Category: Simple Pleasures

Time calibration

I never thought I’d say this about retirement, but in some ways, time is harder to manage than money.

In the cosmic sense, you think, how much time do I have left on the planet? Another 20 years? Is this how I want to spend it? For the most part, I’d say yes, but then I wonder what I might be missing.

Mostly I avoid thinking about the cosmos as it applies to me. I have a good life and try to enjoy the time that has been given. Still, I’m wondering if I need a time calibration on the simple pleasures of day-to-day life.

I mean, I’ll get up early for golf if I have to, but that’s about it. I’m a fan of the slow start, which means a leisurely breakfast and a slew of puzzles from the New York Times. By the way, I’m loving the new game, Strands.

Then there are chores, exercise, reading, writing, streaming shows, travel, art and the art of food – browsing recipes, shopping for ingredients, preparing meals and enjoying the results! I’m sure the young and busy with their families and jobs and all that are thinking, oh, wah, how hard can it be?

Well, true, it’s not that it’s hard. It’s just that we older folks know the clock is ticking, and it goes back to that cosmic thing. Could I be doing this differently? The big thing for me is setting aside more time to write. Not only for blog posts but also because writers write. It helps me think.

I’ve been reading a lot, but I’d like to try more challenging material. I saw a paperback of All Quiet on the Western Front in our stash, and I barely remember it from high school. And other than one class in college, I’ve never taken to Shakespeare, although it might be time. I’ll need to be upright for that.

Snuggly reading under the covers is better suited for a good who-done-it.

Now that I think about it, I’m doing OK, but maybe a little less golf and a little more in the way of intellectual pursuits. Not that golf doesn’t fry your brain – just in a different way. Anyway, as I was thinking about how I live and spend my time as I age, I started a random list of questions I should probably work through. See what you think.

  • How much sleep is too much sleep? Do you have to stop at 10?
  • Why is everything better with butter?
  • Amazon or Spotify? Do I care what Neil Young thinks?
  • What counts as one glass of wine?
  • Acorn or BritBox?
  • Is it Friday or was that yesterday?
  • If you get up to pee three times in a night, does an angel get its wings?
  • What’s so bad about a gluten-rich diet?
  • Why is it always about the knees?
  • If I can gain five pounds in a week, why can’t I lose five pounds in a week?
  • How many Law & Order reruns can I watch? Am I wrong to love Lenny?
  • Kale. OK, but why?
  • Peeps. Crap candy or nature’s miracle?

There are more, but we’ll stop here so you can get back to the important things you were doing with your time.

On dying happy

Maybe you don’t know this, and I hope you have no reason to, but mastectomies can leave you looking rather mangled. In my case, I went for the aesthetic flat closure instead of reconstruction. No regrets, because either way, you will not look the same. Why do they call it aesthetic when it’s anything but?

Because lumpy was already taken.

Actually, I rather like my lumpy flat closure and find it freeing to be done with bras and all that. Still, I have a mess o’ scars, and my armpits ended up sort of puffy. Late last year, they seemed puffier than normal, so I thought it would be prudent to have them checked out.

As I was sharing my observations with the doctor, I said the whole thing could be my imagination. I can stare into the mirror and easily see signs of imminent death. She said you don’t have to explain yourself to me. You’ve had some bad stuff happen. It changes you.

I know you cancer survivors get it. The slightest thing can take the wind out of your sails. So, I’ve been a little worried about it. However, I am pleased to report both sides have been thoroughly evaluated, and it appears I have a simple case of puffy pits. I’m assuming it’s related to bulging belly and flabby ass.

The good news is I dodged the bullet yet again. I always say I’m one of the luckiest unlucky people I know!

But, jeez, you hear things. A friend’s husband stood up, got dizzy and fell, which resulted in a traumatic brain injury. She said he is recovering fully, although it’s a long haul. They have a new appreciation for the simple pleasures of life.

Another friend of mine was playing golf with her partner, and he had a heart attack and died. Boom, just like that. She said, well, he died doing something he loved.

Hmmm. I don’t know. Does that make it better? Maybe. Just maybe.

I was vacuuming the stairs last week and almost took a tumble. Perhaps they would say, well, she was cleaning the house. She died doing something she hated. That does sort of suck.

And so I try to make peace with the fact that death will come for us all, but I do hope it’s later rather than sooner. I’m definitely in the die happy camp and humbly suggest the trick is to stack the deck and live happy. Do more and more of the things you love and less and less of the things you hate. Relish the simple pleasures.

I’ve said it before. Dust ages well undisturbed.  

A happy retirement Monday

Just another happy retirement Monday. It’s lovely outside now, but we should see rain later. I like it better when it rains at night. However, I also like when it gets dark and spooky during the middle of the day. Life is easier when we make peace with the weather, whatever it is.

My back and knees and other miscellaneous body parts are in harmony. I have a good book (The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles). I’m swimming and walking and will be playing golf this week. And today I’m cooking one of my favorite dishes. Moussaka. It is an all-day affair, which reinforces the joy of not working and having the time to make delicious food.

The recipe I use is from David Rosengarten. Some of you may remember him. He was on the Food Network when they first started up. He had a show with Donna Hanover, one of Giuliani’s exes. Kind of a shame, because she seemed better than that. Although he seemed better in those days, too, didn’t he?

Anyway, sometimes you see David these days as a judge on Iron Chef America. We have his cookbook, Taste. Among our other favorites from the book are Singapore Crab and Spaghetti Carbonara.

I love eggplant in all forms. In Egypt, we used to get these little skinny white ones, which were fantastic. This recipe makes a big-assed pan of Moussaka, so it calls for four eggplants. I’ve tried cutting the recipe in half, but it doesn’t work as well for me. Fortunately, it makes great freezer food.

While I’ve seen many variations of Moussaka, with this one you roast the eggplant first and then brown slices on the cooktop. You make tasty tomato sauce and brown ground lamb with onions and garlic. Then all that is mixed up and simmered for an hour.

A lot like lasagna, the dish is layered with fresh breadcrumbs, the lamb mixture, cheese and béchamel sauce. The recipe calls for a Greek cheese I can’t find, but I follow David’s recommendation and substitute Pecorino Romano.

I like to get everything going early and have it all done up and ready to go in the oven by happy hour. There’s some white wine in the lamb mixture, but I’m thinking this is more of a red wine thing. As the house Silmarillion, I’ll have to make a decision.

But such a decision is a pleasure. I didn’t have to put anyone on a Performance Improvement Plan. I didn’t have to fire anyone. I didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn and drive to work. No crazy executive called to make unreasonable demands. Retirement is good.

Oh, and a pro tip for you female cooks out there. Wrap your apron tie around the back and then bring it to the front for a final knot. If you should so happen to leave the apron strings dangling down the back, it’s entirely possible you might forget they are there if you should have to pee, and it could get messy. Not that I have any personal experience in such matters, but I’ve heard things.

Retirement math

Last year was my fifth year of retirement, and I’m pleased to report I’m getting better at accomplishing very little. In 2023, I read a lot of crime fiction, wrote a bunch of blog posts, took a few road trips, watched a couple dozen shows on TV, walked, stretched, swam, cooked and ate delicious food. Dabbled at art.

I’d say it was a fine year. As a recovering over-achiever, it feels good to enjoy simple pleasures and chill. I don’t really like to keep count, as my last job was all about metrics gone wild. That said, you may be interested to learn I also enjoyed 21 blissful hours of full-body massage and about 100 rounds of golf.

Now for a “deep dive” into retirement math.

At an average of 4.5 hours per round, that’s 450 hours of golf. If one assumes a 40-hour work week, 450 hours converts to 11.25 weeks of golf, and that is the equivalent of playing golf for more than two months of the year!

My massages added up to $1,960. However, I don’t dye my hair, so let’s deduct $125 per month from massage expenditures. That leaves us at $460, which a working person such as myself might have spent on makeup, shoes, dry cleaning or even Botox. So, let’s just wipe the slate clean and accept that in retirement math, my massages are free.

There might be something to metrics after all. Seriously, I don’t think I’m playing enough golf.

Living gently

The reluctant travelers have returned from a two-night stay in Morro Bay, a casual beach town in San Luis Obispo County. We mainly go to smell the ocean and eat seafood. Mission accomplished.

Even though we had a lovely trip, it’s good to be home. Everyone has to find their own retirement rhythm, and my hat’s off to those who are taking this time to see the world, but I can’t imagine being gone for weeks at a time. We enjoy our cozy lifestyle and couldn’t wait to get back in the kitchen. Other than the golf course, I don’t want to go anywhere for a while.

Dale made pizza last night. I’m making bison curry in the Instant Pot tonight. I already made naan in the pizza oven and will just have to heat them up. So delicious! Dale has some beautiful jalapeño peppers from his small garden, so he’s going to make beer batter-fried jalapeños stuffed with cheddar cheese. We’ll have that as an appetizer.

To celebrate our return home, I ordered the pasta attachment for the KitchenAid mixer. I’ve been using a hand-crank pasta machine, and while it works fine, I want to be able to use both hands to guide the pasta.

It should arrive later today, and that means homemade pasta tomorrow! Our basil is looking gorgeous, so I believe it will be pesto.

I also have some homemade lobster stock thawing in the refrigerator. I’ll use that to make miso seafood chowder later this week … probably Tuesday. Monday’s a golf day, so  I can start a no-knead loaf of bread in the evening when I get back from a hard day of sport and bake it the next morning. I prefer bread over oyster crackers.

Certainly, there are more important things in the world than what I’m eating, but for sanity’s sake, I am learning to disengage from politics and global trauma. For lack of a better term, I think of it as living gently. For now, anyway, I’m happy and grateful to enjoy the simple pleasures that define my retirement – golf, cooking, art, walking, swimming, reading and writing.

Camping? Maybe.

The weather has been beautiful, and I’ve been taking full advantage. No job and plenty of time to play! Between golf, walking and swimming, it’s hard to make room for my indoors stuff such as reading, cooking and art. Just so you know, hunting through recipes eats up a lot of time.

I’m not complaining. This is not a bad problem to have. I’m always puzzled when people think we don’t do anything in retirement. Best I can tell, most of us have plenty to keep us amused, and I like to think there’s always room for more.

Or is there?

We used to enjoy camping. Sometimes in a tent and sometimes in a small trailer. But shortly after I retired, we got rid of both and have been hoteling it ever since.

Maybe it was the nice weather or perhaps a bit of folly, but I started daydreaming about peaceful quality time in the wilderness with my loving husband of 44 years and asked him if he still thought about camping. He said yes, and I was pleased, but be forewarned, it goes downhill from here.

We’re car campers and like a somewhat boxy tent we can stand up in with plenty of room for a queen-sized air mattress. I refuse to leave the tent at night to pee, so I have this thing called a luggable loo. It’s a five-gallon bucket with a toilet seat. You buy liners with gel that dries everything up and then dispose of it in the morning.

It works great, but Dale is quite fussy about the location of my loo. It can’t be in the main part of the tent, and not all tents have two rooms. Our old one was perfect, but when it wore out, we couldn’t find a suitable replacement. I’ve been looking since the beginning of the pandemic and finally found a tent at REI that I thought would work.

Last weekend, we headed over to REI and bought it.

On the way home, I said, “I’m kind of excited.” He said, “I guess.”

I’m like, what? I spent years looking for a tent, and that’s the best you can cough up?

I willed myself to relax, figuring he’d get with the program soon enough. However, I said, let’s not take it out of the bag until we’re absolutely positively sure we want to camp. It’s OK if we don’t. We just need to be honest with each other. We left it on the dining room table with the receipt in case it has to go back.

After a couple of days, I asked him what he thought about the whole idea. He finally confessed he does want to camp, but he doesn’t want to give up hotels, either. Well, that’s easy enough. I assured him we can do both. However, I said don’t take the tent out of the bag just yet.

I began to research locations and asked him if he had any preferences. Mountains? Beach? He said whatever. Not exactly the big bold clue I was looking for. I was on my own.

The way I figured it, we had a cold winter and the snow is starting to melt, so I thought June was too early for the mountains. The beach was perfect. These northern California beaches are beautiful and kind of cold, but it’s not like we’re out frolicking in the water, and you don’t have to worry about bears or snow.

I presented him with a list of beaches, and he said, “The beach? It’s pretty damp this time of year. We won’t enjoy being in a tent.”

After I accused him of being Big Bird – the one who waits while all the work is being done and then comes in and craps all over everything, I realized he’s probably right. I said I need more time to think.

Um, don’t take the tent out of the bag just yet.

So, the tent was $599. If we camp three times a year, we’ve pretty much recouped our costs if you compare it to a hotel room. I could probably find ideal tent camping spots for each of the summer months – July, August and September. Nothing wrong with being fair-weather campers.

We get outside in nature. We change our routine. We eat great camping food. We snuggle in our zip-together sleeping bags. All is good.

I’m thinking we will keep the tent. And we will find some lovely places to camp with reasonably predictable weather. As I continue to research options, I explained all this to Dale, who happily agreed. I’m feeling pretty good about the whole thing, but I said, let’s think about this for a few more days. Give Big Bird time to reveal his true thoughts.

Lord, what we do for relationships. I think it gets harder as we age, but that’s me. Anyway, we have reached consensus. I see camping in our future, but just so you know, the tent is still in the bag.

Reluctant travelers

We must not be the only ones who don’t have a big desire to travel in retirement, but sometimes it feels that way.

Dale and I traveled a lot when we were younger. Lived overseas and moved more than 20 times, so much of the excitement is lost on us. Our wanderlust peaked in the early 2000s.

It felt like finding a member of my tribe when I read this article about the actor Eugene Levy of Schitt’s Creek – he hates to leave the comforts of home but was convinced to do a show called The Reluctant Traveler.

Has anyone seen it? It’s on Apple TV+, which we don’t get. There’s a free episode, but you have to sign in. I hate that.

As it happens, some of us like to make a nest and hang out in it. I’m not saying I wouldn’t ever visit an exotic destination, but in a lot of ways, our home already feels like a resort. It’s about mastering the art of simple pleasures.

Dale and I don’t have a McMansion or anything, but we have a nice home and live well but within our means. We cook and eat great food, sleep on an amazing bed with deliciously comfy sheets and have a nice little stash of quality wine and weed. There’s space for me to work on my art, and Dale has a small garden. We love our pool in the summer and the spa in the winter.

The other issue is I always thought of vacations as time to recover from work. Now, every day is a vacation, so I don’t need to go anywhere to get away from it all. I can lay around and read all day at home if I want to!

All that said, I do agree it’s important to change your surroundings from time to time and experience new things. I’m the travel planner in the family, and it’s not a job I relish. I finally decided this week to accept my fate in life and embrace the role. No whining allowed.

I bought two books about traveling in California and am starting to get serious about road trips. We like one or two-nighters. I can’t imagine being gone for weeks at a time, but I know many retirees enjoy that lifestyle. I thought, well, if we have some money to spend, why not go to Napa? It’s less than two hours away, and they are happy to take your offerings.

So, I’ve booked us just one night in Napa with one winery visit and a few other stops along the way. Not sure where we’ll eat, but there’s no shortage of choices.

In the meantime, we are continuing to enjoy our little resort. We were going to watch (again) the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but the DVD kept skipping. The player must be at least 20 years old. Same for the DVDs. We figured it was time to buy new, but then Dale remembered for some obscure reason we had two sets of the DVDs.

The other one works without a hitch! That’s on the agenda for this evening. We’re going to split a pan-fried steak accompanied by baked potatoes, salad and some of that tasty wine.

We were jazzed that we don’t have to buy a new player. They’re relatively inexpensive, so it’s odd we’re willing to blow some bucks in Napa but can’t bear to replace the ancient DVD player. I mean, not if we don’t have to, right? The whole idea of wandering through Best Buy trying to figure it all out is pretty exhausting.

In other entertainment news, we like bad Sci-Fi movies from the 50s and have been renting them on Amazon. Below is my watchlist.

  • Cat Women of the Moon
  • Attack of the 50-foot Woman
  • Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
  • The Blob
  • Bride of the Monster
  • Earth vs the Flying Saucers
  • The Man from Planet X
  • 20 Million Miles to Earth
  • The Atomic Man
  • The Incredible Shrinking Man
  • Queen of Outer Space
  • Conquest of Space
  • Rocketship X-M
  • The Werewolf
  • From Hell it Came
  • The Brain from Planet Arous
  • The Cyclops
  • Revenge of the Creature
  • Friend Without a Face
  • Tarantula!
  • Them!
  • The Giant Behemoth
  • I Married a Monster from Outer Space
  • The Thing
  • The Day the Earth Stood Still
  • The Space Children
  • The Flying Saucer
  • The Devil Girl from Mars
  • Curse of the Demon
  • Robot Monster

Does anyone else out there enjoy this genre? Please feel free to share your favorites! While all of the above are from the 50s, we like all the campy classics. I just added Surf Nazis Must Die from 1987.

Bottom line is there are lots of ways to have fun in retirement. Everyone finds their own path, and that’s the joy of it. For those of you who aren’t so much into travel, I hope it’s comforting to know you’re not alone.  

Not messing with my face

I’ve been thinking about Madonna’s face, and I’m guessing that’s exactly what she wanted. Famous people accustomed to the limelight can’t seem to give it up, so why not just maim yourself to get everyone talking? I don’t believe it has anything to do with ageism. I mean, she doesn’t look younger, only worse, but at least she’s in the headlines again.

Personally, I’m more focused on healthy habits and creature comforts than messing with my aging face. Do I sometimes do a little mirror surgery to see what I’d look like with everything tightened right up? Sure, but that’s not how I want to go down.

For example, I went to the dermatologist yesterday and actually had to put on real clothes. Black leggings, black t-shirt, black denim jacket, white sneakers, turquoise earrings, no makeup and a shock of silver hair. I must admit, I looked in the mirror and thought, damn, I look cool.

As I see it, you can dye your hair and inject your face, and that might create the illusion of youth, but I’m pretty sure they know how old we are. My thinking is that silence is a position of weakness, and being silent erodes confidence over time. I refuse to cower.

Aging should be a liberating experience. Wear what you want, say what you think, live how you like and like how you look – perhaps it is the absence of these things that makes aging such a drag for so many people.

But not us! We’re digging it, right?

So, the latest in retirement creature comforts – linen sheets. I mean, if you can afford this, do it before you die. I bought mine here. I can’t quite describe the comfort – soft but not silky. Not warm, not cool. The fabric feels heavier, but air flows through it. Dale preferred silky cotton, but he’s converted now. There’s no turning back for me.

Another indulgence I started this year is a 90-minute full-body massage every three weeks.  I love it. Yes, even though it does hurt a bit when she digs into those trigger points. The pain kind of scared me at first. I thought she had uncovered some sort of rare muscle-wasting disease, and I almost quit going because I thought, well, better not to know.

But now, I just breathe my way through it and it starts to feel good. Aside from the pure pleasure of having my creaky old body tended to, I do think massage is nothing but good news for your immune system, and it helps with stress, circulation, muscle pain and flexibility.

So, back to aging faces. I love the artist Jesse Dayton, and I am absolutely crazy about this reboot of Brand New Cadillac with Samantha Fish. Check out the drummer!

Old and cool. Inspiration for us all.

A wee bit of travel

Montaña de Oro State Park

As a homebody who saw a lot of the world in my younger days, retirement for me was never going to be all about travel, but I figured I’d go somewhere, sometime. Right? Right?

Then the pandemic hit, and the answer was wrong, wrong. We hunkered down. It was fine, but you can only make so much sourdough. One does reach a point where all that isolation wears on you. We’re both fully vaccinated and fully boosted with no significant health issues, so we decided it was time to reenter civilization, travel a bit and take some calculated risks.

Dale and I took a road trip to Morro Bay, a beautiful spot on the central coast of California. For us, it was about a five-hour drive.

Our hotel was right by the water, and the views were spectacular. We hiked in Montaña de Oro State Park and took a day trip to Hearst Castle. We also checked out some local museums and ate well, including oysters – barbequed and fried. We dined inside, but the restaurants weren’t packed and seemed well-ventilated. We chose not to worry about it.

We did mask up for Hearst Castle. I went there as a kid but don’t remember much of anything but the swimming pools! Dale had never been, and much to my surprise, he loved it. He even did more reading about Hearst and the estate itself after we got back. Having that kind of money and choosing to spend it that way was infinitely fascinating to him.

We were home for a few days, and then I went off on a girl’s golf trip to Santa Cruz and Capitola. There were seven of us, and I was a bit nervous, but it turned out to be a blast. The golf was spectacular, although much more difficult than where we normally play. Three rounds of golf and unusually high scores for me, but … I only lost one ball! I consider that a victory.

The conversation among the women was fantastic. I haven’t been in a group like that for many years, and I forgot how fun it can be. The only sensitive issue came up after the Roe versus Wade announcement.

Most were pro-choice, but one woman shared a different perspective. She was all about abortion access belonging to the states, and the rest of us were calling bullshit, but it was a civilized and respectful discussion. Everyone got to say what they wanted to say, and we moved onto a different topic … semi-naked men.

Nothing like semi-naked men to bring a group of 60 and 70-something women together. Our accommodations included a huge picture window facing an area where surfers change in and out of their wetsuits. Most of these athletic surfers were beautiful physical specimens, and it was better than television. I think they knew were we watching and preened a bit, but maybe I imagined that.

There were women surfers, too, but my eyes were elsewhere.

We also had game night. I love games, and Dale hates them for the most part, so I enjoyed it a lot. We played “Blank Slate.” A word is flashed with a blank in front of it or behind it, and everyone writes down a word that would go with it. For example, cheese _____. The goal is to get matches, so you want a common word.

On that particular word, we had cheese board, cheeseburger – I forget what else. I picked cheese doodles, thinking that would be the big winner, and no one else had ever heard of them. It ended up being hilarious, although that might have been the margaritas talking.

I was telling my sister about it, and she said it sounded like The Match Game, a 1970s TV show. I remember that show! For some reason, I recall the actress Arlene Francis was one of the panelists.

Anyway, that is more travel than either one of us has done in years. My girl’s trip was good for both of us. We’ve always had plenty of “breaks” over the years, but we kind of holed up together after the pandemic. While I loved the time away and enjoying the company of other women, I also found myself missing him, so it’s all good.  

In my absence, Dale and Riley, our cat, watched the hearings together and Dale filled me in on all that when I returned. We thought Ivanka’s hair and makeup looked particularly odd and resembled some other notable person but we couldn’t figure out who. With me gone, he had time to think about something other than my petty needs, and bingo …

Saruman!

I did mess up one thing. I hate to talk on the phone, so I suggested Dale text me if he had anything to say. I’m sure I told him I’d be back Saturday afternoon, but I didn’t write it down. I didn’t even give him the address of where I’d be or any additional information.

On Friday, he texted me asking for an ETA, and I thought he meant for Saturday, but he thought I was coming home Friday night. I got a panic call from him late that night, wondering where the hell I was.

When I got home, we concluded that next time I’ll leave more information on a cheat sheet, and next time we will talk not text. Simple enough.

And there will be a next time. We are both happy to be home but energized by new experiences. This is a little bit of a shift in our retirement strategy. While we’re unlikely to become retirement globe trotters, I do see more travel in our future.

Cheerfulness breaking through

Number 26

I’m emerging from a self-imposed funk, and I started to write about all the racist, sexist bullshit things that are pissing me off right now, but once I go down that rabbit hole, it’s hard to climb back out. I’ll just say this. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, but from what I’ve seen, we’d be better off if about half of the country is replaced. Bring it on.

Buffalo sent me over the edge, but I’m creeping back toward the middle now. Trying to focus on simple pleasures. Things I can control such as my body (but that’s only because I don’t have a uterus).

Oops, there I go again. Back to our regular programming.

As an avid golfer, I couldn’t wait to retire because I read somewhere you get better and better if you practice and play a lot. I’m a decent golfer, but after a few years of playing three times a week, I’m not much better than when I played twice a month. I must have missed the part that said, “Individual Results May Vary.”

This week I made the momentous decision to cut one day off my weekly golf schedule. And in the end, it really has nothing to do with how well I play. Golf is a time-sucker, and there’s too much competition on the hobby front – swimming, walking, cooking, reading, writing and making art. Oh, and I just signed up for the free version of Duolingo to learn Spanish.

The pool at the club where I swim laps is finally warm enough to swim without a thermal top. Without all that weighing me down, I felt like Flipper! I never could find a one-piece that fit, so I ended up buying these tops at Lululemon. They’re not swimsuits per se, but they work great for those of us who have had a mastectomy without reconstruction. I pair them with basic bottoms from Target.

Today is Dale’s birthday, so he’s making fajitas. I was willing to cook, but that’s what he wanted, and fajitas are his thing. I did make cheesecake! We both love it, but sometimes I think we just need a batch of graham cracker crust now and then. I’m thinking about waffles for tomorrow morning. I like this recipe from King Arthur. You can make the batter ahead and refrigerate it overnight.

I’ve been kind of burned out on streaming shows, although the new Bosch series is great. If you like seriously twisted crime fiction, I recommend The Turnout by Megan Abbott. It’s about a family of ballet dancers, and she does for ballet what she did for cheerleaders in Dare Me. It’s all sick and wrong, but that’s why you read Megan Abbott.

On a more pleasant note, I read the first two in a series of Victorian mysteries by Tasha Alexander featuring Lady Emily Ashton. They are a tad tame for me, but I liked them a lot and will probably read the rest. I’m not proud, but I have Tina Brown’s new book about the royals on reserve at the library. The Palace Papers – looks like she dishes on just about everyone, and for some reason, that appeals to me at this moment in time.  

I updated the gallery to include my last two pieces, Number 26 and Number 27. I couldn’t be happier to have discovered the joys of art later in life. With the time I’m getting back by skipping a day of golf, I think I’m going to visit Dick Blick and see what that’s all about. I’ve never been, although I do order from them online.

For many of us, it’s hard to stay positive, yet I somehow manage (for the most part). I’m reminded of the late musician Leonard Cohen, who said, “I’ve studied all the philosophies and all the theologies, but cheerfulness keeps breaking through!”