Retirement

Monday, December 1 - our first full day of actual retirement, hence the title!

I know, I know, we've been retired since last July 1st. However, there has always been something pressing to do every day until we departed on our trip cross-country. During the trip, we always felt as if we were on vacation, and that it would end soon enough, as vacations always do. After returning to Beverly for the holidays, we never really got into "retirement mode", because there were menus to prepare, food to buy and prepare, et cetera and so forth, ad nauseum! Once the Thanksgiving day feast was over, then we had to think about putting up some Christmas decorations around the house, inside and out.

So, all of that is finally behind us, and this morning we awoke to our first real Monday as a "retired" couple. What to do? Actually, we spent the morning puttering around the house; K was busy with laundry, while I worked on determining why the tub was draining so slowly, and why the fan in the bathroom was so noisy. Both problems were resolved by noon, so now we had to figure out what to do with the remainder of the day until dinner time. Can you guess what we did?

Correctomundo, senor! We went SHOPPING!!! Since K hasn't spent very much time behind the wheel of the new vehicle, she decided that she would drive us to Portsmouth, NH for a bit of Christmas shopping! Loverly! I brought along the Sunday Globe crossword puzzle to keep me busy during the 40 minutes, or so, that it took to get up there. Have you ever spent much time (any time?) sitting in the passenger seat while someone else drives? Try it! I have spent lots of time in the passenger seat as a Driving School Instructor, so I'm used to it. However, there are lots of people out there who NEVER sit in the passenger seat. I'm thinking, now, about husbands who, for some inexplicable reason, always grab the keys when going out with the wife. They never even entertain thoughts of letting HER drive! In fact, I'm betting that if a husband ever lets his wife drive, he is either too tired, or too drunk, to drive. Either way, odds are that he doesn't get the true feel of sitting in the passenger seat, since he is probably passed out during the trip.

Anyway, the reason I mention this, at all, is because you get a very different perspective sitting in the passenger seat than you get in the driver's seat. For some reason, the vehicle always seems to be going much faster than it actually is. Perhaps this is why passengers in vehicles seem to criticize the driver's abilities, I don't know.

Jeez! I just went back and read what I have written and it appears that I'm rambling! I guess that's what full-blown retirement does to a person. Too much time on our hands. I've got to get a hobby, but blogging isn't it!

Tune in again for another exciting episode of "Retirement and Its Effects on the Human Condition" (I just made that up - that's exciting, isn't it?)!