Drama and babysitting

I'm adjusting rather well to my new routines.  A little computer time--news, blog, solitaire, shopping while eating a breakfast and drinking coffee. Then off to my first project--today it is building a cat scratcher for Ewok.  Poor evil Ewok---born to be a hunter and killer and instead trying to be a socially acceptable family member.  But he's smart and will get it.  The cat scratcher is to be super sturdy as he has torn apart several of the commercially available ones---and he weighs less than 4 pounds.  Ferals in a shelter are not always the easiest to tame.

Then it's time for a little lunch and off to paint with maybe a run for cat food.

I am not watching kids for 4 days.  I like spending time with grandkids, its how we get to know each other.  I did not have a close relationship with my grandmother, she was a ways off and not really wanting to watch grandkids--she had already spent too much time watching kids.  Sometimes I completely understand her position on that.

But babysitting, if not routine, is not horrible.

Horrible is family drama.

I live alone and love that.  I don't have to argue with a spouse or have to waste time trying to not upset other family members.  I don't have to listen to people drone on that never want to listen to anyone else.  I can talk to myself without being asked if I'm crazy or senile.  I can not talk for days, potentially, with know one asking me if I'm angry or depressed.

The holidays tend to interfere with my insulation from family drama. The phone calls increase with the need to vent. and inevitably someone will translate an "I hear you" to "I totally agree with you" and make sure everyone else thinks I have taken a side on the latest petty argument.

I had plenty of drama in my life.  I try to keep most of it out anymore and generally do a decent job.  When I need to rant and rave, I've found a nice, quiet corner of the internet to do so.  But I made drama pretty easily in my twenties.  It seems to have slowly faded---sort of like hormones.  A part of me thinks that those pesky male and female hormones cause way more drama than they have any right too.

Of course, its probably not just chemical.  We have roles.  Gender roles.  Family roles.  Societal expectations of how a woman acts and how a man acts, and those create havoc with most of us, because we are not just roles.  No one wants to just act out the part of their life that fits society's current role for them.  It leaves all those other parts of our selves starving for attention. Roles limit us, and while we have no problem pointing out how our significant other is failing to meet the expectations of their role, none of us really want to hear about the parts of the roles that we are ignoring.

So, my family holiday is now over.  We had it early due to work schedules and in-law schedules and a million compromises and much drama.

I got some great gifts.

I had a wonderful time.

I love my family soooo much.

Thanks god for 4 days to myself.

The confusions of Social Security

I was notified of a cost of living raise.
Then I was notified that everything over a certain amount was taxable.
The raise is over the taxable.

I was doing well on the third size income till December, then-----Christmas.

I apparently spend too much on Christmas.

Also, I sent an estimate of how much I would make in the next two months and they removed my overpayment in the December check which arrives in January.

I will have $49 in January.

I'll figure this out.  But not sure why any social security amount is over the limit of income.

When you are planning retirement, get that nest egg growing.  It's more important than you would guess no matter how frugal you are.

There is something nonsensical about the rules.

Must have been created by a committee of people that will never care about Social Security Insurance in their post-work lives.

Happy Holidays.

Hard Changes

Soooo.
I've bought my Christmas gifts for the year.
Got my cookies planned and the ingredients gathered.

But, the two in-law females are planning the family gathering without any of the family the gathering is for.
My son is unhappy--the idea is sexist, "only women can plan Christmas?"
My daughter doesn't care, she has her own concerns and always disagrees with her brother.
My sister probably doesn't know they are planning it, no communication with either of the two--it's how she ended up at the wrong thanksgiving dinner.
And I adamantly don't want to participate.
My son wants me two because kids are only little once.
My daughter thinks I'm annoying.
My niece-in-law don't speak and that is for the best.

So, why don't I want to go?
I had to think hard about that.
All I came up with was that it wasn't right.

I want to wake up 7, not at 7am, but 7 years old, and get out of my bunkbed, run into the living room where the slightly spindly real tree bought from the Safeway parking lot was twinkling all alone in front of the picture window would now be glowing and beneath would be millions of brightly wrapped packages and at least one toy from my Santa list that was not wrapped--Santa never wraps.  I want to wake my sister and watch her fly under the tree to look, then we would jump on the bed and wake up parents to go do gifts.

Sometimes we had to wait a minute  but even teeth and faces were not mandatory before the camera came out and the gift opening began.

We had Christmas with mom's family in Kansas, but usually not on Christmas.  Occasionally we would head to a relatives for a second Christmas in the afternoon, but usually that was the weekend before or after.

OR?!?!?

I want to tuck in my own babies, then open gifts with them when they woke up.  Then my family and my sisters family would head to my parents and we would all have our own little gift opening session---not as great as at age 7, but not something I would want to avoid.

BUT?!?!?  There is no part of my heart that is dying to go to someone else's house and watch kids open gifts in a maddeningly over-the-top display of greed and disinterest.  I love my kids.  I love my grandkids.  But old pictures of our little trees from yesteryear never really reached the ceiling, there were never thousands of dollars worth of toys that don't even do anything.  These days, there really are thousands of dollars worth of gifts and the kids are bored by them.

I'm may blame my mother and that pair of Air Jordans for a 7 year old with growing feet.

Or I may  just blame time.

You really can't go home again.

today

Thanksgiving is done for a year, except for the leftovers, for which I am very thankful.
It's Black Friday, so keeping a 5 year old for working parents and staying at the house all day to avoid the whole, crazy, greedy, Christmas shopping orgasm.
The rain was cancelled, but sometimes when that happens, they are really just teasing and it's wet and soggy anyway.
If it stays nice, and 55-68 degree temps are nice even if overcast, then it will be an outside day.
My little guest loves outside days, sometimes even if they aren't very nice.
He also loves the crackly, curly leaves and a rake.
I don't rake my yard with much seriousness. Raking a couple of acres is like an act of attrition.
But boys only rake for fun, and there are a great many leaves awaiting that.
I'll piddle outside, maybe some outside cleaning, maybe some outside coffee drinking, and we will both have a great day.
If it turns out the weatherman?(woman?bot?) was just messing with us, we will go inside, clean off a place to work, and pull out some clay and make some things to throw in the kiln next time it gets turned on.
All in all---happiness is mostly assured for the day.
Thank god.

9 days till thanksgiving

When I was a kid, and when my kids were kids, Thanksgiving was pretty straightforward.  We didn't always go the same place for Thanksgiving, but there was not craziness about trying to go to everyone's Thanksgiving, no one arguing about whose turn it was; none of that.

These days, its like a tug-a-war with every person thinking it has to be their year to host so they can also invite their inlaws and not have to worry about going to 2 meals or, in the world of divorce, the inlaws two meals and the family's 2 meals and so on and so on.

No one will say, this year its at my house.
No one will say, sorry, we were at your house last year.
No one will say, I think we want a small, intimate meal with just immediate family.

People out of town invite themselves for the week.
People that invited you to thanksgiving a week ago decide they are bringing the people they invited to their house to your house instead.
People that don't see each other except at holidays, and never talk except on facebook--unless they have unfollowed each other, suddenly are very sure that they all have to see each other over turkey.

And the menu.
It must be traditional.
It must offer a full selection for those that don't like traditional.
It must be low calorie.
There must be enough that everyone can gorge themselves.
No one can miss anything they associate with their own definition of thanksgiving food.

BUT
No one has a table that will seat more than 8 people comfortably. with a four person breakfast nook table in another room.
No one can take the week off to cook and clean so the meal is actually all done at the same time.
No one can tell you what all is going to arrive at the meal.
No one has plates for everyone or silverware for everyone or glasses for everyone---

except the oldest of us.

And millennials are all about passing the torch ASAP.

So, all the traditional food will be cooked using pinterest recipes that no one has tried.
All the food will be served on paper plates and eaten with plastic ware.
All the drinks will come in their own cans or bottles.

People will be sitting on the couch and leaning against countertops and sitting on the front porch trying to eat while too uncomfortable to try to visit with the people nearest them, should they know those people, should they like those people, should they not be a person that they normally avoid at all costs the rest of the year.

If the neighbors wouldn't show up with a paper plate full of their own terrible thanksgiving food, I'd stay home and cook myself a feast.

This year, I'm thankful thanksgiving only comes once a year.

The lap of luxury.

So, I woke up this morning to see a kitten curled up with her tiny stuffed puppy, purring while asleep.  Knowing that her mother is one of the feral cats that frequent the neighborhood feed bowls---(apparently old people tend to think alike, and hate to think of things outside starving.  We have some rather well-fed ferals, and still not many rodents.) I'm well aware that had she not gotten separated from mom, she would not be cuddling with a toy.  She is six months old, and unneutered, she would likely be wondering around pregnant competing for food and safe places.

I reach down to pet her and get a sudden image of a gorilla with a kitten.

Koko, the handsigning gorilla loved kittens.  In gorilla world, she was a regular cat lady.

Koko learned about 2,000 words in sign language. Other gorillas taught to sign, learned the same.

This is not less than most people use to express themselves on a day to day basis, though, depending on language and education, is probably less than what they have learned the meaning of.

The planet of the Apes idea, where a chimpanzee with genetic engineering has an advanced brain shows apes speaking and building and organizing.

Apes, without genetic engineering already use tools and problem-solve in the wild--but the wild is wild, dangerous, so not so much energy is given to having long, emotional discussions, and more is spent on organizing the community for the safety and survival of the group.

In the wild, the biggest and toughest is boss and everyone else is rather at the Alpha's mercy.

If you go to an area of town full of homeless people, similar behavior occurs.  Very little concern is placed on the young having toys or friends, all is placed on trying to survive and stay safe.  And---the biggest, meanest, toughest is the boss.

This always makes me imagine myself with a full coat of fur, and with that fur, no need for clothes to stay warm, and---here is the real winner--no need for a bra.

At some point, hairlessness became a factor in humans attracting a mate.

Don't get me wrong, I come from a pretty hairy family, but these days, the men some manscaping kings.

Genetically speaking, hairy and unhairy don't really cause a huge difference in survival of the individual.  More hair would be warmer in the cold, but cats and dogs with thick, fluffy coats use that fur to shed heat also by allowing air ventilation between the outer hair surface and the skin (like trees do in a forest, the sun hits the tops, the air circulates through the trees and the ground remains cooler).

Hairless dogs, and cats are at the mercy of the elements: hotter in the heat, sunburn, windburn, wetter in the rain, colder in the cold.  They just don't make allergic people cough and snort as much or shed as much on the furniture.

Thus, it makes sense that, just like those hairless pets, the human choosing of mates was based on an increased sense of a attraction to hairlessness.  Was it a need to not "look like and animal"?  Was it a fashion statement?  Did women not want their partners shedding on the couch?

I've known a few people that were quite sure total body baldness would be a perk---based on nothing but stopped up bathroom drains.

But, the actual direction I was going was that we humans are living mostly in the lap of luxury.  We mostly don't have to fight for a safe place to sleep--unless we are homeless or in a war zone or a prison.  We mostly don't have to fight for enough to eat. (We are a malnourished nation filled with obese junkfood eaters, but we have plenty to eat, sadly, the poorer you are, the more likely you are to be eating the worst salty, sugary, transfat concoctions on the planet--brought to you by dollar stores in food deserts.  A friend showed me the bag her child was given on Friday--all the kids in the school were automatically placed on school lunch due to the general poverty of the area, so they were sending the kids weekend food--no starving kids allowed--the bag was full of the worst junkfood I'd ever seen, not only salt, sugar, processed and transfatted to increase shelf live, but the packaging was so old it was fading--no vitamins left in that, if there ever were any)

And these days, the leader is not the biggest or strongest physically, but the richest and most powerful from a political/business perspective.  I'm not sure that is at all better.

So, today, I'll periodically talk like Curious George, remind myself that the reason we humans talk and other apes don't is not intelligence but vocal chords--we have them, other apes don't, try very hard to use more than 2,000 vocabulary words in my conversations.

I feel pretty pampered right now.

In my own company

I've spent a lot of time in my own company lately.
It's the nature of retirement for the single in their own home, I guess.
I've experienced great moments of "ah-ha", especially this week.

While listening to a radio program while driving home, I heard something that made me think how lucky I was to be hearing that program.
The gestalt was not what they said, but rather the fact that I was fully engaged in listening, that I was emotionally involved with the story.

Having heard a million complaints about kids watching tv, and people on their phones and how we all need to interact more with people in person and spend more time in nature, not involved in other peoples stories on paper or in media,  my moment of truth was in the fact that a radio program had involved me more than the last 10 family holidays.

So, while I'm not recommending that people spend all their time playing solitaire on the computer or doing crossword puzzles that are easy, I am also NOT going to crap on those out their that are hearing beautiful music or looking at beautiful art, reading great stories or staring out windows daydreaming while NOT interacting in person with other people.

The quality of our lives is not about how many people we have shallow and trite conversations with.  It is not about being seen.  It is about our own internal landscape.

The first question everyone asks me....

"So, how do you like retirement?"

I answer "fine", and they answer "good".

But, retirement is a bit of a mixed bag.

I love that I have used an alarm clock 2 times in the last 3 months. (reality is I never used one before, but only because I was always awake by 0530.  If I woke up at 0530 now, I'd have some very long and boring days)
My house is cleaner.
My yard was mowed more often this August and September.  I am boycotting mowing in October--it seems morally wrong although the grass is starting to look a little shaggy.
I've cooked more...and cooked more desserts---crockpot tapioca is amazingly easy and tasty.  My jeans are not going to thank me unless I stay active.
I've spent 3 days putting old paneling on the walls of an old storage building and then spent another 3 days moving stuff out of the garage into the storage building----somehow I still have about 2 weeks work left on the garage.
I've painted 3 buffalo sketches and almost finished a giant buffalo painting.
I've painted 1 crow painting and started 2 more.
I've made the pages of a calendar to have printed up--might turn into next year's calendar as there have been some family glitches.
I've cleaned on flowerbeds, "on" because they still look like crap, I'm not fond of digging in mud and it has been both overcast, wet, mosquito-y (I'm on my sixth can of OFF).  I remember, as a kid, my sister and I cleaning a room, and hearing that it looks like we "cleaned at it".  That is the kind of "on"  I am referring to.
I've poured 3 skulls--a giant mold that likes to cause me to dump slip all over the place. I'm fairly sure I need to make some mold pouring racks or tools or something.

And through all that, every day, a part of my brain thinks---this is the end, this is your last part of life, this is you riding off into the sunset.
A headhunter contacts me and I don't respond--I'm retired.
I see a travel coupon and throw it out, I know how much money I have and how long it needs to last---potentially.
Someone tries to sell me a car---but I probably have my last car right now.
I go to a furniture store and wonder why I would ever need new furniture.

BUT!!!!
I am not depressed.
I am not even sad.
If working in a Chemical Dependency Unit taught me anything, it is that "one day at a time" is good for us all.

They also taught me that "fine" was an acronym.

The sun has come out, time to work on the garage.

how time flies!

I have heard that the reason that time flies is that we don't break up the routine enough.  That we keep doing the same day over and over and the memories of that are less than memorable.
I am trying not to develop a routine, and that can be hard.

I am now in front of the computer eating breakfast.
It is likely that on every day off for the last 20 years, I have taken my breakfast downstairs and eaten while on the computer.

That may constitute a routine.

I don't have many others.

I don't do the same thing everyday after my breakfast.

I don't do the same things every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or every Saturday or even every Sunday.

But, time is still flying.

Maybe it has to do with the lack of BIG differences.
Maybe it has to do with the amount of time I spend on solitary work/hobbies/projects.
Maybe time really does fly.

Grandchildren

If you had asked me about the importance of Grandchildren when I was 20, I would have laughed at the 2 words being used in the same sentence.

I was thirty before anyone said a word about wanting grandchildren or wishing for a bunch of grandchildren or how they believed that grandchildren might be a very important part of getting old.

I now realize that a lot of my human interaction is based on having grandkids--from their birthday parties to their parents needing help balancing the work/school time schedules, to just plain weird conversations with them or about them.

When I woke up this morning, I realized my own parents have been gone almost 20 years.
Neither of my children were grown when they died, and my oldest granddaughter is now the age my own daughter was when they were both gone.  Their father's mother was 1500 miles away and rarely visited.

I remember the awful sound of my daughter crying at her grandmothers funeral---a terrible moment when I realized that I was not really present for my kids during that time, and that they were losing the 2 people besides their mother that had always been their for them. And yet, I was as lost as that poor tween girl sounded.

I didn't have a firm grasp of the importance of grandparents from my own childhood. My fathers parents and grandparents were long gone when I came onto this earth.  My mother's father died when I was two, and while I have vague recollections, I didn't fully grasp it all.  My maternal grandmother's father was in his nineties when he died, but I was 7 and he had 10 kids and so many grandkids that I'm sure he felt surrounded by grandkids all the time although I probably only saw him a dozen times in my life.  My one grandmother had three kids, but had been the oldest girl of those 10 kids mentioned, and was pretty straightforward about not wanting to spend any more time on child rearing.

That was fine with me, given more than 30 minutes, we usually ended up clashing about everything, which was apparently not how things were supposed to be done. While I saw her a about every other weekend with family visits for my entire childhood she actually babysat me 2 times, at age 2 and at age 3 when my mother was having GB surgery, and giving birth to my sister.  Neither of us enjoyed those to visits very much.

I realize, my two grandkids have no idea who my parents were---they don't know much about them, wouldn't recognize them if they walked into the room, and will never miss them.

My kids sometimes bring up stories, but what they don't get very well is that both of them were retired by the  time the my kids were born, and both retired for health reasons. While my father just became more and more like his own crankiest self, my mother changed so much that who they knew and who I knew were almost unrecognizable as the same person.

My granddaughter and I discuss things, like how her mother is or how her uncle is, and we talk about when they were kids and how their grandparents were and how that affected my kids and how that affected my sister and I, and I think she might see them more clearly than my own children, since they spent so much time with them but only at a certain time in their life.

Then I realize my own grandkids are also getting that very view of my life, as if I sprouted up not just fully grown and looking like an old lady, never a wayward or difficult child, never a silly teenager or argumentative college student.  Never worried about makeup or dates or were my clothes in style.

I don't know.  Maybe that is just the way it is. Maybe it is just the way it is supposed to be
My own grandmother, who by my college years, wrote back and forth with me for a few years till I got to busy to keep up, and who regularly warned me about just about everything I believed and she felt was wrong or dangerous, seemed eternally the same.  Only after her death, and then so many other deaths that somehow I had  I had a 2 car garage filled with other people's memories, furniture and fruit jars, did I get a chance to realize she had been young in hard times, young and idealistic, young before women could vote and before---well, before just about any of the things I took for granted were even possible.

She had been a serious child, a girl that got to learn to wash dishes by 4 and change diapers by 5 and clean and cook and make soap and do laundry when all of those things were much tougher than playing a game on Nintendo (that was how I decided the kids were old enough to do laundry, run the microwave and vacuum cleaners and dishwasher, their game controls were more complicated than the knobs on the appliances).  But they had a hand pump on a well for water, and cooking started with "wring the chicken's neck and pluck the feathers".  The stove was not about knobs but instead involved controlling the wood to air mix for a slow stove versus and hot stove.  And soap making started not with measure the fats and lye---all highly scientific and using a metric scale that measures to the hundredth gram, but with "fill the pot behind the house with ashes, after a few rains, check it to see if the lye is strong enough, then render some lard after we butcher the next cow.

My grandkids would stare at me with raised eyebrows if I told them about that.  They might ask some questions or might just change the subject because grandma had to be joking.

I meet children that currently have up to 8 grandmothers, and many have 6 grandmothers, and 6 grandfathers.  I'm sure that is also just part of the norm, what with steps and halfs and teen births and living longer lives.  These days the hardest part for many grandparents is what to let the grandkids call you--mimi, gigi, pa--pa--, bami, bampi, grannie, gramps, but I kept the old Grandma, not as formal as grandmother, but very old-fashioned.  And, I knew how to spell it.

Enough of this, got to go grab the grandson, we are mapping the backyard today--a little leaf tracing, a little cut and paste.  Then identify all those trees that currently all look the same.

Autumn is coming.

A strange year for my part of the country--rain at least weekly.  The grass is still green and growing.  I'll have to mow one more time most likely, which is a month later than the last mow most of the time

There are garden spiders spinning webs in the upper corner of every doorway to the outside world, so is I've had a face full of webbing every time I forget to clear it with a stick first.

The hurricane(s) have the weather pretty cool already, but still up to 90 late afternoon.

I have plenty of outside projects left, but the wasps have been busy building nests and have been particularly waspish--everyone has been stung at least once by the foul-tempered creatures.  Anyone that has said "leave them alone and they will leave you alone" has not offended a nest of yellow jackets by breathing 10 foot from their home.

Momma cat removed her kittens from the yard after one tiny baby stuck its head into a triangular space of wrought iron and then couldn't figure out how to get it.  I heard the yowling, went out to find 6 cats staring intently at the poor little thing, and got him out, despite the flailing of razor sharp kitten claws.  He just needed to raise his head up, but was pulling down and back instead.  It left of under its own steam soon after, following momma.  When she came back the next day, there were only 3 kittens.  I assume it suffered some damage to its neck that was fatal later.

The leaves are very nearly all vibrant green.  We are having none of that early brown and dry leaves from lack of water in the heat.  But the grass is getting that slightly leggy look, despite the weekly mowing, the end-of-summer look, that, green, then you mow and under the green is yellow and brown.

I had my first cold, or virus, or weird and sudden allergy attack that felt more like a cold or virus.  Still have an occasional cough from it and sleeping later, sleeping more, took some naps and such.

I'm surprised to learn that I can not have enough energy when ill to paint or read.  Maybe it was the cold medicine.

I am looking forward to Fall this year, officially starting this week but who knows how long till it actually starts.  When I was a kid, school started the day after Labor day and ended by Memorial Day.  We had a few hot days in school, and with nothing but open windows and a couple of those funny wire-faced desk fans rotating, and we didn't die, and were not allowed to wear shorts.  Pants or dresses for girls (but no jeans rules, we were pretty early on that, the bigger city was still insisting on all girls wearing dresses and no jeans on boys), and long pants for boys.  I don't even remember sweating more than at home, but of course, most of the houses still didn't have air conditioners.

Less than a week from the first day of fall and three days over 90.  And it's humid as usual.  With rain again next week--probably related to hurricane season--that big ol' butterfly flapping over the ocean.

September is a birthday month in our family.  It's funny how birthdays congregate in certain months in different families.  Right now there are 3 in September, none in October, 2 in-laws in November, 4 in December, 1 in January, 1 in February, 1 in March, 1 in April, none in May or June, then 1 in July and August.

That was pointless.

I'm waiting for the first freeze, so I can trim trees and bushes, dig up bulbs, mulch leaves, clean off wasp nests and spider webs, wash windows, and not spend 5-6 hours a week riding a lawn mower.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great lawnmower and riding around mowing, having to stay attentive, it has its Zen qualities.
I'm getting to know my yard intimately, which has changed every time I hired someone to mow for a season.  This is my second full season and when I can't do it anymore I either put in a backyard full of goats and guineas and just mow the front or head to something with no yard.

I love the yard, but it is a yard that spends all its time trying to return to its wild state---and I like it best when it is only tamed enough to keep the neighbors from being able to turn me in.

Instead of no yard, maybe I need a place with no neighbors.

Retired one month.

A month.
Some boredom potential, but I still have not accomplished half of what I planned.  My feet get tired and other things pop up that can't be put off.
I'm not painting every day.  That was a big goal.  But am painting much more frequently than before.
My fear of wasp stings and the stinking itching and swelling has stopped some outdoor projects until it has at least one freeze.
I'm going to bring home some windows for a greenhouse today or tomorrow.
Or not.
I am actually going to go clean on a house after a couple of chores in town.
It's going to rain like a maniac today and most of the rest of the week---but the weather predictions change when you aren't looking.  You look today and it say rain all week, then 4 hours later it changes to no rain for at least a week.  The hurricane season this year is doing weird stuff to our normal, droughty Summer and Fall.  It might actually snow all winter like they are predicting.
At least I won't have to drive in it most of the time.
Now, on to month two.

one of my fears

One of my fears, and right now i'm vaguely aware of quit a few, but bat them from the front of my brain when I see them peaking at me, like wacking at gnats or wasps, and they usually go back away.
But one of them is about the world of old white women.
It's not about old white women attacking me or shunning me or doing anything to me.
It's a fear of becoming a caricature of one.  A stereotypical one.  A giant thoughtless joke of one.
Not very politically correct of me, but a vision of Ruth Buzzi in Laugh-in comes to mind.  Hair net, drooping stocking, glum face.
But the appearance is not much of a fear.  Genetics decided to give me my paternal grandmother's visage at this age, a fearsome looking woman with permanent bitch face. (and if one more person tells me to smile, I'll wack them with my giant old lady purse).  Hair, long, again, as it grows too fast and it's always easier to grab a hairband than just about anything.  But, with it slowly changing from wavy dark brown to Einstein gray frizzle, it is not looking very well kempt at anytime.
The actual fear is of the insular world that so often overtakes women of a certain age.
Where suddenly, your whole world is your children and spouse, and if no spouse, just the children.
Where everyone that is not your child or your spouse becomes---scary, threatening, "oops, where is my phone, that man walking in front of my house is going to rob me, that car drives down this street every day, I think he is casing my house"

I know, you are wondering where such a weird fear came from.

But, I've seen it plenty.  Older white women that still work that won't let the housekeeper in the office to get the trash unless she can watch them.  Get in an elevator with a nonwhite person, the purse goes into a full body hug.  Walking down the side walk and a person in a hoody is coming towards you, run, run and scream.

My own grandmother, not the one I look like, the one that looked younger than she was and lived forever, wouldn't let anyone but relatives--and only those she liked and trusted for 4 generations do home repairs.  When she died, the sheet rock was falling off the studs.  You would have though she house was full of antiques (it was) worth millions(they were not--they were just her old stuff).

But, in less than a month, I've seen how the world could close in, become quite small and the bigger world very scary.  I've talked to my children, grandchildren, my children's spouses, the grocery store checkout clerk, the telemarketer, the teller at the bank, and none of those conversations were longer than 5 minutes.

In truth, conversations with family tend to be about "catching up",  "what have you been doing" "nothing, how about you".  If you want to make your family members eyes roll back into their heads, start a conversation about an actual topic, a book you are reading or a show you are watching, a political (plenty of those, these days) subject or a scientific finding just coming out.  They shut down so quick that I'm shocked more of them don't lose their balance and fall on their butts.

I do now know that asking grandkids about school is a one word answer--"nothing".  So much for teachers exciting them with new information.

But, how do you keep from becoming that fearful, timid old white woman, and I suppose she wouldn't have to be white, but most of the ones I met have been.  It's like a role, a caretaker with no one to take care of, a person with protectors that no longer has them around, a person whose mind has never had to think for itself vs is now not allowed to think for itself.

Or is it just the normal fear of death that has been attached to some "other".  Death is no longer a normal, natural part of life, but is rather an externally caused problem  that those people not like us are determined to inflict us with.

Or is it just a victim mentality--I should be rather safe from that.
Or is it a recognition of diminishing strength and cognitive ability.
Or is it a lifetime belief that women need to be protected and taken care of.

Nevermind, I'm going on amazon and finding a crossword puzzle book.

so.....

I'm picking up grandkids from school and watching them till a parent gets home--at their house 3 days a week.  It means I get to listen to NPR both ways 3 days a week.  With a prius, the gas is not much. It's my J-O-B!
With that job I'm painting and scanning in 100 years of family photos and giving them names/and dates when possible.  A long job with the only pay-off being that I can actually find them now.

I have plans to make a set of steps for the building out back and put the latch on it and put everything from the garage in it that will fit.  I have to find the leaky spot in the roof and seal it first. Then it needs to have the bottom closed in--concrete blocks most likely.  All things I can do.

Then clean out the garage, which, like the craft room or art studio or spare bedroom, whatever.... gets all junked out at the end of a year and needs organized again so I can use the space and find the tools and walk.

The house is staying cleaner and yard is mostly mowed, but for the rain which is determined to set some sort of August record this year. Mosquitos in August in the hottest part of the day is not normal.  But the high last week was about 90.  We have one day next week per forecast that is 97.  No 100+ weather this month, just humid, overcast, rainy, buggy swampish stuff.  They are predicting more snow than usual this year.

I no longer know what usual is.
Does spring start in April or February.
Is all the cold weather in December?
Is August the hottest month of the year?
I certainly can't tell by the last few years.

I also want to build a greenhouse out back with some raised beds.  A potting shed or puttering shed.
And fix up the balcony with an awning so I can paint outside even in the rain.
And clean off the fence line and remove the vines from the trees.
And repaint the front porch.
And change the stove top to a gas one--I've always hated electric stoves.

But  I'm  Slow.

Good thing there are no deadlines.

Week Three.

Week three is no longer a vacation.  

I have been off three weeks for surgery 4 times, childbirth twice, and was once unemployed 3 weeks after being fired.

It doesn't feel quite like that.

It doesn't feel real either--like it's permanent and planned---it feels like I'm waiting for something, a call or a letter or an email saying--"oh, by the way, you have to be at work at 0730 next Monday."

My sister, who has said she was retiring at 59 1/2 told me after I retired that "it's not like you, I don't hate my job"

She used to call daily griping about her job, moaning and cursing and.... then, without the educational requirements or much notice, they made her the manager and all that moaning and cursing left---it's still the most stressful job in the world.

It used to annoy me and crack me up that she thought her job was always more stressful than any job I had---most people see nursing as stressful: people dying on you and all that.  But no, the stress is in the banking industry.

So, she isn't retiring in 6 months at 59 and 1/2 years. She is waiting till she qualifies for Medicare, which is funny because she hasn't seen a doctor in 10-15 years.  

I get it.  I waffled a few times, Thought I should wait till I could get Medicare at 65.  Thought I should wait till the end of 2018 so I didn't risk having any tax glitches.  Thought I should wait till September 30 so I could (potentially) see a social security check within a month of my last day of work.

Ultimately, I left because I was afraid if there was not scheduled date of retirement, there would be an unscheduled last day brought on by my inability to shut the hell up.

I didn't hate my last out-of-home job.  It was actually my favorite of all them.  But the place was doing "groundhog day" and I couldn't keep nodding and smiling.

Every new management company came in (so far at 2 year intervals, the one previous to the last had announced a 99 year lease, but was gone in 2 years, so when the last one, the one that had offered to "take the resident program off their hands" while closing the hospital when the whole thing destabilized--read that as "we bought them as part of a larger purchase, with the intentions of shutting them from the get-go".

That was a full 13 years ago.  So, every two years, a new group comes in, gets rid of the excess employees, remodels the lobby, talks about the parking problem, talks about the elevator problems, talks about the roof leaking, and promises they are there for "the long haul".....and two years later, we have a new managing company and it all begins again.

What I have learned from this is:

     It is no wonder that countries with destabilized governments just keep having coup after coup until all the people try to flee the country.

     Progress is not possible if the leadership never tries to find out what is causing the problems in the first place.  We all have pet "fixes" that we think will make things better, but all the mustard plasters in the world will not heal a broken leg.

     Carpetbaggers always appear when it looks like they can improve their own lot while doing nothing.  In a hospital, those that were known by the previous management team to be butt-kissing slackers, can seem really helpful to the new team, I saw one of those go from "new grad" to "CNO" using that method in 10 years flat--and she said "I seen it"(no have, no had, my English teacher would have been horrified) all the time and couldn't write a complete sentence.  

So I'm in week three, and most of the work dreams or nightmares have stopped (other nurses also have nightmares about having too many patients and being unable to do everything to take care of them, so it's not just me).  

I painted yesterday.  Something from pinterest for decorating my new "greige" living room.  I would post a picture, but I'm having technical difficulty this morning.  

And I may get to finish mowing.  I don't remember ever having this much rain in August, but was counting on a nice dried up and dusty yard by now.

To boldly go....

where I've never gone before.
There is a voice at the back of my head whispering---"final countdown".
So, the goal is not a bucket list---I'm basically healthy and a good 15 years from the expected age of death.
I'm also not used to a lot of good luck.  My Grandmother died at 94 less than a month from her agreement to go live in a nursing home.  She had been living at home, on a huge ranch, alone with some assist from children and other relatives especially the last year when she lost a lot of vision to macular degeneration and had several strokes affecting her ability to find the right words.  It was frustrating, but she had no weakness, paralysis or paresthesia.  She just would call things something that was not what they were, and be aware of it.
In the general scheme of things, I'd take that after 93 years of basically good health.
My mother died at 75 after 11 years of slow but steady neurological decline from progressive supranuclear palsy.  It took 5 years to get a diagnosis because: 1. its not very common, and 2. she could not bear the thought of something happening in her brain, so she refused to see neurologist after the first one said he thought the problem was in her brain. (he was the first doctor I took her too, didn't go back until 5 years later when it was obvious that it was not: 1. allergies, 2. bad glasses, 3. ear infection, 4. eye problem, or 5. heart problem.  (yes, a heart problem sounds better to some of us than a brain problem--I'm not sure why a heart problem doesn't sound better than a brain problem to everyone).  It took 5 years after she died to remember her before she got sick.  It drew a line in the whole family's existence, before and after the disease.
My father died at 82, and while his last 2 years were bad, he died as he lived, with as little physician interference as possible.  He was past his expected years of life and outlived most of his male ancestors.
So, am I feeling morbid?
Maybe.
But my whole life (not just mine, but I'm speaking for myself) is about choices.  Every choice alters the available next choice, and time waits for no man, (or woman).  So I'm trying to figure out, what is next, what can I actually do versus what plans are pipedreams.  
1. I'm not going to become a prima ballerina--reality is, that was a 7 year old dream that had no idea what genetics and puberty could do to unhinge that dream.  I do think that 10 years of ballet was not a bad thing, just not a life goal accomplisher. (especially since performing in public made be physically ill)
2. I'm not going to be a world-renowned archeologist (the dream of 9 year old me)--in addition to not being able to walk more than 5 miles without my ankles hurting for days, I'm allergic to bullets and most of those digs are in war zones.  I CAN still read about other's finds and be grateful archeology exists.
3.   I'm not going to write the Great American Novel, mostly because I hate to proofread, and also because everyone secretly wants to write it, even people that have never written.  It's like we all occasionally have a great story land in our mind, but only those that can figure out how to get it onto paper (or computer) before it travels all the way through the mind and disintegrates like dust, can succeed at this.  Both my parents wanted to write one.  My mother wrote spirals full, but never finished a story.  My father had one and lost it on page 51.  (Until that book, I didn't think he could read and write, who knew that he was just already losing his visual accommodation and too stubborn to wear reading glasses till I was 20.  He was 38 when I was born, but no one every totally gets that their parents had a good bit of life before they were born.)
4. Last on the list is Artist, and that is not yet closed to me, although the competition is fierce if I feel a need for recognition or honors.  Since I've never had either of those 2 things before, and because most of the people I know and respect and am proud to have the acquaintance of are also artists that may or may not be well-known, I'm going to consider this to be the one path that is open to me as long as I care to travel it.
So
So, the goal is to go from occasional painter and potter to daily creator.
Daily.
So that the process is like a friend.
So that the release of those vaguely seen images in my head, in sound asleep or wide awake dreams becomes as common to me as getting up and going to work was.
Was.
Work people say, "do you miss work yet?"  Do you miss us?  and that is not the same question.  I miss them. But we no longer have a context.  I miss work not at all.  It was not MY life work.  It was a job.  And a very frustrating one, since it was required by law but not loved by those that like things the way they were.   It was always starting something, but never finishing anything---because the projects ran out of steam in the midst of all the push-back against change.  The others in the department understood that frustration and thus were important, not just for the job, but for the survival of the frustration.
That is why I'm keeping the blogs.
One to vent---and one to keep me from setting down in the recliner and binge-watching old tv shows while waiting for nothing.
It's time for me to take my last remaining choice--and live like a creator of art.

Wish me luck---I need it.                                                                                                                                      

One week into this new life.

I retired one week ago.
It feels like I took off work to clean house for my birthday dinner.
I've taken off a week to clean house before---so not too unusual.

It rained much of the week, which is pretty odd for August in Oklahoma.
I've also put up a lot of things I should have put up in the first place and polished a lot of stuff I hadn't polished in months (years? ever?).  I still had a deadline--1 week--to finish cleaning.

I'm guessing that new deadlines will be coming my way--IRS comes to mind.  I just got my last paycheck.  In the future, I'll get one check a month that is less than half of one work check.

 I figured out by Wednesday that I needed to track a budget.  My bills are mostly gone and I'm not a shopper, but I've never been a saver either.  I could get myself in trouble if I don't pay attention.

Wednesday Night I had my first work nightmare in a month.  I awoke anxious, then remembered I didn't have to work as a nurse anymore.  Amazingly, while nurses see their job as very important and high-stress, most people that have not worked healthcare think nurses have an overpaid and easy job.  I spent my last 10 years working on the education and quality improvement side of healthcare, and the people that go that route hate to admit it, but are also trying to find a place to get away from the stresses of providing healthcare without dumping the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.  Work nightmares are not rare among nurses.  It's a frustrating job, where higher's up frequently think challenging nurses is the same as trying to get them to do 18 hours work in 12 hours while not skipping anything or allowing anything unsafe to occur.  Most of those higher's up consider the nursing care and ancillary care to be "An unfortunately high business expense" in the world of healthcare.  Doctors are particularly prone to this attitude, considering that people go to the hospital to see the doctor--only.  My retort to this is to ask, "how much time did the Doctor spend with the patient, versus the time the patient spent with nurses and therapists and technicians.  If we only go to the hospital for Doctors, then we don't need hospitals, only Doctor's offices, 15 minutes is 15 minutes.

As the week goes on, the weird dreams are coming nightly.  Perhaps my subconscious mind is clearing out the cobwebs.  Retiring is major stressor on most of those life-stress monitoring things.  One of those that sound very positive but increase stress similarly to losing a loved one or moving a child to college.  Change is a stressor, fear of change, insecurity, everything is a stressor.

I made it through the clean-up, my son did the windows around the dining room just before the birthday party--it looked much better.  We all ate too much; talked about nothing with only a couple of times that we tried to wander into past exploits no one wants to be reminded of or politics.

Not bad.

So, this week, with no more deadlines on the horizon, I will start my days with some exercise and fun.  I do have a goal, though---get the craft room/art room navigable again.

I want to paint.  (I'm thinking that will stop thoses weird dreams!)

The First Day of My Second Life.

I worked my last day yesterday.
I've retired.
It is the second time I have been unemployed since before I graduated from college the first time and the first time I did it on purpose.
My income has officially become less than half--social security is a safety net not a replacement job.
My time has become my own.

I'm both ecstatic and terrified.

I have made a million lists, lists of expenses, lists of projects, lists of cheap meals that are not deadly or tasteless, and the list that is only written in my head.
That is the list of fears.  The list of fears is long and includes things too awful to consider and things too ridiculous to take seriously. It's a list that changes at the drop of a hat.

Example of things I want to avoid for the rest of my life:

• don't walk in front of a bus the day after you retire while texting.
• don't become an alcoholic that starts drinking with irish coffee and ends with a nightcap
• don't lie in bed, depressed and lonely waiting for someone to visit
• don't rush out to get a job as a Walmart greeter
• don't start volunteering at the place I retired from because I miss them.
• don't drive my kids crazy being needy
• don't drive my grandkids crazy being needy
• don't need a Doctor till after I can get Medicare.
• don't burn my house down learning to weld
• don't impulse spend my entire life savings on one good vacation (a discounted cruise would accomplish that---everyone wants to know about my travel plans, or my mission plans or where I'm moving after I retire---none of those apply, none of them.)

My father was a terrible businessman, terrible, but his favorite job was building and rebuilding things---cars, trucks, metal oddities---if you could weld it or solder it or bolt it together, it was something worth doing.  After a health scare that left him blind in one eye and no longer safe for the commercial job that he repeatedly complained about, he was depressed--in bed, nonverbal, cranky, and everyone knew, "he's not going to be here long".  Then, he got up, and opened his shop--his "rebuilder shop".  He was getting social security--age 63, and was not at the peak of his health, but he went back to work and he was his own boss.  He finally sold that business nearly 20 years later and went home to garden and make wooden birdhouses while being with my mother whose health had turned bad.

That is my goal.

I want my second life.

After 40 years in a profession that I knew I didn't like in the 3rd year of college, I'm going to start again.

I like history.

I like Art.

I like making things.

And, for those times I need to communicate, not feel alone, not wish for a friend that thinks about what I think about, worries about the same things and loves the same things, a person making their own journey in life, with no idea what that means or where that trip is going, I invite anyone that finds this to use this for the same things.  

Getting older is no picnic.  This country has worshiped youth for a while now.  Maybe TV and Radio did that, or maybe capitalism does that, or maybe, at a certain age, the perspective--looking back as much or more than looking forward, it just too disconcerting to those that "have their whole lives ahead of them". 

It is what I have now.  And memories are more valuable than just about anything.  

I don't want to be young again, though the old saying about "If I knew then what I know now" has some interesting potential for redo's.

I don't even want overs so I can choose the field and job that I think would have made me happier.

I'm not unhappy with who I am.  Maybe I needed to learn what I learned and go where I went to get here.

But, I do want to be the Captain of my future.  I want time to create some stuff.  I want time to decide what I want to do for me and what I want to give back to mankind or animal kind or whatever.  And I want time to get this stupid house cleaned and organized for the first time since I moved in, in a rush, with one day off, with kids, and school, and work, and extended family, for the first time in 24 years.

If you read this, and want to add or comment or write your own thing on this bottom of this, please do.

We only live twice--or once--or?