Welcome to my happily ever after...
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retirement blues
My goodness, Thursday already. The week is half over! I don't have any grand plans this weekend as of yet. Well, other than trying to stay sober, however that is a regular venture for me on the weekends. During the week, I don't even think about drinking. I mean, not once does it even cross my mind to have a drink during the week when I have to get up and go to work the next day. My problem is that I am a creature of habit...a big one. If I do the same thing two days in a row, it is then a routine. Once I got drunk that first Friday after Carlos went to bed, that was it.
I definitely have a routine on the average weekday:
5:45 AM - wake up
5:50 AM - iron my shirt for work
6:00 AM - shower and shave
6:15 AM - get dressed while watching the news
6:30 AM - check my email before leaving for work
6:45 AM - get in the car and drive the same way to work I have a million times before
7:00 AM - walk in the door to my office
Then in the afternoon:
4:15 PM - turn off my computer and head to my car
4:30 PM - walk in my front door, hang up my work clothes, turn on what's left of Oprah, and thaw meat for dinner. Relax a bit.
5:30 PM - cook dinner
6:00 PM - watch E! News Live
6:30 PM - watch Entertainment Tonight
7:00 - 10:00 PM - watch various shows depending on what night of the week it is
10:00 PM - read in bed for about 15 mins and then hit the sack
That is my life. Try not to be jealous. I try to make things exciting by working out 3 of those days after work, but I pretty much just jump to the 5:30 event rather than doing the regular 4:30 routine. I sound like such an old man. Speaking of old men, since my dad retired, he's been hanging out at Randalls, the local grocery store there in Kingwood where they live. I've been in there before and noticed the pack of old men that just sit there and drink coffee and commiserate. Last weekend there was a picture on their kitchen table of my dad and bunch of scraggly looking old men, and when I asked my mother who on earth those guys were, she told me they are my dad's friends that hang out at Randalls.
Keep in mind, I tend to get a little impatient when it comes to older people, and I really try not to, however I do feel sorry for them. We really do live in a society that just throws old people away with no regard to them whatsoever. You know, retirement is supposed to be such a wondeful thing. I hear people here at work desperately seeing if they have met the minimum requirements to retire, yet I wonder how happy they will really be in the long run if they do retire. Perhaps retirees lose a sense of purpose after they stop working.
Speaking of retirees, when I went to stay with Susie's parents back in April, I thought her dad was awesome! He retired a few years ago, and he now does pottery. He takes classes at the local community college, and Susie said that he sometimes goes to the pottery workshop at 5 AM he's so excited about working on a particular project. Then he gives away virtually everything he makes. In fact, he has a policy that if you come to visit his house, you simply must leave with a piece of pottery. Before I walked out his front door at the end of the weekend, he'd taken me in his garage and faced me against a wall of pottery and told me to take anything my heart desired. I picked out a box he'd made, and later Susie made me take more. So I also took two bud vases and a fleur-de-lis he had made. Granted, it is not gallery type quality, however I love them. I brought them home and proudly displayed them in prominent places because I know that he made them with passion. I love that. I wish my dad could find something like that to spend his time doing.
I wish I could find something like that to spend my time doing.
8:20 a.m. - 2004-06-03
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