OK, so I have discovered people look at my posts in arrears when I start writing again. And we all know, I am a bad, bad, blogger. So, people will go back and look at this when I pick it up again sometime after a spate of frequent posts.
I think I should remind those who are looking back, 2020 is that year we don't talk about any more. Oh, some of you will think
- The last year we bought toilet paper
- The election year
- The telework/virtual school year
- The year we skipped the fair (or the fair skipped us)
- The year we joined Grubhub, Uber Eats, Door Dash or which ever
- The year we learned to use sun screen around our masks
Yeah, it was that year. Anyway, about 10 days before the 2020 election, I retired. I have had some sort of paid employment since I was 10. The world was different in the 60s. Leaving your kids with the neighbor child was not only legal but fought over when someone got to me before they did during the Texas State Fair or New Year's Eve.
Anyway, I babysat until we moved back to Iowa, then I babysat until I got to work at school, and then I worked in offices until I tried working fast food. Turned out the Colonel and I didn't mesh. So, then I started working at insurance companies, because I lived in Des Moines and was a girl, so that was a law. I did lose a few weeks between me quitting one insurance company and going to work at a hospital in the billing department. Oh, not the pull cash out of the blood-sucking evil insurance empire (I was on the other side now). No, now I was the one who explained to patient that insurance didn't pay everything and check would do nicely.
After almost a decade, I had another little hiccup when I tried a couple of jobs before I went to work for the United States Treasury Department. I won't say which division only know that it made perfect sense for someone who was a bill collector for almost 10 years. In any event, 32 years later and I am retired.
Why did I explain all that? Simply put, I have no idea if I can seriously be unemployed … sorry, retired because I haven't had to design my own day since I started shaving my legs. Today, the last day of my career, I'm saying 2020 can't be all bad if I finally retired.
We know, in retrospect, that I am wrong because 2020 was the ingrown hair in your lady parts of a year and you can't say anything good about either. Still, I did retire.
So, what are my plans?
Just so you know, telling you about my plans is called foreshadowing in the infrequent blogger world and that is why I segued with that question.
My lovely bride, CAdiva has already planned several projects and I have agreed to doing one per week. They include organizing one space at a time, starting with my closet. No need for those blazers and dress slacks any more. Oh, I'll keep a few, for weddings and funerals and such. This will take a bit since it also involves disposing of a huge number of dress shoes and scarves and a lot of blouses that look really cute with jeans so I think I should keep. We will discuss that during the sorting and bagging and things like that there.
I am also starting to blog again.
There is also this book I promised my mother I would write about her, "Don't Call Me Mother in Front of People." One of my friends already gave me a journal so I can start making notes. I'm thinking of starting a list of her threats (keel hauling was not actually a thing, at least not in Texas.) Or possibly her beauty tips, i.e. keeping her good body wrapped in blue tissue in a box under her bed. So many memories, so few of them believable.
I may not be able to learn to ride my bicycle. They were wrong, by the way. You can forget how to do that. In particular, turning left and stopping.
I also promised CAdiva I would join her as she did laundry by walking the treadmill rather than sorting, folding or fluffing. And HRH reminded me just yesterday I also promised to start going back to the gym now that I no longer have to make time for a paying job.
At some point I considered joining Ancestry.com because HRH also got me the spit thing and I know now that I am less from Ireland and Germany than I thought and my father was far more … generous with his genetic donations that my mother told me. Oh, well, that explains why we kept seeing clones of my older brother during the 70s.
Maybe I should also join Classmates.com. It strikes me I could call both of them research and use that as an excuse to miss reorganizing or gym time. Which I wouldn't do, of course. That would be wrong especially since CAdiva and HRH both read this blog.
For some unknow reason, I have become slightly fascinated about my former Catholicism and the fact I fell away before my catechism. Probably just a rerun of the Shoes of the Fisherman with Anthony Quinn. (Do they still use rerun now that the whole world, except CAdiva and I, stream?) In any case, I found out you can study the catechism online. And the whole, saying the rosary is a good way to meditate, sort of fascinates me. Well, for whatever reasons, it just ended up on my you-won't-have-anything-else to-do list.
The major plan, which is put off due to the fecal matter derecho that is 2020, is travel. I have been watching all kinds of YouTube videos about taking the Amtrak trains to the coast (CAdiva's coast … no way am I talking her into sleeping on a train for three nights if I am not taking her back to her ocean.) I want to start with the California Zephyr on the way out. We will most likely rent a car to travel the coast to see friends, family, her ocean and her bridge, before we go north to Seattle and take the Empire Builder back. I have decided not to try to catch it in Osceola. I want to see the Chicago Union Station. I have seen St. Louis and Washington DC. This could be another collection thing. What if we took the Super Bus from here to Chicago? We wouldn't even have to worry about leaving the Highlander unattended. In case you don’t remember, CAdiva loves her Highlander more than most of her wives. Anyway, that's the first trip we want to take.
What do you think? I am probably overshooting. Hey, at least I got my second blog in.
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