Category: Simple Pleasures

I had a birthday this week – 63! I was going to get spiffed up and take a picture for the record, but getting spiffed up rarely interests me. Here I am sporting my signature retirement casual look.

When I was in Santa Cruz visiting my gorgeous friend, Monica, who just turned 40, the concierge was helping her with suggestions for the evening. I said hmmm, he didn’t help me, what’s up with that? We got dressed for dinner, and I wore my new skinny jeans. She said, well, he just hasn’t seen your butt yet.

Aw, that’s what friends are for.

Honestly, I am grateful to get older. I was 43 when I had a variation of stage 3 ovarian cancer, and here I am, 20 years later. I was unlucky to get it but exceptionally lucky to survive. I definitely want to rock my age, and I found unexpected inspiration this week on the golf course.

I played golf in my Wednesday league with three women I hadn’t yet met. Three of us were walking, and the other took a cart. The woman in the cart turned out to be 80. I was impressed until I discovered one of my fellow walkers was 82! I told her she was my new role model. She laughed and said, yeah, I just keep walking. The 80-year-old in the cart wasn’t nearly as spry.

Note to self: just keep walking.

Like most people, my golf game varies. On any given day, I can shoot 85 or 100. I’ve been reading up on the mental game, because there’s nothing wrong with my swing … just my brain. I played again on Friday, and I was telling my partner about positive self-talk, such as, “I am the best putter! I can’t wait to make this putt and show off my putting skills!”

It’s not true, but I’ve been doing it anyway, and I have made some unlikely putts. I was describing it to Dale and said, you know, fake it ‘til you make it. He had never heard that expression before.

It’s a work thing. You probably don’t remember that anymore.

Well, you haven’t worked in a year, so they probably don’t say that anymore.

I lost my work creds in a year?

Sorry, but yes.

You know what? I’m OK with that.

I thought you would be.

Dale makes me amazing two-mushroom lasagna with red pepper tomato sauce for my birthday, so I stayed home and worked as sous chef, chopping and weighing while he cooked. Between the two of us, it’s an all-day affair, but damn it’s good. We freeze the leftovers in individual portions, and what a treat that is (along with all the other great stuff in our freezer).

Monica got me semi-hooked on The Handmaid’s Tale. I read the book many years ago but hadn’t seen the Hulu show until we watched it together in Santa Cruz. It’s so good but so disturbing. When I first read the book, I thought this could never happen, but now I’m not so sure.

Last night I decided I was not going to watch this anymore. It’s too depressing. Instead, I watched The Book Club with Jane Fonda, et al. Mostly a bunch of older women sucking down boatloads of wine and complaining about their sex lives, which do improve significantly for all of them over the course of the movie. The Handmaid’s Tale seems more realistic to me. I suppose I’ll have to watch the rest of it.

Dale and I don’t get each other gifts anymore, but I did buy myself a Nespresso Virtuo coffeemaker, which was 50 percent off at Williams Sonoma when I ordered it but is only 20 percent off now. That little machine makes a damned good cup of coffee, and I like that it takes pods, because I typically don’t drink flavored coffee but like to keep it around for guests.

To finish off my birthday week, the temperatures dropped to the high 70s. It’s gorgeous outside, and it makes me feel happy to be 63 and retired!

When we were living in the San Francisco Bay Area and told people we were retiring to the Sierra foothills near Sacramento, the first thing everyone said is, “You know it’s hot there in the summer, right?” I always said, well, we’ve lived in some hot places:

• Cairo, Egypt
• Huntsville, Alabama
• Columbia, South Carolina
• Fort Worth, Texas

I think we can hang in the heat.

Dale and I are now experiencing our first summer in the foothills, and everyone was right.

It’s hot.

We are hanging, but I have had to make a few changes, probably because I was a good bit younger when I bragged about being able to hang in the heat.

If I’m not finished with my walk before 11 a.m., I probably won’t be walking. We love our swimming pool and take a dip after dinner most nights. It’s so nice to get in bed after your body has been chilled down in the pool. I normally walk when I play golf, but I’ve started using a cart. Compromises must be made.

Golf does not have the intensity of a sport like long-distance running, but you’re out there four or five hours, and the heat takes its toll. I played this week when it was 104, and my partner had to quit at the turn because she felt so weak. I hung in there, drinking shitloads of water, but it’s like you can’t really get enough. My weight can drop three to five pounds from a single round of golf in the heat. It takes me two days to replace those fluids.

I finally realized I’m probably not drinking enough, and I’m not replacing electrolytes. I went to REI and bought these little low-sugar fizzy tablets by Nuun. You drop one in 16 ounces of water, it fizzes away and makes a light, refreshing drink packed with the stuff your body needs. I love the taste, and I feel 100 percent better since I started drinking it. I just ordered more from Amazon.

Dehydration is a common problem among older adults, and it just gets worse if you are active and sweat a lot. I’ve been drinking the electrolyte beverage as part of my hot weather exercise routine, but I’m wondering if I should keep it up all year as a preventive measure. I can’t see that 16 ounces a day (plus plenty of plain water) would hurt.

What I have found surprising about the heat is how my thoughts have turned to seasonal changes. When I was working, I pretty much thought about work all the time. Weather was just a distraction. In retirement, I spend a lot of time outdoors, and the weather is part of my daily life.

I like the dry, California heat and will be sad when the season is over. I like shorts, sandals, skimpy tops. Long days and no rain. The pool! White nectarines. Crisp cucumbers from the garden. Cold gazpacho. Oh, and farmer’s market strawberries, I’ll miss you most of all.

But then I think about autumn – and how great it will feel when things start to cool off. Hot soup, hearty casseroles, staying in bed on a rainy morning, hanging out all day in my jammies or walking a round of golf on a crisp afternoon. It’s not about wishing away summer but learning to enjoy the moment and appreciate seasonal changes.

I’ve always sort of steamrolled through life, and it took retirement to help me slow down and savor  experiences. I haven’t even been retired a full year, but I could not go back to a pressure-cooker job. I’d rather learn to hang in the heat. How about you?

I love, love, love retirement. Mostly, I love the freedom to explore what interests me, to fill my brain with positivity instead of unhappy workplace noise. To serve our cat, Riley, with dignity and honor. To pre-heat his spa table for extra comfort. But I must say, I mostly love sleeping with no alarm to waken me.

With the help of medical cannabis, I sleep great, and being well-rested makes me feel and look better. When I went back to visit former colleagues recently, everyone said how great I looked, that retirement suited me. I said, yes, this is what sleep looks like. Sadly, I did have to get up at 4:30 a.m. on Monday. But don’t feel sorry for me. I needed an early start to drive to the mountains for a golf game.

I’ve relaxed a good bit since I retired last September. I keep checking the nest egg as though it’s going to go up in flames, but it’s still there, and just checking it periodically gives me comfort. I’m filling my time quite nicely. I read the entire series of Harry Bosch novels and watched the entire Bosch series on Amazon. My only regret is that I’m finished until something new is published.

Think of your first year of retirement as a test run. Poke around and see what makes you happy. See what sticks. I like to think we can find a balance of recreation and intellectual enlightenment. Retirement is actually jam-packed, and we will need to prioritize. I’m still working on priorities.

Doing

• Mastering the art of serving the cat
• Maintaining/remodeling house
• Walking about five miles a day
• Playing golf 2-3 days week, walking most of the time, making new friends
• Lifting light weights to improve my upper body strength
• Cooking
• Reading (taking advantage of the local library)
• Swimming a bit so I can build up to regular lap swims
• Blogging/consulting
• Wearing cuter retirement clothes (donated my man pants and other bad fashion choices)

To Do

• Take the light rail into the city and explore the urban scene
• Check out local museums
• Get serious about strength, flexibility and balance
• Pickleball?
• Volunteer in the community
• Get serious about training for a long-distance walk
• Find a new detective series

On the immediate horizon is a camping trip! We tent camped until we moved to Texas, where in the summer it never cooled off enough at night for decent sleep. We bought a small teardrop trailer (The Toaster) we could tow with our old Honda Element. It had an air conditioner and served us well, but it is no longer among the living. With cool Northern California nights, we are back to tent camping.

I’m also signed up for a business and industry educational seminar on cannabis. As you might guess, I’m excited about medical cannabis and eager to learn as much as possible. I’m counting this one as intellectual enlightenment, although there might be some recreation involved.

Getting here was not easy, but I am so profoundly grateful we were able to earn enough and save enough to make this life possible. Retirement is an amazing opportunity to explore the joys of life without the pressures of a full-time job. There are different pressures, for sure, but retirement is kind of like being a kid again and school’s out for summer.

How’s your summer going?

My husband and I moved to Texas in 2006, and sometime after that, my sister-in-law gave us a Wii for Christmas. We had a perfect place to put it and enjoyed many hours of play. Then we moved to California and downsized. There was no place to put the Wii, so it sat in a closet with corroding batteries we failed to remove prior to storage.

We’re still in California, but we have a bigger home and a perfect place to put the Wii. All the components were together in a plastic tub out in the garage, and I brought it in yesterday to see if I could get the system set up. I couldn’t find the remote to the TV. I found 5,000 other remotes but not that one. First trip to Best Buy was to purchase a universal remote.

That worked. I set up the Wii and got the right input for the TV. Cleaned corrosion in the remotes and installed new batteries. Some of the functions worked and some did not. Dale and I concluded new remotes would fix us right up.

For the second trip to Best Buy, I started wandering around the game section when a clerk asked if I needed help. Looking for Wii remotes, I replied. He said oh, we haven’t carried those since we stopped selling Wii.

Excuse me?

Apparently, while I was busy earning a living and preparing to retire, Wii fizzled. I completely missed it. Yes, my brain was full, but I feel sort of old and sad I didn’t know Wii wasn’t a thing anymore. No longer an early adopter, no longer a trendsetter. Just another old fogey who isn’t up on the latest thing.

I don’t even know what latest thing replaced Wii. Xbox? I kind of thought that was for teenagers. I certainly don’t want to squander my retirement hunting monsters or stealing cars. I liked sports-oriented games such as bowling, archery, boxing and baseball. The games to improve your balance were also quite good.

Obviously, we need some sort of replacement game. Our Wii was a lot of fun, but I don’t want to throw more money into a trying to resurrect an obsolete system. I would love to hear your suggestions!

In the meantime, I will rest on my laurels, which I must say are substantial. I bowled a perfect game and was an elite Frisbee Dog athlete. I won the Masters! All that’s gone now, but I have my memories.

I had a fun-filled week, the most fun yet, and I thought, this is what retirement is all about! I played a lot of golf, but it doesn’t matter how you find fun – just find it and enjoy the absence of bullshit.

Yes, I said it. The best thing about retirement is the absence of bullshit. For background purposes, you should know I grew up in a dysfunctional family replete with said bullshit. So, what did I do when I graduated from high school? I joined the Army, where they invented bullshit.

After the Army and college, I joined the workforce, spending much of my career in a corporate setting. Some might say corporate jobs are the definition of bullshit, but for many, they are completely satisfying. Perhaps others are better at handling nonsense. I think it depends on what you do and where you are in the pecking order. I was a journalism major who spent my professional life in public relations.

I’m grateful I was able to earn a good living on my meager talents. And in the words of Bob Dylan, you gotta serve somebody. I was truly proud to serve my country and the excellent companies that were kind enough to employ me, but I don’t miss it.

Retirement is life in the bullshit-free zone. It’s like the vacation you would have had if they just left you alone. No drama, no phone calls at night, no emails that must be answered before you take your next breath, no crazy deadlines, no stupid decisions driven by ego or possibly madness.

Don’t have to worry if my hair looks appropriate for the office, and no one cares what shoes I wear. No alarm. The onset of daylight usually wakes me up, and the day is open to whim. True, there are always chores, paperwork and appointments. But they are my chores, and no one jumps in during the middle and says, “Stop! Everything you know is wrong!”

Dale and I saw a lot of the world when we were young and don’t have a big travel Jones. Lived overseas for eight years – we just like hanging out, reading, writing, cooking, tending to our home and enjoying our hobbies.

As for hobbies, I made a perfect batch of yogurt after several unsuccessful tries. Fresh homemade yogurt is a worthy retirement pursuit.

I’ve also been using topical cannabis for various aches and pains. With four rounds of golf in five days, I can tell you, it’s working. The exciting part is I’m going to make it myself! I’ve ordered all the supplies, and I should have a batch done by the end of the weekend. I can’t wait to share more about this experiment.

Also on the docket for this weekend: Our first attempt at Tomahawk steak, which looks like something Fred Flintstone would eat. We are also doing an inventory of our camping gear – the season is upon us! And being able to camp in the middle of the week should open up some primo spots.

All in all, my expectations for retirement were pretty simple, and I would say I am significantly exceeding them. Of course, the future is filled with endless possibilities, but for now, my happy low-key bullshit-free life feels pretty good.

You know the scene from Office Space, where Peter pretty much stops going to the office? The consultant – one of the Bobs – calls him in and says, “Looks like you’ve been missing quite a bit of work lately.”

Peter replies, “Well, I wouldn’t say I’ve been MISSING it, Bob.”

Exactly. I’ve been retired five full months, and I love it. I read about baby boomers who are all, oh, work, work, I can’t quit you. I was one of them earlier in my career, but now it’s hard to imagine what the attraction was other than money.

Of course, I did work I’m proud of, and I met smart, wonderful friends I still care about, but I also encountered seriously damaged people who poisoned the workplace and made everyone miserable. Regrettably, the crazies seem to do just fine.

It’s hard to be happy in a workplace where sociopaths are protected and rewarded. The damage done stays with you a long time. I’m not picking on any particular company – I had lots of jobs in my career – and I saw it over and over again.

So, work? I wouldn’t say missing it. At the same time, I’m grateful. My career funded a good life, and I gained more than I lost. I just wanted to do something else with the rest of my time on the planet.

I had the good sense and good fortune to plan and save enough money to fund my freedom. If I’d been smarter, I could have done it even sooner, but the outcome is sweet nonetheless. And I’m still working! Perhaps it’s more accurate to say I don’t miss a traditional job.

These days, I’m doing a bit of freelancing for a firm in my field. Plus, I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I chose steady income instead. Now I’m writing just to write, without pressure to make a living at it. Learning a lot, still doing work I’m proud of and still connected to wonderful friends I care about.

And I don’t have to get up early. Never underestimate the power of a woman without an alarm clock.

My mother and I used to go for long walks, usually ending up at one of the strip malls that punctuated our southern California town. As we stood on the front porch ready to go, she’d lock the door, check it and recheck it before turning to me to share her time-honored parental advice:

Remember. Look for money.

Seriously. Mom’s thing was to look for money as we walked, I guess because there was never enough. And the funny thing is – we usually found it! Scattered coins in the sidewalk cracks, a dollar blowing in the breeze. Once we found two $5 bills, and it was as though we’d won the lottery.

Sometimes we’d celebrate with a bite to eat at the dime store lunch counter. Was it J.J. Newberry or Woolworth’s? I can’t remember, and they’re both gone now. Mom got Jello because it wasn’t fattening. Grilled cheese for me because it was cheap.

Money was in short supply at our house, and perhaps that is why I grew up obsessed with making sure I had enough. And with this mindset, it’s easy to believe there will never be enough. No sacrifice to great, no cushion to thick – more money always wins.

Some baby boomers are reluctant to retire, in part because they haven’t saved enough and in part because they can’t give it up. Boomers say it’s the work they can’t give up, and I get that, because what we do for a living is part of our identity. But I also wonder if it’s the need to make money and the habit of spending money we can’t quite quit.

Only in the last few years did I begin to reconsider my relationship with money. I had a nice nest egg from years of saving, and that helped. But as I closed in on the concept of retirement, it occurred to me I could feel more secure with that nest egg if I spent less. You don’t need as much stuff as you think.

It is scary when the regular paychecks stop. I’m not super-frugal, and I’m not a financial whiz. Preparing for retirement was more about changing my mindset … believing I could live differently and gain back what we used to call a life. Time to sleep late, read, write and cook from scratch. Meet with friends, volunteer, maybe a little side hustle just in case.

I still love my long walks, and now I have time for them. Sometimes I enjoy a mindless loop, and other times I like walking toward a destination. There’s a little strip mall at the bottom of the hill, and I often think about stopping for a bite to eat. For now, I just keep going, occasionally scanning the grass that lines the sidewalk, looking for money.