Peripatetic Retirees

Ever the optimist, I’m looking ahead to how my husband and I will spend our time together once we’re truly retired. This presumes that I’m eventually successful in dragging him away from his store. Since we’re looking to downsize outside of Rhode Island, I’ve pretty much got that problem covered. In theory, we’ll have side-by-side office space where he’ll work on the web version of his store and I’ll continue to write and to develop some web properties that have been percolating for years.

If you’ve been following this blog, you know that the prospect of a life of nothing but writing and web activity is already beginning to lose its luster for me. Those who know Jagdish keep asking how he’ll survive without his stool and his “ashram.” I think I’ve found the perfect solution to both these issues.

We’re going to take our act—or more correctly acts—on the road. We’ll get an Airstream or Winnebago RV (or whatever the generic is) and travel across the country. This will enable us to see states where we’ve never been, or only breezed through on business. We’ll spend time in the interesting cities that folks have been recommending to us. And we’ll sniff out places where we can hawk our wares and ply our trade.

The first step will be to buy a used RV. The ones in Texas, Arkansas and Missouri seem to be more affordable, but we’d have to travel to get them; catch 22. I figure we’ll need to spend around $50,000 if we want to buy it here on the East Coast. This means that the home we downsize to needs to be at least $50,000 less expensive than what is currently in our budget. It also must be somewhere that will allow us to park the RV in the driveway. (Can you say: “You might be a redneck if…”?)

We’ll need a portable peddler’s cart—the kind you see at craft fairs or on sidewalks in the summer in tourist areas. Most of it will be filled with products from Spectrum-India, Jagdish’s retail store. He’ll have incense, essential oils, wind chimes, singing bowls and more. A portion of the cart will feature my books. I’ll do readings every hour, hoping to lure folks into buying the book after they hear how witty and funny I am. Jagdish will do handwriting analysis, palm readings and henna tattoos.

We’ll spend a week or two in each location, working our way from East to West and back again, following the change of seasons, as appropriate. This way, Jagdish can “set up shop” in all the places that visitors to Spectrum-India have been promoting to him over the years, without having to commit to a long-term lease. He’ll be able to take his stool with him, but he won’t be able to sit there until midnight or later. I’ll get to talk to him all day, and even eat meals with him. What a concept!

We’ll become peripatetic retirees, wandering the country like eccentric vagabonds. Jagdish will be able to hold court with different people every week. His friends back in Rhode Island won’t have to worry about him having store withdrawal. He’ll be like a turtle, carrying his store on his back, in a manner of speaking. I’ll continue to gather pop culture to write about, but with an even broader geographic perspective.

Our list of destinations will be chock full of university towns and artists’ communities. Our peddler’s cart will have stickers from Burlington, Amherst, Charlottesville, Chapel Hill, and Austin. We’ll spend time in Camden, Asheville, St. Augustine, and Taos, Santa Fe and Albuquerque. We’ll camp out in Savannah, New Orleans, and Mill Valley. If we hit the weather right, we’ll stop in Madison, Boulder, and Portland, OR.

Our peddler’s cart will have so many miles on it, we’ll have to buy new tires every few months. (Note to self: add tire expense to budget.) At the end of each year, we’ll evaluate the places we’ve been. We’ll return to the “keepers” the next year and explore new locales to replace the slots vacated by the losers. We’ll take suggestions of cities to add from any and all sources. We’ll shamelessly  mooch meals from people we know in an area and folks we meet along the way.

After a few years, we might even decide to relocate to one of the perpetual winners, especially if it’s more affordable than where we’ve initially downsized. Oh, yes! This is a plan devised at the peak of my creative genius, and without the lubricant of even one glass of wine. Imagine what I might come up with after a glass or two! Or perhaps don’t.

Retirement Limbo Land

When our house didn’t sell in two real estate seasons of trying, we decided to give it a rest for a year. We’re also doing some updates to our kitchen, the planning for which has become close to a full time job for me. In the meantime, we’re trying to keep it “staged” in case our agent has a buyer she feels will be interested in the property. And yes, it’s happened once already.

The market is hot in Providence, in the sense that there’s a shortage of inventory and even big houses are turning quite quickly, sometimes even with multiple offers. But the prices haven’t advanced much since last year and people still want a “done” house. Hence the need for our kitchen updates.

The failure to launch our retirement move has been a good thing for my husband. He’s about two years behind the original schedule for closing the wholesale portion of his business and getting out of his warehouse. As I roll into my third year of pseudo-retirement, I find myself in “Retirement Limbo Land.” That’s where your income is retired, but your expenses aren’t. And the way you spend your time is between a rock (full-time employment) and the proverbial hard place (your idea of retirement bliss).

Yes, I finished and published three books in the first two years after leaving my full-time job. I’m still blogging weekly and I have the idea for and the beginnings of my fourth book. But I’m not feeling warm and fuzzy about spending my retirement just writing. This is in part because my office is in our windowless basement. I need ambient light to be energized.

I’m thinking about getting an IPad so I can write in one of our sunny rooms (since I’m still paying real estate taxes on them). But then I’ll need WiFi service, or at least a wireless router in my basement. (Maybe these are one and the same; I don’t know.) This apparently involves upgrading from DSL and/or paying extra for having access from more than one computer. It seems crazy to go through all of that when we’re going to be here for just another year or so. (God willing and the cricks don’t rise…)

This is just one aspect of Retirement Limbo Land. Here’s another that will make you sad. As part of the house staging, I boxed up our photos, including those of the cats. I kept one photo of Pansy out, since we sent her to the Rainbow Bridge shortly before I retired. The rest were put into a box carefully labeled “Keep.” Last October, we lost Lily. I have no photo of her near my desk because the “Keep” boxes were all stored behind the “Sell” and “Donate” ones, and I haven’t been able to turn up the photo box.

Ditto for my high school and college yearbooks. When someone from my past wants to reconnect via Facebook, I can’t cheat my way into “remembering” them by looking up their yearbook picture.

There’s a similar sob story behind my sewing and craft supplies. I could really use that packet of felt to reinforce the holes in my favorite jeans. And the iron-on tape to fix the lining inseams on my linen pants that are fraying. I can’t properly repair my husband’s sweaters without a crochet hook to re-knit the stitches that got snagged and created a ladder down the front. I refuse to go out and buy new supplies when I know I have them somewhere. Besides, the plan is to downsize, not augment.

I have many other examples of things I’ve stashed away that I’d like to be able to put my hands on, but won’t be able to until I’m out of Retirement Limbo Land. It leaves me unhappy and frustrated. And annoyingly out of control.

I have similar feelings about finding alternate ways to spend my time. I’ll probably get involved in some volunteer work when we settle into our new, downsized location. I’m disinclined to do it now. Why invest emotionally in something I’ll be leaving soon? Not to mention our one-car situation. If I take the car so I can volunteer for a few hours, that leaves the rest of the day to get into trouble. By that I mean go shopping. Again, the goal is to downsize. And the budget doesn’t allow shopping.

Except for wine, but I can walk to my favorite wine store. That has added benefits. I get some exercise, and I don’t buy more than two or three bottles at a time, so they’re not too heavy to carry home. Of course, if one has a screw top, I could always drink some of it on the way, to lighten the load. Just kidding. Then again…

Retirement Plagues — Sneezing Fits, Bug Bites and Bruises

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Lately I’m prone to a rash of plagues, or a plague of rashes, or both. They’ve come upon me like carpenter ants on a vine-covered porch since I’ve been retired.

Every year around this time, I get little bug bites that itch like crazy. They start at my ankles and work their way up my body over a few weeks. Places on my lower back that are hard to reach are a favorite snacking area for these critters. Also the wing flaps of my upper arms. For immediate relief, I scrub my skin to within an inch of its life with the back brush in the shower.

I also treat with my father’s go-to ointment—Boroleum. It’s an analgesic with menthol and eucalyptol. It was developed for nasal use, but it’s versatile. Remember the dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding who used Windex on everything, including zits? Well, that’s me with my Boroleum, thanks to my father. It’s amazingly soothing, but only for awhile. No matter what I do, until the nibbling season is over, I’m doomed to a life of itch and scratch.

This is also the season for sneezing fits. Those with severe allergies are thinking: “Big whoop. The whole year is that season for me.” I understand the need to sneeze when I’m exposed to pollen. But my office is in the basement. In a windowless area. The fits I get there at this time of year go on and on.

The first sneeze, I just ignore. The second sneeze gets me looking around for the tissue box, just in case. By the third sneeze, I’m trying to sniff the drips back up there. Sneeze four gets me pressing my knees together. Sneeze five has me blowing my nose (still pressing my knees together). And blowing. And blowing. By the time sneeze six comes around, and it usually does, I’m running up the stairs to the bathroom.

Maybe my office gets dustier in Spring. It doesn’t seem that way to me. True, I drag the porch furniture out of the basement around the same time, and that stirs things up. But they’re in a different room and they go out the bulkhead. Even Luke is sneezing more now, and he hasn’t been o-u-t in weeks. Whatever the reason, sneeze fests are just another plague of the season for us.

My recent checkup with my GP reminded me of yet another side effect of an aging body: I bruise much more easily now. I guess my skin is thinner, so the blood vessels are closer to the surface. You know those little suction cup electrodes the tech sticks onto you when she does your annual EKG? Now they leave red marks. They usually disappear within a few hours, but it’s a different story for the other bruises that I get without having a clue why.

The other day I found a small discoloration on my left forearm. I’m sure it started as a typical black and blue mark. By the time I noticed it, the color had already moved on to the green phase. Now it’s that ugly yellow that signals the end of the cycle. I find bruises on my hips and thighs all the time, and I rarely can remember bumping into anything. Or more correctly, into anything in particular.

I bump into things all the time. My depth perception has always been lousy. Now that my eyesight is also less than stellar, unintentional contact with my surroundings happens several times a day, leaving me muttering: “Ouch! That’s going to leave a mark.” The more I walk around the house, the more bruises I get, and at least half of the ones I notice have origins unknown.

This provides a suitable excuse for just staying put in a chair with a good book. And a nice glass of wine. And no, it’s not the wine that makes me clumsy, so you can wipe that smirk off your face. What’s even better—by the second glass, I don’t notice the bug bites anymore. Ah, Spring! When ones thoughts turn to restocking the “medicine cabinet” with Boroleum and tissues. And wine, of course.

Signs You Need A Retirement Hobby

Two years into my retirement it hit me: I really need to find a new hobby. There are a number of signs you should recognize if you’ve also reached that point.

The sign that really brought this home to me had to do with watching TV, and not just any TV.

·      You watch so much Retro TV in the afternoon that Gunsmoke, Bonanza and The Big Valley are now in reruns.

Reruns of reruns. Really? How pathetic is that? And if that’s not bad enough:

·      You know exactly how the rabbit ears need to be positioned for each of the 12 channels your TV can receive so you get the best reception for each one.

Then there are the telltale signs that have to do with making things into projects.

·      You’ve written down the steps you go through when you put on your walking shoes. “Get shoes. Loosen laces. Pull out tongue. Get yard-long shoehorn. Insert shoehorn. Insert foot. Straighten tongue. Tighten laces. Tie laces: right-over-left, left-over-right, makes a square knot, good and tight.” Repeat.

·      You’ve darned three dozen socks in the past two months. Some of your darning has been re-darned.

·      You check the bottom of your husband’s clothes closet, hoping to find some laundry that needs to be done.

Even those who are avid readers and consider having more time to read during retirement to be a hobby might need to find a new one. Recognize any of these?

·      When you sit down to read a book, you fall asleep in ten minutes.

·      You check your email every half hour.

·      You wait at the front door for the mailman and hope he has several text-dense catalogues you can read—page by page.

·      You memorized the second edition of Excel for Dummies, even though it’s 17 years out of date.

Some other signs reflect a lack of focus. Or compulsive behavior. Or both.

·      You stare at the 7-day vitamin container each morning, trying to remember what day it is. (And your husband is no help at all.)

·      You feed your cat four times a day. Lately he’s been hiding under the bed when he hears you coming up the stairs in the middle of the afternoon.

·      You prepare a detailed shopping list at least twice a week, even though you go for groceries only once. You count the number of eggs in the carton three times before you remember to write down whether you need to buy them or not. Then you leave the list on the kitchen table when you finally go shopping. So you buy more eggs, just in case. You now have four cartons in the fridge. Two of them are partially used.

Oh, yes. Most of us can’t wait to be retired. All that extra time on our hands! But be careful what you wish for. Or else get some great recipes for egg salad. And adopt a few more cats.