whole milk yogurt. But just for the sport of it, I made a batch of 2 percent, and it’s delicious. The texture is the same although perhaps slightly tarter. I definitely liked the 2 percent better for raita – grated cucumbers in yogurt to accompany spicy curry. For the sake of science, I’ll keep making 2 percent.

She was pleased with my blood sugar, which has remained stable with no medication or treatment. I am pre-diabetic, a condition I attribute to my origins at the bottom of the gene pool. I mean, really? I did not know a thin, active person could be at risk, but there you have it. I’m careful about carbs and sugar, and it appears to be working.

The visit went well, although I had a long list of stuff to go over, and they said I only had a 20-minute appointment. I didn’t know there was such a thing. Apparently, you have to request 40 minutes, and I will do that next time. I admit to being a wee bit manipulative, but we got through my list.

I don’t like my oncologist, and I got a referral to a female oncologist who also specializes in genetic research. I had ovarian and breast cancer and am BRCA1-positive. The other oncologist, a man, was surprised I did not have reconstruction and seemed squeamish about looking at my flat chest. I’m hoping the female doctor will have a better grip on reality.

The other big issue was my vertigo. The doctor agreed vertigo sucks and is referring me to vestibular rehabilitation therapy – some sort of physical therapy for inner ear disorders. I’m looking forward to it!

As I was leaving, she said, “You aren’t exercising outside with this air quality are you?” We’ve experienced days of dreaded red status – unhealthy for anyone – as a result of the fires more than 100 miles away. I said I was planning to play golf the next day, and she said, “Please don’t. This is bad stuff. You work too hard to be healthy to let this get you.”

For once, I listened. I canceled my tee time and am not doing much of anything outside until the air quality improves. In the meantime, I’m not eliminating anything from my diet – including yummy coconut – but I am going to be more careful and lean Mediterranean.

I previously shared my recipe for coconut granola, which I still love, but I’m updating here with olive oil and seeds instead of coconut. I made it yesterday, and it’s delicious.

Donna’s Low-Sugar Granola 

1 ½ cups old-fashioned rolled oats

1 cup mixed raw seeds (hemp, sunflower, sesame, etc.)

1 cup mixed raw nuts, coarsely chopped (cashews, pecans, almonds, walnuts, etc.)

1 tablespoon brown sugar

¼ teaspoon sea salt

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1 egg white, lightly whisked

1/4 cup olive oil

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Line a ½ sheet pan with parchment.

Mix dry ingredients together and add liquids. Taste and add more salt if needed.

Spread mixture in the sheet pan and cook for 20 minutes – stir gently and turn pan half-way through cooking time. It should be golden brown but not too dark – it may need 3-5 minutes more cooking time. Let cool and store in airtight container.

Fragrance, taste and healing

Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley Bethesda again. That’s where my employer was headquartered, so we in the hinterlands often made the pilgrimage to Maryland for training, business meetings and other events.

In my dream, the weather turned bad, and everyone was holed up in the office. The big wheels were secluded in a conference room on the top floor, but I had superpowers and could hear their thoughts, which were actually quite simple.

Look at me. I’m a captain of industry. Riding out the storm at the office, my favorite place. I like it here. I feel comfortable here. I’m important.

In the dream, I could feel their pride coupled with a false sense of sacrifice. Like woe is me, such a burden, even though riding it out at the office with their comrades was exactly what they lived for.

Waking up, I felt grateful to be retired. Although I was ambitious and had a great career, every job disappointed me in the end. Dale and I were talking about winning the lottery, and I said, I don’t care. I mean, yes, more money would be great, but I have what I need. Life is good.

In choosing to jump ship, a lot of my decisions were driven by dinner (as they still are). I just couldn’t get excited about working longer and longer hours so I could come home to a bowl of cold cereal. My goal was to slow down, smell the roses, eat fabulous food and enjoy my time on the planet free from workplace drama.

Although I’m not one of those retire-at-35 people, retiring at 62 was a significant accomplishment. My life now is about reading, writing, playing outside and cooking. Outings with Dale to museums, wineries and such. The occasional road trip.

Today we’re hanging out inside. Smoke from the Northern California fires has blown our way, and unlike captains of industry, we are riding out the air quality at home, my favorite place, where fragrance, taste and healing are priorities.

Dale made a fresh batch of Mexican chorizo, which is a loose pork sausage, heavily spiced but not smoked. This morning for breakfast he browned some in a frying pan and then scrambled it with eggs. Homemade salsa verde to go with.

I started to defrost soup for lunch but then remembered an avocado on its last legs. I sliced it, garnished with fresh walnuts and drizzled a bit of olive oil on top. A sprinkle of sea salt and cracked black pepper. It was so simple and delicious.

Dinner is pan-seared scallops. Dale is in charge of the scallops, while I will cook sides of sautéed Swiss Chard and yellow rice. The rice is based on a Cuban recipe, but I’ve tweaked it a bit. Dale likes chard, but for some reason, he usually resists. I guess because it’s not a potato. But he knew I was pissed about cleaning the house this morning while he did pretty much nothing. All I had to say was how about chard, and he’s like, oh yum, OK!

Saffron, rich with fragrance and taste and revered for its healing powers, is one of the world’s most expensive spices at $3,000 to $9,000 per pound, but you’ll be spending between $5.00 and $7.00 per gram. A little goes a long way.

Instant Pot Yellow Rice

1 cup Basmati rice, rinsed

1 ½ cups chicken stock

A tablespoon or two of butter

A big pinch of saffron

A pinch of Kosher salt

Put everything in the Instant Pot, lock the lid and make sure the pressure valve is closed. Select the rice setting. It should take about 15 minutes. When the cooking is complete, let it sit until everything else is ready and then release the pressure.

Phat cat

I thought I was pretty good with words, but it turns out I haven’t kept up with the times. I sent this picture of our cat, Riley, lounging on his cardboard kitty couch to my sister-in-law, who texted back:

Is he laying on that couch? That’s a phat cat.

Nooooo. That’s just fur. Not fat!

I meant phat cat lounging on his couch by the fire with no cares, being catered to.

Oh.

Dale said I need to get with it. “I guess your golf buddies aren’t exactly up on the latest slang.”

At least we both agree Riley is a keeper (although Dale makes jokes about the unfortunate coloring at the base of his tail). I was reading about the fires in California – close enough to tamper with our air quality but far enough away to feel some sense of security – and a guy was frantically looking for his cat. He said he’d trade his house for the cat, and that’s the way I would feel. Loving a pet is life affirming.

I’m feeling like a phat cat since my vertigo went away. For those who are unfamiliar with vertigo, it’s not like the movie. For the type I get, crystals in the ears get jumbled around, causing nausea, vomiting and dizziness. Although I only throw up for a day, the other effects linger for about a week. I’ve had cancer twice, but I’d rank vertigo close to the top of the pestilence poster.

The doctor gave me exercises (Epley Maneuver) that are supposed to put the crystals back where they belong. The exercises work, but the dizziness often comes back at night when I sleep. Some studies say it doesn’t matter how you sleep, but others suggest you sleep at a 45-degree angle for two nights after doing the exercises. All I know is in my case, it kept coming back.

I couldn’t find a comfortable way to sleep at a 45-degree angle, so I went to a store that sells all matter of stuff for people with back problems who want to sleep. The rep was quite familiar with vertigo, and $300 later, I had a pillow system to keep me propped up. A wedge for my head, a wedge for my knees and a neck pillow. The first night was a bit uncomfortable, but the second night was fine.

The third night was great, because my vertigo was gone! It’s amazing how fabulous I feel. I was reluctant to spend the $300, but if it works, it’s totally worth it. I’ve had three vertigo episodes this year.

Now that I’m feeling phat, I’m excited about the cooler weather and new opportunities to play outside. I like sports, and I had kind of an epiphany this week about knowing my limitations. I had a golf lesson, and my coach wanted me to adopt a much more aggressive swing. We practiced it, but I hated the feeling, and I was scared being too aggressive would mess me up. There’s some history.

In the not-my-fault category, I’ve had two major abdominal surgeries, a mastectomy and frozen shoulder following the mastectomy. Frozen shoulder lasted a year. For self-induced trauma, I fell off a bike and broke my wrist. I also injured my hip flexors and trashed my knees racewalking competitively. My knees hurt for five years.

I’m healthy, my body parts are feeling good and I’d like to keep it that way so I can enjoy a long and active retirement. Isn’t that what we all want? If it means I don’t hit the ball as far, so be it. I’ll just have to improve the rest of my game. I have time.

Taking big bites

My last post was largely about food, and I bit off more than I can chew. I was loving the idea of going through old cookbooks and magazines and somehow reinventing recipes to share on the blog from time to time.

I started with an old Gourmet magazine, November 1990, and I was blown away by the complexity of the recipes and obscure ingredients. We make a few complicated dishes, but we’ve simplified our cooking and eating over the years. Back in the day, Dale and I used to joke about recipes that started with, “Have your fishmonger …”

The guy at Safeway is as close to a fishmonger as we ever got.

There’s a section of the magazine called, “You Asked for It.” People write in about some specific thing they ate in their travels, and could Gourmet possibly get the recipe? I read this one out loud to Dale:

At the wonderful Hotel Romazzino on Sardinia’s shimmering Costa Smeralda, we had a dish of baked noodles and lobster, covered with pastry, that was almost too good to believe. Was it a dream, Gourmet, or can the recipe be obtained?

We had a good laugh over that one.

Still, the same magazine features Pumpkin Cheesecake with Bourbon Sour Cream Topping, and I have actually made that. Twice! Thinking about making it this year for Thanksgiving.

I’m not dissing the magazine. It gave us many years of pleasure, and I’m still excited to dig in and rediscover nuggets from the past. It’s a good retirement hobby for me, but I doubt I’ll make enough changes to call them my own. I will be lucky to call them edible.

Have no fear. I’ll continue to write about food in some form or fashion because it’s practically all I think about, and it’s important to enjoying life, especially in retirement. But even if a fellow retiree is inclined to cook fancy food, I hardly think they will be stopping by to get tips from me. There are too many great resources already out there.

At first, I felt embarrassed to have presented this grand idea before thinking it through more carefully. But then I thought, that’s what Retirement Confidential is all about – sharing true stories about retirement ups and downs in real time.

My progress on getting over the need to accomplish something was also a wee bit overstated. I mean, it has been less than two weeks since I decided to focus on the little things that make me happy. Although cooking makes me happy, in hindsight, reinventing 40 years of recipes sounds a wee bit driven to me.

As for retirement pursuits, it’s kind of like being a kid trying all the sports until you find one you actually like and are good at. Sometimes you have to take big bites. Go ahead, do it!

Political Postscript

In other news, I’m pleased Democrats took the House. I’m fine with Republicans having a majority in the Senate. In my opinion, democracy is stronger when power is distributed. The stock market seemed to agree, and that’s usually a positive thing for retirees. Overall, I know there is more drama to come, but I feel more hopeful about the future of our country.

Representing team live-to-eat

It has only been a week since I wrote about the nagging feeling that I’m supposed to be accomplishing something in retirement. I vowed to do what feels good and see what happens. I think it’s working!

I made a list of my favorite things:

  • Reading
  • Writing
  • Golf
  • Walking
  • Cooking

I can sort of feel the drive slipping away and am grateful I have the option of retirement. Why not just focus on what makes me happy? Sure, there are work-related activities that give me pleasure and satisfaction, but I must say it feels pretty good to wake up and not worry about what I’m going to achieve in life. Such a heavy load.

My happy list includes cooking, because we love to eat, and we hate eating bad or mediocre food, and we hate spending money on bad or mediocre food. We are both excellent home cooks and have been obsessed with food since our first date. As I started to think more about the role of food in our lives, I added up the cookbooks and food-related publications we’ve collected over 40 years.

I counted 193 books, 14 years of Gourmet magazines, five notebooks of clipped recipes and stacks of miscellaneous publications, including Cook’s Illustrated and Chile Pepper magazines. The bookcase photographed above is just outside the kitchen, but there’s an annex in the guest bedroom upstairs. Oh, and we converted a downstairs bedroom into a walk-in pantry for a second refrigerator and cooking supplies. One of our neighbors said it looked like Williams Sonoma.

As I get older, I’m concerned about using the things we have or getting rid of them. My sister and I both started wearing old jewelry for no good reason other than you can’t take it with you. If you love it, use it, wear it. Same with good china, crystal, special serving pieces. Use them! I’m starting to feel the same way about all these recipes.

Although I love to read cookbooks just for sport, I know there’s a treasure trove of great recipes dating back to the 70s, 80s and 90s. I want to dust them off and see what has been hiding in plain sight. I believe I would find that fulfilling. We enjoy spicy food, so I’m pretty sure we’ll have to jazz up some of these recipes to suit our current tastes. It just sounds like fun to me.

I’ve been reading up on copyright and how to feature the books on my blog and publish recipes – no illusions about being a food blogger – but I definitely want to share the nuggets and write more about how food and cooking enhances retirement lifestyle. Even if you are among those who just view food as fuel, you have to eat. Eat well!

So, there you have it. I’ll continue to file these articles under Food & Drink until I come up with something better. Even that is progress for me – the old Donna would have waited until everything was perfect and perfectly packaged. I’m evolving! I even gave ugly (but delicious) cupcakes to my neighbor. I think about the tantrum I might have thrown 20 years ago over making ugly cupcakes and am grateful to say it’s easier being me these days.

Which team are you on? Eat-to-live or live-to-eat?

The frugal reader

I’ve been down with another nasty bout of vertigo, but since I was already horizontal, I finished a book that was close to overdue, and it reminded me how much I love the library.

Although my parents were not well-educated, they strongly encouraged us to read – anything and everything. Dad was a big reader, and he kept a little shelf of salacious material in the bathroom, where he spent much of his time. But that’s another story.

My sister and I were always in the summer book clubs and walked to the library on warm summer days. Sometimes we cheated and took a shortcut over the railroad tracks. I’m sorry, Mom.

Dad once told us we were related to the Raja of Tahumbaktu. We spent hours researching and even got the librarian to help. We came up with nothing. I believe we used a pay phone to call him and ask how to spell Tahumbaktu, and all I can remember is the sound of him laughing his ass off. He made it up as a way to get us out of the house.

In high school, I won awards for my speech on legalizing prostitution, and my mother had to come with me to the library so I could access books needed for my research. She was happy to do it, although she was not much of a reader, other than true crime magazines. We were never allowed to go to Tom Sawyer’s Island at Disneyland, because according to Mom, a girl got raped there.

In retirement, I’ve become more frugal, and the library is a great way to save money and avoid the stockpiling of books. It’s an easy walk to my local branch! I take a small backpack for my books, and I feel sort of like Tom Sawyer embarking on an adventure. Or maybe Becky Thatcher? Although I read the books, I’ve imagined a lot of it, because sadly, I couldn’t get to the island.

We live in El Dorado County, so I immediately signed up for a library card at the branch down the street. Later, I discovered Sacramento County has a bigger system and Folsom, the next town over, has a separate system completely. By signing up for a Folsom library card, I now have access to everything in my county of residence, as well as Folsom and most everything in Sacramento County.

Although I sometimes show up and get lucky, I usually do my browsing online. I keep several tabs open. One for Amazon and one for each library. I’ve also bookmarked a couple of sites that review books in my favorite genre, and that’s a great way to find lesser known writers. For ideas, I like Left Coast Crime and Edgar award winners. Usually I go to Amazon for the full write-up.

When I find something I’m interested in reading, I place a hold on it through one of my online library accounts. If one library doesn’t have it, the other one usually does. I’m currently #23 for the new Michael Connelly mystery featuring my all-time favorite detective, Harry Bosch.

I’ll read just about anything, including cereal boxes, but I favor hard-boiled mysteries and historical fiction about the Old West. Some of the authors I like are not widely read, so I will often have to jostle back and forth between the libraries to find it in the system. Occasionally I will break down a buy a book, usually for my Kindle, and usually for travel. Sometimes a hard copy cookbook.

Finally, I keep a little journal with books I want to read. Mine is messy and includes other lists, because I am a demonic list maker. If it’s a series, I list all the books of the series in order and try to read them in order. Not because I am crazy but because I like to see how the characters evolve over time.

Any other good frugal reading tips out there?