Bossy Little Dog

It would have been 100 days until my 65th birthday if I’d posted this yesterday, but, eh, I did not. So, 99. Welcome to my 100 99 Day Plan!

Back in the day, when I was skinnier and healthier I used to walk daily. Once upon a time, I used to get my ass out the door and do 2 miles a day, either before or after work. A daily walk is a habit I want to get back into my life. I’m not sure whether mornings or evenings will work better for me, but there will be at least a 30 minute walk every day, until my pace improves and 30-40 minutes is at least 2 miles.

I’m swearing off diet apps for now, because I’m just fucking sick of counting shit. My life is governed by spreadsheets and reporting systems at work and I’m just not able to do it in the rest of my life without getting all stabby. Instead I will eat a mostly plant based Mediterranean diet, drink all the water and the tea, snack on fruit, and get at least 7 hours of sleep a night. That is all I have in me right now, and I really think that will be Enough.

Back in the Before Times, my corporate employer did a thing at meetings: “30 for 30” when every 30 minutes we would stand up and stretch for 30 seconds. That’s one of the things that fell away when we all went remote, and my back and knees and entire body misses the reminder to get my ass up and move regularly during the work day. I was talking with a coworker (online, we all work from home) and I wondered if I could ask Alexa to remind me to do that, because I really need it.

I didn’t find a programmed routine and didn’t have the energy to teach Alexa, because we still have words about not waking me up at 5:30 if I take a day off during the week.

Me: “Alexa, cancel my 5:30 alarm for tomorrow.”

Alexa, cheerily: “Okay! Alarm canceled. Would you like to cancel this alarm for every weekday?

Me: “Alexa, no, I said cancel it for tomorrow. Only tomorrow.”

Alexa: ::sulks silently::

Alexa and I have this conversation at least once or twice a month, and she asks every single time whether I’m canceling my alarm for every weekday. The concept of “Tomorrow” apparently confuses her. She’s really good about turning the lights on and off when told, but yeah, otherwise, the girl is dim and not as teachable as advertised.

So, while I was figuring out how to set an at home version of a 30 for 30 reminder I found an IOS app called, cleverly enough, “Stand Up!” which does exactly what I wanted. I was able to set it for a reminder to get my ass up every 30 minutes between 8 and 5 on weekdays, and unlike our gal Alexa, it took less than a minute to set up and does not talk back. Every 30 minutes my iPhone and Apple watch ping and vibrate quietly. I can ignore it if I want, it’s not intrusive at all and I don’t have to argue with it to make it stop. It’s a reminder, not an eager but dim assistant that annoys you until you respond. I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks and love it.

And no, I’m not being compensated for this plug, it’s just a useful little app if you sit a lot, even if you aren’t sitting at a desk for work. (Even knitters and readers need to stand and stretch regularly. Just sayin’.)

So, my variation on 30 for 30 will be something I can’t do in an office meeting: I’ll add a plank every 30 minutes, or every other 30 minutes, whatever works. Stand, stretch, get down slowly and creakily into a plank, because yeah, the deterioration from sitting all the time is real. Hold a plank for at least 30 seconds. Get back to work. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

And walk. Eat plants. Drink water. Get sleep. That’s the plan.

Alexa will get to aggravate me again with the alarm cancellation stuff this week, because I’m taking Thursday off to hit Epcot Flower and Garden with my daughter.

My daughter is on a break between jobs, she starts the new, higher paying 20 minute commute gig in April, so we are doing our annual tradition of playing hooky for Flower and Garden sans Kid. We’ll take her another day. I’m hoping that if we’re going on a random weekday we’ll have a better chance to get the virtual queue for Guardians of the Galaxy. I’ve tried off and on for months, but no luck.

I may take Friday off too, just because I need a catch up on life day. Good Friday is a holiday for my employer, so I may take Thursday or Monday and wrap that into a 4 day weekend, I haven’t decided. Either way I need a day or two of catching up on life.

I woke up at 5:30 this morning, and as is my (bad) habit, browsed social media and gave Gidget some pets before getting us both out of bed.

One of the first posts I saw – I think it was THE first, actually – was from my pet sitting company. A husband and wife team have had a pet sitting company here for well over 20 years, and I’ve used them for over a decade. It was just them, no random staff, and they have a fierce and loyal following. Granted, I don’t travel all that much these days, but when I did, all I had to do was text the husband, “I’m going out of town for [insert dates], can you take care of my critters?” and his cheery text would arrive, “Sure can. Key under the mat?”

And that’s all it took to arrange for a trusted sitter that Murphy and Sophie loved the minute they met him. I remember that first meeting over a decade ago, when he sat on the kitchen floor and had both dogs in his lap while we chatted, they came to sit on his lap and they looked at him with adoration, and they did NOT take to strangers that fast EVER. That company was our go-to pet sitters ever since, they had the Bossy Dog Seal of Approval.

I rarely saw him, he’d text when he picked up the key, and send me updates about how my (senior and special needs) crew was faring, and leave the key when they were done, and email an invoice. That was pretty much the extent of our relationship for the last decade or so.

He would take beautiful pictures of his clients and share them on Facebook. A few years ago he shared gorgeous portraits of Ellie, who actually came out of hiding when he was there. (I found one and added it below.)

He also did a dramatic b/w portrait of Sophie looking somber for a Memorial Day post, but I can’t find it. His wife took care of my pets and my daughter’s when we went on the cruise last month. My daughter was about to book them for another trip in a couple of weeks.

His wife posted to their company page this morning. He “lost his battle with depression” yesterday. I am still trying to take it in, and I can’t imagine the pain his wife is in right now. They’d been married over 30 years.

I’m feeling the same sort of gut punch I felt after we lost Robin Williams and Anthony Bourdain. I was a client, not a personal friend, and I had no clue that this man was anything but how he presented himself, a cheerful, hardworking guy who loved what he did and the animals he cared for, always positive and there for everybody. And that’s the awful part – you never know what kind of pain people are hiding behind their professional face.

A reminder to just be kind, always, because you honestly never know what others are dealing with.

Sorry to break my blog silence with such a downer, but it was a shit day.

Someone in one of my Facebook groups (one for stationery nerds and journal addicts) shared a link to a blog post I really loved to read. Facebook provides something both useful and timely twice this year, and it’s only February? We may actually be in the End Times.

I’ve browsed the archives and a lot of her writing resonates with me (though not the paper filing systems stuff). That essay in particular hit home, because I’m a stationery nerd. I LOVE beautiful notebooks, and in the last couple of years in particular, have amassed a small collection of lovely notebooks that I once would have hoarded, because they are “too good to use.” I do use them. I just keep accumulating more than I can use at one time, because if you are a stationery geek, you can’t help yourself.

My perspective about not saving things changed several years ago when I was cleaning out my parents’ house after their deaths, and saw how many things my mother had saved all of her life, put away for me, I suppose, or just because the stuff was “too good to use.” I still have her Mikasa china, the stuff she only busted out for Christmas and Easter dinners for 40 years. I don’t use it either. I don’t do big Christmas and Easter dinners.

Her china is carefully packed away in nice quilted china storage cases, and her box of impractical flatware that needs to be polished is around here somewhere still. I never use it (I haven’t seen the flatware in years, I honestly don’t remember where I put it) yet I can’t seem to get rid of it. I really should take it to a consignment shop and let it go to someone who would actually enjoy it. I’ll add that to this year’s to do list.

I had several candles I’d bought or was gifted in the last few years, sitting around unused. In the last month or so I’ve started lighting a candle every day while I’m working; it makes a nice light scent in the house. I also have an urge to wear perfume again; no issues with allergies at the office now that I work from home.

I’m going to Epcot tomorrow and I think I may splurge on some fancy perfume, just because. (Because I haven’t bought perfume in at least ten years.) Did you know Epcot’s France has a Guerlain shop? It smells like magic, and I’m drawn in every time I walk by, and then I go, no, no, I don’t need it. True enough, I don’t NEED it, but I want it. And I’ll wear it daily, and not save it “for good.” (And yes, I did do a price comparison because I’m well aware of theme park markups, but this shop is expensive enough they don’t feel the need to gouge.)

Lots of changes are coming this year, and it’s going to be interesting, and I’m here for it.

My daughter and her fella are planning to move in together when the school year is over. They each have shared custody of a current and future middle schooler, and each also has a large young male dog (one GSD, one Heinz 57 Goofball) and the logistical complications involved make me want to lie down with a cold cloth on my forehead and a teacup full of vodka, but fortunately this is NOT my problem to manage. They are smart and capable adult professionals with six college degrees between them, and they’ll sort it out. They don’t need my help or advice. My daughter has a new job MUCH closer to home, and that will improve her quality of life immensely.

2023 is going to be the year of many changes, and it’s all good.

So, yeah, I’d had plans for last weekend, including Epcot’s Festival of the Arts, because I really want another print from my favorite artist. But…

So, the family drama is something that doesn’t really involve me and my daughter doesn’t care, so I don’t see why I can’t say what it is. My daughter’s ex is going away for 30 days to a place that is not jail, and I assume his mommy is paying, but whatever. I hope he learns to grow up there, he’s nearly 50. (Expectations are low.) He let my daughter know about this at 6 p.m. on Friday, when he was supposed to be picking The Kid up for his week of shared custody.

To be clear, we are entirely in favor of his 30 day stay at “camp” because maybe it will take, and that would be good, but he announced this to her when he was supposed to show up to collect his Kid. My daughter and her boyfriend had weekend plans, including tickets, reservations, etc.

So my daughter called me cursing a blue streak and asked if The Kid could spend the weekend, because her boyfriend had planned this and had invested money in tickets and had a room and it was the last minute and OMG!!! I had plans, but mine were free and Epcot isn’t going anywhere, so yeah, sure.

The Kid and I decided to go shopping for fun stuff for the cruise. And here is where living in FL is even weirder than you’d thought: national stores stock like we are Up North.

We are not rich, so we can’t hit a fancy department store for Cruise Wear. The Kid just needs new shorts, because she’s now 5’3+” and is filling out into juniors clothes, not little girl clothes, and while t-shirts are forgiving, shorts are not quite so. All those years of dance have given her enviable butt muscles, and I really don’t want her getting ogled or worse at 11. She needs non-booty shorts, STAT.

So, we made it our mission to go get her more shorts. We drove the county. Super Target, Old Navy, H&M, we struck out at all of them. If we wanted jeans and hoodies and fleecy things, they had us covered. (heh-heh) It’ll be 85 tomorrow, AND we are going to the Bahamas. This is Florida. Target thinks we need sweatshirts. (Target did have bathing suits and teeny-tiny shorts to wear over them, IOW, more booty shorts.) Old Navy thinks we needs sweatshirts and jeans.

So, we came home with no fun new stuff for the cruise. (I had a moment of “DUH!!” the next morning when I realized where we need to go: Bealls!

I am not a big Bealls fan, but it IS a Florida based chain and you can get shorts in Junior sizes for cheap pretty much year round, and we will hit it after school tomorrow, because Grandma’s on vacation now. My first full week off in 5 years, and my first paid week off in 10 years.

I did buy a new inflatable mattress at Target for her sleepover, because my old one went visiting years ago and never came home. Inflatable mattresses have gone upscale since I last bought one! The new one is an 18-in tall queen size bed for $70, with an internal pump. Quite posh and comfortable, and I swear I paid over $50 for the last one, which was half as deep. We both wished we could take it on the cruise, but she’ll just have to flail around on the sleeper sofa in our cabin.

I will not share a bed with The Kid. Her BEST FRIEND knows better, when Kid sleeps over they break out the trundle bed, because she’s a violent sleeper. I’ve already told her she’s getting the sleeper sofa in our stateroom, because I’m paying and I plan to sleep. That is non-negotiable, because did I mention that this is my first real vacation in FIVE years?

Anyway, I’m actually on vacation, and it feel surreal.

Life is going on, but the most interesting stuff is not shareable on the innerwebs, out of respect for the privacy of others. Nothing awful, just drama.

Work remains…work. It’s fine. I’m fine. Really.

The person they “hired” (quotes because it’s a contractor position) for my former job after months of searching, quit last week. She lasted…maybe three or four months?

I called my buddy in my old department who had trained me and also was training her, and he said she was very frustrated because she wasn’t catching on to the job. (I was asked to review her resume and told the manager that her background wasn’t a good fit. He brought her on anyway.) My buddy begged me to come back – he was joking because he knows I need the money and benefits from my new job. I said get the boss to make it an employee position and I’ll be there in a hot minute.

I literally cannot afford to be a contractor again, I’m scrambling to save for retirement as it is. Next week I will be taking my first real vacation and first week off in nearly five years. I had to plan and budget to take an unpaid week off five years ago, because I had no PTO after years in my contract position. It has been that long. I am grateful for the money and the benefits and adore my manager who hired me, and I can’t afford to go back to contract work even though I’m far better suited for that job than this one.

Everybody who understands my former job knows it needs to be an employee position for someone with enough time with the company AND enough experience dealing with local governments and state offices and regulatory stuff to have an understanding of how shit works. Upper management is not part of “everybody who understands” and my former boss also knows it but has been unable to break through on that.

This is a classic Corporate America situation, where the people on the rise to upper management move through lateral layers of the company on the way up the ladder, so you’ll have, say, a finance person move into a job managing nuts and bolts stuff they honestly don’t understand, and until something majorly bad goes off the rails, nothing’s going to change.

Counting down to retirement. Seriously. I’ve been dealing with this shit for 40 years, isn’t that enough?

So, in other news, I’m less than six months away from Medicare! I’m getting mailers, calls, texts, selling me all the insurance I’ll need because I’ll be on Medicare. Yes, you will have Medicare, but you’ll also need this and this, and oh, do you need glasses? There’s a separate plan for that. This country is just so fucked up, I can hardly bear to think about it.

One of the good things about my current gig is we have a company (Starts with an F and ends with a Y) that manages retirement plans, etc. and they help with Medicare shit too. I’ll call them. I honestly don’t know how the millions of Americans who don’t have access to advice and get their news from Fox and their brother-in-law survive this shit. The reality is, many of them don’t.

Anyway, I’m taking my first paid week off in a DECADE next week, and I’m going to the Bahamas, baby! First ever cruise, first time to the Bahamas, waaay overdue.

The cruise plans have relaxed quite a bit since my original hysteria about “OMG!! WE HAVE TO PLAN!!”

I love planning, God knows. My life revolves around checklists and calendars, and this is our (not all of us, my daughter’s S.O. has been on a couple in the past) first-ever cruise, and first time cruise overwhelm is real. Add my anxiety and yeah, I started out in a panic, but I’ve talked myself down, thanks to some very reassuring people in cruise Facebook groups. (I know, right?)

We are going to pack our casual clothes and bathing suits and hats and sunscreen, because NONE of the other stuff people obsess over is necessary.

Today I read a FB post about “So what are your ideas for cute boarding outfits?” And I went, “Wait now!? Boarding outfits?? WTActualF is this madness?”

It’s not that crazy, it’s family groups that want to have matching shit. We are not those people either.

So, yeah. There’s a Cruise Culture (I didn’t call it a cult, that would be mean and unfair) that does weird charmingly eccentric (I will not call it cult-like) stuff.

I’ve discussed the Fish Extender already, that’s a nope. I did the quick mental math and time investment about it and decided it would be cheaper and MUCH easier to just hand The Kid $100 and let her go nuts on souvenirs.

Then there’s the ducks. This is not a Disney thing, it’s a cruise thing. Apparently it’s thing to buy and hide cruise-themed rubber duckies around the ship for other people to find. I think we will party poop on that too, unless my daughter is inspired to do it (highly unlikely, she’s my daughter). It’s just a 3 day vacation, and I don’t want to work on it.

As much as I am looking forward to this trip, and I REALLY am, I have to say that hardcore cruise culture is just as fucking weird as I’ve always thought. But it’s all optional and there will be many boring normies like us who are there for the stuff we paid for and aren’t interested in spending time and energy on other nonsense.

I left the shore day in Nassau up to my daughter and her guy, and they have concluded that we’ll go ashore and walk around so The Kid can say she’s seen Nassau, then get back on the ship and do ship stuff. I heartily endorse this plan. We will be doing the full Castaway Cay day, they want to snorkel and bike and float and eat BBQ and just relax.

I have a feeling 3 days will not be enough.

So, let’s do a high speed catch-up.

Work remains “eh”, but the paycheck remains very welcome.

We are doing Winter in Central Florida for another three days this weekend, because of course it’s a holiday weekend. Just like Christmas, we will be cold to very cold until Tuesday, when it will warm up again and hit 80 on Thursday. We won’t be getting into the 20s again, but will flirt with freezing tomorrow night. The plants that normally stay on the balcony are either inside, if they’re small, or moved back against the woefully un-insulated sliding doors on the balcony. I had plans to start herbs on the balcony this weekend, but I think I’ll get them and pot them on Monday, but wait until we’re back in the 50s at night before putting them out.

And yes, I have a three day weekend, and I am still adjusting to having PTO after what, a decade or so without? I put in for a week off around the three day cruise, so I’m not in a tizzy getting ready and can do laundry and re-stock the fridge when I get home (and spend an afternoon on the couch apologizing to Gidget). I haven’t had a paid week off since I can’t remember when. It’s why I’m okay with the “eh” of the job.

Okay, so I know you want a political rant, don’t you? Honestly, I’m all ranted out. I’m just going to sit back and put my feet up and watch the Republican party show their ass to the world for the next two years. We have Uncle Joe and the Senate majority to stop any stupid shit they try to do, and they have…some blonde freshman Congresswoman who actually thinks that whatever the fuck she voted for the other day “stopped the hiring of 87,000 new IRS agents!” Squeals of joy!! She did it! Seriously, I stumbled across her official Twitter and rolled my eyes so hard I sprained something.

No you twit, you fucking didn’t. That’s a done deal, and it’s not and never was the hiring of “87,000 new IRS agents!” It’s the budget for IRS hiring over TEN years, because a lot of people will be retiring over the next decade, and it’s for IT people and all sorts of staff who are not agents, including the poor souls who have to answer the phone when that ditsy dipshit calls to bitch about taxes. People sent her to Congress. The mind reels.

And George Santos is a spectacular liar, also apparently a criminal who has done a lot of crimeing, and an endless source of Internet memes, but their absolute joke of a Speaker will do nothing because his majority is so slim he can’t afford to lose even that asshole. McCarthy will protect that dirtbag until he’s hauled out in handcuffs, which might actually happen before summer, at the rate his crimes are unfolding.

Seriously, we could laugh at this Congress, but the real issue is that PEOPLE VOTED FOR THIS. Again, it’s not “Half the country,” it’s about 1/3, but that’s still an awful lot of awful. Thanks to Republican Voters we are in for two years of dysfunction, but Thank GOD we have the Senate and Biden’s decades of experience at the helm. The House will be all poo-flinging and shrieking until 2024. I’m rooting for fisticuffs on the R side of the House. I think we’ll see it.

More updates over this THREE DAY WEEKEND, I promise.

Bye now! You take care, okay?? You weren’t nearly as obnoxious as your two predecessors, but our stress levels did not drop much. At least mine didn’t.

Now let’s all be vewy, vewy quiet, and don’t make any big claims about 2023. Haven’t we all learned by now that we have no idea what the Universe really has in store for us?

I am not making any resolutions this year, but I do have plans. I plan to continue to improve my exercise and eating habits, and keep working on getting more sleep and drinking less wine. Meditation, yoga, eat more fruit. I know exactly what to do, I just need to DO IT.

I’ll be 65 in June. Everybody in my family retired at 65 or earlier, but thanks to some life decisions decades ago that seemed smart at the time, followed by Republican administrations crashing the economy twice in my adult working life, I will not be retiring at 65, nor will I be really “retiring” when I do. I’ll still have to work at something, but not what I’m doing now. In the meantime, I will focus on my finances and fitness and try to have some FUN, goddammit!

The cruise is an act of sheer fiscal irresponsibility, and desperately needed. Again, it’s only a long weekend, not two weeks in the Mediterranean, but I’ve been so vacation-deprived for the last decade, I’m irrationally excited.

This poor blog has been adrift for a while, without a focus. I’m thinking that maybe the focus should be on the realities of being single and turning 65 and figuring out the future. Not an advice blog, because I’m the last person to give advice. My life started out with a planned trajectory and absolutely NOTHING HAPPENED AS PLANNED, and it honestly was through no fault of my own (other than what seemed like perfectly good choices in, oh, the 80s) because that’s how life happens.

So, interspersed with my occasional rants and Disnerding, I’m going to try sharing things that I’m dealing with, figuring out, or just discovered even though it’s been a thing for years now.

The MIND diet, anyone? I stumbled across that this week, and realized it is perfect for me, because it’s how I already eat when I’m eating right. (My issues with portion control are another matter entirely.) I don’t need to sign up for a program, I need to tweak what I already do: just eat less, exercise more than once in a while, and cut back on the snacking and wine.

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention the book that made me face reality: Ditch the Diet

Also available as a hilariously profane kick in the ass audiobook read by the author: Healthy as F*ck. I’m thinking you can guess which version I chose and thoroughly enjoyed. I was nodding along like a church lady at a sermon, and felt called out on nearly every page. And the thing that kills me is: I KNOW THIS SHIT!! I know every word she says is true and real and honest and DO-ABLE!

(Insert notification that I’m an Amazon Associate and if you purchase something through one of my links I’ll get a small commission at no cost to you, which will also shock the hell out of Amazon, because I’m not organized enough to do that often.)

So, yeah, if I’m going to keep This Olde Blogge alive in 2023, It needs a purpose. What say you, my few and loyal readers? Does facing the reality of getting those mailers about Medicare plans while you just want to ride roller coasters and have no clue about your future sound like a blog topic?