Into The Distance
Tuesday. One of the small bottles of sake last night, a nice buzz, to bed early, up early, back from breakfast at the usual place. How many times have I said that: back from breakfast at the usual place? I'm in a rut, right? Well, that's why ruts are more nuanced than we think. (Screed in favor of ruts follows.) I LIKE having breakfast at the usual place and don't look forward to the day when inflation and age have wiped out my retirement funds and I can no longer afford it. Still, that will be the time to find another nice comfortable morning rut, make breakfast at home in a comfortable chair, reading the papers (if papers still exist and I can afford the subscription) and writing about it here. You, of course, will have long gone to more interesting places, but I'm OK with that. Remember, any day is a good day you can get up and tie your own shoes (the pronouncement of the wise Mr. N many years past) and my pull on shoes don't have laces.
We are in a good mood?
I think so. I need to get Ms. Emmy some more of that Frontline stuff as she's starting to scratch every now and then. This is the time of year for it. They get in the apartment somehow, not sure how, but Frontline seems to get rid of them without shortening her life by more than a couple of years. Better living, even for cats, through chemistry. That and maybe get the car washed, although it's overcast at the moment and just might rain. The forecast is for partly cloudy, sunny through the rest of the week, so I'll go with washed. Saying it, of course, doesn't mean it will happen today, you understand, here at Chalet Prop, but soon, I would think. How could I not be in a good mood?
Later. I got word Steve Flesher died of a heart attack Saturday. A friend in the old company stationed at the port facility in Seattle, holding on as best he could to get in another year in this rat race before retiring. We had dinner in May when he was in Oakland for a regional meeting. He's known he's had a bad heart for some time and he's been carrying way too much weight for what I suspect has been most of his life - a classic example of a heart attack waiting to happen - but shit, what terrible timing. Sometimes putting off retirement, gritting your teeth for that one last year, those few last years, in order to build a bank account big enough to retire makes no sense. Sometimes you cut and run.
It puts a face on this financial crisis, makes me wonder if he's been watching his 401k sink these last several months, realizing his plan to retire this February was evaporating and the stress didn't do him any good. I bitch about going overboard on the sake and not getting in my walking, but I do that for a reason. I've outlived my own father by ten years, wondered when I was younger if I'd ever reach something called retirement - yes, he had issues I don't have - but something like this jerks your head around and gives you a clearer view of the world and how to put some of it in context.
And this will cause you to make changes?
No, men are fools and we believe the rules don't really apply. When the time comes we just kind of wander off into the distance.
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