Retired One Year!

A couple of weeks ago, I received a request to take an on-line survey from my former employer. The survey targeted recent early retirees and tried to determine not only why we retired early, but whether the company could have done anything to keep us longer. I found the survey to be well-designed and interesting. It made me really search my own soul.

I’ve been retired a whole year now, and sometimes retirement still doesn’t seem natural to me. Most of my adult life, I enjoyed working and got a lot of self esteem from my job. But by the time I decided to retire, that joy of working was gone, for the most part. Would I have stayed on the job longer if offered part-time hours with medical benefits? Part-time with a full pension? How about a paid sabbatical? Contract work? These survey questions probed to the heart of the matter: did I really want to stop working altogether, or did I just need more time off?

Continuing to work at the same job part-time might have given me more time to exercise, cook, and go to the beach, but I doubt that I would have enjoyed the job itself any more. So I might have considered it, but probably wouldn’t have accepted a part-time offer. The idea of a sabbatical or contract work was even more interesting. Taking a break from work altogether could certainly help in a situation of job burn-out or long-term stress. But once again, I probably would have turned down such an offer after seriously thinking about it. In the end, my motivation for retiring was not stress or burn-out as much as lack of passion for what I was doing.

I applaud the company for finally realizing that it needs to take steps to retain its most experienced people. I have no doubt that many people considering retirement would be receptive to a phased, work-to-retirement option of part-time work, contract work, or a paid sabbatical. But the key to retaining employees, retirement age or not, is a little more complicated than offering benefits and incentives.

Wake Up!

We’ve been on Daylight Savings Time for about 3 weeks now, and I must admit that I’m still not completely adjusted. Perhaps the artificial time change just started too soon, a supposed energy-saving measure that some suspect was really designed to boost retail sales, giving people more daylight hours for shopping.

The government’s “stimulus payment” to taxpayers is also supposed to help boost retail sales and “jump start” the economy, though most people I know aren’t going to go right out and buy something with that money, and if they did, the money wouldn’t go very far, so the effect on the economy would be short-lived. What would really cause people to buy more over the long term would be lower gasoline, food, housing, and health care costs; secure, better paying jobs; and getting out from under their personal debt.

When are our elected officials going to realize that the American people aren’t little children that can be pacified with free candy? Who is paying for the candy, and when are they going to start working together to solve the problems that got us into this mess in the first place? I’m getting a little tired of all the political posturing and bickering between Republicans and Democrats or even among those of the same party. We’re all in this together, folks! Let’s get to work!

Update on Those Cats

It took some doing, but I finally convinced Tom that we urgently needed to capture and spay the stray cats (pictured in my last post). I borrowed three humane “trap-and-release” cages from Lynne of the Whiskers and Tails Foundation. Tom had a lot of anxiety about frightening the cats and separating them from one another, but one fine morning he managed to capture Momma Cat within a matter of minutes after baiting the trap with her favorite Fancy Feast canned food.

Momma endured the trip to Animal Birth Control with quiet grace and came through her operation with flying colors. Tom was much relieved – at least until we released her and she decided to pull one of her disappearing acts. I was sure she was so happy to be out of the cage that she was out visiting all of her favorite hang-outs around the neighborhood. Still, it was a relief when she finally reappeared two days later to have a snack and take a nap in the garage.

Snowflake was the next to go. We weren’t entirely certain that Snowflake was female, but our hunch proved correct. Not only was she female but, like Momma, she was also pregnant! Snowflake also came through her operation very well, but cried and pawed to get out of the cage. Thunder missed her, too, as they had been nearly inseparable. So soft-hearted Tom released her, perhaps sooner than he should have, and to our surprise, she and Thunder immediately darted under the house through an open grate. Once again, we worried and watched for nearly two days until Snowflake emerged from her hiding place, happy and healthy and seemingly oblivious to what had happened to her.

As a result of making the difficult decision to capture our free-wheeling strays for just a little while, we avoided being overrun by multiplying stray kittens and will continue to enjoy our three “garage cats” without fear of the situation getting out of hand. Still TBD: little Thunder, a male, will also eventually need to be captured and neutered.

Thunder, Snowflake, and the Momma Cat

A stray black cat gave birth to three kittens in our neighbor’s back yard last summer. Only one kitten survived: a spunky tabby with dark stripes and white feet. My husband Tom named it Thunder. Tom began feeding Thunder and Momma in front of our house and even set up soft beds for them, first in the garden and later in the garage, to protect them from the rain and cold.

Thunder and Momma were soon joined by a small white kitten/cat with one blue eye and one gold eye and a distinctive black tail. Tom called the white cat Snowflake. Thunder and Snowflake soon became inseparable buddies.

I was ambivalent about trying to adopt one or more of the strays, since I already have a 10-year-old cat named Tomo, who stays in the house nearly all of the time and doesn’t much care for other cats. But it didn’t matter anyway. Momma wouldn’t let anyone near Thunder, while Snowflake darted away every time anyone approached. We couldn’t even get near enough to determine the gender of the kittens, although we now think Thunder is a male and Snowflake is female. They are all, I’m afraid, now too accustomed to their freedom to ever become house pets.

As spring approaches, Momma appears to be in heat. Tom wants to adopt one of her kittens next time, if there are any. But Momma is a stray, after all. She no longer sleeps in the garage every night and often disappears for days at a time. Who knows where she will have her next litter. Meanwhile, we watch Thunder and Snowflake from our front window as they grow into mature cats, so close and yet so out of reach.

Gratitude

2008 started out as a bad news year. I’ve had news of friends and family members losing their jobs, serious illnesses within my extended family, and the death of a cousin who was so loved and will be deeply missed by many. All this bad news came while I, along with everyone around me, it seemed, fought off a miserable winter virus with chicken soup and hot tea. I spent the first month of 2008 just wishing things would get better for everyone who is having a bad time.

Having lived through similar challenges myself, it was not difficult for me to empathize with the troubles of my friends and relatives and to become sad when thinking about how quickly good times can turn bad. Sometimes I need to remind myself how important it is to be grateful for all the good in my life. A habit of gratitude enriches the good times and helps us through the tough times that are bound to come. In my volunteer work, I talk to folks who are in some very tough circumstances, and I’m constantly surprised by how cheerful, strong, and optimistic some are. Their gratitude, whether it is for a long life that was good most of the time, people who care, small everyday pleasures, or memories of loved ones who are gone, keeps them going and helps them find the joy in life underneath the sadness.

California Dreamin'

Last Saturday evening, we watched a postcard-perfect, orange and purple sunset from Kincaid’s on Redondo Pier, while waves lapped over the breakwater and families leisurely strolled the boardwalk. It was enough to make me forget the 25-minute gridlock we had just escaped in the parking garage. That, in a nutshell, is why people love living in Southern California . . . and why they hate that so many other people love living in Southern California.

In the last several years, condos and town homes have sprung up on every inch of spare land in the South Bay, including industrial/commercial areas and former swamp land, bringing in more people and more cars. As a result, the once laid-back South Bay now has traffic that more resembles downtown LA. While I try to avoid the beach on weekends during the peak summer season, I sometimes forget that there are now so many locals who also want to take advantage of a sunny Saturday during the off-season.

I’m not complaining much, though. After all, it’s February, and most of the country is dealing with snow, ice, and floods while we complain that beach parking is too crowded! This is the good life, folks. (But don’t tell anyone; there are too many people here already.)

Beyond Super Tuesday

Well, Super Tuesday is over and, thankfully, so are those endless Indian Gaming ads. Tom and I each voted for different candidates by mail-in ballot, and they both have dropped out, so we’re even.

Seriously, though, this election year we all have some critical choices to make, and no matter who wins, things are going to change. That’s exciting. I think everyone agrees there are many issues that urgently need to be addressed, including health care, the economy, Middle East policy, immigration, energy. My only hope is that all Americans vote with their heads and support the candidate whom they believe has the ideas and the leadership ability to get things done and solve these problems.

What a great country we live in to have such a diverse field of candidates to choose from! But in the end, gender, race, age, religion, or even political party should be irrelevant. The problems are complex, and Congress has been ineffective in solving them due to partisan bickering and political b-s. Our next president must be someone who can end the stalemate and start fixing what’s broken.

Christmas Wishes

I have a thousand things to do before Christmas Eve, but instead of doing them, I am sitting by the window, watching the rain. This was going to be a stress-free holiday season, my first as a retiree; but Christmas is a busy and emotionally-loaded time of year for everyone, regardless of their situations, I think. Listening to rain always gives me a feeling of relief and release. It calms me.

Tom and I delivered baskets, gifts, and quilts to seniors today. In the past, my Christmas charitable activities had been limited to writing checks, and I looked forward to this more hands-on experience. This is going to be my life from now on; getting out there and trying to find meaning for living, rather than working all the time to earn a living. Only trouble is, I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to completely make sense of it all.

I get satisfaction out of letting lonely seniors know that someone cares, but feel sad that so many people end their lives in that circumstance and wonder if I will, too. I feel happy when I reconnect with my aunts and uncles at Christmas time, but feel sad that so many of them are now gone or are declining physically. I enjoy selecting gifts for friends and family members, but stress out on whether my selections will be appropriate or inadvertently convey the wrong message, and I still feel a little bit conflicted about the materialistic aspect of it all.

In the end, though, I look forward to Christmas. I enjoy the lights and the decorations and the food and the parties, and most of all that collective feeling of sincere good-will that I think is the true cultural meaning of this holiday.

I wish a wonderful Christmas holiday to all my family and friends.

Multi-Tasking: Just Say No!

Standing in line at Petco, a man carrying a sack of dog food under one arm yakked on his cell-phone while examining a rubber mat hanging near the check-out line. Because he couldn’t quite grasp the mat with his one free hand, the mat swung around and knocked a ceramic mug to the ground, shattering it into a dozen pieces. This caused the cashier to leave her station to clean up the mess, thereby slowing down the entire line of customers waiting to pay for their purchases. Another fine mess which could have been prevented if the man in question had simply been paying attention to what he was doing instead of trying to do too many things at once. And another example of mindless and unnecessary multi-tasking, since the phone call sounded to this bystander like an inane social conversation that could have waited five minutes.

One of my pet peeves is cell-phoning drivers. It seems like every time the driver ahead of me forgets to go when the light turns green, or cuts someone off to change lanes at the last possible minute in order to make a turn, it’s because he or she is on the phone. I sometimes wonder how so many people can have so many important calls that can’t wait until they get home when, just a few years ago, cells phones didn’t exist, yet people managed to survive somehow. Now some cars come equipped with DVD players and other assorted high-tech gadgets. The new opportunities for distracted driving boggle the mind.

I believe in doing one thing at a time. I learned a long time ago that if you have five files open on your desk at the same time, none of them will get done and some piece of paper is bound to get lost. Finish one thing, put it away, then start the next one. Some people think they’re being more efficient if they can talk on the phone, read email, and write a budget report while eating lunch when, instead, each task is only getting a small portion of their attention it needs. The increasing trend toward doing more than one thing at a time is not resulting in a society that is more efficient – just more distracted and accident-prone.

The Disc Drive Saga

After three months of comedy and agony, the CD/DVD burner on our computer is finally fixed and my husband is happily churning out copies of a home movie to send to his kids. I had nearly given up on ever arriving at this happy ending.

It all a started when I first showed my husband how easy it was to use the computer to burn a copy of a home movie he had converted to a DVD disc. He was impressed and wanted to make more DVD copies. As luck would have it, though, the CD/DVD burner started malfunctioning shortly afterward. I tried updating the Nero burning software at a cost of $69, but to no avail. It was the hardware, and the drive was now incapable of burning, playing, or even recognizing any CD or DVD disc that was placed into it.

Not to worry, though. We had a service contract with Comp USA! I called. The part would be sent directly to our house, and as soon as it arrived, a technician would come out to install it. Naively, I assumed this would take place within a week or two. But when we left on our vacation trip over a month later, the part still hadn’t arrived.

When we returned from vacation, there was a message on our answering machine from Comp USA: please call to set an appointment time. According to Comp USA, the part had been delivered the day before we arrived home. But where was it? UPS left it on our porch, and apparently it had been lost or stolen. A replacement part had to be ordered.

Curiously, it arrived in only two weeks this time, and a technician installed it the next day. Before the technician left, I burned a test CD. It worked, and I was elated. Then I tried to make a disc-to-disc copy of my husband’s home movie DVD. Error message. The technician patiently explained that I couldn’t use a DVD disc in a CD burner. I patiently replied that the part he replaced was supposed to be a DVD burner. That was when we both realized that Comp USA had sent the wrong part!

The technician called Comp USA and reported the error. Comp USA wanted him to remove the new CD burner he had just installed, but he refused, for which I was grateful. At least I could now burn some photo CDs that I’d been waiting to do for a month. Meanwhile, a new part was ordered.

So we were back to square one, again waiting for a delivery. And again, when it arrived about a week later, it was the wrong part, a DVD ROM which, Comp USA admitted, wasn’t going to burn anything. Yet another part was ordered. Would number four be the charm??

Maybe. The right part arrive only a day or two later. We wondered why the first one took over a month. A different technician, a young woman, arrived to install it. This time, I cut right to the chase and tried making a disc-to-disc DVD copy. It appeared to work at first, but the DVD copy would not play. We tried again and again. It was getting late. The technician tried one more time, this time using a longer burning method, and left before it finished. See if it works, see if the discs play in another machine, try a different medium, she said as she headed for the door. If not, maybe the part is bad and we’ll have to order another one!

My husband, to say the least, was not a happy camper, and immediately called Comp USA, demanding that they send someone “that knows what they are doing.” We needed a trouble-shooter, since we had no idea whether it was a hardware or software problem, but Comp USA doesn’t make house calls for that sort of thing. We would have to bring the computer in. Since all Comp USA stores have disappeared from our area over the last couple of years, and the nearest service center is now two hours away, that was out of the question. I would either have to figure it out myself, or we would give up on the service contract and hire a private computer expert.

I studied the Nero manual from cover-to-cover trying to decipher any possible software issues, and eventually learned that there was an electronic log file on my hard drive that listed all the error messages when a process failed. I read the log, and most of it made no sense to me . . . except for one line out of seventeen pages that indicated a DVD +RW disc is not compatible with the Windows XT operating system on our computer. Perhaps all I needed was a different disc! After making the first DVD copy on a stray blank DVD disc, we had gone out and bought what we assumed were the best quality DVD discs in the store, the “plus” version. It was midnight and all the stores were closed, so I hardly slept all night, wondering if my problems would all be solved by the simple purchase of a different DVD disc, without the “plus.”

The next day, I bought a small package of blank DVD-R discs, took them home, and tried making the copy. Unbelievably, this time it worked.

So this story is ended, and I’m not sure that the message is. I don’t know why it took Comp USA four tries to get the right part to us, and I don’t know why the technician didn’t know about the Nero error log. I love having a computer at home, but I’m just not smart enough to know everything about it. And I sure miss the IT department at the company where I used to work!

Moving On

Each time a major change occurs in our lives, whether it is a marriage, a death, a new job, a move to a different city, we have to reconstruct the pieces that make up our daily lives, like putting together a puzzle. After five months of being retired, I am still doing that.

The first thing I had to do was to disengage from my old routine: getting up at 6:00 AM, keeping the kitchen stocked with the ingredients to make my brown-bag lunch, putting out my wardrobe for the next day each night, and setting up the coffee maker before going to bed at 11:00. All of this was gone in the blink of an eye, as was driving to the office while listening to my favorite radio station, walking across the parking lot, turning on the computer to check my email, reading the daily company news, going for my noon walk, etc.

In place of that old, familiar routine, I began to add new things that I never had the time or energy to do before, things like making a healthy breakfast for myself each morning, working out at the gym three days a week, shopping for fresh food at the farmer’s market, going out to lunch with my husband. Errands are now spread throughout the week, instead of crammed into the week-end.

But after five months on this new, more relaxed routine, I felt like there was something missing. A big part of that was being a member of a community of people. Although I still keep in touch with my former co-workers, I no longer really “belong.” I missed having an independent existence that I could call my own. When I got into my car and drove to work each day, another part of my identity emerged, the part of my self that was out in the world “doing something” and using my expertise, energy and mind to solve problems, get things done, and be recognized for it. These are the things that I kept in mind as I pondered the various types of volunteer activities I could pursue.

The first volunteer position I have accepted in a local social services organization involves two afternoons a week at an office where the small permanent staff made me feel like part of the family immediately. Some of the duties will require me to “stretch” a little in developing my people and listening skills, which is one positive thing. More positive still is the fact that my incentive for being there is to help people in the community. Continuing to complete the puzzle of building my new routine will be an on-going process. Perhaps I will later want to add one or more different volunteer activities, or perhaps I will really click with this one and want to spend more hours here. By taking this first step into the world of community service, however, I feel like I truly have taken the final step in leaving my old life as a corporate employee and moving on.

Summertime, Summertime

Summer just isn’t the same when you’re an adult. When I was a kid, it was a big deal. School and studying were over for awhile, and the classmates I saw every day, as well as the teachers who had become so much a part of my life for the past school year, were suddenly no longer in the picture. I liked school and missed it during the summer. Still, I looked forward to the change.

Summer meant hot days cooling off at the beach or the local swimming pool; lots of idle time to read or ride my bike; car trips with my parents and my little sister to San Diego or San Francisco; and some years even a week at summer camp. Often, it also meant seeing my aunts and uncles and cousins from “back east.” When they came to visit, it gave us an excuse to go to Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm. Other years my dad sent my mom and my sister and I on an airplane to Minnesota for a long visit that included picnics, barbecues, and lake outings with my cousins. But summer always seemed to last longer than all the trips and visits and activities, and it ended with a stretch of idle time that left me bored and eager to return to school in September.

As I became an adult, the coming of summer no longer meant vacation trips and camp and relatives and outdoor activities, but merely the same old routine of work on weekdays and errands on weekends, for my schedule was now dictated by my job, not by the season, the weather, or the school system. Still, I’ve always retained some of that old excitement as the weather starts to warm and banners announcing street fairs, concerts in the park, and beach activities begin to appear. I always felt a tinge of regret when summer ended and I hadn’t taken enough time to enjoy it. Now I’m retired, and I am free to enjoy summer once again. Oh, there is no more summer camp, and my cousins are now grown up and have jobs and families, but the beach is ten minutes away, the days are long and the sunsets are beautiful. Life is good.

A Sad Anniversary

I woke up Monday morning feeling sad for no apparent reason. That cloud of gloom hung over me all day, and it wasn’t until the following morning that I realized I had “forgotten” the anniversary of my late husband Wayne’s death twelve years ago. After twelve years, my conscious mind barely acknowledges the day anymore, but something deeper doesn’t allow me to forget it.

I was on four days of bereavement leave for my father’s funeral when Wayne’s cancer entered its terminal stage. Still numb from my father’s sudden death, I managed to secure the services of a live-in attendant to help me care for Wayne at home. That Monday I felt that everything was under control and returned to work; but I was at work for only an hour when the attendant phoned me to return home immediately. The trip took 45 minutes in the freeway traffic, and when I arrived, Wayne was dead. He was about the same age I am now, an unfinished life.

The world has changed so much in those twelve years. Wayne died before the O.J. Simpson verdict, 9/11, and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Very few people had cell phones then, or had heard of iPods or digital cameras. I have also moved on, so that my life is now at a better place than I ever could have imagined at the time. Reflecting on Wayne’s death reminds me not to take life for granted, or to expect that life-changing events won’t happen again, but to count my blessings and enjoy each day that I am given on this earth.

Clean Sweep: Too Much Stuff, Part 2

One of my first projects after retirement has been to do a clean sweep of my house, that is, to get rid of all the junk and then reorganize everything to be neat and accessible. It is a daunting task.

I spent a couple of days stuffing several garbage bags full of shredded bank statements, paid bills, cancelled checks, and old receipts, all dating back to the late 1990’s. That left enough room in the top drawer of the file cabinet to put away all the papers that were piling up on the coffee table. I could do even more with the file cabinet, but have moved on for now. Shredding is hard work.

I also managed to organize the entertainment center in the living room by trashing piles of old magazines and cassette tapes. I haven’t played any of the cassettes in years, and considering that I now have a large library of CDs and an iPod, I never will. The cassettes took up a lot of needed space and will not be missed. The magazines were a little more difficult to part with, however. I often hold onto a magazine if I particularly liked an article or photo in that issue. But then, I never go back and look at it again, and the “favorite” issues continue to pile up over the years. I now have room for more books because the magazines are gone.

The mystery junk in the bedroom was the next to go. Mystery junk is all that stuff you didn’t know what to do with when you got it, but couldn’t quite bring yourself to throw away at the time. It also includes stuff that was useful once upon a time, but you can’t figure out why you still keep it around now. I had mystery junk in boxes on top of the dresser, as well as in one dresser drawer. It’s not too difficult to identify mystery junk, and even less difficult to part with it. My dresser top looks amazingly neat now. Even my husband managed to part with some of his mystery junk when one of his dresser drawers got so full that a piece of junk fell out the back, lodged into the runners, and caused the drawer to become stuck. After forcing the drawer open, he filled a trash bag full of mystery junk. The drawer now opens easily and he admits that it felt good to get rid of the stuff.

Finally, as a symbol of my departure from the corporate world, I gathered up all of the award certificates, pins, company publications, plaques, manuals, personnel files, and commemorative toys that seemed to be everywhere in the house and packed them away in a special box that now sits in the storage shed, a large chunk of my life now neatly packed away and part of “the Past.”

The clean sweep isn’t finished yet, but it’s on hold. I need a long break before tacking that kitchen. . . .

Too Much Stuff

In a world where so many people don’t have the basics for survival, we in this country are drowning in too much: too much information; too much food; too many things; too much waste. We can hardly keep up with the tidal wave of information we’re bombarded with on television, newspapers, the internet, email, and junk mail stuffed into our mailboxes. We go to a restaurant and are served a heaping platter of food that could feed a third world family for a week. Whole industries have been built around helping us organize and store all of the things we’re accumulating. And many of us constantly struggle with how to get rid of all the stuff we no longer need that seems to spill out of every drawer, box, and cupboard.

There are two types of people: those who love accumulating stuff and those who want to get rid of it. Being the second type, I spent several years clearing all of the junk out of my small house and garage, only to acquire a new husband of the first type. He brought with him carloads of stuff that we had to figure out what to do with. We ended up buying several new pieces of furniture to contain his clothing (over 100 logo T-shirts and Hawaiian shirts) and his collections of American Indian and farm artifacts, crystal, ceramic and resin figurines of all sorts, model cars and airplanes, souvenir magnets and drinking glasses, framed family photographs, lamps, plaques, clocks. At Christmas time, we also must make room for an extensive (and growing) display of holiday decorations stored in the garage. It has become my challenge to keep finding things to get rid of in order to make room for any new stuff he comes home with.

I suppose I could claim the higher moral ground by declaring that I place less importance on material things. But in reality, I can’t. My husband’s prized possessions are valued because they remind him of beloved people in his life, special events, places, and precious memories. I tend instead to rely on journals and photo albums to tell the story of my own life, with only a few special objects to supplement the memories. We all have our own ways of remembering our lives and telling our stories.