Retired -- Will Work for Food

Sometimes, for no apparent reason, there are mornings like this – one person's up, the other one's down. On this particular morning, I was up. It was Max who still had to go to work. Putting on her coat, looking around, she had a dark look. "This place is a mess," she said.

I had to agree. But it was too dangerous to mention that at least half of it was hers. She looked over the top of her glasses. "Maybe we could hire a retiree for the day? To do a little neatening?" Her eyebrows bobbed a couple of times. "Yes?"

“A retiree would be much too expensive."

"If the retiree is smart, he'll work for food."

Then we went through the typical morning exit. A peck on the cheek. Adios, amigo. The door slam -- she always went away and came back with gusto -- and I was alone, thinking that a little elbow grease and a tidy house just might snip her funk in the bud and make things less treacherous for me. I rubbed my hands together and got to work.

A splash of water. A glob of soap. Dishwasher doing its thing. Spoons with spoons. Forks with forks. Oranges with oranges. Tangerines in a nice little pyramid. Cucumbers parallel in the crisper. Army-perfect in the pantry. Shipshape in the bathrooms. Very nice -- until I scanned the walls. Oh my...

We have a lot of art, and all of it hung like the Room at Arles -- nothing parallel. Not one frame straight. Getting this right, I knew, would be time-consuming but necessary for the Homes and Gardens look I was going for. I got my level and went to work putting the bubble in the middle, nudging, teasing, going wall to wall, room to room, until every piece of art was perfect. 

I looked around. All was neat as a pin, straight as an arrow. Martha Stewart, eat your heart out And there were still a few hours to go until Max got home. I puttered around, waiting to show her that a retiree had shown up and worked for food. 

It seemed to take forever -- the watched pot and all that – but I finally heard her car, then her voice ("I'm home!") and then the door slamming with its usual gusto, sending a minor quake through the walls, maybe 2.0 on the Richter. Frames tilted, tangerines rolled, apples mixed with oranges. She looked around. "I guess the retiree didn’t show up, today. Nothing looks any different."

"You might want to check the cucumbers." 

She did, and I ate well that night. But what a day. No matter how long you work, no matter how hard, things never work out exactly as you hope they will. Not even in retirement.

Flight of Fancy -- My Day as Sherlock Holmes

I have always been given to flights of fancy -- within an hour I have been a Sherpa in Nepal, a corpuscle in a trouble heart, a gargoyle on the west wall of Notre Dame -- and, in retirement, the opportunities to live inside my head have multiplied. And today, or at least part of the day, I was Sherlock Holmes. My objective: to observe the curious aspects of Max, my wife, to learn who she really be, what she's capable of, and why.

I started in the kitchen where I discovered the corpse of a Granny Smith apple, hacked to pieces, and a knife nearby. The scene played itself out in my head... the blade slashing through defenseless fruit. Sickening but elementary. 

The map on the table caught my eye -- she had circled London and Paris where she obviously had prepared her hideaways. A few inches to the side lay a travel brochure, apparently to distract my eyes from the map  It was an easy deduction: the murderous wench would be gone by end of day.

Twenty minutes later in her closet I discovered exactly 50 pairs of shoes -- not 49, not 51, but 50... precisely 100 shoes. "Oh my god," I said aloud. "The love of my life is a centipede."

"What did you say?" There she was, in the doorway holding the weapon that had mutilated that unfortunate apple. Her blank expression gave nothing away. She simply said, "I know that look. Who are you today?"

Rule number one when facing a felon with a knife: Don't agitate them. Tell the truth, which I did. "Sherlock Holmes, 221B Baker Street."

She nodded as if she knew more about my day than I did. "Well, Sherlock, Watson and I are about to have a little snack. Come and get it or fix your own."

Thus ended my day as Sherlock Holmes. The fruit and cheese were delicious. 

Retirement Cookies -- Smoke Gets in My Eyes

These three survivors of batch number four still
weren't chew-able but did come in handy for leveling a shelf

Never eat the first batch of retirement cookies. Do not feed them to your dog (or the vet, for that matter). Do not throw out; call your local bomb-disposal unit. Having said that, let me add: Don't give up. I didn't, and it all worked out. Consider my recipe for success...

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (preferably Fahrenheit)
2. Collect ingredients: 1 cup peanut butter, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup Splenda, 2 egg whites, 1 tsp baking soda (not powder), 1/2 tsp vanilla (extract, not beans)
3. Dump in bowl, smash well, making sure to spray evenly on flooring, walls and counter tops.
4. Put in oven until smoke alarms go off.
5. Call sister you rarely speak to. Beg for help. 
6. Bake batch after batch until one meets standards of American Dental Association.
6. Stack perfect cookies on large plate.
7. Say, "Of course, do you think I'm an idiot?" every time your spouse asks, "Did you really make these yourself?"

So, not only did I bake somewhat edible retirement cookies, today. I also learned that baking is nothing more than a combination of chemistry, heat, a patient sister, an incredulous wife and the ability to lie through one's teeth. Try it. It makes a tasty retirement treat.

Now What?

There was moment, shortly after waking on the first day of retirement, when a question at the back of my head made my eyes pop open: “Now what?”

I had great plans – lots of plans – that I’d been piecing together for several years. But it suddenly became clear that I had goals, not plans, which is like having a shoe without a foot – the shoe looks good but it’s not going anywhere by itself. I needed a foot to get from Point A, my first day or retirement, to Point B, my objective. And I needed to map a path between the two, which meant I had to ask and answer a few more questions: “Where do I start?” “What do I do, exactly?” “How much time should I give myself?”

My first response was to make a list. Unfortunately, item number one turned out to be “Make a list.” What followed was an hour of pencil-tapping, email-checking, snacking, followed by pen-clicking, snail-mail checking and more snacking, after which I wrote item number two: “Start a diet.” Number three: “Write down everything you want to do,” because objectives come and go when they’re only in your head, but on paper they’re a special kind of torture that doesn’t stop until you cross them off. Number four: “Share your experience.” I think retirement is going to teach me something, and the best way to reinforce what you learn is to explain it to someone else… which turns out to be the purpose of this blog – I’m going to let you retire with me. Maybe we’ll both learn something.