Month: November 2018

The ties that bind

Posted on by thatsgettingold

So, the Thanksgiving weekend has come to a close. And emotionally, I’m about as solid as a bowl of mushy cranberry sauce. (Why do they call it ‘sauce’? You don’t pour it over anything! In fact, it doesn’t even ‘pour’ at all!!)

First came the excitement of the girls coming home for a few days. One lives in the city, another attends college out of state. My oldest is already at home, and I had visions of the splendid time we’d have just hanging out, talking, eating, maybe watching movies together … being a complete family again.

My wife warned me about getting my hopes up about spending time with them. “They don’t want to see you; they want to see their friends,” she said. I scoffed. Of course they want to see me.. I have money! And a car!

Anyway, Thanksgiving was truly wonderful. There was a big family dinner, at which I received a gift from my traveling brother. He was in Amsterdam, and brought me a gift, “Cannabis Chocolate.” It’s milk chocolate and pieces of hazelnut, with hemp seeds mixed in. Talk about your high holidays! We laughed, we drank, we regretted our food decisions.. it couldn’t have been any better.

The girls hung out with their cousins, catching up on all they’ve been up to, while I watched, kvelling. (Kvel-ling: From the Yiddish: Bursting with happiness and pride). We got home not too late, and spent the remainder of the evening playing games and laughing. SO fun! And so fleeting.

My wife’s prediction was spot-on. All of the little one’s friends were home from their respective colleges, so reunions were the order of the weekend. And the middle one is finishing up law school, so much of her time was spent sequestered in her room or the library.

Then today came. The lawyer-to-be went back to the city. The collegian packed her bags and got a lift back to school. And my oldest was back into her routine, running out and about. Suddenly, the excitement of the household yielded to quiet. And the feeling of not being whole again.

I don’t know if this is a getting-old person’s thing. When you’re the kid running out to see your friends home from college on Thanksgiving, you don’t think about how precious these times are. You’re young.. you think they’ll go on forever. Then, you have kids, and they grow up to live lives of their own. (OMG.. I’m channeling Harry Chapin!! Quick, change the station!)

I guess the point of all this is that we’re at that point in life where our kids, who once were wholly reliant upon us for their every need, are now off and running, leaving us in their wake. (I guess we shouldn’t say ‘wake’ in a column about getting old!)

But we don’t love them any less. And we cherish the times like these when we CAN be together, sharing stories, laughs and love, and just … being a family! It’s what we are truly thankful for.

How to know if you’re the retiring type

Posted on by thatsgettingold

I was having lunch this week with my beautiful and significantly older cousin Barbara (LOL.. love you, cuz!) She’s as active an individual as you’ll ever meet, and while eating, talk turned to retirement, as it will when you get to be our age. When should we do it? Can we afford it? Will we still have the energy to enjoy it?

I hear my friends say things like, “Yep, just two more years on the job and I am DONE!” But for me, the big question is, how do you define ‘done’?

Does it mean you stop working altogether, or does it mean you stop working at a job you took because it paid enough money for you to scrape by? And then, what happens if, by the grace of God, you outlive your savings? Do you become un-done? (Spelled undun in the great single by The Guess Who, which, by the way, is a reference I could only make in a blog called ‘That’s Getting Old”)

My big brother’s an interesting example — and I can write this now because a) I know he’s out of the country, and b) he’s too cheap to pay for WiFi, so he’ll never see this! (LOL.. love you, bro!)

He has the most beautiful singing voice you’ve ever heard, A real gift from the angels. And, through the years, he has sung with chorale groups all around the world, in churches and synagogues, and even as part of a Christmas caroling group at a local restaurant. (I’m selling CDs in the lobby after this blog; stop by and see me!)

The point is, he does it because he loves it, and because it was an excellent supplement to his less-than-acceptable pay as a public school teacher — a job from which he retired a year or two ago. Now, he travels often with my sister-in-law (who also is a magnificent singer and pianist) and when they’re not traveling, they sing. That’s their life in a nutshell. (Factor in children and grandchildren, and drinking wine, and that’s pretty much all the time we have, folks!)

And take my former employer… PLEASE!  He was a media mogul for most of his working life, sold his business and has opened an art gallery that features psychedelic posters from the 1960s and ’70s, used at the time to promote concerts mostly around San Francisco. So, technically, he’s still working, but it’s more a labor of love than anything else. So, is he done? Is my brother?

I think the key to a decision about retirement is interest. Not the type that keeps your IRA above water. Interests.. the things you take up when you finally decide to stop “working.” And here, for me at least, is where the “divorce” part of the story begins.

I’ve spent some time thinking about it, and have come to the realization that I have no interests at all. Well, everything interests me to a degree, but nothing interests me to the point of wanting to wake up and do it every day, aside from my work, which I love, and, oh.. breathing.

So here’s the problem. While I see myself with little or nothing to do after I retire, my wife Carrie, on the other hand, is busy all the time. I know that’s true because she has a shirt that says “I am very busy” across the front.

So what happens when a guy with nothing to do has a wife who’s doing something all the time? Easy… he looks to tag along, right? Well, in my mind, here’s what my retirement looks like.

“Doovie (that’s what she calls me!), I have to go to the cleaners and then food shopping. See you later.” Me: “Wait, I’ll come with.”

“OK, that’ll be nice.” End of day one of retirement.

Next day. “Doovie, I’m running to the bank, to the shoemaker, then I have to return something at the mall. See you later.” Me: “Great.. wait a sec and I’ll come with you.”

“Uh.. really? OK. If you must.. but HURRY!”

Day three of retirement. I hear the side door close and the car engine start. I run to the door and watch as the car pulls out of the driveway. Hours later, she returns. (I’m still in pajamas, unshaven, standing like a schmuck next to the dog, where we’ve been waiting for her to come home.) “Where’d you go?” I ask. “I would have come with you.” The dog agrees.

Her: “That was the point. Listen, if this is going to work, you really need to find something to do!”

“Like what? Isn’t it great that we now have all this time to spend together?”

“You need to go back to work. David, do SOMETHING.” (Doovie’s gone… we’re back to David.)

“Why? Isn’t this what retirement is about?”

“You might be retired, but I’m not your babysitter. I still have the same things to do that I’ve been doing all along. You know I love you, but you’re just in my way.” (I added the ‘I love you” part.. after all, it’s my imaginary dialog!)

I can’t picture anything worse than having nothing to do, and having to stand idly by as my wife just does everything.

Wait a minute.. who am I kidding? I actually can’t think of anything BETTER than having nothing to do and standing idly by as my wife just does everything.

Where did I put those retirement papers??