OK, I know you folks floating around out there in the Innertubes are dying to know all the deets about the exotic life of the retired velo-scribbler.
So, hold my fake beer and dig this:
Yesterday I went to Lowe’s for some lawn soil to spread over the recently seeded bare patches in the yard and gave ’em a good watering, then mowed the healthier bits of grass. Later I cooked up a big ol’ pot of jambayala.
This morning I toasted and tea’d Herself, who has a full day at the lab. Then I fed and watered Miss Mia Sopaipilla, giving her a few head-bumps in a sunny spot for dessert, and emptied her litter box.
Next I got a loaf of bread going and set about watering a few shrubs and one tree out front, using SuperDuper! to back up The Main Mac to an external drive, downloading an OS update, and washing the breakfast dishes (two cups of strong black coffee and one of strong black tea will lead to multitasking).
And now the garbage is going out. Boom! You can’t stop me, so don’t even try.
I hate to go all Hollywood on you little people like this, but I figure the few of you who still have jobs deserve to know how I’m pissing away your Social Security contributions on my rock-’n’-roll lifestyle.
Tags: Cake, jambalaya, macOS Mojave
Mad Blog Media 
April 7, 2022 at 11:07 am |
I cleaned the litter box, vacuumed the house, stripped the bed and washed the sheets, and now get to walk the dog and pick up the wife. Now, where’s my retirement check?
April 7, 2022 at 11:38 am |
Absolutely fascinating, PO’G!! 🙂
Meanwhile, let us not forget that Sea Otter 2022 begins today. And Mike Ferrentino over at NSMB has a really insightful, if tongue-in-cheeky, piece on the event. https://nsmb.com/articles/mustelidae-paradox/
Seems sea otters are NOT the sweet, furry critters we “romantically” picture them to be.
April 7, 2022 at 11:59 am |
Yeah, my man Steve Frothingham from Bicycle Retailer is there, hammering out the word count for fun and profit.
Always good to see a post from the Grimy Handshake his own bad self. Good dude, and a top-shelf scribe.
I can’t remember the last time I attended the Water Rat. It’s been years and years. I like that Steinbeck country a lot, but it’s a ways from here and dollars up on a fella real quick if some publisher isn’t paying the freight.
April 7, 2022 at 12:34 pm |
Us loafers gots to stick together. What we need is a union, although I don’t know who they would bargain with. Whilst yous guys are being all domestic and shit, I am going to play guitar and drink beer this afternoon.
April 7, 2022 at 3:54 pm |
Loafer? Me? Sheeeeeyit. I went out for a run, made lunch, and then updated the Main Mac to Mojave.
Yeah, I’m still a ways off the back. But I got paranoid when Mavericks croaked my iMac, so I’ve become a very late adopter.
April 7, 2022 at 12:44 pm |
Love you Patrick!
April 7, 2022 at 3:55 pm |
Mr. Steelman! Long time no see. How’s the rug bidness? I still have a few items from your previous product line in my garage.
April 7, 2022 at 12:44 pm |
Judge Jackson is now Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Once again, it’s about damn time.
April 7, 2022 at 4:55 pm |
You’re the only person I know who can make a normal day read like a gripping thriller!
April 7, 2022 at 6:30 pm |
It helps to be full of shit to the sideburns. You wouldn’t believe how many columns about nothing I’ve gotten away with.
Then again, you just might.
April 7, 2022 at 6:50 pm |
Ok, just stop this shit. I retired in January and am a few orbits lower than thou, but great gods, man! Is this my future?
April 7, 2022 at 7:06 pm |
I retired in December. Yep, that is your future.
April 7, 2022 at 7:42 pm |
Hey, I don’t even know if it’s my future yet. It does seem to be my immediate present.
It’s kinda OK, actually. It feels odd to not have any deadlines after 45 years, so I have to devise some sort of substitute(s). Computer maintenance, home improvements, medium-light bloggery, etc.
Also, the cycling, hiking, and running, especially with spring fixin’ to segue into summer.
April 7, 2022 at 7:56 pm |
It is a pretty friggin’ big life change. Kinda like high school graduation, college graduation, first job, getting married, getting divorced, all those big paradigm shifts. I’m still trying to figure it out.
April 7, 2022 at 8:00 pm |
I expect the figuring-out part to take quite a while. Some folks never quite git ’er done. My old man dithered for a spell, then tried selling real estate, but he did it with his retired colonel pals and they spent more time at the O Club hoisting martinis than at the title company closing deals.
And for me there was no clear line of demarcation. I walked away clean from the newspaper game in 1991, but the freelance thing slipped away by inches over several years.
April 7, 2022 at 8:13 pm |
I had a bad divorce with Chemistry Division in 2016. The advantage to my last job in the Classification Office was that it wasn’t my baby any more. It was a good, hard, job and I really did enjoy it but it was reviewing other people’s work, so I didn’t have my own ego so much on the line. So in a way it was watching the old Work Ethic(tm) slowly untether. When I pulled the plug, it wasn’t so traumatic.
Still, by mutual consent I kept a toe in the water, but with no promises or firm deals. Ironically, it was Chemistry that offered to keep me badged. I guess its kinda like getting back together with the old flame when each of you threw each other’s shit out of the house and into the front yard and fought over who got the cat.
Life is weird. And then it is over.
April 7, 2022 at 8:12 pm |
As I’ve posted before, I’m not Medicare eligible. Retiring on New Year’s Day in Wisconsin might not have been the brightest move, but my smarter half told me to quit farting around and get the fff out. She’s always been the brains of the operation.
My to do list had twenty-ish things on it at the start. It now has thirty-some completed, but fifteen or so open. Problem is we’ve had a crappy spring and most of the to do is outside, and I really don’t ride much above the high thirties. I know, whine whine whine.
Thanks for listening!
April 8, 2022 at 7:00 am |
Time to load up the panniers and ride to Milwaukee and spend the night somewhere nice. Stop in Kenosha on the way back for a brat with a beer. Leave your watch and smart phone at home. I have been doing this retirement bit for 18 years and never regretted pulling the plug on the real job. I predict in 6 months or so you will be a very happy camper. You can always make more money, but no one is selling time.
April 8, 2022 at 9:41 am |
My stepdad took early retirement from the Chevy plant when they were downsizing and he could lock in his retiree benefits. He had started at the plant before he hit 20 so had a lot of years in even in his fifties. He’s been retired for around 30 years. Said it was a great decision and he never looked back. As you say, you can find ways to make money, but not time.
April 8, 2022 at 7:49 am |
Pat O’B is hereby designated Retirement DI based on rank and time served. He will save us all from reinventing various wheels as we negotiate the bumpy roads of post-employment America. Now drop and give him twenny!
April 8, 2022 at 9:44 am |
Thanks, Pat. I’ve been riding when I can, but today it’s only 35F here. Warmth is severely behind schedule.
It’s funny, but as word spread at the ole refrigerator mine of my impending departure, a few fellows a year or three older than I said they wouldn’t know what to do if they retired. Since I left, I’ve gotten messages from all of them saying they’re hanging it up. Must be a different kind of contagion.
April 8, 2022 at 10:24 am |
It’s tough to know when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em. My old man had his 30 in by age 54, and once he was in civvies he didn’t have any idea what to do with himself, other than indulge his thirst. Eight years later he was stone dead.
Herself’s mom didn’t hang it up until she was in her 80s, and it seems to me she had decided that what she did and who she was had become one and the same. Once she did nothing, she was nothing. As a consequence she’s dogged by a few health issues that she might have been able to keep at bay if she’d bailed earlier and with a plan in place.
I “worked” until age 67 — 15 years at newspapers and 30 as a freelancer — but by the time I decided to pull the pin my income had dwindled to hobby level and it made perfect sense to start collecting Social Security and get on the Medicare. Herself is a big earner and still has a couple years on the clock to run out, so we’re not entirely dependent upon Uncle Sugar and the whims of the market for our bacon and beans.
We’ve been very lucky, all things considered. I wish I could say it was all brilliance on my part, but mostly I (a) chose my parents wisely and (2) gave Herself the keys to this rig early on. I just ride shotgun and fiddle with the radio.
April 8, 2022 at 11:16 am
Many different paths out there. My dad got golden parachuted out of a mid management position at (what was then) a Fortune 100 company- age 55. He’s one of the original “work from dawn till midnight” guys, but he never looked back. These days, he’s 90 yo, and it’s always hard to find his ass. He walks a few miles per day, lap swims, blows the snow and mows the lawn. Hell, he still does his remaining friend’s tax returns. He’s a lifelong angler, and although I’ve never enjoyed it, I’ll be spending a lot of time with him in his boat from now on.
April 8, 2022 at 7:34 pm
“mostly I (a) chose my parents wisely and (2) gave Herself the keys to this rig early on. I just ride shotgun and fiddle with the radio.” he he Thanks, Mr. O’G. This is the kind of stuff that keeps me coming back.
April 9, 2022 at 10:00 am
Haw. Thank you, sir. I will never be smart, but occasionally I can be not stupid.