I am trying to be brief here for a change.
For a change, I finally have big chunks of time to myself. Yes, I am still in the "I don't want to/I don't have to/You can't make me/I'm retired" stage. Maybe I will grow out of it somehow, but right now doing so is not a priority. Some not totally random observations now that I have time to actually think a thought:
Over the years, I had forgotten how much I like poached eggs and how much my cats like catnip.
Since I am eating far better (that is, less processed food unless you count yogurt, white bread English muffins, and Vietnamese Trung Nguyen coffee--"Inspired Creativity"), I may need to buy a small freezer when the snow flies. My refrigerator, like the rest of my house, is small. Cauliflower and fish take up more room than Lean Cuisine used to. But where to put the freezer?
Facebook and other social media can be an even more powerful time suck than when I was employed full-time. I like keeping in touch with friends and getting glimpses into the lives of people (by far mostly women) I grew up with and haven't seen since I went to college. Also, say what you want, but there is wit of a sort on the interweb: for example, the person joking that since the VW diesel problems were discovered by someone in WV (West Virginia), there must be a conspiracy. Someone else is waiting to see if his sister is having a girl or a boy so he will know if he is going to be an aunt or an uncle. Neil Armstrong was an alien because Neil A backward is...You get the idea.
Even though I am trying to live comparatively time-free, since it is fall, months into my retirement, it is time to get into a routine. Please don't call before noon unless it is an emergency. Let's plan ahead.
Looking back, I would like to thank the people who listened to me ad infinitum, ad nauseam about the timing of my retirement. I am sure the conversations were even more tiresome than I now suspect they were. Thank you.
I never learned to type as I was told I needed to way back when--and without it I managed through my career and through more education than most people want. I did the typing all with two fingers that did build up speed over the years. If I had learned to type, I am not sure where I would have ended up, since there was a time when typing was one of the job requirements for most positions held by women (say, secretarial positions). Yay me. Yay universe.
I was warned that after I retired, most people I worked with would forget who I was. Well, so far I have gone into work all of four times, mostly to pick up my daily el cheapo New York Times that the Library saves for us who do not go in every day. When I duck in, at least some people holler out to me and do not appear to have relegated me to the pile of old, obsolete and faintly remembered emeriti--an academic long-dead Jurassic Park, let's say. This reaction lasts as long as it lasts. I was glad to see them, too. So good, so far.
The other day I lost a contact lens. I had been getting ready to go for a walk, so I had been closing windows and such when all of a sudden my Superwoman vision was curiously blurry.
The lens could have been anywhere downstairs. I went on my hands and knees almost everywhere looking for it but decided to wait to call to order a replacement lens. (These are rigid gas permeable lenses, not water-soaked saran wrap.) I do have a second pair, but I was not happy. But, wonder of wonders, when I looked again a couple hours later, TA-DAA! There it was on the floor by the door. Sometimes things do show up.
You never know. Then again, sometimes I do.
Copyright Sandra Engel
No comments:
Post a Comment