Vacation Weekend

As I have done on a few other occasions, I’m taking a pass on posting an essay to my Retirement Sparks blog this week. I’m going to New Jersey for the weekend for a mini-reunion with my Green Pond summer friends. I'm also meeting with fellow committee members who are helping to plan a belated 50^th reunion for our high school class, Morris Hills Regional, in Rockaway, New Jersey.

Jagdish is staying back in Rhode Island to keep an eye on Luke, with the help of our neighbor cat-care lady. Luke gets fed four times a day now, and I’ll have the car, so we need to schedule store coverage and cat care carefully around this trip.

Some of you may be thinking: “Big whoop. So why didn’t you write the essay ahead of time and post it today instead of this lame message?” You don’t understand. Going away for three days takes a lot of planning at my age. Planning which doesn’t leave time for creative writing.

As a precaution, I need to change the litter in at least one of the boxes before I go; it can’t wait until Sunday when I return. But if I change it too early, Luke will reject it later on next week. I also had to try on at least six pairs of linen pants to see which ones fit. Based on the color, I needed to assess underwear status. Women readers will know that one should wear skin-tone panties under white slacks. Probably TMI, but fortunately both of my beige ones were in the clean pile.

I’m spending Friday night with my best friend from grammar school, whom I haven’t seen in who knows how many years (50?) Inherent in that is figuring out when to leave Providence so I don’t hit rush hour in any major metro areas. I also want to avoid getting stuck in gridlock on the Tappan Zee Bridge in the summer weekend exodus from Manhattan to the Catskills. I decided that four pm is a good time to leave. That should give me plenty of time for preparations and packing.

Just in case, I started this process Friday night. I stuffed a canvas tote bag full of paperwork and yearbooks and program ideas for our Saturday high school reunion meeting. This morning, when I dropped Jagdish off at his store, I picked out some little gifts for my friend’s grandchildren. Also something for her home. All of which I left on the store counter. Fortunately, I realized this at the wine store (see below) and circled back to get the forgotten bag on my way home.

Saturday night I’ll be at Ralph’s “harem” in Green Pond. As he did for the big October GP reunion two years ago, he’s invited a group of women for Italian food on Saturday night. We leave our husbands home. A few of us who come a distance stay over. Ralph’s family has their summer house on the market, so this will likely be our last mini-reunion at GP. Sad to consider, but at least we’ll have some good memories to keep us going.

We’ll be spending some time on the beach and that presents an entirely different preparation to-do list. Straw beach tote, sand shoes and beach towel. Check. New bathing suit. Check. The big shave. Check. Inspect and shave again. Check. (Definitely TMI.) New bathing suit cover-up. Check, thanks to Spectrum-India. Several bottles of red wine (for the evening, not the beach). Check and recheck. Ear plugs for me and also for my guestroom-mate. (We both snore a little.) Check and double check.

As you can see, I really had not time available to create one of my typically clever, funny and self-deprecating posts. Well, I’m uploading this, then off to change the litter and attack the beach prep list. (Read between the lines…)

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend as summer begins to wind down and the days get shorter. See you again next weekend.

Retirement Pleasures - Reunion Expectations

The town where I grew up was mostly a summer community but my family lived there year round. Summers brought an influx of seasonal friends. We were a close-knit group during our teens, but I began to lose touch once in college. My summer jobs often had me working weekends—prime beach time for most people.

Recently, many of my summer friends reconnected via Facebook. They’ve put together a reunion that is taking place in that lake community this weekend. That means I’ll be away from a computer for two and a half days, so this post is a day earlier than usual.

I’m excited about seeing everyone for the first time in about forty-five years. I also have some trepidation about being the least fit member of my age group. (There will be people at the reunion who are a decade younger and older than we are, too.) I keep reminding myself that this is about catching up on our lives since our beach days, not about winning a beauty contest.

This is a good thing, because Thursday morning Luke’s claws did a number on my face. He lost his balance jumping from the night table to the bed and landed on my head. He regained traction using my upper lip and cheek. Luke has given me superficial scratches in the past, but this was an actual bleeder. I had to get out of bed to put peroxide on the wounds and apply pressure to get the bleeding to stop.

I complimented him on his timing: “You couldn’t have waited until Monday to do this, could you?” Then my “glass half full” perspective kicked in. “It could have been worse; he could have caught my eye with his claw.” And then: “Hmmm. Maybe there’s some fodder for my next blog post in this.” And sure enough, there was.

I decided that a few facial scratches could provide a good conversation starter at the reunion. Then I moved on to asking myself what exactly my expectations were for this get together.

One of the good things about reaching retirement age is that most of us have less curiosity about how people look at this stage of their lives and far more interest in how they spent those lives that has them looking so good (or so terrible.)

I’m a faithful attendee at my college reunions every five years, so I know there will always be female peers who look younger and fitter than I do. I also feel that the women generally look better than the men. I have a theory that the classmates who have not held up very well self-select to avoid these reunions. This is unfortunate, because I’ve developed some great new friendships with people I barely knew back in the day but spent time with at a reunion. If you don’t come, you can’t connect.

The get together with my summer crowd will certainly be filled with old photos and raucous stories recounted with colorful details that may or may not be accurate. But there will also be as much what’s-happened-since-then as we can fit in before we collapse into alcoholic stupors. Everything will be within walking distance, so the vino and the beer will surely flow freely. (Did I mention there’s an open bar?) There will be a jukebox with music of our era, so we’ll be dancing. Note to self: bring comfortable shoes. P.S. to self: bring an extra pair, just in case.

My focus will be on documenting the event, so I’ll have lots of photos to show my husband and current friends. I’ve charged my camera and it’s on my list of things to remember to bring with me. Likewise wine. And the platter of Italian cookies. A group of us women are staying at the family cottage of one of the men. He’s making us lasagna for Friday dinner. (The official event is on Saturday.) Can you say “harem?”

I don’t expect a pajama party full of 60 year olds to be sexy, but I’ll bet it will be memorable. I guess one of my expectations for this reunion is that it will provide inspiration for several blog posts when I get back home. Stay tuned!