Home at last

July 3, 2010

I arrived at Oakland Airport yesterday, July 2, at 2:30 p.m. - exhausted! I was home in Dublin by 3:15 p.m. and in bed asleep by 5:00 p.m. I slept for twelve hours!

I have unpacked and now have the first of four loads of laundry in the washer. I am also wondering where to put all the things I brought home.

You can't believe all the things you read about Internet access abroad, which is why you haven't heard from me for two weeks. I will blog about the segments of my trip as I organize my notes.

Suffice it to say the trip was wonderful, my traveling companions have become friends, and our schedule was brutal!

More to come...

Live long and prosper!

Next Stop, Turkey

June 17,2010


Today I am just hanging around at my daughter's house in Kent while she and her family pack for our trip. I was packed a week in advance and they will do well to get the bulk of it done one day before. We leave the house tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. for Cleveland Airport, and it is almost 5:00 p.m. now. They may have a late night tonight, especially since we are going to dinner tonight to celebrate their 15th wedding anniversary.


Yesterday, we drove up to Cleveland to visit the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage. We went specifically to see the exhibit Women & Spirit which is all about Catholic Sisters and their contribution to education, medical care, social justice, and other human services in early America, especially to immigrant populations.


The exhibit was extremely well done and we spent two hours looking and learning.


I don't expect I will be able to blog again until we arrive in Turkey. But who knows, you find WiFi in all sorts of locations.


Live long & prosper!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

June 15, 2010

All my bags are packed I’m ready to go. So begins my odyssey.

First stop the wilds of Ohio; then New Jersey; Zurich, Switzerland; Istanbul, Turkey; the Mediterranean; and finally Athens, Greece. I won’t promise to blog every day, but I will do my best to keep my readers up to date on where we are, what we are doing, and what we have seen. If my camera and my Netbook will talk to each other I will even try to post an occasional photo. Feel free to leave comments or questions on the blog response. This will be easier for me to retrieve that email.

Live long and prosper!

Retirement is not for sissies!

Busy, busy, busy! In the past week I traveled to Cleveland, OH, then to Dallas, TX, and finally back home to California.

In Cleveland I attended an orientation for my upcoming trip to Turkey and Greece. I met my roommate, a PhD. and a professor of Classical Languages at John Carroll University. She promises to be fun.

Now I must begin preparations. I have logged onto the airline site and completed all the required TSA information. I have contacted my doctor to arrange for any required vaccinations. Now all I must do is get the shots. Ich!

I was in Frisco, TX, for five days visiting my son's family. Didn't see much of him because until tax season is over he is working 12 and 14 hour days. But I got to spend time with my daughter-in-law and my two grandsons. The newest is just a month old, and Nana got lots of holding time. I didn't ignore the two year old, however. He also got lots of attention from Nana.

Believe me, retirement is not for sissies.

Live long and prosper!

Coats for Cubs

I have a mink coat hanging in my closet gathering dust. The coat has been there for almost ten years since my mother died. Before her death it hung in her closet for approximately 40 years. I am certain that she must have worn it on occasion; long before wearing animal fur was recognized as being inhumane.

The question was, after her death, what could I do with an old mink coat? I didn’t want to donate it to a thrift store and have it sold for someone else to wear. I didn’t want to put it on e-Bay for the same reason. If I will not wear the coat because I am opposed to animal cruelty, then why would I make it available for someone else to wear?

So that mink coat continued to hang in my closet until this past week when I learned about Coats for Cubs, a program sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States. HSUS, www.humanesociety.org/, collects fur coats, hats, muffs, etc. and gives them back to animals. They receive the furs, cut them into appropriate sizes and ship them to wild life refuges and rehabilitation centers for injured or sick wildlife. The fur, used as bedding, reduces stress and fear in injured animals and abandoned cubs of all species.

The best thing about the program, from my point of view, is that I don’t need to package up that coat and ship it to Washington, D.C. Buffalo Exchange, www.buffaloexchange.com/, which has stores or franchises in 14 states, collects and ships them at no cost. They have an outlet in Berkeley, which is approximately 20 miles from my house. I called to confirm their location and hours and also to inquire if they accept fake fur. Nope, only the real thing! But I am delighted to find such a simple and satisfying solution for disposing of something I didn’t want in the first place.

Live long and prosper!

And the Rains Came

As most of my readers are aware, we are experiencing rain and snow of biblical proportions here in California. After four years of below normal accumulations, the moisture is much needed and gratefully accepted by most. But even drought relief comes with a price.

This is brought to my attention by Red, my big tomcat companion. Multiple times each day he goes to the patio door and asks for me to open it. Which I do. After providing food and a warm lap, opening doors is my next most important duty. But I have not been doing a very good job lately. When I open the door he is presented with driving rain and gusty winds. He sits and looks out at the weather, then he looks at me with a long suffering disdain, lastly he gets up and walks away from the patio door and toward the front entry door where the performance is repeated. Red is definitely being inconvenience by drought relief.

I would think his behavior exceptional, except this same scenario was described in 1957 by Robert Heinlein in his wonderful book, The Door into Summer. Petronius the Arbiter (a.k.a. Pete) is a similar tomcat who is not fond of winter and behaves exactly like my Red cat. They both are always looking for dry warm sunny weather on the other side of the door.

For many other residents of California, the price is much higher than mere inconvenience. A state of emergency has been declared in five California counties. A week of storms has brought 8 to 10 inches of rain to the Los Angeles-area mountains. In the Bay Area we have accumulated nearly 5 inches of rain. People have been evacuated from their homes because of the danger of mudslides. In Pacifica, 20 feet of cliffside crumbled under heavy rains, leaving an apartment building in danger of collapsing into the ocean. There has been urban and small stream flooding. Large trees have been uprooted by rain and wind, causing much damage. And sadly, a number of deaths have resulted from the brutal storms.

So while we celebrate the rain and snow, we must be aware that some are paying a very high price for our good fortune.

Live long & prosper!

New Beginnings

¡feliz año nuevo!

I am retired and beginning a whole new life in the year 2010. Some of the things I plan to do this year, I started before retirement, just so I could get "my feet wet" and have a sense of direction. It is exciting to be looking out over a brand new landscape.

Since I am not required to do anything I don't want to do, except die and pay taxes, I made a list of objectives for myself. I no longer plan on having goals. In my mind, the difference is that goals require plans of action, they require systematic progression toward completion, they require success or failure. Goals must be specific, they must be achievable and they must be measurable. Objectives on the other hand, are just things I want to do.

If I do a little or a lot of something I have succeeded in pursuing that objective, and I can continue that pursuit as long as I wish.

One objective includes studying Spanish. If it were a goal, I would be required to learn to speak Spanish with some predetermined degree of fluency. As an objective, I may continue to study the language and may or may not become fluent. No pressure.

Another objective is to work on Joe's memoirs. If it were a goal, I would be required to finish and publish Letters to Ethan. Even if that never happens I will still leave my grandson memories of his granddad.

Other objectives include clearing some of the clutter from my life, travel to places near and far, and now that I have more time enjoy more physical exercise.

For sixty-plus years I have been goal oriented. I have worked to accomplish specific goals by a specific time using a well thought out plan. And I always measured by my success or failure. I have divested myself of all that pressure and compulsion.

Chris Dunbar on her website Creativity Portal explains "When people say, 'I have no idea what I want to do,' I smile and think, yes you do. Just sit quietly with yourself and listen. You'll feel it. Whatever it is that excites you when you think about it, that thing that brings you joy and creative fulfillment when you act on it, that's what you want to do. And sometimes, you'll make remarkable, puzzling decisions in order to do it."

This is what I have done and is what I am pursuing.

Live Long & Prosper!