Retired can simply mean refocused.
Stop the heresy!
Reminded myself today of the manic pace of Twitter, chockful of repetition [which I can live with, as long as I have the license to roll my eyes].
But there’s also lethal advice posing as healthy lifestyle choices.
Take note…
— “You don’t need coffee, drink water.” (I’m an ardent follower of my good friend’s dad mantra: “Hey, water just rusts my pipes.”)
— “You don’t need chocolate & sweets–eat fruit.” (Unless that fruit is nestled inside puff pastry, that whack-job needs to be rooted out and summarily dismissed to a low-bandwidth principality..)
So, retired folks, be wary. Stay vigilant. The Internet is crawling with loons like this.
Nap well, my friends.
Cuppa joe? Bald no mo’.
Now just calm down everybody. I’m not trying to sell anything here. Unless, of course–okay, never mind.
***
Having just learned why deer don’t eat daffodils, I moved on to uses for stale coffee beans. (Not at all related, but that’s the thing, retired guys, why waste time on linear thinking?)
Son of a gun if I didn’t run across some life-changing tips…
Coffee Affection tells me to use it on my scalp to stimulate hair growth and improve its texture.
I can see it now (assuming anyone would be seen in public with me)…
Desperate friend in need of social contact: Oooh! I’m smelling some nice Italian Roast.
Me (tilting my head toward him): Yep, double-duty! Great with my morning scone and an hour later, the dregs were in my scalp.
Desperate friend (flicking soggy grounds off my shoulder): You are supposed to rinse’em out, right?
Me: Eventually. But the ski cap contains it pretty well…Hey, where you going?
***
Glad someone’s checking on me…
Yep, thank God for email connections. Question: If I don’t respond to this, will the U.N. (or, more precisely, the ‘United Nations Organization’) assume I’m dead? I’d better clear that up.
I’m also wondering if someone with ‘Oliver’ in the email address really IS all that interested in my welfare.
But hold on now…he’s with the United Nations, so of course he’s concerned.
What makes Oliver think I might be splayed across the recliner with some air fryer infomercial blaring at me? Have I given off a ‘near-death’ vibe lately?
But really, how DARE Google question the validity of this message…
It’s not as if anyone would send anything illegitimate via the Internet, would they?
A writer drifting to new ventures…
So, yes, the photo suggests something waaaay more exciting, noble, and daring than my ‘new ventures’, but I liked the photo so there you go!
Retirement is still a reality and one of my interests, but I’ve drifted toward:
Anyway, I’ll probably be using retirerenew blog to post links to my other blogs, and a few other inspirations, since they’re all part of the ‘renewal and creative reinvention’ process.
Regrets to avoid
This post–40 Regrets You Don’t Want to Have in 40 Years–is a lot to digest, so I actually read this in two stages.
But there is still plenty of material for us later-years folks to consider here.
Charlie Chaplin: Embrace your inner student .
Brene Brown: Jump start creativity with vulnerability.
Picasso: Good sense? Naaah.
Life draining away?
Face it, it’s not like the sands of the hourglass ever reverse their course…
And as I bungled my way through the tedium, the frustration of untangling earbud wires, I realized there are times when the sands tumble at exponential rates.
— When you’re in a line at the grocery store and your ice cream is melting and there you are without your emergency spoon, and the customer in front of you:
- decides to write a check after the scanning of the last of the 58 items.
- strikes up a conversation with the extra-chatty, oblivious cashier starved for human contact beyond ‘Paper or plastic or your own tattered festering cloth bag or leave it in the basket or ‘I’m sorry, we don’t deliver when you buy it in the store’.
- fumbles endlessly through the debit card process.
- questions the pricing of an item.
- trots out a raft of coupons.
- fails miserably at remembering the phone number associated with the store’s loyalty club membership
- finds a tear in the bag of an item, thus sending some poor newbie out among the aisles, who is then waylaid by two other customers en route to the unblemished bag of Brussels sprouts, and really…frozen Brussels sprouts? Shouldn’t the store just be giving those away?
— When you’re waiting for the gas station attendant to come take your order [Yes, I live in Oregon.] or for that same gas station attendant to return to your car, remove the nozzle and ask, with a wince, if you want a receipt.
— When you’re waiting for your phone to start up.
— When you’re waiting for your phone to update.
— When you’re waiting for your phone to give you directions to the nearest donut shop in a previously unvisited town. [Hey! Don’t judge me till you waddled a mile in my shoes.]
— When you’re untangling earbud wires. [Yes, that was list item #1, still not done.]
Okay, I’m sure I’m leaving out dozens from this list [Feel free to share them.], but for now…
