August 5, 2011
Dear Everyone:
I now have something of a “routine” going.
I wake up each morning (always a good way to start the day.)
Report to
Vaal (“Yes, I’m still alive.”)
Have a leisurely breakfast while watching the news.
(Charlotte floated away during the night?
How did that happen?)
Then I take a shower and dress while watching
something that was on TV the night before (deferred viewing survives.)
After that, I toddle on over to the Clubhouse, where a set of
rooms previously used for the Sales Offices have been set up with
exercise equipment. I am
currently up to 15 minutes on the
treadmill, at 1.5 mph; and 15 minutes
on the stationary bike, unless someone else is using said equipment.
There are also a stair-step of some kind (way out of my league
for now) and weights (which I won’t go anywhere near.)
When I get back into my condo, I do my back
exercises, while finishing whatever deferred viewing was interrupted by
more-important work. By this
time, it’s getting close to lunch time.
In the afternoon I work on the computer.
I have tons and tons of work to do on the computer.
The first, of course, was straightening out the mess with my
email. That’s pretty much
done now.
Next up is “homework” for the Transition Company.
This is the company that The Company pays to help people The
Company threw out of work (like me.)
Since my Portfolio contains enough money to (theoretically) last
me for the next twenty years, I don’t exactly have to run out and find a
new job. Unless I want to.
But it turns out one of the things the Transition
Company specializes in is the “transition” into
retirement.
I figured: It’s
already paid for, why not take advantage of it?
So I’ve sat through a couple of “Webinars” on how
to deal with change. And
downloaded and read through a number of pdfs on how to have a
“successful” retirement.
I’ll bet you thought all you had to do was sit back
and relax to enjoy retirement.
But how would you know if you were being “successful”?
One of the pdfs even stated the importance of having a
“Successful Retirement Mission/Vision Statement”.
Isn’t the point of retiring to get away from all
that bureaucratic claptrap?
On the one hand:
When I was undergoing “Cardio-conditioning”, I noticed that the
ratio of males to females was about 5-to-1.
In other words, there were four to five men for every woman
participating in the program.
And many of those women were there because their husbands were.
When I mentioned this to the nurses, they assured me that they
were aware of the disparity and were working to “increase” the number of
women in the group.
“Does that mean you’re hoping more women will have
heart attacks?”
Well, no.
They merely wanted more women to take better care of themselves
and their hearts. So
defining what “success” looks like is important.
On the other hand:
To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you
hit, call that the target.
Don’t get so caught up in “defining” “success” that you shoot yourself
in the foot. I don’t plan on
crying, “I’m not having a successful retirement!
I haven’t (fill in blank) enough yet!”
In other news…
“Jeannie” and I actually went to the movies last
weekend (I got in with the “Senior Discount”.)
We saw Cowboys & Aliens. The
title pretty much says it all.
As a Western, it’s filled with clichés:
The laconic stranger who doesn’t quite know what he’s looking
for. The deceptively
mild-mannered sheriff. The
spoiled rich kid with a gun.
The Old Man who “owns” the town and was an officer in “The War”.
Simply add “aliens”.
The townsfolk, and the local
Indians for that matter, take the
onslaught rather matter-of-factly.
Sort of like, “If it ain’t
drought,
stampedes, or hordes of
locusts attacking the crops, it’s these danged giant
dragonflies
snapping up our people for no good reason.”
And they all band together and so on and so forth.
Lots of great actors playing their parts perfectly
straight.
Daniel Craig, who
a generation ago would have given
Steve McQueen a run for his money, and
Harrison Ford lead the way.
Plenty of special effects.
Motivation for the “alien attack” is more or less an afterthought, which
annoyed “Jeannie”. No sense
in applying logic here. But
a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours in air-conditioned darkness
gobbling up popcorn.
However, it does interfere with my “exercise
program”. I find I go to the
gym far less on the weekends than during the week.
Not enough time to get together with “Jeannie”, go shopping, do
laundry and housework, etc.; all those “weekend chores”.
Sure, I can do a lot of that stuff in the middle of the week now.
But would it be “successful”?
Only time will tell.
Love, as always,
Pete
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