44 Business Days To Retirement

As a compulsive journalist -- heck, I even majored in journalism in college -- I've often made the effort, particularly, to chronicle the major events, transitions, and travels of my life -- books of things my children did growing up; trips to Mexico, France, Italy; the rather gory and bizarrely x-rated journal about my little bout with prostate cancer...

The problem with journaling, as I see it, is that when you have time to do it right, nothing much is happening.  When you are in the midst of the earthquake there is no time to journal.   So with a few exceptions, I missed most of the pithy stuff but have written millions of words about nothing much and illustrated this pablum with equally bland photographs. 

To be honest, I'm not quite that humble and will lay claim to a few clever and interesting things, but, if I dropped dead tomorrow, any distant descendant who might be interested would have to dig through a mountain of oatmeal to find the raisins.   I remind myself of the old Seinfield sitcom.

Which leads up to my current blog-journal epic about retirement and kicking ass in the last quarter of the football game.  Somewhere along the line, I got the erroneous idea that I would be sitting back in an easy chair, growing a beard and smoking a pipe and dispensing the wisdom of a lifetime.

But instead, I'm running around more manic and freaked out then ever.  Of course, I still haven't retired yet -- so part of it is trying to tie up loose ends at work. 

BUTLER: "If you haven't been able to tie up the loose ends in the 13 years you were there, what makes you think you can tie them up in the next 44 days?"

And home is chaos.  Wonderful chaos - but chaos.  With Brian, Melody and family moving back in a few months ago, the population of living mammals (dogs, cats, humans, grandhumans) has tripled and the furniture has doubled. 

I arrive home after work and my first assessment is that a tornado has hit the place.  Not only that but the tornado is still here, whirling from room to room while I stumble after it, waist deep in toys, all of which have batteries and movement sensors so I am surrounded by squeeky voices saying, "One, two three...Play with me!"   I push through toward where I hear a glass breaking. 

From somewhere else, Karen's voice is calling out for help.  "Brian and Melody have to work late!!  Can you please change Conner's diaper?!  And did you get the salad stuff I asked you to?"

Which of course, I had not done.  

Turning toward where I assume Conner's diapers might be, I step on a small plastic helicopter which, of course, in a squeeky voice, says, "Let's play the alphabet game!  A is for..."

"'A' is for AAAAAAAAH!"  I tell it. 

I wonder if I'll have time to blog about retirement in retirement.

Maybe I should just sit tight and work on blogging about the nursing home.  I'll need one with Internet Access.  Of course, I may not remember what Internet Access does.  Maybe instead of the computer, I'll just bring the plastic helicopter.  "One, two, three...play with me!"     I can drive the nurse's aides crazy.